"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.
I 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"
Us Americans have approximately zero to do with your rules or society. The idea of thinking Apple (or Microsoft, or Google) represents "Americans" is absurd. We don't vote for them to exist, we have no mechanism to stop their existence or oppose them in any way. We're as happy about EU forcing them to change as anyone else - our own attempts all failed. Jail break providers(for instance) were persecuted with legal process, gag orders, and seizure of their assets. Repairing iPhones as a side business? They put a stop to us doing that also.
I'm all in agreement with your emotional sentiment, but please understand "Americans" do /not/ like the same things you do not like. Our country just takes away our ability to do anything about it. Land of the free and whatnot...
> I'm all in agreement with your emotional sentiment, but please understand "Americans" do /not/ like the same things you do not like. Our country just takes away our ability to do anything about it.
I appreciate that this might be true for a large portion of US-americans, but the country isn't doing anything, the people continually voted into power takes that ability away, which can be adjusted bi-annually.
Except you can't do it at any time. America tried this logic with the motor vehicle (and offshored it), then the semiconductor (and offshored it), and now we're seeing it for pretty much every other manufactured commodity America is known for. What do we make, anymore?
There's a simple explanation for why this happened: America really believes in free market competition. Even when we're getting reamed by global competitors in cost and quality, someone always presupposes that this manufacturing capacity can come back. But that's not how it works; products are worth what people will pay for them, and if the trade value goes down then the gross domestic product will follow.
It's a blatant vulnerability of democratic capitalism. I'd like for you to be right, but I live in America. I don't know if anything on my desk was made in America; I don't even know if my desk itself was made domestically anymore. America isn't a rung on the manufacturing ladder, you could remove us entirely and only stand to increase your margins.
As an independent developer, I wish the EU would reverse their decision to make me either doxx myself or not have paid apps in the EU App Store. Thankfully, right now my only app is free so I can get away with saying that I'm not a trader.
I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and form an LLC with a rented address and phone number once I get ready to release a paid app, which unfortunately just increases my costs even more for what is most likely to remain just a small side hustle.
I still don't see a good reason why independent developers like me should have to publish their personal address and phone number on the App Store. I'm not willing to put my family in danger like that.
>I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and form an LLC with a rented address and phone number once I get ready to release a paid app, which unfortunately just increases my costs even more for what is most likely to remain just a small side hustle.
This is actually still not a valid solution. You'll have to provide an address where you can be physically reached, even if you publish your app as an LLC (at least under German law). A "rented" address won't fulfill that criteria. If you run your LLC out of your personal home, you'll need to publish your personal address (again, under German law, it may be different in other EU countries).
This does make sense in principle, as it allows your customers to actually track you down in case they feel the need to sue you.
You might get away with listing the address of a co-working space, if you are actually physically present at that address during normal business hours.
You might also get away with listing your legal name and the address of your lawyer. But your lawyer would need to agree with this and you'd have to have an arrangement in place that they will represent you in any and all future cases, which might be difficult. This doesn't seem to be a settled question in german jurisprudence.
Also, you could just chance it. Not listing an address will simply result in potential exposure to a cease and desist letter, which (under German law) only results in limited financial liability. I am not a lawyer, so please get a professional to check, but if you are really serious about not exposing your personal address, it might be simpler and cheaper to run the low risk of a cease and desist instead of making a big fuss about an alternative address.
German law is basically irrelevant unless you're in Germany. All that matters is what Apple makes App Store developers do, and Apple doesn't give a crap as long as you have some address and some phone number that Apple can verify.
Apple doesn't even police the "trader" self-declaration. I've seen several (scam) developers in the App Store who are clearly traders but have declared that they're not traders in the EU. Apple's compliance here is mostly perfunctory.
The company can be reached at a rented address. That's the whole point of them. There is an agent at the address that can receive things like legal correspondence.
It appears Germany appears has similar services where you can get a virtual business addresses at business centers.
Under German law you need a “ladungsfähige” address, which a rented address is explicitly not. You need to be physically present at that address as a person.
Odd. These services appear to be offering a ladungsfähige address where there is someone physically present to do things like receive legal correspondence.
> I still don't see a good reason why independent developers like me should have to publish their personal address and phone number on the App Store [for paid apps].
Because if someone purchases an app and there's a dispute with the product, they need a business address and/or phone number to contact and resolve the problem. It seems like a very good reason to me.
You've got a European consumer, a $5 App Store app, and some contact info in the United States, or some other country. What exactly do you think is going to happen in that situation?
The accountability for App Store developers is via Apple, not via some address and phone number. App Store consumers request a refund through Apple, or if there's some other problem with the developer, the consumers report it to Apple, who has the developer's contact info regardless of whether the developer is a trader in the EU.
> The recourse is sometimes a lawsuit or criminal charges.
Do you think a European consumer is going to successfully sue or prosecute someone on the other side of the globe from them?
> If your app say, defrauds someone and steals money from their bank account, then you as the developer are liable.
If an App Store app is defrauding consumers and stealing money from their bank accounts, then presumably Apple would get involved directly, like I already said. Going through Apple is the recourse and always has been.
