> Apple's new fee structure and other terms and conditions for alternative app stores and distribution of apps from the web (sideloading) may be defeating the purpose of its obligations under Article 6(4) of the DMA
because, well, yeah, that's exactly what they do! When Apple users complain about the DMA forcing Apple to allow other stores and sideloading they often predict that Meta and other nefarious corporations will launch their own distribution as the exclusive source of their popular or near-required apps in order to skirt Apple's privacy rules. That is a possibility (though it hasn't happened on Android), but I feel that the benefit of sideloading community-made apps that break Apple's rules by interoperating with services unofficially would more than offset any losses to privacy. However, as Apple's implementation stands the fees and agreements necessary to distribute apps would keep most FOSS or community-maintained apps from being distributed, while allowing rich bad actors an avenue of further abusing their users. It's the worst possible world; a free-for-all for rich corporations to distribute whatever garbage they want and no balancing pressure from unofficial apps keeping their behavior somewhat in check. Moving from a world where Apple gets to decide what code runs on your phone to one where anyone with sufficiently deep pockets makes the call. I hope that the EC finds that the spirit of the DMA is that users decide what runs on their phones, and that Apple's proposed changes are not in that spirit.
>Apple's opt-out by default data policies cost Meta billions of dollars the quarter it was introduced in the OS update. Meta would assuredly restrict their apps to a Meta store to get back those billions.
This conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. Look at Meta's revenue since the roll out of ATT. They're essentially back to where they were. They've figured out ML based probability targeting. If anything, they're in a better position than they were pre-ATT, because now they really have some secret sauce in there, because no one else seems to have been able to figure it out.
You are suggesting Facebook doesn't mind valuable information restrictions because they have found other sets/means of valuable information.
That just doesn't follow. Facebook wants everything.
It is a near certainty that yesterday's restricted information is even more valuable today, since they can also increase its value via machine learning systems.
And high profits today don't dampen the need for growth, they accelerate the need by iteratively raising the baseline for next year. The year after. And onward. For the shareholders. For Zuckerberg.
But outside of Europe people still won't be able to use alternative app stores, so Meta has to provide their app through Apple store, where it will be available to EU users too.
You can restrict which countries your app is available in the App Store. Is there something in the policy that states your app can't be outside the App Store in EU but in the App Store elsewhere?
lots is doing a lot of work here. the overwhelming majority of FOSS projects have no structure at all much less non profit corporations behind them. more accurate would be to say "a small number of FOSS projects" or "a lot of the top several FOSS projects".
> That is a possibility (though it hasn't happened on Android)
Android as a platform has far fewer default privacy controls as iOS. Meta doesn't need an alternate App Store to slurp up Android users' data. They would need one on iOS which gives them and everyone else impetus to create alternate stores which allow them to slurp up more data. Apple's opt-out by default data policies cost Meta billions of dollars the quarter it was introduced in the OS update. Meta would assuredly restrict their apps to a Meta store to get back those billions.
> Apple's opt-out by default data policies cost Meta billions of dollars the quarter it was introduced in the OS update. Meta would assuredly restrict their apps to a Meta store to get back those billions.
How would a different app store change these OS policies and features?
Two questions I have - which may not have answers as of now:
1. Will new app stores be able to sell iPad and Vision apps too? I.e. or just iPhone apps? Apple would obviously restrict this to iPhone apps if it can. But given apps can be cross platform/device, new app stores and their developers are going to want to sell to all devices.
2. If alternate app stores can sell to all Apple devices, will that mean as a practical matter, that the memory allocation/permissions API used for JIT on Macs, and by Apple on its other devices, will now be available to developers for all Apple ecosystem devices?
Among other things, JIT API availability is required for alternate web browser, Javascript, and WebAssembly implementations.
If JIT access becomes universal on iOS devices, then more serious development tools, as well as development friendly interfaces, and third party APIs, are going to be possible. Lots of barriers to serious computing on other devices will be gone.
I am particularly interested in this in terms of Vision Pro + keyboard + trackpad/mouse as a complete Mac replacement for serious work. As apposed to requiring a Mac as it does today.
I don't see a lot of discussion of the Meta "pay or consent" investigation. Why wouldn't giving users the option to pay for tracking-free, ad-free service meet the requirement? Is the concern that the $10/month price too high? Would this kind of model be acceptable at a more reasonable price point?
My understanding, and the understanding of the EU commissioner [0], is that any amount is too high.
Consent must be freely given under EU law, not given in exchange for not having to pay money. You can't give a discount on the services for consenting.
If that's the case, several European newspapers are also in breach. The latest iteration of paywalls typically state something like "we need money to survive, so you either buy a subscription or you agree to being tracked for advertising purposes".
On a certain level I agree with you: it goes against the spirit of the law and it's downright rude (effectively blackmailing readers).
This said, the alternative is that they go full-paywall (and risk death, when less than 1% of readers will actually bother to sign up).
But the answer is: pay or consent "does not achieve the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers". See https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_... (also linked via the tweet elsewhere in this discussion)
I think tracking-free and ad-free are different concerns here. Basically you can offer ad-free for $X/month, but tracking consent should be separate ( basically anyone would be able to deny tracking )
Same issue on the Apple side will play out probably similar; either they can charge every developer some technology fee, or they cannot charge to anyone.
