Apple considering dropping requirement for iPhone web browsers to use WebKit
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
It feels like this would be best if paired with some regulatory pressure banning cross-promotion of Chrome on Google properties and requiring Google to actually do QA rather than accidentally breaking YouTube, Gmail, Google Cloud, etc. for users other browsers. For all of the “Safari is the new IE6” memes posted, I have far more frequently encountered cases where a Google web application is doing something which only works in Chrome but there is no technical why it could not work just as well in any other modern browser engine.
That was basically my point?
> If Chrome does use this as a power grab, then we should expect EU injunction again.
Since this is behaviour Google is already doing and has been doing for a decade, it seems like the EU could just skip to the part of actually doing something.
How so? There are a number of features Apple dragged their feet on (WebRTC, push notifications, WebM support, AV1, the list goes on), it could be argued that Apple was intentionally stifling the capabilities of the browser to enforce the profitability of the App Store. I understand your concern, but Apple's failure to compete with Google is not Google's fault. Apple had a chance to make a browser that Chrome users switched to, but they didn't. Chrome's market share destroys every Webkit-based browser combined.
Regulators can't see into the future. Thus-far, Chrome's behavior might be frustrating but totally fair game relative to the way Apple plays. Once Safari is competing on it's own merits, we'll see how things go and respond accordingly. If it's anything like the App Store, it'll take us ~8 years to observe the abuse and respond effectively.
In general Google has made no attempt for their browser to be competitive on feature dimensions that matter to many Apple hardware buyers; their share remains driven by residual tech influencer group-think still left over from the IE wars more than the value of, say, WebM over x265. (See also Duck Trumotion and Widevine for more of Google's motivation.)
The profitability motive is false, see Steam charging the same 30% despite e.g. Gog or Microsoft store. This is inconvenient for those making the argument Apple's fee is out of line.
> Chrome's market share destroys every Webkit-based browser combined.
Clearly they need more help with this. Glad EU is looking out for them.
> The profitability motive is false, see Steam charging the same 30% despite e.g. Gog or Microsoft store.
No, it's pretty substantial. The App Store made 80 billion USD last year, which was one of their only businesses that approached hardware profitability. Ensuring that nobody can eschew Apple's software control is completely their directive. If Apple did become more like Steam (eg. had other software stores to compete with) things would be pretty fair I'd argue.
> Clearly they need more help with this. Glad EU is looking out for them.
Apparently Chrome is borderline-unusable on Apple products anyways, so Apple has nothing to worry about.
They 100% do. It's why software installation is as annoying as it is now. Did you do any tech support (even the unofficial kind) around the turn of the millennium, when computer ownership topped 50% (in the US) and Internet use was beginning to become widespread? It was a hellscape of unwanted shitware that users couldn't figure out how to get rid of, and viruses. More recently, I've seen normies install Chrome then wonder where their (Firefox, which they had because I'd installed it) bookmarks went and not know how to get them back (they didn't care at all whether they were using FF or Chrome, but ended up with Chrome anyway because "google said they needed it" on one of those ubiquitous "hey, this site works better in Chrome" ads they put everywhere whether it's true or not) and I've seen one end up paying for OneDrive, and have it totally fuck up their workflows, despite not knowing what OneDrive even does.
> then they shouldn't be trusted with a computer full-stop.
That is no longer an option and there's no chance at all we're going back to a time when it was. I wish we would! But we're not.
Given the number of apps these days that are basically nothing more than thin shims around a mobile site, they're not doing a good job then, are they?
> How so?
Using a different browser on google.com or youtube.com has many times shown me ads claiming that the web is better using Chrome.
Google Cloud's console frequently breaks for non-Chrome users.
YouTube for many years used a non-standard API which only Chrome optimized instead of the standard one which all three implemented, which meant that video playback used far more CPU on other browsers.
YouTube for many years favored WebM format at the expense of video quality and performance.
Google Meet for years would drop sessions for Firefox or Safari. No other WebRTC service had problems with those browsers.
> Chrome's market share destroys every Webkit-based browser combined.
Yes, that's the point. Chrome would not have gotten so far ahead of Firefox and WebKit without both a huge financial push and heavy promotion on Google's most popular web properties.
We'll have to see where things go after Apple starts playing nice. I support legislation that restricts Chrome only if Apple doesn't stand to directly profit from it.
If Apple doesn't want to build a Chrome competitor, then that's not Google's fault. Both companies are refusing to give up their strangleholds, and should be prosecuted accordingly.
First and foremost though, Apple needs to be litigated. The rights of the user should supercede the petty combat between browser developers.
It would help if you argued on the facts, not on your emotion.
Why would you connect how these two different companies should be treated? Sculpting regulation to attempt to engineer an outcome institutionalizing the current market balance between two oligarchs is just about the opposite of what I want any regulator doing.
I'm not sure what the EU could do here; it's not like Chrome is coming pre-installed on iPhones or on Windows. Can the EU breakup Google?
It comes pre-installed on Android; isn't that enough?
Nowadays I believe Samsung at least has their own Samsung Browser, so that's already a large chunk of Android phones that don't have Chrome default.
When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do?
Apple has always placed privacy and efficiency over new features.
I am on a Mac right now. There are no running webkit, webkitd etc processes despite me writing this in Safari.
`lsof | grep webkit`
You'll need to run that as the user handling WebKit processes, so sudo might be required.
And like everyone has said that would only affect startup time. Safari does absolutely blow away Chrome at startup time, but it also is more performant in basically every other way: battery, memory, runtime, window resize, tab open/close/re-open, forward/back, paint, layout...
The UI also is more minimal making well built sites feel much more native than Chrome (on Mac and iOS), especially combined with all the performance.
Chrome feels like a dinosaur.
> On iOS, Cocoa uses WebKit to render text, and everything UIKit-based on MacOS
Various parts of MacOS use the WebKit libraries for rendering, but that's a library, not processes.
You also seem to be very confused as to the difference between a library and a process, given what you've been saying. Having a bunch of apps using WebKit as a framework does not confer any kind of advantage on these apps. If I have an app using WebKit, and you have an app using WebKit, they don't affect each other in the slightest. The only way they would is if they were reusing shared web content processes and so didn't have to wait for those to launch, except a) I imagine launching a web content process is pretty quick, and b) they don't share web content processes so it doesn't matter.
Also if I actually do that right now I see a bunch of WebContent processes, the apps themselves and then there are a handful of daemons that have InfoPlist.strings open from WebKit (from the iOSSupport subsystem) but that's just a localization file and I don't know what it's doing there but it appears to be completely irrelevant (the daemons do not have anything else from WebKit loaded).
AFAIK macOS does not use WebKit to render UI. iOS has been known to use WebKit for text rendering in the past, but I'm not sure if it even still does that, and that was presumably in-process anyway. And even if it did that still wouldn't matter as far as applications' own use of web rendering engines is concerned.
Sure it does: iCal, Mail.app, iTunes (Music app), App Store, etc.
In any case, the OS itself does not rely on WebKit for UI, it just ships some apps that use WebKit.
Which is a moot point on macOS, since you hardly ever close the browser application. You just close the windows and the application stays activated in the Dock.
