You can say whatever you like about the EU (corruption anyone?), but at the very least, they are countering Big Tech. Just that idea of effective balance of force is a positive signal to me.
While I want monopoly companies to screw themselves. I don't like EU attitude to want to rule over foreign companies arbitrarily, it's a call to the colonial times when Europe wanted to make the world follow their rule and serve them.
The EU government is simply laying the ground rules as to how businesses should operate inside the EU single market. They're not forcing Apple to change its business practices anywhere else in the world, as far as I understand. And Apple is free to leave the European market, if they do not like those conditions. Personally, as a consumer, I welcome this. And I hope that they don't just end at Apple. Google and Microsoft oughta be next.
Isn’t this sort of like saying that Apple is just dictating how developers should operate when creating apps for their phones? If developers don’t want to use the App Store, they are free to leave the market of Apple consumers.
Ironic, considering US companies must provide their data to US gov even for non US persons or clients, and that's why Google and MS services are deemed illegal in many EU countries.
BTW, no foreign company is forced to operate in Europe.
> I don't like EU attitude to want to rule over foreign companies arbitrarily
I agree in principle. How could they balance that force, without arbitrarily ruling over foreign companies? I don’t know. Maybe clarify what is "arbitrarily”?
Well, that is exactly the effective force I'm talking about. Can you imagine Apple not operating in Europe?
However, this is "legal" authority. I'm trying to discuss the more subtle moral authority: Many even inside the continent, do not accept the moral authority of the EU. and they also use that "arbitrarily" word to justify their claims. So why not discuss that word in detail ?
I’m not for downvoting replies to death. I’m more for letting people define their words better. It sometimes works. Sometimes.
Sure, we do after all have the example of some (non-Apple) companies not operating in China, a similarly important market. If Apple really believe their own rhetoric about how the only way to protect their users is for Apple to control the experience, they'll pull out of Europe rather than compromise on their users' security.
I just talked about how this is about moral authority VS legal one. Here it is about commercial markets VS cultural centres.
Europe is not just a market. Europe is the (historical) centre of the western world. I don't think big tech can/want to leave it. If they say so, IMO they are just bluffing.
There are both monetary and strategic reasons for global corporations to operate in Europe of course, just as there are with other areas of the world.
But that doesn't mean they should be allowed to do so solely on their own terms.
Countries can set the terms they want. That is the meaning of sovereignty.
Some of them have rules that constrain their legislature somewhat (a constitution) and some of them try to set rules that at least to some degree conform to the will of the people living there (democracies).
These principles have not come about from nothing, so I wouldn't call them arbitrary.
> These principles have not come about from nothing, so I wouldn't call them arbitrary.
I did not either. I was just using his exact expression, in an effort to let him explain himself.
I can understand how offending that word is for some. Just wonder at all that bloody european history and superhuman effort to rationally get over it...
> Many even inside the continent, do not accept the moral authority of the EU.
True, so much so that many, just outside of the continent, decided to leave the EU.
Insofar as they were in the EU though, they were bound by its laws.
This is no different from any other set of laws. Many in any country, state or other political organisation disagree with some law. They may choose to leave. They may choose to enact activism against said laws. They may not, without being subject to penalties, break said law.
Is it moral? Is it not? That's for societies to decide. If you're in the EU and you find the EU as a whole is not favourable to your country, you can start a campaign to leave. If, on the other hand, you just find that a specific law or another are wrong, you can write to your representatives, campaign to vote them out, etc.
Those are the (imperfect) workings of most democracies we know.
> Can you imagine Apple not operating in Europe?
I can. I don't think they will though. Why? Because even with the very few regulations that might reduce their ability to profit, it is still less profitable to leave the EU market. If eventually they find that not to be the case, they can lobby, campaign or leave.
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. But only because the UK is weird and insists it’s four nations. (And England kinda speaks for all of them for this kind of thing).
Well in the proper sense the EU isn't a nation in any case. I was being loose about the governmental level at which regulation of foreign entities take place, which I think is fine for a HN comment!
> And England kinda speaks for all of them for this kind of thing
Well yes, it's 4 nations, except that England doesn't believe in the other 3 ;) Though it's only just coming to terms with the self-existence of most of the old Empire for that matter. Writing as someone who was born in the least likeable of the UK nations (England), and has lived in all but Wales.
Any company that wants to do business in the EU has to comply with European rules, and their products have to comply with European guidelines. Electronics, cars, food, everything had to comply to rules. This includes antitrust policies.
You'll find corrupted politicians in every government in every country in the world. And yes, the EU has the strongest consumer protection laws anywhere in the west.
Yeah. Though for us entirely outside the political sphere of influence for the decision making, it's a tad bittersweet having to take the bad with the good. Love my unified USB-C, don't love clicking GDPR cookie banners.
GDPR didn't enforce cookie banners. Sites can simply not track if they actually care about their users. If they don't track they don't need to ask for anything.
And a lot of these dark pattern cookie banners are not GDPR compliant. It should default to not track even if you don't press anything. And clicking 40 different reject buttons isn't allowed either. This needs serious policing.
So you're basically saying the alternative is don't exist for the vast majority of sites, reducing revenue by 50% and surviving is just about impossible for every internet company.
And if they wanted to turn every site into subscription overnight, they could have made this an optional provided header to opt out. Every browser could implement that in days.
No not really. When everyone does it, untargered ads will be the norm and will just be more valuable. Just like they were before adtech happened.
Also, 50% less doesn't have to mean not to exist.
I do wish they had mandated the existing do not track flag to be honored though without presenting any popups. This would have finally made that flag useful and would have made things much easier. I know some browsers have removed it but it's easy to bring back.
I remember a big stink about corruption in the Olympic Games when it went to Utah, and giving my mormon friend some crap about it. He pointed out that it's always been DEEPLY corrupt, and the only problem was that the Utah officials didn't go along with it, and that's what caused all the press. I don't know how much of that is actually true, but it seems analogous.
All laws also apply to EU companies plus EU companies have to adhere to EU laws from the start while non-EU companies can focus on more lenient regulations until they are ready to move into the EU market.
If anything this kind of legislation is more damaging to EU companies.
Why do you think that? They've successfully intervened in anticompetitive markets even where all participants are fully EU based (e.g. railways, train manufacturers).
Show me a government that has 0 corruption. No system is perfect, but there's better ones and worse ones. IMO EU is one of the better ones, but not a perfect one, obviously :)
I am huge EU skeptic, but this one really does push back on my beliefs. I find it very disappointing it took such an action for Apple to do the right thing. Way to go EU!
> To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple
I'm sure they'll at least require notarization with their $99/year developer program, in line with macOS, where it's an increasingly enormous pain to run unsigned apps.
I know it is contrary to HN guidelines to discuss comment votes, but this is weirdly my most downvoted comment of all time. In almost 13 years of commentating I have never had a comment receive -4 points before.
It's because app notarization doesn't involve review. It's an ahead of time virus scanning and they presumably archive the apps as well to be able to go back later and find equivalents when new malware is identified, but notarization itself is fully automated and takes only a minute or two.
>To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple — a process that could carry a fee.
Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're actually paying for. This is the problem with believing their own talking points about "paying 30% for payment processing."
So now they'll be paying for actual third-party payment processing, as well as lawyers and accountants to ensure they're complying with Apple's royalty agreements to license their technology.
It's very likely, they've tried playing the same games with other jurisdictions, "sure, you can use your own payment processor, and still pay us 27%", but it's very unlikely those tricks will hold up to further legal actions.
Fighting monopolies is hard, but the penalties scale up the more games these companies play. They know it too, but all of the **holes running these companies are worried about is cashing out their bonuses and retiring before the regulations finally get things to where they should be.
I certainly understand why developers would prefer that Apple have that business model, but that's not the one they chose for the iPhone. And these laws don't prohibit it.
Yes it was, they later changed their stance. In the announcement for iPhone, Jobs on stage explicitly stated that all you need to develop an app was html and modern javascript with API's into the phone hardware. And they would basically just be a PWA that would keep the app updated automatically as soon as the developer makes a change, all while keeping the iPhone "reliable and secure." In fact, he was bragging about not having a store "rather than having to go through this complex update process" as a dig at the Google play store.
That's incorrect. Enforcement has failed to handle it, but Apple's app store model is a violation of antitrust law, in the US, the EU, and elsewhere. Many of the actions you are seeing in the news about it are regulatory mandates, based on the fact that Apple's business model isn't legal.
> Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're actually paying for.
IMO a lot of developers are paying for Apple to have an unreasonable amount of control and the entire point of side loading or competing app stores is to get rid of that because we don't want to be paying Apple to act against our interests.
I don't want to pay for Apple to "verify" my app. I want them to use the OS to enforce user granted permissions and that's it.
As a developer, I understand this sentiment. As an iPhone user however, I don't want the power to shift to developers, because I know developers have financial or other interests that are sometimes at odds with mine.
A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords. If you value openness, then I suggest you use and develop apps for Android.
> because I know developers have financial or other interests that are sometimes at odds with mine.
Like how Apple's interests can be at-odds with your own. If developers have control over your device, you're not empowered as a user.
> A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords
So, give it to them. Our interests are not mutually exclusive, you can make a device with both a walled garden and a developer mode. It's not rocket science, at least when you have 200 billion dollars in R&D cash sitting in your coffers.
The trouble is that if large tech companies are given the opportunity, they will force users to use whatever is best for the company, not for the user. The only way to stand up to large tech companies is with another tech company like Apple.
That's bullshit. The only way to stand up to large tech companies is with regulation, which the United States is pathologically opposed to. Foreign countries have to write their own consumer protection laws because US juggernaut tech companies are so ruthless. Shareholders fear nothing as much as regulatory backlash.
You're at least right about one thing. Large tech companies will always exploit opportunities to limit the user, which is a privilege Apple has abused for too long. It's time for computing to be democratized again, even if we need to drag Apple though the mud to get there.
> That's bullshit. The only way to stand up to large tech companies is with regulation
I don't know if you realize this, but OP and you are saying the same thing, they are just saying it slightly different.
You: To stand up to large company bullying you need to regulate them through the government.
OP: To stand up to large company bullying you, you need another large company who has the pockets and sway to bring change through congress because our government is bought and paid for by corporations.
We're strongman-ing two sides of the same coin. They're arguing that the free market will solve this, whereas I'm arguing that proactive measures are required. Apple's business is designed so that it cannot be disrupted without forcing them to abide by a common set of rules. By leaving those rules undefined, we have clearly not encouraged innovation or disruption. Our only option is to define our consumer rights that we should have instated a long time ago.
Apple can still regulate your iPhone if they want. They just have to do so with the option to disable that regulation, which seems like a fair concession to me. Macs pull this off without a problem, even letting you install another OS if you're dissatisfied with MacOS. Apple just needs to bring that same philosophy to iPhone, and developers won't be mad at them.
A difference between governments and corporations are that you can walk away from a corporation for another one or none at all in the extreme case an alternative doesn’t exist.
You can’t walk away from government regulation because there is ultimately a gun at your back. Governments do not give up power once they’ve received it. Governments change hands who may wield that power differently than when it was imagined to be when first received.
People in European countries have had to learn this the hard way many, many times over and yet still don’t get why other cultures might take a different view on it.
How incredibly myopic. And also wrong. It works just fine for users. Not so much for all the greedy, prima donna developers out there. They and governments don’t need this power, they want it.
Just because smoldesu says “Letting software go unregulated didn't work, full-stop” doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t even make sense–you’re the one fighting for deregulation here.
Sling all the mud you want, troll. Just because smoldesu doesn’t like the regulation that Apple enacts, doesn’t mean they are not regulating the apps people try to ship.
I don't sit on Dow's board and have zero say in whether they decide poisoning the environment where I live is a good idea or not. We are not afforded democracy like owners and board members are.
The government is the one institution in most people's lives that they have a real say in, and probably the only one that affords them democracy. I doubt any of us sit on Apple's board.
The problem is that the Apple and Google duopoly is stifling choice and competition such that we can't realistically walk away from those companies. Market forces haven't solved this issue, and this is where antitrust legislation kicks in.
This doesn't happen on Android. Why would it happen in iOS?
Discoverability and the ease of access that the playstore/appstore provides is enough to pretty much always want to have your app up there.
The main difference is that there are a lot of apps that are simply not allowed in the appstore or that you need to change substantially to comply with apple's rules. For example, Telegram has censored content if you download the app from the appstore given Apple's pornography laws. Other apps that might be used to infringe on copyright are outright not allowed (they're also not allowed on the playstore, but you can install them from the apk or a third party store).
Now, maybe you think these restrictions are appropriate and that's fine... for you. Other people might want the freedom of doing more with their devices that they paid hundreds and hundreds of dollars for without having to resort to extreme measures. The argument Apple uses is bullshit and the EU saw through it.
You realise that's what Apple has been doing for the past 15 years? Force users to do what's best for them, and only them? Anti-competitive practices do not serve customers, they increase prices and prevent innovation.
> A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords.
To state the obvious: if this were true, Apple wouldn't have to force the issue. Apple's app store would be a premium that they would charge users extra for. Getting your apps from 3rd-party stores would be the equivalent of the green bubble.
the "use android" argument is getting really tiring. as someone who used to be an android user for years and still somewhat keeps up with the ecosystem, ios and most apps written for it (including major apps like twitter) are far more polished than whatever mess google is doing with android (and manufacturers make it even worse). i much prefer having the polished ios experience while being able to sideload and possibly even jailbreak my phone. and then there's imessage too, though we'll see what happens with that after the dma.
and the argument about "giving developers power" simply doesn't hold any water. android openly allows sideloading with the google play store having very similar rules to the app store, and yet i can count the number of major apps that force or even offer a sideloaded version on one hand. the only ones that come to mind are fortnite (removed from google play) and telegram (on play store, but sideloaded version has faster updates and less censorship).
> the "use android" argument is getting really tiring
I fully agree, imagine if MS had made Windows apps on W10 only come from their store. Anybody saying that the solution is "just buy a mac 4head"*, like they love to do with mobile phones, would be laughed out of existence.
*: It's great to have options, and linux should be in here too, but that would be like telling a normal user in this situation (mobile market) to go buy a Pine phone, which for very few would work the way they expect/need it to.
> the "use android" argument is getting really tiring
Why? Android is a legitimate alternative, one that the majority of the world population uses. You have many makes and models of handsets from which to choose. You want the polished apps with a completely open and free environment. Maybe you should ponder why such apps don't exist for the open and free ecosystems?
That iOS polish is largely a byproduct of the walled garden approach. Users are incentivised to spend within the ecosystem due to the safety, security and support provided by Apple.
This argument would only make sense if the vast majority of Android spend was outside the Play ecosystem, which it is not. The second part "The safety, security and support provided by Apple." sounds more like a general Apple press release than something related to app polish.
If most people actually choose iOS/iPhones primarily because of the App Store quality/protections/ecosystem then people will continue to choose the App Store regardless if sideloading is possible - after all we just said that's the whole reason most bought the phone in the first place. If on the other hand people are choosing iOS/iPhones for other reasons and you're worried nobody else will use the App Store anymore then I don't really buy "there aren't enough of us so it should be allowed to hold a captive market to support our use case" as a reasonable argument even though I see it quite often on HN.
The issue is the monopolistic price gouging Apple charges for access to the walled garden.
If you took the "policing for developer's short circuiting the 30% cut" out of Apple's approval process, everything in their ecosystem works out fairly nicely.
The core issue is, simply, that Apple price gouges enormously.
Look, it’s not my analogy, but I think you’re all being quite disingenuous.
If I can use alternate stores then some popular apps - Fortnite is an obvious one - will go them exclusively, forcing people to set up and use a store which will probably do less auditing. Those apps will be able to steal more of my data, and some of them might (will) be malicious (“poison”).
Once a malicious app destroys my phone, “the system is down”; I can’t use any apps regardless of where I bought them.
Ransomware is a multi billion dollar business, and alternate stores will be motivated to cut corners. What could go wrong?
> Those apps will be able to steal more of my data, and some of them might (will) be malicious (“poison”).
This seems a bit hyperbolic. I personally have not had this problem on my laptop (a Mac) despite being able to sideload apps, and it likely being a much juicier target.
>Apple in fact uses and sells your data for the same purposes it is "protecting you" from when other developers do it.
I don’t believe this is true, can you cite a source? The recent buzz about ‘targeted ads’ was actually about adds on their own App Store, no third party data sharing or sale was involved, so I believe you are mistaken.
By that definition, Google doesn't share your data either. But they do, by monetizing it in the form of targeted ads. Both Apple and Google try to gussy it up with 'anonymous' labels, but the business of tracking and monetizing your habits is shared by both.
It’s still not the same as selling your data to third parties, with all the many very considerable additional privacy and accountability problems that entails. It’s also not using your data to provision ads on third party sites and apps. I’ve seen people claim Apple does both of those things here before, and the fact is they don’t.
What they are just starting to do is no different from Amazon using your past purchases to place ads on their own site. I have no problem with that either.
If your going to criticise them and think what they are doing is wrong, fine. That’s fair, but could people at least get what they're complaining about factually correct.
Apple has an ad network, which has special privileges on iOS. Are you saying they don't provision ads on their ad network based on all the special access they have? They'd be kind of crazy not to, they've secured themselves a very valuable information monopoly here, and it's pretty obvious why...
They don’t have an ad network in any meaningful sense, because there’s no distribution network for their ads. The ad targeting everyone is talking about is only for ads for apps on the App Store. Not in third party apps or web sites and such. That’s why I compared it to Amazon targeting ads in their own store.
> >To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store.
Are they going to keep on giving their own apps entitlements they deny to everyone else? (Or even, allow to others, but very selectively.) Or is the EU going to crack down on that as well? I hope.
