I am curious what things the iPhone does that others aren't allowed to do.
Most of the differences between Garmin and Apple Watch seem like they were conscious decisions where they each decided to take a different direction.
It's one of those weird things where it seems like the case has a bunch of holes. You can use an iPhone with some but not all non-Apple Smart watches. You can use a non-Apple phone with non-Apple smartwatches. There are other non-Apple smart watches that those manufacturers have decided can't be used with an iPhone, no different than Apple. Lots of choices in the market, I certainly don't feel restricted.
I am not sure how requiring something like WeChat to break into multiple apps would be a big issue. Apple even breaks it's own apps up into different apps.
This is all before even getting into things like ecosystem integration.
The first iWatch was announced in September 2014 and released in April of 2015.
The Pebble was discontinued in 2016.
What integrations are you expecting Apple to have released prior to its own release? What functionality did iOS lack that android provided that hampered Pebble's development on iOS?
Just a side note: apple has in past started limiting other companies products as soon as they decide to create a competitor and sometimes years before it hits the market.
IIRC Spotify has been bitten by this at least once, which resulted in a lawsuit.
If it was a "it worked and then Apple took away this API that we were going to use" that would be one thing. If it was "the iPhone didn't have the functionality for other devices to read messages over BlueTooth until 2015 with iOS 8" - that's a different claim.
So this behavior isn't a relic of old APIs
> > If you look at the history between Tile and Apple, we had a very symbiotic relationship. They sold Tile in their stores, we were highlighted at WWDC 2019, and then they launched Find My in 2019, and right when they launched their Find My app, which is effectively a competitor of Tile, they made a number of changes to their OS that made it very difficult for our customers to enable Tile. And then once they got it enabled, they started showing notifications that basically made it seem like Tile was broken.
> Prober is talking about changes that Apple made to location services permissions. For privacy purposes, Apple stopped making it easy for apps to get permanent access to a user's location. Apps in iOS 13 were not initially allowed to present an "Always Allow" option when requesting location access, and the feature had to be enabled in the Settings app. Apple also started sending regular reminders to customers letting them know their location was being used.
> Tile was not happy with these privacy changes and that privacy tweak set Tile against Apple, with Tile in 2019 calling on Congress to "level the playing field."
> > The main points of differentiation of AirTags vis a vis Tile are enabled by platform capabilities that we don't have access to.
> Apple has, in fact, launched the Find My network that gives third-party accessories some of the same access that AirTags have, and Find My network accessories will be able to access the U1 chip in the iPhone 11 and 12 models much like the AirTags, but Tile won't be able to use the Find My network unless it abandons its own app and infrastructure, which it is likely unwilling to do.
> Prober said that Tile has been "seeking to access" the U1 chip since its introduction in the iPhone , and has been denied.
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Should Apple have a "grant once for app, always allow location service?" (note: this would allow an innocuous app to turn into a tracker with a later update). Or should Apple have a "this app has accessed your location {N} times in the last 24 hours?" ... or some other functionality?
Is "grant once, always allow" a security risk for users?
For U1 chip access: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/nearbyinteraction/... and https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10165/
The example given there is the Weather app and widget which I've gotten notifications for myself.
You will also note:
> Navigation apps like Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps, and so forth work best when they can pinpoint your exact location with precision. But a weather app, on the other hand, works just fine even if it’s only allowed to determine the city where you live or just an approximate region.
Maps, Messages, HomeKit, Clock, Siri, Weather, Wallet - they're all in there. System services too (and you can disable the system service's access to location data - e.g. Apple Pay Merchant Identification, Compass Calibration, Setting Time Zone).
For things that like to access the location in the background (Weather especially does this) you may get "Weather" has been using your location in the background. An example of this can be seen at https://www.lifewire.com/turn-on-mobile-location-services-41...
Its not just "I am using the location data always" but also "this has been accessing your location in the background" which is the type of thing that Tile does.
Apple tends to not have apps that access location information in the background and so this sort of message is not one that people tend to see. Weather is the one that does for weather alerts.
Apple Maps doesn't access location in the background so one wouldn't ever see the a message from it.
Find my system is part of the operating system itself - not an application running in user space. It can be disabled in the "Share My Location" settings in Location services in settings and in System Services "Find My iPhone" because that part of is not a user space app running but rather part of the kernel.
Access to the U1 chip? They can do that.
Show up in Find My? Let's get some standards for secure and authenticated transmission of item location to other parties.
Have Apple's phones automatically detect 3rd party BTLE products and report their whereabouts to a 3rd party? This is a privacy nightmare. Side note - why Apple's phones? How about a patch to Android too?
Something else?
> Apple stopped making it easy for apps to get permanent access to a user's location.
> The main points of differentiation of AirTags vis a vis Tile are enabled by platform capabilities that we don't have access to.
Apple makes it easy for their product (AirTags) to have always on location permissions. Apple makes it hard for their competitor (Tile) to have always on location permissions.
Apple is using their ecosystem to advantage their AirTag business instead of competing on the same playing field as Tile.
Does Tile have a secure way of receiving those messages that does not compromise the security and anonymity (exposing the identity of either the device or the receiver, or the location of either) of the person whose device picked up the message so that this can be implemented in Android core and Apple?
> You are asking to have Apple pick up random BLE messages and send them to various 3rd party vendors with corresponding location information?
I'm not asking for anything. This is just one of many examples of the form: Apple offers API for 3rd party accessory, accessory is successful, Apple launches 1st party accessory, Apple restricts 3rd party accessory API.
Is this behavior illegal? The Department of Justice says it is. The courts will decide.
Users should be allowed to grant grant “always” permission, for that app version. The next time it gets updated, they get hit with the prompt again.
In fact I’d like that to happen for all permissions, so I regularly review them, and I know when an app update has occurred.
I think users would hate that since they don't understand why the app keeps asking again and again. Some apps are updated on a weekly basis.
Then you don't run the risk of normalizing people always just clicking allow on the prompt that happens all the time (hello windows 7 UAC), which still giving them easy diacoverability and hints of poor behavior with existing permissions.
This is not true. Apple's own apps, like the Weather widget, will display location permission "nag" screens occasionally just like third-party apps do.
> ... but not a message on the same access from apple maps or apple photos.
Apple Maps doesn't use your location in the background. It only uses your location while the app is open, or while you're actively navigating using it.
Apple Photos is your photos. It'd be weird to warn the user that it "has access" to itself.
But seperately, I think it's really bad for innovation if no new product categories can exist unless Apple makes them first! You can imagine a different type of company that would have been delighted to work with Pebble and add functionality to their operating system, because third party compatibility strengthens their core product.
And of course, if this were the Mac, Pebble would not have needed Apple's cooperation...
You'll pry my Garmin from my cold, dead hands but there's no mistaking it for an actual "smart"-watch. I value it entirely for health & fitness, and the very few "smart" things it can do are just nice-to-have icing on the cake.
Also, you can interact with Apple Health from any smart device via a companion app. You just have to grant permission.
#1 is valid though.
edit: as comment below points out, I was missing the obvious context of paired with an iPhone.
But like the other commenter said, you can’t reply to notifications or calls when the watch is paired to an iPhone, but you could when paired to an Android, which is a feature I definitely miss from when I had a Pixel.
I tried Garmin watches, and they're certainly better as "exercise tracking devices" than anything Apple offers, but they weren't tightly enough integrated with my iPhone to make it "worth it" to me to wear them all the time.
