> Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet.
> Allow developers to offer third-party payment systems in apps and promote offers outside the gatekeeper's platforms.
> Ensure that all apps are uninstallable and give users the ability to unsubscribe from core platform services under similar conditions to subscription.
and restriction on this behavior:
> Require app developers to use certain services or frameworks, including browser engines, payment systems, and identity providers, to be listed in app stores.
People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them.
Look at the Lumenate app that was just on hacker news yesterday:
- Android users are complaining about having to create an account to use it
- iOS users just pushed a button and didn’t even have to share their email or make a password
- iOS users who subscribe have one place to manage their subscription, know that Apple will remind them _before_ the subscription auto renews, and know that they won’t be trapped or tricked into continuing to pay.
I don’t know why people on HN think somehow third party payment services are going to be better for Apple’s users than Apple has been. And I don’t know why HN users are so eager to ignore the disaster that the install-exe-from-internet computing mode has been for security.
If you hate Apple so much, use an Android, but once again, keep your grubby hands off my iPhone. I hate that Europeans are trying to make my quality of life worse, like they have been for years with cookie popup bullshit.
then don't install third party apps on your iPhone and only install Apple software? Like I literally cannot understand the thought process behind this. Someone needs to physically restrain you from installing an app that you don't want?
Nobody is forcing you to do anything, other people just get more options. People here on HN support this because people here like software freedom instead of being treated like infants.
Running any executable you want on your device is the foundation of free personal computing without having third parties control what you can do with your machine. Nobody is putting their hands on your iPhone, it's the other way around, Apple doesn't get to put their paternalistic hands on mine from now on.
> then don't install third party apps on your iPhone and only install Apple software? Like I literally cannot understand the thought process behind this. Someone needs to physically restrain you from installing an app that you don't want?
Because not everyone understands tech very well. There will be tons of social engineering campaigns to make you install the app you don’t want. And enough of them will succeed. And have succeed on Android.
We might also see a shift where big players will not release their apps for App store, because they want to collect more data from you. I think for example Apple’s cross app tracking notification is dependent on the app store policy.
It is really complicated problem. Giving a stock Android for some non-tech user is much more risky than giving stock iPhone at the moment.
When there are too many features, the user is the biggest risk. While HN audience might not be in part of that, a major population is.
People have been using laptops and desktops (including from apple), on which they can run their own software, for literally decades. Closed systems are new, not open ones. My 60 year old boomer father who has 9 years of education can find his way around on the command line. Yes, people don't understand tech very well any more because we're giving them crippled tech, and treat them as if they are helpless. It's the paternalism that makes people illiterate, not the other way around.
It's such a belittling attitude. Only the chosen HN users and managers in Cupertino with their high IQs can control their devices, everyone else must be handed toys lest they might do something wrong. Replace user with voter in your post and you have the bog standard authoritarian argument for banning half of all newspapers.
And as for privacy, the EU has the strongest privacy protections on the globe for a reason. We passed privacy regulation so we don't need to rely on Apple to run a sort of protection racket.
Thank you, reading through most of this thread I feel like I've been dropped into some crazy world where freedom and security are somehow now mutually exclusive, and the user has become an infantile ignoramus who must be diligently protected from herself by the altruistic benevolent dictator, fearlessly and selflessly defending them from the nest of vipers that is every other company/developer/person. war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. I couldn't have imagined this level of elitism, arrogance, and paternalism if I had tried.
It reminds me a lot of this famous CS Lewis quote:
> “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
As long as there are options (Android), then iPhone is just a product for specific group.
I don’t get it why everything should be the same.
Is iPhone so good the everyone is mad because they can’t sideload an app?
A lot of iPhone’s success is based on to that very thing that you can’t sideload and paying is easy. Different products for different people.
If it was as limited as you say, I would agree, just use a different product. That's what I've done for years by using Android.
However this philosophy is being extended to nearly everything nowadays. Apple is a leader and has proven that extreme authoritarian and lockdown works and few people will complain. As a result, nearly every company that makes mainstream products just follows their lead. For example the removal of a headphone jack, after which basically all Android makers (even OnePlus) followed suit.
