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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

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

#941

Post by LexGray »

ragestorm wrote: post #911
theshrike79 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like taking a rabid badger as a roommate. You can in theory keep it cornered in its own room (sandbox), but there's no way to be 100% sure it'll stay there. You can be absolutely sure that it will never stop trying to get out. App Store apps can be trusted to stick to a sandbox because they are vetted to a standard before being allowed there. There's no reason for Epic-F-Droid-Store have their applications adher…

I would equate it to a rabid badger that is behind a door behind another door with both having signs saying ‘beware of rabid badger’. If you want to play with the badger, go for it or just leave the doors shut and you never have to worry about it.

Yes, but in a world where people have been trained to ignore signs if they want to have nice things. No kid and most adults would think twice before clicking I agree even if the screen was flashing red and the phone was making klaxon sounds.

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

#942

Post by paulmd »

zmmmmm wrote: post #692
jd24 wrote: post #583

Just use android if you care about things being open. Apple products are good because of the walled garden. Most people just want things to work out of the box, not to tinker with options.

"Just use X if you don't like Y" works up until the point where the choice carries significant cost to the user. For example, "choosing" not to use iPhone means you can't Facetime or iMessage with your friends. It's no longer "just choose not iPhone", it's "just choose not to communicate with friends and family". Essentially, Apple gave up the right to assert this argument when they decided to abuse their control wit…

This cuts both ways too - "if facebook deploys their spyware build and requires you to sideload it, then just don't use facebook". But then you lose contact with friends/families/etc.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...

Also Google themselves currently don't actually use RCS either, but rather a proprietary fork of RCS which prevents interop, and already refuses access to third parties who ask to interoperate. And app-store warfare does not address this at all.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/new-google-site-begs...

https://ianbetteridge.com/2022/08/19/please-wont-someone-sto...

Trading proprietary iMessage for proprietary Google messaging is a net loss.

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

#943

Post by paulmd »

dugite-code wrote: post #627
robertlagrant wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this going to try and turn iPhones into general purpose computing devices? Currently they're much more locked down than that.

> Isn't this going to try and turn iPhones into general purpose computing devices? Currently they're much more locked down than that. They already are general purpose computing devices, the restrictions on how the general purpose software (apps) interact with the hardware in no-way negates that fact same with the restrictions on how you get the general purpose software (app-store). At the end of the day an iPhone is…

the same is also true of a console, and there's no reason that app stores can't prove (eg) productivity apps like word processing on console platforms. Just plug in a keyboard, or use wireless.

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

#944

Post by callalex »

ilkke wrote: post #214
johnzim wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inexplicable need to make the browser a second OS with worse everything boggles my mind. Especially on mobile devices which prize battery life. It won't give users choice because we as an industry have again and again just chosen what's easiest for us instead of best for the customer. We'd 100% still be using Flash if Apple hadn't refused to support it because of the battery and performance issues. This forum spe…

And by "battery and performance issues" you mean "people being able to play an insane number of games in the browser and Apple not getting a cut of the ad money". Flash was running just fine on Android with much humbler specs than then-current iPhone.

Calling Flash “running just fine on Android” is extremely revisionist.

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

#945

Post by paulmd »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #104
yreg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe companies like Meta could afford to leave the Apple App Store and distribute apps through their own app store only. Perhaps you might say that would be fair, but it is a world that suits me less than the current one.

So why is that not happening for android? You don't have to come up with hypothetical scenarios if you already have a real life example to look at.

it is happening for android - there is more malware in the third-party stores, even with the extremely minimal scrutiny google apples to the official store.

anyway, here is a real-world example of the type of spyware that facebook and others will deploy once they have the leverage. again, remember that this already happened and most likely still exists and is something they have ready to deploy again if the opportunity presents.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...

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

#946

Post by callalex »

tristan957 wrote: post #925
WanderPanda wrote: post #393

Next feat after blessing us with the cookie banner and an inferior plug: making iOS so unsafe that everyone has to use physical branches for banking again

If the plug was superior, why wouldn't Apple use it on all their devices? Apple could have also opened the plug up for everybody if they really felt it was superior. Wasn't it Volkswagen that allowed all manufacturers to use the 3 point seat belt because of how safe it was? Volkswagen did something for the common good of humanity. Why couldn't Apple do the same if the plug was so insanely good as you say? > making iO…

You’re thinking of Volvo. Volkswagen is the one that poisoned and killed untold people by lying and cheating.

