Finally firefox + extensions will be able to reach ios.
I find it a bit puzzling and amusing how so many people in the other threads are acting like this is the end of safety on apple and yada yada, while 1 - you're free to stay well within the walled garden if you so desire, stepping out is a personal choice (but now is a choice for the user, instead of banning him from doing something apple doesn't like), 2 - we have the example of android to know apps won't each flock to their own little store, 3 - the whole pretense of "the curating of the store allows them to ensure high quality safety" is frankly not in line with reality, the app store being full of crap and spam while blocking updates to apps that apple don't like (spotify for example).
I'm flabbergasted at "tech oriented users" ability to forget what they know when it come to certain brands they like.
And finally, Chromium will be able to become the dominant browser engine on yet another platform.
I don't like Apple's restrictive policies. But the fact that Safari (or any non-Chromium browser) has 25% of the mobile market share is a good thing.
We'll see how effectively Google will manage to convince users to switch.
EDIT: As for the "you have the choice to stay within the walled garden" thing... no, you don't really. Developers have the choice to publish their app to the walled garden, but if I need a certain app, I don't have the choice to get that app through the walled garden. I will be forced to get the app where the developer of the app publishes it, just like I am currently forced to get the app through the App Store.
>you're free to stay well within the walled garden if you so desire, stepping out is a personal choice
Not if Chrome gets a huge mobile web broswer share and you end up needing to use it for compatibility.
Or if major third party apps that you want to use (say Facebook or YouTube or whatever) are all moving into their vendor's app stores.
>the whole pretense of "the curating of the store allows them to ensure high quality safety" is frankly not in line with reality, the app store being full of crap and spam while blocking updates to apps that apple don't like (spotify for example).
I don't think it is. It might not have only top tier apps, but it's not full of spam and crap the way the Android store is, and has a much smaller problem with malware.
Just because the bad apps aren't reduced to 0% compared to Android, doesn't mean a 50-80% reduction is not already a good thing.
As the "tech guy", I routinely have to uninstall slow crap stuff that hogs down the whole phone from parents and friends Android phones. iOS? Not so much, if ever.
I find it ironic when this is framed as user choice when it is being lobbied by massive corporate interests for their own benefit.
Epic wants to give you the “choice” to download Fortnite from exactly one place, forcing you to install their App Store if you want to engage in that fairly important social network.
Google wants to give you the “choice” to help create total Chrome hegemony, giving them an absolute monopoly on web tracking once they disable 3P cookies this year. Is the DMA going to step in there and give users the choice to configure their tracking engine in that monopolistic market?
How many recursions of choice will DMA protect? Or was there already choice in the form of Android as people continually point out?
> stepping out is a personal choice (but now is a choice for the user, instead of banning him from doing something apple doesn't like)
The choice is the developer's not the user's, if the app is only available in one app store (which seems likely to be the majority case).
Precisely because it is the developer's choice, users may be forced to leave the safety of the walled garden if they need an app that's not available - I saw another HN comment phrase it well as: if an app you need in order to "survive" is not available, you don't have a choice (for example, a banking app or a government app).
1) More spam on Android by far
2) Spotify not blocked
There’s a bit of religion happening in both directions. iOS has, objectively, fewer problems than Android in these regards and part of that are the policies.
Orion + FF or Chrome extensions already exists for iOS, implementing the extension interfaces on top of WebKit. Which part is the one you want, the extensions or Firefox? ‘Cause if you just want uBO on iOS you already can.
It's the risk of attack through a sidechannel, the ability to install something on your phone, not just through leaving your phone attended, but social engineering etc.
As an example of where your android example is worrying, stalker apps are currently only available for Android.
I was always of the opinion that if you didn't like the walled garden, don't buy apple. That's also a choice. It looks like this was a successful startegy on apple's part, and people want to muscle in.
Reading many of the sibling comments just makes me laugh.
