if you have to distribute via website or alternative app store, everybody can always have a known person to be responsible for piracy, in addition, it is just as easy to block as apps in apple's app store
sony is not yet a gatekeeper, might be in the future... apple does not have to sell in Europe, if it does, and big enough (no need to be monopoly) to be a gatekeeper, law and rules say they operate a critical infrastructure/platform in the EU economy and hence they cannot tax developers (a country has such powers)
the question is not whether Apple has to change but a question might be why? this is the field of monopolistic power and competition law... monopoly profit is not inherently bad, can help innovation but along the way we figured out it is probably best to curb this power in the long run
Apple had its time of their life and to be honest, I see little meaningful innovation in the last 5+ years, however, they suppress competition and innovation in the economy, controlling a gateway between innovative developers and users
another aspect is consumer prices... should consumers get lower prices or let apple take monopolistic tax from them? of course lower prices seems to be better nd it is one goal... however, we should and we do allow success and monopolistic profit by each and every big innovation, in the beginning and Apple has already had that
it is a bit like an economy supports patent law and competition law at the same time
most people are motivated by financial success and most company pay research and innovation for potential monopolistic profit and this works and it is protected! however, competition law or new forms of it like DMA kicks in later on
it is like you innovate, use patents, get big money but if you grow big you are not allowed to become like all companies become if not controlled: shifting from competitive innovative power to a country like taxing power
I think it is correct that we need competition law too, if we really think about our past, economics, history, and what motivates people
but it is not oligarch who get the taxes, apple stock owners I guess
it is somehow the job of Apple management to maximize profit, they are doing this
question is whether they really optimizing future profits with this behaviour, they could have moved on already
I wanted to buy my mum an iphone, I am all linux and android, my partner has iphone and ipad and even if I dont like apple and microsoft logic, they are good products
I thought with face id it is easier to be safe and she will not really see that I forced a pass manager on her :)
and I was sure now apple abandons this behaviour and they were put on the right track, apple was somehow an option for me... until this happened
no way I ever buy an iphone anytime in the future for anybody
but I am probably a minority... I think this kind of behaviour is disgusting that apple does
however, if app store revenue is 100B dollar, every year, logically understandable, 500 million fines are noting
still, the world is governed by emotions too, and I will never forgive Apple
I'm using the term "oligarch" here to try make it clear why "let's have a very small number of not democratically elected people/organizations in control of your human rights" historically has proven not to be a very good idea, and why it's somewhat better to have a functioning democracy taking care of that. And as a huge chunk of our human rights are now digital and managed by corporations, it means that it's essential to maintain a free market, so that at least some choice is left.
It makes me feel old, but I do remember the times when the US lectured EU countries about those concepts. It's frustrating that people here who clearly are expected to be well educated and who might be coming from that country that used to lecture others about freedom, free markets and ownership rights no longer put any value in that.
It all appears to be empty words these days. "Stand your ground"? No? It's my hardware. I paid for it, with money I got from doing work. I own it. It's mine. I decide what Apps I install, I decide what music I listen to, I decide if I want to watch porn on it. Why has the concept of "owning" something lost all meaning to some?
US companies control all OSs but linux... they are surely working together with NSa and the US government which in turn let them become extremely powerful monopolies... what are oligarchs? people who play together with strong governments... Ithink the upper management of these US companies not just become oligarch-rich from soaring stock prices but the actual thing oligarch enjoy is power which is not 1 to 1 money
in the economical sense stock companies have shareholders, simple employees and management and the goal is to maximize profit... totally legit and apple is seemingly doing this by crippling the web because using apps from taxed app store and using browsers to browse simple websites is what fits their thinking and current(!) sales model
but you are right, why do people argue for apple I really dont understand... all you have to do if you want to stay simple and apple-safe to follow their suggestions, use safari, never download other browsers, do not use other app stores etc... a choice will not make their system worse
and what I want to add, I am not sure Apple actually on the profit max way with these decisions... not because I never buy iphones ever again because most people who buy apple rather tend to beleive them and accept and follow which is an understandable strategy when there is so much information around
but they missed making Safari THE browser where they now could distribute Apple products on all OS which may have lead to doubling the great profits we see nowadays... they could have bought tesla or porsche which fits this individualistic walled garden system they are so good at...they missed the cloud business, missed ai and who knows what else
and sometimes it is better long term if you lose some money but you let your developers experience some real competition which leads to actually better present value of long term future profits even if you lose some monopolistic profit
and they do not have to disappear to fail, we never know the relative path, what could have happened... maybe being the biggest market cap company of the world is still failing relative to following a path with more competition, innovation etc...
well if you think that you are a proud US citizen who somehow has Apple/Google, I think they actually pay their taxes in Ireland?
