7 ms·

It's mind-boggling they are doing all these gymnastics instead of just allowing alternative app stores and browsers everywhere.

tetris11 2y ago
I want to say they take their security very seriously, but I think its more about their tech support not being ready to face new problems. Of course your local kiosk guy would have no issues.
- danielbln 2y ago
  > their tech support not being ready to face new problems. One of the largest, most valuable companies on the planet which ships phones, computers, makes their own chips, operates their own cloud service, builds frontier tech devices, but their tech support can't handle some new problems? Does that really seem likely? Or a problem that they couldn't solve if they wanted to?
  - yetihehe 2y ago
    > One of the largest, most valuable companies on the planet > but their tech support can't handle some new problems Now you know WHY it's one of the largest. Tech support doesn't scale. Making millions of copies of the same device and making things once then distributing does scale and brings a lot of profits.
    - Yeri 2y ago
      By that same logic, having different rules and regulation and review processes per continent, country or region also wouldn't scale.
- wildredkraut 2y ago
  They are just trying to uphold their monopoly seriously. Anyway, it will come the one or the other way — everywhere. It's just a matter of time, but on top people will fingerpoint even more at Apple, and it will have a much broader negative impact for Apple than simply by introducing it. With all their recent acting they are just confirming that's all about market power and greed.
netdevnet 2y ago
Allowing alternative app stores and browsers is likely to lead to more security issues, more users using tech support resources because a dodgy app downloaded from a 3rd party app store they installed broke their phone in odd ways and will likely increase expenses without increasing revenue. Because let's be honest, most of the population does not even understand the idea of "app store" beyond THE app store the same way they don't understand the idea of "search engine" beyond Google Search. If Chrome only allowed you to use Google Search as the search engine, most people wouldn't complain. This is the same. As long as they can download their [insert Big Tech Company here] walled garden app, most will not complain. But if their phone starts misbehaving because of a rogue app from a dodgy app store or phones suddenly get more expensive to compensate for higher costs incurred by Apple for their development and support of third party app stores and browsers most will complain. UPDATE: getting downvoted for pointing out the reality. Most people are not hackers. They don't want customisation options. They are happy with a default store or browser as long as it is good enough. If you want options, Android is there
- radiKal07 2y ago
  What you're saying is not happening on macOS so what is your argument really?
  - netdevnet 2y ago
    Not sure how is this relevant. The mobile market is just on another level in terms of users and money. Apple is a business not a charity. It makes sense that they don't want to incur in expenses that don't increase revenue. Tech nerds have this idea that tech businesses should do stuff just because. Do you ask your milk provider to incur in more expenses just because? It would be different if Apple had made some pledges or commitments towards this. But it hasn't. Its only commitment is to make money for the shareholders. Everything else is secondary
    - happymellon 2y ago
      > Do you ask your milk provider to incur in more expenses just because? Oh but pasteurisation costs money. So? Tech nerds seem to have this idea that tech businesses should be able to do whatever they want just because.
Aachen 2y ago
(FYI you've submitted this comment twice about 1.5 minutes apart. I've voted for the older one rather than this one. Mods/dang: maybe the two reply sets should be merged?)
qwerty9001 2y ago
I use iPhones and Macs precisely for this Apple quality control. I have used everything else (Symbian, Windows 8 phone, Windows 10 Phone, various Androids including pure Google Pixels). They have all been tragically subpar compared to my experience with iPhone and iOS.
- AndrewDucker 2y ago
  Nobody is going to force you to use an alternative app store or browser. If you want to use the official Apple ones then that's just fine. Other people want the choice. And they're getting it. But that doesn't affect you at all.
  - 0x073 2y ago
    I his eyes he will definitely forced to install all browsers the epic store and fortnite ;)
cjpearson 2y ago
All of these requirements look good for user security and privacy. I don't want apps to bring their own Blink or WebKit fork with all sandboxing and cross-site tracking protection disabled. I'm fine with apps bringing their own engine with the goal of performance or better user experience. These requirements enforce those expectations. There seems to be a concern that Apple will use these requirements to ban every single alternative including Blink and Gecko. I doubt that is the case since the purpose of these changes is to allow reliable, responsible players to run their engines on iOS without giving the keys to the kingdom to every app that requests it. Banning Google or Mozilla would not satisfy the EU requirements. Banning BlinkButItAlsoMinesCrypto is fine. The only additional thing I'd want as a user is transparency. I want to know if an app with a WebView is using WebKit, Blink, Gecko or EngineNobodyHasEverHeardOf.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  > I don't want apps to bring their own Blink or WebKit fork with all sandboxing and cross-site tracking protection disabled Facebook's apps happily do this with the built-in WKWebView and then injects its own malicious Javascript to ensure it spies on what's within the page. You do not need to run a separate browser engine to do this. It's disappointing that the rhetoric about Apple's anti-competitive restrictions being for "security" still persists to this day especially on a technical forum.
  - znpy 2y ago
    WeChat does this as well, and much more (and who know what else more!). But for some reason Apple is a-okay with that.
  - cjpearson 2y ago
    I still haven't seen any arguments why these restrictions aren't good for users. Just a bunch of assumptions that these restrictions are a fig leaf. For a technical forum, I would expect more discussion around the actual details. Instead many people are building a strawman and fighting that instead. Assume for a moment that Apple will allow alternative web engines as long as they follow certain user privacy and security guarantees. (Given that the company has announced this and it's legally mandated, I think this is a safe assumption.) In that case, are users better served with or without these requirements?
Arnt 2y ago
I guess it shows that they assume higher support costs per user, and are trying to minimize the number of users with the higher cost.
- pointlessone 2y ago
  I have my doubts. Do they even provide any support for apps on the app store? At the same time they’re paing truck load to lawyers and are about to fork off 10-20% of their global revenue for playing a subborn teenager.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    Apple spends less on supporting app developers than many app developers want, but spends more than nothing. If an end user uses Feedback Report, Apple will spend less time/money on the report than the end user wants (and less than I think fair) but again, it's more than nothing.
- consteval 2y ago
  Personally I think you can lower the cost by just making it difficult on the end-users side. If you put a scary pop up and require the password and bury it in the setting then boom, grandma who doesn't know the difference between wifi and the internet won't have issues.

