Oh the horror, it must be so hard for Apple to cave to an open system for these people. What will they ever do without their unbelievable tax on app profits simply for existing on their nearly unlimited real estate, that is, the web?!
I have no sympathy for their concerns. I can download apps on my MacBook machines all day from many different sources, and it harms no one. While I understand the associated risks, computers have been this way long enough that the free and fair use of software on my devices is far more valuable than the brittle safety a marketplace offers.
Apple's greed knows no bounds, and while I'm no big fan of the EU, there are some regulations like these that ensure these big bears in the industry can't abuse their positions for profit, at such unreasonable expense to consumers (not always monetarily, but be it fair access, availability, and choice), and developers especially.
If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords.
You are not a big fan of the EU after this? They seem to care more about privacy and rights of the people within the majority of the countries that make up the EU then any other outside country that I could name.
Then again, I'm not American so I can easily see the influence your country has on most other countries, so to say the "EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens" is completely ignorant and oblivious.
"We urge all EU citizens with Apple devices to have an alternate means of accessing critical internet services like banking, to protect themselves in the event we are forced to block all Apple services EU-wide for legal non-compliance."
... then watch AAPL stock drop below NVDA ...
... and Apple come crawling back, suitably obedient.
or more likely learn extremely quickly that their citizens prefer their iPhones to their politicians, there would be protests within the hour if they ever blocked iPhones.
Weird to me how common it has become in the last 5 years for people to gleefully cheer for tyranny and control.
Yes, the tyranny of... forcing Apple to open up its walled garden. I am cheering for that and more. Mandate open bootloaders. Mandate user installed EK (Endorsement Key) on all TCB enabled devices.
A product you consent to is hardly the same as the government cutting off the ability to use your phone and it sounds very silly to compare the two.
By no means do I agree with the walled garden, I just think cheering for such an absurd idea of the government disabling your phone to fight something most users don't even understand or care about is bizarre.
> A product you consent to is hardly the same as[...]
...The government you also consent to in elections and by deciding where you live?
I'm so sick of this argument: you chose to buy iPhone, it was your decision... But a large part of the law protects citizens against their bad judgement: we don't allow slave contracts or selling your organs.
Within some use-cases, and to a larger degree within some groups of people, Apple is a monopolist. People get *addicted* from Apple ecosystem. If you had a Mercedes house, with a Mercedes charger to your Mercedes Car, that you would park on a Mercedes parking spot near your workplace, it wouldn't be so easy to replace your car with another brand.
no, they shouldn't, this will affect customers who already purchased the product and have no fault in this silly war that apple wants to start. no matter what they do, it should only apply to new devices.
Excuse me, Apple started it? That's absurd. Apple have been running their little fiefdom mostly unchanged for almost fifteen years and it's only in the past few years that the EU has chosen to intervene in their marketplace. The EU started this fight; Apple is just doing whatever they can to resist change.
> Apple have been running their little fiefdom mostly unchanged for almost fifteen years and it's only in the past few years that the EU has chosen to intervene in their marketplace
You literally just described Apple "starting it". They took the initial action (~15 years ago, by your words), starting it, and the other parties reacted, after that action.
They started engaging in the sort of anticompetitive behavior that the EU laws in question were written to discourage or forbid, as you yourself noted when you pointed out that apple's actions took place before said legislative reactions. Here's the quote from you:
> Apple have been running their little fiefdom mostly unchanged for almost fifteen years
Apple could have started out being more consumer friendly from the beginning, and it wouldn't have been starting a fight with consumers. But they didn't, and now they're reaping the consequences.
That's a wholly different claim than the one I disagreed with. Be careful with your language.
Opposing a powerful entity's behaviour is not an excuse for sloppy language or misleading hyperbole. In fact it's especially important to avoid it because the powerful entity only needs to re-frame the criticism around that hyperbole and then proceed to factually disprove it.
Regardless, your new framing is still a ridiculous claim. To suggest that Apple was being "anti-competitive" in 2009 is self-evidently absurd — because their marketplace was simply too small to matter with respect to any competition regulation. They grew their marketplace under the supposedly "unfair" rules which means that the rules cannot be framed as an antitrust violation. This is arguably the most significant point of fact which lost Epic their case against Apple.
If you disagree, then you need explain why every two-bit little nobody who creates any kind of marketplace of any size shouldn't be required to follow strict market fairness rules. Under that logic, Tide could force your local chicken shop to sell Tide products, because they should be entitled to fair access to that chicken marketplace.
It's self evident that apple was engaging in anticompetitive behavior first, because you yourself said they've been operating unchanged for ~15 years, and they're getting in trouble for it now. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that their behavior was always bad.
Indeed, your entire argument relies on some rule about anticompetitive behavior apparently invented just now, something to do with market size? Maybe if we were talking about monopolies, that would be relevant. But a business of 1 user can engage in anticompetitive behavior by locking the user into their ecosystem, or restricting what they can do with their property when it involves competitors.
Apple should have made better choices, earlier: They're engaging in anticompetitive behavior now, so if you claim that they're unchanged, that means they were engaging in anticompetitive behavior before, too. Your framing and claims to the contrary, then, we see are patently ridiculous.
The EU is not exactly doing this exclusively for privacy. This is a geopolitical ploy to thwart America's dominance in Tech, as a cope for not being able to produce any homegrown rivals to America's tech giants.
Why do Americans always read backroom politics into everything.
How does the GDPR help EU tech companies? I hope you're not about to tell me it's a ploy to bundle up resources for compliance in US companies or it levels the ground for the EU to be able to compete somehow. It caused enough headaches for us too.
Sometimes a good thing is just a good thing. The US supposedly was a country that had laws made without sinister corporatism at work at one point too.
An alternative - and you have to admit reasonable counter-hypothesis - is that everything you just wrote as a belief is - to some degree - American Cope to explain away why the US can't have what Europe does.
No, it's the builders of the consent notifications who are responsible for that. They are often skirting or even breaking EU law to make it a headache to refuse. The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance. Having to click to another screen to do that is... not that.
In reality a cookie consent notification can just as well be a small widget somewhere with an accept and refuse button, but it's the builders of these frameworks that have a vested interest in getting you to press accept.
I've applied for a job at one of these companies about a year ago, and I asked them about it. They said to me that according to their metrics, there's about 30% more acceptance if they only bury their Refuse button, so it's a legal risk they are willing to take.
Needless to say, when they invited me for a second conversation, I politely refused.
No, the shitty cookie screens with dark patterns is not the responsibility of the EU - although you could make the argument that the EU should have been stricter or more prescriptive.
It's not just the dark-pattern cookie popups that are a problem - it's having any mandatory cookie popups --even the fairly-designed ones-- on virtually every website that you ever open. That's what's crappy about the implementation.
I once read a light-hearted analysis of the cumulative time wasted by humanity due to the original USB plugs/sockets being unidirectional. I suspect a similar analysis of these cookie popups would be shocking.
Cookie banners are not mandatory. If you're just using technical cookies you don't need a banner at all. Websites with them want to track you, that's why they have them. They need to ask for your permission to do so, which I think is a good thing. So instead of being mad at the EU we should be mad at those websites trying to get as much data as possible from their users.
Actually, websites could "not track" BY DEFAULT (so no popup) and have a nice widget in a corner asking for consent to track, explaining why they need it, without this widget being obstructive...
The problem is definitly NOT THE REGULATION but the way that websites have become a data/cash machine...
The regulation could have been much better though. For one, it's unclear if Google Analytics cookies qualify. Spain and Austria say one thing, The Netherlands says another, so out of an abundance of caution websites put them everywhere.
I also think it would have been very feasible for the EU to define that a browser could ask for consent once and then apply that to many/all sites by sending a header. So the popup would only be needed for people without a browser that has implemented it.
Well, note that I said it could just as well be a widget on the website somewhere.
There's no such thing as a mandatory cookie popup. You don't need to get explicit consent if your website needs certain cookies to do what the user wants it to do. Placing a session cookie to log in is fine, for example. And it's also fine to place tracking cookies if and only if the user goes to aforementioned widget and presses the "please track me" button.
But users don't want that, obviously, so websites are built to force you to acknowledge the choice. The problem here is not the implementation of the law - it's the attitude of the website builders.
What if the websites respected my user-agent (browser) setting called "Do not track"? Zero hours would be wasted. I think geizhals.at is one of the few that does this.
In other words, the websites are showing cookie popups in you face because they really, really do want to track you, and for that they need your explicit consent. Nobody forced them to track you. The implementation does not matter; the intentions are crappy.
I think there is a recent court ruling saying websites should respect DNT settings as a (rejection of) consent; if that would be adapted universally, we would be done with the popups.
Law making bodies are responsible for all consequences of their legislation whether they are intentional or not. They are the ones in charge so the buck stops with them. Make better laws.
But they're not mandatory. There is nothing stopping websites from not doing it, the previous poster was wrong. The GDPR requires consent, how you obtain that consent is irrelevant. Websites could not store cookies by default and you'd have to manually go and opt in. Maybe we even can have a per browser setting.
Specifically, GDPR requires consent before you do (some) things the user might not want. You could simply not try to do those things and then you won't need to obtain consent at all.
It's absurd how used we have become to wantonly collecting user data that some people can't even imagine not doing that.
GDPR provides mechanisms for getting implicit consent for technically required cookies. For other types of data storage, explicit consent is required. And that's the problem, there are a lot of terrible websites out there that value their ability to stalk you and sell your information more than your ability to use the website.
For consent, the old "hide tracking terms in the terms of service" approach is not allowed anymore. That's where the popups come from, the user needs to know what they're consenting to if the data processing isn't actually required for the website to work.
I would like to see something like P3P (but better) to make a return. We have DNT and its followup, but they're not sufficiently scopable in my opinion.
There's no implicit consent, technically required cookies have a different basis for processing. And, yes, I'm aware of that, my point is that people who create websites choose to force the consent box in front of you, there's nothing in the GDPR that mandates that. It could be a link at the bottom, some header...
Then enforce the law. Making the regulation and letting people halfway get around it and not holding them accountable just made things worse for everyone
Also, and too often overlooked or silently ignored:
You don't need cookie popups! Really. You don't.
You only need to get consent to track users with software you don't run yourself. Or when you sell your data off to other companies.
Both are, unfortunately, the norm. But there's absolutely no technical reason to have these in place. Non at all. Plenty of alternatives for tracking that doesn't need consent. Or just not sell your customers' data off.
I would be infuriated if I found the bakery down the street is selling its security footage with my face on it, next to my sales and spending in that bakery. I'd expect them to at least warn me about this at the door. So I can then buy my bread elsewhere. That's what a consent banner is!
Thank you for this accurate analogy. Similar to what if the post office delivered all your mail for free but they also opened it and read it in order to send you advertising.
> The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance.
Not true, actually! GDPR is a framework, and every EU country implements a national law according to that framework (e.g. the Dutch implementation is called "AVG"). The specific requirement that refusal must be as easy as acceptance is not in the GDPR, but several countries added it to their national implementation of the GDPR.
This is a misconception that I've seen going around, and I still wonder where it came from.
The Dutch implementation is called "Uitvoeringswet Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming", which, as the title states, is the law that implements the GDPR. "AVG" is just a translation for "GDPR", not the name of the law that implements it.
The Uitvoeringswet describes how the GDPR functions within Dutch law, for example, it describes the role that the Dutch Data Protection Authority plays. You can read the Uitvoeringswet right here: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0040940/2021-07-01
The GDPR (in Dutch AVG, in French RGPD, in Spanish RGPD, etc.) actually DOES state that it should be just "as easy to withdraw as to give consent" in Article 7. The directive (2016/679) can be found here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679.
> The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Prior to giving consent, the data subject shall be informed thereof. It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.
I think this can be interpreted as, you ask for consent, it doesn't have to be as easy to say no, but once consent is given - it should be as easy to withdraw it as it is to re-give it after it was withdrawn.
Somewhat badly worded, in my opinion. It doesn't unambiguously say "refusing consent every time it is requested should be as easy as accepting it."
That is a common misconception. In EU law, there are regulations and directives. Regulations are immediately active in all EU countries. In contrast, directives need to be translated into national law by each individual country. The GDPR is a regulation. (for details: https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/law... )
Disabling cookies will cause _more_ of the "cookie prompts" to appear, not less. Some pages these days even will prevent visiting them unless they can set a cookie...
Also, cookies are not the only method of tracking which is supposed to be disabled when you hit Deny.
I'll go further in one regard: the App Store in fact hurts Apple because it has caused a kind of filtering of apps down to those that are the sleaziest.
I used to enjoy exploring the App Store — I resent it now. I'll download half a dozen apps only to delete them within minutes of launching them because of their rent-ware attitude or just plain shitty functionality.
Can you elaborate on that filtering? I agree with you that the App Store is full of chaff, but I don't understand why there'd be a causal relationship between a highly centralized App Store and sleazy apps.
Indeed. Put another way, how would lifting Apple's restrictions result in an improved wheat-to-chaff ratio? I can't see how it would increase the amount of wheat, nor can I see how it would reduce the amount of chaff.
Different stores can have different rules and moderation.
I'm not going to argue about the signal to noise ratio between e.g. fdroid vs Google Play, but it should be obvious that while the signal looks the same for both, the noise is very different, with fdroid having outdated, "developer UI" apps as noise and Google Play having fraudulent scams and malware as noise.
Logically this makes sense, but I can't imagine how many decent apps Apple may have rejected for other petty reasons, only to accept the ones that are lambasting people with rentware and other issues the OP mentioned.
Absolutely. But while we know there are a number of kinda dodgy apps in the App Store, one could only imagine how many more they would be without Apple’s oversight/gatekeeping. Not to mention how much better camouflaged the scam apps could be.
Not just high end real estate. Your local mom & pop in a strip mall somewhere (at least in the US) has a high chance of paying % of gross receipts to the landlord + rent.
This may vary by location and landlord but it absolutely is a thing. And a guarantee for any high-end, high-traffic location.
Sometimes there's something else at play though, because there are situations which cannot be explained by offer and demand. For example, developers are paid less in average than for example some consultant jobs while in my view (and I'm a consultant) both the skills required for a developer are higher while additionally the available workforce (supply) is lower for developers as well.
I mean, consultants, they grow on trees and I know what I'm talking about, I sometines interview new hires as part of my job. Developers, less so.
I don't have an explanation for this, it's a strange effect. But it's just an example, I have observed multiple times this unexpected deviation from the law of supply and demand.
My point is, this law is not a sure fire way to explain any price.
There is a higher demand for a certain kind of consultants (let’s call them “good”) and fairly low supply. There are plenty of people who call themselves consultants but nobody needs them since this is a bit of a winner takes all market (.e.g. like being a broker or even a lawyer to some extent)
To answer directly, I actually really love the Framework conceptually. What they're doing is immensely important for notebooks, and I'd love to see Apple follow suit one day (but I doubt that'll ever happen).
I just can't stand Linux. I've tried several distros and after using macOS since 2009 and Windows since 1995, I just can't be bothered by all the things Linux distros lack, if muscle memory for the other two aren't already the biggest obstacle for me.
I am insanely efficient on macOS, and I almost never have to think about global hotkeys, global search & calculations, managing apps & settings, and seeing nearly zero interruptions while I work -- including popups, notifications, performance dips (if I'm being reasonable with my usage), OS UI bugs, etc.
These all do occasionally happen, but never to the extent I see in popular Linux distros and even Windows. It's just a fact, after nearly 30 years of first-hand usage and comparison.
I also use macOS because it is as extensible and open as I need it to be for downloading and installing packages, and customizing the OS to suit my needs -- which is something iPhones can't do without jailbreaking and such.
I've never owned an iPhone, and seldom use my iPad. I'm an Android guy, and being able to sideload apps in rare, but important, moments is important to me. The openness of Android has been important as well, namely the fact that Firefox has always been allowed to use its own browser engine since the start, enabling the same freedoms I have using it on desktop platforms, as a primary example.
PopOS most recently, and I ran into significant UI lag, jank, bugs all over the place with the correct NVidia drivers installed and everything. I tried it on two machines, and had pretty much the same experience. After troubleshooting and seeking resources/answers, I eventually gave up and told myself, "maybe in another 5-10 years", as we all say.
That was a few years ago. Anything older I've forgotten honestly at this point. It's been a long time, and I'm certain things are probably better these days, but I have absolutely no reason to switch. My muscle memory and setups on my current machines are too good to let go of.
I have a Steam Deck -- but their experience is so tailored that I'm not sure it counts. I'm not actively using the desktop environment unless I need to use a different game platform. I wouldn't be using this machine for work at all though.
People complain about the products that are best for them. Nobody (with the power to decide what they use) complains about a product long, unless it is still their best choice.
And suppliers of products being complained about are not companies "not worth supporting". They are making the product that is the best fit for the complaining customer! They are not perfect. They can do better. So customers speak up.
Your last point is exactly where I'm coming from here. People complaining about a product is usually a sign of its wide, and possibly avid, use.
After trying UI design tools and web development on Windows and Linux machines and finding the experience very sub-par for my needs, I've found macOS, and by extension, Apple's hardware quality, choice of keyboard layout, ease of use, etc. to be superior for my needs. I have almost no complaints about the Mac platform with the ways I've been able to customize it, and its nag-free experience. As they say, it just works™. ;)
It feels made for UI design & development, with minimal to no configuration, no late nights fixing file permissions or access issues, fixing Linux subsystems, fiddling with very limited terminals, and suffering from buggy piecemeal UI shell packages that prioritize fancy, laggy animations over functionality.
On the contrary, I've found not only doing these tasks and multitasking to be very frustrating when getting serious work done on other machines, primarily frequent interruptions (Windows) and major inconsistencies with global keyboard shortcuts.
For what it's worth, I'm also a staunch Android user, never owned an iPhone, occasionally use an iPad for reading and other content creation, absolutely love my Windows PC for gaming and surfing on my TV, and work exclusively on my MacBook. I'm very particular about using the most suitable machines for the tasks at hand, but well-rounded enough not to be completely captured by Apple.
If it's been a few years since you gave Linux a try, I'd strongly recommend giving it another go.
I had 2 macbooks fail simultaneously over the new year, and instead of laying down the $$$ for a new m3 mackbook, I put a linux station together, with the intent for it to be a windows dual boot.
At this point a couple of months later, windows is no more than a KVM/QEMU virtual machine (and runs its DAW/synth apps, significantly faster and with greater stability than either of my dead m1 macbooks ever did.)
Best tool for the job has changed.
An equipment manuifacturer who's goal is for hw failures to trigger a new purchase and not a repair should be enough incentive to ditch them. We all know Apple has fallen way further than that.
They're a litigious, anti-consumer company that hides behind some fake, faded, John Lennon esque / hipster image.
> If it's been a few years since you gave Linux a try, I'd strongly recommend giving it another go.
I've heard this since around 2004, and did try it every once in a while. And while I have the utmost respect for the Linux desktop developers... the experience was never comparable to me. I'm a sucker for well-thought out and coherent user interfaces, and the rigid principles Apple developers have to follow are no match for a loose group of open source devs.
I will continue to follow their progress, but as it stands, using a Linux desktop on my main machine feels like swapping a Mercedes with a home-built Gokart.
I've been using only Linux (Manjaro) for the last six years, and although there's been marked improvement it's still in many ways buggier and clunkier for everyday use than even Windows.
and they're not "supporting" a company by merely buying their product.
They are deciding that said product is the best fit for price on their individual criteria.
To "support" would require you to make sacrifices - aka, buy an inferior/worse-fit product from a company you want to support, instead of from the company that actually offers the best-fit for yourself.
When I bought my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (ugh, stupid names, c'mon Apple!), it was probably the most confident I felt about a technology purchase in years, at least since Apple finally ditched the ridiculous touch bar and gave us back the Escape key and function row.
Aside from me throwing too much at it (should've sprung for 32GB), it's the single best notebook I've ever owned, and the most reliable.
To say it was the best fit for me is an understatement! It's truly great!
Because Apple is a company that does actually make great hardware, just marred by their idiot suit and tie MBA best schools social ties 1% tax dodging executive team that wants to foster the cultish attitude of their consumers and...
well they succeeded in a way.
Did you entertain the possibility that Framework might not be available at OP’s place. Because that’s very much likely to be the case, just like it’s not available to a lot of us :)
Potentially because Macbooks represent a more sustainable model for software distribution and don't prevent people from downloading apps directly from websites.
Precisely! That's the key difference between iOS and macOS devices, essentially. I've never owned an iPhone primarily because its environment is so constrained, and the possibility of losing access to important apps due to failure of approval or other frivolous issues Apple hysterically deems unfit for publishing, is a huge single point of failure not worth risking.
In reality, it's safer to assume that most or all major apps don't have problems with this, so I'm being a little facetious here. Regardless, after nearly 20 years on Android, nobody could possibly pry my muscle memory and features I've come to expect from my cold dead hands. :D
‘Nearly 20 years’ got me. I thought ‘no way, the very first iPhone was released a little bit more than 10 years ago and Android was released a year after’. Then I realised we’re closer to 20 years than we’re to 10 years. It was almost 17 years ago, the very first iPhone!
Because MacBooks are just better. (Have owned both.)
I have owned, and continue to own, all sorts of laptops and phones. I could rant about Apple all day long online, but in the end their product is simply superior.
And yet if your statement were true, it would not explain why others who also own "both" disagree with you. Absolutism does not serve you, there are few subjects in this world that lack nuance.
I'm not sure how that implicitly conveys an opinion.
Saying "the sky is blue" is not an opinion when the sky is blue, it's a fact. Saying something is better is also not an opinion, it's a fact. Saying "in my opinion" or "I believe/think/feel like/etc" makes your statement an opinion, ommiting that is ambiguous and is left for interpretation.
Within the corporate monopolist called Apple, that is to say within the minds of all its collective employees, lies an old idea still warm and vibrant after decades of waning indifference. This idea is called Apple Computer, and it makes the best gosh-darn computers in the world: the Mac.
It is such a powerful and self-evident idea that those computers are still above and beyond the best ones in the world, even with all those years of indifference.
The people who do are a significant minority just around ~30-40%. Wouldn't be a tremendous market for ear hooks otherwise. There are thousands sold every day on some retail sites and sometimes thousands every hour if discounted. Out of the 2 dozen folks I know who have bought airpods, 8 have also bought ear hooks. That's ~33%. Anecdotal, but you can look at sell figures and the vast variety of airpod earhooks products if you don't believe me - and look at the 10k-100k product ratings.
I am surprised to hear your experience here. Many of my friends have them and only one has ever mentioned a fit issue. He bought larger tips and they now fit perfectly apparently.
Researching I can indeed see such products exist, although given Apple appear to be selling over 100 million pairs a year[0] (also surprising to me!), I suspect your estimate is inflated. Note this is over 300,000 pairs per day.
Anecdotally, I see people with Airpods daily but have not once ever seen hooks on them. Maybe there's a cultural element at play?
Until battery life starts deteriorating any that happens real soon and you can’t even know when it started and where it is currently unlike that of, say, an iPhone. Then it’s unusable — hurrah, buy a new pair. The Apple way! :)
This is not unique to Apple. All headphones with tiny batteries in the drivers take the piss after a few years aging.
That said, my MacBooks have the best laptop batteries of any computer I’ve owned. My wife went through multiple laptops in the time I kept one in college. Turns out some electronics just suck!
"You hate capitalism so much, _and yet you live under capitalism!_ How very hypocritical of you..."
Don't get me wrong, Framework makes a lot of neat stuff, but you can't swap out a Macbook to _anything_ without consequences. It does not take a lot of imagination and empathy to see that for some people, those consequences aren't acceptable at all, or not simply not worth the utterly undetectable sting that a company such as Apple would feel by us not buying a single Macbook from them.
If someone has to alter their entire work environment and process, while Apple doesn't even notice, is that truly worth the moral superiority they'll feel? For a whole lot of people, that answer is "no", and I can't blame them.
Good point -- With great power comes great inevitable irresponsibility and abuses. The human condition never fails to pollute and corrupt anything as untouchable as Apple. Too big to fail, by definition!
Because people are incredibly entitled and want to have their cake and eat it too.
So you bought an iPhone knowing you can’t download apps and then go cry because you can’t download apps?
Then your argument is that well, all my friends have iPhones or there are some other good features, or whatever else you make up?
So you obviously find value in the product, it’s missing a feature, but you will consciously buy it anyway, it doesn’t make any sense.
Does the standard simply change when a company is big enough?
Imagine ordering a steak salad even though the restaurant doesn’t allow modifications to the ingredients, then throwing a temper tantrum when you get it because it has steak. It’s unbelievable.
You might find this hard to believe, but people buy products based on a number of factors. For smart phones, the number of factors is dizzyingly complex, and yes, the effects it has on smoothness of communication with the people in your life is one of those factors. Sometimes a specific feature is one of those factors.
What "doesn't make sense" is reducing a complex decision down to a specific factor, and then trying to create the narrative that your specific chosen factor is the sole reason anyone chooses a specific product.
It is completely fair for people to prefer iPhone and also argue for Apple changing their policies.
Apple is the only one acting entitled here. Why doesn't the App Store deserve competitors? Why should we accept Apple's fees and failures when they deliberately limit competition?
They're acting like an anticompetitive wuss if you ask me. If Apple is the righteous one here (imagine that), they can pack up their bags and tell the whole EU to shove it. They can individually invite all 27 markets to kiss their ass and watch as the relevancy of Apple products plummets in the first world. Problem solved, Apple saves the day. 中国梦!
Or, they can take the king's ransom of iPhone revenue and surrender their asinine software double-standard. This doesn't end well for them either way, there's no sense it making it last longer.
Agreed, and well worded. Never in computing history has a walled garden like Apple's existed until the iPhone. Distributing and finding apps wasn't always simple, but then again, the need for a central browsing experience to find and download apps was never truly a thing before -- maybe outside of Steam for games. The key difference with Steam is that the same games have always been available on other distribution platforms, generally, so it doesn't suffer from the same limitations.
Show of hands, how many people actually spend multiple minutes (or hours) just swiping through their respective App Store just to find something new and interesting?
Aside from the store experiences, the web's powerful (gasp!) ability to find and download content including Computer Applications™ has always been its greatest strength. App stores are a net detriment seeking to protect the lowest common denominator: the uneducated computer user who hasn't bothered to learn everyday security practices to avoid downloading malicious apps or vetting software developers on their popularity and/or security themselves.
This takes a little knowledge and practice, but this isn't much different from shopping for good produce in a grocery store. Avoid the rotten fruit, and use your friends/family to help you judge what's best! That's the beauty of freedom on our devices, as it enables the power users and enthusiasts to enjoy these devices at their fullest, without senseless obstacles offering unsolicited "protection".
> . Never in computing history has a walled garden like Apple's existed until the iPhone.
wot...
How was playing that Super Mario Bros with on your Sega Master System back in the day? I don't remember Sega having the 10NES subsystem.
Ever heard of this little place in the early to mid 90s called AOL? Compuserve? Prodigy? Any cell phone company long before Apple's app store
And you act like anyone who has a Kindle or a Nook isn't in a walled garden, at least for 99% of the people who don't know/care that you can install books via Calibre or something.
And you know you can sideload apps on Apple devices right? Even before the EU ruling. It was just a massive pain in the ass and drumroll... 99% aren't going to do it.
This is not new, Apple wasn't the first to do it, and everybody railing again Apple loves to accept it in basically every other facet of their lives.
My primary mechanism to load books on my Kindle is via emailing ePubs, granted, I'm probably in the minority of users but I couldn't ask for an easier workflow.
> If by sideload you mean "repeatedly sign apps until your face turns blue" then yes. If you mean "install software like a normal person", then no.
Yep. Exactly.
And breaking free of the walled Kindle/Nook garden is similarly out of reach for about the same number of people that don't care about Apple's walled garden, which is the majority.
Again, they literally exist in every corner of our lives, and the 99% of consumers/normies don't care.
If they don't care, then it shouldn't matter that third-party options exist. The same thing happens on Android, nobody uses F-Droid even if the apps are better and cheaper. The fact that it exists puts meaningful pressure on competitors though, and fills the niche that I use the device for.
The "walled Kindle/Nook garden" isn't similar Apple's ecosystem. A Kindle or Nook will let you access it's EMMC and put Epub files or PDFs wherever you need to. It functions indistinguishably from a store-bought file and doesn't even make you enable Developer Mode to get there. It's "out of reach" in the sense that you need the skills to follow a Wikihow article to do it - my grandma could figure it out.
iPhones don't let you install IPA files on equal-footing as Apple, ever. That's the problem, and it's what the DMA remediates. I don't care how you or the normies feel about it any more than I consider the public sentiment towards Bell telephone or Internet Explorer.
> It functions indistinguishably from a store-bought file and doesn't even make you enable Developer Mode to get there.
This is incorrect. Modern Kindles classify books added as "documents" rather than books, which limits their features and treats them as second class citizens.
I doubt most people care, but you're not on equal footing to Amazon loading a book onto a Kindle.
Why are you defending a trillion dollar company lmao?
Why do you care so much that Apple has been forced to give consumers more choice, you can still just use the app store yourself, nobody is forcing you to use apps from alternative stores.
This is the standard "one true religion" reaction imo.
Except in this case your beloved android lets you do whatever you want, so why not go use them?
And there are multiple manufacturers that aren’t associated with Google who make phones.
If this were truly such a shortcoming, more companies, in addition to already existing ones, would create phones with side loading apps.
Imagine me pitching my idea to YC, it’s like an iPhone, but with side loading apps! It’s brilliant!
You’d be laughed out of the room.
The issue is you want those good Apple features, you want that Apple ecosystem, the blue bubbles, etc, but you also want to have a feature that the phone doesn’t have and people are crying that Apple won’t give them that feature.
I don’t even care, and I even if I did, decisions already been made so there’s nothing to argue.
This is simply an amusing situation, the grandstanding is simply funny.
I don’t think you made the point you think you made here.
It’s possible to not care about something and still submit an opinion. Or maybe it’s the degree of caring that is confusing you, I care enough to comment and have a viewpoint, but I don’t care to the degree that I am upset or will lose any sleep over it.
There you go, hope this helps you understand what I meant there so that you are no so hung up on it so as to feel the need to quote it.
Please do save me the suspense and share the punchline now!
It’s perfectly reasonable to use YC here as at the end of the day they’ve helped launch of ton of companies that are popular with consumers.
Regarding the irony in using them as an example of corporate righteousness, well you did get me there and I agree with you.
I think there is a great desire for web-like application distribution to work well on smartphones, but with none of the drawbacks like poor rendering performance and lack of native features.
Of course, native apps that wrap web-based apps is almost the reverse of that, and we still often get laggy, sub-par experiences as a result of broader platform support for lower maintenance costs.
PWAs fill the opposite gap where you get native-like apps at the expense of low performance, distributed any way you like.
What we really need is for high-performance native applications to be distributable via the open web, and that's exactly what the EU is enforcing here, in a way. What would be better is for WebAssembly to take off and offer native performance in apps that can be visited at URLs, just like we're used to.
Dude this is the foundation of capitalism. Its not supply and bend over. Its supply and demand.
It is totally reasonable to demand a better steak salad from some restaurant that doesn't allow modifications and moreover totally reasonable to point out how asinine they are for not making easy-to-do modifications when you point it out since that is what you as a paying customer want.
Imagine we lived in a world where 95% of restaurants never ever and vehemently so denied any modification to menu items. It is unreasonable then to demand they change? I need to move towns to get lunch?
This is the insanity we live in with the walled gardens of Apple.
True, though the situation isn't exactly equivalent.
Using another real estate analogy -
Imagine you bought a house from Fruit Builders company. The house came with a pool.
Now unlike every other pool in existence, this is a very special pool that just really cares about your privacy and security a lot.
It won't let you use any random pool toy (it has lasers), no it must be a well-behaved toy that is rigorously tested and officially notarized by Fruit company themselves (= non-employee contractors taking one look to make sure Fruit's cut is not being circumvented).
So you go to the supermarket, purchase a marked-up toy, the toy company reports its earning to Fruit, and Fruit takes their cut.
Why not? You are presumably less-clothed in a pool, it could take pictures. Or record private conversations. Or both.
But sure, here's another -
You can run any company's software on a MBP, downloaded from the internet, without paying a dime to Apple. Similar situation applies to Windows / Microsoft.
The iOS model is advocating for rent-seeking in MacOs and Windows binaries.
Why can apps installed from anywhere steal your data?
Surely Apple's OS/framework that they tried to say they spent so much money developing, sandboxes and protects all running code from said data vacuuming behaviour?
Or did you really believe Apple when they said it would reduce security™
Because the only reason it would is if Apple let it happen on purpose so they can create a consumer backlash by saying "I told you so".
> If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time
FWIW, at least in the US, this is actually how a lot of commercial/retail real estate works. Every mall or shopping center you visit charges rent based on sales revenue.
> If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords.
That's more or less what happens in real life. If you are having any success with your physical business, you can bet your ass that your landlord will increase rents. They keep a keen eye on this. Sometimes they'll even state that it's not more than fair that they should get more in rent, since your business is doing so well.
This is a geopolitical ploy to thwart America's dominance in Tech, as a cope for not being able to produce any homegrown rivals to America's tech giants.
In general I lean libertarian, and governing bodies like the EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens.
I won't pretend to know exactly how their processes work in detail, as I'm an American citizen, so the EU's concerns generally don't interest me much, but if the U.S. Federal gov't versus State governments can be used an analogy, I have similar feelings, in principle.
I do, in fact. My parents both use Android phones, and I'm more than happy to support their needs when something goes wrong. 99% of the time, they love their phones and use them regularly without issues.
Supporting families downloading bad software is in itself a job. Im always torn if i should get them a password manager or just stick with the handwritten notebook. I feel like the book approach is safest
Unfortunately for many senior folks, using them is just too complicated. I've badgered my parents into using theirs, which is already setup, and it confuses them every time, so they prefer to memorize or write their passwords on a sheet of paper they never lose in their apartment.
It's just easier than fiddling with a buggy mess of auto-fill prompts that only work half the time, and when they do show up, they fail to fill in the password, so then you have to open the app, hunt down the entry, copy it to the clipboard, and go back to the app or site you were signing into.
Multi-tasking on phones is already very difficult for my parents, and they're well aware of it being a feature. Eventually all of these frustrations add up, and the path of least resistance is writing passwords down, as much as it kills me.
> Alternative app marketplaces. Marketplaces can choose to offer a catalog of apps solely from the developer of the marketplace.
How does that count as a "marketplace"?
> Web Distribution ... will let authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a website owned by the developer
All of this just makes it crystal clear what Apple's goal is: to prevent competition. It's not about security like they've been lying about; it's all about maintaining their app store monopoly.
Before this, if you had an alternative marketplace, you had to accept submissions from other developers. You are still allowed to accept submissions from other developers, but are no longer required to.
I suppose the point is that, if we're being pedantic (and after all, that is what the internet is _for_), you cannot have a single vendor marketplace based on the commonly understood meaning of the word 'marketplace'.
(But yeah, this is just slightly silly naming from Apple).
Isn't that kind of the point? The goal was to get out of Apple's clutches when your customers have their devices, so Apple made the thing meant to be independent even more dependent than the original in order to deter adoption.
The parent comment cited Web Distribution as evidence that Apple doesn't actually care about safety and security, when in fact Web Distribution is more secured than Marketplace distribution.
> The goal was to get out of Apple's clutches when your customers have their devices
Whose goal? Read the DMA. It is very explicit that it expects Apple to maintain security of devices and apps.
> Apple doesn't actually care about safety and security, when in fact Web Distribution is more secured than Marketplace distribution.
That's a contradiction in logic there. If they cared for security, they would choose the more secured option. But they didn't?
Either they then have provided worse security all along: web distribution could have offered more security than an app store?
Or they could have provided even better security in their app store all along: if they implemented this stricter checking there. Why not?
These arguments are poor and don't stand up to scruteny.
The very simple conclusion is that it's not about security, that it never has been.
No, you're making assumptions about what "secured" means in this context and clearly have no understanding of how any of it actually works. None of what you wrote makes sense.
You could have stopped at "means". No need to be condescending or telling me I don't know how stuff works. I know how stuff works.
My point is, and remains, purely non-technical though. And I also know how language works.
If you say "we don't allow X, only Y, because we prioritize security". Then change that to "we do allow X but will perform extra security scrutiny over what we do at Y" then it does not compute. Again: it proves your first statement was a lie (intentional or not). Because a) it was possible to allow for your level of security and you could've allowed both X and Y all along, or b) you are now lowering your security, proving you don't really prioritize security, or c) you are merely frustrating X in a different way now and security was never the reason not to allow X.
I'm convinced it's both a and c. I surely hope not that it's b.
> The parent comment cited Web Distribution as evidence that Apple doesn't actually care about safety and security, when in fact Web Distribution is more secured than Marketplace distribution.
Which goes to the parent's point that their intent is to prevent competition. Otherwise why would the alternative need more onerous security measures, if not to act as a deterrent through friction?
> Read the DMA. It is very explicit that it expects Apple to maintain security of devices and apps.
It also says that the security measures have to be "strictly necessary" and "there are no less-restrictive means to safeguard the integrity of the hardware or operating system" and "[t]he gatekeeper should be prevented from implementing such measures as a default setting or as pre-installation" etc.
Which implies to me that you not only have to be able to turn them off, they have to be off by default.
The comment literally says "It's not about security like they've been lying about", when the opposite is actually true. They were implying that Web Distribution was a way to get around security of a Marketplace, which is not possible.
Without a kill switch, gatekeepers would lose control over apps, making them "strictly necessary." Most interpretations of the DMA agree.
> The comment literally says "It's not about security like they've been lying about"
The comment literally says: "All of this just makes it crystal clear what Apple's goal is: to prevent competition. It's not about security like they've been lying about; it's all about maintaining their app store monopoly."
There is no reason for the security measures to be more onerous for the competing thing if they were sufficient for Apple's thing, unless the purpose of the security measures is to prevent competition.
> Without a kill switch, gatekeepers would lose control over apps, making them "strictly necessary."
Gatekeepers having control over apps isn't necessary for security. The device's owner having control over apps is. They can opt into a particular gatekeeper's control if they choose to. How is it "strictly necessary" for the gatekeeper to force them to use one provider of vetting services over another? Isn't the point of the act to enable competition?
> There is no reason for the security measures to be more onerous for the competing thing if they were sufficient for Apple's thing, unless the purpose of the security measures is to prevent competition.
Web Distribution means Apple is handing over responsibilities previously handled by the Marketplace directly to the developer. Allowing developers to police themselves is obviously riskier.
> The device's owner having control over apps is.
This is simply not true. Device owners are hopeless at maintaining the security of their devices.
> How is it "strictly necessary" for the gatekeeper to force them to use one provider of vetting services over another?
There are 2 tiers of "vetting services": 1. Marketplaces determine the appropriate content or type of apps allowed in their listings, 2. Apple determines if an app, developer, or marketplace is an outright threat, e.g. if an app turns out to be a scam, or if a bug in an app exposes an exploit, it is "strictly necessary" for Apple to be able to yank the app immediately.
> Web Distribution means Apple is handing over responsibilities previously handled by the Marketplace directly to the developer. Allowing developers to police themselves is obviously riskier.
Doesn't that depend on who the developer is? Certainly it isn't the case that no one exists who the user might trust at least as much as Apple.
> This is simply not true. Device owners are hopeless at maintaining the security of their devices.
"Device owners" includes substantially all people. Many of them are not hopeless and are entitled to make their own decisions. Some of them are even more qualified to do it than the people Apple has reviewing apps.
The hopeless people may be better off sticking to trusted stores, but they can do that without prohibiting others from doing otherwise.
> There are 2 tiers of "vetting services": 1. Marketplaces determine the appropriate content or type of apps allowed in their listings, 2. Apple determines if an app, developer, or marketplace is an outright threat, e.g. if an app turns out to be a scam, or if a bug in an app exposes an exploit, it is "strictly necessary" for Apple to be able to yank the app immediately.