Indeed you'd probably have better luck suing Apple itself rather than trying to sue some rando remote developer.
At least under German law, if you offer services or products for purchase, you need to provide an address where you can be physically reached. For self-employed entrepreneurs the only address that will fulfill that criterium is your private domicile.
> 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.
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.
As someone in the EU I’m very unhappy that I have to pretend being in the US to actually be able to access all macOS/iOS can do. I know I’ll be downvoted to oblivion but I loathe these laws.
Still 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.
That is if you re-sign IPA files. If you locked a build to an Apple ID or set of devices and limited my deployments to the devices I own that would not be a problem--it is the periodic re-signing that I care about.
At least make it last a year, the current limits are completely stupid.
Turning 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.
God 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!!!!
Obviously 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.
Ah I see what you're saying, although now that I think about it that actually is a very good argument for Apple not reviewing apps at all. By trying to moderate all of the iOS software Apple takes responsibility for it and becomes liable, this doesn't just mean no medical apps but it also changes what's allowed with communication apps for example (and many more.) It's really just a terrible way to run things.
Just let people do what they want, this makes no sense.
Please do me the courtesy of not misrepresenting what I have said and clarified. I have not said that AndroidAPS or Loop or any other DIY medical device software is stupid. I have only said that it is something a reputable business would consider risky and dangerous.
What I have said is stupid is: your attempt to use that software as an argument in favor of loosening Apple's restrictions on iOS applications. The apps in question are such a legal nightmare that they're not available in any major app store, for iOS or Android. No business with a competent legal department would want to be directly involved with those software projects, unless they were planning to incorporate them into their own product and get it certified by regulators like the FDA. If Apple or any other company in a similar situation decided to open up their platform and even mentioned that one of the benefits of that change was to enable this DIY medical device use case, that would probably put them at substantial legal risk.
Regardless of how useful you find such software, you're not going to get a corporation on board by drawing their attention to such a big legal risk. You're also unlikely to win over government regulators, since they're likely to be of the opinion that medical devices should be regulated.
You've identified a reason why some customers may want Apple to change their strategy, but you've completely failed to provide a reason why Apple would want to change, or why a government would want to force Apple to change.
This is the main reason I stay far away from any apple products. And hope EU will slap them hard and force them to allow this. I don't need them to want this, I want EU to force them to do this or put hefty recurring fines until they open the platform.
Developers 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...
They are cartoon level bad.
I don't think they realize how much they are destroying their image in the eyes of their best customers.
It is an extremely short-term strategy; they are doing irreparable damage in my opinion.
I kind of like it because Apple needs to be thrown off their pedestal so that they can start to care at least a bit more.
I don't think it matters. Here is why I would pay 10x more for using Apple devices than other devices:
1. The ecosystem is just much better, ie. the quality of apps is in another league compared to apps on Android or Windows.
2. Many amazing apps that are at the core of my company's workflow simply don't exist on other platforms at all. With no comparable equivalents.
3. We get many apps earlier. Even up to a year earlier. Example: Clubhouse. Running a company, my marketing team can't afford to be late to a new social media platform, risking that it becomes the new status quo. I can name a dozen apps that were 6 to 12 months late to Android vs. IOS :(
If these change I would happily move to Linux, or Windows (once they make the OS usable).
We use Linux servers for running Python/Node Scripts, and APIs.
We use 1 Windows machine to use a very specific data science app that only exists for Windows.
Before anyone says I'm a fanboy. I'm here to generate revenue for my company. I don't give 2 sh*ts about AAPL.
---
But this is just me.
Why it won't matter to the public: The kids don't care. The want an iPhone.
I think this is how Android Play store currently works? If you deploy your app via another means, you get to DIY your own push infrastructure. I remember Square had to do this for their POS units that run Android, but weren't managed by the play store.
No, Firebase Cloud Messaging is a separate service from Play Store. As long as the device has Google Mobile Services installed the app can be installed from anywhere and doesn't need to be uploaded to Play Store.
Which would be fair game except to my knowledge there’s no API in iOS that enables the use of anything other than APNS for notifications. I could be mistaken though!
Because on android you can install another background service that can replace the features of the google service.
This is pretty much what the Chinese did when they forked Android.
There are alternative app delivery/update mechanisms that make this point entirely moot.
On iOS you just can't unless you are fully blessed by Apple, and this is precisely the issue.
I mean, it's _possible_ that they had some sort of informal pre-approval, but given that Apple's last few 'attempts' to comply with EU law have swiftly been met with a "yeah, no" from the commission, there's not that much reason to think that _this_ one is the pre-cleared one.
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.
Apple'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.
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!
That's fine with me. All of my empirical evidence over the years suggests that my customers are coming mostly from the outside, and Apple is not bringing me many customers from inside the App Store.
That's exactly how it is. Outside of a few viral apps, most of the rest are word of mouth or blog post/reddit/YouTube recommandations.
Apple has very little to do with an app success which is why it is egregious they ask so much for the "privilege" of using their App Store (you don't have any other choice anyway).
