Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe
reuters.com
reuters.com
With exclusions that suit them. As you say, the wind is blowing the right way, it would be nice to see but console games get the same treatment.
Excuse them because they want their own rules and regulations on their territory and not the default US rules that ship with Google and Apple devices.
That would be like Budweiser selling their beer in Europe with the condition you have to be 21 to drink it because that's how it is where they're from.
what's the appeal? consoles at best last 8 years before the new generation. These stores probably take 2-4 years to prepare properly. A dev won't use half their generation to get around a 30% fee.
I think one understated part of the consoles is that that 30% does go into proper support, compared to apple/google that act more as gatekeepers. Larger studios knowing they can get on-site console developers to help debug, optimize, and maybe even fix API issues is well worth such a cut.
Consoles remain alive way longer in poorer regions of the world. The lock-in from console manufacturers is designed to artificially shorten console lifecycles by cutting off supply of newly-manufactured older consoles and new games for those consoles. It's textbook planned obsolescence.
I don't want a single CPU in my home that I don't have the right to reprogram as I see fit. There's no reason for gaming consoles to be an exception.
The 1st world customers wants to keep advancing to the next generation. 3rd parties want to make money and mostly get it from 1st world countries.
>artificially shorten console lifecycles by cutting off supply of newly-manufactured older consoles and new games for those consoles. It's textbook planned obsolescence.
Planned obsolescence isn't to stop producing a product you no longer want to sell. If there's one thing consoles are good at, it's supporting repairs well after the next gen rolls end. Nintendo just stopped supporting the Wii U (their worst selling console) repairs due to a lack of supplies, and that is about 6 years after they EOL'd it in terms of software support. Phone/PC manufacturers should take notes.
Meanwhile, hardcore gamers have been complaining about the switch performance for years. They are disappointed there was no mid gen refresh. Consumer demand very much wants companies to keep making better hardware.
>There's no reason for gaming consoles to be an exception.
Personally, I just don't see gaming consoles as general computing devices. They could be, but they way they are presented/marketed aren't. So I have about as much desire to reprogram on my PS4 as I do my smart fridge (which probably is running some variant of Linux underneath, albeit embedded).
After a court order they will know exactly where the limits are and tiptoe them as much as possible. If they proactively try to be "overcompliant" they might loose more money in the long run.
It's messed up to be honest. I would prefer harsher punishments, but on the other hand if companies are scared all the time it might have a chilling economic effect so there is a balance to strike as well.
This is it. The law is ambiguous, and until someone specifies the line it makes no sense for either side to concede. Both Epic and Apple are multi-billion dollar companies taking maximalist positions.
There is also the shadow component of it being an open question—given the present state of European politics—as to which will outlast the other, Cupertino or Brussels.
To be fair, the EU is being a bit ridiculous sometimes. Apple decided not to compete in the EU because of the restrictions, and the EU seemingly wanted to penalize that decision also.
This doesn’t exempt them from the law. Apple is never giving up the EU.
Sure it does. If they leave the EU market and have no presence, then EU laws can't reach them.
> Apple is never giving up the EU.
I would normally agree, but if EU fines surpass the profit Apple can make in the EU, they might.
Selling your product in the EU means having an EU presence. Like, I can’t just ship heroin to Europe from abroad and claim I’m immune.
Ehhhhhh. Kind of. Maybe. Certainly not always.
I mean, if there is some shitty little porn company in say, California, and they make porn that say, caters to a fetish that is legal in California but illegal in the EU, well, what then?
The porn company isn't doing anything wrong, and EU laws are irrelevant. At this point they can try to firewall off the company, punish ISPs, maybe punish citizens who do business with that company, because it isn't breaking any EU laws, and has no EU presence that can be fined, sieved, etc.
This is very normal, this is the way international laws work barring treaties or other agreements to have a special arrangement outside of that.
So, if Apple pulls out of the EU, maybe they can no longer ship mail to the EU, I'm doubtful of that but let's just say. Well, there are plenty of non EU countries close by, including the UK. Not really a problem for EU citizens to get one at all, so again, the EU can only punish people, not the company.
> Like, I can’t just ship heroin to Europe from abroad and claim I’m immune.
If it was legal to do so in the sending country, sure you could. That isn't true for any country though, so it's not a great analogy.
Sure, but this is not punishing the company in any way which was the other posters point. If the EU was blocking payments to Apple after Apple withdrew from the EU, they are not punishing Apple or holding them accountable to EU law (specifically in the context of complying with competition guidelines and DMA type stuff).
> Avoiding the block would be money laundering, which is also illegal in California.
Hmmmm. I'm not so sure about that. If the EU barred payments to Apple, that block would be on banks and payment processors, not people. If someone goes to the US and buys an iPhone in this new world, they are not committing a crime unless the EU passes a law prohibiting its citizens to buy iPhones.
> The EU (or it's constituent countries - not sure) also controls imports, and could seize and destroy illegally purchased iPhones at the border. Every one of my international purchases is already stopped and processed by customs to evaluate import taxes. It would be quite easy for them to simply say "you can't import this."
Absolutely, but this has nothing to do with Apple, and it isn't the EU punishing Apple, it's Apple punishing people or organizations.
The other posters point was that if Apple withdraws from the EU, EU law wouldn't apply (in the sense they wouldn't need to allow any 3rd party app store, period), and people could still buy iPhones and Apple products outside of it. It's on the EU to try and deal with that.
Why? Apple has Customs pulling (ironically, actually genuine) Apple parts being shipped.
Customs is built around this whole model, unless what, you propose that Apple starts selling commercial quantities of iPhones by disposable drop shippers?
Imagine the amount of people wanking through the 'nothing to declare' exit after coming back from pretty much any other country and buying an iphone.
Certainly always, in the case of companies like Apple. They either lose > 95% of their sales in the EU or comply with their regulations.
> porn
Is not sold on physical media these days.
No, lol. If Apple pulls out of the EU, they won't have any official presence, period.
> They either lose > 95% of their sales in the EU or comply with their regulations.
Or bypass them by pulling out.
> Is not sold on physical media these days.
Yeah, that was the point. Re-read the comment in context.
So they’d lose 20% of their global revenue just out of spite? Can you name a single rational reason why’d they do that?
> Or bypass
How? They won’t be able to sell directly to EU customers…
> Re-read the comment in context.
It just doesn’t make any sense. Apple wouldn’t be able to sell to clients in the EU on a large scale. It just wouldn’t work due to perfectly obvious reasons.
If EU fines exceed EU revenue.
> How? They won’t be able to sell directly to EU customers…
The EU would have to police its own citizens from going outsize their walls and buying iPhones from literally any other country.
> It just doesn’t make any sense. Apple wouldn’t be able to sell to clients in the EU on a large scale.
So it made sense, and you understood fine, you just disagreed and decided to be obtuse about it. Sigh.
The point was simply that the EU can't touch a company in another country with no presence in the EU, even if EU citizens are buying from it.
All they can do is try and block payments to it, firewall it off, and similar things.
So sure, the EU could police its citizens buying iPhones online, but that's going to be an awful lot of work considering all the third party sellers, and I don't think it would be terribly successful. Not without enforcement which would be extremely unpopular.
They won’t. Also you’re assuming that Apple’s management is irrational and petulant, because if not it should be “if the cost of compliance with EU regulations exceeds their EU revenue/net income” which isn’t going to be even remotely true.
> obtuse about it
Not at all. It’s just that this seems fairly obvious to me:
A very small fraction of people buying iPhones in Europe now would buy them if they had to ship them from outside the EU, pay the VAT themselves and have no warranty/support.
So sure it won’t be 100%, just 80-90% which doesn’t change anything
You're awfully cocksure with nothing to back it up.
Apple's global revenue in 2023 was about 120 billion. EU revenue was 24 billion. DMA allows fines up to 10% of global revenue. Two max fines under the DMA is already more than their EU profit.
> Also you’re assuming that Apple’s management is irrational and petulantv
I'm not the one making an assumption here. I'm saying if x then y which is perfectly reasonable. You're saying x would *NEVER* happen, which I would consider foolish.
I think Apple will comply with the EU to a point, I agree they are not trying to leave the EU at all. But ultimately they are still a US company and follow US leadership, who may want to do things or try and circumvent EU policies in a way they think are fine, but the EU doesn't.
I mean, there was already a clash with their first fine, it won't be surprising if more come.
