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Comment by EMIRELADERO | Hacker News Reader

> "These changes resolve Apple’s disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution."

[...]

> "The Core Technology Fee, a per-install fee for developers that achieve extraordinary scale, will be replaced by the Core Technology Commission, a simple 5 percent commission on digital transactions in apps distributed outside the App Store. The new terms also eliminate the initial acquisition fee and store services fee."

[...]

> "In order to keep EU users as safe as possible, Apple will continue to require every alternatively distributed app to go through Notarization — a baseline review focused on basic functionality and protection from serious threats."

This is bonkers, I can't believe the EU Commission agreed to it. The main issue that the DMA was about still remains: Apple retains ultimate control over app developers' dealings with users.

The status quo that the EU should have pushed for, and which Article 6(7) of the DMA requires, is one where a developer can distribute iOS apps to users without ever entering into any contractual relationship with Apple. The OS APIs that most apps use are already paid-for by the user when they buy the device. Apple wants to double-dip and charge developers for the value that the users already have by virtue of owning their iDevices with all the necessary iOS paraphernalia in them.

Of course, Xcode and the SDK overall aren't paid for by users, so Apple can charge devs for it, but so far there's no way to signal to Apple that you have opted out of using their SDK and have the fee waived. Not that it would be enough anyway, since even having to interact with Apple in any capacity to be an iOS dev is the main problem.

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> The OS APIs that most apps use are already paid-for by the user when they buy the device.

That argument would assume no cost for upgrades.

I remember having to buy new operating systems.

That said, looking at the state of recent OS upgrades, I think I'd have been happy if the only changes over the last, oh, decade or so, had been purely security updates. But these too are not free.

> Apple wants to double-dip and charge developers for the value that the users already have by virtue of owning their iDevices with all the necessary iOS paraphernalia in them.

Yes, obviously they want to make as much money as possible, and this is at odds with consumer interests.

That said, I have the impression that for many users, the benefit is the app ecosystem, while for many developers the benefit is the users. Endless marketing cycles of new-shiny-API for one, and new-shiny-UI for the other.

That said, power-law distribution, so "the app ecosystem" is probably mostly Meta, Google, Amazon, as specific names, then becoming somewhat vague with "whatever work mandated of Slack or MS teams", "their bank", "three or four supermarkets", and "a taxi firm who may or may not be Uber".

I'd like to see Windows 2000 as a base taken by Anthropic and beefed up with security stuff.

I'm kinda tempted to do that to classic MacOS. But only kinda, because copyright and trademarks are things, and I don't want to risk incurring the wrath of any legal team, let alone a trillion dollar corporation's legal team.

Maybe ReactOS can be a good base for this actually becoming a reality!

Woods for the trees- Great idea!

I wonder if they already use LLMs in development. However, and maybe I'm misremembering, but they were doing clean room development so it may not even be possible (because of copyrighted stuff leaking through LLMs).

>Yes, obviously they want to make as much money as possible, and this is at odds with consumer interests.

It's not at odds with consumer interests at all. It's at odds with developer interests.

It would actually cost consumers more if Apple couldn't make any money from developers directly because they'd try to make it up by charging more for Apple products.

Developers might prefer to shift the burden to consumers's wallets instead of their own, but overall this model is beneficial for everyone involved. It is also better for the environment because directly making money from developers incentivizes them to support old hardware for as long as possible.

> because they'd try to make it up by charging more for Apple products. > Developers might prefer to shift the burden to consumers's wallets

I vigorously disagree with this. It sounds very confused about economics, specifically prices.

Apple, as every market actor does, charges the absolute maximum price the market will bear for their products and not a penny less. They cannot "make up" any money that comes from unrelated parties (such as their Google payola for search, or their casino games for children IAP revenue) by raising product prices. If they could raise their product prices and have that be profit-positive, they would have done it yesterday.

They could raise prices on phones to make up for a hypothetical "free iCloud+," because the same consumers are the other party in both those transactions so presumably many people would see that the more expensive phone justifies free iCloud services.

Apple doesn't set its prices by saying "OK, we need exactly 83 billion dollars in net income this year, so given that our products cost us 233 billion dollars to make and we have 54 billion dollars in expenses, we need 383 billion in revenue, so now let's set prices of each product to target this."

