Extraterritoriality? If you sell something in the EU (or Asia, or Australia etc) you have to abide by their laws. Just because the company is headquartered somewhere else doesn't absolve them of that
This is the actual quote from Breton, EU Commissioner for Internal Market:
> The next job for Apple and other Big Tech, under the DMA (Digital Markets Act) is to open up its gates to competitors, be it the electronic wallet, browsers or app stores, consumers using an Apple iPhone should be able to benefit from competitive services by a range of providers
What is the user base of Firefox now? Single digits, last I hear. Chrome just keeps growing. Once iOS no longer uses WebKit as it’s base, the Chrome Blink will dominate.
I think I maybe get the broader argument you are trying to make, but in the context of gp’s comment, forcing web devs to test in and fix bugs in mobile safari because of its forced 100% iOS market share isn’t making people test in Firefox. And it currently not possible to run actual Firefox on your iphone, just a branded WebKit wrapper.
Opening up mobile browsers _would_ be good if not for the fact the consequence will be bugs that won't be fixed by devs for everyone not using Chrome.
Just use Chrome is advice that will be given by the corps when these bugs arise.
Our legislators are about to sleep walk into Google determining web standards fairly much unilaterally. Manifest V3 is what they do when they don't quite have that power. And that is a problem for Firefox users.
Sounds like more people should stop using Chrome. Market power isn’t going to shift by tossing your hands in the air when viable alternatives not only exist but are free.
Market power is definitely going to shift if web devs only test on Chrome.
The viability of Firefox as a browser is definitely going to decrease if devs only test for chrome.
People need services like banking, paying bills, secure web based portals. If the only browser these institutions are testing for is Chrome we will be in trouble.
I could write a web app for a bank. I could write a payments platform for the bank. I cannot code a bank. I could write a platform for the wholesale energy market and a front end for payments. I cannot code an energy company.
All I can see any of this doing in the medium term is increasing Google's market power and making the web less free.
All in the name of getting Chrome on a device that is inherently unfree.
As a seasoned web developer who has worked on multiple FAANG “.com” domains, I think you’re overstating the impact. Every big web shop already codes for market share, which means chrome, then hopefully has an iPhone they don’t allow to update to test in older versions of safari (sourcing them from eBay if necessary) to then litter their code with if safariBadVersionWhatevers. Smaller ones test it on their latest updated phone and then throw it over the wall, and call anything non-chrome best effort. To the extent that I’ve seen Firefox, supported it’s because the developers of the site personally use it.
Nothing about the safari monoculture on iphones makes people support Firefox because support is 100% a function of market share, and the monoculture actually prevents the Firefox engine from getting a sliver of market share on iOS.
The state right now isn’t “people code to web standards because safari forces them to” - its that they spend time % proportional to market %. That means code to chrome and then fix bugs in mobile safari. And even if chrome was wildly successful in getting iPhone users to switch and destroying safari marketshars there, reducing testing on safari, it doesn’t hurt Firefox. Testing on safari doesn’t help catch Firefox bugs because it’s a totally different engine.
Hahaha. It'd be pretty ironic if Firefox eventually dies solely because no one bothers to support it because single digits on StatCounter which Firefox itself blocks.
Someone should fix this. Don't block whatever trackers StatCounter use.
Chrome is available (and dominant) on desktop yet Firefox and a dozen other alternatives are doing just fine. There's no reason why it shouldn't be the same on iOS.
According to StatCounter Firefox's market share of all browsers is 2.93% followed closely by Samsung Internet(?) 2.59% and Opera 2.26%
I wouldn't call that "just fine".
If not for Safari (18.84% market share) Google could just dictate what happens on the Internet, because Chrome-based browsers would be the de facto standard.
The only reason sites still bother to support non-Chrome browsers is the fact that people on iOS monetise REALLY well compared to other segments.
> people on iOS monetise REALLY well compared to other segments
And therein lies the motivation to "open up" Apple's ecosystem, people just can't stand looking at all those dollar signs without being able to get their hands on them any way possible.
"So Apple just gets exclusive access to their users' money?!?" Well, they are the ones that built and maintain the ecosystem. Everyone else just wants to get in there and extract wealth like slash-and-burn rainforest developers or strip-miners.
The "problem" is that Apple gets most of their money from hardware sales, they don't need to be able to uniquely identify their users to make huge bank.
Thus they go privacy first in things just because they can. Like randomising IDs used to identify players across apps and services. You should've seen the tears marketing shed when that change happened.
They are complementary of course, one could not exist without the other.
But the competition (Google) is by all measurements an ad company that does software and hardware on the side, they cannot go the privacy route. Ads require tracking and tracking implies privacy issues.
While I agree that Firefox probably is nowhere close to Chrome in terms of market share, StatCounter isn't a great source of information here. StatCounter works through trackers, which are blocked by default on common Firefox installs.
Sites work well in practically every browser because we're not living in 2005 anymore. Some missing APIs are broken, but how often do you really need WebSerial on your phone.
I believe Safari will improve though. Currently Apple has little incentive to put more money into Safari because there’s no competition. Once they have to open up iOS to competition, they’ll spent more money on Safari to stay competitive. The web is still an important platform they cannot just ignore. And they have the resources and the know how, so they have a good chance of succeeding. And they will still be the native and default choice (even with browser choice), so they will also have that advantage still.
The reason you don't think so is because you are likely equating developer features with investment. But actually Apple just has different priorities which are security, privacy and battery life. They aren't trying to push more pro-advertising features like Google is or turn the browser into an operating system.
It is delusional to think that if Chrome becomes more popular that they are suddenly going to abandon their values.
Priority should be to make the browser usable. It's not. For example it’s extremely unstable for video conferencing. Last time, I don’t know what exactly happened, but I had to reboot my MacBook because the system wouldn’t recognize the camera anymore after trying to join a video conference in Safari, not even in other browsers. Never experienced something like this in any other browser. Many work tools such as Confluence, MS Teams and Google Docs just work better in Chrome. I wish I could switch, and I retry after each major release, but it’s just not good enough yet. I always end up switching back to Chrome after 1-2 days. If Microsoft and Mozilla can do better why can’t Apple?
I am too. But what makes me laugh, and respond to your comment is the idea that perhaps half of the opposition to Apple's walled garden among the HN crowd would go away if they just allowed ublock origin.
as long as the first party iOS experience is still solid, I don't care. If apple has to prevent updates / services to 1p services because 3p cannot keep up, then I'd be pretty incensed. There is a reason i left android last year!
I doubt it can be if more apps are allowed. E.g. allowing one browser means they can control very tightly the performance characteristics of it and any other apps that use its renderer. If third party browsers are allowed then it's much harder to do that.
I know Android does it, but Android's got many years of experience doing it, and it's generally not as smooth as iOS.
the monopoly car companies have on their cars is one of the ways they fleece consumers. It's why they have pricing power on repairs, can charge whatever they want for their self driving solutions etc. There's a reason why almost all of them are trying to turn their cars from mechanical vehicles into glorified software/service platforms, it's a way to lock people in.
In a world where hardware and software is open and interoperable and you can say, buy a self driving solution from any vendor (which is essentially what comma does in a hacky way), consumers benefit. Same is true for phones or laptops.
Fine then apply rules equally, I want to be able to use Nissan parts in my BMW and play Xbox and Steam games on my PlayStation…
There are advantages to having a walled garden and I would want to have some assurance that I would be able to block side loading and that it would never be applied without it being clearly and constantly visible to the user. I also want to be sure that no 3rd party can compel me to install their own App Store to get their app which is a quite possible and likely scenario due to the DMA.
But after I bought a Honda or Ford I can do with it what I want and install whatever aftermarket stuff I want. Ford makes no pretence to have an exhaustive whitelist what I can do with my car, whereas Apple does.
(In recent years some of the electronics might be locked down, or I wouldn't be surprised if they are, but this is also criticized and the reason things like right-to-repair laws have been proposed and in some cases enacted.)
I mean didn't we already rule that as true? That's why there are so many laws forcing the manufacturers to produce and sell parts for N year, allow third party repairs shops, etc.
Like of all things to pick cars are literally a place this has played out where Apple would be in the wrong.
Yes. But this is trivializing the definition of monopoly I just warned against.
What can't be construed with this logic?
Verizon holds a monopoly on the devices they allow on the Verizon network. Wal-Mart holds a monopoly on the products they allow on their retail floor space. Xbox holds a monopoly on their game compatibility. McDonalds holds a monopoly on selling burgers inside McDonalds. You can define these trivial "micromonopolies" on literally everything you want. Which is why courts have never punished any company for this nonsense line of reasoning, especially when it's on a company that holds no actual "macromonopoly", and monopolies by virtue of existing aren't illegal anyways.
Phones are the way of interacting with much of the world, unlike xbox or McDonalds. People consume their news using them, pay their bills, make photos of their kids, communicate with their family. It's a completely different realm.
There are two oligopolies on the market - Google (via google play) and Apple (via apple store), both are affected by the law.
Sure, and by existing laws and court rulings they haven't done anything wrong except be a preferred choice by many consumers. This is not comparable in any way to antitrust transgressions that got Microsoft in trouble, nor do they have the market share to manipulate that's comparable to what Windows or Google have had.
FWIW, I also want a more open iOS platform, but I don't think you can demonstrate that they run afoul of any existing antitrust laws or prior precedents either and trying to redefine what a monopoly means, exclusively to to the iPhone, is never going to work.
Yes, but we need more anti-trust for all of them. Edge has been repeating the old Explorer tricks and Google pay-for-play is even worse (if Apple didn't get a cut, would they be as willing to push the increasingly ad-infested google search?)
Consumers do what they are told to do. If a website says install this app in order to use it they will. If an app says approve this permission to use this app they will.
And so you will inevitably end up with websites that only support Chrome which will increase its market share up until the point it is an IE style monopoly. And aspects like the cost of testing apps/sites on multiple diverging browsers will further entrench this monopoly.
People go on about how this is great for competition as they can finally install Firefox etc. No. This is going to cement Google's control over the browser market and wipe out third party browsers like Firefox for good.
And then we will end up with pro-advertising features that are built into the browser that you can't block.
Apple is 100% a monopoly. They have a monopoly over software which can run on iOS. You either pay 30% of all revenue, or you lose out on half the North American market. Please explain how that is not a monopoly.
Microsoft controlled >90% of the entire desktop computing market when they ran into anti-trust issues with the EU. I suppose I'm not old enough to remember, but I don't recall the argument at the time being "They control 100% of the Windows market". Perhaps it was?
Comparatively, it looks like Apple has marketshare in the EU is somewhere between 25 and 40% of the mobile phone market, depending on your source.
