wait a minute, that's only because Tumblr wanted to be on the App Store. they've could've just as easily provided a web app and easily instructed their users to have a link on the ios home screen. but they wanted to be on the App Store, so of course they had to follow Apple's rules.
there is no “evidence”. it’s a 17+ app with sexual accounts actively banned all of the time which you can’t even access if you’re not logged in, NSFW is disabled by default etc etc
> There is absolutely no reason that Apple should have the power to do that.
actually there’s a huge reason: they built it, they own it.
> Apple has the power to control what software you can download and run on YOUR device
the device is meaningless, it’s all about the software. and you don’t own that. so you can’t impose your own rules.
Well we built our society, and we own it, so they can fucking deal if they want to sell stuff in our society and we set some rules about what they can do.
I think you'd be surprised at how many of those ~330m (or ~8b) people would be perfectly okay with what Apple has done, and generally how much more important property rights are to what "we" have built than some esoteric fight about how you don't want to allow me the right to sell my privacy for a price I deem appropriate.
"We" don't want you to tell us what we can and can't do with our own data. Maybe we are perfectly happy to let Apple have some of our data, and are honestly tired of hearing you talk about how we don't know any better.
The "we" that is currently going through the Democratic process of passing laws which are almost certainly going to pass.
> "We" don't want you to tell us
Feel free to vote for a different lawmaker then. Or that is what you should have done, because it is too late in Europe already. They are going to pass the digital markets act.
Go participate in democracy if you disagree.
Thanks - this actually inspired me to write to my senator and congressional rep at the federal level in the US to not regulate Apple or its ability to decide what content goes on the iOS App Store. I love the iPhone and App Store, and Apple has earned my trust with their stewardship of it, and there is no logical reason that they should be regulated differently than any other marketplace. Any proposed changes or regulations that I've seen that target the iOS App Store are bad for me personally. I'd actually like to see us pass a digital markets act or similar that guarantees Apple (and Google, etc.) stewardship over their products and platforms.
Certainly I'm one of many voices (honestly outside of a place like HN or tech journals nobody gives even the slightest shit about what Apple does on the App Store) here, but I'll make sure my voice is heard to the extent that it makes sense to engage here.
You could do this yes. But I think efforts to fights these laws will fail.
The digital markets act is already almost guaranteed to pass in Europe, and once Europe has a law on this, the effects will go global.
Whats Apple going to do? Pull out of all of Europe? Do a failed attempt to segregate the market, by making an unlocked EU phone, and a locked USA one (What happens when people import the phones? Sounds pretty easy to get around...)?
Once the floodgates are open, you aren't going to be able to prevent people from installing whatever app store they want on their own phone.
> that I've seen that target the iOS App Store are bad for me personally.
Fortunately, you'll still have the choice to only install the iOS app store if you want. You just won't be able to prevent other people from installing whatever app store they want on their phone.
Sort of. I think you are underestimating Apple's ability to get around these laws, or at least section off the worst aspects of them so that using an iPhone sucks only in Europe and not elsewhere. In the US we may see laws introduced, but such laws (thankfully!) will be neutered as they're bad for citizens anyway.
> Fortunately, you'll still have the choice to only install the iOS app store if you want.
Yes, but I'm not sure you understand how this affects the ecosystem. The benefits you think you will incur, will not come to fruition. Instead, everyone will just be worse off except other multi-national American and Chinese internet companies. Privacy benefits are the first that come to mind, and such benefits that Apple has effectively collectively bargained for on behalf of users will be lost. Unfortunately, this will disproportionately affect the less well-off too because they won't be able to afford to pay to avoid cryptoscams, OnlyFans, and insidious adware.
> You just won't be able to prevent other people from installing whatever app store they want on their phone.
That's a product feature. If you want multiple app stores you can already do that on Android. It's like buying an Android phone and asking where your iCloud subscription is and then demanding that Apple offer it. Totally different product.
Sure they could try. At which point they would be fined billions of dollars. Just like how they tried to get around the recent app store dating apps law that was in a small country in the EU, and they got lost in court and kept getting fined.
Europe isn't really a country that just lets people break their laws. If you break them, you'll be fined.
> Apple has effectively collectively bargained
What you are describing is called "using significant market power", and is specifically what anti-trust law is designed to prevent.
If your argument is that "monopoly power is a good thing, and I want companies to use their significant market power, in a way that anti trust laws are designed to prevent" I guess you could make that argument.
But I hope you also are consistent and want to repeal common carrier laws, and any other laws that prevent companies from using their significant market power.
Just say it loud and clear, that you think that anti-trust laws are bad, and that using significant market power to anti-competitive control a market is a good thing, if thats what you believe.
Europe isn't really that much better than the US in this regard. See Volkswagen, FIFA, etc.
> What you are describing is called "using significant market power", and is specifically what anti-trust law is designed to prevent.
