Malicious compliance is the default action of megacorps in response to vague all-covering regulations. You end up with the laws only being enforced against human persons (without armies of lawyers or market leverage) while the corporate persons go on their merry way continuing their behavior, barely bothered.
Apple cares about one group of people: its customers and their security. They are, in fact, the only company that does. As the family nerd, I dont ever need to support Apple devices. It's the only brand im going to recommend to them because they are security and customer satisfaction first.
The only people who are upset about Apples policies are people MAKING MONEY off the platform.
Do I feel bad for any of the business involved in this. No, because they are BUSINESS and dont require sympathy.
This is so frustrating, PWA's were finally starting to be a real option on iOS. But I am sure they will get away with this pathetic excuse, so I guess that's it.
PWAs work _great_ on everything that isn't an Apple product.
Linux and Windows support PWAs without issue. MacOS, iOS, etc. all do not.
Chrome (I think any Chromium browser, but I'm not 100% sure), Firefox, and most other browsers support PWAs without issue (unless it's running on an aforementioned Apple platform).
Apple's poor support for PWAs and subsequent removal of them is just Apple being anticompetitive, as usual: If PWAs don't work, your only option is the App Store.
I've never been able to run PWA on Firefox for linux, only using Chromium. I don't even thing they work on windows.
And from a quick internet search it appears there is no official support, although apparently you can install a third party extension+app on linux to support it
Was "Safari as PWA engine" targeted by DMA too? Google managed to not cripple Android System WebView so Apple could learn... If there is a legitimate explanation then Android's WebView should be hit just as hard.
> The removal is odd, given Apple's previous stance on the matter. It has used the existence of the functionality as an anti-trust defense internationally.
And when that failed the pretense was no longer required. Nothing odd there. For Apple this is just extra effort for little to no incentive given the overall usage of PWAs.
"The gatekeeper shall not prevent business users from offering the same products or services to end users through third-party online intermediation services or through their own direct online sales channel at prices or conditions that are different from those offered through the online intermediation services of the gatekeeper."
Although I'm not sure how that couldn't just apply to the entire operating system e.g. you would be forced to let people run third party OSes.
And also Article 5(7):
"The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or business users to use, to offer, or to interoperate with, an
identification service, a web browser engine or a payment service, or technical services that support the provision of
payment services, such as payment systems for in-app purchases, of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by
the business users using that gatekeeper’s core platform services."
I still do not understand. What part of this prohibits them from allowing PWAs? Shouldn't this actually prohibit them from preventing 3rd party browsers instead? Like Firefox with Gecko should be allowed now right?
The way I read the text of the law though, it doesn't say that you have to prevent third party browsers in every way possible, what if they just allow one or a few of the ways to use one? That way PWA could still use their own system.
Not trying to take anyone's side here just arguing a theoretical.
Have those concerns been addressed on macOS? Or maybe PWAs on macOS leaking user data all over the place? Are they implying that they can’t make sure this will not come to pass even with all the restrictions and process they put in for custom browsers?
I did read the article. I still don't get it. The way I read the parent post's law snippet, prohibiting Firefox or Chrome from shipping a browser based on their own rendering engine (as opposed to the Safari skins that they currently ship on iOS) would be a violation.
If they're going to allow that, what is the downside of allowing the device to create a PWA? The browser will have that same access and could (theoretically) leak that to any website that visits. If they're not going to allow alternative browsers, then how is that not a violation in itself?
I really don't appreciate the "security" argument here. Apps are sandboxed. PWAs could be sandboxed too. Yeah, it would take some work to implement, but probably not as much as they're already going to have to do to support alternative app stores and sideloading. Just really comes off as petty and anti-consumer.
But then I'm not their target market anyway. I believe that my security is up to me, not my phone vendor. If I want to run a 3rd party unsigned app from a source that I've chosen to trust, then I ought to be able to do so on my hardware. Apple believes its their hardware, not mine.
They don't want to design/expose the necessary hooks to let Firefox or Chrome add PWAs to the home screen, so they removed all that machinery in the EU (which means Safari can't do it anymore).
This seems like a really aggressive interpretation of the letter of the law, combined with an intentional unwillingness to do any work to comply with it in a customer-focused manner.
"Technically the law would require us to enhance this feature by doing <thing>, but we don't want to, so we're going to remove the entire feature instead."
They already supposedly had to do a ton of work to enable secure distribution of alternative browser engines on iOS. Why not apply this same logic there? "Enabling third-party alternative browser engines on iOS is too much work, so we're removing Safari." (I know the answer to this hypothetical)
I understand that allowing Firefox and Chrome to put PWAs on the home screen would probably not be trivial, but I've been writing software long enough to know it's probably a couple man-years of engineering work at most, and it's probably much less. Android has supported this for ages. Apple could afford to do it.
Firefox supports home screen PWAs on Android, so I'm sure they would have been happy to implement it on iOS if given the opportunity. Same for Chrome. But it sounds like Apple doesn't want to do the work.
Holy based. No more multi-second pageloads and spinners and layout shifts??? No more back history mangling? No more reimplemented scrolling and pagination? Holy shit what a great unintended consequence
Title is false. Apple pretends they had to because they wanted more control in exchange for DMA compliance. DMA killed nothing or PWA wouldn't exist on Android.
are you an apple bot or an apple employee or you just get money from apple?