An Apple Watch Ultra - on the other hand - is a poorer exercise tracking device, but gives me enough "integrated with my iPhone" benefit to become the first watch I've worn consistently in 30+ years.
I assumed this was the result of design and development choices by Garmin, but it'll be interesting to see if their are meaningful ways that Apple restricts smartwatch developers from including similar levels of integration.
Tile created trackers and every so often I get an annoying popup
> ~"Tile has been using your location, do you want to stop this?"
Apple then created a competitor product, 'AirTags', but their product does not have these popups.
This is anti-competitive because Apple bypass the restrictions they made on their platform for their product that their competitive have to follow.
The other big one is Apple muscling itself into the music streaming market by converting Music.app into Apple Music. In a fair world, Apple would have been required to show a pop-up that offered Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer etc. in a random order. You can’t unmake an omelette, so I feel Apple should be forced to pay billions to these competing services as recompense.
This is a huge one! I love this feature, but really would like to see it shared with Google and Waze.
On a personal note, I never in my life want to see advertisements for third-party software by default.
Apparently they didn’t because Apple Music boomed right after that change.
> It is by no means unfair, immoral, or unethical for a company to prefer and promote their own products.
It is when that company is one part of a duopoly, especially for a device pretty critical to daily life :+)
> On a personal note, I never in my life want to see advertisements for third-party software by default.
It’s a one-time pop-up, on opening the music app the first time. Same as the browser choice pop-up on your desktop. Hardly an advertisement.
I wonder how much offering discounted subscriptions to students or iCloud Family users also contributed to its success.
> It’s a one-time pop-up, on opening the music app the first time. Same as the browser choice pop-up on your desktop. Hardly an advertisement.
I don't like browser selection options either. Then again, I tend to use Apple's default apps unless I have an unusual reason to use something else.
Unfairness is at the heart of so many antitrust lawsuits (whether successful or not). Anyone old enough to recall Microsoft in the 1990s would say that many people (not at MSFT) were pointing out how unfair bundling Internet Explorer was. You may disagree but it was one of the reasons MSFT got sued.
Maybe I misunderstood your point, but could you clarify a bit what you mean? If I open App Store on my iPhone, it is full of third-party software advertisements by default and I don't even know if they can be turned off.
> Seeing them as apart of the normal platform UI (Microsoft Start menu, looking at you) is distasteful.
Then it doesn't sound like a one-time prompt as part of setup would be an issue.
You might want to avoid buying any new Apple products then, or your iPhone settings screen will regularly show you adverts for free trials for Apple News, Apple TV, Apple fitness, Apple Arcade.
Better still, unlike every other free trial in this ecosystem, these terminate the moment you cancel the trial, rather than at the end of the trial period.
Apple made iTunes (which already supported Apple Music) into a dedicated Music app, and offloaded some of the other stuff iTunes could do into separate apps and the Finder.
Ordinarily I hate market interventions like this, but with iOS+Android being a duopoly, we don’t have a free market so special rules start to apply.
> > The main points of differentiation of AirTags vis a vis Tile are enabled by platform capabilities that we don't have access to.
> Apple has, in fact, launched the Find My network that gives third-party accessories some of the same access that AirTags have, and Find My network accessories will be able to access the U1 chip in the iPhone 11 and 12 models much like the AirTags, but Tile won't be able to use the Find My network unless it abandons its own app and infrastructure, which it is likely unwilling to do.
> Prober said that Tile has been "seeking to access" the U1 chip since its introduction in the iPhone , and has been denied.
---
Here's the developer docs for accessing the U1 chip https://developer.apple.com/documentation/nearbyinteraction/...
... and a presentation on the use of the U1 chip with 3rd party accessories at WWDC 2021 https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10165/
For "find my" integration this would suggest two things.
First, that Find My should also query some 3rd party services for location of items - that I should be able to register a 3rd party with a standard API (akin to IMAP for email) that has location tracking info. That's reasonable - I look forward to a standard (and secure) API that doesn't leak my own location data when querying it.
Secondly, if it was "I want tiles to seamlessly be found by Apple devices just like AirTags are - the entire Apple network can find them" this gets into a question of how much cryptography and security would Apple need to open up to have 3rd party BLE devices ping to other services outside of their control that may leak the location information of people walking past them. Why should {arbitrary phone creator} need to ping a 3rd party whenever someone comes within range of the BLE device? That is, if Android devices aren't required to ping Apple's Find My network when in range of an AirTag, why should Apple be required to ping Tile's servers when in range of a Tile?
None, simply proxy it through Apple's existing servers and do not include any information about the device that found the tracker. If you are worried about rogue devices telling iPhone to ping rogue services, then just add a service whitelist to the scheme: Apple trusts Google's service and Tile's service, Google trusts Apple's service and Tile's service, but <random URL> isn't going to get pinged.
Now just make a process by which you prove legitimacy in order to get added to the list and require platform approval.
> Why should {arbitrary phone creator} need to ping a 3rd party whenever someone comes within range of the BLE device?
Because if every phone could ping the network associated with every tracker, then the strength of the network is all participating devices, not just OEM's brand. Apple gets the benefit of having a better Find My network outside the US where Android dominates, and Android gets the benefit of a better Find My network inside the US where iPhone dominates.
> That is, if Android devices aren't required to ping Apple's Find My network when in range of an AirTag, why should Apple be required to ping Tile's servers when in range of a Tile?
Required is a strong word, but Android should ping Apple's network when it sees an airtag, and I bet Google would take that deal if it were available.
All this is sidelong to the point though, that Tile cannot build an app that iPhone users can use that can tie into the beacon functionality the iPhone is already doing in order to enable Tile users with iPhones (that is, those iPhone users with the Tile app installed) have as reliable and friction-free an experience as iPhone users have with airtags.
Doing a "ping this other service" leaks information about the device that has been found. It also opens up Apple to knowing about who found the device or where it was found from information sent across the network. This is an important thing in security of the AirTag (and the rest of the Find My network) - the person detecting the BLE message has zero knowledge about it (other than its existence), Apple has zero knowledge about the person finding it or the device - only the Apple account that is associated with, and the person who owns the Apple account only has knowledge about where and what device - not who found it.
To not compromise the security of the Find My network, other vendors
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/sec6cbc80fd0/...
> In addition to making sure that location information and other data are fully encrypted, participants’ identities remain private from each other and from Apple. The traffic sent to Apple by finder devices contains no authentication information in the contents or headers. As a result, Apple doesn’t know who the finder is or whose device has been found. Furthermore, Apple doesn’t log information that would reveal the identity of the finder and retains no information that would allow anyone to correlate the finder and owner. The device owner receives only the encrypted location information that’s decrypted and displayed in the Find My app with no indication as to who found the device.
This would be an opportunity for Tile to work at trying to establish a standard like was done with UWB ( https://www.nxp.com/applications/enabling-technologies/conne... ) so that multiple vendors could use the technology and chips for interoperability.
Apple giving their tracking product a 3 or 4 year head start over it's competitors.
If you're going to compete against other products on your platform, give it a level playing field.
> Tile is preparing to introduce a new product this year that will serve as a rival to Apple’s long-awaited AirTags and other lost-item trackers coming to the market, including those from Samsung, TechCrunch has learned. While previous Tile trackers have leveraged Bluetooth to help users locate lost items — like a misplaced set of keys, for example — Tile’s new product will take advantage of UWB (ultra-wideband) technology to find the missing items. It will also use augmented reality to help guide users to the lost item’s location via the Tile mobile app.