Android has allowed everything from the beginning, and overall it looks... fine? Of course there are all kinds of malicious actors who manage to publish malware on Play Store or trick people into sideloading, but if my mom, a basic Android user who knows very little about how computers and phones work, never got herself into trouble, that says something. You must be either dumb enough or really understand exactly what you are doing to go way out of the safe zone to download a shady app.
And anyone concerned about browser's safety -- if that were a real thing we'd have already been screwed on Windows and Mac. The reality is that most people use Chrome and it is generally safe enough for everyday use. Some people use Firefox, Brave and whatever but most of those are well maintained. If you install a browser that nobody knows, that's your problem.
Reading many of the sibling comments just makes me laugh.
Android has allowed everything from the beginning, and overall it looks... fine? Of course there are all kinds of malicious actors who manage to publish malware on Play Store or trick people into sideloading, but if my mom, a basic Android user who knows very little about how computers and phones work, never got herself into trouble, that says something. You must be either dumb enough or really understand exactly what you are doing to go way out of the safe zone to download a shady app.
And anyone concerned about browser's safety -- if that were a real thing we'd have already been screwed on Windows and Mac. The reality is that most people use Chrome and it is generally safe enough for everyday use. Some people use Firefox, Brave and whatever but most of those are well maintained. If you install a browser that nobody knows, that's your problem.
Anyone that’s actually listening to the other side of this conversation would already know what responses to expect from what you’ve said. By saying what you’re saying you’re really making out like you only seek to throw your opinion over the fence and walk off. There are legitimate cases to be made on both sides, but your comment is not one. Calling this clear a win for user choice is naive and frankly a tad self-centred. For the average iPhone user, a user that mind you realistically wasn’t asking anything of their device that was being stopped by Apple’s rules, realistically has more to lose here than they do to gain. Who the hell uses browser extensions in 2023 let alone ones that weren’t already available in Mobile Safari?
This is above all a “win” for companies like Meta who will use their market power to create a more user-hostile experience for the common user. I don’t care if you don’t use Facebook anymore because you don’t like it. The reality is that a lot of people do, and the restrictions put in place by iOS definitely stop the Facebook app from being as bad as Meta would like it to. Now all it’s going to take is Meta to say “Instagram is only available on the Meta store”, or some variant thereof, for things to get a whole lot worse, quickly.
Delusional indie developers see this as a win when in reality it was hard enough to get people to use their apps in the first place.
Just as delusional are the tech enthusiasts that have along the way somehow conflated “cool new iOS features that I’m going to spend some time geeking out over” with “something that will legitimately make the experience better for end users at large”.
Above all, the view that anyone that disagrees with you isn’t a smart utility-belt-wearing techie such as yourself is such an absurd hill to die on and avenue to assert your elitism. I’ve spent considerable time using Android devices and customised them out the wazoo. I know how computers work. Gentoo was my daily driver for a long time. I grew up obsessed with computers and everyone around me knew it. By any of the silly tribal measures that I’m sure you’d use to establish who is a “real nerd”, I’m probably going to quality. Please consider that the fact that you can’t comprehend why supposedly smart people disagree with you may be a sign that you aren’t interrogating your own view enough, rather than it being a sign that you’re the only sane person in a world going insane.
Apart from the EU-only carveout, this is surprisingly more capable than I expected. I thought Apple would have done the bare minimum and continue to disallow JIT and multiple processes, but they have paths to allow other engines to do that.
It doesn't seem anywhere near as petty as the rest of Apple's DMA compliance.
Huge win for Meta, Google and the overall advertising industry.
Fewer Safari browsers equals less ITP and significantly improved user tracking e.g. first-party cookies last only a week on Safari versus a year on Chrome.
yes, this is huge news for advertising, fingerprinting, and tracking. i think we'll see a boom in those markets in the following years (contingent on some factors, but still).
I sense that a lot of iOS users are going to suddenly have their location set as being in the EU. Not sure if they can police this the way they would want.
You vastly overestimate how much iOS users care about this kind of thing. HN is a bubble and not even all of HN is gung-ho on the changes.
