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Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

docmars
112 replies
18h18m

Oh the horror, it must be so hard for Apple to cave to an open system for these people. What will they ever do without their unbelievable tax on app profits simply for existing on their nearly unlimited real estate, that is, the web?!

I have no sympathy for their concerns. I can download apps on my MacBook machines all day from many different sources, and it harms no one. While I understand the associated risks, computers have been this way long enough that the free and fair use of software on my devices is far more valuable than the brittle safety a marketplace offers.

Apple's greed knows no bounds, and while I'm no big fan of the EU, there are some regulations like these that ensure these big bears in the industry can't abuse their positions for profit, at such unreasonable expense to consumers (not always monetarily, but be it fair access, availability, and choice), and developers especially.

If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords.

endisneigh
53 replies
17h59m

I’m very curious how you have this position yet have a MacBook. Why not support a better company like framework?

gxs
19 replies
17h2m

Because people are incredibly entitled and want to have their cake and eat it too.

So you bought an iPhone knowing you can’t download apps and then go cry because you can’t download apps?

Then your argument is that well, all my friends have iPhones or there are some other good features, or whatever else you make up?

So you obviously find value in the product, it’s missing a feature, but you will consciously buy it anyway, it doesn’t make any sense.

Does the standard simply change when a company is big enough?

Imagine ordering a steak salad even though the restaurant doesn’t allow modifications to the ingredients, then throwing a temper tantrum when you get it because it has steak. It’s unbelievable.

post_break
6 replies
16h56m

Imagine there are only two restaurants in the world and they both only serve steak, yet when you want a salad people say go to the other restaurant.

gxs
3 replies
16h31m

Except in this case your beloved android lets you do whatever you want, so why not go use them?

And there are multiple manufacturers that aren’t associated with Google who make phones.

If this were truly such a shortcoming, more companies, in addition to already existing ones, would create phones with side loading apps.

Imagine me pitching my idea to YC, it’s like an iPhone, but with side loading apps! It’s brilliant!

You’d be laughed out of the room.

The issue is you want those good Apple features, you want that Apple ecosystem, the blue bubbles, etc, but you also want to have a feature that the phone doesn’t have and people are crying that Apple won’t give them that feature.

I don’t even care, and I even if I did, decisions already been made so there’s nothing to argue.

This is simply an amusing situation, the grandstanding is simply funny.

smoldesu
2 replies
16h16m

Imagine using YC as a corollary for consumer demand (or hell, corporate righteousness).

I don’t even care

This is simply an amusing situation, the grandstanding is simply funny.

Wait till the Commission delivers the punch-line.

gxs
1 replies
16h5m

I don’t think you made the point you think you made here.

It’s possible to not care about something and still submit an opinion. Or maybe it’s the degree of caring that is confusing you, I care enough to comment and have a viewpoint, but I don’t care to the degree that I am upset or will lose any sleep over it.

There you go, hope this helps you understand what I meant there so that you are no so hung up on it so as to feel the need to quote it.

Please do save me the suspense and share the punchline now!

It’s perfectly reasonable to use YC here as at the end of the day they’ve helped launch of ton of companies that are popular with consumers.

Regarding the irony in using them as an example of corporate righteousness, well you did get me there and I agree with you.

smoldesu
0 replies
1h11m

Please do save me the suspense and share the punchline now!

Apple hasn't finished their setup! You might be able to guess where it's going though, we've heard this one before.

endisneigh
1 replies
16h50m

This is a great metaphor because if we accept it then the salad is the web, yet no one wants that.

docmars
0 replies
14h29m

I think there is a great desire for web-like application distribution to work well on smartphones, but with none of the drawbacks like poor rendering performance and lack of native features.

Of course, native apps that wrap web-based apps is almost the reverse of that, and we still often get laggy, sub-par experiences as a result of broader platform support for lower maintenance costs.

PWAs fill the opposite gap where you get native-like apps at the expense of low performance, distributed any way you like.

What we really need is for high-performance native applications to be distributable via the open web, and that's exactly what the EU is enforcing here, in a way. What would be better is for WebAssembly to take off and offer native performance in apps that can be visited at URLs, just like we're used to.

smoldesu
5 replies
16h41m

Apple is the only one acting entitled here. Why doesn't the App Store deserve competitors? Why should we accept Apple's fees and failures when they deliberately limit competition?

They're acting like an anticompetitive wuss if you ask me. If Apple is the righteous one here (imagine that), they can pack up their bags and tell the whole EU to shove it. They can individually invite all 27 markets to kiss their ass and watch as the relevancy of Apple products plummets in the first world. Problem solved, Apple saves the day. 中国梦!

Or, they can take the king's ransom of iPhone revenue and surrender their asinine software double-standard. This doesn't end well for them either way, there's no sense it making it last longer.

docmars
4 replies
14h46m

Agreed, and well worded. Never in computing history has a walled garden like Apple's existed until the iPhone. Distributing and finding apps wasn't always simple, but then again, the need for a central browsing experience to find and download apps was never truly a thing before -- maybe outside of Steam for games. The key difference with Steam is that the same games have always been available on other distribution platforms, generally, so it doesn't suffer from the same limitations.

Show of hands, how many people actually spend multiple minutes (or hours) just swiping through their respective App Store just to find something new and interesting?

Aside from the store experiences, the web's powerful (gasp!) ability to find and download content including Computer Applications™ has always been its greatest strength. App stores are a net detriment seeking to protect the lowest common denominator: the uneducated computer user who hasn't bothered to learn everyday security practices to avoid downloading malicious apps or vetting software developers on their popularity and/or security themselves.

This takes a little knowledge and practice, but this isn't much different from shopping for good produce in a grocery store. Avoid the rotten fruit, and use your friends/family to help you judge what's best! That's the beauty of freedom on our devices, as it enables the power users and enthusiasts to enjoy these devices at their fullest, without senseless obstacles offering unsolicited "protection".

k_roy
3 replies
2h37m

. Never in computing history has a walled garden like Apple's existed until the iPhone.

wot...

How was playing that Super Mario Bros with on your Sega Master System back in the day? I don't remember Sega having the 10NES subsystem.

Ever heard of this little place in the early to mid 90s called AOL? Compuserve? Prodigy? Any cell phone company long before Apple's app store

And you act like anyone who has a Kindle or a Nook isn't in a walled garden, at least for 99% of the people who don't know/care that you can install books via Calibre or something.

And you know you can sideload apps on Apple devices right? Even before the EU ruling. It was just a massive pain in the ass and drumroll... 99% aren't going to do it.

This is not new, Apple wasn't the first to do it, and everybody railing again Apple loves to accept it in basically every other facet of their lives.

smoldesu
1 replies
1h15m

This is not new, Apple wasn't the first to do it

Microsoft got pretty far, up until "the inquiry".

And you know you can sideload apps on Apple devices right? Even before the EU ruling.

If by sideload you mean "repeatedly sign apps until your face turns blue" then yes. If you mean "install software like a normal person", then no.

k_roy
0 replies
35m

If by sideload you mean "repeatedly sign apps until your face turns blue" then yes. If you mean "install software like a normal person", then no.

Yep. Exactly.

And breaking free of the walled Kindle/Nook garden is similarly out of reach for about the same number of people that don't care about Apple's walled garden, which is the majority.

Again, they literally exist in every corner of our lives, and the 99% of consumers/normies don't care.

wh0knows
0 replies
8m

My primary mechanism to load books on my Kindle is via emailing ePubs, granted, I'm probably in the minority of users but I couldn't ask for an easier workflow.

fennecbutt
3 replies
16h23m

Why are you defending a trillion dollar company lmao?

Why do you care so much that Apple has been forced to give consumers more choice, you can still just use the app store yourself, nobody is forcing you to use apps from alternative stores.

This is the standard "one true religion" reaction imo.

capr
2 replies
9h42m

maybe because forcing people or companies (property of people) is wrong?

rightbyte
0 replies
8h32m

The phones are not property of Apple though.

The users should not be forced to run Apple approved applications.

rezonant
0 replies
16h11m

You might find this hard to believe, but people buy products based on a number of factors. For smart phones, the number of factors is dizzyingly complex, and yes, the effects it has on smoothness of communication with the people in your life is one of those factors. Sometimes a specific feature is one of those factors.

What "doesn't make sense" is reducing a complex decision down to a specific factor, and then trying to create the narrative that your specific chosen factor is the sole reason anyone chooses a specific product.

It is completely fair for people to prefer iPhone and also argue for Apple changing their policies.

HDThoreaun
0 replies
4h53m

So you bought an iPhone knowing you can’t download apps

I didnt know that when I entered the apple ecosystem. Can I have a refund for all the apps Ive bought on my phone?

xvector
12 replies
17h53m

Because MacBooks are just better. (Have owned both.)

I have owned, and continue to own, all sorts of laptops and phones. I could rant about Apple all day long online, but in the end their product is simply superior.

philistine
8 replies
17h45m

Within the corporate monopolist called Apple, that is to say within the minds of all its collective employees, lies an old idea still warm and vibrant after decades of waning indifference. This idea is called Apple Computer, and it makes the best gosh-darn computers in the world: the Mac.

It is such a powerful and self-evident idea that those computers are still above and beyond the best ones in the world, even with all those years of indifference.

radley
5 replies
17h32m

Heh, Apple Computer also made the iPhone. Everything since launch has been incremental change, not innovative.

Except Airpods. They're pretty sweet.

crossroadsguy
3 replies
17h16m

Until battery life starts deteriorating any that happens real soon and you can’t even know when it started and where it is currently unlike that of, say, an iPhone. Then it’s unusable — hurrah, buy a new pair. The Apple way! :)

yurishimo
0 replies
17h3m

This is not unique to Apple. All headphones with tiny batteries in the drivers take the piss after a few years aging.

That said, my MacBooks have the best laptop batteries of any computer I’ve owned. My wife went through multiple laptops in the time I kept one in college. Turns out some electronics just suck!

oarsinsync
0 replies
5h22m

Are there any wireless earbuds (same / similar form factor as the AirPods) that this doesn’t also ring true for?

evilduck
0 replies
16h24m

I have a pair of Pixel Buds, how do I see their current battery capacity and cycle counts?

lenkite
0 replies
10h53m

Except Airpods. They're pretty sweet.

