Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

They are mad they will have to maintain 2 browsers (one for the EU and one for everywhere else), that's it. I'm not sure what they expected. I don't doubt that Apple will be forced to allow third-party browsers in more regions now that this exists. Now countries can just point the DMA (or parts of it) and say "That, I'd like that please" and Apple can enable it in their region (I know it's not that simple but it is built now, more countries are going to require it assuming the EU experiment doesn't fall flat on its face).

Of course we are still waiting to see if the EU accepts Apple's proposal. Anyone that's ever submitted an app for review (to Apple or Google, but let's be honest more-so for Apple) know this feeling of uncertainty and it's a bit a schadenfreude in that for sure. As much as I like Apple's products I can't but hope they get a few bad "reviewers".

I think it's worse than that: Apple managed to wrangle it so the new rules apply specifically to iPhone, and not iPad [1]. So the new rules apply only to iPhone devices in the EU. So then there's the absurd situation that, say, a Firefox user in the EU using the Firefox browser on both iPhone and iPad will in fact be using two entirely different browser engines. Imagine what a burden on support that will be, having to answer questions like "why do websites look/work differently between iPhone and iPad when I'm using Firefox on both?"

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/26/ios-17-app-stores-and-more-ip...

To be clear they didn't manage to wrangle that yet. They're currently trying to argue that and are just behaving as if that's already the case; the actual question on if the iPad counts as a separate store hasn't been decided on by the EU.

Personally I highly doubt this trick will work in court; moreso than any other Apple product, iPad and iPhone are running the same software and the stores have enough overlap that you can find iPhone apps in the iPad store.

Have you ever asked a lay-person which browser engine they prefer? It’s like asking which map tile pyramid renderer you prefer, Google Maps or Apple Maps, or Mapbox? No not the content or the features, the renderer. That abstract thing behind the scenes that is far from the forefront of your mind when you’re engaged with actual content.

right, which is what they parent commenter is talking about - since the user will not understand this level of abstraction how do you answer why does it work differently between iPhone and iPad?

Or perhaps I'm misreading you and your post is just in agreement?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com