So I guess apple learned how to be slightly more subtle, and to let their rabid fanbase do some of their work for them. It's still wild to me how they managed to get people to argue against the freedom to install whatever they want on their device.
There is a large class of technology users that is uninterested in installing whatever they want on their device. They want their device to be predictable, they want their app store to be curated, and they don't want to deal with dark patterns on a company by company basis. These customers choose Apple because it provides a tightly integrated experience.
Forcing Apple to alter enough of their rules will eventually cause that user experience to no longer be an option, which is bad for consumer choice.
The alternatives that most here on HN are pushing for would ultimately lead to a walled garden no longer being an option for consumers at all. I think the status quo is preferable: consumers who don't want to participate in the walled garden can choose to not buy devices that are explicitly sold as being part of said garden.
Why do apple fans always come up with bizarre fantasies like this? This isn't a problem for Android today, and it won't be a problem for mainstream apps when apple is finally forced to open up thanks to the EU.
More than 99% of the users will never install anything other than from the official Play store. But they are allowed to without Big Daddy Apple telling them "No". And that's what matters.
The difference between Android and iOS is that Apple actually has rules that are strict enough to motivate the likes of Facebook to actively encourage people to side load if given the chance. I'm not comfortable looking at Android as a precedent, because Google is extremely lax with what kinds of things they allow on the Play Store, so the path of least resistance is acceptable to basically everyone. I do not believe the same would be true of Apple's store.
Not really. They are pretty strict, actually.
> The difference between Android and iOS is that Apple actually has rules that are strict enough to motivate the likes of Facebook to actively encourage people to side load if given the chance
I doubt it. Especially after Apple will have submitted to the rest of the DMA.
And Apple is known for being just so diligent with their App Store reviews, huh? https://www.pcmag.com/news/beware-theres-a-fake-lastpass-app...
And those limitations are?
iMessage? The world outside the US doesn't use iMessage that much. It's Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger, and Telegram, and Viber, and...
Apple Photos? I have Google Photos on my iPhone, and they work better and faster than Apple's own
Actually, I struggle to think what Apple-exclusive things I use apart from Safari (and I've been using it on macs since 2007 or so).
You can't see the things that aren't allowed, because they don't exist. The Briar team hasn't even built an iOS app because they know it would be rejected.
I can use WhatsApp, Signal, Google Chat for messaging instead of iMessage. I can use Spotify, YouTube Music, Sirius instead of Apple Music for streaming music. What do you mean by zero consumer choice for interoperability? I see plenty of choices.
> Everyone is limited to what Apple allows in their walled garden whether they choose it or not
What software is Apple not allowing? I see competitors’ software available on their platform. The only issue is that these competitors want to avoid paying fees to Apple and argue under the guise of protecting consumer freedom.
Porn apps and hate speech mostly.
They supposedly also bar a lot of outright scams and malware, but a lot also sneaks through.
The problem is that same leverage can just as easily be used to enforce rules that benefit Apple at the expense of their customers. In theory competition from other platforms limits the extent Apple can abuse their position in that manner. But there's only one other major platform in the mobile space. That's not a lot of options for the market to optimise around.
Further, Apple is a large, vertically integrated company which does a lot to try to lock consumers into their ecosystem. If I'd like to chose a more open mobile phone operating system but feel like I can't because Android isn't allowed to interoperate with iMessage or AirPlay or AirDrop or AirTags or Apple Watch or iCloud and I like those products and want to continue using them... well, that's a problem.
There's also the software freedom issue. As a consumer, once Apple sells me a piece of physical hardware it should no longer be their place to dictate what software I'm allowed to run on that device. If I want to install an app that's not on Apple's App Store but Apple doesn't want me to, there's no question in my mind as to whose rights should win out in that scenario.
Overall, my take is that Apple should be allowed to offer a closed ecosystem to users who want that, but they shouldn't be allowed use technical measures or anti-competitive bundling to force or coerce consumers into remaining inside that ecosystem. If consumers want to buy their apps exclusively from Apple's app store because they see a benefit from that, then they should be allowed to. But if they don't, Apple shouldn't be able to hold their entire ecosystem hostage from the consumer as leverage to prevent them from leaving.