> "They control 100% of the Windows market". Perhaps it was?
Kind of. The argument was that since they controlled 100% of Windows, and "coerced" people into using IE (and "coerced" is a kind way of putting it), and Windows was 90% of the desktop market, that shit was bad for everyone.
40% of the mobile market is significant, when you consider that the other 60% isn't held by a single company.
Google and Microsoft got into trouble because they used their dominance in services and OS to strong arm manufacturers to only use their stuff. They used their clout to hurt competition.
Apple does very little of this IMO. No one is forced to use Apple equipment and no one is forced to work with them. It is trivially easy to avoid Apple either as a consumer or developer. If you don’t think you can make enough money publishing to the App Store then you can code for some other purpose. If you want a phone that allows apps that Apple doesn’t allow you can get an Android.
I do not understand the argument that Apple has to sell devices that work the way you want them to. There is no false advertising, nobody is getting fooled, and nobody is being forced to work with Apple or pursue their customers. Apple has made a very popular system, why do so many people feel entitled to change what they do?
It's kinda noticeable when that happens but it also makes sense that a lot of people will individually read the article and post similar sentiments at similar times, even all within 3 minutes. If they were all green names there's probably a point but it's another matter to think that some anti-Apple organization is just sitting on these accounts for years waiting for their moment to strike.
The inexplicable need to make the browser a second OS with worse everything boggles my mind. Especially on mobile devices which prize battery life.
It won't give users choice because we as an industry have again and again just chosen what's easiest for us instead of best for the customer.
We'd 100% still be using Flash if Apple hadn't refused to support it because of the battery and performance issues.
This forum spends a lot of time talking about the E**ification of everything and how user hostile many companies business practices are and then cheers tearing down the one walled garden a non-nerd can, by default, have a reasonable experience in.
> We'd 100% still be using Flash if Apple hadn't refused to support it
I mean, that's hyperbole. Even in a flash-dominated web, there was still tons of non-flash technology being developed and distributed. In 2023 it would definitely be obsoleted, if for no reason other than Adobe having no incentive to keep it around. Apple's decision feels tangential relative to the progress of internet bandwidth, delivery technologies and even just the plain advent of YouTube obceleting 90% of the places Flash was used.
Flash would be dead today even if Apple did adopt it, because nobody in the industry wants to pay arbitrary taxes or kiss the proprietary ring. Their freedom on the web let them evolve and pick competitive replacements; Flash's death is hardly a defense of iron-fist ecosystem enforcement.
It would most definitely still be alive. Source: I worked for a company whose web UI was 100% Flash/Shockwave.
If Steve Jobs hadn't publicly come against Flash and by extension forced the hand of everyone else, I'm pretty sure they'd still be using Flash just because change is hard.
The company went so far as to ship a specific browser to customers that could still run Flash instead of spending resources to rewrite the crappy UI =)
> If Steve Jobs hadn't [...] forced the hand of everyone else
Steve Jobs called where puck was going. Everyone knew the problem; clients were falling behind in capability, and web content was getting more advanced and bigger. 99% of the things we use the modern web for have solved this problem with HTML5 and Javascript. The other 1% got locked behind a novel invention called "The App Store", a new way to pay 30% of your digital revenue to support APIs you ought to have access to in the first place. That sad fact is the reason why every Mac is loaded with Electron apps and WebViews for basic messaging and music players. Apple might even try to fix it if they didn't make so much money selling memory upgrades.
If Apple's goal was to build on the web instead of gimping it for their own exploitation, they would have a leg to stand on.
I take your point that it's been a long time - in the intervening 17 years that particular technology would probably have died out on its own, but the primary complaints about the modern web stack on desktop aren't dissimilar from those that pertained to Flash in the day: memory hungry, power inefficient etc.
We're _still_ pumping out solutions that are easier for us and worse for customers on desktop and that's without the problem of software-driven user tracking, which was still just larval when the App Store opened up. In fact the only reason things aren't even _worse_ on desktop is that non-mobile devices are a much smaller % of where people spend their time, and therefore a smaller target with a more technically proficient user base.
There's an open ecosystem available to people where you can load any old crap onto your device. It's even cheaper than iOS. Please just let most of (not all, some crap still gets past App Review) the junk alight there and give people a choice to buy entry into the walled garden.
> and give people a choice to buy entry into the walled garden.
No, that's Apple's decision. The garden plays by Europe's rules, or people don't get a choice at all.
De-facto monopolies are not inherently justified. Feel any way you will about it as a consumer; Apple uses their power to exercise anti-competitive control over their ecosystems. Governments will now step in to regulate the market Apple has failed to make competitive.
> We'd 100% still be using Flash if Apple hadn't refused to support it because of the battery and performance issues.
Eh, it was very much on the way out already, and mostly used for things which didn't have brilliant alternatives at the time (e.g. videos) and sites like YouTube had been experimenting with "HTML5 video". Few people really liked Flash (outside of usage for games, which was and remains a valid use case IMO), but it was just used because browsers just didn't support a lot of things, and once HTML5 took off Flash usage dropped. HTML5 killed off Flash.
This is why Apple could get away with just not supporting Flash, which certainly sped up this pre-existing trend, but the idea that "Apple killed off Flash" is a serious misreading of history.
Oh no? I remember that whole thing, and being thoroughly confused. I was able to watch videos on websites on my Android phone that iPhone users couldn't, and it had no noticeable effect on my battery life.
I'm not saying we should all go to defend Flash, but I strongly suspect Apple killing Flash had a lot more to do with the fact that using Flash got around App Store policies (you could do _a lot_ using Flash), than battery life.
It maybe also had to do with Flash being one of the most insecure pieces of software ever devised?
It also had to do with Macromedia, at the time the iPhone was released, not giving every platform equal support? So Apple might have been in the position of negotiating with Adobe to get them to support iPhone? I can hardly blame them for pushing open standards like HTML5 and their own app store instead.
I honestly would give them more shit for moves like not supporting WebP seemingly to spite Google.
And by "battery and performance issues" you mean "people being able to play an insane number of games in the browser and Apple not getting a cut of the ad money".
Flash was running just fine on Android with much humbler specs than then-current iPhone.
There is a need for instant-install software and instant-access data. That is web. The web will be a second OS, because it needs to be, and well, it already is. Worse-everything won't be anymore as the web fully matures.
Agree, most web developers now are just in the opposite campaign of web "users" and trying every possible way to make their jobs (squeezing every penny out of their "users") simpler without any other considerations
It’s much simpler than that. Home screen shortcuts open in the default browser on iOS regardless of where you created the shortcuts from. So they just didn’t have Edge set as default
Logically, probably. They may choose to change their operations based on this ruling because they could expect a similar ruling against them in the future. I would personally expect them to continue operating as they do until/unless there is a such a ruling.
People already use their phones for everything in our modern society, so they have simply declared them to be that, regardless of what Apple thinks about it.
Even if I'd personally like it, I don't think the same argument makes much sense for a PS5 - when have you last used it to order groceries or new furniture? Apple would love to get a cut of those purchases, by the way.
Starting by dealing with the devices that have the highest impact on the largest number of people, due to a runaway capitalistic empire trying to add an additional tax to everything that vaguely gets near it, has a higher chance of actually succeeding.
>when have you last used it to order groceries or new furniture? Apple would love to get a cut of those purchases, by the way.
You can, though. There's no particularly convenient way to do most of those things, but that's largely because of manufacturer limitations. Nothing stopping you from using the browser on your Switch to go do instacart.com, tho.
>Starting by dealing with the devices that have the highest impact on the largest number of people
Why would this need to be addressed so singularly? Is that how the EU approaches most problems? It seems pretty sensible that they'd just regulate computing devices to allow for this sort of thing and then be able to pretty easily bring into compliance any who don't. Isn't that more or less what they did with the GDPR? It seems like regulating this would be even easier as non-compliance would be entirely visible to the consumer.
> Why would this need to be addressed so singularly?
I don't know, I didn't write the law. They must have thought this is the better approach to start with. Perhaps they consider fighting one gigacorp at a time to be easier. After all, Apple has been left to grow unchecked until became larger than many countries.
Sure wish the US would just handle Apple the same way China has handled Alibaba growing too large. One can dream, right?
For context, they basically just said "you had your fun, it's over" and forcibly split the company in many smaller ones under new leadership.
> Nothing stopping you from using the browser on your Switch to go do instacart.com, tho.
You can't just open up a browser on the switch (or a ps5 for that matter). You have to use a workaround to access the browser that's only intended for viewing help/regulatory pages and interacting with wifi captive-portals. I guess they're really mad about the browser exploits that hit them in previous gens. (although, doesn't matter if you still have any browser access)
It's on about the same level as escaping the UI on a touchscreen kiosk to access the web.
> Starting by dealing with the devices that have the highest impact on the largest number of people, due to a runaway capitalistic empire trying to add an additional tax to everything that vaguely gets near it, has a higher chance of actually succeeding.
This is the worst approach, I think. Lawmaking shouldn't work where a juicy fineable target is spotted, singled out, and milked for all it's worth. Laws should set out rules that everyone has to follow.
Also, it might be hard to order groceries on a PS5, but it's much simpler to make a PS5 able to browse the Web than it is to open up an iPhone to any HTML-rendering code, or background tasks, without compromising the seamless experience reasons many people bought one for in the first place.
> due to a runaway capitalistic empire trying to add an additional tax to everything that vaguely gets near it
It's not due to a runaway capitalistic empire. It's because it made stuff people really want, so they'll pay for it. You're thinking of political structures, where people are forced to pay taxes regardless of the outcomes. Apple are rich because they make things people want. That's not a runaway empire. That's just being really, really useful. This gross mischaracterisation of useful structures as empires is astonishing and unhelpful to any clarity of thought.
The point of the law isn't to fine Apple. The point is to ban their tax collection entirely, relieving society of this pointless money drain. Most people currently don't have a choice to not pay an extra fee to Apple - we'll see how many will once it's optional?
Once the device has been sold to you (for a profit, even!), Apple has no business interfering in relationships between you and a separate business trying to sell you additional software for it, much less to collect a tax on entirely unrelated things like streaming video subscriptions.
If you really believe that "once a device has been sold to you, the manufacturer has no business interfering in relationships between you and a separate business trying to sell you additional software for it", then you'd want to apply that principle to gaming consoles, to car infotainment systems, etc.
But no, the EU legislation basically restricts their coverage to only the largest companies (which are incidentally not EU companies). It's not based on principles, but on opportunistically targeting the companies that can afford to pay and can't afford to lose the EU market.
