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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

#781

Post by gamblor956 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #775
gamblor956 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really similar. Sony, MS, and Nintendo already allow games to be purchased from other retailers, and always have. (See, for example, Game Stop, Best Buy, Target, etc.) Even digital downloads can be purchased from other retailers (i.e., Amazon). Thus, their in-console storefronts are just one of several options that players can use to purchase games. In contrast, the only way to get iPhone apps is through the App…

Yes, but you can't get a devkit for a console without Sony/MS/Nintendo approval. No devkit, no game. Dunno if they still gatekeep the physical products. Apple takes the $99 developer license and that's it. You get full access to all tools and the App Store. Releasing a new version doesn't cost you anything extra. I wouldn't even know how to go about creating an Xbox or PS game. Who do I contact, where do I pay and ho…

What part of "reverse engineer" do you not understand?

The point of paying the platform fee is that you can make games for the console with the assistance of the console maker. If you don't want to pay for the convenience, you can spend time and money reverse engineering an OS that will run your game(s).

Also, the Apple fee isn't just $99. It's $99 plus 30% of every transaction through the app. Forever.

The console platform fee is a (non-linearly) scaled fee based on physical units shipped and wholesale price (between 5% and 30%, with the % getting larger at smaller wholesale prices), and does not apply to sales through the console storefront (MS and Sony waive the platform fee and take their earnings on the delta between the wholesale price set by the publisher and the retail price set by the store).

Who do I contact, where do I pay and how much? What rules do you have to follow to get your indie game on the Playstation Store or XBox Store?

Both Sony and MS have published this information on their websites for over a decade, and promoted indie games for over a decade, so I don't think I need to assume that comment was made in good faith. But since you're too lazy to do a 1-second google search, here are the results for you (in both cases, literally the first result: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/id, https://partners.playstation.net/)

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

#782

Post by stevewatson301 »

simion314 wrote: post #774
stevewatson301 wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a particularly bad example since the OOXML standardization process was fraught with issues and there are deviations between the standard and Microsoft’s implementation. For starters, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML

So instead of something imperfect you prefer nothing, great I am sure Apple stuff is not perfect so don't use it. We use open source docx tools and write code to work with docx format so the actual reality is that it works infinity times better then attempting to reverse engineer some proprietary binary stuff . People would make open sourse stuff to connect to Apple things and if Ap[ple is as bad as Microsoft we can…

For the trivial case where a document or a spreadsheet with just some text has to be exported out of a system, it works. But there are other formats such as CSV that already exist for this purpose and have a higher degree of.

My point wasn't about writing to those formats for these basic use cases, but rather about building interoperable applications that can both read and write from the format. Since the spec is relatively loose and Microsoft hasn't adhered to it well, there are many issues when you use something like LibreOffice. And whether you like it or not, people do like using the advanced features of the Microsoft Office suite.

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

#783

Post by gamblor956 »

criddell wrote: post #608
gamblor956 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not relevant to this discussion, because the choice is (a) recreate everything yourself from scratch vs (b) pay monopolistic rates because there are no alternatives. But on that note, a common refrain of iOS developers is what a PITA it is to make apps for iOS given the inferior quality of Apple devtools. Meanwhile, developers generally praise the ease of programming for the PS5.

Of course it's relevant because this discussion is about removing app store restrictions from consumer devices. You're saying there are lots of places for developers to sell PS5 software but that's irrelevant if you still need Sony's blessing and have to pay Sony some type of fee. From a distribution perspective, PS5 developers are not better off than iOS developers. There's no way, AFAIK, for a developer to release…

No, you don't need Sony's blessing, unless you want to use Sony's software and marketing IP. Unlike Apple, you can reverse engineer the PS5 hardware if you want, and in fact, that is the whole reason that the console market is structured the way it is.

See Sega v. Accolade for more information, but in a nutshell, the console maker can't prevent unlicensed games from running on the hardware. However, they don't have to make it easy to run unlicensed games, and they can make devkits and other IP contingent upon legal agreements that forbid using those tools/docs to develop solutions that don't require a license. (This means that the publisher would need to acquire commercial units to go the reverse engineering route.)

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

#784

Post by gamblor956 »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #614
gamblor956 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's quite different. With the consoles, publishers are paying for the right to use the console maker's commercial IP (i.e., the Playstation or Xbox logo on their marketing materials) and technical IP (access to software APIs for using the hardware functionality). They do not pay royalties to the console makers for each sale. (Source: I work for a video game company and deal with these contracts...) Quite importa…

> Quite importantly, publishers don't have to pay the console makers if they want to (a) reverse engineer the console firmware so they can make use of the hardware (b) don't use the console maker's IP in their marketing materials (see Sega v. Accord, still good law), and (c) sell through retailers other than the console storefront. Don't modern consoles all have signature verification? You would still need the compan…

Yes to the first, no to the second.

Both consoles will run unsigned executable files, but you may need to reverse engineer your own solution for getting those files to run in a user-friendly manner.

There is software created for earlier PS and Xbox consoles (for example, Kodi on the Xbox, Linux on the PS). It simply took a few years for third parties to understand the hardware well enough to write their own code to run on the consoles without using the console makers' IP.