I don't own an iPhone, but if this is the case then the end result is going to be hilarious. Apple will eventually get a court order to prevent software from a third party store being installed on their devices. Either it will enable copyright infringement or violate some other IP restriction.
What's the precedent for that? Windows, MacOS, Android and Linux have all allowed the user to indiscriminately install software, but I've never heard of legislation that tried to reverse that.
I definitely agree it's going to be the worst of all worlds. The current model was the most efficient one for Apple and developers. There will be additional costs for everyone involved (great for lawyers and accountants though). The current model was a virtuous cycle that benefited Apple, developers, and users. High trust from users made them amenable to spending money on software, grew the Apple developer ecosystem, and unleashed a wave of innovation which spawned industries since 2008. Importantly, all developers got standard terms which created a level playing field. I suspect we're moving into a world where large developers (Spotify/Netflix/Microsoft) will have much more negotiating leverage than a small developer. But that is the 'business as usual' world, which makes this a reversion to the mean.
> Importantly, all developers got standard terms which created a level playing field.
Lmao, you must have missed the news about Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix and another few dozen Fortune 500 companies negotiating with Apple under the table. They already do bend the rules for sufficiently large companies, they just won't budge if you're someone that threatens them.
What the Epic v. Apple antitrust trial showed was that no one actually got better terms than anyone else. If you have evidence of Microsoft, Amazon, or Netflix getting terms that aren't available to anyone else, please link them.
That was only true after Apple adjusted their rules to expand Netflix's deal (allowing external processors in certain situations) to the rest of the store. There was a time when it was an exclusive, under-the-table deal with Netflix. It's not hard to believe when you hear about the private entitlements notable developers like Uber and Google get.
Sounds like it'll be a bit like on Mac with that whole notarization rigmarole.. But on Mac you can bypass it by jumping through some hoops. I guess on iOS you won't be able to until the EU catches up and forbids that too.
I'd actually consider iOS again if it were more open so I think this is a really good thing.
The EU is mandating sideloading, it's not mandating Apple do it for free. Until now, developers have been licensing Apple's intellectual property in a bundle through the Developer Program License Agreement. For anyone that goes through the sideloading route, they can expect to enter into a different contractual agreement with Apple to license their technology.
Otherwise they're building a web app, which they've always been able to do!
What a sham, though. Developers already pay for Apple's IP
- When they pay $99/year for their developer license
- When they pay royalties on every payment that gets processed
- When they buy and promote Apple hardware and software
People simply want to remove the payment processing one. If Apple really needs more money to build their amazing intellectual property, they have plenty of ways to bill developers for services rendered. Their current system is undeniably exploitative, and the EU won't stop until that exploitation is alleviated. Apple will stop at nothing to defend their control, but will ultimately be forced to abide by Europe's terms. They're not defying small-fry court orders in the Netherlands anymore.
For me as a user it's not about the payment thing at all. It's about being able to do with my device what I want without the manufacturer having to approve it first.
You're exactly the person the top of thread person is talking about. When Apple was forced to allow 3rd party payment processors they still charged developers a 27% commission on the sale of digital goods.
What if, because of the new regulations, a new ecosystem of open-source iOS SDKs pops up? Developers who use those would not have to pay Apple at all, since they are not using any of Apple's IP.
There's a universe of FOSS that hasn't needed third-party payment, lawyers, accountants, etc. because they do not perceive the purpose of apps as "making money."
That universe doesn't quite exist on iOS, partly because Apple makes it so uncomfortable in ways to attempt. I am hopeful that this shakeup might, in some way, make that easier. I've always wanted to ship some basic apps that do things without any ads or purchases or whatnot.
It is likely that the use of web-based experiences will eventually surpass the need for app stores. In many cases, the functionality of a website is similar to that of a mobile app. However, Apple's restrictions on the progress of progressive web apps (PWAs) on Safari may slow the transition from app stores to web-based options. In the meantime, it may be worthwhile to consider visiting a website before downloading an app for your next mobile experience.
That’s funny. Because when the iPhone launched Apple offered just that: their own native apps and the rest had to contend with web based apps and a api to access phone specific features and UI elements. Only much later they announced the App Store and I doubt they will let it go now. In favor of non native web interfaces.
Apple's review process and their rules about the kind of apps and code that are allowed to run? Heck, do they even allow GPLv2 and GPLv3 apps on the app store?
It doesn’t matter whether they do. The anti-tivoization clause in the GPLv3 license (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#Tivoization) forbids developers from selling iOS apps that contain GPLv3-licensed software (the situation w.r.t. GPLv2 is less clear)
You can build them without a developer account, but then you will have to re-sign your own apps every 7 day and can only have 4 such app on your phone at a time.
On top of $100/year developer license, you also need an Apple laptop (or desktop) to develop for iOS devices. You are legally (though not technically) forbidden to run a copy of macOS on non-Apple hardware, even if a legitimate copy were obtainable without purchasing some hardware.
Apple is a hardware company, an appliance company if you wish, and also a media company. The fact that they are forced to also produce general computing devices as a wayto run stuff like Ableton or Photoshop is, I suspect, seen as a pesky legacy of Apple II days.
> , even if a legitimate copy were obtainable without purchasing some hardware.
Pedantic, but the license agreement line requiring that 'MacOS can only run on Apple hardware' is, itself, in service of the fact that they only license the software to you if you purchase their hardware.
If the FOSS universe wants to make web apps, that's great. But they didn't need this law to do that. If they want to make native iOS apps, well now they'll be using Apple's intellectual property, which won't be for free.
Why is "making an app that calls iOS APIs" an use of Apple's IP that they should be compensated for?
That's like saying people shouldn't be allowed to make unofficial accesories for physical products without paying the company because the original designs for the product itself are patented.
It should be Free. People are okay with literally stealing money from corporations in the name of “tax,” yet they balk at making SDKs Free? Platforms should capture some of the economic returns to have good incentives to improve, but the majority should go to users and third-party developers. It should also be possible to release GPL software on any platform. That’s the minimum bar for not screwing over users.
They won't, because anyone who starts an alternative app store will provide everything necessary for a small fee. The likes of Epic, Microsoft, Amazon, etc are more than capable.
Yes and you'll still have to pay Apple a 27% commission on digital goods sold even when it's distributed through the Epic store. This is what the parent is talking about not understanding what you're paying for.
Hitching your "I don't want to pay the 30% commission" wagon to "Allowing 3rd party app stores and payment processors" is doomed to fail.
The number 1 thing they are paying for by a mile is reach. Not any particular service offering. Your listing the app store can be nearly as important as your SEO ranking of moreso depending on your business. It's why Google can still charge pretty hefty fees despite not locking users in nor doing all that much for app quality. If you're not in the Play Store, users won't find you.
So the first 1.8 million apps plus the ability to use the free development environment to compile and load any program you want (necessarily open source) on your devices wasn't enough?
I suppose there are people just itching to install closed source mystery code from unaccountable entities. Unfortunately most of them are the friends and family for whom I am first line technical support. I'm not looking forward to the change.
I'm willing to wait for the details, but at this moment, I am not a fan of unaccountable stores.
> the ability to use the free development environment to compile and load any program you want
You can load any app you want, but it disappears after 3 days. Then you have to load it again. To keep the app on your phone, you need to load it onto your phone again every 3 days using your computer.
It's obviously set up for developer testing, not for someone trying to actually get use out of an app on their phone.
Not true [see edit below, retraction]. The apps I write and load onto my own devices outside the store stay on my devices until I get a new device. I think there might be a profile that has an expiration of one to three years, but in practice that never goes off for me. I either add a feature or get a new device before that goes off.
Edit: Ok, "true depending". If you are a registered developer then your apps last a year. If you are unregistered then you get one week, which would be a total pain in the ass.
Are you trying to say that a free development environment that you can install in order to compile and load any program you want for three days isn't enough?
It depends. It is enough to turn yourself into an experienced software developer, then you can get a job and afford the annual developer fee. But it sort of sucks if you are, say, retired and don't keep up your identity but would like to keep your apps.
I don't understand what risk they are mitigating by keeping the unverified developers to 3 days instead of one year. It is clearly an intentional action.
I guess you could have a business where you install unapprovable apps for people with a 1 year subscription and they have to physically come back to your kiosk and get an update from you each year.
> you could have a business where you install unapprovable apps for people
I've heard that there's somewhat of a black market for this already. One person buys a developer subscription, then signs apps for other people so that they can sideload them using something like AltStore. Then, Apple sees that many apps have been signed by one dev account and shutters the account for terms of service violations. Finally, someone else registers a new developer account and the process repeats.
Well of course you need a computer to run the IDE. Xcode only runs on Macs. It is possible to develop and sign code without Xcode if you have access to a different sort of computer, but that is a level of masochism unrelated to productivity. (As opposed to Xcode which is a level of masochism related to productivity.)
Macs have a long shelf life, and ones capable of running current Xcode are thrown to the recycler, I assume you could nab one for minimal coin too. They'll be slower, like 1/3 the speed to build compared to new machines, but apps don't take long to build. Most of your time is "sitting and staring" followed by "typing". Neither of which is appreciably impacted by using an old machine.
I went from an 8 year old Mini to a new M1 when they came out. A world of difference! Buttery smooth window drags, gorgeous scrolling. But I don't really program apps any faster. Sure, I have a few seconds now and then on a build, but it doesn't add up to much. Then I switched up to a Studio with a brain the size of a planet… no real change for app programming.
Don't let lack of a computer be a problem. Grab an old mini and do your thing.
> I suppose there are people just itching to install closed source mystery code from unaccountable entities. Unfortunately most of them are the friends and family for whom I am first line technical support. I'm not looking forward to the change.
What is this hypothetical even. Your nontechnical friends and family are also eager to go out of the App Store (after having to enable developer mode, which might be as difficult and full of disclaimers and warnings as Apple chooses to slap into it), then root around shady third party app stores and mobile websites to download mystery code? So they're simultaneously tech illiterate and power users?
Exactly! They run into "that other guy" who tells them "Oh, you should delete Safari and Mail and always use these other programs!" Then I get to help them with why "other browser's" keychain integration is rubbish and it displays blanks instead of web pages for some sites, and the content filters don't work right… and something weird is happening with the UI of "other mail".
They will totally hand their phone over to "other guy" who will "do something, I don't remember what he did"… and they'll be subscribed to SketchyAppStore2023-HGTWRE.
Who is that other guy? A TikTok influencer? A YouTuber? Why are your friends and family handing over their phones to such shadowy figures on the street? Just tell them not to do that and be done with it.
1. Nothing is going to change and I will continue to use my phone as it was before because the App Store is still the primary driver.
2. I will be forced to use third party stores because critical apps are no longer distributed through the App Store.
3. I will just be using my phone less and less.
The EU, Developers, and Many here continue to forget that the reason many of us use an iPhone is because of the walled garden. If I wanted an open platform I would switch to Android and mod the hell out of it.
I don't want that. I want the precautions that Apple has in place to make it so developers can't employ dark patterns to keep me as a paying subscriber. To mine the data on my phone for their profit.
With one or 2 clicks of a button I can cancel any subscription I want that I did through the App Store. I also get alerts when anything yearly is about to charge (from Apple) or when things are about to cost more than they used to. Instead of hoping that we just wouldn't see the alert like too many sites do.
People keep saying that this is about choice, which frankly... is bull. This is about choice for the developer not the consumer. Most consumers don't care, but developers will jump ship to another App Store if they can start doing all of the negative practices that they are not allowed to do on the App Store. Especially if they are big enough, Seriously think that Facebook won't try to have their own App Store? Considering what they have gotten up to very recently.
We already have enough developers purposefully trying to deceive users right before they get the prompt about allowing the app to track.
Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer and not developers?
Edit: Instead of replying to each one I am going to just post here.
Many of you are saying Android does not have this issue. But unless I am mistaken Epic Games did exactly this?
Also unless I am mistaken, many of the consumer protecting restrictions are not on android. Especially around subscriptions and billing issues. I know google is cracking down on it, but from what I understand it is not as universally in place.
So developers don't have the incentives to move to another App Store on Android like they do on iOS (again benefiting developers while hurting me as a consumer)
Edit: I am going to make one last point here. I spend a fair amount of money on App Store subscriptions. (or buying apps but that is sadly not as popular anymore). I do this because I don't worry about singing up to try something, knowing that I can very easily cancel it. I don't even have to talk to the company.
This leads me to signing up for apps that I would never have considered paying for if it was through a traditional website that would make me jump through who the hell knows what hoops to cancel.
They complain about the 30% cut, but from me. It is you get 70% or I give my money to someone else.
I cannot imagine I am the only one that does this.
That’s false. If your business is fine with 12% processing fees (specifically in tech and more so in IAP style apps) and not with 30% - something is very wrong.
[Context] it is extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL. The business case if true and still viable should be unique and outside of a pure software play - which gets you squarely out of IAP.
Yeah exactly. I should be cheering for the option of paying less to Apple as a business, but realistically you will get sideloading, piracy and the “mobile users don’t spend money on apps” like it is “Android users don’t spend money on apps”
Long story: it would be extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL.
There was a publisher, a distributor, and the retail outlet all taking their cuts.
Then you also had to pay into a marketing fund for those big full color inserts in the Sunday paper if your software was sold at the big box retailers.
You also had to eat the cost of returns of unsold inventory after you issued a new version.
It's true, Minecraft absolutely had like 4 layers of red tape Mojang had to go through to sell is program. Same with WinZip, WinRar, XSplit and many other applications.
Or do they mostly just support PayPal, Square, Amazon Pay or direct credit card billing?
This is just an Apple PR talking point. You know what existed between the retail stores and the App Store? The internet
We didn’t magically jump from only buying things in stores to only buy things from an App Store. Companies could and still do sell through their own website and through other places.
> We didn’t magically jump from only buying things in stores to only buy things from an App Store.
And it fucking sucked. Finding apps was hit or miss, there was no guarantee an app would run on your device model, and payments were ridiculous. Apple's App Store is far from perfect but it is vastly better than the absolute clown shoes of buying mobile apps for pre-iPhone mobile platforms.
That is more because payment processing in general has come a long way. Buying mac or Windows software from a developer's site using Stripe or even Apple Pay or similar doesn't fucking suck much more than using the App Store.
What world are you coming from? The story for buying windows apps on the internet has been pretty fine for a long, long while; and, compatibility hasn't been any problem at all, in my experience.
Further, since most things were shareware, you could just _test_ the software on your machine ahead of time.
This is changing the goal posts. Whatever the state of “pre-iPhone mobile platforms” is irrelevant. We are discussing about general software distribution.
iPhones nowadays are much closer to functionality and power to (or significantly eclipsing) normal PCs that people have.
And the distribution of software for normal PCs has none of the issue you describe.
I am not forgetting the existence of licensing concerns, but they are not exactly relevant.
A) The presence of licensing software is irrelevant to the existence of something between a big box store and the App Store. Talking about the ecosystem as if people did not sell software electronically before the App Store is simply disingenuous.
B) Times have changed, it's easier to handle that stuff yourself using free software or with software packages that take less than a 30% cut.
C) You know what didn't need that licensing software? Free and/or OSS software. That simply isn't an option on iOS. Further, even if you wanted to enforce that on your paid software you may have used a publishing company, but you weren't artificially limited to a single one.
Because there are apps I would like to use on my iPhone which are prohibited by the current AppStore rules. For example something like Termux. So my szenario would be:
4. I mainly keep using the AppStore with the exception of selected apps from trusted sources which were impossible so far.
If enough developers choose to move to those other stores consumers will have no choice but to use those stores to get the apps they are looking for.
I understand wanting apps that the app stores doesn't permit. There are apps that I would love as well. But I don't want to loose the protections in place to get them.
I have not used Android in a long time so most of my news about it comes somewhere else.
But unless I am mistaken, a developer on Android is free to handle their own subscription billing, purchases, whatever however they want right?
I have seen some reports that google is tracking to crack down on this, but last I saw it was still far more open for the developers.
If that is correct. Developers are less incentivized to circumvent the Android Store. That incentive exists on iOS if it allows them to use those dark patterns for unsubscribing from an app or anything else.
If I am wrong about android than fine, that incentive doesn't exist and that removes most of my argument (it is still a possibility but the incentive won't be there).
If you're asking me for my personal experience with such dark patterns on android, I don't have any stories to tell you. None of the apps I use on android are paid for, have ads or subscriptions, much less un-subscription dark patterns. For things like Uber or banking, Google is not a middleman in my transactions with those companies and I've never seen or felt any reason to desire otherwise.
If an app asks you to pay for a subscription and you don't like the payment processor the app uses, then don't use the app. It's really that simple.
When your response to criticism of iOS is, "just use Android!", I think it's fair to apply the same approach to desirable popular apps: just use the alternative apps & services.
I think this one benefits some consumers, who are in to it, but overall it's more the principal of avoiding monopoly practices. The push to allow other rendering engines/browsers on iOS is a much more beneficial and clear cut positive imo.
I want the ability to sideload apps on my iPhone, but I really hope Apple makes it painful enough that companies like Facebook can't rely on it to get around Apples app store rules.
I’m now expecting to see Xbox Store on PlayStation (and vice versa), Samsung Store on my LG TV (because they have xCloud), no bad practices with a third party store, and everything positive.
Seeing that this solves all our problems, I’m looking forward to xCloud on my LG soon.
I've jailbroken my iOS devices since the first iPod touch. There are lots of tools and features that Apple doesn't allow developers access to which limits what features are ultimately available to the end-user.
Nearly every big feature release on iOS came first from the jailbreak community. App switching, call overlay, PIP video, Shortcuts, lockscreen widgets, home screen widgets... and an endless list of others.
