Japan pushes for Apple and Google to allow sideloading | Hacker News Reader

Japan pushes for Apple and Google to allow sideloading

appleinsider.com

109 pointswalterbell10 comments

This is the original title: Japan law will require Apple to allow alternate iPhone app stores

Changed. Thanks! (Submitted title was "Japan pushes for Apple and Google to allow sideloading")

Edit: hmm, it looks like this article just points to https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/06/16/business/japan-..., so I'm going to merge this thread into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36368735.

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Japan pushes for Apple and Google to allow sideloading

That was generated by the HN submission bookmarklet.

> Please submit the original source.

Thanks for the reminder.

Ah yes - that was in fact the HTML doc title. I missed that earlier.

You're a great submitter - no criticism intended!

This probably won’t help the situation in the US but would be a major step forward for the openness of the iPhone platform

Yeah Apple is too fucking stubborn and anti-consumer

Purposeful title change, and a funny one at that: Android already does.

Some of the changes Japan is proposing impact both Apple and Google.

1) sideloading (which Google already does)

2) allowing 3rd party apps to use alternative payment processors

3) allowing users to remove 1st party apps

4) no built-in preference for 1st party apps

3) On iOS, you can remove the default Mail.app, among others, so it's not a wholly unknown concept.

I cannot force apps to open in a browser vs their in-app browser (which is Safari). This in-app browser has a separate cookie jar and history. It also allows draconius tracking, as demonstrated by TikTok [1].

I cannot set the default maps handler, every address opens up in Maps, unless the app has built-in provisions for Waze / Google Maps.

I can not set another application as the iCal handler. My work forces me to use Outlook, yet when I tap an iCal link it opens up in Calendar.

I can't uninstall Photos. I am forced to use THEIR application which only supports iCloud as their backup system which is incompatible with my 'don't store shit in the cloud'. I cannot integrate it with Synology Photos or with whatever I choose.

I cannot change the Control center's links / buttons. The Home buttons point to their walled-garden HomeKit. The notes button only works with their notes. I cannot make it open OneNote.

As a developer I need to request Apple to enable certain entitlements to use in my application for them to consider me 'worthy'.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/technology/tiktok-browser...

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