That doesn't change the question. How is it "strictly necessary" for Apple to do that, rather than whoever the owner of the device chooses to do it? It would obviously be possible for a third party like Symantec, Malwarebytes or the makers of uBlock to do the same thing.
Sure, the amount risk probably varies, but you are talking about going from a Marketplace that implements some level of app review to no-review. It's more risk.
> Many of them are not hopeless ...
Exactly, and "many" is not enough. It's not possible to design a special switch only for those qualified "many" - and only them. Platform owners and the EU insist on protecting the unqualified everyone else too.
> How is it "strictly necessary" for Apple to do that, rather than whoever the owner of the device chooses to do it?
It's not in the sense that someone else could do it, but the DMA doesn't require it, so obviously no gatekeeper will. Also, it's a terrible idea because there's no market for it. Everyone already expects it to be free.
> Sure, the amount risk probably varies, but you are talking about going from a Marketplace that implements some level of app review to no-review. It's more risk.
Only if the developer isn't as trustworthy as Apple. In fact, it could be lower risk even if they are less trustworthy than Apple, when it's their own app, because someone who is less competent but not overtly malicious who posts their own app is much less likely to be supplying malware than a general-purpose store that tries to vet everything but accepts submissions from just anyone at all including overtly malicious actors, and could thereby miss something.
And the user, in choosing which alternate stores or developers to trust, can decide that.
> It's not possible to design a special switch only for those qualified "many" - and only them.
Well of course it is. In the worst case scenario you could make the switch irreversible and then once enabled the device could never add another store. But that's really no different than requiring a device wipe to change it back, because a wiped device should be no different than a new device that never had the switch enabled to begin with.
> It's not in the sense that someone else could do it, but the DMA doesn't require it, so obviously no gatekeeper will.
Isn't whether it's "strictly necessary" the condition on which they can demand it?
> Also, it's a terrible idea because there's no market for it. Everyone already expects it to be free.
How is it free? They're charging $100/year and a percentage on top of that.
I love how a never-used-by-courts-before regulation would supposedly already have "most interpretations" with any sort of authoritative value. I can probably walk into a pub tonight and get 27 other "interpretations", they will have the same value of yours. Technically speaking, even the Commissioner's own interpretation might well be flawed - we won't know until a court spends some time on it. I would humbly suggest, though, that when the very same lawmaker who wrote the law is publicly pulling your ears in public on related matters, your interpretations are probably not the right ones.
Apple pay enough real lawyers to defend them, they really don't need pro-bono amateurs.
It's not my interpretation, self-proclaimed humble person. Educated people have been discussing this ad nauseam for months. I would not-humbly suggest you actually read up on topics before breathlessly dismissing them deep down an HN comment thread.
> it's all about maintaining their app store monopoly.
Does this only makes sense if you assume payments are tied to the App Store? They aren’t.
If you remove payments from your list of motivations, what do you presume Apple’s motivation is to encourage apps to list themselves on the App Store and not a third-party marketplace?
It is much harder to explain to consumers why Apple should get a percentage-based rent (sorry Core Technology Fee that enables Privacy and Security™) if they go to a non-Apple website, download a non-Apple app, to do non-Apple-related things.
Like literally the only participants in that business transaction are the consumer and the company, Apple does not even enter the picture.
It would be like car manufacturers charging you a percentage for going to the grocery store, because they provide a Private and Secure™ transportation platform.
Consumers will soon catch up, and if the EU does not put pressure on Apple about this, they definitely will.
It’s more like car manufacturer charging license fees to the dealership for their use of the original manuals and tools to provide services that rely on their diagnostic tools and manuals.
But a car is used for more things than going to the dealership, and the dealership does not sell me groceries. Perhaps I want to race, or carry ikea furniture, or jump start another car - it is a general-purpose transportation device.
Similarly, I dream of going to Epic's website to download some Fortnite, maybe charge a thousand vbucks to mom's credit card if I'm feeling adventurous, and that has nothing to do with Apple or iOS.
This is how every single general-purpose computing platform (including Apple's MacOs) and the open internet has worked for multiple decades.
we don’t care how the car is used. It’s the dealership that pays the fee on service manuals and access to tools, not the customer. The dealership can choose to pass the cost to customer but it doesn’t have to.
Oh but we do care. Not every app developer is a dealership, a car is used in a much broader context.
Some may be like Uber, turning the car into a taxi service, or like Turo, allowing it to be rented. Others may be independent mechanics that can work on the car perfectly fine without access to blessed tools.
There is no cost passed on to the customer because the car manufacturer does not enforce a percentage cut of Uber's or Turo's revenue.
That said, there is likely no perfect analogy in cars. We can instead turn to MacOs / Windows / Linux etc., general purpose computing platforms that do not suffer from a gatekeeper's stranglehold.
An independent dealership can choose to not service particular make of the car, pay for the OEM tools and license for manuals or can choose to obtain those via other means.
You can see where the lack of respect to IP rights leads to when it comes to current espionage claims between some of the world largest economies entangled in a myriad of IP disputes. Ultimately, the question I ask myself is: am I happy with unverified random parts I want to put in my car? Instead of having easy traceability and ability to sue for damages I now have to also vet provenance, authenticity and take on additional risk of an unvetted supplier that I often won’t be even able to sue.
The independent auto shop isn't paying the auto maker a fee every time they change the spark plugs on one of their cars though. They buy a license to the service manual collection and can use that knowledge for however many cars they work on.
This would be the developer buying a license to the SDK and documentation and then that would be it.
Most platforms would offer the core libraries and services for free as an incentive to attract developers to the platform/make development easier.
This is how it used to be, until Apple got too large and instead of being beholden to developers it flipped the other way around, and now releasing an app for Apple's platform is a supposed privilege.
Take the games industry, where developers and publishers are often given huge incentives by a platform (mostly consoles) to develop for that platform; because games developers are providing value for the platform owner by making the platform more attractive because it has more content options for the consumer.
Why is it so hard for people to wrap their heads around that concept.
> Most platforms would offer the core libraries and services for free as an incentive
Right, as an incentive. That's exactly right. Makers of other platforms chose a particular funding model to suit their commercial strategic environment, not because they were obligated to. Why should Apple be obligated to follow other (or even their own) prior business models?
Sure. Remind me where I can download the free developer kit for the PlayStation 5? Remind me who I need to pay in order to distribute a PlayStation game?
Even back when Visual Studio did cost you an arm and a leg, you didn't need it to build and distribute software for Windows. Free options were always available; you paid for the comfort.
In fact, Windows itself came with everything that you needed to build just about any userspace app in the box since Windows XP SP1 (the first one that included .NET Framework).
Apple fans would always claim that this was a security measure to prevent malware. I have always found the claim dubious.
If you believe in that as a security measure, you could still have a signing requirement and apple could revoke trust on known-bad binaries. Which is probably what they will do.
Mind giving some high level clarification on how Apple would revoke entitlements on applications they’re not allowed to manage? Honestly curious about the infrastructure involved, is it really simple from a technological stand point?
If the developer needs to use Apple resources to track and manage said entitlements, and the consumer expects Apple to police bad actors, then are we asking Apple to do this for free on the bad actor’s behalf (oops, I didn’t mean to use your microphone, GPS, BLE in order to sell the info to an enemy state, law enforcement, angry ex!) or should the cost of said infrastructure be passed to the customer when purchasing hardware? OR does Apple wait until an application is exposed, generally through an echo chamber after the damage is done and is made aware of the issue?
I thought they already do this with notarized binaries on macOS. Conceptually it's no different from certificate revocation. The platform can phone home periodically to discover binaries for which notarization has been revoked.
You may be correct? Then the assumption would be developers need to pay the $99 fee to be part of the Apple dev program (pretty sure that’s the only way to get notarized). Next step in Apple’s playbook might be upping that fee for third party stores?
The vast majority of Android users use the Play Store (or the Amazon thing) exclusively. So Android is not different than iOS in this regard.
The vanishingly few remaining users use F-Droid (sometimes exclusively), which is probably the safest app store on Earth, with GNU/Linux and *BSD distros' base repositories. Open source only, reproducible builds with public recipes written independently, trackers removed (because they usually rely on non-free libs).
I honestly don't see how having only one store makes an OS safer. That store could be an unchecked mess.
We could talk about policies around app inclusion and permission management though.
If the argument is "the number of stores is not a useful metric", I agree.
If the argument is "Apple in particular has a huge vested interest in making sure that their first party App Store doesn't distribute malware", that's somewhat stronger.
I don't know which argument nektro was trying to make, I could read it either way.
Personally, I lean towards the point about vested interests, although it is only "lean towards" not "fully embrace": what they care about isn't strictly security, but their bottom line, and being a US company with US moral norms and US payment providers, this can also be observed in the form of their content rules — they seem to treat sex as a much more important thing to hide than violence[0]. This does not sit well with people like me who think violence is bad and sex is good.
[0] A bit over a decade ago, the app submission process flagged the word "knopf" in German translations, telling me it was a rude word and I might get in trouble if I was using inappropriate language. It's the German word for button… or knob (but in the sense of button, it's never a dick), and so I can only assume someone got a naughty words list in English and translated it literally rather than asking for a local list of naughty words.
> The vast majority of Android users use the Play Store (or the Amazon thing) exclusively
Are you sure? Android phones are pretty big in China, which is by far the world's largest smartphone market, and I guess Play Store & "the Amazon thing" (I don't remember the name either) adoption there is close to 0%. Anecdotally I have noticed a lot of people using phone vendor app stores in India (the second largest market, though half the number of devices as China) and Indonesia (another huge market). Taken together I'm very skeptical that Play Store + Amazon have a majority of Android users.
Google and its services are mostly blocked in China, so using the Play Store would require the use of a VPN or a foreign SIM card. There are a variety of local app stores. I've found that people often just use whatever came on their phone (which is often the phone manufacturer's own app store).
But does it? I haven't seen any hard evidence, and lots of anecdotal tales of technology illiterate grandparents, fathers and mothers being better off.
> lots of anecdotal tales of technology illiterate grandparents, fathers and mothers being better off
I'll bite. Is there anyone here that thinks overall security for elderly (and lower skilled users) will *not* be hurt by additional app stores? I find it hard to believe. And, I write this post an an uber geek is is neither an Apple fan boi, but is very impressive by their overall security and UX. For the geeks, it would be great to have more stores. For the average users... maybe... For the least tech-savvy users, I cannot believe it will benefit them.
> For the least tech-savvy users, I cannot believe it will benefit them.
My parents are in their 80s and use Android with F-Droid (I set it up for them). No scams. No account or password. No ads. Simple apps. They have definitely benefited from having more choices available to them, specifically a repo of software built with something other than profit motive in mind. Apple's not very good at offering that.
I still feel like that argument is like a "won't somebody please think of the children" one.
If app stores need to be locked down to protect the elderly, then surely the Internet needs to be locked down to protect all children. After all, Safari still navigates little Jimmy to pornhub if he clicks the link.
I feel like the real solution, same as the one most parents should be using instead of forcing it into everyone else is the same it's always been; don't give young Jimmy unfettered access to the Internet (and use a child/safety filter in your own home/on your own devices) and for Apple to provide a setting that enables/disables alternative app stores, so that children of the elderly can choose for them in the same way they'd choose for their children.
In fact, Apple devices already ship with something called "Assistive Access", which is a mode that you can enable that limits what can be done with the phone. In particular, it limits the ability to install apps.
I think you are overall correct that the iOS store does improve the experience of the elder. But I suspect it's more due to the lack of 'side loading' and locked user experience and less so do to do with apple inspection/code review. I have no evidence to support this.
My original question was a request for hard evidence which I think is lacking in arguments of security and safety.
I think I've seen an equal amount of press surrounding fake and useless apps on both android and apple platforms. But this is purely observational.
Particularly when there are better alternatives. For example, put a physical hardware switch on the inside of the device that disables new stores from being added. Now you can set up your technically disinclined relatives with Apple's store, and a couple of others you trust if it pleases you, then flip the switch and they can't get into trouble because they can't add others.
Move the switch back and the device won't boot without a factory wipe. That's going to deter both anyone who can't successfully disassemble the device to flip the switch (i.e. severely technically illiterate people) and the people who aren't willing to press YES to a prompt that says it's about to erase all their data (i.e. mildly technically illiterate people), while leaving it possible for exactly the people it should be possible for.
What happens when Meta, X, Google et al. move to their own stores where they distribute apps unencumbered by Apple's privacy policies? Your relatives then contact you and insist that you flip the switch for them so they can install Facebook and Instagram from the Meta store so they can continue scrolling cat memes.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument (from multi-store proponents) about how to prevent this. If the big social media companies pull their apps from Apple's official store and move to their own stores (with unfettered access to spy on users) then they will be successful at dragging their users with them. Furthermore, there is no evidence that GDPR has had any success stopping them from siphoning up all the data they want.
You tell them to use the service's web page because their app isn't available from a trustworthy source. And if their web page sucks, you encourage them to use a competing service whenever possible and only use the inconvenient one when strictly necessary. Which, as others do the same, pressures the service to do what you want and put their app in the existing store.
This is the same thing that Apple does if they refuse to follow the process as it is, right? You're being insufficiently stubborn. And excessively dismissive if you think users making choices have no power. There are demonstrably people committed to having it their way:
Unless you think tech companies have gotten too big and people don't have a choice anymore. If you have a monopoly, what you want is not another monopoly to fight them over which gets to fleece you, it's to smash them both by any available means. One of which is resistance through personal choices, one of which is... anti-trust enforcement.
Users don't have much power, individually. They express their power collectively through the political system. I'm just very skeptical of the approach taken by Europe with the DMA. It seems to be less about empowering individual users and more about letting other large players carve up the Apple/Google 2-slice pie into a few more big slices.
> about letting other large players carve up the Apple/Google 2-slice pie into a few more big slices
Do you not believe that increasing competition for app stores will "empower individual users"? If yes, please provide an alternative to DMA that will benefits users more.
Apple markets their offering on its privacy and security. In effect, they act as a bargaining agent on behalf of their users which says no to a lot of the tracking Google, Meta, et al. want to do. Due to Apple's marketshare and the nature of this arrangement (the walled garden), these trackers are forced to bargain with Apple as a unit. The DMA seeks to put an end to this arrangement and allow the trackers to bargain with users individually.
So, to answer your question: no, I do not believe it will empower individual users. If we really want to empower individual users we should be looking to inject more competition into the social media markets as well. More "app stores" that do nothing but offer the same apps while bypassing Apple's protections will not benefit users. And if the 30% Apple tax is the real problem then why not legislate against that directly?
> If we really want to empower individual users we should be looking to inject more competition into the social media markets as well.
Sure, but you can do both.
> More "app stores" that do nothing but offer the same apps while bypassing Apple's protections will not benefit users.
It's not just the same apps though. For example, the license Apple uses for the app store is incompatible with the GPL, so no one can make an iPhone app under the GPL or use existing GPL code in one. That license is one of the things that allows collaborative projects to form and right now that can't happen for iPhones.
Likewise, the $100/year fee deters hobbyists from creating apps.
And Apple prohibits certain types of content in their store, e.g. adult content or P2P apps, which some users would want.
> And if the 30% Apple tax is the real problem then why not legislate against that directly?
Price controls are generally a bad idea. The cost of hosting the app installers is generally negligible, but a few apps could be huge, and then it isn't, so how much should it cost? Can they charge a flat percentage of sales or does it have to be per-GB of transfer? What happens when the market price of storage or bandwidth changes over time? What if it's different in different regions?
Legislating rules to handle all the edge cases is a fool's errand when competition would handle it for you because anyone who charges too much would lose business to someone who charges less.
Users have a lot of power individually. The most obvious example is when there is competition. You could be a single person and your counterparty could be the world's largest corporation, but if you have ten other viable alternatives, they can do no worse to you than the best of your other alternatives or you just choose the other one.
But you can also do it by being stubborn. Some people seem to have completely forgotten how to do this. There is a transaction with a surplus of $100, the counterparty is some egregious monopolist and the deal they offer you is that they get $99 and you get $1. A lot of people take the deal, because $1 is better than nothing, but that's not it. What you do is flip over the table and walk away, because that costs you $1 but it costs them $99 (or $50 or whatever their share would be after offering whatever it would have taken to satisfy your sense of fairness).
People are so lazy now, or they've been conditioned, so now they always just take the $1 even if the alternative is only a minor inconvenience for them. Okay, you have to use Signal instead of WhatsApp, so what? But being willing to walk away from an unfair offer can sometimes be to your advantage even in an individual negotiation, because you both know the other party has more to lose. It's definitely to your advantage when other similarly-situated people do the same thing at scale. See also:
> They express their power collectively through the political system.
They express their power collectively however they want. Organizations (e.g. FSF, EFF) can do things like pool money to create competing systems. Even for-profit corporations can do this -- you don't like the incumbent? Start a competitor, and raise funding from all the other people who don't like the incumbent.
But again this seems like something people have been conditioned to believe doesn't work, even though it obviously does. To take a simple example, the EFF created Let's Encrypt, which cut the legs out from under the certificate mafia and made TLS free for everybody. All it took was an organization to pool enough resources to develop the initial implementation.
> I'm just very skeptical of the approach taken by Europe with the DMA. It seems to be less about empowering individual users and more about letting other large players carve up the Apple/Google 2-slice pie into a few more big slices.
Government regulations often fail as a result of incompetent administration or some corruption. But some forms of anti-trust can only be fixed through the law because the trusts themselves were created that way.
If government enforce contracts in restraint of trade then people will enter into contracts and form a cartel or enforce a monopoly. That is not acceptable, so then governments have to constrain what kinds of contracts they're willing to enforce, and somebody has to write down what "restraint of trade" means to establish how that works. It's not fun and they'll often get it wrong but the only alternatives are to either not have governments enforce contracts or allow cartels to form that become de facto private governments. So we do the best we can.
The EU is not great at this, but the problem they're trying to address is real, so sometimes you just get to sit back and watch two entities you don't really like have a fight with each other.
Except that Signal is free and nothing prevents anyone from having both installed at once, so you being stubborn can get your contacts to install the free app that takes two seconds to install.
Then everyone ends up on Signal because anyone can install Signal but the stubborn people refuse to install WhatsApp, at which point "everyone you actually need to communicate to is on Signal, WhatsApp is pretty much useless."
But in order to get there, you (the collective you, the median pedant) have to be more stubborn than the people who want to use WhatsApp, instead of the other way around.
Most casual contacts aren't going to install Signal just for you, no matter how stubborn you are. They'll just shrug and go their way.
I've been there, actually running Signal as my primary IM for several years. The number of people I "converted" who stuck around was, in the long run, zero.
>What happens when Meta, X, Google et al. move to their own stores where they distribute apps unencumbered by Apple's privacy policies?
I guess pigs fly or hell freezes over. Musk and Zuckerburg had years after such changes to make their own store on Android (which put in similar privacy policies at the same time as Apple). It doesn't make any sense for them because being off the main store is worse than gleeming off a bit more data to sell.
>I have yet to hear a convincing argument (from multi-store proponents) about how to prevent this.
How about proving that the subjects in question are on multiple stores to begin with, or otherwise have shown interest?
You're questioning GDPR's validity, but your own premise isn't a thing to begin with.
Why should that be prevented exactly? Why shouldn’t users be able to download apps directly from companies if they want to? Isn’t the whole point of the EU legislation to make all this possible?
> Your relatives then contact you and insist that you flip the switch for them so they can install Facebook and Instagram from the Meta store so they can continue scrolling cat memes.
You should not have to police adults on what they're allowed to do with their property. If someone asks me to help them setup their computer, I may gave some advice and warning about things to avoid. If they asked me to do something that may be dangerous, I can refuse to do it, but I will not actively prevent them from doing so. They're not children.
If someone is ok with putting their whole digital life at risk, then let him do so. Just like you can't prevent someone who wants to eat cake all day. It's not your life.
> You should not have to police adults on what they're allowed to do with their property.
The fundamental problem with this "power to the people" mentality is that adults don't actually know how to use technology. The average person is technologically illiterate.
You can go on about giving adults full control over their property, etc. etc. but we both know that this is how you get security disasters: old people getting scammed, people losing their life savings and what not.
Part of being an effective security engineer, is realizing that you need to protect people themselves. 2FA is a prime example of security driven via this mindset: necessary because the technologically illiterate masses reuse passwords. There are other benefits, but that's the main reason.
So you shouldn't have to police people, but practically, in the end you do.
> If someone is ok with putting their whole digital life at risk, then let him do so.
All fun and games until people lose their life savings and get forced into homelessness or whatever.
Then these people start to blame you. Then technologically illiterate senators and regulators will also blame you. Lose-lose scenario.
Crypto is a prime example of what happens when you give people control. "Power to the people!," tons of people get scammed, and this prompts regulatory lockdown.
TL;DR is that the EU regs wouldn't be a problem if Apple could hide the functionality behind developer settings, but they can't. Exciting times, people in the EU are gonna get totally fucked by shady apps. GG.
> You can go on about giving adults full control over their property, etc. etc. but we both know that this is how you get security disasters: old people getting scammed, people losing their life savings and what not.
This happens when senile people are legally authorized to exercise control over their assets. It has nothing to do with technology and has been happening since before computers existed. The general solution is to appoint a conservator who is required to authorize major transactions.
Which hardly justifies using the same measures for someone of sound mind.
> 2FA is a prime example of security driven via this mindset: necessary because the technologically illiterate masses reuse passwords.
And then their phone number changes or they lose access to their email and you've locked them out of their account.
This is particularly egregious when the second factor is required to be a phone number, because people in financial straits will have their service canceled for non-payment and now you've magnified their problems at the worst possible time. But phone numbers serve as a convenient tracking ID since most people only have one of them, which may explain the popularity of requiring them "for your own protection".
> All fun and games until people lose their life savings and get forced into homelessness or whatever.
We build insecure systems and then blame the users for it and offer to lock them in a cell to protect them from our bad choices.
Why is it that anyone can charge a credit card or a bank account who has the account number? Public key cryptography has been a thing for decades. Put a USB-C connector on the credit card itself and require the card to be plugged in to the device the first time each merchant wants to charge the account. 99% of credit card fraud, gone, because you can't breach one merchant and use the card info at a different one without physical access to the card.
Meanwhile anyone could trivially cancel a subscription because the list of authorized merchants would be listed on the bank's account webpage and the user could remove one at any time.
> Crypto is a prime example of what happens when you give people control.
Anybody can go to the bank, right now, and withdraw cash and hand it to a scammer. Sometimes they do. You can also give them your television or company ID badge. Cryptocurrency is no different. Most of the crypto scams are get rich quick schemes, which people have been getting scammed by since the invention of barter.
What made cryptocurrency so susceptible to scams wasn't that people were in control, it was that some people were actually getting rich, which made others credulous, and that attracts con men.
"We have to protect people from themselves" is only true for small children and the mentally ill. Adults get to make their own choices -- because there is no one else to make them. As soon as you appoint someone else to do it, that person has a conflict of interest and the incentive to defect, and the person affected needs the right to choose differently unless you can prove that this specific person is mentally incapable of exercising reason.
"Nobody is ever completely reasonable" doesn't cut it because that applies to the gatekeepers too.
Apple is just trying to protect users from scammers! I'm sure all this sensible authorization and notarization business will continue even after the fees are removed from the equation
I am really impressed how much time and effort Apples legal department spends to find every single loop hole in the wording of the DMA. The 50ct per install for alternate app stores, 50ct per install for non-App Store apps after the millionth install, 1 million dollar in securities for alternate app stores, etc all follow the words of the DMA, but not the spirit. I am really interested to see the European Commissian drag Apple in front of a court and them having to legally defend their actions. I assume that all of those things they are setting up to circumvent people from using their rights will really blow up in their faces.
The EU has always been enthusiastic about the spirit of the law, and Apple is not used to this. You can see their temper tantrum unfold every time they find this out.
Is it? Developers used to determinism in software frequently don't understand that in all jurisdictions the law is ultimately interpreted by humans. I've been going through some legal processes myself, and my friend who is a lawyer reminded me more times than I care to admit that this is the case.
In the US, SCOTUS's job is literally to interpret the spirit of the law in the event of ambiguity.
Developers are fully used to this ambiguity and "spirit of the law" when interpreting standards. Search for WeirdNIX (popularly known as Windows NT and other names too).
There's different ways to interpret laws for courts. One of them is called teleological interpretation where you follow the intent of the law. For this courts also look into the documentation the legislation provided when defining the law. This is usually not done by lower courts, but courts like the CJEU use those when the letter of the law is unclear to define this for the lower courts to follow.
The situation in the US seems to suggest that trying to finely analyze the exact sequence of words in a law or the consitution still leaves a whole lot of room for arbitrary decisions. Abortion was a constitutional right until it wasn't and the constitution was not changed between.
All language carries inherent ambiguity. However, developments in American constitutional law aren’t really about that. The Constitution is very general and it uses terms that lack an objective meaning (for example, “Due Process” - what counts as “process”? What process is “due”?) It can’t really be implemented without bringing in a pile of philosophy and policy making.
At the same time, SCOTUS has been guilty of stretching its terms to include ideas that are clearly out of scope. (For example, the dubious invention of “substantive” due process - which all of the abortion stuff hinges on.)
Of all the examples you could've brought up and you thought a person's right to control their body is a stretch? Try "qualified immunity" if you want an example of justices reasoning with their bare ass showing.
Also, substantive due process was not invented for reproductive rights. It was invented in Dred Scott v. Sandford, to prevent “free” states from depriving slave owners of their “property”.
"The phrase substantive due process was not used until the 20th century, but the concept arguably existed in the 19th century. The idea was a way to import natural law norms into the Constitution; prior to the American Civil War, the state courts were the site of the struggle. Critics of substantive due process claim that the doctrine began, at the federal level, with the infamous 1857 slavery case of Dred Scott v. Sandford.[11] Advocates of substantive due process acknowledge that the doctrine was employed in Dred Scott but claim that it was employed incorrectly. Indeed, abolitionists and others argued that both before and after Dred Scott, the Due Process Clause actually prohibited the federal government from recognizing slavery. Also, the first appearance of substantive due process, as a concept, had appeared in Bloomer v. McQuewan, 55 U.S. 539 (1852)"
While there is a trace of the idea in Bloomer, it is relatively faint. Dred Scott is much more commonly recognized as the origin of substantive due process. For example:
> We should note right at the outset some of the many remarkable facts about the case.
> * Dred Scott was the first Supreme Court case since Marbury v. Madison invalidating a federal law. Since Marbury created judicial review in the context of a denial of jurisdiction, Dred Scott might plausibly be said to be the first real exercise of the power of judicial review.
> * Dred Scott was the first great effort by the Court to take an issue of political morality out of politics. In that sense, it is the great ancestor of many New Deal and Warren Court cases.
> * Dred Scott was the birthplace of the controversial idea of "substantive due process," used in Roe v. Wade, in many important cases endangering the regulatory/welfare state, and in the recent cases involving the "right to die."
> * Dred Scott was one of the first great cases unambiguously using the "intent of the framers" and in that sense it was the great precursor of the method of Justice Scalia and Judge Bork.
I don't think it's controversial at all to say that substantive due process is understood to have its origin in cases like Dred Scott and Lochner, cases where the Supreme Court overrode the results of the democratic process to protect economic interests. Or, for that matter, that the court took significant license in "interpreting" the Fifth Amendment that way.
Also, I think many people are too teleological when they evaluate judicial doctrines and philosophies. "Reproductive rights are good, so let's find a way to justify substantive due process." Jurisprudence is part of a structure and process that is bigger than any specific outcome, and bad jurisprudence shouldn't be excused just because it leads somewhere we might like.
Maybe substantive due process links the two cases in the most nebulous and abstract way, but fundamentally Roe v Wade is about a person's right to control their own body (e.g., nobody can force me to donate a kidney even if I'm a perfect match), whereas Dred Scott was about the exact opposite.
Edit: I also disagree that looking at where judicial philosophies lead is a bad idea. At the end of the day, the judicial system exists for two main purposes: 1) enforce contract law and 2) enforce the moral zeitgeist in the most fair way possible. If an inflexible judicial philosophy is unable to keep up with the morals of the times, we should consider revising the judicial philosophy. I believe this is considered fairly mainstream legal philosophy, and a big reason "originalism" is considered basically a sham by the legal profession.
But that's the thing, when your law is legally binding in 24 different languages it's really impractical if not entirely impossible to have a system based on letter-of-the-law interpretations...
I’m so tired of this, instead of doing the right thing, Apple just keeps trying to brute force the legal framework. You don’t need fancy legal team to know this is not the way.
From a business point, I can totally understand what Apple is doing. Making this as painful and unpredictable (as a developer you never know if your app will be successfull and gain more than 1 million installs) is the way to keep developers using the old contract and keep them on the app store. This makes sense for Apple to find every loophole possible ...
As a consumer, and an Apple users, I want them to be slapped as hard as possible for how they implement this.
Funny how things go. As a consumer especially, but even as a developer I don’t want the DMA to succeed and purposefully want iOS to be a walled garden. It’s literally one of the reasons why I’m on iOS!
That's the nice thing about the DMA ... Nobody forces you to install a 3rd party app store, nobody forces you to install apps from websites, nobody forces you out of the walled garden. For you nothing changes. Those that want to use their 1000€ device differently than you now have the chance to.
As the “tech guy” in the family things might change actually.
(One of) the reasons why I like the walled garden is how it simplifies everything troubleshooting-wise. I have a few quirks to know, the rest is because of hardware failure and that’s it.
My peer not being tech-savvy might install stupid things from stupid places and it might be a problem.
The way it’s done it’s unlikely, but still it just complexify things for next to no reasons in my book. (Yes 30% is a lot; I personally don’t care, though I do recognize I’m a good position and I can afford not to–but then again, the most vocal about the 30% are not the most unwealthy…)
That's also solveable. For android you need to enable deep inside of the settings to allow 3rd party installs. Nobody is preventing Apple to do something like this. Or that you can create a profile that disables that setting that you can install on your familys devices. Nothing in the DMA prevents this.
Just because it makes your life easier as the family tech support is a pretty selfish reason to hope for a very good pro-consumer law to fail.
The way it’s going I’m actually pretty sure if they did that they’d get reprimanded…
Also it makes my life annoying when I open Safari and am presented w/ what can be told as the worst pop-up ever and have to spend literally minutes dismissing it for something I neither wanted nor needed. It’s the cookie banner all over again.
Does not seem like a lot, but as a developer I use devices in a factory configuration a lot, and it’s just as annoying as it’s useless.
Basically it’s the cookie banner again. Served no-one (at least definitely not the consumers), but annoyed a lot.
As for the “those that want to use their 1000€ device differently than you now have the chance to,” well……… nobody forced them to buy a 1000€ device did they?? They knew of the limitations; they had to, or they’re very dumb.
The law is not pro-consumer contrary to people say, it’s anti-garden, which is definitely not the same, and I’ll die on this hill.
Nearly no sites comply with the cookie-banner law, if they did, you wouldn't mind it.
It essentially says "Tell the user you're tracking them, give them a button to click not allow you to do that". If sites actually did that, I honestly couldn't care less about the extra second it would take to click "No, fuck off".
> Basically it’s the cookie banner again. Served no-one (at least definitely not the consumers), but annoyed a lot.
Oh no, you have to be given the option to not permit your data to be shared with ~1000 different partners with "legitimate" interests. Honestly, the only thing that is wrong with GDPR is that it came out too late.
Every time you dismiss a "we care for your privacy" banner, you're being made aware that your data is shared with hundreds or thousands of data brokers with "legitimate interest". The fact that vendors prefer to make your experience miserable rather than give up tracking is another example of "malicious compliance".
What happens is that you now have the right to request a copy of the personal information a site has collected and ask them to delete it. You can also sue them if they don't fulfil your request. You're welcome to exercise your rights as an EU citizen at any time.
> Also it makes my life annoying when I open Safari and am presented w/ what can be told as the worst pop-up ever and have to spend literally minutes dismissing it for something I neither wanted nor needed. It’s the cookie banner all over again.
Know what's cool? Firefox on android supports ublock origin. There are some chromium forks too with desktop extension support (on android). Funny what an open(er) market and easy of installing apps does, huh?
People (myself included) say the same thing about why they buy their tech illiterate relatives macOS computers. And it works. And guess what, it works despite Apple not getting a cut of every everything.
My girlfriend only install the handful of apps she wants both on her Mac and her iPhone and doesn't go back to the app store. She just put things on auto update. Most people don't fiddle with their computing device. And if installation steps are confusing, she just asked me to do it. I guess that's why Microsoft are enabling so many things on Windows as most users won't enable them by themselves.
That's neither here nor there for whether Apple has the right to insert themselves into every transaction on their platform and gets to decide which apps are allowed to exist.
And let's not kid ourself: Microsoft is enabling (and re-enabling and re-enabling and re-enabling) so many things because they are slowly turning their OS into spyware to make more money, not because they care at all about their users.
I'll re-iterate Cory Doctorow's quote: "Anytime someone puts a lock on something you own, against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit".
It's perfectly reasonable to create even more walled gardens than the Apple walled garden, once you open up for different markets. That's the beauty of choice.
I doubt it. "Walled" and "Safety" are getting confused here.
I think you like the App Store for its safety. You trust it, enough to be happy with it.
What does that have to do with wanting others to be denied alternatives? That deliver however much safety and different benefits that other people want?
If safety is one of Apple store's selling points, then competitive app stores will push Apple to deliver even more safety. Perhaps new forms of safety others pioneer. Apple didn't invent security or sandboxes. While also encouraging it to loosen non-safety driven (and therefore quietly non-customer friendly) restrictions on innovation.
For years Apple has placed deliberately crafted limitations on 3rd party apps that put theirs at an advantage. They've done anything but treat developers fairly. If they did, maybe this legislation was unneeded, but with the way they've been acting, it feels like a long time coming.
Until some apps are not in the App Store or a website is chromium-compatible only… Or that apps (e.g. youtube) outside the App Store is surprisingly more feature-complete than the equivalent in the App Store…
Don’t worry they’ll find a way to make it socially mandatory (the same way not having a google account nowadays seems impossible (I don’t personally but still do because of work for instance)).
And if you don't trust an app vendor without Apple's underpaid Chinese reviewers playing with it on an iPad for 5 minutes to guarantee your safety, then don't use those apps that pull out of the App Store. If YouTube or FB pull out of Apple's App Store and go to their own, Apple will have to cut it's hosting fees to get them back or lose that business and you'll suffer not because Google and FB pulled out of the App Store but because Apple pushed them out with exorbitant fees. You should want Apple facing that threat because it'll lead to lower App Store prices as developers won't pad a $5 app with $1.50 in extra cost to you to cover the exorbitant Apple fees. But you'd rather blame users who want to run what ever software they want on the computers they purchased than blame Apple's shitty business practices. That's on you, bud.
> And if you don't trust an app vendor without Apple's underpaid Chinese reviewers
This misses the mark so badly that it’s not even worth reading the rest.
App Review is based out of Sunnyvale and has more than 300 people that make on average $85k/y in their first few years, and mostly over $100k/y after three years.
Long tenured people, the ones that last more than 5 years and are advancing towards a decade of doing the work get close to $200k/y with some exceptions over that number.
Many of those 300 people are multilingual, some specialize in a specific language, but to expand and better serve non-English markets, Apple recently opened a branch in Ireland and one in Shanghai.
The latter mainly focusing on the Chinese market and the one in Ireland specializing in European languages and supplementing the English market.
Once again there are alternatives; nobody forced anybody to buy iPhones.
It’s not like Apple lied at any point saying “buy our phones and do whatever you want on them!” No. It’s clear. You do what they want. In what name should they be forced to “open” it to anybody?
What’s next? Force google to make their map data open? How would that go? It’s mostly the same thing.
To be blunt, Apple, Google, and other tech megacorps should be glad that we as a society allow them to exist in the first place, even despite growing to the size where they are clearly hindering free market (by actively blocking competition). Never forget that corporations are artificial entities chartered by governments; and nobody has a natural right to a corporate charter, so those can and should come with hefty strings attached.
I have no idea what your argument is here. That people shouldn't advocate for greater competition in the marketplace just because they already bought a phone?
It's not at all the same thing? Also there's a more apt comparison, which is forcing Google to make Android open and allow alternative app stores (oh wait, they already do).
App stores are a natural monopoly. An app store with more users attracts more developers. An app store with more apps attracts more users. It has a strong network effect and economies of scale. Natural monopolies should be regulated to prevent abuse by the first companies that capture wide market share.
> I am really impressed how much time and effort Apples legal department spends to find every single loop hole in the wording of the DMA.
Maybe this is an American trait, but I would be surprised at any company that wouldn't be doing this. A law has been made that affects our business: How do we comply with the law with as little impact as possible to us?
Some of the comments here seem to expect Apple to simply give up, as though a parent just walked in the room and said "You better do it or else."
If it's really the spirit of the law that counts, then the law should require no specificity. A simple "Treat everyone fairly, installs can come from anywhere" would be sufficient.
Perhaps it seems unusual, as Apple has so much technical control, an unusually extensive legal budget, and doing a very effective job of castrating any "threats" or as the EU might say "significant competition".
And Apple has the cash to play chicken with any potential fines if it comes to it, so its not hedging much if at all.
It is clear that the EU is going to have to get very tough, before Apple is going to proactively take into account any of the "spirit of the law" that the EU would like it to understand.
Theres literally billions of dollars of pure profit on the line here. Id be surprised if they dint do absolutely everything they could to keep the app store the way it is.
Being a complacent market leader may come back to bite them in the backside.
The world is getting more technical. People will demand openness. If I buy a product, I should have reasonable flexibility to use it how I want. Even if I break it, repurpose it or improve it, I want the choice to do so, just like I have with pretty much every other thing I own.
People will vote with their wallets if Apple refuses to open things up a bit.
Complying with what you guess at the lawmakers' intentions was/were is a fool's errand. The law is the text, nothing more, nothing less. That's the point of the law. If the law falls short or has loopholes, it's a bad law and it's the legislature's job to fix it, not citizens' to suss it out.
To assume the law means things that aren't written in the law is, quite basically, undemocratic.
The DMA is perfectly clear regarding its intention and context. Trying to split hairs to find wiggle-room in the text just so a gatekeeper can maintain the status-quo for a while longer is absolutely malicious.
Furthermore, Apple’s behaviour is quite discouraging for us EU based developers who actually understand and aspire to the EU’s values and what we consider “normal” treatment of the people using our apps and services.
Obviously Apple doesn't hold the EU's values in high regard (few people in the Bay or even the US do), so of course they will try to fight it. It's perfectly rational and even expected behavior.
And it's perfectily rational for the EU to take appropriate actions against companies that hold its values in contempt. Apple should expect that and temper their contempt accordingly if they intend on continuing to do business here.
Written it in another comment. If there are ambiguities in the written law, for example because the legislature did not specify in the text of the law, that you can't charge for the access to the platforms, high courts like the CJEU will take approaches where they determine the spirit of the law (i.e. by looking at the discussion material the legislature presented for passing the law) to find out what the intent of the legislature was and then defines this law.
This is for example how Germany now has a basic right to data protection. It's not written in the constitution, it was formed by our supereme court by looking at what the intentions of the author's of our constitution were. Same principle applies to EU laws.
I agree that this is not a citizen's job. That's why I wrote that I am very happy to see the EU commission drag Apple in front of the CJEU.
The whole app ecosystem(android and apple) is carefully constructed for maximum market owner value extraction, user value is a secondary consideration.
Basically, it is what the web would look like if it were developed by corporate interests, conversely "apps" could have been a better designed web[1], but instead are this comparatively clunky gated process where you have to explicitly install the app first only then can you use it.
1. The web was designed to deliver pages, this was well designed, application like functionally grew organically afterwards and is quite the mess.
The TI calculators were progamable, my brother used those.