Also it’s not as simple as “set your location to the EU”. I’m not even sure if Apple provides the ability to convert an Apple ID to a different region. I vaguely remember reading an article about that resulting in loss of some/all purchases and other oddities.
No regular iOS user cares about Firefox (or Chrome) enough to go through that. Not to mention mobile FF/Chrome (less so Chrome) will be not well supported if the website is made outside the EU (even inside the EU is questionable). Developers barely test on FF for desktop which is easily available, they won’t be able to test FF mobile unless they have a device configured to be “in” the EU and that’s just not going to happen widely.
Lastly is FF’s iOS Safari wrapper is any indication of the quality that FF can provide then I don’t have high hopes for their native engine. Even on Android FF _just_ started opening up extensions after years of having a small whitelist unless you jumped through hoops. Based on that and the direction of FF as a whole on the desktop my expectations are incredibly low.
You're going to need to do a lot of changes to be identified as EU resident, such as your device's physical location (don't know if it's by GPS, Wi-Fi and/or cell tower data).
Unfortunately, from what I can tell, Apple is only being forced to open up iOS (iPhone), not any other platforms like iPadOS, and they’re not doing a jot more than they have to here.
Will this allow Firefox to have extensions now that they’re not limited by WebKit? Or will Apple still axe that as a “third party App Store” or some bullshit?
Be available on iOS in the European Union only
Be a separate binary from any app that uses the system-provided web browser engine
Not have the default browser entitlement
[...]
Orion supports Firefox extensions on iOS while using webkit, so there is an existence proof that it's possible to at least have limited support for them.
The problem is, with the Mozilla CEO trying to reduce their involvement in Firefox for some reason, will they put the effort into having a mobile iOS browser that only works for the EU?
Chrome is irrelevant because ... privacy. All I actually want is to be able to run uBlock Origin on my phone.
Have you tried Orion? From the Kagi search team, it allows you to install both chrome and Firefox extensions including uBlock Origin. Still uses WebKit for rendering of course.
There were full working iOS ports of Firefox 2-3 different times in the past, but it's unclear whether they have one ready to go for this ruling, especially given how poorly Mozilla has been run lately and how much they've cut back in their browser development investment.
It's been reported that Google has been preparing an iOS version of Chrome using the Blink browser engine for a while - as they had assumed this would eventually be allowed.
It's so funny to me that to create an alternative browser, you still have to use a blessed framework by Apple to do so, instead of, you know, just using standard UI components, writing your own compositor, etc.
If I were a hostile of any sort—a criminal, a someone with a shady business model preying on PII and fingerprinting, a totalitarian dictatorship, etc.—I would be out there on the frontlines, day and night, urging Apple to open up of iOS to alternative browsers and app stores. Attack surface increasing so dramatically, in an ecosystem blindly trusted by millions, is a godsend.
It's worth noting, for better or wose, that not just anyone can ship browser engines on iOS.
You must apply for an entitlement from Apple, and they must approve you. A part of that approval process seems to require that you stick to similar privacy protections as safari (e.g. third party cookies disabled by default).
[+] [-] nolok|2 years ago|reply
I find it a bit puzzling and amusing how so many people in the other threads are acting like this is the end of safety on apple and yada yada, while 1 - you're free to stay well within the walled garden if you so desire, stepping out is a personal choice (but now is a choice for the user, instead of banning him from doing something apple doesn't like), 2 - we have the example of android to know apps won't each flock to their own little store, 3 - the whole pretense of "the curating of the store allows them to ensure high quality safety" is frankly not in line with reality, the app store being full of crap and spam while blocking updates to apps that apple don't like (spotify for example).
I'm flabbergasted at "tech oriented users" ability to forget what they know when it come to certain brands they like.
[+] [-] mort96|2 years ago|reply
I don't like Apple's restrictive policies. But the fact that Safari (or any non-Chromium browser) has 25% of the mobile market share is a good thing.