EDIT: "Safari doesn't help the web be diverse"
Not sure what you mean by that. Safari existing is diversity, but like FF/mozilla was an antidote to the IE years on Windows.
This isn't actually a Safari feature but an iOS feature AFAIK.
I really miss that since it greatly reduced the amount of tabs I opened.
I'm actually continually shocked at Chrome's market share. Is there any PC or laptop platform, besides Chromebooks, that ships Chrome as the default browser? Why is it that so many people took time out of their day to go download a different browser in 2022?
And most computer-savvy people who support less computer-savvy people “helpfully” install Chrome for them, because “everyone knows” it’s the best browser.
On Windows, it also doesn’t help that Edge has the negative image of being associated with Microsoft telemetry, while Google still benefits from its former “don’t be evil” image.
"Pushing the bounds of the web" specifically isn't a huge goal for me, I want to see the bounds of computing pushed. That doesn't have to be on the web. The web is Rube Golberg-esque enough as is. [edit] To be clear I'm not opposed to it, I'm neutral to it.
Edit: I also found a Chrome extension that adds it: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/swipe-back/mkkcgaj...
this unsolvable battle is exactly why I opted for the Brave [1] browser. all the better if they’re able to use alternate engine under the hood next.
The last time I opened a Mac with a battery (i.e., today).
FF has massively improved since then, but Safari is my habit and I’m very happy with it.
Here’s the latest one for example: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT213530
Side note, last pass on Mac is a pile of hot garbage. I wish I had never gotten my family onto it because switching is going to be a hassle.
It’s also not the case that any current browser is so bad that the web is better off without it. Anyone with web development experience has run into problems or limitations with every browser and depending on what you do you will have different assessments of which one is best at a given time. For example, on the Interop 2022 effort all three browser teams have been coordinating currently Safari is in the lead and that will continue to shift over time.
> When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do?
Firefox and Safari are both noticeably faster and use less memory. If you care about that, or work on battery that’s enough right there.
Firefox and Safari don’t have conflicts of interest preventing privacy improvements or ad blocking.
I haven’t used Chrome as my default browser since Firefox took the performance crown ~5 years ago but I’ve used all of them plenty as a web developer. The idea that Chrome is so far ahead that we should give up on the web having multiple implementations and just let Google run it is completely the opposite of my experience.
But it is. Safari on IOS is either missing or badly implements every system that lets web apps compete with system apps.
It's totally impossible to use something other than safari on IOS as well, which basically means apple is able to force a very significant amount of web traffic into their browser and basically lock out any feature the choose.
That is bad for the web.
Additionally, I think you're mistaken on the performance crown. Firefox made big gains years ago but chrome has always managed to perform better at most tasks despite those gains.
Maybe if you were running really low on ram Firefox is the faster option? That's not your typical use case though.
I use Firefox regardless. I way value their not crippling AdBlock over chrome and would encourage everyone to use it despite speed issues.
> Additionally, I think you're mistaken on the performance crown. Firefox made big gains years ago but chrome has always managed to perform better at most tasks despite those gains.
This always comes down to which specific things you benchmark. All I can say is that I use Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari on macOS, iOS, and Windows and it's exceedingly uncommon for Chrome/Edge to feel faster but I do notice their memory impact on the rest of the system. For battery life, Safari is hands down the winner followed by Firefox and then, distantly, the Chromium browsers.
Every time I try to use Safari to create something that goes beyond "display text" it's a new adventure in bugs and unsupported features that work in the other browsers.
It's not one of those things you can sit and name, it's a 90/10 issue, and the margins are critical even though they appear small.
Bugs surrounding drag and drop is what lead me to abandon all hope of supporting the browser some months ago.
Do you have any examples which aren't so vague? The only times I've encountered this problem with other developers has been when they were using lots of Chrome-only features and put off testing in other browsers; when starting development in Firefox or Safari the most common case since around the early 2000s has been that everything works in the other two browsers with minimal effort.
Being hyperbolic doesn't help your case; it just looks like you're bashing WebKit because it's from Apple. And while you may have had a bad experience back in the day or don't like that Apple chooses not to implement esoteric or Chrome-only features, that doesn't mean that Safari sucks now.
As I pointed out earlier in the thread [1], Apple has done a great job lately implementing features that they, Google, Mozilla and Microsoft have agreed should be implemented and interoperable and have W3C/WHATWG specifications.
Every browser has bugs; the bug trackers for WebKit, Mozilla and Google are public, so we can actually see what they are.
Like the other browser makers, Apple publishes its bug fixes when a new version of WebKit is released.
Not bashing web kit because it's from Apple, I'm bashing web kit because I had a website, I wanted to make that website support safari, and it was an absolute pain to the degree that I gave up on it.
The only other browser I've had experiences like this in has been Firefox mobile. I have similar feelings about Firefox mobile.
On the desktop, technically maybe Safari is fine on the desktop because I don't own a Mac so I can't test it, but chrome and Firefox are perfectly easy to make work together on the web with no issues. I do it everyday, safari is not normal in this.
There's nothing special that has to be done to "support Safari" other than writing normal CSS, HTML and JavaScript just like for any other browser.
Even if you used something experimental or Chrome-only, there are polyfills for most features. This only makes sense for a public facing website (e-commerce, for example), since Safari is on over a billion devices and some of those potential customers might want to use your site.
> maybe Safari is fine on the desktop because I don't own a Mac so I can't test it
Other than some minor differences, the latest version of WebKit is essentially the same on iOS, macOS and iPadOS.
It's pretty common to use something like CodePen [1] to demonstrate CSS and HTML features publicly.
[1]: https://codepen.io/
Yes, it holds back further adoption of cutting edge features that some developers would like but that the average person doesn't care about.
However, it also holds back features that would increase the scope of what the web is, including more features that allow bad faith operators to track and monetize our data.
It's seriously frustrating how little regard is given to efficiency in both Blink and Gecko. It don't care if the engine supports WebBanana 2.0 if it's destroying battery life.
Given that the alternative are app stores controlled by the device vendor, yes. Either we free our devices so that custom software is acceptable and common again or we make sure the web is the go to platform for everything.
You are making claims about values here, and not everyone shares your values.
People generally value being able to do more stuff. Putting control into the hands of large central parties generally does not go well.
You’re providing tautological responses.
You’ve been asked specific things about what features are missing from Safari / WebKit. You’ve replied with vague generalizations that don’t hold to be true outside of the echo chamber of the Chrome Reality Distortion Field.
Then why are you are in favor of a Chrome monopoly (the obvious externality here)?
I’m unhappy that Apple implemented web notifications, personally. So much easier to never have to think about that garbage.
Every single time I need a browser. On iPhone, iPad and MacBook.
All reasons have been mentioned already, so will not repeat them here.
I get that it's easy to attack Apple these days but anyone paying attention can objectively see that Safari has been kicking ass this year. It's easy to do the "whataboutism" thing and they're late on a few things… but if this is a sign of things to come for Safari (style queries and masonry grids are in the works, for example), this is a Good Thing for the web and should be treated as such.
