[HN Gopher] Apple to allow outside app stores in overhaul spurre...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple to allow outside app stores in overhaul spurred by EU laws
Author : MBCook
Score : 430 points
Date : 2022-12-13 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Yay :)
|
| Maybe soon I can finally purchase an iPhone SE again. I love the
| form factor and the hardware, but I hate buying my own prison.
| nerdjon wrote:
| Honestly this is going to have 1 or 3 outcomes:
|
| 1. Nothing is going to change and I will continue to use my phone
| as it was before because the App Store is still the primary
| driver.
|
| 2. I will be forced to use third party stores because critical
| apps are no longer distributed through the App Store.
|
| 3. I will just be using my phone less and less.
|
| The EU, Developers, and Many here continue to forget that the
| reason many of us use an iPhone is because of the walled garden.
| If I wanted an open platform I would switch to Android and mod
| the hell out of it.
|
| I don't want that. I want the precautions that Apple has in place
| to make it so developers can't employ dark patterns to keep me as
| a paying subscriber. To mine the data on my phone for their
| profit.
|
| With one or 2 clicks of a button I can cancel any subscription I
| want that I did through the App Store. I also get alerts when
| anything yearly is about to charge (from Apple) or when things
| are about to cost more than they used to. Instead of hoping that
| we just wouldn't see the alert like too many sites do.
|
| People keep saying that this is about choice, which frankly... is
| bull. This is about choice for the developer not the consumer.
| Most consumers don't care, but developers will jump ship to
| another App Store if they can start doing all of the negative
| practices that they are not allowed to do on the App Store.
| Especially if they are big enough, Seriously think that Facebook
| won't try to have their own App Store? Considering what they have
| gotten up to very recently.
|
| We already have enough developers purposefully trying to deceive
| users right before they get the prompt about allowing the app to
| track.
|
| Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a
| consumer and not developers?
|
| Edit: Instead of replying to each one I am going to just post
| here.
|
| Many of you are saying Android does not have this issue. But
| unless I am mistaken Epic Games did exactly this?
|
| Also unless I am mistaken, many of the consumer protecting
| restrictions are not on android. Especially around subscriptions
| and billing issues. I know google is cracking down on it, but
| from what I understand it is not as universally in place.
|
| So developers don't have the incentives to move to another App
| Store on Android like they do on iOS (again benefiting developers
| while hurting me as a consumer)
|
| Edit: I am going to make one last point here. I spend a fair
| amount of money on App Store subscriptions. (or buying apps but
| that is sadly not as popular anymore). I do this because I don't
| worry about singing up to try something, knowing that I can very
| easily cancel it. I don't even have to talk to the company.
|
| This leads me to signing up for apps that I would never have
| considered paying for if it was through a traditional website
| that would make me jump through who the hell knows what hoops to
| cancel.
|
| They complain about the 30% cut, but from me. It is you get 70%
| or I give my money to someone else.
|
| I cannot imagine I am the only one that does this.
| jarbus wrote:
| As a linux user, I don't like how Apple gets to decide every
| app that can be installed on iOS. I like the ability to install
| any program I choose. This alone is enough for me. Currently, I
| use a linux emulator, iSH, on my iPad, but I'm really worried
| that at any moment apple could make it unusable for me because
| it can run arbitrary programs, which they stated they are
| directly against.
| FredPret wrote:
| But in this wonderful thing called the free market, you can
| simply not buy Apple things
| stale2002 wrote:
| Indeed the free market is great. And you will continue to
| have the ability to only use the Apple App store, if you so
| chose.
|
| You are prohibiting from crying or complaining about this
| by your own logic.
|
| You are free to not install an alternative app stores, and
| cannot use any arguments at all about how your choice is
| restricted.
| blep_ wrote:
| Switching phone ecosystems is a hell of a lot harder and
| more expensive than installing an app. (And the Android
| ecosystem is honestly not good either.)
| everfree wrote:
| In what way is mobile phone software a free market?
|
| "Simply not buy Apple things" means "buy Google things."
| There's no way around that if you want a functional smart
| phone. You either pick red or blue.
|
| If there were 5-10 full-featured phone OSes out there, your
| point would make more sense to me.
| mrmanner wrote:
| What does full-featured mean to you? There's a bunch of
| non-google Android distros that seem full featured to me.
| Same with Sailfish, at least when I last used it some
| years ago.
|
| No big corporate support, less commercial apps packaged
| by default, but that's a feature in itself.
| everfree wrote:
| To me, full-featured means that I can install a
| ridesharing app, social media/chat apps, a podcast app, a
| maps app with live traffic updates and turn-by-turn
| directions, and popular streaming music and video apps.
|
| Bonus points for supporting contactless payments, banking
| apps, and airline apps.
|
| The hardware should have decent battery life and get
| great cell reception, and the UI should be smooth.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| Supporting commercial apps like banking apps for example.
| Many financial institutions are now app-only in the UK.
| andiareso wrote:
| Yea I don't get the argument of "Just don't use Apple"
|
| You can like the hardware and not care for the software.
| It really is A/B at the moment. It's difficult for the
| average user to choose C. You either allow Google to peer
| into your life, or trust that Apple's marketing isn't a
| gimmick and a lot of Apple is e2e encrypted.
|
| From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting e2e
| encryption. I see this as the biggest reason to stick
| with Apple. I trade off full-customizability for better
| security/experience.
|
| If a jailbreak was available for my iPhone, I'd be on it
| though.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting
| e2e encryption._
|
| Yes, but only as secure as the passphrase you use to
| unlock your phone. Except actually less secure than that;
| your phone will rate limit attempts to guess your
| passphrase, but encrypted iCloud backups turned over to a
| government won't and can't rate limit attempts.
|
| For the average user with a relatively short passphrase,
| iCloud backups will be trivial to crack. Still, it's an
| improvement.
| everfree wrote:
| In addition to what DCKing said, you can effectively
| rate-limit password attempts on encrypted data by
| deriving the key using a cryptographic hashing function
| such as bcrypt with a high amount of iterations.
| DCKing wrote:
| You seem to think that your phone's pin is used directly
| as some sort of encryption key for cloud backups, but
| that's not how these systems work. Your pin or face or
| fingerprint unlocks your phone's secure element, and the
| secure element contains a randomly generated high entropy
| encryption key for your data.
|
| This is why you can casually change your pin code in your
| phone's settings without it chewing through your battery
| and data plan reencrypting and reuploading gigabytes of
| cloud data.
| behnamoh wrote:
| > As a linux user...
|
| You answered yourself. Most people are not Linuxy in the
| sense that they buy an iPhone and don't want to know how
| everything works.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. I bought an ipad because its simply
| the best tablet and actually gets attention. I didn't want
| a chromeOS or Windows device. The ipad for me is about 80%
| there and the other 20% is just not what apple wants.
|
| If this would push that other 20%, I might even consider
| switching from Android.
|
| As it stands, Android has a lot of free trash on the play
| store, and Iphone has a lot of paid trash on the app store
| because apple charges them hundreds per year for the honor
| of developing on their platform.
|
| On Android, when I need an app with basic functionality, I
| already check fdroid first for a simple OSS implementation.
| I don't need my voice recorder to do anything except record
| audio. I don't need my heart beat monitor to do anything
| but check my pulse.
|
| I'm hoping this change brings the type of innovation early
| jailbreak app stores brought that basically test drove
| features that Apple would copy years later and call
| "innovative".
| mrmanner wrote:
| As a Linux user, I love that there's a kind of device I can
| recommend my non-technical friends and family without
| worrying too much about their safety or privacy. Is it
| perfect? No. But the risk that they're fooled into installing
| a malicious app is still a lot lower than with mandated side
| loading and app stores with lax oversight.
|
| I.e the gatekeeping my government wants to prohibit is the
| reason I've been recommending these things. I guess I'll have
| to switch to recommending AwareGo security training for
| everyone
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Where is sideloading "mandated" on Android?
| everfree wrote:
| > mandated side loading
|
| In what respect does any phone currently on the market have
| "mandated side loading"?
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Government-mandated (usually in selected specific cases)
| spyware trojans are not installed through any of the app
| stores.
| everfree wrote:
| What specifically do you mean by "selected specific
| cases"?
| mrmanner wrote:
| Probably nothing currently on the market - we're
| discussing a law that's in effect from 2024
| everfree wrote:
| Then my question is: Why do you believe that relaxing app
| requirements on iOS would cause mandated side-loading,
| given that it's not a problem for anything else currently
| on the market?
| tshaddox wrote:
| > People keep saying that this is about choice, which
| frankly... is bull.
|
| This is very obviously bull. When there are essentially only
| two smartphone platforms, and someone is arguing that one of
| the only significant consumer differences between the two
| platforms should be removed, that person is not trying to
| increase consumer choice.
| jedberg wrote:
| Do you own a Mac? Do you purchase everything from the Mac App
| Store? Would you want to be forced to do so?
|
| It benefits you because you can get apps that Apple has decided
| aren't safe for you for whatever reason.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _2. I will be forced to use third party stores because
| critical apps are no longer distributed through the App Store._
|
| This seems very unlikely. It hasn't happened on Android. Amazon
| has their own Android appstore and nobody is forced to use it,
| and I think nearly nobody does. But because Android has this
| possibility, I can use F-Droid which is excellent.
|
| What does a "critical app" even look like? I don't have any
| apps on my phone that I would call critical, only convenient.
| My banking apps from the playstore are nice to have, but not
| critical. I can do banking on their websites, at an ATM or over
| the phone. Uber is sometimes convenient, but I've gone years
| without using it before and many people don't have it at all.
| If Facebook makes their own Facebook store and uses it to ship
| malware, it won't effect me because I never used their app in
| the first place, none of their crap is critical. That's the
| power of not submitting to peer pressure.
|
| Maybe a "critical app" is one your government legally requires
| you to install, e.g. some sort of pandemic tracing app. But
| thankfully my government (America) has not gone that far. I
| don't think there is presently such a thing as a "critical app"
| in America. Only apps which may _feel_ critical because of peer
| pressure or convenience, but aren 't actually critical.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > It hasn't happened on Android.
|
| Likely because doing for Android alone represents too much of
| a risk given the profit potential. With these stores being
| able to exist on both platforms, that equation changes a
| _lot_ , especially with iOS users' eyeballs traditionally
| having been valued more highly.
| 4ad wrote:
| > It hasn't happened on Android
|
| There have been cases where authoritarian countries have
| forced people to sideload government-issued malware onto
| their Android phones.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Those countries can simply ban iphones if they want to. An
| OS can't solve all evil.
| noirscape wrote:
| At the same time, Apple has also been doing the opposite by
| playing government censor for the CCP by removing VPN apps
| from the App Store in China.
|
| The knife here in terms of risking government overreach
| slices both ways, but in the case of Apple, they are in a
| much more vulnerable state for this sort of thing, since
| the CCP requires them to have meat shields (they need to
| have an office there) to continue operating in China.
|
| One is massively more beneficial on the whole for user
| freedom.
| 4ad wrote:
| This is true, on a global scale both options are bad. On
| the other hand, on a personal scale, the walled garden is
| much better option _for me_. It sucks that the Chinese
| are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I am not,
| and I don 't see how it's anyone's business to regulate
| my choice of technology.
|
| Just because the status quo is bad for some people, it
| doesn't means it should be made worse for everyone else.
| noirscape wrote:
| F-Droids official repo also does strong curation really well
| in my experience. Searching the Play Store usually surfaces
| some SEO-gamed garbage apps. Pretty much all Android apps I
| use from the Play Store were at friend recommendations.
| F-Droid has some issues (specifically, they have a very big
| requirement that all APKs must be build by their server,
| which has some issues and locks their official repo down to
| FOSS apps), but even just on the surface their curation is
| just so much better. And hey, if I don't like something, I
| can literally just plug in any arbitrary URL I want and as
| long as it points to a repository, it'll show up as valid.
|
| From what I've heard the Apple App Store isn't much better in
| this regard, except there you just don't have the option to
| ignore it (and the jailbreaking community _seems_ more open,
| except the same "pay for every tiny thing" culture that
| plagues iOS has made it way over to that platform).
|
| The EU forcing Apple to open up iOS should ideally result in
| a more fair, better curated ecosystem of smaller app stores
| and the development of apps that people actually want to use
| rather than apps that exist to make exciting number go up at
| an ad agency. There'll be some initial blowback, but the
| long-term benefits will be that much better for mobile phones
| on the whole (which to be frank, is desperately needed).
|
| It also gives a secondary avenue for apps against Apple's app
| store guidelines, which have been noted in the past to
| basically be completely arbitrary (the main examples of this
| are the fact that Apple plays censor for VPNs in some
| countries, Steve Jobs telling people that want to have NSFW
| apps on their iPhone to "go buy an android", the last policy
| still leading to numerous social media apps getting in
| trouble because an app reviewer found something NSFW (this is
| why Tumblr banned NSFW) and for a very specific example of a
| game that somehow kept violating the guidelines: the iOS port
| of the Binding of Isaac was rejected for over a _year_
| because Apple wanted to play moral guardian, there 's also
| the completely unreasonable ban on allowing emulation and
| really I could continue on and on about how absurd this is).
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Regarding the NSFW thing: if this was so big for Tumblr,
| how does Reddit get away with it? I mean, some subreddits
| are pretty seriously NSFW :)
| noirscape wrote:
| To put it simply: pray to the whatever spiritual deity
| you believe in (or other such thing) on app review and
| hope that Apple doesn't try anything when reviewing your
| app. The best method is always to make sure that adult
| content can never end up before a reviewers eyes, so
| unless you have an unusually thorough reviewer who goes
| out of their way to look for it, they won't complain.
| Apples role as a moral guardian on NSFW content is one of
| the bigger driving factors as to why NSFW gets treated as
| second class, even though NSFW content has been estimated
| to be a very large amount of all internet traffic.
|
| Tumblr is just one example. Discord had to restrict all
| NSFW channels in their app for iOS users because their
| randomly assigned App Store reviewer managed to get their
| account into an NSFW channel and found the expected.
|
| Reddit just never had to deal with this issue because
| they didn't even have an iPhone app for years (their
| current app is a highly modified version of an older app,
| Alien Blue, but AB was pulled from the App Store when
| Reddit bought it) or they deal with it quietly so you
| don't hear about it. Not all companies who get shafted on
| the NSFW rule speak up about it, but those that have...
| all have repeatedly commented on the fact that the
| process is basically completely opaque and you need to
| basically pray that Apple doesn't decide to pull your
| current version either.
|
| Tumblr picked the easy way out (ban all NSFW in general)
| because they were about to be sold to Verizon and Yahoo
| didn't want to bother trying to find a way to appease to
| apple at the last minute.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Ah that makes sense. Yes Reddit is pretty good at not
| showing you NSFW unless you actually go and look for it.
| But when you do it takes you all the way down the rabbit
| hole ( _figuratively!! - I hope_ ), this is why I found
| it a bit surprising, it's not just some lingerie pics or
| anything.
|
| In a way though, that means Safari should be banned too.
| And the camera app, I mean point it down in the right
| state of undress... ;)
| LarryMullins wrote:
| More techbros use Reddit than Tumblr so Reddit got better
| treatment from the tech corp than Tumblr.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Two words: ad blocker.
|
| Comments advocating FOR the prison that is the App Store are so
| unbelievable I can't believe they're anything but astroturfing.
| franczesko wrote:
| >The EU, Developers, and Many here continue to forget that the
| reason many of us use an iPhone is because of the walled garden
|
| It is your singular opinion, not a fact. I'm pretty sure that
| it's at the very bottom of list of reasons why people use
| iphones.
| FredPret wrote:
| I could not agree more. I won't touch another app store with a
| bargepole. You want free software, get Linux / Android. You
| want a walled garden? Get Apple. I use both for different
| things.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Honestly, I disagree. I'm currently on a mac where I can live
| the walled garden lifestyle if I choose, but sometimes I want
| to install an app which is experimental, open source etc.
| Sure, I get it, macOS predates the iOS App Store, but so does
| iOS. The very first apps to run on an iPhone had to be side-
| loaded, there was no App store at launch for the iPhone.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I like App Store, but I don't like the restriction that stops
| me from installing older versions of apps. I have a couple
| iDevices that are perfectly fine, except that their iOS is
| too old for the newer apps. If I could install old versions
| of UC Browser, I could breath a fresh air into those devices.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Companies that can't survive on a 30% cut but can survive on a
| competing store's 12% cut will survive and flourish
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| That's false. If your business is fine with 12% processing
| fees (specifically in tech and more so in IAP style apps) and
| not with 30% - something is very wrong.
|
| [Context] it is extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0
| marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment
| processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL.
| The business case if true and still viable should be unique
| and outside of a pure software play - which gets you squarely
| _out_ of IAP.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Yeah exactly. I should be cheering for the option of paying
| less to Apple as a business, but realistically you will get
| sideloading, piracy and the "mobile users don't spend money
| on apps" like it is "Android users don't spend money on
| apps"
| britneybitch wrote:
| Are you saying every non-iOS software company with a profit
| margin under 18% should go out of business?