> I think tracking-free and ad-free are different concerns here
Maybe in theory, but in practice they are one and the same. The CPM on ads where you don't know the audience is so low that you might as well skip the ads entirely.
> Same issue on the Apple side will play out probably similar; either they can charge every developer some technology fee, or they cannot charge to anyone.
Yes, and the result for both will be that there is no free tier in the EU anymore. All EU developers will pay the CTF and all EU users will pay $10/month for for ad-free FB.
Ya I am also not following what the problem is with this approach. Is that not the entire point of options? Do people feel entitled to have all free services with no obligations of their own?
If the policy is "you can't sell you privacy" that would be pretty cool. It would require tech companies to come up with a business model that doesn't profit from pervasive surveillance. It is well within our rights as a society to deem such a model unacceptable.
So from the articles I can find about the complaints filed against Meta [1] I can't find any explanation of what would be an acceptable price for non-consent besides free.
I mean like it's their right as a government to say 'you can't charge for consent. either charge everyone or no-one', but I wonder how it'll all pan out.
I’ve long promoted this. Many others did, too. I went as far as suggesting they charge above the per-user profit of the surveillance business just to increase odds it would be profitable. I wanted that for Google apps on alternative Android’s and Facebook.
That they won’t release such products despite the demand shows they’re just evil. They believe they can squeeze more money and power out of ever-increasing surveillance.
All sounds great. I'm quite curious what their objection to Apple's browser choice screen is though:
> The Commission is concerned that Apple's measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem, in contravention of Article 6(3) of the DMA.
Having Safari hardcoded to the first position in the list certainly won't fly. The Windows browser choice ballot and the Android search engine choice screens eventually settled on a two tier with the five most popular options in a random order at the top, and a second tier was shown after them also in a random order.
But the other problem is the "not now" button, because it's what the large majority of users will click. Does it by any chance have the effect that Safari is kept as the default, and the question is never asked again? The Windows browser choice ballot and the Android search engine choice screens forced the user to make a choice.
> But the other problem is the "not now" button, because it's what the large majority of users will click
Yeah, because not now, dammit. I am not ready to choose the browser, I have no clue. Geezus, give me an option if you really insist on me to have options but don’t FORCE me to make my mind up when I’m not ready, right there on the spot. How do I even know if this is the best choice I am about to make? Just imagine that every time someone taps “not now” they simply say “I don’t care”. Why do I need to feel the breath of a bureaucrat on my neck when settling up my phone? Just because the bureaucrat had some beef with Apple I’m now forced to make some possibly uneducated decisions. Does your 70 year old mother or 3rd uncle knows which browser is the best and the implications of making the choice are?
Go and sort out more pressing matters. Leave my walled garden alone.
- Safari will always still be installed and have its icon on the first page of your home screen by default, even if you choose another browser.
- Choosing another browser doesn't actually select it - it brings you to their app store page, where you still have to tap the (relatively tiny) install button.
- If you already have other browsers installed that are not included in the choice screen (e.g. Firefox Nightly, I believe), then you're still forced to install/pick a different browser.
- you can't uninstall Safari. The DMA clearly requires Apple to allow uninstalling it.
- the Share Sheet for in-app webview privileges Safari (Safari-specific "Add to Reading List", "Add Bookmark" at the top) regardless of default browser.
- apps with in-app webviews can roll out a custom engine, but otherwise it uses WebKit regardless of default browser. It should obviously use the webview facility provided by the default browser, if it offers one.
- confusing to change defaults. There's no central "Default Apps" screen in Settings. You have to go in the Settings app, scroll way down to a given browser, and then you can change the default. So the default browser setting is weirdly treated as an app-specific setting rather than a system setting.
- If Safari is not the default, you can change your default browser within "Settings.app >> Safari". If Safari is the default, you can't change your default browser there at all. Whereas the default browser selection menu will always be shown in the Settings.app submenu of third-party browsers.
Users want to truly exercise their choice of browser screen so badly that a list of nitpicks about the ordering of options in the share sheet and the prominence of an "Open" button which works the same way for every other app install flow is thwarting them from doing so.
Interesting! When I got presented this list Safari wasn't even "above the fold" which surprised me, so I assumed it was randomised.
When I clicked Safari it also opened an App Store sheet for Safari, which I thought was weird but probably done to keep it consistent with the other options (more like "see more details" before making the choice definitive/installing)
I don't know how the list is generated. But as others have pointed out, there seems to be established precedent that hardcoding Safari first would not be compliant. And alphabetizing would create bad incentives (Calling dibs on "Aardvark" as a browser name, BTW).
The problem I see with randomization is that with all the browsers that are skins on Chromium nowadays, this would be likely to steer users into a Chromium based browser.
When you look at the list you have to be concerned about the state of the browser market.
Chromium is going to dominate desktop and mobile and entrench pro-advertising measures eg. browser fingerprinting, long term first party cookies etc for years to come. Meta and Google must be thrilled.
