This seems like a logic error to me in the context in which it is said (TFA).
> We believe anyone with a good idea and the ingenuity to bring it to life should have the opportunity to offer their app to the world.
Should that have include "by 'anyone' we mean any person in the EU"? If not, then shouldn't this change also be rolling out worldwide? Or does that statement actually have nothing to do with this fee change and is just unrelated PR BS? Hard to think of any third alternatives, but if there are I'd like to hear them.
“Some court forced us to stop being consumer hostile in their jurisdiction, so we’re pleased to be announcing that we’re creating a special de-shittified product and TOS for that market only! Everyone else can get **ed! We can do this all day!”
Hopefully the EU is not satisfied until the status quo is such that one can program, build, distribute and have their users run native apps without ever entering into a contractual relationship with Apple.
Native apps can still do/access a lot more things than a web app. Though now I'm curious: is there any web app that allows Apple Pencil input properly?
If you have the physical device, you can do anything you want with it, Apple can not know what you do and cannot do anything about what you do. Are they obliged to provide you with free systems and technologies to program against the bare metal ?
I think if you read the EULA you'll be sadly disillusioned about your rights to use the APIs. You may own the silicon, but you're renting the OS.
I wish there was an amazing desktop / mobile Linux. (Maybe next year lol)
Maybe voice / brainwave powered AI will be able to translate our needs into shell commands which then goes into our contact lens supercomputer running Stallman-approved Linux.
The EULA is probably unconscionable even under the usually contract-friendly US legal system. iOS is already on the phone even before the contract is presented to the user, and per precedent the user has the inherent legal right to use software that comes with purchased hardware.
I'm a huge proponent of the web, but Apple shouldn't be able to dictate what stack I use to build an app, especially when they also control what capabilities reach the "open" web platform on their devices.
iOS now has fully functioning service workers and push notifications for web apps, that was the only thing web apps didn't have that native apps could do?
Can I do it without user installing additional applications? Because at that point, it would be easier just write my own app, than be dependent on 3rd party app.
why would you write a web browser just to avoid installing an off the shelf one? Seems weird but ok.
Maybe you are “not the average consumer”. But it generally seems like a disingenuous and bad-faith response to avoid challenging your (incorrect) assumptions.
Pretty typical for the topic at this point, unfortunately. The android folk have just veered off into “everyone gets their own version of the facts” territory, can’t count how many people have told me there’s no file browser or that you can’t compile your own apps in macOS etc. The end is all that matters, facts are fungible.
> The CTF is an element of the alternative business terms in the EU that reflects the value Apple provides developers through tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps.
Is there an option NOT to use the "tools, technologies, and services" to build an app that runs on iOS?
You'd think they could cover it with the yearly developer fee and constant hardware updates (Gotta get a new Mac if you want the latest version of Xcode to support the latest iPhone, which you'll also need to run the latest iOS since the simulator is never enough).
I'm down to try. However, I think we'd have to take them to court just to get a code signing cert blessed by them because I wouldn't even want to need a copy of xcode.
I think it would be possible. It took some effort, but eventually Microsoft caved and provided a key for blessing safe-boot for Linux. Getting to that point, on the other hand, would probably require a pretty significant court case; meaning someone would need some deep pockets.
Of course it's technically possible if apple gives in. I just don't think they ever will. I'd love it if they would instead switch to something similar like android where apks have to be signed, apks distributed via the play store are (nowadays) signed by google, but if you distribute it yourself you can just sign it yourself and the only requirement of the signature is that it must be the same for subsequent updates.
The EU doesn't seem to be a fan of their "maximally self beneficial letter of the law" approach to compliance. I'm impressed with what they've gotten out of Apple so far -- it's just a shame we don't have access to these wins in Canada.
Let me start with this: I fully support any effort to regulate markets and ensure rights of users especially privacy.
The fact that not a single European company was declared a gatekeeper is getting a lot of attention, some are even calling it a “shakedown of American companies”.
There are a lot of European companies that have monopoly-like powers in the markets they’re in. ASML is one for semiconductor lithography. Just look at the patents many European companies hold and how Europe makes money.
