Honestly, Apple could simply do exactly what they do for macOS now. The two are close enough to a merge at the architectural level that it would not be difficult. macOS is one step away from removing the ability to install unsigned software by default.
If you want to run unsigned software or extensions you will have to boot into a recovery console and change the security model. The warning dialogs will be enough to discourage most use. Things like ApplePay and iCloud may be disabled depending how far you reduce security, but you'll be able to do whatever you want.
I think it be a great solution to have a more uniform solution across all devices and platforms. It would create a boom in the hacker community, while still keeping >99.99% of users running from sealed system snapshots.
What I'm worried about is if the next time we open WhatsApp we see a splash message that says "Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp are moving to the Meta Store! Please restart your phone and follow these easy steps to continue using these apps." App developers have a lot more influence on mobile devices than they do on desktop OSes. This change would shift even more power to those large developers.
You can say a lot of negative things about Apple, but their incentives lined up with the end users more often than companies like Meta and Google.
Yet another example of the Facebook boogeyman being trotted out in an effort to explain why lack of user freedom, lack of consumer choice and anticompetitive business practices are actually good for the customers that are being fleeced by them.
This didn't happen on Android, macOS, or Windows, despite all of them allowing alternative app stores.
> What I'm worried about is if the next time we open WhatsApp we see a splash message that says "Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp are moving to the Meta Store! Please restart your phone and follow these easy steps to continue using these apps."
Why do people continue to tout this as some sort of gotcha? Android has multiple app stores yet this doesn't occur.
However, what I do like is that if I want to download some other client for Instagram from F-Droid for example, I can, unlike in the Apple App Store. Currently I use one that blocks apps, enhances image quality on upload and download, etc. Not really possible on iOS.
> You can say a lot of negative things about Apple, but their incentives lined up with the end users more often than companies like Meta and Google.
I would say this is one, and by far the most important case, where Apple's incentives aggressively oppose those of the end users'.
Whether this is enough to tip the balance of which company is 'worse' is a value judgment, but I cannot fathom how people argue in good faith for this blatantly anti-consumer and anti-fundamental-freedom vertical monopoly that is enforced with strong crypto. Crypto should be working for the user, not against them to secure Apple's ability to rent seek on all economic activity that passes through the user's device. And no, the two are not fundamentally coupled, as Apple will have you believe.
I think the disabling of "secure" features will be enough of an inconvenience that people won't do this, and so mainstream apps would never bother. Some might be willing to give up ApplePay. But they could disabled FaceID as well. Or even iMessage. Whether this is "justified" or not would be a separate issue, but I can definitely see them doing it. I can see them going a step further and letting developers decide if they want to allow their software to be run on systems based on security model. Banks, for example, could simply set a flag in their app such that it will not run if the system is set to a reduced or permissive security setting.
I am not sure, what is there to worry about? So, FB is going to independently distribute their own apps. You present it as it is an obvious evil, but tbh I fail to see what's evil about it? Yes, a little power would be shifted from all-powerful-now Apple to FB. Both probably not to be trusted, but at least it would be more federated now.
If there are other app stores, does that mean they'll be able to have different privacy rules? Or would that be blocked at the OS level? It seems like some stuff (giving the app access to your location, contacts, etc.) would be subject to OS-level control, but the recent change to opt-in personalized ads would be easily reversible by any new app store.
Expecting Apple to fight your fights isn't going to solve anything. Apple only cares about money, and they're going to obediently abide by local laws (as they do in China). We need to take the power away from Apple and put it in an entity that we en-masse have influence with - such as a democratically elected government.
I'm in the fortunate position of not needing any of those apps. I have never once in the US heard anyone mention WhatsApp as a potential form of communication, and I'm way better off without FB or Instagram on my phone.
And as a side note, Amazon tried this on Android (requiring it for e.g. Prime Video), but gave up at some point.
> What I'm worried about is if the next time we open WhatsApp we see a splash message that says "Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp are moving to the Meta Store! Please restart your phone and follow these easy steps to continue using these apps."
If they were going to do that, why wouldn't they have done it already on Android?
