Superior functionality exclusively in the EU — USB-C, side-loading — is a good thing. It will remind US folks that the law is a powerful mechanism for making simple, non-controversial changes that improve everyone’s quality of life; but which corporations would otherwise refuse to accept. BTW — LAAS (lobbying-as-a-service) should probably exist.
> In addition, developers may have to pay extra if they want their apps to be available outside of the iOS App Store, Gurman says.
The statement is a bit ambiguous. Is it pay Apple extra or pay extra to the 3rd party to have their app listed in the 3rd party app store?
The former doesn't sound right; It is probably FUD.
Logically, a 3rd party app store could compete on significantly reduced fees relative to Apple (as one of the strategies). Those conscious of the quantum of current fees then have options of listing their app on both the Apple app store and the 3rd party store as part of their distribution strategy. Customers who trust the Apple appstore would get their app from there and those who like a 3rd party app store would get it from there. The app developer would have reduced their total fees (for distribution). Even if there are signup fees, the share of revenues that Apple is today taking away from the developer would go down in absolute terms with a 3rd party store.
As far as the consumer is concerned, this becomes an OS setting like 'default browser/default text editor etc.,'.
Apple sticking to only the Apple App Store stance is only raising the cost for consumers. Consumers in other geographies will also wake up. Eventually.
Apple being motivated by improving security are BS, and it pains me te see people in this forum falling for it or reapeating this.
There is a great tool to increase security: the browser and its sandbox. You don't need to install anything fishy on your phone, and the sandbox rights coukd be sufficient for many apps.
But as an example, Apple denies the full screen feature for websites and even PWA... only installed ones. There's no good reason except favoring apps/appstore. For security? Works great on Android.
And you cannot use a third party browser, since they forbid that (all are Safari based)
> Apple being motivated by improving security are BS, and it pains me te see people in this forum falling for it or reapeating this.
It's the same with privacy. Forcing app publishers to state what user data is being sucked out of their phones was just a poor PR stunt.
Nothing has changed. Applications still require payments in form of contact lists (which is more or less illegal in Europe if you don't have permission of all people in your address book to share their names and phone numbers), disguised as helping users check if their friends are using a service, or to even allow user to use some app functionality.
Unimaginative accountant that currently leads Apple on one hand bullshits public opinion when disallowing Facebook to steal data from users' devices and, on the other hand, after blocking Zuckerberg's ability to do so, he disgracefully used children protection to announce that Apple will now inspect users' data under the pretense of looking for child porn.
Apple users are being deprived of OS control with most of updates and it's always done under the untruthful pretense of increasing security or protecting users' privacy.
When this little man finally pushes ads to core macOS, he'll state that it's to help users.
Users don’t want crappy PWAs, they want something that follows the platform UI conventions. It’s good that Apple care enough about about UX to actually enforce this.
> There is a great tool to increase security: the browser and its sandbox. You don't need to install anything fishy on your phone, and the sandbox rights coukd be sufficient for many apps.
To this day the browser is still a second-tier experience to native apps. But that's fine, because anything you get from the macOS and iOS app stores are sandboxed too. So are non-App Store apps on macOS that choose to run in sandbox.
Are you sure PWA doesn’t work on iOS? I remember installing websites as apps on my iPhone. According to this SO answer I think one can even make it full screen (with a workaround at least): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53061258/pwa-not-opening...
>Apple being motivated by improving security are BS
I'm not sure how they are motivated but in a report Apple cited:
>In Nokia’s 2021 threat intelligence report, Android devices made up 50.31% of all infected devices, followed by Windows devices at 23.1%, and macOS devices at 9.2%. iOS devices made up a percentage so small as to not even be singled out, being instead bucketed into “other”.
I personally use iOS and got it for my mum and aunt etc as it seems to suffer much less from malware in normal usage. I'm not sure if there is any evidence to the contrary?
A lot of viruses (and jailbreaks on iOS amongst others) are distributed via this browser / sandbox; it's only secure in theory and it took decades to get to that point.