Despite the much held opinion on HN of the lockdown beinga feature rather than a bug, the vast majority of people I talk to just use apple because the hardware is nice and everyone else uses them and there is social stigma around being a "green bubble". I don't think Apple's success is because of the draconian policies.
The reason why I care so much and think this ideology is harmful is not because I want to side load an iphone. If apple were just a niche product maker, then I couldn't care less what they do. Unfortunately that is not the case. What apple does directly affects me even though I don't buy apple products.
Personally, I agree that it has negative impact for global business strategies, if everyone follows it. If Apple success, why not them? But then choices are reduced and global state is getting worse.
But I also understand very well, why Apple has made changes.
> Apple is a leader and has proven that extreme authoritarian and lockdown works and few people will complain.
This is the major reason. We are in minority here in the HN. The most of the world is happily using their phones, and for that the business is based on.
It is not that exploitative as it could be, but there is danger for that.
If the App store fulfills their needs and payment is easy, people are happy. Only tech people care something more.
> For example the removal of a headphone jack, after which basically all Android makers (even OnePlus) followed suit.
This is quite natural evolution. If you look at the size from the chip this jack requires, it is natural thing to remove, at least if you want to make phone thinner and replace that portion from the chip with something else.
You can use adapter anyway to continue using the jack. Charging is the only problem, unless you buy adapter which allows plugging the charger at the same time.
> apple because the hardware is nice
Until Apple made its in-house chips, it was far away from Android hardware, in terms of chips and screens. People used to select iPhone for the software and usability alone.
> People have been using laptops and desktops (including from apple), on which they can run their own software, for literally decades. Closed systems are new, not open ones. My 60 year old boomer father who has 9 years of education can find his way around on the command line. Yes, people don't understand tech very well any more because we're giving them crippled tech, and treat them as if they are helpless. It's the paternalism that makes people illiterate, not the other way around.
Yes. And because it was so challenging, totally new industry around anti-virus engines appeared because of that. And fight is still going. It has got better for sure since the beginning, but we still have hundres of thousands machines as part of botnets, because someone downloded something unsuitable from the internet.
But how many times have you heard iPhone malware in the news, other than vuln based? How many times iPhone has been part of the botnet? I can’t even recall a day.
If you can’t sideload iPhone, why you are using it? Just go with Android as it is perfect for your needs. If you are already using Android, why even bother to complain about iPhone. You are not forced to use it.
iPhone could be good for other people’s needs. Not everything has to suit for everyone. People from the large majority don’t even know about sideloading or even find use for it.
1. Lets say I already have a payment service provider I have negotiated with for my app. In India, for example, we have Unified Payment Interface that has zero fees for upto ~$1500 (USD) per transaction. Why should I be forced to use Apple's service? I am looking at this move by EU to push for change in Apple's behavior globally.
2. No one is forcing thirdparty app stores on users. You can continue to roam within the Apple walled garden appstore for eternity and no one is stopping you. It is only Apple that is forcing out thirdparty app stores from their rent-seeking monopoly and restricting consumer choice and developers' freedom in the garb of protecting users.
> People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them.
Hey, it’s me. A person that choose iPhone for a different set of things and absolutely don’t want to be “protected” from sideloading an open source YouTube alternative, or an open source emulator to play games from my childhood (I know, the horror).
Why did you choose iPhone? Are you confident that EU bureaucrats can do a better job at keeping those reasons in place than the company that build the platform you chose?
If sideloading was more important to you than the experience afforded by iPhone, why wouldn’t you choose Android?
>If sideloading was more important to you than the experience afforded by iPhone, why wouldn’t you choose Android?
Why not both? Why can't I have some of the experience afforded by iPhone as well as sideloading? Just because at some point I compromised and decided the iPhone experience was more important than sideloading doesn't mean I no longer want sideloading.
> People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things
Your argument is ridiculous. People didn't choose iPhone because they wanted to deprive themself of an option to switch browsers engines or payment vendors either.
People actually chose iPhones for a thousand other reasons.
People choose iPhone because it works better and is reliable for longer. It works better and is reliable for longer because the APIs are better and more stable, the browser is relentlessly optimized for performance and energy consumption, and because Apple can limit bad behavior through App Store restrictions.
If Facebook tells people to install the meta store, and TikTok tells people to disable the setting and install the .exe, they will. Kids will turn off the setting so that they can get free swipes or whatever in their games.