> You can say a lot of negative things about Apple, but their incentives lined up with the end users more often than companies like Meta and Google
This sounds like even more of an argument that your fear is unfounded. If Google doesn't care about users as much as Apple but still has managed to make it unappealing enough to have a separate Facebook app store, why wouldn't Apple be able to do the same?
Not at all. The monolithic App Store has been terrible for users. They even impose censorship on social media apps. Having alternative stores by Meta et al is excellent. More choice, more competition, less rentseeking, more innovation.
Someone who’s so tied to Meta products already has Meta apps installed on their phone. All Meta would have done through this step is added more friction to the process of installing their apps.
>If you want to run unsigned software or extensions you will have to boot into a recovery console and change the security model. The warning dialogs will be enough to discourage most use. Th
I think all of this is implying that Apple can be the only company that iOS users trust to sign software. Its a false choice.
Making things look "scary" to discourage users from trusting others is simply FUD.
Agreed. As it stands, macOS will treat un-Notarized apps as if they're radioactive, and the OS actively tricks the user into thinking such apps either don't work or are malicious. You have to pay the $100/year tax if you want your macOS app to compete on fair terms with other apps.
Yep. I'm fine with my parents never venturing beyond the bounds of the app store, but if I want to run some dev tools on the iPad that don't fit into the app store model I should be able to choose an option where I can install signed software.
I think this sort of relief valve will also breed interesting system utilities and user interface ideas for Apple's mobile OSes, provided that software using private APIs can still pass the signing process. Maybe they could have avoided some of the Stage Manager fiasco if they had years of third party experimentation to observe on their own platforms.
I think, for me, the best example is actually the ACE (Audio Capture Engine) plugin by Rogue Amoeba, which is used by a lot of 3rd party apps. It's quite popular, and it requires Reduced Security to install. I actually HATE that there is no (good) alternative to this software yet that can run within the bounds of the Full Security model. But I like that it's still possible to run this software. It feels like the warnings are adequate.
Here’s the deal, ship one of each: Mac, Mac AppStore, iOS AppStore, SMS chat bot, WebApp, Windows, cross platform with Electron, cp with Tauri, with varying degrees of dynamic libraries, concurrency, mono-server and containerized APIs - then say something productive about each. (On your own, no help but you and and your online friend Eskimo)
The ease of everything in iOS is 100% worth a 30% cut once you’re established (speaking to the small business program) - AND everyone forgets, Apple’s cut 15% after the first year of subscriptions, no matter how much you make.
The reason the Mac “side load” exists is because of AppKit - and the hoops one must jump through to get things to run halfway decent with gatekeeper is maddening to the nth degree. Fine, let people side load and deal with that on their own - but do not act like it’s “a weekend” worth of development time to get right.
Everyone is winging because they won’t (or know they can’t) make something damn good - take the time perfecting the craft and finding the targets no one can see rather than throwing stones.
If Apple's value add is as great as you're saying, then they should have absolutely no problem competing on fair terms with other companies instead of dictating what users are allowed to do, and what competitors are allowed to exist, on their own hardware.
Which is why Apple's plan is likely to move it to the MacOS model, ie. notarization and code signing is required. Honestly this is such a great middle ground despite the level of malware that exists and is targeted to small groups of users.
I don't think it's "one step". I do development on a mac, which means running unsigned software pretty much daily hundreds of times. Doesn't require any special steps. I probably don't need that capability on the phone though (that said, I don't use iOS either...)
I'm fan of the Apple's AppStore model, I like it and think it works great and Apple's commission is a nonissue for the most use cases(it's issue only in low margin trades), however I'm afraid that Apple's control over the device risks governments making Apple their police. Apple limiting AirDrop in China is a very bad sign of what might happen if the rest of the world follows China's totalitarian path. Even in the US, which was supposed to be the land of the free, there are talks about banning apps.
I for one believe in the principle that I paid to own the device and that entails loading whatever I damn well please on to it from whichever front, side, or backside I see fit!