Sweet devices that keep falling off your ears. You need AirPod ear hooks to keep them on.

xvector
1 replies
17h39m

It's obviously an opinion.

I have plenty of computers running Windows and a variety of Linux distros at my home. Laptops, desktop, servers, and weird hybrids of the former.

Same with mobile - I have tried Android, iOS, PureOS, GrapheneOS.

Apple's UX is so far ahead for me. It's just better. But, you obviously disagree. No need to be disparaging.

rezonant
0 replies
16h17m

Consider stating opinions as opinions, and not as facts.

rezonant
2 replies
16h20m

And yet if your statement were true, it would not explain why others who also own "both" disagree with you. Absolutism does not serve you, there are few subjects in this world that lack nuance.

xvector
1 replies
14h31m

My statement is very clearly an opinion.

ranguna
0 replies
6h35m

Because MacBooks are just better

I'm not sure how that implicitly conveys an opinion.

Saying "the sky is blue" is not an opinion when the sky is blue, it's a fact. Saying something is better is also not an opinion, it's a fact. Saying "in my opinion" or "I believe/think/feel like/etc" makes your statement an opinion, ommiting that is ambiguous and is left for interpretation.

Nevermark
8 replies
17h8m

I see this question a lot.

People complain about the products that are best for them. Nobody (with the power to decide what they use) complains about a product long, unless it is still their best choice.

And suppliers of products being complained about are not companies "not worth supporting". They are making the product that is the best fit for the complaining customer! They are not perfect. They can do better. So customers speak up.

fennecbutt
5 replies
16h25m

Yeah that seems to be a common theme with Apple peeps, being fine with "Well if you don't like what Apple gives you, go somewhere else!"

But like...if someone really does like the product but knows that product could be even better, wouldn't they naturally speak up about it?

docmars
4 replies
15h30m

Your last point is exactly where I'm coming from here. People complaining about a product is usually a sign of its wide, and possibly avid, use.

After trying UI design tools and web development on Windows and Linux machines and finding the experience very sub-par for my needs, I've found macOS, and by extension, Apple's hardware quality, choice of keyboard layout, ease of use, etc. to be superior for my needs. I have almost no complaints about the Mac platform with the ways I've been able to customize it, and its nag-free experience. As they say, it just works™. ;)

It feels made for UI design & development, with minimal to no configuration, no late nights fixing file permissions or access issues, fixing Linux subsystems, fiddling with very limited terminals, and suffering from buggy piecemeal UI shell packages that prioritize fancy, laggy animations over functionality.

On the contrary, I've found not only doing these tasks and multitasking to be very frustrating when getting serious work done on other machines, primarily frequent interruptions (Windows) and major inconsistencies with global keyboard shortcuts.

For what it's worth, I'm also a staunch Android user, never owned an iPhone, occasionally use an iPad for reading and other content creation, absolutely love my Windows PC for gaming and surfing on my TV, and work exclusively on my MacBook. I'm very particular about using the most suitable machines for the tasks at hand, but well-rounded enough not to be completely captured by Apple.

jasonm23
3 replies
13h50m

If it's been a few years since you gave Linux a try, I'd strongly recommend giving it another go.

I had 2 macbooks fail simultaneously over the new year, and instead of laying down the $$$ for a new m3 mackbook, I put a linux station together, with the intent for it to be a windows dual boot.

At this point a couple of months later, windows is no more than a KVM/QEMU virtual machine (and runs its DAW/synth apps, significantly faster and with greater stability than either of my dead m1 macbooks ever did.)

Best tool for the job has changed.

An equipment manuifacturer who's goal is for hw failures to trigger a new purchase and not a repair should be enough incentive to ditch them. We all know Apple has fallen way further than that.

They're a litigious, anti-consumer company that hides behind some fake, faded, John Lennon esque / hipster image.

Time to cut them loose, isn't it?

9dev
1 replies
11h38m

If it's been a few years since you gave Linux a try, I'd strongly recommend giving it another go.

I've heard this since around 2004, and did try it every once in a while. And while I have the utmost respect for the Linux desktop developers... the experience was never comparable to me. I'm a sucker for well-thought out and coherent user interfaces, and the rigid principles Apple developers have to follow are no match for a loose group of open source devs.

I will continue to follow their progress, but as it stands, using a Linux desktop on my main machine feels like swapping a Mercedes with a home-built Gokart.

walteweiss
0 replies
7h11m

I could say the same things, but at some point I realised that for me the less the interface the better. And Linux is so very good at it.

WitCanStain
0 replies
6h53m

I've been using only Linux (Manjaro) for the last six years, and although there's been marked improvement it's still in many ways buggier and clunkier for everyday use than even Windows.

chii
1 replies
16h34m

and they're not "supporting" a company by merely buying their product.

They are deciding that said product is the best fit for price on their individual criteria.

To "support" would require you to make sacrifices - aka, buy an inferior/worse-fit product from a company you want to support, instead of from the company that actually offers the best-fit for yourself.

docmars
0 replies
15h28m

When I bought my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (ugh, stupid names, c'mon Apple!), it was probably the most confident I felt about a technology purchase in years, at least since Apple finally ditched the ridiculous touch bar and gave us back the Escape key and function row.

Aside from me throwing too much at it (should've sprung for 32GB), it's the single best notebook I've ever owned, and the most reliable.

To say it was the best fit for me is an understatement! It's truly great!

DanHulton
3 replies
17h48m

"You hate capitalism so much, _and yet you live under capitalism!_ How very hypocritical of you..."

Don't get me wrong, Framework makes a lot of neat stuff, but you can't swap out a Macbook to _anything_ without consequences. It does not take a lot of imagination and empathy to see that for some people, those consequences aren't acceptable at all, or not simply not worth the utterly undetectable sting that a company such as Apple would feel by us not buying a single Macbook from them.

If someone has to alter their entire work environment and process, while Apple doesn't even notice, is that truly worth the moral superiority they'll feel? For a whole lot of people, that answer is "no", and I can't blame them.

And yet we live under capitalism...

gxs
2 replies
16h59m

What a false equivalency.

No, you can’t avoid capitalism, you’re born in the country your born and you don’t have that choice.

This is more like moving to a capitalist country and then complaining that you live in a capitalist country.

rezonant
1 replies
16h23m

The tech companies have boiled their frogs slowly and deliberately. Apple didn't start out the way it is today after all.

docmars
0 replies
15h13m

Good point -- With great power comes great inevitable irresponsibility and abuses. The human condition never fails to pollute and corrupt anything as untouchable as Apple. Too big to fail, by definition!

smoldesu
2 replies
17h7m

Potentially because Macbooks represent a more sustainable model for software distribution and don't prevent people from downloading apps directly from websites.

docmars
1 replies
15h9m

Precisely! That's the key difference between iOS and macOS devices, essentially. I've never owned an iPhone primarily because its environment is so constrained, and the possibility of losing access to important apps due to failure of approval or other frivolous issues Apple hysterically deems unfit for publishing, is a huge single point of failure not worth risking.

In reality, it's safer to assume that most or all major apps don't have problems with this, so I'm being a little facetious here. Regardless, after nearly 20 years on Android, nobody could possibly pry my muscle memory and features I've come to expect from my cold dead hands. :D

walteweiss
0 replies
5h52m

‘Nearly 20 years’ got me. I thought ‘no way, the very first iPhone was released a little bit more than 10 years ago and Android was released a year after’. Then I realised we’re closer to 20 years than we’re to 10 years. It was almost 17 years ago, the very first iPhone!

docmars
1 replies
15h18m

To answer directly, I actually really love the Framework conceptually. What they're doing is immensely important for notebooks, and I'd love to see Apple follow suit one day (but I doubt that'll ever happen).

I just can't stand Linux. I've tried several distros and after using macOS since 2009 and Windows since 1995, I just can't be bothered by all the things Linux distros lack, if muscle memory for the other two aren't already the biggest obstacle for me.

I am insanely efficient on macOS, and I almost never have to think about global hotkeys, global search & calculations, managing apps & settings, and seeing nearly zero interruptions while I work -- including popups, notifications, performance dips (if I'm being reasonable with my usage), OS UI bugs, etc.

These all do occasionally happen, but never to the extent I see in popular Linux distros and even Windows. It's just a fact, after nearly 30 years of first-hand usage and comparison.

I also use macOS because it is as extensible and open as I need it to be for downloading and installing packages, and customizing the OS to suit my needs -- which is something iPhones can't do without jailbreaking and such.

I've never owned an iPhone, and seldom use my iPad. I'm an Android guy, and being able to sideload apps in rare, but important, moments is important to me. The openness of Android has been important as well, namely the fact that Firefox has always been allowed to use its own browser engine since the start, enabling the same freedoms I have using it on desktop platforms, as a primary example.

ranguna
0 replies
6h40m

Valid points. Out of curiosity, which distros have you tried?

fennecbutt
0 replies
16h27m

Because Apple is a company that does actually make great hardware, just marred by their idiot suit and tie MBA best schools social ties 1% tax dodging executive team that wants to foster the cultish attitude of their consumers and... well they succeeded in a way.

crossroadsguy
0 replies
17h14m

Did you entertain the possibility that Framework might not be available at OP’s place. Because that’s very much likely to be the case, just like it’s not available to a lot of us :)

bimguy
37 replies
12h40m

You are not a big fan of the EU after this? They seem to care more about privacy and rights of the people within the majority of the countries that make up the EU then any other outside country that I could name.

Then again, I'm not American so I can easily see the influence your country has on most other countries, so to say the "EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens" is completely ignorant and oblivious.

chargingmarmot
26 replies
10h47m

Well, yeah, but isn't the EU also responsible for all the trash cookie-consent notifications I get from every website now?

Overall, I'm happy they're actively involved. The hands-off attitude in the US is terrible.

frankvdwaal
23 replies
10h29m

No, it's the builders of the consent notifications who are responsible for that. They are often skirting or even breaking EU law to make it a headache to refuse. The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance. Having to click to another screen to do that is... not that.