That $83 billion in net income is just the number they are able to make last year with the prices being what the market would bear. Trying to increase prices to hold it there when a downfall in other revenue happens would depress sales.

>Apple, as every market actor does, charges the absolute maximum price the market will bear for their products and not a penny less.

That price is much lower than it otherwise would be if the only revenue Apple could generate came from hardware. The opposite incentive exists today, where it actually benefits Apple to sell cheaper razors to make more money from the razor blades.

Only if consumers would pay it, which isn’t something we can really know.

> That price is much lower than it otherwise would be if the only revenue Apple could generate came from hardware.

And that narrative is based on what exactly?

Apple's profit margin is 25% by the way.

That's just not how that works, how much consumers will pay is a binding constraint. Apple isn't subsiding their phone with developer fees and distributing their below marginal cost. Apple is almost certainly charging well above its marginal costs and is already charging the revenue maximising price, it's not willingly leaving money on the table.

Not entirely how you've made formed this connection but respectively it sounds like you've confused several things here.

They are obviously not charging the maximum price because they’ve raised the price significantly when the iPhone X came out and suffered no harm. Apple sets prices based on a 30% raw profit margin and ignores the market except as it constrains their raw material and manufacturing costs. They use that 30% to pay there other costs, such as iOS development and R&D and investing in manufacturing partners.

The iPhone X, like all models, is a different model than all the others; the maximum price for one model is not going to be the maximum price for another.

> Apple sets prices based on a 30% raw profit margin and ignores the market except as it constrains their raw material and manufacturing costs.

Literally impossible ahead of time, as some of their costs are fixed rather than marginal. If you spend, as they did last year, ~$34.5bn on R&D, and you make a thing that costs $1000 to make and then you price it at $1300, but the market looks at what it is and what it costs and says "nah" so only 1 million people buy it that year, then what you're actually making isn't a 30% profit, it is a loss >110x your revenue.

We don't know exactly how much R&D was spent on the AVP, nor the exact sales, but the market reaction to the price is something you should have in mind. No matter what its unit economics were, Apple probably made a loss overall.

> It would actually cost consumers more if Apple couldn't make any money from developers directly because they'd try to make it up by charging more for Apple products.

iPhone sales pay for the entirety of Apple's R&D. 10 times over.

You work for $8000 a year?

I fail to understand your question.

Apple sells 240+ million iPhones a year. Apple's profit margin is an unheard-of 25%.

iPhone customers pay for everything.

So why does this not apply to macOS?

>I remember having to buy new operating systems.

The total cost of supporting the hardware via the OS is easily baked in to the exorbitant hardware cost, or failing that, could easily be baked in.

And you can tell this is the case because they do eventually drop support for old phones. Its not like they give you forever security updates because you buy apps.

The EU likes the power to delist apps by compelling two companies (Apple and Google) to do so.

Android is moving to the same, KYC (credit or debit card; no prepaid cards) with play store required for APK distribution

yeah, I think for as much as many of us hold out hope that the EU will break the back of these brazen monopolists, there's a limit to their friendliness to the actual interests of consumer freedom when it's got to be balanced by their love of censorship.

Whatever censorship exists in the EU is really inconsequential. What bothers me is the spying.

Do you mean “censorship by the EU” or “censorship within the EU”, or both? Because I see a lot of the latter, and I don’t find it inconsequential at all.

By the EU and in Germany, really... What is censored in other member states isn't in the news, but for all I know it's also not much and not important.

Which censorship do you consider problematic?

The whole EU censorship rhetoric is almost always devoid of facts and examples. I feel like it is mainly sustained because US people like the narrative that theytl are the free(TM).

Asking innocent questions often works better than confrontation, but yeah, this elevated importance of utmost free speech doesn't survive the Atlantic crossing and can be used to maliciously pooh-pooh Europe to an American audience.

We don't have a lot of "censorship within the EU", some russian propaganda tv channels might be blocked (as they should) but that's about it really. Now if you mean in a particular EU member, that's different but it's not impacting the whole EU.

Try watching Citizen Vigilante in Germany. Or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or I Spit on Your Grave until recently.

Isn't that due to Germany rather than the EU?

try reading before replying

The Play Store is not required for APK distribution. Not now, nor has it ever been.

yet https://keepandroidopen.org/

is like much of the discourse around the changes, overly sensationalized and borderline false.