I realize this gives Apple a bit less leverage in their ability to advocate on behalf of their customers when dictating the terms under which companies can sell products within their walled garden, since those companies will now have the option of going over Apple's head and selling their product directly to consumers, sans Apple's rules. But that's how free markets work, in contrast to the monopoly-like situation we're currently in. If enough consumers see the value in Apple's rules to avoid other app stores with less restrictive policies, companies will still have to comply with them to access those consumers. (I'll note this is basically how things already work on Android. Google still operates the most popular app store on Android despite competition being allowed, and they're still able to dictate the terms under which apps are allowed in that store.) But if those terms are so egregious that consumers start to prefer alternative app stores instead, that's a good thing too.
I’m glad someone in this thread gets it. If anything, my main criticism of Apple’s App Store curation is that they have too light of a hand on cracking down on scammers and other abusive business practices. Indie developers making honest mistakes get jerked around but the professional skeezeballs keep gaming their way through.
But the tone of a lot of the regulation seems to be trying to push Apple to make the thing I value about its ecosystem worse while adding me nothing I actually care for. With the phone, in particular, I am almost always using it while I’m half distracted with something else. I’m much more open to tinkering on my PC or even my tablet, but as far as I’m concerned having my phone being as locked down as can be and imposing as little additional cognitive burden on me as possible is a huge feature.
It's not to say they don't have a financial incentive to disallow app installs outside of their App Store, but there is a predictable cost in terms of support man hours and device troubleshooting they will incur in addition to lost revenue. So long as it is legal for them to continue business as usual, they have no incetive to allow it and the large majority of the userbase don't care.
> While you may have no issue using a different browser/media player/OS/... and dealing with any troubleshooting, their average user, or most users, don't.
There is also the cost of externalities of more systems being infected that the rest of the connected world has to deal with.
These average users shouldn't come near a MacBook then.
My sister does everything on a phone or tablet and doesn't see the point of a "proper" computer, the guy at the bank plugs an iPad into a monitor.
A MacBook is a work tool, like an angle grinder or a JCB. Most people don't know how to get the most out of them if they were given one.
I got him to buy a Mac and for a few years things went well. But then he started complaining about it behaving weirdly or running slowly. I'd take a look and find he'd installed some free utility or some other odd bit of software that was screwing up his machine. I kept explaining why this happened and he never changed his behaviour.
I keep telling him to get an iPad, as at least then everything would be sandboxed and iOS would kill background tasks. But he says, no, he needs a real computer.
PS. Now that you can dock an iPad with an external screen and keyboard and trackpad, try that for him, tell him it's the new Macpad Pro.
ROTFL, someone made this and posted to HN four hours ago:
https://www.macstories.net/stories/macpad-how-i-created-the-...
That's the real problem. People just refuse to learn. They refuse to put in any effort at all. They don't want to have to think about what they are doing.
It's making me become ever more elitist over the years. I no longer believe computers should be for everyone. Computers are world changing technology and they are wasted on people who don't give a shit.
If this is how he wants to live, it is his right as a free adult. Even if it annoys you.
This isn't because of Apple, or at least it isn't in my case.
Even as an iPhone app developer with the means to do so whenever I want, and even though I find Apple's content restrictions derisory and "big brother"-y, I actively don't want a system that can install "whatever".
This is due to all the malware everywhere on the internet, and owing to this unfortunate reality, also means I think it is unwise even to have 3rd party libraries as project dependencies. I have an entire spare computer dedicated to learning scientific python because I don't feel I can rely on the absence of vulnerabilities in the stuff.
This makes me sad. I miss the old days of 2002 where I didn't feel any reason to worry about random apps from random websites. But part of my carefree youth was that I had a Performa 5200 running OS 8, which wasn't a popular targets for malware authors, and another big part was that my bank didn't have an app.
But before someone replies to point out that malware gets past the App Store tests: yes, of course it does, I see all this as a "defence in depth" strategy, not a silver bullet.