> ...
> Apple last year began to give third-party developers access to its U1 chip, which uses UWB technology to make the iPhone spatially aware, via its “NearbyInteraction” framework. Some Android devices also ship with the technology. It’s unclear to what extent Tile is using the new frameworks with its forthcoming product, and the company is likely under NDA with regard to its work with Apple specifically, per earlier reports.
> ...
> Meanwhile, according to a new research note from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will reveal its own Tile competitor, AirTags this year. Apple has already all but confirmed AirTag’s existence, as it even accidentally published references to its lost-item tracker in an official support video at one point. Leaked images of the AirTags also began to circulate this week, adding fuel to these reports of a “soon-ish” AirTags launch.
> A UWB-powered tracker could help allow Tile to maintain its position in the market. Tile, as of last year, had sold 26 million Tile devices, and was locating around six million items per day across 195 countries. Tile’s website now says its devices reach over 230 countries and territories. With this scale, Tile today leads the market. But Apple’s AirTags could have a first-party advantage with deep integrations into its “Find My” app — a concern that was brought up by Tile in last year’s antitrust hearings in reference to how Apple wields its platform and market power to overrun competitive businesses.
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I would like to see an integration similar to how mail and homekit work for the Find My : Devices. Enter in the server and account info and be able to get the location of a device registered to that service. Note that that has all sorts of privacy issues if not properly designed.
However, such integration would also eliminate the moat that tile perceives that it has for its product and the differentiation for it.
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10165/ appears to suggest differently.
It isn't something that any device can do by default. For example, Samsung integrated it into their Smart Tags ( https://www.androidpolice.com/samsung-smarttag-2-uwb/ )
But even the weather app triggers that same location pop up.
Someone other than Apple tracking you, however, is notable, and so people (at least I) would always want to know if someone other than Apple is tracking me via software operating on the device.
The point is Apple as a platform provider made something (location without warning) on the platform available to themselves as a platform user (Airtags), that they didn't make available to other platform users who are their competitors (Tile).
One might retort "Fine, but then granting that permission once is enough." Apparently, that is only true sometimes, and only for Apple.
This is clearly Apple apps being treated differently.
The whole point of the notification is to notify you when an entity is tracking you. If you already know Apple is tracking you, then it does not make a difference if Apple's App A or App B or App C is tracking you, it is all Apple.
For me it makes no sense to make it only about the entity. It's like saying "the US government is tracking you", instead of saying "the US government is tracking you through this app right now"
- I’ve had employers that require a confirmation step from an app as a form of 2FA. If my phone isn’t awake, the notification comes to my watch and I can approve my login from my wrist
- If some action requires typing on my watch, I get a prompt on my iPhone to do the typing there instead of on the tiny watch keyboard. The characters I type via the phone appear in real time on the watch as if I were typing directly
- Dismissing and snoozing notifications syncs so I don’t have to dismiss and snooze notifications on multiple devices
- Similarly, if I set an alarm on my phone, the alarm will ring on my phone and, if I’m wearing it, vibrate my watch without further setup. Again, actions I perform to that alarm can all be performed on the watch or phone.
I’d guess these are all tiny, tiny quality of life features, but I’d be very surprised if other non-Apple watches have the ability to implement them.
Maybe the Apple Watch is not the best fitness tracker watch but it’s plenty good for me and it’s health integration is pretty good especially with the ultra.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/sync-across-your-dev... and https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2023/04/26/phone...
I assume that this functionality is available to other devices too.
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2023/04/26/phone...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/sync-across-your-dev...
> Read and reply to messages with ease, make and receive calls, and manage your device’s notifications right on your PC (1) (2)
> 1 Messaging feature is limited by iOS. Image/video sharing and group messaging is not supported. Messages are session based and will only come through when phone is connected to PC.
> 2 Phone Link for iOS requires iPhone with iOS 14 or higher, Windows 11 device, Bluetooth connection and the latest version of the Phone Link app. Not available for iPad (iPadOS) or MacOS. Device compatibility may vary. Regional restrictions may apply. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
When a phone call comes in, or I get a notification (text, calendar, app notification etc) - my Apple Watch does a really good job of (quite often) giving me enough info from my wrist that I don't need to pull my phone out of my pocket.
Garmin watches have some of this integration (IIRC you can definitely get texts, I don't remember what else) - but certainly not all of it. I haven't tried smartwatches from other manufacturers.
On Android you could pick a pre-written reply to texts or even dictate a response.
On iOS you couldn't do anything but close the notification.
Totally different markets. The lack of sensor compatibility and lack of battery life make the Apple Watch a non-starter for a lot of the really serious fitness/sports use cases.
It’s a different business model.
The Apple Watch itself has WiFi and optionally LTE. It does like to boost off an iPhone’s Bluetooth and let the iPhone do the heavy lifting, but it isn’t required to connect to the Internet and honestly works better when it does (at the cost of battery life). So yeah, more or less, but you still need the Watch paired to an iPhone (because it is an iPhone accessory at its core), and the data is going to be logged to the Health app, and the relevant data (heart rate, workout time, whatever else gets logged for the workout) can be made available to an ecosystem of independent hardware and services. The weight my scale logs for example gets tracked by the vendor service, the Health app, and my food tracker via the Health app.
Either way, Fitness+ is a premium service, not a feature of the iPhone. That it requires specific hardware doesn’t make it particularly special in this regard either.
To buy them in the first place, for many consumers. Which is exactly what apple had hoped to achieve.
The two main differences are notifications filtering (choosing which apps can send notifications to the watch) and actioning notifications from the watch.
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=TLeDN92ZU0AgN4df6HakwA...
IIRC, when the Fossil hybrid smartwatches first launched, this capability was not enabled, and they got a lot of feedback on it. By the time I tried one a few months later, the capability was live.
It looks like on Garmin you can only roughly affect which apps send notifications through via the "notification center" designation. If you otherwise don't care about the notification center (I don't), then it's a decent way to filter. But if you otherwise would care about what's in your notification center, then it's not great.
I wonder if Garmin thought they were helping people by mirroring the notification center preferences? If so, they should have let people choose between "use my notification center preferences" and "I'll choose my own apps".
It’s pretty obvious what Apple’s argument would be for why third party smartwatches can’t access the notification settings of all apps - security. It’s totally feasible for them have iOS manage those notification settings and send the desired notifications to the smartwatch. They just don’t because… why would they? It makes the Apple Watch enticing. I love my Forerunner enough that this only slightly annoys me.
Both the notification center workaround Garmin created and the “wait for a notification from the app before you can start filtering them” workaround suck. Apple should be providing the APIs to implement the same notification options on a third party smartwatch.
Similarly, if the notification has a "Reply" option (say a Slack message), can you reply on your watch? Very useful when I get a work message when I'm walking the dog.
As I mentioned in another comment, the inability to reply from third party watches is a bummer.
Sending messages from watch for example. Apple only allows that for Apple watches
Both Garmin and Tile work flawlessly on my Android devices. I've tried to help my wife add them to her iPhone and it's just not worked right, it's a fight to keep things connected and the Tile app only works when it's open and you can't reply to messages from the Garmin and on and on.