* first to implement (March) the most anticipated CSS feature that was thought to be impossible to implement for most of the past 20 years, the :has() parent selector [1]. It took Chrome until the end of August and it's still not enabled by default in Firefox because bugs
* first to implement wide-gamut color support [1a](2020)
* first to implement oklch and oklab (and a bunch more) color spaces [2]
* first to implement the open Webauthn standard Passkeys a few months ago; Chrome 108 just announced support
* support for all of the "hot" CSS features like Container Queries, Subgrid, new viewport units, AVIF image format and (as they say) "more" [3]
* Mozilla, Google, Apple and Microsoft agreed to focus on the interoperability of 15 web features; WebKit currently passes 98.5% of the tests the companies have agreed to, leading the other companies [4].
[1]: https://webkit.org/blog/13096/css-has-pseudo-class/
[1a]: https://webkit.org/blog/10042/wide-gamut-color-in-css-with-d...
[2]: https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/oklch-in-css-why-quit-rg...
[3]: https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0...
[4]: https://webkit.org/blog/13591/webkit-features-in-safari-16-2...
I feel like Firefox might actually regain marketshare if it can ship on iOS. Firefox on Android has a decent claim to be being better than Chrome at this point (largely because you can't run extensions on Chrome).
Firefox is better than Chrome on Android, but it doesn't have the market share to match.
For any day-to-day browsing, I use Brave with the cryptocurrency bits turned off. I used the "Fennec" version of Firefox for Android for years, since my first smartphone in college, but by the time the GeckoView-based rewrite was released, I just got tired of the poor performance and reduced battery life compared to Chromium. Only one anecdote, but Firefox felt more jittery and made my phone much hotter than Chromium did.
After the UI overhaul, where (IMO) they tried to copy a Chromium-style interface, I ran out of any non-ideological reasons to use it over Chromium-with-an-ad-blocker-built-in.
I'll plug my main mobile browser which is now Samsung's internet. I gave it a hesitant try after being disappointed by FF and I'm positively surprised. The UI customization options are even better than Firefox.
Do not use it if you rely on accurate color reproduction. Expect a decease in usability (dark text on dark backgrounds, light on light) on reading some sites.
“The information we obtain in this manner may include, identifiers associated with your devices, types of devices, web browser characteristics, device and operating system type and characteristics, language preferences, clickstream data, your interactions with Samsung Internet (such as the web pages you visit, links you click and features you use), dates and times of your use of Samsung Internet, and other information about your use of Samsung Internet.”
https://developer.samsung.com/internet/privacy-policy-us.htm...
Thank you for spreading this.
Sigh
Only things that still bother me on FF is not having access to all extensions and not having pull to refresh.
About not having the full extension catalog available out of the box: it's pitiful, but if you're determined to install non pre-allowed extensions, you can do so using Nightly and with a custom add-on collection. See https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio....
I only have "Scroll to hide toolbar" and "Swipe toolbar sideways to switch tabs"
This is in Firefox 108.1.0 which is the latest.
I know you can mess with Nightly to allow other addons but I don't really like using nightly to be honest. This feature should really be in the mainline too.
Firefox is currently superior to Chrome on Android, yet the market share is abysmal and irrelevant. I don't see why swapping the browser engine would grow market share, other than wishful thinking.
So you can't innovate on that, at least meaningfully. If you want the browser with best website support, then you'd go with Chrome. If you wanted your bookmarks from your desktop to be in sync with mobile bookmarks, then most likely you are going to install Chrome, because most likely you had Chrome on your desktop (as it is the most common desktop browser).
Also, an apple policy change to lifts the restrictions for non-apple apps to not be extendable, is a different beast entirely from allowing custom web rendering engines.
iOS+Chrome users already do this, it would just change iOS Chrome's backend rendering engine.
They have to come from the app store, which greatly reduces the number of plugins available compared to FF, and subjects them to the same strict policies as their apps.
Let's start with the facts. Firefox market share has been chronically flat with little to no change for years, as the global mobile browser market share [0] has shown even with Android having browser choice for the user.
Hence that, it also suggests that even if Apple did the same thing, it would just further cement Chrome's dominance on iOS. Firefox on mobile is shrinking into irrelevancy.
[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world...
Surprisingly, that's not enough to be competitive with the browser that's already installed on people's phones.
So no, Firefox still doesn't support extensions on android and hasn't since they disabled them years ago.
THIS is why people like me don't use firefox on android and use chromium-based browsers instead. At least, they let me install the add-ons I want.
That's the complete list, yeah. It's utterly ridiculous and insulting.
You can get around it by making an online collection of extensions with a Mozilla/whatever account, but you can't install from files.
I largely agree, it doesn't meet my bar for "supports extensions" :/ hence at the very least "significant step down" - that much is at least not contentious.
Left hand, meet right hand.
To this day, swathes of people who were involved in this effort (some of them very prominent) are utterly convinced that it wasn't the demonstrably bad idea that it really was, but more like a case of just plain bad luck in the marketplace. Meanwhile, they sat by ineptly as ChromeOS became much more successful for the laptop form factor than FirefoxOS ever was on any device and Electron started charting its ascendancy with more and more non-mobile apps jumping aboard over time.
So congrats to the corporate geniuses who pissed away the head start that Mozilla as a project already had and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing even when it became clear that there, in fact, was tons of interest in a cross-platform framework for desktop/WIMP apps, contrary to management's insistence otherwise. It's a masterclass of incompetence that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should.
The rest of it, yeah. Absolutely agreed. Electron not having a Firefox equivalent in particular strikes me as a major, multi-year... not oversight, that's far too polite. Self-ostriching? I'm continually astounded beyond words. The market is massive, and nauseatingly ripe for competitors.
Which ones? I've used Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Whereby in Safari with no problems. I've never encountered a video service _not_ work in it.
All of the major services support it and the only one which I’ve ever had problems with is Google’s, which shockingly had issues with every browser other than Chrome. Do you have links to bug reports?
I switched to Safari primarily a while back because it used the least battery and memory (Safari & Firefox were close, Chrome is a distant gluttonous third place). I’ve noticed very, very few cases where a compatibility issue forced me to switch browsers. As a web developer I use all three, of course, and using Chrome doesn’t feel notably better so halving my energy usage is an easy trade.
At one point I was doing a lot of coding in a coffee shop. When testing my work in Safari, I could sit down and run on my Mac’s batteries until I got tired of the coffee shop and headed home.
With Chrome, I had to plug in immediately. I believe people who tell me Chrome has better bling and is faster, but Safari is fast enough for my purposes, and battery life is a far bigger factor for my browser choice than raw performance.
https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=__open__&cont...
I ask because that returns 351 issues but if you do the same search for Chrome you'll find 414. I would assume that you would agree that the correct interpretation of that is not that Chrome doesn't support WebRTC?
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=component...
Since all of the major services work without issue in all mainstream browsers, I would argue that to a first approximation this is not an effective proxy metric.
Let's work on that argument a bit more before posting hyperbole.
