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No, DMA wording made it very clear that it's about web browser engine. > The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or business users to use, to offer,

No, DMA wording made it very clear that it's about web browser engine. > The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or business users to use, to offer, or to interoperate with, an identification service, a web browser engine or a payment service, or technical services that support the provision of payment services, such as payment systems for in-app purchases, of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by the business users using that gatekeeper’s core platform services. And they cannot make self-preferencing on their products. > The gatekeeper shall not treat more favourably, in ranking and related indexing and crawling, services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself than similar services or products of a third party. The gatekeeper shall apply transparent, fair and non-discriminatory conditions to such ranking. > The gatekeeper shall not restrict technically or otherwise the ability of end users to switch between, and subscribe to, different software applications and services that are accessed using the core platform services of the gatekeeper, including as regards the choice of Internet access services for end users. And Safari has been explicitly designated as a separate core platform service. There's no room for this kind of interpretation in the view of enforcement entity. Apple is just trying to buy time by pretending ignorance.

layer8 3y ago
It’s more subtle than that. If Apple uses WebKit within one of their built-in apps or OS components, let’s say in their Weather app or some Apple Pay dialog, there surely is no requirement that this has to be replaceable by Chromium or Gecko. Similarly, the PWA runtime environment may not necessarily count as a “web browser engine”, since they aren’t used to browse the web. It remains to be seen how this will be judged by the EU institutions.
- summerlight 3y ago
  It's because those apps are not core platform service. Safari and iOS both are core platform services, which are explicitly designated as a target of this regulation. Go read the actual wording and have some understanding before making this kind of assumption.
  - layer8 3y ago
    When you open a PWA, Safari does not appear. The argument can be made that this is not Safari, but a PWA runtime environment that happens to use WebKit internally. Basically, the PWA is it’s own separate app (i.e. not Safari) that is being run by iOS with the help of WebKit, similar to how other OS features also use WebKit internally. It is not clear at all that this would fall under the category “web browser engine” of the DMA, since using a PWA does not constitute browsing the web. As for your argument about core platform services, the app store is a core platform service and (I’m pretty sure) uses WebKit internally, at least for some of its pages in login and payment flows, and similar for various iCloud-related functions accessible from Settings. I’ve read the DMA, you don’t have to be condescending.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > The argument can be made that this is not Safari, but a PWA runtime environment that happens to use WebKit internally. This is a silly and thin technicality, and not at all the same as what people are mad about. Nobody cares that WebKit is used to render certain windows on iOS and MacOS - it's Apple's choice to implement first-party programs that way. They can defend their usage of it internally, the problem is the limitations they impose on competitors. > I’ve read the DMA You're certainly taking some elements in liberty. It remains unclear how defining WebKit as a "PWA runtime environment" exempts it from the terms of the DMA or DSA.
      - layer8 3y ago
        Sorry, but at this point it’s you who have to provide a compelling explanation of how the way iOS runs PWAs constitutes a use of Safari, or of web browsing. Just to be clear, I’m absolutely in favor of having a free choice of PWA engines, I just don’t see this being implied by the DMA and the present gatekeeper designations. The question really is how a PWA runtime environment differs in principle from the regular iOS app runtime environment, which the DMA also doesn’t mandate to be replaceable.