"When a customer buys an Apple product outside the United States, the profit is first taxed in the country where the sale takes place. Then Apple pays taxes to Ireland, where Apple sales and distribution activity is executed by some of the 6,000 employees working there. Additional tax is then also due in the US when the earnings are repatriated."
of course as means of power like NSA-level information you have them :)
and in the end, third party cookies are banned (cookie banners is not required actually if you do not have tracking)
no, because they are gatekeepers and they operate within countries that have laws and regulations
Apple is not above the law... you cannot host pedofile stuff on YOUR platform because there are laws against it
heck I use a private rail company that travels on the rails built by the other state rail company thanks to EU law
they are better, have self check-in, bought double decker trains and the other train company laughed at them because these trains were designed originally for smaller distances
it is of course much more economical and this state rail company just ordered the same trains
the device and OS of Apple is like the rail tracks, people use them not Apple, and as long as they have that big marketshare they own the rails that developers MUST use
Apple would have just said no, double decker trains are not secure, everybody has to use our secure design on our rails because we protect our customers
monopoly hinders not just competitive prices but innovation too
1. pay some macOS developers if iOS developers are that bad and implement necessary changes on a weekend since both OS are linux and macOS is capable (and they had years)
2. if Apple wants to play the oh-so-difficult card, they have to prove according to DMA why is it so much of a burden, which they cannot because it is not... still, they could have talked to EU to get an exemption to keep Safari web apps unbroken until they make the necessary changes that every web browser is ready to use web apps on iOS
what they did is to break all iOS web apps because they were only possible in Safari, fight one additional year with EU then allow them again after they lost
is not that evil? they dare this because it is only a minority of their users that uses web apps now...
millions of users have iPhones so developers MUST deploy there
therefore competition MUST be forced because (it is actually a deeper question, my microeconomy professor told us monopoly makes profit and it is the potential source of innovation, in perfect competition there is no innovation money)
because it favors us consumers in the long run not just because products become cheaper but monopolies also suppress innovation
I guess Apple was innovative and created monopolies but they should innovate from monopolistic profit and create new monopolies and let old ones gently fade away in competition... plenty of big companies become stagnant
actually Apple is withholding web innovation and plenty of cross platform innovations never were born in the last decade... nowadays even single developers can create great cross platform products via web tech
Apple could have innovated in web instead of withholding it and they would have the best web browser and they could deliver apple products on all OS
strategically it is a very bad decision to try to do the same over and over again (vision pro, closed walled garden)
they misjudged browsers, electric cars
I mean face id and optic id and eye tracking is great but we live in a world with chinese and south koreans who copy like hell or a company that is even called meta... apple is nobody in AI too... no cloud business
it is wishful thinking, if you pull spotify people will use another app on iOS... the way forward is alternative app sotres, the web as an app store etc... competition
more exciting is visionOS, I hope Netflix and co. NEVER make native apps and force Apple to support web browser based solutions
a website in standalone mode is a web "app", so web apps are not possible in Safari if the website, even if uses all the modern web capabilities, cannot get rid of the browser bar... it is a shortcut to a website in tab mode then
in addition, we still not know which web capabilities Apple plans to disallow in websites, and will it be also disallowed in competing browsers?
is offline website with service worker caching possible? it seems to be disabled according to some beta testers...
I mean for you local storage may be not important but what a disadvantage it is for web programming if Apple clears local storage without the permission of the user as they do it in Safari tabs?
the whole absence of future guarantees is one of the biggest problems, because web programming is a strategy that companies could make now to deploy good web apps in 2-3 years...
I can assure you now it is totally possible to create the same standalone UX on iPhone from the web more securely than using a native app... if Apple is forced to allow at least other browser engines to use web capabilities securely (just like they could do this on macOS or any OS is capable)
is it easy to create good web UX, not... most web desgners are not real programmers and most websites are terrible, I do not really use many web apps but plenty of them might be terrible now, too
but it all comes down to the developer behind the product... if you get less native offerings in the future (there are areas where native is better, it is actually also a good bot protection to require native apps) then your good programmers simply deliver good web apps to you and it actually will be the same UX only cheaper
interestingly enough, if everybody has to pay the apple tax and it is the user who pays it in the end, developers may just stay by native, no competitive pressure
one area is that smaller innovative apps from even sole developers may never come to realisation because it is expensive to pay android and ios developers...
I just checked lichess... it is a mixed website that is not responsive (on smaller screens terrible) but uses webassembly for stockfish, that is a plus
still one of the biggest expense is 1 or 2 app developers, if they did not get 500k donations they might not even exist because of app store restrictions... that would be a loss
actually they should have just invest that money to create a responsive design and maybe some offline functionality and they could deploy "apps" on iPhones and Android and actually on all desktops... but you might just want to use lichess as tabs there, one tab for analysis, one for broadcasts etc...
that is a good example how we might lose great small projects like lichess... and why we only have 2 greats chess sites, one getting 100 million dollar from subscriptions... it is simply difficult to create a cross platform solution even if the stockfish ai is free and open source
sony is not yet a gatekeeper, might be in the future... apple does not have to sell in Europe, if it does, and big enough (no need to be monopoly) to be a gatekeeper, law and rules say they operate a critical infrastructure/platform in the EU economy and hence they cannot tax developers (a country has such powers)
the question is not whether Apple has to change but a question might be why? this is the field of monopolistic power and competition law... monopoly profit is not inherently bad, can help innovation but along the way we figured out it is probably best to curb this power in the long run
Apple had its time of their life and to be honest, I see little meaningful innovation in the last 5+ years, however, they suppress competition and innovation in the economy, controlling a gateway between innovative developers and users
another aspect is consumer prices... should consumers get lower prices or let apple take monopolistic tax from them? of course lower prices seems to be better nd it is one goal... however, we should and we do allow success and monopolistic profit by each and every big innovation, in the beginning and Apple has already had that
it is a bit like an economy supports patent law and competition law at the same time
most people are motivated by financial success and most company pay research and innovation for potential monopolistic profit and this works and it is protected! however, competition law or new forms of it like DMA kicks in later on
it is like you innovate, use patents, get big money but if you grow big you are not allowed to become like all companies become if not controlled: shifting from competitive innovative power to a country like taxing power
I think it is correct that we need competition law too, if we really think about our past, economics, history, and what motivates people