And we should feel bad for the largest corporations on earth... Why, exactly? These companies would sell you oxygen if the market was there for it, why on earth shouldn't we target these megalithic parasites?
If they want access to EU citizens, then they have to play by the EU's rules, otherwise they can get bent and say goodbye to that whole market.
> Isn't this going to try and turn iPhones into general purpose computing devices? Currently they're much more locked down than that.
They already are general purpose computing devices, the restrictions on how the general purpose software (apps) interact with the hardware in no-way negates that fact same with the restrictions on how you get the general purpose software (app-store). At the end of the day an iPhone is nothing more than a portable a computer, it's as simple as that.
the same is also true of a console, and there's no reason that app stores can't prove (eg) productivity apps like word processing on console platforms. Just plug in a keyboard, or use wireless.
If they get declared a gatekeeper, yes. Until then it doesn't apply.
I'm not sure they meet the requirements of being a gatekeeper. One of the requirements for example is 45 million monthly active users in the EU. According to Microsoft, Xbox is only at 4 million:
EU should follow the EU's lead and open itself up in the name of openness and fairness. Instead, they're working to make it easier to expel immigrants.
I read this as a statement of fact. The Digital Market Act has come into force. The act gives the platforms (Apple included) few months of preparations to comply. Breton just reminds that the clock is ticking.
After the revolution you no longer need those who made the transition happen.
Like there is no more use for communist revolutionaries after victory.
Independent repair men are useful while you conquer the tractor market.
Software shops can iterate over designs while you charge them rent, then you take the popular features and make them part of your platform using superior api's specially intended for it. You cant not update the platform or not notice the popular 3rd party tools.
Is this capitalism? Is this how competition should work? You have to fight the undefeated champion 10 000 times your size, but to keep things honest we tie both your arms behind your back?
There is no future for programmers here. There is no need to progress beyond owning everything. If there are 2 or 3 owners doesn't really matter.
One will have to wait forever for the thing that should logically come after x84 it doesn't make sense to manufacture electric cars.
Governments have a monopoly on rent. It's all locked down, there is no competing with them, not even for Apple.
There are plenty of other planets if you don't like the EU. Infinite doors and windows.
Good! I'm looking forward to having to uninstall a crypto miner on my mom's phone because it told her the only way to play a slots app is to allow third-party apps.
Nope, my parents had 20 things installed on their Android devices because they clicked yes to something.
I insist on the fact that you should respect the end user’s choice of platform and not try to change the platform to earn your 30% more. If you really hate it - don’t develop for Apple. I mean at the end of the day you can tell your customers buy an Android phone and see what they prefer - your app or the Apple eco system.
You need to first go to the settings to allow installations of Third Party Apps, then you get a warning of Google Play Protect that you have to expand, and then you have to confirm that you know the App is a security risk and explicitly go forward with the installation.
Your parents did this on purpose
We don't get by just fine - there are lots of viruses. But it is much easier to install an iPhone app than a program on your computer, so it is definitely more likely.
Computers overflowing with naively self-installed adware/malware is a recurring and persistent problem with some relatives of mine. Nothing you can say stops them from inadvertently doing it again, they simply lack the sophistication to understand, and then complaining that their computer is slow or doesn't work anymore. Putting these people on iOS is a godsend, these kinds of issues don't happen there.
Am I misunderstanding something or couldn't this just be made an optional setting?
So users can lockdown the ability to install stuff if they want without overcoming various hurdles (maybe allow users to add customised message so if a user tries to do it a message will pop-up saying "Your Son/Daughter/whoever has said you should never disable this! Call them before doing this if someone has asked you to!").
I feel like there is so many options/info hidden from consumers about their devices that really shouldn't be. And preventing it or hiding it only really serves the companies themselves, not the end user.
Far too defeatist an attitude and a poor comparison that plays directly in companies that want walled-gardens hands.
Fortnite is an immensely popular game people search for to buy, whereas malware etc are almost by definition not something you think "gee whiz, might go buy that".
For the type of user being discussed it seems very simple to just say/have a setting of "only allow downloads from official app store" combined with the above. Although tbh this may all be rendered moot by AI LLM security style tools that can actively monitor and prevent users from doing stuff like this.
Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report of 2021[0] shows that Windows made up over 23% of all malware infections, in 2020[1] that was almost 39%.
They seem to have skipped 2022 and 2023 doesn’t seem ready yet.
More interesting however is looking at Android since Google has made efforts to match iOS in sandboxing the last few years, as well as the context provided with the statistics.
Where 2020 “only” saw Android come in at 26.64% with iOS coming in at 1.72%, in 2021 Android accounted for a whopping 50.31% of the infections while iOS didn’t even register on the charts.
Let me repeat that again: over half of all infections in 2021 were on Android devices.
Were these super sophisticated attacks? Let’s see, because Nokia, understandably so, dedicated significant sections of their reports to Android.
In 2020 they stated (emphasis mine):
> In the smartphone sector, the main venue for distributing malware is represented by Trojanized applications. The user is tricked by phishing, advertising or other social engineering into downloading and installing the application. The security of official app stores, such as Google Play Store, has increased continuously. However, the fact that Android applications can be downloaded from just about anywhere still represents a huge problem, as users are free to download apps from third-party app stores, where many of the applications, while functional, are Trojanized. iPhones applications, on the other hand, are for the most part limited to one source, the Apple Store.
In 2021 they stated (emphasis again mine):
> Among smartphones, Android devices remain the most targeted by malware due to the open environment and availability of third-party app stores.
> […]
> The number of Trojans targeting banking information through Android mobile devices has skyrocketed, putting millions of users around the world at financial risk.
> […]
> Banking Trojans can arrive on smartphones in a variety of ways, often disguised as common and useful apps. When run, they request a variety of permissions needed to perform their desired behavior, then often remove their icon from the application pane, effectively disappearing from the device. In many cases, the apps never provide the promised functionality that enticed the phone's owner to install them and are forgotten quickly after disappearing. However, they remain installed and continue to run as background tasks, using a variety of tricks to collect user information. These may include capturing keystrokes, superimposing their own transparent overlays onto bank login screens, taking screenshots and even accessing Google Authenticator codes.
So it looks like in most cases users are being tricked to install malware and grant permissions.
This all also explains why the whole “muh sandbox” argument carries little weight.
Not only is the sandbox but a single layer of a bigger Swiss cheese model, the sandbox isn’t gonna help your mom if she’s tricked into granting permissions.
So I ask you again to define “just fine”, because from where I’m standing Windows making up more than 20% of all malware infections is far from “just fine”, let alone Android’s more than half.
And I know you said x86, but the two and a half Linux users don’t really make a significant dent in statistics, nor is x86 the relevant platform for this discussion.
On top of that you can bet your ass that iOS users will be prime targets, certainly more desirable targets than random Android and Windows users, because of potential ill gotten gains.
Of all the arguments in support of Apple's prohibition against third party browsers, your mother's gambling addiction is the saddest, most bizarre, and by far the least convincing.
This sounds like a false dichotomy. It's possible to opt-in for a "dev" mode which gives the user more choice, but not implemented because of the potential profit loss.
Imagine arguing against press freedom because a relative might fall for some disinformation.
He's saying that Apple should abide by the Digital Markets Act, which goes into effect in November. A summary of the changes the DMA will require would be nice.
I think this is a warning shot. It'll be a while until EU actually files a case, and more time until it's adjudicated. And then Apple will fight it tooth and nail. Do not hold your breath.
I for one look forward to there being a franken iphone in EU covered with ads and malware. Apple should give them exactly what they want. Every major software company will have their own app store for their apps. It will be glorius!
The App Store ads are trivial and not the concern. I’m more concerned about the tracking that apps will be able to do when Apple cannot block them from installing. Hello FaceBook++
If you search for something in the app store, the first result literally says "Ad" by the first result, so it seems Apple shares my definition. I don't know what your definition you're using, but it must be in the minority.
I agree that having a choice is absolutely important. I want to have a choice of a closed ecosystem, like Apple. Can we not have the option between open (Android) and closed (Apple)?
In the first quarter of 2023, Apple obtained 26 percent of the European smartphone market based on shipments. Historically have Apple's sales been very cyclical, peaking in the fourth quarter each year.
I also want to be able to reprogram my oven and washing machine. And also my car. I should be able to run any app on my infotainment system, not just those from the manufacturer.
Less tongue in cheek: let me install any game I want from any game store on Xbox and Playstation and Switch. I do not understand why this only focuses on Apple. Is that just the media for clicks?
Cook is doing a largely undocumented European tour.
He was also in the Netherlands to talk about/with ASML and NXP. There's a few dozen critical European suppliers that Apple depends on.
He's also not hostile to legislation at all, he openly committed and confirmed to want to apply with legislation in any major market.
Contrary to popular belief, legislation is not always perceived as negative by businesses. Without legislation, you're somewhat forced to get as unethical as the law allows, because if you don't, somebody else will.
In more cynical cases, companies may even embrace legislation as a competitive advantage. An example would be pro-active copyright detection, the detection of misinformation on platforms like Youtube and Facebook. Very hard and expensive to implement, thus small companies don't stand a chance to compete.
It is understandable why Apple wants to keep its current grip on iOS indefinitely. What I don't understand is why some people defend it, on this very forum!
One commenter simultaneously defended gay marriages - "if you don't like gay marriages, don't get married to gays" - and defended the Apple's monopoly - "I like that there is only one Appstore and developers won't force me to sideload".
Lesser of two evils principle maybe? I defend apple in this one appstore topic not because I think apple is good, but just better than google and facebook.
Of course the longterm solution is to get better legalization on privacy protection etc. But before that, I really prefer apple as a proxy between me and google/facebook/etc.
When this goes through, you can be 100% sure there will be a Meta-only iOS store along with a Google iOS store and all their apps will move there.
After that if you want to use apps to access any Google or Meta service, you'll need to get it from their store - that doesn't have any pesky limitations on user profiling or stupid guidelines for privacy.
I don't think they have the product gumption, nor do users have the patience, to deal with multiple app stores. They'll just end up abandoning those apps, at least on iOS. Also regulators will not be amused by other companies forcing users to use their own walled gardens if those gardens are going to be full on data-mining operations.
> I think the threat of rival app stores is highly overrated
Agreed. I also don't think Google or Facebook will make iOS stores. My real worry is that a malicious actor will create a side loadable store called "iGoogle Store" that is then pushed to non-technical people. I could easily see both young and old people falling for this. This "iGoogle Store" would then request Google login credentials and millions of accounts are compromised.
I don't see why wanting a closed ecosystem is a choice people are so against. There is a great open option, I'd prefer the current closed option to remain completely closed.