I appreciate the efforts to protect privacy and battery life, I can certainly imagine a different Bluetooth device than the Garmin with a worse app that would use the permissions granted it for nefarious purposes, or a worse tracker than the Tile that would wear down battery life with poorly-coded constant background activity, but Apple are clearly also acting in their own selfish interests.
The Garmin sadly misses out on notification filtering, focus modes, replies, solid Bluetooth (it drops out from time to time and the app needs reopening).
I've noticed this with wireless bluetooth headphone pairing. Sometimes it works, othertimes there are odd limitations and devices unpair randomly.
Also Samsung's Adaptive Fast Charging sends lower wattage through the cable if it detects a non-Samsung device. So Apple is not the only offender here.
I bought an Apple Watch and it was so fiddly and always trying to get my attention to the point I returned it.
Apple block Garmin watches from replying to text messages as they do on Android for example.
Only Apple Watches are allowed to do that.
I also note that iOS regularly tries to nag me into blocking Garmin Connect from sending notifications to my watch.
Ostensibly that’s to preserve battery life but they don’t do that for their own watches either.
Airpods and other bluetooth Apple devices seamlessly sync with iPhones because of a wireless protocol they use that is only available on Apple devices. I forget what it's called, but this definitely limits connectivity of devices that aren't made by Apple.
Not sure I buy this point. Competitors can also offer their own suite of apps. Apple has an advantage that they can come pre-installed. But they aren't really building super-apps, just a variety of default apps - nothing stops third parties from offering multiple apps on the platform, that is actually a common thing to do.
Not only that, apparently updates automatically push their apps on you as well, without even asking. Suddenly I had a "Journal" app added to my homescreen from nowhere, and I thought my device had been hacked before I realized what was going on.
Apple also have the advantage of not having to follow their own rules. Their apps can send notifications without asking for permission about it. "Journal" again is an example here where the app sent me a notification and after going to the app, then they asked me for permission to send notifications.
The exceptions are: SMS, Settings, and the Phone app for the numbers tied to your SIMs (there’s still a billion VoIP options including extra lines from carriers like T-Mobile’s Digits) and probably a couple others I’m forgetting. I think the Clock app has a couple of privileges not available to 3rd parties actually.
You can use a 3rd party browser, but that browser will use the version of WebKit that comes with the operating system (except soon, in the EU, whenever 3rd party browsers with their own rendering engines ship there).
* no alternative browser engines
* no alternative wallet apps
* no alternative app stores (specifically so Apple can capture a % of sales)
* no software streaming
* no super apps
* Apple-only special SMS features
* Apple hardware (watches) get special access to iPhone hardware
that stuff adds up
So, something like WebUSB comes out? Gotta wait for Apple to implement it, and also for your customers to upgrade their devices.
On Android, I can install firefox-for-android and run ublock origin to no longer see ads on websites.
On iOS, that's not possible. Apple prevents mozilla from shipping a browser capable of running firefox addons.
This is a case where Apple's policies are hampering security since, well, blocking ads on the web is the thing has had the single largest positive impact on security for my elderly relatives. Giving them ublock origin stopped them from clicking on a ridiculous number of scammy ads and popups.
I also want alternate web tech, WebAssembly, Javascript implementations.
And as a developer, to be able to create tools that use the memory allocation/permissions API for JIT compilation.
That's probably the biggest reason I think that Society (with a capital S) should rein in Apple a bit. They have a lot of power and money over the consumer, but on top of that they have no obligation to provide transparency and truthfulness. Given how dependent people are on their phones, I think it's perfectly fair for the state to step in and say that the power imbalance between consumers and Apple should be equalized a bit.
I think there are technical limitations when you have different apps vs. one app. Simples being you need to log in to multiple different apps, but things like data moving between them etc are also complications.
I don't think this is actually true. Specifically, once I've logged into one Google app (like Gmail), others automatically pick up the user (like Calendar), so it seems to at least be technically possible.
E.g. if I'm logged into Google Spreadsheets, am I also logged into Google Docs automatically?
Note that the Android equivalent (custom launchers) doesn't need to, and iOS's implementation (Springboard.app), while more integrated than that, is still more modular than you describe. It's only App Store restrictions that prevent you from having an app that opens other apps. (If all apps cooperate, you can use the custom URL handler mechanism to work around the App Store restrictions.)
Even if you argue that for example a phone and messaging app should/must be preinstalled on a phone, Apple could allow competing apps for that, and uninstalling or disabling the preinstalled one. Then it would be much harder to argue for that they are unfairly competing in the platform they provide.
Courts are used to arguing over problems where there are no hard lines, I don't think they take "there's no hard line" as an excuse to do nothing to enable competition.
No it wouldn't, because you could argue that they should allow competing OSes on their hardware platform.
> I don't think they take "there's no hard line" as an excuse to do nothing to enable competition.
I'm not saying they should. You're not responding to what I said. They didn't need to enable apps at all. They did, and allow things like Whatsapp to compete with their phone and messaging apps. They've enabled competition. Courts don't do anything like that.
I've designed several apps (Fitstar, Fitbit, theSkimm) that were dependent on the Apple ecosystem. While it's a huge tax to comply with their rules, they also do a TON to help developers succeed, especially early on. They maintain components, provide developer tools, build entire languages, design new paradigms, and ensure quality. I've had a respect for the tax on a service they provide to both developers and end users. At this point though - they're acting as a monopoly, and it feels anti-competitive.
It's not just the developer tax that's a problem. Hiding behind a veil of privacy also doesn't forgive the introduction of "dark pattern" end user experiences - such as the inability to have a group chat with non Apple users. And no non-Apple share links on Apple Photo albums. These create digital "haves" vs "have-nots" - and not everyone in the world can afford to buy physical Apple devices. There must be protocols that allow information to be more interoperable so people have optionality and control over their digital identities.
While we never want to compete with core Apple apps, we're constantly having to say 'sorry that's the restrictions running on Apple' with background support.
(our usecase is we have a B2B app that has visual progress reports - so we'll have the same people on a team - the Android ones get their progress reports uploaded instantly, the iOS ones 'sorry keep your phone open'.)
2. I was able to use PS Remote Play on my iPhone even many years ago (pre-COVID). A quick google search shows that Steam Link and Shadow PC (my ATF) are also available on iOS. I'm on Apple's side here too
3. I think the situation has recently changed here as someone else has commented, so this feels solvable without a lawsuit. Also it's hard to single out Apple here when everyone out there has their own messaging platforms. It's not like WhatsApp is encouraging third-party clients. An argument can be made that iMessage blurs the line between what's Apple-provided vs. carrier-provided, so I can see the user confusion and the issues that come with it. I'm on the FTC's side here
4. Who cares about smartwatches. It's niche at best. Besides, there are countless other watches you can use and they work with many devices. I'm on Apple's side here
5. It's not like you can't tap your card instead of your phone. I don't think the phone needs to be just a husk with apps created by third parties, especially for things like wallets. I'm happy to trade away that freedom for increased security, Benjamin Franklin's quote notwithstanding. The payments ecosystem is made up of players charging fees from the next player down the chain, so also hard to single out Apple here, but I can see why there's need for increased transparency (I wasn't explicitly aware they charged any fees, even if I would probably guess they were if prompted). I'm on neither side here.
So based on my biases and incomplete understanding of the facts, Apple wins 3-1
It's worth remembering that this administration is suing seemingly everyone in Tech, in what I can only assume is being done in the hopes they can make a name for themselves. Lena Khan literally said "you miss all the shots you don't take".