I also really think you are being dismissive and downplaying their decision to not enter the AI market in the EU.
> It’s just that this seems fairly obvious to me:
> A very small fraction of people buying iPhones in Europe now would buy them if they had to ship them from outside the EU, pay the VAT themselves and have no warranty/support.
> So sure it won’t be 100%, just 80-90% which doesn’t change anything
I'm so confused at what point you are making here. You're saying EU citizens, if Apple left the EU, would just, and to quote "ship them from outside the EU, pay the VAT themselves and have no warranty/support."
Is this correct? Because that has been specifically the point I was making. Jesus. My point though, to clarify again, is if they do that, Apple won't be subject to any EU rules. All those iPhones bought outside the EU won't have 3rd party app stores, for example, and the EU would be powerless to enforce that. Seriously. That's the point I made several comments ago that you decided to dispute. Which now you are making yourself?
If Apple pulled out of the EU, which isn’t even all of the European continent much less the “Europe” reporting region, they would probably take less than a 10% hit. Significant, but not a showstopper. I don’t know where everyone gets this idea that pulling out of the EU would kill Apple.
It wouldn’t. It would still be an immensely absurd thing to do. I assume Apple is not run by 12-year olds, why would they lose 15-20% (probably closer to 20%, EMEA seems to be ~27% and besides Britain the EU would be the overwhelming majority of what’s left) of their revenue out of spite when realistically they are only risking 1-2% by staying?
They are just trying to find the “optimal” way of complying with the regulations while maximizing their income.
Let’s not get silly and totally absurd. Also it’s the cost of compliance that has to surpass their profit not the fines which are entirely optional.
In any case Apple is still making a lot of money from selling the devices themselves and much more than from the app store.
Sure, like let's not be silly and absurd and refuse to consider the possibility Apple might leave the EU?
> Also it’s the cost of compliance that has to surpass their profit
Right, but the fines the EU issues are from their global revenue. While I think this is reasonable, for the same reasons it's a problem that the rich can speed and not care about a fine, but it could well be enough for Apple to withdraw.
Where are you getting that 2% figure from? The entire issue is that EU fines take from global revenue, not EU revenue.
This is very simple. If EU fines are greater than EU revenue, it would be absurd for Apple not to leave.
It’s a rough not very educated estimate of what proportion of their global revenue Apple might lose by complying with the regulations ( I’d personally bet it’s significantly less than that). Do you have a better figure?
Yes, clearly, and I mentioned it numerous times.
Once again, you're just making assumptions. So, all this time you've just assuming the max fines won't apply - that's the entire crux of your argument, right?
As where I've been talking about a situation where the max fines are being imposed.
I really don't think you're reading or keeping the context of the discussion in mind when replying. I have no other explanation for you assuming 2% and asking if I have a better figure in spite of me specifically citing the max fine number as a prerequisite for my scenario numerous times.
This such an obvious fact that anyone even mildly interested in the topic (i.e. commenting here and making such strong, yet silly, claims) surely must know..
If you were honest, you would read Apple’s SEC filing, which show that (globally) about 43% of Apple’s profits come from Services, while 57% comes from hardware. You could just admit that you don’t understand the difference between revenue and profit. I’m sure you’ll move the goalposts and claim that’s “significantly” more.
The EU wants to zero out Services revenue, while simultaneously removing Apple’s brand value (a curated “walled garden”, where app developers can’t take too much advantage of customers).
The alt stores in the EU will be a race to the bottom of which one allows developers to abuse customers the most. Why would any app stay on Apple’s store when alt stores allow more invasive privacy violations? And then when the app ecosystem on iOS looks like Android, what possible reason could you have to buy an iPhone?
So, yes, the EU very much wants Apple to be a non-profit.
They are just searching for the optimal way of complying with the regulations while maximizing their income .
you do have a valid point about services being a larger % of their net income than I implied but that includes Apple Care, iCloud, the estimated $20(?) billion from Google that’s basically pure profit and is massively inflating the services segment’s margins? What proportion is left to the App Store? Who cares let’s just ignore that I guess..
> You could just admit that you don’t understand the difference between revenue and profit
Ok, that’s that, you’re either being obtuse or worse. Either way no point in continuing this silly discussion. But no, most of what you’re saying makes very little sense
In any case (not quite the same but gives a glimpse into their mindset) they have zero issues with kowtowing to authoritarian regimes like those in Russia or China
They would directly lose ~40% of profit. Additionally, there’s no reason to buy an iPhone if it just works like an Android, so Apple would be competing with Samsung hardware on price instead of on having a superior customer experience. So there go the other ~60% of profits.
So, yes, pulling out of the market completely starts to look like a rational business decision.
How did you come to that conclusion. Doesn’t “services” include the $20 billion get from Google per year which is basically pure profit? Also Apple care, icloud etc etc. how would that be impacted?
> Additionally, there’s no reason to buy an iPhone if it just works like an Android
Why would it work the same as an Android? Most people don’t use third party appstores or side loading anyway…
> So, yes, pulling out of the market completely starts to look like a rational business decision.
An utterly ridiculously absurd thing to say..
Not sure where you're pulling that 5% figure from, but the EU wants to fine companies like Apple a much larger percentage of their global revenue, not just EU revenue.
If the fines the EU wants to impose are greater than Apple's profit in the EU, indeed it would be a smart business decision to pull out.
> In any case (not quite the same but gives a glimpse into their mindset) they have zero issues with kowtowing to authoritarian regimes like those in Russia or China
Well, duh. Apple are not concerned with a government abusing its own people, they are concerned with a government taking 10% of their global revenue.
> EU wants to fine companies like Apple a much larger percentage
They could do that, that in no way means that they are planning to
Source? Which of the fines so far have been negotiated down?
> when apple starts complying with the regulations.
Heh. Or, Apple just starts withdrawing from spaces in the EU because they don't like the EU's behavior. For example, they are withdrawing from the AI space citing that exact reason.
If they are already pulling out of cashcows like AI, is it that much a stretch to think they could withdraw entirely?
Not to mention Apple consideres the regulations to be unclear given the the EC seem to want Apple to figure out the 'spirit' of the law and comply with that instead.
> They could do that, that in no way means that they are planning to
They already do that. Look at what the max fines for say DMA or GDPR allow for. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume all your previous replies are because you haven't actually done this yet.
That the first "app store" approved is built on predatory free to play gaming money is also a problem.
Most interesting is this section:
> Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button.
Apple is also taking aim at Epic here for using buttons and labels identical to the ones that they use - I’m curious to actually see these buttons, and I wonder if they are being used intentionally.
The game is very successful and well-made. It is AAA-quality. An AAA price for that kind of content would be $60 minimum, more likely $80-100. Anything under that price and you’re playing the game at a steep discount, compared to what the games market offers.
As for kids getting confused — yeah. That happens a lot, on the internet and outside the internet. Kids are confused about so many things. In fact, that is why they need to be parented. I feel like some parents should try and do that instead of waving fists at every tech/game company.
This reminds me a bit about the outrage GTA used to cause. Just don’t buy it for your kid if you think it’s too violent for them, you know? It’s not hard. Don’t give your kid access to Fortnite if they will be confused. Or use a bank with spending limits. Or just give your kid gift cards. There are so many options in the world for parents other than child-proofing the world itself.
Very, very many parents get this right. And it only takes 10 minutes to put some restrictions in place — bare minimum for parenting. Some others have the “government should do it for me” complex. Actions beget consequences. Neither Epic Games nor governments can fix bad parenting.
So is paying less for a game than it’s worth really predatory? Alternatively, if kids get confused by something made for a broad audience, is that predatory? I don’t know, it’s grey area at best for me. You could make a claim that marketing in Fortnite is predatory but it’s the same marketing psychology that’s used elsewhere. Is marketing predatory then?
Tencent didn't get all their investment money from Gacha in the asian market?
And please don't tell me Tencent is a minority investor or that there are non predatory IAPs or I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
The owner of a game doesn't dictate whether the game is predatory or not, the behavior of the game does.
The free to play model isn't inherently predatory, either, although certain companies certainly are. Call of Duty seems especially predatory.
They design the game to not only fleece you for money, but to waste your time until you do.
There's a big difference between free to play and using as many dirty tricks as they can to fleece as much info as possible (and/or being pay to win), and a company that genuinely makes a free to play game and makes money off skins, because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front.
