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Between this and the PWA decision, Apple seems to be flailing. What is leadership doing?
by w4 3y ago
Between this and the PWA decision, Apple seems to be flailing. What is leadership doing?
- corytheboyd 3y agoRight? They make so much money, what’s the deal. Seems like they let the MBAs take over. I get that not all money they make is liquid, but a rounding error to Apple would be enough money to change someone’s life.
- newZWhoDis 3y agoEngineers who do not actively purge bean counters from their orgs will end up being ruled by them.
- Eikon 3y agoWhat was the deal with PWAs?
- lilyball 3y agoEU rules say Apple can't prioritize their own browser. PWAs only work with WebKit due to the iOS security model, and the amount of work necessary to try to support PWAs with third-party browser engines securely was way out of scope for the time frame to support the DMA. Because Apple can't prioritize their own browser, they had to remove PWA support entirely in the EU. Naturally there was a lot of backlash, and so Apple reversed their decision and will continue to support PWAs with WebKit in the EU. This suggests that perhaps the European Commission told Apple that it was okay to do this as it does seem to violate the "don't prioritize your own browser" rule, but as of the last I saw on this it was still unclear.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y agoI don't really see it as prioritising your own browser. It's a system level feature and uses the system provided web engine. Microsoft doesn't let you swap out EdgeHTML or Trident for applications that use the native OS web frame. But apps shouldn't be forced to use that web frame is the issue the commission had and the DMA attempts to resolve.
- blibble 3y ago> Microsoft doesn't let you swap out EdgeHTML or Trident for applications that use the native OS web frame. I remember quite clearly a gecko (firefox) implementation of the trident COM interface
- idle_zealot 3y agoNotably, Android does let users swap out the system webview. So clearly such a thing is possible.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y agoYes, but Google did that so they could update the WebView via the Play Store because OEMs were slow to distribute updates. But the system still needed a WebView for when Play Services were not available, so they made a way to toggle between them.
- EMIRELADERO 3y ago> the amount of work necessary to try to support PWAs with third-party browser engines securely was way out of scope for the time frame to support the DMA. Rubbish. The DMA became law in November 1st 2022. A trillion(!)-dollar corporation had approximately a year and a half to work this out.
- LordDragonfang 3y agoI mean, lots and lots of software goes through decades of development and yet still contains major security exploits. A year and a half isn't necessarily a huge amount of time to develop a full sandbox for code you don't even control.
- bingbingbing777 3y agoApple has had more than a year and a half to work on it, and they didn't.
- w4 3y agoOther posters have covered the gist of the events, but what creates the impression of flailing for me is Apple taking a hard stance in one direction, underestimating the backlash, and promptly recanting and changing course in exchange for (as best as I can tell) no advantage or concessions. That happened with PWAs, and now has happened with Epic. Maybe there were behind the scenes concessions made and I'm completely wrong, in which case I owe Apple management an apology. But my impression as an outsider is that there is no real strategy here; executives at the company seem to be throwing their weight around and picking fights at random, getting slapped down, and immediately retreating.
- albert180 3y agoThe penalties for Non-Compliance are up to 10% of the global turnover of a company. If you are flexing your muscles and end up loosing, you are probably loosing your jobs, because shareholders and everyone else will be angry with you
- xw390111 3y agoThey want to minimize the amount of control lost. You cant find the limit without testing the limit.
- elevatedastalt 3y agoThey seem to maximizing the amount of face lost though. If you act like a bully, and then recede at the slightest resistance, you just come off looking like a fool.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoThe vast majority of iPhone and airpod users have no idea any of this is even happening I imagine. Even among the people who know its happening, even fewer know enough about how these systems work to actually have much of an opinion beyond parroting a headline.
- xw390111 3y agoThis will all blow over in a week. But once the control is lost, it’s gone forever.
- j_maffe 3y agoApple is losing control though. No company should have this level of control over a market.
- TillE 3y agoDeveloper grievances about Apple have been simmering for years, and even longtime Apple fans aren't happy about what's been going on lately. This is not a smart path to follow. They need enthusiastic small developers to help build the Vision Pro ecosystem, and so far it doesn't seem to be going that well.