If the bad actors were all shady fly-by-night looking companies it’d be one thing. But once the gates are opened, if it’s easy enough, you’ll see people being pressured to open the gates by all sorts of companies that they will have no choice but to comply with. Imagine, for example, if your insurance company, in order to pay your bill, starts making you install the app through some alternate pathway that brings a side-dish of keylogging to adjust your rates based on your browser behavior.
> my bank didn't have an app
Exactly my reasoning last week when I read about one more dependency attack on GitHub.
Do you have a mac? What's your setup? I need CoreML so VMs are not an option, and I'm a freelancer so I use my own MacBook for work. I have a different session for each client, but at this point I don't even know if it's useful at all. Of course I also have a personal session with banking stuff... which is what made me realise I was probably doing something dumb.
Yes, two.
(Well, three, but the third is in a box waiting to go to recycling or someone who wants it "for parts", as that's from 2013…)
> What's your setup?
It's literally an entire second mac. I bought an MBAir/M1 second hand, then was given an MBPro/M1 Pro; the Pro became my main machine, the Air became my "mess around" box.
That’d be quite an ignorant POV to take on IMO
>rabid fanbase
I don't think you truly appreciate how comfortable I am handing my parents an iPhone, and how uncomfortable I was helping them with their Windows computer replete with multiple spyware browser toolbars back in the day.
The onslaught of quasi malware on their computers was sickening, and they'd always ask me about insane popups that would show up due to some pre-installed thing nobody had control over.
We've created a very nasty internet - one that isn't safe for the old or the young - and without the law enforcement or age boundaries that we use in the physical world to keep our public spaces suitable for the broader population.
Hardware companies pre-installed any and all sorts of software from vendors. Spyware, adware, gambling games, toolbars, "free" trials to internet services. Computers used to be up to their neck in absolute garbage.
I guess the biggest difference is that the OS manufacturer now gets a cut on those.
And my point still stands anyways, the line between some of those top appstore casino-apps and malware is very blurry.
An app store (any app store, not just Apple's) can be the former without being the latter.
Talk to your lawmakers to make these sort of apps illegal. Apple is not the government.
Almost everybody has to use a computer for work and other stuff, and they are willing to pay for a safe and sound system. They are not interested in becoming full time Arch Linux root administrators just to conduct their daily business on their device. Just like almost none of the people who drive a car are full time mechanics and welders.
They don't need to if they don't want to.
I'd be one of the users who are not inclined to transform my iPhone back into my days using Linux on desktop and suffering the pains of doing it. I do have the option to turn my computer into that if I want, I do not have that option for my phone even though it's just a computer.
No one would be forcing users into doing that, it's about allowing the users who want that control over their own devices.
You are attacking a strawman.
Any effort to disenfranchise me from those rights is, in my opinion, unethical. If a company were to try to do so under the guise of a semantic argument, I would find it even more distasteful.
The "point" at which such things should apply is when they are large enough that anti-trust laws and pro competition laws apply to them. IE: when they are very very large and are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Apple offers security and convenience on their devices, which is why many people like them. Windows offers no security but some convenience, Linux offers security and no convenience.
Like I said in another comment, if Spotify is not happy with Apple they can manufacture their own device and sell to consumers. People buy and use Apple devices of their own free will, and developers develop for their devices of their own free will as well. And there is plenty of competition in the market.
I invested money in the ecosystem and now there's vendor lock-in, I'm bound to it unless the usage becomes so unbearable that the pain to change vendors is less than continuing the one I have, the pain threshold only grows for each passing year I'm invested in the ecosystem. Do you comprehend that?
Opening a phone for others to develop apps on top does not encroach anywhere into Apple's sale of phones, it just creates a massive wall to guard against other competitors selling apps to their platform. They charge for the phone, and now they extract rent from something they sold through the App Store. Please, think deeper about this, you are missing the point entirely.
> Like I said in another comment, if Spotify is not happy with Apple they can manufacture their own device and sell to consumers.