Of course it makes a mockery of GDPR and other privacy measures EU has been pushing.
But users are demanding choice in browsers, and they are picking the least private, most pro-advertising one en masse! What’s its biggest benefit? It offers a suite of native-replacement, in-the-standards-process-but-not-finalized APIs so developers can write slow, bloated applications once and run them everywhere! This is what users want!
Randomization is required by the regulation. Another instance of what a smart person wants out of a feature and what the EU wants being very different things.
It's being downvoted because randomizing something that is by its nature chronological is very obviously different from randomizing the order of something where you want to explicitly avoid giving the impression that one takes priority over another.
What changed that caused all this? They can do this now because of the passage of the DMA but was there some specific event that triggered the creation and passage of that?
I’m surprised that so little happened for such a long time in terms of regulation (EU or US) and then suddenly it feels like the EU really jumped in to the fray.
The DMA came into full effect this month. The EC looked at the big companies targeted by the DMA and the state of their compliance, had questions about several of those companies' compliance and so opened investigations.
> was there some specific event that triggered the creation and passage of that?
Not really, but the DSA package has been in the works for quite a while now even though it seems very recent. The DMA may have only really come into effect May last year and the compliance deadline was only three weeks ago, but it was first proposed by the Commission all the way back in 2020, and building off proposals from the previous Commission. In a sense, they've been working on it since GDPR in 2016.
There is no minimum fine. But: “In fixing the amount of a fine, the Commission shall take into account the gravity, duration, recurrence, and, for fines imposed pursuant to paragraph 3, delay caused to the proceedings.” (Article 30 paragraph 4)
So you might compare the actual noncompliance to the worst conceivable noncompliance with respect to those factors and make a guess.
Edit: There’s also this quote by Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market, on the linked page: “[…] Should our investigation conclude that there is lack of full compliance with the DMA, gatekeepers could face heavy fines.” This would imply that anything but full compliance could already incur “heavy” fines.
Mostly because Microsoft doesn't really gatekeep Windows and is actually compliant with the DMA; they were motioning to the same tricks as the other gatekeepers (main one is forced bundling), but the DMA caused them to retract on all of those changes.
Right now, you can properly remove all Windows apps from W11, which was really the big one that they started doing with Windows 10 alongside the Microsoft account push in OOBE (dunno if that one is still required). They also supposedly made actually disabling the Windows telemetry much more feasible than it used to be.
You can? Last I tried I couldn't remove Edge, could not change search engine used in the Windows search to anything other than Bing, every new windows update would default install new apps like Candy Crush and Amazon Prime I never wanted, and so on, and disabling Windows telemetery seems impossible without registry hacks. Ever installed a new Win11? Riddled with dark pattern UX to deceive you into extra telemetry.
I am unable to uninstall Edge although I see from news briefs it will be possible in April. I am unable to even see Defender listed although it is clearly separable and I do not think they are going to enable uninstallation; if not then I would say they are still not compliant, but I understand how browsers are more of a focus at the moment.
> The Commission has also adopted five retention orders addressed to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, asking them to retain documents which might be used to assess their compliance with the DMA obligations, so as to preserve available evidence and ensure effective enforcement.
So, they are not under active investigation at the moment, but they are being monitored.
I think it's because while Microsoft tries their hardest to nag people about their products (like Edge ads forcible injected into Chrome somehow), they don't prevent alternatives like Apple, as an example.
Microsoft is a very open platform regards many of the aspects of the DMA. There is app sideloading, alternative app stores, alternative browsers, alternative payment methods, alternative hardware, license-free ports, and there are now more laptops than ever offered without windows. In the cloud, they have valid competition (Google, AWS) in both IaaS, PaaS and SaaS (Office).
Microsoft got regulated since before Google was founded (to put in context).
For browser bundling, Chrome has beaten Edge out handily, so there's no case there. For Office bundling, they charge separately for it, so there's no real case their either
Good point. I guess the world recognizes that MS isn't quite as dominant as it was before - aleast on the operating systems side with Apple and Linux gaining reasonable share
Also Windows is comparably open to other environments. The Windows and Xbox stores exist, but you are not forced to use them or does MS take a cut on software sold.
Only potential issue I see is bundling of Office 365 and Teams. And they already fixed that one. So they are the least worst player on market.
The more uncharitable interpretation of this would be that Microsoft has enmeshed itself to such an extent such that the bundling of Office365+Entra+Azure+Teams isn’t worth the loss of these services to governments who may potentially want to launch an investigation.
Maybe there isn't anything that the commission wants to investigate there because they did a good enough job complying. But future can bring more probes.
I’m not in support of the DMA and I’m not in favor of the US suit against Apple, and I too have been wondering how Microsoft - who I’d argue is the most anticompetitive of all, with the longest history of doing so - has escaped all of this lately. They really must be funding some important people’s pockets.
Microsoft has been through this before. EU windows has a browser choice screen and you can buy it without windows media player (I think for the same price or darn near as with). Microsoft is good at painting in or near the lines, from decades of practice. They probably also respond to new regulations without an excess of foot dragging.
Also, they weren't able to turn their dominant position in desktops into anything in mobile.