See below.
> genuinely makes a free to play game [...] because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front.
So the free to play model fleeces you for more money. It's not predatory. At all. Honest.
See above.
> So the free to play model fleeces you for more money. It's not predatory. At all. Honest.
Ah, I see the cause of the misunderstanding. You're assuming the free to play model fleeces people for more money always when that simply isn't true. It's obviously true when companies are playing dirty, but not all companies do. Consider little indie studios, for example.
Quite often, free to play can end up costing people less money. Case in point, I played CSGO for 10+ years and spent less than $5 on it. If I had bought the game when it came out it would have cost $20 or so.
The little indie studios that I buy my games from are all pay once?
> Quite often, free to play can end up costing people less money. Case in point, I played CSGO for 10+ years and spent less than $5 on it. If I had bought the game when it came out it would have cost $20 or so.
Someone else paid $2000 for hats or whatever CSGO sells in the same period to cover the $20 you and other 98 players haven't paid.
And the game design and development effort went towards making those hats so the whales can buy them.
Any free to play game would have been completely different if it were designed as a pay once game.
Why are you going out of your way to disingenuously interpret comments? It's strangely super-defensive, your comment history shows it isn't a rare occurrence.
No, maybe not the little indie studios you specifically buy your games from, but plenty of indie studios offer free to play games.
Go browse Steam or something before commenting more on this subject please.
> Someone else paid $2000 for hats or whatever CSGO sells in the same period to cover the $20 you and other 98 players haven't paid.
Because they probably had disposable income and wanted to. It doesn't mean they are being fleeced, anymore than Balanciaga is 'fleecing' people here.
I take 'fleecing' here to mean conning, and there is no con happening. It's an honest transaction that people can take if they want to.
> Any free to play game would have been completely different if it were designed as a pay once game.
No shit, business models evolve. That doesn't mean all free to play games are inherently predatory. That's honestly a very foolish assertion to try and make.
I don't look at free games, I'm not that rich.
> No shit, business models evolve. That doesn't mean all free to play games are inherently predatory. That's honestly a very foolish assertion to try and make.
But they are. And not only for the whales that pay 2000 for the hats.
Do you realize that any "free" title is designed to waste your time to keep you playing? Why do you think they are all endless $ACTIVITY or competitive multiplayer? Is your time worth that little?
Jesus christ lol. So, you're just confirming here you had no clue what you were talking about. You get that, right?
You're making very bold claims based on assumptions and misunderstanding, for something you don't even browser or participate in. Your initials aren't DK by any chance, are they?
> And not only for the whales that pay 2000 for the hats.
Sure, anyone that can afford it and wants it will. Most people might just pay for a few $20 hats though, and get more enjoyment out of it than say 3 of their $8 cups of coffee.
> Do you realize that any "free" title is designed to waste your time to keep you playing?
I mean, that'ss true in some cases, and I'd say that's true of the biggest free to play games pushed by the buggest companies with a history of being shady, but again (and this is key): that doesn't describe all free to play games.
You're doing the equivilant of insisting all operating systems must be unstable and crash because Windows used to.
> Why do you think they are all endless $ACTIVITY or competitive multiplayer? Is your time worth that little?
I play free to play games to jump on and have a break. I'v played FPS games since I was a kid and find it a good way to destress. I see no problem in doing something I enjoy and would hardly call that a waste of time.
They're right, some free to play models are predatory and some of them aren't.
Free to play doesn't imply whales, either.
Got some, but thinking Tencent got all their money from Gacha is like saying Google got all its money from Search. Tencent's reach is in nearly every industry in China.
>And please don't tell me Tencent is a minority investor or that there are non predatory IAPs
I won't, but do you really believe all add-ons are predatory?
This attitude is exactly why you can't make premium mobile anymore. No one wants to pay, and the minority that do will pay a lot. "Piracy is a service problem" is a very common thing touted in argument against such tactics, but when you can sell your service for "free" to get people in the door, that argument falls apart quickly.
Premium? Freemium? The few mobile apps that I bought since i got a smart phone are all pay once and most of them cost more than 0.99.
However, for example, I do not even bother to look at mobile games any more because I "know" they'll be an IAP crapfest.
And if i look at applications, it's because they have been mentioned and deemed useful by a third party i trust.
- ad supported, pay once to remove ads
- subscription model. Get basic features and maybe ads, pay some 2-5 dollars a month for premium features. These may or may not have a "lifetime" option which is basically pay once.
- the dying breed of "demo mode". You play X levels and then you pay once for a "full game".
- and then freemium models which is basically a free game with small and large tricks to encourage spending over time.This is probably where you are.
But outside of that, yes. There are still premium games you buy like a console game (they are often ports of console games). But it's a niche because they are competing against a sea of "free" games. And many mobile gamers do just want 10-20 minutes of a quick fix, not even long enough to get past tutorials in larger games.
All gaming IAP that are not full on expansions (not skins, not standalone characters, etc.hm) are predatory
Seems like a pretty blurry line in the sand. Even blurrier when price 100% has an impact on perception. Skins are an exception but if I told you some skins are $60, would that be predatory?
It's more of a choice between Apple, or Apple + third-party gatekeeper. Well, at least now – I fully expect this to be investigated by the EU.
Apple had no qualms about Fortnites monetization model when it was in the App Store either, other than the fact that Epic tried to cut them out of the payment loop.
That's how 70% of apple's revenue is gained. AKA, the biggest players who are capable of advertising their own store without visibility from the default mode of purchase.
I'm sure eventually we'll get FDroid equivalents on IOS, but Apple is still playing coy as of now. So nothing but the deepest pockets will challenge them.
That’s factually incorrect and a completely absurd figure. The make way more money from device sales
70% of Apples app store revenue comes from game MTX. This is pretty much public record thanks to Apple v. Epic.
I completely get why they are in their death thoes, but as you said: they have other lucrative revenue streams anyway. So I hope the EU keeps slamming down on them.
Those are also the only guys who have enough money to compete with Apple's lawyers.
Not even the most brilliant hacker can say so. In other words: I don't agree. Users are dumb, and need to protected from harm. I don't want the Windows virus disaster all over again, especially because this time the stakes are considerably higher.
You can disagree with the fees, but for the rest my opinion is: live with the pain.
And we know for a fact that Apple despite all their claims to the contrary cannot do that.
Apple's (flawed!) review process still catches a lot of bad actors. Not all, and it has false-positives. That doesn't mean it's useless.
The (legit) question is: is Apple also using security as an excuse to make more money at the expense of customer choice? Because Apple absolutely doesn't need to be the only entity performing this task — I don't trust Epic, I think their business model is predatory on gambling addiction, that doesn't mean they would be incapable of performing the same kinds of security review — and while Apple's smooshing of all the different expenses from API development to review and hosting and processing fees into a fixed sales percentage is convenient, it does make it harder for competitors to emerge for each of those separate tasks.
I think it goes both ways. Perfection is letting me control the hardware I bought and tweak the software to my liking. them throwing their hands up because of their motte argument of "security" doesn't resonate with me. Especially when the bailey argument is simply "we want to control everything you do". Here, it's "don't even try to achieve good, avoid bad at all costs".
In my mind it's like closing a store down due to excessive theft in an area. That doesnt fix theft, it just takes away service from the honest customers.
Yes, I lose the power to do things; in exchange, I genuinely gain the security of some measure of defence against other people doing things at my expense. I remember when we could actually read all the code on our computers — that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical.
Of course, corporations are not democracies, so the fight between Apple and Epic is to me as the fight between King John and his barons in 1215 A.D. — and my relative power compared to either corporation is as the power of a, I dunno, franklin or free peasants or something, as to the King and his barons.
If I need security, I buy anti-virus. But I can't opt out of Apples "security". I don't see that as a good thing. If apple wanted to offer that at checkout, I wouldn't mind at all.
Worst case scenario, I backup all my stuff. My phone exploding should not ruin any more of my livliehood than losing a few days of phone calls would. I can protect myself without some non-consentual agreement from a vendor whose relationship should end after the device ships to my address. that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical.
>that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical.
I'm not going to pretend I consult the AOSP everytime I hit an odd quirk on my android. But I like the ease of mind knowing I can take my ball and go home if Google goes rogue (and I can argue thst it has already done so, years ago).
