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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

appleinsider.com

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Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#811

Post by layer8 »

zuhsetaqi wrote: post #712
ValentineC wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. What I really want is an up-to-date browser even if iOS stops being supported on an old phone of mine. (And they seem to be dropping support faster, what with iOS 17 not supporting the iPhone X — introduced in 2017 — without any legitimate hardware reason.) It's ridiculous that Safari and the underlying WebKit eng…

> The iOS and iPadOS 16.7 update covers all devices that could run version 16, including older stuff like the iPhone 8, iPhone X, and first-gen iPad Pro that can't be upgraded to version 17. In a couple of months, if precedent holds, newer devices will have to upgrade to keep getting security fixes, while iOS 16 updates will continue to support older devices for at least another year. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/…

Like with all “built-in” iOS apps, mobile Safari versions have always been tied to the iOS version. It would be big news if Apple was going to change that (quite unlikely). MacOS is a very different story.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#812

Post by ojosilva »

faeriechangling wrote: post #227
nunez wrote: post #166

Fucking good. It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns. I also don't care. I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits. I want the choice of…

>you can only run Safari on iOS Apple mandating WebKit is the only thing holding v8 back from a total monopoly, while WebKit itself has no chance of being a monopoly in the forseeable future, so I doubt there's a good anti-competitive case to be made for forcing Apple to stop doing this. It would only accelerate the monopolisation of the browser market if this happened. It would be good for consumers in the short ter…

> Apple mandating WebKit is the only thing holding v8 back from a total monopoly

Or this could read as: Apple mandating WebKit is the thing preventing Firefox (and others) from properly competing against v8.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#813

Post by layer8 »

huytersd wrote: post #571
nunez wrote: post #166

Fucking good. It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns. I also don't care. I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits. I want the choice of…

Everything is stellar because it’s locked down. You can go “hack” on your android and leave the perfectly good status quo as is on the iPhone.

> Everything is stellar

Many would disagree with that assessment.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#814

Post by flenserboy »

kibwen wrote: post #275
HWR_14 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google search, Youtube and many other properties will only work with Chromium as soon as it doesn't mean saying goodbye to iOS users.

The mindset here is so alien to me. Do people think that the EU is willing to take action against Apple, and yet somehow unwilling to take action against Google?

When one understands what Google is for, the answer becomes clear.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#815

Post by pembrook »

oblio wrote: post #737
idkwhoiam wrote: post #614

Hey EU, can you please ask BMW to open everything up to its rivals so that I can use Toyota's infotainment system instead of BMW's iDrive. I also want to be able to run PS games on XBox & vice versa without having to buy separate copies. And lastly, how about you open up your very own market to everyone by lifting protectionist taxes

> And lastly, how about you open up your very own market to everyone by lifting protectionist taxes LOL, like China is doing by forcing everyone into 51-49 joint ventures China owns? Or like the US is subsidizing EV and battery production for stuff made in the US? Don't be naive, everyone's doing it.

Whataboutism does not defeat OP's core point.

You either have a set of values, or you do not. The EU claims outwardly to have the values of being pro-privacy and pro-competition for healthy consumer markets.

However, these 2 supposed "values" only seem to come into play when it comes to regulating foreign tech companies that it cannot produce domestic competitors for.

The EU has loads of anti-competitive protectionist legislation, and re: privacy, the EU is in fact strongly considering legislation to ban encryption domestically as we speak. You can bet GDPR would not exist if Silicon Valley was located in the Rhine Valley.

Clearly these are not values. They are simply the amoral moves of opportunistic market participants (politicians), just like the companies being regulated.

This is not bad, this is just reality. But any claims of moral high-ground should be rightly shot down for what they are (BS).