Maybe the EU Commission hasn’t received DMA-related complaints from other companies about Microsoft. The Commission seems to be careful to base investigations on competitor statements.
A lot of people are quick to lock themselves into a gatekeeper's walled garden, and throw away the keys.
That Linux has not only survived for so long, but thrived, is a true testament to the will, technical expertise, and product vision of community developers.
FOSS was founded on the principles of openness and collaboration, something that we need now more than ever, as the largest companies of the world have managed to weaken that resolve through slick marketing and anti-competitive practices.
Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
Think of the kids growing up now, forced to be consumers rather than producers. And compare them to the last century, the sense of wonder and expression that the internet and infinitely hackable devices brought.
It was revolutionary, and many of the giants that exist now were built literally on the backs of that openness.
> FOSS was founded on the principles of openness and collaboration, something that we need now more than ever, as the largest companies of the world have managed to weaken that resolve through slick marketing and anti-competitive practices.
Some of the best open source software was developed, open sourced and maintained by the largest companies of the world.
>Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
Do you think an open source group could build an Apple watch?
> That Linux has not only survived for so long, but thrived, is a true testament to the will, technical expertise, and product vision of community developers.
That Linux is still mostly used as a server OS, and not as a viable OS by the general public is a true testament that there are things that matter to people that community developers don't care about.
>Think of the kids growing up now, forced to be consumers rather than producers. And compare them to the last century, the sense of wonder and expression that the internet and infinitely hackable devices brought.
Techie kids growing up now are on average an order of magnitudes better than their equivalent from last century. As a matter of fact, there are more great and creative coders nowadays compared to any time in history. Just look at the amount of open source projects on github.
Idealism that is as far disconnected from reality as yours is one of the issues plaguing FOSS today. I have no idea how your comment can be as upvoted as it is - maybe selection bias based on the nature of the article. It is still concerning though.
> That Linux is still mostly used as a server OS, and not as a viable OS by the general public is a true testament that there are things that matter to people that community developers don't care about.
Given the success of Android, I'm not sure how true that is, but ignoring that, the success of Chromebooks says something, but ignoring that, the fact that I can't wander into best buy and get a laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled is what makes the vast majority people end up with Windows laptops, and then some small percent with MacOS, not some holy testament against the viability of Linux as a desktop operating system.
Idealism that is as far disconnected from reality as yours is one of the issues plaguing FOSS today.
Let's unpack this even more. A quite potent problem, is when something else is posing as or sneaking into activism and movements like Open Source and FOSS. This something else can take the form of cliques, hipsterism, or the use of movements to vent anger or aggression.
The best way to hurt a cause is to represent it badly.
> FOSS was founded on the principles of openness and collaboration, something that we need now more than ever, as the largest companies of the world have managed to weaken that resolve through slick marketing and anti-competitive practices.
Some of the best open source software was developed, open sourced and maintained by the largest companies of the world.
Scapegoating people and groups merely by taxonomy has had a bad record across history. Hold people and companies to account for the things they do, not for their characteristics. That's the only fair form of accountability.
> Do you think an open source group could build an Apple watch?
Surely not, but Apple could have worked on integrating and participating to the development of an open source software for the Apple watch.
In another world, MeeGo[1] would have take off and we would use it on every smartphones (no iOS/Android incompatibility), every car systems, every tablets, every smart watches and everything would work seamlessly. Hardware manufacturers would concentrate on hardware and we would be able to buy the hardware we want and it would connect every devices we already own.
> Do you think an open source group could build an Apple watch?
This is such a dishonest argument. Which part of the parent post talked about building hardware? It's all about the hardware being open to run any software without artificial limitations, and providing the documentation to interface with the hardware. An open source group could definitely build an operating system and software for an Apple watch. I can't believe you try to call someone else disconnected from reality and idealistic when you engage them in such a malicious, dishonest way.
Capitalism that is as far disconnected from reality as yours is one of the issues plaguing FOSS today. I have no idea how your comment can be as upvoted as it is - maybe selection bias based on the nature of the article. It is still concerning though.
> Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
This is a bit of a non-sequitur. Far and away the biggest ecosystem of apps ever created for everyday users existed on Windows, an infamously proprietary platform. Nothing on Linux or Unixes has ever compared (unlike server software, which is the opposite). But, of course, Windows was always open in a different sense, one in which non-PC devices have never been, even those built with open-source software (Android). So yes, I do agree that open-ness is important, but I don't think FOSS has much to do with that.
While Windows itself may be proprietary, it mostly runs on fairly open hardware. Open in the sense that the manufacturer doesn't impose artificial limitations on what software is allowed to run on it, and also provides very thorough documentation for it, giving no advantage to any party in regards to information.
Also Windows itself is open in the sense that it doesn't restrict any software from running on it. You can write user-mode applications and run them on any architecturally compatible Windows system. You can write drivers to run kernel mode code on any Windows system (you can disable signature verification).
In the case of Windows, it being proprietary doesn't actually limit what anyone else can do on it nor is it artificially limited to only run on approved hardware. In many ways, it is open.
But that's merely because of market share. If the majority started using Linux, you'd see the same growth of the app ecosystem.