Non of these features would exist without designers and developers having access to the core functionality of the iPhone.
I love iOS. I currently own an iPhone without a Jailbreak (doesn't exist for my iPhone). I'm also an engineer and there is a whole lot of potential that Apple limits strictly under the guise of security. You can have alternate stores without compromising those that choose not to install them.
I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself. IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google anyways because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them in the App Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own store.
I think Apple lowkey actually wants Jailbreak to continue as it's a pool of free novel ideas that they can then implement in iOS. But what % of Apple's customers JB their iDevices? Probably not more than 5%, and that number is likely decreasing too. For instance, I used to JB my iPad and iPhone up until iOS 15 when the features introduced by the OS passed my needs *threshold*.
Oh trust me it's way way lower than 5%. More like 0.05% :) I was until recently a corporate admin of (among many other types) tens of thousands of BYOD iphones.
> I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself.
What do you mean by "create their own store"? I don't understand this part of your comment.
> I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself. IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google anyways because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them in the App Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own store.
If you already don't trust them in the App Store, why would you trust them in their own store to begin with? Sounds to me like you shouldn't use Google apps to begin with.
Most of their apps are very replaceable and with the arbitrary restrictions forcibly peeled back, the sole service that you can only get from them (YouTube) can finally get an iOS equivalent of NewPipe that doesn't need a hacked phone to be installed.
Or like the messenger or streaming wars: everything is fragmented, one AppStore you use primarily, and here and there you need to use the other Stores for specific use cases.
I want an open and private platform. Google may let me sideload apps, but the operating system is hostile to data privacy. For me, an iPhone that I can install other apps on is the best alternative apart from going to a GNU/Linux phone.
Additionally, it’s a benefit that users can now install any apps that Apple refuses to allow.
> Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer and not developers?
Not all laws exist to benefit you personally. It's a benefit to society to avoid a world where Apple will collect a 30% rent on all economic activity, kill of competition at a whim, and in general decide which products and product categories live and die.
> Apple will collect a 30% rent on all economic activity
I understand that it might be a intentional hyperbole but Apple very clearly and universally charges the comission (which is 15% if rev under < $1M) on digital good purchases. They have not planned to charge for bank transfers as some commenters in the NFT case of Coinbase fearmongered or physical goods. It's only a fee on things that App Store and Apple clearly enabled you to deliver to people with their system - digital goods.
> Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer and not developers?
1) Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.
2) Developers will be able to offer refunds more easily (something that continues to be ridiculously hard with the App Store).
3) The App Store only allows free trials for subscriptions. They don't offer free trials before a one time payment to buy the app. A 3rd party store could allow that.
4) Certain kinds of apps that Apple doesn't allow on the App Store would presumably be allowed on other stores.
5) Apple will finally be forced to compete now that the App Store has competition. It might even mean that all the points I made above become moot.
I'm not saying there won't be any potential downsides, but that's the whole point of competition, it's a tradeoff you can make. As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store if you want. Since most users will only use the official store, it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider dropping it entirely.
I had an occasion where my phone was loaned to my (young at that time) nephew on a car trip and since it was my phone (and only my phone) I had rather permissive purchase checks on it. He bought a bunch of in app purchase stuff for Talking Tom (owned by a Chinese company). I filled out the form, and got a refund. I believe that it was much easier than trying to get a refund from the developer.
Here's an example a friend of mine ran into recently:
They sold their company and shut down their service for which they charged monthly/yearly subscriptions. They had a decent relationship with Apple, so they emailed their contact and notified them that they'd like to issue refunds to all their users. Apple said that users had to do it themselves. That wouldn't be so bad, but there's (as I understand it) some restrictions on Apple offering refunds for subscriptions, for example if you're 25 days into a 30 day subscription period, Apple won't allow users to request a refund.
This caused users to get angry at my friend and their company.
If they had been using any other payment service other than the App Store, they could have just automatically issued refunds to all their users.
The difference that we're seeing here is a "user can request a refund easily" vs "developer can refund something to a user."
Apple balances on the assumption of the stability of their developers offering subscriptions and an easier experience for a user requesting a refund.
The difficulty that the developer is having in this case is that Apple isn't exposing the payment information to the developer. If they can say "this user gets a refund" that is leaking some information about the users to developers.
(...)
Additionally, it appears that there were some new methods added to the in-app library for developers to be able to create a refund request on behalf of a user.
> Call this function from account settings or a help menu to enable customers to request a refund for an in-app purchase within your app. When you call this function, the system displays a refund sheet with the customer’s purchase details and list of reason codes for the customer to choose from.
Apple could still act as an indirect facilitator - send apple the money and they refund it on your behalf. I'm sure there are many reasons why this is complicated, but I don't see any fundamental reasons this couldn't be done if Apple want to enable it.
Sure, but that obviously isn't what people were talking about with respect to developers giving refunds. I provided that feature to developers in Cydia and gave refunds directly to users and it was still appreciated by all to have that feature.
Regardless, to address your (off-topic) addition: do you actually request refunds from Apple often enough to be willing to pay 10% more for the privilege? You'd have to be asking for refunds for 1 out of every 10 products you buy for that to make sense...
A developer can issue a refund request on behalf of a user - its just that they can't do the refund themselves because the developer doesn't hold tokens for processing the payment. Doing so gets into issues of PCI and user privacy.
> As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store if you want. Since most users will only use the official store, it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider dropping it entirely.
That right there is my problem with this. We can't even definitively say that it isn't possible. Doesn't Epic do it on Android?
A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) could easily push their store as being the primary way to download their apps. Start out on both at first but gradually introduce incentives for the users to redownload somewhere else. Then suddenly that App Store is on their phone, other developers see the App Store being used a lot and more and more developers stop using the App Store because they can get around these protections that I get as a user.
If somehow developers were still required to be on the App Store, fine. I would have no issue with it. But I just don't see developers doing it. Too many already try to employ dark patterns on there website that given a chance there is no way they won't try to do them on mobile. Many already try (like with the prompts to permit app tracking) but are limited in what they can do.
> A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) could easily push their store
Or any shitty IoT company. When people pay $400 for an instant pot or $800 for a robot vacuum or electric scooter they’ll download any spyware app to make it run. Plenty already required sideloading apk’s on Android.
However, as someone who doesn't deal with these big companies to begin with, it wouldn't affect me at all if they move out. It would just fast-track me to recommending alternatives to everyone I know.
I already migrated my whole family into iCloud for photos and own Nextcloud server for Google Drive alternative. It's been great. Obviously not the average user, but I could see people sticking with Apple's services over Google's.
Might get a huge base of older adults off of Facebook for good if they decide to leave the App Store.
So the big tech companies will self silo into their own app stores (which I can ignore), I can add an open source app store, and companies can run their own app store for line of business apps?
There is a trade-off here. Yes, some apps might not be available in the main store. Not all of the rules that are applied to app submissions are in the best interests of every user. Even some of the rules that do protect some users, also eliminate whole classes of apps that other users would like to use.
This dynamic is already at play on Android. The lack of Fortnite availability on the Play Store is probably to the detriment of users. However, the existence of fdroid has allowed quite a few apps that users want but that fundementally don't work within the Play Store rules.
So when you ask "What does this do for me as a user", the answer is: it creates the opportunity for you to have access to a more diverse set of apps that are currently prohibited (such as anything with adult content).
Edit: A hopeful secondary effect is that Apple will be incentivized to improve the App Store to compete with third party stores. Maybe Apple will add free trials for one-time purchase apps. Maybe Apple will create an adult content section. Maybe Apple will provide better transparency around rejections. Maybe a store will emerge that does a much more stringent security review that catches the bad actors that do get their apps through Apple's screening. Most likely, none of this will happen and 3rd party stores will see minimal use, predominantly by technical users who want apps that fundamentally violate the store rules, like has happened on Android.
> Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.
I'll believe most developers offering cheaper prices on other stores when I see it. Nobody is going to lower their prices just because they have moved app stores.
Do you really think developers are going to lower the price of their app people are already willing to pay for? I agree the 30% Apple tax can inflate prices, but I'm more inclined to think developers will pocket the 30% instead of reducing their apps price, especially companies selling a product (e.g. Twitter).
As a linux user, I don't like how Apple gets to decide every app that can be installed on iOS. I like the ability to install any program I choose. This alone is enough for me. Currently, I use a linux emulator, iSH, on my iPad, but I'm really worried that at any moment apple could make it unusable for me because it can run arbitrary programs, which they stated they are directly against.
Switching phone ecosystems is a hell of a lot harder and more expensive than installing an app. (And the Android ecosystem is honestly not good either.)
Yea I don't get the argument of "Just don't use Apple"
You can like the hardware and not care for the software. It really is A/B at the moment. It's difficult for the average user to choose C. You either allow Google to peer into your life, or trust that Apple's marketing isn't a gimmick and a lot of Apple is e2e encrypted.
From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting e2e encryption. I see this as the biggest reason to stick with Apple. I trade off full-customizability for better security/experience.
If a jailbreak was available for my iPhone, I'd be on it though.
> From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting e2e encryption.
Yes, but only as secure as the passphrase you use to unlock your phone. Except actually less secure than that; your phone will rate limit attempts to guess your passphrase, but encrypted iCloud backups turned over to a government won't and can't rate limit attempts.
For the average user with a relatively short passphrase, iCloud backups will be trivial to crack. Still, it's an improvement.
You seem to think that your phone's pin is used directly as some sort of encryption key for cloud backups, but that's not how these systems work. Your pin or face or fingerprint unlocks your phone's secure element, and the secure element contains a randomly generated high entropy encryption key for your data.
This is why you can casually change your pin code in your phone's settings without it chewing through your battery and data plan reencrypting and reuploading gigabytes of cloud data.
In addition to what DCKing said, you can effectively rate-limit password attempts on encrypted data by deriving the key using a cryptographic hashing function such as bcrypt with a high amount of iterations.
What does full-featured mean to you? There’s a bunch of non-google Android distros that seem full featured to me. Same with Sailfish, at least when I last used it some years ago.
No big corporate support, less commercial apps packaged by default, but that’s a feature in itself.
To me, full-featured means that I can install a ridesharing app, social media/chat apps, a podcast app, a maps app with live traffic updates and turn-by-turn directions, and popular streaming music and video apps.
Bonus points for supporting contactless payments, banking apps, and airline apps.
The hardware should have decent battery life and get great cell reception, and the UI should be smooth.
I'm in a similar boat. I bought an ipad because its simply the best tablet and actually gets attention. I didn't want a chromeOS or Windows device. The ipad for me is about 80% there and the other 20% is just not what apple wants.
If this would push that other 20%, I might even consider switching from Android.
As it stands, Android has a lot of free trash on the play store, and Iphone has a lot of paid trash on the app store because apple charges them hundreds per year for the honor of developing on their platform.
On Android, when I need an app with basic functionality, I already check fdroid first for a simple OSS implementation. I don't need my voice recorder to do anything except record audio. I don't need my heart beat monitor to do anything but check my pulse.
I'm hoping this change brings the type of innovation early jailbreak app stores brought that basically test drove features that Apple would copy years later and call "innovative".
As a Linux user, I love that there’s a kind of device I can recommend my non-technical friends and family without worrying too much about their safety or privacy. Is it perfect? No. But the risk that they’re fooled into installing a malicious app is still a lot lower than with mandated side loading and app stores with lax oversight.
I.e the gatekeeping my government wants to prohibit is the reason I’ve been recommending these things. I guess I’ll have to switch to recommending AwareGo security training for everyone
Then my question is: Why do you believe that relaxing app requirements on iOS would cause mandated side-loading, given that it's not a problem for anything else currently on the market?
My point was that the possibility to side load apps is becoming mandatory, and that that possibility comes with a risk. I don’t think people will be forced to side load things, sorry if I didn’t express myself properly
> People keep saying that this is about choice, which frankly... is bull.
This is very obviously bull. When there are essentially only two smartphone platforms, and someone is arguing that one of the only significant consumer differences between the two platforms should be removed, that person is not trying to increase consumer choice.
> 2. I will be forced to use third party stores because critical apps are no longer distributed through the App Store.
This seems very unlikely. It hasn't happened on Android. Amazon has their own Android appstore and nobody is forced to use it, and I think nearly nobody does. But because Android has this possibility, I can use F-Droid which is excellent.
What does a "critical app" even look like? I don't have any apps on my phone that I would call critical, only convenient. My banking apps from the playstore are nice to have, but not critical. I can do banking on their websites, at an ATM or over the phone. Uber is sometimes convenient, but I've gone years without using it before and many people don't have it at all. If Facebook makes their own Facebook store and uses it to ship malware, it won't effect me because I never used their app in the first place, none of their crap is critical. That's the power of not submitting to peer pressure.
Maybe a "critical app" is one your government legally requires you to install, e.g. some sort of pandemic tracing app. But thankfully my government (America) has not gone that far. I don't think there is presently such a thing as a "critical app" in America. Only apps which may feel critical because of peer pressure or convenience, but aren't actually critical.
F-Droids official repo also does strong curation really well in my experience. Searching the Play Store usually surfaces some SEO-gamed garbage apps. Pretty much all Android apps I use from the Play Store were at friend recommendations. F-Droid has some issues (specifically, they have a very big requirement that all APKs must be build by their server, which has some issues and locks their official repo down to FOSS apps), but even just on the surface their curation is just so much better. And hey, if I don't like something, I can literally just plug in any arbitrary URL I want and as long as it points to a repository, it'll show up as valid.
From what I've heard the Apple App Store isn't much better in this regard, except there you just don't have the option to ignore it (and the jailbreaking community seems more open, except the same "pay for every tiny thing" culture that plagues iOS has made it way over to that platform).
The EU forcing Apple to open up iOS should ideally result in a more fair, better curated ecosystem of smaller app stores and the development of apps that people actually want to use rather than apps that exist to make exciting number go up at an ad agency. There'll be some initial blowback, but the long-term benefits will be that much better for mobile phones on the whole (which to be frank, is desperately needed).
It also gives a secondary avenue for apps against Apple's app store guidelines, which have been noted in the past to basically be completely arbitrary (the main examples of this are the fact that Apple plays censor for VPNs in some countries, Steve Jobs telling people that want to have NSFW apps on their iPhone to "go buy an android", the last policy still leading to numerous social media apps getting in trouble because an app reviewer found something NSFW (this is why Tumblr banned NSFW) and for a very specific example of a game that somehow kept violating the guidelines: the iOS port of the Binding of Isaac was rejected for over a year because Apple wanted to play moral guardian, there's also the completely unreasonable ban on allowing emulation and really I could continue on and on about how absurd this is).
To put it simply: pray to the whatever spiritual deity you believe in (or other such thing) on app review and hope that Apple doesn't try anything when reviewing your app. The best method is always to make sure that adult content can never end up before a reviewers eyes, so unless you have an unusually thorough reviewer who goes out of their way to look for it, they won't complain. Apples role as a moral guardian on NSFW content is one of the bigger driving factors as to why NSFW gets treated as second class, even though NSFW content has been estimated to be a very large amount of all internet traffic.
Tumblr is just one example. Discord had to restrict all NSFW channels in their app for iOS users because their randomly assigned App Store reviewer managed to get their account into an NSFW channel and found the expected.
Reddit just never had to deal with this issue because they didn't even have an iPhone app for years (their current app is a highly modified version of an older app, Alien Blue, but AB was pulled from the App Store when Reddit bought it) or they deal with it quietly so you don't hear about it. Not all companies who get shafted on the NSFW rule speak up about it, but those that have... all have repeatedly commented on the fact that the process is basically completely opaque and you need to basically pray that Apple doesn't decide to pull your current version either.
Tumblr picked the easy way out (ban all NSFW in general) because they were about to be sold to Verizon and Yahoo didn't want to bother trying to find a way to appease to apple at the last minute.
Ah that makes sense. Yes Reddit is pretty good at not showing you NSFW unless you actually go and look for it. But when you do it takes you all the way down the rabbit hole (figuratively!! - I hope), this is why I found it a bit surprising, it's not just some lingerie pics or anything.
In a way though, that means Safari should be banned too. And the camera app, I mean point it down in the right state of undress... ;)
At the same time, Apple has also been doing the opposite by playing government censor for the CCP by removing VPN apps from the App Store in China.
The knife here in terms of risking government overreach slices both ways, but in the case of Apple, they are in a much more vulnerable state for this sort of thing, since the CCP requires them to have meat shields (they need to have an office there) to continue operating in China.
One is massively more beneficial on the whole for user freedom.
This is true, on a global scale both options are bad. On the other hand, on a personal scale, the walled garden is much better option for me. It sucks that the Chinese are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I am not, and I don't see how it's anyone's business to regulate my choice of technology.
Just because the status quo is bad for some people, it doesn't means it should be made worse for everyone else.
Likely because doing for Android alone represents too much of a risk given the profit potential. With these stores being able to exist on both platforms, that equation changes a lot, especially with iOS users' eyeballs traditionally having been valued more highly.
I could not agree more. I won’t touch another app store with a bargepole. You want free software, get Linux / Android. You want a walled garden? Get Apple. I use both for different things.
I like App Store, but I don't like the restriction that stops me from installing older versions of apps. I have a couple iDevices that are perfectly fine, except that their iOS is too old for the newer apps. If I could install old versions of UC Browser, I could breath a fresh air into those devices.
Honestly, I disagree. I'm currently on a mac where I can live the walled garden lifestyle if I choose, but sometimes I want to install an app which is experimental, open source etc. Sure, I get it, macOS predates the iOS App Store, but so does iOS. The very first apps to run on an iPhone had to be side-loaded, there was no App store at launch for the iPhone.