In reality a cookie consent notification can just as well be a small widget somewhere with an accept and refuse button, but it's the builders of these frameworks that have a vested interest in getting you to press accept.

I've applied for a job at one of these companies about a year ago, and I asked them about it. They said to me that according to their metrics, there's about 30% more acceptance if they only bury their Refuse button, so it's a legal risk they are willing to take.

Needless to say, when they invited me for a second conversation, I politely refused.

No, the shitty cookie screens with dark patterns is not the responsibility of the EU - although you could make the argument that the EU should have been stricter or more prescriptive.

mft_
15 replies
9h58m

It's not just the dark-pattern cookie popups that are a problem - it's having any mandatory cookie popups --even the fairly-designed ones-- on virtually every website that you ever open. That's what's crappy about the implementation.

I once read a light-hearted analysis of the cumulative time wasted by humanity due to the original USB plugs/sockets being unidirectional. I suspect a similar analysis of these cookie popups would be shocking.

Hah, first Google hit: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/billions-hours-now-being-wast.... (Not sure I agree with the numbers used, but the order of magnitude probably isn't too far wrong)

gcbirzan
4 replies
9h32m

But they're not mandatory. There is nothing stopping websites from not doing it, the previous poster was wrong. The GDPR requires consent, how you obtain that consent is irrelevant. Websites could not store cookies by default and you'd have to manually go and opt in. Maybe we even can have a per browser setting.

jeroenhd
1 replies
6h25m

GDPR provides mechanisms for getting implicit consent for technically required cookies. For other types of data storage, explicit consent is required. And that's the problem, there are a lot of terrible websites out there that value their ability to stalk you and sell your information more than your ability to use the website.

For consent, the old "hide tracking terms in the terms of service" approach is not allowed anymore. That's where the popups come from, the user needs to know what they're consenting to if the data processing isn't actually required for the website to work.

I would like to see something like P3P (but better) to make a return. We have DNT and its followup, but they're not sufficiently scopable in my opinion.

gcbirzan
0 replies
5h16m

There's no implicit consent, technically required cookies have a different basis for processing. And, yes, I'm aware of that, my point is that people who create websites choose to force the consent box in front of you, there's nothing in the GDPR that mandates that. It could be a link at the bottom, some header...

account42
1 replies
9h17m

Specifically, GDPR requires consent before you do (some) things the user might not want. You could simply not try to do those things and then you won't need to obtain consent at all.

It's absurd how used we have become to wantonly collecting user data that some people can't even imagine not doing that.

gcbirzan
0 replies
5h15m

Yeah. Or, you could make the opt-in something the user has to choose himself, like a link on the page.

olivierduval
3 replies
9h35m

Actually, websites could "not track" BY DEFAULT (so no popup) and have a nice widget in a corner asking for consent to track, explaining why they need it, without this widget being obstructive...

The problem is definitly NOT THE REGULATION but the way that websites have become a data/cash machine...

account42
1 replies
9h15m

Actually, websites could "not track"

Yes, why not stop there?

RunSet
0 replies
3h37m

If you don't collect data you don't need to ask permission to collect data.

https://lokilist.com/about.php

Likewise, a "privacy policy" explains the extent to which your privacy will be violated.

speleding
0 replies
6h8m

The regulation could have been much better though. For one, it's unclear if Google Analytics cookies qualify. Spain and Austria say one thing, The Netherlands says another, so out of an abundance of caution websites put them everywhere.

I also think it would have been very feasible for the EU to define that a browser could ask for consent once and then apply that to many/all sites by sending a header. So the popup would only be needed for people without a browser that has implemented it.

BiteCode_dev
2 replies
5h29m

No banner is required. No interaction at all in fact.

Companies can comply with the law by following the old and standard DNT header. It's transparent to the user, no pop up of any kind.

They chose not to.

They are the ones you should be angry at, not the EU.

macinjosh
1 replies
5h19m

Law making bodies are responsible for all consequences of their legislation whether they are intentional or not. They are the ones in charge so the buck stops with them. Make better laws.

BiteCode_dev
0 replies
40m

With this line of logic, you give absolution to anything immoral that is actually legal, saying the state should have done better.

tpm
0 replies
5h32m

What if the websites respected my user-agent (browser) setting called "Do not track"? Zero hours would be wasted. I think geizhals.at is one of the few that does this.

In other words, the websites are showing cookie popups in you face because they really, really do want to track you, and for that they need your explicit consent. Nobody forced them to track you. The implementation does not matter; the intentions are crappy.

I think there is a recent court ruling saying websites should respect DNT settings as a (rejection of) consent; if that would be adapted universally, we would be done with the popups.

edit: https://dig.watch/updates/german-court-affirms-legal-signifi...

frankvdwaal
0 replies
8h14m

Well, note that I said it could just as well be a widget on the website somewhere.

There's no such thing as a mandatory cookie popup. You don't need to get explicit consent if your website needs certain cookies to do what the user wants it to do. Placing a session cookie to log in is fine, for example. And it's also fine to place tracking cookies if and only if the user goes to aforementioned widget and presses the "please track me" button.

But users don't want that, obviously, so websites are built to force you to acknowledge the choice. The problem here is not the implementation of the law - it's the attitude of the website builders.

MaKey
0 replies
9h36m

Cookie banners are not mandatory. If you're just using technical cookies you don't need a banner at all. Websites with them want to track you, that's why they have them. They need to ask for your permission to do so, which I think is a good thing. So instead of being mad at the EU we should be mad at those websites trying to get as much data as possible from their users.

Sander_Marechal
3 replies
9h28m

The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance.

Not true, actually! GDPR is a framework, and every EU country implements a national law according to that framework (e.g. the Dutch implementation is called "AVG"). The specific requirement that refusal must be as easy as acceptance is not in the GDPR, but several countries added it to their national implementation of the GDPR.

frankvdwaal
1 replies
8h48m

This is a misconception that I've seen going around, and I still wonder where it came from.

The Dutch implementation is called "Uitvoeringswet Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming", which, as the title states, is the law that implements the GDPR. "AVG" is just a translation for "GDPR", not the name of the law that implements it.

The Uitvoeringswet describes how the GDPR functions within Dutch law, for example, it describes the role that the Dutch Data Protection Authority plays. You can read the Uitvoeringswet right here: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0040940/2021-07-01

The GDPR (in Dutch AVG, in French RGPD, in Spanish RGPD, etc.) actually DOES state that it should be just "as easy to withdraw as to give consent" in Article 7. The directive (2016/679) can be found here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679.

underdeserver
0 replies
5h38m

Eh.

"as easy to with as to give consent"

The full Article 7, section 3, in English, says:

The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Prior to giving consent, the data subject shall be informed thereof. It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.

I think this can be interpreted as, you ask for consent, it doesn't have to be as easy to say no, but once consent is given - it should be as easy to withdraw it as it is to re-give it after it was withdrawn.

Somewhat badly worded, in my opinion. It doesn't unambiguously say "refusing consent every time it is requested should be as easy as accepting it."

breisa
0 replies
7h38m

That is a common misconception. In EU law, there are regulations and directives. Regulations are immediately active in all EU countries. In contrast, directives need to be translated into national law by each individual country. The GDPR is a regulation. (for details: https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/law... )

berkes
1 replies
8h34m

Also, and too often overlooked or silently ignored:

You don't need cookie popups! Really. You don't.

You only need to get consent to track users with software you don't run yourself. Or when you sell your data off to other companies.

Both are, unfortunately, the norm. But there's absolutely no technical reason to have these in place. Non at all. Plenty of alternatives for tracking that doesn't need consent. Or just not sell your customers' data off.

I would be infuriated if I found the bakery down the street is selling its security footage with my face on it, next to my sales and spending in that bakery. I'd expect them to at least warn me about this at the door. So I can then buy my bread elsewhere. That's what a consent banner is!

hallway_monitor
0 replies
5h15m

Thank you for this accurate analogy. Similar to what if the post office delivered all your mail for free but they also opened it and read it in order to send you advertising.

partitioned
0 replies
5h25m

Then enforce the law. Making the regulation and letting people halfway get around it and not holding them accountable just made things worse for everyone

AshamedCaptain
0 replies
4h31m

Disabling cookies will cause _more_ of the "cookie prompts" to appear, not less. Some pages these days even will prevent visiting them unless they can set a cookie...

Also, cookies are not the only method of tracking which is supposed to be disabled when you hit Deny.

pg_1234
6 replies
12h1m

The EU should make a public service announcement.

Something along the lines of:

"We urge all EU citizens with Apple devices to have an alternate means of accessing critical internet services like banking, to protect themselves in the event we are forced to block all Apple services EU-wide for legal non-compliance."

... then watch AAPL stock drop below NVDA ...

... and Apple come crawling back, suitably obedient.

whywhywhywhy
3 replies
3h24m

or more likely learn extremely quickly that their citizens prefer their iPhones to their politicians, there would be protests within the hour if they ever blocked iPhones.

Weird to me how common it has become in the last 5 years for people to gleefully cheer for tyranny and control.

VladTheImpalor
1 replies
1h59m

You mean the tyranny and control of Apple? With their removing headphone jack, lightning cable, walled garden and all that?

whywhywhywhy
0 replies
1h14m

A product you consent to is hardly the same as the government cutting off the ability to use your phone and it sounds very silly to compare the two.

By no means do I agree with the walled garden, I just think cheering for such an absurd idea of the government disabling your phone to fight something most users don't even understand or care about is bizarre.

no_time
0 replies
1h59m

Yes, the tyranny of... forcing Apple to open up its walled garden. I am cheering for that and more. Mandate open bootloaders. Mandate user installed EK (Endorsement Key) on all TCB enabled devices.

zuppy
0 replies
5h26m

no, they shouldn't, this will affect customers who already purchased the product and have no fault in this silly war that apple wants to start. no matter what they do, it should only apply to new devices.

capr
0 replies
9h50m

"forced" to block... seems like the only ones who can use force is them

xgl5k
1 replies
4h46m

The EU is not exactly doing this exclusively for privacy. This is a geopolitical ploy to thwart America's dominance in Tech, as a cope for not being able to produce any homegrown rivals to America's tech giants.

asmor
0 replies
4h41m

Why do Americans always read backroom politics into everything.