Sure (before the Rust evangelists swoop in), part of that was due to using unsafe languages; part was due to extension frameworks that had too much power (ActiveX, which was even used to update your operating system, I can't fathom why they thought that was a good idea). But it'll take many more years of zero incidents, jailbreaks, etc before I'd trust the browser over Apple's app sandboxing and app review and distribution approach.
A non-app-store web app on iPhone has been able to be full screen since initial release of Home Screen web apps. When you launch from Home Screen, it gets the whole screen.
See the Xbox Cloud Gaming "app" for instance, which is outside the App Store, just launch then "Add to Home Screen", close, and run from Home Screen.
As for what can be done with browsers, see the venerable iCab but also Kagi's Orion browser which runs Firefox and Chrome extensions, even on iOS. Yes, it's WebKit based, but so was Chrome for a long time.
Given you can run Xbox games or arbitrary extensions from other browsers, it's clear the web app and WebKit limits are less restrictive than most discussion acknowledges.
For the last few features that used to be missing, like notifications or other native hooks, notice Microsoft has the sidecar native app for iOS that handles in-game chat, LAN discovery for Xbox setup, and notifications.
I sometimes feel that some HN folks need to consider a job inside EU committees. It's probably boring work, but even if you spend 10% of your time in meetings and the remainder on a secret side project, you will be doing society a great service.
>Apple being motivated by improving security are BS, and it pains me te see people in this forum falling for it or reapeating this.
Genuinely looking for evidence of this counterpoint you're making. As the evidence for the security angle is proven. iOS takes less than 1% of malware, Android takes nearly 50%, in between we have Windows, IoT devices and even MacOS taking more malware than iOS.
So where's the data that this strategy isn't working to protect iOS devices? I want to see it.
PWAs and SPAs are awful. And to think they’re not downloading and executing code is foolish. There is no memory model for a browser. Each browser implants is sandbox however it wants.
Hasn't Apple always said the reason they don't allow sideloading was that it'd be impossible without compromising security? So are they claiming their European iDevices won't be secure anymore, or are they admitting they were lying before and that the real reason was nothing but greed?
I suppose it's true in the same way that having knives in your kitchen makes it more likely that you might cut yourself. but a kitchen without knives kind of sucks so
How they will do it likely is they will charge to install the App store app and assign it a CA and require it to sign the apps downloaded from that app store.
The sideloading of apps will technically be an apple approved app but enforced by another app store. To put it another way you would not be able to randomly download an unsigned app.
It's one thing to provide security in the kindergarden. It's another thing to provide security in the jail. So far Apple's track record is kindergarden security. They do have tech in place, but how that tech would resist big bad world outside the wall remains to be seen. My guess would be that there will be apps breaking the jails in the first years and 10 years later things will settle on and it'll become relatively safe to sideload untrusted apps.
Of course if one's smart enough to only download apps from reputable websites, then the only worry will be privacy issues which are probably not important for most people
Even if this is small progress the headlines and framing of the story are still doublespeak. Installing applications on your computer is the normal state of things. Walled gardens and not having control of your computer is the new weird thing. The word "sideloading" is a feudal concept and it's unquestioned use is dangerous for society.
Properly stated this story title is, "Installing applications on iOS 17 might be allowed Europe" which highlights the absurdity intrinsic in the practice of users not being able to install applications on their own computers as a default.
I think Apple has also done good things with their strict app store policies (from my consumer point of view).
Apple has been for example putting limits on data collection and tracking. The main mechanism is to kick apps out from Apps store if they don't play by the rules.
I'm worried that side loading will be a step back here. Strong players, like Facebook, may just take their app away from the official store and distribute it through other ways. With their strong position I don't have much choice - it's not like there would be five competing apps serving the same purpose (connecting to the people and communities on Facebook).
Sideloading should be mandatory and opt-in. Arguing that it should be closed is basically people wanting to control other people's computers (even though that is a popular opinion in this "hacker" forum).