The point that I’m trying to make is that yes the mobile computing platforms should be open and free. However, the line between regulation of markets and going after specific companies not because they’re stopping innovation but instead because they’re not European. I’m afraid that if Trump gets elected, there will be a similar trade war between Europe and the United States as well.
These regulations are about consumer protection. They're not about protecting companies from each other, necessarily. Sure, in this case the focus is on iOS and iOS developers but in the end that's because end users are getting fucked because of it.
Do you have any example of EU companies that are fucking over consumers like the US ones tend to do? I'm not aware of any. I'm also not aware of any EU company that would be in the position to do so, sadly.
Then the focus must be on the consumer protection itself. I’ve seen all ten hours of regulation discussions with Apple executives, and they were all about dismantling the iPhone and using all Apple products and services for free.
In 90s when Ericsson and Nokia held almost 100% of the cell phone market, none of these topics were brought forward. That is quite the irony.
It is incredibly hard to create a platform like iPhone and also create customer trust into spending money on it. And now that this is a place a significant percent of the commerce is taking place on this platform, it must be regulated. This must be done by laws and regulations. Not with anti-Apple or anti-Europe sentiments. We are even at least 5 years late in doing this.
However, we simply cannot force anybody to work for free or take their possessions. As the Apple executives said in the commission hearing, it is their platform and they have to be compensated for any work they put into it. We want open access to this platform, not kill it.
If an app is being side-loaded, then Apple is under no obligation to provide them any additional services that is not part of the OS. Which things like push notifications, and iCloud are not. Every app would either pay Appple to use those services or setup a connection to their own servers to distribute such notifications and use other object storage services.
We’ve had Windows computers forever and they still don’t support push notifications unless you have the app or the browser open.
Manufacturing the iPhone is one thing but there is billions of dollars of cost in developing and running the iOS. Apple will either recoup this cost somehow, with CTF or some other charge, or simply stop doing it, or worse stop selling it in Europe.
FAANG companies are really powerful and I’m as worried about their downward effects on the society and consumers as you are.
I just firmly disagree that a company selling a device that they are making a profit on can be considered "working for free".
> We’ve had Windows computers forever and they still don’t support push notifications unless you have the app or the browser open.
Not sure what you mean. They support TCP without weird limitations applied to it by the operating system. Every app that wants it has push notifications. They get the choice of implementing this themselves or using a service like firebase to help them out if they so choose. Their choice. Not Microsoft's. Not Apple's.
Android, iOS, Console and TV Devices aren't that different, none of them allow you to install what you could on them.
I hope there will be a country that forces manufacturers to let you install any operating system of your choice on the devices you buy as long as they have screen output and USB/Bluetooth input.
I don’t think so, you can create an app without the fee. (Xcode is free and nothing is gated based on subscription AFAIK), you just can’t upload it. So I think for EU users this isn’t the case.
I don't know if they changed it, but the xcode certificates (used to?) expire every week or so, so you'd need to re-up from the apple servers via a mac with xcode.
The EU is doing absolutely amazing work. It's so nice to see that a government is capable of passing a law and ensuring companies don't practically ignore it while technically complying, like they did with GDPR. Gives me hope.
Guess Apple got another letter from the EU to cut the shit. Still doesn't seem like enough. There is absolutely no reason apple should receive a single cent if you're publishing outside of their store.
Should these rules also apply to things like the push notification system, iCloud sync infrastructure, or access to training materials etc.?
Apple might have a valid court case if they are forced to provide a service for free if it's costing them something. European Union is walking a very tight line and the fact that there is no European company declared as a gatekeeper might lead to some concerns.
The materials that are freely available to anyone on the Internet? Besides, if you develop for alternative stores, you still need to pay the $99/year fee.
> the push notification system
How much does running that system cost for the average app? Is Apple willing to allow alternative push notification systems?
Just as a reminder, I'm not saying iOS should stay closed. Mobile computing platforms should be open and allow innovation.
However, we cannot simply force private companies to provide services that costs them money. They are also under no obligation to implement any other continuous communication system to devices on their platform. It is their platform, with good and bad.
Being free or open does not constitute that every valuable product or service Apple created are now in the public domain and nobody should be paying for them.
> However, we cannot simply force private companies to provide services that costs them money.