How does the GDPR help EU tech companies? I hope you're not about to tell me it's a ploy to bundle up resources for compliance in US companies or it levels the ground for the EU to be able to compete somehow. It caused enough headaches for us too.

Sometimes a good thing is just a good thing. The US supposedly was a country that had laws made without sinister corporatism at work at one point too.

capr
0 replies
9h54m

Ya, can't square the two? Check this out: violence actually works, so should we beat our kids?

throwaway2037
5 replies
17h55m

Overall -- a great post.

This part:

   > If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business
As I understand, for luxury fashion brands, this type of contract is sometimes used.

noapologies
3 replies
17h2m

True, though the situation isn't exactly equivalent.

Using another real estate analogy -

Imagine you bought a house from Fruit Builders company. The house came with a pool.

Now unlike every other pool in existence, this is a very special pool that just really cares about your privacy and security a lot.

It won't let you use any random pool toy (it has lasers), no it must be a well-behaved toy that is rigorously tested and officially notarized by Fruit company themselves (= non-employee contractors taking one look to make sure Fruit's cut is not being circumvented).

So you go to the supermarket, purchase a marked-up toy, the toy company reports its earning to Fruit, and Fruit takes their cut.

All for your safety of course.

monocularvision
2 replies
16h36m

Except in the real world, toys generally can’t do things like steal your private data and send confidential data to third parties.

If you’re going to come up with analogies, at least do something that is remotely applicable.

noapologies
0 replies
16h20m

Why not? You are presumably less-clothed in a pool, it could take pictures. Or record private conversations. Or both.

But sure, here's another -

You can run any company's software on a MBP, downloaded from the internet, without paying a dime to Apple. Similar situation applies to Windows / Microsoft.

The iOS model is advocating for rent-seeking in MacOs and Windows binaries.

fennecbutt
0 replies
16h20m

Why can apps installed from anywhere steal your data?

Surely Apple's OS/framework that they tried to say they spent so much money developing, sandboxes and protects all running code from said data vacuuming behaviour?

Or did you really believe Apple when they said it would reduce security™

Because the only reason it would is if Apple let it happen on purpose so they can create a consumer backlash by saying "I told you so".

zakki
0 replies
17h7m

What is the luxury of an app/software?

lobochrome
5 replies
16h33m

Not to disagree with your main argument - but high end real estate often works that way. The developer is often cut into the topline of the stores.

quartesixte
4 replies
16h23m

Not just high end real estate. Your local mom & pop in a strip mall somewhere (at least in the US) has a high chance of paying % of gross receipts to the landlord + rent.

This may vary by location and landlord but it absolutely is a thing. And a guarantee for any high-end, high-traffic location.

nojvek
2 replies
15h4m

Demand and supply. As long as there is a marketplace and people have a choice, the market will balance.

I have friends in strip mall businesses and they have moved locations for better landlords.

illiac786
1 replies
14h37m

Sometimes there's something else at play though, because there are situations which cannot be explained by offer and demand. For example, developers are paid less in average than for example some consultant jobs while in my view (and I'm a consultant) both the skills required for a developer are higher while additionally the available workforce (supply) is lower for developers as well.

I mean, consultants, they grow on trees and I know what I'm talking about, I sometines interview new hires as part of my job. Developers, less so.

I don't have an explanation for this, it's a strange effect. But it's just an example, I have observed multiple times this unexpected deviation from the law of supply and demand.

My point is, this law is not a sure fire way to explain any price.

ffgjgf1
0 replies
12h21m

There is a higher demand for a certain kind of consultants (let’s call them “good”) and fairly low supply. There are plenty of people who call themselves consultants but nobody needs them since this is a bit of a winner takes all market (.e.g. like being a broker or even a lawyer to some extent)

kuschku
0 replies
16h19m

Luckily that's a rare thing and the vast majority if commercial real estate has no such rules whatsoever, even on main street.

xwolfi
2 replies
16h1m

Why are you no big fan of the EU ?

xgl5k
0 replies
4h42m

This is a geopolitical ploy to thwart America's dominance in Tech, as a cope for not being able to produce any homegrown rivals to America's tech giants.

docmars
0 replies
15h3m

In general I lean libertarian, and governing bodies like the EU have enormous capacity for overreach at the expense of participating countries and their citizens.

I won't pretend to know exactly how their processes work in detail, as I'm an American citizen, so the EU's concerns generally don't interest me much, but if the U.S. Federal gov't versus State governments can be used an analogy, I have similar feelings, in principle.

nwbort
0 replies
17h30m

Look up 'turnover rent'...

carlosjobim
0 replies
5h58m

If commercial real estate charged XX% cuts of all sales from a business, every business would crumble with enough time, and only the big hitters would succeed with great resentment towards their gracious corporate overlords.

That's more or less what happens in real life. If you are having any success with your physical business, you can bet your ass that your landlord will increase rents. They keep a keen eye on this. Sometimes they'll even state that it's not more than fair that they should get more in rent, since your business is doing so well.

Jasp3r
0 replies
6h14m

It is not even a tax on app profits, it's a cut of all sales

JKCalhoun
0 replies
4h42m

I'll go further in one regard: the App Store in fact hurts Apple because it has caused a kind of filtering of apps down to those that are the sleaziest.

I used to enjoy exploring the App Store — I resent it now. I'll download half a dozen apps only to delete them within minutes of launching them because of their rent-ware attitude or just plain shitty functionality.

HumanReadable
0 replies
5m

have you considered not buying apple products?

somat
37 replies
23h32m

The whole app ecosystem(android and apple) is carefully constructed for maximum market owner value extraction, user value is a secondary consideration.

Basically, it is what the web would look like if it were developed by corporate interests, conversely "apps" could have been a better designed web[1], but instead are this comparatively clunky gated process where you have to explicitly install the app first only then can you use it.

1. The web was designed to deliver pages, this was well designed, application like functionally grew organically afterwards and is quite the mess.

catlikesshrimp
25 replies
23h13m

To be fair, this evolved naturally.

The TI calculators were progamable, my brother used those.

Then the pocket pcs (windows ce) had 3rd party programs, those were distributed as files by the publisher. Program stores were webpages were people sold their files. I used the skyscape medical books; you installed the program as usual, then you bought a code specific for your version and file. All that done through a webpage

Then we have android. Google had the Marketplace (now playstore) as we know it today, except packages didnt use google services to validate licenses, Many times it was just a package (a file) The main progress was ease of use.

Then comes iOS and their extreme BS of not being able to "sideload" "apps" The store is no longer a convenience, it is a requirement. For your safety, of course. The main "progress" here is that they convinced many "Americans" that a commodity affordable phone with a painted cartoon of a bitten apple is "Exclusive", as VIP only. I compare it to the NFT phenomena, except the fruit cartoon did stick.

redundantly
24 replies
20h54m

For your safety, of course.

I know they have ulterior motives for their walled garden, but this is a product of said garden. The App Store is by far much safer to use than Google's Play Store. Plus the parental controls on android are essentially non-existent.

I'm happy in this walled garden.

AnthonyMouse
13 replies
20h20m

The premise of a walled garden is to keep unwanted things out, not to imprison you inside. Apple maintaining a store where they've vetted everything in it is fine, and if you like you can refuse to install anything from outside of it.

That doesn't justify them prohibiting you from installing anything from outside of it. It should be up to you.

If you wanted to, you could even configure your phone to not add any new stores without a factory wipe. But maybe first you want to add in the repositories that have only free and open source software, or the stores of some respected game publishers who offer lower prices if you use their own stores for their games. And maybe the existence of these stores would encourage Apple to charge lower fees, and then you benefit from the lower fees even if you choose never to install anything from those stores, since your option to exerts competitive pressure on the stores(s) you are willing to use.

brikym
7 replies
18h56m

A better metaphor would be the shops at an airport. The monopoly airport fleece the shops with high rent and in turn the shops fleece their customers with high prices.

simondotau
6 replies
16h43m

A better metaphor would be the shops anywhere in your country. Governments and banks charge taxes and fees and in turn, through an elaborate architecture of laws and consequences, their customers don't have to wonder if their glass of water contains rotaviruses, or if the silverware has high levels of lead, or if 0.000014 BTC is gross overpayment for a hamburger, or if people in the next town will decide to rape and pillage sometime in the next hour.

fennecbutt
5 replies
15h59m

For-profit corporations aren't governments. Something something America.

somat
2 replies
12h13m

Yes they are, this is literally the definition of a corporation. A group of people wanted to form a government to run their "for profit endeavor" so they incorporated, that is, they received a license from their parent public interest corporation(aka "The Government") that allows them to operate under rule of law.

It's corporations all the way down. corporation is really just another word for government.

account42
1 replies
7h17m

So in your twisted world view, who are a corporation's citizens? The customers? The surely we should demand that they get democratic voting rights, no?

somat
0 replies
41m

That is basically the definition of communism. communism is one answer to the question "Democracy is supposed to be a good thing for our public governments, why do our for for-profit endeavors not run under democratic means?"

So the communist answer is "fold the manufacturing government into the rest of the government"

Communism has many problems, for one they never actually restore democratic means, to the point that "peoples republic" is sort a joke term for dictatorship. but the one in scope is that running an operation from a large central government will remove the focus a business needs to work well. self-interest is a powerful force multiplier.

In a for profit cooperation the voting rights holders are usually those who have invested in the operation, or them who have bought these voting rights from others. They are usually run as a sort of dictatorship, which does dis-enfranchise the workers, but works very well with small groups.

But the main point was if you want to operate your endeavor as a government instead of as an individual person than it needs to incorporate. The government does not need to be democratic, and it usually is not.

And consider towns, they use the same vocabulary "incorporate" when they want to form a local government.

simondotau
1 replies
15h49m

Something something there's no such thing as a perfect analogy

AnthonyMouse
0 replies
15h25m

The distinction kind of matters though. Monopolies are terrible and to be avoided but if you're going to have one, e.g. because roads are a natural monopoly, then you damn well want it to be an elected body and not a for-profit corporation that will do everything it can to extract monopoly rents from everybody in its fiefdom.

redundantly
2 replies
19h57m

I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be opened up. I'm just stating that by being a walled garden it is safer.