It's going to be interesting when some sideloaded app starts becoming popular and e.g. americans miss out on it. I can already imagine a lot of AI and nsfw stuff in that category
The EU has no jurisdiction over the US. So there will be no legal need for Apple to allow it here. Just like they don’t allow alternate payment methods for dating apps in the US like some other countries required and Apple had to comply with.
The App Store is too critical to the way Apple sees things, they’re not going to just say “oh well”. I bet things are only open for EU residents with EU purchased phones. Buy an EU phone and activate with a US account? Bet it’s locked.
Also expect them to make hay over any security/scam issues with 3rd party stores/side loading. Something WILL happen and when reporters ask Apple they’ll be more than happy to point out how great the App Store is suggest users stick to it and blame bad regulations for making EU users less safe.
.) whether you buy a phone as a piece of hardware and then own that hardware - which gives you certain rights regarding the usage of that owned hardware
or
.) whether you are just paying some sort of admission fee to a tightly controlled service, and are basically "lent" a piece of hardware that you have no ownership rights over.
All the other stuff about walled gardens, monopolies and security is related - but still acts as a red herring when discussing what rights a person should get for a piece of hardware they bought.
Apple's exclusivity on allowing and deciding what goes on the AppStore and on the iOS was their way of controlling the user experience and their way to ensure future sales of iPhones. They didn't want that iOS, AppStore and iPhones get flooded with low quality apps. Similar way of thinking that I know of was Valve and Steam, where Steam users needed to Greenlit a game before it came to the Steam store. Imo Steam had a better approach because it was community based not exclusive like Apple had and has. The story of Jobs' and Apple's skyhigh care for privacy and security was more of a propaganda and a marketing strategy than a true care for users' safety.
I wouldn't be surprised if Google pushes its own iOS marketplace: first by making an exclusive Blink-based Chrome to get people to open up their phones if they want to download "the real Chrome".
Then there is little friction to get people to install more (because the hard part is already done), and they could even merge Android and iOS into a single marketplace for mobile apps.
Words that should send a chill down every spine. It's obviously just a monopoly. They could easily have an 'allow sideloading' option in the OS, and those that are happy with Apple's curation can leave it off, and everyone else can turn it on.
> In addition, developers may have to pay extra if they want their apps to be available outside of the iOS App Store
If Apple gets a say in what I "sideload" (it's called installing), that's against the spirit of the law. Hopefully the EU lawmakers were competent enough to also make it against the text of the law. It would be outrageous.
I wonder how the apple store operates in the EU on devices that have sideloaded apps. Theres a bunch of liability apple can effectively shift to the end user everytime without question “sorry you sideloaded this app which may have given your malware, we cant help you”. It’s ridiculous i know but also seems plausible.
Sons of beaches! I'm moving to Europe across the pond. Swims faster
I would expect it to be piloted in one region first and then phase across regions. It's not exactly something you want to YOLO and deploy to the entire world fleet all at once with customer devices and server infrastructure.
[+] [-] leoh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edandersen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaba0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neximo64|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bee_rider|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortuna86|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] hcks|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vivegi|2 years ago|reply
> In addition, developers may have to pay extra if they want their apps to be available outside of the iOS App Store, Gurman says.
The statement is a bit ambiguous. Is it pay Apple extra or pay extra to the 3rd party to have their app listed in the 3rd party app store?
The former doesn't sound right; It is probably FUD.
Logically, a 3rd party app store could compete on significantly reduced fees relative to Apple (as one of the strategies). Those conscious of the quantum of current fees then have options of listing their app on both the Apple app store and the 3rd party store as part of their distribution strategy. Customers who trust the Apple appstore would get their app from there and those who like a 3rd party app store would get it from there. The app developer would have reduced their total fees (for distribution). Even if there are signup fees, the share of revenues that Apple is today taking away from the developer would go down in absolute terms with a 3rd party store.
