EU Competition Chief all but confirmed Apple to be forced to allow 2nd App Store
patentlyapple.com
patentlyapple.com
The fact the boot ROM will only run code signed by apple effectively lets apple retain the right of exclusion even after selling the device.
At the very least a device owner should be able to load their own signing keys for the boot rom to use.
Another App Store protects commerce. But a lot of the arguments are about protecting consumers. Your solution empowers consumers to truly do what they want. Instead of doing what an arbitrary App Store allows.
1) Lower commission. I think even 15% would make almost everyone happy - Even Stripe will charge you 3% + 20p which is 23% on a $1 app!
2) No ban on telling customers they can subscribe a different way.
Just that probably solves 99% of objections.
What should Apple do to minimize your risk?
Surely control of the AppStore (ie. no 2nd store owned by Epic) is massively preferable to Apple long term.
AppStore revenue isn't a massive part of their earnings. But control over their own hardware has to be right up there as a priority.
I think small apps will even have a credibility problem on the official Apple app store, because, say, let's just consider an app which tries to be a better calendar. You download the app and you don't like it, but your entire calendar data history has basically been exfiltrated, and could be worth far more than whatever the price of software. This is true for almost all apps which would normally be seen simple and innocuous. Contacts. Mail. Messages.
If we don't solve this credibility and privacy problem, I can't see how small players should compete in a way which is harmonious with user privacy concerns. This makes me only want Apple to have more domination. Domination to force every single app vendor to use Apple Pay. Domination to force every single app vendor to support Apple's anonymous account registration process. Domination to abide by Apple's new demands to inform the user of tracking.
I doubt that the EU would allow Apple to impose the same restrictions on the alternatives which means that privacy protections that aren’t enshrined within the OS will be the first ones to go.
Also if you could sideload you could install firefox with its own engine allowing more finegrain control over browser settings in about:config or more privacy focused fork. This means if some reason you need facebook you can lock it down more than iOS does.
Although the best solution is don't use facebook.
For example you can’t release an app right now that requires location services access including background or it won’t start not because you can’t develop one but because it won’t pass Apple’s store policies.
Facebook might be shite for privacy in general but it can be much much worse if they are allowed to do w/e they want and they have a large enough userbase that it really doesn’t fucking matter if their EULA would force you to donate your first born to Zuck most people would still use it out of sheer peer pressure.
Google doesn’t have a problem with it and they’ve allowed it forever.
Just check the PC gamedev scene. There is basically zero constraints on getting an app installed and users are used to it, yet devs jump through hoops to be published on Steam because it gives visibility and access to many desirable features.
If only the abilities to use Apple Pay in-app or to use Apple's advertisement distribution system are probably a good enough reason for 80% of the existing apps to continue being on the store.
Facebook, Google, TikTok w/eTok would move to their own store or to some shell they’ll set up and then move out of the App Store eventually you’ll be surprised how easy it would be for them to move their user base.
If they’ll be able to pull off shit like requiring you to allow location sharing in the background all the time to use the app or force you to share contacts for the app to load which they would definitely be able to do as there would be no policies in place to prevent that that alone would be worth the cost of migrating to their own store even if they’ll lose a few customers…
If you want to side load apps already then just buy a dev account and or use TestFlight there are ways to getting FOSS apps on your phone, it’s just has a buy in cost right now.
Allowing users to do that for free by having to register for a dev account and registering their device might be a good compromise if you really only want to allow side loading for FOSS uses.
Yeah, because that is what totally happened with Android which has 72% market share. Or is it? In actuality there were some alternative stores like Opera or Yandex store and all of them die out on some point. Amazon has an android store but you can't find a lot of apps there. There are vendor stores like samsung's or huawei's stores and my favorite f-droid, for OSS apps. But you can find EVEERYTHING in google play store and you'll have a hard time to live without it, like on Chinese devices or if you want to have de-googled android you'll need to find APKs on some weird mirrors. So no I don't buy it.
I really dislike this constant refrain, because as soon as more stores can be integrated, all bets are off. Everybody who says this gives off the impression they aren't thinking more than 5 minutes into the future and we start seeing stuff like Epic having exclusive games, or Origin, or whatever else. And you better believe someone like Facebook and/or Amazon is going to take advantage of being able to build their own store.
The issues with Apple arbitrarily banning things is a real issue, among others, and I acknowledge that and that these things need to be fixed. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water and make everyone's life who uses iOS more miserable along the way.
And no, some researcher finding out about that happening wouldn't really cause them to change their behavior. And even IF somebody outside of the HN bubble found out about it, I doubt the vast majority of people would change their own behavior and get rid of the apps or anything.
Apple is never going to build a perfect OS with no security holes and they'll never be able to 100% guarantee that an app isn't doing something like that. But the threat of having that activity discovered and Apple straight up removing everything from the App Store is enough to kind of force them into being a better actor than they would be if they controlled their own store. (see the incident where Apple found out about something Facebook was doing with their enterprise certificate and then revoked it, crippling tons of internal apps on top of their user-facing stuff)
1. OS patches would break apps making app users unhappy.
2. Patched OS could warn users of exploit attempts, damaging app reputation.
It does depend, though. If you look at regulation and market type on a 2x2 grid, as you slide towards the scale of perfectly competitive markets, the requirement to regulate drops to zero. As you go to monopoly, regulation becomes a larger requirement.
