Apple Plans New Fees and Restrictions for Downloads Outside App Store | Hacker News Reader

Apple Plans New Fees and Restrictions for Downloads Outside App Store

wsj.com

32 pointsimpish920817 comments

I understand their motivations for wanting to keep the cash cow going as long as possible but they are so openly hostile to consumer choice and developers at this point in a way that’s going to be hard to undo.

The web has changed so much in the past ten years and with things like WASM and WebGPU beginning to land in browsers the list of use cases for native iOS apps is quickly disappearing.

I hope the EU shuts down this malicious compliance quickly so they have to actually innovate on something other than how to best take hostages.

First Safari has to properly support them.

Just yesterday you were telling me in a comment that this was a selling point that they didn’t want to support these things.

Guess what company is pushing all the the ChromeOS features into the Web.

Netflix not supporting the Apple VR headset is a great example of the consequences of screwing over the developers. Prioritizing short term gains.

Apple however makes their own content w/ Apple TV so if the headset takes off Netflix will be forced to adopt whatever standard Apple is making. Let's be real - watching 2D video on a VR headset feels dumb whether you're doing it from a browser or a native app. The device supports a browser approach.

WebGPU and WASM are last on my list of things that are missing from PWAs on iOS. Native integration into the rest of the OS both on a UX and functionality level is much more important to me personally.

This includes things like background data pre-fetching (e.g. for a read-it-later-like app, I want all my articles to sync so that I can read them on the subway without network coverage), offline/local notifications (e.g. for a to-do list), proper backup support (all my PWAs get their local state wiped whenever I switch iPhones!), access to the local file APIs (both as a provider for things like Dropbox and as a consumer for things like document editors) and much more.

There are many apps that already don't need any of these, though. Most airline, ticketing, hotel, shopping etc. apps should really just be PWAs at this point.

You’re correct in that there is a long list of things missing from their specific implementation. It’s another arm of the same overall strategy to starve users of real choice and try to achieve maximum vendor lock-in.

I was just making an observation about the web as a platform in general in that has changed on that front.

Totally expected turn of events. Apple isn't giving up their 30% app revenue score without a fight.

This is identical to other article to charge up to 27% for non-App Store purchases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365

In a world of stagnant hardware sales, Services is the only growing category for Apple. Say goodbye to AAPL stock prices if this gets serious eroded by sideloading apps, etc.

I love that the phrase "Stagnant Hardware Sales" can somehow be applied to a company that in the fourth quarter of its 2023 fiscal year generated 43.81 billion U.S. dollars in revenue from the sales of iPhones alone.

I think the question there is how much of that is organic vs operators pushing and "subsidizing" (really interest free loans) iphone sales.

So they plan to technically allow "sideloading", but keep both the revenue and control the same as if there were no sideloading.

So there is effectively no sideloading.

Yeah, those kinds of shenanigans are not going to fly with the EU.

Fines incoming. Up to 10% of global turnover.

It looks like Apple has full dominance over how revenue gets distributed. They can squeeze their suppliers, they can squeeze their app developers (who used to be called "partners"), and they decide on the price that end-users pay for the device.

I know this is a niche read, but my understanding of "Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox" [1] by the "new" (2021) chair of the FTC would be that this is indicative of Apple being anticompetitive and, thereby, indirectly harming the consumer and market fairness. Relevant quote from that article:

"the company has positioned itself at the center of Internet commerce and serves as essential infrastructure for a host of other businesses that now depend on it. This Note argues that [..] market dominance pose anticompetitive concerns that the consumer welfare framework in antitrust fails to recognize."

That was written to be about Amazon, but it also fits Apple here. And, I mean, it's pretty obvious that app prices have to go up eventually if you force developers to pay extortionately large fees like 30% or 27%.

[1] https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...

https://archive.is/dCvJT

PWAs need to take front and center.

They kind of have already, the projects I work on, mobile Web does just fine for ecommerce, and forms over data kind of applications.

The only native apps I install are the ones I have to due to some service, and naturally games.

Only a partial solution when Apple controls the only browser allowed. They have consistently dragged their feet on implementing any app-like features for iOS Safari.

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