Apple fully knows they are looking forward to a huge fine. I guess they are banning a torrent app here to be able to tell: look the EU is sponsoring piracy. They are also trying to get Trump to intervene on their behalf obviously. Given how spineless the current European Commission is, that might even work.

To my fellow European, my advice remains the same: boycott American companies, stop voting for parties affiliated with the EPP.

And today it is Apple, and I'm curious to see whether HN folks feel the similar passion. Historically, people pick up pitch forks for Google but give Apple a pass - so looking forward to the conversation here.

However, this is beyond Apple’s own App Store, which is sort of interesting. I think it still highlights the dangers of App stores, though.

Can we now revisit the arguments that people were making in those threads to defend this?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39137090

Apple's prior approach to DMA compliance was to loudly grumble about it, but do the absolute bare minimum to kinda sorta comply if you squint at it. The whole idea with iOS notarization was that Apple was ceding control over iOS apps for editorial but not technical reasons; i.e. that they'd only ever refuse to sign an app because it broke iOS, used private APIs, or was literal malware. Not because they didn't like it. This scheme is already kind of dubious, if OAMA had passed it would definitely be illegal in the US, but I'm told EU regulators enforce the law differently than in the US[0].

Now Google wants to adopt the same system Apple has just proven doesn't work. I hope the EU regulators are not only listening, but willing to actually fight this. The related debacle of digital services taxes would indicate that the EU is spineless enough that Apple thinks the DMA is already unenforceable enough to start killing apps they don't like.

[0] US regulation is something like "if we say jump, each foot must leave the ground for at least 0.8 seconds and clear at least 20cm off the ground", and then people figure out you can just lift one foot at a time and still comply. EU regulation is more like "if we say jump, you must jump", and then the regulators decide whether or not you made a good-faith attempt at jumping. So no stupid loopholes like lifting one foot at a time, but the regulators can be very subjective as to if you jumped high enough or not.

https://github.com/XITRIX/iTorrent#donate-for-donuts

The developer had his app distribution rights removed in mid-July. i am the one who reached out to TorrentFreak; they were the first to respond. (The Verge /MacRumors/9to5Mac ignored me)

(i had no input in the article.)

I wonder how the data compares to the data Apple could send and do they respect when user's have opted to NOT send app developers data?

I know when you first sign on to the App Store it prompts you about 2 things, sending Apple data, and sending app developers data.

*EDIT* I know it's not fair and doesn't mean they're all bad but given the current circumstances in the world, I am going to be quite skeptical of developers with .ru in their email or anything else.

FWIW, I get tempted to switch when my Android starts feeling like it works for Google and not for me. The advantage of the iPhone is that it works for nobody.

iTorrent's ability to play while "sharing" was the bridge too far. There are plenty of players for personal media in the App Store (Plex, Jellyfin, etc.), but as a BitTorrent client it's clear that its primary purpose was to play media that was vanishingly unlikely to be the user's.

It also didn’t help that AltStore PAL regularly spotlighted these apps, effectively taunting Apple. On the bright side, qBitControl won’t be affected, since it isn’t a BitTorrent client itself but merely a remote for qBittorrent.