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These issues need good unbiased reporting, and as much as I love Cory, his reporting is all but unbiased. It's activism. Which is perfectly ok, and extremely im

These issues need good unbiased reporting, and as much as I love Cory, his reporting is all but unbiased. It's activism. Which is perfectly ok, and extremely important, but in this case it reeks of an extremism that is damaging to the cause itself. The truth is that decrying things like Apple's splash screen about the use of alternative stores, for example, is ridiculous. Apple has all the legal rights to do that, and formally that is not even incorrect. I personally don't let tech unsavvy people from the family use anything but the App Store and iPhone. Not because we couldn't find better Android phones for the same price, but because I know they would be easily scammed by shady apps that don't have to pass through the App Store's review process. That is clearly a monopolistic advantage to Apple, but the alternative is equally bad and, admittedly, even worse for less tech savvy users, which are the majority.

atoav 3y ago
So more options are bad, because people might make choices that they don't understand? Is this the invisible hand of the market that people have been wanging on about for the past dekades? Or is this new-found worry about people choosing wrong things something that is only limited to Apple? Because I could imagine other, worse markets with much more impact on people that are less regulated (e.g. food).
- dash2 3y ago
  Food is highly regulated by the state, at least in the US and EU (probably too highly regulated). It is also a market with numerous platforms which compete to offer quality guarantees - i.e. supermarkets. The difference with Apple is just that the platform is more tied in to the hardware.
  - atoav 3y ago
    Sure, but would you like one company to decide which food you are allowed to eat?
    - jjgreen 3y ago
      ... it's made out of people!
    - dash2 3y ago
      I understand the loss of being stuck with a single platform, but that's not quite right. You can have multiple devices, just as you can shop at multiple supermarkets. It's just that the price for doing so is higher (syncing multiple devices, carrying them around, the initial outlay), so most people don't. Nobody forces you to buy either Apple or Android. But the services they provide are indeed valuable: the walled garden protects me from certain kinds of harmful software, for example. The duopoly in smartphones is an outcome of the underlying technologies. That doesn't mean it is efficient in the economic sense, compared to an ideal world, but the comparison has to be what we can actually implement.
realusername 3y ago
I can't see how you would interpret Apple's "compliance" other than contempt, no matter how unbiaised you try to be. Even Apple's own press releases aren't even trying to hide that.
echelon 3y ago
> Apple has all the legal rights to do that They should not. Mobile computing is as fundamentally important as the right to free speech. They're taking over access to every part of life and are more important than cash. Two trillion dollar companies should not be allowed to gatekeep belonging to modern society. > even worse for less tech savvy users, which are the majority. We let people drive multi-ton vehicles with little training at 80mph. I think they'll be fine with web downloads.
- Tempest1981 3y ago
  > multi-ton vehicles with little training at 80mph. I think they'll be fine with web downloads. I wish this were true, but in my experience, it's a very different skill than driving.
  - echelon 3y ago
    Only in tech do we dismiss all of the absolutely deadly degrees of freedom in life to defend the entrenched positions of monopolies. We won't even mention the decades of research and literal human millennia of engineering efforts that went into the best practices that can protect people. Sandboxes, what are those? Surely only two companies lording over everything can protect us from ourselves. Free web installs are just as bad as speeding cars, chainsaws, electrocution, etc.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wkat4242 3y ago
It's not reporting, it's a personal blog. It's an opinion piece. Activism is definitely ok there in my book, and it's clearly needed considering how this situation is getting out of hand.
southerntofu 3y ago
> I know they would be easily scammed by shady apps that don't have to pass through the App Store's review process. My entire family uses F-Droid on ungoogled Androids. They have much less chances to be scammed/exploited because F-Droid is community-run and is explicit about anti-features in the store UI. There just isn't any malware/scam on F-Droid to be scammed with, because the community decides what apps to add and the community server builds them. Pretending There Is No Alternative ® to Apple monopolistic practices is misleading to say the least.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  How do you go about modern luxuries like opening and charging your car, controlling your home, paying, using public transport, chatting, using digital id, flying a drone...?
- tuyiown 3y ago
  > They have much less chances to be scammed/exploited because F-Droid is community-run and is explicit about anti-features in the store UI. That, but also because it's a niche that has not been targeted by malevolence. Enjoy it while it last.
  - southerntofu 3y ago
    Debian and other distro repositories would like to disagree. When the packager doesn't provide the final build, it becomes much harder for malware/adware to reach end users. Not technically impossible, but much harder than direct-to-users stores such as Apple AppStore or Flathub where it is trivial because whatever binary the uploader provides ends up directly running on user machines.
    - tuyiown 3y ago
      That works fine until hostiles manages to trick users to install their software directly or, to get back to the topic, their own app store or browser. I find it quite ironic that the discussion circles back to the level of lock down on "supported" app distribution channels.
