But the issue with the app stores is the app fees. Those must be lucrative enough to want to keep that gate for themselves.
That doesn't make much sense, XNU and the layers above it are very portable, they went PowerPC -> x86 -> x86_64 -> ARM64 after all. They also supported multiple different GPUs in the Intel era.
If the entire OS stack was open sourced today, we would have forks running on standard Intel/AMD CPUs in a week. They wouldn't have the same optimized power management, etc. But I think it would have a good chance of wiping out desktop Linux within a brief period.
macOS/iOS are part of the moat.
I'm still hoping some other integrated software/hardware company will stand up and offer the same attention to detail as Apple did. Instead of that everybody's actively enshittifying their own products and complaining Apple is earning so much...
I doubt a knockoff MBP would happen initially but it would absolutely encroach on the Mac Mini.
Doubt. I couldn't figure out how to do windows management under macOS to save my life. This is so needlessly obscure and inconsistent.
(I wouldn't call it obscure though, it's pretty much standard WIMP with some differences compared to Windows.)
Given how polished the Linux desktop experience has become and how much software is available (gaming on Proton in particular), I don't think this is true.
They don’t even have to put in the effort of making it.
Essentially the same as giving alcohol to kids at home. That's the parents fault first and foremost.
Is it? A bottle of vodka, rum, wine, beer, is very obviously what it is.
A lot of these gambling games are disguised as games, that just happen to have elements that are heavily disguised to not be obviously and immediately shown to be gambling.
You and I both know what loot boxes are, but does everyone? There's nothing obviously gambling about a loot box, until you dig into it.
Have you never searched for a credit card detail generator? Browsed the dark web for stolen card details? Used e-sims?
A common misconception that people have is that age is not a limiting barrier to a great mind and doesn't require enabling by others to achieve the goals they set out.
The original article is about the third-party stores, which is essentially removes the Apples's veto.
iPhones are not, and in fact your child will eventually need a smartphone for legitimate reasons. Currently isn't not possible to buy a smartphone that can be used legitimately but doesn't come bundled with gambling and pornography.
And how does that freedom help anyone? If your grandparent just uses their phone to make calls, texts and playing Candy Crush then how is software freedom making their experience better? Or are we just imprinting our priorities and desires onto others?
For one, it prevents criminal companies like Google and Facebook from exfiltrating massive amounts of usage data from grandpa. This includes, but is not limited to, places the phone has been, what networks it interacts with, DNS lookups, phone numbers called, etc. That's on top of the tracking done by third-party apps like Whatsapp, that share with the mothership absolutely everything except perhaps the content of messages (they claim it's encrypted, but the client is almost certainly backdoored).
Their genuine services, other than maybe iCloud storage, are small businesses. Consider this: Apple reports $28.7B in quarterly services revenue. Spotify reported $3.8B in quarterly revenue directly from their 281M premium subscribers ($4.3B total) (AM has no free tier). Spotify is, in all likelihood, quite far ahead of AM in subscriber counts; estimates put AM at ~100M. AM also gives away a ton of subscriptions likely at a bulk discount (its included with some Chase credit cards, Verizon Wireless plans, etc); it would surprise me if total AM revenue is higher than $1.5B/q.
This goes against the spirit of the DMA, which was supposed to 'open up' 3rd party stores.
The European Commission does not seem to care atm that Apple is still the gatekeeper.
I think the European Commission is threading the needle, trying to find a path to uphold the DMA/DSA while not provoking another tariff war.
The EC is also under a lot of internal pressure from member states to calm down on the regulation, as it's considered one reason why Europe is such a bad place to do a tech startup right now.
Turns out then using private data for ads (Google) and acting like a middleman (Apple) are apparently lucrative and worth money?
(This isn't a critique to you OP or your comment, but rather a commentary on the 21st century.)
(You could maybe make a _vague_ argument based on podcast exclusives, but it seems like pushing it a bit.)
The really puzzling one to me is TikTok, which is included but feels like it barely meets the criteria.
Spotify has a much larger market share in streaming music than Apple has in smartphones in Europe.