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#816

Post by robertlagrant »

noirscape wrote: post #707
robertlagrant wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If V8 becomes a monopoly, and with it chromium, then Google can finally be "properly" hit with an antitrust case over Chrome V8 isn't a monopoly in the antitrust sense, at all. Google gives away the source code to most of Chrome that allows other people to make browsers with it, and they do. Something being popular doesn't indicate a monopoly. Microsoft could choose to make a browser engine, but they don't, and it'…

Yeah I reworded it - I meant Blink. And no, I'd argue that just because it's open source doesn't change that it's an antitrust-worthy browser. The obvious problem being the conflict of interest in developing a browser (which is meant to serve users) and an advertising platform (which is meant to serve business customers). That alone should have prevented Google from entering that field, but here we are. --- In a tech…

> In a technical sense, Chrome is a monopoly though. The development of Chrome moves at such a rapid pace that only Firefox can keep up

No - MS could too. They choose not to. Others could too, but it's not worth it. Either way, this is not a monopoly in the sense relevant to this discussion, as anyone can start a browser business and write from scratch, or use Chromium or Firefox as an enormous existing base on which to write a browser.

> There's no meaningful maintained alternatives to it either (Mozilla's work on GeckoView only targets individual apps, not the system version; Vanadium and Mulch are both just Chrome forks that implement it as part of a larger custom ROM but in the end are only competition in the same way GNU IceCat is technically a competing browser - they're openly tied to the Chromium upstream because they lack the manpower to do it on their own

If they lack the manpower to do something, but Chrome gives them with zero strings attached the core of itself, that's a good thing, not a bad one. Chromium enables browsers to be built that couldn't otherwise be.

> Just being open source doesn't prevent a company from using their leading position and size to muscle away all the competition.

Still though - competition over what? JS implementations? HTML rendering implementations? You're stating facts - in the most negative way possible - but without saying what you'd like to happen. If Chromium were never open sourced, would that be better?

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#817

Post by seydor »

FredPret wrote: post #560
seydor wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont agree with it at all, but you are right, people buy apple because need to trust somebody and they trust apple to keep making the right product for them. I don't even consider them superior but certainly trustworthy. Whatever changes apple implements would have to be easily revertable so people can go back to their golden prison.

It’s not a prison to keep me in. It’s a wall to keep bad things out.

A wall is a contraption that you can take down if you fancy. A prison is not

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#818

Post by jahnu »

nunez wrote: post #166

Fucking good. It's bullshit that you can only run Safari on iOS or that the App Store is the only store you can use. Yes, I understand the security implications of a third-party browser having deeper integrations into the OS and potential battery life concerns. I also don't care. I want to run Firefox on my phone. The actual thing. With containers and extensions. Let Safari compete on the merits. I want the choice of…

And they don't even properly honour default browser settings for the other WebKit browsers they allow. There are many instances of this; E.g. make Brave your default browser. Then select a word or phrase in a page in this browser, then hit "Search Web" and ... it opens in Safari. Bastards!

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#819

Post by throwaway45680 »

MaKey wrote: post #803
maratc wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, as alternate stores will change the experience for everybody. I download 0 new apps per year, but I use WhatsApp, Outlook, and Google Maps. Today, I get them all from one store - one password to remember, one credit card to have, one stupid set of "security questions" to forget the answers. Tomorrow, Facebook AppStore will be the only place to get WhatsApp, Microsoft AppStore will be the only place to get Outlook…

Given that this scenario hasn't happened with Android, which allows sideloading, this argument seems like baseless fearmongering to me.

Play store allows basically anything (including obviously fake/scam/adware/spyware apps), there's nothing to be gained by doing this on Android, you'd lose an easy distribution mechanism that doesn't limit you, helps you gain victims and provides credibility - it's on top of Google then it must be good, right?

Also consider the market share of iOS and Android. Why bother for such small amount of price sensitive users?

iOS is another story entirely. The App Store has a lot of demands on the app developers wrt. UX, compatibility, etc; there's a lot of money to be saved (and faster time to market gained) by not publishing apps there. And then you can also bypass the security/privacy screening.

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