We'll see how effectively Google will manage to convince users to switch.
EDIT: As for the "you have the choice to stay within the walled garden" thing... no, you don't really. Developers have the choice to publish their app to the walled garden, but if I need a certain app, I don't have the choice to get that app through the walled garden. I will be forced to get the app where the developer of the app publishes it, just like I am currently forced to get the app through the App Store.
[+] [-] coldtea|2 years ago|reply
Not if Chrome gets a huge mobile web broswer share and you end up needing to use it for compatibility.
Or if major third party apps that you want to use (say Facebook or YouTube or whatever) are all moving into their vendor's app stores.
>the whole pretense of "the curating of the store allows them to ensure high quality safety" is frankly not in line with reality, the app store being full of crap and spam while blocking updates to apps that apple don't like (spotify for example).
I don't think it is. It might not have only top tier apps, but it's not full of spam and crap the way the Android store is, and has a much smaller problem with malware.
Just because the bad apps aren't reduced to 0% compared to Android, doesn't mean a 50-80% reduction is not already a good thing.
As the "tech guy", I routinely have to uninstall slow crap stuff that hogs down the whole phone from parents and friends Android phones. iOS? Not so much, if ever.
[+] [-] merrywhether|2 years ago|reply
I find it ironic when this is framed as user choice when it is being lobbied by massive corporate interests for their own benefit.
Epic wants to give you the “choice” to download Fortnite from exactly one place, forcing you to install their App Store if you want to engage in that fairly important social network.
Google wants to give you the “choice” to help create total Chrome hegemony, giving them an absolute monopoly on web tracking once they disable 3P cookies this year. Is the DMA going to step in there and give users the choice to configure their tracking engine in that monopolistic market?
How many recursions of choice will DMA protect? Or was there already choice in the form of Android as people continually point out?
[+] [-] rmccue|2 years ago|reply
The choice is the developer's not the user's, if the app is only available in one app store (which seems likely to be the majority case).
Precisely because it is the developer's choice, users may be forced to leave the safety of the walled garden if they need an app that's not available - I saw another HN comment phrase it well as: if an app you need in order to "survive" is not available, you don't have a choice (for example, a banking app or a government app).
[+] [-] jonbell|2 years ago|reply
There’s a bit of religion happening in both directions. iOS has, objectively, fewer problems than Android in these regards and part of that are the policies.
[+] [-] amusingimpala75|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] secretsatan|2 years ago|reply
As an example of where your android example is worrying, stalker apps are currently only available for Android.
I was always of the opinion that if you didn't like the walled garden, don't buy apple. That's also a choice. It looks like this was a successful startegy on apple's part, and people want to muscle in.
[+] [-] d3w4s9|2 years ago|reply
Android has allowed everything from the beginning, and overall it looks... fine? Of course there are all kinds of malicious actors who manage to publish malware on Play Store or trick people into sideloading, but if my mom, a basic Android user who knows very little about how computers and phones work, never got herself into trouble, that says something. You must be either dumb enough or really understand exactly what you are doing to go way out of the safe zone to download a shady app.
And anyone concerned about browser's safety -- if that were a real thing we'd have already been screwed on Windows and Mac. The reality is that most people use Chrome and it is generally safe enough for everyday use. Some people use Firefox, Brave and whatever but most of those are well maintained. If you install a browser that nobody knows, that's your problem.
This is just all fear mongering. So stupid.
[+] [-] d3w4s9|2 years ago|reply
Android has allowed everything from the beginning, and overall it looks... fine? Of course there are all kinds of malicious actors who manage to publish malware on Play Store or trick people into sideloading, but if my mom, a basic Android user who knows very little about how computers and phones work, never got herself into trouble, that says something. You must be either dumb enough or really understand exactly what you are doing to go way out of the safe zone to download a shady app.