pimterry 3y ago
> The truth is that decrying things like Apple's splash screen about the use of alternative stores, for example, is ridiculous. The article is talking about splash screens for 3rd party payments (like this: https://developer.apple.com/support/images/apps-using-alternative-payment-providers-in-the-eu/screen-private-large_2x.png https://developer.apple.com/support/images/apps-using-altern...) not for 3rd party app stores (like this: https://developer.apple.com/support/images/alternative-app-marketplace-in-the-eu/screen-install-large_2x.png?3 https://developer.apple.com/support/images/alternative-app-m...). I would agree the app store warning is pretty reasonable: "<site> would like to install an App Marketplace" is clear and to the point, sure (and the article doesn't disagree). "This app doesn't support the App Store's private and secure payment system" as the main headline on a full screen warning with a huge long scary blurb every time you try to pay anybody who isn't Apple is not reasonable. This is not the great danger Apple is pretending it is - literally every single one of their customers has paid money to somebody outside the App Store in the past. Being aware of the risks of that is a basic & essential skill that everybody who owns a credit card must have already. Apple has a responsibility to protect non-technical users against technical risks, but it does not (and should not) try to protect users from lack of very basic life skills. > Apple has all the legal rights to do that That's not necessarily true at all! I'm sure there'll have a good lawyerly debate on this soon, but the DMA requirements generally seem to mandate no restrictions for these new features than those strictly required to preserve device integrity & security. Given that the existing global payment system is very familiar to all their customers, far more widely used than App Store purchases, and _generally pretty good_ (yes, you can quibble on UX and subscription management, but we all use it all the time, there's plenty of anti-fraud backstops, and payments in the world outside the app store do work) I don't think this screaming warning can be justified as an essential measure required to protect user security. To me, it looks like a unnecessarily scary screen actively discouraging users away from their competition. A small calm confirmation for "Pay outside the App Store? This payment will be handled by 'Example Dev' directly." would be far more justifiable.
ysnp 3y ago
If you were a designing an app store that provides apps that are safe for non technical users you would probably want to ensure: excellent curation where human reviewers can have deep knowledge of all of the apps that have been reviewed/published, clear provenance so you can be strongly confident of the source/supply of the applications in case of abuse or infra compromise (with a smaller problem blast radius for each app) alternative app stores so that end users are never beholden to your app store and they can get similar or the same apps from elsewhere if your policies or practices change for the worse. Some of these help ensure that no third party can maliciously update an app at the behest of a criminal actor without also compromising the app developer, or that no third party can gather invasively detailed information and fingerprinting surface concerning the apps people use and have in case of dissent. Apple don't seem to have any interest in doing any of this, so I can't understand how their solution would be better for less tech-savvy users.
pjc50 3y ago
> Apple's splash screen about the use of alternative stores, for example, is ridiculous. Apple has all the legal rights to do that, Isn't the question whether the EU thinks they have the legal right to do that, and how the law can be changed so that they don't do that? Anyway, the article points out that certain companies are exempted from those alleged "Apple rules" already ..
black_puppydog 3y ago
> the alternative is equally bad As others have pointed out, this isn't true for community curated FLOSS repositories like F-Droid. But I want to point out that the french "pole expertise" for digital issues, PEReN, also wrote about this a while back: https://www.peren.gouv.fr/en/actualites/2022-02-18_eclairage_sur_os/ https://www.peren.gouv.fr/en/actualites/2022-02-18_eclairage... TL;DR: the "trust relation" that users have with Apple's review department could just as well (and often better) be filled by third party app stores or even independent entities.
Lutger 3y ago
We need opinion pieces as much as (so-called) unbiased reporting. This one puts things into perspective, rather than merely summarizing facts and viewpoints. I appreciate that it clearly does so and doesn't pretend to be unbiased. Nor does the so-called activism work behind the screen to manipulate politicians - like no doubt many paid by Apple lobbyists are currently doing. You call it activism like it is a bad thing. If it is, then let us dump freedom of speech.
alpaca128 3y ago
> Apple has all the legal rights to do that Law doesn't say what's morally right. > I personally don't let tech unsavvy people from the family use anything but the App Store and iPhone Do you also make sure they can only access Apple-certified websites in the browser? No? Sounds pretty unsafe. > I know they would be easily scammed by shady apps that don't have to pass through the App Store's review process Both Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store have hosted malware in the past. It's quite rare for the average user to even try installing Amazon's third-party appstore, let alone a random .apk from the internet, it's about having the option to be less dependent. Sure some users will be negatively affected, just like some people could be convinced to put their iPhone in the microwave to recharge the battery, but if you take that seriously you might as well ban knives. > That is clearly a monopolistic advantage to Apple, but the alternative is equally bad You need to be a lot more convincing to tell me that something is as bad as a monopoly.

