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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

appleinsider.com

431–440 of 1001 posts

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just publish the specs for how to build/sign an iOS binary...

That information is already available, and much of the implementation (if not all) is open source. You’re free to produce your own toolchain, developer tools, IDE, etc. This generally isn’t done because it’s a significant amount of work, and you’ll always be playing catch-up to Apple’s comprehensive integrated development stack.

The fact that you need a MacOS machine even to build Xamarin or React native apps always struck me as bizarre though - I assumed there was some proprietary component that Apple wouldn't publish the details for.

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

#433

It is understandable why Apple wants to keep its current grip on iOS indefinitely. What I don't understand is why some people defend it, on this very forum! One commenter simultaneously defended gay marriages - "if you don't like gay marriages, don't get married to gays" - and defended the Apple's monopoly - "I like that there is only one Appstore and developers won't force me to sideload".

> Apple's monopoly

What monopoly?

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

#434

Good lord, this is the whinge that never ends, isn’t it? If you want an Android phone, dozens if not hundreds of companies will sell you one. You can quite literally choose the level of openness you desire. Personally I prefer the Apple ecosystem where things just tend to work well. It would be difficult to care less about running something other than Safari on an iPhone. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy Apple’s produ…

I downvoted this because you're ignoring iMessage. The fact that Apple purposefully not only gives Android users a shitty experience when communicating with iOS users, but also ensures that the presence of an Android user can break the experience for everyone else in a group chat (e.g. degraded videos now for everyone) in iMessage is a blatant attempt to abuse their monopoly power (in the US at least where iMessage d…

iMessage is pretty rare. Europe is on WhatsApp

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Side loading will open the door to a whole new category of malware/adware/crapware. Yes of course the App Store is not perfect but at least Apple has control over it and can stop things when they are degenerating. I’m not looking forward to a new Facebook VPN that will “enhance my phone,” available through side loading only, that I will of course never install but which my grandma or another unsuspecting e…

Meta is already in the regulators' sights. Data harvesting is not something the EU is blind to. Presumably there would be injunctions made against them from so easily pied pipering users into doing that. Not to mention, most users do not want to have to jump through more hoops just to have the same old FB/IG/WhatsApp experience. They'd balk.

Ah yes... so give Meta a couple of years of all gas no brakes with regards to user data while the legislators play catch up.

They have gone for Apple out of pride and short sighted electoral strategy. The answer is to deal with Facebook(Meta) and Google(Alphabet) et cetera first. Pumping money into Gecko development.

This is serving up regular people who use smart phones (which in the west are essentially mandatory) to big data on a silver platter.

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

#437
post #278

Does the DMA allow for a distinction between system applications and those that are sideloaded - or do they expect that any sideloaded app should have access to all entitlements, including those that are private today? I've read summaries of the DMA but it's not obvious.

What's considered a system application? Messages and Siri that come with the system? Well they include those too.

They basically define it as "the same entitlements that a competing Apple app gets"

> the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

So features like the iMessage app being able to send SMS may be the biggest system entitlement? I don't think a settings app may be considered a service.

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

#438
post #429
post #417

Every regulation the EU puts on Apple delights me.

It's the only thing it can do. It's not like it's going to suddenly become competent in technology and create viable competitors.

Oh yeah, I think 90% of EU tech regulations are overall hurtful to EU citizens in the long run. But Apple acts very high and mighty in the tech industry and throws a lot of stones, so its nice to see Apple hit in their glass house.

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

#439
post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted this because you're ignoring iMessage. The fact that Apple purposefully not only gives Android users a shitty experience when communicating with iOS users, but also ensures that the presence of an Android user can break the experience for everyone else in a group chat (e.g. degraded videos now for everyone) in iMessage is a blatant attempt to abuse their monopoly power (in the US at least where iMessage d…

iMessage is pretty rare. Europe is on WhatsApp

Don't most Europeans use Android whereas most Americans/Canadians/Australians/Britons use iPhone?

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

#440
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Permissions can be baked into OS. No matter how the app is installed you'll get same popups confirming them. Though it should be also applicable to Apple apps.
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