So, in the net, a heavily regulated walled garden provides the same utility as a perfectly competitive market. I think Apple can keep their one-store model so long as they abide by comprehensive regulations up-to-and-including lowering commissions and allowing apps to advertise other ways to subscribe outside of IAP.
I legitimately hate this. I use an iPhone because I don't have the attention span (I'm ADHD) to manage things being fiddly with a ton of different choices. Because it's set up in such a way that it's much easier to live my daily life due to how Apple forces things to be done in general. (and don't get me wrong, I KNOW the App Store has problems that NEED to be solved) All this is going to do is make my phone into the nightmare that Android is for me. I've tried to use Android multiple times, and it ALWAYS ends up with me extremely frustrated.
Get the heck away from my iPhone legislators. And people who literally constantly go on about "you don't have to side load an app" or "I should be able to do anything with my phone" PLEASE stop for 5 minutes to consider how a bullheaded move like this is going to massively disrupt not only my own life, but a lot of people's lives and make them more confusing and harder to manage. For example: People who don't know much about using a phone/tablet are going to have a harder time when Facebook becomes more hostile when they have their own store. Or if utility apps such as for parking put themselves in something like Facebook's store, suddenly you have NO CHOICE but to use that store and their app if you want to park somewhere with a meter. Such as when you're visiting another state for a vacation. Subscriptions are going to become a potential nightmare, and those scam apps that you can currently easily unsubscribe from their thing might become WAY HARDER to do because they're in some other store that doesn't tightly control that with an easy UI.
I hate this. So much. Maybe I'll just go back to everything being on paper and use a flip phone for calls/texts if this garbage goes through and the doom scenario becomes real. It would have been a good run of having something usable.
If FB wants people to go outside the app store they will. FB has the power.
I want every single app vendor to support Apple Pay because it's much safer and reveals far less private information. I want every single app vendor to support Apple's anonymous account registration process. I want every single app vendor to have to be approved to track users. I want every app to make recurring subscriptions easy to find.
If this could happen without the side effect of Apple bullying companies into giving up revenue, that'd be great.
It's the ability to easily stop a subscription. And considering the amount of stuff out there that makes it as hard as humanly possible to cancel a subscription (there's an entire Bojack episode making fun of this with newspaper subscriptions) I appreciate this quite a lot. Because it's VERY hard for me to do something simple for a lot of people like make a phone call and wade through an absurd phone tree to get to the actual way to stop someone from taking money from me. Or potentially other stuff like that.
> hardly a justification
It's more than just Apple's UI around subscriptions like you pointed out. It's just one example of something that I really appreciate. I also appreciate their work on privacy, that apps from their store are generally safe to download and open, that apps from their store will work well on my phone and interact with my device in the manner that I expect, that I can do things like control notifications, prevent access to my contact list, etc. There's a lot of stuff that "just works", that I can prevent from messing with me if I don't want it to, and it's often only a single step to do so, which helps me function on a day-to-day basis.
> enduring 2x slower phone CPUs because the app I need is not allowed in Apple app
Are you saying that you have to use an Android device which is slower because something you need to function is not allowed in the Apple App Store? If so: I am legitimately sorry that you are forced into that position. This is something I would viciously advocate to be fixed. But not by opening up the floodgates for bad actors to do even WORSE things because there isn't a behemoth standing behind them, threatening them with destruction if they don't follow the rules. (and there are still issues even there as scam apps show, and I desperately want those to be fixed as well for the sake of everyone)
> that violates anti-monopoly laws.
I cannot say whether or not Apple's App Store violates anti-monopoly laws. And unless you're a lawyer, and if you are then I will defer to your judgment, I don't know if you can legitimately claim to know that either. People on HN love to sling around the "monopoly" word a lot when it comes to Apple, but it could very easily be the case that by and large people who say that are just armchair lawyering and have not studied enough of law/case law to say anything about whether or not that's actually true.
I am not clear where the entitlement comes from, but it does bother me too when I see tone deaf comments like those.
If they are sold at a loss, that could be seen as anti-competitive move that keeps competing consoles out and game prices high. Perhaps the competition chief should look into as well.
A new PlayStation or Xbox is all the more PC most people ever need. We could reduce e-waste by reducing the need for multiple, specialized machines.
In the same way, I think I should be able to run a desktop by plugging in my phone. If a pi can do it, my iPhone definitely can.
I think it'll be a performative action at best. It's good policy to not allow platform monopolies, but I don't think it'll be the downfall of Apple's commission that everyone thinks it will be.
The only benefit I see is that it wouldn't cost me $100 to build and sideload my own or open source app's. But in all these years I've never had the need for this (though this might sprawl up a bit with availability ofc). The only things I truly wanted where changes at an OS level so would still require a jailbreak or root. Like how the widget screen is covered for 50% by icons I don't use and can't remove/configure.
A German moving to the US and consuming local services isn’t protected by GDPR.
However I’m not sure you get EU law to apply to a phone, buy unlocked from a German teleco?