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Apple's plan to allow browser competition dubbed unworkable

49 points by milen 3y ago

no_wizard 3y ago
While I don’t think it’s great they don’t allow other browser engines to run on iOS I find this article to be hollow on the details as to how the new guidelines Apple put out are unworkable that it will be insurmountably hard to implement on for the platform. It is scant on these details. I don’t like the verbiage Apple used either but this doesn’t layout what the actual “unworkable” issues are
- dugite-code 3y ago
  I thought the key issue was most likely Apple's Geo-locking of open browser engines to Europe only. The article should have expounded on the challenges of browser providers having to now essentially maintain two entirely seperate apps, one for a global market and one for the EU market.
- m-p-3 3y ago
  One thing that comes to mind for web developers outside of Europe, how can they even properly test that their website operates and renders correctly if they can't even run the version with their own rendering engines on their iOS devices? If an issue arises, how can they even troubleshoot it adequately if they cannot reproduce the problem reliably?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > how can they even properly test that their website operates and renders correctly if they can't even run the version with their own rendering engines on their iOS devices? We will have to see. This is a natural experiment. Would be ironic if the EU strengthens native apps’ hand. More entrepreneurially: there might be a niche for a testing suite that emulates across these phone-OS-browser sets, perhaps on real devices.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    How does Apple apply the geo-fence? Could one VPN into Europe and bypass it? I guess the user can't stop them from using the GPS to get your real location and send it home, so maybe there really isn't a solution with such a tightly controlled platform.
    - candiodari 3y ago
      This doesn't matter. Apple will impose "app notarization" (you can distribute apps through alternative app stores BUT apple still approves (or not) apps) This approval is not optional, not free, and dependent on developer acceptance of a runtime fee. If your app gets installed on >1 million devices, it's 0.5euro per install (heh ... euro, I bet someone in apple management thought that was clever, funny and very insulting to the EU. I get it ... heh. Funny. I hope they'll be made to regret that) By the way, NO, not just a runtime fee. Also a 10% tax on all payments made through any third party payment service, you don't get to use Apple APIs, ... lots of other limitations. So they removed the app store requirement, but aren't allowing sideloading (anymore than before), and kept both Apple as gatekeepers AND the fees everyone's complaining about. So now the question is: does the EU have the balls to restrict apple imports or impose the fines they threatened?
      - freedomben 3y ago
        Indeed, that is the question. My guess is no, and Apple knows it which is why they're complying in such a malicious way. They could definitely surprise me, and i hope they do. I'm in the US so don't have a perspective on the EU beyond what I've read online, but it takes so long to iterate and Apple can drag it out a long time and wear people down, and they are clearly going to embrace malicious compliance to the maximum extent.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Same way you can today: test in the mobile builds. It’s highly unlikely the iOS engine will be too different from the Android one for example. There may be some differences but I doubt it’ll be in the rendering, at least in practice
- mtomweb 3y ago
  There's a ton to go through, we're working on a story for late next week that will go through all the detail. We wanted to make sure the story was out there, and that we posted all the links so that people could go through it. + the article is a bit of celebration of a milestone, it took us 3 years and collectively thousands of hours of work to force Apple to do this.
al_borland 3y ago
I’m not a fan of this. If the desktop market is anything to go by, this won’t mean huge inroads for Mozilla, it will mean huge inroads for Chromium. Safari on iOS has been the only thing stopping Chrome from become the modern day Internet Explorer, where Google feels they can do whatever they want, because Chrome has a big enough market share to dictate the standard. How did we end up back in this place, and why is it being framed as a success? Opening up iOS in this way would only be a success if it was destroying a monopoly. Instead, this move enables Google’s browser monopoly to grow.
- dmalik 3y ago
  I love Firefox and would buy my first Apple phone if I could use it with plugins. Chomium without ublock on mobile isn't appetizing. Give me a choice!
  - muricula 3y ago
    FYI I use Safari with a Mozilla produced ad blocker extension. It comes along with their FireFox Focus browser.
  - misswaterfairy 3y ago
    Give Orion a go. Built by Kagi (privacy-focused subscription web search service taking on Google) that has ad-blocking built in, and supports both Firefox and Chrome extensions. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id1484498200 https://apps.apple.com/au/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449... Despite Orion being built by Kagi (and works natively with Kagi search), you're still free to use other search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and some other obscure ones. Orion also allows you to chose a different search engine in private mode, which is a nice feature. As a side-note, I thought I'd still be using Google a lot despite subscribing to Kagi for search. I barely use Google now as Kagi works just as well, without Google's crap, for essentially everything bar some really obscure spatial questions I have which Google seems to have indexed more. Though I don't expect that to last long. I was not paid by Kagi to say this. I was a skeptic at first, I am very happy with how good Kagi is.
karaterobot 3y ago
Dubbed is when you give something a title or a nickname. Deemed is when you evaluate or judge or regard something as.
- mtomweb 3y ago
  yeah sorry about that, we're all computer nerds, English is not our strong point.
nntwozz 3y ago
Even more absurd, alternative browser engines are limited to iOS; iPadOS be damned. What a mess. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/26/apple-eu-app-ecosystem-tidbits/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/26/apple-eu-app-ecosystem-...
- freedomben 3y ago
  See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39148681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39148681
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

