EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by thereisnojesus » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:53 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #285

quickco wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell a general-purpose computing device and market it as one, you should relinquish any control of it once it's sold. The freedoms we have, and the freedom that should be protected is market choice to buy or not buy any consumer product. If you don’t like Apple, don’t buy its products and purchase a device from a large number of competitors. It is really that simple. There is no rule that consumers have a ri…

But as an app developer, I have no choice, Apple will act like they own my relationship with my users despite having done absolutely nothing for it.

There was a time when people would give up their job if they truly believed in what they preached. But you like your work (or money) enough to not make a choice to change

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

#342

Post by samcat116 » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:54 PM UTC

ssklash wrote: post #44

ROFISH wrote: post #35

Good! I'm looking forward to having to uninstall a crypto miner on my mom's phone because it told her the only way to play a slots app is to allow third-party apps.

The "won't someone think of my mom" argument. Somehow we get by just fine on x86 with arbitrary software being allowed, but for IOS it's unthinkable?

I'd say we don't get by fine, things are pretty awful actually.

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

#343

Post by junofan » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:54 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #318

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…

> Fucking good. Seconded. Perpetually baffled by the so-called hackers in all of these threads arguing vociferously against user freedom.

I can already self-sign and run software on my iPhone. Would be cool if Apple removed whatever locks prevent running alternative OSs. But iOS is already a complete, cohesive, & secure offering. I don’t really see the hacker ethos in compelling Apple to switch out bits and pieces of their operating system so Google can make more cash. Would much rather be able to install Android or similar.

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

#344

Post by martimarkov » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:55 PM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #192

cmdli wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people have a choice. They can choose Android, but they don’t, even though they know iPhones are locked down. By this point, you have to assume that the people who buy iPhones are okay with it. Apple doesn’t have a monopoly by any means.

I buy iPhones, but I'm not okay with it. Android has some of what I want, but a lot of what I don't. The market is not competitive enough to actually be able to vote with my feet/dollars. Options are give up control (choose Apple) or give up privacy (choose Google). That is not a choice consumers should be forced to make.

So we should allow random app stores and browsers and magically keep the privacy?

Yeah 100% the other stores will not allow for private APIs and circumvent privacy protections and anti-tracking mechanisms. I would 100% believe Facebook on the App Store vs Facebook on the Meta store will be the same…

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

#345

Post by Golden_Wind123 » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:56 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #232

hamandcheese wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extensions that are less powerful and must go through App Store review. Which is fine, if you want that keep using Safari! But I'd like to run actual Firefox.

Why not buy an Android device then? Once you remove these things that you want to remove, you wind up losing the very things that attract you to iPhone in the first place!

Life is about compromises. Sometimes people value a specific set of hardware and software support that comes with Apple devices even if they have to make certain trade-offs versus the competition.

At least in my case, I wasn't attracted to the iPhone because of forced Webkit and the Lightning port.

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

#346

Post by pavlov » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:56 PM UTC

nargella wrote: post #336

I do wonder if Tim Apple would be so bold as to stop selling in the EU for all the rules and regulations that they have been required to follow. It would be amazing to see that play out imo. Like a reverse boycott could happen? The secondary strategy Timmy could pull is a dumbed down ecosystem in the EU which I’m sure is even worse for everyone. But hey, you’d be able to buy audible books straight in the app. Is it w…

Sure, there are companies that choose not to be in a particular jurisdiction, like Meta has long chosen not to be in China.

But it’s a lot easier to make that choice early when you don’t need to give up on revenue. In Apple’s case, leaving EU would mean losing around $90 billion in annual revenue and ceding a large chunk of their global market share to Android. It’s really hard to justify that kind of thing to shareholders by “we didn’t want to open some APIs in our operating system.”

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

#347

Post by Aeolun » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:56 PM UTC

martimarkov wrote: post #332

kibwen wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fucking good. Seconded. Perpetually baffled by the so-called hackers in all of these threads arguing vociferously against user freedom.

You have freedom to chose the platform.

I have the freedom to choose between Google or Apple. That’s not very free at all.

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

#348

Post by LeoNatan25 » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:57 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #303

coldtea wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let’s ignore the macOS elephant in the room The worst experiences on macOS come from companies with enough clout to piss on the standard mechanisms. Installing their BS installers, having "updaters" to run on the background, not shipping a DMG or PKG, asking you to disable the SIP, never bothering to update to newer APIs, not using the Mac App Store, and so on... (and it's usually some of the more expensive softwar…

Well, given that mobile is a much newer platform, and a lot more regulatory scrutiny than desktop, perhaps the itchy regulators at the EU and the current FTC might be predisposed to go after those companies, especially since most of them are already in their crosshairs for other misdeeds. I don't think regulators are going to be asleep at the wheel and just let Meta force users to use a Facebook store stuffed with tr…

Facebook’s shady coding in the past was all using sanctioned APIs, including the VPN it was using to spy on teens. With a private store also goes the static analysis of private API usage, which can enable software some looser restrictions (but not much, as some fear—most stuff is protected for at the kernel level).

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

#349

Post by addicted » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:58 PM UTC

quickco wrote: post #248

grishka wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you sell a general-purpose computing device and market it as one, you should relinquish any control of it once it's sold. The freedoms we have, and the freedom that should be protected is market choice to buy or not buy any consumer product. If you don’t like Apple, don’t buy its products and purchase a device from a large number of competitors. It is really that simple. There is no rule that consumers have a ri…

> You are not guaranteed a right to install a Windows app on your iPhone, or iPhone apps on Windows.

This is a complete red herring and a very sly one at that.

Sure, MS have no obligation to make it so that Safari can run on Windows.

However, Microsoft also cannot stop Apple from building a version of Safari that runs on Windows. Or iTunes on Windows. And when Apple built iTunes on Windows MS had no right to force them to fork over 30% of every song they sold within iTunes to MS. MS had no right to force Mozilla to build Firefox around the IE6 engine, or Chrome around IE6.

It’s very likely Apple, Google, or Mozilla would not have existed if governments (specifically the EU) hadn’t stopped Microsoft from pushing it’s options as the default, never mind blocking alternatives altogether.

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

#350

Post by jwells89 » Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 11:58 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #275

HWR_14 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google search, Youtube and many other properties will only work with Chromium as soon as it doesn't mean saying goodbye to iOS users.

The mindset here is so alien to me. Do people think that the EU is willing to take action against Apple, and yet somehow unwilling to take action against Google?

I do think it’s unlikely, or at least unlikely to happen before the damage is done and we’re stuck with a permanent browser engine monoculture.

If they were rolling out policy to quash anticompetitive behavior in the browser space along with requiring Apple to open iOS up I’d be much more comfortable. The two should go hand in hand. I don’t want Google to have any opportunity to entrench Chrome/Blink on iOS.