I would prefer a more focused approach with higher signal to noise ratio.
2) This is about cloud gaming, when you're streaming the game from hardware in the cloud, like Xbox Game Pass. Streaming the game from your own hardware isn't as competitive to Apple since it requires you buy a $500 console or gaming PC.
3) The biggest issue was Apple not implementing RCS and defaulting every iOS user to iMessage, which has created a two-tier messaging system, friends getting locked out of chat groups, etc simply because Apple doesn't want to use the standard.
4) "Who cares" is not a valid argument in using your dominance in one market to dominate another, which is textbook anticompetitive behavior. They also do this with AirTags, Airpods, any accessory where the Apple product gets to use integrations with the OS and third-parties are forbidden from doing so.
5) Tapping your phone is more secure because the card number is randomized and single-use, protecting it from replay attacks.
a) Users may reload HNPay balance by credit card, debit, or bank transfer, through in-app browser.
b) Users may use "send money" button to create some special chat message or link, which will be intercepted at server side, to send HNPay balance to a HNPay address/user ID.
c) (Deprecated)The user may scan QR code on a fading sticker at storefront that does the same as above.
d) The user may also use "show QR code" button, have the other user/store machine scan the code, which allows the other user/store computer to do b) with a negative amount for withdrawal.
e) The HNPay balance can be refunded to bank accounts if needed.
I'm sure people here can come up with half a dozen applicable financial regulations, restrictions imposed by banks and payment processors, cybersecurity attack vectors and massive lawsuit potentials for each of above, plus perhaps couples of solvable App Store guideline difficulties across a)-e). I think those would be problems towards realizing Facebook Messenger pay or TwitterPay, not App Store special treatment that only applies to China. Not many of them, if any, use NFC and secure element hardware in iOS devices like the point 5. misleads.
Re: #2 FWIW Shadow PC doesn't require a PC. You get a virtual one for like $20-50 / month depending on the level of virtual PC you'd like.
And Microsoft Cloud Gaming is still in beta. Why would Apple even need to consider supporting it?
That would be true, if Apple couldn't literally write any TOS they want that allows other App stores or billing methods and then add "but you can't include tracking that invades our users privacy or resell their data".
That's just as enforceable on their end, and not anti-competitive, assuming Apple themselves don't launch their own ad platform and tracking...
Who else is going to care about privacy though?
For the payment situation for example, Apple Pay (and Google Pay) use EMV Tokenization so that your actual credit card number is obfuscated:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pay#Technology
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pay_(payment_method)#Te...
Credit card numbers are used by retailers to data mine their customers:
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
As does Samsung Pay. As could any number of tap to pay providers, if Apple would let them on iOS.
Here’s another example: Facebook knows exactly the 100 people they show my ads but not giving me their full name, relationship status, list of friends, their gender, sexual orientation, etc.
But does Apple have access to things? Or do they (sometimes?) design things so that even they don't have the information?
A lot of the time they do things 'on device'.
My general worry is that the entire discussion is shifting “from what’s good for the customer to this other company cannot do something shady because you protect the customer”.
Does Apple enjoy this gatekeeping practice? Of course they do, but so does Google with Android and they abuse the crap out of it.
Every single group chat that I use on a day-to-day basis has a non iPhone participant. The biggest argument against the way apple treats SMS vs iMessage I see is people feel ostracized for having green bubbles. I just don't understand why this rises to anti-trust.
From the iphone side, there has to be something, because my family keeps 2 group chats. One with android users and one without. Someone when using an iphone is annoying when group texting android users.
Apple supports the video standards that were available via MMS/SMS when iMessage rolled out, the higher res videos only available in the first place because Apple added it via iMessage. The newer 'standard' was a Google dominated way of trying to make inroads on Apple's superior implementation and in most of the world, Messages isn't even the top Messaging app.
Now that Apple has announced support for RCS incoming, even including messaging in the suit doesn't make sense in the slightest.
iMessage replaced iChat, which was an XMPP client. XMPP supported high-res videos in 2011. (I'm pretty sure it supported them in 2004.)
The RCS standard was is just about as old as the iPhone and older than iMessage. Google began supporting and pushing the standard forward in a way that benefits everyone. Apple could have done the same, or made iMessage an open protocal or any of a number of things. Instead Apple has consistently chosen to go the anti-competitive route.
> Apple's superior implementation
It was 'superior' in some ways inferior in other ways, such as communicating with people without an iphone. iMessage isn't particularly better than any other messaging app, but the benefits of user lock-in, and being the default, replaceable sms app. These anti-competitive behaviors do clearly harm users.
> Now that Apple has announced support for RCS incoming
Perhaps once the support actually lands you'll have more of a point. However, I expect half-assed support and the bare minimum given Apple's previous reluctance.
But Apple's customer is also affected, in two ways:
1. I then have to text the person back, asking them to re-send the video using another chat app, or emailing a link, or something like that. That's annoying for the iPhone user.
2. In the other direction, if I didn't know better, and I tried to send a video to the iPhone user, it would end up looking like crap for them. That's not a good experience for the Apple customer.
> The newer 'standard' was a Google dominated way of trying to make inroads...
Not sure why "standard" is in scare quotes; it's an actual standard, whereas iMessage is just some proprietary thing Apple made. And it's not newer: RCS is from 2008, which is older than iMessage, and almost as old as the iPhone itself. Likely work on the standard started before the iPhone's release.
> ... on Apple's superior implementation
This is of course a matter of opinion, but to me, any protocol that is locked down, with the owners refusing to enable interoperability, is by definition inferior, regardless of its other merits.
> Apple has announced support for RCS incoming
And we'll see how that goes. If Apple works with Google to enable full interoperability, including E2EE, I'll be pleased. Anything less, though, and it'll feel like Apple is just doing the bare minimum to try to avoid regulatory action. It also remains to be seen as to how much Google cooperates in the other direction. The RCS E2EE stuff is a proprietary Google extension; hopefully that gets made into a public standard as well.
The bottom line, though, is that Apple doesn't interoperate until they believe that they're going to be legally forced to. At least if they get in ahead of the regulatory action, they can do their implementation more or less on their own terms. It's a smart move, but IMO is also scummy.
The thing that has always baffled me about Apple keeping iMessage iOS-only, and not supporting RCS, is that they've been hurting their own customers with this stance too. Plenty of iPhone users live with a degraded, less-private experience wen communicating with non-iPhone users, or have to remember to use a different chat app when conversing with certain contacts. This makes a lot of Apple's rhetoric (in general, not just regarding messaging) about protecting user privacy feel a bit hollow at times. Clearly their primary motivation for the privacy stance isn't to protect users, it's because they believe it gives them a competitive advantage.
Yes, but my mother, who wants to text a video to her sons to share a moment from her day, is, and Apple prevents her from doing that. There is no way to spin this as anything but Apple being openly user hostile to anyone who wants to communicate with an android user.
("She can just-" No, she cannot "just". My mother is in her 60s, and she shouldn't have to learn a workaround to use a basic feature of her phone that just works on android.)
or so the argument goes
It's pretty awful lol. You can say "it's the carriers" but if you make something that relies on some other people who won't do it right, you haven't made something good, you've made something where you can blame other people for it not being good.
FB Messenger is better and I try to use it over texting whenever I can (in part because I don't need my phone at all to use it)
Since it's a global switch, I've had to turn it off...