        smoldesu 3y ago
- ajross 3y ago
  Surely the distinction is about the existence of a market. There is a market for competing browsers from different vendors which do compatible/interchangeable things that might be selected by different consumers for different reasons. The technical definition isn't the important bit, the regulation exists to preserve that interplay between consumer choice and market innovation. There is no such consumer-driven market for in-app UI libraries, be they WebKit-based or not. The "consumers" in such a market would be the app vendors, and in fact this is an area well-served by existing products from competing vendors. That's clearly not what the DMA is trying to regulate.
- insidepitch 3y ago
  This is in fact how PWAs work on iOS. They do not run in Safari at all, but in a special runtime called Web.app, which is coded to use WebKit. Safari doesn’t have the ability to do the things the PWA runtime can do. Letting other browsers “run PWAs” would not be a matter of exposing an existing private API, it would require creating a a brand new plugin API for Web.app that would allow inserting other browser engines into it.
turquoisevar 3y ago
You’re misreading pretty much everything you’ve quoted from the DMA. > No, DMA wording made it very clear that it's about web browser engine. You follow this up by quoting a clause that manages core platform services. What it says is: > The gatekeeper shall not require [people] to use, to offer or interoperate with [stuff] of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by [third party devs] who use the gatekeeper’s core platform services. A good example where this is applicable is the App Store, which is designated as a core platform service. PWAs aren’t designated as core platform service and there’s also an argument to be made that web developers aren’t considered “third party devs” (or as the DMA calls them “business users” due to a lack of agreement between Apple and them. > And they cannot make self-preferencing on their products. Same here. This one is even narrower because it’s only limited to preferential treatment in the sense of “ranking and related indexing and crawling” > The gatekeeper shall not treat more favourably [in ranking and related stuff] [their own products and services] than [similar products and services by others] This applies to ranking apps in the App Store. It has no bearing whatsoever on PWAs unless somehow Apple starts ranking PWAs in a list and then chooses to rank their own PWAs higher. The other one is also much narrower than you’re reading it. > The gatekeeper [shall not prevent users from switching to and subscribing to different apps including browsers] This mainly pertains to setting default apps and switching default apps. This tangentially relates to PWAs, but installed PWAs are technically not run in Safari and instead in their own app that uses WebKit under the hood, so it’s not so clear if this would apply to PWAs. > There's no room for this kind of interpretation in the view of enforcement entity. Apple is just trying to buy time by pretending ignorance. I can’t distill a lifetime worth of legal experience into a tangible piece of evidence nor are there readily available authoritative sources on compliance with government regulation narrow and simple enough that I can just present them without much worry of you understanding them, especially since you’re already struggling with, what is considered in European legal standards, rather straightforward legal text. So all I have is a trust me bro, and perhaps an appeal to common sense: Apple’s lawyers didn’t just wake up today and said to themselves “You know what, we were too cautious with interpreting the DMA a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure it’ll be fine if we keep PWA installs without implementing a way for other browsers to install them as well”, much less a variation in which they are trying to buy time by feigning ignorance. We already know that the EU reached out to Apple about disabling PWA installs. So with that in mind, do you think the lawyers woke up one day and said “fuck it” or do you think it’s more likely the lawyers gave the go ahead after the EU told them that PWA installs as implemented in iOS are beyond the scope of the DMA?

