Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

901–910 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#901

Post by berkes »

frankvdwaal wrote: post #882
chargingmarmot wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah, but isn't the EU also responsible for all the trash cookie-consent notifications I get from every website now? Overall, I'm happy they're actively involved. The hands-off attitude in the US is terrible.

No, it's the builders of the consent notifications who are responsible for that. They are often skirting or even breaking EU law to make it a headache to refuse. The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance. Having to click to another screen to do that is... not that. In reality a cookie consent notification can just as well be a small widget somewhere with an accept and refuse button…

Also, and too often overlooked or silently ignored:

You don't need cookie popups! Really. You don't.

You only need to get consent to track users with software you don't run yourself. Or when you sell your data off to other companies.

Both are, unfortunately, the norm. But there's absolutely no technical reason to have these in place. Non at all. Plenty of alternatives for tracking that doesn't need consent. Or just not sell your customers' data off.

I would be infuriated if I found the bakery down the street is selling its security footage with my face on it, next to my sales and spending in that bakery. I'd expect them to at least warn me about this at the door. So I can then buy my bread elsewhere. That's what a consent banner is!

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#902

Post by rightbyte »

capr wrote: post #891
fennecbutt wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you defending a trillion dollar company lmao? Why do you care so much that Apple has been forced to give consumers more choice, you can still just use the app store yourself, nobody is forcing you to use apps from alternative stores. This is the standard "one true religion" reaction imo.

maybe because forcing people or companies (property of people) is wrong?

The phones are not property of Apple though.

The users should not be forced to run Apple approved applications.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#903

Post by nerdjon »

NoPicklez wrote: post #785
nerdjon wrote: post #157

It really bothers me that so much of this is focused on the developers, and that is the problem here. How many users actually want this? I am sure some, but I doubt it is a significant number. I have said this before here, but I am not looking forward to when this likely eventually comes to the US and as a user I have less control over my phone, not more. The walled garden is why I chose an iPhone and continue to sta…

I do often think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was huge for most people including developers. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app. Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out…

> Now there could be an aspect of predatory behavior by Apple in the way they charge developers etc, but that's where I feel the problem should be tackled.

Right! Just because I agree with the core part of the App Store doesn't mean that it isn't without faults. But let's not rip up what is there completely to fix other issues, and just make things worse in the process.

We saw a similar conversation when Steam came out about Piracy of games.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#904

Post by frankvdwaal »

mft_ wrote: post #887
frankvdwaal wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's the builders of the consent notifications who are responsible for that. They are often skirting or even breaking EU law to make it a headache to refuse. The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance. Having to click to another screen to do that is... not that. In reality a cookie consent notification can just as well be a small widget somewhere with an accept and refuse button…

It's not just the dark-pattern cookie popups that are a problem - it's having any mandatory cookie popups --even the fairly-designed ones-- on virtually every website that you ever open. That's what's crappy about the implementation. I once read a light-hearted analysis of the cumulative time wasted by humanity due to the original USB plugs/sockets being unidirectional. I suspect a similar analysis of these cookie po…

Well, note that I said it could just as well be a widget on the website somewhere.

There's no such thing as a mandatory cookie popup. You don't need to get explicit consent if your website needs certain cookies to do what the user wants it to do. Placing a session cookie to log in is fine, for example. And it's also fine to place tracking cookies if and only if the user goes to aforementioned widget and presses the "please track me" button.

But users don't want that, obviously, so websites are built to force you to acknowledge the choice. The problem here is not the implementation of the law - it's the attitude of the website builders.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#905

Post by neop1x »

lapcat wrote: post #3

This is just more malicious compliance by Apple. Indie developers are completely locked out of web distribution, and it applies only to developers who are already paying the Apple tax. > To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must: > Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in t…

What a joke. No such restrictions on MacOS or Android. It is completely useless and doesn't solve anything.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#906

Post by jraph »

jhugo wrote: post #721
jraph wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of Android users use the Play Store (or the Amazon thing) exclusively. So Android is not different than iOS in this regard. The vanishingly few remaining users use F-Droid (sometimes exclusively), which is probably the safest app store on Earth, with GNU/Linux and *BSD distros' base repositories. Open source only, reproducible builds with public recipes written independently, trackers removed (becau…

> The vast majority of Android users use the Play Store (or the Amazon thing) exclusively Are you sure? Android phones are pretty big in China, which is by far the world's largest smartphone market, and I guess Play Store & "the Amazon thing" (I don't remember the name either) adoption there is close to 0%. Anecdotally I have noticed a lot of people using phone vendor app stores in India (the second largest market, t…

> Are you sure?

No, good point! I hadn't thought about the China market. I don't know how things work there.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#908

Post by [deleted] »

dkarras wrote: post #505
Ballas wrote: post #6

I just want to be able to install my own apps on my own device without paying $99/year (and with a signature that lasts a reasonable amount of time). Sadly, this doesn't seem to allow for that.

So they should be forced to develop the SDK and the dev tools for free and provide that support for free? I mean it would be very nice of them to do so, but legally forcing them to do it? I don't know about that. It is a shortsighted "solution".

[deleted]

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#909

Post by pjerem »

xvector wrote: post #778
pjerem wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think the EU can rule that Apple can't charge publishers to be on iOS. Oh I think the EU can rule whatever they want on their domestic market. Apple can try to find all the holes they want, the Commission is probably just taking notes of those holes to fix them in the DMA 1.1 I really think Apple (and Meta, fwiw) is making a huge mistake if they think they are in position to negociate anything. DMA is here…

This is somewhat a naive interpretation. Yes, the EU can enforce certain regulations, ban Apple, etc, but not without repercussions. We live in a global trade environment. It really comes down to whether the US administration would find the EU's actions unreasonable and whether there would be economic repercussions in turn. A trade war is the last thing the EU wants, especially when they are completely and utterly de…

They'll not ban anyone, the DMA allow fines up to 20% of the international revenue. I think there is enough room to enforce rules without banning anyone.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#910

Post by breisa »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #896
frankvdwaal wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's the builders of the consent notifications who are responsible for that. They are often skirting or even breaking EU law to make it a headache to refuse. The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance. Having to click to another screen to do that is... not that. In reality a cookie consent notification can just as well be a small widget somewhere with an accept and refuse button…

> The GDPR says, for example, that refusal should be just as easy as acceptance. Not true, actually! GDPR is a framework, and every EU country implements a national law according to that framework (e.g. the Dutch implementation is called "AVG"). The specific requirement that refusal must be as easy as acceptance is not in the GDPR, but several countries added it to their national implementation of the GDPR.

That is a common misconception. In EU law, there are regulations and directives. Regulations are immediately active in all EU countries. In contrast, directives need to be translated into national law by each individual country. The GDPR is a regulation. (for details: https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/law... )
Post reply on HN