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This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily int

• 988747 4y ago
  I wonder if it would make more financial sense for Apple to withdraw from EU market, rather than complying. The numbers for 2021 are pretty much in line: $89B - Apple sales in Europe (including some non-EU countries, most notably UK) $85B - Apple AppStore revenue worldwide. The question is: which one has more potential for growth.
  • tchocky 4y ago
    I don't think so. The EU market is pretty huge and financially strong. Maybe they will only allow sideloading and payment freedom for the EU with special iOS builds.
    • kmlx 4y ago
      depends on the company really. some might think a bit more about offering their products to eu countries considering (some of) these rules. which imo are quite serious, and some even ridiculous.
      • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        Which ones do you find ridiculous? They frankly diverge from the current status quo but to me they all go in the right direction.
        • kmlx 4y ago
          i foresee a fiasco in general, but a few stand out: > Share data and metrics with developers and competitors, including marketing and advertising performance data. with competitors? :)) > Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those belonging to a gatekeeper. This includes making messaging, voice-calling, and video-calling services interoperable with third-party services upon request. could have been solved easily if they proposed a working group to come up with the next video and messaging standard. right now i foresee the discussions we had back in mid 00s: we use our own video encoder. they use h263. and those other guys use vp9. good luck to the team writing a transcoder that works real time :)) > The Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires platforms to do more to police the internet for illegal content, has also been approved. “think of the children” legislation.
          • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
            I don’t see why you are surprised by the sharing with competitors and the obligation of interoperability. That’s in line with what’s imposed on dominant player in an unbalanced market. Basically Europe is saying to gatekeepers that they can keep their platform but it will come with a lot of caveat from now on.
          • TimPC 4y ago
            Asking for data sharing without specifying exactly which data is included and exactly which data is exempt is ridiculous. The standard for laws need to be far higher. Which metrics? Which data? If the lawmakers mean all data they are going to discover very quickly a lot of that data is subject to privacy standards. You can't for example share the data you use to train a personal assistant without sharing queries people have made of that assistant.
      • hef19898 4y ago
        Considering how far backwards companies bend over to make business in China and some Arabic countries I don't expect a single company with some profitable business in the EU to leave that market.
        • kmlx 4y ago
          for sure. but a newly established company with strong revenues in a part of the world where there are no rules? difficult to answer.
          • hef19898 4y ago
            So what? Nobody is obliged to serve any market, or a markets obliges to open for individual companies. If company A won't, companies B and C propably will.
            • kmlx 4y ago
              > So what? if your goal is more protectionism, then it’s great. but if you want to produce market leaders then it’s bad.
              • hef19898 4y ago
                If by market leader you mean creating monopolies, or oligopolies, there are rules againstt that in place. So there seems to be some concensus of seeing those outcomes as non desireable. And those rules cover consumer protection and choice, Microsoft has some experience with that when it comes to Internet Explorer.
                • kuratkull 4y ago
                  Being a monopoly is not against the law. Abusing your monopoly is.
      • bzxcvbn 4y ago
        That's pretty much the point of the regulation. If you're okay with being preyed upon by billion-dollar companies, stay in the US. If you'd like to be protected as a customer, come to the EU. Besides, the DMA has specific exemptions for small companies. Once a company reaches the "gatekeeper" level, they will have had all the necessary time to figure out how to comply with the law.
        • tjmc 4y ago
          Oh please. Are any of these billion-dollar companies going to deliberately issue malware that allows them to record my passwords and empty my bank account? Side-loading will be a huge gift for scammers.
    • kmeisthax 4y ago
      This would be very consistent with their prior actions. Apple's "opening move" with prior rulings and laws on in-app payment processing has been to require separate binaries locked to specific jurisdictions. The company genuinely believes that competition is consumer-hostile at best and outright dangerous at worst. The question is, how far will Apple go to keep Americans from turning on "EU mode"? Will it just be the usual country toggle? Will sideloaded apps be geofenced to the EU with Location Services? Or will they start adding bootloader fuses for each jurisdiction so that you can't install the "EU sideloading firmware" on US-purchased iPads? Or all of the above? I hope the EU is ready to litigate whatever hoops Apple makes people jump through - because Apple loves inventing new hoops.