Can I side load my own music in my Spotify library like I can with Apple Music? (True you either have to either use your computer or the iOS GarageBand hack)
That would only matter, if the device wouldn't allow to play music in another application.
I was in Seattle a couple of years ago walking around and someone was selling CDs of their music on the street like it was the early 2000s. WTF am I going to do with a CD?
Do people carry around CD Walkman’s anymore? But you’re not going to be a major artist and get wide appeal or even gain an audience without being on Spotify - more so in Europe than in the US where Apple Music has a larger market share.
> And who listens to CDs anymore or even has a CD player in their car or on their computer?
True for computers, but every cheap radio has a CD player and it's very common to have one in the car.
> How do you get the music on your phone?
Ripping them from a CD.
Like I agree CDs are getting less common, but not for sells at a concert. Nobody is going to tell you to use Spotify, because it screams "cheap"! That might fly for hobby musicians, but professionals will ruin their reputation.
There are only 9 car models as of 2024 that ship with CD players and not even all trims of all of those models come with a CD player
https://www.kron4.com/news/national/which-new-car-models-sti...
And people don’t walk around with boom boxes like in the 80s.
> Ripping them from a CD.
Most new computers don’t come with CD drives and you think that people are syncing music from their computers to their phones in 2025? The last computer I bought with a CD drive was around 2012. Do any of the major PC sellers sell laptops with CD drives? Apple stopped around 2012.
> Because Facebook and Google insert themself into unrelated websites, their monopoly is not just search
> Because Facebook and Google insert themself into unrelated websites, their monopoly is not just search
That has nothing to do with the laws the EU is passing and none of the remedies say anything about it Google Analytics or ads on third party sites.
> Nobody is going to tell you to use Spotify, because it screams "cheap"! That might fly for hobby musicians, but professionals will ruin their reputation.
Well two issues, selling CDs at concerts is a horrible method for mass distribution and CD sales are plummeting.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/07/cd-revival-hopes-crash-...
During the past year I’ve been to a dozen concerts. Most of them classic Hip Hop artist, two classic R and B, and two pop - Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake. I’ve also gone to a see a punk rock band where my friend is the lead singer. They sell merch but definitely not CDs
And how many people have a car from 2024? That's only relevant for the music market in 20 years, not for now. Also even car dealers now tell you, that you shouldn't buy a new car, because those are shit.
> That has nothing to do with the laws the EU is passing and none of the remedies say anything about it Google Analytics or ads on third party sites.
Google is considered a gatekeeper, because it is the default in browsers and OS, it controls an OS and also controls the UA and ad-market. Apple is a gatekeeper, because they sell a general-purpose device, for which you can only release programs when you ask Apple to allow it.
Spotify does neither of those. It is entirely possible to use another music player and it doesn't market itself as a general-purpose music player, but for access to a music library. When it would have deals with (popular) music players to only allow access to Spotify, or comes pre-installed with the OS, then it could be considered a gatekeeper, but it does none of these things.
> Well two issues, selling CDs at concerts is a horrible method for mass distribution and CD sales are plummeting.
You will of course only reach people that went to the concert, but that is unrelated to the distribution media. But the set of people who pay for listening to you, and the amount of people who pay you for music, so that they can listen to it, has some overlap. The idea that CDs are unsuitable for a mass market has been disproven in practice.
Selling non-physical music is still an unsolved problem and will always be, in my opinion. You essentially have three options:
- Stop selling music, but instead sell subscriptions to music-as-a-service. That's what Amazon, Netflix, Youtube and Spotify are doing. This seems to only come with user-hostile tracking and also is user-unfriendly since you can't replay the music. The UX is worse, since these players typically have a worse interface for skipping, forwarding, playing the music at different speed, categorizing music, etc. . It also needs changes to the legal system, to make replaying already downloaded assets illegal and comes with a built-in cap in price, since at some point the users resort to pirating the music. It only works for music where the piece itself is somehow novel and not available as music to be bought. Why should I use your MaaS to listen to music, when I can also buy the recording from 50 years ago? This also only seems to be a viable business plan for the rent-seeking middle man. It is neither a favorable option for the musician nor for the listener.