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Rule of thumb: yes.
|
| Long story: it would be extremely odd to (ab)use the
| leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to
| a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world
| basically runs on ~4% IRL.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Isn't it 15%? At least for companies in danger of not
| surviving, I mean.
| nipponese wrote:
| Before "app stores" there were retail stores, and the cut was
| worse because there was a publisher involved.
| tapoxi wrote:
| But most apps, at least for me, were distributed as
| shareware. The developer got 100% of the cut because they
| sold it on their own website.
| [deleted]
| GeekyBear wrote:
| There was a publisher, a distributor, and the retail outlet
| all taking their cuts.
|
| Then you also had to pay into a marketing fund for those
| big full color inserts in the Sunday paper if your software
| was sold at the big box retailers.
|
| You also had to eat the cost of returns of unsold inventory
| after you issued a new version.
| t-writescode wrote:
| It's true, Minecraft absolutely had like 4 layers of red
| tape Mojang had to go through to sell is program. Same
| with WinZip, WinRar, XSplit and many other applications.
|
| Or do they mostly just support PayPal, Square, Amazon Pay
| or direct credit card billing?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| This is just an Apple PR talking point. You know what
| existed between the retail stores and the App Store? _The
| internet_
|
| We didn't magically jump from only buying things in stores
| to only buy things from an App Store. Companies could and
| still do sell through their own website and through other
| places.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > We didn't magically jump from only buying things in
| stores to only buy things from an App Store.
|
| And it fucking sucked. Finding apps was hit or miss,
| there was no guarantee an app would run on your device
| model, and payments were ridiculous. Apple's App Store is
| far from perfect but it is vastly better than the
| absolute clown shoes of buying mobile apps for pre-iPhone
| mobile platforms.
| t-writescode wrote:
| What world are you coming from? The story for buying
| windows apps on the internet has been pretty fine for a
| long, long while; and, compatibility hasn't been any
| problem at all, in my experience.
|
| Further, since most things were shareware, you could just
| _test_ the software on your machine ahead of time.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| That is more because payment processing in general has
| come a long way. Buying mac or Windows software from a
| developer's site using Stripe or even Apple Pay or
| similar doesn't fucking suck much more than using the App
| Store.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| You can still stay in your "walled garden" by sticking to the
| App Store (this is very likely what I will do 99% of the time).
| That solves all of your grievances including your Facebook
| hypothetical. But yes, it does mean you will need to choose
| between installing Facebook and using the App Store.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| You can also use Apple's favorite response to this: use the
| browser. Just open up Safari and type in facebook.com. Then
| you won't need the app and you don't have to leave the App
| Store!
| _ph_ wrote:
| Because there are apps I would like to use on my iPhone which
| are prohibited by the current AppStore rules. For example
| something like Termux. So my szenario would be: 4. I mainly
| keep using the AppStore with the exception of selected apps
| from trusted sources which were impossible so far.
| nerdjon wrote:
| My concern is that scenario won't exist.
|
| If enough developers choose to move to those other stores
| consumers will have no choice but to use those stores to get
| the apps they are looking for.
|
| I understand wanting apps that the app stores doesn't permit.
| There are apps that I would love as well. But I don't want to
| loose the protections in place to get them.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _My concern is that scenario won 't exist._
|
| Why wouldn't it? It's the reality of Android, why would it
| work any different on iOS?
| nerdjon wrote:
| I have not used Android in a long time so most of my news
| about it comes somewhere else.
|
| But unless I am mistaken, a developer on Android is free
| to handle their own subscription billing, purchases,
| whatever however they want right?
|
| I have seen some reports that google is tracking to crack
| down on this, but last I saw it was still far more open
| for the developers.
|
| If that is correct. Developers are less incentivized to
| circumvent the Android Store. That incentive exists on
| iOS if it allows them to use those dark patterns for
| unsubscribing from an app or anything else.
|
| If I am wrong about android than fine, that incentive
| doesn't exist and that removes most of my argument (it is
| still a possibility but the incentive won't be there).
| LarryMullins wrote:
| If you're asking me for my personal experience with such
| dark patterns on android, I don't have any stories to
| tell you. None of the apps I use on android are paid for,
| have ads or subscriptions, much less un-subscription dark
| patterns. For things like Uber or banking, Google is not
| a middleman in my transactions with those companies and
| I've never seen or felt any reason to desire otherwise.
|
| If an app asks you to pay for a subscription and you
| don't like the payment processor the app uses, then don't
| use the app. It's really that simple.
| int_19h wrote:
| When your response to criticism of iOS is, "just use
| Android!", I think it's fair to apply the same approach to
| desirable popular apps: just use the alternative apps &
| services.
| drawfloat wrote:
| I think this one benefits some consumers, who are in to it, but
| overall it's more the principal of avoiding monopoly practices.
| The push to allow other rendering engines/browsers on iOS is a
| much more beneficial and clear cut positive imo.
| notatoad wrote:
| >please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer
|
| i, for one, am looking forward to a kindle app that allows me
| to purchase books on iOS.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I want the ability to sideload apps on my iPhone, but I really
| hope Apple makes it painful enough that companies like Facebook
| can't rely on it to get around Apples app store rules.
| everfree wrote:
| Facebook doesn't do that on Android phones. Why would they do
| it on iPhones?
| babypuncher wrote:
| Because the iOS App Store has much more strict app privacy
| rules than the Google Play Store
| MindTooth wrote:
| Thank you for a great post. Hit the nail.
|
| I'm now expecting to see Xbox Store on PlayStation (and vice
| versa), Samsung Store on my LG TV (because they have xCloud),
| no bad practices with a third party store, and everything
| positive.
|
| Seeing that this solves all our problems, I'm looking forward
| to xCloud on my LG soon.
| throwaway1525 wrote:
| What if the other app store has every paid app 25% cheaper?
| That is a clear benefit for consumer
| andiareso wrote:
| One word. Jailbreak.
|
| I've jailbroken my iOS devices since the first iPod touch.
| There are lots of tools and features that Apple doesn't allow
| developers access to which limits what features are ultimately
| available to the end-user.
|
| Nearly every big feature release on iOS came first from the
| jailbreak community. App switching, call overlay, PIP video,
| Shortcuts, lockscreen widgets, home screen widgets... and an
| endless list of others.
|
| Non of these features would exist without designers and
| developers having access to the core functionality of the
| iPhone.
|
| I love iOS. I currently own an iPhone without a Jailbreak
| (doesn't exist for my iPhone). I'm also an engineer and there
| is a whole lot of potential that Apple limits strictly under
| the guise of security. You can have alternate stores without
| compromising those that choose not to install them.
|
| I understand that Google may decide to create their own store
| and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a
| very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself.
| IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google anyways
| because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them in the App
| Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own store.
| noirscape wrote:
| > I understand that Google may decide to create their own
| store and take all their apps with them... this I can see
| being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in
| itself. IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google
| anyways because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them
| in the App Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own
| store.
|
| If you already don't trust them in the App Store, why would
| you trust them in their own store to begin with? Sounds to me
| like you shouldn't use Google apps to begin with.
|
| Most of their apps are very replaceable and with the
| arbitrary restrictions forcibly peeled back, the sole service
| that you can only get from them (YouTube) can finally get an
| iOS equivalent of NewPipe that doesn't need a hacked phone to
| be installed.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I think Apple lowkey actually wants Jailbreak to continue as
| it's a pool of free novel ideas that they can then implement
| in iOS. But what % of Apple's customers JB their iDevices?
| Probably not more than 5%, and that number is likely
| decreasing too. For instance, I used to JB my iPad and iPhone
| up until iOS 15 when the features introduced by the OS passed
| my needs *threshold*.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Oh trust me it's way way lower than 5%. More like 0.05% :)
| I was until recently a corporate admin of (among many other
| types) tens of thousands of BYOD iphones.
| everfree wrote:
| > I understand that Google may decide to create their own
| store and take all their apps with them... this I can see
| being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in
| itself.
|
| What do you mean by "create their own store"? I don't
| understand this part of your comment.
| cute_boi wrote:
| Well, we don't see such problem with Andriod. And, the good
| thing is we can install Firefox that supports ublock origin :)
| cvalka wrote:
| Wow... You're arguing against more choice for you as the
| consumer. You're free not to use other stores.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Sounds like the good old browser war times.
|
| Or like the messenger or streaming wars: everything is
| fragmented, one AppStore you use primarily, and here and there
| you need to use the other Stores for specific use cases.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| I want an open and private platform. Google may let me sideload
| apps, but the operating system is hostile to data privacy. For
| me, an iPhone that I can install other apps on is the best
| alternative apart from going to a GNU/Linux phone.
|
| Additionally, it's a benefit that users can now install any
| apps that Apple refuses to allow.
| jsnell wrote:
| > Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a
| consumer and not developers?
|
| Not all laws exist to benefit you personally. It's a benefit to
| society to avoid a world where Apple will collect a 30% rent on
| all economic activity, kill of competition at a whim, and in
| general decide which products and product categories live and
| die.
| [deleted]
| Tepix wrote:
| Right. If Apple had asked for 3% to begin with noone would be
| complaining.
| sdfhbdf wrote:
| > Apple will collect a 30% rent on all economic activity
|
| I understand that it might be a intentional hyperbole but
| Apple very clearly and universally charges the comission
| (which is 15% if rev under < $1M) on digital good purchases.
| They have not planned to charge for bank transfers as some
| commenters in the NFT case of Coinbase fearmongered or
| physical goods. It's only a fee on things that App Store and
| Apple clearly enabled you to deliver to people with their
| system - digital goods.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Sorry but i can say the same thing about your argument:
|
| People that say this is about walled gardens and security,
| which frankly, is bull...
|
| Yes the 30% issue will mostly benefit devs, but also consumers.
| What if i could register for netflix, the ny times etc on my
| phone?
|
| What if prices became cheaper because the 30% wouldnt be there
| anymore?
|
| Also, the app store as it is now is a failure, some competition
| would do it good. Try finding anything there, the discovery
| tools are a joke.
| Me1000 wrote:
| > Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a
| consumer and not developers?
|
| 1) Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions
| in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.
|
| 2) Developers will be able to offer refunds more easily
| (something that continues to be ridiculously hard with the App
| Store).
|
| 3) The App Store only allows free trials for subscriptions.
| They don't offer free trials before a one time payment to buy
| the app. A 3rd party store could allow that.
|
| 4) Certain kinds of apps that Apple doesn't allow on the App
| Store would presumably be allowed on other stores.
|
| 5) Apple will finally be forced to compete now that the App
| Store has competition. It might even mean that all the points I
| made above become moot.
|
| I'm not saying there won't be any potential downsides, but
| that's the whole point of competition, it's a tradeoff you can
| make. As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store
| if you want. Since most users will only use the official store,
| it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider
| dropping it entirely.
| shagie wrote:
| > 2) Developers will be able to offer refunds more easily
| (something that continues to be ridiculously hard with the
| App Store).
|
| I would counter that its really _easy_ compared to most other
| systems.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084
|
| I had an occasion where my phone was loaned to my (young at
| that time) nephew on a car trip and since it was my phone
| (and only my phone) I had rather permissive purchase checks
| on it. He bought a bunch of in app purchase stuff for Talking
| Tom (owned by a Chinese company). I filled out the form, and
| got a refund. I believe that it was _much_ easier than trying
| to get a refund from the developer.
| Me1000 wrote:
| Here's an example a friend of mine ran into recently:
|
| They sold their company and shut down their service for
| which they charged monthly/yearly subscriptions. They had a
| decent relationship with Apple, so they emailed their
| contact and notified them that they'd like to issue refunds
| to all their users. Apple said that users had to do it
| themselves. That wouldn't be so bad, but there's (as I
| understand it) some restrictions on Apple offering refunds
| for subscriptions, for example if you're 25 days into a 30
| day subscription period, Apple won't allow users to request
| a refund.
|
| This caused users to get angry at my friend and their
| company.
|
| If they had been using any other payment service other than
| the App Store, they could have just automatically issued
| refunds to all their users.
| shagie wrote:
| The difference that we're seeing here is a "user can
| request a refund easily" vs "developer can refund
| something to a user."
|
| Apple balances on the assumption of the stability of
| their developers offering subscriptions and an easier
| experience for a user requesting a refund.
|
| The difficulty that the developer is having in this case
| is that Apple _isn 't_ exposing the payment information
| to the developer. If they can say "this user gets a
| refund" that is leaking some information about the users
| to developers.
|
| (...)
|
| Additionally, it appears that there were some new methods
| added to the in-app library for developers to be able to
| create a refund request on behalf of a user.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transa
| cti...
|
| > Call this function from account settings or a help menu
| to enable customers to request a refund for an in-app
| purchase within your app. When you call this function,
| the system displays a refund sheet with the customer's
| purchase details and list of reason codes for the
| customer to choose from.
| saurik wrote:
| Sure, but that obviously isn't what people were talking
| about with respect to developers giving refunds. I
| provided that feature to developers in Cydia _and_ gave
| refunds directly to users and it was still appreciated by
| all to have that feature.
|
| Regardless, to address your (off-topic) addition: do you
| actually request refunds from Apple often enough to be
| willing to pay 10% more for the privilege? You'd have to
| be asking for refunds for 1 out of every 10 products you
| buy for that to make sense...