The only change made that's relevant to sideloading-a-downloaded-APK as far I understand, is a 24hour delay in enabling the ability to do so, which is a wildly overblown non-issue.

It is less secure though, and they are doing it in the name of security. People are right to call that out as bullshit.

Availability is a key component of security, and this is a 24-hour DOS on apps not blessed by google.

It’s a one time delay that occurs when you first enable the ability to install downloaded apks and you never see it again for any device attached to your Google account. That’s why I called it a wildly overblown non-issue

I call hat freedom gone with one switch

They’ve announced they’re changing the policy to require ‘verification’ in future Android versions.

It will likely be delayed, just like Manifest v3, but eventually it will happen.

Well, they seem to have started shipping parts of that; recently I noticed https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... was installed for me.

Wait, which apps are you referring to having been delisted by EU (which branch? what process?), as opposed to "breaching app store terms and conditions" (which the companies do of their own initiative all the time)

One example: Russia Today / RT News. Process: Google made a blog post [1] and cited EU's Council Regulation (EU) 2022/350.

The app is still available in Russia on both App Store and Play Store.

[1] https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/company-annou...

Do you have any more sympathetic examples that aren't enemy propagandists? I feel getting banned from the app store is getting off lightly compared to, say, Julius Streicher.

> In a statement, a Commission spokesperson welcomed Apple’s changes to its business terms, which it said “follow a close dialogue between the Commission and Apple”.

> “Following today’s announcement, the Commission will monitor Apple’s effective implementation of the new terms,” it added.

There's nothing on the commission webpage, all I could find is the above comments from a spokesperson which aren't hugely definitive.

I think we can take the mention of dialogue to mean the commission thinks the new rules are a step forward enough that wider civil society can have a look and maybe kick up a stink, and the absence of press release coordinated with Apple as evidence the procedure is still open

> I can't believe the EU Commission agreed to it.

This press release conspicuously lacks any suggestion that it did agree.

Sadly and unbelievably, it appears to be true:

> [“The Commission welcomes the changes made by Apple to its commercial terms,” commented a spokesperson for the European Commission. This announcement, the spokesperson continues, is “the result of close dialogue between the Commission and Apple,” after the tech giant was found in April 2025 to have breached the rules of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and ordered to take the necessary corrective measures. In light of these developments and the changes to be introduced, “the Commission will monitor Apple’s effective implementation of the new conditions.”](https://www.eunews.it/en/2026/08/18/tracking-and-new-commerc...)

That feels like a crazy definition of Notarization there Apple.

Well I think this it at least improvement to the status quo

> there's no way to signal to Apple that you have opted out of using their SDK

How do you not use their SDK?

Nowadays with LLMs people could probably patch up some FOSS SDK that perfectly replicates the original's functionality without infringing Apple's copyrights. If the DMA was enforced correctly this would have already happened.

> Nowadays with LLMs people could probably patch up some FOSS SDK that perfectly replicates the original's functionality without infringing Apple's copyrights.

I don't intend to insult you, but as an iOS developer myself I have serious doubts about whether you have any expertise in the subject you're talking about here.

I didn't mean to imply that this would be a vibe-coded slop project. I'm no LLM evangelizer and hate the hype train as much as any competent dev. The truth is though that LLMs are uniquely suited for work of this kind, and a team that knows what they're doing could make short work of the whole thing much faster.

> I didn't mean to imply that this would be a vibe-coded slop project.

That's not really the issue. LLM participation is a red herring. The issue is "replicates the original's functionality".

What would be so outlandish about that?

I'm not going to argue with you, because I continue to suspect that you have no iOS development experience and are just making hand-wavy claims with no empirical basis.

It's you who has started to argue by replying to my comment in the first place.

I asked a question: "How do you not use their SDK?"

Your answer seemed nonsensical to me.

What I meant, though, is that I'm not going to argue about a specific point, the viability of "some FOSS SDK that perfectly replicates the original's functionality." If you don't even have any experience with iOS development, then you have no basis for making any claims about that subject, and thus I'm not going to bother explaining "What would be so outlandish about that?"

In any case, most iOS devs don't want to opt out of using the SDK. That would not be a particularly attractive route for making iOS apps. What I want as an iOS dev is the same freedom of software distribution that we have on macOS.