49 points by milen 3y ago

While I don’t think it’s great they don’t allow other browser engines to run on iOS I find this article to be hollow on the details as to how the new guidelines Apple put out are unworkable that it will be insurmountably hard to implement on for the platform. It is scant on these details. I don’t like the verbiage Apple used either but this doesn’t layout what the actual “unworkable” issues are

dugite-code 3y ago
I thought the key issue was most likely Apple's Geo-locking of open browser engines to Europe only. The article should have expounded on the challenges of browser providers having to now essentially maintain two entirely seperate apps, one for a global market and one for the EU market.
m-p-3 3y ago
One thing that comes to mind for web developers outside of Europe, how can they even properly test that their website operates and renders correctly if they can't even run the version with their own rendering engines on their iOS devices? If an issue arises, how can they even troubleshoot it adequately if they cannot reproduce the problem reliably?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > how can they even properly test that their website operates and renders correctly if they can't even run the version with their own rendering engines on their iOS devices? We will have to see. This is a natural experiment. Would be ironic if the EU strengthens native apps’ hand. More entrepreneurially: there might be a niche for a testing suite that emulates across these phone-OS-browser sets, perhaps on real devices.
- freedomben 3y ago
  How does Apple apply the geo-fence? Could one VPN into Europe and bypass it? I guess the user can't stop them from using the GPS to get your real location and send it home, so maybe there really isn't a solution with such a tightly controlled platform.
  - candiodari 3y ago
    This doesn't matter. Apple will impose "app notarization" (you can distribute apps through alternative app stores BUT apple still approves (or not) apps) This approval is not optional, not free, and dependent on developer acceptance of a runtime fee. If your app gets installed on >1 million devices, it's 0.5euro per install (heh ... euro, I bet someone in apple management thought that was clever, funny and very insulting to the EU. I get it ... heh. Funny. I hope they'll be made to regret that) By the way, NO, not just a runtime fee. Also a 10% tax on all payments made through any third party payment service, you don't get to use Apple APIs, ... lots of other limitations. So they removed the app store requirement, but aren't allowing sideloading (anymore than before), and kept both Apple as gatekeepers AND the fees everyone's complaining about. So now the question is: does the EU have the balls to restrict apple imports or impose the fines they threatened?
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Indeed, that is the question. My guess is no, and Apple knows it which is why they're complying in such a malicious way. They could definitely surprise me, and i hope they do. I'm in the US so don't have a perspective on the EU beyond what I've read online, but it takes so long to iterate and Apple can drag it out a long time and wear people down, and they are clearly going to embrace malicious compliance to the maximum extent.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Same way you can today: test in the mobile builds. It’s highly unlikely the iOS engine will be too different from the Android one for example. There may be some differences but I doubt it’ll be in the rendering, at least in practice
mtomweb 3y ago
There's a ton to go through, we're working on a story for late next week that will go through all the detail. We wanted to make sure the story was out there, and that we posted all the links so that people could go through it. + the article is a bit of celebration of a milestone, it took us 3 years and collectively thousands of hours of work to force Apple to do this.

al_borland 3y ago

I’m not a fan of this. If the desktop market is anything to go by, this won’t mean huge inroads for Mozilla, it will mean huge inroads for Chromium. Safari on iOS has been the only thing stopping Chrome from become the modern day Internet Explorer, where Google feels they can do whatever they want, because Chrome has a big enough market share to dictate the standard. How did we end up back in this place, and why is it being framed as a success? Opening up iOS in this way would only be a success if it was destroying a monopoly. Instead, this move enables Google’s browser monopoly to grow.

dmalik 3y ago
I love Firefox and would buy my first Apple phone if I could use it with plugins. Chomium without ublock on mobile isn't appetizing. Give me a choice!
- muricula 3y ago
  FYI I use Safari with a Mozilla produced ad blocker extension. It comes along with their FireFox Focus browser.
- misswaterfairy 3y ago
  Give Orion a go. Built by Kagi (privacy-focused subscription web search service taking on Google) that has ad-blocking built in, and supports both Firefox and Chrome extensions. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id1484498200 https://apps.apple.com/au/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449... Despite Orion being built by Kagi (and works natively with Kagi search), you're still free to use other search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and some other obscure ones. Orion also allows you to chose a different search engine in private mode, which is a nice feature. As a side-note, I thought I'd still be using Google a lot despite subscribing to Kagi for search. I barely use Google now as Kagi works just as well, without Google's crap, for essentially everything bar some really obscure spatial questions I have which Google seems to have indexed more. Though I don't expect that to last long. I was not paid by Kagi to say this. I was a skeptic at first, I am very happy with how good Kagi is.

karaterobot 3y ago

Dubbed is when you give something a title or a nickname. Deemed is when you evaluate or judge or regard something as.

mtomweb 3y ago
yeah sorry about that, we're all computer nerds, English is not our strong point.

nntwozz 3y ago

Even more absurd, alternative browser engines are limited to iOS; iPadOS be damned. What a mess. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/26/apple-eu-app-ecosystem-tidbits/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/26/apple-eu-app-ecosystem-...

freedomben 3y ago
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39148681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39148681

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]