That's a fair consideration, and I don't have an immediate answer to that. Except to say that Apple could have gotten behind the opening up of iOS themselves, retaining some measure of control and protecting their users:
> Really, Apple could have headed off regulators at the pass if they had embraced the (semi-)opening of their platform themselves. Allow third party app stores but on their own terms, providing SDKs and APIs for creating your own iOS App Store with security checks baked in and mandating privacy protections built in. Sort of like a software services equivalent to Apple Authorized Service Providers and Apple Authorized Resellers.
They would have then controlled this debate, and there would have been less room for the Epics of the world to complain about the platform being locked down. Not to mention users would benefit from greater choice. Imagine boutique third party app stores springing up devoted to specific interests and niches such as F-Droid, or promising better curation or quality.
Companies who refuse to use the AppStoreKit that Apple so beneficently provided would then be seen as malefactors seeking to subject their users to lack of privacy and security, rather than Apple trying to uphold their 30% cut and restrictive behavior.
Instead, Apple tried to control everything and not only did they expose themselves to regulation like this, they deal with customers annoyed at scammy apps on their own App Store, and third party devs crying foul at inconsistent policing.
I mean, I think there's still time for them to try something like this. Embrace alternative app stores and building the infrastructure to enable them, rather than just throwing open the doors and letting the wolves swarm "because the EU made us do it." In fact I can see this scenario happening because the motivation would be to prove openness is inherently dangerous.
I actually don’t have a problem so much with this solution. It ensures that apps are still adhering to the same standards on privacy and security and that’s what I care about.
One thing that is missing is the requirement for each app to use in app purchases and how easy it is to cancel subscriptions. If you give a suggestion on this one (give that the above I’m very okay with) in the spirit of the above one - I’d most likely switch camps
I should imagine large kickbacks to apps using Google and Facebook SDKs even if they do not launch stores directly. They don’t need a store if they can get every other store compromised.
I also think shareholders in those companies that lust after data would revolt if they did not try to directly take all app sale profit and install data. I would be shocked if both did not already have apps in development stage.
I think the changes Apple should make is add a little indicator to every app showing the store it was purchased from encircling the icon with the default store color to remind of non-default privacy in that app. Just green badge them all and call it a day to let people know the app will be slower going through app specific memory encryption and API filtering with new anti-piracy frameworks to combat modified or fraudulent purchases.
Perhaps some new app storefront licensing board if the EU is serious about protecting consumers. Their current policy seems half baked along the line of shutting down government is a good thing. Make single click subscription cancellation a requirement for opening a storefront with and require bond to prevent stores from just cutting and running after a few fraudulent sales.
I think it is a shame how much silicon and engineering effort this will burn to maintain device security. It may go as far as apps run through a virtual machine sandbox with limited permissions in the short term. Personally being limited on my device made me sad, but as I lack self control the restrictions helped me focus.
Perhaps the future is that Apple, along with government watchdogs, data consumer protection groups, etc. provide free public scans of apps to detect permissions misuse and data tracking.
> I think the changes Apple should make is add a little indicator to every app showing the store it was purchased from encircling the icon with the default store color to remind of non-default privacy in that app. Just green badge them all and call it a day to let people know the app will be slower going through app specific memory encryption and API filtering with new anti-piracy frameworks to combat modified or fraudulent purchases.
I think these discussions often assign a lot of agency to the data malefactors and little to Apple. I've often made the point that Apple, being the masters of UX and subtle social engineering, can exploit their design to nudge less technical users away from dubious apps, very similarly to how they've created the infamous dichotomy between blue and green text bubbles:
So I definitely agree that badging non-App Store apps can be a way to protect users by deterring those who don't know what they're doing from mucking about with questionable apps.
I like the licensing board idea too. Make it so there are more protection groups out there besides Apple itself. Apply it to Android as well so users on that platform aren't shafted.
With the Play Store, the only times I ever see people not use the play store is when:
- They're using an Amazon device
- They're installing fortnite
I'm not so convinced that opening up the app store to competition would result in a deluge of developers forcing people to install their own store apps and sideload everything. The only reason I could imagine that happening is Apple continuing to charge extremely high rents for the privilege of using the app store, in which case the competition isn't a bad thing?
I believe the much more real threat is non-technical users getting duped into installing malware through some shady third party store or sideloading scheme, but how often does this even happen on Android? I don't hear much about such schemes.
I am just generally unconvinced the App Store needs to be protected from competition to be used >90% of the time on iOS.
Facebook was extremely miffed at the required Privacy Disclosures that became required on the App Store a year or two ago, the one that lists, like a nutritional label, what data the app gathers. Facebook's looks like the ingredients list of a cheap-o, pre-wrapped donut from a gas station.
Meta has already been caught abusing enterprise provisioning profiles to get around App Store rules.
Many App Store rules are not technical, that you can get around by simply crafting the API to behave a certain way. Many of them take the form of a "gentlemen's agreement" type of rule. You have to convince either the code-inspection algos or the human app reviewers you are following them before your app gets listed. Many of these rules do not exist on the Play Store. So of course Facebook is just on the Play Store, they have no motivation to leave! They've *already* attempted to break out of the guardrails on the App Store.
You really think you can stop your $relative from using Facebook or Instagram just because they moved the app to a store that has zero limits for privacy intrusions?
I mean yes - if I explain them this app is bad and provide an alternative, they'll switch. People should be able to make a choice and let's be honest, if apple will add sideload but with a longer process, like multiple warnings THIS MAY BE DANGEROUS, etc..., avg relatives will not even reach to that point
All Apple has to do is lower their rake and announce some kind of privacy program that allows intelligent ad placement, and Facebook will stay on the main app store.
Alternative app stores are mostly dead in the water if Apple will act like they are competitive.
This is a pretty defeatist take. Those big bad mega corporations will siphon all our privacy and our only solution is to allow Apple its monopoly.
Apple’s approach to hindering facebook’s spying is a technical one. But it’s not the only one. Just as we can take a political approach to dealing with Apple, so too with Facebook.
Workplace safety regulations didn’t exist until they did. Same with pollution. So too with meaningful privacy laws; and not cost of doing business fines, but the kind of fines that define business practices.
I'm rather indifferent on the matter, but this doesn't quite hold true. It's possible (likely?) that a someone big - one who ordinary folk would go through the jumps for - would only publish their app via side loading (or alt app store) and use this to bypass some of the policy restrictions wrt privacy on the App Store. This then becomes a slippery slope and would act as a platform to allow other apps through.
The tough part of "just don't side load" is when we have a somewhat contemptious relationship with some of the services you use, and they only offer their apps via alt methods.
Worth noting that Epic Games couldn't get this to work for Fortnite (for a period they only offered Fortnite via a sideloaded apk), and I don't believe Facebook as tried this.
There's also the finer details - if alt browse engines are allowed, will non-web browser apps start bundling and shipping their own browser engines (similar to the electron situation on desktop)?
The only thing about this argument I don’t quite agree with is that can’t apple just continue to sandbox apps to heck and back even if they are sideloaded? Like, currently apps can’t get a unique identifier for a user without the user allowing tracking, I don’t see why that has to change because sideloading is a thing. Unless there’s an implicit “and also the apps need to be able to get root/super entitlements without user consent” in the law.
The App Store was only ever a first line of defense against icky behavior.
Yes, security should always be implemented by technical means by the platform. Those hoping that alt-app stores means a complete free for all will be disappointed. But many things just cannot be restricted just by technical means, and instead relies on policy, and the threat of Apple kicking you off the platform, to enforce restrictions.
A trivial example is the review prompts. It's policy that you must use the standard iOS APIs to trigger (which limits the frequency it's shown to the user). An app technically could implement their own UI (and im sure some still slip through), and there's no real way to prevent this, but being against the rules carries risks.
That’s stupid. Apps will just not be in the App Store and you’ll have to side load to be able to have them. Which we (at least I) explicitly don’t want to do. And explicitly and even more don’t want my computer illiterate entourage to do!
Currently, Apple apologists say, "just do your research and don't buy Apple's products if you don't like the rules". Likewise, you are free to not use the apps that aren't available on Appstore.
I don’t want something shittier that I will invariably have to learn about to remove from my families phones. It suits me fine if it doesn’t exist at all.
Just because optional sideloading might create a mild inconvenience for you, you support the abusive policy that creates a huge problem for millions of users.
What’s a killer sideloaded app on Android that iPhone users suffer from not having? Fortnite? I’m looking for problems on the scale of millions of users.
You are moving the goalposts. You asked what are killer sideloaded apps that users suffer from not having, I gave you examples, you started deflecting.
Oppressive governments are not interested in sideloading, quite the opposite - they very happy with Apple's policies so far, as Apple readily removes any app that the governments asks them to remove.
It's not moving the goalposts because "apps banned by the government" are not apps that will be available through side loading. If Apple complies with the DMA, it will certainly comply with any government requirement that side loading not allow for certain apps to be installed.
This is nonsense. If the OS allows sideloading, users typically can install ANY app via sideloading. Like you can install telegram on your macOS in that very same China that bans it for iOS devices. Why? Because sideloading means no one has control what should work on device but the user. And this is essential if you live under the oppressive government.
Again, I don’t know how I can make this clearer: macOS with a sealed system volume is plenty capable of keeping an app from running, ever. That Apple doesn’t enforce it is a concession to the history of the platform. It’s very unlikely they allow exemptions to notarizing on iOS, and the DMA doesn’t require it. DMA only requires that Apple allow apps to be distributed outside their App Store.
If Apple even attempted to do whatever nonsense you're suggesting, their market share would plummet to zero very quickly. Users just won't accept not being able to use their devices as they see fit. All serious developers would leave and then all that left would be just an iPad with keyboard. And no platform ever survived without developers.
This is obviously untrue, because what I described is already the case, and Apple is the most successful consumer electronics maker. They don't care about market share, they care about owning the most profitable customers in the market, which they do.
When it's a company you like and don't feel like you've been hurt by, it's very easy to not even realize the bizarre rationalizations you're applying. Only in hindsight does it become obvious.
It comes down to this: I support companies being free to sell the product they want and users being free to buy what they want. If Apple sells a phone that's locked down, a piece of junk, wonderful, or anything in between that's between them and their customers. It's not the government's role to step in and prevent those voluntary transactions IMO. I would allow exceptions for grievous bodily injury and so on in my outlook, but I don't think that applies here.
Third party app developers don't have a right to use Apple's app store in whatever way they want. They have a right to sell things to customers on whatever terms the customers agree to and with whatever agreements they are able to make with other businesses like Apple.