  • guerrilla 4y ago
    That would be a strategic mistake even if it made short-term sense (which it probably doesn't) because it would leave a big hole for to fill that could be leveraged to compete with them later in the US.
  • TrickyRick 4y ago
    Some of that App Store revenue comes from the EU BTW. Probably a quite sizable chunk of it.
  • KaoruAoiShiho 4y ago
    Only if you're confident it's some uniquely EU idea (which it's not, regulators all over the world are thinking about doing this).
  • amelius 4y ago
    Then I wonder what would happen if Taiwan introduced the same legislation.
  • pavlov 4y ago
    Remember that App Store revenue is also generated in the EU. Let's assume that 15% of App Store revenue is from the EU. That would leave an additional $12.7 billion hole in Apple's pocket. Worse, it would mean Apple's third-party developers lose about $30 billion in revenue. (Apple takes a 30% cut, so the total App Store sales volume is about $283B). Those developers would also lose all access to their existing users in those countries. It would be a massive black stain on Apple's reputation. It's the kind of drastic move that you simply can't do as a platform provider unless your hand is absolutely forced by something like international sanctions.
    • IshKebab 4y ago
      And more importantly it would further erode their market share. It would be an absolutely insane move. Much more likely they'll go the route of malicious compliance. You can side load apps but you can't add them to your home screen. You can set a third party voice assistant but it can't launch apps. Etc. Will be very interesting to see how this plays out!
      • threeseed 4y ago
        > You can set a third party voice assistant but it can't launch apps Facebook and Google are going to love this. They can build a voice assistant app which will provide them with all of the apps people use the most, people they contact, places they visit, searches they do etc. It's going to be a privacy nightmare.
  • Hamuko 4y ago
    Doesn't Apple route all of their international sales through Ireland, which is in the EU? They'd need to find another tax haven.
    • Mindwipe 4y ago
      Not all of them, no. Broadly just the European ones, plus a few others where it's not worth setting up a different regional HQ.
  • Youden 4y ago
    How could it make more financial sense to withdraw? As long as Apple keeps selling iPhones, there's still profit to be made, App Store be damned.
    • adventured 4y ago
      It doesn't. The parent premise - that Apple is going to be severely harmed financially by any of this - is something far beyond silly. Apple will barely see a dent from it. Their profit juggernaut will keep rolling on almost exactly the same. The parent comment in question - "and eat pretty heavily into their revenues" - is confusing their personal projected wishful thinking (obviously desperately wanting big tech to falter) with actual reality (the one where Apple has no serious competitive threats in smartphones for what they do, and as such they'll keep marching on just the same).
      • mike_hearn 4y ago
        Apple clearly does have serious competitive threats to what they do, it doesn't even have majority market share in the EU. But it also won't threaten their revenues much. On platforms where users and developers do have a choice from day one (Android), the app store is sufficiently useful that most devs do choose to stick with it. It seems unlikely that Apple can't make the app store competitive on its own terms.
  • juanani 4y ago
  • seydor 4y ago
    it will be a ~10% drop of their profits maximum . They have nothing to fear, and have been engaging in these shenanigans just because they can
  • layer8 4y ago
    I’m pretty sure Apple would still turn a profit even by just selling the hardware in Europe.
• chacham15 4y ago
  The US already has one which is supposed to be voted upon soon: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/271...
  • delecti 4y ago
    Huh, there's even a bipartisan spread of cosponsors. That might actually have a chance.
  • the_duke 4y ago
    This is just for payment providers though, not alternative app stores.