But it's a chicken and the egg problem. Without more users, we don't have more apps/polish on Linux, but without polish, it's not going to get any more users.
Do you have stats to back that claim? Isn't the biggest ecosystem of apps ever created on Android (Linux)? We have way more smartphones than PCs.
Most active FOSS are there just because big companies supports it with their multiple 6 digit salary employees. Only 3.9% of linux changes comes from developers without company attribution[1]. Pytorch and react and lot of other things came from company which is worst violator of their monopoly status. Same with unix, transistors, C etc.
I'm going to reply here to provide a bit more context, since many of the threads are diving too deep into the specifics of linux/foss/openness/ideology, which was unfortunately not the point.
The main crux of my comment is about being able to "own" your own device. A hackable device is better than a closed device, more choice is better than no choice.
Is it so hard to believe that if Microsoft or Apple had a death grip on Windows and MacOs respectively, restricting completely the kinds of things you could do on these platforms unless individually blessed, that there would be a far less interesting ecosystem of apps / capabilities available than what we have today?
As an example, one cannot build AWS on an iPad. Like literally cannot - the tools are either not available or are significantly crippled, since you may use them to circumvent Apple's gatekeeper cut.
That's the main idea, make smartphones and tablets, smartwatches, vr headsets etc. more like traditional desktop devices.
> Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
Nothing is stopping anyone from making these devices, and I think many do in fact exist but are not popular.
Openness is about people being able to run their own software on hardware that they buy. It is a completely unreasonable argument to state that "if you want to run your own software, first build your own hardware".
> Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
What has not been holding Linux etc back, but has been holding smartphones etc back?
To expect people to contribute their minds out of the kindness of their hearts and not deserve compensation feels a lot like "greed," too.
And let's not understate the value of vertical integration, something that open source fundamentally diverges from
> companies of the world have managed to weaken that resolve through slick marketing
Ah yes. The only reason people chose “closed” source products over FOSS is because they’re less intelligent than you. All the dumb people (not you of course) got tricked by slick marketing!
It couldn’t possibly be that the companies behind “closed” products are invested far more in understanding and serving what their users actually need/want, since their users pay them. It couldn’t possibly be that “closed” products focus on actual product-market-fit instead of developer-enthusiasm-fit.
Open source has absolutely made some amazing contributions to the software ecosystem of today. But let’s not kid ourselves, we need those “evil” profit-seeking companies as well.
As a long time Linux user, a long time Mac and iPhone user....
In terms of "capabilities that could exist" - I honestly have no idea what you are talking about! I use iOS and Mac because it has _more capabilities_ than anything from the FOSS arena. Last time an "open source competitor" to airdrop came around here it was hilariously unusable!
There are undeniable advantages to vertical integration. The miracle of apple bluetooth headphones is a stark example. The enhanced pairing/hand off that airpods have is insanely superior to the stock standard. Even iMessage has superior default encryption than anything short of Signal (maybe).
Alas the "product vision" of community developers is rather short sighted and stymied by lack of hardware manufacturing capability. Linux on the desktop is barely usable, so I really wouldn't get too excited about the product vision.
There's a lot to be said about Linux and such, but the idea that Apple/Google/etc are limiting innovation is just not based in reality!
iMessage does not have better encryption. If the recipient's phone dies and is unreachable, it will resend the text as a plaintext SMS, which is kind of a problem.
FOSS has been a narrow and self-congratulatory group of people who, while making great core contributions, have done little in the way of product development required to actually help the world compute.
Readit News
> Apple's new fee structure and other terms and conditions for alternative app stores and distribution of apps from the web (sideloading) may be defeating the purpose of its obligations under Article 6(4) of the DMA
because, well, yeah, that's exactly what they do! When Apple users complain about the DMA forcing Apple to allow other stores and sideloading they often predict that Meta and other nefarious corporations will launch their own distribution as the exclusive source of their popular or near-required apps in order to skirt Apple's privacy rules. That is a possibility (though it hasn't happened on Android), but I feel that the benefit of sideloading community-made apps that break Apple's rules by interoperating with services unofficially would more than offset any losses to privacy. However, as Apple's implementation stands the fees and agreements necessary to distribute apps would keep most FOSS or community-maintained apps from being distributed, while allowing rich bad actors an avenue of further abusing their users. It's the worst possible world; a free-for-all for rich corporations to distribute whatever garbage they want and no balancing pressure from unofficial apps keeping their behavior somewhat in check. Moving from a world where Apple gets to decide what code runs on your phone to one where anyone with sufficiently deep pockets makes the call. I hope that the EC finds that the spirit of the DMA is that users decide what runs on their phones, and that Apple's proposed changes are not in that spirit.
This conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. Look at Meta's revenue since the roll out of ATT. They're essentially back to where they were. They've figured out ML based probability targeting. If anything, they're in a better position than they were pre-ATT, because now they really have some secret sauce in there, because no one else seems to have been able to figure it out.
That just doesn't follow. Facebook wants everything.
It is a near certainty that yesterday's restricted information is even more valuable today, since they can also increase its value via machine learning systems.