I ultimate trust people mush smarter than me for that, but I like having more than one biased source to rely on. And heck, I might help contribute if angry enough. That's the power of open source. The best possible insurance when I go in loops under "official channels".
I can't opt out of the police.
I can opt out of Apple's security by using literally any other brand of phone.
> Worst case scenario, I backup all my stuff.
No, the worse-case scenario is that malware knows everything you look at and everything you type (like bank details), everything you're listening to in real life, your location, your health data, etc.… and can also be used to spy on you through all the phones of the people around you in much the same way even if you don't download any malware yourself.
(And how many of those things would Facebook like to do in the name of "improved advertisement targeting"? If they had full access to photo libraries rather than just what's uploaded to their servers, I'd expect them to try to analyse all my friend's photos that happen to include me for this exact reason, and I'd expect that data to be mis-used by malicious parties just like other ad data has reportedly been).
There's a lot of reason someone should be enforcing rules on this; not so much that it should be Apple doing it.
> whose relationship should end after the device ships to my address
So, not a fan of security patches? :P
> But I like the ease of mind knowing I can take my ball and go home if Google goes rogue (and I can argue thst it has already done so, years ago).
Given that Google has (arguably) already gone rogue, can you actually take your ball and go home? There's a whole subreddit for that, yet every time I've heard other people try, it turns out much harder than anticipated.
> That's the power of open source. The best possible insurance when I go in loops under "official channels".
I have no more reason to trust open source than closed source: underhanded-C contest; at least one example of a Linux distro doing exactly what I'd expect if they were under a secret government order; Reflections on Trusting Trust; the foot-gun nature of C++ combined with its popularity; the number of times someone else has told me to fix something in a PR or QA report where I never spotted the issue while writing the code myself; and the obvious motivations of intelligence agencies worldwide to insert backdoors.
macOS has implemented code signing and only allowing apps from the App Store or trusted developers as default for quite a while now but people still find a way to turn it off or bypass it and then get infected by malware/spyware/adware. Because it's expected that you can run any app on a desktop/laptop platform though, they can't just fully restrict it, and it shows.
To me, this is one of the main reasons to fight for an open iOS: if people get accustomed to corporations revoking access to their software for arbitrary reasons, and if the technology exists allowing them to easily do so, then the gradual introduction of these measures to PC platforms will be met with a collective shrug.
Without any intervention, it's a matter of when instead of if.
Or they leave it on, and install malware/spyware/adware anyways: https://www.pcmag.com/news/beware-theres-a-fake-lastpass-app...
So suffice to say, their whole security scheme leaves a bit to be desired.
Indeed, but always was it so, and always will it be.
Also, that story is exactly what I mean when I say that what Apple does is, despite the flaws, still better than nothing: you can't pull a fake app hosted on its own website — you might not even be able to go after the host or the domain registry without a court order, and even then the country in which they are based may not be on good terms with your own and may not care about that order.
The analogy here would be using a headline of the police arresting a criminal to say "this shows that the idea of using a police force to prevent crime leaves a bit to be desired". Yes, and?
You can stop signing it, or register the hash of the program as malware. There, that's two easy ways to stop end-users from consuming harmful software.
> The analogy here would be [...]
It's more like if the police was trying to rationalize some ridiculous security system (say, drones) that didn't help catch criminals in the first place.
The first requires them to be signed in the first place. That violates the prerequisite of your point because your words were "they leave it on, and install malware/spyware/adware anyways" — so that's not a way to actually stop end-users from consuming harmful software, by your own words.
The issues with the App Store are "Apple is a gatekeeper that gets to say no and we don't like the set of reasons they've given themselves to be allowed to do that" and "Apple is a gatekeeper that charges money and we don't like that charge".
The right to stop signing some app, the right to register a hash as malware, both have the exact same capacity for mis-use if you regard Apple themselves (or any other gatekeeper) as being a threat to your freedom. Unless you turn off "run only trusted apps", but again that violates the prerequisite of your point, because then "stop signing it" has no effect.
And come on, hashes? Self-modifying code was a thing when my compiler only output for 68k/System 7.
> It's more like if the police was trying to rationalize some ridiculous security system (say, drones) that didn't help catch criminals in the first place.
It's specifically an example of them catching a bad actor and stopping them. "Pulls" is right in the headline.
Given my cultural history, I sure do wish I could.
Regardless, police have people holding them accountable some 20% of the time. No one's holding Apple accountable in the US, apparently.
>No, the worse-case scenario is
Okay... I'm a regular Joe. That sucks but let's not pretend I'm leaking government secrets even if all that happens. I see bad malware on phone (with my data backed up), I reset my phone. It's software, not a serial killer.
You can argue identity theft and all that, but that's not a unique feature to IOS/Android/Windows/Linux. So I don't count that as a bonus/demerit to any given platform.
>I have no more reason to trust open source than closed source
I already gave a reason. The ball is in my court and I can take it home. There are bad actors but also good actors when bad actors arise. Thars a better check and balance than some conglomerate who never had my best interests in mind.
Back in the desktop days, Regular Joe had malware that they have no idea was on their system.
> (with my data backed up), I reset my phone. It's software, not a serial killer.
What it is, however, is a thief. Lots of people have juicy secrets, that's why privacy is important in the first place.
Malware is very good at keeping hidden these days, running unspotted for a long time.
Someone cleans out your bank account, or gets blackmail material on you, backup won't do jack. This is also why certain apps, including banking, include tests to make sure they're not on a rooted device.
> So I don't count that as a bonus/demerit to any given platform.
Sounds like you only accept silver bullet "solutions".
Scare quotes because nothing ever is.
The questions are "how often" and "where can be done about it", the answers are not "yes" and "turn it off and on again".
> I already gave a reason
And I showed why it wasn't sufficient.
If you think open source will keep you safe, you are treating it as the exact silver bullet you're criticising Apple for not being.
> Thars a better check and balance than some conglomerate who never had my best interests in mind.
There's no real balance, and the checks are insufficient — there are definitely bugs that only get spotted a decade later, there are definitely state-sponsored flaws in OSS code, definitely some cases of normal criminals buying off some projects, and definitely cases where we don't find out about these things until much later.
And of course, quite a lot of OSS projects are in fact directly funded and managed by a corporation — the cathedral and the bazaar have both blended into a metaphorical Amazon marketplace, complete with fake reviews for fake products.
Most of the security you gain is due to mechanisms built in the OS like sandboxing. Third-party appstores gain the same security by default.
I might agree that Epic should be prevented from publishing their apps, but by a Democratically elected government, not by a private warlord. If Epic is doing something wrong, that should be a matter of public law, not a matter for a king to decide.
The thing I'm referencing is Magna Carta, specifically where the conflict was over "can the King force me to use his own courts when I sue him?" — this didn't much affect the normal folk who never had to personally sue the king in his own personal courts.
Similarly, I:
(1) already had the ability to publish an app, and have done so on many occasions
(2) still don't have the means to start an entire app store because the obligations vastly exceed my competencies (and I don't have access to one million USD): https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-app-marketpl...
> I might agree that Epic should be prevented from publishing their apps, but by a Democratically elected government, not by a private warlord. If Epic is doing something wrong, that should be a matter of public law, not a matter for a king to decide.
Sure, but this is the kind of thing we could — and others have and will anyway even if we don't — spend lifetimes arguing over every single nuance and subtlely of, including the extent to which a corporation is allowed to have the freedom to decide its own rules for who it does business with e.g. all the things Apple is doing (and all that Apple wants to refuse to do), or if the owner of a cake shop can refuse to do business with customers whose morals it disagrees with, and so on.
The only thing I'm sure of, is that I can't see the consequences of applying my first principles as if they were universal truths.
Your point is misdirection.
> and need to protected from harm
Yet Apple has no issue working for authoritarian regimes like Russia and China to protect those regimes and fuck over their users. Is that what you’re talking about? People are to dumb and stupid for democracy and therefore corporations like Apple need to prop up dictators to protect them?
I’m not even being facetious, looking at the actual facts and Apple’s behavior I don’t see how anyone can come to a different conclusion?
Anybody speaking with certainty on these questions should be distrusted.
We don’t know. We now have a natural experiment between the EU and U.S. My suspicion is we’ll see Orwellian corporate surveillance through mandated alternative marketplaces, e.g. Facebook requiring an Eye of Sauron marketplace to get around Apple’s rules, but that’s just a hunch. We may instead see a Cambrian explosion of creativity in the EU.