layer8 3y ago

It’s more subtle than that. If Apple uses WebKit within one of their built-in apps or OS components, let’s say in their Weather app or some Apple Pay dialog, there surely is no requirement that this has to be replaceable by Chromium or Gecko. Similarly, the PWA runtime environment may not necessarily count as a “web browser engine”, since they aren’t used to browse the web. It remains to be seen how this will be judged by the EU institutions.

summerlight 3y ago
It's because those apps are not core platform service. Safari and iOS both are core platform services, which are explicitly designated as a target of this regulation. Go read the actual wording and have some understanding before making this kind of assumption.
- layer8 3y ago
  When you open a PWA, Safari does not appear. The argument can be made that this is not Safari, but a PWA runtime environment that happens to use WebKit internally. Basically, the PWA is it’s own separate app (i.e. not Safari) that is being run by iOS with the help of WebKit, similar to how other OS features also use WebKit internally. It is not clear at all that this would fall under the category “web browser engine” of the DMA, since using a PWA does not constitute browsing the web. As for your argument about core platform services, the app store is a core platform service and (I’m pretty sure) uses WebKit internally, at least for some of its pages in login and payment flows, and similar for various iCloud-related functions accessible from Settings. I’ve read the DMA, you don’t have to be condescending.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > The argument can be made that this is not Safari, but a PWA runtime environment that happens to use WebKit internally. This is a silly and thin technicality, and not at all the same as what people are mad about. Nobody cares that WebKit is used to render certain windows on iOS and MacOS - it's Apple's choice to implement first-party programs that way. They can defend their usage of it internally, the problem is the limitations they impose on competitors. > I’ve read the DMA You're certainly taking some elements in liberty. It remains unclear how defining WebKit as a "PWA runtime environment" exempts it from the terms of the DMA or DSA.
    - layer8 3y ago
      Sorry, but at this point it’s you who have to provide a compelling explanation of how the way iOS runs PWAs constitutes a use of Safari, or of web browsing. Just to be clear, I’m absolutely in favor of having a free choice of PWA engines, I just don’t see this being implied by the DMA and the present gatekeeper designations. The question really is how a PWA runtime environment differs in principle from the regular iOS app runtime environment, which the DMA also doesn’t mandate to be replaceable.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
ajross 3y ago
Surely the distinction is about the existence of a market. There is a market for competing browsers from different vendors which do compatible/interchangeable things that might be selected by different consumers for different reasons. The technical definition isn't the important bit, the regulation exists to preserve that interplay between consumer choice and market innovation. There is no such consumer-driven market for in-app UI libraries, be they WebKit-based or not. The "consumers" in such a market would be the app vendors, and in fact this is an area well-served by existing products from competing vendors. That's clearly not what the DMA is trying to regulate.
insidepitch 3y ago
This is in fact how PWAs work on iOS. They do not run in Safari at all, but in a special runtime called Web.app, which is coded to use WebKit. Safari doesn’t have the ability to do the things the PWA runtime can do. Letting other browsers “run PWAs” would not be a matter of exposing an existing private API, it would require creating a a brand new plugin API for Web.app that would allow inserting other browser engines into it.

turquoisevar 3y ago

You’re misreading pretty much everything you’ve quoted from the DMA. > No, DMA wording made it very clear that it's about web browser engine. You follow this up by quoting a clause that manages core platform services. What it says is: > The gatekeeper shall not require [people] to use, to offer or interoperate with [stuff] of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by [third party devs] who use the gatekeeper’s core platform services. A good example where this is applicable is the App Store, which is designated as a core platform service. PWAs aren’t designated as core platform service and there’s also an argument to be made that web developers aren’t considered “third party devs” (or as the DMA calls them “business users” due to a lack of agreement between Apple and them. > And they cannot make self-preferencing on their products. Same here. This one is even narrower because it’s only limited to preferential treatment in the sense of “ranking and related indexing and crawling” > The gatekeeper shall not treat more favourably [in ranking and related stuff] [their own products and services] than [similar products and services by others] This applies to ranking apps in the App Store. It has no bearing whatsoever on PWAs unless somehow Apple starts ranking PWAs in a list and then chooses to rank their own PWAs higher. The other one is also much narrower than you’re reading it. > The gatekeeper [shall not prevent users from switching to and subscribing to different apps including browsers] This mainly pertains to setting default apps and switching default apps. This tangentially relates to PWAs, but installed PWAs are technically not run in Safari and instead in their own app that uses WebKit under the hood, so it’s not so clear if this would apply to PWAs. > There's no room for this kind of interpretation in the view of enforcement entity. Apple is just trying to buy time by pretending ignorance. I can’t distill a lifetime worth of legal experience into a tangible piece of evidence nor are there readily available authoritative sources on compliance with government regulation narrow and simple enough that I can just present them without much worry of you understanding them, especially since you’re already struggling with, what is considered in European legal standards, rather straightforward legal text. So all I have is a trust me bro, and perhaps an appeal to common sense: Apple’s lawyers didn’t just wake up today and said to themselves “You know what, we were too cautious with interpreting the DMA a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure it’ll be fine if we keep PWA installs without implementing a way for other browsers to install them as well”, much less a variation in which they are trying to buy time by feigning ignorance. We already know that the EU reached out to Apple about disabling PWA installs. So with that in mind, do you think the lawyers woke up one day and said “fuck it” or do you think it’s more likely the lawyers gave the go ahead after the EU told them that PWA installs as implemented in iOS are beyond the scope of the DMA?