- Release the media in a format that can only be played in a special player (DRM). This counts on the user willing to essentially install malware. Also it comes with the same drawbacks to the user as MaaS, unless he again chooses to download the music from some alternative source or modifies the files to be playable without DRM. It also counts on the user to buy hardware that prevents him from doing things he want. It also clashes with the legal concept of ownership. That approach seems to have went extinct, since MaaS allows for more rent extraction.
- Screw it and distribute physical media. For this option CDs seem to be the best option. Bluerays are to expensive and have two much storage for music, USB sticks have a worse form factor. Nobody uses cartridges anymore. Vinyl is an option, but not really doable at home by the musician and also not as mainstream as CDs. microSD cards might be a competition and are in some places, but they are a bit too tiny, to be comfortable to be passed around and try to print a booklet for a microSD card.
The first two options are unethical and partially illegal, the first comes with serious risks for the musician and doesn't seem to be profitable. Both make the musician subject to vendor lock-in and are not possible to do at home by the musician himself. That only leaves the third option.
If you have another novel approach, you could get rich, but I don't think this exists, since the whole point of digital media is that data is trivially copyable.
From your article:
> In the U.S., a Consumer Reports survey found that 45% of adults still use CDs, while only 21% use vinyl.
45% of adults sounds like a viable market maximum to me.
> It might sound strange, but part of the reason CD sales crashed this year is because Taylor Swift didn’t release anything new.
> In Q2 2024, Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department sold 180,236 physical copies in just its first week. That included 109,392 CDs and 66,388 vinyl albums.
> So, her release didn’t just top the charts. It also lifted the entire quarter’s physical sales.
> In fact, that one week of vinyl sales alone was bigger than the entire vinyl sales drop in Q2 2025, which fell by 43,979 units compared to the year before.
So CD sales in the UK without Taylor Swift actually increased since the last year?
> In the UK, streaming growth dropped to 6.4% in the first half of 2025. That’s down from 11% at the same point last year. Vinyl, which has been the bright spot in physical media for years, is slowing too. Its growth rate fell to 6% so far this year, compared to 12.4% in 2024.
So the issue is not the media format?
> During the past year I’ve been to a dozen concerts. Most of them classic Hip Hop artist, two classic R and B, and two pop - Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake. I’ve also gone to a see a punk rock band where my friend is the lead singer. They sell merch but definitely not CDs
Maybe it is a bias by music genre. I went to things played in a concert hall: old classical music, new classical music, Jazz, film music, etc., to newly composed music on modern medieval-like instruments and to a-capella concerts of music from various centuries from various choirs, some of which I used to or still participate. All of them sell CDs and Spotify would be considered unprofessional and cheap. I also don't see why any of those should give a lot of money to a shady rich company taking only cents, when they could have that money for themself. For me as a buyer it's the same. Why should I give money to some unrelated middle-man, instead of those, whose music I enjoy?
Also I can have listened to music for years and still discover new aspects. I don't see what MaaS gives to me as a user. 30 CDs contain >30 hours of music, spreading a variety of genres and pieces, enough for decades. At an expensive price of 10€/CD, that's 300€. A decade of Spotify is 11€/month[1] * 12month/year * 10years = 1320€. So a very expensive CD per month or more like a reasonable priced CD every week, meaning 12 minutes[2] of never heard music per day when buying music instead. It just sounds expensive, because of a rent-seeking middle-man.
[1] https://www.iamexpat.de/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/spotify-rai...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio#Sto...
Your start-up also won't get acquired by anyone "with a market cap >75bn EUR, or turnover in the EU >7.5bn EUR/annum." That may be fine with some folks. But it's an obvious downside if you're a start-up or backer thereof.
No. Nobody claimed that. Because it's a straw man.
"Your startup will be __fine__" implies there is no effect on a start-up. That's not true when one considers ecosystem effects.
China went the opposite route and while far from ideal due to rather obvious reasons at least they have their own tech companies which is that keeping that money in the Chinese economy.