> If you don't even have any experience with iOS development, then you have no basis for making any claims about that subject, and thus I'm not going to bother explaining "What would be so outlandish about that?"

The basis for my claims about the subject is my knowledge of computing and development in general. I dipped my toes into iOS dev a few times and there's nothing that seemed to set it apart from any other SDK situation beyond Apple's restrictions, at least nothing that would make my claim outlandish.

I think if you adjusted his statement to be - not use apple’s “everything” software ecosystem - it would be possible.

Core device apis yes, everything else, maybe not?

I think we could roll our own UI - I think we can roll our own payment systems - I think we could roll our own media display.

For the primary iOS app I work on I need vulkan, gps, touches camera, sound, and phone rotation. (And standard os services)

I don’t need anything else.

That is never going to happen. We will never get the same freedom we enjoy on pc's again for the simple fact it benefits both the platform owners and governments to have a simple centralize company in this case (Apple & Google) to go to get what they want. The freedom we have on pc's is too much of a wild west and not enough control that both governments and platform owners like. As much as we may want to it will never happen for those reasons.

If you don't intend it as an insult, you might try providing literally any substance to your argument rather than just lobbing ad hominems.

I assume you mean on an open hardware platform, because underneath Apple's SDKs are just more Apple APIs until you get to Apple's IPC interfaces to talk to Apple-designed hardware register interfaces.

Unfortunately when it comes to technology licensing, it is rarely successful to say you should pay less because you purposely made your job harder.

Personnally I use Flutter which has a very minimal use of their SDK.

Basically enough to render inputs to a gpu accelerated surface.

And I'd argue that this is a core OS feature that you expect on any modern OS.

> Flutter which has a very minimal use of their SDK.

> Basically enough to render inputs to a gpu accelerated surface.

I suspect it uses much more so that it can support

- audio

- file I/O

- accessibility

- …

I agree but you expect those from a consumer OS since at least Windows 95.

But as the API surface expands, making a compatible competitor becomes increasingly difficult. Look at how long WINE has been developed and how it still isn’t done.

But I don't want to make replacement API? I'm just expecting these API to be freely available on any OS, you can't seriously say that you will charge for these. It's not an "SDK" but basic OS primitives.

I doubt Apple can even ship a mobile phone without audio or I/O support even without third party apps...

> How do you not use their SDK?

The first third party iPhone apps existed before the SDK existed. iPhone OS was jailbroken pretty quickly and apps emerged fast. SDKs are nice references and tools but the're not the only way to skin a cat.

This is not a useful distinction. The API existed and was used by Apple apps and by jailbreak apps. In fact Scott Forstall intentionally prepared iOS to have third-party apps. The API was just not public yet.

If you think the header files are the thing that Apple thinks is worth of a cut of app revenue, I think you're way off base. It's the technology, whether you access it with permission or not.

Right, and my point is that the technology is already fully paid for by the user. By "the SDK" I meant the dev environment stuff, not the API base on the phone.

> the technology is already fully paid for by the user

This seems like a very large and unfounded assumption on your part, particularly in a world where we no longer pay for Apple operating systems or their updates.

> Right, and my point is that the technology is already fully paid for by the user.

That's your claim. Neither Apple nor the EU appear to agree. Nor do US courts appear to agree in the Epic v. Apple trial.

Apple itself has to pay license fees for some technologies in iPhone, and those licenses do not automatically extend to third-party developers via the consumer. It's not a license agreement with the consumer.

When you said, "there's no way to signal to Apple that you have opted out of using their SDK and have the fee waived", which fee did you mean exactly? The quote in your comment refers to the Core Technology Commission, which is a percentage of app revenue. There's also the $99 developer program fee, which all App Store developers pay.

I know that some developers are annoyed by the $99 fee, but for professional iOS developers, $99 is a drop in the bucket, and the revenue % cut is the vastly larger and more important thing. So if by "the SDK" you mean only the header files and such, that seems like mostly a red herring to me, and if you were allowed to use the technology for free, then there wouldn't be much reason for Apple to charge for the SDK. And indeed, Xcode has always been available for free. https://apps.apple.com/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12

> That's your claim. Neither Apple nor the EU appear to agree. Nor do US courts appear to agree in the Epic v. Apple trial.

This point was never raised in any of those cases. Apple just did aome hand-waving "IP compensation" justification and everyone just went along with it, because the case wasn't about that particular point.