1. I mention “approved” because of things like the way YouTube used to be faster in Chrome because they shipped a draft of the Shadow DOM API and then took a long time updating to use the standard version which other browsers implemented, during which time those other browsers were served a slow polyfill instead. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17606027
I increasingly have to open up Edge to do basic stuff because people have stopped testing on anything other than Chrome and the set of Chrome-only APIs out there to use is constantly expanding.
I like Safari too, so even with this change I'll keep using it on my Apple devices.
They might have diverged technically but they're still both not really FOSS software.
- other browsers exist for iOS, and users seem not to care that much for the alternatives, but…
- if other engines are permitted, then user-facing differentiators like extensions will make their way to competing browsers on iOS.
Outside of PWAs, I can’t think of many other features other than maybe arbitrary file upload that requires more hooks into the OS (as opposed to greater control of the browser engine). Genuinely interested in hearing/thinking of more, if you have any.
It’s not a stretch; it’s silly to say otherwise. Regardless of the rendering engine and the ability to make a 3rd-party browser the default on iOS which has been a thing for a few years now, Safari is the most popular browser on iOS and iOS runs on something like 1.5+ billion devices worldwide.
Normies don’t know and don’t care about the rendering engine when they use Firefox, Brave, Chrome, etc. on iOS and yet those browsers probably have single digit installed base on iOS.
And nothing would meaningfully change even if Firefox and Chrome ran natively on iOS.
Example: "Firefox has an extension that allows you to download videos from youtube -- it's way better than Safari."
I use Brave on iOS often because it makes doing certain things easier than Safari and it’s UI is quite good.
Google will likely turn on the popups with "BETTER ON CHROME! TRY CHROME NOW!" for ios users once it's possible
May you explain this, because Google can't even ship their browser engine (Blink) on iOS and have to use WebKit. Why hasn't the world coalesced around WebKit?
I think that matters because while Chrome has a number of great engineers, it's a single team at one company and the web should be bigger than that. We've seen many examples of a Google-proposed spec which became better with feedback from Mozilla or Apple engineers, and that makes the web healthier overall. One really interesting example here has been with tracking where every browser which Google does not control has a better privacy stance because none of those companies make their money by tracking people.
iOS is not the entire ecosystem. Blink dominates everywhere else.
* Install any software
* Install any App Store and choose to make it default
* Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default
* Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default
* Use any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default
* Use any messaging app and choose to make it default
* Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer
* Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC
* Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals
> 4. The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.
As software, firmware, and hardware lines blur, it's a legacy concept that hardware and software must be divided.
Incredible value comes from fluid and designer-driven remixing of the three according to usability, ruggedness/resilience, and security principles.
The most useful appliances for Normals™ will be the ones that blend these best. This kind of ruling holds us back from the huge vertically integrated design investments that deliver ease of use and trust that end users want.
TL;DR many Apple users like the way things are now, and don't want any amount of risk to that. The chief risk we see is that we'll no longer be able to get 100% of the software we want (or are forced to use) on iOS through the Apple app store, with all of Apple's protections and guarantees, or that Apple will have to reduce those protections and guarantees to keep such a splintering from happening. Yes, we're aware that Android hasn't seen much adoption of alternative stores, but Android also hasn't (delightfully) jammed a thumb in Facebook's eye over and over. Even a small chance of that coming to pass isn't worth it to us. We wish you'd all just go use Android or Linux phones or whatever and leave us alone.
It's fine that you enjoy Apple's curation, they can still curate things for you under the new law. They just also need to provide competitive app distribution. Considering how many complaints I've heard from devs vis-a-vis the App Store, I reckon some competition is exactly what Apple needs to put them in line.
Yes. So you get why some of us aren't thrilled about all this.
I don't think that's ever been the case. You've never been able to get an alternative browser on the Apple App Store or a streaming gaming app such as Xbox Cloud Gaming, or Geforce Now. Or currently I cannot get Fortnite
These are all apps I want that are not available on the Apple App Store.
Which is fine, to be clear. It's just opinions and preferences.
(Btw, SetApp app approach works too.)
Meanwhile, Steam competes with Gig on PC and charges 30%. All this 'allow alt app stores to break apple's pricing' (zero other real benefits are cited) has not happened on PC.
Steam is a different product in a different market. Steam's 30% is set by the market deciding that Steam's value is worth the 30%. Apple's 30% comes from whatever Apple feels like charging because there is no alternatives, hence the complaints. If you believe Apple's 30% comes from value and that no one can beat it, then they should be able to prove it in some free market competition like Steam has.
And that's how it will be if you choose to use Apple's software sources. Its as simple as that.
There is absolutely no argument for preventing other people from using something else.
There is though. I'm not going to post it yet again because it's already in this thread multiple times, and in literally every other thread like this ever on this site.
You might disagree with the argument, but you're flat-out wrong that it doesn't exist or can be trivially dismissed on factual grounds.
Santa EU seems to be bringing me the gift I've always wanted.
I would so love to have Google Assistant rather than Siri on my iPhone. GA is so much better hands-free / eyes-free. Being able to say "OK Google ...." when driving, cooking, working out, etc and being able to get a decent answer is something I really miss from my Pixel days. It is so frustrating when Siri just says "here is what I found on the web"
It's likely that third-party assistants will only be accessible via the side button.
And there is zero chance Apple will allow third parties to submit their own model since this part of the hardware has continuous access to the microphone.
* Require apps to pay their commission similar to the Netherlands dating apps situation.
* Only allow apps to be installed that have a valid certificate.
* Require apps on their store to go through the approval process.
Edit: I'm not sure if the third point has been edited or I simply misread it, but the DMA would not prevent Apple from moderating their own App Store. It would prevent Apple from moderating apps on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
I especially love the idea that the DMA prevents Apple from moderating apps inside their store.
And no I didn’t edit my comment. Feel free to provide evidence of the others.
Just to be clear, I'm not stating that Apple won't be able to moderate apps on their store. I'm stating that Apple won't be able to moderate apps on their operating systems.
The Gatekeeper must allow installation of applications (Article 4. S4):
> The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.
There is no wiggle room here. The Gatekeeper can't restrict installation of applications in any way, including by way of certificate requirements, approval processes, or fees.
You can read the Act in full here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj
If you're a legal geek like I am it's worth spending a few hours combing through it. I am thoroughly impressed with how meticulous they've been. It's easily the most comprehensive (and impressive) tech legislation in my lifetime.
At no point does it say that Apple can't decide which apps are allowed to appear in their store.
Only that they can't prevent third party stores.
Why do so many people want to force Apple to make them an Android phone?
And no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. Why don't you buy Android if you want to do all that stuff?
I recently switched to an iPhone because I want everything to "just work" and not deal with the android crap- and I honestly couldn't be happier.
>Not all iPhone users are the same
Actually most of them are- they don't want to deal managing a device.. they just want something that works.
Sometimes I don't like democrats. I don't like all policies backed by democratic candidates, and I definitely have problems with the DNC. However, that doesn't mean I want to vote Republican, or Green Party, or Libertarian.
Please don't get caught up in taking the analogy to it's logical extreme (or read it literally, because it's not literal.) The point is that there is no perfect option on the market for me. I don't have a single criteria for the perfect smartphone. I don't just want a device that boots Firefox well.
