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Comment by thimabi | Hacker News Reader

Why gate such a basic functionality for users in the European Union? People elsewhere do not have access to alternative app stores anyway. Is allowing them to uninstall such apps too much?

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Apple aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts, they’re being forced to by the EU. So unless their hand is being forced elsewhere they’re not going to do it.

Yup. You can bet most developed countries will start to follow suit now. Remember Apple's argument before they exhausted their appeals with the EU was that they could never do any of this, and the sky would fall, and their whole business would be destroyed. Now, that will have been proven to be absolute poppycock as they begin to abide by all these regulations in this one (large) region. I expect regulators in Japan, UK, Australia, etc. will start to say "Yeah, we want that too." And Apple has zero plausible argument left for why consumers everywhere else don't deserve or can't have the same level of choice.

Obviously not in America though, since we don't have a functioning government, just an executive branch that doesn't have the support of Congress, and a judicial branch that believes strongly that only an act of Congress could create the authority needed to actually rein them in. And a Congress which would ideally like to avoid doing any legislating besides passing a continuing resolution or debt ceiling bill every now and then, since there's too much fundraising work to do.

I think GP’s point is that in this case gating the feature is extra work with zero benefit for Apple², so why not just do it anyway³?

¹ At the very least more code and cases and testing where it could go wrong.

² Maybe reduced support calls?

³ Spite could be a reason.

Zero benefit? They get to keep a captive audience using the App Store. What's not to like?

That makes no sense. If you’re the type of person who’d want to delete the App Store app despite not having access to alternatives, you’re not someone who’d ever want it or use it or buy from it.

Because it doesn't benefit Apple to allow you to uninstall these apps.

I mean, on their own, many of the core apps probably don’t bring much revenue to Apple. I can understand their reluctance to allow uninstalling the App Store, but what do they gain by preventing someone from uninstalling the Camera, for instance? Those who want to do so will use an alternative app anyway.

Because you'll have users who do it by accident and lose basic hardware functionality of their device without knowing how to fix it

I don't know why this is downvoted. There are definitely a ton of users who will accidentally delete the camera and then complain their phone is broken, wasting everyone's time.

People have already apps they can delete. And when they do it by mistake, they just go to the App Store to download it again, wasting nobody’s time. Why would it be any different?

There’s just need to be a button in the settings if the App Store itself is deleted.

Safari generates billions of dollars in revenue for Apple through the default search engine deal with Google.

You’re right, I forgot about that.

Google lost an antitrust case specifically because of that, so doesn’t look like that’s a deal that can continue.

https://www.ghacks.net/2024/08/07/u-s-judge-rules-that-googl...

The EU forced them. Apple has been fighting pretty hard to not have to do any of these changes, it seems they gave up

Folks in USA/CA would remove Safari and then return phone to the carrier/Apple as defective. No, I'm not kidding. I saw that multiple times - Windows messed on laptop? Laptop within return window? Return it is!

Eh, people return their devices because don't know how to correctly use them all the time, I don't see how it is different here. And people definitely don't need to intentionally do this -- in the US, most major retailers allow you to return opened products within the return window (although it could get complicated with so-called "activatable devices")

It's not even a matter of whether the user knows how to use their device. I've seen plenty of Windows laptops shipped with a somewhat-broken software configuration out of the box, and on multiple occasions I've seen two "identical" machines fresh out of the box get offered different software updates with the end result that a few hours and several reboots later, one system is noticeably misbehaving.

> I don't see how it is different here.

iPhones are almost 'idiot proof' for a lack of a better description. Allowing removal ( or rather hiding ) of the apps will 'break' that impression.

I'm surely in favour of making iPhones/IPads general computers, but that not going to happen. Those legislations from EU are no help.

i must be an idiot. As an iphone user for about a year i'm constantly confused what's happening or stuck on some screen or can't find what i need or mysteriously trigger some screen or popup.

There are already a ton of default apps that can be removed, so I don't see how this matters.

