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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

#471

Post by Spivak »

Kinrany wrote: post #463
JoshuaRogers wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes down to what we expect the second order effects to be. Those who argue that forcing Apple to open up their ecosystem is a good thing appear to believe that increased user freedom will lead to more option for all and increase freedom further. Those of us who argue that being forced to open their ecosystem is a bad thing believe (speaking personally) that any user freedom added would quickly be lost an…

So less freedom is good because freedom is good but any extra freedom will be stolen anyway? This is an idiotic take.

Yes, you're poorly explaining the difference between freedom-as-in-liberty and freedom-as-in-anarchy and then calling it idiotic.

You are literally more free if there were no laws about murder but your actual real life freedom would be reduced because you of all the precautions you now have to take.

Apple right now is operating as a de facto governing body forcing developers on the platform to follow its rules that whether or not you like it do sometimes benefit the user against some of the very worst actors. Taking away their ability to have those rules does also take away the benefits users get. And lord knows actual governments, even the EU, aren't going to enforce consumer protections. Whether or not that's worth it to you is fine, both stances are valid but it does logically follow.

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

#472

Post by bmitc »

JoshuaRogers wrote: post #356
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.

I think it comes down to what we expect the second order effects to be. Those who argue that forcing Apple to open up their ecosystem is a good thing appear to believe that increased user freedom will lead to more option for all and increase freedom further. Those of us who argue that being forced to open their ecosystem is a bad thing believe (speaking personally) that any user freedom added would quickly be lost an…

> I think it comes down to what we expect the second order effects to be.

Apple is the wealthiest single organization in the history of the world, and they just make consumer electronics. This isn't some deep ecological problem. Very little good has come out of letting these big corporations go completely unchecked.

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

#474

Post by hotnfresh »

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.

I would be very surprised if someone could demonstrate that the reason Apple’s platform is more valuable to developers than Android doesn’t have quite a bit to do with things Apple has done, and continues to do.

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

#476

Post by firecall »

osti wrote: post #415

It's complete bs that Microsoft gets anti monopoly lawsuit just for having IE as default browser, but Apple can just force everyone to only be able to install software thru their own app store.

> just for having IE as default browser

That's not what it was about.

The FTC accused MS of Monopoly Abuse.

MS gave away IE in a deliberate attempt to destroy Netscape, and they succeeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

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

#477

Post by hotnfresh »

grishka wrote: post #209
cmdli wrote: post #184

I, for one, do not look forward to having to sideload Facebook, Instagram, Google, Gmail, and every single other megacorps app just because they want to track my every click. I would rather give power to Apple than all the other companies.

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.

Without human vetting of apps they’ll do it anyway. Your technical solutions will fail. See: fingerprinting on the Web.

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

#478

Post by josephg »

addicted wrote: post #349
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…

> 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 th…

Yep. Microsoft also hasn’t banned Steam from windows, forcing everyone to buy games from their own official windows App Store where they take a juicy cut of all sales.

Microsoft also doesn’t charge a ransom fee for 3rd party applications to use the hardware features of my computer, that I’ve already paid for. Apple does this with the NFC chip in iPhones - public transit companies the world over need to pay Apple money to use the nfc chip present in iPhones to pay for transit.

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

#479

Post by hotnfresh »

lmm wrote: post #368
cmdli wrote: post #184

I, for one, do not look forward to having to sideload Facebook, Instagram, Google, Gmail, and every single other megacorps app just because they want to track my every click. I would rather give power to Apple than all the other companies.

Amazon used to encourage you to sideload their app store on android. You got a free copy of Angry Birds 2 if you did, and I think at one point you may have needed to do it if you wanted to install prime video at all. It still ended up going away and they gave up. So allowing sideloading is hardly the threat you think it is.

Maybe. Incentives are different on iOS. Apps are more-restricted and the platform’s more valuable. Could play out like it did on Android, but might not.

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

#480

Post by faeriechangling »

highwayman47 wrote: post #459
myko wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AltStore apps I've installed are pretty reliable

[flagged]

Apple goes out of their way to make it time consuming and annoying enough to use that most people won't bother using it, and the alt store has substantial restrictions compared to the App Store.
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