The EU is one of the few institutions that are fighting the American corporations on our most basic freedoms. It’s the only one with real teeth.
I feel proud, as I contacted the EU commission regarding this specific issue
Genuinely, good work getting involved.
The reply, for those interested:
Many thanks for your enquiries dated 29 January 2024 and 10 February 2024 and your interest in the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”).
Your questions concern the Commission’s decision of 5 September 2023 designating Apple Inc. (“Apple”) as a gatekeeper under the DMA (see here for the public version of the decision).
The Commission’s designation decision is based on the evidence available to the Commission and submissions made by Apple taking into account the legal framework under the DMA. Regarding your questions, we note the following:
The Commission designated Apple’s operating system iOS. The Commission considers that Apple has provided sufficient facts and arguments to hold that iOS and iPadOS constitute each a distinct operating system core platform service, with only iOS meeting the quantitative thresholds for designation. However, the Commission has opened a market investigation in the qualitative designation of iPadOS. This investigation is currently ongoing. Should the Commission qualitatively designate iPadOS, it would be subject to the same obligations under the DMA as iOS. The Commission designated Apple’s software application store App Store, which is currently offered on different Apple devices running on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS as a single core platform service, irrespective of the device on which it is used. This is because, based on the evidence in the file, the App Store is used for the same common purpose from both an end user and a business user perspective across all devices on which it is available, namely to intermediate the distribution of apps.We hope this answers your questions. For any further information, including on the upcoming compliance phase, please visit the Commission’s DMA website under https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/
Kind regards,
The DMA Team
ITT: People who has no clue about EU law and honestly think Apple will get away with this.
They won’t and they never had in the past.
'Mericans - “I demand freedom©®™ from government intervention”
Also 'Mericans - “Why is this giant corporation allowed to not use lube while fuckin me in the ass?!?”
EU - Slowly slips a thumb into corporation’s sphincter with untrimmed fingernail
Honestly, I’d rather see the focus on making it so we can transfer purchases across app stores/devices.
So many people get stuck with one manufacture because they baught some apps over the years and don’t want to buy them again.
Even just making the stores talk to eachother would be enough. If I add my Google account to the Apple App Store, the app store can pull the list of purchased compatible software from the play store and sync it with my apple library.
Throw things like the xbox store and PlayStation store into the mix too. To be clear, that doesn’t mean exclusives or incompatible things needs to be compatible, thats silly. But if I buy somethibg like cross- platform like BG3 on the PlayStation, I want to transfer that to the Xbox or PC if I change consoles.
Specifically only ios users are locked down in the Walled Garden. Android users can switch manufacturers at will since they all have Google play - except to Apple of course.
Most apps nowadays are subscription based anyway.
Unless the EU makes Apple get rid of the yearly cost per installation, any app store other than Apple’s is limited by the inability to have free or freemium apps, giving them a substantial disadvantage in comparison.
I think this would need new legislation that would push software regulations further than they’ve been before.
Apple can allow apps to be installed outside their app store. The fee they are charging is likely related to accessing their APIs and tools for developing iOS apps. Apple would have to be forced to make these free.
Currently you could considerably make an iOS app without apple’s tools and APIs. But it would require significant effort to develope/reverse engineer these tools to make the app. Effort that is outside of the scope of most modern app development.
To force apple to make the APIs and tools open would likely require additional legislation. Saying not only must the device allow third party distribution of apps, but apple must support these activities for free. This is significantly different from making apple allow third party apps. It puts on them a real cost (not potential loss like allowing third party app stores).
This isn’t a problem for other systems because they actively invite people to develop and distribute their software for their system. But it would have implications for game consoles. Sony, MS and Nintendo would have to allow any potential developer access to their tools for free with little obligation.
Developers already pay a subscription fee.
Apple is just being greedy and tries to disincentivise developers from using third party stores. They are not incurring any cost associated with those downloads.
They do incur the cost of the tools and APIs. They would argue they eat the loss to support their market place.
I would argue apple making their APIs and tools open for everyone is in their best interests. It’s easier to control security issues if everyone uses the same tools and apis. But apple won’t care as much.
If a third party app store provides a tool or service to improve their app store, should apple expect to be able to use that for free? Negating any benefit that third party would get for developing such an improvement.
If a third party app store provides a tool or service to improve their app store, should apple expect to be able to use that for free? Negating any benefit that third party would get for developing such an improvement
Sideloaded apps aren’t asking for benefits from being in Apple’s app store. They’re asking to be allowed to exist on Apple’s platform without being fined for it.
Apple has used other platform API and tooling at no added cost the same way everyone everyone else does. iTunes and Safari used to run on Windows. Apple provides AppleTV+ apps for several platforms. And there’s a number of apps they make for Android.
Apple already charges developers for access to their APIs and tooling. What Apple is doing with the per-install cost is trying to charge developers for access to their audience — which is not what the EU intended.
If the requirements are the same as for iPhones, this change is entirely inconsequential, because Apple can just add so many hurdles to sideloading to make this infeasible.
The EU said the Apple’s implementation isn’t complying. The rules are clear. Sideloading means sideloading.
Bored open source devs with a deep hatred for apple: “Challenge accepted”
I remember hearing something about requiring a multi million dollar deposit or something that made it infeasible for all but the largest of tech companies.
First App Store launched.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/first-third-party-ios-app-store-launches-in-europe
Only 2 apps on it with no possibility to sideload cause the apps need to be notarized by Apple :(
By all means. After Apple has painted themselves in a corner, when the legislation has been loophole proofed, that’s when Apple gets hit in the face with the Brussels effect - like a big, floppy, dong slapped across Steve Apple’s mouth in every country out there.
