EU Chief Calls on Apple CEO Tim Cook to Open Hardware and Software Ecosystem | Hacker News Reader

EU Chief Calls on Apple CEO Tim Cook to Open Hardware and Software Ecosystem

macrumors.com

41 pointsksec16 comments

I think thre F-Droid store is by far the best app store. I would like this for iOS too. Also, so I could permanently install a little iOS app I once developed.

Let's hope that the EU gets this right.

Yes, F-Droid offers some really high quality free software with full reproducible builds to boot.

It's amazing to see how fast and efficient software can be when it's not spending most of its energy on datamining the user or showing ads.

Apple currently misses out on such an ecosystem because even to release a free app, devs have to pay.

On F-Droid there's a ton of pearls offered for free or some voluntary Patreon or ko-fi support.

Nah. I use F-Droid. Only because it's one of the only alternative app stores available that actually has a decent selection of applications.

Their build schedule is unnecessarily complex + slow. Can be waiting for weeks for app updates. The stock client is quite frankly, crap - slow and outdated. It's security is sub-par. If you're looking for secure app updates the Play Store is the way to go (if you're willing to compromise your privacy). They also use remote signing for apks (so, F-Droid builds then signs the APKs on behalf of developers).

One thing I'm hoping will pick up speed is Accrescent - https://accrescent.app/. It is in a very very alpha stage at the moment and only includes a handful of apps. It's built with security in mind from the get-go and doesn't compromise just to support lower, outdated/insecure android versions. I hope for it to be the modern standard for alternative app stores.

This is like asking Lord Vader to calm down and be nice. It’s not just that they have no interest in this, it’s that it is utterly incompatible with who and what they are.

Part of Apple's selling point is a well-managed walled garden that keeps riff-raff out. Opening it up will introduce riff-raff. The well-to-do are okay paying more to have better guards.

You are conflating allowing riff-raff into the walled garden, with allowing consumers out. That one can install anything on a linux system doesn't make the official repositories less safe.

I don't think your analogy holds up.

Take the iPhone. Its a lot more than a Linux system repository. Its hardware. Its software. And it's also regulated things, like health records, payments, radio emissions, and a host of other things.

So you see, its nothing like a repository. Now, if EU said, "Hey Linux Repositories, you have to let these other parties include their code in your repository", well, that might be a better analogy.

It would be a wildly incorrect analogy. The EU only wants Apple to allow sideloading, not to accept any code in their app store. And I fail to see the relevance that the iPhone "is a lot more". A linux system is also hardware, software, it has WiFi drivers producing radio emissions, it can and does store health records and payments, and performs far more regulated things, like nuclear simulations for energy and medicine [1]. How is this an argument in favor of corporate-locked devices?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_N-Particle_Transpo...

> So you see, its nothing like a repository. Now, if EU said, "Hey Linux Repositories, you have to let these other parties include their code in your repository", well, that might be a better analogy.

No it's more akin to allowing the user to add other repositories. Which every Linux distro already allows.

It won't introduce riff-raff into their garden. It will give customers options to decide for themselves. Only if they explicitly want to. If they don't, nothing will change.

Right now there are entire categories of apps which which there's nothing wrong except that Apple doesn't want to allow them. Like emulators and pornographic apps. This will allow consumers to decide for themselves.

> It will give customers options to decide for themselves.

And because of this, more people will add dodgy apps that compromise the phone.

> nothing wrong except that Apple doesn't want to allow them. Like emulators

Emulators add risk of trojans running.

Of course with the added point that Darth Vader gets a cut of 30% of all good conquests. Don't underestimate how important the app store is to Apple's bottom line.

> Darth Vader gets a cut of 30% of all good conquests

And 15% of bad conquests.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/google-play-drops-commissi...

The nvme slot in the studio that is not actually a nvme compatible drive is just egregious garbage.

It would be nice to see iOS follow the Android model so that developers wouldn't have to pay a 15-30% platform fee to Apple and could instead pay it to Google.

> EU industry chief Thierry Breton today publicly called on Apple CEO Tim Cook to open the company's ecosystem of hardware and software to rivals

That's what happens when you call the wrong people.

Should he asked NSO Group CEO, he would have found out, that Apple is a very open platform where you can install anything. /s

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