Of all the major and minor players in this space, Apple has by far taken the most user-centric, privacy-first, security-centric stance. And they have done so over and over and over again.
Have they been perfect? Of course not. But every instance where they've lapsed, they've made geniune efforts to improve the situation. Are there ways they can still improve? Of course. But the direction has been clear and unambiguous. And as a result, they've earned my trust. This, in an environment where quite literally everyone else has repeatedly proven themselves untrustworthy.
> It's not the government's role to step in and prevent those voluntary transactions IMO
I'm a EU citizen and I'm more than happy that they're taking on Apple for this. After all, they're doing business with EU citizens, why shouldn't the EU tell them to behave?
If they don't like it, they can just stop selling in the EU, no one's gonna stop them there, but seeing as it's a money hungry megacorp hellbent on hoovering up every single penny that exists on this planet, that obviously isn't gonna happen, so they'll have to play by the EU's rules in that case.
Not sure whether you're fishing for a response or that naive...
Any number of security warnings for Android have come out specifically mentioning sideloading being a vector for malicious or invasive spyware. Much more than any curated store, and even then the historical track record isn't stellar.
There is no inconsistency in your examples when you reframe the second point as: if you don’t like the terms at which Apple sells you devices, don’t buy Apple devices.
The issue I have is that apps I want to use currently are forced to adopt user positive features like how Apple handles subscriptions for apps (cancel any time, keep access until the existing subscription ends, cancel with a button click, etc…). If those apps all migrate away from the App Store so they can be more profit focused rather than user focused that could negatively effect me.
I was at [IAPP Global Privacy Summit](https://iapp.org/conference/global-privacy-summit/) 2022, where Tim Cook gave a keynote. He started with highlighting all of the ways Apple protects its users privacy (many of which are great, and the reason I use Apple products!), but then he pivoted to make the case that Apple being forced to allow rival app stores would compromise their ability to protect users' privacy. This fell flat to many in the audience: why can't Apple continue to offer a privacy-by-default experience while allowing more competition?
It's just BS. Privacy and security are OS functions, not part of an app store. iOS has a good base here already - certainly much better than windows where every app can just arbitrarily read every file on the computer...
Naive take. Network sockets, remote servers, and data brokers don't care about local file permissions and an OS won't be able to tell me if corp-surveillance.justbuyme.com might be a domain hosting a privacy-disrespecting service without some sort of human-mediated reputation service.
Then we can look forward to an exciting front in the arms race that is computer security. Surely Apple, for all of their engineering and design brilliance, are up to the challenge?
You can in theory keep it cornered in its own room (sandbox), but there's no way to be 100% sure it'll stay there. You can be absolutely sure that it will never stop trying to get out.
App Store apps can be trusted to stick to a sandbox because they are vetted to a standard before being allowed there.
There's no reason for Epic-F-Droid-Store have their applications adhere to any kind of standards enforced by Apple. They can do whatever shitty manipulative tricks they want to try to escape any OS level sandboxing Apple tries to build.
Doubly so for 3rd party browsers. A browser has a huge attack surface and can also run code (javascript and WASM at the least). Keeping it secure and sandboxed is not a trivial thing.
Ok, so what, apple can still claim you have the same protection if you use just our app store. And I have the ability to use the alternative store where I can download a game without paying apple 30%. It's great.
It won't be an alternative store, the game will get pulled from the app store.
Now, despite the fact that I bought an iOS device to avoid having to deal with shitty third parties, I'm forced to use the epic store and whatever else.
This sort of comment is incredibly low value and doesn't contribute to the discussion.
I'm not being forced to install Facebook, but I choose to install it on my device. When this changes happens, the choice isn't going to be "install Facebook from the App Store or the Meta Store", it's going to be "install Facebook from the Meta Store". That's not a choice to the user, it's a choice for meta.
A choice for the user is choosing to buy an iPhone with the knowledge that this is a limitation, and if I don't want that limitation, I can buy an android device.
> This sort of comment is incredibly low value and doesn't contribute to the discussion.
We're 4 comments deep on a thread of people worried about Facebook being removed from the App Store. Reminding everyone that Meta is optional might be the most rational thing typed in response to this godforsaken article.
yep, user can choose to do what they want, including installing apps from third party or viceversa - not installing an app that doesn't respect their privacy/values
You're deliberately avoiding my point and my preferences. I want to use Meta's services, play Genshin Impact, and use microsoft apps on windows. I want to manage my subscriptions via the app store. I bought an iOS device _knowing_ that was the setup.
We've seen this change with uPlay, battle.net, epic launcher on PC. Users don't get "more choice", we live with the rules the developer sets out for us. I _want_ to be on a platform where the developer sets standards for payment handling, authentication options. I don't want to have to provide my payment deatils to Genshin's app store, but I do want to pay them.
Stop telling me that I will have a choice when I have already made a choice, and _you_ want something different.
and now you're gonna have to live by the rules the law say. same as in any other circumstance.
Someone else can come and say "but i want to sideload meta and Y and Z, but still use an iphone!".
Sure, both are choices, and MAYBE mutually exclusive. I will then side with the one that is most free. In this case thankfully regulation seems to aswell
Epic will pull Fortnite off App Store at lightning speed.
It'll only be available on their own store where they get 100% of profits and can use any kind of predatory crap to get kids to pay for the next fancy skin.
> but do not force others to go into the garden to play
I choose to live in the walled garden, and there is another option (android) for those who don't. You telling me the walls have to come down is you bringing your rules to the garden _I_ choose to be in.
clearly a great many iphone users would rather the non-walled garden, or they would just only install things that comes via it, and you have the best of both worlds?
perhaps your wish (of convenient limitations) just isnt the most popular?
I happen to largely agree that some of the walls apple puts up is for the best, but I would never presume to think I have the right to force that on others. Sure, keep their walled garden, if meta/epic/whatever does not want to play with that walled garden, well.. thats on them, and on their patrons to decide if they wish to patron
The walled garden isn't just what comes with the device, it's that plus the app store - knowing for example that any game I download will allow me to pay via apple pay, login with apple, manage my subscriptionz and cancel them in a sane way.
> thats on them, and on their patrons to decide if they wish to patron
This isn't giving the patrons a choice though, it's giving epic or meta a choice. The user has to accept whatever they do, and personally I trust apple to do that more than I do a random developer.
Don't know about elsewhere but in Sweden companies, and what's worse government funded organisations, outsource and demand the use of services by Google, Facebook etc. Otherwise you'll be treated like a second class citizen.
The issue is that "imposing the sandbox" isn't simple.
Apple themselves have "imposed a sandbox" for Safari since the first version appeared on iOS. Still we had multiple exploits, even though they owned both sides of the code.
Now imagine a situation where you're building a sandbox and the sandboxed application is using every trick possible to try to get out.
I would equate it to a rabid badger that is behind a door behind another door with both having signs saying ‘beware of rabid badger’. If you want to play with the badger, go for it or just leave the doors shut and you never have to worry about it.
Yes, but in a world where people have been trained to ignore signs if they want to have nice things. No kid and most adults would think twice before clicking I agree even if the screen was flashing red and the phone was making klaxon sounds.
If there's any company in the world that can use UX to their advantage, it's Apple. If they can create text message social division simply through blue vs. green bubble, they can find a way to subtly make non-App Store apps unpalatable except to technical users who know what they're doing.
The app store rules and review process are essentially the only thing that prevents Facebook from tracking you across all applications that use the Facebook SDK. It probably isn't possible to prevent tracking in a purely technical way. Even if two applications can't share data directly, they can each share fingerprinting information with a server, that allows Facebook to track you.
This sort of tracking can work even if you don't have a Facebook account, because so many different applications will include the Facebook SDK for ad tracking purposes.
Nothing specific to Facebook here, of course, it works the same way for any company with a large ad network.
Wrong: Dont install any App which uses the Facebook SDK (1), which you have no (sensible) way of finding out, otherwise FB will track, combine, condense and analyze your data across multiple Apps without ever asking you.
The fact that the data exists somewhere is small comfort if users cannot read the privacy implications in the app store itself when they're deciding whether to download an app.
It took me a long time to realize that Apple is doing the right thing here.
Outside of our little bubble, smartphones are a means to an end. No one bothers to learn technology more than what they can get by in their everyday life. Technology needs to be as simple and intuitive as possible.
Now, if Apple were to let a person enter developer mode by solving some Leetcode puzzles or CS quizzes, I'd be all in for it. Though I can still see scammers scamming people even with this.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 610 ms ] threadSo Apple can just withdraw if they don't like the local rules.
> The next job for Apple and other Big Tech, under the DMA (Digital Markets Act) is to open up its gates to competitors, be it the electronic wallet, browsers or app stores, consumers using an Apple iPhone should be able to benefit from competitive services by a range of providers
Opening up mobile browsers _would_ be good if not for the fact the consequence will be bugs that won't be fixed by devs for everyone not using Chrome.
Just use Chrome is advice that will be given by the corps when these bugs arise.
Our legislators are about to sleep walk into Google determining web standards fairly much unilaterally. Manifest V3 is what they do when they don't quite have that power. And that is a problem for Firefox users.
The viability of Firefox as a browser is definitely going to decrease if devs only test for chrome.
People need services like banking, paying bills, secure web based portals. If the only browser these institutions are testing for is Chrome we will be in trouble.
I could write a web app for a bank. I could write a payments platform for the bank. I cannot code a bank. I could write a platform for the wholesale energy market and a front end for payments. I cannot code an energy company.
All I can see any of this doing in the medium term is increasing Google's market power and making the web less free.
All in the name of getting Chrome on a device that is inherently unfree.
Nothing about the safari monoculture on iphones makes people support Firefox because support is 100% a function of market share, and the monoculture actually prevents the Firefox engine from getting a sliver of market share on iOS.
The state right now isn’t “people code to web standards because safari forces them to” - its that they spend time % proportional to market %. That means code to chrome and then fix bugs in mobile safari. And even if chrome was wildly successful in getting iPhone users to switch and destroying safari marketshars there, reducing testing on safari, it doesn’t hurt Firefox. Testing on safari doesn’t help catch Firefox bugs because it’s a totally different engine.
Someone should fix this. Don't block whatever trackers StatCounter use.
Firefox really isn't doing just fine, though Google might decide to keep them alive through browser payments just to not look like a monopoly.
I wouldn't call that "just fine".
If not for Safari (18.84% market share) Google could just dictate what happens on the Internet, because Chrome-based browsers would be the de facto standard.
The only reason sites still bother to support non-Chrome browsers is the fact that people on iOS monetise REALLY well compared to other segments.
And therein lies the motivation to "open up" Apple's ecosystem, people just can't stand looking at all those dollar signs without being able to get their hands on them any way possible.
