>>> allow side-loading of apps outside of its App Store

Just in time to replace that broken Siri thing with OpenAI based assistants!

Previous app submissions were rejected on the basis of being "too close to existing functionality". Maybe they meant dysfunctionality? If the EU needs witnesses of anti-competitive behavior I volunteer.

Absolutely cannot wait. Siri is garbage and has only existed this long because of it being the default.

It is frustrating and hilarious that saying my son's name triggers Siri every time, and it really not very close to "Hey Siri".

Is there a good integration for Android? I never used Google Assistent, when I tried, it failed for basic tasks.

I rented a car with Android Auto, went inside my podcast app, and couldn't go back to Google maps, and of course Android Auto makes google maps stop working on my mobile phone when android auto is on.

So i was trying things like ,,go to maps'', ,,go to navigation'', ,,maps'', but none of them worked.

Disconnecting and reconnecting andorid auto worked mostly (but not always)

> Just in time to replace that broken Siri

oooh that would be awesome. I'm at a point where I only use it for timers and it even gets that wrong sometimes "I created an alarm named Timer for 01:30am".. oh yeah I can't just say "timer one hour thirty" because Siri hates British people and parses the numbers wrong lmao.

Also can we get multiple timers yet? Why is a device more powerful than the computer we used to send people to the moon limited to one timer?

Can't wait!

It's supported multiple timers for quite some, er, time.

Try: "Hey Siri give me a 90 minute beef timer", "Hey siri give me a 25 minute chips timer"

Mine just seems to say "there's already a timer running, do you want to replace it?"

Are we both talking about iPhone Siri?

Oh that's interesting! I'm using HomePods, how odd that iPhone Siri doesn't do multiple timers... It can work headlessly, so my guess is they've not bothered to write a UI for multiple timers on iOS... weird move

From what I recall, only HomePods support multiple timers... it's aggravating.

Watch does too.

iPhone Siri doesn’t. HomePod/watch Siri does.

I'm using an iOS shortcut that lets me make voice requests to OpenAI via Siri. It would be nice to eliminate that step!

Correct me if I am wrong, but you're using OpenAI simply to answer queries/questions, not to perform any actions. In that sense, it's not really an assistant. It's not creating reminders, sending texts, reading your messages, etc.

Is this what you're wanting from an OpenAI integration?

It sounds like you might be happier in Android land. You can load whatever apps you want and even some you don’t[1].

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-use-f...

No, apple hardware is better. And now software will be better too.

Overall the experience will be worse. No doubt about that. Features like the Privacy Nutrition Scorecard (I can't remember what it's actually called) won't be nearly as powerful, for example, because other giant multi-national corporations will just create their own app stores to avoid playing by Apple's rules and "paying the Apple tax", which is something that they have to pay and end consumers don't. I.e. it's just a payment negotiation between big corporations.

It'll also lead to fragmentation and you'll have to manage 5-10 different "app stores" in order to use apps that you use day-to-day right now.

Overall it's just going to be a mess and really suck. Fortunately I don't use many apps so I don't see this affecting me personally other than occasional annoyance when I can't find something I may need in the future or having to help family members fix their phones now. For many though their experience using the iPhone will be degraded, particularly when it comes to software.

Yeah, like Android. 10 app stores and today nobody downloads their apps from Google Play anymore. Also all Androids are full of viruses too. Those reckless grandmas and their Android phones...

>which is something that they have to pay and end consumers don't. I.e. it's just a payment negotiation between big corporations.

I'm sure the execs sell a yacht to pay their Apple taxes target than pass on costs as they do for everything else. /s

It's like this:

There's a price that the market (consumers) will bear to pay for a service. Let's call it MyBigBrand and you charge $5/month or idk, $10 for a one-time purchase.

Apple charges whatever their fee is, let's call it 30%, and they keep this fee and do lots of things with it including buy back stock and reinvest in improving their services.

MyBigBrand comes along and says hey that's not fair! They launch a marketing campaign "The Apple Tax" and file lawsuits. Courts decide Apple should allow 3rd-party app stores or that they can't charge the fee or have to reduce it.

In each of those scenarios, MyBigBrand continues to charge customers $5/month for their product. All that's occuring here is whether or not MyBigBrand gets to pay less to Apple or whether Apple gets to continue to charge MyBigBrand and eat into their margins.