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Apple could still act as an indirect facilitator - send
| apple the money and they refund it on your behalf. I'm
| sure there are many reasons why this is complicated, but
| I don't see any fundamental reasons this couldn't be done
| if Apple want to enable it.
| bdcravens wrote:
| You're talking about 2 different things. The platform
| providing refunds doesn't obviate the need for the
| developer to have the same option.
| shagie wrote:
| A developer _can_ issue a refund request on behalf of a
| user - its just that they can 't do the refund themselves
| because the developer doesn't hold tokens for processing
| the payment. Doing so gets into issues of PCI and user
| privacy.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transa
| cti...
| nerdjon wrote:
| > As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store if
| you want. Since most users will only use the official store,
| it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider
| dropping it entirely.
|
| That right there is my problem with this. We can't even
| definitively say that it isn't possible. Doesn't Epic do it
| on Android?
|
| A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) could
| easily push their store as being the primary way to download
| their apps. Start out on both at first but gradually
| introduce incentives for the users to redownload somewhere
| else. Then suddenly that App Store is on their phone, other
| developers see the App Store being used a lot and more and
| more developers stop using the App Store because they can get
| around these protections that I get as a user.
|
| If somehow developers were still required to be on the App
| Store, fine. I would have no issue with it. But I just don't
| see developers doing it. Too many already try to employ dark
| patterns on there website that given a chance there is no way
| they won't try to do them on mobile. Many already try (like
| with the prompts to permit app tracking) but are limited in
| what they can do.
| donmcronald wrote:
| So the big tech companies will self silo into their own app
| stores (which I can ignore), I can add an open source app
| store, and companies can run their own app store for line
| of business apps?
|
| That sounds like paradise to me.
| shkkmo wrote:
| There is a trade-off here. Yes, some apps might not be
| available in the main store. Not all of the rules that are
| applied to app submissions are in the best interests of
| every user. Even some of the rules that do protect some
| users, also eliminate whole classes of apps that other
| users would like to use.
|
| This dynamic is already at play on Android. The lack of
| Fortnite availability on the Play Store is probably to the
| detriment of users. However, the existence of fdroid has
| allowed quite a few apps that users want but that
| fundementally don't work within the Play Store rules.
|
| So when you ask "What does this do for me as a user", the
| answer is: it creates the opportunity for you to have
| access to a more diverse set of apps that are currently
| prohibited (such as anything with adult content).
|
| Edit: A hopeful secondary effect is that Apple will be
| incentivized to improve the App Store to compete with third
| party stores. Maybe Apple will add free trials for one-time
| purchase apps. Maybe Apple will create an adult content
| section. Maybe Apple will provide better transparency
| around rejections. Maybe a store will emerge that does a
| much more stringent security review that catches the bad
| actors that do get their apps through Apple's screening.
| Most likely, none of this will happen and 3rd party stores
| will see minimal use, predominantly by technical users who
| want apps that fundamentally violate the store rules, like
| has happened on Android.
| runnerup wrote:
| > A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon)
| could easily push their store
|
| Or any shitty IoT company. When people pay $400 for an
| instant pot or $800 for a robot vacuum or electric scooter
| they'll download any spyware app to make it run. Plenty
| already required sideloading apk's on Android.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I honestly didn't even think about that, buying some
| product only to find that the app for it is on another
| store.
|
| I mean most likely would not happen until another big
| enough store got popular. But then its... do I just
| download this app or do I return it.
| andiareso wrote:
| I definitely see this as the biggest downside.
|
| However, as someone who doesn't deal with these big
| companies to begin with, it wouldn't affect me at all if
| they move out. It would just fast-track me to recommending
| alternatives to everyone I know.
|
| I already migrated my whole family into iCloud for photos
| and own Nextcloud server for Google Drive alternative. It's
| been great. Obviously not the average user, but I could see
| people sticking with Apple's services over Google's.
|
| Might get a huge base of older adults off of Facebook for
| good if they decide to leave the App Store.
| irrational wrote:
| > Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions
| in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.
|
| I'll believe most developers offering cheaper prices on other
| stores when I see it. Nobody is going to lower their prices
| just because they have moved app stores.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _Developers already raise the prices for apps
| /subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's
| cut._
|
| And do they lower it again when the 'cut' is 1/2 in year two?
| I haven't seen that, I've only seen devs pocket the diff.
| rendleflag wrote:
| Do you really think developers are going to lower the price
| of their app people are already willing to pay for? I agree
| the 30% Apple tax can inflate prices, but I'm more inclined
| to think developers will pocket the 30% instead of reducing
| their apps price, especially companies selling a product
| (e.g. Twitter).
| simion314 wrote:
| Apple can sell "walled" phones in US. so FB/Google will have no
| choice but continue to do business with the Apple Store. So US
| citizens should have no reasons to plain that EU is forcing
| them to have choices.
|
| You also need to look passed the FUD and see that you have
| Android and you can't find a good example that you are forced
| to install a third party store to get some must have
| application. Geeks would unlock their phones and some apps
| might offer a cheaper version on a third party store forcing
| Apple to compete.
|
| If you could also replace Siri with a better assistant you
| might even get Apple putting some work in their apps and
| improve Siri. Either way custoemrs will gain a better voice
| assistant if there will be fair competition.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Don't you mean:
|
| >I want the precautions that Apple has in place to make it so
| [only Apple can] employ dark patterns to... mine the data on my
| phone for their profit.
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/
| rcarmo wrote:
| I just want to be able to run my own apps without having to re-
| sign them all the time.
| slg wrote:
| Choice isn't always great for the end user. Remember when you
| wanted to stream a movie and could just go to Netflix? Now today
| you need to subscribe to Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime,
| etc. if you want everything. I worry that this move can lead to
| that.
|
| This change isn't only about choice for the end user. It gives
| developers choice too. Those developers have their own incentives
| that are generally less aligned with the end user than Apple.
| Odds are this shifts the iOS experience from just needing the
| Apple App Store to needing the Amazon Store, the Epic Games
| Store, the Google Store, etc. Some of those stores (probably all
| of them) are going to have a weaker approach to security and
| privacy than Apple had. Right now I have Apple fighting for my
| privacy on iOS against companies like Google and Facebook. Will
| that still happen when Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are only
| available from the Facebook store?
| nine_k wrote:
| You don't miss choice when you don't need it. If everything you
| ever wanted to watch was on Netflix, great!
|
| But if something was _not_ there, you were out of luck. Now you
| have more of a chance, maybe at a greater expense.
|
| Same applies to music.
|
| Apple's App Store is rather notorious for its bans on
| particular _kinds_ of apps. Not only anything adult-oriented,
| but also stuff more important for some of us, like a different
| browser engine, or a programming environment, to say nothing
| about different payment options without the 30% cut.
|
| Choice is not always _easiest_ to the user, and iOS 's original
| value proposition is that it removes much of the choice and
| makes things easy, so that they just work(tm) and include all
| you may ever need(tm). Good thing if this apples to you; you
| just need not make any changes to the way you're already using
| your iOS device.
|
| (This is unrelated to whether state bodies forcing commercial
| entities do certain things is a good or a bad thing; as any
| power tool, it can be used for either, and always remains
| inherently dangerous.)
| slg wrote:
| >Choice is not always easiest to the user, and iOS's original
| value proposition is that it removes much of the choice and
| makes things easy, so that they just work(tm) and include all
| you may ever need(tm). Good thing if this apples to you; you
| just need not make any changes to the way you're already
| using your iOS device.
|
| But this now removes the choice for the end user who likes
| the _it just works_ (tm) experience because the developers
| with power like Meta will likely force it on us. It is
| reducing Apple's power, but it is empowering Meta, Google,
| Amazon, and other big tech companies who are seemingly even
| less likely to act in the end user's best interest than
| Apple.
|
| If you were one of the users who wanted the choice of adult
| content or a different browser, you always had the choice to
| use Android.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| TillE wrote:
| > To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the
| idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software
| is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be
| verified by Apple
|
| I'm sure they'll at least require notarization with their
| $99/year developer program, in line with macOS, where it's an
| increasingly enormous pain to run unsigned apps.
| zizee wrote:
| And the review process will cost EUR1 per line of code.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| One line of code that points to an external source :)
| joenathanone wrote:
| Just don't use line breaks.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Breaking news: Apple switches to Python as language to
| build applications for iOS.
| eecc wrote:
| Well, let's see how long it takes for FB, WhatsApp, Snapchat to
| migrate to alt-store. The nag screens and the the tug-of-war and
| victim playing over user data access. Apple must play its hand
| carefully, or it'll be IE toolbars all over
| smoldesu wrote:
| It doesn't really seem to be a problem on MacOS.
| giantrobot wrote:
| There's tens of millions of Mac users and hundreds of
| millions of iOS users. There's literally an order of
| magnitude difference in the size of the user base. It will be
| a problem on iOS because the user base is large and
| lucrative.
| smoldesu wrote:
| There's billions of Android devices and billions of Windows
| PCs. They made it work.
| SalimoS wrote:
| I'm sure your parent won't want to install the facebook app
| so they can talk to family oversee
|
| but now i'm already imagining fb app will be from alt-store
| with all the tracking reactivated and yes i don't use fb/have
| the app but try to explain in to elders/no tech people
| smoldesu wrote:
| If you're concerned about that, you shouldn't let them use
| Facebook in the first place. Hell, if _tracking_ is your
| concern then they probably shouldn 't be using a smartphone
| at all.
|
| If Facebook _truly_ does use this as the opportunity to
| ruin their UX, then maybe your parents switch to Signal or
| iMessage.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Getting people to switch from FB Messenger or especially
| WhatsApp (which is effectively the default messenger in
| many parts of the world) is a monumental task. One
| wouldn't need to just convince their family, but their
| family would also need to convince their circles and so
| on and so forth.
|
| This is what's scary, because it means that Facebook has
| what's effectively a massive captive audience with its
| messengers.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's kinda a bogus concern. As-is, Facebook can already
| declare that they're moving all WhatsApp clients to their
| New Web Version and remove all the versions off the App
| Store. Same goes for the rest of their apps, and it's
| fully possible on Android too.
|
| But, they don't. Realistically there's no reason for them
| to exist anywhere besides the App/Play Store, as long as
| those platforms play fair. This is a real strawman
| argument though, considering it's fully possible in the
| status quo. The problem isn't Apple or the government,
| it's that Facebook already has a disproportionate amount
| of control over your life. Apple cannot save you from
| that with a software update.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I really doubt that Meta will slit their own throats and give
| more users an excuse to not download or update their apps, by
| introducing the friction of having to deal with yet _another_
| account to manage for _another_ store:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926
| wmf wrote:
| The exact same nag screens (or worse) will still apply; they'll
| be implemented at the OS level not the app store.
| Aulig wrote:
| I think you could do enough fingerprinting (via otherwise
| harmless functions) to identify users even without access to
| the advertising ID (that requires the tracking permission).
| frumper wrote:
| I'm a little confused, but maybe someone from the adtech
| space can answer this. If you're logged into Facebook, why
| would they need another identifier for you?
| teruakohatu wrote:
| So still no sideloading, Apple still has to sign apps (a barrier
| for free open source apps) and could even charge royalties.
| cm2187 wrote:
| That I find is the most annoying. Apple pretending "to protect
| me against myself", unless I give them hundred of dollars every
| year.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Pretty sure the EU will smack that one down...
| babl-yc wrote:
| How would this legislation impact game consoles?
|
| Sony has a market cap of $100B and Microsoft is clearly above the
| EUR75 billion euro market cap discussed.
|
| Perhaps incorrectly, I don't see that market needing this
| legislation. The consoles themselves are sold on razor thin
| margins and rely on game sales to generate profit. Game consoles
| are also more of an "entertainment" device vs a general use
| mobile computer.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _1. An undertaking shall be designated as a gatekeeper if:_
|
| > _(a) it has a significant impact on the internal market;_
|
| > _(b) it provides a core platform service which is an
| important gateway for business users to reach end users; and_
|
| > _(c) it enjoys an entrenched and durable position, in its
| operations, or it is foreseeable that it will enjoy such a
| position in the near future._
|
| > _2. An undertaking shall be presumed to satisfy the
| respective requirements in paragraph 1:_
|
| > _(a) as regards paragraph 1, point (a), where it achieves an
| annual Union turnover equal to or above EUR 7,5 billion in each
| of the last three financial years, or where its average market
| capitalisation or its equivalent fair market value amounted to
| at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, and it
| provides the same core platform service in at least three
| Member States;_
|
| > _(b) as regards paragraph 1, point (b), where it provides a
| core platform service that in the last financial year has at
| least 45 million monthly active end users established or
| located in the Union and at least 10 000 yearly active business
| users established in the Union, identified and calculated in
| accordance with the methodology and indicators set out in the
| Annex;_
|
| > _(c) as regards paragraph 1, point (c), where the thresholds
| in point (b) of this paragraph were met in each of the last
| three financial years._
|
| I wonder what the monthly active users for Microsoft, Sony and
| Nintendo consoles are. Also, if there are at least 10,000
| active developers in the EU for any of these consoles.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Probably not enough to qualify. PlayStation 4's total sales
| in Europe to date is 55 million consoles... but how many are
| active _users_? How many have multiple consoles for the same
| "user"? How many are in storage, were broken, or simply don't
| get turned on for long periods of time? I think they are
| borderline or under the limit. As for total developers, there
| are currently 3,276 recognized games, and thus less than that
| amount of "developers" as per the legal definition - let
| alone how many of them are still active. I know we're on
| PlayStation 5 now, but if PS4 doesn't hit the limit, game
| consoles are fine. The Nintendo Switch has many more games
| (particularly indie) than PS4, yet they only hit 4,462.
| Whatarethese wrote:
| I view consoles as the same way I do phones. A single store to
| purchase goods is anti consumer. I can see someone taking them
| to court since the only way to buy games locally on your Xbox,
| Playstation, or Switch is through the first party stores.
| gernb wrote:
| Is it though? What if the price to buy a playstation went to
| $1200 because that was the only way it's affordable for Sony
| if they can't subsidize it with a restricted store. So now
| the consumer can side load but they can't afford the device
| in the first place. I'm just pulling a price out of thin air
| but I don't think it's quite a simple as "single store = anti
| consumer"
|
| It's similar to carrier locked phones. They'll give you the
| phone for a 1/10th it's list price if you sign up for 2yrs of
| service. Is that anti-consumer? Vs forcing the consumer to
| pay full price up front?
| babl-yc wrote:
| I was curious what the added price on a $400 console would
| be if Sony couldn't guarantee a cut of game revenue, so
| here's some napkin math.
|
| Avg 9.6 games sold per console [1] * $70 game * 30% take
| rate [2] =~ $200 additional.
|
| Current pricing: $400 + $70/game Restructured pricing: $600
| + $49/game
|
| So it's more costs upfront, but not insanely more
| expensive. It would certainly change marketing and
| incentives though, if Sony made more money by selling
| consoles than continuing to extend the lifecycle of the
| current generation.
|
| [1] https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/01/ps4_has_a_very_
| high_... [2] https://hypebeast.com/2022/8/sony-playstation-
| digital-games-...
| aequitas wrote:
| There is always the second hand market if you don't want to
| pay full price. Which currently for digital games doesn't
| exists, because everything needs te be bought through first
| party stores and is DRMed.
| kinnth wrote:
| I think it might enable game consoles to allow more developers
| to list their products on the store without the hassles of
| their particular processes. Perhaps an indie only section.
|
| It might with time open up software across multiple ecosystems.
| ephimetheus wrote:
| What if it just makes consoles unprofitable and Sony and
| Microsoft stop making them?
| kaba0 wrote:
| Well, would anything of value be lost? Like, why don't just
| sell custom built PCs? Then developers can actually develop
| against a few common APIs, no more exclusives, etc..
| [deleted]
| jchw wrote:
| Ignoring monopoly positions, censorship concerns, security
| research, industry innovation and many other important
| considerations that go into these kinds of ideas, I'd like to
| present another angle; I think even just the eWaste concern
| alone is enough to suggest that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo
| should also have to provide the end user the ability to load
| their own code with relatively few restrictions. I actually
| don't see why game consoles are special and I don't really care
| about current industry norms or razor thin margins. The
| industry we have now doesn't need to remain financially
| sustainable as-is; that is not a condition that is set in
| stone. In fact, I'd argue that often times making progress
| literally requires this kind of disruption sometimes.
|
| Nobody ever sat down and decided that what Nintendo did with
| 10NES was a good idea; it was just legally viable and nobody
| stopped it. It became normal without any concerted decision
| that it should be, just the lack of any strong enough force
| opposing it. I don't think that means that everything must
| continue this way forever. It is possible to realize that the
| implications are bad.
|
| Even that said, hackers like to think in absolute and concrete
| terms and theory. In practice, phones are extremely important,
| telling people to vote for their wallet doesn't work, and there
| are basically no phones that offer a good set of trade-offs
| today because the market is not incentivized to produce it.
| Consumers pay $1000 for a phone and can't install a web
| browser. It is disturbing that people who are on a website with
| "Hacker" in the name can see this as a good thing. (Not that
| you are necessarily. But still, I see it too often.)