"So Apple just gets exclusive access to their users' money?!?" Well, they are the ones that built and maintain the ecosystem. Everyone else just wants to get in there and extract wealth like slash-and-burn rainforest developers or strip-miners.
Thus they go privacy first in things just because they can. Like randomising IDs used to identify players across apps and services. You should've seen the tears marketing shed when that change happened.
But the competition (Google) is by all measurements an ad company that does software and hardware on the side, they cannot go the privacy route. Ads require tracking and tracking implies privacy issues.
Sites work well in practically every browser because we're not living in 2005 anymore. Some missing APIs are broken, but how often do you really need WebSerial on your phone.
The reason you don't think so is because you are likely equating developer features with investment. But actually Apple just has different priorities which are security, privacy and battery life. They aren't trying to push more pro-advertising features like Google is or turn the browser into an operating system.
It is delusional to think that if Chrome becomes more popular that they are suddenly going to abandon their values.
I know Android does it, but Android's got many years of experience doing it, and it's generally not as smooth as iOS.
Why am I not allowed to install Firefox or Chrome (real Firefox or Chrome)?
In a world where hardware and software is open and interoperable and you can say, buy a self driving solution from any vendor (which is essentially what comma does in a hacky way), consumers benefit. Same is true for phones or laptops.
There are advantages to having a walled garden and I would want to have some assurance that I would be able to block side loading and that it would never be applied without it being clearly and constantly visible to the user. I also want to be sure that no 3rd party can compel me to install their own App Store to get their app which is a quite possible and likely scenario due to the DMA.
(In recent years some of the electronics might be locked down, or I wouldn't be surprised if they are, but this is also criticized and the reason things like right-to-repair laws have been proposed and in some cases enacted.)
Like of all things to pick cars are literally a place this has played out where Apple would be in the wrong.
What can't be construed with this logic?
Verizon holds a monopoly on the devices they allow on the Verizon network. Wal-Mart holds a monopoly on the products they allow on their retail floor space. Xbox holds a monopoly on their game compatibility. McDonalds holds a monopoly on selling burgers inside McDonalds. You can define these trivial "micromonopolies" on literally everything you want. Which is why courts have never punished any company for this nonsense line of reasoning, especially when it's on a company that holds no actual "macromonopoly", and monopolies by virtue of existing aren't illegal anyways.
There are two oligopolies on the market - Google (via google play) and Apple (via apple store), both are affected by the law.
FWIW, I also want a more open iOS platform, but I don't think you can demonstrate that they run afoul of any existing antitrust laws or prior precedents either and trying to redefine what a monopoly means, exclusively to to the iPhone, is never going to work.
Consumers do what they are told to do. If a website says install this app in order to use it they will. If an app says approve this permission to use this app they will.
And so you will inevitably end up with websites that only support Chrome which will increase its market share up until the point it is an IE style monopoly. And aspects like the cost of testing apps/sites on multiple diverging browsers will further entrench this monopoly.
People go on about how this is great for competition as they can finally install Firefox etc. No. This is going to cement Google's control over the browser market and wipe out third party browsers like Firefox for good.
And then we will end up with pro-advertising features that are built into the browser that you can't block.
Kickbacks: Apple chooses Google so long as Apple's cut is greater than ad-driven UX degradation.
No Kickbacks: Apple chooses Google so long as result quality is greater than ad-driven UX degradation.
If Apple is forced to allow third party stores, I can't fathom a reason why Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo wouldn't have to do the same.
Comparatively, it looks like Apple has marketshare in the EU is somewhere between 25 and 40% of the mobile phone market, depending on your source.
Kind of. The argument was that since they controlled 100% of Windows, and "coerced" people into using IE (and "coerced" is a kind way of putting it), and Windows was 90% of the desktop market, that shit was bad for everyone.
40% of the mobile market is significant, when you consider that the other 60% isn't held by a single company.
Apple does very little of this IMO. No one is forced to use Apple equipment and no one is forced to work with them. It is trivially easy to avoid Apple either as a consumer or developer. If you don’t think you can make enough money publishing to the App Store then you can code for some other purpose. If you want a phone that allows apps that Apple doesn’t allow you can get an Android.
I do not understand the argument that Apple has to sell devices that work the way you want them to. There is no false advertising, nobody is getting fooled, and nobody is being forced to work with Apple or pursue their customers. Apple has made a very popular system, why do so many people feel entitled to change what they do?
Recently they added possibility for other browsers to "Add page to Home Screen".
But this shortcut later opens in Safari...
It won't give users choice because we as an industry have again and again just chosen what's easiest for us instead of best for the customer.
We'd 100% still be using Flash if Apple hadn't refused to support it because of the battery and performance issues.
This forum spends a lot of time talking about the E**ification of everything and how user hostile many companies business practices are and then cheers tearing down the one walled garden a non-nerd can, by default, have a reasonable experience in.
I mean, that's hyperbole. Even in a flash-dominated web, there was still tons of non-flash technology being developed and distributed. In 2023 it would definitely be obsoleted, if for no reason other than Adobe having no incentive to keep it around. Apple's decision feels tangential relative to the progress of internet bandwidth, delivery technologies and even just the plain advent of YouTube obceleting 90% of the places Flash was used.
Flash would be dead today even if Apple did adopt it, because nobody in the industry wants to pay arbitrary taxes or kiss the proprietary ring. Their freedom on the web let them evolve and pick competitive replacements; Flash's death is hardly a defense of iron-fist ecosystem enforcement.
If Steve Jobs hadn't publicly come against Flash and by extension forced the hand of everyone else, I'm pretty sure they'd still be using Flash just because change is hard.
The company went so far as to ship a specific browser to customers that could still run Flash instead of spending resources to rewrite the crappy UI =)
Steve Jobs called where puck was going. Everyone knew the problem; clients were falling behind in capability, and web content was getting more advanced and bigger. 99% of the things we use the modern web for have solved this problem with HTML5 and Javascript. The other 1% got locked behind a novel invention called "The App Store", a new way to pay 30% of your digital revenue to support APIs you ought to have access to in the first place. That sad fact is the reason why every Mac is loaded with Electron apps and WebViews for basic messaging and music players. Apple might even try to fix it if they didn't make so much money selling memory upgrades.
If Apple's goal was to build on the web instead of gimping it for their own exploitation, they would have a leg to stand on.
We're _still_ pumping out solutions that are easier for us and worse for customers on desktop and that's without the problem of software-driven user tracking, which was still just larval when the App Store opened up. In fact the only reason things aren't even _worse_ on desktop is that non-mobile devices are a much smaller % of where people spend their time, and therefore a smaller target with a more technically proficient user base.
There's an open ecosystem available to people where you can load any old crap onto your device. It's even cheaper than iOS. Please just let most of (not all, some crap still gets past App Review) the junk alight there and give people a choice to buy entry into the walled garden.
No, that's Apple's decision. The garden plays by Europe's rules, or people don't get a choice at all.
De-facto monopolies are not inherently justified. Feel any way you will about it as a consumer; Apple uses their power to exercise anti-competitive control over their ecosystems. Governments will now step in to regulate the market Apple has failed to make competitive.
Eh, it was very much on the way out already, and mostly used for things which didn't have brilliant alternatives at the time (e.g. videos) and sites like YouTube had been experimenting with "HTML5 video". Few people really liked Flash (outside of usage for games, which was and remains a valid use case IMO), but it was just used because browsers just didn't support a lot of things, and once HTML5 took off Flash usage dropped. HTML5 killed off Flash.
This is why Apple could get away with just not supporting Flash, which certainly sped up this pre-existing trend, but the idea that "Apple killed off Flash" is a serious misreading of history.
> We'd 100% still be using Flash
Oh no? I remember that whole thing, and being thoroughly confused. I was able to watch videos on websites on my Android phone that iPhone users couldn't, and it had no noticeable effect on my battery life.
I'm not saying we should all go to defend Flash, but I strongly suspect Apple killing Flash had a lot more to do with the fact that using Flash got around App Store policies (you could do _a lot_ using Flash), than battery life.
It also had to do with Macromedia, at the time the iPhone was released, not giving every platform equal support? So Apple might have been in the position of negotiating with Adobe to get them to support iPhone? I can hardly blame them for pushing open standards like HTML5 and their own app store instead.
I honestly would give them more shit for moves like not supporting WebP seemingly to spite Google.
I've added many shortcuts to websites from my home screen from within Chrome since this feature was recently added, and they all open in Chrome.
And most frustrating is when you had Safari in private browsing mode, then shortcut (not pwa app) is also opened in private mode as new tab...
I had to lol at that one.
Even if I'd personally like it, I don't think the same argument makes much sense for a PS5 - when have you last used it to order groceries or new furniture? Apple would love to get a cut of those purchases, by the way.
Starting by dealing with the devices that have the highest impact on the largest number of people, due to a runaway capitalistic empire trying to add an additional tax to everything that vaguely gets near it, has a higher chance of actually succeeding.
You can, though. There's no particularly convenient way to do most of those things, but that's largely because of manufacturer limitations. Nothing stopping you from using the browser on your Switch to go do instacart.com, tho.
>Starting by dealing with the devices that have the highest impact on the largest number of people
Why would this need to be addressed so singularly? Is that how the EU approaches most problems? It seems pretty sensible that they'd just regulate computing devices to allow for this sort of thing and then be able to pretty easily bring into compliance any who don't. Isn't that more or less what they did with the GDPR? It seems like regulating this would be even easier as non-compliance would be entirely visible to the consumer.
I don't know, I didn't write the law. They must have thought this is the better approach to start with. Perhaps they consider fighting one gigacorp at a time to be easier. After all, Apple has been left to grow unchecked until became larger than many countries.
Sure wish the US would just handle Apple the same way China has handled Alibaba growing too large. One can dream, right?
For context, they basically just said "you had your fun, it's over" and forcibly split the company in many smaller ones under new leadership.
You can't just open up a browser on the switch (or a ps5 for that matter). You have to use a workaround to access the browser that's only intended for viewing help/regulatory pages and interacting with wifi captive-portals. I guess they're really mad about the browser exploits that hit them in previous gens. (although, doesn't matter if you still have any browser access)
It's on about the same level as escaping the UI on a touchscreen kiosk to access the web.
This is the worst approach, I think. Lawmaking shouldn't work where a juicy fineable target is spotted, singled out, and milked for all it's worth. Laws should set out rules that everyone has to follow.
Also, it might be hard to order groceries on a PS5, but it's much simpler to make a PS5 able to browse the Web than it is to open up an iPhone to any HTML-rendering code, or background tasks, without compromising the seamless experience reasons many people bought one for in the first place.
