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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

#741

Post by janandonly »

sensanaty wrote: post #677

I tend to drop the bot/shill-detector part of my brain when I'm on HN, but whenever this topic crops up it's always a deluge of people with the same exact arguments saying "ohh my poor grandma will be coerced to install a Virus if we allow the owner of an iDevice any freedom whatsoever with hardware they bought!!!", and it's quite interesting to me the volume of comments with the exact same identical sentiment copy/p…

The App Store is not perfect, but what was the last time you actually installed a virus on iOS or iPadOS? It's working Good Enough™

I wish/hope that as the default family IT guy, I will be able to set policies on my parents devices that block 3rd party apps.

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

#742

Post by a-user-you-like »

wkat4242 wrote: post #498
kajumix wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a big difference in viewpoint between the US and EU. The US has an undying belief in free market forces. Yet its government is beholden to those same big money forces through campaign contributions. Leading to a peculiar corporate oligarchy (really how democratic is it if you need millions in donations with strings attached to have a chance to win?). We in the EU want to avoid this and keep government serving…

I’d lol if they pulled out.

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

#743

Post by a-user-you-like »

jacquesm wrote: post #242
dnissley wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Microsoft preventing people from installing firefox on their PCs? Am I misremembering this era?

> Was Microsoft preventing people from installing firefox on their PCs? It wasn't FireFox, but Netscape definitely was actively worked against. > Am I misremembering this era? Apparently. But here is a link to refresh your memory. https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/the-netscape-microsoft-browser-... To save you a click: "The Shell Execute Bug However, Microsoft’s most significant tactic was the infamous “shell execute bug.…

If Microsoft advertised and open system and then lied, that’s immoral. But they had no obligation to even allow other software to be installed.

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

#744

Post by 63stack »

natch wrote: post #309
kibwen wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rendering engine is a boring, unimportant implementation detail that users do not care for. Then I'm sure users won't mind when I'm allowed to install my own rendering engine on my own computer, that I own, because I bought it, and, therefore, own it.

Apple is trying to prevent familial and household abuse where people install invasive software on devices of household members to spy on them or otherwise take away their privacy and freedoms. What solution would you suggest? Just look the other way?

Disregarding the fictional/"but think of the children" nature of this for a second, apple airtags can also be used for nefarious reasons/invasion of privacy, would you advocate banning them from the market, or are you going to look the other way?

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

#745

Post by sensanaty »

janandonly wrote: post #741
sensanaty wrote: post #677

I tend to drop the bot/shill-detector part of my brain when I'm on HN, but whenever this topic crops up it's always a deluge of people with the same exact arguments saying "ohh my poor grandma will be coerced to install a Virus if we allow the owner of an iDevice any freedom whatsoever with hardware they bought!!!", and it's quite interesting to me the volume of comments with the exact same identical sentiment copy/p…

The App Store is not perfect, but what was the last time you actually installed a virus on iOS or iPadOS? It's working Good Enough™ I wish/hope that as the default family IT guy, I will be able to set policies on my parents devices that block 3rd party apps.

I've literally never had an infected Android device, and neither has any member of my family despite the existence of sideloading.

Also, when's the last time anyone's installed a virus on Macs? They're infinitely more open than their mobile counterparts, yet there's barely any issues there.

I'm willing to bet the large majority of people don't even know what sideloading is in the first place, and even if you somehow accidentally happen upon an APK you need to go through some scary warning screens before it even lets you do it. I genuinely don't see this ever being an issue, it just sounds like shilling for Apple to keep their dominance and closed APIs

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

#746

Post by a-user-you-like »

anhner wrote: post #693

I remember years ago, when the EU first announced they would force Apple to switch to USB-C (well, not specifically Apple, but mandate a single cable type), there were droves of users on HN wailing that "what business does EU have to dictate which cable companies should use?" Yet here we are, everyone praising iPhone 15 for having a USB-C connector. I am looking forward to a couple of years down the line when we can…

[flagged]

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

#747

Post by a-user-you-like »

Moldoteck wrote: post #704
gigatexal wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If governments force Apple's hand so be it what can Apple do then, but if I could help it, I'd not want it to be opened up for 3rd parties.

why? id doesn't affect your freedom to use only appstore

The coercion is the problem. You are free to buy any phone you want, but want to coerce other men into doing what you want. It’s immoral.

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

#748

Post by fragmede »

theshrike79 wrote: post #563
fragmede wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App Store is the biggest offender, personally. At the top of every query is an ad.

We have a very different definition of "Ad" then. I just opened my App Store and only saw one ad - and that was for a game I already have installed. Do you consider the new content suggestions on ATV+, Netflix, Prime video etc. as "Ads" too?

If you search for something in the app store, the first result literally says "Ad" by the first result, so it seems Apple shares my definition. I don't know what your definition you're using, but it must be in the minority.

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

#749

Post by ben_w »

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…

> There is a security argument for the app store, which I would accept were it not for Apple adding 43% to the purchase price of most paid applications, which is much worse for the end user than the average piece of malware.

IIRC most of the revenue is games, and most of game revenue is microtransactions. In this context, 43% (or whatever the lower number is that they announced a while back to reduce the heat) is just sending the same money to a greater evil.

As for "worse"… we already have cryptocurrency miners (leading to app store rules saying no to this because of the battery drain), and encryption-ransomware locking away all your data; financial fraud is only protected to the extent that it can be unwound, which means fraudsters in that domain look for things that can't be reversed.

If we do end up with a laissez-faire free-for-all — which is a possible scenario, but not a necessary one, it depends on the details of how alt-stores are done in practice — then you have to worry not just about your own device being malwared but also those of anyone nearby, because a hot mic in someone else's pocket can clone your voice, and there's already more than one demonstration of how wifi can be repurposed to function as a wall-penetrating radar.

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

#750

Post by a-user-you-like »

malermeister wrote: post #721
a-user-you-like wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish for extra features is not the same thing as crush the free market with the arm of government.

Crushing the free market by... opening a monopoly up to market competition?

If Apple was so good that men voluntarily gave them 90% market share you’d call them a monopoly, though it was freely given. Now if they acted immorally, they ought to be reprimanded, but you demanding freedom by coercion is immoral.
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