The only thing I don't understand is the App Store, since today that's the place you go if you have "deleted" say, Notes or Music, and want it back. I guess they'll have to add a button in Settings or something called "Restore App Store."

And while people in general are certainly idiots and will certainly find a way to screw up, I don't think it's going to be a massive big deal to tell them "go to the App store and redownload _____" (plus whatever the way is to put the App Store back). We all know that the way to get it back isn't going to be like, SSH into the phone. Apple will have some way to do it that takes 10 seconds when people call into AppleCare, or literally the first person you see at the Apple Store will know about it.

cause they dont need to, if Apple isn’t forced to give up their deathgrip on the user they won’t.

I’m sure a non-trivial number of users would delete apps that are required for basic functionality. Stopping them prevents support issues that could require resetting to factory settings, if they didn’t add some other way to get the App Store back.

It is mentionned in the article that the apps that can be uninstall have a quick reinstall option in the settings.

Sounds anti-competitive to have special install options for your own apps right in the settings menu of the device...

Is that really sufficient justification for stopping users from having more control over their device?

Like should we really let the 'Grandma Finds the Internet'[0] meme be the reason that you and I can't make decisions for ourselves?

Whatever cost savings that Apple has from avoiding support for these people is dwarfed by the money they make from stopping competitors to these apps from growing due to these control mechanisms.

That's the real reason apple doesn't want to do this and has to be kicked dragging and screaming by the EU.

[0] https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Grandma-Finds-The-Internet

> Is that really sufficient justification for stopping users from having more control over their device?

People who want more control over their devices; have Android. Not all solutions need fit all desires.

That isn't enough.

The public interest is served by the end users having more control over their devices than Android and Apple currently offer.

Forcing both companies to have the same features reduces customer choice in the overall market. Some people want to choose the simple curated experience and the EU and others backing their decisions are removing that option from the market. iOS has already become significantly more complex over the years and this keeps dialing up the complexity and areas where a user can get tripped up.

The support calls I’ve received from family since they all moved to Apple have dropped dramatically. It may not be the platform for you, but it’s the platform a lot of people prefer. This is because of the curation, not in spite of it. Infinite choice and control means an infinite potential for problems. A lot of people don’t want that. If they did, desktop Linux would be mainstream instead of a meme.

I like that open platforms exist, but I also like that other platforms exist that don’t require much effort. Rarely do those things exist in a single package. I don’t know why people, who I only assume don’t use Apple products, feel the need to change them and take away what people like.

Not being able to delete literally everything doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Especially when those apps are ones a significant number of other applications assume exist and try to interact with. Where is the line? Or is there no line? Will people try to compel Apple to keep removing stuff until iOS boots up to a prompt where the user can net boot the OS of their choice?

The world is a better place because the government mandated interoperability between POTS telephones and that car manufacturers must be supply owners with parts that can be installed by any mechanic.

We can and will have the best of both worlds with open devices that are user friendly. Apple has the resources both financial and technical to make this happen. It's just a matter of regulators making them do it.

I thank the EU for pushing companies like Apple in the right direction first with USB-C, 3rd party app stores and now this.

> Will people try to compel Apple to keep removing stuff until iOS boots up to a prompt where the user can net boot the OS of their choice?

Hopefully regulators will compel Apple to open their mobile devices up the same way that their personal computers are. If I can install linux on my macbook why can't I install it on my iPhone? It doesn't affect people like your grandmother one bit.

Some Mac Genius commented up thread claiming that because someone's grandson secretly installed Boot Camp and converted her MacBook to Windows (with dumb consequences), nobody should be able to make significant choices about how to use ~their~ I mean Apple's, computers.

> This is because of the curation, not in spite of it. Infinite choice and control means an infinite potential for problems. A lot of people don’t want that.

And those people don't have to opt into the unclean world of freedom that hasn't been blessed by Apple. All your family would need to do is NOT check the box that says "Let me explore outside this walled garden", which would be accompanied with a plethora of scaremongering confirmation screens.