> I for one believe in the principle that I paid to own the device […]
I paid for an iPhone for my mom so that she could not load whatever she damn well pleases, because if she does I have to deal with the mess afterwards.
Some folks are okay with walled gardens for specific purposes. If that's not you, that's fine. Perhaps Apple iDevices are then not for you.
Good news! There is a phone for you. Android allows that. Why not allow others who want their device partially controlled by the vendor to have that option?
I agree with the GP and prefer the current iOS landscape.
Are you allowed to buy into a walled garden where developers can’t force you to sideload apps to use their apps? That’s what I want to do, but it seems the EU is making that illegal. It seems that users who value freedom can buy Android, and users who value security can buy Apple, but the second option is going away.
You don’t think a 30% tax on users for the privilege of using an AppStore app and Apple’s abuse of that are problems? But somehow the AppStore affects government abuse of iPhones?
The AppStore would have never been a problem had Apple not been so greedy and draconian about it.
It's weird how the app store started out from nothing with even worse terms, and they were enthusiastically accepted by developers and consumers alike. Under these greedy and draconian terms, the app store became broadly embraced by developers, to the point of being called a monopoly. However, with this success Apple's reaction wasn't to abuse its market power by increasing its fees, but instead it reduced fees for long-term subscriptions and for developers with under $1M in revenues.
Apple's control over the device risks governments making Apple their police
Even with sideloading, neither Apple nor the government will give up that much control. Apple will almost certainly retain the ability to delete "malware" apps even if they're sideloaded and governments can then lean on that mechanism. Even Google can probably do a lot through Play Services.
Play this scenario out to its logical conclusion. If we are in a situation where Apple and the government is targeting specific apps for removal, this becomes a game of whack a mole that the developer always wins.
> I'm afraid that Apple's control over the device risks governments making Apple their police
It's already happening. We must oppose it.
The only person who should be in control of the device is the user who owns it. Absolutely no one else. Our computers are sacred ground that no one else may enter without permission.
>To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple — a process that could carry a fee.
Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're actually paying for. This is the problem with believing their own talking points about "paying 30% for payment processing."
So now they'll be paying for actual third-party payment processing, as well as lawyers and accountants to ensure they're complying with Apple's royalty agreements to license their technology.
There's a universe of FOSS that hasn't needed third-party payment, lawyers, accountants, etc. because they do not perceive the purpose of apps as "making money."
That universe doesn't quite exist on iOS, partly because Apple makes it so uncomfortable in ways to attempt. I am hopeful that this shakeup might, in some way, make that easier. I've always wanted to ship some basic apps that do things without any ads or purchases or whatnot.
If the FOSS universe wants to make web apps, that's great. But they didn't need this law to do that. If they want to make native iOS apps, well now they'll be using Apple's intellectual property, which won't be for free.
It is likely that the use of web-based experiences will eventually surpass the need for app stores. In many cases, the functionality of a website is similar to that of a mobile app. However, Apple's restrictions on the progress of progressive web apps (PWAs) on Safari may slow the transition from app stores to web-based options. In the meantime, it may be worthwhile to consider visiting a website before downloading an app for your next mobile experience.
> Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're actually paying for.
IMO a lot of developers are paying for Apple to have an unreasonable amount of control and the entire point of side loading or competing app stores is to get rid of that because we don't want to be paying Apple to act against our interests.
I don't want to pay for Apple to "verify" my app. I want them to use the OS to enforce user granted permissions and that's it.
As a developer, I understand this sentiment. As an iPhone user however, I don't want the power to shift to developers, because I know developers have financial or other interests that are sometimes at odds with mine.
A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords. If you value openness, then I suggest you use and develop apps for Android.
> >To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store.
Are they going to keep on giving their own apps entitlements they deny to everyone else? (Or even, allow to others, but very selectively.) Or is the EU going to crack down on that as well? I hope.
Sounds like it'll be a bit like on Mac with that whole notarization rigmarole.. But on Mac you can bypass it by jumping through some hoops. I guess on iOS you won't be able to until the EU catches up and forbids that too.
I'd actually consider iOS again if it were more open so I think this is a really good thing.