APPLE is TRYing to kill web capabilities because they threaten to become practically an alternative app store where develoers can bring great UX to people WITHOUT apple monopoly tax
mac os has no problems?
why not ban web app capabilities from Safari? it protects apple fanboys because they can use their super better more secure webkit engines WITHOUT any concern OTHER people using other web engines on THEIR apple devices
NEVER download chrome or firefox and you ARE SAFE
who the fuck do you want to sell that you care for me by banning chromium or gecko features?
who are you to tell me whether I trust a browser or a web domain to grant some extra capabilities to MY device?
46 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 47.8 ms ] threadApple cares about one group of people: its customers and their security. They are, in fact, the only company that does. As the family nerd, I dont ever need to support Apple devices. It's the only brand im going to recommend to them because they are security and customer satisfaction first.
The only people who are upset about Apples policies are people MAKING MONEY off the platform.
Do I feel bad for any of the business involved in this. No, because they are BUSINESS and dont require sympathy.
They literally installed a backdoor into Apple Silicon due to pressure from the CCP (lest they kill Apple by cutting their cheap manufacturing): https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2023_kaspersk...
The link you presented does not support that idea at all.
Vs something well covered and known:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute
Can we get some links that support your CCP claim from any kind of reputable source?
r/confidentlyincorrect
Apple is using this as a chance to spin the public opinion against DMA — which it's hurting their walled garden — to kill a feature they never wanted.
It was confirmed in another thread they killed PWAs for Safari too which it doesn't make sense.
Scams, intransparent pricing, phishing apps and "whale hunting" (with a nice 30% cut for Apple from exploting gambling addictions).
Just last week: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/08/lastpass_lookalike_ap...
safari can ban web capabilities and you and your family can use it
let me and others make our own choices of web browsers
Many of the promises of PWAs have fallen short, so maybe this is just the final nail in the coffin.
Linux and Windows support PWAs without issue. MacOS, iOS, etc. all do not.
Chrome (I think any Chromium browser, but I'm not 100% sure), Firefox, and most other browsers support PWAs without issue (unless it's running on an aforementioned Apple platform).
Apple's poor support for PWAs and subsequent removal of them is just Apple being anticompetitive, as usual: If PWAs don't work, your only option is the App Store.
Can we please change the title into "Apple claims that EU DMA requirements blabla..."?
> The removal is odd, given Apple's previous stance on the matter. It has used the existence of the functionality as an anti-trust defense internationally.
And when that failed the pretense was no longer required. Nothing odd there. For Apple this is just extra effort for little to no incentive given the overall usage of PWAs.
"The gatekeeper shall not prevent business users from offering the same products or services to end users through third-party online intermediation services or through their own direct online sales channel at prices or conditions that are different from those offered through the online intermediation services of the gatekeeper."
Article 5(3) here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
Although I'm not sure how that couldn't just apply to the entire operating system e.g. you would be forced to let people run third party OSes.
And also Article 5(7):
"The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or business users to use, to offer, or to interoperate with, an identification service, a web browser engine or a payment service, or technical services that support the provision of payment services, such as payment systems for in-app purchases, of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by the business users using that gatekeeper’s core platform services."
Not trying to take anyone's side here just arguing a theoretical.
If they're going to allow that, what is the downside of allowing the device to create a PWA? The browser will have that same access and could (theoretically) leak that to any website that visits. If they're not going to allow alternative browsers, then how is that not a violation in itself?
I really don't appreciate the "security" argument here. Apps are sandboxed. PWAs could be sandboxed too. Yeah, it would take some work to implement, but probably not as much as they're already going to have to do to support alternative app stores and sideloading. Just really comes off as petty and anti-consumer.
But then I'm not their target market anyway. I believe that my security is up to me, not my phone vendor. If I want to run a 3rd party unsigned app from a source that I've chosen to trust, then I ought to be able to do so on my hardware. Apple believes its their hardware, not mine.
i am sure ios programmers will just be able to design whatever is needed if mac os, android, windows or linux programmers can
or else tim cook must hire some engineer time from the mac os team i guess
Why was the title changed?
"Technically the law would require us to enhance this feature by doing <thing>, but we don't want to, so we're going to remove the entire feature instead."
They already supposedly had to do a ton of work to enable secure distribution of alternative browser engines on iOS. Why not apply this same logic there? "Enabling third-party alternative browser engines on iOS is too much work, so we're removing Safari." (I know the answer to this hypothetical)
I understand that allowing Firefox and Chrome to put PWAs on the home screen would probably not be trivial, but I've been writing software long enough to know it's probably a couple man-years of engineering work at most, and it's probably much less. Android has supported this for ages. Apple could afford to do it.
Time to bust out that absolutely massive fine, EU. Make them regret their nonsense already.
I really hope the EU retaliates back on Apple for its anti-competitive and user-hostile behavior.
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371119
APPLE is TRYing to kill web capabilities because they threaten to become practically an alternative app store where develoers can bring great UX to people WITHOUT apple monopoly tax
mac os has no problems?
why not ban web app capabilities from Safari? it protects apple fanboys because they can use their super better more secure webkit engines WITHOUT any concern OTHER people using other web engines on THEIR apple devices
NEVER download chrome or firefox and you ARE SAFE
who the fuck do you want to sell that you care for me by banning chromium or gecko features?
who are you to tell me whether I trust a browser or a web domain to grant some extra capabilities to MY device?