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Apple announces App Store changes in the EU
- rekoil 1y agoDevelopers who opt for tier one will get access to a limited set of mandatory App Store services, including: * App distribution and delivery * Trust and safety features * App management [...] Developers who opt for tier two will get access to all services provided by the App Store today. Am I wrong or does it seem like apps in "tier 1" won't even have access to app notification delivery? That's wild...
- bigyabai 1y agoIt would make sense to provide an alternative if Apple's priority was the privacy of their users. Unfortunately, we have testimony from American congressmembers that suggests they have ulterior priorities: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
- 1659447091 1y agoThat article is a spun version from what appears to be the source article from reuters[0]. Being that they lifted quotes from there and then added a clickbait title by forgetting to add that Google is also compelled by governments to give them the data. The only "ulterior priorities" I could pick up on was that Apple was most likely following the Government restrictions in a more discerning way than Google by not breaking out the push notifications in their aggregated data for request disclosures. Once it was made public by a Senator, Apple updated their policy and started to break it out to its own section. How long Google did this before Apple is not stated and the DOJ declined to comment on the push notification surveillance or whether it had prevented Apple or Google from talking about it. [0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments-spying-apple-google-users-through-push-notifications-us-senator-2023-12-06/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments...
- bigyabai 1y agoI'm not treating this as a relative comparison, it's a criticism specifically of Apple's service architecture. When you prioritize privacy while refusing transparency, you end up in situations like this very often. That would not be the case if Apple held themselves to their advertised standards for the infrastructure they build.
- lapcat 1y agoHere are the new tiers: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/store-services-tiers https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference... The document says manual updates are included but not automatic updates (which is just a setting in the App Store that I personally disable). Whether there will be update notifications is unclear. Is that what you meant by "app notification delivery", or something else? As an App Store developer myself, I would love to have Tier 1 in the United States, mainly due to no user ratings and reviews. I hate them, and I hate trying to solicit them. As far as I'm concerned, ditching ratings & reviews would be a bonus!
- jmole 1y ago"No user ratings and reviews" - that just means you rank last in app store search, right? Apple will do whatever they can to ensure that developers that don't pay will suffer the costs.
- jajko 1y agoI swear there must be somebody properly petty in higher management of apple to keep coming with these childish moves that harm image of the company as some sort of serious reliable manufacturer. I guess to each their own
- microtonal 1y agoYep, I have been a Mac user since 2007 and iPhone user since 2009. But all the malicious compliance and pettiness has me looking at alternatives (at least for iPhone, since it has good alternatives). I don't recognize the fun, playful Apple of the 00s and early 10s anymore. Its soul has been replaced.
- montagg 1y ago“Cook chose poorly.” https://www.theverge.com/apple/659296/apple-failed-compliance-court-ruling-breakdown https://www.theverge.com/apple/659296/apple-failed-complianc... I think Cook’s time as CEO will be remembered both by enabling massive scale for the most successful consumer product in history—the iPhone—while sacrificing the company’s soul on the alter of efficiency.
- saubeidl 1y agoThere's is absolutely 0% chance this will fly. Apple is begging for a fine at this point, with their bad-faith malicious interpretations of the law.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoYou're certain the EU didn't just approve this plan?
- saubeidl 1y agoOur leaders are sometimes spineless, so I unfortunately can't be certain. I am however pretty certain that said spinelessness wouldn't fly with the European public.
- mslansn 1y agoDoesn't really matter since the European commission is not voted by us - we have no choice in the matter.
- saubeidl 1y agoThe European commission is nominated by our elected governments. It is as democratic as the US presidency, which is also nominated by electors. This is a tired talking point designed to sow doubt in the European project.
- mslansn 1y agoAdding layers of indirection makes it less democratic. We should be able to vote for them directly.
- saubeidl 1y agoSure it does. But one layer of indirection is not crazy, that's the way any minister in any country works - or the way the US presidency does. You can't directly elect every single official - it just doesn't scale. It also doesn't really make sense in the commissioner case as different commissioners have different portfolios and which country gets what is subject to negotiation between member states.
- msgodel 1y agoApple's complaint will likely be that it's a "technical limitation" because they run the only iOS notification gateway. Never mind that Mozilla manages to run one for Firefox completely free to users and devs despite being a comically mismanaged nonprofit and if it were really a problem for them they could allow users to enter the domain name for an alternative one. This issue right here is actually why there have been so few usable open source federated chat apps on the iPhone: the client maintainers must also maintain infrastructure for notifications and are not allowed to delegate this to people hosting their own infrastructure. This is actually the core complaint many people have with how Apple runs their app store and it's very visibly made the internet less usable for everyone.
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoApple is already a big, festering, malignant growth. The EU needs to jump in with both feet to let all that pus out.
- owebmaster 1y agoAnd I hope Brazil joins
- IncreasePosts 1y agoMaybe they need to come in with a scalpel. I feel like using your feet is just kind of gross for that task.