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Defining what business models are legal and illegal, based on
| profit margins, is not a road we should go down in my
| opinion. Plus, some game consoles (like the Nintendo Switch)
| are profitable even if nobody buys a game because Nintendo
| prioritized that, and other game consoles become profitable
| in-and-of-themselves later in their lifecycle.
|
| This leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. If I'm
| Nintendo, I could sell my game console for $299 with some
| profit on Day 1 (like now), but then I would be forced to
| have an open store. Or, I could sell it for $269, take a
| initial loss, and have a closed store. It would simply made
| "game consoles shall be sold at a loss" the law, not opened
| things up. I think that would be atrocious. So... either game
| consoles can remain locked, or we simply declare game
| consoles cannot be sold locked.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, the alternatives are:
|
| - let the free market create even more perverse incentives
|
| - let regulators use even more restrictive means of
| limiting innovation
|
| As someone who errs moderate on the economy, I'd prefer
| that we don't lean into either extreme. Neither one seems
| to work well.
| pas wrote:
| Cutting up the space of all possible business models is
| exactly the job of these authorities, to solve these
| coordination problems that arise from raw market forces,
| that only wants to optimize for a local maxima. (And the
| companies that try to take certain externalities into
| consideration are disadvantaged, so they have a smaller
| market share than otherwise, which in many markets simply
| means zero ... see eg EVs, nuclear power plants, and other
| current big "revelations".)
| [deleted]
| jensgk wrote:
| I like the current Apple model very much. I do not need to think
| safety or security when I buy apps from Apple App store. Also I
| like that all apps including Spotify, Netflix, and all other big
| apps are available from the same place. Apps are updated
| automatically, and many of my subscriptions are handled in the
| same place. For us users these are good features, that are worth
| the small premium.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| This won't change that for you (or most users). It will allow
| power users more control.
| jensgk wrote:
| If Netflix decides to open their own store, and Spotify will
| open another, etc. it will be much more inconvenient for me.
| [deleted]
| cmdli wrote:
| I could be wrong about this, but it seems like it would
| change for most users since Facebook/Google/Amazon/etc have a
| big incentive to push third party App Stores: ad tracking.
| Apple currently limits it, so I would not be surprised at all
| if suddenly all of grandmas and grandpas favorite apps are
| now "third party only".
| smoldesu wrote:
| Moot point, Apple's own App Store currently impliments ad
| tracking pretty much exactly how the Play Store does it:
| https://searchads.apple.com/
| mycocola wrote:
| Just because many users are currently comfy in their Apple
| bubble does not mean that the bubble should be allowed to
| exist.
| jensgk wrote:
| Why not? It is our own choice. If you do not like it, buy a
| Nokia.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It is your choice, just like you don't have to use
| sideloading. Choices are nice.
| Raphou wrote:
| We can take a look at the Samsung Store or Roblox, and take
| lessons from it. Samsung's store is incredibly bad in UX, and
| noise. I hate the monopoly and monopoly fees that come with the
| Apple store. The take away is the amount of money and work Apple
| has put to provide a clean and homogeneous interface throughout
| their store. An alternative market would need that, else
| consumers' interests won't be served.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Samsung Store is actually an example for the regulation.
| Samsung Store is more like Apple Store on Samsung phones. Every
| Samsung user is happy that they can use Google's store as an
| alternative.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| Thanks Epic, EU!
| [deleted]
| slimebot80 wrote:
| I imagine these apps would need a smaller sandbox and less
| integrations
|
| Apple wont want to spend too much time supporting third party
| systems
| intunderflow wrote:
| No paywall: https://archive.vn/LfPUw
| eddof13 wrote:
| Come on Telegram uncensored!
| olliecornelia wrote:
| As a developer: neat
|
| As a user and family tech support: this fucking sucks
| Despegar wrote:
| >To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the
| idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software
| is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be
| verified by Apple -- a process that could carry a fee.
|
| Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're
| actually paying for. This is the problem with believing their own
| talking points about "paying 30% for payment processing."
|
| So now they'll be paying for actual third-party payment
| processing, as well as lawyers and accountants to ensure they're
| complying with Apple's royalty agreements to license their
| technology.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Sounds like it'll be a bit like on Mac with that whole
| notarization rigmarole.. But on Mac you can bypass it by
| jumping through some hoops. I guess on iOS you won't be able to
| until the EU catches up and forbids that too.
|
| I'd actually consider iOS again if it were more open so I think
| this is a really good thing.
| Despegar wrote:
| The EU is mandating sideloading, it's not mandating Apple do
| it for free. Until now, developers have been licensing
| Apple's intellectual property in a bundle through the
| Developer Program License Agreement. For anyone that goes
| through the sideloading route, they can expect to enter into
| a different contractual agreement with Apple to license their
| technology.
|
| Otherwise they're building a web app, which they've always
| been able to do!
| smoldesu wrote:
| What a sham, though. Developers already pay for Apple's IP
|
| - When they pay $99/year for their developer license
|
| - When they pay royalties on every payment that gets
| processed
|
| - When they buy and promote Apple hardware and software
|
| People simply want to remove the payment processing one. If
| Apple really needs more money to build their amazing
| intellectual property, they have plenty of ways to bill
| developers for services rendered. Their current system is
| undeniably exploitative, and the EU won't stop until that
| exploitation is alleviated. Apple will stop at nothing to
| defend their control, but will ultimately be forced to
| abide by Europe's terms. They're not defying small-fry
| court orders in the Netherlands anymore.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| There's a universe of FOSS that hasn't needed third-party
| payment, lawyers, accountants, etc. because they do not
| perceive the purpose of apps as "making money."
|
| That universe doesn't quite exist on iOS, partly because Apple
| makes it so uncomfortable in ways to attempt. I am hopeful that
| this shakeup might, in some way, make that easier. I've always
| wanted to ship some basic apps that do things without any ads
| or purchases or whatnot.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| It is likely that the use of web-based experiences will
| eventually surpass the need for app stores. In many cases,
| the functionality of a website is similar to that of a mobile
| app. However, Apple's restrictions on the progress of
| progressive web apps (PWAs) on Safari may slow the transition
| from app stores to web-based options. In the meantime, it may
| be worthwhile to consider visiting a website before
| downloading an app for your next mobile experience.
| aequitas wrote:
| That's funny. Because when the iPhone launched Apple
| offered just that: their own native apps and the rest had
| to contend with web based apps and a api to access phone
| specific features and UI elements. Only much later they
| announced the App Store and I doubt they will let it go
| now. In favor of non native web interfaces.
| ephimetheus wrote:
| I have never encountered a PWA where you couldn't
| immediately tell it was one. If that ever goes away, then
| maybe.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I write web applications for a living and while I LOVE how
| well-featured the browser APIs are becoming, sometimes I
| just want an app.
|
| I don't really subscribe to one camp. There's pros and cons
| to both.
| chrisan wrote:
| > I've always wanted to ship some basic apps that do things
| without any ads or purchases or whatnot.
|
| Besides the developer program cost (which I assume will still
| exist in this EU world) what is stopping you from doing this
| now?
| anonymousab wrote:
| Apple's review process and their rules about the kind of
| apps and code that are allowed to run? Heck, do they even
| allow GPLv2 and GPLv3 apps on the app store?
| Someone wrote:
| It doesn't matter whether they do. The anti-tivoization
| clause in the GPLv3 license
| (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#Tivoization)
| forbids developers from selling iOS apps that contain
| GPLv3-licensed software (the situation w.r.t. GPLv2 is
| less clear)
| kaba0 wrote:
| The price of a developer account? FOSS is a big enough
| giveaway as is, most people doesn't like the idea of paying
| for giving away their own free time
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| This won't be solved by 3rd party stores. You need to buy
| a mac and pay the developer fee just to BUILD apps for
| iOS.
| flax wrote:
| Yes. That should be solved too.
| kaba0 wrote:
| You can build them without a developer account, but then
| you will have to re-sign your own apps every 7 day and
| can only have 4 such app on your phone at a time.
| dm33tri wrote:
| You don't need to pay a fee to develop an app, only to
| publish it
| thayne wrote:
| Not the original poster, but maybe:
|
| Dealing with the capricious app store approval processs?
|
| Not being allowed to use GPL code (might still be a problem
| for 3rd party app stores, but maybe not for sideloading.
| Maybe.)?
|
| Having to develop on a mac (which will still be a problem)?
| nine_k wrote:
| On top of $100/year developer license, you also need an
| Apple laptop (or desktop) to develop for iOS devices. You
| are legally (though not technically) forbidden to run a
| copy of macOS on non-Apple hardware, even if a legitimate
| copy were obtainable without purchasing some hardware.
|
| Apple is a hardware company, an appliance company if you
| wish, and also a media company. The fact that they are
| forced to also produce general computing devices as a wayto
| run stuff like Ableton or Photoshop is, I suspect, seen as
| a pesky legacy of Apple II days.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're
| actually paying for.
|
| IMO a lot of developers are paying for Apple to have an
| unreasonable amount of control and the entire point of side
| loading or competing app stores is to get rid of that because
| we don't want to be paying Apple to act against our interests.
|
| I don't want to pay for Apple to "verify" my app. I want them
| to use the OS to enforce user granted permissions and that's
| it.
| [deleted]
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I don 't want to pay for Apple to "verify" my app._
|
| Add a user, I do.
|
| Developers, and the tech sphere in general, have proven
| themselves untrustworthy.
|
| This is the bed of greed the tech industry built. Now lay in
| it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Add a user, I do.
|
| For a user, Apple's app store will remain available. Your
| love for Coca-cola isn't ruined by the existence of Pepsi.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| It is, if the Pepsi is poisoned.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Pepsi being poisoned will not affect your Coke.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| How are you going to enjoy that Coke while your system is
| down?
| subradios wrote:
| Apple in fact uses and sells your data for the same
| purposes it is "protecting you" from when other developers
| do it.
|
| You can yell about Zucks adtech empire all you like, but
| Apple launched their competitor at the same time they
| denied other apps.
|
| Google is now moving the same direction as well.
|
| Your phone OS vendor controlling which software
| distribution platform is mandatory is not meaningfully,
| "security".
| simonh wrote:
| >Apple in fact uses and sells your data for the same
| purposes it is "protecting you" from when other
| developers do it.
|
| I don't believe this is true, can you cite a source? The
| recent buzz about 'targeted ads' was actually about adds
| on their own App Store, no third party data sharing or
| sale was involved, so I believe you are mistaken.
| smoldesu wrote:
| By that definition, Google doesn't share your data
| either. But they do, by monetizing it in the form of
| targeted ads. Both Apple and Google try to gussy it up
| with 'anonymous' labels, but the business of tracking and
| monetizing your habits is shared by both.
| etchalon wrote:
| You're going to continue paying Apple to verify your app.
|
| Either you'll pay Apple directly, or the non-App Store will
| collect the 30% they have to send to Apple.
| izolate wrote:
| As a developer, I understand this sentiment. As an iPhone
| user however, I don't want the power to shift to developers,
| because I know developers have financial or other interests
| that are sometimes at odds with mine.
|
| A large portion of users want the protection that the walled
| garden affords. If you value openness, then I suggest you use
| and develop apps for Android.
| urthor wrote:
| The issue isn't the walled garden.
|
| The issue is the monopolistic price gouging Apple charges
| for access to the walled garden.
|
| If you took the "policing for developer's short circuiting
| the 30% cut" out of Apple's approval process, everything in
| their ecosystem works out fairly nicely.
|
| The core issue is, simply, that Apple price gouges
| enormously.
| amelius wrote:
| What is the problem with a model where the phone
| manufacturer gives the user power to control privileges
| given to the developers?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > A large portion of users want the protection that the
| walled garden affords.
|
| To state the obvious: if this were true, Apple wouldn't
| have to force the issue. Apple's app store would be a
| premium that they would charge users extra for. Getting
| your apps from 3rd-party stores would be the equivalent of
| the green bubble.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I never really understood this sentiment. How come Android
| phones are not riddled with bugs then? Or OSX?
|
| It is simply the job of the sandbox and OS security to
| prevent security/privacy violations.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > because I know developers have financial or other
| interests that are sometimes at odds with mine.
|
| Like how Apple's interests can be at-odds with your own. If
| developers have control over your device, you're not
| empowered as a user.
|
| > A large portion of users want the protection that the
| walled garden affords
|
| So, give it to them. Our interests are not mutually
| exclusive, you can make a device with both a walled garden
| _and_ a developer mode. It 's not rocket science, at least
| when you have 200 billion dollars in R&D cash sitting in
| your coffers.
| cmdli wrote:
| The trouble is that if large tech companies are given the
| opportunity, they will force users to use whatever is
| best for the company, not for the user. The only way to
| stand up to large tech companies is with another tech
| company like Apple.
| jerojero wrote:
| This doesn't happen on Android. Why would it happen in
| iOS?
|
| Discoverability and the ease of access that the
| playstore/appstore provides is enough to pretty much
| always want to have your app up there.
|
| The main difference is that there are a lot of apps that
| are simply not allowed in the appstore or that you need
| to change substantially to comply with apple's rules. For
| example, Telegram has censored content if you download
| the app from the appstore given Apple's pornography laws.
| Other apps that might be used to infringe on copyright
| are outright not allowed (they're also not allowed on the
| playstore, but you can install them from the apk or a
| third party store).
|
| Now, maybe you think these restrictions are appropriate
| and that's fine... for you. Other people might want the
| freedom of doing more with their devices that they paid
| hundreds and hundreds of dollars for without having to
| resort to extreme measures. The argument Apple uses is
| bullshit and the EU saw through it.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Not even facebook is big enough to make people go way out
| of their way and install it. The easy way will always be
| the popular.
| frumper wrote:
| Aren't you advocating Apple forcing users to do what is
| best for Apple? Users benefit on both sides of this coin
| in different ways.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's bullshit. The only way to stand up to large tech
| companies is with regulation, which the United States is
| pathologically opposed to. Foreign countries have to
| write their own consumer protection laws because US
| juggernaut tech companies are so ruthless. Shareholders
| fear nothing as much as regulatory backlash.
