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Apple just lost its lawsuit trying to ban iOS virtual machines
- jamesy0ung 3y agoI'd love to make use of the power of the M2 chip in my ipad and run VM's on it. Shame apple won't let us.
- transpute 3y agoApple's M2 even supports nested hardware virtualization! If Apple is worried about cannibalizing MacBook sales, they could market-segment virtualization to the high priced iPad Pro 1TB model with 16GB RAM, which is also scheduled to receive an exclusive OLED screen alongside M3 in 2024.
- ftyhbhyjnjk 3y agoGood good. Apple has been abusing their dominant position for far too long. If it's my hardware, I'll do whatever tf I want. Apple can't do shit.
- thekevan 3y agoThey weren't trying to tell you what to do with your machine, they were trying to tell you what you were not allowed to do with THEIR software.
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- dmos62 3y agoThis reminds me of when Apple tried to make it so that you can't own an iPhone, only lease it. The effort might be still ongoing, I'm not up to date. A few different turns in history and your sentence would have been "THEIR machine" and "THEIR software".
- rstat1 3y agoThe fact that (baring exploitable bugs) you can only run Apple approved software on an iOS device pretty much makes it "THEIR machine" anyway.
- hef19898 3y agoDidn't the EU have something to say about that lately?
- Gareth321 3y agoYou might be thinking about the DMA, which adds a lot of responsibilities to "gateway" providers and platforms like Apple and iOS. However the EU ruled many years ago on this subject (https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/apple-iphone-jailbreaking-is-okay-under-eu-law/ https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/apple-iphone-jail...). In effect, jailbreaking and modifying software is perfectly legal, as long as it's not for copyright infringement.
- bzzzt 3y agoYou can get a free Apple developer account and run any software you build on your own devices.
- eptcyka 3y agoI can't buy iOS, but I must use iOS to use the phone they sold me. This is legal, but just because something is legal doesn't necessarily mean that it's ethical or is good for all parties involved. The iOS emulator in Xcode is nothing short of dog shit, and it's not really an emulator as much as it's a halfway house reimplementation of iOS's userland for macOS. I don't believe there's any need to defend Apple's decision to deter people from running iOS anywhere and everywhere.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago> what you were not allowed to do with THEIR software And now cars, door locks, TVs and toilers all have software. So every comoany will be telling you what to do. This is your daily reminder that, unlike ownership of physical objects, IP os a privilidge granted for advancing sciences and arts. Not for making things worse
- ohgodplsno 3y agoTheir software is no longer their software the moment it touches my machine. My bytes, my stuff. You can delude yourself into thinking "but licenses and EULAs say you can't", but the best Apple can do is beg that I don't, and make my life hard for me to do so. Which is extremely telling of how little consideration they have for their users.
- amelius 3y agoThey can still use dark patterns to make people avoid the VMs. E.g., show unnecessary security warnings.
- fennecfoxy 3y agoNo wonder Apple make so much god-damned money.
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoI thought they dropped the suit 2 years ago... https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/08/11/apple-settles-lawsuit-against-virtualization-firm-corellium https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/08/11/apple-settles-law...
- ojintoad 3y agoYou're correct. Apparently this was actually an attempt to revive it. The Bloomberg article that the TechRadar articles is based on makes that clearer: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/apple-fails-to-revive-copyright-case-over-iphone-ios-simulator https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/apple-fails-to-revive-c... > Apple Fails to Fully Reboot iOS Simulator Copyright Case (1) > Apple Inc. failed to fully revive a long-running copyright lawsuit against cybersecurity firm Corellium Inc. over its software that simulates the iPhone’s iOS operating systems, letting security researchers identify flaws in the software. > The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Monday ruled that Corellium’s CORSEC simulator is protected by copyright law’s fair use doctrine, which allows the duplication of copyrighted work under certain circumstances. > CORSEC “furthers scientific progress by allowing security research into important operating systems,” a three-judge panel for the appeals court said, adding that iOS “is functional operating software that falls outside copyright’s core.”
- shmerl 3y ago[flagged]
- m463 3y agobut now can I run a virtual machine on an android device?