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

#947

Post by bsimpson »

robocat wrote: post #626
bsimpson wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the biggest problem with Chromebooks (or at least was the last time I used one). The thing becomes useless as soon as it stops getting updates, because your browser doesn't get new features and gets locked out of various parts of the internet as time matches on without you. On any other computer, you can keep the browser up to date long after the OS stops receiving patches.

"Chromebooks will get 10 years of automatic updates": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37510865

Glad to hear it.

Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. The Chromebook Pixel was an awesome home computer until it stopped getting OS updates, which also pinned it on a version of Chrome that got obsoleted from the web. (Unlike IE, nobody cares if something works in old Chrome, and some sites actively reject old versions for security reasons.)

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

#948

Post by paulmd »

quitit wrote: post #935
seydor wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont agree with it at all, but you are right, people buy apple because need to trust somebody and they trust apple to keep making the right product for them. I don't even consider them superior but certainly trustworthy. Whatever changes apple implements would have to be easily revertable so people can go back to their golden prison.

I just don't really understand how allowing side loading on the platform will "fix" anything for consumers. The thinking seems entirely shallow, there isn't even any consideration for how these 3rd party stores will handle permission bits to protect the user's data. It just seems something that would be really good for large companies like Spotify, and suck for small developers who will still need to rely on the App…

> The thinking seems entirely shallow, there isn't even any consideration for how these 3rd party stores will handle permission bits to protect the user's data.

this is a feature for the companies pushing for it - this is literally the entire point, in fact! facebook wants to be able to use sideloading to push this stuff again:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...

for the consumers pushing for it, I think there's a pretty good mixture of rationales: some of it is good-faith belief that everything should be open (although you can see from the defense around consoles that many people do not fall into this camp). some of it is just ignorance or not thinking it through. and some of it is brand-warriorism/fanboyism, the people who want to legislate a solution to the android/iphone wars, or simply are doing it because they know it's something apple users care about and that burning it down will make them upset.

the usual human mixture of reasons, basically. but for companies? yeah, they fucking know it's gonna undercut the permissioning system, that's the whole fucking point. because right now they have apple standing in the way doing app review. they can't overturn apple, they have to go around them, but apple is the gatekeeper on their platform. or, was.

companies know there's fanboyism they can exploit to their own goals, and is perfectly happy to use these, ahem, "temporary allies". Just like the google "pwease use RCS, it's so open!" page that gets passed around uncritically, completely omitting the fact that google isn't using RCS, it's using a proprietary fork of RCS and it's already blocking third-party interop from interested parties.

https://ianbetteridge.com/2022/08/19/please-wont-someone-sto...

(If that's open then macos is open because it's based on freeBSD, right?)

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

#949

Post by paulmd »

Apocryphon wrote: post #333
wvenable wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being on the default store is 1000% buff. Literally your Bank, Facebook, and Amazon aren't going to just disappear off the shelves of the biggest store. On Android, Amazon actually run their own app store and they still have all their apps on the play store.

Besides all of the trouble it takes to build and run one's own store, pulling one's apps off the official App Store would be hell for discoverability and UX. And the Amazon store really only exists for the sake of Fire tablets.

nobody needs to "discover" facebook, that's the power of network effect

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

#950

Post by Apocryphon »

paulmd wrote: post #942
zmmmmm wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just use X if you don't like Y" works up until the point where the choice carries significant cost to the user. For example, "choosing" not to use iPhone means you can't Facetime or iMessage with your friends. It's no longer "just choose not iPhone", it's "just choose not to communicate with friends and family". Essentially, Apple gave up the right to assert this argument when they decided to abuse their control wit…

This cuts both ways too - "if facebook deploys their spyware build and requires you to sideload it, then just don't use facebook". But then you lose contact with friends/families/etc. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-... Also Google themselves currently don't actually use RCS either, but rather a proprietary fork of RCS which prevents interop, and already refuses access to third parties who…

People are willing to stop using Facebook on their own accord.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/5/9/facebook-has-3-b...

There is probably a substantial number of users who are content to use Facebook occasionally on desktop, and not even need it as a mobile app. The era of check-ins is far gone.

I would concede that Instagram is a different story, but even that platform isn't growing as rapidly as it used to.

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