|
| You're at least right about one thing. Large tech
| companies will always exploit opportunities to limit the
| user, which is a privilege Apple has abused for too long.
| It's time for computing to be democratized again, even if
| we need to drag Apple though the mud to get there.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > That's bullshit. The only way to stand up to large tech
| companies is with regulation
|
| I don't know if you realize this, but OP and you are
| saying the same thing, they are just saying it slightly
| different.
|
| You: To stand up to large company bullying you need to
| regulate them through the government.
|
| OP: To stand up to large company bullying you, you need
| another large company who has the pockets and sway to
| bring change through congress because our government is
| bought and paid for by corporations.
| kaba0 wrote:
| One of these is a fairy tail though. The free market
| doesn't work like that, and that is a nice way to further
| empower companies.
| smoldesu wrote:
| We're strongman-ing two sides of the same coin. They're
| arguing that the free market will solve this, whereas I'm
| arguing that proactive measures are required. Apple's
| business is designed so that it cannot be disrupted
| without forcing them to abide by a common set of rules.
| By leaving those rules undefined, we have _clearly not_
| encouraged innovation or disruption. Our only option is
| to define our consumer rights that we should have
| instated a long time ago.
| [deleted]
| anubiskhan wrote:
| Doesn't that suggest that Apple, a large tech company,
| will force users to use whatever is best for the company,
| not the user?
| agust wrote:
| You realise that's what Apple has been doing for the past
| 15 years? Force users to do what's best for them, and
| only them? Anti-competitive practices do not serve
| customers, they increase prices and prevent innovation.
| dmalik wrote:
| Don't use 3rd party stores then if that's what you're
| worried about as a user.
| alexiaa wrote:
| the "use android" argument is getting really tiring. as
| someone who used to be an android user for years and still
| somewhat keeps up with the ecosystem, ios and most apps
| written for it (including major apps like twitter) are far
| more polished than whatever mess google is doing with
| android (and manufacturers make it even worse). i much
| prefer having the polished ios experience while being able
| to sideload and possibly even jailbreak my phone. and then
| there's imessage too, though we'll see what happens with
| that after the dma.
|
| and the argument about "giving developers power" simply
| doesn't hold any water. android openly allows sideloading
| with the google play store having very similar rules to the
| app store, and yet i can count the number of major apps
| that force or even _offer_ a sideloaded version on one
| hand. the only ones that come to mind are fortnite (removed
| from google play) and telegram (on play store, but
| sideloaded version has faster updates and less censorship).
| flutas wrote:
| > the "use android" argument is getting really tiring
|
| I fully agree, imagine if MS had made Windows apps on W10
| only come from their store. Anybody saying that the
| solution is "just buy a mac _4head_ "*, like they love to
| do with mobile phones, would be laughed out of existence.
|
| *: It's great to have options, and linux should be in
| here too, but that would be like telling a normal user in
| this situation (mobile market) to go buy a Pine phone,
| which for very few would work the way they expect/need it
| to.
| cronix wrote:
| Another for your list...all DJI drone software requires
| sideloading on android.
| elashri wrote:
| And to add more the list, Google doesn't allow Adguard or
| any network-level ad blockers via Google Play. You can
| only sideload the app.
| taylodl wrote:
| > the "use android" argument is getting really tiring
|
| Why? Android is a legitimate alternative, one that the
| majority of the world population uses. You have many
| makes and models of handsets from which to choose. You
| want the polished apps with a completely open and free
| environment. Maybe you should ponder why such apps don't
| exist for the open and free ecosystems?
| anomaly_ wrote:
| That iOS polish is largely a byproduct of the walled
| garden approach. Users are incentivised to spend within
| the ecosystem due to the safety, security and support
| provided by Apple.
| brundolf wrote:
| A problem is that some of their requirements, like the recent
| one for data collection disclosures, can't be enforced at a
| technical level
| kaba0 wrote:
| And apple won't actually look too deeply at your code,
| that's just marketing. So, neither is the current model a
| solution to that.
| skissane wrote:
| > >To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the
| idea of mandating certain security requirements even if
| software is distributed outside its store.
|
| Are they going to keep on giving their own apps entitlements
| they deny to everyone else? (Or even, allow to others, but very
| selectively.) Or is the EU going to crack down on that as well?
| I hope.
| t-writescode wrote:
| If it's bad enough, they'll switch back to using Apple's store,
| and it'll be a wash; but, we won't know until competition
| exists
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It's very likely, they've tried playing the same games with
| other jurisdictions, "sure, you can use your own payment
| processor, and still pay us 27%", but it's very unlikely those
| tricks will hold up to further legal actions.
|
| Fighting monopolies is _hard_ , but the penalties scale up the
| more games these companies play. They know it too, but all of
| the **holes running these companies are worried about is
| cashing out their bonuses and retiring before the regulations
| finally get things to where they should be.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Surely the people running Apple could have retired a long
| time ago.
| Despegar wrote:
| These laws don't expropriate Apple's intellectual property.
| Apple will always be able to license it for something.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| They can charge whatever they want for the phone. They
| can't levy monopoly fees on every successive purchase.
| Despegar wrote:
| I certainly understand why developers would prefer that
| Apple have that business model, but that's not the one
| they chose for the iPhone. And these laws don't prohibit
| it.
| cronix wrote:
| Yes it was, they later changed their stance. In the
| announcement for iPhone, Jobs on stage explicitly stated
| that all you need to develop an app was html and modern
| javascript with API's into the phone hardware. And they
| would basically just be a PWA that would keep the app
| updated automatically as soon as the developer makes a
| change, all while keeping the iPhone "reliable and
| secure." In fact, he was bragging about not having a
| store "rather than having to go through this complex
| update process" as a dig at the Google play store.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvQ9JNm_qWc
| Despegar wrote:
| And then everyone realized web apps sucked and demanded
| that Apple release an SDK, which they did, and the rest
| is history.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| That's incorrect. _Enforcement_ has failed to handle it,
| but Apple 's app store model is a violation of antitrust
| law, in the US, the EU, and elsewhere. Many of the
| actions you are seeing in the news about it are
| regulatory mandates, based on the fact that Apple's
| business model _isn 't legal_.
| onion2k wrote:
| They won't, because anyone who starts an alternative app store
| will provide everything necessary for a small fee. The likes of
| Epic, Microsoft, Amazon, etc are more than capable.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's also huge fun to deal with the regulations and tax systems
| of 175 countries.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| The number 1 thing they are paying for by a mile is reach. Not
| any particular service offering. Your listing the app store can
| be nearly as important as your SEO ranking of moreso depending
| on your business. It's why Google can still charge pretty hefty
| fees despite not locking users in nor doing all that much for
| app quality. If you're not in the Play Store, users won't find
| you.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I don't own an iPhone, but if this is the case then the end
| result is going to be hilarious. Apple will eventually get a
| court order to prevent software from a third party store being
| installed on their devices. Either it will enable copyright
| infringement or violate some other IP restriction.
|
| So this will wind up being a worst of all worlds.
| smoldesu wrote:
| What's the precedent for that? Windows, MacOS, Android and
| Linux have all allowed the user to indiscriminately install
| software, but I've never heard of legislation that tried to
| reverse that.
| Despegar wrote:
| I definitely agree it's going to be the worst of all worlds.
| The current model was the most efficient one for Apple and
| developers. There will be additional costs for everyone
| involved (great for lawyers and accountants though). The
| current model was a virtuous cycle that benefited Apple,
| developers, and users. High trust from users made them
| amenable to spending money on software, grew the Apple
| developer ecosystem, and unleashed a wave of innovation which
| spawned industries since 2008. Importantly, all developers
| got standard terms which created a level playing field. I
| suspect we're moving into a world where large developers
| (Spotify/Netflix/Microsoft) will have much more negotiating
| leverage than a small developer. But that is the 'business as
| usual' world, which makes this a reversion to the mean.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Importantly, all developers got standard terms which
| created a level playing field.
|
| Lmao, you must have missed the news about Microsoft,
| Amazon, Netflix and another few dozen Fortune 500 companies
| negotiating with Apple under the table. They already do
| bend the rules for sufficiently large companies, they just
| won't budge if you're someone that threatens them.
| Despegar wrote:
| What the Epic v. Apple antitrust trial showed was that no
| one actually got better terms than anyone else. If you
| have evidence of Microsoft, Amazon, or Netflix getting
| terms that aren't available to anyone else, please link
| them.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That was only true after Apple adjusted their rules to
| expand Netflix's deal (allowing external processors in
| certain situations) to the rest of the store. There was a
| time when it was an exclusive, under-the-table deal with
| Netflix. It's not hard to believe when you hear about the
| private entitlements notable developers like Uber and
| Google get.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Oh okay, so the law has that loophole. Too bad, I thought the
| EU was serious about it.
|
| It's no surprise that Apple will comply as maliciously as they
| possibly can.
| [deleted]
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I'm curious how Apple is going to limit this functionality to
| Europe. Will it just be iPhones _sold_ in Europe? What about
| older iPhones then? Can I import a European iPhone to American
| shores? Will it be just detected region? If so, what happens if I
| fly from Europe to America for a week? Does it apply to all EU
| Citizens regardless of where they live, like GDPR? If so, how is
| that enforced for EU citizens living in the US, or dual-citizens?
| What about iPhone users without an Apple ID stating their
| location? Can Apple be sued if they inadvertently cut some
| European users off? In which case, if they are forced to play it
| safe, how will they prevent sideloading in America? If they
| discover they can 't prevent sideloading in America effectively,
| then what?
| gigatexal wrote:
| Hmm had no idea the EU market still had enough weight to throw
| around to be relevant.
| ben_w wrote:
| If it hadn't been for Brexit, the EU market would be an "which
| exchange rate do you prefer?" away from being the equal of the
| USA. And the UK's economy is something like California in this
| analogy, and they basically follow the same rules anyway
| despite all the noise about wanting to be different.
| wiseowise wrote:
| What about the most important part - allowing third party browser
| engine?
|
| I want to have full blown Firefox with proper resolution on
| YouTube and no ads.
| rektide wrote:
| I was momentarily excited for this possibility but not in a
| million years is Apple going to relax their "no interpretter
| code" restraints.
|
| Worth mentioning that the big MV3 change in WebExtensions is
| also banning interpetted code. Dynamic behavior is illegal in
| 2023, static code only, by corporate mandate.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| >Currently, third-party web browsers, including ones like
| Chrome from Alphabet Inc.'s Google, are required to use WebKit,
| Apple's Safari browsing engine. Under the plan to meet the new
| law, Apple is considering removing that mandate.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Not sure how they go around Apple's restrictions, but Orion can
| run both Chrome and Firefox extensions.
|
| (Not affiliated, just use it; though not as the default)
| mrtksn wrote:
| I'm fan of the Apple's AppStore model, I like it and think it
| works great and Apple's commission is a nonissue for the most use
| cases(it's issue only in low margin trades), however I'm afraid
| that Apple's control over the device risks governments making
| Apple their police. Apple limiting AirDrop in China is a very bad
| sign of what might happen if the rest of the world follows
| China's totalitarian path. Even in the US, which was supposed to
| be the land of the free, there are talks about banning apps.
|
| That's the primary reason I want side-loading.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I mean, AirDrop has been a problem for a while elsewhere as
| well: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/passengers-removed-
| fro... and https://streamable.com/fkgbr
| wmf wrote:
| _Apple 's control over the device risks governments making
| Apple their police_
|
| Even with sideloading, neither Apple nor the government will
| give up that much control. Apple will almost certainly retain
| the ability to delete "malware" apps even if they're sideloaded
| and governments can then lean on that mechanism. Even Google
| can probably do a lot through Play Services.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Play this scenario out to its logical conclusion. If we are
| in a situation where Apple and the government is targeting
| specific apps for removal, this becomes a game of whack a
| mole that the developer always wins.
| bmitc wrote:
| You don't think a 30% tax on users for the privilege of using
| an AppStore app and Apple's abuse of that are problems? But
| somehow the AppStore affects government abuse of iPhones?
|
| The AppStore would have never been a problem had Apple not been
| so greedy and draconian about it.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| I for one believe in the principle that I paid to own the
| device and that entails loading whatever I damn well please on
| to it from whichever front, side, or backside I see fit!
| Someone wrote:
| Apple may argue you paid to get a locked-down device and I
| don't think they ever claimed otherwise.
|
| Also, if you buy an Xbox, Tesla, Fitbit watch, fridge, etc.
| you can't load whatever you please, either. Why would all
| smartphones be different?
|
| If you look at it historically, the PC is about the only
| device allowing that kind of user control.
| nitrixion wrote:
| Good news! There is a phone for you. Android allows that. Why
| not allow others who want their device partially controlled
| by the vendor to have that option?
|
| I agree with the GP and prefer the current iOS landscape.
| nervlord wrote:
| mrtksn wrote:
| The device is yours and you can load whatever you want into
| it. That's why jailbreak is %100 legal.
| amelius wrote:
| You still can't sell a jailbroken device, I think.
|
| It is kind of strange if you own something 100% and you
| can't sell it.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Really? What happens when you put in on craigslist, find
| a buyer and exchange the device for money? How Apple
| stops that?
| moffkalast wrote:
| On the contrary, you can sell it at a premium for the
| service.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| If you own your phone in the first place, why did you have
| to break it out of jail?
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Because you intentionally opted to spend more on a locked
| down device.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Tapping a button in settings a few times to get dev mode
| is not cool enough for Apple is it?
| mrtksn wrote:
| That's just a name for adding functionality that Apple
| did not build in, no actual jails involved.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Yeah duh no real jail involved. That misses my point. Its
| called jailbreaking for a reason. Out the box its
| metaphorically in jail. Its restricted and limited in a
| bunch of ways that you have to break it out of.
|
| You paid to own it, Apple puts in rules as if you're
| renting it. It doesn't matter that you can hack it. You
| shouldn't _have_ to hack your own hardware.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Apple made it work in a certain way and it's clear about
| it, if you want it to work in a different way I don't
| think Apple obligated in helping you. If you're surprised
| that they don't support software installation beyond the
| AppStore, you can modify your device and make it do
| that(jailbreak), you can return your device or sell it.
|
| It's ridiculous to say expect that Apple is obligated in
| helping you use the device in ways not designed to work.
| Would you expect Apple also to make it possible to run
| PlayStation games?
