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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

#401

Post by rafram »

rchaud wrote: post #330
Symbiote wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing a PWA on Firefox for Android adds the icon to the homescreen with a tiny Firefox icon at the bottom. The look and feel is Android, there's no obvious bits that would look either Firefox or Chrome. https://web.dev/learn/pwa/tools-and-debug#using_physical_dev... at "Firefox Remote Debugging" says there's a way to debug Firefox for Android PWAs. So I'm fairly sure the PWA is running using Firefox for Android.…

The look and feel of the app itself is a CSS issue. There are web app frameworks that specifically offer themes matching style guides provided by Apple and Google. Framework7 is an example: the demo app on the home page is styled using iOS UI elements, and there is an option for more Android style designs as well. https://framework7.io/

I wouldn’t say that demo is very convincing…

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

#402

Post by Qwertious »

munk-a wrote: post #220
dingle_thunk wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of course elected officials without any expertise, representing a very small minority of humanity, are the best arbiters of reality.

Non experts have to rule on expert subjects all the time - sometimes this goes hilariously wrong (like the internet being a series of tubes) but usually what happens is that the non-expert relies on the testimony of experts to make their judgement. Politicians aren't expected to be experts due to the immense breadth of subjects they need to consider - they're expected to consult experts. Whether an individual politic…

>sometimes this goes hilariously wrong (like the internet being a series of tubes)

That didn't go hilariously wrong, though - the internet is a series of tubes. Not physically (copper cables aren't tubes) but he obviously wasn't talking about specific stuff but broad-strokes analogy (his exact line was "It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."), and his description was basically accurate.

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

#403

Post by ben-schaaf »

riscy wrote: post #231
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").

When did it become illegal to take features away from a products or create derivative products with different features? The “spirit of the law” most certainly is not what you’re imagining. If they wanted, they could remove the App Store from iOS in EU, or pull the iPhone from the EU market entirely. Apple isn’t required by the DMA to part of a digital market at all.

> When did it become illegal to take features away from a products

A long time ago? You can't sell a product under the pretense that it does X and then remove X after the fact, at least not in any country with decent consumer protections.

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

#404

Post by spacedcowboy »

louthy wrote: post #248
Elidrake42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I purchase iOS devices - ultimately their closed garden provides a smaller attack surface, clearly evidenced by the comparative (to Android) cost of exploits on the black market. I cannot see this as anticompetitive. If you want open, you have that choice in Android.

> I cannot see this as anticompetitive. If you want open, you have that choice in Android If Apple doesn’t support PWAs then PWAs stop being a viable method of app deployment - killing the platform outright. That’s anticompetitive.

Only if you give a damn about PWA's. Evidenced by the fact I have none on my phone, and don't feel the need for any either, I'm fine with them being out.

"Hey PWA, don't let the door hit you on the backside, on your way out".

The browser is just about the most vulnerable attack surface on any computer. Using it as a general-purpose application host is nuts, IMHO.

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

#405

Post by sensanaty »

natch wrote: post #358
sigmar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbh, I thought the summary in techcrunch was much easier to read and concise. >Browsers also could install web apps on the system without a user’s awareness and consent. Couldn't this be entirely solved with an OS permission-like prompt "are you sure you want [progressive web app name] added to home screen?"

So, as an abusive stepparent, you run the "Spy on Me" PWA on your stepdaughter's phone, and click the permission dialog, and she's none the wiser. Do you think that's great? Apple does not.

If you're an abusive step-parent with access to your daughter's phone, you can already install "Spy on Me" software in the form of regular apps, a PWA changes nothing here.

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

#406

Post by Nullabillity »

zappb wrote: post #356
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any fundamental correctness of their viewpoint is by virtue of them representing more people (EU citizens) than Apple's CEO represents (himself and, I guess, the Apple corporation, if you count that). On moral issues, the fundamentally "correct" viewpoint (if there is one) is, by definition, the one that more people say is the fundamentally "correct" viewpoint.

China represents twice as many people as the EU. This is not an enticing argument. Can you at least qualify this with democratic representation?

Which free and democratic election did Xi win?

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

#407

Post by internetter »

natch wrote: post #350
rchaud wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android handles this just fine. These are the world's largest corporations we're talking about, not some mom and pop shop that will be crushed under the heel of overzealous regulation.

Android "handles it" if you want to call shrugging it off "handling it," by making different security tradeoffs that do not emphasize security as much as Apple does.

Android zero days are worth as much as iPhone ones.

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

#408

Post by blackoil »

M4v3R wrote: post #79
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.

You have to trust someone if you're using a computing device connected to the Internet. The point of being in Apple ecosystem is that you trust Apple, and then (supposedly) you can not trust anyone else. To many that's a very strong proposition.

There are two kinds of trust, I may trust Apple to not intentionally steal data. But I may trust Signal to create a more inherently secure messenger, or I may trust Google to create technically a more secure browser.

What Apple and some users here are saying that users don't have intelligence to judge it and so will have to trust only Apple.

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

#409

Post by matheusmoreira »

bloppe wrote: post #374
matheusmoreira wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I do like the way Apple does things. To be specific, I want to buy Apple hardware and I want to run Linux on it. What I don't like is the little digital fiefdom they created. When we buy stuff, we're supposed to own them. The problem is they just refuse to give us the keys to the machines. So we absolutely should make it a matter of law.

While I agree philosophically about owning stuff, this isn't about that. If the only problem were "Apple doesn't give you the keys", then competition is a solution. The problem is network effects. An app developer cannot just choose to develop for Android, because maybe 90% of their business comes from iOS users. A user cannot just choose to use Android, because half their friends use iOS and cannot have a decent gro…

> If the only problem were "Apple doesn't give you the keys", then competition is a solution.

A solution. The solution is to make them to do what's good for us by force of law. We can't afford to wait a century for some open mobile hardware platform to become available to us. We want good products now. Apple computers are good products and we should have every right to run whatever software we want on them now.

There is no technical impediment to it, the only reason they don't let us do it is it would destroy the little digital fiefdom they have created for themselves. Digital fiefdoms should not be allowed to exist in the first place. Society should actively work to dismantle them. Giving us the keys to the machine will swiftly put an end to them.

> The problem is network effects.

Absolutely. Network effects should work to our advantage, not theirs. Basically anything that lets corporations "own" users should be straight up illegal.

> A user cannot just choose to use Android, because half their friends use iOS and cannot have a decent group chat experience outside iMessage.

We should mandate interoperability there too. Why is it that every corporation gets to have their own messaging system? They should all work with each other via the same protocol. Just make sure that end-to-end encryption is fully supported and there will be no problem.

Actually here's an even better idea. Just make it legal to reverse engineer and interoperate regardless of what contracts say. People will do it adversarially if they need to. Make it so you don't need their permission. Make it illegal for corporations to retaliate against users for using things like an alternative messaging client. Get rid of nonsense like anti-circumvention laws. Then all of this will just happen on its own via market forces with no need to actually regulate anything.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...

> In this case "giving you the keys" is really about giving app developers more freedom to choose how to reach users.

It's really not. Developers can't reach users because Apple owns them. User freedom means developers can bypass Apple and reach them directly.

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