And high profits today don't dampen the need for growth, they accelerate the need by iteratively raising the baseline for next year. The year after. And onward. For the shareholders. For Zuckerberg.
This isn’t hypothetical, it is precisely what Meta (then Facebook) and Google both already did.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/252456835/Fac...
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Android as a platform has far fewer default privacy controls as iOS. Meta doesn't need an alternate App Store to slurp up Android users' data. They would need one on iOS which gives them and everyone else impetus to create alternate stores which allow them to slurp up more data. Apple's opt-out by default data policies cost Meta billions of dollars the quarter it was introduced in the OS update. Meta would assuredly restrict their apps to a Meta store to get back those billions.
Unless, of course, the friction introduced by requiring users leave the App Store they're comfortable with costs them more.
How would a different app store change these OS policies and features?
1. Will new app stores be able to sell iPad and Vision apps too? I.e. or just iPhone apps? Apple would obviously restrict this to iPhone apps if it can. But given apps can be cross platform/device, new app stores and their developers are going to want to sell to all devices.
2. If alternate app stores can sell to all Apple devices, will that mean as a practical matter, that the memory allocation/permissions API used for JIT on Macs, and by Apple on its other devices, will now be available to developers for all Apple ecosystem devices?
Among other things, JIT API availability is required for alternate web browser, Javascript, and WebAssembly implementations.
If JIT access becomes universal on iOS devices, then more serious development tools, as well as development friendly interfaces, and third party APIs, are going to be possible. Lots of barriers to serious computing on other devices will be gone.
I am particularly interested in this in terms of Vision Pro + keyboard + trackpad/mouse as a complete Mac replacement for serious work. As apposed to requiring a Mac as it does today.
Consent must be freely given under EU law, not given in exchange for not having to pay money. You can't give a discount on the services for consenting.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/apple-google-and...
On a certain level I agree with you: it goes against the spirit of the law and it's downright rude (effectively blackmailing readers).
This said, the alternative is that they go full-paywall (and risk death, when less than 1% of readers will actually bother to sign up).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38192620
But the answer is: pay or consent "does not achieve the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers". See https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_... (also linked via the tweet elsewhere in this discussion)
Same issue on the Apple side will play out probably similar; either they can charge every developer some technology fee, or they cannot charge to anyone.
Maybe in theory, but in practice they are one and the same. The CPM on ads where you don't know the audience is so low that you might as well skip the ads entirely.
> Same issue on the Apple side will play out probably similar; either they can charge every developer some technology fee, or they cannot charge to anyone.
Yes, and the result for both will be that there is no free tier in the EU anymore. All EU developers will pay the CTF and all EU users will pay $10/month for for ad-free FB.
I mean like it's their right as a government to say 'you can't charge for consent. either charge everyone or no-one', but I wonder how it'll all pan out.
[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/28/meta-consent-or-pay-consum...)
That they won’t release such products despite the demand shows they’re just evil. They believe they can squeeze more money and power out of ever-increasing surveillance.
> The Commission is concerned that Apple's measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem, in contravention of Article 6(3) of the DMA.
Looks relatively reasonable to me:
https://preview.redd.it/ios-17-4-db1-new-default-browser-pop...
Is it because they always put Safari at the top and then try to randomise in a mix of browsers most people won't have heard of?
But the other problem is the "not now" button, because it's what the large majority of users will click. Does it by any chance have the effect that Safari is kept as the default, and the question is never asked again? The Windows browser choice ballot and the Android search engine choice screens forced the user to make a choice.
Yeah, because not now, dammit. I am not ready to choose the browser, I have no clue. Geezus, give me an option if you really insist on me to have options but don’t FORCE me to make my mind up when I’m not ready, right there on the spot. How do I even know if this is the best choice I am about to make? Just imagine that every time someone taps “not now” they simply say “I don’t care”. Why do I need to feel the breath of a bureaucrat on my neck when settling up my phone? Just because the bureaucrat had some beef with Apple I’m now forced to make some possibly uneducated decisions. Does your 70 year old mother or 3rd uncle knows which browser is the best and the implications of making the choice are?
Go and sort out more pressing matters. Leave my walled garden alone.
It entrenches the big guys.
- Safari will always still be installed and have its icon on the first page of your home screen by default, even if you choose another browser.
- Choosing another browser doesn't actually select it - it brings you to their app store page, where you still have to tap the (relatively tiny) install button.
- If you already have other browsers installed that are not included in the choice screen (e.g. Firefox Nightly, I believe), then you're still forced to install/pick a different browser.
- you can't uninstall Safari. The DMA clearly requires Apple to allow uninstalling it.
- the Share Sheet for in-app webview privileges Safari (Safari-specific "Add to Reading List", "Add Bookmark" at the top) regardless of default browser.
- apps with in-app webviews can roll out a custom engine, but otherwise it uses WebKit regardless of default browser. It should obviously use the webview facility provided by the default browser, if it offers one.
- confusing to change defaults. There's no central "Default Apps" screen in Settings. You have to go in the Settings app, scroll way down to a given browser, and then you can change the default. So the default browser setting is weirdly treated as an app-specific setting rather than a system setting.