If whatever app doesn’t want to worry about losing subscribers, they will just not allow you use Apple’s payment methods, and we’ll be back to the dark days of entering credit card information manually.
There are a thousand reasons, and Europeans are finding a thousand ways to make my computing experience worse. Look at cookie noticed for an example of exactly how well good-intentioned European regulation works in practice.
Note that the law mandates that it should be as easy to opt out of tracking as it is to opt in. If you visit a site that doesn't comply with this, please report them.
I choose iPhone because of the additional privacy. I had Androids for years, got fed up with the setting and the choices that all seemed to result in poor experiences.
I chose to buy an iPhone because I only have Safari (it’s a feature - keeping the browser engine market diverse - otherwise welcome to Chromium). With only Safari on iPhones my default iPhone keychain is used, I get Hide my Email by default, etc.
> I choose iPhone because of the additional privacy. I had Androids for years, got fed up with the setting and the choices that all seemed to result in poor experiences.
This was my experience too. I owned the first iPhone, switched to Android for about 10 years, and then recently switched back. Largely because I have been increasingly less comfortable with handing over Google all my data. I like the idea of Android, but the execution (still) leaves something to be desired.
No one chooses phones based on browser engines. Why anyone is upset with Apple improving security by only allowing executable pages in Safari is beyond my comprehension.
I would, after this and switch to usb-c. 3 months ago I was deciding where to put 1300 euro, apple vs samsung top of the line, and samsung won. This was 1 out of cca 4-5 points that decided it (sideloading, notch, usb-c, better zoom photos for family/nature, weight... apple had only battery as plus).
Firefox mobile with ublock origin (and other plugins) makes general internet seriously usable.
Sideloading for me is not about some cracked games. I have older (otherwise still good) Pioneer receiver that had failing remote, and official (but unsupported and removed from store) app to control it. Otherwise I need to shell 500-1000$ for new one of comparable quality.
Clearly, for some obscure reason nobody can explain, not everybody in this world has your mindset, values and decisions. Something to learn here.
It sounds like your issue is with Pioneer, who isn't supporting their old hardware. It's nice that side-loading has offered you a workaround, but is that a make-or-break thing for you? Would you have still bought the Samsung phone if side-loading didn't solve that problem?
I would not buy Samsung if I care my privacy. It would require custom ROM installation to get rid of all that pre-installed bloatware and data collection.
Non-tech user has no idea about this nor have way to fix it, and they might be still happy.
That's my point. People won't stop buying iPhones whether Apple allows or forbids those things. So the argument made by the comment I replied to, that people chose iPhone over Android because of browser engines, payment vendors... makes zero sense.
Side loading and the ARM Never eXecute sandbox are totally different things. There is only one iOS browser because reasonable JavaScript performance requires JIT compilation, but allowing writeable executable pages is difficult to secure.
German politicians were discussing banning Telegram. With centralized monopoly App Stores, they easily can. With sideloading, they can't under current frameworks; and they're unlikely to mandate remote-uninstalls of "illegal apps" anytime soon.
Sure, central subscription management and "Login with Apple" are convenient, but I'd much rather governments not have the ability to block apps on my personal devices.
While I agree with your sentiment, how do you think that might work out if phone manufacturers were required to have an app ID blocklist?
As an example (I’m not sure what the current state of things is on Firefox these days as it has been a long time since I’ve used it), Firefox ships with a blocklist of extensions that works even if you get the extension from a third-party source. This was mostly used to prevent users from installing malware, but if governments have problems banning an app they’ll just go this route and require phone manufacturers to do the same.
Good for you. Have you considered that you live in a bubble? People buy iPhones because they work better, and end-to-end control of the experience is how Apple does that. If you don’t want a curated experience, there is Android.
Given the browser choice utopia that is Android, it is hard to believe iPhone does any business at all, if hacker news comments are to be taken seriously.
> Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet.
> Allow developers to offer third-party payment systems in apps and promote offers outside the gatekeeper's platforms.
> Ensure that all apps are uninstallable and give users the ability to unsubscribe from core platform services under similar conditions to subscription.
and restriction on this behavior:
> Require app developers to use certain services or frameworks, including browser engines, payment systems, and identity providers, to be listed in app stores.