Then the pocket pcs (windows ce) had 3rd party programs, those were distributed as files by the publisher. Program stores were webpages were people sold their files. I used the skyscape medical books; you installed the program as usual, then you bought a code specific for your version and file. All that done through a webpage
Then we have android. Google had the Marketplace (now playstore) as we know it today, except packages didnt use google services to validate licenses, Many times it was just a package (a file) The main progress was ease of use.
Then comes iOS and their extreme BS of not being able to "sideload" "apps" The store is no longer a convenience, it is a requirement. For your safety, of course. The main "progress" here is that they convinced many "Americans" that a commodity affordable phone with a painted cartoon of a bitten apple is "Exclusive", as VIP only. I compare it to the NFT phenomena, except the fruit cartoon did stick.
I know they have ulterior motives for their walled garden, but this is a product of said garden. The App Store is by far much safer to use than Google's Play Store. Plus the parental controls on android are essentially non-existent.
The premise of a walled garden is to keep unwanted things out, not to imprison you inside. Apple maintaining a store where they've vetted everything in it is fine, and if you like you can refuse to install anything from outside of it.
That doesn't justify them prohibiting you from installing anything from outside of it. It should be up to you.
If you wanted to, you could even configure your phone to not add any new stores without a factory wipe. But maybe first you want to add in the repositories that have only free and open source software, or the stores of some respected game publishers who offer lower prices if you use their own stores for their games. And maybe the existence of these stores would encourage Apple to charge lower fees, and then you benefit from the lower fees even if you choose never to install anything from those stores, since your option to exerts competitive pressure on the stores(s) you are willing to use.
A better metaphor would be the shops at an airport. The monopoly airport fleece the shops with high rent and in turn the shops fleece their customers with high prices.
A better metaphor would be the shops anywhere in your country. Governments and banks charge taxes and fees and in turn, through an elaborate architecture of laws and consequences, their customers don't have to wonder if their glass of water contains rotaviruses, or if the silverware has high levels of lead, or if 0.000014 BTC is gross overpayment for a hamburger, or if people in the next town will decide to rape and pillage sometime in the next hour.
The distinction kind of matters though. Monopolies are terrible and to be avoided but if you're going to have one, e.g. because roads are a natural monopoly, then you damn well want it to be an elected body and not a for-profit corporation that will do everything it can to extract monopoly rents from everybody in its fiefdom.
Yes they are, this is literally the definition of a corporation. A group of people wanted to form a government to run their "for profit endeavor" so they incorporated, that is, they received a license from their parent public interest corporation(aka "The Government") that allows them to operate under rule of law.
It's corporations all the way down. corporation is really just another word for government.
So in your twisted world view, who are a corporation's citizens? The customers? The surely we should demand that they get democratic voting rights, no?
For the record, my analogy was to describe Apple as a government, not to describe government as a private corporation. I don't think it's in any way "twisted" to describe Apple as the government of the landscape it birthed. And of course people don't get voting rights. It's a benevolent dictatorship open to anyone who considers the terms acceptable. Wouldn't imply otherwise.
I think it's absolutely the case that Sony "governs" the PlayStation ecosystem. That town is way more restrictive than Appletown, but plenty of happy people live there too.
That is basically the definition of communism. communism is one answer to the question "Democracy is supposed to be a good thing for our public governments, why do our for for-profit endeavors not run under democratic means?"
So the communist answer is "fold the manufacturing government into the rest of the government"
Communism has many problems, for one they never actually restore democratic means, to the point that "peoples republic" is sort a joke term for dictatorship. but the one in scope is that running an operation from a large central government will remove the focus a business needs to work well. self-interest is a powerful force multiplier.
In a for profit cooperation the voting rights holders are usually those who have invested in the operation, or them who have bought these voting rights from others. They are usually run as a sort of dictatorship, which does dis-enfranchise the workers, but works very well with small groups.
But the main point was if you want to operate your endeavor as a government instead of as an individual person than it needs to incorporate. The government does not need to be democratic, and it usually is not.
And consider towns, they use the same vocabulary "incorporate" when they want to form a local government.
"Walled garden" does not mean "safe system". And it is not a prerequisite for a safe system, or vice versa.
You are saying you are happy in a "safe secure system".
In contrast, a "walled garden" is a prohibition on alternatives, not a source of safety. The prohibition of alternatives does not make the App Store safer.
If anything, it protects Apple from competing with safter alternatives! Like an app store only for children. Or an app store of formally verified apps.
Please correct me if I am somehow missing something...
There are still scam apps on Apple and apparently they don't get removed promptly either. This one was reported 12 days before the post was made.
Many of the comments in the thread are telling the poster that he "should have verified the app"
>It's possible that it's just because it was literally called "Bitcoin Wallet", >an exact match for your search, or boosted by fake reviews, or it was actually >an ad that you didn't notice. Though it shouldn't have gotten past review at >all
>But I don't really understand why you'd blindly trust some random app?
Those who like AppStore actually benefit from it being the only store. It means that almost all developers will bend under Apple rules and users will get their apps.
These users can do the same thing by refusing to use any other store even if they are allowed to, and if there are many of them they'll have leverage. But what they want is to force other users, who would willingly use other stores, to also use only the same one as them. They have no right to force others to do that any more than Apple does.
Have you tried parental controls on Android or are you just taking out of the side of your mouth? I have parental controls for my kids android devices and it works exceptionally well. I am not dissing the apple version because I have not used it, and based on your comment I have to assume you have not used the android parent controls and are just needing to convince yourself that apple are better and the apple premium you are paying is worth it.
What were the subpar controls? I use it daily for my kids so would genuinely like to know what you feel didn't/doesn't work because for the last 4 or 5 years I have never had one issue using it.
> The whole app ecosystem(android and apple) is carefully constructed for maximum market owner value extraction, user value is a secondary consideration.
And it has become the norm because both developers and consumers have readily and happily accepted that deal.
Did developers and consumers have a choice? Maybe at some micro niche level, but the capitalistic status quo is driven by mass production and monopolistic forces, by design.
> The web was designed to deliver pages, this was well designed
It was well designed, using Hypermedia. Which works extremely well for hyperlinks and forms.
Instead of leveraging and improving these primitives, corporates¹ and web-devs threw it all out and re-invented it. Multiple times².
¹ The worst offenders obviously being those that have held back web-apps just so they can extract more money from native apps. i.e. Apple.
² jQuery, then Angular et. al. Then react. Now WASM. In which we throw all all the REST concepts and push a mongrel data format, JSON, over the web. When we had XML with strong typing, meaning, hypermedia, permissions, etc. We have - by now- reinvented all these on top of JSON, but worse and poorer.
And, finally we are full circle back to HTMX. How often will web-devs keep re-inventing wheels? Why can't we see that problems have been solved since early '00s and that improving these is also possible?
In most countries it's still possible, but Apple announced to remove this feature¹, then announced it's not removing it b/c the EU told them it's not going to accept that or so. I've lost count by now.
In any case, it's possible, but with very little effort, could be far easier than managing native apps even. But alas, that's a threat to a business model of Apple, so not going to happen unless forced, as
They said they'd remove web apps, not bookmarks. A bookmark on the home screen just opens in the browser instead of its own webview. They're simple to add and use.
Strictly speaking, you don't need to distribute anything more than ads to "thus make money" off a webapp. The end-goal of webapps is not to challenge Apple's revenue though, it's to offer meaningful (see: persistent) capabilities that write-once and ship-anywhere.
You're being a reductive troll. Stop making bad-faith arguments if that's the only way you intend to contribute to the discussion.
No, I'm saying that your prior comments are trolling. "There’s literally nothing stopping someone" and "You don’t need any of that" is both untrue and a bad-faith response to the parent's post. You might as well have not commented if your intention was to defend your personal opinion about webapps.
There’s no kicker to begin with - the vast majority of apps in the app story require internet anyway, and thus the web is more than a sufficient vehicle to distribute an app. Reddit, Facebook, instagram, Spotify, YouTube, Airbnb, the list goes on.
And no, I’m not trolling. Saying it does not make it so. It’s simply a fact that most apps on the App Store could be web apps. Go and look for yourself. In fact, most of the top apps already have web app versions which proves my point. Right now on my iPhone if you go to the App Store you see “essentials” which list zoom TikTok and Hulu as the top three - all three have web apps.
People have brainwashed themselves sadly into thinking you need an app.
You may notice, the web version of every app you just listed is strictly inferior to the native ones. It's simply a fact that PWA and Webapp features have been sidelined for the majority of the iPhone's lifespan. Even the good webapps can't achieve feature-parity with YouTube or Spotify installed natively.
> And no, I’m not trolling.
It's incredibly hard to tell. Who the fuck is listening to Spotify in mobile Safari?
This is just more malicious compliance by Apple. Indie developers are completely locked out of web distribution, and it applies only to developers who are already paying the Apple tax.
> To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must:
> Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
> Developers will pay a CTF of €0.50 for each first annual install over one million in the past 12 months.
> and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
In other words the option is still a joke not worth using. "Yes, you can distribute independently... as long as you've already been popular on the iOS App Store in the past year".
It's a half-assed bribe to try and keep big developers on their side. "Alright, alright, we'll let you keep some money - just stop crying to the regulators already!"
Which part? I don't think the EU can rule that Apple can't charge publishers to be on iOS. This isn't malicious compliance, sans the size requirement it's exactly what they asked for.
This keeps happening where people keep hitching "I don't want to pay Apple" to every wagon except a law that requires Apple to make access to iOS free.
"Allow other payment processors": Okay you still pay 27%
"Allow other stores": Okay you still pay a commission, a different one.
"Allow installing from websites": Okay you still pay a commission, you just have to write us a check.
Even if they were allowed to ask for a fee, they would not be allowed to set conditions that they can subjectively rule on. Particularly the "in good standing with Apple" is a blatant violation since it effectively lets them block anyone they want for any reason, which is in violation of the very basic "shall allow and technically enable" language of the DMA.
> I don't think the EU can rule that Apple can't charge publishers to be on iOS.
Oh I think the EU can rule whatever they want on their domestic market. Apple can try to find all the holes they want, the Commission is probably just taking notes of those holes to fix them in the DMA 1.1
I really think Apple (and Meta, fwiw) is making a huge mistake if they think they are in position to negociate anything. DMA is here to fix competition issues on the european market and if the goal isnt reached, there will be enough iterations until achievement.
It's not a fight again Apple, it's about preserving the core of what is the EU : the European Single Market. The European Single Market was created after WWII with the goal to enforce peace on the european continent. The Single Market IS the European Union. There is no way they'll let Apple get around this. The only thing Apple don't understand is that the EU is traditionally really slow to act so they had an entire decade (and more) to think that locking access to the market in the EU was fine.
> if the goal isnt reached, there will be enough iterations until achievement.
I wish I was as optimistic as you. GPDR was already supposed to be such an improvement. I have no doubt that current Apple's dance won't work. But I don't think any European company will actually benefit from DMA. (I'd say the ones who will really benefit from it are Epic Games and Google, maybe Mozilla a bit)
That being said, I'm very happy the EU implemented the DMA.
Yeah that's why I'm expecting another change. When they tried banning Epic the EU said no, and Apple was forced to move to this point. I expect/hope that the EU comes back with a further "clarification" on Apple's contention that they can gate this to 1,000,000 downloads.
It is funny to see American companies scream "that's not fair" when faced with a functional government.
This is somewhat a naive interpretation. Yes, the EU can enforce certain regulations, ban Apple, etc, but not without repercussions. We live in a global trade environment. It really comes down to whether the US administration would find the EU's actions unreasonable and whether there would be economic repercussions in turn.
A trade war is the last thing the EU wants, especially when they are completely and utterly dependent on the US for technology and protection, so it's very unlikely that the EU will get all extreme on Apple or other US tech companies.
It will push as hard it can but we will not see a protracted ban. The EU understands that it can only push so hard before it starts a trade war and harms itself out of spite.
They'll not ban anyone, the DMA allow fines up to 20% of the international revenue. I think there is enough room to enforce rules without banning anyone.
Sufficiently high fines are no different from a ban. The DMA will never actually fine at 20% because companies would be forced to leave, triggering the above scenario.
Just the size requirement makes it useless, why would anybody bother with a web distribution if they already have 1 million (!) installs on the appstore where they already have all their customers?
The front runners for doing this would probably be Google and Meta. Large companies that publish several ad-supported apps. Side stepping the App Store would let them revert Apple’s privacy protections for tracking
However, I believe another statute of Apple’s implementation is that developers must pick. App Store or Self Distribution— an app cannot be both
If you really have to pay a fee per install, ad-supported apps are probably the worst candidates to go standalone in my opinion. Those don't get much money per user.
It’s per install including updates. All apps from Meta and Google update almost weekly. That’s 100s of millions of dollars a year in CTF that they won’t have to pay if they stay in the store.
Trivially easy. Create an app that generates a random number and store it in the apps local storage. Send that with any interaction to whatever service you're providing. Hiding this feat in plain sight isn't that hard.
Currently there are two things preventing a developer from doing this:
1. you're supposed to be honest and not do that.
2. you could be caught during review by a bot or a human.
But all that does is let one app track your usage in that app. To do tracking outside of that, you'd need other apps to get access to another apps' local storage. Which you need the OS to give you permission to do.
We have toggles for preventing cell data usage, they could trivially do the same for wifi usage, or accessing other app's local storage.
I think computing devices need to have some kind of zero trust sandbox available for installation (kinda like a VM) where any API and system calls that an app use is spoofed. iOS have done this for files and photos (recently), but some is still all or nothing, like contacts. At least camera and microphone access show an indicator when they're in use.
Sure you can create a sandbox that can cater for some app and keep it completely isolated. And yes, whereas previously any app could basically see and do anything, now there are limits at the OS level.
But an app that shows the latest cat video needs connectivity and the server serving that car video now tracks when you were watching it.
The only Google application (besides Play store and all the stuff that's more or less part of the system) I use is Google maps and it doesn't require being logged.
56: The gatekeepers should, therefore, be required to ensure, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features that are available or used in the provision of its own complementary and supporting services and hardware
That's not what that means, that's saying Apple can't give themselves special private APIs to do things other apps can't or charge to access them.
Which is funny because you can drive a shipping container through the loophole which is OS components can have special privileges and the boundary between apps and OS for 1st party software is fuzzy.
Using 'Tile' trackers, ios pops a messages up every so often saying 'Tile' has been accessing the Location API from IOS.
But Apple introduced a competing product, 'AirTags', and this doesn't have the same (annoying) regular popup.
Does this mean that Apple's Product will no longer be allowed to use a special Location API bypassing the security/barriers their competitors have?
I understand the need for security, but Apple has no incentive to remove friction from the process when it negatively impacts their competitors and doesn't impact them at all.
It's basically saying the same thing. One thing other apps can't do on iOS is... installing packages on the system. This is only a thing that the App Store app can do. So Apple has to open up to third party the possibility to install packages on the device, exactly how on Android any third party can install apps on the device.
By the way, this will impact Android too, since there are permissions that are limited only to Google applications such as the Google Play Services, that (interpreting this rule) now shall be opened to any apps that require them.
That's a pretty tortured reading of the DMA. Yes, Apple has to allow more than just the App Store to install iOS applications, but nowhere does it stipulate that Apple can't collect fees from apps installed through alternative stores.
This is the tension, people really really want "ability to install apps" or "ability to install from web" to mean "install without Apple being allowed to collect fees" but that's not what the law says.
I think the original reading is pretty damn correct. It says apps should be able to access the platform "free of charge". Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that the reading that limits this to special API access is the tortured reading.
Besides, even Apple's reading is not what Apple is doing either. They're saying that ANY API access that is possible should be done free of charge. Ok. That INCLUDES app installation of course. It does not specify WHO doesn't get charged, which Apple then takes to mean those alternative app stores don't get charged, but the app owners do? Now THAT is tortured reading. Obviously that means NOBODY gets charged. Not the alternative app store, not the application being installed. Apple is not complying with their own reading either.
It seems to me pretty clear. Either interpretation, apps should be able to run on ios free of charge.
Y'all really need to read the whole act. The quote that stated this doesn't even come from (56).
> (56) Gatekeepers can also have a dual role as developers of operating systems and device manufacturers, including any technical functionality that such a device may have. For example, a gatekeeper that is a manufacturer of a device can restrict access to some of the functionalities in that device, such as near-field-communication technology, secure elements and processors, authentication mechanisms and the software used to operate those technologies, which can be required for the effective provision of a service provided together with, or in support of, the core platform service by the gatekeeper as well as by any potential third-party undertaking providing such service.
> (57) If dual roles are used in a manner that prevents alternative service and hardware providers from having access under equal conditions to the same operating system, hardware or software features that are available or used by the gatekeeper in the provision of its own complementary or supporting services or hardware, this could significantly undermine innovation by such alternative providers, as well as choice for end users. The gatekeepers should, therefore, be required to ensure, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features that are available or used in the provision of its own complementary and supporting services and hardware. Such access can equally be required by software applications related to the relevant services provided together with, or in support of, the core platform service in order to effectively develop and provide functionalities interoperable with those provided by gatekeepers. The aim of the obligations is to allow competing third parties to interconnect through interfaces or similar solutions to the respective features as effectively as the gatekeeper’s own services or hardware.
They are explicitly talking about gatekeepers that are both app maker and OS maker giving their own apps access to parts of the OS that other apps can't access. You as a 3rd party are able to deeply integrate into iOS with your own apps to the same level as 1st party apps. It does not say that anyone must be allowed to access the platform free of charge. Plus this is the preamble to the actual act, you can write whatever you want in there (and legislators frequently do to use it as a pulpit) none of this is the actual law.
I read that as: if Apple wants to allow installation of programs ("apps") on IOS, it must allow, free of charge, others to do the same. Free of charge to everyone. Free of charge to alternative app stores, free of charge to developers, free of charge to apple customers, ... free of charge to anyone. As I said, I'm no lawyer, but that is definitely a valid interpretation to me.
Petition your representatives to designate those as gatekeepers of a core platform service. But first look up the definitions of those, and the criteria for gatekeeper designation, in the DMA.
Ahh yes, the "all lightbulbs regardless of their manufacture are required to have at least <this> energy efficiency" style regulation where <this> is set "neutrally" at the efficiency of LED bulbs.
Read article 3 paragraphs 1 and 2 and tell me this wasn't written to target like five US tech companies in total.
I have read it. I defines how much money the company needs to be making the EU and how many users they need to have. Sure, it's targeting big companies.
The LED example you gave is actually a great one: I don't think the regulator cares if you're using LED or not. The intention is to reduce the usage of lightbulbs that aren't as energy efficient as modern technology allows them to be. If you can make a incandescent lightbulb that is as efficient, good for you. No one has targeted incandescent light.
Same here. Yes, companies this size are almost only American (and Chinese). That doesn't mean that American companies were the target.
US, with its severe underregulation of oligopolies, allows companies to grow that big. Why do you then complain that they are the ones targeted by laws in countries which are sane enough to understand the need to regulate such things?
Apple is welcome to vacate the EU if it finds it all too onerous.
Since when do you have to pay to use an ABI or link against system libraries? Shipping your own apps to your own customers doesn't entitle Apple to a payment.
The gatekeepers should, therefore, be required to ensure, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features that are available or used in the provision of its own complementary and supporting services and hardware
The DMA absolutely allows charging money for access to a regulated platform. The Core Technology Fee is the only thing Apple is charging that can even remotely seem like it may be prohibited. We'll see how that goes:
> Pricing or other general access conditions should be considered unfair if they lead to an imbalance of rights and obligations imposed on business users or confer an advantage on the gatekeeper which is disproportionate to the service provided by the gatekeeper to business users or lead to a disadvantage for business users in providing the same or similar services as the gatekeeper. The following benchmarks can serve as a yardstick to determine the
fairness of general access conditions: prices charged or conditions imposed for the same or similar services by other providers of software application stores; prices charged or conditions imposed by the provider of the software application store for different related or similar services or to different types of end users; prices charged or conditions imposed by the provider of the software application store for the same service in different geographic
regions; prices charged or conditions imposed by the provider of the software application store for the same service the gatekeeper provides to itself.
The CTF is a platform access fee, and not a fee for interoperating with system ABIs/services/APIs. That's the distinction, and why it isn't automatically illegal. It would only be illegal if it gives Apple's App Store an unfair competitive advantage.
And as you can see from the text of the DMA, in order to declare the CTF illegal, the EC has to conduct a fair, impartial, fact-based investigation that considers Apple's viewpoint. Then they produce a preliminary report which Apple is allowed to rebut. After that they can issue a final ruling, and Apple is allowed to appeal that to the court of justice. Even if the CTF is found to be illegal after all of that, Apple gets 6+ months to make changes unless the EC can prove that they were working in bad faith.
> The CTF is a platform access fee, and not a fee for interoperating with system ABIs/services/APIs.
Since Apple already charges $99/yr for a dev account, for which the Xcode price is included, and the CTF applies even when not using the App Store... what are they charging for if not API access in the form of the dev's user's devices? That's the only thing that's left
The CTF applies when not using the App Store, because the equivalent of the CTF is baked into Apple's 30%. People asked for unbundling, and this is what Apple came up with.
Those who are surprised that you have to pay for access to an ABI have obviously never had to pay for their compilers from their software vendors (the price for the HP-UX garbage compiler was eye wateringly high).
> Those who are surprised that you have to pay for access to an ABI have obviously never had to pay for their compilers from their software vendors (the price for the HP-UX garbage compiler was eye wateringly high).
But that doesn't seem to be the case, as Apple hasn't monetized Xcode and the iOS SDK libraries differently since the DMA came up.
Apple can charge for the SDK and all that it entails, but they can't charge for apps getting to run on users' iOS copies, as that's not something IP law contemplates.
What happens when a fully FOSS iOS dev environment comes out, like the way you can compile Windows binaries on Linux right now? What would Apple be charging for then?
The CTF offsets Apple's costs in developing and maintaining the "core technology": the OS and the frameworks that the developer uses in their application.
GCC works on HP-UX, so I don't know what this is trying to prove. They can charge for Xcode whatever they want, but what does that have to do with installing apps.
Back when I was working with HP-UX, GCC worked if you wanted something completely independent and didn't need to link against system libraries. For the companies I worked for when using AIX, that wasn't an option.
At least on AIX and other UNIXes, the system compiler and GCC worked together. HP-UX was a special kind of hell.
A sibling reply pointed out that developer kits and distribution deals for consoles (which are general purpose computers, regardless of how they are presented, as much as modern smartphones are) are extremely expensive (and there are no alternatives for distribution).
The point that I am making is that the idea that you can develop and distribute for free on any platform is a relatively new one.
It is not new on microcomputers, though, and those have essentially defined the expectations for consumer devices going forward. That is why it was such a big deal back when Apple first introduced the app store with all the restrictions - that was new, even compared to other mobile devices in the market (even feature phones had J2ME by then).
But regardless, it seems like a good idea in general, and proven to work, so why shouldn't we want more of it? I don't see the problem with applying the same logic to game consoles etc - that racket also needs to go down.
Exactly. Not to mention, the HP-UX business model famously flopped in the face of Linux, BSD and Free Software. It's almost the perfect example of how Open software distribution provided a better experience than the alternatives.
The CTF is it's own refutation. A competitive market should not need to kiss anyone's ring in order to function.
> The CTF is a platform access fee, and not a fee for interoperating with system ABIs/services/APIs
So the distinction is that they're charging devs to be allowed to run their app on iOS period, rather than charging for access to a particular set of APIs (which would be illegal)?
Because if so, there's a hole in that argument. Right now I can run any web app I want on my iPhone and the developer need pay no platform access fee. However, that app is blocked by Apple from accessing many native APIs, despite it running on my hardware. And to access those APIs it would need to pay Apple a fee...
So in conclusion, Apple should charge every website operator a per-user annual fee for using the Apple's platform.
Why do you say the EC is fine with it? I bet you can't produce any statement from the EC even marginally supporting it. All you know is that Apple proposed something blatantly illegal, and then backed down from that plan.
It's impossible for the EC to have given Apple any kind of guarantees about it being fine to restrict PWAs to just Safari. That's just not how the process works.
Well, is there a legal basis for Apple charging this fee? I'm licensed to use Xcode presently, which means I can legally produce iOS binaries without paying them. I'm legally allowed to distribute those binaries because I own the rights to them, the apps being original works (and not derived works).
What, specifically, is the core technology fee for other than dissuading competition? It's not for using Xcode (I already have that now), and it's not for redistributing Apple software (iOS binaries aren't that). What technology specifically? Is it a software license? Is it for a patent license? Is it payment for a service? What is it?
Have you actually read the licensing terms you agreed to for Xcode and Apple SDKs?
> Except as otherwise expressly set forth in Section 2.2.B., You may not distribute any Applications developed using the Apple SDKs (excluding the macOS SDK) absent entering into a separate written agreement with Apple.
> I don't think the EU can rule that Apple can't charge publishers to be on iOS
Why not? Maybe they can't rule that Apple must make the App Store free for developers, but they can rule that the App Store can't be the only way to install apps.
> But that isn't the same thing as saying Apple can't take a cut from other App Stores, and surprise, they are.
Yes, it is. For Apple to be able to take a cut from other app stores, they need to have full control over said stores, so effectively it's just their App Store under a different name. Hopefully this won't fly under DMA.
> 4. The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper.
> 7. The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system…
Yes, people keep quoting these sections but it doesn't say what folks want it to say.
4. Gatekeeper must allow people to install applications from outside the App Store. That has no relationship at all to whether Apple is allowed to require a contractual relationship with iOS developers that stipulate payment under certain conditions -- installs, IAPs, number of developers, number of users, etc..
7. Gatekeeper can't give themselves special APIs that allow them to do things other apps can't or charge extra for those special privileged APIs. Apple can nonetheless still charge developers to access iOS. But from there Apple can't give themselves an advantage by saying that only Apple apps can access Bluetooth.
Here's something to blow your brain: perhaps the English version is incorrectly translated. With Ireland now the only Anglophone country in the EU, I would trust the French and German versions of the text to have far more clear intent.
I'm not saying they don't have force of law. I'm saying the EU did not write them as strongly as the other versions, making them harder to understand and potentially steering the law in a different direction.
I'm reading the French version, and I find it clear that Apple is not following the DMA with its fee it cannot charge itself.
It’s intentional. Replace EU with Apple and law with AppStore rules and you’ll see the parallels.
> I'm saying the EU did not write them as strongly as the other versions, making them harder to understand and potentially steering the law in a different direction.
I suppose the next stage of malicious compliance will be to allow absolutely everyone to publish apps everywhere, but with some technical warning that is designed to be ignored.
I would love that. I have recently tried downloading a few apps for different reasons and every single all is locked away, for any useful features, behind in app purchases. I remember the days back when iPhone first came out you could find apps and no such thing as purchasing features. It dawned on me that my iPhone is a pretty shitty platform unlike my Pc where I can download many free open source projects made by passionate people who like to share. I haven’t owned an android in years but I am seriously contemplating getting a google pixel phone as they still have unlocked bootloaders. Our phones are capable of so much more but have been dumbed down so apple can let developers sell us features through apps while taking a 30% fee along the way.
> I have recently tried downloading a few apps for different reasons and every single all is locked away, for any useful features, behind in app purchases.
And you think those developers, once freed from the Apple App Store, will release their apps for free on the web???
Probably not them, but other developers for whom Apple's bullshit (like the 99$/year fee) is too much of a barrier of entry would be happy to share their work for free.
Well if the iPhone was not locked down and one could install open source freeware yes. There are apps for almost anything you can imagine for free on a pc. Look at OpenOffice for example. Free where ms version is quite costly. People are passionate about sharing things. Yes there are paid software that is great and I think they should be allowed as well but they should also have to keep innovating and offer something to entice customers like real human support for example. But open source freeware also has a place but it is being blocked for “security “ which too is alright but at the end of the day we have these phones which are very powerful mini computers and if I want to risk my security I should be allowed to install anything I want. This is why I was into jailbreaking back in the day. I bought an iPhone and the guy at the cell store sold me 1000 video messages with my plan. Be me surprised to learn there was not even a way to take videos on the iPhone back then (people think this is bull shit but it is the truth iPhone only had a camera back then no video). When I searched how to take videos I learned about cycorder available on cydia. Then I learned about jailbreak and took the chance and did it. Then I was able to take videos. Although apple slowly closed the gap a jailbroken phone was far more superior for years. My current iPhone is jailbreakable but I have been out of the scene a long time so not sure I want to mess around I think it might break my banking app not positive but haven’t the time to figure it all out.
Same with PDF reader. A simple one that just let you read and annotate is something I guess no one is asking for. Everything has a premium plan that is a subscription.
This kind of UX is why I ended up installing a bunch of the official geogebra apps on an ipad in the past. Although, almost any calculation you'd want to do on a calculator can be done inside of spotlight search.
It's not frowned upon, it's the normal way of doing anything non-trivial in Windows land. You don't get something from a repo, you go to the Foobinator Tools website to download BarApp Pro
Laptop sales decline every year. People are giving up the idea of keyboards and big screens to avoid Windows laptops. Copying and monetizing the open source repo idea is the smartest thing smartphone manufacturers did.
“I’ve driven many miles and never crashed. Why do I need to pay for seatbelts?”
These are population level decisions which require you to think about mainstream use. For example, you probably have been safe because you know what to look for. This is not true of the general public and there are millions of people who _thought_ they were making a safe choice and only realized later that the polite person in the call center was not actually trying to help them, etc.
The implication that restricting user freedom to the degree that Apple does is as vital as the seatbelt in your car is hilarious to me. A better analogy would be "how come my Apple car can only drive on Apple-owned toll roads but every other car can drive wherever it wants?"
> Apps offered through Web Distribution must meet Notarization requirements to protect platform integrity, like all iOS apps, and can only be installed from a website domain that the developer has registered in App Store Connect.
If you can’t see a safety benefit, go look at the Windows or Chrome extension malware industry and the billions of dollars it costs people every year. You don’t have to like Apple or agree with everything they’re doing to understand that there is a real problem here.
The problem exists in the Apple app store. So why behave as if it is an issue unique to windows and android?
The apple situation makes it worse, people now expect the app store to be a safe place to download from and perhaps do less due diligence because they assume apple are doing the heavy lifting, mainly because Apple keep telling us they are doing the heavy lifting to protect us.
Right; but the whole point of a browser extension is that it interferes with how other webpages work. But iOS apps can’t do that. They’re more like webpages themselves - sandboxed and run as isolated processes. In the absence of browser bugs, it should be safe to click any web link. Websites can impersonate one another. But my device stays secure.
iOS apps already work like that. Why does Apple have so little trust in their own security model?
I have no emotional attachment to any brand, and I suspect that you are projecting your own attachment by saying so. I simply want tools that take orders rather than give them. I want a system that gives me so much freedom that it will let me sudo rm rf myself. That is important to me on a pragmatic level (not an emotional one) because it is useful enough to me that it is non negotiable.
The usual line after this is "then just don't use Apple," and you'll be happy to learn that I don't and probably never will regardless of what changes they make. I am just baffled by the comments in here defending their behavior. Why subject yourself to this? Of all the brands to get attached to, why the one that makes it so obvious that they're milking you for every dollar they can get? If that answer is that you genuinely can't avoid getting malware unless you are physically prevented from doing so preemptively, then so be it, but I don't get it otherwise.
> “I’ve driven many miles and never crashed. Why do I need to pay for seatbelts?”
Bad analogy. A better analogy is: I’ve driven many miles and never crashed. Why do I still need Toyota's permission to drive?
I'm absolutely in favor of "seatbelts" for computers, but that means sandboxing, not censorship or rent seeking. It also means you can remove the "seatbelt" when you need to.
I used seatbelts because every car safety measure you can think of has had someone complaining about having to pay a cost for something they’re too good a driver to need. Having apps notarized to enforce some basic legal & safety standards seems similar: it definitely costs more than zero, it definitely is a restriction on absolute freedom, but it helps prevent things which are statistically certain to keep happening otherwise.
That's a very weak argument in favor of apple, and I respectfully disagree. Just another variation of 'think about the children' meme without much substance, repeated in every single apple discussion ad nausea.
Look, you lock your phone as much as you like, your device, your choices (here we are already very far from apple mindset). Why the obsessive need to push this on literally everybody and not even giving the choice? Maybe you have some serious impulse control issues, but most of us don't.
It can even be part of purchase process - choose ultra secure more locked down model, or on-your-risk more free.
But we all know all this is just about 1 singular thing - revenue via customer/market capture. Oracle stuff indeed.
> Look, you lock your phone as much as you like, your device, your choices (here we are already very far from apple mindset)
It keeps software and service vendors from going around security and privacy protections. Folks don’t always have a choice of what they have to install, so “just don’t install their stuff if you don’t like it” isn’t sufficient to achieve the same results, even if we ignore the inherent difference in UX between “100% of the software for this goes through the App Store” and “some software is not on the App Store”.
Doesn’t mean you have to agree that path is better, of course, but it’s also definitely not so easily dismissed as ridiculous.
Software and service vendors can't "go around security and privacy protections", they can do exactly what the operating system and Apple allow them to do (short of actual bugs and vulnerabilities which would exist regardless of distribution method).
Either those protections are technological, baked into the OS, and therefore apply equally to all installation sources, or they don't exist. There's no in between.
There’s in-fact an in between, which is humans enforcing rules. It’s what’s in place now. It does have an actual effect, it’s not like it’s imaginary or doesn’t do anything. Some of the rules aren’t practically enforceable by software alone, at least so far (things like “don’t try to fingerprint the user or device in unauthorized ways”)
Those rules are even less enforceable by human reviewers because they don't employ people to reverse engineer your app, never mind any subsequent updates.
Your contention is that the review process entirely fails at enforcing privacy and security rules that cannot be achieved entirely through automation, or fails at such a high rate that it may as well be entire?
That doesn’t reflect my experience submitting apps, nor as a user of Apple devices. It’s certainly imperfect, but it achieves a lot more than if they simply stopped doing it.
[edit] and in fact, some of the automated checks wouldn’t be practical to run on a user’s device—are those also totally ineffective?
Look at the history on the PC and Mac desktop side. Ever see someone who had Firefox or VLC, only the binary they got was loaded up with things not shipped by the real developer? Notarization prevents that shady phished from talking your dad into installing “a critical security update!!!” from their own server and then either having it immediately get access to his stuff or walking him through logging into his password manager, etc.
I'm not against notarization as long as it's free (akin to Let's Encrypt) and strictly used for combating outright malicious software like you described, and not as a way to keep competitors off the platform, rent seek, or ban apps for "philosophical" reasons (like NSFW content).
They're intentionally conflating these objectives to give themselves an excuse for maintaining their stranglehold on users and developers alike. They need to give up some ground if their security concerns are to be taken seriously.
I'm sure all the smart people in Cupertino (and elsewhere) can figure out some really great solutions for protecting users in an honest manner, if only their leadership didn't instruct them otherwise.
Analogies don’t really work in arguments, it always just devolves into an argument about the analogy. They are useful in other contexts (like teaching, where it might be necessary to simplify something).
Overuse of analogies is one of the worst things the internet has done to discussion in general.
Consider how well malware and adware has done where the authors can impersonate legitimate developers (remember when people got faux-Firefox as the first Google hit?) or can run distribution campaigns from shady web hosts for years? Notarization and domain limits mean Apple can block malware almost instantly and the developers have to burn a real company identity on each attack campaign.
Some people need to be protected from themselves though. I don't receive support requests anymore from my grandparents since they switched from a Windows-based computer to a ChromeOS system. It suits their needs while being locked down, and it limits the amount of damage that can be done.
Isn't ChromeOS secure because of sandboxing, not because of curation? And isn't the situation similar with iOS? I wouldn't really expect Apple's curators (or automated analysis) to reliably detect malware, but I expect the OS to limit what kind of damage can be done.
Well, not really. Usually people have all their personal data on their PC, rather than mobile phone.
Maybe this is changing for young people, but on my parents hard drive (for example) there is 30+ years of all sort of personal data, documents of every kind, emails, documents, etc. Not counting all the password and access saved in the browser itself.
If we talk about businesses, public administrations, hospitals basically everything is inside computers, including very sensitive data.
They're locked down through technological measures such as sandboxing, which is designed to resist against malicious guests regardless of their origin and distribution method.
I'm developing an open source app(flutter) I have already started it in a simulator(kvm). I just don't want to jump through all the hoops and pay to be able to publis the app somewhere for ios users.
Nah, I bet they'll let people install apps from anywhere, but for those apps they'll purposefully crack open the app sandbox to truly allow anything & everything, then when malware/scams hit Apple will be like "see, we told you it was a bad idea "
If indie developers were to quality, anyone would qualify and security incidents would inevitably increase. That's what Apple is trying to prevent. Keep the attack surface small.
Apple's philosophy is similar to the justice philosophy of nations like Singapore. Freedom in exchange for security. Some people like the trade off and some don't. And if there is anything that we know for sure is that when it comes to tech, freedom is the last of people's priorities.
something something "those who give up freedom for security deserve neither" something something
The problem with the "freedom-for-security" tradeoff is that there is nothing to keep the security provider - a government or private corporation - from continuing to provide security once you've surrendered freedom. Apple was very good at combating scams and fraud on the App Store when the iPhone was new. The problem is, that's expensive, which is why Apple decided to charge 30% in the first place. Once competitors stopped trying to release mobile operating systems and users had been accustomed to "just download App Store stuff it's safe", Apple moved away from investing in App Store security. We can see this with how many outright scams wind up on the store today.
Singapore is a similar situation. The security a government is supposed to provide is protection against, say, organized criminals, but government and organized crime has the same structure, function, and incentives as one another. A government that takes away your freedom may be able to protect against organized crime, but that also lets them do exactly the same things organized crime might do. The only security this provides is security of Singapore's tax revenue and political control from appropriation by competing violence-users.
Same thing with Apple. They aren't securing you, they're securing themselves in power, with your security trickling down from their handcuffs.
My comment was from the point of view of the security provider. The security provider receives your freedom and gives you security. Of course, from the point of view of the freedom holder, there are no guarantees that the security provider will fulfill the promise in the sense that you expect (i.e. that they won't violate it themselves) but you can generally expect that they will at the very least reduce the number of individuals threatening your security from private individuals plus the state to just the state.
Your full and complete security can't never be guaranteed unless you hand over your full and complete freedom. Sure, today there are many scans in the App Store but today there are also way more mobile users than there were in the early days and phones have gone from digital toys to holders of digital personal life.
If you want to see what a world where you keep most of your freedom looks like, try using the Google App Store with an average phone (see: phone with no security updates since 2021) and see how many scams you get. Guaranteed way more than Apple. Like an order of magnitude more.
Let me give you another analogy. You are a villager in a corrupt country besieged by out of control armed gangs taking control of areas of the country. Areas such as yours. You got a corrupt country making your life hell and gangs making your life hell. Now you have a choice to move to another country where there is corruption but no gangs. That other country is Apple, Singapore and basically any South American country got its gangs under control. There are millions of people that literally want to get an Apple, get into Singapore and get into this kind of SA country. Sure, a world where higher powers don't abuse their power is nice but that world does not exist in our reality. You choose the lesser evil. That's what Apple is doing here.
It doesn't have to be an exclusive choice for Apple: more money and more security for Apple. Many HN folks (many of them using plenty of Apple products) probably won't like it but the reality is that we all vote with our wallet and with our time
We're all free not to buy Apple products if we don't like how they lock them down. There are several alternatives, Android being the most obvious. And yet, iPhones still sell well.
There are also minimum standards of behavior that we require of every participant in society, including regulations on the behavior of products.
The DMA's identification of "gatekeepers" makes a distinction between the requirements on products with smaller vs larger market shares. More successful products are now held to a higher standard, if you like.
This isn't unprecedented: progressive taxation, labor laws, etc -- there are many situations where this happens.
It's not like Apple has a monopoly on phones, but they're significant enough that the EU wants them to behave in a certain (different) way. Both the DMA and Apple's responses to it seem a bit clunky (so far). I expect it'll take some time for an equilibrium to emerge.
I think it's also notable that Apple now has (at least) three major different versions of its software/infrastructure: EU, China, and rest-of-world. I fear that's a trend that will only continue.