The question is how long we wait to measure. I think the answer is about one VC fund cycle, or 3 to 7 years. I don’t know when to start the clock—my hunch is when the first alt app store actually launches.
It's easy for people to read the law — or worse, opinions about the law — and mistake this for knowledge. One of the benefits to me for ChatGPT is that it gives me a stick to measure against: I know it's flawed because of how it writes code, and I know it will be that level of wrong about law too, and I also know that it's wildly better about law than I am. This makes the degree of my own ignorance much more intuitive, and reminds me that I can't just look at the text of the law and go "ah-ha!"
While I suspect you're right that Facebook will attempt this, I suspect they are much like Apple when it comes to not really believing that the EU is serious, and it will explode in their faces — a few years back, Apple put in rules for advertising privacy ID, which (while acknowledging my ignorance above) didn't seem too different from what the law required, yet Facebook was very unhappy about this.
We know:
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/07/04/apple-bows-to-kr...
https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/15/app-store-lgbtq-censorship-co...
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/19/tech/china-apple-whatspp-thre...
Anyone speaking with certainty against these examples should be distrusted. This is our reality. You cannot deny what Apple does.
This is illegal and I hope it leads to Apple being disallowed to still insert itself into the distribution process at all, which should’ve been the case from the start.
> The FTC says Fortnite's "counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button."
> Because of those design tricks, the regulator says it found instances where players were charged while attempting to wake the game from sleep mode, while the game was in a loading screen, or by pressing an adjacent button while attempting simply to preview an item.
> "These tactics led to hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers," the FTC said.
> Some parents complained that their children had racked up hundreds of dollars in charges before they realized Epic had charged their credit card without their consent. Accounts who disputed unauthorized transactions on their credit cards often had their entire accounts locked, giving customers no access to content that they had willingly paid for.
(https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fornite-ftc-fines-1.6690777)
They’ve been fined by multiple governments over button design. Maybe they’re not the most reliable narrator here?
If there's some actual filings with the EU about this somewhere I'd definitely be interested to read them. If Apple's actually rejecting this application because "they used standard platform buttons in a standard platform way", then yeah, nail them to the wall.
I'm just not to ready to jump to "nail them to the wall" based on a company with a history of dark patterns in their UI designs claiming on Twitter that Apple took issue with their UI designs.
Apple has publicly commented that the buttons are in fact the reason for the rejection.
“Apple has since told AppleInsider on Friday that it has approved Epic's marketplace app. It has also asked Epic to fix the buttons in a future submission of the app for review.”
src: https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/07/05/apple-green-light...
A non-insignificant portion of this fight has also been waged in municipal European courts, in case you forgot.
You guys kill me, stay classy.
This kind of deliberately vague phrasing makes me immediately suspicious. This 'button adjacent to the preview button' - that wouldn't happen to be the buy button, would it?
For most developers this will be a deal breaker, because it also applies to free software which most of the time is only supported by donations.
Given with how much Apple got away for years, I am not surprised. Either many people don’t have particularly much insight or a severe case of Stockholm syndrome.
What bothers me the most is apples double dipping. You as the consumer basically pay a fee for apples technology. And then they expect the developers to pay the same fee, which will ultimately be paid by the consumer as well. Also ignoring the fact that Apples platform would be completely worthless if it weren’t for the developers building the apps the users want
iPhone sales alone are 3x Apple's entire R&D spend. And developers pay more than fair share of that because they need at least two devices (an iPhone and a Mac) if they want to develop anything, and a yearly fee.
Apple doesn't just double dip. It triple dips, and wants to quadruple and quantuple dip.
There’s hardly any order of dipping, if any.
Why doesn’t the web compete away Apple’s “dips”?
Because the web sucks at building apps? Because the web can barely render a few lines of text and several images without lag and jank? Because the web lacks useful and powerful primitives and controls to build anything but the most primitive UIs? Because...
Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about?
worldwide, and not by a large margin. I believe it's 60/40 last I checked.
Among US and a few other first world countries, it's nearly 50/50, with a very small advantadge to Apple. Slashing your consumer base in the biggest markets isn't an attractive proposition.
>Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about?
well Apple made PWA's harder to do in the EU, so ask them... They're doing what they did to Flash long ago, with much less justification this time around.
So. Let me get this straight. Android is dominant in the world. In first world countries it's 50/50 (though it's 69% in the EU). There are also desktops where Chrome is dominant.
And yet, somehow, there are still no amazing PWAs[1] that are the future as everyone claims, because somehow Apple prevents you from building them for those dominant platforms.
[1] Don't mention Figma or VSCode before you also mention how much effort went into implementing them.
There are plenty of great PWAs. People bring them up on a regular basis and you piss and moan when we say Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Mastodon, Pinterest, Uber, Trivago, Starbucks, Dominos, Stitchfix, Adam & Eve or Hotels.com are usable online. You specifically complain because none of these apps are killer features to you. I don't know what to say; clearly they exist and you're trying to minimize the number of apps that technically qualify.
People refuse to take you seriously when you repeat this same tautology. Of course PWAs aren't popular on platforms that deliberately go out of their way to make them infeasible alternatives to a first-party service. It's not my fault that your purview of the technology is arbitrarily limited.
1. Funny how "on a regular basis" only comes after prodding these people multiple times, pointing out Android and desktop exists, and wading through numerous complaints how no, it's not true, and Apple prevents PWAs from existing.
Even in this discussion instead of naming PWAs right off the bat you first pretended that Android isn't dominant, and completely ignored Chrome dominance
2. It's also funny how "the amazing great PWAs" are inevitably not that great, are they?
Instead of being great and amazing they are just... "usable online". Each of those significantly much better as native apps. Without fail most of them would be much faster, fluid, less janky and resource-hungry if they were just static sites with links instead of ... whatever they are. Oh yes, they are usable.
> clearly they exist and you're trying to minimize the number of apps that technically qualify.
"Technically qualify". That's a great turn of phrase you used there.
So, we went from "boohoo limits the viability of non-native apps on its mobile devices" to "usable online" and "technically qualify".
I, for one, don't want to use apps that "technically qualify". I want actual fast fluid non-janky and non-resource hungry apps that are a joy to use even if they are the most mundane apps out there. That is precisely why I keep asking: given that Android dominates mobile space, and Chrome dominates desktop platforms, how come the best examples you can come up with barely "technically qualify"?
> People refuse to take you seriously when you repeat this same tautology.
People refuse to accept PWA fanatics when they keep saying grand words with very little to back them app. All you can do is complain about Apple.
> Of course PWAs aren't popular on platforms that deliberately go out of their way
You'd think that PWAs would be great and amazing on platforms that don't have any real or perceived limitations. And yet, all you can come up with is "usable online" and "technically qualify". But sure, do keep complaining how it's Apple who's preventing you from building great native-like experiences on the web.
With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.
For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.
But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.
The web can barely display simple text and images without jank because that is inherent limitation of the DOM that you cannot escape (that, and the absolute dearth of useful controls and utilities in the browser).
You could of course build stuff with canvas/WebGPL/WebGPU, but then you have to reinvent the whole world from scratch because those are low-level (and in case of Canvas quite limited) APIs
It means that at least 15 years ago it was more than powerful enough for all of the 2D Candy Crush style games which make up the overwhelming majority of mobile gaming apps.
> The web can barely display simple text and images without jank because that is inherent limitation of the DOM that you cannot escape
I've seen you repeat this phrase over and over again like a mantra on HN, but without examples I can't really gauge the performance problems you've run in to. The overwhelming majority of jank on the web that I've experienced is due to advertising bloatware (an adblocker is indispensable), and occasionally bad engineering (e.g. someone forgot to make an event listener passive, or isn't debouncing an event) not some inherent limitation of the platform. What are some examples of popular apps that you think require the full brunt of a modern chip? Every M3 iPad review I've watched ends up saying essentially the same thing: "this chip is powerful, but besides Geekbench benchmarks we have nothing to use it for".
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Zoom saves me 5 minutes out of every 30 in meetings, in fact it might be conservative. And this isn't just a question of the chips (though native Zoom does make better use of it) but also display, audio input/output, even global keyboard shortcut handling.
> but also display, audio input/output, even global keyboard shortcut handling.