No, they can't. That's not their business, they don't have the capital to develop and foster a whole 3rd platform of devices + OS just to move away from Apple's ecosystem, that's the whole point of developing a platform: creating a massive lever against competition because of network effects. Network effects are very hard to break from, hence why most major tech companies try to leverage that (look at Meta/Facebook, they are shit but still it's very hard to compete against due to their size).
> People buy and use Apple devices of their own free will, and developers develop for their devices of their own free will as well. And there is plenty of competition in the market.
There's only 1 competitor in the market: Android, manufacturers using Android are not 1 competitor each since none of them are providing a full platform, the platform is Android on top of some devices.
Free will is a massive naïvete to throw here. Is there free will when there are no other options to reach a market? Is there free will for online sellers in the USA to not put their products on Amazon since you'll be living on the outskirts of the market without any meaningful way to penetrate into it if other competitors have an advantage simply by paying the Amazon tax and selling their products through Amazon?
I think you are too naïve and ideological, that blinds you from understanding market forces and markets in general.
I know you're being sarcastic, but it is extremely trivial and simple to buy another phone. Because you can also keep the phone you have!
There is a hang-up among hackers that think it is impossible to use different phones, different computers and different browsers. You can have one phone for this and another for that. You can use both vim and emacs to edit a document and you can have several computers with different systems. Hell, you can even have different sets of cutlery at your home.
> No, they can't.
They sure can. Being incompetent or lacking in capabilities is an acceptable excuse for a person, not for a billion dollar company like Spotify. I have here on my desk a pocket music player of excellent quality that was manufactured in 2023. It is not Android nor iOS and the company making it is much smaller than Spotify. So why can't they? "Not our business"? If they're that incompetent, the CEO and the leadership should apologise for being failures, step down, pay back to shareholders all salary they have received and go hide away.
Yes there is free will for sellers to not put their products on Amazon. That's called retail, and it's a tough market. If your product is good enough you can sell it without putting it on a third-party marketplace. Just like with hotel aggregator websites and food delivery apps. Companies are doing fine without being there.
> There's only 1 competitor in the market: Android
There's thousands of different Android phones in the market, that's the competition. And it's not that difficult for a tech company to develop their own mobile OS if they'd like. Microsoft made Windows Phone which many people liked, Nokia made the excellent and ahead of its time Meego OS, BlackBerry 10 OS was excellent as well. And there is absolutely no blame on Apple for these tech giants discontinuing their OSes. They were discontinued because they weren't profitable enough for the owners taste. So now Apple should be forced to make sure that their competitors can make a profit from their customers? Because that's the core of the matter. Other companies do not want to do the work and investments that Apple did to get a loyal customer base willing to spend money, so they're using EU regulators to freeload.
No sympathy to any of them. Make better ecosystems if you want to compete, you have the money and the means. Try giving a fuck about your customers and your business. That's something that the general public and consumers also would benefit from.
Well, actually, it seems that spotify won the lawsuit.
So, it is instead that Apple will have to pay a fine, and if they don't like it then they can pull out of the EU entirely.
> people buy and use Apple devices of their own free will
And Apple participates in the EU market of its own free will, and can shutdown if they don't like the law.
And users who buy from Apple will be free to install or not install whatever they want on their devices soon.
If those users don't like it, then they can simply not install apps that they don't like and are free to only install apps from Apple.
The moment this is a thing is when the social engineering attacks to get people to root their own phones, to set up untrusted app stores that firehose shitware down onto phones, etc. starts to happen. "I'm from Microsoft, you need to add the Microsoft Store to your iPhone, here's how." I get your concern, and in a world less built on open grift I would share it, but our esteemed tech brainlords have built a tech ecosystem that exists to enable scams. (Hell, I almost got popped a few months ago by a scam, and I tend to be pretty cautious about things.)
Unless the opt-in mechanism is something like "open the phone and turn a jumper" or "buy a different model of the same phone" I genuinely think it's way too dangerous for the average target of a social-engineering attack. People buy iPhones to not deal with this shit as much as is possible; taking that away hurts a lot more people than it helps.
Be real.
