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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

#421

Post by synu »

efields wrote: post #236
synu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a regular user I’m looking forward to all the same!

As a regular user, I have no intention of side loading anything! Don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything! Enlighten me.

I travel back and forth between App Store regions frequently, and some things are only available in one place or the other. I’d also like the ability to actually use a different browser, not just reskinned Safari. There would probably also be some interesting open source stuff you could install.

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

#422

Post by synu »

cmdli wrote: post #386
synu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a regular user I’m looking forward to all the same!

As a regular user, I am dreading the day when I am forced to sideload an app with no privacy regulations in order to use key services.

Who would be forcing you to do that in theory?

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

#423

Post by judge2020 »

blfr wrote: post #222
hyperpape wrote: post #175

There's several very good provisions in this legislation (3rd party payment processors, non-preferential treatment for 1st party apps), there are several that have a mix of upsides and downsides (sideloading is one--I personally like knowing that Facebook can't ask people to sideload some privacy destroying crap on iOS). Then there's: - Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those…

> I think it's credible that the interoperability requirements are going to be used to smash end-to-end encrypted messaging Why and how? I already use Signal to handle the plain old, almost completely unencrypted text messages. It has no impact on security of Signal-to-Signal communication.

My take on this is that they want iOS to integrate RCS directly into Messages, given tons of other features are already widely supported by the os [0][1][2]. Google Messages (runs on top of RCS) currently only provides encryption when both sides are using Google Messages, so unless Apple and Google create a unified standard it won't be E2EE.

0: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/callkit

1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotificationsu...

2: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

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

#425

Post by stale2002 »

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…

> With the locked-down Apple app store

If people actually cared about this argument, then they would jump to the immediate and obvious solution to it.

Simply allow users to choose an option, that allows the phone to be locked down. If you want to go hardcore, make it require a factory reset to change, if you actually care that much.

This way everyone wins. People who want some locked down, gimped phone, can choose to do that. And everyone else can choose to not turn on "child mode".

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

#426

Post by judge2020 »

ParksNet wrote: post #111
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.

Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 30% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 10% or 15% for all, there never would have been the industry pressure for this sort of regulation. The EU would have been better to just mandate a maximum % commission for all digital marketplaces above a certain level of revenue. This new solution will get poked full of…

> If Apple moved voluntarily to 10% or 15% for all, there never would have been the industry pressure for this sort of regulation.

They did[0], but the actual companies lobbying for this are the ones that don't benefit because they're making $x millions less due to iOS.

0: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...

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

#427

Post by tombert »

corrral wrote: post #258
efields wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a regular user, I have no intention of side loading anything! Don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything! Enlighten me.

It's great for pirating mobile video games. My Android-using friends' only use of this feature is to turn their phone into a Gameboy Advance. Which is pretty great, to be fair, but nowhere near enough to tempt me back to putting up with Android the entire rest of the time I'm using my phone.

It doesn't have to be piracy. I have plenty of Sega Genesis/Mega Drive ROMs that I purchased from Steam years ago, and it would be nice to be able to play them on my phone on the go.

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

#428

Post by IshKebab »

pavlov wrote: post #79
988747 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it would make more financial sense for Apple to withdraw from EU market, rather than complying. The numbers for 2021 are pretty much in line: $89B - Apple sales in Europe (including some non-EU countries, most notably UK) $85B - Apple AppStore revenue worldwide. The question is: which one has more potential for growth.

Remember that App Store revenue is also generated in the EU. Let's assume that 15% of App Store revenue is from the EU. That would leave an additional $12.7 billion hole in Apple's pocket. Worse, it would mean Apple's third-party developers lose about $30 billion in revenue. (Apple takes a 30% cut, so the total App Store sales volume is about $283B). Those developers would also lose all access to their existing users…

And more importantly it would further erode their market share. It would be an absolutely insane move.

Much more likely they'll go the route of malicious compliance. You can side load apps but you can't add them to your home screen. You can set a third party voice assistant but it can't launch apps. Etc.

Will be very interesting to see how this plays out!

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

#429

Post by judge2020 »

seydor wrote: post #270
pchristensen wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many (most?) users, Apple's restrictions, especially sideloading, protect users from bad actor app owners (looking at you, Facebook). To me, allowing sideloading is like allowing chemical weapons to be used in war. Yes, it's a new tool and capability at your disposal, but it's also available to every powerful and unscrupulous participant.

> allowing sideloading is like allowing chemical weapons to be used in war. yes, it is exactly like that. Millions of people who download .exe to their compuyters every day are doing chemical warfare

If you got a job at Best Buy's Geek Squad for a week, you'd quickly realize just how irresponsible most people are with what they install on their devices.

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

#430

Post by jachee »

blfr wrote: post #222
hyperpape wrote: post #175

There's several very good provisions in this legislation (3rd party payment processors, non-preferential treatment for 1st party apps), there are several that have a mix of upsides and downsides (sideloading is one--I personally like knowing that Facebook can't ask people to sideload some privacy destroying crap on iOS). Then there's: - Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those…

> I think it's credible that the interoperability requirements are going to be used to smash end-to-end encrypted messaging Why and how? I already use Signal to handle the plain old, almost completely unencrypted text messages. It has no impact on security of Signal-to-Signal communication.

If Signal is forced to interoperate with e.g. WhatsApp, the end-to-end encryption of one or both will have to be compromised. If the integration is forced, then there’s no barrier for either app grabbing all the info from the other in plain-text.
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