I personally have never had a display or audio hiccup that I could attribute to a browser limitation. I don't even own a device with a display powerful enough to max out Youtube.com's 8K video resolution limit. I'm not sure why you've had issues with keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard events are well established and widely supported [3].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20387298
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=zoom+vulnerability
[3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEve...
Definitely during the pandemic - good UX meant I got to feel more present with friends and family and that was well worth any security cost.
What I can tell you is that I felt at ease using Zoom in the browser knowing that I wasn't opening my computer up to a remote code execution vulnerability. Your UX concerns are a bit nebulous, but I'd be willing to bet that the risk assessment departments at most organizations could quantify the cost of a hacker gaining access to one of their employee's computers. I also used Zoom during the pandemic but I wasn't doing a ton of screen sharing (I was more interested in seeing my friends and family members faces rather than their screens).
Of course a lot of this is Zoom vs. Google Meet, I'm sure a lot of the things I like about Zoom work fine in the browser - but not as well as with the simultaneous video streams limitation.
You can cost out security, but a lot of the things that I love about Zoom's native app are truly priceless - it means I can see and hear more of people I care about. Another thing is supporting dual monitors with different screens, it makes it very easy to rearrange and see more than one person I want to see at a glance. You can do it with multiple browsers and so on, but it's more fiddly and you spend more time fussing with the screens, which means less time actually paying attention to the people.
We're getting really deep into the intricacies of Zoom and Google Meet here, and I feel like we're losing the larger plot. If you have a battle station set up for Zoom parties with multiple monitors with 50 simultaneous dancers that you need to keep an eye on, and you don't mind the security risks, then maybe you represent a specific edge case, but I think the vast majority of software users have different requirements that web browsers satisfy handily.
To reason by analogy, this is like me suggesting you wear a seatbelt while driving a car and you responding by saying: "well you're at risk the moment you step outside of your house, so if you really have no tolerance for injury you should simply not leave the house". You're saying instead of opening Zoom in the browser I should delete all personal data from my computer, and for what end? I'm doing this so that I can attend virtual dance parties efficiently? I don't understand how any rational cost benefit analysis could yield such a conclusion.
> "would I prefer to open myself up to attack, or would I prefer not to deliver this message at all?"
This is absolutely a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between sending data and not sending data, the choice is between sending data in the browser vs sending the same data within a desktop application.
> You need to do a complete threat model and explain how Zoom contributes to that risk,
The Zoom desktop clients have had RCE vulnerabilities where hackers were able to remotely execute arbitrary code on victims computers with zero user input required from the victims (they demonstrated this by remotely opening the calculator app). It's very obvious how Zoom contributes to that risk. "A zero-day vulnerability in Zoom which can be used to launch remote code execution (RCE) attacks has been disclosed by researchers. The researchers from Computest demonstrated a three-bug attack chain that caused an RCE on a target machine, and all without any form of user interaction [...] an animation of the attack in action demonstrates how an attacker was able to open the calculator program of a machine running Zoom following its exploit. As noted by Malwarebytes, the attack works on both Windows and Mac versions of Zoom [...] The browser version of the videoconferencing software is not impacted." [1]
> Practically speaking I have conversations in public places all the time and I don't stress about the possibility that someone might be recording me with a parabolic microphone.
Do you yell out your bank account number and routing number in public because you think the user experience of finding a private place to talk is too burdensome? Because that's metaphorically what you're arguing for.
[1] https://it.slashdot.org/story/21/04/09/209227/critical-zoom-...
There have been RCE vulnerabilities in browsers too. Do you have an example of a Zoom RCE vulnerability that wasn't fixed? The example you gave was one where Zoom was proactively publicizing their own work to recruit researchers to find vulnerabilities so they could be fixed before they caused actual issues - and Zoom fixed the issue, you're using Zoom's good behavior in security testing their app against them.
> Do you yell out your bank account number and routing number in public because you think the user experience of finding a private place to talk is too burdensome? Because that's metaphorically what you're arguing for.
No it's not, I wouldn't transmit my bank account number and routing number or similarly sensitive information over Zoom.
> This is absolutely a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between sending data and not sending data, the choice is between sending data in the browser vs sending the same data within a desktop application.
The choice is in fact between sending data and not sending data. I've given you one example (the limited number of simultaneous streams) where you're opting not to send data. You're just pretending that use case is invalid. There are other examples I could give, but they require more explanation and you seem determined to dismiss any examples I give.
We're not comparing the security of web browsers as a whole to the security of the Zoom desktop client, we're comparing the security of the Zoom web app to the security of the Zoom desktop app. Can you find a single example of an exploit that allowed a hacker to execute arbitrary code on a user's computer after visiting zoom.com (even one that was eventually fixed)?
And also, almost all computer users are running web browsers (they come preinstalled on most consumer operating systems). So by downloading Zoom you're adding an additional threat vector on top of whatever threat your favorite browser already represents.
> The example you gave was one where Zoom was proactively publicizing their own work to recruit researchers to find vulnerabilities so they could be fixed before they caused actual issues - and Zoom fixed the issue, you're using Zoom's good behavior in security testing their app against them.
Every reputable organization has a bug bounty program (including browser vendors). You don't get a participation trophy for having a bug bounty program. You're missing the entire point which is that Zoom offered $200,000 to security researchers to find a vulnerability in their products and both of their desktop clients produced critical vulnerabilities yet the browser version did not. Which I would infer means that the browser version is more secure. Once again, do you have any examples of Zoom exploits in the browser?
Zoom can't keep producing vulnerabilities and getting a pass because they eventually fix them. This exploit's existence was publicized before Zoom fixed it. What if it was sold on the dark web and exploited in the interim?
> No it's not, I wouldn't transmit my bank account number and routing number or similarly sensitive information over Zoom.
People are absolutely transmitting critical information via Zoom. Courts literally use Zoom to remotely administer proceedings. I've heard of companies that ask employees to hold up sensitive documents in front of the camera to verify their identity. Hiding your head in the sand and saying "just don't send sensitive info via Zoom" is disingenuous at best. And even if you did buy in to the "just don't send sensitive data bro" argument it doesn't matter because an RCE exploit could potentially expose information that you never transmitted via Zoom that just happens to be sitting on your filesystem.
> The choice is in fact between sending data and not sending data. I've given you one example (the limited number of simultaneous streams) where you're opting not to send data.
The overwhelming majority of your examples have been cases where you've begrudgingly admitted that there's a way to accomplish your goal in the browser, albeit less efficiently. You started this conversation by admitting that you can share your screen in the browser, but doing so via the desktop app saved you a few minutes. I haven't found any published documentation from Zoom in regards to the streaming limit and I'm not willing to call up 49 other people to test this for an HN debate, but like I said, the vast majority of users can fulfill their needs in the browser. The average Zoom user is not hosting digital raves. I couldn't even imagine wanting to have 50 videos playing on my screen vying for attention. And again, there's no technical reason for why you couldn't implement 50 streaming videos in the browser. Maybe Zoom should spend that $200,000 improving their browser product.
And again, this is about messages simply being undeliverable without the native app. If the web app takes an extra 5 seconds to join the meeting (I think it can actually be worse than this in a lot of cases - minutes lost) and I've just reached the meeting at 2pm and the meeting starts promptly at 2pm, and the native app causes me to miss 5 minutes of the intro... what is the cost there? I think in a lot of cases it can erase the benefits of video.
Courts are famously overloaded. If a court can get through 10 cases over a 4 hour session, each taking 24 minutes, and if each case loses 5 minutes of time due to using the browser app, then that's two whole cases worth of time they've lost. And it's not just about being able to handle a larger caseload: in a lot of cases inefficient communication results in incorrect communication and incorrect decisions.
Broadly though, you're taking it for granted that it's easier to make a browser app efficient than it is to make a native app secure. I'd actually wager there's a ceiling to how efficient you can make a browser app, and you can make the native app at least as secure as the browser app while also making it more efficient. Zoom has the money, they don't need to cheap out and do the browser app, and they shouldn't because efficient communication is a matter of life and death and their whole reason for being. Yes, it should be secure, but you can't just dismiss efficiency, being inefficient can cause security problems and it is often a matter of life and death.
> And again, there's no technical reason for why you couldn't implement 50 streaming videos in the browser.
Their docs specify that there are minimum system requirements for doing 50 rather than 25. This is an efficiency problem at the end of the day - the browser app is less efficient and can't handle as much info at a time with the same hardware.
