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Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

theregister.com

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Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#61

Post by lern_too_spel »

n8cpdx wrote: post #50
lern_too_spel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: privacy. That same system for violating privacy works on iOS. Just run a local web server, and there you go. The big difference is in what Apple won't let you do, like get your GPS location without telling Apple or install an app without telling Apple. It looks like Apple finally allowed changing the default navigation app this year, but only in Europe: https://www.androidpolice.com/make-google-maps-app-default-i…

I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS. I guess their engineers aren’t creative enough. The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up. You can disable Siri and use the action button to use any other app as an assistant.

> I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS

Presumably, they have a simpler way to tie the same ids together on iOS.

> The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up

If you ask your phone to navigate for you, you cannot use another app with better privacy. You have to use whatever Apple forces on you. The same with hotword-triggered assistants.

But yes, these are minor compared to the fact that you cannot get your GPS location at all in any app without telling Apple or the fact that you cannot install an app at all without telling Apple. These are egregious privacy violations done simply because Apple can.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#62

Post by charcircuit »

troupo wrote: post #60
charcircuit wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers are free to delete their apps from Apple's store ar any time. Yes, apps bolster their own pockets, but they also bolster the pockets of the developers themselves.

Devs might have deleted their apps from AppStore, but Apple literally doesn't allow to distribute software any other way, and even in the EU where it oretends to allow competing AppStores, it still interjects itself into the process

Apple owns ios, Apple owns the iPhone. It would make sense that those factions within Apple would still be involved even if the AppStore people are not.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#63

Post by cromka »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #44
n8cpdx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is definitely the superior choice as long as you have no expectation of privacy and never need to dial 911 in an emergency. [1] More serious problems blocking a transition to Android: instead of developing Health Connect in 2015 or before when Apple made HealthKit, Android waited until the mid-2020s, and many apps do not support it. And the implementation is busted if you use multiple devices. Meanwhile on iO…

Android is strictly superior to iOS in terms of privacy. On iOS, you can't even get your location without sending it to Apple or install an app without telling Apple which one. Unlike iOS, you can even replace your default maps app with a fully offline app. User choice is the key to ensuring privacy. Google Fit was released in 2014 and implemented data migration to Health Connect when that launched. Similarly, Samsun…

I am switching back to Android after nearly 10 years and:

- no native CalDAV support

- third party open-source DavX offers that, although it's hacky and the push support is even more experimental

- but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!

- you ned to give Gemini full access to your Google Calendar (again) to get it to save your appointments or reminders. You can't use it with non-Google calendar.

None of these were an issue on iPhone, I was able to use my NextCloud instance to host all my events privately and securely, including with Siri.

I am actually super frustrated and find it odd that this is even legal in EU, because it definitely looks like protectionism.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#64

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

troupo wrote: post #57
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you can because of the judgement against Apple. When you link outside of the store, Apple gets nothing. Even in the store, Apple charges 15% if your revenue is below $1 million and charges 15% for renewals after the first year.

> In the US you can because of the judgement against Apple. Indeed. It took a court battle, and holding Apple in contempt of court, and perjury by one of Apple's executives before Apple was forced to do it (did it comply?). Why not everywhere? > Even in the store, Apple charges 15% if your revenue is below $1 million and charges 15% for renewals after the first year. No, Apple was going to charge 27% on sales happeni…

Apple can not charge for external links In the US.

I am saying that if the indie devs didn’t have go pay Apple a dime, it wouldn’t matter. You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize compared to companies selling loot boxes and coins that make up 90% of App Store revenue. You will still have the same discovery problem, people’s unwillingness to pay money for apps on the App Store aside from games and the same race to the bottom.

Just like no matter what, the indie band playing at the local bar is not going to make money off of Spotify and all of the money is going to go to Taylor Swift and Drake.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#65

Post by Incipient »

troupo wrote: post #58
bsimpson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the point you're making (that standards evolve, and Apple will drag its feet again if it sees a profit), but that doesn't change that they've been gating functionality behind app-only APIs for decades to grow their walled garden and make the rest of us worse off for it. You shouldn't have to install things on your phone. Most "apps" should just be websites, with a bookmark if you so choose.