    • ThatPlayer 4y ago
      Are you just reading the summary? It does force them to allow 3rd party apps and app stores too: >A covered company that controls the operating system or operating system configuration on which its app store operates shall allow and provide readily accessible means for users of that operating system to choose third-party apps or app stores as defaults for categories appropriate to the app or app store https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710/text#id0d46d431d82343d09c9b5b7b02cce0eb https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/271...
• Zenst 4y ago
  Oh, I'm sure Apple can drag this out for years and year in the courts lobbing health and safty arguments etc.
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    Only if the EU court is willing to suspend sanctions during that time. That's not what happened with Microsoft for instance.
  • bzxcvbn 4y ago
    First time they're out of compliance, the fine is 10% of their global annual revenue. Then 5% of their daily average revenue until they comply. Second time they're out of compliance, the fine doubles. If they still breach compliance, they get investigated for systematic non-compliance. The Commission can then impose structural and behavioral changes. Or Apple can stop providing service in the EU. But they're not going to say goodbye to a fourth of their global revenue. They will comply.
    • johnzim 4y ago
      Well. After the first 2 instances of being out of compliance, that's exactly where they'd be anyway. I agree it seems unlikely but the math checks out.
• ParksNet 4y ago
  Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 30% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 10% or 15% for all, there never would have been the industry pressure for this sort of regulation. The EU would have been better to just mandate a maximum % commission for all digital marketplaces above a certain level of revenue. This new solution will get poked full of holes by Apple and lead to an inferior experience for consumers.
  • chris_st 4y ago
    I see this, and it just makes me think that if they had, we'd be seeing posts that say, "Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 10% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 5% or 3% for all, ...".
    • vorpalhex 4y ago
      30% is an insane amount.
      • rootusrootus 4y ago
        How does it compare to a regular bricks & mortar retail store? Shelf fees, etc? Edit: downvoted for asking a question? Thanks HN.
        • vorpalhex 4y ago
          How much warehouse space does it take to sell 3,000,000 copies of fortnite? How much shrink did they have?
          • Nasrudith 4y ago
            The shrinkage is called chargeback and processing fees.
            • 4y ago
• _the_inflator 4y ago
  Never underestimate the creative genius of Apple. They will come up with new solutions to keep their walled garden. "Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet" I bet this is going to be a horrible user experience. "Are you really sure?", "Apple takes no responsibility not warranty" whatsoever. What sound usually easy on paper...
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    They backed out from these tricks in the Netherland standoff. As you guessed, it started with horrible wording, and has now became something way saner (albeit they kept their fees requirements)
    • nradov 4y ago
      Denying warranty claims for that reason would already be illegal under existing laws in most developed countries.
      • kmeisthax 4y ago
        Yes, but there's few entities out there actually enforcing these kinds of laws. For example, if you ever use the manufacturer-sanctioned bootloader unlock on a Samsung phone, that blows a fuse in the phone that says "my warranty is void". Samsung refuses to service phones that have ever had their bootloaders unlocked, regardless of what was actually done to them. As far as I'm aware nobody has bothered to sue Samsung over this feature.
        • makeitdouble 4y ago
          This had me thinking. This might be a weird take, but if nobody was bothered enough to file an official complaint against Samsung, and have it reviewed and pushed through the process, is it a significant issue in the first place ? (Basically, I am making a "if a tree falls in a forest" argument)
    • 4y ago
• Someone 4y ago
  They still (rightfully, IMO) can charge third parties for getting access to their customers, just as super markets charge for getting stuff on their shelves, or as amusement parks take a cut for the right to sell ice cream. Now, as to what’s reasonable there? That will be a separate discussion. So far, Apple has put the bar at over 20% for countries that have passed similar legislation, likely on the argument that payment processing need not cost more than credit card companies charge (a few percent, in the EU)
  • account42 4y ago
    > They still (rightfully, IMO) can charge third parties for getting access to their customers, just as super markets charge for getting stuff on their shelves, or as amusement parks take a cut for the right to sell ice cream. Super markets charge for use of shelf space and logistics. The customers don't belong to anyone. The super market can't prevent you from opening a store next door to sell to the same customers directly. Similarly, I don't see any problem with Apple charching for hosting, downloads, payment, curation etc. but it should not be their place to sell permission fro what you are allowed to install on your own device just as it would be ridiculous for Ikea to control what you can put on your shelf.