That's the thing that would prevent me from buying a Vision Pro down the line. It's going to be an iOS-like walled garden experience. If it could run arbitrary macOS apps on device, it would be infinitely more useful (but probably cannibalize the MacBook market and why would Apple ever roll out a new product line that doesn't force developers to pay them 30%?)
> It's going to be an iOS-like walled garden experience.
It might be even worse. Apparently you can't even add a web app to your home screen on the Vision Pro. Vision Pro users are paying for a native app that loads youtube.com in a webview: https://christianselig.com/2024/02/introducing-juno/
I mean... it hasn't been their model from the start; the Apple II was wildly successful in part because it was so open, and Macs never had a walled garden (though the situation there does seem to have gotten somewhat worse over time).
When the Mac was introduced, there were two loud groups of people:
Those complaining bitterly that Apple had ruined the product by eliminating expansion cards, and holding the case shut with a special screw that needed an "only available from Apple" screwdriver.
And those who gladly bought the first computer that didn't need users to open up the case and mess around with expansion cards and dip switches and so on.
I've wanted to be able to do this on video game consoles for ages. I have a powerful computer with a big screen in my living room but I'm locked out of it.
I hope once the EU starts to look at Sony and Nintendo next.
The Nintendo Switch is a great console for sideloading. There are numerous ports of PC titles like Quake and Half-Life, as well as a library of Homebrew games and modding tools. If you've got an original Nintendo Switch there's practically no excuse not to crack it, unless you intend to play online.
Same goes for the 3DS, too. You can now play Virtual Boy games using the built-in 3D screen, which enables preservation of Nintendo's darkest age (with or without their approval). I have soft-modded versions of both the Switch and 3DS, and recommend it to anyone that wants that "unlocked" experience.
If you want an Xbox or Playstation computer, buy the SOC from AMD. They sell them on Alibaba and get the same support Microsoft and Sony recieve (read: dogshit). Most people would agree that it's wiser to not use console hardware for PC software when you can build a superior machine for a lower price. But hey, if you wanna waste time and money I won't be the one to stop you.
I want access to the developer program like you get with Apple for $100 / year. I want sanctioned and supported third party app stores. Direct download would be cool as well.
There's also the Steam Deck, if you hate getting bent-over by third-party OEMs that don't care about you. But considering your affinity for Apple, maybe the console market is right for you.
Altserver+Altstore. Altserver will resign your apps, and altstore can background "refresh" your apps so they _shouldn't_ expire on your.
It refreshes when your on the same wifi network as altserver, for me it works most of the time, but sometimes I need to kick altserver to get the phone to see it.
Doesn't fix the issue, and its a limitation that annoys the hell out of me too, but at least helps mitigate it. (Though it doesn't solve the number of self signed app limit)
AltStore is a bad joke, you can only install 2 apps (three, minus the altstore app), and you have to connect your phone to a MacOS computer and run the app every week.
Just let me click on an IPA to install it, it's really not that deep!
That’s a limitation created by apple, not alt server. Granted you are using one of your three to use alt store, but you can skip using alt store if you don’t want auto refresh by just using the server to install your IPAs.
But Altstore does run on Windows, Mac and Linux (I use a helper script to run it on my home server)
These are all work around to Apple imposed limitations, it’s by no means perfect, but until Apple change their mind (or are forced to change their mind) your alternatives are jailbreaking (which I don’t think there are any public jailbreaks of the latest hardware/OS) or swap to Android (which I’m considering doing) or pay Apple $100 a year for your own dev cert with less restrictions.
The only thing that bothers me about Altstore is that it require you to enter your Apple ID and password. I know the app is open source and only sends the credentials to Apple, but the risk of a supply chain vulnerability is terrifying.
But don't you need a unique phone number for each Apple ID, which makes it kind of difficult to just create a throwaway account? Or is there a way to circumvent that requirement?
I'd even be willing to pay the $99 a year, I just want the signature to last longer than a week, ideally forever. For years when I don't feel like updating the app, I won't pay the developer membership fee.
I think the deploy straight from Xcode to your device builds have a pretty short lifetime (I remember it being a month in around 2014 or 2015) not sure now.
If you archive and build using a certificate from developer.apple.com they last a year.
As someone with dozens of side loaded iOS apps, all of my apps are working just fine, well over 6 months later. I always build and deploy without archiving.
So they should be forced to develop the SDK and the dev tools for free and provide that support for free? I mean it would be very nice of them to do so, but legally forcing them to do it? I don't know about that. It is a shortsighted "solution".
The SDK is paid for when purchasing the phone. Same as with Mac OS, OS X, DOS, Windows, Android, Blackberry, ChromeOS and every other OS out there. It's not shortsighted, it's worked well for the past 50 years or so.
and for advanced developer tooling you can charge. This is what MS does. Visual Studio (not Code) is not free for businesses.
One can still do C# development using only Windows SDK and/or dotnet SDK for "free".
You cannot do C/C++ or Rust developement without a license but with MinGW you also can do it without MS SDK. MS doesn't prevent people from using GCC compilers. Their core C++ developers even use it: https://nuwen.net/mingw.html
the point is, MS and others are free to choose how they will offer their services. They can say "hey I'll provide this for free, and I will make you pay for this other thing". As long as they are not a monopoly in computing, they should be free to do whatever they want, no? If they go bonkers with what they ask vs the value they provide, competition will wipe them out - easy peasy.
Apple could have said at the beginning "hey this is iPhone, there are no external apps for it though" - which was actually the case! iPhone did not have 3rd party apps at launch.
Then Apple could have said "good news everyone, you can now develop for the iPhone. Dev kits start at $10000 per unit, apply to partner with us, call us at this number" and that would be the end of it. Lots of gadgets still work like that and nobody bats an eye.
Apple decreased the barrier to entry and provided it as a service, charged for it but created good value in return, and it worked! But now that governments signal that they will punish such success, the next Apple will likely not go the way of low barrier of entry - this will hurt the regular folk, people with not so deep pockets.
What worked well for the past 50 years was freedom. None of those operating systems were forced to provide dev kits at no additional cost. They did it to compete. If Apple's additional costs' value proposition was not there, they would not be successful, they would not be able to attract good developers creating good software. Apple is not a monopoly either, there is competition. So forcing them to provide a service at no additional cost is just theft. And corporations can circumvent the hit they will get from being forced in innumerable ways in a capitalist system, all at the expense of the consumer.
The point is, nobody is disallowed from competing with Apple and its ecosystem on its merits. If Apple didn't provide enough value in return to what they ask, they would fail. Signaling that you will punish success with force means that the next Apple will be a lot more cautious about how they do things. Jacked up prices (as long as value proposition is there, people will pay, they will just pay more), requiring dev kits (can you force a company to change their hardware design so that it can be developed on? where is the limit?) / expensive partnership agreements / increasing the barrier to entry... Unless companies are "state owned" they have infinite ways to keep their profits at the expense of consumers. Apple's existing deal was a good deal - it was working, competition was (and is still) there. Now they will have to do the things that will just inconvenience users as a side effect, which is what they don't want to do, but they will be forced to do regardless.
I believe they would be allowed to charge for the SDK and the dev tools as long as they don’t require developers to use that SDK and the dev tools. I’m sure someone else would provide an alternative SDK and tooling then.
But is it even legally required for them to provide a stable 3rd party software support? That would be ridiculous. So if they put in the effort to provide such a base and open it to public, why can't they choose to be compensated for that work?
My problem can be summarized as (assume the company in question is not a monopoly):
* Is it illegal to sell a device with a microprocessor in it that has no support for 3rd party programmability? -> no, most digital devices are like this in fact.
* Is it illegal to sell a computing device and develop software in house for it? Maybe charge for some of it? Still with no 3rd party support? -> no it is not illegal.
* Is it illegal then, to contract other developers / companies to write that "in house" software for the device you are making? -> no that is not illegal
* Is it illegal to make agreements with other companies to buy software / programming services from them to include in your device? -> no that is not illegal
* Is it illegal to make agreements with other companies so that they can sell licenses to "unlock" their software in your device and get a cut from their sales? -> no it is not illegal
* Is it illegal to sell dev kits to the the above? So the device in question is still not a device you can develop on - but you can create another device where 3rd parties can develop on, and you can sell it to them. You can also pick and choose which companies you will work with. None of this is illegal.
* Is it illegal to automate all of the above? Provide low barrier to entry, no bureaucracy, if you want to develop for the device just do, pay us $100 a year, and give us a cut and you are golden! No need to get into direct contact with us, wait months to get our manual approval - we streamline everything and even the little guy can participate? -> HN thinks that this suddenly must be illegal. If they are providing all this service, they should be legally forced to do all for free.
They can choose to be compensated for their work, but in case of the 30% cut, they seem to want to be compensated for someone else’s work, because how much a successful app makes vs. an unsuccessful app is not a function of the SDK or the platform, which is the same for both. I would have no problem if they asked for a flat fee for providing their service. But they want to profit off the revenue of a whole ecosystem, and that has no quantitative relation to the effort of maintaining the OS and the SDK.
That’s just my personal opinion. The DMA is about anti-trust, that some companies are controlling a too large part of the cake, affecting too many users (end users as well as “business users”, e.g. app developers), which is bad for a competitive market and level playing field.
All of these are wrong. The answer to each of those is "It may or may not be legal depending on various factors including whether it is intentionally creating a monopolistic anti-competitive environment".
Laws are allowed to have very nuanced opinions where it's illegal for microsoft to disallow uninstalling Internet Explorer program (USA vs MS, 2001), but perfectly legal for microsoft do disallow installing the File Explorer program.
I know us programmers want laws to perfectly specified in unambiguous mathematics, but lawyers want laws to be specified in English with nuance and room for interpretation and judgement of intent and spirit.
It makes no sense to you because you are thinking like a programmer. Laws are for empathetic decent humans, not soulless hacker-news-posting programmers.
It still has the 7 day limit for apps, so if you go on a vacation your apps stop working, or if you stop running the sideloadly software in your home network they also do.
It also doesn't have a linux version, so it's unusable for hacker news users, since all of us only run linux machines in our homes.
Also, closed source, just use altserver which I think is actually open source, and does the same thing but better tested
Apple is still non-compliant with the requirements of the DMA, especially in regards to Article 6(7), which provides:
"The gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services
provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services."
This means the Core Technology Fee is per-se illegal.
The only exception to the provision is security, so Apple can probably demand notarization of IPA files (although maybe not really, since Android does not enforce that at all and the sky hasn't fallen over there) but the requirement that the developer already be in good standing and have 2 million app downloads is insane and non-compliant too.
The rules aren't really strict enough it seems. The gatekeeper should not be able to have any control over app distribution at all. Notarization and other forms of code signing must be possible to turn off and should not place the gatekeeper in a privileged position (for example, it should be possible to enroll other certificates).
> The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that interoperability does not compromise the integrity of the operating system, virtual assistant, hardware or software features provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
> The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures to ensure that third-party software applications or software application stores do not endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
> Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall not be prevented from applying, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures and settings other than default settings, enabling end users to effectively protect security in relation to third-party software applications or software application stores, provided that such measures and settings other than default settings are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
Exactly, plus the fact that Android seems to manage just fine without the notarization requirement would suggest that too could be invalidated by the Commission.
I'm not supportive of Apple at all in this but to say that Android works "fine" without notarisation is a stretch[1].
Apple already has already implemented a perfectly functional balance between security and developers rights on the Mac, they just need to adopt that model on iPhone.
> Apple already has already implemented a perfectly functional balance between security and developers rights on the Mac
They really haven't - some APIs are locked behind entitlements that you can only get by paying the developer fee and requesting it specially from Apple. Among other nuisances.
Only when an app is distributed from their store though? You can request a developer certificate, notarise your apps and deploy them from your website using any API you desire...
That's incorrect, some MacOS APIs (I'm not sure why you think a website is involved here?) require special entitlements (regardless of how they're distributed) and you cannot use them with a normal developer certificate - you need to pay the Apple tax and speak with someone at Apple directly to get them.
If they follow the Mac model of non-notarized app packages being installable with a warning (which can he disabled system-wide with a hidden setting) then that's basically equivalent to the Android model, which requires jumping through extra hoops to enable third-party app installs as well.
People will be tricked into jumping through all of those hoops to install malware on their phones, but people are already tricked into harming themselves via their phones all the time on iOS and Android alike. People are ticked into using their (legit) bank apps to send money to fraudsters, into downloading (from the App Store) NFT scam apps, into downloading (from the App Store) scammy and predatory apps disguised as free colorful puzzle games. What does this proposed malware do? Surreptitiously record location data? Trick the user into parting from their money? Pop up unexpected ads and redirects? Apple's blessed apps already do all of that. What bad behavior is possible in from within an app sandbox that isn't common practice on the App Store? The only thing that comes to mind is location recording and sending of that information to the attacker, ie a spying GPS app installed by an abuser. The platform-level way to fix that would be to allow users to provide apps spoofed locations without informing the app that the location isn't real, which Apple won't do because... it would harm Netflix and Niantic's business model, I guess?
Read recital 62 on page 16 of the DMA. Then read Article 6(4) on page 35.
Gatekeepers are allowed to gatekeep as long as it is fairly applied. That includes charging money for access to the platform and to install software.
Article 6(7) on page 36, says that once software is installed, access to the system services, APIs and ABIs must be free of charge. BUT THAT IS ONLY AFTER THE SOFTWARE IS INSTALLED. You are conflating two different things.
It allows for security measures, that's the only justification for restricting interoperability at all. The "free of charge" for when it's allowed still stands.
Security is a really good reason to restrict access to the system from anything other than installed software.
My best guess is that you are either confused as to what "installed" means, or you want the DMA to be more than it can be, and are so angry that Apple is flaunting its limitations that you aren't thinking rationally.
If you want to make a complaint that access to the system services are supposed to be free of charge but aren't, the EC is just going to throw your complaint in the trash. If you want to make a complaint that the Core Technology Fee is an unfair general access condition, you might actually get somewhere :)
It really bothers me that so much of this is focused on the developers, and that is the problem here. How many users actually want this? I am sure some, but I doubt it is a significant number.
I have said this before here, but I am not looking forward to when this likely eventually comes to the US and as a user I have less control over my phone, not more.
The walled garden is why I chose an iPhone and continue to stay with the ecosystem. Not being at the mercy of dark patterns that many website still employ when trying to cancel subscriptions or just not reminding me of a yearly subscription about to charge.
Apps having no choice but to get money from me by going through the App Store is a benefit to me as a User. Developers I also hope quickly realize that if they try to push me to subscribe outside of the App Store they will get $0 from me instead of 70%.
I continue to be worried about the Facebook's and similar companies (we already know Epic is doing it) forcing users outside of the App Store.
> so much of this is focused on the developers, and that is the problem here. How many users actually want this?
How many users actually understand the issues at stake, though? I don't say that to be patronizing but it's a nuanced, thorny problem. I bet if you simply asked "do you think it should be allowed to download porn apps?" a good number of users (if asked anonymously!) would say yes. How many users understand why they can't subscribe to Netflix through the iOS app? How many know what Apple's cut even is? The government has all kinds of regulation in what my utility providers can and can't do, in ways I'm not fully clued into. I see this as similar.
> I have less control over my phone, not more.
> Developers I also hope quickly realize that if they try to push me to subscribe outside of the App Store they will get $0 from me instead of 70%.
To my mind all of this comes back to the free market: you're free to ignore all this stuff and keep getting everything through the App Store. If you and many others do the same thing then the market will prove the idea to be a dud.
> How many users actually understand the issues at stake, though? I don't say that to be patronizing but it's a nuanced, thorny problem. I bet if you simply asked "do you think it should be allowed to download porn apps?" a good number of users (if asked anonymously!) would say yes. How many users understand why they can't subscribe to Netflix through the iOS app? How many know what Apple's cut even is?
The iPhone isn't a new platform though. I feel like people well understand what they can and cannot download through the App Store by this point.
While I do completely agree that Apple needs to loosen the control on things like porn apps, that is a different issue.
As far as Netflix, that is ultimately Netflix choice. They could allow you to subscribe through the App Store if they really wanted.
As far as Apple's cut. I mean I don't ask my grocery store what their cut is, or target, or any other store. I don't ask what Steam's cut is, or Xbox, or Playstation, even though all 3 of those are similar cuts. As a user, that number really doesn't mean anything to me.
> To my mind all of this comes back to the free market: you're free to ignore all this stuff and keep getting everything through the App Store. If you and many others do the same thing then the market will prove the idea to be a dud.
That is the problem, how free am I really to ignore it if the only way to get by budget app or whatever other app that I have come to rely on is suddenly a different store or they just don't want me to subscribe through the App Store anymore.
This isn't hypothetical, if I want to play Fortnite I will have to get the epic game store when that comes out. Is that really a choice for me? Instead of being able to choose if I want to play Fortnite or not, I instead am choosing if I care enough to download an alliterative store. Why is that ok? Instead Epic is making the choice for me, and it is up to me to decide if I care enough.
And then it becomes normalized and just accepted because most users who don't understand the risks of alternative stores, just go with it.
>I mean I don't ask my grocery store what their cut is, or target, or any other store
It's 1-3% for your grocery store. Compare that to Apple's 30% and maybe you'll wonder why you didn't ask your grocery store sooner, especially if it's a local grocer with an owner and workers you might even personally interact with because they're all scraping by splitting that 1-3% while listening to you defending Apple's 30% cut.
If Apple is so reasonable here, why not offer to pay 27% more to your grocer and their workers so they can get in on some of this reasonable 30% cut you so adamantly support. Nah, eff them, right? The real human beings bringing you literal sustenance for life for a 2% markup. They'll be totally fine, right? But multi-trillion dollar mega-corporations facing some downward pressure on their 30% cut, the big man's gotta draw the line at that. At least people know where your head's at.
I swear y'all really like putting words in my mouth. I am not advocating for the 30%, no where am I saying that. I am saying that as the consumer it is not part of my concern.
Just like if I go and buy frozen fries at the grocery store I don't care how much they spent buying the potatoes. That is all the business deals that largely as a consumer is irrelevant to me.
However since you missed the entire line, it is worth mentioning that Steam also takes 30% cut from developers and I believe Microsoft and PlayStation are the same (likely Nintendo but I don't know).
steam takes a 30% cut but valve isnt strongarming every game dev on PCs to use their store, they can go to alternate places or even just do it themselves directly. the playstation, xbox and switch are also problematic for the same reason the iphone is. i think all 3 of them should be forced open too, and i think they will be shortly after apple is
> if I want to play Fortnite I will have to get the epic game store when that comes out. Is that really a choice for me?
Yes? So far Apple hasn't had any trouble making that choice for you, letting Epic offer another option is not equivalent to taking away choices. You might as well be complaining that Epic or Apple's EULA is limiting your decision. It's a you problem.
Epic was the one that made choices that pushed apple to remove Fortnite.
Let's not twist history and say that Apple just suddenly chose to remove Fortnite. Epic made certain choices likely knowing what the outcome would be.
Epic is the one that is removing my choice to play Fortnite through the App Store if I choose. If I want to play Fortnite on my iPhone I will have no choice but to use the store.
So I have the choice I want to make "Do I want to play Fortnite" and then the choice I am forced to make by the developers "Do I want to download the Epic store".
I'm surprised that the iPhone is over 10 years old now and you still think all software is obligated to get distributed via the App Store. If you only download software from the App Store, that's your choice - the world does not revolve around you or Apple's decisions though.
Look on Mac - you don't have a choice if you want to play Java Minecraft through the App Store. If you don't sideload, that "choice" has already been made for you. And it's certainly not because Mojang is going out of their way to spite Apple fans. Specifically, professionals avoid the App Store because it has been a bad deal on every platform it's appeared.
You want your choice? Your choice is to not use that software at all, and find an alternative. That's what you decide when you die by the sword of a third-party's whims.
> Epic is the one that is removing my choice to play Fortnite through the App Store if I choose
Yes and no. I get what you’re saying. But Apple demanding a 30% cut is just as much of a reason for your choice being removed. If they didn’t demand that then Epic wouldn’t have done anything.
Neither party is innocent here, they’re both multinational tech giants fighting over our money.
> Neither party is innocent here, they’re both multinational tech giants fighting over our money.
That is true, people seem to think that just because in this particular case I prefer the way that Apple is doing this as a user it means that I necessarily agree with everything that Apple is doing or that they are saints or whatever.
My problem here is that so much of this is focused on Developer choice, but no one is talking about user choice. Or developer somehow twist this into a thing that users care at all about. When most really don't.
Is Apple's cut high? Sure. But it is lines up with the rest of the game industry with Steam, Consoles, etc.
There is an important part of this that I feel like developers are missing, I feel like they think that every user will just go over and give them the same amount of money where for me I will just not give them my money.
Which I fully realize I have the choice to do that and not give them money. And that is great. But That still means I cannot make the choice to use something I want without also being forced to make a decision that I don't want to make (use an alternative store).
I fully realize that I am not being forced to download Fortnite. But my concern is that as this becomes more and more normalized that the idea that I could only get my budgeting app, instagram, banking apps, or whatever other thing that I am used to using now only outside of the App Store becomes a reality. And again this isn hypothetical, look at Epic with Fortnite. Apps like Fortnite, Facebook, and others will be the gateway app that normalizes other apps not shipping through the App Store. Since they will already be on your phone.
Hopefully, it will motivate Apple to make the App Store more competitive. The existence of third-party options will really make them work to make that 30% fee look attractive.
On the PC gaming side, Valve regularly gets developers to abandon their own storefronts and pay their fee instead. Valve has huge market penetration, offers App Store-like services and has invested in a truly feature-complete platform. Because they have all this, publishers like EA and Ubisoft almost have no choice if they want to compete. Their own storefronts completely failed, despite continued investment and even the occasional attractive deal/title.
I really do hope Apple is afraid of these consequences. They will be forced to differentiate themselves in more meaningful ways, and move past their obsession with service revenue and distribution control. If users are able to get a better experience by avoiding the App Store, I'd say that's Mission Success for the DMA.
> Which I fully realize I have the choice to do that and not give them money. And that is great. But That still means I cannot make the choice to use something I want without also being forced to make a decision that I don't want to make (use an alternative store).
Can you not see how you're being unfair here? You're saying you would not buy something not distributed through the App Store which is fine and a valid choice but on top of that you want others who've made a different choice to be forced to distribute their work through the App Store and give up 15-30% of every transaction to Apple. Would you agree to pay that markup for having that choice?
I am advocating for the choice of the User. My first sentence in my original post. To me that is all that matters, I frankly don't care what the developer may or may not be forced to do if it comes at potential harm to the User.
A developer choosing to only put their app on another store, regardless of the reason, is removing a choice from the User.
Is 30% high, sure. But I also don't fully buy it being the end of the world considering it is the same cut that Steam, Xbox, and Playstation take.
But you aren’t, though. You’re advocating for a user to be able to download their app of choice through the App Store. But in advocating for that you’re advocating against the user having choice of which App Store they use.
But people, like myself, bought an iPhone knowing about the App Store and the restrictions it has. If I wanted a more open platform I could have gotten an Android phone.
Those restrictions do not harm me.
What would harm me is apps suddenly not being available through the App Store because developers are the one that choose to distribute on another store.
Which again is not a hypothetical concern when you look at Fortnite.
That isn't giving me more choice, that is giving the developer a choice and I just have to choose if I want to follow along or not if I want to use a specific app.
Would it be great if I really did have that choice and every app was still available on the App Store and I could use Apple's billing if I want. Yes! And if that was the case I would not care at all. But it's clearly not going to be that case for at least one app and possibly others if it becomes normalized.
The most likely reality is that it will be a developers choice not the users, if an App Store from Facebook or Epic become big enough why would they force themselves to play by Apple's rules?
I feel like I just watched you go through every stage of grief. Yes, there is no perfect solution - that's the nature of authoring solutions in the first place.
The status-quo is not perfect either though, and some might say it's imperfections are expressly anticompetitive. The existence of nice features like free long-distance calls on Bell telephones is not an argument against fundamental infrastructure problems. You're making a rallying-cry that avoids even accepting the EU's criticism on it's merits.
> But it's clearly not going to be that case for at least one app and possibly others if it becomes normalized.
I don't know which planet you live on, but that has never been a thing. Your payments aren't all routed through Apple unless you sustain yourself off Genshin Impact draws somehow. You buy food, you pay rent, you pay taxes and exist in a non-Apple world and non-Apple context. Not exclusively relying on Apple to aggregate your payments is the norm, you're steelmanning a nonexistent lifestyle.
You can keep repeating the "I could have gotten an Android" line until your face turns blue, but the DMA is not about enabling Android phones to run iOS apps. It's about directly addressing Apple's internal market neglect, and their refusal to compromise on a clearly-anticompetitive distribution scheme. Every single defense that does not mention how it directly relates to distributing iOS apps is a strawman that is unrelated to the text and intent of Europe's DMA.
> I don't know which planet you live on, but that has never been a thing. Your payments aren't all routed through Apple unless you sustain yourself off Genshin Impact draws somehow.
I... never claimed it was? I am talking about my iPhone. That's all... I never even claimed that all software I bought were through iOS.
I buy games through Steam, Xbox and Playstation fairly regularly.
I feel like you are trying to somehow catch me in not understanding what I am saying or something, but bringing up food makes zero sense.
To be clear, I accept what the EU is criticizing. However I will once again ask why the focus is on the developers so much, and not the users. That is my problem here, developers cried and now we got something that users were not asking for.
> Every single defense that does not mention how it directly relates to distributing iOS apps is a strawman that is unrelated to the text and intent of Europe's DMA.
That is not true, because the how something is distributed also includes the rules and restrictions put in place by the place that is doing the distribution.
We have to be able to analyze the repercussions of other stores and not just diminish them to "well it's a different server" as you seem to want to do. When in is far more than that.
The fact remains, you could have gotten an Android phone. If as a user I wanted a more open platform, I could have gone that route. But I didn't. I chose to get an iPhone due to the restrictions put on developers by the App Store.
The vast majority of the complaints are from developers, and I frankly don't see why they are the ones that somehow get to determine that a reason I bought my device is no longer valid. Apple has that privilege because again, I bought my device for that reason.
So yeah, is the status-quo perfect right now? No, never claimed it was. Is it better than developers having all of the power and choice and I have to just follow along with their decisions with the illusion of choice of downloading other stores. 100%
> However I will once again ask why the focus is on the developers so much, and not the users.
Because users don't create an anticompetitive system. Users buy things, they are ostensibly the customers that the market protects. It's akin to asking why Boeing is being lowlighted by the government while passengers are still buying 737 tickets. There is no correlation between the righteousness of a business and the desire for customers to patronize them.
> I... never claimed it was? I am talking about my iPhone.
Even on iPhone, nobody I know is refusing to buy Amazon Prime or Netflix because it goes through the browser. It might be a legitimate complaint, but it feels entirely tangential to how Apple chooses to implement their payment API.
> The fact remains, you could have gotten an Android phone.
Sure could - and the fact remains, it would have nothing to do with the regulation of the digital markets therein.
> Is it better than developers having all of the power and choice
There is literally not a single platform, even Linux, that exists with such a security model. Your hyperbolic misrepresentation of the situation is why I can so confidently and repeatedly say that you're wrong.
Obviously, iOS does not give developers "all of the power and choice" by forcing Apple to comply with the DMA. Apple still gets to choose whether they participate in the market, as well as how they implement compliant features. They can ship iPhones that default without sideloading features, and craft their user-experience however they see fit. The only caveat is that there has to be room for fair competition at the software level, or they can't operate in Europe. If that's equivalent to surrendering to developers, then it's proof that Apple was never competitive in the first place.
> So I have the choice I want to make "Do I want to play Fortnite" and then the choice I am forced to make by the developers "Do I want to download the Epic store".
> That is removing choice from me.
Would you mind elaborating on this? Which choice do you have today regarding Fortnite on iOS that would be removed if Epic had its own iOS store?
>This isn't hypothetical, if I want to play Fortnite I will have to get the epic game store when that comes out. Is that really a choice for me? Instead of being able to choose if I want to play Fortnite or not, I instead am choosing if I care enough to download an alliterative store. Why is that ok? Instead Epic is making the choice for me, and it is up to me to decide if I care enough.
NO. Apple made the choice to push Epic out of the App Store by force or by cost of rent. Apple makes all the choices here and you're trying to shift blame. Had Apple a 3% fee, Fortnite would be in Apple's App Store but Apple made the choice to charge 30% and refuse sideloading. That's on Apple not Epic but you can't see past your Apple blinders to get the fundamental issue here that Apple controlled everything and the EU is trying to fix some of that. Apple is both the original sin and the ongoing sin here and everyone else is literally the victim, in higher prices and fewer choices-- BECAUSE OF APPLE, not Epic and not the EU.
Except that the free market has already shown that users prefer the walled garden, because they keep buying iPhones. If you don't like the App Store limitation, then you're free to go buy an Android.
Yes, and I think that the benefits gained by the walled garden are a big part of the iPhone's popularity. It's simple, it works, the scams are kept to a minimum, and it's a consistent, well-integrated experience. Those are all true of iPhones because of the walled garden; Android can't boast any of that.
99% of Android users never install an app from outside the app store either, Apple just does a better job filtering scams etc. out of their app store. If Google did a better job of curation it would be a comparable experience for the overwhelming majority of users.
The ability to install 3rd party apps has effectively zero effect on how well Apple curates their official app store.
All you're actually describing is that there's way less pressure for apps on the Google side to be as high quality as the Apple stuff. (Given the existence of the store alternatives, even if Google did enforce higher quality, those apps have plenty of other options to get on user's phones.) And that's kinda par for the course for the level of marketing-savvy that Google exhibits.
> The ability to install 3rd party apps has effectively zero effect on how well Apple curates their official app store.
You're missing the forest for the trees. Apple offers a curated environment largely through the curation of the app store. That curated environment is massively valuable to the average user. That's the asset Apple is trying to protect.
> You're missing the forest for the trees. Apple offers a curated environment largely through the curation of the app store. That curated environment is massively valuable to the average user. That's the asset Apple is trying to protect.
I am a big proponent of curation and one of the reason I'm an apple user is the high number of quality apps on the platform. But after encountering the apple publication process, it definitely feels like censorship and the lack of other options, even for applications I wrote, is stifling. I think it's better to encourage computer literacy than pretend that the outside world just does not exist (especially when there are so many scamming schemes on the app store).
Yeah, but Apple isn't hurting for devs or apps. It sucks for us trying to make apps, but that's our problem and it's not the actual principle being argued here. I do think it's telling though, that our motivation for opening up the app store is orthoganal to the justification being supplied.
The consistent well integrated experience is mainly from apple controlling the entire technology stack, rather than the App Store being closed. People buy macs for the same reason but they aren’t walled gardens.
You are free to think what you like but absent evidence, it's just more claim chowder.
My claim chowder: I have never once in my life heard an iPhone user say to me "I'm sure glad I can't turn on a buried setting and install apps from the web like Android users" or anything remotely like that, young or old.
I have heard a bunch of kids on this forum with trumped up claims about poor senior citizens uncle or granny who can't be trusted with this because they'll be socially engineered into digging into their iOS settings, flipping switches with scary warnings, then visiting a random scary website and downloading a package, and then agreeing through install dialogs all to get an app on their phone so the crook can steal their bank info.
The truth is, to anyone whose thought about it for more than a minute, that same scammer will literally just call up such an exceedingly naive person on the phone part of that smartphone and ask tech illiterate grandpa directly for his bank credentials and a claim that the crook's from the bank will work far more often than getting the old man to operate his smartphone in such a sophisticated and confusing way to get that malware installed. And he's not gonna find that setting and accidentally stumble through all the warnings unless he's being socially engineered so the whole idea is a silly edge case.
More anecdata: I've played with my parents' Android phones every couple years when visiting them over the last 12 or 13 years, they were born in 1945, and their phones are always in better shape than mine, with fewer apps installed, and a more organized set of app launchers than I have. And neither has enable a third party app store despite my making them fully aware of the possibility on several occasions. This infantalizing of old people is a tired trope that gets dragged out far too often on HN. The people born before every office worker in the country had a computer, they're all dead. The Boomers hitting 80 years old today, they were working on Windows 7 before retiring. Blaming them for your resistance to change is silly and sad. That Boomer's parents, if they're still alive at about 100 (my grandma made it that long) those people had Windows too, it was Windows 3.1 but they know what "installing" something means because guess what, you could install programs on Windows 3.1 and you had to do it without the safety of an app store or even basic sandboxing. Enough with the "think of the seniors" trope, it's far worse than "think of the children" who haven't lived through computers for many many decades yet.
Here's the thing - someone who is familiar with the process of figuring out what about a 'thing' represents the actual 'value to the user' (i.e. marketing) would find all this kinda self-evident.
> My claim chowder: I have never once in my life heard an iPhone user say to me "I'm sure glad I can't turn on a buried setting and install apps from the web like Android users" or anything remotely like that, young or old.
Of course they wouldn't say that - most people don't care enough.
> To my mind all of this comes back to the free market: you're free to ignore all this stuff and keep getting everything through the App Store. If you and many others do the same thing then the market will prove the idea to be a dud.
This only really creates no impact to users if Apple were to force all apps to also be listed in their App Store.
If, e.g., Facebook were to decide they don’t like existing App Store policies and start their own store and only list their apps there, for a large portion of people using Facebook’s store would effectively be a requirement (in many places WhatsApp is a requirement).
What happens when the app for some piece of hardware you bought is on a 3rd party store? You don’t have a choice there either. (Besides returning the hardware if you have the option.)
I’m with the GP here. I don’t own any other Apple hardware, but bought my phone (after a long line of Android hardware starting from the original ADP1) specifically to not have to deal with any of this. I don’t have the time and energy to deal with any of this anymore. I have paid a premium to have these choices taken away from me and the decisions made for me.
Sorry I’m ruining the world, but if people want a phone they can install arbitrary binaries on I really don’t understand why they can’t just go buy an Android. As you say, free markets… if this _actually_ mattered to people then Apple should take a hit in the market and either change their behavior or disappear entirely. Yet here we are.
> What happens when the app for some piece of hardware you bought is on a 3rd party store? You don’t have a choice there either. (Besides returning the hardware if you have the option.)
Surely that's more choice than if the app for some piece of hardware you bought is not on iOS at all because Apple refuses to approve it?
What happens when the app for some piece of hardware you bought is on a 3rd party store?
What happens if the app is only available for iOS? What happens when all your friends use iMessage and Facetime? Apple isn't saving us from platform lock-in; they're benefiting hugely from it.
I don’t own any other Apple hardware, but bought my phone (after a long line of Android hardware starting from the original ADP1) specifically to not have to deal with any of this. I don’t have the time and energy to deal with any of this anymore.
What is "this"? My Android phone works fine with zero maintenance, but when I occasionally want to do hacky things with it I can.
a question, is facebook on the google play store, which has the standard 30% cut? netflix? discord? just because the option is there doesnt mean every app is just going to up and leave, it just means they have a choice, and if apples curation is so great, the reputation of being on the app store will be a value add that may make it worth it to stay, even ignoring the fact that the app store is already just people's default way to find apps on their iphone.
The problem is that the less-tech-literate people don't recognize the dark patterns. I like iPhones because it means I don't have to worry about my parents' phones. I am not looking forward to the day when all their contacts and pictures are siphoned off because they downloaded the required "ebook reader" via the big download button on a random website.
While I understand and agree with your point, it's worth noting that things like SMS/OTP scams have already been around for years. Of course that doesn't justify making security weaker, but this isn't iOS going from super-strong to ultra-weak. It's realistically iOS going from a medium-weak to slightly-weaker.
Apps in the App store have to use a prompt to get confirmation that they are able to view and access certain things, like your photo library.
Breaking down the walled garden of the App Store would be moving in the direction of a world where the prompts/ requests for access that prevent (or reduce the odds of) data being taken/stolen is higher. If you can download a non-compliant app from any random website you might visit, you can bet your ass the 65+ population is going to end up downloading a bunch of malicious apps.
The prompt you're talking about is a part of the operating system's security and privacy model, this has nothing to do with the App Store or the DMA. The DMA is not requiring this to be changed.
> Well, no, they can’t. That’s the whole point of the DMA.
Yes, they can. And no that’s not the whole point of the DMA. You still need to have a valid Apple developer account and certificates managed through Apple.
i mean... the app is still going to have to ask the OS for permission to use those features, which will then pass the question on to the user like it always has won't it?
Eh. A rather large amount of Android malware convinces people to approve access to photos/contacts/files/etc. by pretending to have functionality they don't.
Apple rejects apps that ask for permission they don't need and apps that pretend to be what they aren't from the App Store.
There's a reason why malware is far more prevalent on Android than iPhone.
Android has 30x more users than than mac. It's a significantly more attractive target for criminals.
That said, malware is far more common on macs than it is iPhones, despite having a fraction of the users - and nearly all of it comes from people downloading apps from websites.
Not everyone who purchases a phone is the end user. If I'm buying a device for my organization or for a child, I might not want the device to enable that choice at runtime. I want to make the choice at the time of purchase.
Don't worry. Restricting what's allowed in a company owned iPhone already exists throughout MDM. And that won't change because it's not your device after all.
"Curated system", not curated apps. Words matter and I chose those for a reason. The "gotcha" you attempted just makes it clear that you have no idea why the walled garden creates an environment that is more attractive to the average user.
The point being that you can't have it both ways here.
You are the one who made the "just don't use it" argument, as applied to the iPhone.
If you can use that argument, then so can everyone else. We can equally say "Ok, just continue to only use the iPhone app store".
Its your argument. Either it applies or it doesn't.
If you want to say that your argument is bad, thats fine. But if you don't then the argument can be equally used against you.
I expect that you'll ignore this clear contradiction though and not address it like you just did in your comment, and if you do that I will take that as an agreement that your argument was bad and you just don't want to admit it, thus you avoid addressing the contradiction.
> You're missing the forest for the trees. Apple offers a curated environment largely through the curation of the app store. That curated environment is massively valuable to the average user. That's the asset Apple is trying to protect.
I've noticed this trend with a lot of my engineering / tech friends: really good at tech, but completely clueless in understanding the actual value to users that a tech thing provides. That's the distinction which makes this not-a-contradiction; but since you're probably mistaking the technology itself for the value it provides, that won't make sense.
> your original argument about "just go use an android" is equally wrong
Uh, no it's not? I'm sorry but you're not making sense. If users want more freedom, they can just use Android. Some users like the walled garden; they can choose Apple. If they want something else, Android is right there.
> Apple's market power and decisions
Is exactly how and why they managed to have a curated environment.
It seems like you have this idea in your head about what I mean, and I don't think it's accurate, and I don't think it's being updated. I'm not going to engage anymore; all you've done is attempt cheap shots, and miss.
> Is exactly how and why they managed to have a curated environment.
So in other words they have taken the users choice away using their market power! Glad you agree!
Either a user's choice is taken away in both situations, or it is neither situations.
> If users want more freedom, they can just use Android.
Actually they are unable to get the 30% discount from apps that only work on iPhone.
And now they will be! Now the user will be allowed to choose to get that 30% discount and Apple will not be able to take away a user's choice to buy the app on an alternative app store.
Did you read the comments I linked to? I put it pretty clearly there.
> Apple offers a curated environment largely through the curation of the app store. That curated environment is massively valuable to the average user. That's the asset Apple is trying to protect.
The user chooses to have an opinionated environment that protects them. If they don't want an opinionated environment, they can choose Android. The fact the environment is opinionated is what's valuable to the user, and what Apple is trying to protect.
Why? Giving the user the ability to install random apps from 3rd party stores opens up the protected ecosystem such that big players like facebook will absolutely take the opportunity to use 3rd party stores, and users will de facto have to use the 3rd party stores. Now the walls of the garden are torn down, and one of the huge values of the iPhone ecosystem has been destroyed.
