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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

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Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Safari will improve though. Currently Apple has little incentive to put more money into Safari because there’s no competition. Once they have to open up iOS to competition, they’ll spent more money on Safari to stay competitive. The web is still an important platform they cannot just ignore. And they have the resources and the know how, so they have a good chance of succeeding. And they will still be the na…

Apple invests a lot into Safari today. The reason you don't think so is because you are likely equating developer features with investment. But actually Apple just has different priorities which are security, privacy and battery life. They aren't trying to push more pro-advertising features like Google is or turn the browser into an operating system. It is delusional to think that if Chrome becomes more popular that…

Their priority is to do what sells and that's very little when they have monopoly power at their disposal.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#162
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is that not happening for android? You don't have to come up with hypothetical scenarios if you already have a real life example to look at.

This actually happens in China and every phone manufactures has their own app store. It's a shitshow

having multiple stores in itself is fine, but it's even worse worse. if you want to release your app on multiple app stores, you have to release on all of them at the same time. if you skip one they will not allow you to launch there later because you dared to treat them as second choice. imagine apple banning you because you dared to release on android first.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is that not happening for android? You don't have to come up with hypothetical scenarios if you already have a real life example to look at.

Because there's no point as they need their apps to be cross platform and so Apple is setting a baseline for what behaviour is allowed. But once Meta, Epic etc can run their own stores on both iOS and Android they will absolutely move their apps to them. Epic has already said how important this is to be able to implement their metaverse strategy.

Epic already did this at the height of fortnite's popularity, by using a "fortnight installer" app that you had to get from outside the play store. Can't remember why they backtracked, or why they didn't offer store/sideload versions at the same time.

Google even took steps to prevent people from installing malware pretending to be fortnite, and steered them to the official installer. Not out of the goodness of their heart, TBF.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can switch banks? Trust me if these banks are only following the rules because of Apple, I can guarantee you their backend is definitely not following these privacy rules. Also, OS level permissions don’t need to go away for third party apps.

Switching banks can often mean changing home and personal loan products which is non trivial to say the least. And Apple can’t properly enforce OS level permissions due to Objective-C dynamic dispatch.

Why can't they? They control the objc runtime, and IIRC the way message passing works in that system requires throwing strings around with the involvement of the runtime.

This being entirely separate from using allowed APIs for unapproved reasons, after passing whatever review/scan is done.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#166
Fucking good.

It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use.

Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns.

I also don't care.

I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits.

I want the choice of being able to pay for a great app or use its "good enough" open source equivalent outside of the App Store.

iOS is a fantastic operating system. iPhone and iPad are stellar hardware with brilliant physical UX. Apple Watch is leagues beyond anything else in its class. I will keep buying Apple stuff until I can't anymore.

But a monopoly on core system functions isn't necessary to keep that high bar high.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#167
post #166

Fucking good. It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns. I also don't care. I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits. I want the choice of…

Switch to another phone then. Easy peasy. Why would you buy a phone with this known limitation if you care about it?

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#168

I was at [IAPP Global Privacy Summit]( https://iapp.org/conference/global-privacy-summit/ ) 2022, where Tim Cook gave a keynote. He started with highlighting all of the ways Apple protects its users privacy (many of which are great, and the reason I use Apple products!), but then he pivoted to make the case that Apple being forced to allow rival app stores would compromise their ability to protect users' privacy. Thi…

It's like taking a rabid badger as a roommate. You can in theory keep it cornered in its own room (sandbox), but there's no way to be 100% sure it'll stay there. You can be absolutely sure that it will never stop trying to get out. App Store apps can be trusted to stick to a sandbox because they are vetted to a standard before being allowed there. There's no reason for Epic-F-Droid-Store have their applications adher…

Ok, so what, apple can still claim you have the same protection if you use just our app store. And I have the ability to use the alternative store where I can download a game without paying apple 30%. It's great.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#169
post #166

Fucking good. It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns. I also don't care. I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits. I want the choice of…

Switch to another phone then. Easy peasy. Why would you buy a phone with this known limitation if you care about it?

Now apply this argument to PCs in the 90s and you can probably see how dumb it is.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#170
post #166

Fucking good. It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns. I also don't care. I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits. I want the choice of…

Switch to another phone then. Easy peasy. Why would you buy a phone with this known limitation if you care about it?

Maybe people would simply like choice? I know I know, Apple doesn't really offer any choice on their phones, but the point is they should.
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