The 'whole point' of a visual medium is not just to communicate ideas more quickly. Having eyeballs does not merely grant me a speed boost, it allows me to experience things that are simply ineffable otherwise. People didn't Zoom/Facetime their family members during the pandemic just because it was more efficient than texting them.
> And again, this is about messages simply being undeliverable without the native app. If the web app takes an extra 5 seconds to join the meeting
You're misusing the word undeliverable. Undeliverable means 'can not be delivered', not 'delivered 5 seconds later'.
> Zoom has the money, they don't need to cheap out and do the browser app
They're already doing the browser app. I'm saying they should do it well.
> Their docs specify that there are minimum system requirements for doing 50 rather than 25. This is an efficiency problem at the end of the day - the browser app is less efficient and can't handle as much info at a time with the same hardware.
You originally claimed that there was a hard limit to the number of simultaneous video streams that the browser version could handle, and that this was the difference between sending a message and not sending a message, and now you're walking that point back and saying that the browser version can't do it with the same hardware. So you're tacitly admitting that you were originally presenting a false dichotomy.
> being inefficient can cause security problems
There are multiple confirmed security flaws in the desktop Zoom apps (which you claim are more efficient), and your conclusion is "inefficient = insecure"? If anything, the opposite appears to be true according to your own claims.
> I'd actually wager there's a ceiling to how efficient you can make a browser app, and you can make the native app at least as secure as the browser app
Zoom themselves wagered $200,000, and the result was a critical RCE vulnerability in their desktop clients, and nothing in the browser version. But keep postulating with hypotheticals and ignore objective reality.
> if each case loses 5 minutes of time due to using the browser app [...] because efficient communication is a matter of life and death
First of all you've been throwing around this '5 minute' figure throughout this discussion, but there's simply nothing to substantiate it. Your entire argument hinges on this flimsy point derived from anecdotal evidence. I've never spent 5 minutes trying to set up Zoom in the browser. I predicted several days ago that this discussion would degenerate into anecdote trading, and here we are.
Second of all, if I were dealing with a serious court case then one of my primary concerns would be maintaining confidentiality. You completely ignored the entire point of my court example which was to illustrate the fact that security has serious implications, and you can't simply wave them off by saying "I wouldn't transmit personal information via Zoom". You're trying as hard as you can to avoid the most important aspect of using Zoom in court: security. Instead you wrote a thinkpiece about Zoom hypothetically taking 5 minutes to load. Imagine being a witness in a high profile case, on the brink of going into the witness protection program, with your literal life on the line, only to find out that your private information was leaked because someone didn't like the UX of the Zoom web app. And you have the gall to claim that bad UX is a matter of life and death. Are you being serious here?
You yourself said "I wouldn't transmit my bank account number and routing number or similarly sensitive information over Zoom", and yet you want the Zoom desktop app to be used in courts? That makes absolutely zero sense. Do you not believe courts deal with sensitive information?
Strange how we went from "The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps" to "majority of mobile gaming apps."
> I've seen you repeat this phrase over and over again like a mantra on HN, but without examples
I mean, almost every single web "app" out there suffers from this. The DOM isn't built for highly dynamic interactive applications. It's a system to deliver static text and images.
> What are some examples of popular apps that you think require the full brunt of a modern chip?
Now you're pretending I said something I didn't.
However, it's funny how the amazing fast web sites that are more than enough for the majority of apps struggle with even the most basic tasks even on maxed out machines. I mean, Slack's app needs up to 20% of CPU even on an M* Mac (last I tried it was M1 Max IIRC) to render a few animated emojis.
It's a single example, but it's quite representative of the state of the Web.
You've got your signals crossed. That was another commenter who wrote that statement [1].
> Strange how we went from "The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps" to "majority of mobile gaming apps."
We didn't go from one thing to another. I addressed a subset of the app market: gaming apps. Just like your Slack example addressed a subset of the app market: chat apps.
> I mean, almost every single web "app" out there suffers from this. The DOM isn't built for highly dynamic interactive applications. It's a system to deliver static text and images.
This is not a technical argument, it's a philosophical one. The council of browser elders never convened to proclaim that web browsers are only meant to deliver "static text and images", that's just your philosophical viewpoint. In fact, Apple is currently pushing WebXR to support the new Vision Pro, so apparently they didn't get the memo about "static text and images" [2].
> Now you're pretending I said something I didn't.
You said that the web is not performant enough. CPU speed is a pretty big component of performance.
> I mean, Slack's app needs up to 20% of CPU even on an M* Mac (last I tried it was M1 Max IIRC) to render a few animated emojis.
Slack's desktop app or Slack's web app? If you're talking about the Electron app, well then yeah bundling Chrome is never going to win efficiency awards, but now you're pretending I said something that I didn't. I'm not defending Electron apps. Everytime I discuss the web on HN someone does a bait and switch and starts talking about Electron. Don't conflate Electron with the World Wide Web.
If we're talking about chat apps, then I've watched high definition streams on Kick, Twitch, and YouTube where the chat is streaming in over Websockets faster than I can read it. The human brain at that point becomes the actual performance bottleneck. But tell me more about how the web can only handle a few lines of text (by commenting on a website).
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40891602
[2] https://webkit.org/blog/15443/news-from-wwdc24-webkit-in-saf...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_differen...
i.e ads or search engine placement.
countless of public companies have it in their reports that mobile app users generate more revenue compared to web whether desktop or mobile.
and i'm not talking about game companies.
It's kind of crazy, because all of the super high numbers and companies that said they'd go bankrupt were looking at the Personal tier, which basically acted as a sales funnel towards the Pro tier, where the prices would not be as outrageous, even in the original version of the Runtime Fee: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/unity-runtime-fee-a-look-at... (under "How bad is it, really?")
Of course, they since revised it so my article isn't relevant anymore, but if you look at the platform fee cost per install, then it becomes quite obvious and the initial pushback didn't seem to take this into account: https://blog.kronis.dev/images/1/6/-/f/e/16-fee-per-install-...
Aside from that, though, I guess companies will always try to take a part of the profits that anything offered through their platforms generates (Apple's App Store, Google's Play Store, Valve's Steam etc.). It's good to see things improving at least somewhat, though, since we can't express a lot of progress overnight.
It’s crazy that Unity’s PR people (and the CEO himself) were so objectively dumb and incompetent while being paid that much.
The retroactive part was probably indefensible but they did such a horrible job at explaining the actual fees initially that it utterly jaw dropping…
It’s fair to not like the Apple fees but the scenario isn’t equivalent.
One was a rug pull. If they did that all along it wouldn’t have been as big an issue.
Similar to Unity, these pricing ding the smaller people the most. But unlike Unity, the bigger players aren't joining the protest. I guess I was just foolish thinking businesses would at least think in the middle-term of "what if we want our own storefront one day ". I guess the EU might pick up that ball, but the Apathy from other devs is a bit disenheartening. The same Apathy that let these companies enshittify the net and turn into trillionaires as punishment
It provides new options. Granted they might not like the terms of the new options , as you clearly don’t. But nothing has been taken away from them in the process. It is completely unsurprising that there is apathy.
Unity tried to change the terms from under people which changed their livelihood prospective negatively.
If the only equivalence is that there’s a fee, then that applies to a lot more to the point it’s meaningless. Epic do a revenue share. Unity should have done a revenue share but did something more trackable without requiring regular audits.
Ultimately it wasn’t Unity’s actual fee that was the problem, had it been a new tier. But it retroactively changed things for people.
If you were apathetic/supportive of Apple and would stay on the App Store anyway, nothing changes. And I suppose a lot of businesses are in this group.
>But nothing has been taken away from them in the process. It is completely unsurprising that there is apathy.
Yes, that's my core problem. But the last two years should have taught me thst companies aren't looking in the long term these days. Epic is, sort of. if only because they have no option given their whole kerfuffle.
I don’t think that’s true. A very small proportion of smaller developers might have been disproportionately affected but Unity was just complete garbage at communicating the changes (not trying to downplay the retroactive bit, no excuse for that). Most people just didn’t bother reading the fine print or calculating the actual fees themselves and just looked at the published headlines.
I don't think it was a small portion. The main point was that the lowest cost plan was horrible and a ploy to get you to buy Unity Pro. If you weren't a free (as in freedom) app, it as a complete negative to be on the base plan.