When things eventually open up, when Apple is finally forced to permit other app stores on their mobile devices, I'll take a hard pass on them.

catlikesshrimp
0 replies
19h35m

Consider these two statements:

1) I happy having a walled garden, I feel safe

2) I am happy being imprisoned in a walled garden with no door, I feel safe

Nevermark
0 replies
18h49m

"Walled garden" does not mean "safe system". And it is not a prerequisite for a safe system, or vice versa.

You are saying you are happy in a "safe secure system".

In contrast, a "walled garden" is a prohibition on alternatives, not a source of safety. The prohibition of alternatives does not make the App Store safer.

If anything, it protects Apple from competing with safter alternatives! Like an app store only for children. Or an app store of formally verified apps.

Please correct me if I am somehow missing something...

vbezhenar
1 replies
18h14m

Those who like AppStore actually benefit from it being the only store. It means that almost all developers will bend under Apple rules and users will get their apps.

AnthonyMouse
0 replies
17h21m

These users can do the same thing by refusing to use any other store even if they are allowed to, and if there are many of them they'll have leverage. But what they want is to force other users, who would willingly use other stores, to also use only the same one as them. They have no right to force others to do that any more than Apple does.

celticninja
4 replies
20h11m

Have you tried parental controls on Android or are you just taking out of the side of your mouth? I have parental controls for my kids android devices and it works exceptionally well. I am not dissing the apple version because I have not used it, and based on your comment I have to assume you have not used the android parent controls and are just needing to convince yourself that apple are better and the apple premium you are paying is worth it.

Spoiler: it isn't.

redundantly
3 replies
20h3m

I have tried it. More than one phone from different carriers. The parental controls are lacking.

It's been a couple of years since I've last tried, but given Google's history regarding subpar controls I doubt it has gotten appreciably better.

makeitdouble
1 replies
18h55m

More than one phone from different carriers.

I'm confused by this. Did it come to play regarding parental controls ? Like an extra layer from the carrier ?

celticninja
0 replies
18h54m

Yeah seems to detract from the Google angle if it's carrier related

celticninja
0 replies
19h56m

What were the subpar controls? I use it daily for my kids so would genuinely like to know what you feel didn't/doesn't work because for the last 4 or 5 years I have never had one issue using it.

redundantly
1 replies
20h1m

I didn't claim that it's perfect, just that it's safer.

Regarding smartphone safety, the only truly safe thing to do is not not use one at all.

celticninja
0 replies
18h52m

Everybody who lives dies, so to avoid dying just dont ever live.

Solid workable solution you have proposed there.

megous
0 replies
19h53m

Based on something "real" like scam/fraud metrics, or just "this is what Tim Cook wants me to think"?

Both stores are walled gardens.

One onboarding experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39685272 :-D

beeboobaa
0 replies
20h20m

The App Store is by far much safer to use than Google's Play Store

By what metric? The warm fuzzy in your stomach because you believe apple's bullshit? Have you actually used the play store? They are identical.

endisneigh
4 replies
17h59m

There’s literally nothing stopping someone from distributing their app as a web app, and no PWA isn’t necessary for distribution.

berkes
3 replies
5h9m

There’s literally nothing stopping

There's literally apple stopping that.

By limiting APIs, by removing the ability to treat them as other apps (home screen icons), by blocking apps that are hybrids etc.

endisneigh
1 replies
3h25m

You don’t need any of that to distribute a web app and thus make money.

smoldesu
0 replies
1h0m

Strictly speaking, you don't need to distribute anything more than ads to "thus make money" off a webapp. The end-goal of webapps is not to challenge Apple's revenue though, it's to offer meaningful (see: persistent) capabilities that write-once and ship-anywhere.

You're being a reductive troll. Stop making bad-faith arguments if that's the only way you intend to contribute to the discussion.

frumper
0 replies
24m

You can add an icon to your home screen as a bookmark to the page. Most of the apps I have feel like web pages anyway.

umeshunni
0 replies
20h10m

But that would have required someone other than Mozilla to run Firefox

fsflover
0 replies
20h31m

Mobian, PureOS and pmOS are here today. Sent from my Librem 5.

berkes
0 replies
5h12m

The web was designed to deliver pages, this was well designed

It was well designed, using Hypermedia. Which works extremely well for hyperlinks and forms. Instead of leveraging and improving these primitives, corporates¹ and web-devs threw it all out and re-invented it. Multiple times².

¹ The worst offenders obviously being those that have held back web-apps just so they can extract more money from native apps. i.e. Apple.

² jQuery, then Angular et. al. Then react. Now WASM. In which we throw all all the REST concepts and push a mongrel data format, JSON, over the web. When we had XML with strong typing, meaning, hypermedia, permissions, etc. We have - by now- reinvented all these on top of JSON, but worse and poorer. And, finally we are full circle back to HTMX. How often will web-devs keep re-inventing wheels? Why can't we see that problems have been solved since early '00s and that improving these is also possible?

OCASMv2
0 replies
16h38m

The whole app ecosystem(android and apple) is carefully constructed for maximum market owner value extraction, user value is a secondary consideration.

And it has become the norm because both developers and consumers have readily and happily accepted that deal.

tombert
13 replies
1d1h

It baffles the mind that having exactly one marketplace with rent-seeking level fees that neither users nor developers can opt out of doesn't violate some kind of antitrust law in the United States.

Though it looks like the EU iPhone users are only in a marginally better position.

Terretta
12 replies
1d1h

Tell your mind it's an appliance/console.* Still baffled? Because nobody seems baffled they can't run arbitrary software on their Amazon Echo Show, AppleTV, Xbox, Playstation, or Switch.

* If your mind is struggling with this, you might need a bicycle for the mind to help. ;-) But seriously, Apple's brand and value prop since original Mac has been to toasterize compute and make it friendly approachable and non-fiddly for normals. If you're bent about this, it's a values alignment issue. And Apple should have a right to have a brand proposition that sets them apart from the majority of PDAs, STBs, and PCs.

tombert
6 replies
1d

I don't really know that I agree with the analogy.

Yes, you're kind of right, I don't really have a problem with not being able to easily sideload stuff on my oven or dishwasher, despite the fact that they technically have computers in them. They are highly specific, single-purpose things and sideloading Doom on there doesn't really make sense.

Even a game console is still more or less single purpose (though that line is being blurred). Historically I don't do much on my console other than playing games, though now I'd argue that that's not necessarily true, since people install a lot of apps in the marketplace (e.g. Netflix). I do have a problem with Apple TV's being locked down, which is why I didn't purchase one. I use Nvidia Shield TVs, largely so that I could sideload ScummVM without any kind of jailbreaking nonsense.

However, I'd argue that a smartphone/tablet is different. This isn't the 90's; you use your "phone" for a lot more than taking calls. I have an SSH client, a git client, word processing, web browsing, nearly everything that a 90's-era computer could do on my iPhone; if we're going to say that Microsoft Windows is "general purpose", then iOS/iPadOS qualifies as well. We took Microsoft to court for anticompetitive practices, particularly in regards to the inability to install third-party browsers.

You can't really install third party browsers on iOS either. You can install Firefox or Chrome on there (and I do), but they're just frontends for iOS's internal Webkit engine.

So I don't know that the appliance comparison works. iPhones are (purposefully) not single-purpose. They're computers.

its_ethan
5 replies
1d

The way that an iPhone is different from a Nintendo Switch is arbitrary though.

If you're talking about changing laws it'd be nice to have more of a defense than "this computer we call a phone should be treated differently than the computer we call a Gameboy".

Without some clear and useable definitions, there's no precedents that can be set and leveraged. You will also, by necessity, require bureaucratic bloat to decide what counts and what doesn't for every device moving forward. At best, this is a slow process that delays innovation and reduces availability for users.

tombert
4 replies
1d

Sure, but we draw distinctions like that all the time. There's generally legal differences between "E-Bikes" and "Motorcycles", despite the fact that they're nominally pretty similar (two wheeled, self-powered transportation). We draw distinctions between "phone lines" and "power lines", despite the fact that both carry electric current. We draw distinctions between "bread" and "alcohol", despite the fact that both are made the same way.

I'd argue that while there isn't a hard line in the sand, we more or less define "computer" as something that's "general purpose". I don't consider my oven a "computer", I don't consider my digital COVID test a computer, I don't consider my key fob a computer. I do consider my Macbook a computer, because I do a lot of dissimilar things with it; I write documents, I watch videos, I listen to music, I play games, I log into servers, I VoIP chat with friends, I edit video, etc. I don't think anyone disputes that a Macbook is a "computer"; if nothing else all of that applies to Linux and Windows as well.

You know what else it applies to? An iPhone. I can do all those things with an iPhone. I really can't do any of those things (besides play games) on a GameBoy.

Of course, admittedly I'm kind of moving the goalpost, because of course the line of "general purpose" is kind of arbitrary; the Gameboy did have a camera, the Gameboy Advance had a TV Tuner and MP3 player, so you're absolutely right that it would require some kind of bureaucratic overhead to define what "general purpose" even means, and moreover the second that they have a definition the companies will use that as a guide to narrowly skirt it and therefore avoid regulation.

I don't know the solution, but I do know that it feels a bit dirty for Apple to feel entitled to so much money when they're not even the ones distributing the apps at that point. People gave so much shit to Unity for their idiotic "install fee", but people have become bizarrely defensive of Apple for doing basically the same thing.

burnerthrow008
3 replies
23h7m

There's generally legal differences between "E-Bikes" and "Motorcycles", despite the fact that they're nominally pretty similar (two wheeled, self-powered transportation). We draw distinctions between "phone lines" and "power lines", despite the fact that both carry electric current. We draw distinctions between "bread" and "alcohol", despite the fact that both are made the same way.

But there a technical differences between those classes of things, even if the lines are drawn arbitrarily. A motorcycle has more than a certain amount of power. A “power line” carries a voltage which is too high to be considered “intrinsically safe”. Alcohol has intoxicating effects, while bread does not.