You can still stay in your "walled garden" by sticking to the App Store (this is very likely what I will do 99% of the time). That solves all of your grievances including your Facebook hypothetical. But yes, it does mean you will need to choose between installing Facebook and using the App Store.
You can also use Apple's favorite response to this: use the browser. Just open up Safari and type in facebook.com. Then you won't need the app and you don't have to leave the App Store!
Apple can sell "walled" phones in US. so FB/Google will have no choice but continue to do business with the Apple Store. So US citizens should have no reasons to plain that EU is forcing them to have choices.
You also need to look passed the FUD and see that you have Android and you can't find a good example that you are forced to install a third party store to get some must have application. Geeks would unlock their phones and some apps might offer a cheaper version on a third party store forcing Apple to compete.
If you could also replace Siri with a better assistant you might even get Apple putting some work in their apps and improve Siri. Either way custoemrs will gain a better voice assistant if there will be fair competition.
Great. now let\s see Apple fanboys explain to us that competition with Siri is bad, and if you want good voice assistant in your language you should buy something else.
My bet is that the vast majority of users are like you, so developers who stop distributing on the App Store or distribute on multiple stores will find it doesn’t pay and so the incentive for them will largely remain to distribute on the App Store. Yes there might be niche apps where this doesn’t apply but those are edge cases.
What other store operators should know is that if there’s
any compelling feature that sets their store apart, Apple can very rapidly copy it and probable do a better job so there’s really very little incentive to bother creating a store to compete against Apple.
The overwhelming majority of Android users use the Google Play Store.
This is all a colossal waste of time and energy for no practical change.
> Apple pretending "to protect me against myself",
I find this to be a feature. Please protect me against "myself" (sometimes I'm tired, sometimes drunk - and dark patterns around the web can get to me too).
I have a painpoint. The company I want to do business with is a company willing to solve my painpoint for me for some money. Im willing to pay them and the ecosystem to solve it for me.
You have a painpoint. The company you want to do business with doesn’t want to solve it for you, for any amount of money. You want to force the company to solve your painpoint at my expense.
Seems very much like you have problems, and you’re making your problem into a me problem?
Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes everything worse, and we've had to ask you this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26881211.
I'm fan of the Apple's AppStore model, I like it and think it works great and Apple's commission is a nonissue for the most use cases(it's issue only in low margin trades), however I'm afraid that Apple's control over the device risks governments making Apple their police. Apple limiting AirDrop in China is a very bad sign of what might happen if the rest of the world follows China's totalitarian path. Even in the US, which was supposed to be the land of the free, there are talks about banning apps.
I for one believe in the principle that I paid to own the device and that entails loading whatever I damn well please on to it from whichever front, side, or backside I see fit!
Yeah duh no real jail involved. That misses my point. Its called jailbreaking for a reason. Out the box its metaphorically in jail. Its restricted and limited in a bunch of ways that you have to break it out of.
You paid to own it, Apple puts in rules as if you're renting it. It doesn't matter that you can hack it. You shouldn't have to hack your own hardware.
Apple made it work in a certain way and it’s clear about it, if you want it to work in a different way I don’t think Apple obligated in helping you. If you’re surprised that they don’t support software installation beyond the AppStore, you can modify your device and make it do that(jailbreak), you can return your device or sell it.
It’s ridiculous to say expect that Apple is obligated in helping you use the device in ways not designed to work. Would you expect Apple also to make it possible to run PlayStation games?
Would you buy a car that only goes on Ford^TM approved roads and only takes Ffuel from Ford approved stations? Sorry, you can't drive here. That's a GM road.
No, of course not. We all know that the ability to run on unapproved roads isn't a "feature", but rather the inability to run on an unapproved road is an anti-feature that they built in the first place. For that matter, the inability to run playstation games outside a playstation is also an anti-feature which had to be engineered by Sony. For that matter, do you buy razors that only fit Gillette approved blade designs? So why restrictions on computing devices then?
I will give credit where its due in that Apple is upfront about the nature of the walled garden. Who knows, maybe there really is a market for cars that only go to approved places.
Well, lots of people seem to like using Apple products in the way Apple intended to - adhering to your example, driving on the vast Ford network that covers most of the world and gets ford drivers pretty much everywhere.
Your Ford comes with a particular operating system and performance parameters. If you want to run something else, you have to jump through a few hoops to change that. Those hoops might be more or less difficult to clear than jailbreaking iOS, but the option/requirement is there in both cases.
Everything intelligent comes with a set of software. You can replace that software (on almost everything?), but then it's up to you to maintain the setup how you like. That's not unique to iOS.
This is such a terribly flawed analogy. Roads are a shared utility that are usually built with public money. They are not a matter of personal choice. In addition, roads are largely a commodity, with few points of differentiation beyond fodder for office small talk. Drawing the comparison, even without referring to these specific attributes, is manipulative and misleading.
Most people that argue for your desired outcome can at least see that there are non-zero user-facing benefits to a walled garden. Do you really not have anyone in your life that isn’t an idealistic tech savvy power user? Apple obviously has financial incentive to maintain its 30% transaction cut, and it’s made some silly arguments to try to maintain that. However it’s also raised some very legitimate and well thought-out downsides.
At this point, the conversation has evolved so far beyond the “it’s a road!” analogy that continuing with that line of reasoning feels either ignorant or acting in bad faith, not because of any “won ground” by the pro walled garden lot, but because all that are interested in a legitimate debate know that these misleading comparisons help nobody.
You can pontificate all you want, but the law is pretty clear that what Apple is doing violates antitrust law, and is thus illegal. See the precedent set in US v. Microsoft.
Are you allowed to buy into a walled garden where developers can’t force you to sideload apps to use their apps? That’s what I want to do, but it seems the EU is making that illegal. It seems that users who value freedom can buy Android, and users who value security can buy Apple, but the second option is going away.
I believe the implication is there will now be less incentive for app developers to ship for App Store when they can get 80% of the way there with 0% of the “hoops” to jump through (I.e. Apple guidelines)
No one is forcing you to use any app, let alone developers.
Without this becoming a rant, what fraction of that "security" is protecting you from nothing more than apps that didn't pay the Apple tax. You must admit, the narrative that only approved apps are "good"/"safe" is insanely self serving and conveniently hard to falsify.
Let me provide a concrete example: right now I can download and use Facebook, with less tracking than Facebook likes, on the App Store. If Facebook is allowed to offer a sideloaded app with all the tracking included, what do you think the chances are they will keep the version on the App Store? If they remove it and only offer the new sideloaded version, I am worse off as a user than I am right now.
I think this depends on how much friction side-loading ends up being. If I can just click a link and hit "run" like I can on a computer, yeah it could be an issue.
If it requires diving in to Settings or connecting the phone to a computer -- Facebook would never abandon the App Store, friction to using side-loading would be too high.
The fb webpage still exists. No app. No permissions. No problems.
If Facebook makes a change that kills the low-tracking front-ends and insists everyone be tracked more, and in response you grovel to them and put up with their new app, then no amount of EU law or App store law was ever going to protect you from yourself. Apple store polices are a red herring, the problem you're actually highlighting is the adversarial relation you have with fb.
That depends entirely on how much friction there is involved in the process. I think you know and Facebook knows that technical hoops at the level of, say, enabling developer menus on Android is a bridge too far for the average tech illiterate user.
Reminder that Epic tried this with Fortnite and eventually went back on the play store. And this was on the platform that had sideloading since day one.
Epic Games is going to put their own storefront on iOS, and it's going to have few if any of the polices for customer protection that the App Store does.
Epic will be able to give you games for free to gain market share, just like the Amazon App Store tried on Android and just like Epic is currently trying on Windows. The horror!
Then an app like F-Droid will come along and offer even more protections than the App Store. Confound it!
For my part, this is a step in the right direction. With a few more fixes, iOS might even become usable enough for me to buy a device that runs it.
Epic currently can’t do that on iPhones in their apps because in-app subscriptions all use Apple’s subscriptions system and can be managed in one place
If you wanted to use an abusive subscription system currently you would have to do it outside the app via a web browser
Ignoring Facebook as the example since nobody who cares remotely about tracking is using Facebook.
Then [company] lose marketshare to those who don't care about anything outside of the App Store, and when media outlets and social networks pick up on how [company] app on this third party store tracks so much more information than it used to, even more people will uninstall. It's what we've seen on Android for years, there is a huge reputation factor when it comes to third party app stores. That reputation factor is the reason why F-Droid is the major choice outside of the Play Store.
There is incentive here for app developers to continue to provide solid services. Just not Facebook, as their primary goal is tracking.
This is relying on Apple to act as a regulator of Facebook. That's not Apple's job, and they do a bad job of it. That's the job of the government, which is actually (ostensibly (unlike Apple)) representing the people.
The fact that Facebook can do any spying on you at all (because it can still track you, on your current Apple device, right now) is because government regulators are dropping the ball. It's not Apple's responsibility, it's not something they're good at, and it's not something that they should be doing.
I would contend that so far, Apple has done a better job of ensuring their customers' privacy in the face of other companies that employ dark patterns to try to extract personal information from the device that neither Apple nor Apple's customers allowed them to.
The government, so far, has been rather toothless in terms of ensuring the privacy of people and have issued paltry fines to the companies that amounted to no more than a slap on the wrist and extracting a promise that they'll do better next time (with their hands behind their back and fingers crossed).
The reason I purchase apple devices is because they are the only ones that are taking my privacy seriously.
Government regulators are letting the market decide how valuable customer data is and Apple is saying "it is valuable and our customers value not letting random people getting it." Thus, I am voting with my wallet because in this case, votes for elected officials isn't doing much.
App tracking permissions are handled by the OS, it's entirely possible to ship Facebook apps that can't track because they can use the same exact permission system that the existing Facebook iOS app is using.
You don't need the App Store for security, it isn't a dichotomy.
I’m free to not work for a company whose ethics or contract I dislike. But only because I got a skill which made me a desirable employee elsewhere.
I’m free to resolve my cancelled flight by either waiting a week for the free alternative or buying a combination of rail and ferry tickets to get me from Stansted to Berlin, but only because I have an understanding boss, enough money, and an app which can get me arbitrary hotels on route because that’s more than a day’s journey unless I plan to sleep in a train station.
I’m free to not remain in a country whose politics or laws I dislike. But only because I got lucky with a few things.
I’m free to not download any app which forces me to sideload. But only because they don’t exist yet on iOS (except for the ways that apparently never counted according to all the people demanding this) — there’s too many ways a theoretical “optional” can become an “actually mandatory”, from laws to employers to defacto monopolies, and those are just the ones I’ve seen examples of in other contexts.
Nobody is stopping you from escaping the walled garden; you can absolutely go buy an Android device which is equivalent to an iPhone but without these sorts of restrictions.
The trouble is that the walled garden approach only works if the wall goes all the way around. If Facebook, Google, or the other big ad companies are allowed to access the iOS ecosystem without consumer protections, then they absolutely will and will force users to go along with it. This is about developer freedom, not user freedom.
> Nobody is stopping you from escaping the walled garden;
Apple does. I buy a Macbook, and I can modify the bootloader to completely leave MacOS. It's a pain in the ass, and Apple certainly doesn't make it easy as it was on x86, but it's an option. Even if I use MacOS, I still have the option to disable system integrity, install unsigned apps and use third-party software managers.
That's a system that lets me escape the walled garden. They give me concessions inside their OS and an escape-hatch for third-party OSes if they really fuck things up. The iPhone has none of those things. If you buy an iPhone, your only way to leave the walled garden is to not use the iPhone. Buying an Android phone does not break your iPhone out of the walled garden.
A walled garden they willing walked into and willingly can leave at any time? It’s not as though there’s nowhere else to go. The trouble is people want all the benefits of the walled garden without the wall.
> I for one believe in the principle that I paid to own the device […]
I paid for an iPhone for my mom so that she could not load whatever she damn well pleases, because if she does I have to deal with the mess afterwards.
Some folks are okay with walled gardens for specific purposes. If that's not you, that's fine. Perhaps Apple iDevices are then not for you.
At some point in the near future we are all going to be in the same shoe as GP's mother: confronted by tech we simply no longer understand. Even the latest generation is merely fluent in using these devices. The subset that will keep up will be even smaller than today, imo. Almost all others will choose the safe options, specially when our lives are even more critically intertwined with our devices.
Even today it is not ok to be careless with what you put on your machine, but in a couple of decades, it could be a true disaster, specially if public services are fully tied to your digital identity. You would not want your digital self to be entertaining any random* program as guest.
Eh. GP:> The subset that will keep up will be even smaller than today
The subset might include you, or a majority of HN people even. Just a smaller % of population than currently.
Regards your > Given a choice
If you have family with such issues, you know it wasn't a choice. Getting older means facing mental plasticity slowdown. You can work to be fit on that front sure, but it is an issue that we will all face and not everyone will choose as you do.
I am not sure I agree with GP's assertion that technology will be inherently harder to deal with though.
The subject at hand affects the entirety of society, not just hn members. Even today surely you must have very intelligent and capable friends or people you know that are preoccupied with their own domain and it is an unreasonable position to expect them to keep up with software and hardware and cellular/networking and be able to ascertain with high confidence that X is a safe and secure choice.
This issue can not be decided based on what is appropriate for a niche segment of society. We have a variety of options to serve the general society -- state/control, state/licensing, state/regulation, private/corporate, public/ngo, public/community, personal/ai, personal/expertise. These are not mutually exclusive options and we should discuss the possible configurations, optimal for general societal welfare, rather than denying that the problem exists.
There is certainly that, but in fairness GP is correct that I am saying that at some point tech is going to outstrip even the best of us (maybe it's just the dumb me projecting).
One possibility that comes to mind is that we could possibly rely on trustworthy AI to help us understand the implications of using X in full. So if not walled gardens maybe private landscape architects or AI gardeners.
But one of the two will be required for digital life.
You’re being sarcastic, but as lifespans continue to increase and with no known cures for mental degenerative diseases like dementia; this is more common than you realize.
But the device consists of the hardware, the os and the app store. The is no "hardware" in the Apple universe. And that is good. If you don't like it that way, buy a Nokia.
That makes no sense. Device refers to the physical machine. The software running on it is a completely separate matter. Just look at Apple's M1 laptops and Asahi Linux.
I don't want to buy a Nokia. Apple's hardware is really good and I want to buy their devices. I just don't want to become a serf in their digital fiefdom.
There are several, very easy to imagine mechanisms that both provide user freedom and security/idiot-resistance at the same time.
For instance, extending the "parental control" feature to have a toggle for sideloading - then, you just turn on parental control, toggle that off, and keep the PIN. Done.
The idea that the features of the product should completely unnecessarily be restricted for all users for the dubious benefit of a tiny subset of them is laughable. The only logically consistent motive to advocate for this is profit.
Uniformity and convention over configuration and customization is why people feel why iOS is more stable and secure than the Android ecosystem as a whole.
You make your trade offs or you get another vendor to copy the features you like and not the ones you don’t. Forcing everything to be homogenous is something you’re meant to grow out of when you’re eight, once you see that ruining things for other people because you’re jealous is a bad personality trait.
> Forcing everything to be homogenous is something you’re meant to grow out of when you’re eight, once you see that ruining things for other people because you’re jealous is a bad personality trait.
No one is forcing “everything to be homogenous”. If you don’t like homogeneity, then avoid it. It’s not hard to understand. My choices are none of your business just like I’m not going to criticize you for wanting more freedom to customize your device at the expense of security and stability.
Very, very bad and consumer-hostile sentiment that is inconsistent both with good ethics and with the way that the regulatory system works currently.
Regulations on goods sold exist for a purpose - to allow the user to generally buy things while having some guarantees about their lifetime/security/safety/consistency with marketing/etc.
"If you don't like it, don't buy it" implies that companies should be able to sell goods made with toxic substances, not honor their warranties, lie on their marketing, and steal and sell your personal medical information. This is bad.
If I buy a product, I expect to be able to do whatever I want with it, and to not have arbitrary limitations on how I use that product that exist purely for the sake of making the seller more rich, and this is consistent with the way that consumer protection regulations work in general.
> Uniformity and convention over configuration and customization is why people feel why iOS is more stable and secure than the Android ecosystem as a whole.
False. The vast majority of people have no opinions of whether Android or iOS is more secure. Slightly more, but very few, of them have any opinions on their relative stability, and you can attribute exactly all of that instability to a mix between (1) manufacturers making terrible drivers and support packages for their hardware and (2) Google being generally bad at designing software. It has nothing to do with "uniformity" or "convention over configuration" at all.
No one is forcing you to buy products you don’t like. You’re confusing government sanctioned duopolies (created from bad regulation) like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T for Apple. You are free to buy alternative products from other companies.
> It has nothing to do with "uniformity" or "convention over configuration" at all.
Actually it does. The hardware is uniform and consistent, and therefore so are the drivers. There is a price to choice. Google is also one of the best software companies in the world.
About that free market - it might be free but lobbying culture in the US starts early, at school where Apple pushes products to influence future choices of students. Not choosing something which is used by everyone around is probably more difficult psychologically than standing up to the status quo and choosing alternatives whatever they are.
There are choices made for use - having a phone on which everyone around communicates, having an internet connection from the only provider in the area.
Uniformity is a choice if the alternative is a viable choice and this is a complex matter.
With the price of smartphones these days I'm betting a lot more people use work-provided devices privately than before. You don't always have a choice between Android and iOS in those instances.
With regulations. That people generally accept and agree are necessary to some extent...
> No one is forcing you to buy products you don’t like.
