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Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#561

Post by tsimionescu »

giantrobot wrote: post #382
ajross wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberately removing useful features from your own product so that you don't have to let other people implement the same features may be technically conforming to the letter of the law, but is clearly violating it in spirit. The spirit of the law is platform interoperability: your control over the platform shouldn't restrict what other people can make it do (be it "run an app store" or "run a web app").

No one is obliged to obey anything but the letter of the law. If you want someone to obey the spirit of a law you need to put that in the letter.

That is completely wrong. Judges very much care about the spirit of the law, and frequently discuss it in their decisions, both in common law jurisdictions and in other systems.

The justice system is not a computer following logical instructions.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#562

Post by niutech »

brikym wrote: post #267
accoil wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you like about it? Size?

There aren't many small phones that aren't cheap and nasty. iPhone minis are small and premium which is rare. The android manufacturers really need to try harder. 6" is basically a tablet. It's really unnecessary for phones to be as big as they are today. UI designs have gotten more sparse and wasteful of screen real estate.

Being affordable is an advantage, unless you want to put on the ritz with a premium locked iPhone. For example Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is a nice affordable smartphone.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#563

Post by the_gipsy »

mulmen wrote: post #522
the_gipsy wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple want sell shiny device. Law say "don't trick customer". If apple trick customer, apple not allowed to sell no more.

Trick the customer how? By winning a sale in a competitive marketplace? The whole value proposition of Apple products is that they Just Work. PWAs reduce Apple’s ability to do exactly the things that make their devices appealing to consumers.

It was an explanation of general consumer protection laws in response to a bizarre interpretation of that type of law.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#564

Post by mordae »

xvector wrote: post #392
jsnell wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is not forcing Apple to do any work. Apple is choosing to do the work mostly to make competing browsers as limited and non-compelling as possible, while still hoping to stay within the letter of the law. They could in reality comply pretty much by removing their arbitrary restrictions. > It's a rational choice. Apple isn’t a charity, so why would they spend resources on extra work that they didn’t want to do i…

Telling a company they must implement an API is absolutely telling them to do work. And you're well within the right to refuse entirely.

Well we tell railroad operators how to do their job every day so that multiple companies running the actual trains can coexist and compete. Or even better, we own them publicly. I don't really see a problem in that, do you?

Since smartphones are new railroads, they should be treated as a platform on that the actual innovation happens. They should be robust (so that users can rely on them), neutral (concentrate on their own layer in the stack), adhere to standards (for cross border cooperation) and provide as little friction to competition on top of them as possible.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#565

Post by fundatus »

aetherspawn wrote: post #506
k8svet wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have had to build probably 100-million LOCs just so EU have the right to pick their own browser haha are you serious?

There are literally 1000s of new APIs and I can only imagine what the web services, OS/kernel side and test infrastructure looks like, so I am thinking it’s in the 10-100mLOC ballpark.

Ahem, you do realize that Safari on iOS exists right? Only thing Apple is doing here is exposing the same APIs they used to implement Safari to non-Apple devs. Probably with some adjustments, but certainly not millions of lines of code.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#566

Post by fsflover »

thimp wrote: post #140
summerlight wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we trust Apple for security in that context? Apple also provides all those functionalities via their proprietary API, which is not even audit-able. If Apple really believes in that argument, they should disable their own API as well.

We don't entirely trust Apple. We just trust them more than other vendors.

This is a false dichotomy. Completely trusting any single entity who doesn't really care about you (and only cares about extracting money from you) is riskier than trusting FLOSS, which is being constantly verified by independent actors.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#567

Post by tsimionescu »

SllX wrote: post #201
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little difference on iOS between a PWA and a website which has a WebKit view and hosts a website. The only reason PWAs were interesting on iOS was to get an app on iOS, while feeling relatively native, without paying Apple.

Apple can make security guarantees about their own rendering engine that they can’t for any other rendering engine. It’s not about what PWAs are like in Safari, it’s about what they’re like in third-party browsers that have to by law be allowed to do whatever Safari can do with their own fully enabled rendering engines.

And yet Safari is often less secure than Chrome or Firefox. So this is all about control, not security.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#568

Post by lukan »

zer00eyz wrote: post #22
LeoPanthera wrote: post #7

Since the article doesn't actually repeat what Apple has said, here's what Apple says: == Begin quote == The iOS system has traditionally provided support for Home Screen web apps by building directly on WebKit and its security architecture. That integration means Home Screen web apps are managed to align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS, including isolation of storage and enforcement of sys…

Without this type of isolation and enforcement, malicious... camera, microphone or location ... Browsers ... 30 some million lines of code in chromium browsers. Thats bigger than the linux kernel. The HN crowed might not LIKE apples response but they have a very defensible position. Edit: Its not like we haven't seen this play out on the desktop recently: https://www.theverge.com/24054329/microsoft-edge-automatic-c..…

If chrome is really the problem, then chrome is already the problem and nothing about PWAs can change that.

And if PWAs from chrome are the problem, then it would also be possible to not allow chrome PWA's but still allow webkit PWA's.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#569

Post by lukan »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #7

Since the article doesn't actually repeat what Apple has said, here's what Apple says: == Begin quote == The iOS system has traditionally provided support for Home Screen web apps by building directly on WebKit and its security architecture. That integration means Home Screen web apps are managed to align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS, including isolation of storage and enforcement of sys…

"EU users will be able to continue accessing websites directly from their Home Screen through a bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality. "

Does this "minimal impact to their functionality" mean, the app will loose its local data after 7 days of not using the app, like it is for normal websites? That is a pretty heavy impact.

Re: Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

#570

Post by leifross »

xvector wrote: post #387
leifross wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, this tantrum by no means works to lessen the growing idea that control of the platform should be put into the hands of a independent third party. While not European in origin, the platform holds and manages tremendous value for us, to the extent where small changes can cause mayor economic disruption, and Apple has not been managing it fairly. And for a state actor, which exists to serve the common g…

The EU is economically meaningless on the grand scale. They are only 7% of Apple's revenue, and similarly low for other companies. And every day they become a less profitable market to operate in. The EU holds power only as long as the rest of the world is willing to deal with its BS. Trying to "break up Apple" is simply not within the EU's power as Apple is worth more than the EU's whole tech industry combined. Appl…

Last time I checked, Apples holdings are all based in Ireland. So from a legal standpoint, it's a Irish company, held accountable by EU law. It can't "simply leave".
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