What is the difference between an iPhone and a Switch? We call one a phone and the other a game. If I made an Android phone with less computing power than a switch, can I call it a game? Or is it still a phone?

You know what else it applies to? An iPhone. I can do all those things with an iPhone. I really can't do any of those things (besides play games) on a GameBoy.

But that is only because Nintendo doesn’t allow it. There’s no technical reason a Switch can’t be a phone. Why is ok for Nintendo to do that, but not Apple? Just “dirty vibes”? That’s not how the law is supposed to work.

tombert
1 replies
21h45m

But there a technical differences between those classes of things, even if the lines are drawn arbitrarily.

Sure, but that's a matter of degree, not kind. We're kind of arbitrarily (as you stated) decided "what horsepower constitutes a motorcyle?"

Similarly, I don't know that there's a definite line of "intrinsically safe" for electricty; I've been shocked by my 120V AC in my house and lived to tell the tale, so does that imply it's safe? I don't think so, people die from 120VAC shocks all the time; It's still a somewhat arbitrary line.

I'll admit that the bread analogy does break down, because bread doesn't make you drunk, there actually is small amounts of alcohol in bread [0], though I'm not sure that you could actually get drunk from it no matter how much you ate.

But that is only because Nintendo doesn’t allow it. There’s no technical reason a Switch can’t be a phone. Why is ok for Nintendo to do that, but not Apple? Just “dirty vibes”? That’s not how the law is supposed to work.

I did caveat in a previous post that game consoles kind of blur the line for me. You could probably convince me that they should allow alternative app stores. At least with video games, I feel there's a bit more competition than "smartphones", since you have large offerings from around six platforms instead of two (Nintendo, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Windows (which requires no license!), Sony PlayStation, iOS, Android (plus all the other rebrands of Android that are independently run)).

We do have legal precedent for this in some capacity [1]. The courts felt that Microsoft was abusing its power by making it difficult/impossible to install alternative browsers inside Microsoft Windows. The initial ruling ended up with Microsoft being ordered to split up, but this was admittedly overturned.

I realize it's not apples to apples; iOS doesn't have the monopoly on the ARM that Windows had on x86 in the 90's (you are, after all, perfectly free to buy an Android phone instead of an iPhone and your life probably won't be appreciably hindered), but it does seem like the courts do have some issues with operating systems companies abusing power.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1709087/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

burnerthrow008
0 replies
20h45m

We're kind of arbitrarily (as you stated) decided "what horsepower constitutes a motorcyle?"

Ok, let’s apply that definition. Why is an iPhone SE (17 TFLOPS) a general purpose computer, but an PS5 (20 TFLOPS) isn’t?

Similarly, I don't know that there's a definite line of "intrinsically safe" for electricty

Less than 50 volts in every jurisdiction I’m aware of. Now you do.

there actually is small amounts of alcohol in bread

Doesn’t matter. You will get sick and puke before you consume enough alcohol from bread to make you drunk. You cannot get drunk from bread.

You could probably convince me that they should allow alternative app stores. At least with video games, I feel there's a bit more competition than "smartphones

So there’s nothing intrinsic to a switch that makes it a game and not a phone.

The courts felt that Microsoft was abusing its power

Microsoft had over 90% market share (real, global market share, not bullshit “market share of computers running windows”) when that determination was made. Apple has about 30% in Europe.

smoldesu
0 replies
20h45m

With fairness to the Nintendo Switch, you can currently load LineageOS on it just fine using Nvidia-provided drivers: https://wiki.switchroot.org/wiki/android/11-r-setup-guide

Nintendo might not be happy about it, but the only person stopping you from using a Switch like a phone is you. You're absolutely correct, besides the lack of WWAN modem the Switch is indeed technically capable of being a phone.

NoPicklez
1 replies
17h25m

I do often think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was great for most people. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app.

Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.

But we can't forget how beneficial it was.

tombert
0 replies
3h54m

I mean, I don't know if I'd call it "hysteria", but people have been sideloading alternative app stores on the iPhone for about as long as the iPhone has been around haven't they? I remember when I first got an iPod Touch in 2009, the first thing I did was jailbreak it and install Cydia so I could get emulators working on there.

Now I have always been a pretty geeky person, so I'm not claiming that I'm the "norm", but I would argue that there's always been some demand for alternative app stores. There are plenty of apps that people want to install the Apple clutches their pearls at (e.g. nearly anything with adult content).

As I've said in other threads, it's not as horrible as Microsoft in the 90s, because it's not difficult to buy an Android phone, your life won't really be made worse by buying a decent Android phone, but I would still argue that Apple's actions are anti-competitive.

ambichook
0 replies
19h0m

didnt sony lose a class action lawsuit over the ps3 and the ability to run linux on it?

amadeuspagel
0 replies
23h44m

No one cares about these devices. If you care, feel free to lobby for some regulation to address this. I doubt you'll face much opposition from people who want to install arbitrary software on their iPhone.

Moldoteck
0 replies
3h17m

imo other platforms should allow sideloading too, be that consoles or smart speakers, maybe in some future eu will push this too

ApolloFortyNine
12 replies
1d2h

50 cents an install over 1 million downloads? Every year?

Is Apple trying to get fined? They're not even hiding the fact they're maliciously complying.

For one, this makes deploying a free app on an alternative store (that becomes popular) simply impossible? I highly doubt that was the EU's intent.

Usually with malicious compliance you can at least see the logic for a future legal case. Here, if they were trying to lose a future case I don't think you could do worse.

charcircuit
7 replies
1d1h

For one, this makes deploying a free app on an alternative store (that becomes popular) simply impossible?

You can monetize it with in app payments or ads such that wealthy people subsidize other users.

If the app is from a nonprofit they can get the fee waived.

themoonisachees
4 replies
1d1h

Or, and hear me out on this, maybe I want to make useful apps that don't data mine their users and I also would like not to take donations. This is a valid want to have (and I honestly can't believe you would suggest to 'just' sell out your users) and it would take a single app getting popular (or apple just straight up lying, I would have no way of verifying their count) to wipe out all of my capital.

It's 'nice' that there exists options to pay for the fee, but realistically the fee shouldn't exist, and it is also illegal.

its_ethan
3 replies
1d1h

Lucky for you, you are still able to distribute your free app for free on the Apple App Store. No surprise costs if your app becomes incredibly popular, and better still- that's where the vast majority of people will continue to go for getting new apps (regardless of this legislation) so it's free exposure for you as well.

hexfish
1 replies
1d

Aren't you still going to be paying that Core Technology fee once your FOSS non-profit app gets popular? I guess you would have to get that waiver but that's far from trivial[1], especially for an individual that just likes to publish an FOSS/free-as-in-beer app out of kindness.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/fee-waiver/

its_ethan
0 replies
1d

If you're distributing your free app through the Apple App Store, no you wouldn't ever pay a core technology fee, even if you had a billion downloads.. it's a fee only for apps distributed by third party app stores.

conradfr
0 replies
1d1h

It was never free as it's 99€ per year anyway.

fsniper
0 replies
1d1h

This is asking some wealthier users to subsidize Apple, not other users.

ApolloFortyNine
0 replies
1d1h

Not every app needs monetization. And it's not exactly like 'just publish on the regular app store' is a fantastic option, since that still requires you to pay a developer fee.

I shouldn't have to register as a non profit so I can release a hacker news reader app for free...

arminluschin
2 replies
1d1h

Genuinely curious: people throw around the term „malicious compliance“ a lot. It seems the platform fee is explicitly allowed by the DMA, so Apple demands it. Again, I am not trying to troll but what would „benevolent compliance“ look like and what would Apple‘s incentive be to give up the fee?

user_7832
0 replies
1d

Not sure where you're getting the info on platform fees (copilot didn't know either) but I'd assume you need to offer at least one way to install your apps without this fee.

internetter
0 replies
1d

It seems the platform fee is explicitly allowed by the DMA, so Apple demands it.

What's your source on this?

zilti
0 replies
1d

At this point, I want to see a responsible person at Apple getting a literal fucking slap in the face for all that shit this company pulls off.

goblin89
8 replies
1d

As a user, I cannot recommend iPhone to my older relatives if there is a way to run arbitrary code beyond Safari’s JS sandbox. Simple as that.

It is a nuanced question with a computer[0], but for a phone (increasingly used for more important transactions and sensitive private data by people more naive when it comes to security) it is simply a no-brainer.

Unless cyber crime is prosecuted as robustly as robberies, I want this kind of jail to constrain the device. Believe it or not, it is a feature.

[0] I do run arbitrary code on my MBP, but then I am a dev who writes code. And, being that, I recently re-enabled the warning for running non-app-store apps on my Mac—I consider myself proficient enough, but perhaps that is exactly why I prefer having to go through an extra warning dialog if it helps reduce the attack surface.

ianlevesque
5 replies
23h59m

If you need to infantilize your relatives because they cannot be trusted with their devices, then MDM them, or even have that be the default. But we do not need to surrender in the war on general purpose computing for it.

badwolf
2 replies
22h43m

Folks on this site vastly overestimate how much people who actually buy and use these devices care about literally any of the stuff being talked about in this thread.

Apple's schtick was "It just works." that's what people like and want. They don't want to have to go thru and make choices, dig thru settings, install other app stores, explain to meemaw that the nice man cold-calling her telling her to install this special app isn't actually from the IRS coming to arrest her, etc...

They just want it to work.

ianlevesque
0 replies
21h3m

Oh I agree that they don't care, but that doesn't mean that Apple isn't distorting the market in a way that some of us, the very technologists building the next round of innovation, find abhorrent. This is a case where the public can have it all. The defaults can be "it just works" without also ceding all control over who wins and loses and a significant chunk of revenue to Apple.

asadotzler
0 replies
17h28m

The nice man cold calling here won't be a f*cking idiot so he won't try to get her to jump through a bunch of complicated technical hoops that will surely fail because your poor meemaw is not tech savy enough to pull it off, to turn on a buried setting then visit a sketchy website then download and locate a package then agree to the warning at the package install and he isn't an idiot and knows that so he will just tell meemaw he's from the bank and he needs her credentials and she'll turn them over or hang up the phone. That you think the App Store is protecting her bank account is effing laughable. Malware is the very last thing a baddie on the phone with your poor meemaw is going to try and you either know that and are feigning stupidity or the alternative.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png needs a companion for people like you who infantalize seniors (if they're 80, they were using Windows 7 at work before they retired) and make up hacker scenarios that would never happen to seniors to defend an indefensible position that is "I stan Apple, or possibly all multi-trillion dollar mega-corporations with walled gardens, because hacking is for losers and I'm here on a hacking forum to let everyone know that."

goblin89
1 replies
23h52m

MDM them

Many of us cannot afford the luxury of working overtime as tech support for relatives. I personally do not even think I can do a good enough job at that for myself, in fact—I would have to be a professional information security researcher.

