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EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

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Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#341

Post by jacquesm »

warning26 wrote: post #154
_the_inflator wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate the creative genius of Apple. They will come up with new solutions to keep their walled garden. "Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet" I bet this is going to be a horrible user experience. "Are you really sure?", "Apple takes no responsibility not warranty" whatsoever. What sound usually easy on paper...

Definitely -- I can imagine them making it some kind of faustian bargain, where in exchange for enabling sideloading, you void your warranty, never get any software updates again, can't connect to any Apple online services whatsoever, etc.

Tech companies seem to believe that it is a neat trick to mislead regulators, in my opinion this is a serious mistake: regulators hold the power to destroy you and playing 'clever' may give you bragging rights but ultimately it can doom your company. Underestimating the power of nation states is a pretty dumb strategy for any company that relies on the cooperation of the countries they intend to do business with.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#342

Post by [deleted] »

superb-owl wrote: post #5

This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily into their revenues [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r... I hope some of these regulations spill over into the U.S. and the rest of the world.

[deleted]

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#343

Post by grishka »

warning26 wrote: post #154
_the_inflator wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate the creative genius of Apple. They will come up with new solutions to keep their walled garden. "Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet" I bet this is going to be a horrible user experience. "Are you really sure?", "Apple takes no responsibility not warranty" whatsoever. What sound usually easy on paper...

Definitely -- I can imagine them making it some kind of faustian bargain, where in exchange for enabling sideloading, you void your warranty, never get any software updates again, can't connect to any Apple online services whatsoever, etc.

> can't connect to any Apple online services whatsoever

So what's the downside?

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#344

Post by smoldesu »

caramelcustard wrote: post #252
ParksNet wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switch has 30% with a 5% rebate to consumers. Steam has a regressive 20%/25%/30% tiered commission structure. There are sweetheart deals we have no knowledge of, like Apple's deal with Amazon to get Prime Video onto their devices.

And AFAIK Apple charges 15% if you earn less than a million in your net revenue, yet noone mentions that. Which, by the way, could be considered a sweetheart deal of its own, just like Steams tiered system. As for the Switch it's still 30% and to the developer it doesn't matter whether there's 5 percent going to the customer or not.

Apple only made that change after incredible pushback from their community, and it still doesn't address the real problem: Apple could be charging 2% and they would still have a monopoly on app distribution that deserves to be broken up. Steam isn't comparable, since it charges that 30% fee and competes against other distributors. Despite that, developers continue to choose Steam over alternative platforms like Itch.io or EGS. Likewise, Apple is free to charge whatever they want for their app store, they just need to compete with other service providers to ensure they're providing a fair deal.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#345

Post by jacquesm »

rootusrootus wrote: post #264
_the_inflator wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate the creative genius of Apple. They will come up with new solutions to keep their walled garden. "Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet" I bet this is going to be a horrible user experience. "Are you really sure?", "Apple takes no responsibility not warranty" whatsoever. What sound usually easy on paper...

I agree, it could be ugly. The GDPR is supposed to be great, but what practical impact did it have on most of us? Cookie consent dialogs everywhere .

The impact is: far fewer data breaches in the EU than before, fewer of them wiped under the carpet, security no longer seen as a cost but as an important element in the IT strategy and with a seat at the table during design, operation and decommission (and in many cases: at the C level). On the whole the change has been remarkable, the last four years have seen a sea change in how corporations look at data, security and compliance.

If all you associate with the GDPR is cookie consent dialogs then maybe these discussions are not for you?

