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Comment by twoodfin | Hacker News Reader

Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. Otherwise it'd be an easy way around the "Ask App Not To Track" prompt.

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>Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this.

This is going to be irrelevant in the EU once sideloading gets popular.

Thankfully the EU also has legislation that makes "share data to use" tactics illegal, so this shouldn't be a problem.

How are you going to enforce this against app developers outside of the EU?

Facebook likes getting some of that sweet money from EU advertisers.

EU can block payments from EU to Facebook.

Different threat model. You're thinking of big tech companies like Meta, who are big enough to warrant regulatory attention. I'm thinking of fly-by-night shady app developers that make flashlight/weather/"security"/IoT/game apps, that fly under the radar because they're too small.

Not really the kind of apps people would sideload?

People might not sideload a flashlight app, but they're probably going to sideload an IoT app (especially if they bought the corresponding product first) and games (especially if their friends are peer pressuring them into it).

Then the EU can stop them from selling their products to EU customers, since as soon as you’re providing services to EU customers you’re obliged to play by EU rules

>Then the EU can stop them from selling their products to EU customers

So you want the EU to play whack-a-mole with fly by night IoT vendors, some of which might be shipping directly from China? Or do you want to fix this with even more regulation, like requiring licenses to import IoT products or whatever?

> So you want the EU to play whack-a-mole with fly by night IoT vendors

Yes

Like they do with other online criminals

Yeah, I'm sure the EU sending angry letters to nameless IoT company in shenzhen is going to be very effective.

> Yeah, I'm sure the EU sending angry letters to nameless IoT company in shenzhen is going to be very effective.

I would expect them to use a heavier hammer to whack that mole....

The reason I would rather we'd kept walled gardens (plural is fine, given that monopolies are also bad) is that I expect such apps will quickly become sideloaded soon after it becomes possible.

We shall see — that may simply be a security mindset paranoia on my part.

Anti free choice mindset.

Truly free choice is an illusion; the best we can do is a force of law to keep players from tilting the playing field in their own favour.

Once side loading is available, the stupids will do it for “freedom” or whatever.

Regulating the AppStore makes sense. Proliferating lots of them is the most inane policy decision ever.

Exactly the type of apps people would sideload. Little things that somehow violate App Store rules abusing APIs, lying about app capability, just being ethically dubious.

Use flash to create seizures, nudity people realtime, hack your ex, damage the device, cheat at games, spam your enemies, etc.

There is an infinite use case for tiny malicious apps finding malicious or gullible users and with side loading there are going to be stores created to appear very legitimate when their intentions are actually illegal.

I think the EU has very noble intentions while completely failing to understand that society is a wreck and a lot of money is made through extortion and fraud. Their apparent fix is to make the OS developers still responsible for what is installed while taking away funding for it. I am guessing the end game is more taxes and government intrusion on private devices to fix the problems they are purposely creating.

Android is way more popular in the EU than iPhone, allows sideloading, and I am not aware of these issues being rampant with it ?

While sideloading is possible on Android, it appears to be sufficiently difficult that Google isn't effective with the argument that this makes them "not a monopoly".

As a tech person I find this weird, but then I remember the relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/

But then the argument that opening iOS up is going to cause security issues isn't effective either.

Why so?

Surely if normal people can't do a thing, even if only because it's too complicated or inconvenient, normal people aren't going to be a big source of security issues due to that thing.

To a first approximation, the small apps don't matter because they're small.

If that doesn't work, set up a deposit requirement like Apple wanted for the 3rd party stores and then walked back. Do something wrong, lose the deposit and the entitlements.

In a discussion thread about Meta (which follows EU law) launching an app in the EU using their alt App Store laws; why would you further move the goalpost just for arguments sake?

>In a discussion thread about Meta

1. characterizing this as a "discussion thread about Meta" is a stretch. While the OP is about meta specifically, it's fairly obvious that as of a comments up, the discussion is about the behaviors of app developers in general, rather than what Meta is specifically doing.

2. Discussing unintended side effects isn't "moving the goalposts". If we're talking about the student debt crisis, and someone brings up the idea of student loan forgiveness, it's not "moving the goalposts" to bring up concerns about inflation.

Fines equivalent to 10% of global revenue, and extradition orders.

Imagine a country extraditing their app developer to the EU of all place lmao.

Yes

Imagine it. Fear it!

Unless I'm missing something, Apple only has to provide these new requested APIs to users in the EU. I presume Apple will keep everything as-is in other countries, just like with app sideloading.

Citation? I think this is not true. The EU law seems to just require explicit consent. So websites and apps can ask whether user wants to share data to keep using them for free or pay a subscription fee.

Article 7.4 and recital 43 of GDPR cover that.

Article 7 https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/

Recital 43 https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/

Those two in combination stop companies processing data for unrelated task to the services they provide. And it's indeed true and already been applied, see this: https://www.digitalguardian.com/blog/google-fined-57m-data-p...

A "consent or pay" model is sadly widely used, but it's at least very controversial and probably illegal. No data protection agency has gone on record to say it's definitely illegal and no fines have been given out IIRC, but the EDPB had some tactfully negative things to say about it [0], and the Czech DPA has ordered at least one company to cease the practice in a preliminary ruling [1]. (Which the company seems to be completely ignoring, as is sadly common.)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay [1]: https://uoou.gov.cz/urad/povinne-zverejnovane-informace/svob...

What makes you think it will get popular? Android has had it forever and almost nobody uses it.

I do wonder if Apple could have saved itself a lot of aggravation by allowing side loading from the start.

For the people who choose to sideload, yes. How's that an issue?

Why would a normal person want to sideload?

I sideload on android because the apps on f-droid are better than google play. So I would imagine the same would apply to iOS. With sideloading you can run open-source software that works in a straightforward way and isn't intentionally crippled so that it can be monetized.

The last time I used iOS I found the app store quality was also really bad. People listing "free apps" that immediately require you to start an expensive monthly subscription to use. The effect on the mobile games industry has been so disastrous that people would rather carry an entirely separate mobile device on them just to play "real games".

On google play or the app store you can play a mobile version of minecraft with microtransactions for $7. With sideloading you can just play a full version of the more popular java edition PC game, for free. (pojavlauncherteam.github.io). I think that sums up the sideloading experience.

Because it's crazy to think that the two dominant app stores are going to have policies that exactly match people's needs, and that they'll implement those policies competently.

Syncing files with Syncthing is no longer possible on Android because the Android team won't fix the performance of storage access framework, for example. This is 100% on Google, not Syncthing.

But I can still use SyncThing-fork because it's on FDroid. Similarly for the Fossify apps, Quillnote, KeepassDX, Privacy Browser, and dozens of others.

Apple will never put in the effort to make a community that thrives on sharing open source apps that are not profit driven. It's simply not in their DNA. And I don't want to have to live in a world where every developer that wants to make a mobile app has to pay a tithe to the overlords of Google and Apple. They will always claim that they're fixing security problems by acting as an intermediary, but there's no way for them to do that without replacing my choices with theirs, and nothing in Google's or Apple's decision-making history indicates they're better equipped to make decisions governing my machines than I am.

So why would a normal person want to sideload? Because they don't want Google and Apple telling them what software they can install on devices they purchased.

It's not going to get popular.

I don't know man?

I have to think if Apple were mandated to be more open to competitors they would not be allowed to reject apps on this basis.

This problem is just multifaceted and far reaching. Not sure how to go about solving it?

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