• pchristensen 4y ago
  For many (most?) users, Apple's restrictions, especially sideloading, protect users from bad actor app owners (looking at you, Facebook). To me, allowing sideloading is like allowing chemical weapons to be used in war. Yes, it's a new tool and capability at your disposal, but it's also available to every powerful and unscrupulous participant.
  • seydor 4y ago
    > allowing sideloading is like allowing chemical weapons to be used in war. yes, it is exactly like that. Millions of people who download .exe to their compuyters every day are doing chemical warfare
    • inlined 4y ago
      Millions of people downloading .exe files everywhere are why we have an infosec industry. I trust indie developers on the App Store because of the restrictions and the review process. I’ll never side load a small developer’s app. And I worry that major players (I.e. Facebook) will require side loading so they can be free of the App Store rules about privacy.
      • seydor 4y ago
        infosec, like defense (stuff like the internet and apollo missions) are how humanity progresses. Power plays always keep us behind
        • threeseed 4y ago
          How has malware, viruses, botnets, phishing etc progressed humanity ?
    • judge2020 4y ago
      If you got a job at Best Buy's Geek Squad for a week, you'd quickly realize just how irresponsible most people are with what they install on their devices.
• dan1234 4y ago
  Will it though? I don't know anyone who side loads onto Android, and even Epic gave up and put Fortnite back onto Google play[0]. I'm sure that any side loading will be hidden beneath layers of warnings designed to put off all but the most determined. [0] https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/21/21229930/fortnite-available-on-google-play-android-mobile-devices https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/21/21229930/fortnite-availabl...
  • zaik 4y ago
    F-Droid is somewhat popular among privacy minded folks. You probably want it for NewPipe and Conversations.
• layer8 4y ago
  Apple will likely do as little as possible as late as possible, and try to stall as much as possible. It will be interesting to see how it will play out.
  • shaky-carrousel 4y ago
    It will play as usual, with huge fines.
    • layer8 4y ago
      Not sure Apple is willing to give up 20% of their total revenue (which is the maximum penalty after repeat offense).
      • ATsch 4y ago
        There's still plenty of money to be made until the law comes into effect, the regulatory bodies become active, the cases are prepared, rulings are made, all of the layers of appeals have gone through, the regulators have decided whether the new measures are in compliance, it becomes a repeat offense, etc.
      • shaky-carrousel 4y ago
        Nobody is, but they all do. If they don't comply then they will have their assets confiscated.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ceeplusplus 4y ago
  It won't eat into any revenues. In the Netherlands Apple charges 27% commission on any revenues paid into external payment systems [1]. And what is the EU exactly going to do - ban Apple from charging for access to their software APIs [2]? That seems like one step from banning charging for software as a whole. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/4/22917582/apple-netherlands-antitrust-27-percent-commission-alternative-in-app-payment-systems https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/4/22917582/apple-netherlands... [2] Yes, APIs themselves are not copyrightable, but what developer is going to spend the resources to reimplement all of iOS' APIs, with no documentation of how the underlying hardware works?
  • username_my1 4y ago
    Lol shit loads of psps have super simple native SDKs: PayPal, stripe, adyen…. They’re all waiting for the day developers switch to their apis. And developers usually work with them over the web, they just didn’t do so on ios because of apple policy
    • ceeplusplus 4y ago
      I don't mean payment providers, I mean Apple device APIs like HealthKit, WeatherKit, SwiftUI, CoreML, ARKit, etc. Nobody is stripping all that out (there aren't even real competitors for a lot of these things).