As far as the consumer is concerned, this becomes an OS setting like 'default browser/default text editor etc.,'.
Apple sticking to only the Apple App Store stance is only raising the cost for consumers. Consumers in other geographies will also wake up. Eventually.
[+] [-] hurtuvac78|2 years ago|reply
There is a great tool to increase security: the browser and its sandbox. You don't need to install anything fishy on your phone, and the sandbox rights coukd be sufficient for many apps.
But as an example, Apple denies the full screen feature for websites and even PWA... only installed ones. There's no good reason except favoring apps/appstore. For security? Works great on Android.
And you cannot use a third party browser, since they forbid that (all are Safari based)
Thank you, EU!!
[+] [-] voytec|2 years ago|reply
It's the same with privacy. Forcing app publishers to state what user data is being sucked out of their phones was just a poor PR stunt.
Nothing has changed. Applications still require payments in form of contact lists (which is more or less illegal in Europe if you don't have permission of all people in your address book to share their names and phone numbers), disguised as helping users check if their friends are using a service, or to even allow user to use some app functionality.
Unimaginative accountant that currently leads Apple on one hand bullshits public opinion when disallowing Facebook to steal data from users' devices and, on the other hand, after blocking Zuckerberg's ability to do so, he disgracefully used children protection to announce that Apple will now inspect users' data under the pretense of looking for child porn.
Apple users are being deprived of OS control with most of updates and it's always done under the untruthful pretense of increasing security or protecting users' privacy.
When this little man finally pushes ads to core macOS, he'll state that it's to help users.
[+] [-] PlutoIsAPlanet|2 years ago|reply
I think this has turned out to be the current barrier in preventing Google from completing taking over the web standards space.
[+] [-] mnd999|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcticbull|2 years ago|reply
To this day the browser is still a second-tier experience to native apps. But that's fine, because anything you get from the macOS and iOS app stores are sandboxed too. So are non-App Store apps on macOS that choose to run in sandbox.
[+] [-] tonmoy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tim333|2 years ago|reply
I'm not sure how they are motivated but in a report Apple cited:
>In Nokia’s 2021 threat intelligence report, Android devices made up 50.31% of all infected devices, followed by Windows devices at 23.1%, and macOS devices at 9.2%. iOS devices made up a percentage so small as to not even be singled out, being instead bucketed into “other”.
I personally use iOS and got it for my mum and aunt etc as it seems to suffer much less from malware in normal usage. I'm not sure if there is any evidence to the contrary?
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|2 years ago|reply
A lot of viruses (and jailbreaks on iOS amongst others) are distributed via this browser / sandbox; it's only secure in theory and it took decades to get to that point.
Sure (before the Rust evangelists swoop in), part of that was due to using unsafe languages; part was due to extension frameworks that had too much power (ActiveX, which was even used to update your operating system, I can't fathom why they thought that was a good idea). But it'll take many more years of zero incidents, jailbreaks, etc before I'd trust the browser over Apple's app sandboxing and app review and distribution approach.
[+] [-] Terretta|2 years ago|reply
See the Xbox Cloud Gaming "app" for instance, which is outside the App Store, just launch then "Add to Home Screen", close, and run from Home Screen.
https://www.xbox.com/en-us/play
As for what can be done with browsers, see the venerable iCab but also Kagi's Orion browser which runs Firefox and Chrome extensions, even on iOS. Yes, it's WebKit based, but so was Chrome for a long time.
https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/macos-extensi...
Given you can run Xbox games or arbitrary extensions from other browsers, it's clear the web app and WebKit limits are less restrictive than most discussion acknowledges.
For the last few features that used to be missing, like notifications or other native hooks, notice Microsoft has the sidecar native app for iOS that handles in-game chat, LAN discovery for Xbox setup, and notifications.
[+] [-] amelius|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quitit|2 years ago|reply
Genuinely looking for evidence of this counterpoint you're making. As the evidence for the security angle is proven. iOS takes less than 1% of malware, Android takes nearly 50%, in between we have Windows, IoT devices and even MacOS taking more malware than iOS.