Sure if you specifically want to interpret it in the most negative possible light. On the other hand, Apple's position in the market acts as a company who can negotiate on behalf of users (kind of a quasi-union). On our own, no individual can leverage a company like, say, Facebook to have to change how they track users.
> Just say it loud and clear, that you think that anti-trust laws are bad, and that using significant market power to anti-competitive control a market is a good thing, if thats what you believe.
No, because that's a very naive and unrealistic thing to say or think.
Let's actually call this what it is, which is gigantic corporations like Epic and Facebook suing Apple (also a gigantic corporation) because Apple made their predatory business models less profitable. That's all this really is. In every capitalist economy ranging from Norway to Australia to Japan, companies are allowed to create platforms and then engage in business with who they see fit based on rules that they create and enforce on their platform. Facebook and Epic both have rules that they enforce on their platforms. To suggest that the Apple App Store is an anti-competitive marketplace is in the same breath to suggest that Wal-Mart is an anti-competitive marketplace because they won't allow me to sell pornography and Dogecoin. This is made all the more silly when iOS has less market share than Android and you can go and buy an Android phone and install whatever app store you want.
If you are actually interested in anti-competitive behavior, take a look at schemes like the MLS (Multiple Listing System) in the US, or various other internet companies.
I'd use my one vote and my voice to try and avoid that situation, but I accept that in a democracy my vote is not meant to have a significant impact.
For something like "data privacy" I'd go with what the country wants (not that I really have a choice), but I doubt the country would vote that way considering what we've built is largely based on the concepts of freedom and private ownership.
It seems antithetical to those ideas to prohibit people from selling what we tend to agree is rightfully theirs.
At least in Europe it is pretty clear that this is what people want. And they are almost certainly going to pass a law that regulates Apple.
> to prohibit people from selling what we tend to agree is rightfully theirs.
The phone belongs to the user once they buy it. That phone is rightfully theirs, and these new laws will allow a user to do what they want with that phone.
Apple also has the protection of patent and copyright laws. Those are government regulation that prevent other people from selling software.
If we really want to go full "people should be allowed to do what they want, with things that they own", then perhaps we should allow everyone to manufacture iPhones, and sell modified versions of that software. (as in literally, people should be allowed to steal Apple's, and make actual iPhones)
I am sure that there are some factories that already have access to iPhone manufacturing plans that would be happy to do what they want with their own property, and sell iPhones themselves.
Microsoft also built IE6 and they also built Windows. Should they have kept the power to bundle IE and to make it difficult for other browser developers?
Ps I still don't understand how "now copied from Google so it's better than that crappy earlier version we built ourselves" can be viewed in any kind of positive light :) It's basically an admission of incompetence. I mean, for a software company that's pretty bad. I just don't understand how they make it a selling point that they didn't write it themselves anymore.
Also, I don't think the actual engine was why people didn't like the old Edge. It was more the UI for me. I never had issues with the rendering engine. The could have done the same overhaul with their own engine and it would have been fine too. An extra engine would have been better for the web as an ecosystem, we're now seeing too much of the "IE Effect" with chromium.
I also didn't say they could do "whatever they want". Could you please be a good faith conversationalist and reply only to what was actually said, as opposed to your misinterpretation of what was said?
> they built it therefore they should be able to choose how to distribute it
Tied selling is against the law. No matter who makes it, no matter if its free, if you make the acquisition of a product conditional on the acquisition of another one, it is illegal.
You are correct - that is the problem.
Imagine if your car manufacturer prevented you from using Spotify or Deez or whatever music service you wanted and REQUIRED you to listen to SiriusXM at a significantly marked up cost.
That's the issue.
Actually, we can. We can make a law and enforce it. And there are literally laws being considered to do this.
If you don't like democracy, then feel free to move to a different country.
AOC won the primary in a safe district against the 4th most powerful Democrat in the federal government.
She was the most prominent upset result, but that's because of how powerful who she defeated was. There isn't much room above what she did.
Except that if Tumblr had chosen to take responsibility for the moderation of their platform then it would still be on the store. Twitter, Reddit etc are heavily moderated hence why they are still there.
> Apple has the power to control what software you can download and run on YOUR device
iPhone has been around for 15 years. We know. That's why we bought it in the first place.
Exactly right. It's amazing to me that with these global platforms we are seeing exactly why the legal system evolved the way it did, and why we have things like appeals, precendents, the judges, and levels of courts.
Getting rules and regulations right is not easy. Relying on these platforms to do it is basically reinventing the wheel, except they don't seem to be reinventing it correctly. They are creating kafkaesque impossible to communicate with bureaucracies.
And the funny thing is, due to their focus on profits, they don't really care if 5-10% of the population find it impossible to use their platforms of get banned, because it just doesn't matter to their bottom line if courts and appeals are more expensive to run than just banning them.
And then we basically see why equality before the law evolved, and why its to fucking important.
That seems a strong claim—why do you think Apple doesn’t like Tumblr? They’re not a competitor in any space.
> Sure they could have "provided a web app" that gave a really really shitty experience to everyone compared to an actual app
Tumblr is an actual web site, right?