The EU is mandating sideloading, it's not mandating Apple do it for free. Until now, developers have been licensing Apple's intellectual property in a bundle through the Developer Program License Agreement. For anyone that goes through the sideloading route, they can expect to enter into a different contractual agreement with Apple to license their technology.
Otherwise they're building a web app, which they've always been able to do!
It's very likely, they've tried playing the same games with other jurisdictions, "sure, you can use your own payment processor, and still pay us 27%", but it's very unlikely those tricks will hold up to further legal actions.
Fighting monopolies is hard, but the penalties scale up the more games these companies play. They know it too, but all of the **holes running these companies are worried about is cashing out their bonuses and retiring before the regulations finally get things to where they should be.
The number 1 thing they are paying for by a mile is reach. Not any particular service offering. Your listing the app store can be nearly as important as your SEO ranking of moreso depending on your business. It's why Google can still charge pretty hefty fees despite not locking users in nor doing all that much for app quality. If you're not in the Play Store, users won't find you.
They won't, because anyone who starts an alternative app store will provide everything necessary for a small fee. The likes of Epic, Microsoft, Amazon, etc are more than capable.
Yes and you'll still have to pay Apple a 27% commission on digital goods sold even when it's distributed through the Epic store. This is what the parent is talking about not understanding what you're paying for.
Hitching your "I don't want to pay the 30% commission" wagon to "Allowing 3rd party app stores and payment processors" is doomed to fail.
I don't own an iPhone, but if this is the case then the end result is going to be hilarious. Apple will eventually get a court order to prevent software from a third party store being installed on their devices. Either it will enable copyright infringement or violate some other IP restriction.
What's the precedent for that? Windows, MacOS, Android and Linux have all allowed the user to indiscriminately install software, but I've never heard of legislation that tried to reverse that.
I definitely agree it's going to be the worst of all worlds. The current model was the most efficient one for Apple and developers. There will be additional costs for everyone involved (great for lawyers and accountants though). The current model was a virtuous cycle that benefited Apple, developers, and users. High trust from users made them amenable to spending money on software, grew the Apple developer ecosystem, and unleashed a wave of innovation which spawned industries since 2008. Importantly, all developers got standard terms which created a level playing field. I suspect we're moving into a world where large developers (Spotify/Netflix/Microsoft) will have much more negotiating leverage than a small developer. But that is the 'business as usual' world, which makes this a reversion to the mean.
Apple will 100% require notarization. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if installing anything from a third-party AppStore would disable a bunch of sensitive functionality, like ApplePay, FaceID, Find My, etc. with a nice alert that says: "Sorry, your device might be compromised due to unsafe apps. In order to use ApplePay / FaceID / etc. you need to restore your phone to factory settings first. Would you like to continue?".
The "unsafe app" thing may be against the new law. The text of the law is "The gatekeeper shall not prevent business users from offering the same products [...] at prices or conditions that are different from those offered through the online intermediation services of the gatekeeper"
Keyword being conditions. Having a third-party app store disable a bunch of functionality would be different conditions than a first-party app store.
A third party store could offer itself and turn off certain security features. I'm not sure that would be against the law. In fact, I'm certain it would not even be against the law for Apple to say, "Hey, your app store turned off security, so we will no longer give you our users' credit card numbers." (In fact, that's what policymakers hope for. The goal is nothing going through Apple. Least of all payments.)
If people are expecting the law to allow low security payments, then they are in for a rude awakening. For one, no one has taken leave of their senses here. Secondly, the credit card companies have in no way given Apple permission to allow access to their payment system under terms of reduced security. (In fact, they haven't given permission for Apple to offer access to their payment systems under any modified terms at all. Security or otherwise.)
Now what lawmakers are saying is that Apple should allow different app stores to participate on their platform. But yes, the vision, and hope, is that those app stores will have their own arrangements with the credit card companies. But some app stores will probably just keep Apple security protections in place and use Apple's services. There's nothing that precludes that either. (But that would be disappointing in the sense that everything would still be going through Apple.)
