Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#651

Post by realusername » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 6:04 AM UTC

DidYaWipe wrote: post #650

realusername wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I have, I worked with it for years, there's the officially supported standards and then there's the buggy reality you have to deal with. I've encountered bugs with backgrounds, zIndex, videos, forms, localStorage, SVGs, all basic browser features. Then Safari also is the last non-evergreen browser so it's the slowest to update compared to all the other browsers. If you have a bug, there's a good chance you'll hav…

OK, that's much more informative. But "non-evergreen" doesn't mean anything.

Evergreen refers to the speed of update, your average iPhone user takes one year and half to update. Your average Chrome user is updated within 3 weeks, your average Firefox user within 4 weeks.

Call it with another word if you want but Safari is on a league of its own.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#652

Post by saghm » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 6:59 AM UTC

hk1337 wrote: post #504

airstrike wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't say that. It says free apps are not hurt by this as much as paid apps, so charging a percentage fee to maintain the app store disproportionately hurts paid apps.

They should probably reword it so that "free services" and "abuse your privacy" is not so closely linked in that case.

I don't think the argument is that _every_ free app is abusing your privacy, just that there are undoubtedly some, and they're hard to compete with in a privacy-respecting way due to the extra overhead that the app store fees incur.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#653

Post by saghm » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 7:05 AM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #572

dcow wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s covered by the compulsory license part of the comment. Say Apple has a patent on the iPhone, Apple must license the iPhone itself to me at a reasonable fee. Then I can go sell jPhones all day to compete.

In that world, why invest in R&D? Wait for someone else to, and then demand the fruit of the work…

Who are you demanding from if there's no incentive to invest? Either the option is there, in which case the incentive clearly must have been there for someone, or it's not, in which case the incentive is the same for wanting to have it in the first place.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#654

Post by 8fingerlouie » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 8:43 AM UTC

rpdillon wrote: post #520

8fingerlouie wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then don't do it. Who exactly is forcing you to? The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected. > Simply having a link in my app to a page where someone pays through Stripe instead of through Apple Payments, But it hardly stifles…

> The problem is, when the option exists it opens up an attack vector that I need to defend against, as it will surely be exploited by malware at some point, downloading an app when you visit some scam site, and boom you're now infected. This is completely fabricated. I've been using Android for more than 15 years, and this has never happened, ever. Nothing even close to it. To be clear, you're advocating to take awa…

Kaspersky detected more than 1.1 million malicious APKs for android in 2024 [^1]

As per Apple, they rejected 2 million app submissions in 2024 [^2]

So from a birds eye perspective there doesn't appear to be much difference, with iOS even taking the lead, but the key difference is that Kaspersky is not Google, and can only detect malicious software after it has been published. Apple has rejected app submissions over privacy issues, meaning those 2 million apps never made it to the public.

According to Zimperium Global Mobile Threat report [^3], 25% of Android devices have sideloaded apps, and 20% are malware infected (correlatoin is not causation, yet). Zimperium telemetry also reveals that 38% of detected malware attacks could be tracked to sideloaded apps [^4].

So no, it is certainly not some fabricated threat, but a very realistic and probably threat scenario. I'm also not trying to take away anybodys freedom, you're free to install whatever you want, but you don't need root access to do it. Very few use cases on a phone requires the user to have root access.

[^1] : https://securelist.com/mobile-threat-report-2024/115494/

[^2] : https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/05/the-app-store-prevent...

[^3] : https://lp.zimperium.com/hubfs/Reports/2025%20Global%20Mobil...

[^4] : https://zimperium.com/blog/the-hidden-risks-of-sideloading-a...

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#655

Post by DidYaWipe » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 6:46 PM UTC

SkiFire13 wrote: post #640

DidYaWipe wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties. Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-p…

> So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Controlling what kind of software, including _web browsers_, runs on the main device for the majority of the US population, does not make it a gatekeeper? That doesn't make any sense to me. Want to go to Amazon? You need an app or a browser to access it, both of these are controlled by…

No, it does not. Does the cable company's forcing of you to use DOCSIS-compliant modems control what Web sites you access? No.