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Would you buy a car that only goes on Ford^TM approved
| roads and only takes Ffuel from Ford approved stations?
| Sorry, you can't drive here. That's a GM road.
|
| No, of course not. We all know that the ability to run on
| unapproved roads isn't a "feature", but rather the
| inability to run on an unapproved road is an anti-feature
| that they built in the first place. For that matter, the
| inability to run playstation games outside a playstation
| is also an anti-feature which had to be engineered by
| Sony. For that matter, do you buy razors that only fit
| Gillette approved blade designs? So why restrictions on
| computing devices then?
|
| I will give credit where its due in that Apple is upfront
| about the nature of the walled garden. Who knows, maybe
| there really is a market for cars that only go to
| approved places.
| 9dev wrote:
| Well, lots of people seem to like using Apple products in
| the way Apple intended to - adhering to your example,
| driving on the vast Ford network that covers most of the
| world and gets ford drivers pretty much everywhere.
| simfree wrote:
| Nevermind whole classes of apps like NewPipe and F-Droid.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I guess I wouldn't buy Ford if their fueling features
| don't meet my expectations.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Wait, you're ok only being allowed to buy Ford gas just
| so long as Ford gas is actually pretty decent?
| mrtksn wrote:
| No I'm not ok being allowed to buy only Ford gas. I'm ok
| to buy Ford cars that work only with ford gas if the deal
| they offer suits me.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Your Ford comes with a particular operating system and
| performance parameters. If you want to run something
| else, you have to jump through a few hoops to change
| that. Those hoops might be more or less difficult to
| clear than jailbreaking iOS, but the option/requirement
| is there in both cases.
|
| _Everything_ intelligent comes with a set of software.
| You can replace that software (on almost everything?),
| but then it 's up to you to maintain the setup how you
| like. That's not unique to iOS.
| chaostheory wrote:
| You're missing the larger point. If people didn't like
| it, they wouldn't buy it. How you feel about it is
| irrelevant.
| cmdli wrote:
| Are you allowed to buy into a walled garden where developers
| can't force you to sideload apps to use their apps? That's
| what I want to do, but it seems the EU is making that
| illegal. It seems that users who value freedom can buy
| Android, and users who value security can buy Apple, but the
| second option is going away.
| nmridul wrote:
| You are also free not to download any app that forces you
| to sideload and can stay "secure".
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm free to not work for a company whose ethics or
| contract I dislike. But only because I got a skill which
| made me a desirable employee elsewhere.
|
| I'm free to resolve my cancelled flight by either waiting
| a week for the free alternative or buying a combination
| of rail and ferry tickets to get me from Stansted to
| Berlin, but only because I have an understanding boss,
| enough money, and an app which can get me arbitrary
| hotels on route because that's more than a day's journey
| unless I plan to sleep in a train station.
|
| I'm free to not remain in a country whose politics or
| laws I dislike. But only because I got lucky with a few
| things.
|
| I'm free to not download any app which forces me to
| sideload. But only because they don't exist yet on iOS
| (except for the ways that apparently never counted
| according to all the people demanding this) -- there's
| too many ways a theoretical "optional" can become an
| "actually mandatory", from laws to employers to defacto
| monopolies, and those are just the ones I've seen
| examples of in other contexts.
| [deleted]
| LightHugger wrote:
| What is this logic? Nobody is stopping you from staying in
| your walled garden. You want to stop other people from
| escaping it, though?
| sircastor wrote:
| A walled garden they willing walked into and willingly
| can leave at any time? It's not as though there's nowhere
| else to go. The trouble is people want all the benefits
| of the walled garden without the wall.
| cmdli wrote:
| Nobody is stopping you from escaping the walled garden;
| you can absolutely go buy an Android device which is
| equivalent to an iPhone but without these sorts of
| restrictions.
|
| The trouble is that the walled garden approach only works
| if the wall goes all the way around. If Facebook, Google,
| or the other big ad companies are allowed to access the
| iOS ecosystem without consumer protections, then they
| absolutely will and will force users to go along with it.
| This is about developer freedom, not user freedom.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Nobody is stopping you from escaping the walled garden;
|
| Apple does. I buy a Macbook, and I can modify the
| bootloader to completely leave MacOS. It's a pain in the
| ass, and Apple certainly doesn't make it easy as it was
| on x86, but it's an option. Even if I use MacOS, I still
| have the option to disable system integrity, install
| unsigned apps and use third-party software managers.
|
| That's a system that lets me escape the walled garden.
| They give me concessions inside their OS and an escape-
| hatch for third-party OSes if they really fuck things up.
| The iPhone has none of those things. If you buy an
| iPhone, your only way to leave the walled garden is to
| not use the iPhone. Buying an Android phone does not
| break your iPhone out of the walled garden.
| fweimer wrote:
| It's typically one aspect of (mobile) device management on
| platforms that support side-loading out of the box.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| Can't you choose to only use apps on Apple's app store?
| jkcorrea wrote:
| I believe the implication is there will now be less
| incentive for app developers to ship for App Store when
| they can get 80% of the way there with 0% of the "hoops"
| to jump through (I.e. Apple guidelines)
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| No one is forcing you to use any app, let alone developers.
|
| Without this becoming a rant, what fraction of that
| "security" is protecting you from nothing more than apps
| that didn't pay the Apple tax. You must admit, the
| narrative that only approved apps are "good"/"safe" is
| insanely self serving and conveniently hard to falsify.
| cmdli wrote:
| Let me provide a concrete example: right now I can
| download and use Facebook, with less tracking than
| Facebook likes, on the App Store. If Facebook is allowed
| to offer a sideloaded app with all the tracking included,
| what do you think the chances are they will keep the
| version on the App Store? If they remove it and only
| offer the new sideloaded version, I am worse off as a
| user than I am right now.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I'm much more worried about games.
|
| Epic Games is going to put their own storefront on iOS,
| and it's going to have few if any of the polices for
| customer protection that the App Store does.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Epic will be able to give you games for free to gain
| market share, just like the Amazon App Store tried on
| Android and just like Epic is currently trying on
| Windows. The horror!
|
| Then an app like F-Droid will come along and offer even
| more protections than the App Store. Confound it!
|
| For my part, this is a step in the right direction. With
| a few more fixes, iOS might even become usable enough for
| me to buy a device that runs it.
| andrepew wrote:
| I think this depends on how much friction side-loading
| ends up being. If I can just click a link and hit "run"
| like I can on a computer, yeah it could be an issue.
|
| If it requires diving in to Settings or connecting the
| phone to a computer -- Facebook would never abandon the
| App Store, friction to using side-loading would be too
| high.
| waboremo wrote:
| Ignoring Facebook as the example since nobody who cares
| remotely about tracking is using Facebook.
|
| Then [company] lose marketshare to those who don't care
| about anything outside of the App Store, and when media
| outlets and social networks pick up on how [company] app
| on this third party store tracks so much more information
| than it used to, even more people will uninstall. It's
| what we've seen on Android for years, there is a huge
| reputation factor when it comes to third party app
| stores. That reputation factor is the reason why F-Droid
| is the major choice outside of the Play Store.
|
| There is incentive here for app developers to continue to
| provide solid services. Just not Facebook, as their
| primary goal is tracking.
| throw10920 wrote:
| This is relying on Apple to act as a regulator of
| Facebook. That's not Apple's job, and they do a bad job
| of it. That's the job of the government, which is
| actually (ostensibly (unlike Apple)) representing the
| people.
|
| The fact that Facebook can do _any_ spying on you at
| _all_ (because it can still track you, on your current
| Apple device, right now) is because government regulators
| are dropping the ball. It 's not Apple's responsibility,
| it's not something they're good at, and it's not
| something that they should be doing.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| The fb webpage still exists. No app. No permissions. No
| problems.
|
| If Facebook makes a change that kills the low-tracking
| front-ends and insists everyone be tracked more, and in
| response you grovel to them and put up with their new
| app, then no amount of EU law or App store law was ever
| going to protect you from yourself. Apple store polices
| are a red herring, the problem you're actually
| highlighting is the adversarial relation you have with
| fb.
| mrtksn wrote:
| If you don't trust facebook without Apple's help, maybe
| don't use it?
|
| You have a point but without Apple's restrictions,
| someone can build tracking free Facebook client too, if
| that's something people want.
| Karunamon wrote:
| That depends entirely on how much friction there is
| involved in the process. I think you know and Facebook
| knows that technical hoops at the level of, say, enabling
| developer menus on Android is a bridge too far for the
| average tech illiterate user.
|
| Reminder that Epic tried this with Fortnite and
| eventually went back on the play store. And this was on
| the platform that had sideloading since day one.
| smoldesu wrote:
| If Apple offers it, sure.
|
| "Introducing: iLess - A $15/month optional subscription fee
| that removes sideloading from your phone."
|
| Sure to be a smash hit, sounds like exactly what you're
| looking for!
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _I for one believe in the principle that I paid to own the
| device_ [...]
|
| I paid for an iPhone for my mom so that she _could not_ load
| whatever she damn well pleases, because if she does I have to
| deal with the mess afterwards.
|
| Some folks are okay with walled gardens _for specific
| purposes_. If that 's not you, that's fine. Perhaps Apple
| iDevices are then not for you.
| throw10920 wrote:
| This is a very bad argument.
|
| There are several, _very easy to imagine_ mechanisms that
| both provide user freedom and security /idiot-resistance at
| the same time.
|
| For instance, extending the "parental control" feature to
| have a toggle for sideloading - then, you just turn on
| parental control, toggle that off, and keep the PIN. Done.
|
| The idea that the features of the product should
| _completely unnecessarily_ be restricted for _all_ users
| for the dubious benefit of _a tiny subset of them_ is
| laughable. The only logically consistent motive to advocate
| for this is profit.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Ultimate Security in the form of preventing extremely
| sophisticated physical access/evil maid attacks[0]
| benefits people _even if they don 't think they need this
| security_.
|
| Maybe purchase a different product that more closely
| aligns with your needs.
|
| 0: ie. someone watches you enter your apple id and
| passcode and later swipes your phone, only to sideload
| spyware that hides itself from the UI, then re-plants
| your phone without you knowing
| Aeolun wrote:
| That's not a treat model 99% of users have to think
| about.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Uniformity and convention over configuration and
| customization is why people feel why iOS is more stable
| and secure than the Android ecosystem as a whole.
|
| If you don't like it, don't buy it.
| seqizz wrote:
| So, for this _specific_ purposes, keep the walled garden by
| default on, on one of the biggest ecosystems? How about
| opt-in for walled garden for those who need it.
| fstanis wrote:
| Do you believe Chrome should remove the developer tools to
| protect users from harming themselves? I mean, it's
| literally one key press away.
| DavideNL wrote:
| macOS has SIP (System Integrity Protection) which _can_ be
| disabled. Your mom would not disable it. No non-technical
| person i 've ever met, even knows what SIP is, let alone
| has disabled it.
|
| Security researchers, for example, can disable it. And use
| this to find security vulnerabilities.
|
| The point is, as users we should have the ability... Apple
| (or any company) should not be allowed to dictate what
| people are & are not allowed to do on the devices they own.
| waboremo wrote:
| So keep her within the walled garden? Hell maybe even
| enable parental control if you really want to roleplay as
| her technological parent.
| eternalban wrote:
| At some point in the near future we are all going to be
| in the same shoe as GP's mother: confronted by tech we
| simply no longer understand. Even the latest generation
| is merely fluent in _using_ these devices. The subset
| that will keep up will be even smaller than today, imo.
| Almost all others will choose the safe options, specially
| when our lives are even more critically intertwined with
| our devices.
|
| Even today it is not ok to be careless with what you put
| on your machine, but in a couple of decades, it could be
| a true disaster, specially if public services are fully
| tied to your digital identity. You would not want your
| digital self to be entertaining any random* program as
| guest.
|
| * effectively random - see first point
| binarymax wrote:
| This is a strange prediction to make on hacker news. Most
| of the people here are constantly learning and adapting
| to new technology.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| You must not have experience with elderly relatives on
| the edge of Alzheimers or other forms of dementia. It
| happens; it happens to the best of us.
| binarymax wrote:
| I do.
|
| But having a debilitating disease is a different story
| and beyond the persons control.
|
| Given a choice, I and many others here will continue to
| learn and adapt.
| chaostheory wrote:
| You're being sarcastic, but as lifespans continue to
| increase and with no known cures for mental degenerative
| diseases like dementia; this is more common than you
| realize.
| nixass wrote:
| And that's fine, but let people to do whatever they want
| with their devices.
| jensgk wrote:
| But the device is consists of the hardware, the os and
| the app store. The is no "hardware" is the Apple
| universe. And that is good. If you don't like it that
| way, buy a Nokia.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| And others?
|
| Hope not, especially by everyone and their mum.
| gernb wrote:
| I'm going to predict that all the stores will fail. The only one
| that might succeed would be a Steam store but I don't suspect
| Valve has any interest in being a store for free to $0.99 games.
| But hey, it would be nice if bought some game on Steam that meant
| I got access to Mac/Linux/Windows/Androidn/iOS versions
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's doubtful that an Open Source F-Droid style repository
| would fail. Apple is already setting things up to be as
| unprofitable as possible, but stores that don't concern
| themselves with turning a profit will probably work just fine.
| gernb wrote:
| Maybe "fail" was the wrong word. What I meant to say is I
| suspect no store will get a large percent of the market where
| I define large as > 10%
|
| AFAIK, no android 3rd party store has been successful by that
| definition.
| Aulig wrote:
| 3rd party stores on Android are disadvantaged in some ways,
| e.g. no automati app updates. That makes things quite
| annoying for the user.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Hard to say, the Play Store has been fairly lax WRT
| allowing third-party browser engines, Free Software and
| emulators. If the floodgates open on iOS, there might be
| considerable demand for apps that Apple has traditionally
| tried stopping.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And that's perfectly fine. Niche users and power users
| deserve to be catered to as well.
| gnicholas wrote:
| What about browser extension stores? That is, could Kiwi or
| Firefox now run on mobile, with mobile extension support?
|
| I realize that Safari now offers extension support, but it is
| so convoluted to download and activate an extension that
| practically no one does it. If if it were as easy as the
| Chrome/Firefox stores, this would be much more common. I'm
| hopeful that this could finally happen!
| andy_ppp wrote:
| If this happens how will the 15-30% Apple tax work? It seems
| excessive to me but what is the likely outcome here, a reduction
| in costs maybe or some crippling of Apps in external stores?
| computer23 wrote:
| Despite being a long-time Apple user, I just purchased an Android
| tablet the other day, in a large part because iPads are so locked
| down and controlled by Apple.
|
| This decision will make me strongly consider returning it and
| getting an iPad instead. iPads leave Android tablets in the dust
| in terms of performance, although I do like the microsd card slot
| on Android.
|
| Of course, it could take years for Apple to reluctantly implement
| the change.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Truth. I hung onto Android for many years for that little shred
| of more choice, mostly the ability to install APKs. But Apple's
| stability and user experience runs laps around Android and it's
| extremely hard to justify not going with iPhone. Now I would
| have 0 reason.
| paulkre wrote:
| I hope this means Apple will improve PWA support soon.
| wyldfire wrote:
| I'm excited for the opportunity to use Open Source software on an
| iPhone. I might reconsider some of my objections to using
| iPhones.
|
| EDIT: I see now that while it's more possible than it was before,
| it may still be a bit unlikely for this to grow if Apple still
| must sign the apps.
| skyde wrote:
| tldr: the company's changes are designed initially to just go
| into effect in Europe for iOS 17
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/UzUwI
| asdff wrote:
| The article doesn't name them by name, but does this include
| stores like Cydia?
| jonplackett wrote:
| I don't really want to use a 3rd party AppStore, but I'm glad
| they will now exist.
|
| What I hope is that competition makes apple up their game a bit
| on the AppStore.
|
| 1) I hope they fix search. AppStore search is a joke, just awful.
|
| 2) Their 20% cut is too high
|
| If they're competing with 3rd parties I can see both these
| getting fixed ASAP, whereas currently they have no motivation.
| cmdli wrote:
| I don't want to fearmonger too much, but you may not have a
| choice in using 3rd party App Stores, assuming you use popular
| apps like Facebook or Instagram. The large tech companies may
| remove their apps from the original App Store and only use
| third parties that allow them to do the ad tracking they want
| to do.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Your terms are acceptable.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I think the threat of Meta _forcing_ users to migrate to a
| hypothetical 3rd party app store is overblown-
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926
|
| Now, they might try to entice users with deals and such (sort
| of like Epic's gung ho free games discounts on their gaming
| platform against Steam), but I highly doubt they'd pull their
| apps from the official App Store. Too much risk of blowback.