But even being jailbroken doesn't affect Apple Pay, their own Apple Card service, or FairPlay[0] (which is the most surprising to me). Maybe it's sent as a heuristic / weak fraud signal for Apple Pay, but no functionality is removed in the OS, so I don't see why a notarization-approved third party app would trigger any other broken functionality.
I don't think any legislature or courts would have problems with genuine warnings and if they did it'd likely require additional laws. Favoring the built in store so heavily by disabling more functionality than strictly required might be taken as going against the law already going into effect or be seen as overly anticompetitive in general though. The same might be said for overly aggressive/false warnings.
> To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple
I'm sure they'll at least require notarization with their $99/year developer program, in line with macOS, where it's an increasingly enormous pain to run unsigned apps.
I know it is contrary to HN guidelines to discuss comment votes, but this is weirdly my most downvoted comment of all time. In almost 13 years of commentating I have never had a comment receive -4 points before.
Sony has a market cap of $100B and Microsoft is clearly above the €75 billion euro market cap discussed.
Perhaps incorrectly, I don't see that market needing this legislation. The consoles themselves are sold on razor thin margins and rely on game sales to generate profit. Game consoles are also more of an "entertainment" device vs a general use mobile computer.
Ignoring monopoly positions, censorship concerns, security research, industry innovation and many other important considerations that go into these kinds of ideas, I'd like to present another angle; I think even just the eWaste concern alone is enough to suggest that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo should also have to provide the end user the ability to load their own code with relatively few restrictions. I actually don't see why game consoles are special and I don't really care about current industry norms or razor thin margins. The industry we have now doesn't need to remain financially sustainable as-is; that is not a condition that is set in stone. In fact, I'd argue that often times making progress literally requires this kind of disruption sometimes.
Nobody ever sat down and decided that what Nintendo did with 10NES was a good idea; it was just legally viable and nobody stopped it. It became normal without any concerted decision that it should be, just the lack of any strong enough force opposing it. I don't think that means that everything must continue this way forever. It is possible to realize that the implications are bad.
Even that said, hackers like to think in absolute and concrete terms and theory. In practice, phones are extremely important, telling people to vote for their wallet doesn't work, and there are basically no phones that offer a good set of trade-offs today because the market is not incentivized to produce it. Consumers pay $1000 for a phone and can't install a web browser. It is disturbing that people who are on a website with "Hacker" in the name can see this as a good thing. (Not that you are necessarily. But still, I see it too often.)
Defining what business models are legal and illegal, based on profit margins, is not a road we should go down in my opinion. Plus, some game consoles (like the Nintendo Switch) are profitable even if nobody buys a game because Nintendo prioritized that, and other game consoles become profitable in-and-of-themselves later in their lifecycle.
This leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. If I'm Nintendo, I could sell my game console for $299 with some profit on Day 1 (like now), but then I would be forced to have an open store. Or, I could sell it for $269, take a initial loss, and have a closed store. It would simply made "game consoles shall be sold at a loss" the law, not opened things up. I think that would be atrocious. So... either game consoles can remain locked, or we simply declare game consoles cannot be sold locked.
>1. An undertaking shall be designated as a gatekeeper if:
>(a) it has a significant impact on the internal market;
>(b) it provides a core platform service which is an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and
>(c) it enjoys an entrenched and durable position, in its operations, or it is foreseeable that it will enjoy such a position in the near future.
>2. An undertaking shall be presumed to satisfy the respective requirements in paragraph 1:
>(a) as regards paragraph 1, point (a), where it achieves an annual Union turnover equal to or above EUR 7,5 billion in each of the last three financial years, or where its average market capitalisation or its equivalent fair market value amounted to at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, and it provides the same core platform service in at least three Member States;
>(b) as regards paragraph 1, point (b), where it provides a core platform service that in the last financial year has at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and at least 10 000 yearly active business users established in the Union, identified and calculated in accordance with the methodology and indicators set out in the Annex;
>(c) as regards paragraph 1, point (c), where the thresholds in point (b) of this paragraph were met in each of the last three financial years.