I think we’ve all met the people who know just enough to be dangerous, while overestimating their abilities. These were always the worst support calls when I was younger, and are the co-workers that give me pause was setting up access for the team.

Not everyone who receives a computing device is the same one who set it up. I’ve told this story before but I’ll repeat it because it’s illustrative. Back when MacBooks ran intel processors and bootcamp was both new (and explicitly unsupported) I spent a few hours assisting a new and very irate customer in figuring out why their new MacBook was having all sort of problems that as they described it were not possible in macOS or had already been solved by software/firmware updates. Turns out they’d bought their new MacBook and given it to their nephew who was “smart with computers” to set up. Said nephew decided on their own that what their aunt needed was not a MacBook running macOS but an expensive windows laptop. So they installed bootcamp, installed windows, shrank the mac boot partition to the smallest it could be and configured it to boot directly into windows. As a result, all their usual issues with windows were still present and firmware updates weren’t being installed because it never booted to macOS to run the macOS software updates. I spent a few hours with the woman explaining what her nephew had done, the general concept of an OS/dual booting and fixing things so she could use the MacBook as a mac, without losing data in a drive re-partition. The reality is that not every end user is making informed decisions about their devices, and not only does that harm the user, but it also harms Apple. From their perspective I spent hours supporting unsupported software and trying to repair their brand and reputation in the eyes of an irate customer for something that wasn’t even their fault, and caused by giving other people the choice to leave the curated path. That customer later became one of our better customers, but if they hadn’t happened to get the store employee who understood bootcamp, and who had a manager that would allow them to spend that time supporting unsupported software, they might have both never been a customer and been an active detractor.

It's really illustrative into the mind of Apple fans that your takeaway from this wasn't that "dumb opinionated teenagers make stupid choices" and rather that "It's a good thing we're rid of Boot Camp, and it should be physically impossible to end up with a poorly configured Apple device, the heck with the consequences for people who know what they're doing.

You can't protect people from their absolute ignorance or in that case active sabotage. And the costs to society of having our only two mobile platforms both engaging in lots of anticompetitive behavior, are huge. Not to mention that if I want any choice at all in anything I apparently have to 'choose' Android, which I don't even like to use, due to the fact that in the US (and backed up by every job I've had) companies develop the iOS version of their app with great care, and farm out the Android version to some distant contractor, and since no executive has an Android device to even try it, no one above IC level even knows their Android app is a buggy pile of trash. All of this is not even due to any inherent qualities or policies of either platform, just that rich people all buy Apple devices.

I think you’re trying too hard to squash a nuanced post into some fan binary where you’re either for or against Apple, starting with making a strong claim which the person you’re replying to never made.

GP post wasn’t that nuanced; it strongly implied that since granny gave her Mac to her silly nephew for setup and had a bad time, that justifies stripping the supposed owners of all Apple devices of meaningful control of those devices. An unsurprising take from someone who sounds like he may be a onetime or current Apple employee.

I think what makes someone a “fan” is that complete trust of Apple to do “What’s Best,” a completely coincidental perfect harmony between “What’s Best” and Apple’s financial interest, and the suggestion that the platform(s) simply aren’t “for” people like me who want any choice whatsoever, and we should just F off to Android if we don’t like it because ceding us any control would somehow explode the “safe, easy” walled garden by its very availability, a completely bogus argument.

You’re again putting words in their mouth. That post illustrated that this is not a simple binary, having real costs to that flexibility. I think your feelings are valid emotions but they’re leading you astray by thinking that Apple’s customers are not making a rational choice.

I also note that you can install non-Apple operating systems on the latest hardware and they even put engineering time into supporting that and making it safer for Mac users to do so.

I’m not even slightly worried that Apple’s customers are making anything but the best choice for them. At least the ones who are super happy with how “easy and safe” their system is.

All people like me want is for there to be a switch to let us have the ultimate say over our computers. This used to be standard even on Macs until a few years ago.