- scottyah 1y agoBut they're basically the only large scale consumer computational hardware company driving actual, stable innovation?
- simplyinfinity 1y agoWhat have they innovated in the last 10 years?
- saubeidl 1y agoI'm not an Apple fan by any means. But I think it's fair to say that Apple Silicon and actually useful ARM-powered laptops was a major hardware innovation.
- bigyabai 1y agoIt kinda feels like Apple Silicon was the exception to the rule. And even then, a lot of the innovation is hardly Apple's to claim: - ARM is not Apple IP, it's owned by SoftBank and licensed to Apple at rates low enough that it's impossible to undercut them. - TSMC's 5nm manufacturing capacity was entirely bought-out for Apple Silicon, blocking other OEMs from competing on equal footing. - The SOC team, who arguably did the most innovation of all, was gutted with the founding of Nuvia immediately after Apple Silicon's launch.
- fxtentacle 1y ago"The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store. We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal." Reading that made me very happy. It clearly shows that EU bureaucrats - despite their bad reputation - still have teeth when it comes to reigning in overly greedy US companies. Back in '98, the EU versions of Windows were very desirable, as they were free of bloatware. Soon, history might repeat with US consumers pretending to be in the EU to free their hardware.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago> Soon, history might repeat with US consumers pretending to be in the EU to free their hardware Very unlikely. Phones have to identify the country they are operating in for wireless emission regulations, whether it be from SIM cards, GPS, sale region, account region, etc. They have been doing this for a very long time.
- peterlada 1y agoWrong. Apple long standing policy is to look at the country of billing address. As an American living in Europe this has been super to keep watching the Apple TV+ content.
- kshacker 1y agoI guess it is a battle between EU bureaucrats vs American Daddies :) // I know it is tongue in cheek, but that is what this may end up being, especially if Apple is able to move non-trivial amounts of manufacturing to US. What is non-trivial? IMO if China, India and USA become 3 tiers with each tier being half of the previous tier, that would somehow be justifiable as "hey we are almost there, we can do it any time, but let's have the hatchet ready but keep the cheap devices for now"
- rcarmo 1y agoStill waiting for the ability to compile and deploy my own apps on the hardware I own without having to re-sign and reload every week or so. If you don't intend to distribute an app, I don't see why you should be unduly penalized for it.
- bowsamic 1y agoI constantly complain about this, but they’ll never let you do it, because our hobby apps have no ads
- pimeys 1y agoThat would finally make using these lifesaving apps much easier, if you don't want to use Android. https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/ https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/
- wtallis 1y agoTurning your iPhone into an unregulated DIY medical device really does not seem like the kind of use case that any serious business would be swayed by. What you're asking for would be pretty terrifying for the lawyers. You shouldn't expect any company to deliberately make accommodations for that use case; rather, you should expect them to at most add more disclaimers of liability for what you do with your phone.
- msgodel 1y agoGod forbid we give consumers access to tools from a place like Lowe's (also a large public company btw [1].) Think of all the dangerous things people could build with them!!!! This is so unbelievably retarded. [1] https://elite.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=LOW&p=d https://elite.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=LOW&p=d
- wtallis 1y agoObviously there's no point in trying to entirely prevent people from DIYing dangerous devices, medical or otherwise. But that's not what's at issue here. The problem here is the absolutely stupid idea of using a desire for dangerous DIY as the argument in favor of loosening restrictions already in place. It's pretty much the least-compelling argument possible.
- martinald 1y agoNo automatic updates surely makes tier one a non starter, unless this can be automatically triggered by the app? For regular users it will mean horrendous version fragmentation that will just get worse and worse over the months/years. Or significantly increases churn by forcing users to manually go into the app store to update before accessing the app?
- croisillon 1y agoon the other hand i still don't understand why airbnb requires ios 17, although my iphone 7 works fine
- zelphirkalt 1y agoWe need that data we extort from you to be up to date with the current schema. It is mandatory for you to update! Or else!
- tfourb 1y agoCouldn't the developer simply run a version check when the app starts and throw up a popup with the link to the app store to update the app? Sure, it will introduce some friction, but maybe it's worth it for some developers to pay a lower commission, i.e. if they plan to only rarely update their app. But in the general sense I agree: it would be a much better user experience and contribute to safety if automatic app updates would be included in all tiers.
- OptionOfT 1y agoThere are apps that already do this. They force you to download the new version before using it. From an API manageability point of view it makes sense.
- martinald 1y agoYes that's what I meant in the last sentence of my post. But this is serious friction and will result in churn for a lot of apps, especially on those with poor 4G or low data limits. Normally apps update mostly when the phone is charging, which is much more likely to have wifi. Now if you're out of your house and need an app you'd have to update it there and then.
- jcdentonn 1y ago[flagged]