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#346

Post by mattnewton »

ttul wrote: post #314
mattnewton wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I love the idea of being able to finally install SNES emulators and the like, many malicious actors will now pray on unsuspecting iOS users to install spyware, malware, and other crap via third-party app stores. Not everyone is as sophisticated as the typical Hacker News reader; younger and more naive users will be taken in as victims of various types of fraud. Think of the naive users argument has never made…

Let me sketch a scenario for you. Your grandmother receives an email from a trustworthy-sounding man who asks her to follow these easy steps to get a free app. Granny taps "Allow third-party app stores" and then installs whatever garbage the fraudster is hoping she will install. Multiply this by tens of thousands of vulnerable users and you have the makings of a significant problem that will cost society a lot of mon…

Both my grandmothers used to run android phones and windows computers where this is possible and neither were ever successfully attacked this way. However, one grandmother did experience people trying to scam her into giving them money through other means. I think simply requiring a “I know what I am doing and want to open up the hood” button is sufficient.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#347

Post by smoldesu »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #37
sph wrote: post #6

Happy that I might be able to install something else than Safari. I want the Gecko engine on iOS. Sad that being in UK probably means we'll ignore it because "Brexit." I got a text the other day telling me that, since we've left the EU, roaming charges are back. Hurray! Without making this about politics, this is a great step forward. Still unsure how Apple & co. will make their proprietary video and messaging platfo…

> "will make their proprietary video and messaging platforms "interoperable" Because it's Europe, and also FaceTime and such aren't anywhere near as popular over there, it is possible that Apple will just pull them from the market there. You can't be forced to provide interoperability with a service you aren't operating. Whatever the result, this does mean iOS 16 is going to have many "features" that Apple didn't ann…

> it is possible that Apple will just pull them from the market there.

It's also possible that pigs will sprout wings and fly away from manure piles everywhere. Apple is the same company that backdoored iCloud for China so they could operate domestically and make money from the CCP, though. The idea that they'd stop serving the entirety of Europe because of some evil legislation is a complete joke.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#348

Post by alimov »

summerlight wrote: post #340

This wouldn't happen if Apple decided to cut their Apple tax to 15% or something. They already knew that this 30% is not sustainable. 15% would be still considerably higher than usual payment processors' but something justifiable given their massive investment into the platform. But instead of taking this path, Apple decided to exploit this 30% tax for competition against other service providers. This is obviously un…

> but they built their entire business structure based on a brittle assumption that they could retain full control on their ecosystem regardless of political landscape. Now they're going to pay the price of making a wrong bet.

Do you really believe that you see or understand something that decision makers at Apple hadn’t considered?

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#349

Post by eklavya »

eklavya wrote: post #197
oellegaard wrote: post #191

It's fun how Android users are so excited on behalf of Apple users in terms of letting Apple users install custom apps from outside the App Store. Being an Apple user for more than 15 years, I couldn't be more happy with the fact that Apple has vetted the applications you find in App Store. Also, naturally, App Developers are excited. Well, perhaps you should think about the users - we don't care about you having to…

Exclusively Apple user here, couldn’t be more happier for the announcement. Keeps my favoured platform alive and innovative. Btw, you can keep using App Store so I don’t understand the issue here.

Replying to myself since it looks like the replies are making mostly the same point.

> what if fb wants an exclusive, no privacy App Store for itself? What about it? Let them do that. Let the consumers decide? I chose Apple only and only for better privacy controls in the OS, not in the App Store.

> dominance of chrome Chrome won because Firefox and IE were worse. A lot of improvements in Firefox are thanks to competition. Safari is still number one browser on MACOS. I agree with the point that google might make things incompatible for non chrome users. Then they will be hit via these same regulations.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#350

Post by smoldesu »

dijit wrote: post #310
j-pb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that we didn't get our apps. I'm still waiting to be able to use my iPad to write code. To be able to use the iPad as a platform for tools that contain their own WASM ecosystem of user purchase-able plugins. To use a browser on iPhone and iPad that is actually secure. iPhone and iPad are little addiction machines, with little value for productive work that goes beyond email and powerpoint. These legislations g…

To be perfectly fair here, you're responding as if "productivity" means "Code" and that's not exactly true. For the overwhelming majority of people: coding is not productivity. What is? Checking email, jotting down notes, recording meetings and transcribing/dictating them, joining meetings and having reliable video/audio. Being able to respond to an email with a little drawing is _absolutely_ a killer feature for pro…

> I wont comment much on the statement you can't actually code on an iPad, technically you can

That's not coding on an iPad, since the code is not being interpreted/compiled on-device. You're right that an iPad can remote into a build server for "development", but so can a $6 Raspberry Pi.

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