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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

#301

Post by lacker »

organsnyder wrote: post #70

I was at [IAPP Global Privacy Summit]( https://iapp.org/conference/global-privacy-summit/ ) 2022, where Tim Cook gave a keynote. He started with highlighting all of the ways Apple protects its users privacy (many of which are great, and the reason I use Apple products!), but then he pivoted to make the case that Apple being forced to allow rival app stores would compromise their ability to protect users' privacy. Thi…

The app store rules and review process are essentially the only thing that prevents Facebook from tracking you across all applications that use the Facebook SDK. It probably isn't possible to prevent tracking in a purely technical way. Even if two applications can't share data directly, they can each share fingerprinting information with a server, that allows Facebook to track you.

This sort of tracking can work even if you don't have a Facebook account, because so many different applications will include the Facebook SDK for ad tracking purposes.

Nothing specific to Facebook here, of course, it works the same way for any company with a large ad network.

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

#302

Post by HDThoreaun »

tinus_hn wrote: post #200
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…

If only there were phones that did exactly what you wanted

Which phone has iMessage and a non apple app store?

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

#303

Post by Apocryphon »

coldtea wrote: post #284
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, let’s ignore the macOS elephant in the room, and jump to Windows and Linux to straw-man an argument. There are “no restrictions”, one can “install anything” and “run any app” on that, and still it is … “reliable”? But actually both Windows and Linux are “reliable” too. Windows is much, much stable in terms of backwards compatibility than macOS and certainly iOS. Linux is so reliable that it runs about 99.9% of t…

> let’s ignore the macOS elephant in the room The worst experiences on macOS come from companies with enough clout to piss on the standard mechanisms. Installing their BS installers, having "updaters" to run on the background, not shipping a DMG or PKG, asking you to disable the SIP, never bothering to update to newer APIs, not using the Mac App Store, and so on... (and it's usually some of the more expensive softwar…

Well, given that mobile is a much newer platform, and a lot more regulatory scrutiny than desktop, perhaps the itchy regulators at the EU and the current FTC might be predisposed to go after those companies, especially since most of them are already in their crosshairs for other misdeeds. I don't think regulators are going to be asleep at the wheel and just let Meta force users to use a Facebook store stuffed with trackers.

Not to mention, what if Apple still exerted influence over alternative app stores by providing the SDK and certified security/privacy standards for them to build them?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37667144

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

#304

Post by crop_rotation »

kibwen wrote: post #299
crop_rotation wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a pro consumer stance, it is pro power consumer stance, and anti the layperson consumer stance (who arguably deserve more support).

Incorrect. The layperson will, as they always have, continue using the default app store while remaining blissfully unaware of any alternatives.

Exactly, just like how they avoided all those windows malwares by not clicking on untrusted links and not installing random applications.

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

#305

Post by faeriechangling »

theshrike79 wrote: post #120
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like Apple's policies, just don't sideload and install everything from their official AppStore. Nothing will change for you then. You can do it on MacBooks as well.

When this goes through, you can be 100% sure there will be a Meta-only iOS store along with a Google iOS store and all their apps will move there. After that if you want to use apps to access any Google or Meta service, you'll need to get it from their store - that doesn't have any pesky limitations on user profiling or stupid guidelines for privacy.

With the Play Store, the only times I ever see people not use the play store is when:

- They're using an Amazon device

- They're installing fortnite

I'm not so convinced that opening up the app store to competition would result in a deluge of developers forcing people to install their own store apps and sideload everything. The only reason I could imagine that happening is Apple continuing to charge extremely high rents for the privilege of using the app store, in which case the competition isn't a bad thing?

I believe the much more real threat is non-technical users getting duped into installing malware through some shady third party store or sideloading scheme, but how often does this even happen on Android? I don't hear much about such schemes.

I am just generally unconvinced the App Store needs to be protected from competition to be used >90% of the time on iOS.

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

#306

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

evilduck wrote: post #137
kwanbix wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Apple hold a monopoly on the iPhone/iPad ecosystem? Why am I not allowed to install Firefox or Chrome (real Firefox or Chrome)?

Yes. But this is trivializing the definition of monopoly I just warned against. What can't be construed with this logic? Verizon holds a monopoly on the devices they allow on the Verizon network. Wal-Mart holds a monopoly on the products they allow on their retail floor space. Xbox holds a monopoly on their game compatibility. McDonalds holds a monopoly on selling burgers inside McDonalds. You can define these trivia…

Phones are the way of interacting with much of the world, unlike xbox or McDonalds. People consume their news using them, pay their bills, make photos of their kids, communicate with their family. It's a completely different realm.

There are two oligopolies on the market - Google (via google play) and Apple (via apple store), both are affected by the law.

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

#307

Post by HDThoreaun »

redder23 wrote: post #191

Maybe not surprising but if you read the comments on the website there seems to be only Apple fanboys commenting who are butt-hurt about it. You can not make this up, consumers who root for a monopoly. This reminds me of gamers who hate the Epic Games Store with passion even though they give the actual devs of the games a bigger cut. Competition is always good for the consumers. And I get the security part when it co…

> that hardy costs 30% of a games profits.

It's more than that. It's 30% of a games revenues. Could very well end up being more than the entire profit of an app/game. Insane to me that if the devs costs are more than 40% of revenue apple makes more off the app than the dev does.

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

#308

Post by hedora »

RIMR wrote: post #241
hedora wrote: post #36

I don't think there is any news here. He's saying that Apple should abide by the Digital Markets Act, which goes into effect in November. A summary of the changes the DMA will require would be nice.

[flagged]

None of the first two screens of hits explain what changes the DMA will force Apple to make. Did you find a document that does?

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

#309

Post by natch »

kibwen wrote: post #261
madeofpalk wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate web browsers are allowed on iOS. The rendering engine is a boring, unimportant implementation detail that users do not care for. The success of Chrome for iOS is proof that rendering engine doesn't matter for diversity.

> 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?

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

#310

Post by faeriechangling »

ghusto wrote: post #146
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…

I'm more or less with you, except for ... > We'd 100% still be using Flash Oh no? I remember that whole thing, and being thoroughly confused. I was able to watch videos on websites on my Android phone that iPhone users couldn't, and it had no noticeable effect on my battery life. I'm not saying we should all go to defend Flash, but I strongly suspect Apple killing Flash had a lot more to do with the fact that using F…

It maybe also had to do with Flash being one of the most insecure pieces of software ever devised?

It also had to do with Macromedia, at the time the iPhone was released, not giving every platform equal support? So Apple might have been in the position of negotiating with Adobe to get them to support iPhone? I can hardly blame them for pushing open standards like HTML5 and their own app store instead.

I honestly would give them more shit for moves like not supporting WebP seemingly to spite Google.

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