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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

#701

Post by vmladenov »

smoldesu wrote: post #673
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some edge cases where the app stores don't allow desirable applications to be distributed. One example would be e.g. NewPipe (an open source third party ad-free YouTube client) on Android. Another would be alternative browsers or programming language interpreters on iOS (the rules on the latter changed repeatedly). Termux is also being distributed outside of the Play store due to some restriction and IIRC n…

Newpipe is amazing, if iOS users had access to it then YouTube might actually be forced to improve their mobile app. Out-of-the-box, you get video downloading, PiP, background playback, and so much more. No need to pay Google a dime for the best YouTube features on the market.

You can get PiP and background playback with a simple JS snippet in Shortcuts

  let v = document.querySelector('video');

  v.addEventListener('webkitpresentationmodechanged', (e)=>e.stopPropagation(), true);

  setTimeout(()=>v.webkitSetPresentationMode('picture-in-picture'), 3000);

  completion()

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

#702

Post by [deleted] »

jorvi wrote: post #413
cycomanic wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop pretending that Apple has the users best interest in mind? They just want to be the gatekeeper for lucrative applications/functions so they can charge for it. That they somehow convinced apple users that it's somehow in their interest just shows how good their marketing is.

A big case in point is Apple Music. Apple turning the Music Player app in Apple Music allowed them to catch a huge part of the market that had never interacted with music streaming before. Extremely anti-competitive. IMO when they did that they should have immediately been forced by the EU to instead show a pop-up that also gave the option for Spotify, Deezer, Tidal etc.

[deleted]

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

#703

Post by n8cpdx »

arepublicadoceu wrote: post #696
n8cpdx wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them. Look at the Lumenate app that was just on hacker news yesterday: - Android users are complaining about having to create an account to use it - iOS users just pushed a button and didn’t even have to share their email or make a password - iOS users who subscribe have one place to manage their subsc…

> People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them. Hey, it’s me. A person that choose iPhone for a different set of things and absolutely don’t want to be “protected” from sideloading an open source YouTube alternative, or an open source emulator to play games from my childhood (I know, the horror).

Why did you choose iPhone? Are you confident that EU bureaucrats can do a better job at keeping those reasons in place than the company that build the platform you chose?

If sideloading was more important to you than the experience afforded by iPhone, why wouldn’t you choose Android?

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

#704

Post by n8cpdx »

mullingitover wrote: post #688
the_duke wrote: post #244

This regulation is 5+ years overdue, but legislation always lags behind market conditions. If the US/other countries follow suit there will probably be a big unintended effect though: the diminishing of open web standards and Google getting final say about what will work on "the web" and what won't. With Firefox diminishing, Safari is the last bastion against a Chromium-only web. There are lots of Chromium forks, but…

I predict Chrome will come to iOS with working uBlock extension on day one, and that will be the last day I use Safari. I'm not even a fan of this regulation (I think it's sour grapes on the part of the EU because they have utterly failed to compete in this space) but I loathe the browser experience, with its lack of working ad blocking, on iOS.

Safari on iOS has extensions, including Adblock extensions, and has for some time now.

They even have an extension that blocks ads on YouTube and forces it to use the native video player, so you can get Picture in Picture without an app.

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

#705

Post by ThatPlayer »

n8cpdx wrote: post #703
arepublicadoceu wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them. Hey, it’s me. A person that choose iPhone for a different set of things and absolutely don’t want to be “protected” from sideloading an open source YouTube alternative, or an open source emulator to play games from my childhood (I know, the horror).

Why did you choose iPhone? Are you confident that EU bureaucrats can do a better job at keeping those reasons in place than the company that build the platform you chose? If sideloading was more important to you than the experience afforded by iPhone, why wouldn’t you choose Android?

>If sideloading was more important to you than the experience afforded by iPhone, why wouldn’t you choose Android?

Why not both? Why can't I have some of the experience afforded by iPhone as well as sideloading? Just because at some point I compromised and decided the iPhone experience was more important than sideloading doesn't mean I no longer want sideloading.

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

#706

Post by ThatPlayer »

niek_pas wrote: post #136
hamandcheese wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interoperability is not mutually exclusive with security. You are welcome to continue using the App Store.

> You are welcome to continue using the App Store. As long as apps remain available on the App Store. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, e.g., Facebook making their messaging app available via sideloading only in order to circumvent Apple’s privacy rules.

And that's why the messaging interoperability is part of it. It'll allow for new messaging apps (including some that stay on the App Store) to message people on Facebook without you having to install the app.

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

#707

Post by dumpsterdiver »

jorvi wrote: post #413
cycomanic wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop pretending that Apple has the users best interest in mind? They just want to be the gatekeeper for lucrative applications/functions so they can charge for it. That they somehow convinced apple users that it's somehow in their interest just shows how good their marketing is.

A big case in point is Apple Music. Apple turning the Music Player app in Apple Music allowed them to catch a huge part of the market that had never interacted with music streaming before. Extremely anti-competitive. IMO when they did that they should have immediately been forced by the EU to instead show a pop-up that also gave the option for Spotify, Deezer, Tidal etc.

While I agree that Apple had a severe advantage in the case of Apple Music, it's also pretty clear that the advantage manifested because consumers who would otherwise be unobtainable were enticed to buy into the offering. It was an uncaptured market.

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

#708

Post by ThatPlayer »

mantas wrote: post #152
tchocky wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It can still be a walled garden if there is an opt out option, so you can still be able to be inside it but with the option to go out of it and be able to sideload/use different app stores. Also the Apple app store will definitely still be the main source as people usually don't switch that easily for almost no benefit. No one will force you use a different app store as well.

What if super popular apps launch their own stores?

You can still choose not to use it. iMessage is super popular, am I forced to buy an iPhone?

Depending on your definition of 'super popular', both Android and iOS are super popular. Yet I don't need both of them do I?

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

#709

Post by shuckles »

itsoktocry wrote: post #585
shuckles wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ad system? Their programmatic ad inventory does not support tracking, as anyone who has access to developer ads can confirm.

Forgive my ignorance, but how do we know that Apple doesn't track more data than they provide to developers?

This question is quite ambiguous about scope and definition. In the context of Apple’s tracking protections, tracking is defined as sharing identifiable information about a customer for advertising or marketing purposes. Nothing more, nothing less. Apple could collect all the information they wanted to about you from all their various products and services, and that wouldn’t be tracking. Under this definition, data they don’t make available for advertisement targeting or attribution isn’t tracking.

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

#710

Post by mr_toad »

jaywalk wrote: post #394
rekoil wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the DMA/DSA, so if this is actually written out in them then I'll happily be corrected here. The way I see it, the EU probably doesn't really care if Apple keep ALL the restrictions they currently have on their App Store in actuality, as long as options exist on the platform. So the solution to allowing access to NFC hardware will probably just be Apple opening up sideloading. I personally hope that Ap…

Nope, they will not get to keep their App Store restrictions. From the DMA Q&A page ( https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_... ): > Ban on requiring app developers to use certain of the gatekeeper's services (such as payment systems or identity providers) in order to appear in app stores of the gatekeeper;

One of the App Store restrictions is on code that can modify itself after installation. If that is no longer a restriction the the whole App Store restriction and review process is just pointless.
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