- If Safari is not the default, you can change your default browser within "Settings.app >> Safari". If Safari is the default, you can't change your default browser there at all. Whereas the default browser selection menu will always be shown in the Settings.app submenu of third-party browsers.
When I clicked Safari it also opened an App Store sheet for Safari, which I thought was weird but probably done to keep it consistent with the other options (more like "see more details" before making the choice definitive/installing)
I'm curious about the sorting of that list. From the image (mirror: https://i.imgur.com/pjo78lS.png):
Is it Safari first then randomized names? It doesn't look alphabetical order to me.Chrome doesn't even show up, Firefox is almost hidden.
The problem I see with randomization is that with all the browsers that are skins on Chromium nowadays, this would be likely to steer users into a Chromium based browser.
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Chromium is going to dominate desktop and mobile and entrench pro-advertising measures eg. browser fingerprinting, long term first party cookies etc for years to come. Meta and Google must be thrilled.
Of course it makes a mockery of GDPR and other privacy measures EU has been pushing.
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You wouldn’t.
Cannot imagine why this is being downvoted. Presenting users with a randomized list is a dark pattern that discourages use of the associated feature.
I’m surprised that so little happened for such a long time in terms of regulation (EU or US) and then suddenly it feels like the EU really jumped in to the fray.
Not really, but the DSA package has been in the works for quite a while now even though it seems very recent. The DMA may have only really come into effect May last year and the compliance deadline was only three weeks ago, but it was first proposed by the Commission all the way back in 2020, and building off proposals from the previous Commission. In a sense, they've been working on it since GDPR in 2016.
EDIT: Or maybe rather an expected fine, we saw with GDPR that the maximum fine isn't really used much, if at all.
So you might compare the actual noncompliance to the worst conceivable noncompliance with respect to those factors and make a guess.
Edit: There’s also this quote by Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market, on the linked page: “[…] Should our investigation conclude that there is lack of full compliance with the DMA, gatekeepers could face heavy fines.” This would imply that anything but full compliance could already incur “heavy” fines.
The maximum in absolute numbers would be ~40B USD or ~80B USD for repeated violations, as I read it.
Right now, you can properly remove all Windows apps from W11, which was really the big one that they started doing with Windows 10 alongside the Microsoft account push in OOBE (dunno if that one is still required). They also supposedly made actually disabling the Windows telemetry much more feasible than it used to be.
But doesn't MS gatekeep xbox?
> The Commission has also adopted five retention orders addressed to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, asking them to retain documents which might be used to assess their compliance with the DMA obligations, so as to preserve available evidence and ensure effective enforcement.
So, they are not under active investigation at the moment, but they are being monitored.
source https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
Microsoft got regulated since before Google was founded (to put in context).
Only potential issue I see is bundling of Office 365 and Teams. And they already fixed that one. So they are the least worst player on market.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/22/eu_antitrust_microsof...
They started an investigation on 365+Teams a year ago:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
And Microsoft complied by unbundling Teams in the EEA:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-unbundle-teams-...
and late last year, the EU asked Teams rivals whether they still thought there was an issue:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/microsoft-rivals-asked-...
I'm guessing the EU is focused on consumer, not B2B focused companies
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Windows and LinkedIn should be covered.
Maybe there isn't anything that the commission wants to investigate there because they did a good enough job complying. But future can bring more probes.
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Also, they weren't able to turn their dominant position in desktops into anything in mobile.
They may do other anti-consumer things, but they don't do these things.
That Linux has not only survived for so long, but thrived, is a true testament to the will, technical expertise, and product vision of community developers.
FOSS was founded on the principles of openness and collaboration, something that we need now more than ever, as the largest companies of the world have managed to weaken that resolve through slick marketing and anti-competitive practices.
Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
Think of the kids growing up now, forced to be consumers rather than producers. And compare them to the last century, the sense of wonder and expression that the internet and infinitely hackable devices brought.
It was revolutionary, and many of the giants that exist now were built literally on the backs of that openness.
Some of the best open source software was developed, open sourced and maintained by the largest companies of the world.
>Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades.
Do you think an open source group could build an Apple watch?
> That Linux has not only survived for so long, but thrived, is a true testament to the will, technical expertise, and product vision of community developers.
That Linux is still mostly used as a server OS, and not as a viable OS by the general public is a true testament that there are things that matter to people that community developers don't care about.
>Think of the kids growing up now, forced to be consumers rather than producers. And compare them to the last century, the sense of wonder and expression that the internet and infinitely hackable devices brought.
Techie kids growing up now are on average an order of magnitudes better than their equivalent from last century. As a matter of fact, there are more great and creative coders nowadays compared to any time in history. Just look at the amount of open source projects on github.
Idealism that is as far disconnected from reality as yours is one of the issues plaguing FOSS today. I have no idea how your comment can be as upvoted as it is - maybe selection bias based on the nature of the article. It is still concerning though.
Apple Watch? Depends on what you mean by that but they 100% could build a smartwatch, such as the open source $27 Pinetime watch:
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime
https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-smartwatch-sealed/
Given the success of Android, I'm not sure how true that is, but ignoring that, the success of Chromebooks says something, but ignoring that, the fact that I can't wander into best buy and get a laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled is what makes the vast majority people end up with Windows laptops, and then some small percent with MacOS, not some holy testament against the viability of Linux as a desktop operating system.