I wonder what the monthly active users for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo consoles are. Also, if there are at least 10,000 active developers in the EU for any of these consoles.
Probably not enough to qualify. PlayStation 4's total sales in Europe to date is 55 million consoles... but how many are active users? How many have multiple consoles for the same "user"? How many are in storage, were broken, or simply don't get turned on for long periods of time? I think they are borderline or under the limit. As for total developers, there are currently 3,276 recognized games, and thus less than that amount of "developers" as per the legal definition - let alone how many of them are still active. I know we're on PlayStation 5 now, but if PS4 doesn't hit the limit, game consoles are fine. The Nintendo Switch has many more games (particularly indie) than PS4, yet they only hit 4,462.
I view consoles as the same way I do phones. A single store to purchase goods is anti consumer. I can see someone taking them to court since the only way to buy games locally on your Xbox, Playstation, or Switch is through the first party stores.
Is it though? What if the price to buy a playstation went to $1200 because that was the only way it's affordable for Sony if they can't subsidize it with a restricted store. So now the consumer can side load but they can't afford the device in the first place. I'm just pulling a price out of thin air but I don't think it's quite a simple as "single store = anti consumer"
It's similar to carrier locked phones. They'll give you the phone for a 1/10th it's list price if you sign up for 2yrs of service. Is that anti-consumer? Vs forcing the consumer to pay full price up front?
I think it might enable game consoles to allow more developers to list their products on the store without the hassles of their particular processes. Perhaps an indie only section.
It might with time open up software across multiple ecosystems.
> Apple pretending "to protect me against myself",
I find this to be a feature. Please protect me against "myself" (sometimes I'm tired, sometimes drunk - and dark patterns around the web can get to me too).
Readit News
If you want to run unsigned software or extensions you will have to boot into a recovery console and change the security model. The warning dialogs will be enough to discourage most use. Things like ApplePay and iCloud may be disabled depending how far you reduce security, but you'll be able to do whatever you want.
I think it be a great solution to have a more uniform solution across all devices and platforms. It would create a boom in the hacker community, while still keeping >99.99% of users running from sealed system snapshots.
You can say a lot of negative things about Apple, but their incentives lined up with the end users more often than companies like Meta and Google.
This didn't happen on Android, macOS, or Windows, despite all of them allowing alternative app stores.
Why do people continue to tout this as some sort of gotcha? Android has multiple app stores yet this doesn't occur.
However, what I do like is that if I want to download some other client for Instagram from F-Droid for example, I can, unlike in the Apple App Store. Currently I use one that blocks apps, enhances image quality on upload and download, etc. Not really possible on iOS.
I would say this is one, and by far the most important case, where Apple's incentives aggressively oppose those of the end users'.
Whether this is enough to tip the balance of which company is 'worse' is a value judgment, but I cannot fathom how people argue in good faith for this blatantly anti-consumer and anti-fundamental-freedom vertical monopoly that is enforced with strong crypto. Crypto should be working for the user, not against them to secure Apple's ability to rent seek on all economic activity that passes through the user's device. And no, the two are not fundamentally coupled, as Apple will have you believe.
And as a side note, Amazon tried this on Android (requiring it for e.g. Prime Video), but gave up at some point.
If they were going to do that, why wouldn't they have done it already on Android?
> You can say a lot of negative things about Apple, but their incentives lined up with the end users more often than companies like Meta and Google
This sounds like even more of an argument that your fear is unfounded. If Google doesn't care about users as much as Apple but still has managed to make it unappealing enough to have a separate Facebook app store, why wouldn't Apple be able to do the same?
What am I missing here? What’s the problem?
They'll probably just be on both with some perk incentivising a switch.
Interesting. Hadn't thought about this before. Why?
Is it the app store that makes their influence possible?
At least, that's how I expect it would work.
I think all of this is implying that Apple can be the only company that iOS users trust to sign software. Its a false choice.
Making things look "scary" to discourage users from trusting others is simply FUD.
I think this sort of relief valve will also breed interesting system utilities and user interface ideas for Apple's mobile OSes, provided that software using private APIs can still pass the signing process. Maybe they could have avoided some of the Stage Manager fiasco if they had years of third party experimentation to observe on their own platforms.