| danaris wrote:
| Now, I'm not going to say this is impossible; it sounds like it's
| just the kind of needle-threading that Apple would prefer in this
| sort of situation.
|
| But...what's the source here?
|
| So far as I could see, the article didn't even credit anonymous
| sources. It just states all these things as bare facts. And I
| haven't seen any other reporting on this (yet) that doesn't
| simply link back to this Bloomberg article.
|
| And just as a reminder, this is from Bloomberg--the outlet that
| publishes the "Big Hack" story that proved to be _completely_
| false [0], without issuing any form of retraction, correction, or
| apology.
|
| Again, it's entirely possible that this will prove to be true.
| But I have absolutely no confidence in Bloomberg on stories of
| this kind, and don't intend to get worked up over the possibility
| of Apple allowing outside app stores until and unless it gets
| some kind of independent reporting.
|
| [0] https://daringfireball.net/2018/10/bloomberg_the_big_hack
| solarkraft wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder about the article that turned Bloomberg
| into a joke. But do note that the author is Mark Gurman, a
| fairly prolific Apple analyst. I suppose he implies that he has
| anonymous sources.
| ouid wrote:
| Am i going to be able to have addons in firefox?
| [deleted]
| CrypticShift wrote:
| You can say whatever you like about the EU (corruption anyone?),
| but at the very least, they are countering Big Tech. Just that
| idea of effective balance of force is a positive signal to me.
| flykespice wrote:
| While I want monopoly companies to screw themselves. I don't
| like EU attitude to want to rule over foreign companies
| arbitrarily, it's a call to the colonial times when Europe
| wanted to make the world follow their rule and serve them.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| The list of nations that don't regulate how foreign companies
| operate within their own borders would be .. what?
| ben_w wrote:
| Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. But only because the UK
| is weird and insists it's four nations. (And England kinda
| speaks for all of them for this kind of thing).
| aussiesnack wrote:
| Well in the proper sense the EU isn't a nation in any
| case. I was being loose about the governmental level at
| which regulation of foreign entities take place, which I
| think is fine for a HN comment!
|
| > And England kinda speaks for all of them for this kind
| of thing
|
| Well yes, it's 4 nations, except that England doesn't
| believe in the other 3 ;) Though it's only just coming to
| terms with the self-existence of most of the old Empire
| for that matter. Writing as someone who was born in the
| least likeable of the UK nations (England), and has lived
| in all but Wales.
| m3drano wrote:
| These companies may not serve the European market. It's not
| mandatory.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| More importantly, it doesn't say:
|
| "You CANNOT serve the European market if you don't do x, y,
| and z globally."
|
| It just says what you have to do for European users.
| jjevanoorschot wrote:
| > I don't like EU attitude to want to rule over foreign
| companies arbitrarily
|
| The EU wants to regulate its own internal market. Companies
| can choose to be active in that market.
| drooopy wrote:
| The EU government is simply laying the ground rules as to how
| businesses should operate inside the EU single market.
| They're not forcing Apple to change its business practices
| anywhere else in the world, as far as I understand. And Apple
| is free to leave the European market, if they do not like
| those conditions. Personally, as a consumer, I welcome this.
| And I hope that they don't just end at Apple. Google and
| Microsoft oughta be next.
| albertopv wrote:
| Ironic, considering US companies must provide their data to
| US gov even for non US persons or clients, and that's why
| Google and MS services are deemed illegal in many EU
| countries. BTW, no foreign company is forced to operate in
| Europe.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| > I don't like EU attitude to want to rule over foreign
| companies arbitrarily
|
| I agree in principle. How could they balance that force,
| without arbitrarily ruling over foreign companies? I don't
| know. Maybe clarify what is "arbitrarily"?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| The whole premise is simply wrong.
|
| The EU is setting rules for enterprises operating within
| their borders. Those that wish to operate must comply,
| others not.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| > Those that wish to operate must comply
|
| Well, that is exactly the effective force I'm talking
| about. Can you imagine Apple not operating in Europe?
|
| However, this is "legal" authority. I'm trying to discuss
| the more subtle moral authority: Many even inside the
| continent, do not accept the moral authority of the EU.
| and they also use that "arbitrarily" word to justify
| their claims. So why not discuss that word in detail ?
|
| I'm not for downvoting replies to death. I'm more for
| letting people define their words better. It sometimes
| works. Sometimes.
| jsnell wrote:
| > Can you imagine Apple not operating in Europe?
|
| Sure, we do after all have the example of some (non-
| Apple) companies not operating in China, a similarly
| important market. If Apple really believe their own
| rhetoric about how the only way to protect their users is
| for Apple to control the experience, they'll pull out of
| Europe rather than compromise on their users' security.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| Europe is not China.
|
| I just talked about how this is about moral authority VS
| legal one. Here it is about commercial markets VS
| cultural centres.
|
| Europe is not just a market. Europe is the (historical)
| centre of the western world. I don't think big tech
| can/want to leave it. If they say so, IMO they are just
| bluffing.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| There are both monetary and strategic reasons for global
| corporations to operate in Europe of course, just as
| there are with other areas of the world.
|
| But that doesn't mean they should be allowed to do so
| solely on their own terms.
|
| Countries can set the terms they want. That is the
| meaning of sovereignty. Some of them have rules that
| constrain their legislature somewhat (a constitution) and
| some of them try to set rules that at least to some
| degree conform to the will of the people living there
| (democracies).
|
| These principles have not come about from nothing, so I
| wouldn't call them arbitrary.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| > These principles have not come about from nothing, so I
| wouldn't call them arbitrary.
|
| I did not either. I was just using his exact expression,
| in an effort to let him explain himself.
|
| I can understand how offending that word is for some.
| Just wonder at all that bloody european history and
| superhuman effort to rationally get over it...
| ako wrote:
| Any company that wants to do business in the EU has to comply
| with European rules, and their products have to comply with
| European guidelines. Electronics, cars, food, everything had
| to comply to rules. This includes antitrust policies.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| The EU passes laws to protect it's own citizens. If you don't
| want to follow these laws, then don't sell products to the
| EU. It's that simple really.
|
| Comparing it to "colonial times" is pretty egregious.
| drooopy wrote:
| You'll find corrupted politicians in every government in every
| country in the world. And yes, the EU has the strongest
| consumer protection laws anywhere in the west.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > EU (corruption anyone?)
|
| It's strange that EU catching corruption and acting on it made
| it look corrupt. It's like the seat belts making people think
| the cars are not safe.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| I remember a big stink about corruption in the Olympic Games
| when it went to Utah, and giving my mormon friend some crap
| about it. He pointed out that it's always been DEEPLY
| corrupt, and the only problem was that the Utah officials
| didn't go along with it, and that's what caused all the
| press. I don't know how much of that is actually true, but it
| seems analogous.
| walrus01 wrote:
| If you learn how many MLM headquarters are based in Utah it
| begins to make sense.
| seydor wrote:
| It was the Belgian police that did. The EU bureaucracy
| (parliament and otherwise - it's so big) does have known
| corruption problems.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Known corruption problems? Maybe someone should tell the
| Belgian police when they are still in Brussels then!
| seydor wrote:
| It's not the first time
| https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13628-italian-court-
| sentences...
| mrtksn wrote:
| So?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| I wonder what's the status of CRA after Kaili's arrest. How can
| we be sure that CRA isn't some sort of lobbyist exercise?
| donohoe wrote:
| Just wait till you learn about the USA
| macinjosh wrote:
| I am huge EU skeptic, but this one really does push back on my
| beliefs. I find it very disappointing it took such an action
| for Apple to do the right thing. Way to go EU!
| mbesto wrote:
| > but at the very least, they are countering Big Tech.
|
| Honestly, I think this is partly to do with the fact that very
| few of these "Big Tech" companies are founded and primarily
| operate in the EU.
| robswc wrote:
| I think it's also caused a feedback loop.
|
| Very hard to get things off the ground (at least relatively
| speaking) in Europe. The software salaries also reflect that.
| foepys wrote:
| All laws also apply to EU companies plus EU companies have to
| adhere to EU laws from the start while non-EU companies can
| focus on more lenient regulations until they are ready to
| move into the EU market.
|
| If anything this kind of legislation is more damaging to EU
| companies.
| sofixa wrote:
| Why do you think that? They've successfully intervened in
| anticompetitive markets even where all participants are fully
| EU based (e.g. railways, train manufacturers).
| joenot443 wrote:
| Yeah. Though for us entirely outside the political sphere of
| influence for the decision making, it's a tad bittersweet
| having to take the bad with the good. Love my unified USB-C,
| don't love clicking GDPR cookie banners.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| GDPR didn't enforce cookie banners. Sites can simply not
| track if they actually care about their users. If they don't
| track they don't need to ask for anything.
|
| And a lot of these dark pattern cookie banners are not GDPR
| compliant. It should default to not track even if you don't
| press anything. And clicking 40 different reject buttons
| isn't allowed either. This needs serious policing.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Untargeted ads make 50% less than targeted ones.
|
| So you're basically saying the alternative is don't exist
| for the vast majority of sites, reducing revenue by 50% and
| surviving is just about impossible for every internet
| company.
|
| And if they wanted to turn every site into subscription
| overnight, they could have made this an optional provided
| header to opt out. Every browser could implement that in
| days.
| _jal wrote:
| If you run something like Little Snitch, blocking the CDNs of
| the banner-providers does wonders. Takes a little trial and
| error, very worth it.
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| Show me a government that has 0 corruption. No system is
| perfect, but there's better ones and worse ones. IMO EU is one
| of the better ones, but not a perfect one, obviously :)
| no_wizard wrote:
| >The laws apply to technology companies with market valuations of
| at least EUR75 billion ($80 billion) and a minimum of 45 million
| monthly users within the EU.
|
| Wonder if they considered (or maybe are considering) how to on
| paper split up in such a way they no longer meet this threshold
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security
| requirements even if software is distributed outside its store.
| Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple -- a process that
| could carry a fee.
|
| So ... can they do that? It's pretty safe that if it's allowed,
| they'll do it.
| etchalon wrote:
| Based on the regulations, yes. The regulations do not require
| Apple allow third-party stores without a cost/fee. Only that
| they allow them.
|
| Apple's within their right to say, "OK, but that third-party
| owes us 30% of their revenue."
| m463 wrote:
| I want to be able to load my own apps.
|
| I do not want to ask apple for permission.
| stevedewald wrote:
| You already can. You just can't sell them to other people on
| Apple's platform.
| alden5 wrote:
| they disappear after a week and i can only have 3, i'd have
| to pay $99/year to have unlimited apps and sign for a year
| tomashubelbauer wrote:
| To my knowledge you can either side-load na app from Xcode
| using the free developer account, but the signing certificate
| will expire in 7 days, or you can pay 100 USD to Apple and
| use a personal team to be able to side-load apps whose
| signing certificate is valid for a year. And you are limited
| to 5 apps only. Is this incorrect? The only reason I care
| about this legislation is because I want to side-load an app
| or multiple apps and don't have to worry about making an
| Apple Developer account or worry about signing certificates
| at all. In fact, I'd like to be able to build and compile an
| app on Linux, in CI, download a file and just drop it on my
| phone and run as an app. No accounts (like Apple Developer),
| no payments. Is this possible today?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm generally okay with the AppStore but I do think it goes too
| far in some cases. E.g. Amazon kindle books.
| politician wrote:
| Prediction: None of this will be available to folks in the US.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Apple has been notoriously developer-unfriendly for decades, but
| that has been especially true during the last one.
|
| At some point the chickens come home to roost.
|
| This is a (baby) step in the right direction but the Apple/Google
| duopoly still has way too much power.
| ben_w wrote:
| Er, what?
|
| I've been coding since I was 5 or so (C64); my first desktop
| computer was a Performa 5200, where I had to spend pocket money
| on Metrowerks CodeWarrior Student Edition (68k only, no PPC,
| the pro version was way beyond my 15 year old self's budget)
| and get the official Apple books out of the library in order to
| learn C.
|
| ResEdit was magnificent, for the era, and given away on
| magazine cover CDs. Then Apple switched to OS X, and Xcode
| became cheap, then free. The 30% that everyone's been moaning
| about for the last 5 years was, when it was first announced, _a
| fantastic improvement_. ObjC and Swift may have felt like Apple
| reinventing the wheel when they could've just used C++, but C++
| is still an option for developers, and one I've used in an iOS
| project at a previous employer.
|
| How exactly is Apple supposed to be developer-unfriendly?
| meindnoch wrote:
| Apple will 100% require notarization. Also, I wouldn't be
| surprised if installing anything from a third-party AppStore
| would disable a bunch of sensitive functionality, like ApplePay,
| FaceID, Find My, etc. with a nice alert that says: "Sorry, your
| device might be compromised due to unsafe apps. In order to use
| ApplePay / FaceID / etc. you need to restore your phone to
| factory settings first. Would you like to continue?".
| judge2020 wrote:
| But even being jailbroken doesn't affect Apple Pay, their own
| Apple Card service, _or FairPlay_ [0] (which is the most
| surprising to me). Maybe it's sent as a heuristic / weak fraud
| signal for Apple Pay, but no functionality is removed in the
| OS, so I don't see why a notarization-approved third party app
| would trigger any other broken functionality.
|
| 0: https://developer.apple.com/streaming/fps/
| vermilingua wrote:
| Or maybe a large part of the jailbreak process is blocking
| Apple from detecting that a device is jailbroken.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| The "unsafe app" thing may be against the new law. The text of
| the law is "The gatekeeper shall not prevent business users
| from offering the same products [...] at prices or conditions
| that are different from those offered through the online
| intermediation services of the gatekeeper"
|
| Keyword being conditions. Having a third-party app store
| disable a bunch of functionality would be different conditions
| than a first-party app store.
| manchmalscott wrote:
| > Some engineers working on the plan also see it as distraction
| from typical day-to-day development of future features, according
| to the people.
|
| Am I supposed to feel bad for the poor engineers, unfairly
| distracted from their typical work of,,,reducing my rights as a
| user?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Truly tragic that the genius minds behind Dynamic Island are
| having their time wasted with all this work on 'user
| empowerment' and 'regulatory compliance'.
| cmdli wrote:
| Users aren't being empowered, developers are. Users will have
| to use whatever App Store the developer chooses, and they
| wont have any extra choice.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The status quo was Apple monopolizing that power, I'd much
| prefer for it to be distributed among other developers. If
| the process for installing Fortnite or Facebook becomes too
| painful, users will stop using it. As long as Apple's store
| is the best-in-the-business, they have nothing to worry
| about. Now they just need to compete.
| [deleted]
| segadreamcast wrote:
| stale2002 wrote:
| Oh hey, will to look at that. The law is actually suceeding in
| forcing Apple to change its behavior and allows alternative apps.
|
| I remember arguing with so many people here on HN about this.
| People were actually trying to pretend like Apple was going to
| get around the law, or have it overturned, or pull out from the
| EU, or some other nonsense.
|
| But, if you weren't completely biased, you'd know that of course
| Apple was going to lose this fight. They will be forced to follow
| the law like everyone else.
| theCrowing wrote:
| Can't wait to not use my banking apps or MDM stuff anymore
| because my device could be compromised because I installed
| something from a third party store...
