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

Post by omegabravo » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:14 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #633

saiya-jin wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their incentive is to lock users All good apart from this. Apple does this magnificently, ie closed hardware protocols. For example there are significantly better earphones than airpads pro (and some cost +-same), but good luck getting same level of integration over apple's proprietary protocols. While rest of whole universe at least tries to adhere to open things so we users have freedom in how we design & evolve…

Umm, Thunderbolt was developed by Intel, in cooperation with Apple. And IIRC, Apple is a member of the USB consortium. Too bad design by committee sucks and has led to the disaster that is USB-C.

Post by stevewatson301 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #440

cafed00d wrote: post #231

I hope Apple turns Xcode features into a tiered pricing model to counter balance and keep developers in check. 1. Want to use the swift compiler? Pay $5000 per year per user (pretty competitively priced if you compare it to the MATLAB Compiler) 2. Want to click any of the “Services” buttons to enable “Siri” etc in your app? $100 per user per year 3. Want to log and instrument your iOS app in production? $1000 per dev…

> Institutionalized 3p developers should be treated like adversaries The weird part about your statement here, is that you bring up a statement about 3rd party developers doing bad things, and yet the solutions you gave do nothing except for take extra money from those 3rd parties and gives that money to Apple. If you actually cared about stopping all these bad actions, why didn't you suggest an action that gives App…

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

stevewatson301 wrote: post #753

stale2002 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Institutionalized 3p developers should be treated like adversaries The weird part about your statement here, is that you bring up a statement about 3rd party developers doing bad things, and yet the solutions you gave do nothing except for take extra money from those 3rd parties and gives that money to Apple. If you actually cared about stopping all these bad actions, why didn't you suggest an action that gives App…

I think the current App Store model works fine. There could perhaps be more stringent government regulation around app development and data practices, but I don't believe that's the solution either as it would kill off small time devs entirely.

Post by theshrike79 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:25 AM UTC

martimarkov wrote: post #467

DavideNL wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps will use near-field communication technology and other mechanisms to track us So, then do not allow any apps the NFC permission... problem solved. The point is, Apple should not be the one dictating what users can and can not use; Example: on macOS you can disable SIP. 99% of the people i know do not even know what SIP is, nor that this possibility exists. However, if we/Developers/researchers/etc. want it, th…

The main problem is that users can be tricked to do it. Used to happen to my parents all the time on Android. They'd install random apps and the website will "guide" them how to install this app by going to settings and enabling "untrusted developers". This is my issue with all these devs screaming at apple. Your customers chose a product for whatever reason. Don't like it? I don't care - respect their choices. It sp…

Post by theshrike79 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:31 AM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #457

idle_zealot wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some might try this move, but my guess is that sideloading will involve enough friction that user retention will drop and developers will be heavily disincentivized from relying on it for distribution. In particular I expect that every update will require user action to re-install the new version of every sideloaded app, which is the reason most developers don't go that route on Android today.

Funnily enough that's exactly the reason why Epic sued Google - having to confirm every update and install through a scary dialog box was too anti-competitive for them. Google responded by... actually, adding entirely new APIs in Android for sideloaded app stores to be able to update already-approved applications without extra permissions or approval. In fact, they even distinguish between "sideloaded app" and "insta…