tetris11 2y ago

I want to say they take their security very seriously, but I think its more about their tech support not being ready to face new problems. Of course your local kiosk guy would have no issues.

danielbln 2y ago
> their tech support not being ready to face new problems. One of the largest, most valuable companies on the planet which ships phones, computers, makes their own chips, operates their own cloud service, builds frontier tech devices, but their tech support can't handle some new problems? Does that really seem likely? Or a problem that they couldn't solve if they wanted to?
- yetihehe 2y ago
  > One of the largest, most valuable companies on the planet > but their tech support can't handle some new problems Now you know WHY it's one of the largest. Tech support doesn't scale. Making millions of copies of the same device and making things once then distributing does scale and brings a lot of profits.
  - Yeri 2y ago
    By that same logic, having different rules and regulation and review processes per continent, country or region also wouldn't scale.
wildredkraut 2y ago
They are just trying to uphold their monopoly seriously. Anyway, it will come the one or the other way — everywhere. It's just a matter of time, but on top people will fingerpoint even more at Apple, and it will have a much broader negative impact for Apple than simply by introducing it. With all their recent acting they are just confirming that's all about market power and greed.

netdevnet 2y ago

Allowing alternative app stores and browsers is likely to lead to more security issues, more users using tech support resources because a dodgy app downloaded from a 3rd party app store they installed broke their phone in odd ways and will likely increase expenses without increasing revenue. Because let's be honest, most of the population does not even understand the idea of "app store" beyond THE app store the same way they don't understand the idea of "search engine" beyond Google Search. If Chrome only allowed you to use Google Search as the search engine, most people wouldn't complain. This is the same. As long as they can download their [insert Big Tech Company here] walled garden app, most will not complain. But if their phone starts misbehaving because of a rogue app from a dodgy app store or phones suddenly get more expensive to compensate for higher costs incurred by Apple for their development and support of third party app stores and browsers most will complain. UPDATE: getting downvoted for pointing out the reality. Most people are not hackers. They don't want customisation options. They are happy with a default store or browser as long as it is good enough. If you want options, Android is there