And anyone concerned about browser's safety -- if that were a real thing we'd have already been screwed on Windows and Mac. The reality is that most people use Chrome and it is generally safe enough for everyday use. Some people use Firefox, Brave and whatever but most of those are well maintained. If you install a browser that nobody knows, that's your problem.
This is just all fear mongering. So stupid.
[+] [-] cqqxo4zV46cp|2 years ago|reply
This is above all a “win” for companies like Meta who will use their market power to create a more user-hostile experience for the common user. I don’t care if you don’t use Facebook anymore because you don’t like it. The reality is that a lot of people do, and the restrictions put in place by iOS definitely stop the Facebook app from being as bad as Meta would like it to. Now all it’s going to take is Meta to say “Instagram is only available on the Meta store”, or some variant thereof, for things to get a whole lot worse, quickly.
Delusional indie developers see this as a win when in reality it was hard enough to get people to use their apps in the first place.
Just as delusional are the tech enthusiasts that have along the way somehow conflated “cool new iOS features that I’m going to spend some time geeking out over” with “something that will legitimately make the experience better for end users at large”.
Above all, the view that anyone that disagrees with you isn’t a smart utility-belt-wearing techie such as yourself is such an absurd hill to die on and avenue to assert your elitism. I’ve spent considerable time using Android devices and customised them out the wazoo. I know how computers work. Gentoo was my daily driver for a long time. I grew up obsessed with computers and everyone around me knew it. By any of the silly tribal measures that I’m sure you’d use to establish who is a “real nerd”, I’m probably going to quality. Please consider that the fact that you can’t comprehend why supposedly smart people disagree with you may be a sign that you aren’t interrogating your own view enough, rather than it being a sign that you’re the only sane person in a world going insane.
[+] [-] madeofpalk|2 years ago|reply
It doesn't seem anywhere near as petty as the rest of Apple's DMA compliance.
[+] [-] threeseed|2 years ago|reply
Fewer Safari browsers equals less ITP and significantly improved user tracking e.g. first-party cookies last only a week on Safari versus a year on Chrome.
[+] [-] kmlx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheLoafOfBread|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emayljames|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshstrange|2 years ago|reply
Also it’s not as simple as “set your location to the EU”. I’m not even sure if Apple provides the ability to convert an Apple ID to a different region. I vaguely remember reading an article about that resulting in loss of some/all purchases and other oddities.
No regular iOS user cares about Firefox (or Chrome) enough to go through that. Not to mention mobile FF/Chrome (less so Chrome) will be not well supported if the website is made outside the EU (even inside the EU is questionable). Developers barely test on FF for desktop which is easily available, they won’t be able to test FF mobile unless they have a device configured to be “in” the EU and that’s just not going to happen widely.
Lastly is FF’s iOS Safari wrapper is any indication of the quality that FF can provide then I don’t have high hopes for their native engine. Even on Android FF _just_ started opening up extensions after years of having a small whitelist unless you jumped through hoops. Based on that and the direction of FF as a whole on the desktop my expectations are incredibly low.
[+] [-] Hamuko|2 years ago|reply
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/25/apple-check-iphone-eligible-s...
[+] [-] matt3210|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|2 years ago|reply
And nothing is preventing them adding vertically grouped tabs/workspaces.
[+] [-] Almondsetat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thejsa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] M3L0NM4N|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcny|2 years ago|reply
--- Requirements
To qualify for the entitlement, your app must:
---https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
Given that Congress is in a stalemate, I don't see this coming to the US anytime soon.
[+] [-] charcircuit|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skibz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nottorp|2 years ago|reply
Chrome is irrelevant because ... privacy. All I actually want is to be able to run uBlock Origin on my phone.
[+] [-] spdif899|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevingadd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daveoc64|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarbanharble|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] andrewmcwatters|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] oldpersonintx|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anileated|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madeofpalk|2 years ago|reply
You must apply for an entitlement from Apple, and they must approve you. A part of that approval process seems to require that you stick to similar privacy protections as safari (e.g. third party cookies disabled by default).
[+] [-] pprotas|2 years ago|reply