For a consumer you still pay the same fee for the product, or potentially you have to download some other app store that MyBigBrand owns or collaborates with MyOtherBigBrand on and then they split the costs and keep more of the margin.

At the end of the day people are being duped into really caring about who gets to keep more of their money and it just doesn't matter, except that it appears Apple does something beneficial with the money they keep and having multiple app stores with exclusive apps will suck and be annoying.

Just because you can download apps from an app store that is other than Apple's own does not mean that you can replace Apple's default apps.

Considering the number of people who celebrated in response to your comment, I think I get it now why people support side-loading---they don't actually understand it and are merely projecting their own interpretations.

That is a requirement for the DMA. It specifically calls out "digital assistants" and being able to replace the default.

I'm wondering what the people who say that no sideloading is a feature have to say now.

That the EU's overreach has made a product worse for the majority of its users.

As a technical user, it doesn't bother me. When I consider many of my friends, it does bother me—most of them I know with non-iOS devices have complained about their devices moving slowly due to the junkware and the third-party app stores they've acquired (never F-Droid, always something sketchy). When I think about family members, I think about how web push notifications have rendered two of their phones borderline unusable.

Most "consumer-friendly" choices the EU makes are actually about developer & manufacturer profit. This isn't consumer-aligned. It eliminates the profit motive that's left iOS devices as more or less the only LTS phones on the market.

I don't like Apple products that much—I use Linux on my cell phone, but at the same time I refuse to adopt cheap rhetorical tactics to make app developers wealthier.

If they really wanted things to be consumer-friendly, they'd ban proprietary software. Instead, they make it easier for proprietary software developers to make profit off of users.

This mentality has no place on HN. We are here to make profit, not moralise.

What Id say is that today anyone who wants to sell a “smart” product has to write a proper clean iOS app that gets reviewed.

Tomorrow I can guarantee they will immediately cut costs and ship out piles of sideloaded garbage

Sure, it’s up to the consumer to choose, but they’re not going to write that on the package

>>Tomorrow I can guarantee they will immediately cut costs and ship out piles of sideloaded garbage

Yeah except that's absolute nonsense because you could already do that on Android and yet I recall only one instance where a developer explicitly asked me to sideload an app(for Fortnite, no less). It's going to remain an incredible niche that will affect 0.00001% users at most.

Then what’s the point of forcing these companies to allow it? If it only affects such a small user base then money regulating it is clearly being wasted and should be used for something that will affect more people’s lives?

Clearly they believe that number is much higher.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. It will affect hundreds of millions of iOS users. Whether these users choose to use their newly given freedom to install software not controlled by Apple is up to them - but the legislation affects 100% of iOS userbase.

(in hindsight I shouldn't have said it will affect 0.0001% users - maybe I should have said that I guess only that many users will choose to sideload software instead)

Just like happens daily on Androi... nevermind, it doesn't happen. Beautiful strawman you've built yourself there.

Actually yes it does. 3rd party app stores is where the majority of Android malware comes from. The vast majority of mobile malware is all Android for this reason. Whenever I need low hanging fruit for mobile malware analysis it’s always start at a third party Android App Store. It’s a dumpster fire.

iOS’ advantage is it’s walled garden. It’s a place where a lot of trust is curated for the nontechnical. This evaporates that.

What appears good for the highly technical is not always good for the user.

We can’t be expecting grandmothers to check signatures, ensure an app has certificates pinned, trust that a company won’t let its update domains lapse, and understand public key crypto to set up their GPG keys for a messaging alternative much less handle them properly. Hell I’ve had senior engineers send me their private GPG key when requesting their public key.

Delightful movement of the goal posts, highly technical move.

Your argument was that the moment there is no longer a need to be constrained by Apple's App Store rules, your Samsung dishwasher will make you install its app through Shady Store Incorporated, because it's easier, and it'll make your grandma install it.

Except that doesn't happen. Noone has done that. The highest profile case is Fortnite, and it makes you install it either through Epic Games, or the Samsung Galaxy Store, and the only reason for that is that Google feels entitled to taking 30% of transactions too.

Nobody is going to ship their commercial apps outside the app store, because else nobody would be able to find their app.

I'm thinking more of a smart fridge, or car app, or some other crap. I'm 99% sure a lot of them will stop going through the painful iOS process and just give you a QR code for their app

Why do you think this would change their minds?

And more specifically means that Apple can't prevent you using other Web Browsers etc.

Can't wait to have Firefox + uBlock Origin on iPads.