Furthermore, I am sure if there is enough misplaced outrage, MDM will be unable to restrict this.

But we do not need to surrender in the war on general purpose computing for it.

Where is that war? General purpose computing is everywhere, with all of its associated benefits and liabilities[0].

iOS has more or less been the only island where it is reliably not an option, that making it preferred for the reasons I mention.

[0] How many of us literally airgap machines that run unvetted code (at least once you realize that all vitalization and containerization is circumventable), not letting any personal data on them? How feasible is that with a phone, and by an average person that is not exactly infosec-savvy but who is obligated to have a phone to simply get on with daily life?

miggol
0 replies
22h45m

What is your opinion on S-mode in Windows?

I don't agree with the hyperbole of the person you're replying to. But I also don't think the possibility of fair competition is mutually excusive with the security of the vulnerable few.

That's assuming that something like an opt-in lockdown mode is compatible with the DMA.

no_time
0 replies
1h36m

As a user, I cannot recommend iPhone to my older relatives if there is a way to run arbitrary code beyond Safari’s JS sandbox. Simple as that.

This is a false dichotomy made in bad faith. You can have open computers and security for those who you wish to infantilize. Chromebooks for example have physical write protect screw inside to do exactly this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Remove+the+Write+Protect+Screw/...

I fully expect the company that engineered the Vision Pro to come up with something like this if they wanted to. But they choose to spread FUD to continue collecting rent on the appstore instead.

SV_BubbleTime
0 replies
1d

I work across the street from a well-known security research group who has been on HN front page before.

Every one of them uses iPhones because they cannot be rooted and are encrypted by default.

Venn of old people and at least one group of security professionals.

bilekas
4 replies
1d2h

We’re providing more flexibility for developers who distribute apps in the European Union (EU), including introducing a new way to distribute apps directly from a developer’s website.

They make it sounds like they're being super generous and they've gone out of their way to provide this 'cool new innovation' for us out of their own desire to give back to their customers.

You have to really appreciate the spin and shamelessness of some of the large companies. It's genuinely humorous.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan
1 replies
23h0m

"We're happy to announce the door lock we built now accepts coins"

catlikesshrimp
0 replies
21h35m

or

"We made available for succesful developers a new multi stage door lock. Don't worry, it accepts coins, as the "more secure branded door"

pndy
1 replies
21h33m

The dichotomy of how real world looks and functions and how it does according to the big corpos is astonishing and terrifying. And this is the yet another example - there's no failure in this rose-tinted corporate world, just a minor difficulty which will be portrayed as a success.

Honestly, I'm surprised Apple didn't come up with the overused standard reply #1: "We are excited to announce (...)", or the standard reply #2: "We've been working hard making XYZ experience better for you (...)"

bilekas
0 replies
18h40m

he dichotomy of how real world looks and functions and how it does according to the big corpos is astonishing and terrifying.

I don't know you, but I feel the same with less words. We're not alone.

"You don't need to embrace to understand"

Nevermark
4 replies
17h46m

Some specific benefits competitive apps stores could provide (within the general benefits of competition and innovation):

1. The open source app store. The git hub app store. Open source apps easily prepped by developers and installed and updated by regular users. With source and build files.

2. The developer tools app store. Real developer tools on iOS devices.

3. Lower app store vigs. Lower app prices. Allow the lowest cost part of the market to drop prices further. I would love to buy tiny solid 0.25 cent apps without ads. Maker markets without a parasitical Apple tax.

4. The ad free app store. Sorry I even imagined it, it just hurts to think about it.

5. And the no "in-app purchase" store. Only for substantial apps worth paying for up front. Use forever, or choose to pay again for an upgrade you actually want.

6. Children's only app store, with high safety bars of all kinds. Very parent friendly.

7. Formally verified app store. Starts small, but learns. Meantime, more safety than Apple can deliver by one astronomical unit. Pushing Apple to improve its safety MORE.

8. Different kinds of app infrastructure. Streaming apps and games from anyone. Better systems for software versioning, updating, cross-app plug-in mechanisms.

9. One shop app-stores that deliver different kinds of versioning, upgrading, and other kinds of support that Apple doesn't in a coherent manner.

10. The very safe no-code app store. Sorry, app stores with different approaches! Very sandboxed, but very easy for technically literate non-coders to create simple tools for anyone to use. Given the solid sandboxing, and restricted "source", no barriers for anyone to contribute their app. Maker friendly.

11. The novelty developers 1k-byte app store. It's just for fun but how cool would that be. Innovation in efficiency as a game. Other developer app store experiments. Innovation comes from freedom. (Had to turn this list up to 11.)

--

None of these inconvenience those who wish to stay on Apple's store.

They will only push Apple to increase its selling-point safety futher, while, while dropping anti-innovative self-interested restrictions it has misleadingly defended, like its prohibition on other web engines ("But the safety!").

Any other ideas for app stores that deliver useful differences?

vlabakje90
1 replies
17h35m

You don't have to fantasize, Android phones have had this possibility since the first version of the OS.

Nevermark
0 replies
17h16m

Well I do until I get an Android. But staying on the iPhone for other reasons. Mac + Vision combo just added another ring on the cuffs.

Sigh.

boplicity
1 replies
17h37m

When the App store was new, the "free" apps were actually free. Now practically all of the "free" apps featured on the app store are not free at all. Half the time you can't even do anything without paying, but you only find this out after going through the hassle of downloading the app.

A better app store would make pricing actually clear before you download the app, instead of the nightmare that pretend "free" apps have created.

osrec
0 replies
17h22m

The app store and the Google play store are absolute garbage as far as I'm concerned.

Whatever protection they claim to offer is utterly bogus. If anything, they make it easier to leak personal information to random app makers, who, like you said, offer paid apps masquerading as free ones.

The amount of junk in the native app stores is just way too high for me to ever buy the argument that they're there to improve end user experience.

sidcool
3 replies
1d2h

People like to crap on EU for decel and regulation. But it's needed in some aspects.

justinclift
2 replies
1d2h

What's "decel"?

justinclift
0 replies
23h47m

Thanks. :)

yungporko
2 replies
23h15m

so there are zero situations where this could possibly be useful to anybody, nice. so glad we traded PWAs for this.

InsomniacL
1 replies
21h58m

PWA's were taken away as punishment.

yungporko
0 replies
9h38m

yep, apple can suck my dick from now on. spend a months wage on one of their shitty bug-ridden phones and get used as a punching bag for apple to vent their frustrations about a bitchy argument with the EU which i didn't even support. dog shit company.

tenlp
2 replies
15h36m

So can I download distributed apps through VPN nodes in the EU? If so, that would be great.

unstatusthequo
1 replies
15h34m

I think your account has to be an EU account, whatever that means. Maybe billing address and other things. But, would be nice if that wasn’t the case. Also, I could be wrong. Try it and let us know?

Hamuko
0 replies
11h16m

They seem to also be tracking what country you are currently in via the GPS.

solarkraft
2 replies
1d2h

Looks like the DMA is a complete failure considering that the gatekeeper is still involved in the distribution process at all.

You see what they'll do when they're allowed to do that.

Apple's compliance will always be malicious, so the law may under no circumstance allow them to do that.

risho
0 replies
1d1h

if the eu hits them with enough billion dollar fines eventually they will comply. apple can avoid this by complying the first time, but if they want to give away 10 billion dollars before coming into compliance i'm more than okay with that.

latexr
0 replies
23h4m

That “complete failure” has already made Apple backtrack on their plans multiple times. It’s absurd, given what has happened in the last few weeks, to think everything is going to stay exactly as is.

judge2020
2 replies
21h18m

I'm willing to make a new phone that only runs code i approve, since iPhones can no longer support this maximum security use case. You must be a journalist or have production access to a F500 company's database (containing PII/PHI) to qualify to purchase the device; I'm sorry if you don't qualify, but I fear the EU might come and force me to break the device security simply if 'too many people' begin to use my device.

askonomm
1 replies
21h13m

Yeah, I don't get it either. All the Android fanboys seem to be wanting iOS to turn into Android for some reason (what, the blue bubble is so bad?) and I also don't understand how a company that isn't a monopoly (because there is in fact choice in the market) can be dictated to how they run their app distribution. That's akin to telling me, a software consultant, how I should do my software consulting. Maybe the EU will soon tell me what IDE I have to use or I will get fined. Maybe I have to start offering my services on some public forum where everybody can bid on my time equally.

asadotzler
0 replies
14h49m

people notice when you participate in circle jerks like that

coolspot
2 replies
1d2h

Ok folks, how can we get copy of this DMA thing in the USA?

P.S. Apple stockholders downvoting me, lol

NekkoDroid
0 replies
1d

You misspelled bribes

ben_w
2 replies
19h44m

So now we can apparently have arbitrary 3rd party malware on yet another platform (it's not going to get less frequent by virtue of not being on the Apple App Store, is it?), who should I look to for decent, preferably also not battery killing, anti-virus software for iOS?

brianwawok
1 replies
19h43m

Why can’t you pay your 30% for the App Store?

ben_w
0 replies
19h28m

Why do you think that response has anything to do with my question?

TheArcane
2 replies
20h56m

How does someone not in the EU get this?

I wonder what Apple's line is to justify not making this open for everyone

fstanis
1 replies
20h54m

something something security

okanat
0 replies
20h1m

I think the main point is the theft protection and protection from state. The US and the UK's democratic systems are broken.