The ease of everything in iOS is 100% worth a 30% cut once you’re established (speaking to the small business program) - AND everyone forgets, Apple’s cut 15% after the first year of subscriptions, no matter how much you make.
The reason the Mac “side load” exists is because of AppKit - and the hoops one must jump through to get things to run halfway decent with gatekeeper is maddening to the nth degree. Fine, let people side load and deal with that on their own - but do not act like it’s “a weekend” worth of development time to get right.
Everyone is winging because they won’t (or know they can’t) make something damn good - take the time perfecting the craft and finding the targets no one can see rather than throwing stones.
I don't think you need to do this unless the application requires you to disable SIP which is extremely rare and I would do cautiously anyway.
That's the primary reason I want side-loading.
I paid for an iPhone for my mom so that she could not load whatever she damn well pleases, because if she does I have to deal with the mess afterwards.
Some folks are okay with walled gardens for specific purposes. If that's not you, that's fine. Perhaps Apple iDevices are then not for you.
I agree with the GP and prefer the current iOS landscape.
Also, if you buy an Xbox, Tesla, Fitbit watch, fridge, etc. you can’t load whatever you please, either. Why would all smartphones be different?
If you look at it historically, the PC is about the only device allowing that kind of user control.
Hope not, especially by everyone and their mum.
The AppStore would have never been a problem had Apple not been so greedy and draconian about it.
Even with sideloading, neither Apple nor the government will give up that much control. Apple will almost certainly retain the ability to delete "malware" apps even if they're sideloaded and governments can then lean on that mechanism. Even Google can probably do a lot through Play Services.
It's already happening. We must oppose it.
The only person who should be in control of the device is the user who owns it. Absolutely no one else. Our computers are sacred ground that no one else may enter without permission.
Developers are about to get a surprise about what they're actually paying for. This is the problem with believing their own talking points about "paying 30% for payment processing."
So now they'll be paying for actual third-party payment processing, as well as lawyers and accountants to ensure they're complying with Apple's royalty agreements to license their technology.
That universe doesn't quite exist on iOS, partly because Apple makes it so uncomfortable in ways to attempt. I am hopeful that this shakeup might, in some way, make that easier. I've always wanted to ship some basic apps that do things without any ads or purchases or whatnot.
Besides the developer program cost (which I assume will still exist in this EU world) what is stopping you from doing this now?
IMO a lot of developers are paying for Apple to have an unreasonable amount of control and the entire point of side loading or competing app stores is to get rid of that because we don't want to be paying Apple to act against our interests.
I don't want to pay for Apple to "verify" my app. I want them to use the OS to enforce user granted permissions and that's it.
A large portion of users want the protection that the walled garden affords. If you value openness, then I suggest you use and develop apps for Android.
Either you'll pay Apple directly, or the non-App Store will collect the 30% they have to send to Apple.
Deleted Comment
Add a user, I do.
Developers, and the tech sphere in general, have proven themselves untrustworthy.
This is the bed of greed the tech industry built. Now lay in it.
Are they going to keep on giving their own apps entitlements they deny to everyone else? (Or even, allow to others, but very selectively.) Or is the EU going to crack down on that as well? I hope.
I'd actually consider iOS again if it were more open so I think this is a really good thing.
Otherwise they're building a web app, which they've always been able to do!
Fighting monopolies is hard, but the penalties scale up the more games these companies play. They know it too, but all of the **holes running these companies are worried about is cashing out their bonuses and retiring before the regulations finally get things to where they should be.
It's no surprise that Apple will comply as maliciously as they possibly can.
Hitching your "I don't want to pay the 30% commission" wagon to "Allowing 3rd party app stores and payment processors" is doomed to fail.
This has literally already happened https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/apple-shocks-ios...
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So this will wind up being a worst of all worlds.
Keyword being conditions. Having a third-party app store disable a bunch of functionality would be different conditions than a first-party app store.