> I get the point you're making (that standards evolve, and Apple will drag its feet again if it sees a profit) No, that's not my point. My point is that there's no such thing as PWA. There's a lose collection of standards, and everyone choses a set that benefits their narrative when defining PWAs. For a very long time Apple supported all APIs (except maybe notifications) that even Google defined as necessary for som…

The main reason/value I find for a pwa over a normal bookmark is the isolation of data, and the way most browsers hide the address bar and toolbar. The actual service worker etc logic...could pretty much take it or leave it.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#66

Post by AnthonyMouse »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #47
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But let’s be real, the only apps making money directly from in app purchases are pay to win games. It came out in Apple vs Epic that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games. But is that the chicken or the egg? Is it that surprising that when such an oppressively large margin is being extracted, the primary survivors are the things that are themselves scams? Normal businesses typically don't have 30% margins to be…

No it’s the same for every marketplace. Profits accrue to a few. Look at YouTube, books, artist on Spotify etc. Software has near 0 marginal costs unless you are dependent on a third party server side AI models (instead of on device models) or other API vendors. 15% (if you are making less than 1 million) is not the reason you aren’t making money on the App Store. That sane person wouldn’t be making money on the web…

> No it’s the same for every marketplace. Profits accrue to a few. Look at YouTube, books, artist on Spotify etc.

Many of those are things where the value of a single user is very low and then you need a significant audience just to earn an ordinary salary.

> Software has near 0 marginal costs

But it has significant development costs, and the fact that you're required to use Apple's store makes them even higher, because their restrictions are incompatible with free software licenses, which locks you out of even using LGPL code on iOS, much less anything else.

Apple's hardware has those fancy chips in it, right? Suppose you want to create a front end for Blender and run it on iOS. Your front end doesn't have to use the same license as Blender itself if it's a separate program, so you could charge for it. But Blender is GPL so you can't run it on iOS at all. Then you'd have to write Blender yourself, by which point you're talking something that would need a million a year in revenue, and a 30% deadweight loss could very well make the difference between viable and not.

It's also incredibly disheartening, because you do the work and take the risk and then if you actually succeed you know someone else is going to cut out a huge chunk of the revenue, which discourages people from making the attempt.

> Well known publishers have tried the pay $10 once for a premium game on iOS and users wouldn’t pay for it.

Which is kind of weird when they're empirically willing to do it on other platforms, right?

But that's what happens when you establish a reputation for being capricious while taking a large cut. Who wants to make a significant investment into a platform when the platform is eroding their profits and there is a non-trivial chance they could be arbitrarily cut off at any time with no recourse? At which point the users come to expect apps to be scummy and become disinclined to pay for them up front.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#67

Post by thomassmith65 »

This is normal Apple behaviour going at least as far back as the noughties, if not the 1980s.

  Apple care about the American and Asian markets. They have long treated the EU as a joke whose consumer laws they can ignore.
  That is why, the past few years, Apple has behaved so petulantly and strangely in reaction to EU stipulations. They feel it's beneath them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43421180

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#68

Post by moi2388 »

danaris wrote: post #45
giancarlostoro wrote: post #31

I'll go a step farther. iOS is the only mobile OS that restricts PWA's and I think they do it on purpose to force you out of PWAs and into native apps. I think Apple should 100% support PWAs with no shenanigans, they should work 100% without Apple needing to approve of anything too. Steve Jobs pitched PWAs way back when, I don't know why all we've gotten is a half-baked solution from Apple other than they want you in…

What specific aspects of PWAs are still not supported on iOS these days? I know that Apple made some huge advances in that within the past couple of years, but I...generally don't want PWAs myself, so I haven't paid very close attention. If you don't use Apple devices, and thus also don't pay very close attention, you might check and verify whether what you expect to be true still is.

It didn’t go in the app drawer and is relegated to the home page. And no access to certain APIs which native apps do.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#69

Post by troupo »

charcircuit wrote: post #62
troupo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devs might have deleted their apps from AppStore, but Apple literally doesn't allow to distribute software any other way, and even in the EU where it oretends to allow competing AppStores, it still interjects itself into the process

Apple owns ios, Apple owns the iPhone. It would make sense that those factions within Apple would still be involved even if the AppStore people are not.

"Apple owns the iPhone". That's quite a statement.

Re: Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on

#70

Post by troupo »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #64
troupo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US you can because of the judgement against Apple. Indeed. It took a court battle, and holding Apple in contempt of court, and perjury by one of Apple's executives before Apple was forced to do it (did it comply?). Why not everywhere? > Even in the store, Apple charges 15% if your revenue is below $1 million and charges 15% for renewals after the first year. No, Apple was going to charge 27% on sales happeni…

Apple can not charge for external links In the US . I am saying that if the indie devs didn’t have go pay Apple a dime, it wouldn’t matter. You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize compared to companies selling loot boxes and coins that make up 90% of App Store revenue. You will still have the same discovery problem, people’s unwillingness to pay money for apps on the App Store aside from games and the same r…

> Apple can not charge for external links In the US.

1. Yes. Yes it can.

2. This was literally my first question you keep dancing around: "Why can't those services show a link in their app to their page without Apple claiming it's owed 27% of the sale?"

> You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize

What does this have to do with my question? Literally nothing.

But we've been at this twice already, and I am not inclined to go for a third round.

Adieu.

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