> Apple itself has to pay license fees for some technologies in iPhone

And such costs are more than made up for by hardware sales. The only reason this persists is because of greed, not because it's essential to profitability.

> and those licenses do not automatically extend to third-party developers via the consumer. It's not a license agreement with the consumer.

They don't need to extend them because the consumer is already entitled to use those technologies merely by having purchased the device. That entitlement comes from the fact that they get legal copies of the technologies when they take posession of the hardware. IP rights regulate distribution, not consumption.

As for the rest of your comment, the overall problem is the requiremet to deal with Apple at all, the $99 fee and the 5% commission are just the cherry on top.

> This point was never raised in any of those cases. Apple just did aome hand-waving "IP compensation" justification and everyone just went along with it, because the case wasn't about that particular point.

I strongly disagree with your interpretation. IP compensation was essential in both of these cases, and everyone went along with it because they didn't dispute Apple's rights.

> IP rights regulate distribution, not consumption.

It's all about distribution.

A consumer can download Xcode, build their own app, install the app on their own device, and use Apple API, all for free. What they can't do is distribute that app to other consumers.

The developer tools are relatively unimportant, which is why Apple gives them away. Distribution is everything.

> As for the rest of your comment, the overall problem is the requiremet to deal with Apple at all, the $99 fee and the 5% commission are just the cherry on top.

This doesn't answer my question. I asked which fee needed to be waived. There is no fee to get Xcode, so there's nothing to be waived by opting out.

> A consumer can download Xcode, build their own app, install the app on their own device, and use Apple API, all for free. What they can't do is distribute that app to other consumers.

I was referring to the distribution of the licensed technologies by Apple to the hardware purchasers. Returning to your own interpretation though, the hypothetical community SDK wouldn't contain proprietary code, so the distribution aspect is solved there. It's the same principle by which homebrew game console scenes work, or how you can build Windows software on Linux without touching any Microsoft code.

> This doesn't answer my question. I asked which fee needed to be waived. There is no fee to get Xcode, so there's nothing to be waived by opting out.

The waiver scenario is meant in the context of Apple using the 5% and $99 fees as payment for the maintenance/R&D of the official dev experience. The fees would be waived because the dev isn't making any use of those tools in a hypothetical FOSS SDK.

> I was referring to the distribution of the licensed technologies by Apple to the hardware purchasers.

I know. My point was that distribution of the licensed technology by Apple to iPhone purchasers does not thereby allow third-party iPhone app developers to distribute their iPhone app executables to other iPhone purchasers.

> Returning to your own interpretation though, the hypothetical community SDK wouldn't contain proprietary code, so the distribution aspect is solved there. It's the same principle by which homebrew game console scenes work, or how you can build Windows software on Linux without touching any Microsoft code.

You appear to be focused on the building of iPhone apps. I'm focused on the distribution of built iPhone apps. This is why I said, "The developer tools are relatively unimportant, which is why Apple gives them away. Distribution is everything."

In general, consumers are unwilling or unable to build their own apps. They need precompiled executables, distributed by third parties, to easily install on their devices. The hypothetical FOSS SDK is a red herring. I don't see how the consumer's right to use the iPhone automatically grants a legal right for third-party developers to distribute executables using Apple's licensed technology. There are other consumer products that allow personal use but don't allow redistribution.

> I don't see how the consumer's right to use the iPhone automatically grants a legal right for third-party developers to distribute executables using Apple's licensed technology.

Because calling APIs is not a "use" of the technology that IP laws would cover. Having a binary call a proprietary API but not actually containing the underlying technology that makes that API possible is not a derivative work. The technology is already inside the iPhone, the apps just call it in a very specific way, and since IP laws only regulate distribution of the technology itself, the third-party developer isn't doing anything illegal.

Suppose that a developer discovers a bug in the Apple Music API that allows songs to be played without paying for the Apple Music subscription. Are you claiming that if a developer writes an app to exploit this bug, they're not doing anything illegal? It's ok to get Apple Music without paying, as long as you're just "calling an API"?

In any case, you're still ignoring distribution. You start with the assumption that a binary is already on the iPhone. The technology is already inside the iPhone, but the third-party app is not. Distribution is an entirely different legal matter than personal use. Are you claiming that it's illegal for Apple to control and prevent distribution of third-party apps? If so, I challenge you to file a lawsuit.