As a user I like Apple’s App Store for security personally, but I wonder how multiple app stores turn out in other regions. I see the EU already allows alternative app marketplaces — has anyone used one and can share their experience?
> Apple’s App Store for security
The App Store doesn’t do anything to protect you in that sense. It’s easy to circumvent and these days it’s cheaper to just buy an iOS exploit than go through the trouble of making a shady app.
But why is that easier? And is it inevitably so or a result of the fact that the boundaries of the one place to install apps from is aggressively policed?
Interesting, their marketing has customers believe otherwise, so I wouldn't have thought that as a noob in cybersecurity.
I've submitted an app to the iOS App Store in the past, and the process is tedious and doesn't seem superficial (unlike the Play Store process, which was completely autonomous at the time), so that's another reason why I wouldn't have thought it.
The protection is in the permission system and sandboxing, which is active regardless of the source of the code.
And then repeat that every few months.
I know of multiple apps that have malicious ad networks in them, don’t disclose their ad networks, and have no mechanisms to report the ads inside the ad networks or any of the content to them, they just say the ads are “served by one of our partners”.
That's the point of marketing. Making yourself look good, not stating facts.
The marketing is a lie, Apple's manual review process has failed to catch extremely high-profile trojan horse attacks: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
Different threat models. If you're the mossad and want to go after someone in particular, yes the exploit is the way to go, but if you're running some run of the mill scam, you're certainly not going to spend 6+ figures on a ios 0day that'll get patched within days.
is this any different from Macs also prompting the user when a downloaded binary is suspicious/not signed properly? or windows when installing it'd flash a screen about trusting what you're installing?
Even for web distribution in the EU (which they allowed some time ago) they require you to have had an Apple Developer account for at least 2 years and at least one App with more than 1m annunal downloads in the App Store.
So they're forcing you to have a very successful app in their own store before you can distribute yourself, basically making this impossible to actually use. It's such a blatant case of malicious compliance, it's insane.
"Look, you do not need a front door, and definitely not one with a lock on it. After all anybody could machine-gun you down through your windows."
Basically the market is still in an alpha stage. My next app will be on Alt just because I want to support the idea. Hopefully more apps gets on these stores, for now it's mostly nice to have for games, emulators, and some dev tools.
Apple didn't make it friction-free either, but it seems the issue is lack of user demand and/or lack of supply.
I should try Alt out again with you reminding me.
Requires an EU apple account, a faraday bag, two esp32 boards (or other way to spoof hotspots), a VPN with an endpoint in the EU, and an iOS device with a supported OS version.
Tell MacRumors it's Tim Cook's boot.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-26-2-to-allow-third...
Can’t even scroll right in the text editor. Trillion-dollar company.
It's really hard to be a publicly-traded corporation and user-first. Those goals are often at odds with each other.
You aren’t wrong, but I hate that you aren’t. It’s a shame there is so little regulation and that things are getting more and more expensive and complex to initially develop, that there just isn’t really a free market anymore for many important things.
Particularly since the 1980s, I feel like we've veered too far toward obtaining maximum profit at the expense of true innovation and developing products that truly serve the customer.
That said, there's a very concerted, even at times gamified, effort against making it easy for consumers to do this. Nonetheless, consumers do have that choice.
Not being on the stock exchange, a company like Apple could be like, you know what, we make enough money from our hardware and services to both grow and pay our people well, so we will remove the 30% fee on apps and keep our developers happy and loyal, increase the cloud storage capacity for our customers, etc. But they simply can't do that, because it's all about YoY revenue growth to keep the shareholders happy.
1. Have Bluetooth on.
2. Turn it off from the menu option, but don’t close the menu.
3. The shortcut to lock the computer don’t work.
It’s been like this for 5+ years.
Funniest thing is if you’re quick enough it’s possible to close the menu using a Bluetooth mouse after BT has been turned off. It’s my daily challenge to pull that off.
Ended up having to install a 3rd party mouse scroll reverser to get the behavior I want.