radiKal07 2y ago
What you're saying is not happening on macOS so what is your argument really?
- netdevnet 2y ago
  Not sure how is this relevant. The mobile market is just on another level in terms of users and money. Apple is a business not a charity. It makes sense that they don't want to incur in expenses that don't increase revenue. Tech nerds have this idea that tech businesses should do stuff just because. Do you ask your milk provider to incur in more expenses just because? It would be different if Apple had made some pledges or commitments towards this. But it hasn't. Its only commitment is to make money for the shareholders. Everything else is secondary
  - happymellon 2y ago
    > Do you ask your milk provider to incur in more expenses just because? Oh but pasteurisation costs money. So? Tech nerds seem to have this idea that tech businesses should be able to do whatever they want just because.

Aachen 2y ago

(FYI you've submitted this comment twice about 1.5 minutes apart. I've voted for the older one rather than this one. Mods/dang: maybe the two reply sets should be merged?)

qwerty9001 2y ago

I use iPhones and Macs precisely for this Apple quality control. I have used everything else (Symbian, Windows 8 phone, Windows 10 Phone, various Androids including pure Google Pixels). They have all been tragically subpar compared to my experience with iPhone and iOS.

AndrewDucker 2y ago
Nobody is going to force you to use an alternative app store or browser. If you want to use the official Apple ones then that's just fine. Other people want the choice. And they're getting it. But that doesn't affect you at all.
- 0x073 2y ago
  I his eyes he will definitely forced to install all browsers the epic store and fortnite ;)

cjpearson 2y ago

All of these requirements look good for user security and privacy. I don't want apps to bring their own Blink or WebKit fork with all sandboxing and cross-site tracking protection disabled. I'm fine with apps bringing their own engine with the goal of performance or better user experience. These requirements enforce those expectations. There seems to be a concern that Apple will use these requirements to ban every single alternative including Blink and Gecko. I doubt that is the case since the purpose of these changes is to allow reliable, responsible players to run their engines on iOS without giving the keys to the kingdom to every app that requests it. Banning Google or Mozilla would not satisfy the EU requirements. Banning BlinkButItAlsoMinesCrypto is fine. The only additional thing I'd want as a user is transparency. I want to know if an app with a WebView is using WebKit, Blink, Gecko or EngineNobodyHasEverHeardOf.

Nextgrid 2y ago
> I don't want apps to bring their own Blink or WebKit fork with all sandboxing and cross-site tracking protection disabled Facebook's apps happily do this with the built-in WKWebView and then injects its own malicious Javascript to ensure it spies on what's within the page. You do not need to run a separate browser engine to do this. It's disappointing that the rhetoric about Apple's anti-competitive restrictions being for "security" still persists to this day especially on a technical forum.
- znpy 2y ago
  WeChat does this as well, and much more (and who know what else more!). But for some reason Apple is a-okay with that.
- cjpearson 2y ago
  I still haven't seen any arguments why these restrictions aren't good for users. Just a bunch of assumptions that these restrictions are a fig leaf. For a technical forum, I would expect more discussion around the actual details. Instead many people are building a strawman and fighting that instead. Assume for a moment that Apple will allow alternative web engines as long as they follow certain user privacy and security guarantees. (Given that the company has announced this and it's legally mandated, I think this is a safe assumption.) In that case, are users better served with or without these requirements?

Arnt 2y ago

I guess it shows that they assume higher support costs per user, and are trying to minimize the number of users with the higher cost.

pointlessone 2y ago
I have my doubts. Do they even provide any support for apps on the app store? At the same time they’re paing truck load to lawyers and are about to fork off 10-20% of their global revenue for playing a subborn teenager.
- Arnt 2y ago
  Apple spends less on supporting app developers than many app developers want, but spends more than nothing. If an end user uses Feedback Report, Apple will spend less time/money on the report than the end user wants (and less than I think fair) but again, it's more than nothing.
consteval 2y ago
Personally I think you can lower the cost by just making it difficult on the end-users side. If you put a scary pop up and require the password and bury it in the setting then boom, grandma who doesn't know the difference between wifi and the internet won't have issues.