Big win! Apple's been pulled down to the level of everyone else.
quick question, is facebook on the google play store? can you name 3 major apps that are apk install only? theres still way more friction to installing them than to just going and downloading them from the play store, so most apps are better off still maintaining a presence on the app store while possibly pushing and nudging people who want to install an apk to do so. the fact that the option is there doesnt mean you HAVE to use it, just like the fact that android exists doesnt mean you HAVE to buy it
The Google play store has no similar anti-tracking rules. Why? Well, partly because those rules would negatively impact Google, but also because Meta could credibly decide to move their apps off the play store and onto their own "Meta Store: The only place to get Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp".
If it was easy for Meta to set up their own store for iOS, they absolutely would because currently Apple kneecaps their ability to track and sell user data in ways that costs Meta REAL money.
Google does not exert the same kind of control over the play store, so Meta is quite happy to keep Facebook there.
So, as things stand (with a closed iOS ecosystem) I can use an Instagram app on my phone that's subject to a bunch of pro-consumer rules about tracking and data protection. If iOS allowed third party stores then I would almost certainly not be able to do that any more.
that's not an app store feature, that's an iOS feature. i agree, it's fantastic, it doesnt require apps be distributed via the app store to work, however, its a part of iOS having well designed permissions controls
No, that misunderstands things. The technical iOS features are a relatively small part of it (Yes, there's a user dialog you have to pop up to get an IDFA, that's great!). But apps COULD pretty trivially work around that. There are a million and one ways to fingerprint a user that don't rely on an IDFA and it's impossible to restrict that kind of activity through OS-level features alone (see: https://amiunique.org/ ).
So why don't apps just work around it? Because they have to agree to terms with Apple and SAY that they won't. And then Apple has the power to kick them off the store if they do it anyway.
In addition to that, they have to list what data they collect and what they do with it when they get it. Basically they have to make a bunch of pinky-promises. Some of those pinky-promises Apple just shows to the user as a list of "here's how this company is going to use your data". Other things are just forbidden outright.
Whether a company can collect and sell certain kinds of my data to a third party is not something that can ever be controlled through an OS level feature.
> the walled garden creates an environment that is more attractive to the average user.
Any studies confirming this, or is it just your opinion? In my experience, nobody who owns an iPhone knows about the walled garden (among non-tech people at least).
Market share is pretty easy to look up? iPhones are massively popular, and have the majority market share in the US.
> nobody who owns an iPhone knows about the walled garden
That's-a bingo! Exactly. Because it just works, because Apple has tight control over the pipeline. They don't need to know and it seems like tech people don't appreciate the degree to which a trustworthy, mostly-idiot-proof appliance is incredibly valuable to the average user. Choosing between stores and warnings about trojans in security apps are not things that most users care about or want to think about. iPhones are great because the user can have little idea what they're doing, and still be pretty sure they won't screw it up.
As I've said elsewhere, I run void linux on my personal thinkpads because I customize everything. But that's not for everyone.
People choose Apple due to the feeling of being secure, which has nothing to do with the walled garden, and probably actual security is harmed by it (see the fiasco with iMessage zero-clicks).
Another reason is that everything just works, which can be achieved on GNU/Linux, too: see laptops with preinstalled systems.
I agree. People with some experience in marketing - not the scammy kind, but the stuff where you learn to identify what is valuable to paying customers - can probably see the problem here. Apple has intentionally curated a walled garden, and people like it in there. I run void linux machines at home because I customize everything - but my phone is an iPhone because my previous Androids are a morass of unsynchronized semi-crap apps.
Now the people outside the walled garden want in, and they're tearing down the walls to do it, and they seem to be completely clueless that by doing so they'll destroy the very thing that makes it so desirable.
Apple's app store monopoly deprives users of the freedom to install apps that Apple disapproves of on their own devices. The benefit to users is that you can install apps that violate app store policies such as games about the US Civil War that feature the flag most commonly associated with the losing side of that war[0]. That's one of the more well known examples of Apple practicing censorship of their App Store.
The dark patterns such as making it extremely hard to cancel subscriptions or not reminding users that they're about to charge should be made illegal as deceptive billing practices.
The so-called "Confederate flag" that people recognize was never the actual flag of the Confederacy. It was actually just the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. The original flag of the Confederacy actually looks very similar to the American flag which is why their army used a different flag in the first place.
> The walled garden is why I chose an iPhone and continue to stay with the ecosystem.
I only chose an iPhone because I don't really like Android and there is nothing else. Only two different platforms is simply not enough choice, so you have to create choice within those platforms. While you like the walled garden I would like a native Firefox with the Firefox engine and uBlock Origin.
I find the situation is similar to right-to-work laws. If you find the walled-garden/closed-shop beneficial, you will not want it to be forcibly cracked open. Even though an individual can opt to remain with the App Store (or union), the influence of Apple (or the union) has diminished relative to the employer (or Facebook, Epic etc).
In the end, despite all the marketing, neither issue is about user or worker freedom. It's about which entity has more power.
I do often think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was huge for most people including developers. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app.
Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.
But we can't forget how beneficial the app store and the "walled" approach was.
I do agree with a lot of your points. Now there could be an aspect of predatory behavior by Apple in the way they charge developers etc, but that's where I feel the problem should be tackled.
If the iPhone walled garden app store approach is so bad, then why is it so successful?
> Now there could be an aspect of predatory behavior by Apple in the way they charge developers etc, but that's where I feel the problem should be tackled.
Right! Just because I agree with the core part of the App Store doesn't mean that it isn't without faults. But let's not rip up what is there completely to fix other issues, and just make things worse in the process.
We saw a similar conversation when Steam came out about Piracy of games.
Unless I am mistaken, there is nothing here that says a developer has to continue to also have their app on the App Store and allow purchasing through the App Store in addition to their own billing.
Meaning, no I actually won't be able to use my iPhone as I always did once this becomes normalized and accepted.
Please correct me if I am wrong about what the rule for this actually is.
The problem is your friend Apple locking up their subscription services behind fees that developers don't want to pay. And please don't tell me they need that money to run the service - a quick look at their profit numbers tells you the margin is significant.
Apple could fix this overnight and choose not to. Therefore they clearly don't care about their users, by your definitions.
Also: who do you think you are to tell developers how much money they're allowed to make? It's their right to decide whether they want to pay these platform fees or not.
And again we are back to the developers and not the users, thank you for proving my initial point here.
I am the user that doesn't want to be taken advantage of by developers who choose to engage in dark patterns.
I frankly don't care how much of a cut Apple takes from payments. Just like I don't care about how much my grocery store uncharges, I don't care what Steam, Xbox, Playstation, or any other marketplace charges.
That isn't on me as the User. I want an experience that I am not at the mercy of developers who have been known to employ dark patterns. This isn't a theoretical thing, it is very much a thing.
That is my problem here. This is NOT about choice for users, this about choice for developers. Meaning my options are being removed from me...
> I frankly don't care how much of a cut Apple takes from payments.
Then you're being disingenuous. The root cause of the problem is Apple, not the developers. You can't just ignore it. The developers are behaving rationally within the rules controlled by Apple. I don't understand how you don't see this.
You keep repeating my problem with this and proving my point.
My problem is that all of the focus on this is on developers and not the users.
The key reason I bought my iPhone as a USER is because of the restrictions put in place on the App Store by Apple.
Do you see the difference?
I fully understand why Developers don't like these restrictions. I am saying I don't care because again, as the user those restrictions are a positive for me.
Many different users want many different things. In your case, Apple's incentives align with yours. In my case, I want to be able to install what I want on my +1000$ device.
Apple could make all of its users happy, and it decides not to.
> that is the developers choice not the users choice
users (should) have options, not choices.
as a user you can choose among the options provided to you.
the more the options, the better in general, sometimes it could be a little bit worse for a single user, but that's alright and honestly very rare to be charitable.
giving users the power to choose in every detail how the product should be developed and distributed will inevitably end up like this
the counter argument is that giving Apple all the power is not beneficial for users (userS, plural)
Imagine if Apple decided what music you can listen to or which website you can visit or what movies you can watch with their devices. Their mobile platform has two main actors: Apple, the owner of the distribution platform, and the developers, who create the products being distributed on such platform. Users are, as the name implies, users.
Your options will be: select the apps only from the App Store, select them from the App Store and the developer website and finally don't use an Apple device. Which is one option more than it was until now.
Such a weird take, complaining that a trillion dollar company might no longer be your personal guardian who gets to decide what you are allowed access to.
All you want is Apple to continue fucking over the people who build the software just so you aren't slightly inconvenienced. Bravo.
I would not call dark patterns that many developers take as a "slight inconvenience".
I agree with some of the restrictions on what is allowed on the App Store, like porn and browsers. But that is a different topic than having other app stores.
My concern here is billing, we know that developers will abuse this. They have done it and I have personally been in many meetings about user retention when they try to cancel.
Do you consider the usage of oligopolies optional? I could live the life of stallman, but this decision kills an amazing user experience for subscriptions.
The European commission has you covered on the oligopolies side.
It's not killing user experience at all, if the user want, they can use the App store, because few if any app will ever make a complete move away from the App store, it would cost them way too much. The only ones that could pull such a trick are DMA's “gatekeeper” apps and they are under scrutiny from the EC, so you're safe here.
(Well, Fortnite doesn't fall under DMA's 10 “gateway services” that deserve scrutiny from the DMA, but their alternative store will!)
It's obviously not the case. Not you, not anyone else.
You obviously aren't mad about how unsafe MacOs is because Apple doesn't restrict installation on it. And you shouldn't be mad that the iPhone walled garden is no more, you did not buy it for that reason.
It's somehow concerning that the company has so much grasp on your perception of reality that you are spitting out their propaganda like this.
Please don't tell me what is and is not the case for myself, I clearly said what is the case for me and maybe instead of trying to explain why I supposedly feel differently you actually ask why those platforms are different.
I use my iPhone and Mac very differently. All of the apps on my Mac were a single purchase, I don't need to worry about dark patterns there because I just own what I have.
The mobile market is inherently different, largely thanks to developers pushing alternative forms of ownership. Instead of being able to just buy it, most of the apps on my iPhone are subscription based. Meaning I am more at the mercy of dark patterns by the developers.
You said it, yes. That means that's what you now believe. Not that it's necessarily true.
> All of the apps on my Mac were a single purchase, I don't need to worry about dark patterns there because I just own what I have.
Are you using a firewall to block software updates? If not, you're still within reach of the developer and they can pull the rug under your feet.
> Meaning I am more at the mercy of dark patterns by the developers.
The developer cannot force you to move out if the apple app store in the first place! (Which is far from bulletproof when it comes to dark patterns anyway).
If you want to stay in the safe corner of the web, just keep buying through the Apple App store! Like almost everyone does with the Android playstore.
It is incredibly condescending that when I try to explain why I chose something that you try to tell me it isn't why I chose it.
It is also incredibly hypocritical that here we are complaining about being at the mercy of the choices that Apple makes and you are trying to tell me how I actually feel.
This boils down to the platforms being different. The way that many apps are monetized on Mac (and Windows) is different to how things are monetized on mobile devices.
So please stop telling me how I feel and why I made certain decisions. I think I know why I chose something and not you.
You know what's incredible? For years Apple fans on this forum have been making arguments about why they buy Apple stuff (“better UX”, “better hardware”, “better privacy”, “better performance ”, etc.), and all those years, none of you ever mentioned “I like being restricted” as a reason for their purchase.
Now fast forward a few years and Apple spinning tons of FUD about user security related to the app store monopoly and now a significant part of you guys are reusing the talking point. Definitely not what to expect from psyop, right?
I really whished people were talked in school how propaganda and psychological operations work, how to recognize them and how to defend themselves, like with practical exercise and all, it's becoming a critical survival skill in modern societies…
I'm not blaming you to succumb to this kind of things, smarter people did before and it's efficient enough to make people kill themselves “for the cause/the motherland”, but that's terrifying to see it in action coming from corporations.
> none of you ever mentioned “I like being restricted” as a reason for their purchase.
Here is the thing, I don't feel like I am being restricted. I never said the words I like being restricted. Want to know who is? The developers... the people pushing for this.
THAT is what I am talking about, please go re-read what I have written.
Which for the record I think is a good thing, we know many companies will take advantage of their users if given the option. And before you jump in "well apple is taking advantage of you", I bought their device knowing full well what our relationship was.
I even mentioned that I think Apple should open up the store on their restrictions on porn apps and things like that. But that is also a separate discussion.
The condescending attitude is making you read the wrong thing and it's frankly kinda tiring.
Edit:
And yes, people have talked about the restrictions put on developers on the App Store being a positive for Users... A lot over the years. Especially when it comes to billing.
I even mentioned that I think Apple should open up the store on their restrictions on porn apps and things like that. But that is also a separate discussion.
It's not a separate discussion. If Apple has total control over how you use your computing devices, things like that are the inevitable result.
And it's not just porn apps. Look at the web itself; it became popular because there were no restrictions on distributing browsers for Windows. If Microsoft had the power back then that you want Apple to have today, they would have blocked it and we'd likely be stuck in a Windows/MSN monopoly.
> Here is the thing, I don't feel like I am being restricted. I never said the words I like being restricted. Want to know who is? The developers... the people pushing for this.
You can spin it again and again, it won't change the facts: it's the user that are being restricted.
Sure it has the side effect of restricting the developers, because they can't reach the restricted user without Apple giving them access. But it's only a pretty recent side effect, when Apple decided to pivot their branding on “privacy”: before that Facebook and al. spent almost a decade harvesting user data for free on iPhone without any complaints from Apple.
Oh, and this is not just me making the argument: that's actually European Commission's argument too. And the fact is, EC won the case and Apple is caving.
And if you need some help grasping this fact, you can think about how the European regulation is not about freedom for European developers (targeting every user in the world) but about freedom for European users no matter where the developer comes from.
> Sure it has the side effect of restricting the developers, because they can't reach the restricted user without Apple giving them access. But it's only a pretty recent side effect, when Apple decided to pivot their branding on “privacy”: before that Facebook and al. spent almost a decade harvesting user data for free on iPhone without any complaints from Apple.
That is not a bad example. Should they have restricted it sooner? Yes. But that is an example of the restrictions being a positive for users.
> European regulation is not about freedom for European developers (targeting every user in the world) but about freedom for European users no matter where the developer comes from.
Honestly debatable, considering the biggest names in this are Spotify and Epic. Last I checked Spotify isn't a User. Most of the push for this seems to be pushed by developers who tried to spin this as "user choice" when its really "Developer choice".
> Honestly debatable, considering the biggest names in this are Spotify and Epic
Epic is an American company, which reinforce my point.
> Most of the push for this seems to be pushed by developers who tried to spin this as "user choice" when its really "Developer choice".
And no, it's not the medium-size business that are spinning things around, they have far less lobbying power than Apple and very very little leverage on the European Commission (compared to Apple that got away with a lightning cable exception on the Micro-USB mandate from the European commission a decade ago). Only this time Apple's lobbying wasn't enough, and European people will have access to pieces of software that Apple was forbidding for no good reason (web browsers for starter).
Back in 2014 or so when I was still a web developer, I can tell you that Safari stood literally zero chance against the competition, and that the very poor state of the iPhone's monopoly browser was actually harming customers.
At the end of the day, the developer will still have very little leverage on the user (they cannot realistically force the user to use a non-app store version of their app), and the user will be the only one making their choice to use apps that come from outside the Apple app store. It's only about user choice.
Repeating corporate lies many time doesn't make them true.
I’m bothered too. I’m looking forward to the first viral app distributed in an alternate App Store with a zero day that can infect iPhones that do not have that app or store installed. I bet Apple will be blamed somehow.
There’s a correlated relationship between open platforms and security but people in this thread seem to imply this has zero security implications.
I think most users don't care about the app store and would love a significant discount. Like if you have companies and users the choice people wouldn't willingly pay more for it
I don't think my parents are going to understand that they can navigate to a particular website on the mobile browser where they can download apps or perhaps for no different in price at all out of freedom.
They would say why can't I just download it on the app store.
You forget that is why a app store was introduced in the first place on the smartphone. To enable an easy centralised place for all apps and games.
The average/majority of the population were not going to navigate to shitty mobile websites or desktop websites on their mobile browser to download apps in 2008.
See, that's the cool thing about open markets: if companies start losing money because their customers prefer the walled garden, they will go back to it.
You could open your eyes and look at reality and not imagined universe.
Facebook apps are still on Android store, Facebook users do not install the application from some shady store. The issue is that Apple is a greedy bitch, they do not allow the developers to put a text on theier app that would inform the USER that they have a CHOICE to purchase a book/DLC/music from a website.
See above I bolded for you that Apple is removing choices from the user.
So can you find other real example, since this one is invalid because of Epic lawsuit. All Apple fans name Facebook so please show us the Facebook example or maybe shut up about Facebook and use a real example not imagined ones.
Fortnite also is not on the most popular store on PC so it is not just about their lawsuit. They want to run a store on all platforms and have said they will be launching an Epic game store on iOS. So I don't understand why they are invalid.
But that is a clear example, they are not on the official store for iOS or Android (which also is not part of Epic's lawsuit).
As far as Facebook goes, I don't think anyone is claiming that Facebook will in fact do it so maybe tone it down a bit. But Facebook is an example of a company that has enough of a user base that they could try to convince users to download a store and likely many would since they are addicted to social media and they own Instagram.
TikTok likely could. Microsoft would be stupid to not be looking into it. Steam could be looking into it.
None of those are concrete and to my knowledge none of them have signaled that they would. But those are companies that have enough of a name and a product that they could likely very easily get users to download the App Store which turns into a gateway for others to use their store instead of the Apple App Store since it is is now on their phone.
Regardless of all of those companies, there is zero reason to discount the fact that Epic is doing this on iOS. They skip the Android Play Store and they are doing it on PC. Fortnite has a ton of market power.
Edit: Also Facebook very much has an incentive to explore this option. Not only would it be another revenue source (and maybe they could somehow tie it into their VR/AR stuff) but they have been vocal about their issues with Apple in the past.
That has absolutely nothing to do with their Lawsuit with Apple. They are also not on Steam. That has absolutely nothing to do with their lawsuit with Apple.
So no, them being on iOS is not only because of the lawsuit with Apple.
What does Minecraft have to do with anything? Yes I know they are owned by Microsoft but that is a weird example. While the OG is not on Steam, Legends is.
So... Fortnite is a real example that is happening on Android, right now!
They have already said they are going to do exactly this with iOS.
> or has or wants a Store.
That... doesn't disqualify anyone since that's the entire point. If they don't want a store, then obviously concern about them making a store and not being on the Apple App Store is a non issue.
It's on Android, but they meant that it's not on the Play store. They brought Fortnite up as an example of a popular app not available through the Play store. They don't want this to happen to iPhone apps in the future; they'd prefer either that the app is on the Apple app store, or it isn't distributed at all.
Yeah that was my bad, I meant the play store which is why I linked too that.
That is why I brought it up as an example, it is a major app that is ditching the play store on Android just like they have announced they will be doing for iOS.
This is still not good enough because as Apple demonstrated last week, they can capriciously remove access for any developer at any time for any reason at all. They need to be removed completely from the code signing and publishing process altogether.
Apple keeps a strong control nevertheless, as detailed in the page "Getting ready for Web Distribution in the EU."
> Apps offered through Web Distribution must meet Notarization requirements to protect platform integrity, like all iOS apps, and can only be installed from a website domain that the developer has registered in App Store Connect.
Further, the conditions for eligibility seem to block access to new startups and indie developers.
> To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must: (...) Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
An interesting perspective, makes it surprisingly fair play and totally crippling to third parties at the same time.
I guess the outcome will be that outside some completely irrelevant oddballs there will just be one or two entities like Epic serving the intersection of non-casual gamers and people who consider the iPhone a gaming platform and they won't pull much market away from Apple, but serve as a limiter to how much Apple can abuse their platform rule. It will look like a failure, but only because some of the limiting effect on platform abuse will also bleed into makets not directly affected by EU rules.
> One million free first annual installs. Membership in the Apple Developer Program includes one million first annual installs per year for free for apps distributed from the App Store and/or alternative marketplaces.
> Developers of alternative app marketplaces will pay the Core Technology Fee for every first annual install of their app marketplace, including installs that occur before one million.
The terms and conditions for web distribution [0] are concerning to say the least. In short, you have to have at least one million first installs annually on iOS to even qualify, in addition to other terms such as "good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more". I doubt Epic and the like would be considered in good standing as far as Apple is concerned. Also, quote unquote, developers will pay a core technology fee of €0.50 for each first annual install over one million in the past 12 months.
I don't see this ending well for Apple in any measure. It seems they think the EU lawmakers will just go away if they stick their fingers in their ears hard enough, but that's not how the EU works. The gears of EU turn slowly, but grind finely.
This can't be repeated often enough. App Store revenue (part of Services segment) is a key growth driver and Apple will drag this out for as long as they can.
I think it's inevitable iPhone 16 prices will increase in EU starting later this year. Arguably similar to Valve's Steam Deck, iPhone prices are subsidized by the apps revenue. Apple is going to try preserve their profit margins one way or another.
Exactly what Apple now provides. Hand-reviewed apps. Trust, quality, safety, integrated in-app payments, etc.
The problem is that there's no opt-out, no one can (even try to) offer (real) alternatives, and thus it's impossible to judge the App Store's value proposition on its actual merits, and in the end consumers cannot vote with their wallets, there's no realistic way from the status quo (of Apple simply extracting economic rent) to a competitive market of stores.
Increasing prices in response to this is irrational. Prices are a function of what people are prepared to pay.
If people are prepared to pay more for an iPhone then Apple should have already increased prices, and if they are not then increasing prices will make less money.
It's a function of what people are willing to pay and what suppliers are willing to sell for. So I think the price will go up a little bit, but probably not much.
I mean, "unlocked" iPhones can be worth more money than regular ones, at least in theory. In practice, Apple can probably raise prices by 50% even if they would release the same phone just with an incremented number and people will still buy their stuff.
I’m not sure the DMA works like that. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I understand the DMA applies to Apple’s operations in the EU, not devices that are sold in the EU. If you buy a “locked” iPhone outside the EU and bring it to the EU and set it up in the EU, I believe that Apple still has to comply with the DMA for that device because all of Apple’s services are still operating in the EU. So Apple wouldn’t be able to charge a premium for “unlocked” devices.
>You don't give up the golden goose. You defend it.
Meanwhile, Android has dozens of stores and Google Play keeps the lion's share because it's built into almost every phone, has most of the apps anyway, and google's own safety assurances built-in. Google has gotten dinged but for much more insidious stuff behind the scenes, which still amounts to a few large publishers out of hundreds.
It's just paranoia at this point. Most of the market is captured, and any part Apple couldn't capture after 15 years (say, maybe premium games) is one they probably weren't every going to capture anyway. This is being worried about a crack in the brick wall while 99.999% of devs will just keep entering the front door like normal people. And most of the remaining people bypassing apple will just throw a brick at the door instead of meticulously exploit said crack.
That's a bit of an exaggeration financially. I think Apple is afraid 100% of their market cap depends on the App Store, just not so directly.
Phones are "done". Geese don't live forever.
Switching away is hard. In the not too distant future a $99 no brand phone will be equivalent to the iPhone experience for 80% of use cases, modulo the camera.
If apps are just web apps and run on whatever hardware, Apple will need to come up with something new. Maybe the goose was really named Steve.
> In the not too distant future a $99 no brand phone will be equivalent to the iPhone experience for 80% of use cases, modulo the camera
I'm not so sure, for the same reason people still buy MacBooks when cheap Windows laptops are available, and luxury cars when there is no shortage of lightly used Kias.
Laptops and cars have been around substantially longer than smartphones, but it's still very easy to see the difference between cheap and expensive. While technically yes all of them do "the same thing", people are willing to pay for premium, and I suspect (due to relative affordability if nothing else) that the market of people able and willing to pay for a nicer phone is and will remain quite large.
There's a very nice premium in execution. (And vertical integration.) For example their laptops are selling like hot cakes ... because they are seen as better made then the competition by consumers. (Sure, it seems the (premium?) laptop market finally getting some competition thanks to Framework/StarLabs/etc.)
Obviously the same is true of the iPhone. And software is a big part of it. (I don't want to deal with Dell and Windows. And Asahi is getting better day-by-day.) And hardware too. (M1, M2, M3, etc.. and the A series chips allow their devices to really shine with the big battery, etc.)
And ... while I don't like the actual UX of Apple-land, I don't like it either that Google with all their PhDs and big brain still cannot fucking solve the jankyness.
Yes, they will hopefully be forced to give up the free money rent from the walled garden, and hopefully it will encourage them to invest in being a good platform, invest in software, win/keep market share on merits instead of by decree.
That’s why I hope they compete hard in the AI-in-your-pocket space. Seems like they got the hardware talent to make that happen (software-wise I’m not so sure, but at least it sounds like they focus a bit more on that now the car project is dead). I want Apple to win by selling expensive devices, not by collecting 30% fee on minors gambling for loot boxes.
IPhone is a status symbol. Why people buy designer purses or designer clothes. Someone people will look down on you if you text messages show up green on their phone.
Also IPhone still has more revenue opportunity. AI assistant is the next one. Chat GPT has proven people are willing to spend $20 a month on AI that doesn't even hook up to your email, calendar, or files.
Maybe for some but not for everyone.
In the past you could trust that your phone works 7 years instead of 2 years by having software updates. It also is very stable on software side.
I have saved so much money by buying iPhone and using it for more than 5 years.
> Chat GPT has proven people are willing to spend $20 a month on AI that doesn't even hook up to your email, calendar, or files.
The biggest benefit for paying is the large rate limit and the best accuracy on the market. Copilot is useless with 30 responds per day.
I think if you surround yourself with children it becomes difficult to hear the adults. It's too easy to drop a hot take and then dip out of the conversation, retreating back to safety, and never develop the tools needed for critical thinking or self-reflection.
You'll never have a chance to understand how the everyday people who aren't edgy internet pals see you, or why, or what that means for your life.
I mean your statement boils down to "is it possible for evil to do good" and I think the general consensus after a few thousand years of thought is "not really".
Initially I approached this concept as "can good do evil?" but after some reflection I think we have a series of choices and what we do in the moment is the only thing that matters. Good is only good if it does good.
If you want to tie religion into the issue, ask yourself "Is it possible to do evil in the name of good?"
Maybe? I wouldn't say there was any straw man argument here honestly. More just that they misunderstand issues regarding climate change. They think that people are saying that climate change is causing deforestation, and arguing against that. That's pretty easy to confuse with what people are actually trying to raise awareness of, which is that deforestation is leading to climate change (those same plants that thrive off the additional CO2 in the atmosphere can't do so if the additional CO2 in the atmosphere is there because they're already dead before they can take it out of the atmosphere).
Yes, plants grows massively faster with higher CO2, plants has been CO2 starved for millions of years now but add it in labs and you can see plants growing more than 100% faster.
Probably the reason we see less mineral density in crops today, CO2 levels has risen so they grow faster but mineral supply is the same. So probably not very beneficial, we aren't lacking in plant calories as is.
Note: Deforestation continues at a record pace in tropical areas, which leads to less trees and plants to consume the CO2. The exact parts of the planet that should be thriving is being turned into cattle pastures.
The other big sink for CO2 is the ocean, which does not thrive on CO2. CO2 in water turns the water more acidic, which affects the base of the food chain.
There's no propaganda that suggests that plants don't thrive in CO2.
This isn't "Woke Mind Virus", it's just Corporate Pandering. Apple has a huge PR problem with their factories in China, and they've determined that it's cheaper to "Be Green" than to fix their supply chain or move manufacturing back to the US. Their moves towards being green aren't "Bad", but they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't have to create PR to paper over the things they're doing that are actually Bad.
And this is just the iceberg for the beginning of conversation.
No one cares to watch the experts presented that aren't on the "CO2 is evil" bandwagon, nor then actually spending the time to counter their many arguments of these complex issues.
I don't understand yet why no one has created a "Wikipedia" for various organizations to list and offer their counter-argument for the 1000s of different talking points, so then everyone can view them in a matrix/table format - not only for the climate issue and climate alarmism, but for other complex issues such as the Israel-Palestine "conflict".
P.S. There's no life in the ocean that grows from CO2, and that then fish et al eat?
"Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton consume carbon dioxide on a scale equivalent to forests and other land plants."
"There are a billion billion billion phytoplankton in the world's oceans—more than there are stars in the sky. Phytoplankton are hugely diverse, with likely 100 thousand different species."
"We urge all EU citizens with Apple devices to have an alternate means of accessing critical internet services like banking, to protect themselves in the event we are forced to block all Apple services EU-wide for legal non-compliance."
... then watch AAPL stock drop below NVDA ...
... and Apple come crawling back, suitably obedient.
Ironically, the iOS banking apps I use are particularly finicky about only running on customer installs without developer capabilities enabled. I very much doubt that banks would queue up to install from web sites etc.
How's that relevant? It's their second largest market for iPhone sales, representing around 25% of total units sold. If, as the parent comment suggested, the EU intervened and somehow banned Apple's services in the EU until they started complying with the law, new iPhones sales would effectively drop to 0.
If all App Store sells stopped in the EU, it would be 7% of their App Store revenue which is only part of their services revenue which is only 1/5 of their overall revenue.
EU is Apple’s third largest market. The largest market ping pongs between China and the Americans
Why do you keep talking about their app store revenue? IF the EU applied pressure on Apple by blocking their services, both app store and iPhone sales would disappear overnight. Nobody is going to buy an iPhone that doesn't work.
It is, but all regulation is market manipulation (like, literally. It forces the market equivalent away from the free market). We have decided it's ok to vest that power in governments.
In other words, you're only "eligible" for web distribution if you meet the threshold to pay the Core Technology Fee tax? (on top of the other requirements). Sounds convenient.
Charging per install rather than per subscription is hilarious, almost as if all of this is designed to wind up the EU and cause the largest possible fine.
That really doesn't change their point. It's only slightly less ridiculous, but still completely unworkable and obviously against the spirit of the regulation.
I say spirit of the regulation because I'm not a lawyer and don't want to make absolute claims about the law as written, and I trust the EU to close any loopholes that may arise.
Before the iPhone, because I never liked the Mac UI with the bar at the top and the apps menu over there and I didn't need an iPod.
After the iPhone, a personal boycott because of the walled garden. It was not immediately clear what the endgame would be but it was pretty clear that this level of control by a single corporation on a large part of the world is a bad thing.
Some of them do! Go check out a Huawei store, or, to a lesser degree, a Samsung one.
It's true that it might not apply to all their products, because they also cater to people without 6-figure USD equivalent incomes, but you can buy the expensive stuff.
When? When Apple products will stop being perceived as something better than competition. They somehow created the image that they are some sort of luxury, but if that was ever an actual case its long gone. Don't take me wrong, its a fine long term marketing performance and I respect them for it, but lets be a bit more technical and less emotional here.
Some phones are way more expensive than A top line, have massive cameras, better screens, batteries (I mean real life, one of failures on A side for first decade), better integration with rest of the electronic world (like streaming fullhd tv from phone to any TV I saw so far, or having mouse&keyboard desktop on big screen via single USB-C cable out of box, or very good pen within the phone - image editing goes to another level). Plus you have much bigger variety, anything from 50$. And they are open, not unimportant aspect not only for many HN users.
That doesn't mean they do bad products, in contrary. But emotions aside, its now just another set of products with personally weird philosophy, even weirder emotional fanbase and just a much more closed ecosystem.
I am not a fanboy, but I do use Apple products. They are pretty excellent, and every feature you stated is available within their ecosystem, and more. Their stuff is expensive but it works pretty well together and I've had nearly no issues. The physical quality is at least worth the price I paid for my Apple stuff. The closed ecosystem is semi-annoying to me as a developer but it really doesn't stop me from doing everything I want to.
tl;dr: Some people are just happy with Apple products; we're not cult members and saying that is insulting, frankly.
Only if you take it that way. But when your smartphone is from Apple, along with you laptop, desktop, monitor, mouse, keyboard, calendar, notes, earpods, with a bevy of charging infrastructure to support that, it's not hard to see that you don't have to squint real hard to see it that way. There were some that went as far as to try and nominate Steve Jobs as president.
What about those who have Google phones, run Chrome on everything, have those Google audio pods, Google branded email, Google TVs, etc?
Some people are fanboys of Linux products, and all their shit runs Linux or some other Unix or BSD (more fanboys than for Apple, probably).
I even know a few people who just LOVE Microsoft and their products.
It's fun to make fun of Apple people, I know because I do that too, but in reality the reason people like me own all that stuff is because it "just works together" and I don't have to fiddle with a bunch of random brand stuff to get it to work together, plus I have had a bad experience with Google so I won't use their products. If I hadn't had a bad experience with Google, I may have everything Google branded right now so it "just works together" too.
My wife has consistently bad experience with iphone, namely 13 mini. Just a badly designed product from her perspective, doesn't integrate well with anything via open standards that others implement effortlessly. She is not a techie, so theoretically an ideal customer, but no she still hates it with passion and next phone will be something-android. Personal anecdotes are sort of meaningless here, aren't they. But apple fans like you seldom disappoint, you seem to take my post personally, not sure why.
I don't get why you immediately try to move discussion into extremes, maybe your style but not most of folks - either you have everything X, or everything Y. Sort of proving exactly my point. You don't even try to understand my argument - I can integrate anything, from any manufacturer. Plug in DELL monitor via usb-c, just works, immediately. Connect Sennheiser earplugs (since airpods pro sounds quality leaves a lot to be desired), bam and flacs flow via aptx-hd seamlessly. I could go on and on.
Apple has very tiny offer to cater to all our needs and budgets. These days, even if price is not the problem, often they don't offer the best on the market. So smart thing is to have a diverse set, the opposite of locked-down you describe. People are beginning to be fed up with that since apple is showing its true colors, and this topic and discussion is exactly about it.
The first amendment gives you the right to say what you want free of us government interference but doesn’t say anything about people thinking you’re an asshole because you repeat the oldest joke in technology.
speak for yourself I've had two apple products, ever, an Ipod touch 4 (trash) and an ipod nano 7th gen, the nano was good but for music playback, I'd never get an iphone, I'm not down to lock myself down to their terrible ecosystem
That's probably to prevent the most obvious workaround of creating a new shell company for every million users. (Which would be not so ridiculous as it sounds, there is plenty of software you cannot buy directly but only through a reseller. Epic could become a pure b2b shop on paper and sell Fortnite clients to regional distributors, or something like that.)
Some time ago somebody made an alternative App Store for emulators, https://altstore.io . I think it works by having users get a developer's certificate and installing the apps like an in-development app. I think it would be really neat if this model got tested in court and declared completely legal.
> Which would be all around moot because the fee itself is illegal
I haven’t seen any statement in any jurisdiction by lawmakers or judges that supports that claim. It also would, to me, feel inconsistent with the rulings I read about:
- https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...: “Consistent with the interim relief ruling of the Rotterdam district court, dating apps that are granted an entitlement to link out or use a third-party in-app payment provider will pay Apple a commission on transactions. Apple will reduce its commission by 3% on the price paid by the user, net of value-added taxes. This is a reduced rate that excludes value related to payment processing and related activities”
The Epic ruling is in the US and are irrelevant to EU regulations. Dutch regulators have rejected Apple's response to the dating app ruling, and that matter is currently in the courts[1]. Lastly, these latest changes are in response to a new law, the Digital Markets Act.
This makes no sense. All that Apple would have to do to close this loophole is to count installs per group of associated companies or developer accounts.
It makes no sense for app vendors to behave like crime cartels or sanctioned regimes in order to avoid a 30% fee. The margins are not high enough. It's fraud. Executives could go to jail.
Also, this whole web of companies would have to distribute the same set of apps, which would make it relatively easy for Apple to spot. Contrary to a prosecutor, Apple doesn't have to prove anything. They just close the accounts without recourse if they have any suspicion. End of story.
And the app vendor would have to forego the benefit of accumulating reviews under one name. Or they could have the opposite problem, users gravitating to one of the clones that ranks highest. How would they make sure each clone has no more than 1 million users?
This is no way to run a company. It's totally bonkers.
>I think Siemens Germany is a nice example of just such a cartel.
No, Siemens is not a criminal organisation running a web of hidden shell companies. Siemens is a conglomerate comprising a large number of subsidiaries and associated companies that they publish right on their website [1].
I have no doubt that large companies use complicated structures in order to exploit loopholes. But there are limits to that, especially as Apple doesn't require a complex lawmaking process in order to change their ToS. They can close a loophole at the stroke of a pen. And they can close developer accounts at will if ToS are violated.
The speed at which apple can alter their ToS is indeed a key differentiator.
Any cartel instantly becomes a criminal cartel if governance over laws/EULAs is basically absent and biased against the cartel.
[added]
Not saying Siemens is nefarious, but they do seem to be subverting the spirit of law. The conglomerate sure makes it easy to "reorganize" without due process for firing lots of employees.
> I think Siemens Germany is a nice example of just such a cartel. Nicely distributed in small chunks to abide to the letter of (labour) law.
Siemens is not a good example. If you're looking for better examples, there's Aldi. It intentionally splits its structure to avoid triggering stricter labor and reporting laws.
Agreed. Apple's stubbornness and clear attempts to retaliate against everyone for these changes are not going to go well for them, and they need to realise that at some point.
It's genuinely shocking how petty the company is acting with these changes, and how obvious their attempts at only doing the bare minimum to follow the law are.
Remember when Apple taunted bigger companies to sue them, in the name of technological freedom? Pepperidge Farm remembers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi
So sad to see them on the other side of the table now, using every trick in the book to screw over the entire sector. Mr. Cook, tear down this wall!
I'm a little bit playing devil's advocate here, but: concerning how?
> you have to have at least one million first installs annually on iOS to even qualify
That's not what the site says at all? "Membership in the Apple Developer Program includes one million first annual installs per year for free for apps distributed from the App Store, alternative marketplaces, and/or Web Distribution." That seems to indicate that there is no minimum, and installs up to 1 million are free. That means that (wild guess) 99.5% of all apps ever released will pay no fee. EDIT TO CORRECT: see below, you have to have an app over 1 million downloads in the previous year to participate, but this description of the fee structure is correct. Which is...weird?
> I doubt Epic and the like would be considered in good standing as far as Apple is concerned.
If Apple plays games like this, they deserve consequences. But does it make sense to take this interpretation rather than just assuming the language means what it means: you haven't been kicked off the platform, and you've been around for two years?
> To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must: ... have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
Ah, sorry, I missed that part. It's a weird distinction -- you could have one app with a million installs, and a million apps with one install each, and all could be installed from your web page?
So this points to the other thing I said, which is that there are very few developers that will meet this requirement.
It's less "concerning" and more "flagrantly ridiculous".
A company has to pay Apple half a euro for every executable download from the company's own website? If Microsoft tried this shit with Windows people would be apoplectic.
And yet, it's pretty common in commercial software and in other industries.
For instance, my application uses a particular commercially-licensed software library. I have to pay a per-copy-sold royalty to the vendor.
Or I write a video game for a console: I have to pay a percentage of my revenue to the console vendor.
Or I use a particular algorithm (eg. an AV codec) and I have to pay patent royalties.
So if your application uses Apple's provided frameworks, and they choose to charge you a license fee (discounted to zero for your first million sales), you're calling it "flagrantly ridiculous"?
It's not: it's a wide-spread, standard practice. It might suck, sure. But hyperbole helps no-one here.
Unfortunately this is backwards for me. My mac usage is direct download (when possible) for small developers, but get the advantages of the mac app store when using an app written from someone big. So if I were inclined to download something from Epic I'd want to use the app store anyway.
For phones though I don't have the tools I do on the mac (ios is too opaque) so if I couldn't get it from the Apple app store I just wouldn't download the app at all.
That's fine. Not every citizen has to actively use every right made available to them by the law. That doesn't diminish its value for the ones who do need it.
Perhaps there are many more, perhaps I'm an outlier, and maybe some HN threads might uncover a which (sometimes happens).
Apple’s requirement that you already have a lot of downloads pretty much defeats the support for small indie developers. But I doubt many people care much about supporting them anyway.