Ah, but we can.
> They are also under no obligation to implement any other continuous communication system to devices on their platform.
And yes, they are.
Just like how utility companies aren't allowed to shut off the water because someone stopped paying. They can choose to stop doing business if they do not agree with these laws.
So this is not about creating an open and free market but instead forcibly taking the property of private companies and making them sell product at a loss.
Anything that uses their servers they could potentially charge for. Of course they must also make it possible to implement these things yourself without using their servers.
> There is absolutely no reason apple should receive a single cent if you're publishing outside of their store
This is a really bad take.
People do not merely pay for the rearrangement of atoms into what ends up being their phone.
The software is critical and deserves all the money earned to make it happen. Apple still stands up all those servers, engineers, and operations for apps priced at $0 -- at min-cost to the developer (before you start: no, $99/year covers zilch; $99/year is a mode of spam prevention dev account creation).
It is unreasonable, nefarious, and even grand theft for anybody to make money on the phones and refuse to pay for the services that made it possible: the software engineering into Swift, Xcode, CoreOS, Darwin, FoundationDB, Data Centers, the engineers on on-call rotations, and who knows whatever else. All those things don't come for free. App developers who make money off the ecosystem should be held account to pay up.
What servers, engineers, and operations are needed to sideload an app?
How did literally every OS before iOS manage to provide all of that for free, then? (Not counting game consoles, which always had a very similar distribution model, but importantly were often subsidized by their platform operator, and I hope nobody is claiming that iPhones are loss leaders for Apple.)
In my view, SDKs for third-party app development aren't premium/value-add services, they're a core OS functionality. Few people would be happy with an OS that can only run first-party apps.
The only things incurring costs to Apple scaling with the number and popularity of third-party apps that come to mind right now are malware protection and push notifications. If Apple really thinks that baking these into the device price would break their bank, I suppose they could always make an iCloud subscription mandatory for that type of service.
> Not counting game consoles, which always had a very similar distribution model, but importantly were often subsidized by their platform operator, and I hope nobody is claiming that iPhones are loss leaders for Apple
Sounds like you're proposing one of two possible business models:
1. Pay a fixed price for the device at time of purchase that includes costs for services used in the future
2. Subsidize the physical device in favor of pricing the services at a margin to recoup costs for the device
Blackberry for 1. or Amazon Fire Phone for 2.
Why force some other company (Apple) to bend to your will?
I'm also in the minority for thinking if what apple charged wasn't worth it, then no one would pay it.
What did it take it the bad old days to actually get your app into consumer hands, a publisher and a retailer who if you were lucky decided to do a deal with you and then you were given a small percentage cut.
I think this is a bad take. The idea that the device manufacturer is owed a cut of all third party software sold for it is a new one. Apple never would have asked for a cut of all Apple II software sold in the '80s because that would have been preposterous.
If I buy a piece of hardware, I can do with it what I want. It's mine, I own it, and everything on it. Nonsensical "terms of service" be damned.
It’s completely different when you have networked hardware. IMHO it’s the equivalent of road taxes to make sure there aren’t any giant potholes swallowing up 18-wheelers and bicycles alike and that your bridges are still standing when you drive across the water.
It’s a never-ending uphill battle against entropy and unless you do it, you’re guaranteeing major problems.
They're free to charge for their networked services if they want to. Doesn't change the fact that the end-user bought & owns the device & they should be free to use it as they wish, potentially without using those networked services and instead opting for an alternative. Their choice. Not yours.
There’s no equivalent to coloured diesel for electronic devices, unfortunately. So everyone has to pay the tax even if you’re not going to use the roads, to complete the metaphor.
Like I said: they’re not buying a simple rearrangement of atoms. Heck they’re free to dunk those atoms they paid for into baby oil. Nobody cares.
Nobody is entitled to dictate what _software_ should be on the device. If end-users have the right to _software_ then that right cannot be selectively applied in the case of phone or laptops: it should fairly applied in all cases: including your refrigerator. Why doesn’t the government compel Samsung to enable Spotify & third party App Stores on those devices?
The wall socket in your house is completely your property too. Yet, you don’t have a right to demand the socket company to put a semiconductor chip in it, along with the installation of an OS, along with an App Store and tools that allow you to download Netflix directly from their own App Store.