Has nothing to do with reality and more just a bunch of young kids who found another tech forum to perform their political whining on.
Eternal September wherever you go.
Especially in the context of idioms such as "boot licker" (which doesn't describe a person literally licking someone's boot! I know, shocking, right?)
I mean I didn't click on the linked thread, because frankly: who the hell cares what people on a forum called "Mac rumors" say... Even as a frequent apple user myself i wouldn't take anything seriously there. But the way you two addressed his sarcasm was just underwhelming.
Take a joke for what it is. Downvote if you don't see value in it - but if you're going to address it - do it properly and not by "misunderstanding" things on purpose.
Then that floor will be so clean you could do open heart surgery on it.
I just want to take the iOS equivalent of an EXE or APK, load it onto the phone, and be done with it. I don't want fucking stores all over the place.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/web-distribution-eu/
You couldn't install it at all on iOS for 4 years.
To your point, you were fine with that, you'll be fine with forgoing anything that's not in Apple's AppStore.
How the table has turned.
What prevents an end user to either buy a japanese vpn and use that to connect to the app store.
I doubt that a vpn running itself inside an ios phone itself would work out of the box but what about if its running at a router level or lets say I use a vpn on another phone and use it to create a hotspot to connect to in an ios phone.
Don't things like these basically allow these rules to effectively break the ios monopoly.
Or think about it this way, lets say I go to japan and install an third party app store and then go back to some other country, would the 3rd party app store still work?
I am also wondering about what mechanism can be used which can make a third party store work in the first place, I know of IOS jailbreaks so would it be similar to it, how would they detect that its in "japan"
Or would these work at a hardware level? That a phone sold in japan would have such features, if that would be the case, I would assume it would increase the values of such phones.
I would appreciate it if people could tell me more about what's the case and answer my questions.
just a VPN alone won't fool it
A VPN doesn’t cut it.
https://downrightnifty.me/blog/2025/02/27/eu-features-outsid...
https://lagrangepoint.substack.com/p/airpods-hearing-aid-hac...
Citation: https://www.jftc.go.jp/file/240612EN3.pdf (June 2024)
“Effective date — The Act shall come into force on the date to be set forth by a Cabinet order within one and a half years after the date of the promulgation of this Act”
Only Incredible Amazing Awesome Apple could manage to ship this change in a year and a half and totally weren't waiting for the last possible moment.
So you are saying that headline is funny because it is correct?
If anything it should be mentioned in the opposite way, calling out that Apple took as long as possible as an obvious way to spite the requirement, with the week-or-so wiggle room being a buffer in case of a disastrously bad release that might need to be recalled for some reason.
Let's say Apple changed the requirements to have an app "pass" the app store rules. Allowed developers a lower fee for "free" applications, including OSS ones. (It would be nice if this was $0 if the developer was intending to make $0 just to make your platform better, etc.) Charged a 10% fee to be hosted on the app store instead of 30% (ignore any other fee minutia here, I understand making sure taxes are paid in other countries, etc. I don't expect them to do it out of the goodness of their hearts) Allow businesses to make revenue without going through Apple. (yes, the year is past 1998, we can all do this now) I'm ignoring legality for the most part. I also understand there's a provision "for children safety", but that's never really been "for children safety", but some other form of control because children figure out how to bypass it before grownups do. (sorry I'm jaded. I have children that have figured it out).
Would an alternate store even be needed at this point? How much financial loss do they have due to the other app stores vs the 30% fee difference? Where I come from 10% is greater than 0%. What about folks making money outside of Apple platforms? Yes, it happens, strange to think otherwise. Downloading apps? The whole thing is sandboxed, with provisions... how is app store review different here? If I have to say "yes", allow shady apps to access my contacts, does it matter where the app came from?
I don't think third party app stores is the problem. Let people install what they want, and charge less to do so. Change the App Store to show "This hasn't been blessed by Apple", like the Firefox extension store does. Let me install an app I wrote/built without expiring in a week, etc. You could have something like Gatekeeper that says "hey, are you sure you want to run this?". Or, if it's the same self signed cert on my computer and my phone just let me do it. It still protects your user base (I can't imagine the support calls), without stopping folks that "know what I'm doing". You'd have a walled garden for those that want it, but a nice footpath for those that don't. It doesn't have to be on or off, it can be both.