So where's the data that this strategy isn't working to protect iOS devices? I want to see it.
[+] [-] exabrial|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xattt|2 years ago|reply
I think this plan will move forward because of consumer protections afforded in the EU (ie including sideloaded apps) not available elsewhere.
[+] [-] josephcsible|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asddubs|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syrrim|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulfw|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neximo64|2 years ago|reply
The sideloading of apps will technically be an apple approved app but enforced by another app store. To put it another way you would not be able to randomly download an unsigned app.
[+] [-] alerighi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vbezhenar|2 years ago|reply
Of course if one's smart enough to only download apps from reputable websites, then the only worry will be privacy issues which are probably not important for most people
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammyhavoc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wiseowise|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] fortuna86|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] AniseAbyss|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charcircuit|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superkuh|2 years ago|reply
Properly stated this story title is, "Installing applications on iOS 17 might be allowed Europe" which highlights the absurdity intrinsic in the practice of users not being able to install applications on their own computers as a default.
[+] [-] jpalomaki|2 years ago|reply
Apple has been for example putting limits on data collection and tracking. The main mechanism is to kick apps out from Apps store if they don't play by the rules.
I'm worried that side loading will be a step back here. Strong players, like Facebook, may just take their app away from the official store and distribute it through other ways. With their strong position I don't have much choice - it's not like there would be five competing apps serving the same purpose (connecting to the people and communities on Facebook).
[+] [-] seydor|2 years ago|reply
It's going to be interesting when some sideloaded app starts becoming popular and e.g. americans miss out on it. I can already imagine a lot of AI and nsfw stuff in that category
[+] [-] MBCook|2 years ago|reply
The EU has no jurisdiction over the US. So there will be no legal need for Apple to allow it here. Just like they don’t allow alternate payment methods for dating apps in the US like some other countries required and Apple had to comply with.
The App Store is too critical to the way Apple sees things, they’re not going to just say “oh well”. I bet things are only open for EU residents with EU purchased phones. Buy an EU phone and activate with a US account? Bet it’s locked.
Also expect them to make hay over any security/scam issues with 3rd party stores/side loading. Something WILL happen and when reporters ask Apple they’ll be more than happy to point out how great the App Store is suggest users stick to it and blame bad regulations for making EU users less safe.
[+] [-] hooby|2 years ago|reply
.) whether you buy a phone as a piece of hardware and then own that hardware - which gives you certain rights regarding the usage of that owned hardware
or
.) whether you are just paying some sort of admission fee to a tightly controlled service, and are basically "lent" a piece of hardware that you have no ownership rights over.
All the other stuff about walled gardens, monopolies and security is related - but still acts as a red herring when discussing what rights a person should get for a piece of hardware they bought.
[+] [-] mrkramer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wildpeaks|2 years ago|reply
Then there is little friction to get people to install more (because the hard part is already done), and they could even merge Android and iOS into a single marketplace for mobile apps.
[+] [-] jacknews|2 years ago|reply
Words that should send a chill down every spine. It's obviously just a monopoly. They could easily have an 'allow sideloading' option in the OS, and those that are happy with Apple's curation can leave it off, and everyone else can turn it on.
[+] [-] solarkraft|2 years ago|reply
If Apple gets a say in what I "sideload" (it's called installing), that's against the spirit of the law. Hopefully the EU lawmakers were competent enough to also make it against the text of the law. It would be outrageous.
[+] [-] jeffybefffy519|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1letterunixname|2 years ago|reply
I would expect it to be piloted in one region first and then phase across regions. It's not exactly something you want to YOLO and deploy to the entire world fleet all at once with customer devices and server infrastructure.
[+] [-] paxys|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whazor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehlike|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirekrusin|2 years ago|reply
If you want out of their platform, install Linux OS on your phone and have whatever you want there.
Wouldn't that make everybody happy - Apple, EU and customers?