|
| edit: it's a jab against apple that they will introduce
| restrictions like that. lmao
| geoah wrote:
| Then don't. You have the option, but no one is forcing you.
|
| Giving people more options is not a bad thing, you should trust
| everyone to make their decisions.
| filchermcurr wrote:
| There's a pretty simple solution: Don't install applications
| from a third-party store. This change doesn't mean the Apple
| store is going away. It's reasonable to assume that you'll be
| able to continue using your device as you always have without
| worry.
| themagician wrote:
| Honestly, Apple could simply do exactly what they do for macOS
| now. The two are close enough to a merge at the architectural
| level that it would not be difficult. macOS is one step away from
| removing the ability to install unsigned software by default.
|
| If you want to run unsigned software or extensions you will have
| to boot into a recovery console and change the security model.
| The warning dialogs will be enough to discourage most use. Things
| like ApplePay and iCloud may be disabled depending how far you
| reduce security, but you'll be able to do whatever you want.
|
| I think it be a great solution to have a more uniform solution
| across all devices and platforms. It would create a boom in the
| hacker community, while still keeping >99.99% of users running
| from sealed system snapshots.
| slg wrote:
| What I'm worried about is if the next time we open WhatsApp we
| see a splash message that says "Instagram, Facebook, and
| WhatsApp are moving to the Meta Store! Please restart your
| phone and follow these easy steps to continue using these
| apps." App developers have a lot more influence on mobile
| devices than they do on desktop OSes. This change would shift
| even more power to those large developers.
|
| You can say a lot of negative things about Apple, but their
| incentives lined up with the end users more often than
| companies like Meta and Google.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The market will decide that. You aren't alone. Why would an
| app move exclusively to some alternate pain in the ass store
| if the users don't want it?
|
| They'll probably just be on both with some perk incentivising
| a switch.
| slg wrote:
| >Why would an app move exclusively to some alternate pain
| in the ass store if the users don't want it?
|
| Moving from one store that takes a 30% cut to a store you
| own makes a lot of sense if you can carry over at least 70%
| of your paying customers.
| yunwal wrote:
| May not even need to be 70% of your customers if you have
| costs that scale with the number of customers. 30% is a
| fraction of revenue, not profits.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Yet another example of the Facebook boogeyman being trotted
| out in an effort to explain why lack of user freedom, lack of
| consumer choice and anticompetitive business practices are
| actually good for the customers that are being fleeced by
| them.
|
| This didn't happen on Android, macOS, or Windows, despite all
| of them allowing alternative app stores.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Android, macOS, and Windows aren't being blamed by Facebook
| public for a $10 million drop in ad revenue due to a change
| in iOS policies, so it's not quite the same fruit.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| > This didn't happen on Android, macOS, or Windows, despite
| all of them allowing alternative app stores.
|
| EA and Epic have entered the chat. This has absolutely
| happened on Windows. Source: the PC attached to my TV where
| my kid plays games, just this week.
|
| I would posit that there are two possibilities for why it
| hasn't happened on Android:
|
| 1. The UX for alternative app stores is so terrible that
| they may as well not be allowed.
|
| 2. Not enough people want to pay for software on Anrdoid
| for this to be worthwhile.
| atonse wrote:
| I keep hearing this - what exactly is the freedom or lack
| of consumer choice that's being stifled here?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Apple, and only Apple, gets to decide what is allowed to
| run on the devices consumers own.
|
| Similarly, Google is converging on the same
| anticompetitive practices with the Play Store.
|
| This duopoly quite literally prevents competition in the
| mobile app distribution and mobile app payments markets.
| judge2020 wrote:
| So if I make a competitor called the Avocado company, and
| my Avocado phone can only run third-party software I vet
| myself, and my entire marketing pitch is "this vetting
| process protects your security and privacy", would the
| same argument apply?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That didn't happen on Android because while Android
| _allows_ alternative app stores, it doesn 't go out of its
| way to encourage users to them. So Google still has a lot
| of power via Play store user count.
|
| Sometimes, we get a good outcome because titanic companies'
| competing interests are balanced... but that doesn't mean
| we should forget that if that balance were upset the winner
| would screw over users in a nanosecond.
| slg wrote:
| >This didn't happen on Android, macOS, or Windows, despite
| all of them allowing alternative app stores.
|
| I'm guessing you aren't a gamer. This absolutely happened
| on Android and PC. Fortnight is the most obvious example on
| Android and the various PC game stores are constantly
| battling over exclusives which has led to bizarre and
| annoying situations like this[1]
|
| [1] - https://wccftech.com/goat-simulator-3-devs-tell-
| players-to-u...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| You're not wrong, but games are probably a unique space
| where that's the sort of thing that already regularly
| happens on PCs as well, witness the proliferation in
| publisher stores over the last few years. AAA studios are
| simply used to forcing that sort of extractive behavior
| from users, and users are all too willing to comply.
|
| But I don't think there's _that_ much threat for the
| gaming + mobile market, in the sense that Fortnite aside,
| I 'm pretty sure EA/UbiSoft/Activision Blizzard/etc.
| don't really have "killer apps" for iOS that would entice
| a lot of users to use their third party app stores. For
| all other types of mobile games, Apple Arcade is hard to
| beat.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30204012
|
| Though perhaps there is a concern if Chinese gacha game
| makers start making their own stores.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| And yet Facebook hasn't done this, and Epic hasn't done
| any of the scary things you're spooking yourself over in
| your OP. The fact that an app is distributed outside of
| the app store isn't proof that the sky is falling like
| you're saying will happen.
|
| At the end of the day, if you're this afraid of Facebook,
| you're free to not use it. There's no reason other users
| should be restricted because you think that the spectre
| of Facebook might lurk in the shadows.
| tshaddox wrote:
| "User freedom" doesn't work in this argument. Apple's
| restrictive App Store is a big reason of why I use iPhones
| and why I recommend them to most people who ask.
|
| There are effectively only two smartphone platforms
| available to users, and destroying one of the only
| meaningful differences between the platforms in the name of
| "user choice" is nothing if not ironic.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| What you're saying is that you like Apple's playpen, so
| everyone else should be forced to stay in that playpen,
| too.
|
| If you want to stay in the playpen, that's fine, but
| there's no reason why users who want to use the full
| potential of their devices shouldn't be able to in order
| to keep you happy.
|
| It's not a dichotomy. If you want to keep your options
| limited, stay in the playpen. Users who value freedom,
| competition, and efficiencies of markets can also enjoy
| those things, but they currently are prevented because
| Apple will pull no stops to protect their App Store
| moneyhose.
| slg wrote:
| >Users who value freedom, competition, and efficiencies
| of markets can also enjoy those things, but they
| currently are prevented because Apple will pull no stops
| to protect their App Store moneyhose.
|
| The counter is that these users do have a choice. They
| can buy an Android.
|
| Allowing different stores might end up removing choice
| for the end user who like Apple's current approach as the
| large developers with power like Meta will likely force
| the different stores on us. This change is reducing
| Apple's power, but that power isn't all going to the end
| user. It is empowering Meta, Google, Amazon, and other
| big tech companies who are seemingly even less likely to
| act in the end user's best interest than Apple.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| > _What I 'm worried about is if the next time we open
| WhatsApp we see a splash message that says "Instagram,
| Facebook, and WhatsApp are moving to the Meta Store! Please
| restart your phone and follow these easy steps to continue
| using these apps."_
|
| Why do people continue to tout this as some sort of gotcha?
| Android has multiple app stores yet this doesn't occur.
|
| However, what I _do_ like is that if I want to download some
| other client for Instagram from F-Droid for example, I can,
| unlike in the Apple App Store. Currently I use one that
| blocks apps, enhances image quality on upload and download,
| etc. Not really possible on iOS.
| slg wrote:
| >Why do people continue to tout this as some sort of
| gotcha? Android has multiple app stores yet this doesn't
| occur.
|
| Maybe not yet specifically with Meta, but it absolutely
| does happen. Fortnite is the most obvious example.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Honestly, that's fine by me. Epic made the game, they
| process the payments, they're not using the Google Play
| Store's services and storefront at all (not to be
| confused with Google Play Services), so why would they
| pay 30% simply to be on a store they don't use?
|
| Same as on a computer, I use Windows, but it'd be absurd
| for me to download software only through the Microsoft
| Store app.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > so why would they pay 30% simply to be on a store they
| don't use?
|
| The argument for this on Apple's side is that you're not
| paying just for the payment processing, but you pay it as
| a fee for benefiting from the user base that Apple
| attracts via their investment into their R&D from the
| hardware, to the UI design, to the APIs that enable your
| app itself to run.
| slg wrote:
| Couldn't Meta follow the same path as Epic? Doesn't that
| have potential to create a situation that is worse off
| for consumers because their device theoretically would be
| less protected in terms of both security and privacy?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| They _could_ , but I argue that Meta _requiring_ users to
| use a third party app store would likely be self-
| defeating for them. It could conceivably alienate a lot
| of users who don 't want to deal with managing yet
| another account, let alone subject themselves to an
| environment run by Meta.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Fortnite is the most obvious example._
|
| And? There are plenty of apps that are exclusive to
| F-Droid, as well, and the sky still hasn't fallen.
|
| Meanwhile, two companies have kept a stranglehold on
| _all_ mobile app sales and mobile app payments, ensuring
| that businesses can 't exist that can't afford a 30% cut
| into their margins.
|
| It's been over a decade of this insane profiteering on
| behalf of Apple, and in some respects Google, it's about
| time that the mobile app distribution market and mobile
| app payments market are allowed to compete and flourish.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Apple is blamed by Facebook publicly for a $10 million drop
| in ad revenue due to a change in iOS policies. Google is
| not.
| kilburn wrote:
| > Why do people continue to tout this as some sort of
| gotcha? Android has multiple app stores yet this doesn't
| occur.
|
| It is very possible that this hasn't ocurred because google
| has not enforced the same level of privacy-related
| restrictions that apple has (which reportedly costed
| facebook ~10 billion dollars [1]).
|
| I'm a strong supporter of device owners being able to do
| what they please with their devices, but the risks are
| there and are very real.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2021/11/06
| /appl...
| stetrain wrote:
| Yep. I'm fine with my parents never venturing beyond the bounds
| of the app store, but if I want to run some dev tools on the
| iPad that don't fit into the app store model I should be able
| to choose an option where I can install signed software.
|
| I think this sort of relief valve will also breed interesting
| system utilities and user interface ideas for Apple's mobile
| OSes, provided that software using private APIs can still pass
| the signing process. Maybe they could have avoided some of the
| Stage Manager fiasco if they had years of third party
| experimentation to observe on their own platforms.
| drewg123 wrote:
| The funny thing is, it may help their sales. I'll buy 3 Apple TVs
| and 1 iPad just as soon as I can load apps of my choice.
| jws wrote:
| So the first 1.8 million apps plus the ability to use the free
| development environment to compile and load any program you
| want (necessarily open source) on your devices wasn't enough?
|
| I suppose there are people just itching to install closed
| source mystery code from unaccountable entities. Unfortunately
| most of them are the friends and family for whom I am first
| line technical support. I'm not looking forward to the change.
|
| I'm willing to wait for the details, but at this moment, I am
| not a fan of unaccountable stores.
| everfree wrote:
| > the ability to use the free development environment to
| compile and load any program you want
|
| You can load any app you want, but it disappears after 3
| days. Then you have to load it again. To keep the app on your
| phone, you need to load it onto your phone again every 3 days
| using your computer.
|
| It's obviously set up for developer testing, not for someone
| trying to actually get use out of an app on their phone.
| jws wrote:
| Not true [see edit below, retraction]. The apps I write and
| load onto my own devices outside the store stay on my
| devices until I get a new device. I think there might be a
| profile that has an expiration of one to three years, but
| in practice that never goes off for me. I either add a
| feature or get a new device before that goes off.
|
| Edit: Ok, "true depending". If you are a registered
| developer then your apps last a year. If you are
| unregistered then you get one week, which would be a total
| pain in the ass.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Are you trying to say that a free development environment
| that you can install in order to compile and load any
| program you want for three days isn't enough?
| everfree wrote:
| I guess I'll have to buy a laptop to bring with me on my
| weekend trips...
| jws wrote:
| It depends. It is enough to turn yourself into an
| experienced software developer, then you can get a job
| and afford the annual developer fee. But it sort of sucks
| if you are, say, retired and don't keep up your identity
| but would like to keep your apps.
|
| I don't understand what risk they are mitigating by
| keeping the unverified developers to 3 days instead of
| one year. It is clearly an intentional action.
|
| I guess you could have a business where you install
| unapprovable apps for people with a 1 year subscription
| and they have to physically come back to your kiosk and
| get an update from you each year.
| everfree wrote:
| > you could have a business where you install
| unapprovable apps for people
|
| I've heard that there's somewhat of a black market for
| this already. One person buys a developer subscription,
| then signs apps for other people so that they can
| sideload them using something like AltStore. Then, Apple
| sees that many apps have been signed by one dev account
| and shutters the account for terms of service violations.
| Finally, someone else registers a new developer account
| and the process repeats.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| The free provisioning for a sideloaded app only lasts a week
| IIRC.
| MikusR wrote:
| Macbooks are free now?
| jws wrote:
| Well of course you need a computer to run the IDE. Xcode
| only runs on Macs. It is possible to develop and sign code
| without Xcode if you have access to a different sort of
| computer, but that is a level of masochism unrelated to
| productivity. (As opposed to Xcode which is a level of
| masochism related to productivity.)
|
| Macs have a long shelf life, and ones capable of running
| current Xcode are thrown to the recycler, I assume you
| could nab one for minimal coin too. They'll be slower, like
| 1/3 the speed to build compared to new machines, but apps
| don't take long to build. Most of your time is "sitting and
| staring" followed by "typing". Neither of which is
| appreciably impacted by using an old machine.
|
| I went from an 8 year old Mini to a new M1 when they came
| out. A world of difference! Buttery smooth window drags,
| gorgeous scrolling. But I don't really program apps any
| faster. Sure, I have a few seconds now and then on a build,
| but it doesn't add up to much. Then I switched up to a
| Studio with a brain the size of a planet... no real change
| for app programming.
|
| Don't let lack of a computer be a problem. Grab an old mini
| and do your thing.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > I suppose there are people just itching to install closed
| source mystery code from unaccountable entities.
| Unfortunately most of them are the friends and family for
| whom I am first line technical support. I'm not looking
| forward to the change.
|
| What is this hypothetical even. Your nontechnical friends and
| family are also eager to go out of the App Store (after
| having to enable developer mode, which might be as difficult
| and full of disclaimers and warnings as Apple chooses to slap
| into it), then root around shady third party app stores and
| mobile _websites_ to download mystery code? So they 're
| simultaneously tech illiterate and power users?
| jws wrote:
| Exactly! They run into "that other guy" who tells them "Oh,
| you should delete Safari and Mail and always use these
| other programs!" Then I get to help them with why "other
| browser's" keychain integration is rubbish and it displays
| blanks instead of web pages for some sites, and the content
| filters don't work right... and something weird is
| happening with the UI of "other mail".
|
| They will totally hand their phone over to "other guy" who
| will "do something, I don't remember what he did"... and
| they'll be subscribed to SketchyAppStore2023-HGTWRE.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Who is that other guy? A TikTok influencer? A YouTuber?
| Why are your friends and family handing over their phones
| to such shadowy figures on the street? Just tell them not
| to do that and be done with it.
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