atoav 3y ago

So more options are bad, because people might make choices that they don't understand? Is this the invisible hand of the market that people have been wanging on about for the past dekades? Or is this new-found worry about people choosing wrong things something that is only limited to Apple? Because I could imagine other, worse markets with much more impact on people that are less regulated (e.g. food).

dash2 3y ago
Food is highly regulated by the state, at least in the US and EU (probably too highly regulated). It is also a market with numerous platforms which compete to offer quality guarantees - i.e. supermarkets. The difference with Apple is just that the platform is more tied in to the hardware.
- atoav 3y ago
  Sure, but would you like one company to decide which food you are allowed to eat?
  - jjgreen 3y ago
    ... it's made out of people!
  - dash2 3y ago
    I understand the loss of being stuck with a single platform, but that's not quite right. You can have multiple devices, just as you can shop at multiple supermarkets. It's just that the price for doing so is higher (syncing multiple devices, carrying them around, the initial outlay), so most people don't. Nobody forces you to buy either Apple or Android. But the services they provide are indeed valuable: the walled garden protects me from certain kinds of harmful software, for example. The duopoly in smartphones is an outcome of the underlying technologies. That doesn't mean it is efficient in the economic sense, compared to an ideal world, but the comparison has to be what we can actually implement.

realusername 3y ago

I can't see how you would interpret Apple's "compliance" other than contempt, no matter how unbiaised you try to be. Even Apple's own press releases aren't even trying to hide that.

echelon 3y ago

> Apple has all the legal rights to do that They should not. Mobile computing is as fundamentally important as the right to free speech. They're taking over access to every part of life and are more important than cash. Two trillion dollar companies should not be allowed to gatekeep belonging to modern society. > even worse for less tech savvy users, which are the majority. We let people drive multi-ton vehicles with little training at 80mph. I think they'll be fine with web downloads.

Tempest1981 3y ago
> multi-ton vehicles with little training at 80mph. I think they'll be fine with web downloads. I wish this were true, but in my experience, it's a very different skill than driving.
- echelon 3y ago
  Only in tech do we dismiss all of the absolutely deadly degrees of freedom in life to defend the entrenched positions of monopolies. We won't even mention the decades of research and literal human millennia of engineering efforts that went into the best practices that can protect people. Sandboxes, what are those? Surely only two companies lording over everything can protect us from ourselves. Free web installs are just as bad as speeding cars, chainsaws, electrocution, etc.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wkat4242 3y ago

It's not reporting, it's a personal blog. It's an opinion piece. Activism is definitely ok there in my book, and it's clearly needed considering how this situation is getting out of hand.

southerntofu 3y ago

> I know they would be easily scammed by shady apps that don't have to pass through the App Store's review process. My entire family uses F-Droid on ungoogled Androids. They have much less chances to be scammed/exploited because F-Droid is community-run and is explicit about anti-features in the store UI. There just isn't any malware/scam on F-Droid to be scammed with, because the community decides what apps to add and the community server builds them. Pretending There Is No Alternative ® to Apple monopolistic practices is misleading to say the least.

dzhiurgis 3y ago
How do you go about modern luxuries like opening and charging your car, controlling your home, paying, using public transport, chatting, using digital id, flying a drone...?
tuyiown 3y ago
> They have much less chances to be scammed/exploited because F-Droid is community-run and is explicit about anti-features in the store UI. That, but also because it's a niche that has not been targeted by malevolence. Enjoy it while it last.
- southerntofu 3y ago
  Debian and other distro repositories would like to disagree. When the packager doesn't provide the final build, it becomes much harder for malware/adware to reach end users. Not technically impossible, but much harder than direct-to-users stores such as Apple AppStore or Flathub where it is trivial because whatever binary the uploader provides ends up directly running on user machines.
  - tuyiown 3y ago
    That works fine until hostiles manages to trick users to install their software directly or, to get back to the topic, their own app store or browser. I find it quite ironic that the discussion circles back to the level of lock down on "supported" app distribution channels.