In the US the social structure is slowly collapsing which increases theft and other petty crimes, at the same time the federal state has a huge surveillance power.

Solving the societal and political problems so there is less incentive having your iPhone stolen is hard. Expecting a state-like company to benevolently save you is the way they cope.

TBH without the EU, legislation like DMA would also be hard to come up with. The independent countries have less power to exert over American behemoths. This is the nice thing about EU.

userbinator
1 replies
18h19m

As someone who never got into the Apple ecosystem, the title is really amusing --- they're announcing it like it's a new feature and it actually comes with a lot of gotchas, when "download apps directly from websites" with absolute freedom has been the norm for just about every other computer in widespread use, for the past few decades.

NoPicklez
0 replies
16h56m

The average/majority of the population were not going to navigate to shitty mobile websites or desktop websites on their mobile browser to download apps in 2008. If the app store was such a bad place to put apps then why did they boom? Why do people use the Android play store at all if they can sideload, if the need to do so is so highly valued.

I do think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was huge for most people including developers. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app.

Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.

But we can't forget how beneficial the app store and the "walled" approach was.

Now there could be an aspect of predatory behavior by Apple in the way they charge developers etc, but that's where I feel the problem should be tackled.

runjake
1 replies
23h55m

One prerequisite is:

"Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year."

The realistic part of me thinks this sounds like more resistance to the DMA.

Another part of me thinks this will be good for security. Some random can't get a dev account and publish malware payloads on a hidden URL that will happily run on iOS devices, and are installed via a Safari zero day.

ThouYS
0 replies
23h16m

these zero days are already the status quo?!

monooso
1 replies
5h41m

Whilst I'm very much on the EU's side of this argument, the prospect of my 89 year-old father being able to download iPad apps from random websites terrifies me.

The walled-garden App Store was one of the reasons I got him an iPad in the first place.

rickdeckard
0 replies
5h38m

In the current proposal even those apps would have to go through vetting of Apple, and apparently selecting them on a webpage would have the device show a summary-page with app-details fetched from an Apple server...

It's more like a solution engineered around the headline of allowing direct-downloads, in the end Apple is still heavily involved in the release-process of the app...

giancarlostoro
1 replies
1d

Whats most annoying is that Apple pioneered the idea of PWAs going all the way back to Steve Jobs. I have said many times Tim Cook is a good COO but Apple needs a visionary who wants to innovate. It feels like Apples innovations are not where they could be. They are making some amazing things here and there, but I can only imagine they would be far more innovative with a different CEO.

asadotzler
0 replies
18h36m

There were mobile devices with large screens and web browsers doing "web apps" years before iPhone. I know because I worked on Gecko browsers for two different OSes on those form factors starting with Pocket PC in 2003-ish all the way through Windows Mobile 5 in 2007ish. We also got running on Maemo with big screen handheld devices in early 2004, collaborating directly with Nokia and that Linux-based OS team. A full Gecko browser worked on multiple big screen 3G mobile communicators doing ajax apps before Gmail invites were a thing, years before iPhone. Apple didn't pioneer here; they fast followed us and others. Heck, we were running Gecko on the iPaq 64MB devices in 2001 and third parties were distributing that in 2002. Not some WAP browser, not some brew joke, but Gecko, the same Gecko that was taking the web by storm with Firefox pre-release versions (and of course Mozilla 1.0 and Netscape 6-7) the same Gecko plus DomI that inspired web apps and ajax to take off in the mid-2000s.Web apps were a thing in 2005 and so were mobile web apps. Joe Hewitt, a co-conspirator of mine on Firefox, who gave us both DOM Inspector and Firebug, was a web app master having built the entire Firefox UI out of XUL, CSS and JavaScript and Mozilla's and Netsape's UIs and themes before that. He wrote iUI, the first ajax framework explicitly for iPhones in the period before Jobs suckered everyone into the App Store and sunk those who'd invested substantially in the promise of web apps that Apple fully abandoned. iPhone was no surprise to us, nor Apple running a powerful browser as an app framework, as we and others had done the same thing with Gecko (Ever see the Mozilla Amazon Browser, an entire Amazon client written on top of Gecko back in 2002-2003 not much different than what we see so many Electron apps today. Multiple books were written on all of this. It's not a secret and yet everyone seems to insist that Apple was the first smartphone with a capable web browser and browser-based apps. They got it right where everyone before had failed in some way, but they were not the pioneers, they were the swift following colonizers that came to pave the cow paths that we and others laid down, only to abandon the suckers who believed they'd keep investing in the web on iOS, something that has only just started to happen in the last couple of years.

causality0
1 replies
21h31m

Root access on personally owned devices in exchange for termination of warranty coverage should be a human right.

grishka
0 replies
19h51m

Why even terminate the warranty? It's for the hardware. It's a law in many countries that the warranty still applies unless the manufacturer can prove that you yourself broke the device.

yashu
0 replies
1d2h

Yashu

tr33house
0 replies
1d2h

Wow! Apple does Apple again. Just carved the exception to the EU market. I was hoping these pushes would stir changes across the globe but I guess the market size is too big especially the US market

taylorbuley
0 replies
1d

Finally something to level the playing field for the little guys... of over 1M annual downloads.

talsperre
0 replies
16h50m

Hopefully, this leads to a future where ios is a similar platform to Mac OS or Windows. Both are general computing operating systems where you have access to an app store as well as the ability to download arbitrary software from the web.

supermatt
0 replies
11h37m

One of the conditions to being able to distribute your app in this way:

Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.

Apple really need to be slapped with another multi-billion dollar fine.

simonCGN
0 replies
22h56m

That is a joke and not different than downloading it from an alternative App Store. Still has to go though Apple notorisation and pay the Apple Tech Fee/tax. No small dev can do that.

sharkjacobs
0 replies
22h58m

It's so fucking embarrassing to be an Apple fan right now.

At least Apple Silicon is amazing! Too bad about everything else!

rchaud
0 replies
1d2h

Apple policies sound more and more like those of a Homeowners' Association with each passing day.

philoinvestor
0 replies
5h53m

I first invested in AAPL late 2013, but I wouldn't touch the stock here.

I expand on my thoughts in this piece: https://www.philoinvestor.com/p/downside-at-apple-a-10x-in-1...

They are increasingly relying on having full control of their ecosystem to maintain their "monopoly", and with all the risks brewing in the horizon - its price is pretty high.

People extrapolate the present too much into the future, but much of life does not work that way.

p5v
0 replies
12h37m

So, we in the EU will reap the benefits, and everyone else will keep abiding Apple’s rules? How is that not segregation and why is not other country doing anything about it?

nojvek
0 replies
15h0m

Apple’s management and lawyers trying every trick in the book to follow the law by the line but not by spirit.

He!

I’m sad that EU has to make big tech pay.

US antitrust and lawmakers love those sweeeet lobby donations.

Corporations run US.

noiseinvacuum
0 replies
23h19m

Malicious compliance attempt number 2 from Apple. This is clearly not complaint with DMA and there's no way that Apple doesn't know that.

The core issue is that Apple doesn't want to give away the absolute god-like control over how apps are distributed on iPhone and they can't be compliant until they let go. I am guessing this is going to get dragged on with 3rd version of Apple policies coming out soon after they get sent back to drawing board by EU.

nightshadetrie
0 replies
20h21m

I feel Apple is on panic mode trying to find a way to avoid opening up.

They will most likely lose.

mrkramer
0 replies
23h16m

This is win for Open Web.

mavili
0 replies
9h16m

Only developers with apps having had one MILLION installs prior year to be allowed. What's the fucking point then?? If an app developer is already distributing apps that popular on App Store, what's the point??

Am I reading this right?

lawlessone
0 replies
1d2h

Web Distribution, available with a software update later this spring, will let authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a website owned by the developer.

Hmmmm, these feels like its still just apple controlling it.

justinclift
0 replies
1d2h

Sounds like a start. Now, get rid of the damn per-install fee.

j45
0 replies
19h35m

Oh wow. This would be great to have in North America because I own my phone and stuff.

isodev
0 replies
1d1h

Tell me you don’t want to comply with the DMA without saying you don’t want to comply with the DMA.

iamleppert
0 replies
23h54m

At this point the EU just needs to shut them down completely, or make their business completely unviable.

henry2023
0 replies
1d

At this point the only entente that could make our devices more repairable is the EU. Easy Screen, Battery, and SSD replacements should be mandatory for every desktop computer, laptop, and phone

ghusto
0 replies
21h2m

The EU shouldn't even bother reacting to this. Just wait out the clock, and start fining day by day for non-compliance. We'll see how many attempts it takes them then.

computer23
0 replies
16h48m

People need to stop using the word "sideloading". It's just loading. The normal behavior is to allow apps to be installed from any source.

I noticed Microsoft's developer documentation uses the word sideloading a lot: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/windows/deploy...

codedokode
0 replies
23h58m

DMA is absolutely unfair. Why it doesn't include consoles? Why manufacturers are allowed to prevent users from running their software? And Apple isn't. Some animals are more equal than others?

Also, it is notable how free market fails to solve the problem: almost 100% of consumers seem to not care about freedom to install any software on their devices.

aa_is_op
0 replies
1d

Another case of malicious compliance from a big US corp that is accustomed to literally owning US lawmakers. Good bye! Another company I won't touch anymore.

WilhelmHomer
0 replies
6h34m

Are there actually any "other" App stores available? It seemed so wildly prohibitive anyway.

TheRealPomax
0 replies
23h5m

The amount of US attitude for the European market is staggering, and I'll be curious to see how many more fines they get for clearly and intentionally only doing the bare minimum required to be able to claim they're following regulations, with as many roadblocks as possible in place to make sure just enough content passes the bar to go "see? we've done the thing".

Ringz
0 replies
1d

We need Linux for smartphones.

MetaverseClub
0 replies
23h24m

EU to take security risks on their own?

Alifatisk
0 replies
5h34m

If Apple manages to get away with this hostile behavior, I’ll actually boycott their products or maybe stick to refurbished apple devices. I’m glad people aren’t falling for their excuses and fights back.

1vuio0pswjnm7
0 replies
15h43m

Apple is so generous.