> Suppose that a developer discovers a bug in the Apple Music API that allows songs to be played without paying for the Apple Music subscription. Are you claiming that if a developer writes an app to exploit this bug, they're not doing anything illegal? It's ok to get Apple Music without paying, as long as you're just "calling an API"?

That would be illegal, yes, but for an entirely different reason (DRM bypass to get copyrighted material), not because it's calling an existing API. It's not the case for 99% of apps.

> In any case, you're still ignoring distribution. You start with the assumption that a binary is already on the iPhone. The technology is already inside the iPhone, but the third-party app is not. Distribution is an entirely different legal matter than personal use.

The third-party app does not contain any Apple-owned or licensed technology just because it's programmed to make use of it once inside a phone, and there's no IP right to control distribution of material that uses proprietary technology if that technology is not actually in the distributed material. The only barrier is Apple's own actions in how they programmed iOS to reject unsigned code and their developer program, not a legal one based on IP.

My point is this: you can charge for API use. You can set terms and conditions for API use. You can charge some API users and allow others free usage. That's up to the API vendor.

I simply don't accept your dubious claim that one person's legal API usage automatically allows that one person to subcontract API usage to another, i.e., a third-party developer. And I'd guess that your experience as a lawyer is about as extensive as your experience as an iOS developer.

The individual instance of API functionality is owned by the user, even if the intellectual property itself is owned by Apple. What makes the user's API usage legal is the fact that they own the device and the individual iOS copy inside, not the fact that Apple allows personal use. The EULA is superfluous, an iDevice purchaser is inherently entitled to make use of the iOS functionality merely by posessing the device.

Apple can charge for API use in the sense that they physically can, not in the sense that the law only allows that arrangement.

The law does not forbid people from developing unauthorized accessories to products, full stop. It only protects IP from being redistributed.

The hook that allows Apple to charge for API usage by developers is a technical one, not a legal one.

And there's no need to go for the ad-hominems that you have been going for since the beginning. Why such hostility?

The app revenue cut is because you partner with Apple to deliver a solution to something in a users life with them. Apple sees themselves as critical to an app’s ability to exist at all. Its like nintendo taking a cut of a nintendo game. You cant have one without the other. A lot of people disagree that the iphone is a one of a kind consumer product like this. To many its just a computer and software is independent. I see both sides

Perfectly normal, just like your TV manufacturer taking a cut of every movie you rent. No, wait...

SO Apple just got granted that there effectively is no "outside the AppStore" when it comes to iOS.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and now they've attained it, they won't give it up voluntarily. You have to force them.

> Apple retains ultimate control over app developers' dealings with users.

The app developers can offer their own line of devices on the market. Users are free to choose a different manufacturer. Apple doesn't hold anybody in chains, it is people and developers who are coming to them.

Or should people to restaurants and demand to be allowed to order food delivery from other places to their tables, and bring their own drinks? Honestly, I think that most hackers and EU bureaucrats think that it would be a splendid idea.

> Or should people to restaurants and demand to be allowed to order food delivery from other places to their tables, and bring their own drinks?

A restaurant is private property, you're just a customer in someone else's turf. An iPhone (and the individual iOS copy inside it that provides the advertised functionality) is the intellectual property of Apple, but also the private property of the user, and it is the traditional property ownership status that determines who gets to interact with the functionality. Apple is unfairly forcing themselves into the dev-user relationship here.

An iPhone is the private property of the user, and if you are skilled enough you can jailbreak it and there is nothing Apple can do about it. If you're not skilled to do it, then that's your own problem. No court of law would go against you if you took a soldering iron and your expertise to change your iPhone in any way you please. Apple shouldn't be obliged to help you in those efforts, though.

> Apple is unfairly forcing themselves into the dev-user relationship here.

Who was forced to buy an iPhone? Who was forced to develop for Apple devices?

> An iPhone is the private property of the user, and if you are skilled enough you can jailbreak it and there is nothing Apple can do about it. If you're not skilled to do it, then that's your own problem.

No, because Apple chooses to prevent me from controlling the device the way I want. The skill involved is about finding holes in the system, not in enabling an "expert mode" or something.

