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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

appleinsider.com

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

#251

Post by RIMR »

wizofaus wrote: post #135

Will this include the ability to compile apps for iOS without requiring Apple made hardware/software (that specifically must run on MacOS)? Have never understood why developers haven't kicked up more of a fuss over that restriction, but it's why I would never write iOS apps as a hobby.

From my reading of the DMA, I would suspect that gatekeeping software development only to users who pay for Apple's hardware and software licenses would not be allowed. I imagine they can still keep things locked down, but they will have to include a way to turn off their restrictions so that people can run software without their gatekeeping.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for Apple to continue prioritizing security and keeping things locked down, but the end user deserves to have a key that can unlock things if they want them unlocked.

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

#252

Post by kajumix »

grishka wrote: post #193
dnissley wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not about personal choices, it's about enabling fair competition. If you sell a general-purpose computing device and market it as one, you should relinquish any control of it once it's sold.

Competition is the natural state of affairs. Nobody has to enable it. IBM/Microsoft weren't forced by the EU to give up market dominance in PCs. And if the EU tried, it couldn't ever do a better job than Apple did. It's no surprise that EU lags so much behind the US in tech innovation.

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

#253

Post by stardek »

crop_rotation wrote: post #230
nunez wrote: 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…

By this kind of logic there is so much bullshit wherever there is consumer choice, and all products should be legislated to be the same, Soviet style.

To a large degree I think this is more true than not.

Putting style aside, it's ridiculous that we don't have basic common designs that "just work". I want a kettle and toaster that are expected to work for decades and can be easily repaired if something goes wrong. There are some reasons to differentiate (e.g. I want shoes that work well and last but people have different foot support needs) but in my ideal world we have shared product functionality and slap stylistic preferences on top of that.

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

#254

Post by hocuspocus »

threeseed wrote: post #95
marcosdumay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to download apps from alternative app stores. Then don't. Nobody is forcing you.

Except this is a disingenuous argument. Because there will be many applications you may need to use e.g. banking which will be on an alternative App Store purely so they can skirt Apple's privacy restrictions. Finance is one sector where they would love to siphon all of your user data in order to better promote products and reduce risk. And so I would be forced to use them.

> Except this is a disingenuous argument.

And yours is truly insane.

How many people would install a banking app from a third party app store on Android? Let's be real, zero. Why would it be different on iOS?

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

#255

Post by LeoNatan25 »

quickco wrote: post #224
nunez wrote: 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…

> 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. People want Apple’s quality, reliability and performance, but also want no restrictions so they can run any app and install anything. Those things aren’t compatible. E.g., Windows and Linux (Desktop distr…

Yes, let’s ignore the macOS elephant in the room, and jump to Windows and Linux to straw-man an argument. There are “no restrictions”, one can “install anything” and “run any app” on that, and still it is … “reliable”?

But actually both Windows and Linux are “reliable” too. Windows is much, much stable in terms of backwards compatibility than macOS and certainly iOS. Linux is so reliable that it runs about 99.9% of the server, appliance and mobile world.

Windows has lost its design forte (peaked in Windows 7), but so has Apple’s claim on design. macOS is a mishmash of OK, bad and worse, as is iOS.

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

#256

Post by hindsightbias »

mardifoufs wrote: post #46
barelysapient wrote: post #7

I guess iPhone will soon be as awesome and open as Android!

If anything, it's android that is turning into a more closed and restricted environment.

I'm sure the Fortune 500 sans Apple will play ball a do what's best for us.

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

#257

Post by rnk »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #243
cmcaleer wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pixel 5's security update end of life is in two weeks[0]. This is a phone that launched October 2020. My iPhone XS which I bought in 2018 just got the iOS 17 update and it's working pretty well. I want to be able to load whatever I want on my phone, but I also don't want to have to buy a new phone every couple years (or sooner! Looks like the 5a is still in production with security updates ending in 11 months) to…

The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates, including not only security fixes and bug fixes but also feature drops. We’ll see what’s announces next month, but Google might be about to jump ahead of even the iPhone on this point. Disclosure: although I have worked for Google in the past, I haven’t worked for them in more than 8 years, never worked on Android or Pix…

I think a challenge of pixels and android in general is they don't seem to care about how well older hardware works with new os releases (or even some updates). I have an iphone se and it seems to work just fine after installing multiple os releases. Pixel type phones seem to struggle after a few os releases, as well as android in general. I should say I usually end up buying one generation behind cur on pixel.

So on top of google's short timeframe to allow 'next os release' support, apple does a better job on keeping older gen phones working well across multiple os releases.

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

#258

Post by HWR_14 »

faeriechangling wrote: post #227
nunez wrote: 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…

>you can only run Safari on iOS Apple mandating WebKit is the only thing holding v8 back from a total monopoly, while WebKit itself has no chance of being a monopoly in the forseeable future, so I doubt there's a good anti-competitive case to be made for forcing Apple to stop doing this. It would only accelerate the monopolisation of the browser market if this happened. It would be good for consumers in the short ter…

Just like Apple mandating WebKit is the only thing holding v8/Chromium from a total monopoly, the App Store monopoly is the only thing holding back "use Meta omni-permission store or get cut off from FB/IG/WhatsApp". And then Meta getting most companies to use their store because they'll take 10% and just the data.

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

#259

Post by crop_rotation »

stardek wrote: post #253
crop_rotation wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this kind of logic there is so much bullshit wherever there is consumer choice, and all products should be legislated to be the same, Soviet style.

To a large degree I think this is more true than not. Putting style aside, it's ridiculous that we don't have basic common designs that "just work". I want a kettle and toaster that are expected to work for decades and can be easily repaired if something goes wrong. There are some reasons to differentiate (e.g. I want shoes that work well and last but people have different foot support needs) but in my ideal world we…

The problem is once you do that that particular design will stop improving fast. e.g what if phones were legislated to all be open to everything and everyone and standardized at Symbian S40.

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

#260

Post by grishka »

catiopatio wrote: post #229
grishka wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good solution to apps wanting to track your every click is not organizational but technical. Just don't give them APIs for reliable cross-app tracking. That advertising ID? It simply does not need to exist at all . Same for all the attribution bullshit. Besides, sideloading enables installation of modded apps giving users more choice.

The advertising ID gives users and Apple control over tracking when also coupled with AppStore policy that disallows improper use. It’s impossible to prevent fingerprinting of users and devices via purely technical measures — taking away the advertising ID won’t help.

Fingerprinting is hard. Especially when apps are as sandboxed as they are on iOS, and especially when there are so few iOS device models. Any APIs that can be used to share data between apps should be subject to permissions (e.g. file system access) or explicit user action (e.g. sharing content or links from one app to another).
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