For example when is the last time my customers paid for Ruby, Python, Linux, PostgreSQL? The list can be very long. Companies paid people to work on those technologies, they are not only free labor.
In the case of Apple, they developed those technologies to control the platform. They already got a very good return. It is fair to ask developers to pay for the Apple services they are using (cloud services, messaging?) but it would be even fairer not to force developers to use Apple technologies, starting with having to use Macs to write apps.
> For example when is the last time my customers paid for Ruby, Python, Linux, PostgreSQL?
Well, those examples are cherry-picked; ergo, I present to you a picking my own cherries: Companies pay for MATLAB, Windows and MongoDB. I will concede this list not "very long". But length of lists shouldn't really matter here right? I mean, one example of MATLAB vs. Ruby/Python is good enough to make a point via counterexample.
The point I'm making is: It would be immensely unfair to expect developers to force MATLAB engineers to submit to whatever business model the devs want instead of the other way around. Companies that develop technologies own the right to price it however they please.
Competition in the free-market ensures companies do not employ price-gouging tactics.
So your phone should come with a lifetime license for all its software for free ? What about new apps and features ? You can currently get everything in the iOS ecosystem on an iPhone 11 that you paid for how many years ago?
It is funny to see people on HN arguing against paying for software. Of course software should be paid for, unless you want everything included for free - which means outsourced to India.
I'm not sure I understand the segue you've made here. But, it would be absurd to suggest that Google is entitled to charge a fee for every app installed installed from F-Droid.
Your original claim was that a device owner downloading an application from elsewhere somehow means that Apple could not afford to provide basic development tools. This is demonstrably false.
In any case, most of these outside apps have tended to be free, so if anything sideloading should reduce burden on their servers, which seemed to have been part of your concern.
There is technology that goes into ensuring an app runs on a device — the dynamic linked libraries being present, the compilers adapted to the specific instruction set shipped on that device’s chip, the algorithms, ci/cd pipelines, that go into ensuring all that language design, debugger tools, profiling and performance tools, and then the online infrastructure to support things like backups, iCloud, cross-device sync, device to device transfers on upgrades/new phone purchases. Yeesh the details!
“Afford to provide basic development tools” is a conniving way to put it. Forcing a company via legislation to fund, and develop tools is more like what’s happening.
What’s happening here is a couple of greedy app developers want to skimp out on paying for the nitty gritty details of making a customer experience actually work.
So, yeah, pardon me for inaccurately categorizing them all as “server costs” — I definitely misused that word — but there’s no way in hell you can expect all of the other tech to come for free or even at a price that the _developers demand the tool maker to set_
All this litigation, back-and-forth is going to tarnish the user experience.
DLLs preexist the iPhone by a long time. The implication of your argument is that Google is bankrupt because of F-Droid. Again, all of the big companies (Apple included) were shipping those things before the iPhone came along and blocked sideloading. In fact, those other companies still are provided those things (Apple included if you consider the mac). Some examples (non-exhaustive), since you are ignoring it:
Microsoft: Onedrive, VS, VScode, C#, Visual Basic, .NET (upto and including core), windbg, MSVC, Windows, Windows app stores, etc
Google: Dart, Go, Android Studio, Android, Google Drive, Google Play store & services, etc
Apple: xcode, objective-c, cocoa, llvm, lldb etc all preexist the iphone as well
The facts are:
1. Device owners should be able to install programs onto their phone without any interference from Apple.
2. Apple allowing this will not significantly affect their ability to remain profitable.
3. Most smartphone devices (Android) already do allow this.
I do not know. My hunch is because it's easy.
All I know is: Twitter/X is facing a crisis of spammy accounts and their mitigation strategy has been to require new accounts to submit payment info for the X subscription service.
> We believe anyone with a good idea and the ingenuity to bring it to life should have the opportunity to offer their app to the world.
Should that have include "by 'anyone' we mean any person in the EU"? If not, then shouldn't this change also be rolling out worldwide? Or does that statement actually have nothing to do with this fee change and is just unrelated PR BS? Hard to think of any third alternatives, but if there are I'd like to hear them.