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iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

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Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#841

Post by spartanatreyu »

philistine wrote: post #840
spartanatreyu wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. Apple made their app store incredibly restrictive and took a massive cut of any profits that anyone was making. Not just app sales, any profits. (This happened to hey.com, they wanted a cut of the subscription that users were getting outside of their app). Sometimes apple would just outright steal developer's apps by making their own version, then blocking the original developers by claiming that they were ma…

sideloading will not mean sidestepping the 30% cut for developers. Mark my words. If you need an example, look at what happened with the Netherlands and dating apps.

How so?

As soon as you have sideloading, you have developers who can't get kicked off the app store for not giving a 30% cut because they're not on the app store.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#842

Post by lttlrck »

spartanatreyu wrote: post #841
philistine wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sideloading will not mean sidestepping the 30% cut for developers. Mark my words. If you need an example, look at what happened with the Netherlands and dating apps.

How so? As soon as you have sideloading, you have developers who can't get kicked off the app store for not giving a 30% cut because they're not on the app store.

Let's see what restrictions there are on side-loaded apps first. No Apple is going to cave in completely during the first round.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#843

Post by kalleboo »

otterley wrote: post #627
nabla9 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you ask your carrier for a new eSIM. When your phone breaks, that's not a easy task.

You take your replacement phone, connect it to WiFi, then continue the process.

And then they require 2FA, which was on your broken phone. But oh, you can recover it via SMS! But that requires a working SIM card...

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#844

Post by lttlrck »

adam_arthur wrote: post #815
dagorenouf wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usb-c sounds cool for now. But what about when a new port comes out and Apple can’t use it because the EU still mandates to use the old one?

Then industry players would build consensus around a new standard and adopt that into law? Would you prefer a world where browser vendors are all designing their own HTML and JS features independently rather than working off a common spec too? At a certain scale of adoption/societal impact, having a common set of agreed standards is much more important than fragmented "innovation". I would argue having a general and…

That exact same waste/annoyance is going to happen during the USB-C to USB-next transition.

And as it is it seems extremely unlikely that Apple wasn't already planning Lightning for iPhone...

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#845

Post by lttlrck »

crote wrote: post #814
dahfizz wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There wasn't a law mandating the use of the old micro-B port. The EU issued a memorandum asking companies nicely to use micro-B, but obviously it wasn't enforced (Apple never complied). This situation is different. Apple and others are completely unable to upgrade to USB-D when it comes around.

No, they are not. They will be able to use USB-D in parallel with USB-C until USB-D becomes industry standard, at which point it will be adopted by the EU as the new mandatory standard port.

And during that transition, exactly like now with the Lightning to USB-C transition there will be a lot of e-waste generated... unless the connector is identical

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#846

Post by heavyset_go »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #473
matsemann wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want it, download the app then. Allow others to not download it and use a PWA if they'd like. Actually I believe you're wrong: if people actually preferred Apple's way of doing it, Apple would have no reason to restrict other ways. They restrict it because people prefer the other way, and that would harm Apple's profits.

They continue to restrict it because look at how much trash was (is?) on the Android store; they restricted it even more in the early days because of the torrent of low effort fart / gag apps.

> They continue to restrict it because look at how much trash was (is?) on the Android store; they restricted it even more in the early days because of the torrent of low effort fart / gag apps.

A yet there are a ton of low effort and literal fart apps on the App Store[1].

[1] https://i.imgur.com/AINmvSf.png

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#847

Post by heavyset_go »

palata wrote: post #673
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They continue to restrict it because look at how much trash was (is?) on the Android store; they restricted it even more in the early days because of the torrent of low effort fart / gag apps.

I don't think that they care about not having useless apps. They care about the apps looking "integrated" in their system, right? I am an Android user and an Android developer, and I must admit that iOS apps usually look more consistent (in terms of UX). And that's one of the values of Apple: this vertical integration that makes the overall thing look more polished (and probably easier to use to some extent). Of cour…

> After all, why do developers want PWAs? Probably mostly because it is cheaper for them, not because it's better for their users, right?

Wrong, PWAs can provide better services for users, and the lack of PWAs and enforcement of the App Store monopoly can hurt them[1]:

> The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps.

> I recently worked on a health app related to the COVID pandemic. The most common use case would be served really well by a PWA, and as such, there's no reason users would need to install an app on their phones to access the web app's full set of features.

> Despite the web app working perfectly on Android and across Windows, Linux and macOS without native integration, we now must dedicate time and resources to develop an additional iOS app just so iOS users, which over half of Americans are, aren't left out.

> This is an expensive endeavor time-wise and money-wise, during a pandemic where time is of the essence and resources are stretched thin. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26520148

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#848

Post by 76SlashDolphin »

charcircuit wrote: post #450
76SlashDolphin wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is which of these is a general purpose computer and which isn't. IMHO if what people tend to do on a platform is the same as what they do on a PC then that platform should also be forced to be a general-purposed computer and allow (in some roundabout way) arbitrary application installation. For example, a smartphone replaces a PC for a lot of people. I even know some people in their 20s that don't own a…

What is your definition of "general purpose computer." I would disagree that PCs should allow for arbitrary application installs. Take for example chromebooks. They are one of the most secure PCs out there partly due to not allowing arbitrary apps to be installed.

But they do allow arbitrary code execution inside the Linux VM. You can also write your own extensions which is not arbitrary code but pretty close. Maybe arbitrary userland code is the correct term here.

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#849

Post by Drew_ »

wilg wrote: post #828
superkuh wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>criticizing language instead of ideas. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. It's obvious that I'm criticising the idea of "sideloading" not the word. You can call it some other arrangement of letters and the concept is still very dangerous. And in this case it is also definitely true that apple does not let you install applications without someone paying them $100+ and their continued approval. The "let"…

Responding even though I know it’s not going to be fruitful. The way I came to that conclusion is I read what you wrote, which primarily discusses the language, not the idea. See your references to “doublespeak”, “framing”, “headlines”, and “the word sideloading”. You claimed “Installing applications on iOS 17 might be allowed in Europe” would be a more accurate headline. It wouldn’t be, because you can install appli…

This comment sure does seem to have a lot of criticism of language and none for ideas

Re: iOS 17 app sideloading might only be available in Europe

#850

Post by Temporary_31337 »

illiarian wrote: post #788
atyppo wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you greatly overestimate the importance the average American assigns to "superior functionality" on an iPhone. As important as it is to you or me, the average person doesn't know or care why they should have these features.

I'm a programmer with 22 years of experience, and a member on HN... and even I don't care :)

Why so shallow? Don’t care for this particular feature, maybe but the broader fight is about ownership and control of the things you paid for. Sideloading is going to be nice for programmers as it will have to allow for more flexibility in what apps are allowed to execute
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