The imbalance of power is itself a problem. A hardware manufacturer should be legally prohibited from designing their devices in such a way that they retain more control over them post-sale than the actual owner. Device ownership should mean maximum control over code execution.

> Who was forced to buy an iPhone?

Nobody, but I'm not a free market absolutist.

> Who was forced to develop for Apple devices?

Every developer who wants to cater to ~half of the mobile user population (~85% if it's young Americans)

I assume an expert mode (where you can sideload anything you want) is what you are asking for. To that I raise the standard objection: how do you protect grandma from having a criminal social-engineer her into enabling expert mode and then having her sideload malware onto her device?

I mean if you're gonna stop people from owning their device and doing what they want with it just because of the possibility of crime occurring then their are quite a few more things that probably should also no longer exist because of their potential use in crime.

That's a pretty ridiculous argument if you ask me.

That is exactly what Apple has decided to do. You have named the tradeoff. Stop the possibility by disabling everyone. It has always been this way. People have had nearly 20 years to leave Apple

You can say that about a lot of things in life. Legalized gambling, for example. Tons of people ruin their lives with it and this creates big externalities for society. But we tolerate it so that everyone has the freedom to gamble.

Apple on the other hand offers a locked down product that many people want because they don’t trust themselves. I think a lot of people have short memories for all the hacking and spyware that plagued Windows users a couple decades ago. I think we also need to remember that Apple is not the government so people have alternatives to buying their devices.

Personally, I think people should have the right to buy a locked down device. It’s not on Apple to provide open competitors to their product. And why should developers have a right to develop for the platform? Heck, I wanted the iPhone back when it didn’t even have 3rd party apps at all.

>>hacking and spyware that plagued Windows users a couple decades ago

And that still plagues every computing platform now. Including Apple platforms. So the lockdown clearly didn’t completely solve that problem like a lot of people seem to claim

iOS is noticeably better for this though because it's more locked down, there is a real tradeoff there

> Apple on the other hand offers a locked down product that many people want because they don’t trust themselves

The idea that, for many people purchasing an iPhone, the inability to install apps from alternative stores or the web is a selling point seems rather questionable.

On top of that this could easily be provided by an optional switch that enables you to enforce this on your own device if you so desire.

It is a poor reason to request that all app distribution for everyone else also has to go through Apple and its terms, basically for your convenience.

I’ve already given one reason why the switch is a bad idea. Another reason is that powerful third parties such as Meta and Google could force users to disable their own protections and give those apps full access to all data as a condition of installation.

Ultimately, an option becomes a requirement and then the protection for users is totally gone.

> No, because Apple chooses to prevent me from controlling the device the way I want.

They have no power to prevent you from doing anything you want to your device. Just like Ford has no power to stop me from modifying my truck in any way I want. Or any other product from any other company.

Not helping you is something different, that's not preventing.

> Every developer who wants to cater to ~half of the mobile user population (~85% if it's young Americans)

That's a choice for them to make. You might then say that Coca-Cola is forcing supermarkets to carry their product because customers want to buy them.

> They have no power to prevent you from doing anything you want to your device. Just like Ford has no power to stop me from modifying my truck in any way I want. Or any other product from any other company.

They have the technical ability to prevent me from running the code I want, and they exercise that ability for that purpose. They're not a passive actor in this situation, they explicitly block me from doing things that they themselves can do, even after the sale.

Again, this should be a concern merely because of the power imbalance.

> That's a choice for them to make. You might then say that Coca-Cola is forcing supermarkets to carry their product because customers want to buy them.

Not the same thing at all. The mobile app market is a top-level one in a way the Coca-Cola one is not. Apple is controlling a huge amount of commerce for products that have nothing to do with them, besides being digital accessories to iDevices.

The better analogy would be: there are only two store companies in the entire US. If you want to sell any product at all, of any category (silverware, food, lawnmowers etc) you must contract with them and there's no other way, and anyone who wants to purchase any product whatsoever only has those two options.

So if you were forced to keep f.e. a door lock on your house (that you bought), because as part of the purchase the developer required it - would you be fine with it too? You could technically jail break it...

My house has locks on all exterior doors? I can have them re keyed any time?

> Who was forced to buy an iPhone?

You are effectively forced to buy either and Android or an iOS phone to participate in society.

Since the market for phone operating systems is not even remotely competitive regulation is necessary just like in all others uncompetitive markets.