> due to a runaway capitalistic empire trying to add an additional tax to everything that vaguely gets near it
It's not due to a runaway capitalistic empire. It's because it made stuff people really want, so they'll pay for it. You're thinking of political structures, where people are forced to pay taxes regardless of the outcomes. Apple are rich because they make things people want. That's not a runaway empire. That's just being really, really useful. This gross mischaracterisation of useful structures as empires is astonishing and unhelpful to any clarity of thought.
Once the device has been sold to you (for a profit, even!), Apple has no business interfering in relationships between you and a separate business trying to sell you additional software for it, much less to collect a tax on entirely unrelated things like streaming video subscriptions.
If you really believe that "once a device has been sold to you, the manufacturer has no business interfering in relationships between you and a separate business trying to sell you additional software for it", then you'd want to apply that principle to gaming consoles, to car infotainment systems, etc.
But no, the EU legislation basically restricts their coverage to only the largest companies (which are incidentally not EU companies). It's not based on principles, but on opportunistically targeting the companies that can afford to pay and can't afford to lose the EU market.
If they want access to EU citizens, then they have to play by the EU's rules, otherwise they can get bent and say goodbye to that whole market.
They already are general purpose computing devices, the restrictions on how the general purpose software (apps) interact with the hardware in no-way negates that fact same with the restrictions on how you get the general purpose software (app-store). At the end of the day an iPhone is nothing more than a portable a computer, it's as simple as that.
I'm not sure they meet the requirements of being a gatekeeper. One of the requirements for example is 45 million monthly active users in the EU. According to Microsoft, Xbox is only at 4 million:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/informat...
Playstation and Nintendo might be more popular, but 10x more popular? Even the Switch has only sold 6x the Xbox Series consoles.
EDIT: I found it "What are the “dos and don'ts” for gatekeepers?" [0].
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
Like there is no more use for communist revolutionaries after victory.
Independent repair men are useful while you conquer the tractor market.
Software shops can iterate over designs while you charge them rent, then you take the popular features and make them part of your platform using superior api's specially intended for it. You cant not update the platform or not notice the popular 3rd party tools.
Is this capitalism? Is this how competition should work? You have to fight the undefeated champion 10 000 times your size, but to keep things honest we tie both your arms behind your back?
There is no future for programmers here. There is no need to progress beyond owning everything. If there are 2 or 3 owners doesn't really matter.
One will have to wait forever for the thing that should logically come after x84 it doesn't make sense to manufacture electric cars.
Governments have a monopoly on rent. It's all locked down, there is no competing with them, not even for Apple.
There are plenty of other planets if you don't like the EU. Infinite doors and windows.
I insist on the fact that you should respect the end user’s choice of platform and not try to change the platform to earn your 30% more. If you really hate it - don’t develop for Apple. I mean at the end of the day you can tell your customers buy an Android phone and see what they prefer - your app or the Apple eco system.
Computers overflowing with naively self-installed adware/malware is a recurring and persistent problem with some relatives of mine. Nothing you can say stops them from inadvertently doing it again, they simply lack the sophistication to understand, and then complaining that their computer is slow or doesn't work anymore. Putting these people on iOS is a godsend, these kinds of issues don't happen there.
So users can lockdown the ability to install stuff if they want without overcoming various hurdles (maybe allow users to add customised message so if a user tries to do it a message will pop-up saying "Your Son/Daughter/whoever has said you should never disable this! Call them before doing this if someone has asked you to!").
I feel like there is so many options/info hidden from consumers about their devices that really shouldn't be. And preventing it or hiding it only really serves the companies themselves, not the end user.
Has already happened: https://grahamcluley.com/android-security-fortnite/
Fortnite is an immensely popular game people search for to buy, whereas malware etc are almost by definition not something you think "gee whiz, might go buy that".
For the type of user being discussed it seems very simple to just say/have a setting of "only allow downloads from official app store" combined with the above. Although tbh this may all be rendered moot by AI LLM security style tools that can actively monitor and prevent users from doing stuff like this.
Are we living in alternate realities?
Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report of 2021[0] shows that Windows made up over 23% of all malware infections, in 2020[1] that was almost 39%.
They seem to have skipped 2022 and 2023 doesn’t seem ready yet.
More interesting however is looking at Android since Google has made efforts to match iOS in sandboxing the last few years, as well as the context provided with the statistics.
Where 2020 “only” saw Android come in at 26.64% with iOS coming in at 1.72%, in 2021 Android accounted for a whopping 50.31% of the infections while iOS didn’t even register on the charts.
Let me repeat that again: over half of all infections in 2021 were on Android devices.
Were these super sophisticated attacks? Let’s see, because Nokia, understandably so, dedicated significant sections of their reports to Android.
In 2020 they stated (emphasis mine):
> In the smartphone sector, the main venue for distributing malware is represented by Trojanized applications. The user is tricked by phishing, advertising or other social engineering into downloading and installing the application. The security of official app stores, such as Google Play Store, has increased continuously. However, the fact that Android applications can be downloaded from just about anywhere still represents a huge problem, as users are free to download apps from third-party app stores, where many of the applications, while functional, are Trojanized. iPhones applications, on the other hand, are for the most part limited to one source, the Apple Store.
In 2021 they stated (emphasis again mine):
> Among smartphones, Android devices remain the most targeted by malware due to the open environment and availability of third-party app stores.
> […]
> The number of Trojans targeting banking information through Android mobile devices has skyrocketed, putting millions of users around the world at financial risk.
> […]
> Banking Trojans can arrive on smartphones in a variety of ways, often disguised as common and useful apps. When run, they request a variety of permissions needed to perform their desired behavior, then often remove their icon from the application pane, effectively disappearing from the device. In many cases, the apps never provide the promised functionality that enticed the phone's owner to install them and are forgotten quickly after disappearing. However, they remain installed and continue to run as background tasks, using a variety of tricks to collect user information. These may include capturing keystrokes, superimposing their own transparent overlays onto bank login screens, taking screenshots and even accessing Google Authenticator codes.
So it looks like in most cases users are being tricked to install malware and grant permissions.
This all also explains why the whole “muh sandbox” argument carries little weight. Not only is the sandbox but a single layer of a bigger Swiss cheese model, the sandbox isn’t gonna help your mom if she’s tricked into granting permissions.
So I ask you again to define “just fine”, because from where I’m standing Windows making up more than 20% of all malware infections is far from “just fine”, let alone Android’s more than half. And I know you said x86, but the two and a half Linux users don’t really make a significant dent in statistics, nor is x86 the relevant platform for this discussion.
On top of that you can bet your ass that iOS users will be prime targets, certainly more desirable targets than random Android and Windows users, because of potential ill gotten gains.
0: https://vpnoverview.com/wp-content/uploads/nokia_threat_inte...
1: https://onest...
Imagine arguing against press freedom because a relative might fall for some disinformation.
He's saying that Apple should abide by the Digital Markets Act, which goes into effect in November. A summary of the changes the DMA will require would be nice.
"Open everything up" -- pretty vague.
And I don't understand the point about ads. The vast majority of apps currently available on the app store is already plastered with ads?
Do you consider the new content suggestions on ATV+, Netflix, Prime video etc. as "Ads" too?
On my phone I can install proprietary apps from Google's store, or open source apps from F-droid. What's wrong with having choice?
In the first quarter of 2023, Apple obtained 26 percent of the European smartphone market based on shipments. Historically have Apple's sales been very cyclical, peaking in the fourth quarter each year.
Less tongue in cheek: let me install any game I want from any game store on Xbox and Playstation and Switch. I do not understand why this only focuses on Apple. Is that just the media for clicks?
He was also in the Netherlands to talk about/with ASML and NXP. There's a few dozen critical European suppliers that Apple depends on.
He's also not hostile to legislation at all, he openly committed and confirmed to want to apply with legislation in any major market.
Contrary to popular belief, legislation is not always perceived as negative by businesses. Without legislation, you're somewhat forced to get as unethical as the law allows, because if you don't, somebody else will.
In more cynical cases, companies may even embrace legislation as a competitive advantage. An example would be pro-active copyright detection, the detection of misinformation on platforms like Youtube and Facebook. Very hard and expensive to implement, thus small companies don't stand a chance to compete.
One commenter simultaneously defended gay marriages - "if you don't like gay marriages, don't get married to gays" - and defended the Apple's monopoly - "I like that there is only one Appstore and developers won't force me to sideload".
Of course the longterm solution is to get better legalization on privacy protection etc. But before that, I really prefer apple as a proxy between me and google/facebook/etc.
You can do it on MacBooks as well.
After that if you want to use apps to access any Google or Meta service, you'll need to get it from their store - that doesn't have any pesky limitations on user profiling or stupid guidelines for privacy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926
I don't think they have the product gumption, nor do users have the patience, to deal with multiple app stores. They'll just end up abandoning those apps, at least on iOS. Also regulators will not be amused by other companies forcing users to use their own walled gardens if those gardens are going to be full on data-mining operations.
Agreed. I also don't think Google or Facebook will make iOS stores. My real worry is that a malicious actor will create a side loadable store called "iGoogle Store" that is then pushed to non-technical people. I could easily see both young and old people falling for this. This "iGoogle Store" would then request Google login credentials and millions of accounts are compromised.
I don't see why wanting a closed ecosystem is a choice people are so against. There is a great open option, I'd prefer the current closed option to remain completely closed.
> Really, Apple could have headed off regulators at the pass if they had embraced the (semi-)opening of their platform themselves. Allow third party app stores but on their own terms, providing SDKs and APIs for creating your own iOS App Store with security checks baked in and mandating privacy protections built in. Sort of like a software services equivalent to Apple Authorized Service Providers and Apple Authorized Resellers.
They would have then controlled this debate, and there would have been less room for the Epics of the world to complain about the platform being locked down. Not to mention users would benefit from greater choice. Imagine boutique third party app stores springing up devoted to specific interests and niches such as F-Droid, or promising better curation or quality.
Companies who refuse to use the AppStoreKit that Apple so beneficently provided would then be seen as malefactors seeking to subject their users to lack of privacy and security, rather than Apple trying to uphold their 30% cut and restrictive behavior.
Instead, Apple tried to control everything and not only did they expose themselves to regulation like this, they deal with customers annoyed at scammy apps on their own App Store, and third party devs crying foul at inconsistent policing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170848
I mean, I think there's still time for them to try something like this. Embrace alternative app stores and building the infrastructure to enable them, rather than just throwing open the doors and letting the wolves swarm "because the EU made us do it." In fact I can see this scenario happening because the motivation would be to prove openness is inherently dangerous.
