Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons

Re: Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons – Tim Sweeney

#191

Post by lenkite » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 11:56 AM UTC

dubcanada wrote: post #20

Gareth321 wrote: post #2

He's right. Apple has been strangling web app progress on iOS for many years. They wanted to ensure that web apps could never compete with native apps on the App Store, because they can extract their 30% fee. Now that Apple are forced to permit third party browser engines, web apps would suddenly be a lot more powerful. Apple just won't have that, so they're disabling a useful feature for everyone. I think this will…

As much as I would love to agree, the general population really does not care about features like "home screen web apps". Nobody outside of HN even knows what they are. Everyone just goes on the app store and downloads random website app. Even if it is just a browser app that renders a website. Apple would have to eliminate something that people actually care about for any boycott Apple to happen.

The same argument could have been used against the anti-competitive practices of Microsoft in 2001 for illegally monopolizing the web browser. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

Your analogous dismissal: The general user doesn't really care about features like the web browser. Everyone just goes to a website and browses. Microsoft would have to eliminate something that people actually care about.

Re: Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons – Tim Sweeney

#192

Post by dickersnoodle » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 1:35 PM UTC

mmcnl wrote: post #173

dubcanada wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I would love to agree, the general population really does not care about features like "home screen web apps". Nobody outside of HN even knows what they are. Everyone just goes on the app store and downloads random website app. Even if it is just a browser app that renders a website. Apple would have to eliminate something that people actually care about for any boycott Apple to happen.

True, but it's not end users who should be caring about this at all, it's the developers. Developers can leverage the freedom of the web with PWAs: no gatekeepers, no 30% tax, no approvals. So it threatens the App Store model of Apple, even though PWAs are not nearly capable enough to do that today. But with this move, they sure won't be capable enough in the future either.

Sorry, this stupid trope is everywhere on HN. Unless there are solid OS-level ways to block nefarious PWAs this would turn the iPhone into the same toxic dumpster fire that IE was back in the day w.r.t. security. How many "browser tab bars" did people get fooled into clicking on and installing? I remember, and I remember moving my family off of Windows entirely and onto Mac and Linux for this exact reason. Or do you expect companies to forego all that sweet, sweet customer tracking revenue just because they promise they will?

Re: Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons – Tim Sweeney

#193

Post by Gareth321 » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 7:06 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #91

Gareth321 wrote: post #2

He's right. Apple has been strangling web app progress on iOS for many years. They wanted to ensure that web apps could never compete with native apps on the App Store, because they can extract their 30% fee. Now that Apple are forced to permit third party browser engines, web apps would suddenly be a lot more powerful. Apple just won't have that, so they're disabling a useful feature for everyone. I think this will…

> The DMA requires free interoperability, and Apple has imposed a very anti-competitive fee. From comments I read, quite a few people want it to require free interoperability, but I don’t see how it does. I even think it sort-of explicitly allows gatekeepers to keep charging for access. The pre-amble, point 62 starts with “For software application stores, online search engines and online social networking services li…

> If you think article 6.7 says that, I disagree. IMO, it only talks about access to SDKs, specs of device ports, ability to make the same system calls as the applications of the gatekeeper can make, etc.

It doesn't mention "SDK" or "system call" anywhere in the text. A6.7 uses plain language, not technical, to require "effective interoperability." It doesn't place limitation on that, as you just implied there are. I've no doubt Apple will attempt to argue that "effective interoperability" is in fact "limited interoperability," but they will fail. The text is crystal clear on intent:

> A1.1: The purpose of this Regulation is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by laying down harmonised rules ensuring for all businesses, contestable and fair markets in the digital sector across the Union where gatekeepers are present, to the benefit of business users and end users.

Charging for "effective interoperability" is clearly contrary to both the letter and spirit of this Act. It's important to remember too that the EU operates under the principle of the spirit of the law, as opposed to the U.S. which operates under the letter of the law. Judges have a very short fuse when it comes to semantic games over here.

I am heartened to read that Vestager has repeatedly urged gatekeepers to test their business plans with developers prior to the March 7 deadline, suggesting she is using the feedback of competitors to form the basis for both determining suitable compliance, and further legislative changes, for which the DMA provides swift provision.

Re: Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons – Tim Sweeney

#194

Post by camillomiller » Fri, Mar 01, 2024, 3:42 AM UTC

cybrox wrote: post #51

dubcanada wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I would love to agree, the general population really does not care about features like "home screen web apps". Nobody outside of HN even knows what they are. Everyone just goes on the app store and downloads random website app. Even if it is just a browser app that renders a website. Apple would have to eliminate something that people actually care about for any boycott Apple to happen.

People don't care because Apple has made sure they don't care. They have crippled web app adoption for years to push the app store and now argue that "well, only a few people use that anyways". How many apps in the app store are just webviews? I myself have paid apple to publish webview wrappers around pages because they strictly raise users to expect these, instead of the web apps they have no control over (and cann…

No people don't care because the world is wide and vast and people (99% of them) do not think like the average hacker news user. Maybe it would be helpful to think of people as persons with their own history that isn't automatically devalued to "part of a flock of gullible sheep" unless they care about your own values?