A third party store could offer itself and turn off certain security features. I'm not sure that would be against the law. In fact, I'm certain it would not even be against the law for Apple to say, "Hey, your app store turned off security, so we will no longer give you our users' credit card numbers." (In fact, that's what policymakers hope for. The goal is nothing going through Apple. Least of all payments.)
If people are expecting the law to allow low security payments, then they are in for a rude awakening. For one, no one has taken leave of their senses here. Secondly, the credit card companies have in no way given Apple permission to allow access to their payment system under terms of reduced security. (In fact, they haven't given permission for Apple to offer access to their payment systems under any modified terms at all. Security or otherwise.)
Now what lawmakers are saying is that Apple should allow different app stores to participate on their platform. But yes, the vision, and hope, is that those app stores will have their own arrangements with the credit card companies. But some app stores will probably just keep Apple security protections in place and use Apple's services. There's nothing that precludes that either. (But that would be disappointing in the sense that everything would still be going through Apple.)
0: https://developer.apple.com/streaming/fps/
Now it's illegal for the device manufacturer to provide warnings?
I'm sure they'll at least require notarization with their $99/year developer program, in line with macOS, where it's an increasingly enormous pain to run unsigned apps.
I don't understand where people get the impression from that it's a huge pain to run unsigned apps on macOS. It's a matter of executing
and then changing a setting in System Preferences and that's it.Sony has a market cap of $100B and Microsoft is clearly above the €75 billion euro market cap discussed.
Perhaps incorrectly, I don't see that market needing this legislation. The consoles themselves are sold on razor thin margins and rely on game sales to generate profit. Game consoles are also more of an "entertainment" device vs a general use mobile computer.
Nobody ever sat down and decided that what Nintendo did with 10NES was a good idea; it was just legally viable and nobody stopped it. It became normal without any concerted decision that it should be, just the lack of any strong enough force opposing it. I don't think that means that everything must continue this way forever. It is possible to realize that the implications are bad.
Even that said, hackers like to think in absolute and concrete terms and theory. In practice, phones are extremely important, telling people to vote for their wallet doesn't work, and there are basically no phones that offer a good set of trade-offs today because the market is not incentivized to produce it. Consumers pay $1000 for a phone and can't install a web browser. It is disturbing that people who are on a website with "Hacker" in the name can see this as a good thing. (Not that you are necessarily. But still, I see it too often.)
This leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. If I'm Nintendo, I could sell my game console for $299 with some profit on Day 1 (like now), but then I would be forced to have an open store. Or, I could sell it for $269, take a initial loss, and have a closed store. It would simply made "game consoles shall be sold at a loss" the law, not opened things up. I think that would be atrocious. So... either game consoles can remain locked, or we simply declare game consoles cannot be sold locked.
>(a) it has a significant impact on the internal market;
>(b) it provides a core platform service which is an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and
>(c) it enjoys an entrenched and durable position, in its operations, or it is foreseeable that it will enjoy such a position in the near future.
>2. An undertaking shall be presumed to satisfy the respective requirements in paragraph 1:
>(a) as regards paragraph 1, point (a), where it achieves an annual Union turnover equal to or above EUR 7,5 billion in each of the last three financial years, or where its average market capitalisation or its equivalent fair market value amounted to at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, and it provides the same core platform service in at least three Member States;
>(b) as regards paragraph 1, point (b), where it provides a core platform service that in the last financial year has at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and at least 10 000 yearly active business users established in the Union, identified and calculated in accordance with the methodology and indicators set out in the Annex;
>(c) as regards paragraph 1, point (c), where the thresholds in point (b) of this paragraph were met in each of the last three financial years.
I wonder what the monthly active users for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo consoles are. Also, if there are at least 10,000 active developers in the EU for any of these consoles.
It's similar to carrier locked phones. They'll give you the phone for a 1/10th it's list price if you sign up for 2yrs of service. Is that anti-consumer? Vs forcing the consumer to pay full price up front?
It might with time open up software across multiple ecosystems.
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I find this to be a feature. Please protect me against "myself" (sometimes I'm tired, sometimes drunk - and dark patterns around the web can get to me too).