Excellent point. This is a large part of why I don't agree with iMessage "exclusion" somehow rising to the level of antitrust.
iMessage doesn't make Android texting worse, it just reveals how bad it already is.
_cloud_ streaming where the game is running a ms/sony owned server is only available in a browser.
i don’t know about the sony side of things, but apple rejected ms’s native cloud streaming app.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/
Luna can only support iOS by using Safari, for example.
As far as I'm concerned Microsoft cloud gaming is like a 1.0 version and works fine on Windows and Android. I had no idea it was a beta product until just now.
Never heard this argument, could you name an example of this? I figured the reason for the ban was that it would sidestep most of the Apple software that comes with an iPhone, which Apple obviously wouldn't want since they would prefer to lock users in.
219.43 million people use smartwatches
If this was such an insignificant niche, Apple Watch wouldn't even exist, would it?
>The global smartwatch adoption rate has reached an impressive 21.7% of the adult population
...
>The adoption rate of smartwatches is expected to continue growing, with industry projections suggesting that it will surpass 25% of the adult population shortly.
I don't believe a fifth or a quarter of the adult population could rationally be called 'niche'.
And you think Apple had no role to play in this by making most of them useless on their devices?
Have you used one? Which one?
The first is their attempt to redefine what the market is in order to declare Apple a "monopoly": they've posited a completely separate market for "performance smartphones", and tried to use total revenue rather than number of units sold in order to push Apple up to having a very high percentage of this invented market.
The second is their characterization of how Apple got to where they are. Like them or not, you have to be seriously down a conspiracy rabbit hole to believe that the iPhone became as popular as it is primarily through anticompetitive tactics, rather than because it's a very good product that lots and lots of people like. Regardless of whether you, personally, find that value proposition to be compelling.
They also point at some of Apple's offerings and make absolutely absurd claims about how they're anticompetitive—for instance, that they're going to somehow take over the auto market with CarPlay 2.0 and the fact that AppleTV+ exercises control over the content it serves.
There are some things Apple does that are genuinely concerning and deserve more antitrust scrutiny (for instance, their anti-steering provisions for the App Store are pretty egregious), but so far as I can tell, they're not even mentioned in this suit. I'm frankly disappointed in the DoJ for how they've put this together, and would have loved to see something that was narrower and much more robust.
This comes across as very strange, they must not have much confidence in their ability to prove that Apple holds monopoly power in the overall smartphone market. I suspect if they lose this case it's going to be because the court rejects such an intentionally narrowed market definition.
The Justice Department, 16 US states, and the District of Columbia, among others. Anti-trust violations are crimes.
Of all the points in your low-effort manifesto I find this the most absurd. Even if you don't see any merit in the case, you must admit that it's likely that the DoJ does.
I strongly believe Apple is under no obligation to make iMessage cross-platform. It's their service they invented, and they get to run it how they chose. SMS is the interoperable standard between different platforms, and RCS is the new standard which they've comitted to supporting.
I would much rather action taken on Apple for the anti-steering provisions restricting competition for payments. I think this has had a much bigger market impact than limitations on game streaming or smart watches.
In the consumer's eye, all phones can text, so it is a universal way to reach someone who has a phone number. It removes the complexity of having to coordinate ahead of time with a contact about what messaging service they both have. It's why texting is so popular in the US (along with historical actions by US carriers to make texting extremely cheap and ultimately free)
Once they had this control, they then used it to make texting better only when the conversation participants each had iPhones, which produced a network effect where friends would be incentivized to pressure their contacts to also use iPhones. Apple leveraged convenience, features and security to make this happen.
I don't anticipate Apple's upcoming RCS support to materially change this. If we're lucky, we'll get higher quality pictures out of it, but it's possible to support RCS while not supporting a lot of the features that make RCS better than SMS, such as read receipts, replies, typing indicators, and yes, encryption. Encryption is not a standard part of RCS yet, but it could be made so by Apple forcing Google to standardize their encryption and then implementing it. But it's not in Apple's interest given the above to bother. More likely they will do as their initial complaint/announcement about RCS hinted at: Not even engage on encryption because it's "not part of the spec", leaving iPhone/Android messaging unencrypted.
Google is not blameless here, it's insane that they haven't worked themselves to standardize encryption.
It's not solely about iMessage not being open, it's about reserving key features for only iMessage to give it a significant advantage. (Also mentioned are other key bits like running in the background, etc)
So if it were up to you all telecom operators would be on separate networks, because you can always use smoke signals to get your message across?
(I'm with you for niche applications where the number of users is small. But we're talking mainstream communication here.)
What i meant to say in my original comment - it’s not Apple’s fault SMS sucks and people don’t want to use it.
It is clear that Apple considers iMessage a significant network effect and is not interested in having feature parity between iOS and non-iOS
That argument only works until there is market dominance, which is the point of anti-trust regulations.
Microsoft, by comparison, OWNED desktop computing in the 90s. Apple was on the ropes badly, and Linux wasn't viable for most people. And they used that dominance to attempt to strangle the open web in its crib. People literally had no where else to go.
Apple has nothing like that control today. Android enjoys a healthy chunk of the market. A host of other messaging tools exist if you don't like iMessage. You can avoid using Apple's tech at every turn if you like (and I know many people who do, as a matter of personal policy).
This is not a situation that warrants governmental intervention. This is a situation where the government is overreaching, and if they succeed the precedent will be set that Washington gets to decide what features a vendor can control on their own platforms. That's not a good place to be.
I agree that the government has a weak case - but they can make their case in the court of law. And to another degree in the court of public opinion.
There is a case to be made for constraining the dominant consumer tech company. Consider this hypothetical scenario. A tech company has a one year lead over their competitors because their hardware and software is objectively one year ahead. And let's project that every year that lead grows by a couple months. I assume that all would agree that this is a huge threat.
What government oversight and intervention is warranted to address this threat?
In my opinion, all the reasons that the government gave to call Apple a monopoly are just weak rationalizations they've come up with that still hold enough legal validity, and allow them (them being the powers that be who perceive the real long-term threat) to start slowing Apple down.
I do not. I do not think most people would agree with that. A lead in one area is historically difficult to sustain and extend into another. When attempts have been made that could have been successful, they were made on the back of actual market-controlling dominance, which Apple manifestly and obviously does not have here.
So was the Bell telephone network.
One test, though, would be to look at customizability of Mac OS vs iOS. They claim to be securing both. Can we run custom apps easily on Mac OS, script it, get full access to our files, etc? If so, why would they restrict the iPhones from doing those things, but leave Macs wide open, if it was merely a security issue?
Another example might be remote, access tools. Aka remote control of iPhones. If App Store has any, then they’d put iPhones at much higher risk than users running their own code on their own devices. Even with a review given that a RAT might have a zero day that gives attackers full control. If they restrict user freedom, but allow RAT’s, that would be another hint that they restrict user freedom for anti-competitive reasons.
I don’t have Mac OS, though. It might be as locked down as the iPhone. That would make my argument useless.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/smartphone-sales-...
> The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/iphone-android-users
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-ma...
What does that have to do with anything? They have a dominant market position and they abuse it. Different position, different rules.
> Also, the Apple Watch itself does not offer compatibility with Android
Will they force Samsung and Google to have their watches interoperate with iOS too, or are they exempt because they are bit players in the field?