pimterry 3y ago

> The truth is that decrying things like Apple's splash screen about the use of alternative stores, for example, is ridiculous. The article is talking about splash screens for 3rd party payments (like this: https://developer.apple.com/support/images/apps-using-alternative-payment-providers-in-the-eu/screen-private-large_2x.png https://developer.apple.com/support/images/apps-using-altern...) not for 3rd party app stores (like this: https://developer.apple.com/support/images/alternative-app-marketplace-in-the-eu/screen-install-large_2x.png?3 https://developer.apple.com/support/images/alternative-app-m...). I would agree the app store warning is pretty reasonable: "<site> would like to install an App Marketplace" is clear and to the point, sure (and the article doesn't disagree). "This app doesn't support the App Store's private and secure payment system" as the main headline on a full screen warning with a huge long scary blurb every time you try to pay anybody who isn't Apple is not reasonable. This is not the great danger Apple is pretending it is - literally every single one of their customers has paid money to somebody outside the App Store in the past. Being aware of the risks of that is a basic & essential skill that everybody who owns a credit card must have already. Apple has a responsibility to protect non-technical users against technical risks, but it does not (and should not) try to protect users from lack of very basic life skills. > Apple has all the legal rights to do that That's not necessarily true at all! I'm sure there'll have a good lawyerly debate on this soon, but the DMA requirements generally seem to mandate no restrictions for these new features than those strictly required to preserve device integrity & security. Given that the existing global payment system is very familiar to all their customers, far more widely used than App Store purchases, and _generally pretty good_ (yes, you can quibble on UX and subscription management, but we all use it all the time, there's plenty of anti-fraud backstops, and payments in the world outside the app store do work) I don't think this screaming warning can be justified as an essential measure required to protect user security. To me, it looks like a unnecessarily scary screen actively discouraging users away from their competition. A small calm confirmation for "Pay outside the App Store? This payment will be handled by 'Example Dev' directly." would be far more justifiable.

ysnp 3y ago

If you were a designing an app store that provides apps that are safe for non technical users you would probably want to ensure: excellent curation where human reviewers can have deep knowledge of all of the apps that have been reviewed/published, clear provenance so you can be strongly confident of the source/supply of the applications in case of abuse or infra compromise (with a smaller problem blast radius for each app) alternative app stores so that end users are never beholden to your app store and they can get similar or the same apps from elsewhere if your policies or practices change for the worse. Some of these help ensure that no third party can maliciously update an app at the behest of a criminal actor without also compromising the app developer, or that no third party can gather invasively detailed information and fingerprinting surface concerning the apps people use and have in case of dissent. Apple don't seem to have any interest in doing any of this, so I can't understand how their solution would be better for less tech-savvy users.

pjc50 3y ago

> Apple's splash screen about the use of alternative stores, for example, is ridiculous. Apple has all the legal rights to do that, Isn't the question whether the EU thinks they have the legal right to do that, and how the law can be changed so that they don't do that? Anyway, the article points out that certain companies are exempted from those alleged "Apple rules" already ..

black_puppydog 3y ago

> the alternative is equally bad As others have pointed out, this isn't true for community curated FLOSS repositories like F-Droid. But I want to point out that the french "pole expertise" for digital issues, PEReN, also wrote about this a while back: https://www.peren.gouv.fr/en/actualites/2022-02-18_eclairage_sur_os/ https://www.peren.gouv.fr/en/actualites/2022-02-18_eclairage... TL;DR: the "trust relation" that users have with Apple's review department could just as well (and often better) be filled by third party app stores or even independent entities.

Lutger 3y ago

We need opinion pieces as much as (so-called) unbiased reporting. This one puts things into perspective, rather than merely summarizing facts and viewpoints. I appreciate that it clearly does so and doesn't pretend to be unbiased. Nor does the so-called activism work behind the screen to manipulate politicians - like no doubt many paid by Apple lobbyists are currently doing. You call it activism like it is a bad thing. If it is, then let us dump freedom of speech.

alpaca128 3y ago

> Apple has all the legal rights to do that Law doesn't say what's morally right. > I personally don't let tech unsavvy people from the family use anything but the App Store and iPhone Do you also make sure they can only access Apple-certified websites in the browser? No? Sounds pretty unsafe. > I know they would be easily scammed by shady apps that don't have to pass through the App Store's review process Both Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store have hosted malware in the past. It's quite rare for the average user to even try installing Amazon's third-party appstore, let alone a random .apk from the internet, it's about having the option to be less dependent. Sure some users will be negatively affected, just like some people could be convinced to put their iPhone in the microwave to recharge the battery, but if you take that seriously you might as well ban knives. > That is clearly a monopolistic advantage to Apple, but the alternative is equally bad You need to be a lot more convincing to tell me that something is as bad as a monopoly.