These are some cult-like requirements. The term "good standing" comes not from business, it comes directly from the domain of authoritarian-destructive cults.
I do own an iPhone, but I do like the idea of Apple filling up the EU economy by paying out the fines that the EU lawmakers serve and will serve onto them.
What would happen if big companies simply refuse to pay? Will EU put the European employees in jail? Would they put Americans in their jail? Will they do DNS block? Credit card block? Remove apple products from physical store? Many of the EU countries like Germany are export driven and certainly they don't want to close the market.
Apple has so much stuff and money in the EU, that there will be plenty to take. Only recently have the started to take back some of the funds from Ireland. Apple would be in a pretty bad place if those accounts were all seized, not in the last place because it would block all transactions including customer ones, ones to may for servers, rent etc. Apple might look stupid but they aren't that stupid.
Did you paste that "burn" or did you actually release all that rage to reply to a one-sentence comment?
The comment above yours touches on something important. The US might not look lightly at foreign powers treating US companies in that way. The world of business and politics is give and take, it's not a video game where things can be done one-sided without consequences.
>The US might not look lightly at foreign powers treating US companies in that way.
There's significant momentum in the US against big tech, I fully expect DMA like legislation on the state level in the near future. This isn't being framed as a national/foreign issue but as a democratic and consumer rights one.
Same for other regions. Japan, South Korea, the UK are likely to adopt similar laws, India already passed a sweeping crackdown on platforms essentially treating them like public utilities earlier last year.
Can't they take all the money out a month before they are planning to refuse to pay fine? I am pretty sure EU could never block Apple's fund unless they want to totally remove all the business from EU.
> "So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad." - https://filklore.com/wordpress/2012/10/are-apple-in-contempt...
As an Apple customer in the EU, I'm staying on iOS 17.3 until they rewrite 17.4 4-5 times based on how many times they get fined again for malicious compliance.
What should I do if I have both and want both to operate the way I want because I paid for them? Just like I paid for a Macbook and a Surface and can install anything on both at my will
Or different things should be regulated. You can say the same about drug/alcohol market but somehow these are regulated, why not doing regulations for smartphones/os-es?
For the same reason I don't switch to Windows: the alternatives are even worse.
Apple isn't the best, no one deserves "best" in desktop and mobile operating systems, but it's the least bad.
In mobiles we basically have a duopoly, and the only ones who are likely to care about the customer's interests are regulators. Neither Apple nor Google have any incentive because there is no 3rd option.
> Apple isn't the best, no one deserves "best" in desktop and mobile operating systems, but it's the least bad.
MacOS and iOS are the most limited in terms of customizability (personalization) and freedom for developing software for them. As much as that might surprise you, many people care about that and can't stand to use Apple operating systems because of it.
"Always wait for a point release". It seems for this we need to wait for the _next_ point release. It should become clearer for EU side of the movement also - it is far from certain that Apple to be the one f*cked.
I don't know about my pet. It would need full storage access, and even I agree that keeping apps separate from each other is a good idea, security wise. I don't see how you can argue against that when you're considering monopoly issues.
On the other hand, Apple not allowing apps not approved by them and not allowing manual single app installs without going through their app store or some other app store does look to me like a monopoly issue.
Are you sure you want iOS? Perhaps you want Android?
Sounds like you just want the iPhone hardware, but not the spirit of the OS that contributed to what it is. Adding manual disk management makes more like running Windows XP than a smooth "mostly just works" phone.
> First annual install. This is the first time an app is installed by an account in the EU in a 12-month period. After each first annual install, the app may be installed any number of times by the same account for the next 12 months with no additional charge.
Okay...
> A first annual install may result from an app’s first-time install, a reinstall, or an update from any iOS app distribution option — including the App Store, an alternative app marketplace, TestFlight, an App Clip, volume purchases through Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager, and/or a custom app.
Do I understand this correctly that you will have to pay the fee for each user (above the 1 million free) even if they just get an automatic update? Given that updates are automatic by default, you will end up paying even for inactive users (users who installed the app but long forgotten about it and don't use it).
Two big changes here. One is allowing third-party app stores to exclusively offer their own apps (I guess removing the requirement that they accept other apps). And the second is allowing apps that meet certain requirements to be installed directly from the publisher’s website:
> Apple's specific criteria, such as being a member of the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more and having an app with more than one million first installs on iOS in the EU in the prior year, and commit to ongoing requirements, such as publishing transparent data collection policies
But as you can see you won’t be seeing indie apps distributed in this way. Though, to be fair, for most indies the App Store with the old rules is probably the best deal available to them.
> Because it means you need to be making more than $3.3-$1.5 per user per year to break even on this, which is difficult
Perhaps this is the case inside the App Store, but it's not the case outside the App Store, where indie apps tend to be higher priced and upfront paid.
Moreover, keep in mind that the first million first annual installs have no CTF, and most indie devs will never even reach that point.
But in order to qualify for distributing via your own website, you need to have had a million installs in the prior year. So everyone who could potentially use that distribution method will by definition be subject to the CTF. It seems like an indie dev's only non-Apple option that can avoid the CTF is to distribute through a third-party app marketplace and hope to stay under a million installs.
"Moreover, keep in mind that the first million first annual installs have no CTF, and most indie devs will never even reach that point." Thus the CTF is mostly nonexistent for indie devs.
In any case, though, it's only 5 euros for 10 years of installs, and many indie apps have paid upgrades (which don't exist in the App Store) at least once every 5 years.
As an indie app developer myself, I don't want to have this reoccurring expense hanging over my head. As I incorporate, the 600$ in fixed yearly expenses is stressful enough.
"Good news" then: this is merely a hypothetical conversation, and Apple won't allow you to distribute from your website unless you already have over a million EU users.
If your app is ad-supported, you pay 0%. It also makes the freemium model viable. If you have an application that has in-app purchases, then people may download, play the free portion, and never pay you. If you have to pay $0.50 for that, then it may not go well.
The 0.50 is probably much better if you're selling, say, a $10 app.
> The 0.50 is probably much better if you're selling, say, a $10 app.
That's precisely what indie devs outside the Mac App Store are doing. They don't have ad-supported apps. Most of them are upfront paid, perhaps with a time-limited demo. The business models that you're talking about are a product of the App Store race to the bottom.
It baffles the mind that having exactly one marketplace with rent-seeking level fees that neither users nor developers can opt out of doesn't violate some kind of antitrust law in the United States.
Though it looks like the EU iPhone users are only in a marginally better position.
Tell your mind it's an appliance/console.* Still baffled? Because nobody seems baffled they can't run arbitrary software on their Amazon Echo Show, AppleTV, Xbox, Playstation, or Switch.
* If your mind is struggling with this, you might need a bicycle for the mind to help. ;-) But seriously, Apple's brand and value prop since original Mac has been to toasterize compute and make it friendly approachable and non-fiddly for normals. If you're bent about this, it's a values alignment issue. And Apple should have a right to have a brand proposition that sets them apart from the majority of PDAs, STBs, and PCs.
No one cares about these devices. If you care, feel free to lobby for some regulation to address this. I doubt you'll face much opposition from people who want to install arbitrary software on their iPhone.
I do often think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was great for most people. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app.
Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.
I mean, I don't know if I'd call it "hysteria", but people have been sideloading alternative app stores on the iPhone for about as long as the iPhone has been around haven't they? I remember when I first got an iPod Touch in 2009, the first thing I did was jailbreak it and install Cydia so I could get emulators working on there.
Now I have always been a pretty geeky person, so I'm not claiming that I'm the "norm", but I would argue that there's always been some demand for alternative app stores. There are plenty of apps that people want to install the Apple clutches their pearls at (e.g. nearly anything with adult content).
As I've said in other threads, it's not as horrible as Microsoft in the 90s, because it's not difficult to buy an Android phone, your life won't really be made worse by buying a decent Android phone, but I would still argue that Apple's actions are anti-competitive.
I agree, I had also jailbroken my iPhone back in 2010 with Cydia. However I used that to unlock the springboard and change app icons etc, for me it was a bit of a gimmick with a fair amount of risk involved.
I would say if you looked at it percentage wise, it would be an incredibly small number of iPhone owners that jailbroke their devices to sideload apps. I think you can argue that there might always be some demand, but that doesn't mean it needs to happen.
My point is back when the app store was released developers went wild that there was this publishing place they could put their apps. The iPhone in 2010 was responsible for 99.4% of all mobile app downloads. And by 2010 there were around 30,000 apps & games in the app store.
Going back and reading articles about the app store between 2009 and 2012, there isn't negative discussion around the fees associated with the app store or anti-competitive behavior. There wasn't outrage over only being able to download apps through the iPhone store. There was discussion however about companies building their own Android based app stores, but those failed shortly after.
I don't really know that I agree with the analogy.
Yes, you're kind of right, I don't really have a problem with not being able to easily sideload stuff on my oven or dishwasher, despite the fact that they technically have computers in them. They are highly specific, single-purpose things and sideloading Doom on there doesn't really make sense.
Even a game console is still more or less single purpose (though that line is being blurred). Historically I don't do much on my console other than playing games, though now I'd argue that that's not necessarily true, since people install a lot of apps in the marketplace (e.g. Netflix). I do have a problem with Apple TV's being locked down, which is why I didn't purchase one. I use Nvidia Shield TVs, largely so that I could sideload ScummVM without any kind of jailbreaking nonsense.
However, I'd argue that a smartphone/tablet is different. This isn't the 90's; you use your "phone" for a lot more than taking calls. I have an SSH client, a git client, word processing, web browsing, nearly everything that a 90's-era computer could do on my iPhone; if we're going to say that Microsoft Windows is "general purpose", then iOS/iPadOS qualifies as well. We took Microsoft to court for anticompetitive practices, particularly in regards to the inability to install third-party browsers.
You can't really install third party browsers on iOS either. You can install Firefox or Chrome on there (and I do), but they're just frontends for iOS's internal Webkit engine.
So I don't know that the appliance comparison works. iPhones are (purposefully) not single-purpose. They're computers.
The way that an iPhone is different from a Nintendo Switch is arbitrary though.
If you're talking about changing laws it'd be nice to have more of a defense than "this computer we call a phone should be treated differently than the computer we call a Gameboy".
Without some clear and useable definitions, there's no precedents that can be set and leveraged. You will also, by necessity, require bureaucratic bloat to decide what counts and what doesn't for every device moving forward. At best, this is a slow process that delays innovation and reduces availability for users.
Sure, but we draw distinctions like that all the time. There's generally legal differences between "E-Bikes" and "Motorcycles", despite the fact that they're nominally pretty similar (two wheeled, self-powered transportation). We draw distinctions between "phone lines" and "power lines", despite the fact that both carry electric current. We draw distinctions between "bread" and "alcohol", despite the fact that both are made the same way.
I'd argue that while there isn't a hard line in the sand, we more or less define "computer" as something that's "general purpose". I don't consider my oven a "computer", I don't consider my digital COVID test a computer, I don't consider my key fob a computer. I do consider my Macbook a computer, because I do a lot of dissimilar things with it; I write documents, I watch videos, I listen to music, I play games, I log into servers, I VoIP chat with friends, I edit video, etc. I don't think anyone disputes that a Macbook is a "computer"; if nothing else all of that applies to Linux and Windows as well.
You know what else it applies to? An iPhone. I can do all those things with an iPhone. I really can't do any of those things (besides play games) on a GameBoy.
Of course, admittedly I'm kind of moving the goalpost, because of course the line of "general purpose" is kind of arbitrary; the Gameboy did have a camera, the Gameboy Advance had a TV Tuner and MP3 player, so you're absolutely right that it would require some kind of bureaucratic overhead to define what "general purpose" even means, and moreover the second that they have a definition the companies will use that as a guide to narrowly skirt it and therefore avoid regulation.
I don't know the solution, but I do know that it feels a bit dirty for Apple to feel entitled to so much money when they're not even the ones distributing the apps at that point. People gave so much shit to Unity for their idiotic "install fee", but people have become bizarrely defensive of Apple for doing basically the same thing.
> There's generally legal differences between "E-Bikes" and "Motorcycles", despite the fact that they're nominally pretty similar (two wheeled, self-powered transportation). We draw distinctions between "phone lines" and "power lines", despite the fact that both carry electric current. We draw distinctions between "bread" and "alcohol", despite the fact that both are made the same way.
But there a technical differences between those classes of things, even if the lines are drawn arbitrarily. A motorcycle has more than a certain amount of power. A “power line” carries a voltage which is too high to be considered “intrinsically safe”. Alcohol has intoxicating effects, while bread does not.
What is the difference between an iPhone and a Switch? We call one a phone and the other a game. If I made an Android phone with less computing power than a switch, can I call it a game? Or is it still a phone?
> You know what else it applies to? An iPhone. I can do all those things with an iPhone. I really can't do any of those things (besides play games) on a GameBoy.
But that is only because Nintendo doesn’t allow it. There’s no technical reason a Switch can’t be a phone. Why is ok for Nintendo to do that, but not Apple? Just “dirty vibes”? That’s not how the law is supposed to work.
Nintendo might not be happy about it, but the only person stopping you from using a Switch like a phone is you. You're absolutely correct, besides the lack of WWAN modem the Switch is indeed technically capable of being a phone.
> But there a technical differences between those classes of things, even if the lines are drawn arbitrarily.
Sure, but that's a matter of degree, not kind. We're kind of arbitrarily (as you stated) decided "what horsepower constitutes a motorcyle?"
Similarly, I don't know that there's a definite line of "intrinsically safe" for electricty; I've been shocked by my 120V AC in my house and lived to tell the tale, so does that imply it's safe? I don't think so, people die from 120VAC shocks all the time; It's still a somewhat arbitrary line.
I'll admit that the bread analogy does break down, because bread doesn't make you drunk, there actually is small amounts of alcohol in bread [0], though I'm not sure that you could actually get drunk from it no matter how much you ate.
> But that is only because Nintendo doesn’t allow it. There’s no technical reason a Switch can’t be a phone. Why is ok for Nintendo to do that, but not Apple? Just “dirty vibes”? That’s not how the law is supposed to work.
I did caveat in a previous post that game consoles kind of blur the line for me. You could probably convince me that they should allow alternative app stores. At least with video games, I feel there's a bit more competition than "smartphones", since you have large offerings from around six platforms instead of two (Nintendo, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Windows (which requires no license!), Sony PlayStation, iOS, Android (plus all the other rebrands of Android that are independently run)).
We do have legal precedent for this in some capacity [1]. The courts felt that Microsoft was abusing its power by making it difficult/impossible to install alternative browsers inside Microsoft Windows. The initial ruling ended up with Microsoft being ordered to split up, but this was admittedly overturned.
I realize it's not apples to apples; iOS doesn't have the monopoly on the ARM that Windows had on x86 in the 90's (you are, after all, perfectly free to buy an Android phone instead of an iPhone and your life probably won't be appreciably hindered), but it does seem like the courts do have some issues with operating systems companies abusing power.
> We're kind of arbitrarily (as you stated) decided "what horsepower constitutes a motorcyle?"
Ok, let’s apply that definition. Why is an iPhone SE (17 TFLOPS) a general purpose computer, but an PS5 (20 TFLOPS) isn’t?
> Similarly, I don't know that there's a definite line of "intrinsically safe" for electricty
Less than 50 volts in every jurisdiction I’m aware of. Now you do.
> there actually is small amounts of alcohol in bread
Doesn’t matter. You will get sick and puke before you consume enough alcohol from bread to make you drunk. You cannot get drunk from bread.
> You could probably convince me that they should allow alternative app stores. At least with video games, I feel there's a bit more competition than "smartphones
So there’s nothing intrinsic to a switch that makes it a game and not a phone.
> The courts felt that Microsoft was abusing its power
Microsoft had over 90% market share (real, global market share, not bullshit “market share of computers running windows”) when that determination was made. Apple has about 30% in Europe.
The inability to run a real web browser (with extensions!) has been holding me back on the switch to iOS for a long time now. Reviewing Apple's behavior in the EU, I'm not really expecting that to change any time soon. Android is annoying in a lot of its own ways, but at the very least I can run whatever software I want on the thing, and that's too valuable to give up.
What's also really annoying is that copying non-image files to your phone is extremely limited. Apple's hardware is amazing and iOS is generally good and well maintained, but all these little ways they dictate what you can do with your own device make it unbearable.
It depends. The fee applies only if Mozilla opts into the "new terms". You’re right that it if Mozilla chooses the new terms, they have to pay the fee on the app store too.
But they are allowed to stay on the old terms and still offer "real" Firefox. In this case they pay nothing.
"Stay in App Store under the current (pre-DMA) rules, exclusively. Developers that take this option:
Are not permitted to use any of the new business terms available in the EU, but new iOS platform options for the EU, such as alternate browser engines, are allowed. (Because they are required to be allowed.)"
> Nonprofit organizations, accredited educational institutions, or government entities based in the EU that have been approved for a fee waiver are exempt from the Apple Developer Program annual membership fee and the Core Technology Fee.
> In addition, developers will soon be able to distribute apps directly from their websites, providing they meet Apple's specific criteria, such as being a member of the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more and having an app with more than one million first installs on iOS in the EU in the prior year, and commit to ongoing requirements, such as publishing transparent data collection policies. Apps distributed in this way must meet Apple's notarization requirements like all other iOS apps and can only be installed from a web domain registered in App Store Connect.
So, there will still be a centralized chokepoint for censorship of apps the government would prefer you not be able to have on your phone. Cool.
This means no protest apps, no encrypted communications apps unless they have the appropriate government approval/licenses, etc.
This is the same censorship they exert over the app store. It's no benefit to users.
> such as being a member of the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more and having an app with more than one million first installs on iOS in the EU in the prior year, and commit to ongoing requirements
I didn't expect much but that list is a big joke.
If you were looking for a way to distribute your ios software on the web, well that ain't it.
One of the conditions to being able to distribute your app in this way:
> Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
Apple really need to be slapped with another multi-billion dollar fine.
> Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
In other words, small developers without the resources to challenge Apple on these rules don't get to play.
> We’re providing more flexibility for developers who distribute apps in the European Union (EU), including introducing a new way to distribute apps directly from a developer’s website.
They make it sounds like they're being super generous and they've gone out of their way to provide this 'cool new innovation' for us out of their own desire to give back to their customers.
You have to really appreciate the spin and shamelessness of some of the large companies. It's genuinely humorous.
The dichotomy of how real world looks and functions and how it does according to the big corpos is astonishing and terrifying. And this is the yet another example - there's no failure in this rose-tinted corporate world, just a minor difficulty which will be portrayed as a success.
Honestly, I'm surprised Apple didn't come up with the overused standard reply #1: "We are excited to announce (...)", or the standard reply #2: "We've been working hard making XYZ experience better for you (...)"
Apple isn’t considering that they are the baddies?
I suggest strong regulation of the complete BigIT and two chairs for public observers at minimum. In addition they are not allowed to enter any new market.
Why?
Because it worked well with AT&T. Results:
* UNIX
* C
* Open-Source
* Public Documentation
Sounds good? Until the Reagan administration appeared, allowed them to split up (Baby Bells), the UNIX-Wars followed, law-suits against BSD and broad incompatibility. And despite this horrible changes we still got:
* POSIX
* GNU (immediate reaction by FSF - they recognized the situation)
* Linux (which caused itself Git)
* BSD (TCP/IP)
Our information technology builds upon the regulation of AT&T. That was lucky, yes. But you need to prepare luck.
The politicians instead opted for Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon with near to no regulation at all. Despite we learned that software immediately tends to monopolize due to Vendor Lock-in and mass-effect.
What are my benefits of a low billion fine ten years after on of this companies hurt us again? None.
Splitting up?
See again Vendor Lock-in and mass-effect.
It's particularly egregious given AT&T fought an infamously protracted legal battle against the United States Government to try to avoid being forced to be broken up (entirely against their will). They exhausted a lot of money and time trying to avoid the scenario the op is claiming they were trying to intentionally execute.
The comments you are responding to aren't referencing AT&T as egregious, but the misrepresentation of AT&T's intentions, given that AT&T desired the polar opposite of what the court ordered them to do, which was to split up. The above commenter was trying to portray AT&T as getting their way by splitting up, as if that was their devious intention all along.
The sentence before allowed had a bunch of stuff about Ronald Reagan and I wanted to avoid the political aspect.
In any event, the whole thing went down and was determined long before Reagan took office. The case was filed under the Ford administration and prosecuted mainly by the Carter administration. By the time Reagan took office the case had been in progress for nearly a decade, and he had been president for barely a year when the final decision was handed down.
OP just has so much confused about this chapter of history.
Thanks for your comment. Maybe I’m wrong in that part. Your link sadly doesn’t work and shows an 404. I’m a little confused because the Wikipedia says:
AT&T itself recommended a divestiture structure in which it would be broken up into regional subsidiaries.
>The FCC also found evidence during this period that AT&T was overcharging consumers for physical products that had been manufactured by its equipment subsidiary Western Electric, which was itself a monopoly, and using the resulting monopoly profits to subsidize its landline network operations, which was a violation of antitrust law.[5]
These developments, along with an appreciation of new technologies and business models for telephone service that were becoming available, convinced American regulators that AT&T should no longer be tolerated as the natural monopoly in that marketplace.[6] A plan to break up the company into smaller components was proposed by the United States Department of Justice starting in 1974, citing authority under the Sherman Antitrust Act to reduce the power of a monopoly firm.[1] AT&T itself recommended a divestiture structure in which it would be broken up into regional subsidiaries.
Given the context it seems they were fried anyway and were just able to negotiate how the split would be done
I dunno. Do you really fault Apple for wanting to hold onto their vice grip of the AppStore that gives them license to print money at ridiculous margins? I mean, their better angels would have them be so confident in the value of their own store that they'd allow other stores to compete on the merits but honestly ... if we were Tim Cook or in charge of Apple I think we'd all fight tooth-and-nail to keep this cash cow.
The benefit of the app store isn’t money. It’s the security of the ecosystem. 3rd party apps will begin a race to the bottom of fly-by-night iOS developers in it for a fast buck with no qualms about advertising and data trafficking. Before long we end up with what is seen in the Android system.
I mean...is the situation on Android you describe anything to do with third-party app stores and sideloading? Because my understanding was that, despite there being very few hoops to jump through, the only time the vast majority of users even consider stepping out of the Play Store is to install apps to let them stream pirated movies.
Moreover, Apple's App Store is already filled with race-to-the-bottom, shady shit. Apps with bait weekly subscriptions and bald-faced knock-offs are highlighted in tech news and on social media all the time. That's what makes their attitude and arguments all the more galling here: they are doing a really lousy job keeping their own store a safe and reputable place.
The only thing they seem to do a good job with is legitimate malware, and I suspect that's mostly because the OS is so locked down and because they scan for use of non-public APIs.
Developers outside the official store will price undercut those within the store. Legit developers will be forced to leave, fold, and/or adopt the shady data practices of the fly-by-nighters. Eventually the official store will be shadow of its former self.
Well heeled consumers will respond by being reluctant to put sensitive personal information on their phones. The entire ecosystem suffers, and phones, instead of becoming trusted personal devices, remain the purview of games, emails, and fart apps. Everyone suffers, especially developers.
You guys, above all others, want people to put more personal info on their phones, not less.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/apples-app-store-had-gross-s...
"There are some exceptions to Apple's 30% cut of digital sales, and Apple's figures are rough, which means that Apple's App Store total sales is likely even higher. Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm, estimates that the App Store did $72.3 billion in sales 2020."
So... 72 billion in 2020.. probably even more now.
$72.3B in sales, but given they get less than 30% of that, their cut is less than 21.7B. Put that in perspective of their total revenue of 294B that year the app store represents only ~7% of their total revenue. And I suspect the app store is actually a fairly costly business to run - a lot of effort goes into the decor of the walls around garden. I'm thinking app review, even content serving.
Not arguing that it's not a profit center - but in perspective, I suspect apple's reasons for defending it are not primarily the direct financial benefits of it - it's probably mostly about the indirect benefits.
True... although hardware probably has far higher costs. I found a site giving apple's net profits for 2020 at $64 billion. If their gross was $294B, that means their profit margin on average was 21% for their sales. If the app store is almost pure rent, and you are overestimating the costs of things like reviewing and it is only a few billion dollars to run, then it could have a far higher profit margin than everything else. Perhaps even 80 or 90%? If so, that $21.7 billion gross is almost pure profit and becomes something like a third of all their profits...
oh... also the article does try to take into account the varying rates apple charges and notes that despite the exceptions the true figure is likely much closer to 30% than the lower rates.
> $72.3B in sales, but given they get less than 30% of that, their cut is less than 21.7B. Put that in perspective of their total revenue of 294B that year the app store represents only ~7% of their total revenue.
If you have a company with a single line of business and they were to lose 7% of revenue that is going to be a large hit. There are many industries where that exceeds the entire profit margin of the company.
But more than that, they don't have a single line of business. Suppose that a conglomerate the size of Apple had totally monopolized the world market for lithium mining. Well, that's a $350M/year industry -- it's barely 0.1% of Apple's revenue! Why should they even bother to monopolize it? The answer is, for the same reason anybody else would. Maybe the CEO of the conglomerate doesn't much care, but the head of the mining division cares about it a lot, and so do all of the customers in that industry. And antitrust violations in service of maintaining the monopoly are just as illegal and just as harmful whether it's a subsidiary of a conglomerate or an independent monopolist.
Or to put it another way, 20 billion dollars is 20 billion dollars. It motivates putting in 20 billion dollars worth of effort to hold onto it, regardless of what you're doing on the other side of the building.
> And I suspect the app store is actually a fairly costly business to run - a lot of effort goes into the decor of the walls around garden. I'm thinking app review, even content serving.
Content serving cost is negligible. Review could be arbitrarily expensive, but the experience of developers seems to imply that they're not spending a lot of resources being diligent about it -- policies applied inconsistently, updates often denied for indiscernible reasons etc. Reviewers seem to be only making a cursory inspection or relying on some kind of inadequate automated scanning tools.
Moreover, they have each developer paying $100/year, which should cover that level of review on its own, if the goal was funding the reviews and not extracting rents. Their policies imply the reverse. If the goal was to cover reviews then apps with more downloads should have lower per-download fees, since the fixed cost of reviewing the app can be amortized over more units. And yet "subsidizing" small developers doesn't fit either, because if that was your goal the first thing you'd do is stop charging $100/year to hobbyists and side projects with little or no revenue.
What they appear to be doing is providing a "discount" to hardly anyone. They continue extracting $100/year from the long tail of small timers who aren't making any money, continue extracting 30% from anyone who actually succeeds, but get to put "15%" in their PR knowing that the eligible people only represent a tiny proportion of their collections.
> I suspect apple's reasons for defending it are not primarily the direct financial benefits of it - it's probably mostly about the indirect benefits.
Which are also an issue, e.g. by thwarting competition between browser engines.
In both, ATT essentially traded government blessing of monopoly in core markets (long distance telecommunications) for agreeing not to expand into other markets (e.g. Western Union money transfers and telecom equipment).
And side point, ATT R&D (~1910 to 1925, later named Bell Labs) was originally funded after the company almost imploded due to short-sighted profit maximization at the expense of customer satisfaction / service quality.
I think it's interesting to imagine what a Google-thats-only-search or a Meta-thats-only-social look like, similarly plowing their profits into independent research labs, but without funneling them throughout the for-profit octopus conglomerates they are now.
Thanks for that. It should be noted that these two cases you provided and the third case that split up AT&T are all not true regulations but were either consent agreements which is a court facilitated settlement or fully out of court settlements. I was only aware of the last case that split up AT&T so I thought GGP was referring to a real regulation that was later removed which I had never heard of.
That's a distinction without a difference; the consent agreements and cases arose as a result of antitrust regulations.
What has changed since then are the legal theories of when and how to apply antitrust regulations. The law as written has not changed, but the way it's enforced (or not) certainly has.
The consent agreements are agreements between the government and AT&T. They arose because neither side wanted to find out if AT&T was breaking antitrust law. So that the consent agreements and cases arose as a result of antitrust regulations is true. But when you say "the legal theories of when and how to apply antitrust regulations" has changed, that is not supported by the consent agreement because those agreements are not enforcements of antitrust regulations. Similarly when you say "the law as written has not changed, but the way it's enforced" has, that is also not correct in this case because the consent agreements/settlements are not enforcements of laws. I suppose you can argue that if the AT&T case happened today that AT&T would be more likely not to settle because they would feel that they are more likely to win because legal theories have changed. That is in any event it is a different matter than your claim about the enforcement of antitrust laws which did not occur in the case of AT&T. Also note that Kodak was decided in 1992 and is still considered good law. In that case the court found that Kodak was in violation of antitrust law. And that case is still essentially the basis for most (all?) antitrust cases that have been brought to court since then. For example the recent Epic vs. Apple case was just about how to define the foremarket and aftermarket for the variously tied products in the iPhone (like Appstores and operating systems). Nobody has argued that Kodak itself is invalid due to a change in legal theory. You may see a difference in that the government sued a large company in the past but hasn't done so recently and I think that is true. But your claim that it is due to a change in legal theory or enforcement of law is not necessarily true. None of the large tech companies today are nearly as dominant in their markets as AT&T was. The company which most closely resembles AT&T in market control is probably Google in ads but even then it's not even close to what AT&T was doing which was complete control over all US telephone lines and on the phones themselves with explicit contractual agreements that you could not try to make your own phone and use their existing network. I imagine that would violate the law that came out of Kodak by a large margin and had AT&T existed in the same way today it would certainly be sued by the US government and lose.
> So that the consent agreements and cases arose as a result of antitrust regulations is true. But when you say "the legal theories of when and how to apply antitrust regulations" has changed, that is not supported by the consent agreement because those agreements are not enforcements of antitrust regulations.
You seem to be implying complete independence between something being the results of antitrust regulations, the results of the enforcement of antitrust regulations, or the consequences of theories of how when to enforce antitrust regulations. For people who speculate that these three things might be related to each other, your argument will not work.
It was the result of antitrust regulations only inasmuch as it caused the government to begin legal proceedings against AT&T. It isn't the result of antitrust regulations in the legal sense, just the result of those antitrust regulations existing because had they not existed then there would be no case against AT&T and therefore no settlement. But those results were not an instance of antitrust regulation legally occurring. Certainly not within the sense I initially referred to it which was a regulation such that it could still be used today ("I thought GGP was referring to a real regulation that was later removed"). We can call the AT&T case a "one time regulation" in that it is not a law but was still carried out by the government even if technically optionally accepted by AT&T. But this is certainly different from a "real" regulation which is a written rule that takes affect every time the conditions of the rule are met, which was not the case in AT&T.
The very short is, that AT&T between 1974 and 1982, due to the telephony monopoly rulings, wasn't allowed to sell software. Thus they gave their research results to universities, like Berkely.
How different is that from tech giants using their monopoly profits to develop software that they give away for free? You say AT&T gave away some software to universities. Similarly Google gives away Go (among many other projects) as FOSS for anyone to use. If Google didn't have to worry about money, they might not develop these things to give away for free.
Because they can use the gifts to facilitate lock-in or because they want to share development with other companies or individuals. They give nothing away without it bringing something of equal or more value to them, or they're tossing it over the wall for dead. Any misconception you have that it's because they're super swell people should be slapped right outta you if it's there.
> Any misconception you have that it's because they're super swell people should be slapped right outta you if it's there.
The idea that businesses have to be super swell people is what should be removed. Businesses doing things for money is good. Just as employees don't work for them because they're super swell people. You just shouldn't be thinking this way.
I think the point of releasing Go (they were already using it internally before) was just to get free labor to help expand and improve it. They simply had nothing to gain from keeping it private.
I like this story. Nay, I love this story. But it is a just-so story.
None of the regulators had a clue it would go this way, it is a lot of magical historical accidents, and there is no reason to think interference guarantees positive outcomes.
For example, HN seems to bristle at the subject of AI regulation as a game incumbents play that hews towards regulatory capture.
Apple is clearly in the wrong here but how to best untangle things is not trivial.
I think it's a little bit better than that. There was a theory in operation: regulation which prevents sprawling monopolies will produce good results for society.
Of course, if you shook the historical dice differently, there would be different results. From that point of view it's all contingent, and you can't re-run the historical experiment, and so whatever conclusions you draw must be a Just So story.
But, that theory was in operation. There were regulations which prevented sprawling monopolies, and large (but not sprawling monopolistic) companies did produce a lot of good things for society. No one knew what they would be ahead of time - that's all contingent, after all - but regulators regulated with the expectation that their regulations would produce good effects.
Now we've de-regulated, and the people doing the de-regulation theorize that (predictably) sprawling monopolistic companies will produce more good for society than large (but not sprawling monopolistic) regulated companies did.
So... Did / do they? It's fair enough to argue either way. It's fair enough to argue about which regulations are effective and which are not. It's not fair enough to throw up our hands and say "we can't actually know what's going to happen, so there's no point discussing it."
Because there are theories of economics and governance in play, and they matter, and they need to be appraised.
The market was considered captured when Apple and Google entered the market in 2007-2008, too.
The reality is that nothing prevents a new entrant from gaining marketshare, especially considering that the vast majority of apps people use every day are associated with services not created by Apple. I wouldn't want to, but I could move to Android tomorrow with relatively little friction.
> You either support the only semi open standard of apps being Android or your phone cannot succeed outside of some developer tool.
(1) iPhone and Android had exactly the same problem when they launched. (2) Web apps are a thing. (3) This problem would still exist if iOS didn't exist.
Again, in 2006 "smartphone" meant Nokia, Blackberry, and Palm. There's simply no such thing as a "captured" market when it comes to consumer goods.
> Sure, competitors could have started in 2009, too bad it's 2024 though now.
You may be missing the point, which is that today's Apple and Google are as "permanently" entrenched as Nokia, Blackberry, and Palm were back in the day. That is to say, not at all.
> Yes, that's why we need open standards to lower the barrier of competition.
Many open-source alternatives to iOS and Android have tried and failed to compete. For better or worse, this doesn't appear to matter to mainstream buyers.
You're going in circles, we don't need to speculate, we know that no competitor can emerge because they don't despite a huge revenue potential in this sector.
The proof is in the pudding as I said anyways, I'll believe there's competition in the mobile space when I'll see it. For now it all looks like it's impossible due to blockers like the apps and others.
And yeah maybe smartphones will become obsolete but I'm not going to count on it.
Exactly. But if we suddenly transition to a "recompile to webassembly and ship it as web app" world I assure you $99 ($0 profit) phones will suffice for 90%+ of users.
It will take a very long time but that will be the inevitable result.
Splitting up needs to happen for big and monopolistic US companies, no ifs, no buts. That is if they still want to keep a technological edge in the next 10-15 years.
I personally don’t think that the forced split-up will happen, the direct interests involved are too big for that to have any chance of success, but it’s the only way forward for the US as a whole (when it comes to IT).
Any particular reason you are picking on US companies? or big companies?
Most, if not all, monopolies are sustained by government via laws, regulations, and so on. So let's get specific, which monopolies do you think should be forced to split up and we can test that theory and see if we can identify what government actions sustain the monopoly.
Having the OS, the hardware, and the app store, along with a lot of the (almost mandatory) cloud services AND the most popular apps, all made by the same company.
For a smartphone, I can pick between 2-3 (depending how you count) major OSes, tons of different hardware vendors for the non-Apple ones, one app store if it's Apple or any source if it's not, whichever cloud any third-party app uses or no cloud if I desire, and a lot of popular third-party alternatives to the native apps.
All that choice is already there, just for a phone. Previously you'd choose a flip-phone and have it all locked together, including with the carrier.
I don't think I would describe Apple as a monopoly. But I would say that copyright and patent law helps tech companies, like Apple, by restraining competition.
All I know is that I have it disabled on my phone except for the couple of services I do want (like Find My), and it works fine. My photos get backed up using Google Photos app, etc
I think if you turn it off entirely, it'll ask you once for each OS update if you want to sign in, which isn't too bad.
When it really screams is if you log into iCloud then forget your password and it keeps asking you to input it. Like with every elderly member of my extended family.
Do people really download anything from the MS store...? I got Python from there once and it's been nothing but annoyances. I guess I'm technically one of that billion users, but I'll never download anything from there ever again.
Anything large and successful in the US economy should be forced into the public domain. /s
When do we break up ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor and force them to give all of their technology to the US with no compensation? They're large, successful, de facto monopolies. All of their IP should be forced into the public domain across the board.
The US needs to start hitting ASML with massive fines. 1/4 of their earnings perpetually should be a good start.
We should also very clearly be allowed to utilize all trademarks for any purpose and at any time, since we're obliterating intellectual property. I should be free to use the BMW and Mercedes names for anything I like, including in the auto sector to compete with them. They should not be allowed to have a monopoly over those brands, it restricts competition.
All IP is a deal with society. If it's not serving society, the rules should be changed. In trademarks, the benefit is very clear - consumers do no do well from an entity passing off their product as someone else's.
I don't think the smartphone market is that consequential either way. It's a mature and played out end-user product already, not comparable to the early AT&T. If Apple could somehow be forced to properly support third-party app stores then so what. Forcing full PWA support would be much better, but still. I don't think it'd usher in some tech boom or meaningfully help consumers.
Personally, I don't fw apps anyway so whatever. Even if the govt wants to force iPhones to be like shitty Android then that's alright, I'll keep my old iPhone then deal with it when needed.
Probably just a more visible "install" button would eliminate the need for half of native apps. I've tried doing a PWA before, and despite iPhones having all the right capabilities for it (they even support push now), users were totally confused installing a PWA in the first place.
Beyond that, in theory, very few things need to be native apps if OS-makers really wanted to embrace PWAs. WASM and all that, and equally importantly, access to more native APIs.
I think people could have said the same thing about the phone network, because it wasn't obvious what they were missing: everyone already had a phone, after all, and they worked just fine; I guess we could open it up so more people could make phones but do you really think that is going to change the world? Turns out it did, and it shouldn't be lost that Apple is a beneficiary of this... imagine if they, at best, had to pay AT&T a 30% "core technology fee" on their sales of iPhones because the iPhone was using the phone network or, at worst, were simply never allowed to make a phone at all. Apple controlling what is viable to release and then making it 30% more expensive is absolutely having massive effects on the market and is slowing down innovation, whether you see it or not (and even if it somehow in a crazy turn of events actually didn't, we should still want our price break from real competition).
i don't understand how the EU didn't put up a very simple rule : users owns their phones and should be able to install any software they want without apple putting artificial restrictions or gateways exclusivity. Period.
That should remove all the possibilities of apple trying to find the loopholes with shit measures such as those "options".
Or alternatively, that the manufacturer shall have no special privileges when it comes to software. The OS APIs needs to be public and if Apple can do something, someone else unauthorized should be able to do it also. This would also apply the play store privileges on Android, but that is a much less egregious violation than what Apple does.
> The gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.
Would this mean that something like safetynet and the payment api need to allow 3rd party alternatives? That would be very good for the rooting/custom ROM community.
No, not “period”. As if Apple wouldn’t attempt loopholes around that rule as well. What defines an “artificial restriction”, or what’s “gateways exclusivity”? Things need to have definitions and laws have contexts. No EU regulator is reading random internet comments and thinking “ah, if only we thought to put in that one random sentence from sword_punisher_69, it would’ve made the law airtight. Those arm chair regulators sure know their stuff”.
People in tech are in dire need of some humility. We don’t know everything, we don’t have all the answers, we can’t just jump into someone else’s job and immediately do it better. Is the law flawless? Probably not. Would all its issues be solved with one sentence? Definitely not.
The EU will still want to protect their capabilities to spy on people's phones, now, or maybe in the future. They will not want to mess with that by giving users too much control over their phone.
In the end it is always people making the decision. That is who "they" refers to.
But you are right, the EU should be much more unified and consistent. Also, have their own army that they could send into Ukraine to put Russians back where they belong.
Because the EU wanted to be able to target specific companies and not others. The way the DMA is written they can pick and choose to enforce it on whoever they want.