> Apple’s smartwatch—Apple Watch—is only compatible with the iPhone. So, if Apple can steer a user towards buying an Apple Watch, it becomes more costly for that user to purchase a different kind of smartphone because doing so requires the user to abandon their costly Apple Watch and purchase a new, Android-compatible smartwatch.
I gotta admit that it would have been pretty nice to not have been forced to buy a new smartwatch, and just use the one I already had. I love the Garmin Instinct, more than I liked the Apple Watch [2], it's a very good, well-made product, and I'm happy that it appears to work fine on iOS and Android, but I really didn't need another watch. If there hadn't been an artificial limitation forcing me to get another watch, I would probably still be using the Apple Watch.
[1] I don't have that phone anymore because the Pixel 7 Pro is a horrible product that Google should be ashamed of themselves over.
[2] In no small part because the battery is like 16 days instead of the 1.5 days I was getting with the Apple Watch.
This is the reason I am now on an iPhone after being on Android since ~2009. But this could also apply to Samsung too. There were two watches I was considering - Samsung's and Apple's (for health monitoring reasons, I have a family history of heart problems, and am already nearly 10 years older than my dad was when he died). I would either have to buy a Samsung phone or an iPhone to get the functionality I wanted, and TBH I really don't like Samsung's take on Android (I've been either Cyanogenmod or Motorola for over a decade), so an iPhone it was. But I would have preferred to get an Apple Watch and have that work fully with my Android phone, but that's not even a starter, let alone the limited-functionality you would get with a Samsung watch with another Android phone.
I'm happy with the watch, and I now like a lot about the iPhone. But it was 4x the price of my previous phone.
The smartwatch point is interesting and not an argument I've seen made before, but it's a very good example of Apple's vendor lock-in.
> The company “undermines” the ability of iPhone users to message with owners of other types of smartphones, like those running the Android operating system, the government said. That divide — epitomized by the green bubbles that show an Android owner’s messages — sent a signal that other smartphones were lower quality than the iPhone, according to the lawsuit.
I read that as 'interop' is a secondary issue, if an issue at all; the actual case is the green/blue segregation. If Apple embedded a fingerprint in every interoperable message and shown blue messages for iMessage-sent content, green background for others, it'd still be a problem even if messages are otherwise identical - unless all the features truly work on both, in which case the color split is purely status signaling.
> “The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage ... iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” was how one unnamed former Apple employee put it in an email in 2016 > “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...
Not getting on board with RCS or any other way to improve SMS/MMS until they were (implicitly) forced was motivated by that desire to lock their users in to a messaging platform that only works on Apple devices.
Except that's not why the blue/green difference was created (at least historically).
It dates back to the time where SMS messages cost money for each one sent (though plans often came with x free messages), so the green message was telling you it was (potentially) costing you money when sending/receiving messages. (US$ = greenbacks -> green = cost)
But perhaps the courts would want to weaken security. It’s definitely a thorn in their side.
If so, I'd almost be thankful to Apple for letting me know who not to bother being friends with.
If someone in my social circle ostracized someone else because of their phone, they (the person doing the ostracizing) wouldn't be in my social circle anymore.
my friend group has a separate group chat for just android users and they get party invites after the main group does.
I have never heard of this actually happening outside of when iPhone is a topic on HN. I don't really have other social media, so that might be a part of it. But in real life? Never once experienced this, or even know someone who has.
my friend group has a separate group chat for just android users and they get party invites after the main group does.
This makes no sense to me. You exclude some portion of your friends because your text bubble is green instead of blue? Why?
Imagine in 2010 you meet a potential romantic partner and they say, "Hey! Add me on Facebook!" And you reply, "Oh, I'm not on Facebook... can we just talk on the phone instead?" The person may go, "Oh, umm... sure, I guess." But then you never connect because you haven't made it as easy as possible; you've introduced a tiny amount of friction that a lot of people are just not willing to tolerate. If everyone else is on Facebook, why aren't you?
In real life, it creates so much friction that yes, there is pressure to buy an iPhone and change your entire software ecosystem just to fit in and remove this barrier to relationships. It's just text messaging; it's ancient technology at this point and no company should have a monopoly on it in any form. At a minimum they should let other operating systems download iMessage—show them ads, charge a fee, I don't know. But creating a hardware-enforced wall around basic telecommunication is wrong.
I do not understand how the color of a chat bubble creates friction. I text Android friends the same way I text iPhone friends. We exchange phone numbers, then we text each other.
This is beyond ridiculous. All of my group chats that need to be cross-platform just move to Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp
Eye to eye encryption?
Remove the color from the equation entirely, and what do you think would happen when someone without an iPhone joins a group chat? Do you think everyone would ignore the change completely, even though it would mean they'd lose all the iMessage features that SMS/MMS group texts lack? Or do you think they'd just be more frustrated about it because it's harder to tell when it's happening, but treat people the same?
Do you really think it has anything to do with the color of the bubbles, rather than the fact that SMS's featureset is much smaller than iMessage's?
I'm not going to try to deny that there are some people who a) would shun (ex?)friends for using an Android phone, and b) continue to shun them even once the actual reason for that goes away, because Lord there are some petty, shallow people in the world.
I am going to say that I don't think it's Apple's or the government's business to try to fix that problem. If the government wants to force Apple to open up iMessage in some fashion, I think that's potentially reasonable, but holding Apple responsible for the cruelty and cliquishness of what must be a tiny subset of its users is just absurd.
Intent (often?) matters:
The green bubbles came first.
iMessage didn't even exist for the first few years of the iPhone's life. All messages were green. Green could not have been chosen to indicate it cost money, because there was nothing to distinguish it from.
Then, in 2011 (IIRC), iMessage was introduced, and the blue bubbles were to indicate both that it doesn't cost money, and that it supports several other capabilities (which have changed over the years—IIRC, it did not start out with end-to-end encryption, so the people boldly asserting that that's the primary reason for the distinction are also wrong).
The green/blue bubble thing is irrelevant. It reflects a fundamental reality of the platform technology.
Short version: SMS has been green since the first iPhone, blue iMessage was added later. Green was not invented to "punish the poors"
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...
No, but blue was only given to the first class citizens.
The other points seem much more specific and actionable.
Imagine the extreme end result of this: You buy a phone, and it’s OS comes with only one app installed: The Super App which you launch and do everything through it. How is that Super App not in fact the OS at that point?
The answer is clearly yes in a lot of markets, even if purpose-built apps might be better at a specific tasks, a single app that does dozens of things "well enough" is more convenient than having to juggle dozens of login infos and para-relationships with app developers (managing graymail etc).
I love the current US government. Cracking down on pretty much all of Apples bullshit in one fell-swoop. Now just stop them from offering 8gb of ram on the base model macbooks, and apple might be the perfect tech company.
Because the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of Epic v. Apple, even the exact same legal question with the exact same fact pattern would only be bound by that decision if it was (1) between the same parties (res judicata), or (2) in a district court under the Ninth Circuit.
Since US v. Apple is filed in the District of New Jersey, which is under the Third Circuit, the decision in Epic v. Apple is, at best, persuasive precedent, not binding precedent.
Simply asserting that doesn't make it true. Even if the app-store related claims in US v. Apple were identical, legally and in alleged facts, to those in Epic v. Apple, the ruling in the latter is not binding precedent for the former because Circuit Court decisions don't bind Districts in other Circuits. And, they aren't identical, anyway.
> Not to mention, several companies have some version of this, including game consoles.