And in fact, Apple, much to the chagrin of those of us who hate Apple, makes some of the best computer and phone hardware on the planet. It's not even a contest, in some cases.
Do you use a macOS computer by chance? Do you feel like the Asahi Linux effort is harming your ability to use and enjoy the Mac computer? Does it cause problems for you, or make things no longer "just work", when someone is allowed to install Firefox?
> Why don't you buy Android if you want to do all that stuff?
I do. They're not perfect either. Google Pixel phones are pretty good, but I doubt I need to expound upon the problems of them for you. You pretty much seem to get it given the next few lines. (Not trying to be condescending here.)
> Actually most of them are- they don't want to deal managing a device.. they just want something that works.
Most users of all mass-market devices are like this, be it Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel or iPhone. It's not really to your point, though, because iPhone has bred perhaps one of the most interesting communities through people's sheer desires to break it apart and customize it. I'm sure you're aware of the rich history of jailbreaking iPhones; and while a small percent of users, (just like Android rooting,) those jailbreaks get nontrivial huge amounts of attention. It's basically international news when a new untethered jailbreak kit shows up, and undoubtedly millions of users use them.
Apple may very well not want these users, but Apple wants to make the world's best phone. Well, you may not want the consumer you get, but that's the symmetry of this all. There's a give and a take.
This is turning something that should be a gradient into a zero-sum. Features like side load dot not make existing features stop working. Allowing other browsers doesn't make iPhone just not work.
> they just want something that works.
The reason people are interested in side loading apps and opening up iOS is there are quite a few people like me that drop $1000 on an iPhone, and it does not just work for me when it really should work better than a $100 Android. The only difference seems to be anti-me features that protect Apple's monopoly on the app store.
None of that will change.
Whatever changes Apple will have to make to support drop-in replacements for Siri, a complete elimination of certification requirements for Gatekeeper, and so on, as listed in this very thread, will absolutely disrupt the status quo and make things more complex.
I hope that Apple will strive to make it so the defaults match the current reality, but just like soldered-in batteries mean more capacity without the need for connectors, so too do baked-in defaults mean more stability without the need to pluggability.
It may not be the end of the world, but it is a pretty drastic change that people are dismissing as "allow alternate browser engines," when it's so much more than that.
Truth be told, I don't care about alternate voice assistants. That said, today, you can get almost all of Google Assistant on an iPhone just fine, the only thing it really can't do is well, respond to your voice passively and do things on the lock screen. Exactly how much power they're willing to expose I'm not sure, but it doesn't really seem like they have to give everyone access to the same internal APIs they use so as long as the APIs they provide give enough feature parity.
I think the sky is not falling.
The sky isn't falling by any means, but iOS is absolutely going to get more complicated as a result of these changes, even for people who stick with the defaults, as I likely will in most or all cases.
And of course I wonder: will Apple be releasing Siri for Android? Presumably Google would be required to allow for it.
It doesn't seem possible that Apple would not have coded Safari up in a way that they would be able to replace the engine. I don't see why they would have couple it so tightly. It seems un-Apple like. What if they wanted to replace the engine?
However, they do release WebKit for use by others, so in that sense I presume there's a certain looseness in the coupling. Which is not to say there aren't assumptions that will have to be unwound.
Standards change over time so the existing engine picks up cruft.
(And also, I viscerally disagree that a smart phone is in any way, shape or form, an "appliance". Appliances exist to serve a specific purpose. The main differentiation between an appliance containing a computer, and a computer, is that the appliance's computer hardware and software exists to drive the main function of the appliance. Smart phones are being used as pocket computers. That's not an appliance.)
Install and run programs? Yep. Perform productivity tasks, like edit video or even sketch? Yep. Writing blog posts, browsing the internet? Yep. Playing video games, streaming videos? Yep.
My friend. You can fight it, but this is a general purpose mobile computer.
Hardware.
> It's my impression that the hardware for newer android phones is pretty much on par, no?
eh.
It's worse optically considering how big of a conflict of interest it is for them, and astounding considering that on macOS, a platform with browser choices, Apple has no issues supporting WebM. No battery life problems or anything.
(On Android, I do definitely take advantage of being able to use Termux, and Yt-dlp, and actually manage files. That said: this is the exception. It's very useful, but not something I'd even consider absolutely necessary.)
None of my friends are willing to download messaging apps so I need iMessage in order to have a semi decent text conversation with them.
No, it isn't; the iPhones are a dramatically better value provided you're not looking at the high end. The SE 2 and Pixel 6A have as much useful life remaining in them- they'll leave support at the same time and are competitive in terms of performance. The problem, of course, is that the SE 2 is half the price of the Pixel 6A.
At the same price point, you have the SE 3, which is an iPhone 13 inside; Apple just happens to be 2014 Intel compared to the 2014 AMD of Qualcomm/Samsung/Google (yes, they really are that bad at CPU design). 90Hz screens aren't an advantage if the hardware and software can't keep (or stop keeping) up, and Android only has disadvantages in those areas.
The only things I wish my iPhone did was block ads on YouTube (and play videos with the screen off) and not require a hundred dollar subscription fee for the privilege of not arbitrary expiring my applications after 7 days. NewPipe, uBlock Origin, and being able to install whatever I want are massive boons for the way I use my phone; provided iOS had those things, I would likely never consider an Android phone again barring significant hardware changes that Apple intentionally fails to integrate (like the foldable screens).
It's because they want to "Think Different" than the way Apple wants them to.
It's your phone. Shouldn't you be able to run the software you want on it?
It's true that some Android phones are more locked down than others.
However, on most you can side load apps and install alternative App Stores such as f-Droid or Amazon, with just a few settings changes.
The same is not possible with Apple devices. You can temporarily side load an app if you pay the costs to get a developer key to sign an app. Alternative App Stores are just not possible yet.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
Well the built-in software will still be there. And if you have a use-case that it doesn't support then you'll have the option to install other software that does. Seems like a pure win from a user perspective.
For years, I had the jailbreak installed only for a single feature.
Apple does not need to run the quasi government for 50% of US consumer Internet users, which is effectively what they were doing.
This will free them up to focus on excellence and innovation.
Now add the money incentive and you get apps that track and trick you in every turn because the competition is so heavy and marketing costly. Let’s say Netflix makes their own app store for Netflix and their games. If they loose around a third of their customers it’s still ok. Now Netflix plays fast and loose with the sandboxing because they really want feature x, like lock the screen to the Netflix app only unlockable with their PIN, so they allow this, suddenly another app with malicious intent uses the feature. We have seen similar things happen on early versions of Windows mobile and Palm Pilot.
I get the argument that Apple fighting on behalf of users can be good. Unfortunately they went well beyond that remit, and have blocked all kinds of useful applications on specious and moral grounds. What right should Apple have to block xCloud? Or Fortnite? Or emulators? Or torrent applications? Or crypto wallets? Or adult themed apps? Or Parler? And this says nothing of their predatory revenue model. They had their chance to be good citizens of a dominant platform. They totally blew it. They chose to tell users and legislators to go fuck themselves. This is 100% Apple’s fault.