Ratings and reviews cost money to maintain. Anti-spam, compute, distribution, security concerns, etc. Apple should do whatever they can to ensure that developers who aren't paying don't degrade the service for everyone else.
The App Store is already replete with terrible promoted software. Apple made an entire business around degrading the top search results so competitors can bid on less relevant suggestions: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_search_ads
This sounds kinda like what they did when they were forced to allow outside payments in the US. It could only be one link, with a big scary warning, and a 27% cut. They "comply" with the ruling by making another alternative deal that nobody would ever take. Fortunately this backfired in the US and they were actually forced to get rid of all the restrictions in May.
I 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.
Yep, 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.
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.
No I meant like APNS, which is what iOS uses to send notifications to iOS devices. It's the only way to get iOS to display a notification currently, and it isn't possible to register your own backend for it, so if you want notifications shipped to your users (as in, alerts that happen while users do not have your app open) then you must (to my knowledge) go through Apple.
In that case, then, I think you're wrong. You were quoting a list of store services. APNS is an iOS feature but not an App Store service. And indeed, APNS is not listed as a Tier 2 service either.
But Tier 2 just says "all of it", which is why I was curious since it wasn't listed under Tier 1, but you're probably right, it would be absolutely insane if Apple were to try and pass off a deal like that as being in any way comparable with what Apple themselves are afforded.
It 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-...
That 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.
I'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.
No 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?
Couldn'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.
Yes 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.
Should we all also quit the software development market now that a company is gatekeeping 50%+ of the it and don't allow the device owners to install apps they want if Apple does not approve?
If you were stupid enough to buy a device on which you are not able to run whatever you wanted on it you kind of deserve it, though. It’s not like they lie by telling you “you can run whatever you want” and then it’s not possible! It’s super clear from the start.
We have a philosophical difference of opinion there, but have an upvote anyways for the civil way of disagreeing.
In my opinion capital can use their power to the detriment of society at large. At that point it is the duty of a democratic humanist government to protect its populace.
Thank you for your kind answer. To give more context, part of my reasoning is I actually bought my devices for their closed system + tight integration and I feel angry for having it being ripped from underneath me, while also having less features because of these laws (e.g. iPhone Mirroring which is not available in Europe).
Basically: “I know what I buy, why should I pay for those who do not even try to get informed?”
Nah, they got rich by selling their products while brainwashing their customers, literally turning them into cultists. And in the process they just raising and raising their prices. So in essence shitting on those who elevated them.
If anyone dares to speak up gets strong armed. Instead of giving ordinary people a chance to earn some extra income by creating a market for them, they squeeze them out. They force their fucking, non customisable, shitty ui/ux on people and they also do everything in order to hinder diy fixing of their products. They also skim the developers because they can. They create a soulless society in the process, and they just don't give a fuck. They just love their oppressing rules, so ft.
What kind of inherently evil shitfaced scum comes up with ideas like these? Well, screw these greedy bottom-feeders. Do they think that hiding behind a facade, a faceless corporate entity, means they can do whatever they want? Pull them out into the sunshine, let them burn.
You seem to have strong opinions about products you are not interested in buying.
I hate pomegranate juice. Should I try to ruin the business of pomegranate juice producers until they start producing orange juice? Or should I just buy orange juice from another business instead.
Should an orange juice producer be allowed to restrict which glasses you are allowed to use with their juice and charge glassware manufacturers a commission?
In a democracy, power comes from the people and not from the profit motives of a private entity. It is well within the right of the people to vote to curtail capitalist excesses.
Believe it or not, some people (at least me) want the closed ecosystem. It’s literally one of the reasons why I buy that stuff. And now it’s being ripped out of my products just because the people cannot be fathomed to understand what they buy. It’s pathetic.
I'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.
Couldn't agree more.
And recently they have mostly increased frequency to stay competitive, at the expense of heat, throttling and to a minor extent battery life (not that much because some efficiency was gained elsewhere).
They look good on specific workflows because they are focused on specific accelerators and code path optimisation that they know is more beneficial to the way most of their customers use their hardware.
But their lead is hardly uniform and there are still plenty of things where they are barely doing better than intel, if at all.
And their GPUs that are supposedly good don't perform that well outside of benchmarks, efficient, surely but not exactly something to rave about.
When you look at it from a high vantage point, there have been a lot of compromises to be made to get mostly efficiency/battery life, the transition wasn't cheap and some stuff will forever stay stuck.
With the progress of Intel/AMD it doesn't feel like that big of a win.
And this is also why ARM isn't working so well on the Windows side. So much to give up for not that significant gains.
At least we know it was mostly about architecture optimisation and access to better lithography processes. Eventually they will all converge to similar performances and we will regret the code compatibility. Some big software houses (like Autodesk) basically got vindicated for not building software for macOS, it's not a really good sentiment for the Mac long term.
It's not clear if any of it matters because clearly, they would rather sell iPads with a software distribution monopoly in the form of their App Store. Maybe with EU ruling they will change their mind, but I doubt it, as long as they can maintain their marketing...
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.