Yeah, because the iOS ecosystem is well known for allowing competition, especially competing stores.
Many of the issues that Apple create wouldn't exist if competing stores were allowed to exist.
You're missing the forest for the trees. The issue is not building an app specifically with Electron, but building an app which requires a browser. The browser is expensive in terms of resource usage, which results in less battery life.
Using a browser is OK for an app intended for a light usage session (like booking a flight). But not OK for an app which is intended for heavy usage sessions (like browsing pictures in an infinite timeline).
There's a reason Slack (which already has a reputation of impacting your battery life) decided to create a native app for mobile instead of using an Electron-like framework like Capacitor[1].
> Apple’s restrictions on third-party browsers, and the limitations it puts on Safari/WebKit (its own browser tools) have hobbled “web apps,”
Though I'm sure you can also ask many product managers how well native apps on iOS perform due to web apps (many companies have data on both). For whatever reason, users prefer native apps
Plus most of those website "apps" are just a bunch of webviews anyway, so you're not going to save battery by using them. Just like Electron.
Answer: Well obviously, since landlines are missing the biggest feature mobiles phones have: portability.
Point I'm trying to make: 1. Apps are smoother than web experience 2. Have a much native-er feel, etc.
If app is available, I'd rather use an app.
A big thing would be notifications, which at the time of writing is still an issue but slated to be corrected next year.
But Apple gets a free pass?
For all intents and purposes Apple's iphone is the Windows equivalent in many parts of the world. If you are not on it, you do not exist. So Apple needs to be treated like the monopoly/duopoly they are.
macOS exclusive apps, linux exclusive apps, FreeBSD exclusive apps, z/OS exclusive apps, etc..
And considering the state of the art of Linux GPU Drivers, maybe using Windows will be the only feasible way to actually run Linux apps.
There is a technical / physical aspect to interoperability. If you want to swap your engine, the new engine needs to fit and mate up with your transmission (though, this is easier than you might think). If you want to run an app on your phone, it needs to be in a format the OS can use.
Then there is an extra, unnecessary, layer of political control. I absolutely can, with a bit of work, swap in a Chevy LS engine into a Ford F150. I don't have to ask Ford's permission. Chevy doesn't have to ask Fords permission. I, as a person with free will, can buy this engine and that car and combine them.
Apple totally prevents this. They do not allow you to do what you want with the device you own. For good or bad, they absolutely operate differently than other industries. At least from the consumers perspective.
But in your analogy, your VW would only allow VW gas sold by VW at VW filling stations. And the only two types of cars on the road are VWs and Fords, and each have their own filling station.
Now imagine you live in an area where only VW owns gas stations, they lobby the government and explain for the safety of the citizens they can't allow you to use any gas from anyone else, and the closest Ford station is 100 miles away, and you already own a VW.
I could tell you, "hey, you bought into the ecosystem, and you can leave any time".
And you would tell me I'm being unreasonable, and fight your local government to allow 3rd party gas stations.
There's a whole subculture of engine swaps, afaik, they tend not to use vw engines as the donors, but whatevs. You've got to have or make room, probably adapt the connection to the transmission, plus any engine control, cooling, and air/fuel. It's really not that hard, as long as there is room.
On a blog with heavy video, you could manage to freeze your desktop browser within minutes.
2. Safari had and still has some pretty gnarly bugs that require special workarounds.
3. You could not put a link to a website on the homescreen of iOS
Tumblr is perfectly fine on the web, but they want people to download the app so they can use push notifications to juice engagement.
As of Aug 2021, PWA support basically didn't exist except for some parts of the manifest file. No background tasks, none of the major APIs were implemented, and you got nothing but an app tile on your homescreen.. even navigating back and forth from the PWA to another app caused the PWA to lose state. Data storage was basically a nightmare.
There are STILL basic fundamental things missing.
When the tumblr saga was going on, I still don't think you could even read PWA manifests or add them to your homescreen!
None of those things are necessary to create a very full featured Tumblr web application. E.g. twitter works quite well on mobile web.
Tumblr wants people to download the app for engagement purposes.
This was also an issue with Discord - Discord still doesn't (by Apple didact) permit some servers with adult content in the iOS app, because Apple said there was no way to do so and remain in the store.
Given that the problem with Tumblr was the accessibility of CSAM, I think Apple are probably on the right side here saying "just marking it 18+ is not ok" since, y'know, the issue wasn't that "CSAM is available to minors" but "CSAM is available to anyone".
I think Tumblr was singled out and made an example of because they had a narrower user demographic spread, particularly popular with young women. In cynical business logic, this made them a safer target for bullying than a site with broader appeal like reddit, facebook or twitter.
"Additionally, a subset of age-restricted servers that are specifically focused on explicit pornographic content will be blocked entirely on iOS. "
The Javascript ecosystem today is far more diverse, complex and multi-faceted than in the past. It's hard to put together a simple to develop stack that will be supported and maintainable in the future.