...even for goods that you have the option of not purchasing. It literally doesn't matter how many baby bottle manufacturers there are in the US - it is illegal for all of them to put BPA in their baby bottle products, regardless of whether their competitors don't.
> You’re confusing government sanctioned duopolies
No, I'm not. The US has boatloads of laws making it illegal to sell various things in markets where there's absolutely no monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies and buyers have ample choices, such as the above.
> Actually it does. The hardware is uniform and consistent, and therefore so are the drivers.
You're intentionally changing the use of "uniformity" from being about high-level OS user-facing design ("the features of the product should completely unnecessarily be restricted for all users for the dubious benefit of a tiny subset of them" + "Uniformity and convention over configuration" = talking about OS design) to implementation, which is a completely separate issue that's unrelated to the current discussion about user freedom. This is an admittedly clever slight of hand, but makes your point no less invalid.
> There is a price to choice.
Sure - but you haven't shown what the price is to allowing users to use whatever app store they want, you've just brought in completely irrelevant examples like phone hardware choice.
> Google is also one of the best software companies in the world.
Regardless of the truth of this statement, it doesn't change the fact that they're generally bad (note that "bad" is absolute, "best" is relative) at designing software, per my lived experience with dozen of bugs in dozens of Google products across browsers and operating systems over years of use.
Goalposts are racing across your comments. You claim both "freedom is good even if it means exposing users to attacks" (because rest assured if there is an "allow unsafe" button then black hats will find a way to convince your grandma tap it) and "freedom is good but not when it is bad for the user", whatever is more convenient for you at the time.
Apple's freedom is to make their devices as they see fit. User's freedom is to vote with her wallet. Feel free to buy whatever device you like if you want to have the ability to shoot yourself in the foot and get pwned, I like to have it in some circumstances but it's not what I would recommend to all of my non-tech contacts. I appreciate most EU privacy laws but not where it comes close to taking people's choice to voluntarily give up some freedoms for security, it's the opposite of empowering them.
> The vast majority of people have no opinions of whether Android or iOS is more secure.
This is just some random unsubstantiated claim. Apple buys entire billboards in city centers that basically promote privacy. You are saying you know better than their entire marketing department.
Even laypeople pay attention and notice that it's their Android owning friends' bank accounts get hijacked but not iPhone owning friends, etc.
> you can attribute exactly all of that instability to
Whatever you attribute this to, potato, potato, the end result is one has been more stable, more secure, supported for longer, more profitable for indie app developers etc than the other.
Ultimate Security in the form of preventing extremely sophisticated physical access/evil maid attacks[0] benefits people even if they don't think they need this security.
Maybe purchase a different product that more closely aligns with your needs.
0: ie. someone watches you enter your apple id and passcode and later swipes your phone, only to sideload spyware that hides itself from the UI, then re-plants your phone without you knowing
I don't see how this is relevant. Nobody is advocating for the relaxations of the iOS security model itself, which is the actual thing that prevents rootkits and malware on your device.
Instead, the proposal is that people be able to install whatever software they want, that runs as a normal iOS app subject to the iOS security restrictions. Being able to install a non-Apple-approved app does not give you the ability to read and write arbitrary kernel memory, or do other actually dangerous things.
> Ultimate Security in the form of preventing extremely sophisticated physical access/evil maid attacks[0] benefits people even if they don't think they need this security.
Yet, it's up to me to decide whether I want that security or whether I want to trade security for freedom/flexibility. Not you, or any other authoritarians seeking to exert control over others.
> Maybe purchase a different product that more closely aligns with your needs.
This is an incredibly toxic and user-hostile sentiment that also is completely inconsistent with the way that consumer protection laws work in general[1].
I still don't understand how you can't manifest that choice by simply purchasing a device from a different manufacturer. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest that Apple is some kind of authoritarian power that you have no choice but to purchase from.
To quote your linked comment, I wouldn't expect you nor any other sane consumer to purchase goods that are "made with toxic substances, not honor their warranties, lie on their marketing, and steal and sell your personal medical information". Apple does not do any of that, and I think that you're intentionally derailing the discussion by comparing their guidelines + practices to any of the above.
To add, this is the difference from 'not honoring a warranty' and a product that explicitly comes without a warranty: you (can/should) learn about the product before you purchase it to see if it's actually for you.
> I still don't understand how you can't manifest that choice by simply purchasing a device from a different manufacturer.
I absolutely can manifest that choice - but it doesn't matter, because I have the right to be able to make that choice for any particular manufacturer.
> To quote your linked comment, I wouldn't expect you nor any other sane consumer to purchase goods that are "made with toxic substances, not honor their warranties, lie on their marketing, and steal and sell your personal medical information".
It doesn't matter that you wouldn't expect one to - it's wrong for a seller to sell one of those things at all, and that's why we've enshrined into our legal system that "some bad things are illegal to sell, regardless of whether the consumer has the ability to avoid them or not".
> Apple does not do any of that
It's pretty blindingly obvious that I'm not claiming that Apple is doing any of those things, and just using that as an example of the point that "some things are illegal to sell".
> and I think that you're intentionally derailing the discussion by comparing their guidelines + practices to any of the above.
The one who is doing that is you, by intentionally misinterpreting my words and reading things that I didn't write. The comparison is entirely apt - "we have laws against selling/doing some bad things x, Apple is selling/doing bad things y, even though x != y it's reasonable to have laws against also selling/doing bad things y".
> Ultimate Security in the form of preventing extremely sophisticated physical access/evil maid attacks[0] benefits people even if they don't think they need this security.
This is a strange red herring. Attacks of this form are protected from by the OS, not the App Store. You can't do attacks like this by sideloading apps onto your own phone in developer mode because iOS itself protects against this - and we're discussing specifically allowing users to choose what App Store they use, not relaxing any of the security restrictions of the OS. Someone familiar with the basics of OS design would be aware of this distinction.
So, for this _specific_ purposes, keep the walled garden by default on, on one of the biggest ecosystems? How about opt-in for walled garden for those who need it.
macOS has SIP (System Integrity Protection) which can be disabled.
Your mom would not disable it. No non-technical person i've ever met, even knows what SIP is, let alone has disabled it.
Security researchers, for example, can disable it. And use this to find security vulnerabilities.
The point is, as users we should have the ability...
Apple (or any company) should not be allowed to dictate what people are & are not allowed to do on the devices they own.
Yes, actually. Then every website wouldn't have to litter the console with warnings to users about pasting in code. I would much rather just have Chrome Developer Edition.
But… I "need" those tools to undo the harm that some websites try to inflict on me. I use them almost daily to delete things like taking 25% of my window for a scrolling and animated banner trying to sell me their irrelevant-to-me Excel add-in (annoyingly, this example bypasses all adblockers, comes with a widget that resizes it to a 'mere' 5% of my window, and forgets my choice every time I load or reload any of their pages). I also sometimes use them to repair malfunctioning pages so I can actually use them as intended.
Sure, you could say that I should just use this "Developer Edition", but that requires me to have access to install it on every puter I walk up to (just to be prepared for somewhat common web attrocities like full-page elements that prevent me from interacting with the page in ways that I feel should never be forbidden).
I don't tend to see 'warning' messages in the dev console that seem to be attempts to dissuade me from using the dev tools. Maybe…twice in >20 years?
If there were two separate versions of Chrome you can be sure there'd be people trying to block the dev version because they'd think using it is hacking or someone being tricked and everyone would be adding 'no-dev' scripts to their pages and we'd lose out by moving the web closer to PDFs.
Technology to have managed iOS devices is called MDM. Its mature technology that is already used for things like work-issued devices. What you want already exists. You're setting up a false choice.
Good news! There is a phone for you. Android allows that. Why not allow others who want their device partially controlled by the vendor to have that option?
I agree with the GP and prefer the current iOS landscape.
Yeah but you can still use software like Magisk to fake out whatever detection mechanisms they used. With hardware remote attestation, it will be impossible to do that.
Because corporations maintaining such control over what should have been our computers is fundamentally unjust. It turns us into serfs of their digital fiefdoms where they make the laws and collect the taxes and tariffs.
Are you new here? Every discussion about closed ecosystems I see on this terrible website has people arguing for both sides. That’s why they’re…arguments…and not simply people patting each other on the back.
If you have seen multiple discussions about closed ecosystems, then you should know it's not about Apple specifically and is about the principle of device ownership already.
>If you look at it historically, the PC is about the only device allowing that kind of user control
Why should we give a shit about historical norms? For most of history most children died at childbirth. Does that mean we should accept a >50% infant mortality rate?
Apple's control over the device risks governments making Apple their police
Even with sideloading, neither Apple nor the government will give up that much control. Apple will almost certainly retain the ability to delete "malware" apps even if they're sideloaded and governments can then lean on that mechanism. Even Google can probably do a lot through Play Services.
Play this scenario out to its logical conclusion. If we are in a situation where Apple and the government is targeting specific apps for removal, this becomes a game of whack a mole that the developer always wins.
You don’t think a 30% tax on users for the privilege of using an AppStore app and Apple’s abuse of that are problems? But somehow the AppStore affects government abuse of iPhones?
The AppStore would have never been a problem had Apple not been so greedy and draconian about it.
It's weird how the app store started out from nothing with even worse terms, and they were enthusiastically accepted by developers and consumers alike. Under these greedy and draconian terms, the app store became broadly embraced by developers, to the point of being called a monopoly. However, with this success Apple's reaction wasn't to abuse its market power by increasing its fees, but instead it reduced fees for long-term subscriptions and for developers with under $1M in revenues.
> I'm afraid that Apple's control over the device risks governments making Apple their police
It's already happening. We must oppose it.
The only person who should be in control of the device is the user who owns it. Absolutely no one else. Our computers are sacred ground that no one else may enter without permission.
Now, I'm not going to say this is impossible; it sounds like it's just the kind of needle-threading that Apple would prefer in this sort of situation.
But...what's the source here?
So far as I could see, the article didn't even credit anonymous sources. It just states all these things as bare facts. And I haven't seen any other reporting on this (yet) that doesn't simply link back to this Bloomberg article.
And just as a reminder, this is from Bloomberg—the outlet that publishes the "Big Hack" story that proved to be completely false [0], without issuing any form of retraction, correction, or apology.
Again, it's entirely possible that this will prove to be true. But I have absolutely no confidence in Bloomberg on stories of this kind, and don't intend to get worked up over the possibility of Apple allowing outside app stores until and unless it gets some kind of independent reporting.
Thanks for the reminder about the article that turned Bloomberg into a joke. But do note that the author is Mark Gurman, a fairly prolific Apple analyst. I suppose he implies that he has anonymous sources.
Oh hey, will to look at that. The law is actually suceeding in forcing Apple to change its behavior and allows alternative apps.
I remember arguing with so many people here on HN about this. People were actually trying to pretend like Apple was going to get around the law, or have it overturned, or pull out from the EU, or some other nonsense.
But, if you weren't completely biased, you'd know that of course Apple was going to lose this fight. They will be forced to follow the law like everyone else.
We can take a look at the Samsung Store or Roblox, and take lessons from it. Samsung's store is incredibly bad in UX, and noise.
I hate the monopoly and monopoly fees that come with the Apple store. The take away is the amount of money and work Apple has put to provide a clean and homogeneous interface throughout their store. An alternative market would need that, else consumers' interests won't be served.
Samsung Store is actually an example for the regulation. Samsung Store is more like Apple Store on Samsung phones. Every Samsung user is happy that they can use Google's store as an alternative.
> Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple — a process that could carry a fee.
So ... can they do that? It's pretty safe that if it's allowed, they'll do it.
I don't want to fearmonger too much, but you may not have a choice in using 3rd party App Stores, assuming you use popular apps like Facebook or Instagram. The large tech companies may remove their apps from the original App Store and only use third parties that allow them to do the ad tracking they want to do.
Now, they might try to entice users with deals and such (sort of like Epic's gung ho free games discounts on their gaming platform against Steam), but I highly doubt they'd pull their apps from the official App Store. Too much risk of blowback.
Can't wait to not use my banking apps or MDM stuff anymore because my device could be compromised because I installed something from a third party store...
edit: it's a jab against apple that they will introduce restrictions like that. lmao
There's a pretty simple solution: Don't install applications from a third-party store. This change doesn't mean the Apple store is going away. It's reasonable to assume that you'll be able to continue using your device as you always have without worry.
I'm curious how Apple is going to limit this functionality to Europe. Will it just be iPhones sold in Europe? What about older iPhones then? Can I import a European iPhone to American shores? Will it be just detected region? If so, what happens if I fly from Europe to America for a week? Does it apply to all EU Citizens regardless of where they live, like GDPR? If so, how is that enforced for EU citizens living in the US, or dual-citizens? What about iPhone users without an Apple ID stating their location? Can Apple be sued if they inadvertently cut some European users off? In which case, if they are forced to play it safe, how will they prevent sideloading in America? If they discover they can't prevent sideloading in America effectively, then what?
>The laws apply to technology companies with market valuations of at least €75 billion ($80 billion) and a minimum of 45 million monthly users within the EU.
Wonder if they considered (or maybe are considering) how to on paper split up in such a way they no longer meet this threshold
To my knowledge you can either side-load na app from Xcode using the free developer account, but the signing certificate will expire in 7 days, or you can pay 100 USD to Apple and use a personal team to be able to side-load apps whose signing certificate is valid for a year. And you are limited to 5 apps only. Is this incorrect? The only reason I care about this legislation is because I want to side-load an app or multiple apps and don't have to worry about making an Apple Developer account or worry about signing certificates at all. In fact, I'd like to be able to build and compile an app on Linux, in CI, download a file and just drop it on my phone and run as an app. No accounts (like Apple Developer), no payments. Is this possible today?
Truly tragic that the genius minds behind Dynamic Island are having their time wasted with all this work on 'user empowerment' and 'regulatory compliance'.
The status quo was Apple monopolizing that power, I'd much prefer for it to be distributed among other developers. If the process for installing Fortnite or Facebook becomes too painful, users will stop using it. As long as Apple's store is the best-in-the-business, they have nothing to worry about. Now they just need to compete.
Well, let’s see how long it takes for FB, WhatsApp, Snapchat to migrate to alt-store. The nag screens and the the tug-of-war and victim playing over user data access. Apple must play its hand carefully, or it’ll be IE toolbars all over
There's tens of millions of Mac users and hundreds of millions of iOS users. There's literally an order of magnitude difference in the size of the user base. It will be a problem on iOS because the user base is large and lucrative.
I'm sure your parent won't want to install the facebook app so they can talk to family oversee
but now i'm already imagining fb app will be from alt-store with all the tracking reactivated and yes i don't use fb/have the app but try to explain in to elders/no tech people
If you're concerned about that, you shouldn't let them use Facebook in the first place. Hell, if tracking is your concern then they probably shouldn't be using a smartphone at all.
If Facebook truly does use this as the opportunity to ruin their UX, then maybe your parents switch to Signal or iMessage.
Getting people to switch from FB Messenger or especially WhatsApp (which is effectively the default messenger in many parts of the world) is a monumental task. One wouldn't need to just convince their family, but their family would also need to convince their circles and so on and so forth.
This is what's scary, because it means that Facebook has what's effectively a massive captive audience with its messengers.
That's kinda a bogus concern. As-is, Facebook can already declare that they're moving all WhatsApp clients to their New Web Version and remove all the versions off the App Store. Same goes for the rest of their apps, and it's fully possible on Android too.
But, they don't. Realistically there's no reason for them to exist anywhere besides the App/Play Store, as long as those platforms play fair. This is a real strawman argument though, considering it's fully possible in the status quo. The problem isn't Apple or the government, it's that Facebook already has a disproportionate amount of control over your life. Apple cannot save you from that with a software update.
I think you could do enough fingerprinting (via otherwise harmless functions) to identify users even without access to the advertising ID (that requires the tracking permission).
I'm a little confused, but maybe someone from the adtech space can answer this. If you're logged into Facebook, why would they need another identifier for you?
I really doubt that Meta will slit their own throats and give more users an excuse to not download or update their apps, by introducing the friction of having to deal with yet another account to manage for another store:
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 384 ms ] thread"You CANNOT serve the European market if you don't do x, y, and z globally."
It just says what you have to do for European users.
The EU wants to regulate its own internal market. Companies can choose to be active in that market.
I agree in principle. How could they balance that force, without arbitrarily ruling over foreign companies? I don’t know. Maybe clarify what is "arbitrarily”?
The EU is setting rules for enterprises operating within their borders. Those that wish to operate must comply, others not.
Well, that is exactly the effective force I'm talking about. Can you imagine Apple not operating in Europe?
However, this is "legal" authority. I'm trying to discuss the more subtle moral authority: Many even inside the continent, do not accept the moral authority of the EU. and they also use that "arbitrarily" word to justify their claims. So why not discuss that word in detail ?
I’m not for downvoting replies to death. I’m more for letting people define their words better. It sometimes works. Sometimes.
Sure, we do after all have the example of some (non-Apple) companies not operating in China, a similarly important market. If Apple really believe their own rhetoric about how the only way to protect their users is for Apple to control the experience, they'll pull out of Europe rather than compromise on their users' security.
I just talked about how this is about moral authority VS legal one. Here it is about commercial markets VS cultural centres.
Europe is not just a market. Europe is the (historical) centre of the western world. I don't think big tech can/want to leave it. If they say so, IMO they are just bluffing.
But that doesn't mean they should be allowed to do so solely on their own terms.
Countries can set the terms they want. That is the meaning of sovereignty. Some of them have rules that constrain their legislature somewhat (a constitution) and some of them try to set rules that at least to some degree conform to the will of the people living there (democracies).
These principles have not come about from nothing, so I wouldn't call them arbitrary.
I did not either. I was just using his exact expression, in an effort to let him explain himself.