There are also security requirements imposed by regulation. A free for all would not be compliant as far as I understand. Also arguably not in the user’s interest.
Some specific benefits competitive apps stores could provide (within the general benefits of competition and innovation):
1. The open source app store. The git hub app store. Open source apps easily prepped by developers and installed and updated by regular users. With source and build files.
2. The developer tools app store. Real developer tools on iOS devices.
3. Lower app store vigs. Lower app prices. Allow the lowest cost part of the market to drop prices further. I would love to buy tiny solid 0.25 cent apps without ads. Maker markets without a parasitical Apple tax.
4. The ad free app store. Sorry I even imagined it, it just hurts to think about it.
5. And the no "in-app purchase" store. Only for substantial apps worth paying for up front. Use forever, or choose to pay again for an upgrade you actually want.
6. Children's only app store, with high safety bars of all kinds. Very parent friendly.
7. Formally verified app store. Starts small, but learns. Meantime, more safety than Apple can deliver by one astronomical unit. Pushing Apple to improve its safety MORE.
8. Different kinds of app infrastructure. Streaming apps and games from anyone. Better systems for software versioning, updating, cross-app plug-in mechanisms.
9. One shop app-stores that deliver different kinds of versioning, upgrading, and other kinds of support that Apple doesn't in a coherent manner.
10. The very safe no-code app store. Sorry, app stores with different approaches! Very sandboxed, but very easy for technically literate non-coders to create simple tools for anyone to use. Given the solid sandboxing, and restricted "source", no barriers for anyone to contribute their app. Maker friendly.
11. The novelty developers 1k-byte app store. It's just for fun but how cool would that be. Innovation in efficiency as a game. Other developer app store experiments. Innovation comes from freedom. (Had to turn this list up to 11.)
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None of these inconvenience those who wish to stay on Apple's store.
They will only push Apple to increase its selling-point safety futher, while, while dropping anti-innovative self-interested restrictions it has misleadingly defended, like its prohibition on other web engines ("But the safety!").
Any other ideas for app stores that deliver useful differences?
When the App store was new, the "free" apps were actually free. Now practically all of the "free" apps featured on the app store are not free at all. Half the time you can't even do anything without paying, but you only find this out after going through the hassle of downloading the app.
A better app store would make pricing actually clear before you download the app, instead of the nightmare that pretend "free" apps have created.
The app store and the Google play store are absolute garbage as far as I'm concerned.
Whatever protection they claim to offer is utterly bogus. If anything, they make it easier to leak personal information to random app makers, who, like you said, offer paid apps masquerading as free ones.
The amount of junk in the native app stores is just way too high for me to ever buy the argument that they're there to improve end user experience.
I wonder why the EU is pushing Apple this hard, and not the other gatekeepers. For example, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo consoles should now support an external store.
Because they are not "gatekeepers", a term defined by the DMA which focuses on specific sectors.
Also the video game ecosystem is pretty healthy these days, with nearly every major game available on Windows at launch or a few months later. As a matter of market competition, letting you hack your game console or smart TV or whatever just isn't that relevant.
It could be, but with Apple's overseeing has turned into a Damocles sword hanging over everyone. The rules has been ok (and that's why most business didn't care about the 30% fee), but lately the rules has been only in Apple's favor. And with their ubiquity today, it's more rent seeking than curation.
I like how in this scenario people are happy to quote particular areas of law or DMA to excuse opening up consoles. But when Apple do it people just simply want more freedom regardless of what the law says, which isn't that what would be the case with consoles too?
What applications are necessary to call it a general purpose computer? A web browser? A self-hosted development environment? I don't think there's a bright line between what applications a Playstation or Xbox has versus what a phone has.
And it's not like the iPhone is the only phone you can get. If Apple is restricting such a core component of our lives, you can simply buy non-Apple products.
- an app that's used by pharmacies to handle prescriptions from the public health system;
- an app I can legally show a police officer so they can determine that I have a valid driver's license;
- an app I can use to pay my taxes;
- an app I can use to pay parking meters to the local authorities;
- apps used to register consumption (kWh, m3, etc) with the local utilities.
Some of these are published by the government itself, others by public companies. A smartphone is not a Playstation or an Xbox. We have Androids and iPhones, that's it. And significant portions of our lives are tied to having Androids and iPhones.
PS: I also remember having an app that used an API purportedly developed with amazing good will to help public health systems trace COVID exposure. Remember that one? How everyone having a smartphone was going to help get us back to the subway safely?
My argument is we regulate these companies and not others because these are important to society, yes. Same as we regulate phone companies or the internet.
We can't allow two global multinationals to gatekeep this much of our modern lives and simply do nothing about it. Or we could, but we don't want to.
Apple and Google can leave the market if they don't like the rules.
Doesn't that argument prove too much? I can think of several things that are much more important to society but regulated less. For example, books are important to society. Should the government dictate what books publishers are allowed to publish? After all, certain ideas are extremely corrosive to society and should be discouraged. (I can think of a few religious texts that might fall under that umbrella.) Or what about the opposite? Amazon doesn't sell certain books on its Kindle platform. Just like Apple and the iPhone, shouldn't Amazon be forced to support third party stores for the Kindle?
Apple's app store isn't nearly as important to society as books, but the EU regulates it much more. That makes me think that the driving factor behind these particular regulations is not importance to society.
The government isn't dictating which books are allowed to be published, it's arguing (amongst other things) that self publishing books should be possible, which it is.
Being a successful smartphone manufacturer (or a smartphone OS manufacturer), shouldn't give you a monopoly on software distribution, that's the entire point.
And even the Kindle, which doesn't have the market relevance of iOS, isn't as locked down as iOS: the Kindle does support reading ebooks from other sources, they just don't support DRM from other stores.
It's not about how you might use the device. it's about how people actually use them. Maybe a dozen ppl have ever used the browser on a PlayStation. When you lose your phone, on the other hand, it literally feels weird to go about your day without one.
Right now you have a "Hobson's choice", but if you could ditch the iPhone while still keeping access to iMessage and iCloud, wouldn't you?
I don't really care about iMessage or iCloud. Yes the blue text looks nicer and the quality of images in messages is a little better, but it's not a deal breaker if I'm messaging an Android user. I have less than a gigabyte of stuff in iCloud and I don't know how it got there.
I use iPhones because they're smaller than Android phones. Would I like it if Apple still made phones in the form factor of the iPhone 4 or 5? Absolutely. Should the government force Apple to do that? Probably not.
It's really a lot more simple than you're making it out to be. The word 'purpose' refers to intent, not capability. Xbox is a gaming console because that's what it was meant to be. The iPhone is intended to run many different categories of applications, because that's what it was designed to do.
In that case, why is the EU forcing Apple to support alternative app stores for watchOS and tvOS, not just iOS and iPadOS? The Apple Watch and Apple TV aren't designed to be general purpose.
Because they don't have the numbers to matter, that's why. I know it can be hard to keep several distinct conditions in the head at once, but it's important to remember that just because one can satisfy a single condition does not mean a law which requires several conditions to be true will necessarily apply.
I think you misread my comment. The EU is forcing Apple to support alternative app stores for watchOS and tvOS. These are not general purpose devices and they have comparable or lower sales than game consoles.
Because they're interconnected enough that the EU lumps them in with the rest of the ecosystem for anticompetitive purposes? I wasn't necessarily agreeing with the rationale above, just commenting on what a 'special purpose computer' is.
Games consoles are designed, marketed and used to play games and for similar entertainment purposes.
You are not going to do your online banking on an Xbox, or write a letter on a PlayStation, even if the hardware is theoretically capable of that, it’s just not what it’s for.
That's what people said about phones at first too. The Nintendo Switch has the same capabilities with its touchscreen. Its more than capable of taking the place of an iPad.
That's what people said about phones and cell phones, not about smartphones and there's a meaningful difference. "Phones" include analog devices that send voltage over copper wires to make sound at each end and they were never nor will ever be capable of use as a general purpose computer, so care with product categories must be taken. The thing my grandfather used first as a child to call across town to his uncle is not the same thing our children are carrying in their pockets to watch TikToks, and any more than a carrier pigeon is a 747.
Access to gaming is not critical to participation in a modern economy. Whereas a phone gives you access to banking, government services, medical services, emergency services, education, information, news, wayfinding(GPS), shopping (especially if you live somewhere remote) are just some examples of things people do with their phones. And that's not just some people, like 80-90% of all people.
Are any of those things impossible without sideloading or the DMA? Those things will only be riskier on your phone with all the malware that will undoubtedly spread throughout fully open marketplaces. I really do not want my mom accidentally installing her "Chase Bank" app from www.chazebank.cc.
The post I responded to was asking why Nintendo (and similar) shouldn't face the same regulation. Despite you point being mostly off topic I'll humour you.
Since what's possible or impossible is the only options you've given me, Is it "impossible" for your mom to just do all her banking in person or over the phone? The phone works perfectly fine.
See how that sounds?
Anyways, having a central gatekeeper to all those essential services is not optimal from an economic or technical perspective. (Again, notice I said "not optimal" even though you created the false alternative of "not impossible").
Your concerns about malware are valid. Or at least as much as they are valid on MacOS. Which is to say - somewhat, but not enough in the balance of things.
And yes, I have elderly parents too. I plan to continue educating them.
those things are all made prohibitively difficult without a smartphone. there are people in the US getting kicked off their insurance plans for not having a required smartphone. this isn't some goddamn game here, peoples lives and livelihoods are on the line and you're wondering if it might not be such a big deal clearly never having put more than a moment's thought into it.
And your malware claims are total BS There's been alternative stores on Android for years and the malware situation remains stable to slightly improving thanks to hardening of the OS that Google did resulting from the goal of supporting multiple stores. Far more people in the world use Android and bank on it than iOS so the idea that the sky will fall if Apple opens up is pure ridiculousness, utter silliness.
You are trying to start fights all over this post and I'm not sure why, but please don't put words in my mouth. At no point did I even remotely suggest that people shouldn't have access to smartphones.
Just be ready for Xbox and Sony to stop subsidizing their console prices then. That may be the future anyways as Xbox (and Sony really recently) push towards cross-plat gaming.
That may be true in terms of number of devices sold, but it's definitely not true in terms of revenue. In the seven years since the launch of the Switch, Nintendo has made almost $60 billion in revenue, or $8.5 billion per year. The Playstation and Xbox platforms make $12-16 billion a year.
I care about their revenues about as much as I care about the consistency of squirrel droppings. They can all take a haircut and still be eminently sustainable, even quite profitable, as Nintendo has amply demonstrated.
Umm, ok. I'm just saying that the parent comment is incorrect. Loss leader consoles make more money.
Also "Console manufacturers can endure being forced to sell products at cost." is a different argument than "Console manufacturers are more successful when they sell products at cost.", which is what I was addressing.
Game consoles, notably excepting Nintendo, usually sell at a small loss, break even, or a small profit to begin with, and eventually make that up not in game sales, but in selling a cheaper to build console later in its lifecycle. If a PS5 cost Sony $450 to build in year 1 and they charged $500, that's rather small profit compared to game sales where they rake it in. But if you look at that same PS5 sold in year 2 when the lines are all moving at full speed there should be some profits. If you look in the 3rd or 5th or 7th year, it's gonna be a whole lot cheaper to build and these later profits should more than cover earlier losses.
And the cool thing for MS and Sony is that the consoles sell well through their entire lifetimes only tapering off strongly in the last year or so as anticipation for the next generation hits. So, where profits may be minor, none, or negative in the first year or two of sales, the next 5 or 6 years turns game consoles into profitable businesses before any game sales are accounted for.
(There are typically about four Moor's Law cycles per console rev so how could costs not come down dramatically. Heck, each time the leaders move to a new node, the old one drops pricing by 10-20% and there are probably 5-6 generational leaps during a console lifetime. If the PS4 APU was $175 in year one, it could have been down to $115 at the midpoint of the console's lifecycle and down to perhaps $30-$40 by the last year or two of production. This is also reflected in memory price drops as well, though perhaps not to the same degree and as a smaller fraction of the total but one could imagine that PS4 that originally cost $400 to build and sold for $400 would be down to under $250 to build with a lifetime profit margin of about 15-20%. Not App Store 30% free money but not the loss leader most seem to think they are.)
Of course, Nintendo is the outlier and they're reasonably profitable on the console from day one, consistently.
Existing law surrounding anticircumvention already singles out game consoles as deserving special protection. i.e. the Copyright Office made it explicitly legal to circumvent the iPhone's DRM in order to install otherwise legal software, but they refused to extend this to game consoles. While you are technically correct that we should be treating game consoles the same as smartphones, in practice the industry treats game consoles as a locked down box to handcuff users with while smartphones are not.
I suspect if half the console market was unlocked ala the Steam Deck, the EU would be pushing for the other half to also be unlocked, too.
We also have to keep in mind that Epic sued Apple, not Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. A lot of monopoly maintenance involves obfuscating the business relationships that make the monopoly work. i.e. Apple doesn't report how much money they make from the App Store[0] because that information would be very useful to regulators looking to undo their monopoly. The discovery on the Apple lawsuit published a lot of this previously hidden information. In other words, the EU had Apple land on their plate ready to cook and serve.
Epic will not sue their console partners. The damage to their business would actually be a lot worse: instead of merely seeing Fortnite taken off the various console stores, the console manufacturers would be sending repo men to take away all the devkits Epic uses to test Unreal Engine, demanding they delete the console ports of the engine, and refusing to cert any new games using Unreal Engine, forcing all their partners to license different technology and rebuild their games from the ground up. It would be immediate and total financial suicide.
In other words, the console manufacturers are "getting away with it" because they had way more control over their niche than Apple did.
[0] Related note: there's an unenforced SEC rule that specifically forbids not reporting this information, to prevent monopolies from obfuscating their profit centers like this.
> take away all the devkits Epic uses to test Unreal Engine, demanding they delete the console ports of the engine, and refusing to cert any new games using Unreal Engine, forcing all their partners to license different technology and rebuild their games
I think this is a lil extreme. Even if Epic had some reason to sue the console makers, there are too many high profile and high grossing games (e.g. the next Witcher and Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Jedi series) for Sony/Microsoft to choose to completely ban Unreal. Imagine too: if one of them announces they will prohibit Unreal games, why won’t the other swallow their pride and become the console-exclusive platform for that title? Not even Apple has banned Unreal, and I can’t think of any big games on their store that use it.
> why won’t the other swallow their pride and become the console-exclusive platform for that title?
It depends on who's being sued and who isn't. Microsoft absolutely would swallow their pride here if it meant getting one up on Sony, if only because the Xbox is already partially open anyway[0] and the Xbox business is significantly hurting right now. Reverse the roles, however, with Microsoft being sued, and they absolutely would respond by trying to disable Epic's access to the Xbox platform and to other Xbox developers. Sony would not do Epic any favors here either and probably would stand in solidarity with Microsoft - because they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Remember: the console business is about handcuffing users and developers; Epic's lawsuit goes against that. We actually know a lot about Epic's communications with the console manufacturers as a result of the Epic v. Apple lawsuit[1]. They were worried that the "direct payments" stunt was going to eat into microtransaction profits, because Epic had applied the discount you got on V-Bucks to consoles as well as iOS. Epic also kept the both the lawsuit and their lobbying from including videogame consoles, because of the possibility that it would impact the Unreal business.
For what it's worth, Apple actually did try to get Epic's Unreal division banned from iOS, but was stopped by the judge in the Epic v. Apple case. Apple also has tried to regulate what frameworks app developers are allowed to use in the past. Back a decade and change ago, Adobe shipped Flash Packager for iPhone to allow Flash developers to ship SWFs as iPhone apps. Apple changed their developer agreements to specifically require all apps be "originally written" in Objective-C, C/C++, or JavaScript; so they'd have cover to reject Flash apps. They backed down a few months later only because the Obama-era DOJ actually threatened to sue, which is why you've probably used a ton of Flash games on your iPhone without even knowing.
[0] To be clear, you can get access to the Shared partition to run software on but you cannot access the Exclusive partition without a devkit.
[1] Because Apple was trying to prove that the lawsuit was a stunt and that Epic was suing over a very normal business practice everyone else in the business embraced wholeheartedly
Because smartphones have become an ubiquitous and essential part of everyday life (communication, information access, and services) for large parts of the population, which is not true for gaming consoles.
>Web Distribution, available with a software update later this spring, will let authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a website owned by the developer.
Hmmmm, these feels like its still just apple controlling it.
That is a joke and not different than downloading it from an alternative App Store. Still has to go though Apple notorisation and pay the Apple Tech Fee/tax. No small dev can do that.
"Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year."
The realistic part of me thinks this sounds like more resistance to the DMA.
Another part of me thinks this will be good for security. Some random can't get a dev account and publish malware payloads on a hidden URL that will happily run on iOS devices, and are installed via a Safari zero day.
The amount of US attitude for the European market is staggering, and I'll be curious to see how many more fines they get for clearly and intentionally only doing the bare minimum required to be able to claim they're following regulations, with as many roadblocks as possible in place to make sure just enough content passes the bar to go "see? we've done the thing".
It’s funny how Apple fans here, and on other forums, dislike the seemingly arbitrary heavy handed gate keeping on Apple by the EU when in fact Apple engages in far extreme level of arbitrary gate keeping and this is somehow loved by the same people.
if the eu hits them with enough billion dollar fines eventually they will comply. apple can avoid this by complying the first time, but if they want to give away 10 billion dollars before coming into compliance i'm more than okay with that.
That “complete failure” has already made Apple backtrack on their plans multiple times. It’s absurd, given what has happened in the last few weeks, to think everything is going to stay exactly as is.
Because locking yourself from 1/6th of global economy is a non-starter when chasing returns and stock price, which are also the reasons why Apple is pulling such moves in the first place.
As much as I like to joke about Apple starting a nuclear weapons division and tattooing "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" on Tim Cook's forehead, the reality is that corporations are not actually sovereign nations, they just cosplay as such. Apple's investors will not tolerate Apple abandoning a huge chunk of their iPhone revenue over what is effectively a religious precept.
lol. Shareholders won’t care if Apple pulls out of Europe if Europe makes it impossible to make a profit.
Another comment claims that the App Store represents something like 40% of Apple’s profit. If you chop a company’s profit in half and lay on a bunch of regulatory costs, pulling out of the market starts to look appealing.
And, who is to say that the EC will stop here? What happens when all the alternative app stores fail because they fail to enforce the same developer-hostile, user-friendly features as Apple (like request to track). You think the EC will just roll over and let that happen? Or will they take even stronger measures?
Continuing the humor the EC is just throwing good money after bad at this point. Shareholders can see that just as well as anyone else.
Apple has reported to the EU that Apple's EU App Store revenue is 7% of their global revenue, a far cry from 40% of their profits. Don't believe what some rando posted here and then base your entire comment on that belief or be prepared to be wrong much of the time, and in embarrassing ways.
Apple can't even afford to lose that though or Cook would face a board and shareholder revolt.
And what if the EC doesn't stop there, well, most of us are hoping they won't an that Apple will be paying billions in fines until they cut the malicious compliance song and dance and get serious about respecting the EU's competition laws. Apple cannot leave and will not leave and so they will ultimately do what ever the EC demands of them. It's just a matter of how much they pay in fines first.
At this point the only entente that could make our devices more repairable is the EU. Easy Screen, Battery, and SSD replacements should be mandatory for every desktop computer, laptop, and phone
> We’re providing more flexibility for developers who distribute apps in the European Union (EU), including introducing a new way to distribute apps directly from a developer’s website.
Important limitation if you click through to the "Getting ready for Web Distribution in the EU" page:
> To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must [...] be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
> Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year
These are the same as the current requirements to create an alternative App Store. So it sounds like this is a way for developers of a single app to allow users to install just their app. Before this comes into effect, these developers will have to create a custom store to allow users to install a single app.
Silicon Valley's original sin is Steve Jobs conning Steve Wozniak and a bunch of tech contractors into building his business empire. Every company in the Bay Area is a politically implausible liason of a very specific kind of Objectivist control freak CEO[0] and the hippie nerds that can actually build what they want to sell.
The hacker mindset of openness is very easy to confuse with Jobs-types that want openness for thee but not for me. It's very easy to complain about people currently abusing their power (remember Google's "Don't Be Evil" poking fun at Microsoft?) but hard to recognize incipient abuses of future power. The only way to unambiguously avoid this is to go full Stallman[1] and categorically distolerate any amount of control or ownership over one's work.
To make matters worse, this industry is one in which you really can't make money unless you're selling something that's closed off and locked down. The people who actually do play fair get bankrupted any time the government is looking the other way on antitrust.
[0] Yes, I am calling out YCombinator. You're part of the problem.
[1] To be clear, RMS very much has Jobs' personality, grafted onto Woz's morality and skill. He would have become just as awful as Jobs had he not insisted on Free Software early on.
I don't think it's fully impossible, but rather just very difficult, especially if operating in the software space. I'd call framework laptops an example of the exception to the rule. But yes, they're very rare.
Another case of malicious compliance from a big US corp that is accustomed to literally owning US lawmakers. Good bye! Another company I won't touch anymore.
Whats most annoying is that Apple pioneered the idea of PWAs going all the way back to Steve Jobs. I have said many times Tim Cook is a good COO but Apple needs a visionary who wants to innovate. It feels like Apples innovations are not where they could be. They are making some amazing things here and there, but I can only imagine they would be far more innovative with a different CEO.
There were mobile devices with large screens and web browsers doing "web apps" years before iPhone. I know because I worked on Gecko browsers for two different OSes on those form factors starting with Pocket PC in 2003-ish all the way through Windows Mobile 5 in 2007ish. We also got running on Maemo with big screen handheld devices in early 2004, collaborating directly with Nokia and that Linux-based OS team. A full Gecko browser worked on multiple big screen 3G mobile communicators doing ajax apps before Gmail invites were a thing, years before iPhone. Apple didn't pioneer here; they fast followed us and others. Heck, we were running Gecko on the iPaq 64MB devices in 2001 and third parties were distributing that in 2002. Not some WAP browser, not some brew joke, but Gecko, the same Gecko that was taking the web by storm with Firefox pre-release versions (and of course Mozilla 1.0 and Netscape 6-7) the same Gecko plus DomI that inspired web apps and ajax to take off in the mid-2000s.Web apps were a thing in 2005 and so were mobile web apps. Joe Hewitt, a co-conspirator of mine on Firefox, who gave us both DOM Inspector and Firebug, was a web app master having built the entire Firefox UI out of XUL, CSS and JavaScript and Mozilla's and Netsape's UIs and themes before that. He wrote iUI, the first ajax framework explicitly for iPhones in the period before Jobs suckered everyone into the App Store and sunk those who'd invested substantially in the promise of web apps that Apple fully abandoned. iPhone was no surprise to us, nor Apple running a powerful browser as an app framework, as we and others had done the same thing with Gecko (Ever see the Mozilla Amazon Browser, an entire Amazon client written on top of Gecko back in 2002-2003 not much different than what we see so many Electron apps today. Multiple books were written on all of this. It's not a secret and yet everyone seems to insist that Apple was the first smartphone with a capable web browser and browser-based apps. They got it right where everyone before had failed in some way, but they were not the pioneers, they were the swift following colonizers that came to pave the cow paths that we and others laid down, only to abandon the suckers who believed they'd keep investing in the web on iOS, something that has only just started to happen in the last couple of years.
As someone who never got into the Apple ecosystem, the title is really amusing --- they're announcing it like it's a new feature and it actually comes with a lot of gotchas, when "download apps directly from websites" with absolute freedom has been the norm for just about every other computer in widespread use, for the past few decades.
The average/majority of the population were not going to navigate to shitty mobile websites or desktop websites on their mobile browser to download apps in 2008. If the app store was such a bad place to put apps then why did they boom? Why do people use the Android play store at all if they can sideload, if the need to do so is so highly valued.
I do think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was huge for most people including developers. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app.
Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.
But we can't forget how beneficial the app store and the "walled" approach was.
Now there could be an aspect of predatory behavior by Apple in the way they charge developers etc, but that's where I feel the problem should be tackled.
It's the big apps and vendors I want to have protection against. My negotiation position towards Facebook etc. is very weak. This is why I like when Apple is putting certain limits for them.
With smaller apps I don't have this problem. There's typically plenty to choose from. If I don't like the policies of one, then I can go for something else.
Your negotiating power to make any app list in the any app store is approximately zero. If Facebook decides for any reason to leave, neither you nor Apple can stop them so this imagined power you think you get from Apple's App Store policies is just that.
If Apple is forced to allow FB an alternate path and FB takes that path abandoning Apple's App Store, you can blame Apple for the extortion fees in its App Store that are driving FB and others away. Had Apple not been so greedy, there wouldn't have been suits and the EC wouldn't have forced their hand, but Cook's gotta cook for shareholders and leaving even a single penny on the table would be against his commitment to them.
My grocer, who does far more for my well being than Apple, makes 2-3% store-wide markup and he still manages to invest in his store, feed himself and his family, and employ a decent sized staff on that ~2.5% -- and that's the case for most grocery stores, big and small, and we're all real good with that and have been for several decades, these people building actual buildings and gathering up the best foods the world has to offer from hundreds or even thousands of suppliers and paying people to cut open boxes and stock shelves with these amazing foods and mop the floors when we break jars of food that we never pay for he and his crew take sh*t from customers who had a bad day (who might even rob or assault them) and all for 2.5% margin while folks here, on a hacking forum of all places, simp for a walled garden that's extracting 30% from mom and pop hackers for providing what amounts to web hosting.
Why even terminate the warranty? It's for the hardware. It's a law in many countries that the warranty still applies unless the manufacturer can prove that you yourself broke the device.
The web distribution certainly makes it much more viable to offer apps outside the App Store, and have reasonable conversion rates. Now PornHub or similar could easily offer their app from the website.
With this available (which is a much simpler system), all of the App Marketplace-convoluted setups seems redundant.
I think the main point is the theft protection and protection from state. The US and the UK's democratic systems are broken.
In the US the social structure is slowly collapsing which increases theft and other petty crimes, at the same time the federal state has a huge surveillance power.
Solving the societal and political problems so there is less incentive having your iPhone stolen is hard. Expecting a state-like company to benevolently save you is the way they cope.
TBH without the EU, legislation like DMA would also be hard to come up with. The independent countries have less power to exert over American behemoths. This is the nice thing about EU.
How about companies ripped off by apple get together and offer the european union a "neutral" plattform, a app-store of its own without app-store tarifs? Make infrastructure infrastructure again and destroy the walled gardens while they are at it?
Hopefully, this leads to a future where ios is a similar platform to Mac OS or Windows. Both are general computing operating systems where you have access to an app store as well as the ability to download arbitrary software from the web.
As a user, I cannot recommend iPhone to my older relatives if there is a way to run arbitrary code beyond Safari’s JS sandbox. Simple as that.
It is a nuanced question with a computer[0], but for a phone (increasingly used for more important transactions and sensitive private data by people more naive when it comes to security) it is simply a no-brainer.
Unless cyber crime is prosecuted as robustly as robberies, I want this kind of jail to constrain the device. Believe it or not, it is a feature.
[0] I do run arbitrary code on my MBP, but then I am a dev who writes code. And, being that, I recently re-enabled the warning for running non-app-store apps on my Mac—I consider myself proficient enough, but perhaps that is exactly why I prefer having to go through an extra warning dialog if it helps reduce the attack surface.
Apple has released phones with major vulnerabilities hard-coded in the silicon. When the checkra1n jailbreak was released, the only fix was to buy a new phone because it exploited flaws in the bootrom & secure enclave silicon.
(That was in 2020, as of iOS 13 IIRC. It’d be interesting how much of that works against the current iOS 17, and whether Zerodium simply had cashflow issues at the time.)
If you need to infantilize your relatives because they cannot be trusted with their devices, then MDM them, or even have that be the default. But we do not need to surrender in the war on general purpose computing for it.
Many of us cannot afford the luxury of working overtime as tech support for relatives. I personally do not even think I can do a good enough job at that for myself, in fact—I would have to be a professional information security researcher.
Furthermore, I am sure if there is enough misplaced outrage, MDM will be unable to restrict this.
> But we do not need to surrender in the war on general purpose computing for it.
Where is that war? General purpose computing is everywhere, with all of its associated benefits and liabilities[0].
iOS has more or less been the only island where it is reliably not an option, that making it preferred for the reasons I mention.
[0] How many of us literally airgap machines that run unvetted code (at least once you realize that all vitalization and containerization is circumventable), not letting any personal data on them? How feasible is that with a phone, and by an average person that is not exactly infosec-savvy but who is obligated to have a phone to simply get on with daily life?
I don't agree with the hyperbole of the person you're replying to. But I also don't think the possibility of fair competition is mutually excusive with the security of the vulnerable few.
That's assuming that something like an opt-in lockdown mode is compatible with the DMA.
I believe the vulnerable (the non-infosec-experts) are not few but majority. It’s a spectrum, and I’m definitely on it. For example, I don’t know anything about the S-mode.
Folks on this site vastly overestimate how much people who actually buy and use these devices care about literally any of the stuff being talked about in this thread.
Apple's schtick was "It just works." that's what people like and want. They don't want to have to go thru and make choices, dig thru settings, install other app stores, explain to meemaw that the nice man cold-calling her telling her to install this special app isn't actually from the IRS coming to arrest her, etc...
Oh I agree that they don't care, but that doesn't mean that Apple isn't distorting the market in a way that some of us, the very technologists building the next round of innovation, find abhorrent. This is a case where the public can have it all. The defaults can be "it just works" without also ceding all control over who wins and loses and a significant chunk of revenue to Apple.
The nice man cold calling here won't be a f*cking idiot so he won't try to get her to jump through a bunch of complicated technical hoops that will surely fail because your poor meemaw is not tech savy enough to pull it off, to turn on a buried setting then visit a sketchy website then download and locate a package then agree to the warning at the package install and he isn't an idiot and knows that so he will just tell meemaw he's from the bank and he needs her credentials and she'll turn them over or hang up the phone. That you think the App Store is protecting her bank account is effing laughable. Malware is the very last thing a baddie on the phone with your poor meemaw is going to try and you either know that and are feigning stupidity or the alternative.
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png needs a companion for people like you who infantalize seniors (if they're 80, they were using Windows 7 at work before they retired) and make up hacker scenarios that would never happen to seniors to defend an indefensible position that is "I stan Apple, or possibly all multi-trillion dollar mega-corporations with walled gardens, because hacking is for losers and I'm here on a hacking forum to let everyone know that."
> As a user, I cannot recommend iPhone to my older relatives if there is a way to run arbitrary code beyond Safari’s JS sandbox. Simple as that.
This is a false dichotomy made in bad faith. You can have open computers and security for those who you wish to infantilize. Chromebooks for example have physical write protect screw inside to do exactly this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Remove+the+Write+Protect+Screw/...
I fully expect the company that engineered the Vision Pro to come up with something like this if they wanted to. But they choose to spread FUD to continue collecting rent on the appstore instead.
Wow! Apple does Apple again. Just carved the exception to the EU market. I was hoping these pushes would stir changes across the globe but I guess the market size is too big especially the US market
So, we in the EU will reap the benefits, and everyone else will keep abiding Apple’s rules? How is that not segregation and why is not other country doing anything about it?
They are increasingly relying on having full control of their ecosystem to maintain their "monopoly", and with all the risks brewing in the horizon - its price is pretty high.
People extrapolate the present too much into the future, but much of life does not work that way.
I didn’t read anything on the 30% for apps downloaded this way. Do you still have to offer IAP or is that optional if your app was downloaded from the web?
Oh man Apple is finally getting a feature Android had for 10+ years! Maybe in like 20 years iphones will finally have the features a $100 android has and will be up to bare basic standards.
I def look sideways at people who buy a used $300 iphone when you can get a safer, higher quality, more feature phone with more for $150. This is different from someone buying Nike Jordans because they are status insecure, because Nike Jordan's dont affect my life. A critical mass of Apple users caused developers to make Apps for iPhones.
yep, apple can suck my dick from now on. spend a months wage on one of their shitty bug-ridden phones and get used as a punching bag for apple to vent their frustrations about a bitchy argument with the EU which i didn't even support. dog shit company.
I think your account has to be an EU account, whatever that means. Maybe billing address and other things. But, would be nice if that wasn’t the case. Also, I could be wrong. Try it and let us know?
> worried if they ever allowed unsigned apps to run
I see this stance often - Do you mean worried for the wellbeing of the easily manipulable (e.g. children) on the platform,
Or worried for the quality floor more generally?
The former has an argument, the latter does not in my opinion.
Even then while I welcome a requirement for apple to notarise apps for regular install (particularly as a means to verify the source), I'd also demand the ability to run unsigned apps unrestricted - whether the barrier is self-signing, a settings checkbox, make me stare at a 30s countdown, whatever.
I worry about my family both young and old who all had adware and malware ridden Android phones before I got them iPhones.
The vast majority of people use smartphones against their will and have no desire to learn anything about the magical Facebook machine in their hands.
They press buttons and things happen, who cares what the dialog box says, they press the button that will get them doing what they want to do the fastest, who cares if it said whatever they were doing is dangerous. This is how most people view their phones, and why there are Android botnets and not iOS botnets.
All of your concerns are actually solvable through software … if Apple were willing to work on it. But doing that doesn’t bring a lot of revenue so they keep pushing the narrative how the entire category of applications is malicious or risky.
> There are plenty of “free Vbucks” and survey sites that show you how to enable sideloading on Android to download said app that is just pure malware.
And yet the world hasn't collapsed due to every Android users' identity and bank accounts being stolen.
Maybe users aren't as dumb as Apple pretends they are.
This framing ignores the very real harm which has come to millions of people. It’s not the 80s any more and there are mature industries built around spying on users or tricking them into decisions with significant financial consequences. Most of the effective defenses require something like notarization to make it hard for attackers to simply disappear without legal consequences, so we need ways to do that at reasonable cost.
€0.50 seems like a reasonable cost for that, similar to how we don’t make circuit breakers or seatbelts optional just because some guy thinks he doesn’t need them and resents paying the extra cost.
I’m not going to hire an IT team to install and maintain MDM to prevent my grandmother from falling for a scam website and installing “free money quick 2024 +++ candy crush ultra”
If you want to block your grandma from being able to install apps from outside the Apple app store, that's fine (as long as she agrees to it). Seems like a useful feature. Maybe file it under "parental controls" or something.
If you want to block me from being able to install apps from outside the Apple app store though, that's none of your business (or Apple's).
It is Apple’s business, actually. Don’t like it? You don’t like anything about the Apple ecosystem. Buy an Android phone from one of the thousands of OEMs.
Apple is not stopping you from buying a phone that isn’t from Apple.
If most people thought like you did, they would just not buy iPhones. The problem is nobody wants what you’re asking for, because you’re buying into the euro-populist cope that it helps consumers, even though this was just a play to allow European companies to even have a small chance at making money in tech because of how over regulated the industry is in Europe.
You’re asking for iOS to be a flavor of Android, and the reality is the Android experience fucking sucks.
How is anyone supposed to take your argument seriously when you use the term "euro-populist cope?"
> even though this was just a play to allow European companies to even have a small chance at making money in tech because of how over regulated the industry is in Europe
Please cite your sources.
> You’re asking for iOS to be a flavor of Android, and the reality is the Android experience fucking sucks.
No. The user is clearly asking to run software on a device that they own. Why is Apple controlling what software people can run on hardware that they don't own? Should Microsoft not allow people to run software on devices that Microsoft does not own?
I think they should allow unsigned apps to run in a similar way to developer mode on the Xbox.
You can enable unsigned apps, but you'll loose Apple services (e.g. iMessage). This should be enough to convince normal users not to do it, but allow those who really want to do it, to do it.
That is one of the reasons why businesses must have security software monitoring your entire system on macOS, but not on iOS.
On Windows, people literally just give everything they install complete root access to their entire system when installing applications, might as well bring that to iOS too, right?
You’re not making the point you think you’re making. There’s a lot more danger using macOS/Windows than iOS, and the people who interact with computers at work aren’t given administrative access for a reason.
I can grant anything access to my iCloud Keychain on macOS, do you honestly think iOS users should be able to press a button to allow this if a random app requested it? Do you even think they will know what that means? Now imagine if unsigned applications could access keychain like on macOS. How well do you think that will go down?
Apple drew the line at consumer safety, and developers hate that they can’t abuse their powers like they do everywhere else.
> On Windows, people literally just give everything they install complete root access to their entire system when installing applications, might as well bring that to iOS too, right?
UAC prompts get in the way, and if the user account isn't an admin the app can't do anything.
> That is one of the reasons why businesses must have security software monitoring your entire system on macOS, but not on iOS.
Because it is not even possible on iOS, so false sense of security
> On Windows, people literally just give everything they install complete root access to their entire system when installing applications, might as well bring that to iOS too, right?
You have not used Windows for looooong time, otherwise you would know that this is not the case since Windows 7 and not the case at all on Domain (enterprise) Windows since Windows XP
> I can grant anything access to my iCloud Keychain on macOS, do you honestly think iOS users should be able to press a button to allow this if a random app requested it? Do you even think they will know what that means? Now imagine if unsigned applications could access keychain like on macOS. How well do you think that will go down?
Of course, why not. Are iOS user dumber than MacOS users?
> Apple drew the line at consumer safety, and developers hate that they can’t abuse their powers like they do everywhere else.
This has nothing to do with safety, but with users demanding support for their iOS toys, while refusing to acknowledge, that if Apple bans me from App Store for whatever reason, all the money spent on iOS support are now running down the drain.
It’s clear you have so little knowledge of the area you’re trying to talk about there’s not really a point in continuing.
The real world isn’t a computer, and Apple is held responsible for user mistakes.
Remember the fappening? Apple never let users make security decisions on their iPhone again and forced MFA.
You’re talking about walking back decades of platform security because you want to be special, which by the way, everyone who does this for a living agrees with Apple here, including Google. That’s why they’re making Rooted phones worse experiences, 99% of people cannot be trusted with the sort of access you’re talking about, and Google knows that.
Yeah, it'd be terrible, awful, horrible if we could run the software we want on the computers we purchase. I've been installing software on WIndows without an infection since 2002, probably before you were born and I've been using third party Android app sources for various projects and products for a full decade without a single unwanted malware like behavior other than obnoxious notification spam. Yeah, tell me how much danger I'm in from my Windows and Android software, child.
If Apple manages to get away with this hostile behavior, I’ll actually boycott their products or maybe stick to refurbished apple devices. I’m glad people aren’t falling for their excuses and fights back.
"The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is an element of the business terms in the EU that reflects the value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world."
I feel sick. Yet, I am intrigued by what kind of drugs the PR team at Apple is taking... ;)
In my opinion, Apple's proprietary APIs provide a negative value to developers. Shuffling APIs around for no obvious reason is why none of my old iOS / Mac apps still work. I've been forced to issue refunds to people who upgraded their macOS and then afterwards noticed that my apps don't work anymore. And since Apple owns the customer relationship, we couldn't even send an email to warn them that upgrading will break their setup. (Pro Tools had to do that on basically every OS X upgrade.)
On Windows, things JUST WORK! :) and they've continued working with almost no maintenance for almost 9 years. The Windows version is, thus, highly profitable.
But the Mac version was a financial disaster. And discontinued.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I was super happy with Apple from about 2008 to about 2014 and shipped multiple iOS and Mac apps. But needless to say, my impression of them has soured when they started treating us developers badly. I'm now using Pop! OS as daily driver and it kinda feels as nice as OS X was before the stupidification efforts started.
> provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world.
That's what the 99$ fee for the developer program is for. The 50ct Core Technology Fee is just Apple showing the middle finger to successful developers. I hope the EU goes after this fee first.
The whole reason for the DMA is that developers do not use Apple's platforms to bring apps to the user's devices.
The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law.
Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay.
They have to be "compensated" in the intellectual property[0] sense of "we reserve the right to invent new reasons why we need to be compensated". Nothing is ever truly "paid for" or "owned" here.