- kurthr 3y agoDepends on what you want to emulate (do you want access to phone capabilities), but this is the first link I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuUnjO8eUEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuUnjO8eUEw
- ipaddr 3y agoYes.. legally
- judge2020 3y agoLegally you 'can', but does apple have to support it? do they have to expose those apis to the public? are they forced to implement them and spend the time to do validation testing for it?
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoDoes Microsoft have to offer browser choice on its OS?
- judge2020 3y agoHypervisor support on Windows is extremely expensive for Microsoft to maintain. Would Microsoft have a judgement against them if they removed it from e.g. Windows 12? Before hyper-v there was Virtualbox, which is a "you can build it if you spend your time building it". I'm asking if the situation is that Apple must build their hyper-v equivalent, or if they just need to allow third parties to build and publish software-based emulation engines.
- gregsadetsky 3y agoDiscussed yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35866431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35866431
- gnabgib 3y agoA three year old article was discussed yesterday (from the Washington Post, 2020 - referenced in this article) - there were even comments in thread about the article being dated (perhaps OP used the wrong URL). This is the result of 11th circuit appeal of that 2020 judgement (which upholds it), opened in 2021 and closed.. yesterday. Maybe the Bloomberg Law article is a bit clearer ["Apple Fails to Fully Reboot iOS Simulator Copyright Case"](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/apple-fails-to-revive-copyright-case-over-iphone-ios-simulator https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/apple-fails-to-revive-c...)
- omgomgomgomg 3y agoParallel or something like that lets you run windows on mac os. I think thats a fair decision, always found macs looking nice, but dislike many of the apps. Windows and ms suite on mac is on my bucket list now.
- secondcoming 3y ago[deleted]
- detaro 3y agono, it is about running iOS in VMs
- cjboco 3y agoThe judge ruled it was "fair use" because the VM's are used for security testing. The company behind this also requires you to register before they allow you to use the VM.
- TobyTheDog123 3y agoIt's funny how the 30% tax and App Store nonsense automatically makes me want Apple to lose every single court case in perpetuity. Having such a monopoly on a device you purchase really means the legal system needs to take you down a notch.
- stavros 3y agoI was hoping they'd lose against Epic, but alas.
- brookst 3y agoI can see wanting Apple to lose, but I can't imagine wanting Epic to win. That was such an ugly parasitic business model: let others take the risks to build platforms, let others operate the platforms, get the courts to mandate equal treatment for Epic to swoop in after the risks pay off. I'd have to sympathy for the phone platforms, but it would have destroyed the console market overnight. No way consoles work if every penny of customer lifetime value has to be in the up-front sale price.
- stavros 3y agoWhat if consoles make money from games without turning games into rent-to-play with no resale value? Platforms are hostile to the consumer and can't die quickly enough for me, that's why I wanted Epic to win.
- pb7 3y agoYou are complaining about companies mistreating consumers and you wanted Epic to win? They're as shitty as they come. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/12/245-million-ftc-settlement-alleges-fortnite-owner-epic-games-used-digital-dark-patterns-charge https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/12/245-milli... Apple has provided the world 1000x more value than Epic ever will. Justice prevailed.
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- Robotbeat 3y agoNow I'd like to be able to legally run MacOS on a virtual machine or on AWS or Azure or Google Cloud or something. I know you can rent a bare metal Apple Mini or something, but Apple's terms of service make this all basically illegal to use like any other VM. That means if I want to develop an app for iOS (beyond just what you can do in Swift Playgrounds), I can't just boot up a VM or AWS instance, I have to either buy an actual Mac Mini (cheapest option) or rent one.
- cloudking 3y agoTry cancelling a subscription from the app store in your browser.. oh wait you can't do it on the web you have to install iTunes.
- qmarchi 3y agoNot illegal, but a breach of contract.
- dragonwriter 3y agoBreach of contract is illegal, even though its not (in and of itself) criminal.
- crazygringo 3y agoI can't find anything online to support that. Everything I find says that to be illegal, something must be against the law, and that a contract is not law, so the word "illegal" doesn't apply to breach of contract because it's private. There is a difference between illegality and criminality however -- e.g. breaking the speed limit is illegal but it doesn't reach criminal, as one source uses as an example.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Everything I find says that to be illegal, something must be against the law. A breach of contract is against, and has remedies provided under, the law of contracts.. > A contract is not law No, but the law of contracts is law.