I can understand how offending that word is for some. Just wonder at all that bloody european history and superhuman effort to rationally get over it...
True, so much so that many, just outside of the continent, decided to leave the EU.
Insofar as they were in the EU though, they were bound by its laws.
This is no different from any other set of laws. Many in any country, state or other political organisation disagree with some law. They may choose to leave. They may choose to enact activism against said laws. They may not, without being subject to penalties, break said law.
Is it moral? Is it not? That's for societies to decide. If you're in the EU and you find the EU as a whole is not favourable to your country, you can start a campaign to leave. If, on the other hand, you just find that a specific law or another are wrong, you can write to your representatives, campaign to vote them out, etc.
Those are the (imperfect) workings of most democracies we know.
> Can you imagine Apple not operating in Europe?
I can. I don't think they will though. Why? Because even with the very few regulations that might reduce their ability to profit, it is still less profitable to leave the EU market. If eventually they find that not to be the case, they can lobby, campaign or leave.
> And England kinda speaks for all of them for this kind of thing
Well yes, it's 4 nations, except that England doesn't believe in the other 3 ;) Though it's only just coming to terms with the self-existence of most of the old Empire for that matter. Writing as someone who was born in the least likeable of the UK nations (England), and has lived in all but Wales.
Comparing it to "colonial times" is pretty egregious.
And a lot of these dark pattern cookie banners are not GDPR compliant. It should default to not track even if you don't press anything. And clicking 40 different reject buttons isn't allowed either. This needs serious policing.
So you're basically saying the alternative is don't exist for the vast majority of sites, reducing revenue by 50% and surviving is just about impossible for every internet company.
And if they wanted to turn every site into subscription overnight, they could have made this an optional provided header to opt out. Every browser could implement that in days.
Also, 50% less doesn't have to mean not to exist.
I do wish they had mandated the existing do not track flag to be honored though without presenting any popups. This would have finally made that flag useful and would have made things much easier. I know some browsers have removed it but it's easy to bring back.
It's strange that EU catching corruption and acting on it made it look corrupt. It's like the seat belts making people think the cars are not safe.
Honestly, I think this is partly to do with the fact that very few of these "Big Tech" companies are founded and primarily operate in the EU.
If anything this kind of legislation is more damaging to EU companies.
Very hard to get things off the ground (at least relatively speaking) in Europe. The software salaries also reflect that.
I'm sure they'll at least require notarization with their $99/year developer program, in line with macOS, where it's an increasingly enormous pain to run unsigned apps.
That mistake isn't worth downvoting you, though.
I don't understand where people get the impression from that it's a huge pain to run unsigned apps on macOS. It's a matter of executing
and then changing a setting in System Preferences and that's it.Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're actually paying for. This is the problem with believing their own talking points about "paying 30% for payment processing."
So now they'll be paying for actual third-party payment processing, as well as lawyers and accountants to ensure they're complying with Apple's royalty agreements to license their technology.
Fighting monopolies is hard, but the penalties scale up the more games these companies play. They know it too, but all of the **holes running these companies are worried about is cashing out their bonuses and retiring before the regulations finally get things to where they should be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvQ9JNm_qWc
We've had 15 years of hardware and browser optimization, Moore's law, and development when it comes to mobile hardware.
Web apps run just fine now. Hell, many native apps are just web apps via things React Native or webviews.
It's no surprise that Apple will comply as maliciously as they possibly can.
IMO a lot of developers are paying for Apple to have an unreasonable amount of control and the entire point of side loading or competing app stores is to get rid of that because we don't want to be paying Apple to act against our interests.
I don't want to pay for Apple to "verify" my app. I want them to use the OS to enforce user granted permissions and that's it.
Either you'll pay Apple directly, or the non-App Store will collect the 30% they have to send to Apple.
A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords. If you value openness, then I suggest you use and develop apps for Android.
Like how Apple's interests can be at-odds with your own. If developers have control over your device, you're not empowered as a user.
> A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords
So, give it to them. Our interests are not mutually exclusive, you can make a device with both a walled garden and a developer mode. It's not rocket science, at least when you have 200 billion dollars in R&D cash sitting in your coffers.
You're at least right about one thing. Large tech companies will always exploit opportunities to limit the user, which is a privilege Apple has abused for too long. It's time for computing to be democratized again, even if we need to drag Apple though the mud to get there.
I don't know if you realize this, but OP and you are saying the same thing, they are just saying it slightly different.
You: To stand up to large company bullying you need to regulate them through the government.
OP: To stand up to large company bullying you, you need another large company who has the pockets and sway to bring change through congress because our government is bought and paid for by corporations.
It's regulating your iPhone so you don't have to?
I really don't want idealists to mess up the iPhone's stability, performance and security so people can use the minecraft app store or whatever.
You can’t walk away from government regulation because there is ultimately a gun at your back. Governments do not give up power once they’ve received it. Governments change hands who may wield that power differently than when it was imagined to be when first received.
People in European countries have had to learn this the hard way many, many times over and yet still don’t get why other cultures might take a different view on it.
Just because smoldesu says “Letting software go unregulated didn't work, full-stop” doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t even make sense–you’re the one fighting for deregulation here.
The government is the one institution in most people's lives that they have a real say in, and probably the only one that affords them democracy. I doubt any of us sit on Apple's board.
The problem is that the Apple and Google duopoly is stifling choice and competition such that we can't realistically walk away from those companies. Market forces haven't solved this issue, and this is where antitrust legislation kicks in.
Discoverability and the ease of access that the playstore/appstore provides is enough to pretty much always want to have your app up there.
The main difference is that there are a lot of apps that are simply not allowed in the appstore or that you need to change substantially to comply with apple's rules. For example, Telegram has censored content if you download the app from the appstore given Apple's pornography laws. Other apps that might be used to infringe on copyright are outright not allowed (they're also not allowed on the playstore, but you can install them from the apk or a third party store).
Now, maybe you think these restrictions are appropriate and that's fine... for you. Other people might want the freedom of doing more with their devices that they paid hundreds and hundreds of dollars for without having to resort to extreme measures. The argument Apple uses is bullshit and the EU saw through it.
To state the obvious: if this were true, Apple wouldn't have to force the issue. Apple's app store would be a premium that they would charge users extra for. Getting your apps from 3rd-party stores would be the equivalent of the green bubble.
and the argument about "giving developers power" simply doesn't hold any water. android openly allows sideloading with the google play store having very similar rules to the app store, and yet i can count the number of major apps that force or even offer a sideloaded version on one hand. the only ones that come to mind are fortnite (removed from google play) and telegram (on play store, but sideloaded version has faster updates and less censorship).
I fully agree, imagine if MS had made Windows apps on W10 only come from their store. Anybody saying that the solution is "just buy a mac 4head"*, like they love to do with mobile phones, would be laughed out of existence.
*: It's great to have options, and linux should be in here too, but that would be like telling a normal user in this situation (mobile market) to go buy a Pine phone, which for very few would work the way they expect/need it to.
Why? Android is a legitimate alternative, one that the majority of the world population uses. You have many makes and models of handsets from which to choose. You want the polished apps with a completely open and free environment. Maybe you should ponder why such apps don't exist for the open and free ecosystems?
If most people actually choose iOS/iPhones primarily because of the App Store quality/protections/ecosystem then people will continue to choose the App Store regardless if sideloading is possible - after all we just said that's the whole reason most bought the phone in the first place. If on the other hand people are choosing iOS/iPhones for other reasons and you're worried nobody else will use the App Store anymore then I don't really buy "there aren't enough of us so it should be allowed to hold a captive market to support our use case" as a reasonable argument even though I see it quite often on HN.
It is simply the job of the sandbox and OS security to prevent security/privacy violations.
The issue is the monopolistic price gouging Apple charges for access to the walled garden.
If you took the "policing for developer's short circuiting the 30% cut" out of Apple's approval process, everything in their ecosystem works out fairly nicely.
The core issue is, simply, that Apple price gouges enormously.
Add a user, I do.
Developers, and the tech sphere in general, have proven themselves untrustworthy.
This is the bed of greed the tech industry built. Now lay in it.
For a user, Apple's app store will remain available. Your love for Coca-cola isn't ruined by the existence of Pepsi.
If I can use alternate stores then some popular apps - Fortnite is an obvious one - will go them exclusively, forcing people to set up and use a store which will probably do less auditing. Those apps will be able to steal more of my data, and some of them might (will) be malicious (“poison”).
Once a malicious app destroys my phone, “the system is down”; I can’t use any apps regardless of where I bought them.
Ransomware is a multi billion dollar business, and alternate stores will be motivated to cut corners. What could go wrong?
The app can do whatever it wants, but if I disable it’s access to the internet at a system level it’s not getting access to the internet.
Even desktop OSes work like this. Just because I install a piece of software on my laptop does not mean that it gets root access.
This seems a bit hyperbolic. I personally have not had this problem on my laptop (a Mac) despite being able to sideload apps, and it likely being a much juicier target.
You can yell about Zucks adtech empire all you like, but Apple launched their competitor at the same time they denied other apps.
Google is now moving the same direction as well.
Your phone OS vendor controlling which software distribution platform is mandatory is not meaningfully, "security".
I don’t believe this is true, can you cite a source? The recent buzz about ‘targeted ads’ was actually about adds on their own App Store, no third party data sharing or sale was involved, so I believe you are mistaken.
What they are just starting to do is no different from Amazon using your past purchases to place ads on their own site. I have no problem with that either.
If your going to criticise them and think what they are doing is wrong, fine. That’s fair, but could people at least get what they're complaining about factually correct.
Are they going to keep on giving their own apps entitlements they deny to everyone else? (Or even, allow to others, but very selectively.) Or is the EU going to crack down on that as well? I hope.
So this will wind up being a worst of all worlds.
Lmao, you must have missed the news about Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix and another few dozen Fortune 500 companies negotiating with Apple under the table. They already do bend the rules for sufficiently large companies, they just won't budge if you're someone that threatens them.
I'd actually consider iOS again if it were more open so I think this is a really good thing.
Otherwise they're building a web app, which they've always been able to do!
- When they pay $99/year for their developer license
- When they pay royalties on every payment that gets processed
- When they buy and promote Apple hardware and software
People simply want to remove the payment processing one. If Apple really needs more money to build their amazing intellectual property, they have plenty of ways to bill developers for services rendered. Their current system is undeniably exploitative, and the EU won't stop until that exploitation is alleviated. Apple will stop at nothing to defend their control, but will ultimately be forced to abide by Europe's terms. They're not defying small-fry court orders in the Netherlands anymore.
That universe doesn't quite exist on iOS, partly because Apple makes it so uncomfortable in ways to attempt. I am hopeful that this shakeup might, in some way, make that easier. I've always wanted to ship some basic apps that do things without any ads or purchases or whatnot.
I don't really subscribe to one camp. There's pros and cons to both.
Besides the developer program cost (which I assume will still exist in this EU world) what is stopping you from doing this now?
Dealing with the capricious app store approval processs?
Not being allowed to use GPL code (might still be a problem for 3rd party app stores, but maybe not for sideloading. Maybe.)?
Having to develop on a mac (which will still be a problem)?
Apple is a hardware company, an appliance company if you wish, and also a media company. The fact that they are forced to also produce general computing devices as a wayto run stuff like Ableton or Photoshop is, I suspect, seen as a pesky legacy of Apple II days.
Pedantic, but the license agreement line requiring that 'MacOS can only run on Apple hardware' is, itself, in service of the fact that they only license the software to you if you purchase their hardware.
A Hackintosh is a transgression.
That's like saying people shouldn't be allowed to make unofficial accesories for physical products without paying the company because the original designs for the product itself are patented.
Hitching your "I don't want to pay the 30% commission" wagon to "Allowing 3rd party app stores and payment processors" is doomed to fail.
This has literally already happened https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/apple-shocks-ios...
I suppose there are people just itching to install closed source mystery code from unaccountable entities. Unfortunately most of them are the friends and family for whom I am first line technical support. I'm not looking forward to the change.
I'm willing to wait for the details, but at this moment, I am not a fan of unaccountable stores.
You can load any app you want, but it disappears after 3 days. Then you have to load it again. To keep the app on your phone, you need to load it onto your phone again every 3 days using your computer.
It's obviously set up for developer testing, not for someone trying to actually get use out of an app on their phone.
Edit: Ok, "true depending". If you are a registered developer then your apps last a year. If you are unregistered then you get one week, which would be a total pain in the ass.
I don't understand what risk they are mitigating by keeping the unverified developers to 3 days instead of one year. It is clearly an intentional action.
I guess you could have a business where you install unapprovable apps for people with a 1 year subscription and they have to physically come back to your kiosk and get an update from you each year.
I've heard that there's somewhat of a black market for this already. One person buys a developer subscription, then signs apps for other people so that they can sideload them using something like AltStore. Then, Apple sees that many apps have been signed by one dev account and shutters the account for terms of service violations. Finally, someone else registers a new developer account and the process repeats.
Macs have a long shelf life, and ones capable of running current Xcode are thrown to the recycler, I assume you could nab one for minimal coin too. They'll be slower, like 1/3 the speed to build compared to new machines, but apps don't take long to build. Most of your time is "sitting and staring" followed by "typing". Neither of which is appreciably impacted by using an old machine.
I went from an 8 year old Mini to a new M1 when they came out. A world of difference! Buttery smooth window drags, gorgeous scrolling. But I don't really program apps any faster. Sure, I have a few seconds now and then on a build, but it doesn't add up to much. Then I switched up to a Studio with a brain the size of a planet… no real change for app programming.
Don't let lack of a computer be a problem. Grab an old mini and do your thing.
What is this hypothetical even. Your nontechnical friends and family are also eager to go out of the App Store (after having to enable developer mode, which might be as difficult and full of disclaimers and warnings as Apple chooses to slap into it), then root around shady third party app stores and mobile websites to download mystery code? So they're simultaneously tech illiterate and power users?
They will totally hand their phone over to "other guy" who will "do something, I don't remember what he did"… and they'll be subscribed to SketchyAppStore2023-HGTWRE.
1. Nothing is going to change and I will continue to use my phone as it was before because the App Store is still the primary driver.
2. I will be forced to use third party stores because critical apps are no longer distributed through the App Store.
3. I will just be using my phone less and less.
The EU, Developers, and Many here continue to forget that the reason many of us use an iPhone is because of the walled garden. If I wanted an open platform I would switch to Android and mod the hell out of it.
I don't want that. I want the precautions that Apple has in place to make it so developers can't employ dark patterns to keep me as a paying subscriber. To mine the data on my phone for their profit.
With one or 2 clicks of a button I can cancel any subscription I want that I did through the App Store. I also get alerts when anything yearly is about to charge (from Apple) or when things are about to cost more than they used to. Instead of hoping that we just wouldn't see the alert like too many sites do.
People keep saying that this is about choice, which frankly... is bull. This is about choice for the developer not the consumer. Most consumers don't care, but developers will jump ship to another App Store if they can start doing all of the negative practices that they are not allowed to do on the App Store. Especially if they are big enough, Seriously think that Facebook won't try to have their own App Store? Considering what they have gotten up to very recently.
We already have enough developers purposefully trying to deceive users right before they get the prompt about allowing the app to track.
Anyone... please tell me how this actually benefits ME as a consumer and not developers?
Edit: Instead of replying to each one I am going to just post here.
Many of you are saying Android does not have this issue. But unless I am mistaken Epic Games did exactly this?
Also unless I am mistaken, many of the consumer protecting restrictions are not on android. Especially around subscriptions and billing issues. I know google is cracking down on it, but from what I understand it is not as universally in place.
So developers don't have the incentives to move to another App Store on Android like they do on iOS (again benefiting developers while hurting me as a consumer)
Edit: I am going to make one last point here. I spend a fair amount of money on App Store subscriptions. (or buying apps but that is sadly not as popular anymore). I do this because I don't worry about singing up to try something, knowing that I can very easily cancel it. I don't even have to talk to the company.
This leads me to signing up for apps that I would never have considered paying for if it was through a traditional website that would make me jump through who the hell knows what hoops to cancel.
They complain about the 30% cut, but from me. It is you get 70% or I give my money to someone else.
I cannot imagine I am the only one that does this.
[Context] it is extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL. The business case if true and still viable should be unique and outside of a pure software play - which gets you squarely out of IAP.
Long story: it would be extremely odd to (ab)use the leverage of a 0 marginal cost business to be sensitive to a +/-18% payment processing fee - when the world basically runs on ~4% IRL.
Then you also had to pay into a marketing fund for those big full color inserts in the Sunday paper if your software was sold at the big box retailers.
You also had to eat the cost of returns of unsold inventory after you issued a new version.
Or do they mostly just support PayPal, Square, Amazon Pay or direct credit card billing?
We didn’t magically jump from only buying things in stores to only buy things from an App Store. Companies could and still do sell through their own website and through other places.
And it fucking sucked. Finding apps was hit or miss, there was no guarantee an app would run on your device model, and payments were ridiculous. Apple's App Store is far from perfect but it is vastly better than the absolute clown shoes of buying mobile apps for pre-iPhone mobile platforms.
Further, since most things were shareware, you could just _test_ the software on your machine ahead of time.
iPhones nowadays are much closer to functionality and power to (or significantly eclipsing) normal PCs that people have.
And the distribution of software for normal PCs has none of the issue you describe.
A) The presence of licensing software is irrelevant to the existence of something between a big box store and the App Store. Talking about the ecosystem as if people did not sell software electronically before the App Store is simply disingenuous.
B) Times have changed, it's easier to handle that stuff yourself using free software or with software packages that take less than a 30% cut.