This would ironically make me come back to iOS. I use Android because google's voice system is magnitudes better than Siri.
Do we, though? I use "I don't care about cookies": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/i-dont-care-about-... to deal with the mess.
Eu mandated that the users should be clearly told what would be tracked, they should be given an easy way to accept, reject, and choose which of them they accept.
The corporations - mainly the US - chose to 'get around' these requirements in the undying US corporate tradition: Make it difficult for the user to reject cookies so they will have to give up and just accept. Most modals have only an 'accept' and 'choose' sections, and the 'choose' section includes a gigantic list of 'vendors' which you have to individually turn off one by one. So that you will give up and just click 'accept'. Some of them offer a 'reject all' button way at the bottom of of the list, after listing 30-40 vendors. So basically its the usual corporate trickery to force user to do things they don't want to.
However, this is illegal - Eu works on civil law, and civil law is a clear, well defined legal practice. If it says you have to do some specific thing, there isnt much 'interpret my way around it'. So, per that law, all the cookie modals that do not give the users an EASY way to reject cookies are in violation of that law. It absolutely does not matter zit if the user 'consents' to the terms. Mutual agreements and contract law overriding actual law is a trait of the Anglosaxon common law, not civil law. In civil law, it doesnt matter zit if the other party agreed to something illegal per law.
Therefore, not only all these pesky modals that try to force you into accepting those ~80 cookies from a random website you visit are not Eu's doing, but also most of them are actually in violation of the GDPR law.
I feel like people give a pass and even defend it because it had good intentions. Clearly it wasn't well thought and people should criticize it more instead. Bad execution can ruin good ideas.
Of course there are other good things on GDPR as a whole but this cookie consent thing was a disaster. I live in the EU but use a VPN routing my connections to a nearby non-eu country to have an overall better browsing experience.
There’s no good idea that the EU won’t find some way to execute poorly, alas.
What you say just sounds like Daily Mirror grade smear.
The EU is great at taking credit for things it had very little to do with. Sometimes it’s obvious things that happen elsewhere without the EU (expiration dates on food), sometimes it’s the work of other organisations (like NATO). “Oh, there’s peace in Europe? Yeah, the EU did that. Oh, there’s war in Europe? Hmm, more EU should fix that.”
> What you say just sounds like Daily Mirror grade smear.
I’m a euro-federalist, so I doubt the Daily Mirror would be interested. The EU is a mixed bag and I want it to do better. Reflexively attacking people whose views you know very little about seems unconstructive.
A large part of the world adopted such rules after the Eu implemented them. The Eu is seen as the leader and standard in these things. Eu implemented consumer protections, everyone else in OECD also did. Eu implemented EUVAT, OECD countries are also doing it. Also various US states. Eu implemented GDPR, and suddenly from Brazil to US every other country or state has their own GDPR.
Now the Eu has its digital gatekeepers law. Watch how long will it take for other OECD countries to adopt similar laws.
> Reflexively attacking people whose views you know very little
Sorry but we are on public internet. We dont have the time to sit and get to know people. If you are talking like the people from a certain group, then its normal that people respond to you as if you were from that group.
Moreover, the culture that people grow up in affects their perspective greatly. Not surprisingly, having grown in an Anglosaxon country seems to have shaped your perspective too.
We had most of these other things before EU even existed. Brazilian's Código de Defesa do Consumidor dates from 1990. Expiration dates are such a common thing worldwide its not even worth searching on there internet. A quality assurance institution named INMETRO exists since the 70s testing everything from condoms reliability to reporting small parts in children's toys. Brazil also pioneered net neutrality one year before the EU.
Talking about culture perspective you seem to admire the EU regulatory frame and that's fine but as I said before nothing is perfect and its totally ok to criticize something that is poorly conceived even if intentions were good.
Nope. Euparl does most of these regulations. The GDPR, digital gatekeepers and various other internet related laws originated from the left wing parties in Euparl - those parties grew from pirate party roots. The pirate parties that were founded in many Eu countries in mid 2000s during the copyright/filesharing battles.
That is a big factor in proliferation of such agreements, however thats not the normal mechanic. Japan has no need for copying EUVAT to trade with the Eu for example. But they are doing it. Also, various US states implemented similar schemes without any such need.
> Talking about culture perspective you seem to admire the EU regulatory frame
I explicitly do. What you are seeing with the emergence of recent regulations like GDPR, digital gatekeepers is due to the ascent of pro-people, pro open web parties that grew from pirate party roots coming to power in the Eu parliament.
> A quality assurance institution named INMETRO exists since the 70s
Eu started as a coal cooperation organization in mid 1950s and by 70s most of its institutions and practices were in place - especially in the direction of consumer, product and manufacturing regulations. It was the example even by then.
The idea of VAT dates back to the First World War, and while the EU assists European governments in coordinating its collection in Europe, it had no meaningful impact on the adoption of VAT-style taxes overseas. Neither Australia nor the United States levy VAT.
Consumer protections absolutely do not originate in the EU. It’s a claim so absurd I honestly don’t know what to say to it. English civil law has had case law and statute protecting consumers for centuries, which is in no way remarkable, seeing as even Roman law had consumer protections in cases of fraud, mistake, or duress.
The idea that the EU is some shining beacon on a hill that everyone looks up to is something one hears a lot around Europe, but I think the people who think this may have places like Moldova confused with the rest of the world. The EU is the fastest shrinking trade bloc, in relative terms, on the face of the planet. Europeans used to like saying that if they were a single country, they’d be the largest economy in the world. That ceased to be true in the last few years - the US has now overtaken the EU. Whereas the US has to manage runaway growth and speculative excess, the EU is forced to make provisions for its relative economic decline. If European countries were US states, living standards in large European economies like Germany and France would rank near the bottom. This is a huge problem. Less prosperity means less quality government services, including healthcare, social security, and education. Less growth over time means fewer nurses, fewer teachers in the future. If the EU single market is such a towering achievement, why is EU growth so sclerotic? It’s hard for Europeans to hear, but the EU is simply not a model people outside of Europe aspire to, even people who otherwise love Europe.
The European project has wonderful achievements, in my opinion, like the Schengen area, and deep scientific and educational cooperation, including Erasmus exchanges for young people. But instead of focusing on those, the EU prefers to claim credit for the sunrise. I’d rather see the EU reformed than abolished - it’s still a net good, I think - but far too many Europeans are far too myopic about the EU’s shortcomings, and far too ignorant about how the rest of the world functions to consider alternatives. (Or even just apply a reasonable degree of scepticism when the EU claims credit for things that predate it or that are already widespread elsewhere.)
> Sorry but we are on public internet. We dont have the time to sit and get to know people.
You seem to be defending bad faith assumptions as a time saving device. Seems to me like that would just set you up for a lot of unnecessarily adversarial discussions, and a generally less pleasant experience than you could be having.
Its not open to abuse. Its just that the US corporations are violating its articles.
> Clearly it wasn't well thought
It was well thought out. It mandates easy Accept / Reject for tracking. Just one click. Tell the users what you will track. And allow them to choose if they want to.