- crazygringo 3y agoCan someone remind me why Apple is so anti-VM in seemingly every instance? It just seems so arbitrary and unhelpful, and I have a hard time imagining that the amount of hardware purchased it forces outweigh the benefits from making macOS/iOS better platforms for development and computation. It just seems like such an odd stance to take.
- techdragon 3y ago1: This will likely lead to a small (and I do mean small) hit to their sales from people taking advantage of a VM who would have previously had to buy a device… 2: Control over the platform.
- musicale 3y agoApple is not anti-VM. It is anti VM-on-non-Apple-hardware. ;-) Presumably they have determined that lost hardware sales would offset any increased app or service sales from allowing VMs on non-Apple hardware. Though I don't actually know what platform macOS and iOS VMs run on in GitHub Actions and Azure pipelines. Edit: apparently Azure pipelines uses Mac pros. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/hosted?view=azure-devops#hardware https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/age...
- phire 3y agoBefore anyone jumps to conclusions, all this ruling means is that this example of an iOS virtual machine (for the purpose of security research) counts as fair use. It doesn't exactly open the doors for everyone to run iOS in virtual machines.
- smoldesu 3y agoFrom the ruling[0]: > As to count one, we agree that Corellium is shielded by the fair use doctrine. First, Corellium’s virtualization software is transformative—it furthers scientific progress by allowing security research into important operating systems. Second, iOS is functional operating software that falls outside copyright’s core. Third, Corellium didn’t overhelp itself to Apple’s software. And fourth, Corellium’s product does not substantially harm the market for iOS or iOS derivatives—so Apple’s own incentive to innovate remains strong. The important part here is that it proves Apple does not have the defacto right to claim infringement on iOS. If your emulator is transformative, offers functionality beyond default iOS, doesn't abuse their services and doesn't threaten the iOS market (eg. iPhones) it should be considered lawful. The interpretation is still open on the infringement of their wallpapers, icon and "contributory infringement", but this spells in pretty plain text that emulating iOS is fair game. Put another way, even a company that sells iOS emulators to hackers was found to not be in direct violation of Apple's iOS copyright. [0] https://aboutblaw.com/7PK https://aboutblaw.com/7PK
- judge2020 3y agoHow did they determine that it didn't affect the iPhone market? As I understand it, companies definitely buy tons of iphones set up on docks next to workstations to ensure everyone in the office can work on ios apps on real hardware, since the ios simulators aren't always foolproof and don't consider handheld ux.
- BoorishBears 3y agoaffect the iPhone market means affect Apple's ability to sell them in a meaningfully negative way. Companies buying extra hardware isn't that.
- vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago[dead]
- lisbon44 3y agounexpected outcome for justifying fair-use with modern technology at stake, any progress defanging the D.M.C.A as of recent?
- qwerty456127 3y agoGeat news! What about iOS-hosted virtual machines? I managed to install DosBox on one device in our family just before they blocked it but I want it, also a Linux VM and a real Firefox everywhere.
- okamiueru 3y agoWhat I want to do is not have to have a unified build system for multiple platforms and ABIs without any problem, but for some reason, to target anything apple, I have to use a physical apple machine. It's absolutely abusing market position, because it ends up being that in my profession, you end up purchasing mac computers for the whole office, because then you can target all platforms without any fuss. Not because the hardware or software has any merits, but because they artificially restrict these use cases so that's the only option to target a significant market.
- borispavlovic 3y agoIt's on the expensive side, I know, but have you considered using bitrise.io?
- okamiueru 3y agoThanks for the tip. We have considered it. Its likely the place to go once we iron out development/product. Its just unfortunate that the basics of such a CI setup is trivial to set up "in-house", for everything except software targeting apple hardware.
- amelius 3y agoNot an option for many from a privacy/security standpoint.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoI think when they started this requirement they were not in the market leader position, so it seemed less abusive to people at the time.
- amelius 3y agoYes, and I wonder why do we have Wine to run Windows stuff on Linux, but we have no equivalent to run OSX programs on Linux ... Is nobody interested in implementing the OSX APIs on Linux?
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- uf00lme 3y agoI don't see how Apple doesn't have a few hardware and software combo card to play here that make it impossible more effort than it is worth to try to emulate.