One thing that is missing is the requirement for each app to use in app purchases and how easy it is to cancel subscriptions. If you give a suggestion on this one (give that the above I’m very okay with) in the spirit of the above one - I’d most likely switch camps
I also think shareholders in those companies that lust after data would revolt if they did not try to directly take all app sale profit and install data. I would be shocked if both did not already have apps in development stage.
I think the changes Apple should make is add a little indicator to every app showing the store it was purchased from encircling the icon with the default store color to remind of non-default privacy in that app. Just green badge them all and call it a day to let people know the app will be slower going through app specific memory encryption and API filtering with new anti-piracy frameworks to combat modified or fraudulent purchases.
Perhaps some new app storefront licensing board if the EU is serious about protecting consumers. Their current policy seems half baked along the line of shutting down government is a good thing. Make single click subscription cancellation a requirement for opening a storefront with and require bond to prevent stores from just cutting and running after a few fraudulent sales.
I think it is a shame how much silicon and engineering effort this will burn to maintain device security. It may go as far as apps run through a virtual machine sandbox with limited permissions in the short term. Personally being limited on my device made me sad, but as I lack self control the restrictions helped me focus.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37681899
Perhaps the future is that Apple, along with government watchdogs, data consumer protection groups, etc. provide free public scans of apps to detect permissions misuse and data tracking.
> I think the changes Apple should make is add a little indicator to every app showing the store it was purchased from encircling the icon with the default store color to remind of non-default privacy in that app. Just green badge them all and call it a day to let people know the app will be slower going through app specific memory encryption and API filtering with new anti-piracy frameworks to combat modified or fraudulent purchases.
I think these discussions often assign a lot of agency to the data malefactors and little to Apple. I've often made the point that Apple, being the masters of UX and subtle social engineering, can exploit their design to nudge less technical users away from dubious apps, very similarly to how they've created the infamous dichotomy between blue and green text bubbles:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&query=green%20bubble%2...
So I definitely agree that badging non-App Store apps can be a way to protect users by deterring those who don't know what they're doing from mucking about with questionable apps.
I like the licensing board idea too. Make it so there are more protection groups out there besides Apple itself. Apply it to Android as well so users on that platform aren't shafted.
- They're using an Amazon device
- They're installing fortnite
I'm not so convinced that opening up the app store to competition would result in a deluge of developers forcing people to install their own store apps and sideload everything. The only reason I could imagine that happening is Apple continuing to charge extremely high rents for the privilege of using the app store, in which case the competition isn't a bad thing?
I believe the much more real threat is non-technical users getting duped into installing malware through some shady third party store or sideloading scheme, but how often does this even happen on Android? I don't hear much about such schemes.
I am just generally unconvinced the App Store needs to be protected from competition to be used >90% of the time on iOS.
Meta has already been caught abusing enterprise provisioning profiles to get around App Store rules.
Many App Store rules are not technical, that you can get around by simply crafting the API to behave a certain way. Many of them take the form of a "gentlemen's agreement" type of rule. You have to convince either the code-inspection algos or the human app reviewers you are following them before your app gets listed. Many of these rules do not exist on the Play Store. So of course Facebook is just on the Play Store, they have no motivation to leave! They've *already* attempted to break out of the guardrails on the App Store.
You really think you can stop your $relative from using Facebook or Instagram just because they moved the app to a store that has zero limits for privacy intrusions?
If you could do that, you'd be a billionaire right now.
Facebook: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.pitchedapps.frost/
Instagram: https://f-droid.org/packages/me.austinhuang.instagrabber/
Those only live because they're so marginal that Meta doesn't bother with blocking them.
All Apple has to do is lower their rake and announce some kind of privacy program that allows intelligent ad placement, and Facebook will stay on the main app store.
Alternative app stores are mostly dead in the water if Apple will act like they are competitive.
Apple’s approach to hindering facebook’s spying is a technical one. But it’s not the only one. Just as we can take a political approach to dealing with Apple, so too with Facebook.
Workplace safety regulations didn’t exist until they did. Same with pollution. So too with meaningful privacy laws; and not cost of doing business fines, but the kind of fines that define business practices.
The tough part of "just don't side load" is when we have a somewhat contemptious relationship with some of the services you use, and they only offer their apps via alt methods.
Worth noting that Epic Games couldn't get this to work for Fortnite (for a period they only offered Fortnite via a sideloaded apk), and I don't believe Facebook as tried this.
There's also the finer details - if alt browse engines are allowed, will non-web browser apps start bundling and shipping their own browser engines (similar to the electron situation on desktop)?
The App Store was only ever a first line of defense against icky behavior.
A trivial example is the review prompts. It's policy that you must use the standard iOS APIs to trigger (which limits the frequency it's shown to the user). An app technically could implement their own UI (and im sure some still slip through), and there's no real way to prevent this, but being against the rules carries risks.
Oppressive governments are not interested in sideloading, quite the opposite - they very happy with Apple's policies so far, as Apple readily removes any app that the governments asks them to remove.
Not in Europe, they don't. And it would be a real shame if other countries realized that they have the same leverage...
A rather laughable statement, where the 'because' part is completely unrelated to the beginning of the sentence.
Anyway, ask any developer if he'd continue using MacBooks if he would no longer be able to install apps other than via AppStore.
Third party app developers don't have a right to use Apple's app store in whatever way they want. They have a right to sell things to customers on whatever terms the customers agree to and with whatever agreements they are able to make with other businesses like Apple.
Of all the major and minor players in this space, Apple has by far taken the most user-centric, privacy-first, security-centric stance. And they have done so over and over and over again.
Have they been perfect? Of course not. But every instance where they've lapsed, they've made geniune efforts to improve the situation. Are there ways they can still improve? Of course. But the direction has been clear and unambiguous. And as a result, they've earned my trust. This, in an environment where quite literally everyone else has repeatedly proven themselves untrustworthy.
Do you support companies adding melamine to infant formula?
Or is your actual position slightly more nuanced?
I'm a EU citizen and I'm more than happy that they're taking on Apple for this. After all, they're doing business with EU citizens, why shouldn't the EU tell them to behave?
If they don't like it, they can just stop selling in the EU, no one's gonna stop them there, but seeing as it's a money hungry megacorp hellbent on hoovering up every single penny that exists on this planet, that obviously isn't gonna happen, so they'll have to play by the EU's rules in that case.
Have you tried to understand it? It is pretty clear to me. People like not having to worry about malware, tracking, etc.
What monopoly?
Naive take. Network sockets, remote servers, and data brokers don't care about local file permissions and an OS won't be able to tell me if corp-surveillance.justbuyme.com might be a domain hosting a privacy-disrespecting service without some sort of human-mediated reputation service.
You can in theory keep it cornered in its own room (sandbox), but there's no way to be 100% sure it'll stay there. You can be absolutely sure that it will never stop trying to get out.
App Store apps can be trusted to stick to a sandbox because they are vetted to a standard before being allowed there.
There's no reason for Epic-F-Droid-Store have their applications adhere to any kind of standards enforced by Apple. They can do whatever shitty manipulative tricks they want to try to escape any OS level sandboxing Apple tries to build.
Doubly so for 3rd party browsers. A browser has a huge attack surface and can also run code (javascript and WASM at the least). Keeping it secure and sandboxed is not a trivial thing.
Now, despite the fact that I bought an iOS device to avoid having to deal with shitty third parties, I'm forced to use the epic store and whatever else.
I'm not being forced to install Facebook, but I choose to install it on my device. When this changes happens, the choice isn't going to be "install Facebook from the App Store or the Meta Store", it's going to be "install Facebook from the Meta Store". That's not a choice to the user, it's a choice for meta.
A choice for the user is choosing to buy an iPhone with the knowledge that this is a limitation, and if I don't want that limitation, I can buy an android device.
We're 4 comments deep on a thread of people worried about Facebook being removed from the App Store. Reminding everyone that Meta is optional might be the most rational thing typed in response to this godforsaken article.
Installing Meta is optional, but somehow buying an iPhone isn't.
We've seen this change with uPlay, battle.net, epic launcher on PC. Users don't get "more choice", we live with the rules the developer sets out for us. I _want_ to be on a platform where the developer sets standards for payment handling, authentication options. I don't want to have to provide my payment deatils to Genshin's app store, but I do want to pay them.
Stop telling me that I will have a choice when I have already made a choice, and _you_ want something different.
Someone else can come and say "but i want to sideload meta and Y and Z, but still use an iphone!".
Sure, both are choices, and MAYBE mutually exclusive. I will then side with the one that is most free. In this case thankfully regulation seems to aswell
It'll only be available on their own store where they get 100% of profits and can use any kind of predatory crap to get kids to pay for the next fancy skin.
Epic is not forced to put fortnite on ios as it is now, they choose to, but arent forced.
You should absolutely be free to opt into a walled garden if you want to, but do not force others to go into the garden to play
I choose to live in the walled garden, and there is another option (android) for those who don't. You telling me the walls have to come down is you bringing your rules to the garden _I_ choose to be in.
perhaps your wish (of convenient limitations) just isnt the most popular?
I happen to largely agree that some of the walls apple puts up is for the best, but I would never presume to think I have the right to force that on others. Sure, keep their walled garden, if meta/epic/whatever does not want to play with that walled garden, well.. thats on them, and on their patrons to decide if they wish to patron
> thats on them, and on their patrons to decide if they wish to patron
This isn't giving the patrons a choice though, it's giving epic or meta a choice. The user has to accept whatever they do, and personally I trust apple to do that more than I do a random developer.
Apple themselves have "imposed a sandbox" for Safari since the first version appeared on iOS. Still we had multiple exploits, even though they owned both sides of the code.
Now imagine a situation where you're building a sandbox and the sandboxed application is using every trick possible to try to get out.
This hellish hypothetical you pose already exists. It’s called macOS.
Argue with the premise, don't just tap downvote. This isn't Reddit.
This sort of tracking can work even if you don't have a Facebook account, because so many different applications will include the Facebook SDK for ad tracking purposes.
Nothing specific to Facebook here, of course, it works the same way for any company with a large ad network.
(1) or any other tracking SDK
Because not all users choose what goes on their phones.
Some users have it chosen for them by abusive family members.
Asked and answered.
It took me a long time to realize that Apple is doing the right thing here.
Outside of our little bubble, smartphones are a means to an end. No one bothers to learn technology more than what they can get by in their everyday life. Technology needs to be as simple and intuitive as possible.
Now, if Apple were to let a person enter developer mode by solving some Leetcode puzzles or CS quizzes, I'd be all in for it. Though I can still see scammers scamming people even with this.