The route that the US corps. took is no different from how they go around and violate laws in their home turf. They think that they can do the same with civil law. But it doesn't work that way. Eventually one will get busted for not obliging with the articles of the law.
So if the website doesn't collect any data at all, except for what is needed for running the website and preventing malicious users (so, collecting ips for a week in the logs to use fail2ban), do they need a "privacy" section?
I ask because a privacy section requires a lawyer, and that is a big cost for a simple static website with no earning goals
I dont think they do. There are such sites indeed and I havent seen any prompts in them.
> so, collecting ips for a week in the logs to use fail2ban
IP by solely itself wouldnt constitute 'Personally identifiable information' as far as I know. But Im not sure.
> I ask because a privacy section requires a lawyer
Not really. Website privacy legal templates already exist and they are pretty standard at this point.
IP is considered identifiable information if it's used for some purpose (e.g. statistics for website visits). I'm pretty sure it's considered "legit use" if it's for filtering malicious users.
Could you point to some of those standards? I had a customers reaching out and found myself without any idea how to handle that privacy section.
> IP is considered identifiable information
Not at all. IP by itself is meaningless and it just points to a computer or a proxy. Only if you have other information then it starts becoming identifiable. Even in court cases that involve IPs its not enough - the ISP gives the IP to the court, but then the court must find who was the person using that IP at that given point in time in that house, even the person using the computer.
> Could you point to some of those standards?
You can just google privacy section templates with GDPR keyword. There are a lot of templates as such. WordPress itself provides an easy way to create such templates and it already has GDPR tools built in.
What worries me is every app that's not a dedicated browser suddenly including an entire browser engine (the way that every app on macOS/Windows now does). Apps will import one version of Chromium and then not update it for *years*, long past the point where it contains security holes and lacks support for new platform features.
Steam on Win/Mac/Linux is still using Chromium 85! That's 2 years old, and it's a piece of software under active development.
I know of an actively-developed Windows game using CEF 3!!
In other words: do you want your favorite bank/airline/restaurant/government agency's app to be 100+ MB bigger and contain a growing number of vulnerabilities? I don't, and neither does Apple. If this goes ahead, I hope the App Store rules around it are thorough. Shipping a browser is a huge responsibility, one that most organizations are not prepared for.
Android allows any browser engine you like (even Webkit if someone would manage to compile it) and people don't generally do nonsense this on Android. I don't see why the situation would be any different here. The reason is simple: the web view API is easy to use, automatically updated, and backwards compatible.
As another benefit, devices that have fallen out of support may receive updates for browsers, making them usable again.
That being said, I returned my first and last iPhone after realizing that Firefox on iOS couldn't run the NoScript extension.
It is frankly shocking that Apple has managed to go this long while blatantly contravening the precedent set by United States v. Microsoft Corp., and I'm glad the EU is finally taking a stand on that front.
I've also seen developers cling to particular versions of Electron simply because their app is so brittle that its behavior on different versions of Chromium is not consistent or even breaks, which is frankly ridiculous. If it doesn't run on the latest version of Chrome at minimum it shouldn't be shipped.
The app dev will simply use framework X and because of that it includes some version of some browser engine.
They might let other engines in, sure; but will they relax the restriction on their memory mapping entitlements to allow for optimizing JITs? Doubt it. Means you'll only be able to use alternative rendering engines that have JS interpreters with no optimizing JIT. Stuff like that.
Third party app stores will be a cesspool of malware and garbage, like they are on Android now.
I'd say the Google Play store is the one actually full of awful software a lot of which is actually malware. Part of this can be attributed to Google's loose requirements and the other perhaps Android's security model in general is too permissive. It's very easy to fuck up your Android phone in a way that you simply can't on iOS.
I'm not terribly concerned about it since I think a lot of it comes down to how iOS and Android are designed, but it's not not a concern.
It would be to allow you to install chrome or firefox on your iPhone.
Who is allowed to vertically integrate, and who isn't? Under what principle of free markets and user choice? Should users by forbidden from choosing true vertical integration as a design choice? Why?
Why does Steam charge 30% if we think Apple having no competitors is why they charge 30%? Since you can sell anything for PC users anywhere, why don't developers jump from Steam's ship when options like Gog are available?
Vertical integration related to the central communication system in society has been recognized as particularly problematic for quite some time.
The delta is how large and important the mobile phone market is, and the fact that it is a centralized duopoly.
It is perfectly fine to target legislation towards larger, more centralized, and more important markets.
You are also engaging in whataboutism.
Maybe there really are problems with the console market. But regardless of that, we should still take action on the much more important phone market.
Is there some meaningful console I'm missing besides Xbox and PlayStation?
There is Nintendo, as well as the PC (which is both an open platform and larger than the rest of the platforms combined.)
They choose not to.
There is no 'free market' in any environment that is 'vertically integrated' by a handful of organizations. The very reason why we abolished feudal aristocracy and even went to the extent of doing revolutions and setting up guillotines was to get rid of that kind of environments - which its owners were totally unwilling to let go.
Technological corporate feudalism is as bad as aristocratic feudalism of the yesteryear. They are both based on the concept of property ownership to start with, so they stem from the same concept of private tyrannies where a private tyrant can do whatever it want with what it 'owns' even if it dominates the lives of millions of people.
Is this actually true? I don't know how I would find the answer to this question without paying a team of lawyers to analyze the 40,000 word Digital Markets Act. However, my guess is that it's more nuanced.
Structurally, I think the developer program will be unchanged. iOS will still require code signing using a certificate issued by Apple. It will also continue to have sandboxing and restrictions that prevent apps from using private APIs. Apple will continue to require developers to accept an agreement and reserve the right to revoke access in the event of a violation.
As dictated by the DMA, legal agreements like the App Store guidelines will become more permissive and new public APIs will be introduced to support certain use cases that were previously reserved for Apple. But this does not mean Apple can't control their platform anymore.
The App Store Guidelines really have two separate groups of restrictions: platform security/privacy, verses use cases/content that Apple doesn't want to be commercially associated with.
My "perfect world" would be Apple retaining strong security/privacy/integrity related controls (on a non-discriminatory basis) at the platform level, potentially through something that looks like the existing Apple Developer Program, while allowing for third party distribution, marketing, and retail. Ideally Apple's own user facing apps would be meeting the same platform level controls as third-party apps.
Yep. Android decided to compete with apple. They're almost entirely worse at it and by competing by turning off all the features the once had they've just become a worse phone alternative that's cheaper and also lets you install custom apps.
Apple allows custom apps and apps stores and that's the death of Android as far as I'm concerned.
There are plenty of Android smartphones, including from major manufacturers, that have 3.5mm jacks; they tend to not be flagships, because that’s not where the demand for them is, but they aren’t hard to find.
> Android decided to compete with apple.
“Android” is a large number of different manufacturers, many of which individually produce many more smartphone models targeting different market segments than Apple.
> They're almost entirely worse at it and by competing by turning off all the features the once had they've just become a worse phone alternative that's cheaper and also lets you install custom apps
I’ve never regreted leaving the iPhone ecosystem for Android, and I’ve pretty consistently been buying Samsung flagships, which aren’t particularly cheaper than Apple. And sideloading or using alternate app stores isn’t a huge part of that, though its nice to have the option.