> it as a complete negative to be on the base plan.
With the changes if you didn’t get pro after surpassing the revenue it would have gotten price but that wasn’t even an option previously.
I think it was actually a significant improvement for some people in that position:
- the cap was now per game/project instead of company
- you could still surpass the previous cap a bit and save some money by paying for install instead of immediately being required to get pro.
Everybody just seem to ignore that/ didn’t notice it because Unity did such a garbage job explaining the changes.
(I’m not really defending them, they only had to introduce this few because they almost literally burnt billions between by pointlessly buying random companies and going on some deranged hiring spree for no reason..)
If the app is taking donations or any sort of payment, then the Core Technology Fee applies after 1 million first installs in a year. If it’s a completely free app, this fee does not apply. This fee also does not apply for educational institutions, nonprofits, and government agencies (with a fee waiver).
Quoting from “ Understanding the Core Technology Fee for iOS apps in the European Union” [1]:
> Developers whose apps do not surpass one million first annual installs per year and nonprofits, educational institutions, and government entities with an Apple Developer Program fee waiver do not pay the CTF. The CTF is also not required for developers with a no revenue business that offer free apps without monetization.
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/
> Apple provides many conditions where developers do not pay the CTF: […] Developers that earn no revenue whatsoever. This includes offering a free app without monetization of any kind (physical, digital, advertising, or otherwise).
(from the link above)
I wouldn't take HN's cognitive dissonance personally. Half this website has to fellate their favorite CEO on a daily basis or they dematerialize into insecurity.
Any software maker is free to sell on any non-Apple device without Apple saying a word.
But what about the other way around; how does Apple ensure that third-parties can compete with their private entitlements?
Is it even realistic for an indie business to compete against any of Apple's provided services if they're forced to serve that business through the App Store? Apple's progressive pricing scheme seems to punish them for posing a threat to any first-party services.
We're all "yeah, the government's shit at this stay out of tech" but then turn around and "I don't like the way these guys are doing things, the government needs to force them to build and run their platform differently."
Which is it? You want the government telling tech companies how to run things or not?
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/180933674561328744...
Epic isn't the victim here, they are acting like spoiled children.
You and I look right through this power language, but this kind of wording makes people believe Apple is mightier than it is. It's disgusting from Reuters.
If I’m fined by my city for a code violation, and then I sign off on a contractor to apply the remedies, I’m okaying work I’ve been ordered to do. Nothing in that framing challenges the city’s authority.
I'd say fine every transgression progressively so much it hurts their finances so badly they actually make that choice, once and for good (for Apple this would be tens of billions each time depending on the case). But cca 450 million potential customers and rich market ain't something to ignore, shares would take 50% or more cut easily.
It would just stop these PR charades where they try to act like they care and have some actual morals, but act differently.
I STILL can’t install my smartwatches discontinued app because the notarization will most likely be rejected (as I’m not the creator).
Apple produces and sells the device. Without Apple, you wouldn’t be able to build these apps; whereas the shops would exist without the mobsters.
(not trying to defend Apple, just answering the question)
iPhones are extremely popular and desired, and people voted for it, in its current state.
If people didn’t like what Apple was doing, they can just buy Android. Awfully simple
That has probably never been the case for any product in any category. Your car can't fly, even though you think that the customer is always right.
But what hackers are demanding is that Apple alter their software to work exactly as they want and assist them with this, even though most of them will not ever purchase an Apple device. To the detriment of normal customers who want devices that work well.
Why are these requirements not levied against other product manufacturers? Why don't you try to force Tesla to make their cars run on diesel? Why don't you try to force McDonalds to make you a Whopper?
But really it's about reasonable fit-for-use regulations. That burger needs to be edible. The restaurant has to follow fire codes, even though that takes extra work. Both of those are orders of magnitude harder, as a percentage of cost, than letting the user control their own device. An even closer comparison is a rule that Tesla has to work with other chargers, which would be a good rule if it doesn't already exist.
DRM is a special new thing that didn't traditionally exist, and we shouldn't let it be used as a way to remove the ability to tinker. It's almost as bad as physically hindering.
The analogy is more like comparing the McDonald's kitchen to the iPhone itself? In that case the answer is obvious. I don't own the kitchen, but I do own the iPhone.
But to elaborate on burgers, since you keep making wild extrapolations, all I would demand is that the burgers not have DRM on them (or Food Rights Management?). Thankfully nobody has invented that yet. But imagine if you couldn't combine your own drink with a McDonald's burger, at home. If that kind of anti-consumer practice was possible, I guarantee you'd see it implemented. And we should not treat it as a right of the restaurant as long as they don't "physically" prevent you from doing it. Outlaw it as soon as it seems like it could be possible.
Most restaurants of any kind will not let you enter with your own drink or food, so your example can be made both ways.
You're not demanding customization of your iPhone before purchasing it: worse, you're demanding it after your purchase, even though there's no unclarity as to how an iPhone works.
I doubt that the people here have the same entitlement towards other businesses as they have towards Apple. Or at least I hope so.
I'm not demanding they customize it, though. I'm just demanding they don't artificially block customization.
So, like a normal burger. You keep adding weird demands into your analogies, because the straightforward burger analogy is "burger where if I take it home I can customize it at my leisure, no technology applied to make that effectively impossible", and there's no way to twist that desire into sounding unreasonable. The thing I want from Apple is a thing that almost every company already does.
I want full confidence that I can buy a second hand device without any malicious software installed (even if I’m not smart enough to know how to properly and fully reset it). And I want people that buy my second hand phone to have full confidence in that device so I get a good resale value for it. Maintaining this resale value is also important to avoid e-waste, since if people don’t get a good price for their phone it just gets left in a drawer.
Apple provides this product. So I buy it. If you don’t want these guarantees for a device you’re buying, just don’t buy an iPhone.
I think we’re going about lack of choice completely wrong. Yeah, it may be hard to get certain apps that don’t rely on iOS or Google Play Services. So legislation should target that problem instead: government and key public service apps should be published in an open app format that can be run on any device that implements the open standard.
Considering the same company is often using the idea of free markets, yet does everything to avoid that free market where it can, the irony here is pretty strong.
As I wrote in the comment you responded to, I’m "not trying to defend Apple, just answering the question".
> So you also dispute fuel stations selling fuel for all car brands and would prefer fuel stations only supporting one car brand instead of the generic standard? And yes, this is the same. Why should BMW allow Exxon or Shell to fuel the cars when they don't get a sweet 30% tax for every refuel happening?
This seems a strawman argument to me. The situation is not the same at all: fuelling a BMW or a Mercedes car is exactly the same thing for the gaz station; all gaz stations sell the same oil; the road that brings all these cars to the gaz station does not belong to a car manufacturer; there are countless car manufacturers and not only two giants; etc. Can’t we reason about the situation without having to resort to dubious analogies?
Violence. Seriously?
These are $1000+ devices.
It's like buying a house and still not owning it.
I yearn for Windows Mobile but it has suffered from this problem greatly. Same with early Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones with smarter features like J2ME.
I don't think Microsoft of the 90's, pre-"I take 30% as a gatekeeper" crashed and burned because it didn't leech enough funds from developers. Quite the contrary, It encouraged and empowered future entrepreneurs and customers alike, thinikg in the long term. .
>i yearn for Windows Mobile but it has suffered from this problem greatly.
Pricing wasn't the issue. Remember that this was the days where phone carriers subsidized phones with contracts, so no one was paying 600-1000 outright like today. It was a mix of lacking tech and UX needed. And a gargantuan marketing campaign.
Yes it can. Apple is lying to get more money, nothing more.
Still, I don't understand people defending a trillion dollar company for doing things much worse than what wad torn apart in us courts 30 years prior. Sad that the EU needs to pick up that torch, but it is what it is.
There are no "essential" apps that prevent you from running Android without Google services. There are certainly some nice features that require it, but you have been capable of using de-Googled Android for close to a decade at this point.
if apple behaves like a judiciary court about these things, then epic is helping setting precendence in favour of the rest of us.
But I still think regulation or government intervention is bad for everybody. As we now have precedence to decouple a lot of things in the name of Anti-Trust or Monopoly.
The precedence has always existed. It might seem a bit uncharacteristic from the European perspective, but historically the United States hasn't shied away from butchering it's largest cash cows.