Sort of like how you keep bringing up guns, knives, and car safety in a conversation about phone apps, to illustrate your point.
It took him years to realise Google search results had a scroll bar, and it wasn't just the 3 items that fitted on the screen.
He wrote simulation software for the radio propagation of military IFF transponders before he retired, and his idea of "computer safety" was therefore somewhere between "do not connect them to the internet" and "put them in a faraday cage".
Do you also want to take away everyone's cars because of traffic deaths? That's far more serious than someone's parent installing malware on their shiny digital toys.
What about taking away kitchen knifes? Those things sure are dangerous!
That's the house they chose to live in. It's a house in which no knives existed. Now you're saying "let them put knives in, how dare you restrict them from having a knife!" whereas most consumers are saying "I like this house, wow living here feels great.". It's not a knife issue. You're trying to make it a knife issue.
The success of the iPhone was never obvious from day one. To attribute Apple's success to monopolistic behavior and consumer oppression, rather consumer behavior and expression, is just denying reality.
This isn't the same thing. The equivalent in your anecdote is that Car A comes with a three point seatbelt that you don't want to use, and you want Car A to be sold without it so you can use your preferred safety device, despite multiple current owners of Car A telling you that they _want_ the three point seatbelt. And you can always buy Car B if you want to install a lap belt instead.
That this isn't "infantilizing".
> Do you also want to take away everyone's cars because of traffic deaths? That's far more serious than someone's parent installing malware on their shiny digital toys.
My mum did that for my gran when my gran got Alzheimer's and my mum realised she'd been driving for 6 months without paying road tax.
And then the same happened to my mum.
Also, you're giving the exact argument in favour of self-driving cars as soon as the tech is actually ready, and also the reason that crumple zones and seatbelts are mandatory.
And also the reason we have (revokable) driving tests to be allowed to use the vehicles in the first place.
> What about taking away kitchen knifes? Those things sure are dangerous!
https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives has a high degree of popular support, and has done since I was a kid myself.
No, that's dangerous! Everyone should crawl everywhere while wearing an iHelmet if we were to apply apple's modus operandi to transportation.
> And also the reason we have (revokable) driving tests to be allowed to use the vehicles in the first place.
Hmm, so you think that maybe qualified people should be allowed to use dangerous devices? I'm fine with you taking devices away from your parents. That's up to you and your parent.
> https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives has a high degree of popular support, and has done since I was a kid myself.
Is your argument that your iphone should not be allowed outside where it might scare other people? Odd take. Even in the UK an adult is allowed to buy & posses a kitchen knife.
I wrote "Back when he was still alive", so… no.
> Is your argument that your iphone should not be allowed outside where it might scare other people? Odd take.
No, and I don't know why you'd think that. In fact, that's such a weird take, I think you wrote that in bad faith.
> Even in the UK an adult is allowed to buy & posses a kitchen knife.
Buy, yes. Possess in public without "good reason" as defined by the police and prosecution, no.
I wonder if this is because today's interfaces are actually so much worse for scrollbar UX (usability and discoverability) than anything we had since they were invented 43 years ago.
Just look at it... https://scrollbars.matoseb.com/
By the time I was in college, he was on his way towards retiring, and knowing that I was into software, decided that I would be his IT support person. He went through various laptops and desktops (PCs, Macs, he even gave Linux a real try but gave up when he couldn't get his financial planning software to run on it), Android phones, etc. The one platform he liked using in his later years was iOS/iPadOS specifically because, in his words, "there's not a bunch of other s--- here, and I don't need to manage it".
It's ease-of-use dovetailing with computer safety, and that's a _hard_ problem.
Everybody always jumps to Apple’s defense by explaining how iPhones are built for inept users that just want a phone that works with no BS. Therefore, they claim, it’s a good thing that Apple has a highly locked down environment. But what good is this locked down environment if Apple will happily allow scam apps to charge their customers for features the phone already does for free? What’s the difference between a user downloading a scam app from an untrusted source and downloading it directly from the App Store? If Apple is going to have a locked down environment, at the very least, they should make it effective.