I’ll do a dance for every country. I’ll do a shimmy for Botswana, a conga for Japan, a shake for Sebia, etc, etc.
Slap! Other cheek. Slayap! Other cheek! And so on and so forth.
Hopefully.
The current implementation is what Apple (or Apple’s lawyers) think complies with the EU, this doesn’t mean the EU will fully accept this iteration. Apple is probably mainly playing with time here.
The problem is that fixing the loopholes most likely needs changes to the Act itself.
There is no real loophole though. Apple latched on to some part of the Act to justify what they are doing and play for time, while pretending the rest of the Act does not exist. The Act says in no uncertain terms that Apple is not allowed to self-preference - meaning that the alternative app stores must have as much exposure and placement on their platform as their own.
This is not the issue here. The problem is that everybody has to pay through their nose to get the priviledge to publish on an alternate marketplace or be an alternate marketplace.
EU making iPadOS more useful
Cool. Would be nice to see the same thing happen with games consoles as well.
I’m pretty sure Apple is missing a significant market share of consumers like myself who can’t stand their anti-competitive practices. That’s why I can only buy Android phones and tablets, until we get decent Linux ones.
Yea I don’t think so.
Also Android is technically Linux already.
Android replaced most of the OS that people would consider Linux normally. They only kept the kernal. The kerbal is Linux, but when people talk about Linux OS they usually mean Linux/GNU.
Yep! I like their software, but I’m a developer and power-user, and the way their stuff is artificially locked down to protect their money-printing trust screws me over as both a developer and power-user. If they started opening things up - even if it’s “open” like MacOS… I’d be inclined to buy more stuff.
The sad part is that at some point they were as open as everyone else, in Hypercard and Hotline (I know that’s not Apple) times.
And the guy who turned it into this edge between scam and toys for stupid people is ironically one of the founders.
What brand of Android devices do you prefer?
I am on Samsung devices right now (phone & tablet) but I’m not 100% convinced and I do not advocate for this brand.
I’m just waiting for a more mature Fairphone & /e/os platform.
Fair phone I could get behind but swapping Apple for Samsung is like swapping Dahmer for Gacey. You’re still getting fucked, they just have different kinks.
Not true. On Samsung devices, at least the Exynos ones, you can install FOSS operating systems like LineageOS or /e/OS. Of course there are still proprietary blobs for drivers, but that’s no different than running GNU/Linux on an Intel microprocessor.
I’d rather use a pixel with Graphene OS.
Pixels are completely unaffordable new, still overpriced when secondhand and only really cost normally when EOL. This is just sadly not an option for many people, so Lineage seems more accessible and realistic.
That’s my issue with Samsung devices: unofficial ROMs are rare. For example on my Galaxy S21 FE, I can’t run LineageOS.
This does nothing at all for those with a slightly older “unsupported” device. They should have made Apple apply the same fixes to the last few whole number releases.
For the entire line, that way I can use my totally functional iPad from 2010 that is a brick now because it cannot connect to the App Store.
For that a more reasonable ask is that they be required to unlock the devices so alternate firmware can be used.
Just curious, what do you plan to use it for? I used to use my iPad Mini2 for zoom calls until recently, as zoom now needs iOS 10 or above.
Really I just wanna put Linux on it 🙈
I’ve tried to look for some way to do this and found this. Not really what I’m looking for though (I have an old iPad 3 running iOS 9.3.5, and essentially useless) Does anyone have any links to help us out?
I’ve never gone down that route myself, but I have both an iPad 2 and iPad 3.
The iPad 2 is downgraded to iOS 6, making it significantly useful and faster, and this can be done with the Legacy iOS Kit. That being said I did this over a year ago when the App Store still worked on iOS 6, so you’d need to instead find IPAs and install them, which is definitely a more subpar process. I have a metric ton of old games on mine, as well as TwomonUSB so I can use it as a second monitor
My iPad 3 is downgraded to iOS 8, which is maybe a 15% speed improvement but it is more bearable than stock iOS 9, and the app store works as well as more apps like Spotify, Discord (with tweak), Telegram (editing Info.plist). Against the grain of what r/LegacyJailbreak would suggest, downgrading to iOS 8 is probably better than iOS 6.
This doesn’t answer your Linux question, but if you wanted to get more use out of your iPad in the meantime I love having mine as a second monitor for my laptop (could also use VNC instead of TwomonUSB) and in general what I’ve said above makes them 100x more useful than on iOS 9.
Thank you for the links and info resources.
I want to run unsigned apps on iPadOS, just like MacOS.
That said, regarding support for “slightly older” hardware. For all that Apple sucks at, they have usually been good about supporting older hardware. iPads have historically received 5 years of major releases, and then a couple years of security updates after that 5 years. The big exception being that very first iPad which was cut off after 3 years.
Moreover, software support for an old OS tends to become an issue after 2 or 3 years. Those of use who are developing iPad apps look at the traffic and start to deprecate support legacy OS versions that are in the low single digits.
Realistically, it’s about 7 to 8 years before I start to think about new hardware. That said, I still have an old ass 2013 iPad Air that I use for web browsing and messaging. Thing still works fine for that, but the third party apps are kind of stuck in 2020 / 2021 land.
Yeah apple is just going to turn this into “lol if you want to sideload go buy a new device” and end up reaping additional billions
They have to allow sideloading for all devices their app store supports. So either cut off support completely and brick all old devices, or let people do whatever.