Let's unpack this even more. A quite potent problem, is when something else is posing as or sneaking into activism and movements like Open Source and FOSS. This something else can take the form of cliques, hipsterism, or the use of movements to vent anger or aggression.
The best way to hurt a cause is to represent it badly.
> FOSS was founded on the principles of openness and collaboration, something that we need now more than ever, as the largest companies of the world have managed to weaken that resolve through slick marketing and anti-competitive practices.
Some of the best open source software was developed, open sourced and maintained by the largest companies of the world.
Scapegoating people and groups merely by taxonomy has had a bad record across history. Hold people and companies to account for the things they do, not for their characteristics. That's the only fair form of accountability.
Surely not, but Apple could have worked on integrating and participating to the development of an open source software for the Apple watch.
In another world, MeeGo[1] would have take off and we would use it on every smartphones (no iOS/Android incompatibility), every car systems, every tablets, every smart watches and everything would work seamlessly. Hardware manufacturers would concentrate on hardware and we would be able to buy the hardware we want and it would connect every devices we already own.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo
This is such a dishonest argument. Which part of the parent post talked about building hardware? It's all about the hardware being open to run any software without artificial limitations, and providing the documentation to interface with the hardware. An open source group could definitely build an operating system and software for an Apple watch. I can't believe you try to call someone else disconnected from reality and idealistic when you engage them in such a malicious, dishonest way.
This is a bit of a non-sequitur. Far and away the biggest ecosystem of apps ever created for everyday users existed on Windows, an infamously proprietary platform. Nothing on Linux or Unixes has ever compared (unlike server software, which is the opposite). But, of course, Windows was always open in a different sense, one in which non-PC devices have never been, even those built with open-source software (Android). So yes, I do agree that open-ness is important, but I don't think FOSS has much to do with that.
Also Windows itself is open in the sense that it doesn't restrict any software from running on it. You can write user-mode applications and run them on any architecturally compatible Windows system. You can write drivers to run kernel mode code on any Windows system (you can disable signature verification).
In the case of Windows, it being proprietary doesn't actually limit what anyone else can do on it nor is it artificially limited to only run on approved hardware. In many ways, it is open.
Samsung and Google layer so many proprietary components on top that it's more of an open foundation rather than a true open platform.
But it's a chicken and the egg problem. Without more users, we don't have more apps/polish on Linux, but without polish, it's not going to get any more users.
Do you have stats to back that claim? Isn't the biggest ecosystem of apps ever created on Android (Linux)? We have way more smartphones than PCs.
[1]: https://lwn.net/Articles/775440/
The main crux of my comment is about being able to "own" your own device. A hackable device is better than a closed device, more choice is better than no choice.
Is it so hard to believe that if Microsoft or Apple had a death grip on Windows and MacOs respectively, restricting completely the kinds of things you could do on these platforms unless individually blessed, that there would be a far less interesting ecosystem of apps / capabilities available than what we have today?
As an example, one cannot build AWS on an iPad. Like literally cannot - the tools are either not available or are significantly crippled, since you may use them to circumvent Apple's gatekeeper cut.
That's the main idea, make smartphones and tablets, smartwatches, vr headsets etc. more like traditional desktop devices.
The "pull the ladder up behind you" mentality is so pervasive in modern business it's amazing anything new gets built at all.
Nothing is stopping anyone from making these devices, and I think many do in fact exist but are not popular.
Anti-competitive practices do. Example of a struggle: https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/
What has not been holding Linux etc back, but has been holding smartphones etc back?
To expect people to contribute their minds out of the kindness of their hearts and not deserve compensation feels a lot like "greed," too.
And let's not understate the value of vertical integration, something that open source fundamentally diverges from
Ah yes. The only reason people chose “closed” source products over FOSS is because they’re less intelligent than you. All the dumb people (not you of course) got tricked by slick marketing!
It couldn’t possibly be that the companies behind “closed” products are invested far more in understanding and serving what their users actually need/want, since their users pay them. It couldn’t possibly be that “closed” products focus on actual product-market-fit instead of developer-enthusiasm-fit.
Open source has absolutely made some amazing contributions to the software ecosystem of today. But let’s not kid ourselves, we need those “evil” profit-seeking companies as well.
In terms of "capabilities that could exist" - I honestly have no idea what you are talking about! I use iOS and Mac because it has _more capabilities_ than anything from the FOSS arena. Last time an "open source competitor" to airdrop came around here it was hilariously unusable!
There are undeniable advantages to vertical integration. The miracle of apple bluetooth headphones is a stark example. The enhanced pairing/hand off that airpods have is insanely superior to the stock standard. Even iMessage has superior default encryption than anything short of Signal (maybe).
Alas the "product vision" of community developers is rather short sighted and stymied by lack of hardware manufacturing capability. Linux on the desktop is barely usable, so I really wouldn't get too excited about the product vision.
There's a lot to be said about Linux and such, but the idea that Apple/Google/etc are limiting innovation is just not based in reality!