Exactly which unfair market conditions made it impossible for Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung or BlackBerry to compete on phone operating systems?

And now you are saying that people were forced to purchase iPhones because of Android?

You are forced to purchase one of them, yes.

> which unfair market conditions made it impossible

Bank applications depending on various os or device level security features? Good luck getting developers to build applications for your platform in general until you have a very large number of users (even Microsoft couldn’t manage it when the oligopoly was way less entrenched)

> You are forced to purchase one of them, yes.

Well then you aren't forced to purchase an iPhone, are you? Much less forced to develop for an iPhone. If a developer isn't satisfied with having access to billions of Android customers, then they should change careers or stop complaining.

Developers also had every opportunity in the world to offer their software for Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices. Or offer their own devices with their software. Which is an easy thing for banks to do. Their laziness and incompetence isn't an excuse for them to turn around and point fingers at Apple for being successful. They made their own bed.

> with having access to billions of Android customers

The average Android user is almost worthless economically compared to the average iPhone user. If you calculate the market share based on revenue and not total users Apple has a much bigger proportion of the pie than the raw user base would suggest.

> Which is an easy thing for banks to do.

The victim in this case are the consumers, not banks.

Overall the smartphone OS market is a not very competitive oligopoly, the government’s job is to make sure that markets are competitive.

> around and point fingers at Apple for being successful. They made their own bed.

To get into the position where you can abuse your position in the market you have to do something right, certainly. That doesn’t mean you should be allowed to do that in perpetuity.

> The average Android user is almost worthless economically compared to the average iPhone user.

But how and why is Apple to be blamed for that?

> The victim in this case are the consumers, not banks.

The culprits are the banks, who aren't offering their customers adequate service. The culprit certainly isn't Apple. They aren't a bank.

> Overall the smartphone OS market is a not very competitive oligopoly

Some of the biggest companies in the world are competing against each other on smart phones. And customers have a great variety of devices to choose from. Smart phones is a prime example on where the free market worked: Fierce competition between several very large companies resulted in amazing devices being offered to customers. And since customers are free to choose what they purchase, they will choose the best device they can get at whatever price they deem reasonable and affordable. Companies who cannot offer good enough products fall away from the competition by the nature of the free market: Nokia, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Siemens, and more. All of them were powerful corporations.

Current hacker ideology has mixed the worst parts of capitalism and communism into weird standpoints which make no sense. Am I supposed to feel sorry that developers (they are mostly giant corporations) can't figure out how to make money without depending on Apple? And that therefore the government should intervene to guarantee the profits of these giant corporations?

Enough, already. Apple has no unfair advantage against the competition, except for the incompetence of said competition. Let them have their win, and if they are acting against the interest of their consumers, then they won't have their win for long.

> But how and why is Apple to be blamed for that?

It’s not about blame, the point of anti trust and competition laws is just that, maximize competition and consumer surplus. Yes that inherently penalizes the most successful companies we collectively as a society judged that to be a fair bargain.

> The culprit certainly isn't Apple. They aren't a bank.

Sure, it’s easier to go after Apple not banks, though.

> have a great variety of devices to choose from

Physical hardware sure. Effectively there is no choice when it comes to software though.

> device they can get at whatever price they deem reasonable and affordable

Sure, but again physical hardware is not whats being discussed here. All major device manufacturers make it either were hard or impossible to install alternative operating systems (especially that got much worse for Android devices over the years).

> can't figure out how to make money without depending on Apple? A

When it comes to certain sectors that’s true. Or rather you are supposed to pay a very significant proportion of your revenue as rent to Apple to for very little in return (Apple benefits almost as much from third party developers as developers do from Apple).

> Apple has no unfair advantage against the competition, except for the incompetence of said competition

Yeah, that how most monopolies work. They are just outright better than their competition until they are in a dominant position and can get a higher proportion of the pie because they ran all the competitors out of business. That’s exactly when regulators should intervene to make the market more efficient.

Based on empirical evidence free/efficient markets can almost never exist without regulation.

A much more accurate nonsensical analogy would be getting take out but only being allowed to eat it with Apple branded utensils because otherwise your food would catch fire.

> Users are free to choose a different manufacturer

It’s an oligopoly, so no, consumers are not exactly free to do what they want. If the market were truly competitive you might have a point.

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