C) You know what didn't need that licensing software? Free and/or OSS software. That simply isn't an option on iOS. Further, even if you wanted to enforce that on your paid software you may have used a publishing company, but you weren't artificially limited to a single one.
If enough developers choose to move to those other stores consumers will have no choice but to use those stores to get the apps they are looking for.
I understand wanting apps that the app stores doesn't permit. There are apps that I would love as well. But I don't want to loose the protections in place to get them.
Why wouldn't it? It's the reality of Android, why would it work any different on iOS?
But unless I am mistaken, a developer on Android is free to handle their own subscription billing, purchases, whatever however they want right?
I have seen some reports that google is tracking to crack down on this, but last I saw it was still far more open for the developers.
If that is correct. Developers are less incentivized to circumvent the Android Store. That incentive exists on iOS if it allows them to use those dark patterns for unsubscribing from an app or anything else.
If I am wrong about android than fine, that incentive doesn't exist and that removes most of my argument (it is still a possibility but the incentive won't be there).
If an app asks you to pay for a subscription and you don't like the payment processor the app uses, then don't use the app. It's really that simple.
I’m now expecting to see Xbox Store on PlayStation (and vice versa), Samsung Store on my LG TV (because they have xCloud), no bad practices with a third party store, and everything positive.
Seeing that this solves all our problems, I’m looking forward to xCloud on my LG soon.
I've jailbroken my iOS devices since the first iPod touch. There are lots of tools and features that Apple doesn't allow developers access to which limits what features are ultimately available to the end-user.
Nearly every big feature release on iOS came first from the jailbreak community. App switching, call overlay, PIP video, Shortcuts, lockscreen widgets, home screen widgets... and an endless list of others.
Non of these features would exist without designers and developers having access to the core functionality of the iPhone.
I love iOS. I currently own an iPhone without a Jailbreak (doesn't exist for my iPhone). I'm also an engineer and there is a whole lot of potential that Apple limits strictly under the guise of security. You can have alternate stores without compromising those that choose not to install them.
I understand that Google may decide to create their own store and take all their apps with them... this I can see being a very negative thing which may be needs regulation in itself. IDK what that would look like, but I don't use Google anyways because I have no trust in them. I don't trust them in the App Store so I wouldn't trust them with their own store.
What do you mean by "create their own store"? I don't understand this part of your comment.
If you already don't trust them in the App Store, why would you trust them in their own store to begin with? Sounds to me like you shouldn't use Google apps to begin with.
Most of their apps are very replaceable and with the arbitrary restrictions forcibly peeled back, the sole service that you can only get from them (YouTube) can finally get an iOS equivalent of NewPipe that doesn't need a hacked phone to be installed.
Or like the messenger or streaming wars: everything is fragmented, one AppStore you use primarily, and here and there you need to use the other Stores for specific use cases.
Additionally, it’s a benefit that users can now install any apps that Apple refuses to allow.
Not all laws exist to benefit you personally. It's a benefit to society to avoid a world where Apple will collect a 30% rent on all economic activity, kill of competition at a whim, and in general decide which products and product categories live and die.
I understand that it might be a intentional hyperbole but Apple very clearly and universally charges the comission (which is 15% if rev under < $1M) on digital good purchases. They have not planned to charge for bank transfers as some commenters in the NFT case of Coinbase fearmongered or physical goods. It's only a fee on things that App Store and Apple clearly enabled you to deliver to people with their system - digital goods.
People that say this is about walled gardens and security, which frankly, is bull…
Yes the 30% issue will mostly benefit devs, but also consumers. What if i could register for netflix, the ny times etc on my phone?
What if prices became cheaper because the 30% wouldnt be there anymore?
Also, the app store as it is now is a failure, some competition would do it good. Try finding anything there, the discovery tools are a joke.
1) Developers already raise the prices for apps/subscriptions in iOS (vs, say, the web) to offset Apple's cut.
2) Developers will be able to offer refunds more easily (something that continues to be ridiculously hard with the App Store).
3) The App Store only allows free trials for subscriptions. They don't offer free trials before a one time payment to buy the app. A 3rd party store could allow that.
4) Certain kinds of apps that Apple doesn't allow on the App Store would presumably be allowed on other stores.
5) Apple will finally be forced to compete now that the App Store has competition. It might even mean that all the points I made above become moot.
I'm not saying there won't be any potential downsides, but that's the whole point of competition, it's a tradeoff you can make. As a user you can choose to only use the Apple App Store if you want. Since most users will only use the official store, it seems unlikely that many mainstream apps would consider dropping it entirely.
I would counter that its really easy compared to most other systems.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084
I had an occasion where my phone was loaned to my (young at that time) nephew on a car trip and since it was my phone (and only my phone) I had rather permissive purchase checks on it. He bought a bunch of in app purchase stuff for Talking Tom (owned by a Chinese company). I filled out the form, and got a refund. I believe that it was much easier than trying to get a refund from the developer.
They sold their company and shut down their service for which they charged monthly/yearly subscriptions. They had a decent relationship with Apple, so they emailed their contact and notified them that they'd like to issue refunds to all their users. Apple said that users had to do it themselves. That wouldn't be so bad, but there's (as I understand it) some restrictions on Apple offering refunds for subscriptions, for example if you're 25 days into a 30 day subscription period, Apple won't allow users to request a refund.
This caused users to get angry at my friend and their company.
If they had been using any other payment service other than the App Store, they could have just automatically issued refunds to all their users.
Apple balances on the assumption of the stability of their developers offering subscriptions and an easier experience for a user requesting a refund.
The difficulty that the developer is having in this case is that Apple isn't exposing the payment information to the developer. If they can say "this user gets a refund" that is leaking some information about the users to developers.
(...)
Additionally, it appears that there were some new methods added to the in-app library for developers to be able to create a refund request on behalf of a user.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti...
> Call this function from account settings or a help menu to enable customers to request a refund for an in-app purchase within your app. When you call this function, the system displays a refund sheet with the customer’s purchase details and list of reason codes for the customer to choose from.
Regardless, to address your (off-topic) addition: do you actually request refunds from Apple often enough to be willing to pay 10% more for the privilege? You'd have to be asking for refunds for 1 out of every 10 products you buy for that to make sense...
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti...
That right there is my problem with this. We can't even definitively say that it isn't possible. Doesn't Epic do it on Android?
A big enough company (like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) could easily push their store as being the primary way to download their apps. Start out on both at first but gradually introduce incentives for the users to redownload somewhere else. Then suddenly that App Store is on their phone, other developers see the App Store being used a lot and more and more developers stop using the App Store because they can get around these protections that I get as a user.
If somehow developers were still required to be on the App Store, fine. I would have no issue with it. But I just don't see developers doing it. Too many already try to employ dark patterns on there website that given a chance there is no way they won't try to do them on mobile. Many already try (like with the prompts to permit app tracking) but are limited in what they can do.
Or any shitty IoT company. When people pay $400 for an instant pot or $800 for a robot vacuum or electric scooter they’ll download any spyware app to make it run. Plenty already required sideloading apk’s on Android.
I mean most likely would not happen until another big enough store got popular. But then its... do I just download this app or do I return it.
However, as someone who doesn't deal with these big companies to begin with, it wouldn't affect me at all if they move out. It would just fast-track me to recommending alternatives to everyone I know.
I already migrated my whole family into iCloud for photos and own Nextcloud server for Google Drive alternative. It's been great. Obviously not the average user, but I could see people sticking with Apple's services over Google's.
Might get a huge base of older adults off of Facebook for good if they decide to leave the App Store.
That sounds like paradise to me.
This dynamic is already at play on Android. The lack of Fortnite availability on the Play Store is probably to the detriment of users. However, the existence of fdroid has allowed quite a few apps that users want but that fundementally don't work within the Play Store rules.
So when you ask "What does this do for me as a user", the answer is: it creates the opportunity for you to have access to a more diverse set of apps that are currently prohibited (such as anything with adult content).
Edit: A hopeful secondary effect is that Apple will be incentivized to improve the App Store to compete with third party stores. Maybe Apple will add free trials for one-time purchase apps. Maybe Apple will create an adult content section. Maybe Apple will provide better transparency around rejections. Maybe a store will emerge that does a much more stringent security review that catches the bad actors that do get their apps through Apple's screening. Most likely, none of this will happen and 3rd party stores will see minimal use, predominantly by technical users who want apps that fundamentally violate the store rules, like has happened on Android.
I'll believe most developers offering cheaper prices on other stores when I see it. Nobody is going to lower their prices just because they have moved app stores.
And do they lower it again when the 'cut' is 1/2 in year two? I haven't seen that, I've only seen devs pocket the diff.
"Simply not buy Apple things" means "buy Google things." There's no way around that if you want a functional smart phone. You either pick red or blue.
If there were 5-10 full-featured phone OSes out there, your point would make more sense to me.
You can like the hardware and not care for the software. It really is A/B at the moment. It's difficult for the average user to choose C. You either allow Google to peer into your life, or trust that Apple's marketing isn't a gimmick and a lot of Apple is e2e encrypted.
From what I read, iCloud backups are finally getting e2e encryption. I see this as the biggest reason to stick with Apple. I trade off full-customizability for better security/experience.
If a jailbreak was available for my iPhone, I'd be on it though.
Yes, but only as secure as the passphrase you use to unlock your phone. Except actually less secure than that; your phone will rate limit attempts to guess your passphrase, but encrypted iCloud backups turned over to a government won't and can't rate limit attempts.
For the average user with a relatively short passphrase, iCloud backups will be trivial to crack. Still, it's an improvement.
This is why you can casually change your pin code in your phone's settings without it chewing through your battery and data plan reencrypting and reuploading gigabytes of cloud data.
No big corporate support, less commercial apps packaged by default, but that’s a feature in itself.
Bonus points for supporting contactless payments, banking apps, and airline apps.
The hardware should have decent battery life and get great cell reception, and the UI should be smooth.
You are prohibiting from crying or complaining about this by your own logic.
You are free to not install an alternative app stores, and cannot use any arguments at all about how your choice is restricted.
You answered yourself. Most people are not Linuxy in the sense that they buy an iPhone and don't want to know how everything works.
If this would push that other 20%, I might even consider switching from Android.
As it stands, Android has a lot of free trash on the play store, and Iphone has a lot of paid trash on the app store because apple charges them hundreds per year for the honor of developing on their platform.
On Android, when I need an app with basic functionality, I already check fdroid first for a simple OSS implementation. I don't need my voice recorder to do anything except record audio. I don't need my heart beat monitor to do anything but check my pulse.
I'm hoping this change brings the type of innovation early jailbreak app stores brought that basically test drove features that Apple would copy years later and call "innovative".
I.e the gatekeeping my government wants to prohibit is the reason I’ve been recommending these things. I guess I’ll have to switch to recommending AwareGo security training for everyone
In what respect does any phone currently on the market have "mandated side loading"?
This is very obviously bull. When there are essentially only two smartphone platforms, and someone is arguing that one of the only significant consumer differences between the two platforms should be removed, that person is not trying to increase consumer choice.
This seems very unlikely. It hasn't happened on Android. Amazon has their own Android appstore and nobody is forced to use it, and I think nearly nobody does. But because Android has this possibility, I can use F-Droid which is excellent.
What does a "critical app" even look like? I don't have any apps on my phone that I would call critical, only convenient. My banking apps from the playstore are nice to have, but not critical. I can do banking on their websites, at an ATM or over the phone. Uber is sometimes convenient, but I've gone years without using it before and many people don't have it at all. If Facebook makes their own Facebook store and uses it to ship malware, it won't effect me because I never used their app in the first place, none of their crap is critical. That's the power of not submitting to peer pressure.
Maybe a "critical app" is one your government legally requires you to install, e.g. some sort of pandemic tracing app. But thankfully my government (America) has not gone that far. I don't think there is presently such a thing as a "critical app" in America. Only apps which may feel critical because of peer pressure or convenience, but aren't actually critical.
From what I've heard the Apple App Store isn't much better in this regard, except there you just don't have the option to ignore it (and the jailbreaking community seems more open, except the same "pay for every tiny thing" culture that plagues iOS has made it way over to that platform).
The EU forcing Apple to open up iOS should ideally result in a more fair, better curated ecosystem of smaller app stores and the development of apps that people actually want to use rather than apps that exist to make exciting number go up at an ad agency. There'll be some initial blowback, but the long-term benefits will be that much better for mobile phones on the whole (which to be frank, is desperately needed).
It also gives a secondary avenue for apps against Apple's app store guidelines, which have been noted in the past to basically be completely arbitrary (the main examples of this are the fact that Apple plays censor for VPNs in some countries, Steve Jobs telling people that want to have NSFW apps on their iPhone to "go buy an android", the last policy still leading to numerous social media apps getting in trouble because an app reviewer found something NSFW (this is why Tumblr banned NSFW) and for a very specific example of a game that somehow kept violating the guidelines: the iOS port of the Binding of Isaac was rejected for over a year because Apple wanted to play moral guardian, there's also the completely unreasonable ban on allowing emulation and really I could continue on and on about how absurd this is).
Tumblr is just one example. Discord had to restrict all NSFW channels in their app for iOS users because their randomly assigned App Store reviewer managed to get their account into an NSFW channel and found the expected.
Reddit just never had to deal with this issue because they didn't even have an iPhone app for years (their current app is a highly modified version of an older app, Alien Blue, but AB was pulled from the App Store when Reddit bought it) or they deal with it quietly so you don't hear about it. Not all companies who get shafted on the NSFW rule speak up about it, but those that have... all have repeatedly commented on the fact that the process is basically completely opaque and you need to basically pray that Apple doesn't decide to pull your current version either.
Tumblr picked the easy way out (ban all NSFW in general) because they were about to be sold to Verizon and Yahoo didn't want to bother trying to find a way to appease to apple at the last minute.
In a way though, that means Safari should be banned too. And the camera app, I mean point it down in the right state of undress... ;)
There have been cases where authoritarian countries have forced people to sideload government-issued malware onto their Android phones.
The knife here in terms of risking government overreach slices both ways, but in the case of Apple, they are in a much more vulnerable state for this sort of thing, since the CCP requires them to have meat shields (they need to have an office there) to continue operating in China.
One is massively more beneficial on the whole for user freedom.
Just because the status quo is bad for some people, it doesn't means it should be made worse for everyone else.
Likely because doing for Android alone represents too much of a risk given the profit potential. With these stores being able to exist on both platforms, that equation changes a lot, especially with iOS users' eyeballs traditionally having been valued more highly.
i, for one, am looking forward to a kindle app that allows me to purchase books on iOS.
>I want the precautions that Apple has in place to make it so [only Apple can] employ dark patterns to... mine the data on my phone for their profit.
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/
It is your singular opinion, not a fact. I'm pretty sure that it's at the very bottom of list of reasons why people use iphones.
You also need to look passed the FUD and see that you have Android and you can't find a good example that you are forced to install a third party store to get some must have application. Geeks would unlock their phones and some apps might offer a cheaper version on a third party store forcing Apple to compete.
If you could also replace Siri with a better assistant you might even get Apple putting some work in their apps and improve Siri. Either way custoemrs will gain a better voice assistant if there will be fair competition.
This is actually part of the law. Apple have to allow 3rd party voice assistants.
It benefits you because you can get apps that Apple has decided aren't safe for you for whatever reason.
Comments advocating FOR the prison that is the App Store are so unbelievable I can't believe they're anything but astroturfing.
What other store operators should know is that if there’s any compelling feature that sets their store apart, Apple can very rapidly copy it and probable do a better job so there’s really very little incentive to bother creating a store to compete against Apple.
The overwhelming majority of Android users use the Google Play Store.
This is all a colossal waste of time and energy for no practical change.
I find this to be a feature. Please protect me against "myself" (sometimes I'm tired, sometimes drunk - and dark patterns around the web can get to me too).
lol
> That’s a you problem.
Isn’t it actually a you problem?
I have a painpoint. The company I want to do business with is a company willing to solve my painpoint for me for some money. Im willing to pay them and the ecosystem to solve it for me.
You have a painpoint. The company you want to do business with doesn’t want to solve it for you, for any amount of money. You want to force the company to solve your painpoint at my expense.
Seems very much like you have problems, and you’re making your problem into a me problem?
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
That's the primary reason I want side-loading.
You paid to own it, Apple puts in rules as if you're renting it. It doesn't matter that you can hack it. You shouldn't have to hack your own hardware.
It’s ridiculous to say expect that Apple is obligated in helping you use the device in ways not designed to work. Would you expect Apple also to make it possible to run PlayStation games?
No, of course not. We all know that the ability to run on unapproved roads isn't a "feature", but rather the inability to run on an unapproved road is an anti-feature that they built in the first place. For that matter, the inability to run playstation games outside a playstation is also an anti-feature which had to be engineered by Sony. For that matter, do you buy razors that only fit Gillette approved blade designs? So why restrictions on computing devices then?
I will give credit where its due in that Apple is upfront about the nature of the walled garden. Who knows, maybe there really is a market for cars that only go to approved places.
Everything intelligent comes with a set of software. You can replace that software (on almost everything?), but then it's up to you to maintain the setup how you like. That's not unique to iOS.
Most people that argue for your desired outcome can at least see that there are non-zero user-facing benefits to a walled garden. Do you really not have anyone in your life that isn’t an idealistic tech savvy power user? Apple obviously has financial incentive to maintain its 30% transaction cut, and it’s made some silly arguments to try to maintain that. However it’s also raised some very legitimate and well thought-out downsides.
At this point, the conversation has evolved so far beyond the “it’s a road!” analogy that continuing with that line of reasoning feels either ignorant or acting in bad faith, not because of any “won ground” by the pro walled garden lot, but because all that are interested in a legitimate debate know that these misleading comparisons help nobody.