I'm thinking Apple has much more to lose here. I'd bet in the billions. A perspective shift could have avoided this. Think different :)
https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
FWIW, it does look like Apple have made it pretty hard to qualify to ship one though! To best of my knowledge, no one has actually shipped one yet in the EU.
> https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...
hypeatei•3mo ago
I've considered an iPhone due to the recent Google announcement w.r.t. code signing but it's still too walled off for me. They need to open up access to third party stores and third party browser engines.
EDIT: yes I understand that we live in a capitalist system that is maximizing profit. My argument is that long term they're going to lose this battle seeing as the EU and Japan have already forced them to play ball. There are two options: remain stagnant and collect app store rent as long as possible or learn to be competitive in this new environment.
misnome•3mo ago
hypeatei•3mo ago
mdhb•3mo ago
rckt•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago
By this point it seems pretty clear that they will, at least while Tim Cook is in charge. Other higher ups, specifically Phil Schiller, knew this was a bad idea but were overruled.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-co...
ndiddy•3mo ago
cbg0•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago
lopis•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago
arkitct•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago
That’s not the argument at all. I don’t understand the point of your response, it has nothing to do with the points made in my comment. I’m not defending Apple, I’m doing the opposite.
TechRemarker•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago
Perhaps you haven’t been following Apple for long? There was definitely a period, not that long ago, where they had a lot of goodwill from third-party developers, especially indies, and that has steadily been eroded under Tim Cook.
They also took stances that were (or appeared to be) principled, which again placed them at a high degree of trust and goodwill (deserved or not isn’t the point, they had it) when compared to competitors.
> And if people started having issues with their phones because of side loading
I’m not talking about or suggesting side loading at all. That’s an entirely orthogonal matter.
> Vision Pro as a test of hardware capabilities seems to be going as one would expect at the current price points.
Vision Pro is not a “a test of hardware capabilities”. It’s not an SDK, it’s a product marketed and sold at regular people, it’s described by Apple as a product you can use for enterntainment and work, not an experiment. And it had essentially no adherence from companies and developers, there’s not even an official YouTube app, for a device where one of the major use cases is watching video.
Batman8675309•3mo ago
rs186•3mo ago
latexr•3mo ago
scrps•3mo ago
The enshittification ceiling is pretty damn high but I get the intuitive sense the profit at all cost model's long term downsides are going to start showing up for dinner soon.
microtonal•3mo ago
For me personally, it is mostly an escape hatch for developers and users. It will keep Apple honest, because if they really mess up the platform, people have the possibility to go elsewhere.
I think the bigger risk for Apple is allowing other payment options within apps that are distributed through the App Store (which I believe is now allowed in the EU among other places)? I think the app store is very sticky, but a lot of people would pick another payment option if is ~30% cheaper.
Zak•3mo ago
asimovfan•3mo ago
SXX•3mo ago
fundatus•3mo ago
You can set a different email client globally, but a different default Messages or Maps app? That only works in some regions. In-App payments? You can now basically do whatever you want in the US, in the EU you can opt-in into a different regime, in other regions it's staying the same but who knows for how long.
By fighting this everywhere they're basically losing control over the outcomes and will end up with lot's of different regulations everywhere. Instead of doing the sensible thing and opening up their platform before they're being forced to do so.
dwaite•3mo ago
1. Apple potentially loses giving ground to regulators before the regulators ask for something. They don't want to allow alternative app stores and then have a regulator say they are also not allowed to mandate royalties for digital good/service sales in their own store. Apple is likely nudging regulators to go a particular way, but is effectively trying to barter.
2. Likewise, individual regulatory bodies solving the issues they see in different ways has and will continue to create complexity in app developers, in some cases meaning their app needs different business models in different countries to take advantage of the individual regulated changes. That is a consequence of regulators pushing Apple to themselves have different business models to fund the App Store in different countries.