Maybe it's the part of the market I shop in, but headphone jacks on Android seemd to be disappearing only for one, maybe two cycles, and now they're back. I only owned one phone without one (and it was annoying, so I won't buy another phone without a jack). Although, I guess current Pixels are missing headphone jacks again?
The EU law has passed. It's pretty clear that it requires Apple to do the things those reports say Apple is "considering" (allow truly alternative browsers, allow other app stores etc.).
The law is taking effect soon. Apple has little choice but to comply.
It would be news if Apple was considering not complying with EU law. Which would likely be suicidal but it's not like Apple wasn't jerking around South Korea and some european country with fake compliance.
What I would like to know: will Apple give US a big middle finger by only implementing this in EU or globally.
Again, I think excluding US from those changes would lead to blowback but Apple was so arrogant about those things in the past that I wouldn't consider that impossible.
That was not a given.
The security model in macOS has changed dramatically since 2019 with Catalina—so much so that the OS is basically unrecognizable to me from an admin level.
It is likely that iOS is going to get the same Full Security, Reduced Security, and Permissive Security options as macOS. It seems like the only thing that Apple hasn't decided on yet is whether or not they will continue to allow signed, non-App Store apps under the default Full Security policy. I suspect they will not or that this is where iOS and macOS will diverge in terms of security policy, or that possibly one other category is created under Full Security that allows this. I would not be that surprised if the next version of macOS requires you to boot into the startup utility to set "App store and identified developers" as an option and further restricts what signed applications are allowed to do.
Apple is going to go the extra mile and allow companies like Epic and Spotify to do whatever they want. But they don't have to sign their apps and let them do it under the default security policy. They can simply say, "You can ask your customers to switch their security policy to Reduced Security if they want to install unsigned apps." And then customers can decide if they'd rather play Fornite or use ApplePay.
Hopefully, the ability to select an OS upon boot will come to iPhone someday.
How on earth does this jibe with the rest of your comment?
You immediately assert a fear that the removal of the walled garden would prevent you from doing a thing that the walled garden explicitly prevents.
I will not install a 3rd party app store if Apple allowed it
I would sideload a browser from an official repository.
But if apple loosened the webkit restriction, I could get my preferred browser without sideloading or using 3rd party appstore.
Does that clear up any confusion?
Worrying about the contents of an Open-Source binary is small-fries, my friend.
Maybe I am misinterpreting your argument? I feel like you stated that since state actors can hack my phone, I should stop worrying about security.
The appstore limited Facebooks ability to collect information on me. This is a fact.
> I trust Apple to do a decent job at protecting me [...] more than a 3rd party app store.
Arguing over App Store security borders on hypocrisy when there are gaping-wide exploits in the default iOS ecosystem.
Also, this bit:
> more importantly, my less tech minded friends
If your friends can't be trusted to use the internet without direct supervision, maybe they shouldn't have access to Safari, YouTube, Twitter or an iPhone either. It's a hard argument to strongman when the iPhone has a web browser packed in.
Or, consider 1Blocker for Safari (or Adblock Pro for Safari, DNS, and network blocking).
If Apple allowed Safari to actually compete, it would be better for web developers, businesses, consumers, and for the health of the web. Come on, Apple, set Safari free!" https://brucelawson.co.uk/2021/set-safari-free/
Considering makes it sound like this is a deliberate Apple PR leak
* apps can't write to a page and mark it executable
* therefore you can't JIT compile JS
* therefore any alt-browsers will be slow as sin.
It's actually really sad that you make something that should be cross-platform by default but breaks because iOS Safari lacks support for the most basic things.
You make something that works identical on Android Chrome and Firefox at 60fps but as soon as you try it on iPhone you're bombarded with glitches and problems that you don't even know where to start. If you want to make a cross-platform mobile game you're currently forced to go native.
For example if look for tor on ios, you find info reminding you of using the system webkit. Has anyone looked into whether (1) android does provide you more privacy by bringing your own browser or not, (2) whether apple in fact has no privacy when using a browser?
The reason is the sheer complexity of building for a mobile OS with very deep native integrations, that was out of their reach for a decade. More likely scenario is that we will see browsers using forked versions of WebKit running to enable more features (yes that would make uBlock Origin possible on iOS for example).
Also remember that Chromium was WebKit based way back when, the Android API for the chromium web view still uses WebKit terminology as a result.
If Google were to open a Google Play Store for iOS and put Chrome in there, I'd expect building the basic browser to take less than a month. The UI framework and designs are all there from their current Webkit version. Same with Firefox, though Mozilla has significantly fewer resources available.
My best guess is that it would take a few years on iOS (at least) to get to the current difference that Blink/Geck have to WebKit on macOS, which is already considerable in favor to WebKit to begin with, despite being able to develop for this platform for decades.
Staying ahead of EU action would've involved appeasing the antitrust worries when the DMA was still taking shape. Google has done so in small ways by redesigning Android's package installer APIs to make alternative app stores more feasible.
Of course there are no popular app stores outside of open source and piracy circles because there's usually little to gain in using them on Android. Amazon's app store is available as a normal download, though I don't think they've marketed that enough for it to be any kind of success.
EU does its job.
- No alternative launchers / home apps
- Real filesystem access / real file browser apps
- No emulators
- No compilers / code interpreters etc
- No adult apps
- Multiple accounts / users on a device
- Plug it in to any computer and use it as a USB drive
- Act as a USB host
You mean is being forced to, and is trying to find ways to avoid having to do that. Try "EU is considering making Apple [...]"
2. A lifting of the requirement is an implicit endorsement of a Chrome monopoly. This seems difficult to square with the intent of lifting the requirement.
I don't really care what their motivation for lifting it is. They got away with it for too long causing a lot of very concrete anti-competitive damage to progress of the Web.
How are you defining progress here? "Progress" is inherently value-laden.
Are you defining it only in terms of developer convenience, with the goal of making the web like an operating system? Or are you defining the web's progress in terms of freely available information and as a document retrieval system? It has obviously regressed in the latter sense.
Why isn't it just as reasonable to suggest that iOS Safari is the last bastion against the decline of the web?
iOS is a drag on progress which could have been avoided if competition laws would have been applied and Apple couldn't get away with this stuff.
What?
This was the thing that sank OG Firefox before Chrome came along. There was a plethora of garbage browser plugins everyone installed, and it tanked performance. Chrome wasn't that much faster than FF, but on a fresh install and without any plugins it seemed screaming fast.
I, on the other hand want to be able to install my own applications on my phone without having to buy an apple developer license or having them signed by apple. After all it is my phone...
> After all it is my phone...
It's not your platform, though, and writing your own apps doesn't happen in a vacuum, they work by integrating with Apple's OS that they pour oceans of money into developing and maintaining. It's not a general purpose computing device and it was never advertised as such.
I get it though, it is your hardware. I think the way to go about this, since it's your hardware, is to allow users to opt to do a complete wipe of the device, get their own OS, write their own drivers, and use the hardware for whatever they wish with the understanding that they're completely on their own.