Does WebKit direct you to certain sites or block sites based on their content? Does it capture your search terms and curate the results? Does it aggregate content? Does it funnel your viewing to certain sites preferentially? No.

You keep attempting to assert that the viewing tool curates what you view with it. WebKit doesn't. Even if you raise technical points (doesn't support Web MIDI or something), those still don't prevent you from visiting any site you want. Even if a site were totally broken for technical reasons, it doesn't amount to deliberate curation by Apple.

Come on.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#656

Post by DidYaWipe » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #635

DidYaWipe wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It "neglects" a universe of equally irrelevant observations.

A) it’s not irrelevant at all. Perhaps you don’t do web design, or perhaps you restrict your designs to functionality Apple doesn’t actively or passively prohibit. Then you might not be aware that Apple does not support everything other browsers support. Or takes longer to support some things. The internet has two ends (at least), media source and media user. Both ends require compatible software for any connection t…

You have confused "Web functionality" with gatekeeping.

You can use WebKit to visit any site you want; whether it supports every technical feature you might encounter on a site is irrelevant. I'm not arguing that it's a good engine or even competitive. I don't question your objections to missing functionality, and probably agree with all of them. But that is not gatekeeping. That's like saying black-&-white TVs were "gatekeeping" by not showing color, or some Bluetooth speakers are "gatekeeping" by not being stereo.

Anyway, the point is moot because Apple has to allow other browser engines now. If you think it through, this will simply allow Chrome to completely dominate the Web and take us backward to the bad old days of "this site works best on..."

WHEEEE!

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#657

Post by DidYaWipe » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

BlueTemplar wrote: post #631

DidYaWipe wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha, wow, OK. Then we must acknowledge that we're talking about PHONES here, and the applications on it are optional TOYS. The phone could have no app store at all, and still be highly functional and complete. In fact... that's how the iPhone launched. There was no app store for years. Meanwhile, a game system with no games is not functional at all. Might want to reconsider your argument here.

No, they are general purpose computers that can also work as cellphones. The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs. This situation only lasted a year though. It did have a pre-installed Google Maps app, very much not a toy... And don't game consoles typically come out bundled with some first party games too ?

"The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs"

What a laughably wrong assertion. The iPhone handled all kinds of PIM data and synced with computers. There was no requirement (or even expectation) that a "smart" phone had third-party applications.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#658

Post by DidYaWipe » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

realusername wrote: post #651

DidYaWipe wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, that's much more informative. But "non-evergreen" doesn't mean anything.

Evergreen refers to the speed of update, your average iPhone user takes one year and half to update. Your average Chrome user is updated within 3 weeks, your average Firefox user within 4 weeks. Call it with another word if you want but Safari is on a league of its own.

Totally valid gripe. I agree.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#659

Post by DidYaWipe » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 8:40 PM UTC

DANmode wrote: post #643

Nevermark wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody made such a claim. If you serve web pages, you likely serve many of your users on their Apple devices. And you can’t support features of the web for those users if Apple doesn’t want them to have those features, and prohibits browsers with other engines that do support them on their App Store, and prohibits other sources of web browsers. That’s called “gatekeeping”.

Apple is not the Internet, stop allowing your friends, family and colleagues to treat it that way.

Meanwhile, I can't convince my dad that he doesn't need to pay for AOL anymore...

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#660

Post by SkiFire13 » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

DidYaWipe wrote: post #655

SkiFire13 wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Controlling what kind of software, including _web browsers_, runs on the main device for the majority of the US population, does not make it a gatekeeper? That doesn't make any sense to me. Want to go to Amazon? You need an app or a browser to access it, both of these are controlled by…

No, it does not. Does the cable company's forcing of you to use DOCSIS-compliant modems control what Web sites you access? No. Does WebKit direct you to certain sites or block sites based on their content? Does it capture your search terms and curate the results? Does it aggregate content? Does it funnel your viewing to certain sites preferentially? No. You keep attempting to assert that the viewing tool curates what…

Webkit does limit the sites I can visit, or equivalently the technologies that websites can use, because it doesn't support them. Which is _fine_ for a web browser, if it wasn't the case that Apple effectively used to mandate all web browsers on iOS to use Webkit.