3. If Apple doesn't want a feature to be used or thinks the feature is actively harmful, they aren't going to encourage its use by making it available in jurisdictions where it isn't required.
4. Some of these features (such as default maps app) are semi-baked and without industry consensus, but rolled out because they were required for regulatory timelines. I can emphasize with not wanting to roll out broken features where you aren't being required to.
bigyabai•3mo ago
Apple can fix this issue without excess complexity. They are the ones demanding fragmentation and disparity as a result, allowing alternative app storefronts has always been a one-size-fits-all solution.
warkdarrior•3mo ago
junaru•3mo ago
Here in EU they did allow third party stores and all we got were shovelware sites with subscriptions. It added even more friction an shadiness to acquiring apps.
We need to sop pretending iOS third party stores are anything like what we envisioned them to be. They are not f-droid or anything even half as good. Apple complies with this impotent law because the law changes absolutely nothing for end user.
fukka42•3mo ago
Hardly. They did everything they could to make it completely pointless. Your apps still need to be blessed by apple and you still need to pay them. It's embarrassing the EU is allowing this sham.
junaru•3mo ago
fukka42•3mo ago
heavyset_go•3mo ago
Is Apple going to kill the golden goose unless it is literally forced to? Of course not.
Apple, together with Google, get a cut of 15% to 30% of all mobile app revenue. They have the entire market captured. They will only give that up when they're forced to.
TulliusCicero•3mo ago
heavyset_go•3mo ago
Alternate app stores are 2nd class citizens on Android, and gated behind several scary warnings and layers of settings pages.
Then there's the fact that the biggest alternative app store on Android is about to be made defunct by Google's new policy.
the_gipsy•3mo ago
gregoriol•3mo ago
mjparrott•3mo ago
TechRemarker•3mo ago
myko•3mo ago
I agree with this assuming what Epic Games wants is to be able to distribute their software themselves without Apple being in the loop
isodev•3mo ago
I make apps both as an indie and during my day job. The App Store review doesn’t do anything to protect the privacy or security of iPhone users. Most of the review is focused on ensuring Apple doesn’t get sued and that you as a developer don’t try to advertise something Apple doesn’t like. The whole idea that the App Store is safer is a marketing thing.
bzzzt•3mo ago
While not perfect, they claim to do security checks and verify some privacy choices. So they do something at least.
As a consumer I can see value in Apple forcing itself in an arbiter role for app payments so they can step in when I have a conflict with an app developer.
isodev•3mo ago
Every technical safeguard is part of the operating system anyway, so that’s what’s really protecting you and it will still protect you when you install an app from another source. Just like computers have worked since forever.
bzzzt•3mo ago
kmeisthax•3mo ago
As they should be. iOS was already paid for when the user bought their device. Mandating a 30% cut on all in-app purchases is double-billing.
Tim Kulak[0] calls this "forcing Apple to give away its technology for free", which is asshole logic. In no sane world would a court consider application developers to be making a derivative work of the OS they port to, so the OS vendor has no legal entitlement to application developers' revenue. The only world in which this stupid 30% cut was even tolerated was, ironically for Epic, games development.
As for privacy and security concerns, I would like to note that Apple has very specific definitions of those words that only marginally interact with your own understanding. To be clear, if you were to modify an iOS app to, say, remove tracking code from it, Apple would consider that a security breach. Even though this is a common thing that we do in web browsers all the time. Because users have their hands tied on iOS in ways that they don't on macOS, they can't fight back against tracking on their phones like they can on their computers.
[0] Term used by the Soviet government to refer to "any rural landowner that didn't cooperate with their disastrous attempts at land collectivization". I'm using it here mainly because it almost-rhymes.
eptcyka•3mo ago
yieldcrv•3mo ago
And they’re just the most visible
Everything banned in the US is still offered as soon as you step across a border, every gross visual warning mandated in those countries is not implemented in the US
fainpul•3mo ago
You might want to get informed about the hurdles Apple puts in your way first.
IncreasePosts•3mo ago
45764986•3mo ago