It is kind of strange if you own something 100% and you can't sell it.
Without this becoming a rant, what fraction of that "security" is protecting you from nothing more than apps that didn't pay the Apple tax. You must admit, the narrative that only approved apps are "good"/"safe" is insanely self serving and conveniently hard to falsify.
You have a point but without Apple’s restrictions, someone can build tracking free Facebook client too, if that’s something people want.
If it requires diving in to Settings or connecting the phone to a computer -- Facebook would never abandon the App Store, friction to using side-loading would be too high.
If Facebook makes a change that kills the low-tracking front-ends and insists everyone be tracked more, and in response you grovel to them and put up with their new app, then no amount of EU law or App store law was ever going to protect you from yourself. Apple store polices are a red herring, the problem you're actually highlighting is the adversarial relation you have with fb.
Reminder that Epic tried this with Fortnite and eventually went back on the play store. And this was on the platform that had sideloading since day one.
Epic Games is going to put their own storefront on iOS, and it's going to have few if any of the polices for customer protection that the App Store does.
Then an app like F-Droid will come along and offer even more protections than the App Store. Confound it!
For my part, this is a step in the right direction. With a few more fixes, iOS might even become usable enough for me to buy a device that runs it.
If you wanted to use an abusive subscription system currently you would have to do it outside the app via a web browser
Then [company] lose marketshare to those who don't care about anything outside of the App Store, and when media outlets and social networks pick up on how [company] app on this third party store tracks so much more information than it used to, even more people will uninstall. It's what we've seen on Android for years, there is a huge reputation factor when it comes to third party app stores. That reputation factor is the reason why F-Droid is the major choice outside of the Play Store.
There is incentive here for app developers to continue to provide solid services. Just not Facebook, as their primary goal is tracking.
The fact that Facebook can do any spying on you at all (because it can still track you, on your current Apple device, right now) is because government regulators are dropping the ball. It's not Apple's responsibility, it's not something they're good at, and it's not something that they should be doing.
The government, so far, has been rather toothless in terms of ensuring the privacy of people and have issued paltry fines to the companies that amounted to no more than a slap on the wrist and extracting a promise that they'll do better next time (with their hands behind their back and fingers crossed).
The reason I purchase apple devices is because they are the only ones that are taking my privacy seriously.
Government regulators are letting the market decide how valuable customer data is and Apple is saying "it is valuable and our customers value not letting random people getting it." Thus, I am voting with my wallet because in this case, votes for elected officials isn't doing much.
Well... https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/21/icloud-for-windows-corr...
You don't need the App Store for security, it isn't a dichotomy.
"Introducing: iLess - A $15/month optional subscription fee that removes sideloading from your phone."
Sure to be a smash hit, sounds like exactly what you're looking for!
I’m free to resolve my cancelled flight by either waiting a week for the free alternative or buying a combination of rail and ferry tickets to get me from Stansted to Berlin, but only because I have an understanding boss, enough money, and an app which can get me arbitrary hotels on route because that’s more than a day’s journey unless I plan to sleep in a train station.
I’m free to not remain in a country whose politics or laws I dislike. But only because I got lucky with a few things.
I’m free to not download any app which forces me to sideload. But only because they don’t exist yet on iOS (except for the ways that apparently never counted according to all the people demanding this) — there’s too many ways a theoretical “optional” can become an “actually mandatory”, from laws to employers to defacto monopolies, and those are just the ones I’ve seen examples of in other contexts.
The trouble is that the walled garden approach only works if the wall goes all the way around. If Facebook, Google, or the other big ad companies are allowed to access the iOS ecosystem without consumer protections, then they absolutely will and will force users to go along with it. This is about developer freedom, not user freedom.
Apple does. I buy a Macbook, and I can modify the bootloader to completely leave MacOS. It's a pain in the ass, and Apple certainly doesn't make it easy as it was on x86, but it's an option. Even if I use MacOS, I still have the option to disable system integrity, install unsigned apps and use third-party software managers.
That's a system that lets me escape the walled garden. They give me concessions inside their OS and an escape-hatch for third-party OSes if they really fuck things up. The iPhone has none of those things. If you buy an iPhone, your only way to leave the walled garden is to not use the iPhone. Buying an Android phone does not break your iPhone out of the walled garden.
I paid for an iPhone for my mom so that she could not load whatever she damn well pleases, because if she does I have to deal with the mess afterwards.
Some folks are okay with walled gardens for specific purposes. If that's not you, that's fine. Perhaps Apple iDevices are then not for you.
Even today it is not ok to be careless with what you put on your machine, but in a couple of decades, it could be a true disaster, specially if public services are fully tied to your digital identity. You would not want your digital self to be entertaining any random* program as guest.
* effectively random - see first point
But having a debilitating disease is a different story and beyond the persons control.
Given a choice, I and many others here will continue to learn and adapt.
The subset might include you, or a majority of HN people even. Just a smaller % of population than currently.
Regards your > Given a choice
If you have family with such issues, you know it wasn't a choice. Getting older means facing mental plasticity slowdown. You can work to be fit on that front sure, but it is an issue that we will all face and not everyone will choose as you do.
I am not sure I agree with GP's assertion that technology will be inherently harder to deal with though.
This issue can not be decided based on what is appropriate for a niche segment of society. We have a variety of options to serve the general society -- state/control, state/licensing, state/regulation, private/corporate, public/ngo, public/community, personal/ai, personal/expertise. These are not mutually exclusive options and we should discuss the possible configurations, optimal for general societal welfare, rather than denying that the problem exists.
One possibility that comes to mind is that we could possibly rely on trustworthy AI to help us understand the implications of using X in full. So if not walled gardens maybe private landscape architects or AI gardeners.
But one of the two will be required for digital life.
I don't want to buy a Nokia. Apple's hardware is really good and I want to buy their devices. I just don't want to become a serf in their digital fiefdom.
There is no reason to consider the OS and the App Store part of the device, other than marketing.
There are several, very easy to imagine mechanisms that both provide user freedom and security/idiot-resistance at the same time.
For instance, extending the "parental control" feature to have a toggle for sideloading - then, you just turn on parental control, toggle that off, and keep the PIN. Done.
The idea that the features of the product should completely unnecessarily be restricted for all users for the dubious benefit of a tiny subset of them is laughable. The only logically consistent motive to advocate for this is profit.
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
No one is forcing “everything to be homogenous”. If you don’t like homogeneity, then avoid it. It’s not hard to understand. My choices are none of your business just like I’m not going to criticize you for wanting more freedom to customize your device at the expense of security and stability.
Very, very bad and consumer-hostile sentiment that is inconsistent both with good ethics and with the way that the regulatory system works currently.
Regulations on goods sold exist for a purpose - to allow the user to generally buy things while having some guarantees about their lifetime/security/safety/consistency with marketing/etc.
"If you don't like it, don't buy it" implies that companies should be able to sell goods made with toxic substances, not honor their warranties, lie on their marketing, and steal and sell your personal medical information. This is bad.
If I buy a product, I expect to be able to do whatever I want with it, and to not have arbitrary limitations on how I use that product that exist purely for the sake of making the seller more rich, and this is consistent with the way that consumer protection regulations work in general.
> Uniformity and convention over configuration and customization is why people feel why iOS is more stable and secure than the Android ecosystem as a whole.
False. The vast majority of people have no opinions of whether Android or iOS is more secure. Slightly more, but very few, of them have any opinions on their relative stability, and you can attribute exactly all of that instability to a mix between (1) manufacturers making terrible drivers and support packages for their hardware and (2) Google being generally bad at designing software. It has nothing to do with "uniformity" or "convention over configuration" at all.
No one is forcing you to buy products you don’t like. You’re confusing government sanctioned duopolies (created from bad regulation) like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T for Apple. You are free to buy alternative products from other companies.
> It has nothing to do with "uniformity" or "convention over configuration" at all.
Actually it does. The hardware is uniform and consistent, and therefore so are the drivers. There is a price to choice. Google is also one of the best software companies in the world.
There are choices made for use - having a phone on which everyone around communicates, having an internet connection from the only provider in the area.
Uniformity is a choice if the alternative is a viable choice and this is a complex matter.
And look where it got us.
With regulations. That people generally accept and agree are necessary to some extent...
> No one is forcing you to buy products you don’t like.
...even for goods that you have the option of not purchasing. It literally doesn't matter how many baby bottle manufacturers there are in the US - it is illegal for all of them to put BPA in their baby bottle products, regardless of whether their competitors don't.
> You’re confusing government sanctioned duopolies
No, I'm not. The US has boatloads of laws making it illegal to sell various things in markets where there's absolutely no monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies and buyers have ample choices, such as the above.
> Actually it does. The hardware is uniform and consistent, and therefore so are the drivers.
You're intentionally changing the use of "uniformity" from being about high-level OS user-facing design ("the features of the product should completely unnecessarily be restricted for all users for the dubious benefit of a tiny subset of them" + "Uniformity and convention over configuration" = talking about OS design) to implementation, which is a completely separate issue that's unrelated to the current discussion about user freedom. This is an admittedly clever slight of hand, but makes your point no less invalid.
> There is a price to choice.
Sure - but you haven't shown what the price is to allowing users to use whatever app store they want, you've just brought in completely irrelevant examples like phone hardware choice.
> Google is also one of the best software companies in the world.
Regardless of the truth of this statement, it doesn't change the fact that they're generally bad (note that "bad" is absolute, "best" is relative) at designing software, per my lived experience with dozen of bugs in dozens of Google products across browsers and operating systems over years of use.
Apple's freedom is to make their devices as they see fit. User's freedom is to vote with her wallet. Feel free to buy whatever device you like if you want to have the ability to shoot yourself in the foot and get pwned, I like to have it in some circumstances but it's not what I would recommend to all of my non-tech contacts. I appreciate most EU privacy laws but not where it comes close to taking people's choice to voluntarily give up some freedoms for security, it's the opposite of empowering them.
> The vast majority of people have no opinions of whether Android or iOS is more secure.
This is just some random unsubstantiated claim. Apple buys entire billboards in city centers that basically promote privacy. You are saying you know better than their entire marketing department.
Even laypeople pay attention and notice that it's their Android owning friends' bank accounts get hijacked but not iPhone owning friends, etc.
> you can attribute exactly all of that instability to
Whatever you attribute this to, potato, potato, the end result is one has been more stable, more secure, supported for longer, more profitable for indie app developers etc than the other.
So much misinformation
Maybe purchase a different product that more closely aligns with your needs.
0: ie. someone watches you enter your apple id and passcode and later swipes your phone, only to sideload spyware that hides itself from the UI, then re-plants your phone without you knowing
Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11231631
Instead, the proposal is that people be able to install whatever software they want, that runs as a normal iOS app subject to the iOS security restrictions. Being able to install a non-Apple-approved app does not give you the ability to read and write arbitrary kernel memory, or do other actually dangerous things.
Yet, it's up to me to decide whether I want that security or whether I want to trade security for freedom/flexibility. Not you, or any other authoritarians seeking to exert control over others.
> Maybe purchase a different product that more closely aligns with your needs.
This is an incredibly toxic and user-hostile sentiment that also is completely inconsistent with the way that consumer protection laws work in general[1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33978141
I absolutely can manifest that choice - but it doesn't matter, because I have the right to be able to make that choice for any particular manufacturer.
> To quote your linked comment, I wouldn't expect you nor any other sane consumer to purchase goods that are "made with toxic substances, not honor their warranties, lie on their marketing, and steal and sell your personal medical information".
It doesn't matter that you wouldn't expect one to - it's wrong for a seller to sell one of those things at all, and that's why we've enshrined into our legal system that "some bad things are illegal to sell, regardless of whether the consumer has the ability to avoid them or not".
> Apple does not do any of that
It's pretty blindingly obvious that I'm not claiming that Apple is doing any of those things, and just using that as an example of the point that "some things are illegal to sell".
> and I think that you're intentionally derailing the discussion by comparing their guidelines + practices to any of the above.
The one who is doing that is you, by intentionally misinterpreting my words and reading things that I didn't write. The comparison is entirely apt - "we have laws against selling/doing some bad things x, Apple is selling/doing bad things y, even though x != y it's reasonable to have laws against also selling/doing bad things y".
This is a strange red herring. Attacks of this form are protected from by the OS, not the App Store. You can't do attacks like this by sideloading apps onto your own phone in developer mode because iOS itself protects against this - and we're discussing specifically allowing users to choose what App Store they use, not relaxing any of the security restrictions of the OS. Someone familiar with the basics of OS design would be aware of this distinction.
Security researchers, for example, can disable it. And use this to find security vulnerabilities.
The point is, as users we should have the ability... Apple (or any company) should not be allowed to dictate what people are & are not allowed to do on the devices they own.
Sure, you could say that I should just use this "Developer Edition", but that requires me to have access to install it on every puter I walk up to (just to be prepared for somewhat common web attrocities like full-page elements that prevent me from interacting with the page in ways that I feel should never be forbidden).
I don't tend to see 'warning' messages in the dev console that seem to be attempts to dissuade me from using the dev tools. Maybe…twice in >20 years?
https://www.kandji.io/mdm/start/product/?nis=8
https://www.jamf.com/lp/apple-mobile-device-management-mdm-j...
https://www.hexnode.com/mobile-device-management/macos-devic...
Hope not, especially by everyone and their mum.
I agree with the GP and prefer the current iOS landscape.
For now. Remote attestation is already a thing and soon Android apps will refuse to work on phones that have been "tampered with".
Also, if you buy an Xbox, Tesla, Fitbit watch, fridge, etc. you can’t load whatever you please, either. Why would all smartphones be different?
If you look at it historically, the PC is about the only device allowing that kind of user control.
Because corporations maintaining such control over what should have been our computers is fundamentally unjust. It turns us into serfs of their digital fiefdoms where they make the laws and collect the taxes and tariffs.
Are you new here? All of these things are examples of locked down ecosystems that most of us in favor of this change also want unlocked.
The idea that you can own a device and can't do whatever you want with it is asinine. If you can't do what you want, you don't own it.
Why should we give a shit about historical norms? For most of history most children died at childbirth. Does that mean we should accept a >50% infant mortality rate?
Someone doing something bad doesn't excuse someone else for doing the same thing.
Historically, women couldn't vote, does that excuse countries that prevent women from voting from doing so, too?
Well you should be able to. If the customer is powerless to stop it we're going to see cars and fridges playing ads at full volume very soon.
Even with sideloading, neither Apple nor the government will give up that much control. Apple will almost certainly retain the ability to delete "malware" apps even if they're sideloaded and governments can then lean on that mechanism. Even Google can probably do a lot through Play Services.
The AppStore would have never been a problem had Apple not been so greedy and draconian about it.
It's already happening. We must oppose it.
The only person who should be in control of the device is the user who owns it. Absolutely no one else. Our computers are sacred ground that no one else may enter without permission.
EDIT: I see now that while it's more possible than it was before, it may still be a bit unlikely for this to grow if Apple still must sign the apps.
But...what's the source here?
So far as I could see, the article didn't even credit anonymous sources. It just states all these things as bare facts. And I haven't seen any other reporting on this (yet) that doesn't simply link back to this Bloomberg article.
And just as a reminder, this is from Bloomberg—the outlet that publishes the "Big Hack" story that proved to be completely false [0], without issuing any form of retraction, correction, or apology.
Again, it's entirely possible that this will prove to be true. But I have absolutely no confidence in Bloomberg on stories of this kind, and don't intend to get worked up over the possibility of Apple allowing outside app stores until and unless it gets some kind of independent reporting.
[0] https://daringfireball.net/2018/10/bloomberg_the_big_hack
I remember arguing with so many people here on HN about this. People were actually trying to pretend like Apple was going to get around the law, or have it overturned, or pull out from the EU, or some other nonsense.
But, if you weren't completely biased, you'd know that of course Apple was going to lose this fight. They will be forced to follow the law like everyone else.
So ... can they do that? It's pretty safe that if it's allowed, they'll do it.
Apple's within their right to say, "OK, but that third-party owes us 30% of their revenue."
What I hope is that competition makes apple up their game a bit on the AppStore.
1) I hope they fix search. AppStore search is a joke, just awful.
2) Their 20% cut is too high
If they’re competing with 3rd parties I can see both these getting fixed ASAP, whereas currently they have no motivation.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926
Now, they might try to entice users with deals and such (sort of like Epic's gung ho free games discounts on their gaming platform against Steam), but I highly doubt they'd pull their apps from the official App Store. Too much risk of blowback.
edit: it's a jab against apple that they will introduce restrictions like that. lmao
Giving people more options is not a bad thing, you should trust everyone to make their decisions.
Wonder if they considered (or maybe are considering) how to on paper split up in such a way they no longer meet this threshold
I do not want to ask apple for permission.
Am I supposed to feel bad for the poor engineers, unfairly distracted from their typical work of,,,reducing my rights as a user?
Maybe soon I can finally purchase an iPhone SE again. I love the form factor and the hardware, but I hate buying my own prison.
but now i'm already imagining fb app will be from alt-store with all the tracking reactivated and yes i don't use fb/have the app but try to explain in to elders/no tech people
If Facebook truly does use this as the opportunity to ruin their UX, then maybe your parents switch to Signal or iMessage.
This is what's scary, because it means that Facebook has what's effectively a massive captive audience with its messengers.
But, they don't. Realistically there's no reason for them to exist anywhere besides the App/Play Store, as long as those platforms play fair. This is a real strawman argument though, considering it's fully possible in the status quo. The problem isn't Apple or the government, it's that Facebook already has a disproportionate amount of control over your life. Apple cannot save you from that with a software update.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926