- xw390111 3y agoIf developer grievances about Apple have been simmering for years, perhaps they can simmer longer. Apple will make the change that they're forced to make. Developers aren't forcing anything at the moment, but what exactly are they being forced to do by the EU? That's what's being learned. As a long time Apple fan myself I'm certain, Apple fans have never been happy. :)
- paxys 3y agoCulture is a very hard thing to change at any company, including in the face of existential threats. Look at what's happening at Google with AI. "We are a walled garden and will not interoperate or tolerate alternatives" is in Apple's DNA, and no decision maker at any level at the company will risk suggesting otherwise for fear of being branded a traitor, even if it is a very good idea.
- gmiller123456 3y agoWe are a walled garden and will not interoperate or tolerate alternatives" No. Before Apple got their monopoly they absolutely begged developers, even tried to shame them, for not developing for MacOS. They evened threatened lawsuits against Microsoft.
- freedomben 3y agoYes this is true, GP should have specified "iOS" where it's in Apple's interest to be a walled garden. Apple argument in any case is not based on logical consistency, but rather what is in Apple's interest. If they really viewed unauthorized apps as so dangerous, I would expect they'd lock down macOS more too. When it's Mac where they would be harmed from being hyper closed, they are open and compatible because it suits their interest, and this is something Steve Jobs learned the hard way. Apple is definitely very good at learning from the past.
- r00fus 3y ago> They evened threatened lawsuits against Microsoft. Because Microsoft reneged on a deal. You make Apple sound petulant when they were standing up to a 800lb coercive monopoly.
- blibble 3y agothey don't seem to realise that they can't win against a sovereign power that is actively legislating against them
- freedomben 3y agoThe legislators for that sovereign power have to win elections though, so it's a political game. If Apple can win/influence politics enough, they can win against the sovereign power.
- blibble 3y agopoliticans on all sides in the EU share the opinion that US tech companies need reigning in
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- indymike 3y agoApple is finding out they do not have more power than government. Apple isn't flailing at all, their competition limiting decisions are forcing government to regulate them.
- kmeisthax 3y agoShowing their true colors. "Going mask off" as the kids would say. There's an observation that computer programs tend to reflect the organizational structures of the company that developed them. I would go further and argue that company cultures are a reflection of the founders that built them. In the case of Apple, Steve Jobs was an emotionally manipulative psychopath that was very good at conning people, making anyone he talked to buy into his bullshit. When he didn't get his way, he'd cry like a child and throw tantrums. Everyone at Apple absolutely lionized the shit out of Jobs, even during the interregnum period where the company was being torn apart by idiots. All of the upper management was his own hand-picked successors, who have largely continued doing exactly what Jobs was doing, just with higher scale. The world largely did not notice this because the actual product (at least, when Jobs was actually in the driver's seat) was good. Part of the capitalist social contract is that we don't care about how the sausage was made so long as we aren't assuming the risk[0]. But this is still very much a religious cult that just so happens to be shaped like a for-profit corporation, run by people who were hand-picked by its dogmatic, emotionally unstable founder[1]. It just so happens to also employ actual geniuses. In the Apple religion, there are commandments, and one of them is "thou shalt not install unauthorized third party software, for it is the malware of the beast". Like other religions, the commandments are based in some kind of plausible system of rules, we can absolutely Chesterton's Fence them, but that rationale has been forgotten by true believers who take them to axiomatic extremes. Apple is not exactly going to die on this hill[2], but they are going to try to make the system as restrictive as possible within the DMA's constraints, because they've RDF'd[3] themselves into thinking their greed is protecting users. [0] Also, most of the people Jobs really fucked over were the kinds of people society did not care so much about in the 1980s. [1] This also applies to the FSF, except it's rules are "thou shalt not bind the user to your tech cult". It's an anti-cult cult. [2] Though I've had the urge to make fake sales pages for an Apple Nuclear weapons program and photoshop the words "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" on Tim Apple's head. [3] Reality Distortion Field, not Resource Description Framework
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]