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

#785

Post by quitit »

archagon wrote: post #657
quitit wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You'll simply pick Safari, never sideload an app, and pay with Apple Pay. We can coexist. This isn't even slightly realistic. It's a mistake to believe that these changes won't have run on consequences for developers. This isn't an outcome where you can have your cake and eat it too. It's not like everything will stay the same, except now developers have a bunch of extra freedoms. That exhibits no ability to think e…

Surely this logic can be extended to lock down all computing devices? Moreover, if I had the choice, I would never trust a giant multinational corporation to be the sole gatekeeper of my digital life.

Desktop computers remain less restricted because one can’t close pandora’s box after opening it.

The fact that we have so many of these protection on smartphones is because of lessons learnt with desktop PCs - after a steady stream of viruses, ransomware and other forms of scams. What should have happened is a change to how approvals were made on the app stores for the European region, not removing the main source of protection for users.

> “I would never trust a giant multinational…”

But you use their hardware, their OS, their network stack… and this won’t change with these rules. So if you’re not trusting of these companies you shouldn’t have a relationship with them and should already be using unique hardware from a smaller vendor whereby you could satisfy these preferences. You absolutely do have a “choice”.

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

#786

Post by nicce »

freedomben wrote: post #648
Barrin92 wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been using laptops and desktops (including from apple), on which they can run their own software, for literally decades. Closed systems are new, not open ones. My 60 year old boomer father who has 9 years of education can find his way around on the command line. Yes, people don't understand tech very well any more because we're giving them crippled tech, and treat them as if they are helpless . It's the p…

Thank you, reading through most of this thread I feel like I've been dropped into some crazy world where freedom and security are somehow now mutually exclusive, and the user has become an infantile ignoramus who must be diligently protected from herself by the altruistic benevolent dictator, fearlessly and selflessly defending them from the nest of vipers that is every other company/developer/person. war is peace, f…

As long as there are options (Android), then iPhone is just a product for specific group. I don’t get it why everything should be the same. Is iPhone so good the everyone is mad because they can’t sideload an app?

A lot of iPhone’s success is based on to that very thing that you can’t sideload and paying is easy. Different products for different people.

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

#787

Post by 6510 »

Retric wrote: post #530
6510 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its nothing compared to the piratebay.

Hosting torrents takes minimal bandwidth. Apple can’t offload bandwidth peer to peer to phones when people are on limited cellular plans.

Interesting plot twist you have there. No one at Apple ever actually said that of course but if it was true the distribution was made more expensive by preventing the use of apps on desktop computers.

However, anyone can seed from any system and that lots of people have unlimited plans and/or good wifi.

You could have a static store app with the phone manufacturer providing a feed with names, descriptions, pictures and checksums. Everything else could be distributed over a p2p network. Unpopular apps could be slow to download with the developers server having to patch holes to keep the file alive. Popular apps would have usable numbers to hint at their popularity.

Most apps need internet anyway. (Billing wouldn't be a problem.) I see a thousand pages arguing hosting for an app costs between 70 and 320 per month. I have no idea how true that is or how far apps can live from the average.

It does seem logical to assume with a reasonably smart distribution scheme p2p could also reduce that bill for somewhat more dynamic content.

I'm really impressed by how many useful and fun mobile apps were created. In the 90's I thought nothing was worth using on a mobile device. I was very wrong about that.

I now think it is equally wrong to think the 30% is not dramatically reducing interest in mobile development. Personally I wouldn't touch it with a 6 foot pole. I do web apps that are like websites, they have very limited access to the features of the device.

While I applaud these new regulations it is kinda lame it took them this long.

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

#788

Post by account42 »

samatman wrote: post #656
majewsky wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people actually register that there are two buttons at the bottom? It's very obvious to power-users like us since we're used to [ Accept ] Cancel at this point, but I can only imagine the borderless design for the secondary button originating from a dark pattern.

The entire iOS operating system works that way now. I dislike it. I think buttons should be buttons. But this isn't a special case, so unless you consider every instance of two buttons looking this way a dark pattern, this one isn't either.

> unless you consider every instance of two buttons looking this way a dark pattern

The entire point of this pattern is to guide the user into a "default" option so using it for anything where the user is suppposed to provide informed consent is a dark pattern. The only places where it is not a dark pattern is where default choice actually aligns with the interest of the average user and I think that is hard to argue for a choice whose purpose is primarily to be allowed to better manipulate the user into spending more.

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

#789

Post by laserlight »

vorpalhex wrote: post #473
laserlight wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the clarification, because your previous comment seemed to contradict.

Oh, is there a competitor to the app store that will let me get apps for my iOS devices?

Your reply reads quite snarky. I don't think further discussion would be productive, so I won't continue.

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

#790

Post by account42 »

walterbell wrote: post #659
novok wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever interview apple developers for other companies, or just inspect what is being sent to apple's servers constantly from their devices, you'll realize that apple is recording A LOT of very private info about their users. Apple is very much a 'private from everyone but apple' company, they smartly just don't talk about it out loud. For their high level apps like TV and such, have things like privacy review. B…

Block all traffic to Apple at the router, except (e.g. use a different SSID) when you need to perform OS/app updates. Apple kindly publishes IP exception lists so you can still receive notifications, while blocking the rest of 17/8.

Maybe that will work in practice but you have no way of knowing if it does. There is nothing really preventing Apple from sneaking tracking data through the notification channel (not to mention that centralized notifications are already a juicy opportunity to profile and track users) or retaining the data and sending it off when you do OS updates. Once a company has shown willingness to go against your interest you can't really trust them. The only real solution is to use software that respects you and increasingly that means only open source software.
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