I’m not sure what % of their R&D budget comes from the $99 fee vs various other AppStore percentage based fees. But… should it be a flat fee? It seems sort of reasonable to charge more successful apps more, they are apparently benefiting more from the ecosystem, right? Like progressive taxation. (If anything, why not institute increasing developer “apple tax” brackets?)
It looks like, just from some random googling, Apple makes somewhere in the range of $85B per year from their App Store, and there are around 34 Million iOS app developers. Do people really want to pay north of $2000 for their developer licenses?
I think you'd be hard pressed to take the $99/yr they make from the dev program fee and use it to cover the salaries for the engineers implementing and maintaining all of iOS' developer-facing APIs.
Who decided that developers should be the ones paying for the development of those APIs in the first place? Are we just going to ignore Apple's own products and services that their platform allows them to profit off of? And the market share afforded to them by supporting popular third-party apps and services?
There's plenty of precedence for platforms being profitable even with free APIs - including Android, Windows, and even Apple's own MacOS. iOS is not special.
Apple would pay for those APIs whether or not the dev program fees alone were enough to cover the expenses. But they'll also take as much from the devs as they are legally allowed to. And if the fees are enough to keep devs from distributing outside the app store, even better for Apple.
Isn't having good apps/api a selling point for apple hardware (where they already make massive amount of money), why can't that be a motivation by itself?
and what about the devices itself? doesn't apple get money from selling iphones and ipads?
The only downside I see on the DMA is that it has come very late, and that it's only an european law. Mobile devices are computers, and once sold you should be able to install whatever you want like on any other computer. The shame on apple is that it is increasingly difficult to install software even on the computers.
Maybe Apple's goal is to become irrelevant enough to not be subjected to the DMA. I mean, making developers despise you is a brilliant first step towards such an end!
Why is size a question here? If apple is subject now, but then dropped to 1/10th the number of users, could they suddenly no longer be required to adhere to the DMA? Why is the size of the provider suddenly a test to determine if consumer protections are in order?
The DMA, digital markets act, is about fair competition, not consumer protection. If you got 5 users, you do not have the necessary leverage to matter.
> The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law.
pretty much the same way nintendo or sony or microsoft justify it, I'd think.
it's pretty much exactly the same thing as windows S edition, or a console - you paid for the laptop, the developer paid to get notarization to release it. As Android shows, it is also probably legal to refuse to unlock the bootloader... now you own an "appliance".
And again, consoles have been doing this for two full decades now. PS5 isn't sold at a loss (and I don't think it matters if it is - your business model is not my problem) but I can't go mine crypto or emulate games on a PS5 or Xbox even if that's what I want to do with it as a user.
And I know that consoles got a specific carveout in the DMA "for some reason" (more evidence this is really just a bill of attainder in generic dress) but really there is not a moral difference here, and people have (including here, including the apple haters) have generally convinced themselves that it's OK. It's simple, just do the same thing with apple: "my phone is an appliance and I don't need to emulate games to be happy with it". It's a console in my pocket that makes calls.
In the EU, the spirit of the laws is what counts in court, not the letter of the law. That means it's a lot easier to understand things if you start with the intended consequences:
Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here
Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this
“The spirit of the law thing” is something I’ve seen repeated WRT the EU, but it seems like a really bizarre way to run anything important. The law obviously can’t tell us what its spirit is beyond what the letter is.
We can guess what legislators want… I guess a lawyer must have come up with this idea, because inconsistent guesses are going to give them lots of extra business.
Maybe it would be better to annotate laws with what their spirit is, so we don’t have to guess. In fact, just write that down instead of the apparently non-functional letter of the law.
You as a consumer or business cannot do the interpretation. Courts do. When there is ambiguities in the law (i.e. if the CTF is a valid fee or not), the higher courts (like the CJEU) decide how the law is to be interpreted and their decision sort of amend the word of the law.
> Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here
> Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this
this is a silly false dilemma/double standard you've set up.
if you want to apply the "do I need this exact device" standard - then no, you do not need a PS5, and you do not need an iphone. Therefore there is no need for regulation.
if you want to apply the "can I live my life without this whole category of Thing" - you probably can't live your life without some form of entertainment, and some form of generalized computing device, right? So no, you can't "do without" something like a PS5 or a phone or a laptop, no.
And the Xbox and PS5 are general purpose computing devices - there is no technical reason you shouldn't be able to check emails or run a word processor on your Xbox, other than that's not the market segmentation MS wants. Again, this is an example of a device so successfully convincing people that it's really an appliance that literally the EU wrote it into a law that there's no need for this appliance to comply.
Again: what's the problem? Just do the same thing with the iphone.
regardless, you are choosing to ignore the whole point about Windows S - you certainly can't life your life without Windows or MacOS, right? And if you want to point to niche solutions... nobody is stopping you from buying a Sailphone, but you would probably agree that's not a sufficient solution for the market as a whole.
Again, the whole thing is very narrowly a bill of attainder, both in its written form and application. If the purpose is "protecting consumers" there is no logical reason to exclude Windows S or PS5 or Xbox or other general-purpose computing devices from being utilized as such by consumers.
The EU has no business to be declaring these classes of devices as having no need to comply with market act requirements, especially when the boundaries are so fuzzy. Apple TV is pushing into mobile gaming. Series S is pushing downwards into mobile gaming. What is the difference between these 2 classes of devices, why should one get a pass? Why should Motorola be allowed to refuse to unlock their bootloaders without voiding a warranty? Etc etc. Literally narrowly targeted at ios and nothing else - even when it would benefit the consumer.
And more generally people are deliberately (and knowingly) missing the point that these types of appliances are common and are widely accepted - literally so widely accepted that the EU wrote special permission for many of them. Phrasing it as if Apple is somehow uniquely denying users access to the capabilities of their hardware is incredibly misleading - literally the EU wrote into the DMA special permission for many vendors to continue denying their users access to the capabilities of their hardware.
But, it's apple, I get it, everyone hates apple. But at a technological level they're not special or different.
Everyone knows the problem has nothing to do with openness or whatever, but that it comes down to the 30% fee and companies not wanting to pay it.
The problem is the law isn’t written to say “30% fees are too damn high” and just mandate that the fees can’t be over X% or are capped at $Y per install/device/whatever.
Game distribution
Steam 30% (25% after $10M, 20% after $50M)
Epic 12%
Humble 25% (15% to Humble, 10% to charity)
GOG 30%
Console
Microsoft 30%
Playstation 30%
Xbox 30%
Nintendo 30%
Mobile
Apple 30%
Google 30%
Physical
Gamestop 30%
Amazon 30%
Best Buy 30%
Walmart 30%
Having tracked API changes fairly closely on macOS and iOS for many years now, I can’t think of too many that were just pointless furniture shuffling. Nearly all of them were to enable addition of new features or to improve developer QoL in some way — dropping 32-bit support for example allowed them to make long desired improvements in AppKit that were impractical prior due to quirks in the way Objective-C works.
That said I also don’t think it’s a reasonable expectation for old binaries to continue to work indefinitely. Maintenance is a reality of life of a software developer, and personally speaking if I found myself unable or unwilling to do quick spot checks on each platform my apps run at least once a year, I’d just drop support for those platforms or discontinue the app.
That’s not to say that Apple is blameless here, but I think Microsoft has set an unrealistic standard (while also making some things much more difficult for themselves… Windows on ARM for example will never materialize so long as developers expect to be able to toss a binary over the wall and abandon it for a decade, because no matter how good an x86 compat layer is, it’s still significantly worse than native).
> That said I also don’t think it’s a reasonable expectation for old binaries to continue to work indefinitely. Maintenance is a reality of life of a software developer, and personally speaking
There is a fine difference between keeping old binaries running and maintaining your application. I don't expect certain applications to be maintained, but I expect them to run on newer versions of OS for many years. If you think this is impossible, Apple can learn a lot from Microsoft and Linux. And IMHO, Microsoft didn't make unrealistic standards. One of the reasons why Windows has been the most dominant OS for years is exceptional backward compatibility.
16 bit support got dropped from Windows over a decade ago. It's not like macOS drops things at random, Monumental architecture changes are good reasons to break any apps that hadn't been touched in x years.
No, it's still there in the 32-bit version of Windows (10, anyway.) Windows 11 doesn't support 32-bjt, so I suppose you could say it was dropped then, but Windows 10 is still supported.
It's important for platforms to support works of art indefinitely. It is not reasonable to expect, say, decade-old games to be updated (something that can involve weeks or months of work because underlying toolkits may need to be updated as well). This was a huge issue when Apple killed 32-bit support.
That's how platforms are killed by neglect. They become locked into their old forms and become replaced wholesale instead of evolving piece by deprecated piece.
Windows on ARM will never materialize because Qualcomm can't make compelling hardware for it to run on.
Keep in mind that the M1 at launch was as fast as a lot of Intel's lineup running emulated x86 apps. That's what Qualcomm needs to be able to pull off. If the performance is there then people will buy the laptops. That changes the developer story from "please recompile and retest your apps so they'll run on laptops nobody's buying" to "if you recompile your app it'll run 20% faster on this already screaming fast laptop chip".
Proficiency in emulating x86 is just one piece of the puzzle, though. It helped drive M1 adoption to be sure, but users also had a lot of confidence that developers would pull through and provide native binaries in a timely manner, catapulting the capabilities and battery life of their shiny new laptops even further. Apple and third party Mac devs had pulled it off twice already, so there was good reason to believe that they’d do it again.
If the new Qualcomm chips have good performance, it’ll drive sales initially, but enthusiasm will fizzle if 2-3 years down the road developers aren’t making meaningful efforts to port their Windows versions to ARM, because a Windows on ARM device running mostly emulated processes is almost certainly going to fall behind M-series Macs running mostly native in performance and battery life. If Qualcomm can’t keep up substantial performance improvements on a yearly cadence, they also risk getting lapped by traditional x86 machines.
> but users also had a lot of confidence that developers would pull through and provide native binaries in a timely manner, catapulting the capabilities and battery life of their shiny new laptops even further.
Yea. There was a real concerted effort by not Apple employees to get all these *modern* tools working on M1s. I remember at the company I was at, a small handful of engineers working diligently to get our internal dev software and processes working on M1s.
Reminds me of this: "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.
As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.
We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets.
Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can."
> They don't have to believe into what they write.
Imagine the level of sociopathy required for the job. Truly soulless, despicable work, but I almost feel sorry for them. Like, could they even form an authentic human connection anymore, when they have sold out, given up so much humanity to an indifferent market creature? How would you feel about an "I love you" coming from someone payed to lie and manipulate?
The amount of backwards compatibility that Windows has built in is frankly insane. I've been going through a catalog of games and making sure they can run on modern Windows. Other than games that were written strictly for 16-bit, I haven't run into a game that can't be made to run. Sure, some require patches in the form of DLL shims, but it's rare that I even have to break out compatibility mode.
that makes no sense. google owns android and the default browser on android and so they'd have all the same users using their search and saving some of that cash for any that switched to the Android VM. how is that a bad deal for google?
Only developers with apps having had one MILLION installs prior year to be allowed. What's the fucking point then?? If an app developer is already distributing apps that popular on App Store, what's the point??
e/accs think if they aren't free to move fast and break things (and/or people) that the singularity won't happen fast enough and that would be doubleplus ungood.
Whilst I'm very much on the EU's side of this argument, the prospect of my 89 year-old father being able to download iPad apps from random websites terrifies me.
The walled-garden App Store was one of the reasons I got him an iPad in the first place.
In the current proposal even those apps would have to go through vetting of Apple, and apparently selecting them on a webpage would have the device show a summary-page with app-details fetched from an Apple server...
It's more like a solution engineered around the headline of allowing direct-downloads, in the end Apple is still heavily involved in the release-process of the app...
The EU shouldn't even bother reacting to this. Just wait out the clock, and start fining day by day for non-compliance. We'll see how many attempts it takes them then.
What the hell is going on at Apple? It's starting to become really funny to see one obviously non-compliant malicious compliance attempt being made after another. Do they really not understand that they're no longer involved in the relationships between users and developers?
Don't overcomplicate it. They want to preserve their Services revenue, because Tim Cook is a bean-counter and wants to maintain the profit margin. "After Steve" by Tripp Mickle provides some background.
Many Apple indie devs and fanboys are literally screaming. I bet many people @Apple are too. There are so many things the company could do to regain geek-cred. Package manager and windowing on macOS. Align Mac App Store policies with the more liberal Windows 11 Store policies. Let people run what they want, even outside the EU, including other web engines. Invest in Proton so old Windows games can run on Mac (but then, no App Store tax). Keep OpenGL and Vulkan around for the scientific computation folks (and others). Commit to keeping Rosetta2 around indefinitely, because compatibility is your #1 job as a platform. Open-source more stuff (god forbid, your OSes! why not?).
But they've gotten timid and conservative. Top execs see risk, and VPs seem to think they're making products only for the stereotypical technophobic grandpa, rather than power users.
I think you are right that doing these things would improve Apple's standing with developers but it is important to note that none of the things you listed are in line with Steve Jobs' philosophy which you seem to imply here. Recall for example that the iPhone (aka iPhone 1) did not ship with an App Store. Apple doesn't even let you make iOS apps unless you own a sufficiently up to date MacOS device. So when you say "regain geek-cred," I think it's necessary to point out that this geek-cred never existed with a large (although perhaps not majority) of developers/power users, and when it did exist, it was not because Apple was doing things in line with the steps you have proposed to regain it. It was always about polish and ease of use. So when you say they've gotten timid and conservative I'm not sure in what respect you mean that. Because in terms of openness they have not changed at all and are still completely in line with Steve Jobs' vision in this respect.
True, but the world has changed and so have Apple's biggest fans (the ones that drive purchasing decisions for their social circles) and indie devs. They didn't mind back then, now they do. See the Accidental Tech Podcast guys for example, but there are many others (the infamous DHH and geohot just recently). People's attitudes towards huge corporations have changed. Things formerly rationalized as "for the user experience" are now seen as cash-grabs. Even many pro-Apple people are worried that rent-seeking is leading to product neglect.
Some of these things could happen, but I don’t see Rosetta being kept around indefinitely. Keeping compatibility layers around becomes increasingly expensive with time, encumbering OS development and encouraging devs to never update their apps. It also opens up possibility of multiple compatibility layers being maintained at the same time, which multiplies these issues.
It’s much easier to just make virtualization of old versions of macOS easy to facilitate compatibility with old software, which they’ve done — one can spin up a full featured GPU accelerated macOS VM with just a few lines of Swift, so you don’t even have to use third party software if you don’t want to.
Easier for Apple, but worse for users. Apple's main argument has always been this: "encouraging devs to never update their apps", but I don't buy it. Active developers all update promptly long before any threats of deprecation; they even go out of their way to switch to shiny stuff like SwiftUI. It's the long tail that doesn't get updated, and Apple's deprecation velocity changes nothing. Portal 2 (not Rosetta I know) runs poorly in a VM, but ran well on my 2011 MBP.
I've heard from several former Apple fans who switched, and they all marvel at being able to run old binaries without recompilation. Even though they ship apps with the latest frameworks. It's still "just plain cool".
Mac devs are good about updating their apps, but it’s much more hit or miss in the Windows world. If there’s no impetus to regularly update for security reasons (e.g. browsers) or to keep people subscribed (e.g. Spotify), it’s probably not getting updated too often. There’s a considerable difference in culture between platforms, and I think it largely stems from the expectations set by Apple and Microsoft.
Linux is kind of a mixed bag. Some devs are ultra responsive while others only update when absolutely necessary, but the FOSS nature of most apps there helps since you can always take matters into your own hands and fork a project if it’s accumulated too much rust to be usable.
Linux is fragmented. Windows has shockingly few indie devs given its marketshare (compared to Apple: Omni apps, Structured, Day One, Session, Pixelmator, Fantastical...). The Mac has plenty of eager indies that care deeply about UX and design, and many discerning users who care too. Caring about UX/design is their "carrot"; they don't need the "stick" (deprecation).
The stick was mainly necessary for big devs back in the day, who never cared about making Mac-assed Mac apps. Now those have switched to Electron anyway; the stick no longer provides meaningful incentives. It just annoys people who want to play Half-Life for 5 minutes every few years.
I'm sure the people on the Mac team think exactly the way you do though, so I guess I hope they read this, or at least that they make sure their assumptions are still valid.
Mac devs are good at updating their apps because Sparkle exists.
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Sparkle, it made it easy for developers to ship updates while also putting the control of that process in the hands of developers rather than the platform.
Linux went the opposite route with dozens of package managers which makes it harder for updates to reach users.
There's no reason to update a program once it's feature complete if it works offline. Apple is pushing harmful updoot ideology that kills old (but perfectly usable) programs.
This is maybe true for software that can never conceivably interact with the outside world (can’t open files, isn’t scriptable, etc) but at least on Windows and macOS where shipping static binaries or necessary libraries with the software is the norm, vulnerabilities pile up pretty quickly these days making it a bad idea to regularly use or in some cases even have installed software past a certain age. For these programs it’s better to just run them in a VM where compatibility can be perfect by running an old OS and the size of the potential crater resulting from an exploit is minimized.
It’s a bit of a different situation under Linux where the norm is dynamically linked libraries kept up to date with a package manager, but even there static binaries and things like flatpaks and app images can be bad news.
> VPs seem to think they're making products only for the stereotypical technophobic grandpa, rather than power users.
Hasn't Apple always been "computers for people who don't want to think about computers", while power users finding the tech interesting is just an accident?
That's exactly who they're making products for. Buy it, hand it over, and kids from age 1 to 92 will be just fine. Developer interest in Apple is the product of macOS being incidentally a Real UNIX, the hardware being second to none, and the aforementioned market of kids 1-92 being quite large.
The third-party developers that built the platform are becoming increasingly resentful of Apple and of the platform. It hurts all of us if they switch, even if we just want to "never think about computers".
This isn't 2012 anymore. Developers are into freedom and openness, and either Apple aligns itself, or Mac/iOS will have just as much appeal to cool indie devs as Android/Windows (a fraction of its current appeal). Apple platforms no longer feel exciting to devs.
And before the Apple fanbois come and tell you how Apple is a multi trillion dollar business so they know what they’re doing, a reminder that Apple didn’t want the App Store in the first place, and wanted 3rd party apps to be web apps.
It was the popularity of unofficially created apps running on unlocked original iPhones (which led to many unlocking their iPhone) that convinced Apple to create the App Store.
Apple didn’t really want 3rd party apps to be web apps. The infamous “just build web apps” was a stop-gap measure while they were building the App Store.
> It was the popularity of unofficially created apps running on unlocked original iPhones (which led to many unlocking their iPhone) that convinced Apple to create the App Store.
This just isn't the case. The first iPhone with iOS 1.0 was essentially a very advanced demo that just barely made it out the door. There was no SDK, API documentation, or much of any developer toolchain for early iOS. Ask anyone that fought to build even simple unofficial apps what a nightmare using those early frameworks was like. They were not ready for public consumption.
Web apps were never the long term goal for third parties. Steve Jobs might have said that in public but it was a deflection about native SDK questions. Web apps were a stopgap until the dumpster fire of an internal SDK could be rebuilt.
Apple makes money hand-over-fist already. Their stores are the most profitable retail stores per square foot in the history of retail. There's nobody not buying Apple today that would suddenly begin if they did these things.
>There are so many things the company could do to regain geek-cred.
This implies they have lost geek cred. I think that Apple could install razor blades in their keyboards tomorrow and have more than half of HN believe it's a good thing.
> There are so many things the company could do to regain geek-cred.
But why do geeks have to destroy everything for everyone else, just for the benefit of their hobbies? Isn't Linux and Android enough and everything else hardware wise and software wise that isn't Apple? Apple devices work great for people who want to get stuff done in the real world and are willing to pay developers for great software. Why does that annoy geeks? Not everybody is interested in tech, they want something that works and get on with their day.
Just because geeks understand computers doesn't give them the right to dictate how other people should use their devices. Just like car modders shouldn't have a say on how normal people use their cars.
> Just because geeks understand computers doesn't give them the right to dictate how other people should use their devices. Just like car modders shouldn't have a say on how normal people use their cars.
No one is telling normal people how to use their phones/cars. If you want the option of doing something different, however, you may need the government to help you stop companies from being anti-consumer.
Everything on the computer is fake, it's just ones and zeros. It means nothing until it interfaces with the real world. Geeks like to make computers and other devices operate with no real meaning, for their own amusement. But that can and will get in the way for people wanting to use their devices as tools for real world tasks.
You can make the same comparison for any machine. If your hobby is off-roading or dirt biking, you might want to be able to adjust fuel injection exactly as you see fit. But making every car or motorcycle owner have to adjust their gas/air mixture is not what normal people want. They want a safe vehicle that they can rely on for their commute.
There are a gazillion non-iOS devices that work perfectly fine in the real world. I do my banking, bookkeeping, everything with regular end-user software on my non-Apple devices, and so do a lot of people in my extended family and friend groups, believe it or not.
You should seriously reconsider how much you believe Apple has a monopoly on usable personal computing.
That's great. Why can't people be satisfied with those devices and use them then? Why enforce your style of computing onto other people's devices?
Instead of nerfing Apple and ruining a good thing, why can't open source loving hackers try to improve Linux and Android (non-Google) instead, to make people want to use and pay for those systems and devices? It worked with servers for Linux. More competition and more better products is better for everybody, not trying to ruin Apple systems for consumers because of jealousy.
I'm not the European Union. It's not my personal jealousy and distaste for Apple that's the driving force of the EU legislating against Apple's practices.
So, this is a strategy that has actually worked quite well for the likes of Facebook in dealing with the GDPR; they did eventually get some pretty nasty (>1bn) fines, but it took a long, long time.
Early indications are that Europe has learned from the mistakes of the GDPR, and enforcement of the DMA is going to be a lot more proactive. Notably, Facebook seems to be scared of it; the delay to launching Threads in Europe seems to have been for DMA/DSA compliance (in particular, it's not login-walled anymore, at least in Europe). Hard to imagine them delaying a product launch for GDPR compliance...
Why wouldn't they? There's an EU-ran Apple DMA compliance workshop on the 18th this month[1] which I suggest anyone interested listen to. Stakeholders will be able to voice their concerns and there will no doubt be many, mostly about the Core Technology Fee which is non-compliant per se.
How do I so surely know that? Because Article 6(7), the one that forces free-of-charge OS access for developers, is the only piece of the DMA being proactively challenged in EU court by Apple even before the compliance deadline passed[2].
Isn't it that software developers need hardware, and Apple seek to use their position to prevent developers enabling users on their (the user's) hardware without paying a large fee to Apple. Apple already got paid a large fee as manufacturer though
Put another way: Devs don't need iPhones, they need users to have freedom to install the apps they choose to on the computing devices those users own; regardless of the three manufacturers of those devices.
I wonder how this all works for Nintendo wrt the Switch?
Th DMA was written explicitly to target a small group of mostly American tech companies, while excluding others like Nintendo.
Traditionally, console manufacturers have lost money on hardware, and made it up in license fees for software and accessories. It is a bit more complicated in reality, and I think that situation should change, but the DMA as currently written won't have any impact on it.
Yet they are constantly making the case that third-party developers are value sponges that use “their” platform and access “their” customers for free, and give back nothing in return. They said the same towards Spotify in response to the recent ruling about anti-competitiveness in music apps.
What Apple conveniently fails to acknowledge is that they make an obscene amount of money from selling hardware, and their motivation for investing in the platform and SDKs is that more and better software leads to higher sales of hardware. (I am aware that iPhone sales have effectively peaked, which is likely exactly why they have decided that they are the sole enabler of all digital commerce on the iPhone)
Yes, that's called having differing opinions and it's not bad. If enough people in the EU agree with this, go for it. If Apple ends up saying that they're willing to abide by the letter of the law and no more, great.
Apple's not abiding by the letter of the law, though. They're the drug dealer flushing drugs before the cops come in, or in this case Apple is trying to buy time because each month they can delay this they're probably making $1bn more.
> When interpreting EU law, the CJEU pays particular attention to the aim and purpose of EU law (teleological interpretation), rather than focusing exclusively on the wording of the provisions (linguistic interpretation). This is explained by numerous factors, in particular the open-ended and policy-oriented rules of the EU Treaties, as well as by EU legal multilingualism. Under the latter principle, all EU law is equally authentic in all
language versions. Hence, the Court cannot rely on the wording of a single version, as a national court can, in order to give an interpretation of the legal provision under consideration. Therefore, in order to decode the meaning of a legal rule, the Court analyses it especially in the light of its purpose (teleological interpretation) as well as its context (systemic interpretation).
Facebook, too, tried rules-lawyering EU regulations only to be slapped with a huge fine. This shit doesn't fly here.
It feels bizarre that companies keep making this mistake.
People on HN, sure; we aren't all lawyers. But companies? The EU is the second biggest market on the planet, might pass the USA any year now. They really should be familiar with the basics of EU lawmaking.
It feels bizarre to an American perspective. How is a company supposed to follow rules that are open to interpretation? Or does the EU think it can legislate outcomes (even if they're uneconomic) ?
You have to demonstrate that you're willing to follow the law. It's not like you'll get a gigantic fine as soon as the new law is implemented, assuming you actually make an effort to be compliant.
In this case, Apple is dragging their feet screaming trying to do their best not to comply with the intent.
What's going to happen next, they'll get a notice of nonconformity where they're asked to fix their behaviour.
If they don't show good intent, they'll get hit with a fine.
If they fix it and adhere to the laws here, then we'll all end up better - well, maybe the poor shareholders won't survive this hit...
If you're a company operating in the EU, just a little bit of willingness to adhere to the laws goes a very long way.
If I ask you to turn on your head lights at day time, am I ignoring your personal freedom?
You can ask anybody anything and it won't interfere with their freedom I think.
You are free to not even listen to the question...
I might judge you based on your decision and chose to ignore you in future. This again would not violate your personal freedom I think
The cost of switching device ecosystems can be comparable to the cost of renting an apartment in richer countries, and exceeding the monthly income in poorer countries. Yet we clearly recognize that renters need protections and can't reasonably be told to just move apartments over anything. So why shouldn't we hold phone ecosystems to the same standards?
Especially when both do their best to make migration to the other difficult.
I... Don't really see what your numbers could look like, here.
Buying a cheap Android phone is $200-300 and selling an iPhone will more than pay for that. Switching from iCloud to something else for backups will actually save a little bit per month.
Average London rent is equivalent to 40K USD per year, as a random "richer country" example. It's not in the same ballpark, is it?
Not per person, I haven't ever been charged per person except in student accommodation and Japanese hotel rooms, not sure how we'd know what that would be.
> The cost of switching device ecosystems can be comparable to the cost of renting an apartment in richer countries
I'm not sure what you are doing with your phone but you should lower your dependencies on tech gadget if switching from iPhone to Android would cost you so much. The law can't regulate primarily for people making unreasonable decisions.
Because it's not a market, that's the whole problem, you have to target both platforms no matter what you do otherwise you are losing some marketshare. (Unless you are doing it as a hobby like me of course)
It's not like you can install android apps on iphone or iphone apps on android.
Sure in a market you might tell the consumer "shop somewhere else" but that's not an option here since they can't.
Do you suffer from some kind of God complex? People other than you will make their own decisions on how to conduct their own life and business. Even if you don't agree with those decisions.
Why you don't seem to understand how it works in any other industry?
I'm building a house, I'm going to buy the floor at shop B and the walls at shop A because it's a better value.
I want to buy some groceries, I can buy bread at shop A and eggs at shop B.
When you're on mobile you buy everything either at the play store or the appstore depending on your phone, that's it, zero choice, it's either everything in one or the other.
So first a grand total of two stores for the entire world isn't going cut it regardless and then those stores don't even compete with each other anyways because you are locked in to just one with your phone.
Is that any clearer now why it's not a market or still not?
Android is too much tied to Google too. At this point, the best that could happen is for the EU to grow a pair, and ban the US (/Russia/China...) tech companies, especially since there's already a 2015 court decision about that :
50 cents an install over 1 million downloads? Every year?
Is Apple trying to get fined? They're not even hiding the fact they're maliciously complying.
For one, this makes deploying a free app on an alternative store (that becomes popular) simply impossible? I highly doubt that was the EU's intent.
Usually with malicious compliance you can at least see the logic for a future legal case. Here, if they were trying to lose a future case I don't think you could do worse.
Genuinely curious: people throw around the term „malicious compliance“ a lot. It seems the platform fee is explicitly allowed by the DMA, so Apple demands it. Again, I am not trying to troll but what would „benevolent compliance“ look like and what would Apple‘s incentive be to give up the fee?
Not sure where you're getting the info on platform fees (copilot didn't know either) but I'd assume you need to offer at least one way to install your apps without this fee.
Or, and hear me out on this, maybe I want to make useful apps that don't data mine their users and I also would like not to take donations. This is a valid want to have (and I honestly can't believe you would suggest to 'just' sell out your users) and it would take a single app getting popular (or apple just straight up lying, I would have no way of verifying their count) to wipe out all of my capital.
It's 'nice' that there exists options to pay for the fee, but realistically the fee shouldn't exist, and it is also illegal.
Lucky for you, you are still able to distribute your free app for free on the Apple App Store. No surprise costs if your app becomes incredibly popular, and better still- that's where the vast majority of people will continue to go for getting new apps (regardless of this legislation) so it's free exposure for you as well.
Aren't you still going to be paying that Core Technology fee once your FOSS non-profit app gets popular? I guess you would have to get that waiver but that's far from trivial[1], especially for an individual that just likes to publish an FOSS/free-as-in-beer app out of kindness.
If you're distributing your free app through the Apple App Store, no you wouldn't ever pay a core technology fee, even if you had a billion downloads.. it's a fee only for apps distributed by third party app stores.
Not every app needs monetization. And it's not exactly like 'just publish on the regular app store' is a fantastic option, since that still requires you to pay a developer fee.
I shouldn't have to register as a non profit so I can release a hacker news reader app for free...
Malicious compliance attempt number 2 from Apple. This is clearly not complaint with DMA and there's no way that Apple doesn't know that.
The core issue is that Apple doesn't want to give away the absolute god-like control over how apps are distributed on iPhone and they can't be compliant until they let go. I am guessing this is going to get dragged on with 3rd version of Apple policies coming out soon after they get sent back to drawing board by EU.
> Web Distribution, available with a software update later this spring, will let authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a website owned by the developer.
iPhone users don't really own their own device, do they...
Hence why most European countries just mostly stayed with pre-paid, and operators have been trying to bride us with contracts for iDevices, or if that doesn't get us, contracts in disguise for pre-paid users as post pay.
I will keep using Android devices with physical SIM until it isn't no longer viable.
Due to financing options like Klarna, keeping on monthly prepaid sim-only plans (which are cheap) and using a finance option to purchase the device outright has become much more popular at least in my circle in the UK.
This really seems like a post from 15 years ago. In my experience prepaid is almost dead. It's the most expensive way to use a mobile phone and you can get a decent sim only subscription for 5 euro per month.
That might be the case, but the phones aren't bound to any specific carrier. A phone bundled with an O2 contract can be used by someone with a Telekom contract.
I don't. This is a stark realisation that I have had over the past few years. I would once staunchly recommend iPhones for their strong security, in particular app isolation, on-device AI, and physical device security.
However, over the years there have been more and more instances where Apple decides what I can do with my phone. From restricting APIs to give their first-party apps advantage, to, most recently, not having any (local) method to move voice memos off my Apple Watch.
I've realised they are orchestrating their hardware and software to build a truly solid wall from within which they can extract continuous rent from their captives.
I don't own my device because I cannot freely run the software I create on it (without paying Apple and gaining their approval, which is impossible in some cases).
I'm done with Apple... but there are no acceptable alternatives. Android is bad in other aspects.
This is not a free and fair market; it's a duopoly.
I genuinely pray weekly for a phone like the Framework Laptop, where I can run my own software (Arch Linux) and repair and replace the hardware as needed.
I assume you're aware and have some other reason that disqualifies it (e.g. you're in the US), but Fairphone does exist and comes pretty close (i.e. PostmarketOS is supposed to run, at least): https://www.fairphone.com/
Thank you. I did actually come across this a few weeks ago as I semi-regularly search for new phones in my despair!
It is the closest phone to what I have been after for a while. I particularly like their long software support and their support for right-to-repair. It runs stock Android, however I'm not sure whether that means Google is still fully entrenched into all aspects of the phone by default including through Play Store APIs, notifications, etc.
(If anyone would shed some light on the software side, I would appreciate it because I'm not familiar with modern Android.)
Even if it were suitable I would not be in a position to buy it for a while, hence I am still plodding along with my iPhone but just keeping an eye out for good alternatives.
Edit: I re-noticed you said it runs postmarketOS. That's awesome and I'll need to look into it - I know very little about it. Though it seems many aspects of the hardware are not supported on even the Fairphone 4.
Fairphone runs pretty standard Google Android, basically what you get in the emulator if you ask for the "Google Play" image, sliightly closer to AOSP than the Pixels.
The bootloader can be unlocked trivially (just like on OnePlus/Nexus), but loses SafetyNet when you do.
The company that imports Fairphone 4 to the US (Murena) runs e/OS which is OK. There's a bit of FUD that pops up on HN about e/OS from time to time, but the reality is that it's a mostly de-Google'd but still usable LineageOS clone. Their emphasis is on de-Googling, and usability, not security. It's probably worth a look. I'd say that their privacy/de-Googling is the best of all the LineageOS flavors. You can see comparisons between all the flavors here:
That said, you can flash any Android Os that supports Fairphone, or PostmarketOS to it.
The phone itself is responsive/quite good despite being a bit old at this point. I can do all normal phone tasks (email, web, music, navigation, etc) with no lag or any issues. I have not attempted to game on it. The Fairphone 4 is modular, parts are available for repairs, and it works great in the US with T-Mobile or T-Mobile MVNOs.
Yup, this is the choice: Either a walled garden run by Apple that has a price premium. Or a discounted device by Android that allows Google to snoop on all your data if you want to use a single one of their services (App Store, Gmail, Google Maps) - and correct me if I'm wrong but without play services enabled an Android is not really usable. I rather pay the premium.
GrapheneOS runs the google play services as a containerized app instead of a system level app, allowing you to disable access as needed. The downside is that it's only available for pixel phones.
GrapheneOS is as close to a private phone as possible nowadays, though it does require paying Google a somewhat hefty premium too (not as expensive as the iPhone, still). You can definitely use Android without Google apps, though GrapheneOS does include options that would let it behave like a normal app without special privileges. You can even isolate it to a work profile so it has no access to your main.
I depends what you want from your tool. I get around 4 years of use from the device. I upgrade every 2 years, and my son inherits my old one. I replace the battery if it's below 80%, it's usually once when I hand it over to my son.
That is a reasonable fee every month for the tool I get. I'm not tweaking every little thing and I don't need full access. I don't want it either. So far, Apple has created dependable devices that serves my purposes. I don't see the value in "upgrading" my phone. Maybe the pace will soon be slowed enough that it makes sense, but so far, the leap every 2 years has been enough for me to justify it. I know that is not what everybody want.
I used to do hardcore linux on computers as well, but now that I have other things I want to spend time on, I just need a laptop that is a tool. And maintaining and especially debugging Arch/Debian/Whatever breakage due to an upgrade is not part of the things I want to spend time on.
In principle, I do agree that we should have the ability to gain full access, one way or another. Maybe that means you cannot be part of the walled garden, but that should at least be a choice you can make.
I don't see the value in upgrading parts of my phone apart from a failing battery. And if you read it again, I upgrade because my sons phone is 4 years old, and changing the battery is no longer worth it anymore to me.
But I suppose it's better to just jump on semantics instead of trying to understand the whole of the post.
Admittedly, you plus your son get 4 combined years out of the device. It's an unexpected way to count, but it works. And since you were talking about buying new devices, I took it as a context where that's what the word "upgrading" means too. I wouldn't speak of open-source or third-party mods to the phone as "upgrades", just... "modding". Anyhow. Sorry for skimming.
My tolerance for Apple's walled garden expired with what they've pulled in reaction to the Digital Markets Act. It's become blatant (to me) they are landlords of their digital empire seeking to squeeze rent from everyone. I wouldn't mind paying for their expensive and yet still-profitable hardware if not for the antics they pull on the software side.
Everyone should be able to run whatever legally-obtained program they have on their device without needing to pay someone, and without needing the permission of someone else.
In my opinion, that should be law. (I think that would be net-beneficial to society and so worth the restriction on profits for a couple of humongous companies or whatever.)
I just wonder how products like game consoles would be viable under a law like this. I assume they would have to cost much more and there would be far less incentive for their development in the first place.
Then again, we are at the end stages of game consoles. Microsoft in particular seems to be considering the idea of not even bothering with hardware. Software is where the money is, Chinese hardware companies can make hardware like you see in the retro handheld scene.
The Steam Deck iirc is sold below cost and seems to have been a reasonable success.
The market for consoles would still exist. It would just be that the bar for console manufacturers would be set higher from "make a good console then extract value" to "make a good console, then make the best digital marketplace for it, then extract value" which seems fair to me. Make the big three sweat a lil.
Keep wondering then because game consoles never have been and never will be required by your insurance company to not get dropped from coverage and they will never be how you pay for things in public or the place to carry your government ID or be useful for anything much besides pure entertainment and we usually don't have the same kinds of concerns with entertainment that we do with tools required for living in society. THis "but game consoles" trope is getting real old now. Maybe it's the first you've raised it, but this discussion has many others and so does pretty much every other discussion going back probably 15 years.
I think consoles still make sense for their simplicity and convenience, there's a substancial demographic that just want a device they can turn on and game right away. They don't want the small annoyances that come with PC gaming (windows updates, proton compatibility, configuring graphics settings on a newly installed games, setting up gamepads, troubleshooting game issues, etc), and I'm not trying to exaggerate these annoyances to make them seem insurmountable, just saying that no matter how small the issue is, it's friction that users don't want. As long as that demographic exists, there will be consoles.
MS already allows you to unlock the ability to run custom code on their hardware for a ~$20 fee. Sony doesn't seem to do this yet, but on the other hand, they did eventually get the disk drive version of the PS5 to not sell at a loss.
So, I don't think it'd affect them too much. Alternative stores would mainly just end up being convenient for small indies and homebrew developers, neither of which would've been able to afford the fees to get onto the official stores anyway.
I'm willing to make a new phone that only runs code i approve, since iPhones can no longer support this maximum security use case. You must be a journalist or have production access to a F500 company's database (containing PII/PHI) to qualify to purchase the device; I'm sorry if you don't qualify, but I fear the EU might come and force me to break the device security simply if 'too many people' begin to use my device.
Yeah, I don't get it either. All the Android fanboys seem to be wanting iOS to turn into Android for some reason (what, the blue bubble is so bad?) and I also don't understand how a company that isn't a monopoly (because there is in fact choice in the market) can be dictated to how they run their app distribution. That's akin to telling me, a software consultant, how I should do my software consulting. Maybe the EU will soon tell me what IDE I have to use or I will get fined. Maybe I have to start offering my services on some public forum where everybody can bid on my time equally.
So now we can apparently have arbitrary 3rd party malware on yet another platform (it's not going to get less frequent by virtue of not being on the Apple App Store, is it?), who should I look to for decent, preferably also not battery killing, anti-virus software for iOS?
DMA is absolutely unfair. Why it doesn't include consoles? Why manufacturers are allowed to prevent users from running their software? And Apple isn't. Some animals are more equal than others?
Also, it is notable how free market fails to solve the problem: almost 100% of consumers seem to not care about freedom to install any software on their devices.
An interesting analogy and a thought experiment , replace Walmart instead of Apple, how would this play out? you cant force Walmart to sell stuff (nor) ask them to open up a small space inside their stores for others to open up their shop. If they wont, how is this different for Apple? just becuase they are a software company? or just because they allowed this all on a mac and not on an iPhone?
P.S
As long as the regular Joe doesn't bother about walled gardens, apple is on the green.
How many developers actually have a problem with apple's "My Way or highway" approach when it comes to walled garden tax or others, and how much are them from EU..