I admit, however, complete ignorance on how I’m supposed to install, say, Windows, on an M* Mac. As far as I knew, the T2 security chip or whatever is the decider of that, and I wasn’t aware that Apple made any promises that they’d allow such a thing as an OS that isn’t signed with Apple’s certificates. What you’re saying is news to me so I’ll have to look it up.

Still though, I actually still mostly like “macOS” and want to keep using it, but would like to have the right to do things like turn off their dozens of permissions warnings, and assume full responsibility for not installing malware.

> I admit, however, complete ignorance on how I’m supposed to install, say, Windows, on an M* Mac. As far as I knew, the T2 security chip or whatever is the decider of that, and I wasn’t aware that Apple made any promises that they’d allow such a thing as an OS that isn’t signed with Apple’s certificates. What you’re saying is news to me so I’ll have to look it up.

The problem with Windows is that Microsoft doesn’t sell an ARM installer directly to you. Here’s what the Linux situation looks like with a single command to install it:

https://asahilinux.org/fedora/

The process is described in detail here:

https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Open-OS-Ecosystem-on...

The part you’re probably most interested in is here, where they describe how the different volumes use encryption so you can boot an unsigned OS which doesn’t have access to your primary macOS storage but can use a shared volume to exchange data intentionally, and some discussion about how Apple has made this easier over time:

https://jamesb192.github.io/asahi-wiki-build/Apple-Platform-...

Thanks for the resources! I'm glad to see the door is at least cracked open to the concept of more than a first-party OS, and not welded shut like it is on apple's "mobile" hardware.

> reduces customer choice in the overall market

What is this bollocks? Slavery being illegal "reduces customer choice in the overall market". Being compelled to clean up industrial waste rather than pump it straight into the air and rivers "reduces customer choice in the overall market". Being required to be honest about financial investments "reduces customer choice in the overall market" - the market for RUBES.

The EU is not compelling Apple to remove anything, it's compelling Apple to offer their end-users the CHOICE to use third-party apps and app-stores where Apple mercilessly locked it all down for their own financial benefit - deliberately calculating what would benefit them the most.

You know who reduces customer choice? Apple. When they lock you in for their own benefit.

"I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things." https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/31/emails-apple-blocked-ki...

...the executive wrote to Jobs about [an ad promoting cross-platform compatibility], saying that one “message that can’t be missed is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android. Not fun to watch.” The suit doesn’t quote Jobs' response at length, but says he wrote that Apple would “force” developers to use its payment system to lock in both developers and users on its platform. https://www.wired.com/story/4-internal-apple-emails-helped-d...

>Slavery [...] industrial waste [...]

Only on HN will you see the ability to uninstall a phone app be contrasted with slavery and industrial waste.

All three are outcomes of unfettered capitalism.

If laws and regulations are not vigourously enforced, companies will do anything they can get away with. Including kidnapping, torture, starting wars, poisoning millions, and in this case abusing a monopoly in one area to force out competition in others and enrich themselves by depriving people of choice. Like Standard Oil before them. Do you want the robber barons back?

Definitely. I’ve had family members delete a bunch of the stock apps and then complained to me that various fitness and health functions stopped working. Turns out the fitness and health apps were important.

And push Apple to improve their default apps

Releasing it as a feature everywhere would require at least a bit of public explanation and might give the appearance that EU forced Apple into doing something good for everyone. Being petty and releasing the bare minimum georestricted only to EU requires no public explanation and gives more the appearance that this is some dumb law Apple was forced to comply with. At least that's probably their thinking.

That is probably a more likely explanation that "because it would lose them money".

I suspect that the number of people who are actively going to switch to a different App Store is minimal. Users can already install other browsers, even if they are still using WebView, same of messaging apps and I doubt that many would care to replace the camera app. Photos maybe, but is that really a huge lose for Apple? That saves them from storing your photos.

People on HN is often assuming that people would leave the App Store in droves, if given to option. I really don't see that happening.

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