So what? “Other companies do similar things” is not an argument against it being part of an illegal monopolization scheme when others do it. Like browser/OS bundling with Internet Explorer, its not the act in isolation, but its function in context and in conjunction with other business practices that is at issue.
Its not a question of whether an app store fee is on its face illegal, its a question of whwther Apple’s app store fee is part of a broader anticompetitive effort to defend and extend monopoly intthe smartphone and/or performance smartphone markets.
Why is any of this a problem when consumers who find all that too constraining can just use Android?
(I submit they aren't anti-consumer; they're ecosystem control and some consumers find that to be a feature. I know I feel safer recommending my grandma an iPhone because scammers won't trick her into side-loading a root kit into it or loading some fake banking app that she pays money into that just disappears).
Maybe they should be required to license the tech, if they are not already. But I don't want to degrade my experience just because that's the only way to have a level playing field. Maybe the BT standards group could get off their ass and make the underlying protocol better.
Re: Bluetooth being better than you portray: Don't get me wrong, you can certainly run into problems, but in normal usage it works just fine. And Apple isn't fundamentally improving on the potential issues with their proprietary solutions.
[0] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-keys-mi...
There are also some BT limitations at play. Key rollover is capped, and mouse polling rate is lower. But that'd only matter to me if I were playing PC games. Ability to switch devices is a plus for BT.
I emphatically disagree. Not in my experience at all. Nearly every single time I use Bluetooth it is a dance of connecting, forgetting, re-pairing, reconnecting, looking for old connected devices to shut them off, etc. Half the time I give up and don't use it. This happens to any combination of Bluetooth devices I have, at all locations, in any situation.
I'd put my money on buying cheap devices and painting your experience with them in broad strokes on the technology as a whole. After all, if you have no faith in the tech, why spend money on a good experience? After all, why would $5 earbuds from Walmart have a different experience to a quality pair of headphones for a few hundred dollars to pair with your nearly thousand dollar smartphone?
I don't mean to gatekeep good Bluetooth, because try as I might I can't get my mom to stop getting her own and let me buy the expensive stuff for her, but she still manages to reliably get her Bluetooth paired, connected and working at the start of the phone call whenever I call her despite using budget headphones.
She does have a Pixel though. But it's just the budget one.
And then..
> The kind of things that are added on top with Apple's solution are things like fast pairing and instant device switching.
So I guess you admit they add improvements.
It's not part of AOSP, but something modern Google phones support. It's not a fully open thing - device makers must register with Google - but better than the iPhone situation where only Apple devices can have a nice pairing experience.
Is this a new thing? I haven't used this in a while, but the lightning dongle used to work fine with my headphones+mic (also intended for Apple's headphone jack). I know there's some difference in how the headphone connector is set up between Apple and everyone else though.
I don't really have any strong feelings either way about it. I dropped my phone once, and the dongle took the brunt of it (saving the expensive stuff) but I did have to buy another.
Saying Bluetooth itself is unreliable is an outdated view. There are shitty Bluetooth devices yes, but the protocol works fine when paired with good devices
By the way, it's so bad that I don't use headphones anymore with the iPhone. I use the phone in speaker mode. And the only reason I even have a new iPhone is because AT&T dropped support for my old one.
My AirPods frequently hop between my MacBook and iPhone without asking though, because the other device played a split second audio clip.
Strong YMMV I guess.
There are corner cases that cause annoyance, and those corner cases are indeed around where Apple is adding on top of Bluetooth: The ability to instantly switch the connected device without needing to disconnect from a previous device, and the ability to pair just by having the devices close. Those features are replicated in the Android ecosystem but are not standard.
If those two features are what you mean by "sucks" then fine. But that doesn't imply that Bluetooth doesnt work reliably, just that it doesn't have these two features broadly supported.
A difference here is that fast pairing and device switching on Android, while not a standard part of the protocol, is open for device manufacturers to support, unlike Apple's versions of these features.
Probably doesn't happen for everyone, otherwise it'd be fixed. But that's how it always is with overly complicated stuff, edge cases everywhere.
Earphone quality drops to something awful whenever the mic is in use. That's just cause of the BT standard. This gets more complicated with multiple devices involved.
I'll be listening to music on my work laptop with my headphones, my iPhone will get a call, it'll switch to the iPhone to play a ringtone in my ears, then when I accept the call it'll switch to the iPhone's earpiece instead of my headphones.
Then some unpredictable things. Like it gets stuck connected to the wrong device, or it starts playing music when I turn them on, or it won't connect even with a device it should remember.
I don't fault Bose for any of this. These are the most reliable BT headphones I've ever owned. The standard just sucks.
That being said, they absolutely excel at noise cancellation, and that's because their core market is airmen, Bose is used almost universally by pilots for their in-flight headsets. It's where they make their actual money.
They don't have much of an engineering org anymore, they're just a marketing brand that white boxes contracted out designs.
I wonder if they are using a proprietary configuration API that is deliberately kept secret or if no Android devs have figured out how to reverse engineer it yet (seems very unlikely).
If the likely former, I'd like someone to address this as well as it almost feels like if they're getting into hearing assistance features, then accessibility becomes important.
Not really, I don't particularly have a problem with how Airpods went, except that Apple could have moved to standardize or at least open up fast pairing and instant switching, but they didn't.
In what world?
Innovation comes from many sources and while vertical integration does assist in some cases, your assertion steps so far past plausible that it is simply ridiculous.
Really? That's a bold claim. Having a large number of companies that are able to offer competing products and services tends to lead to innovation.
But I'm doubtful of this, it seems more likely that some Apple users have an outdated view of how reliable standard Bluetooth actually are, even when paired with their iPhones.
The big competitors like Samsung removed the jack too once they started selling their own wireless earbuds. They realized they could use Apple's strategy too.
Does Apple not let others offer a suite of apps?
This is one of my favourite things about iOS vs Android.
If the information isn't just stored on the device then it should work fine, right?
Making it difficult for 3rd party .. sure but trying to force apple to have their hardware work on other platforms is a business decision .
In the IBM case it opened up an entire industry of third party "compatible" peripherals and saved consumers a ton of money.
[1] I had a summer intern position in Field Engineering Services in 1978 and it was what all the FEs were talking about how it was going to "destroy" IBM's field service organization.
Not simply that a company is dominant; it is more about how and why they are dominant.
Update 2:40 pm ET: After some research, the practices below may capture much (though not necessarily all) of what the Department of Justice views unfavorably:
* horizontal agreements between competitors such as price fixing and market allocation
* vertical agreements between firms at different levels of the supply chain such as resale price maintenance and exclusive dealing
* unilateral exclusionary conduct such as predatory pricing, refusal to deal with competitors, and limiting interoperability
* conditional sales practices such as tying and bundling
* monopoly leveraging where a firm uses its dominance in one market to gain an unfair advantage in another
Any of these behaviors undermines the conditions necessary for a competitive market. I'd be happy to have the list above expanded, contracted, or modified. Let me know.
Have you ever dealt with a big government? Then you can imagine, Apple doesn't have as much weight as typical governments but it is close.
First, look at purchasing power of various governments. See https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-purcha....
> Real GDP (purchasing power parity): GDP (purchasing power parity) compares the gross domestic product (GDP) or value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. A nation's GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States.
Second, look at COGS for Apple: "Apple annual cost of goods sold for 2021 was $212.981B" according to https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/cost-go.... COGS is arguably "close enough" to a nation-state's GDP to make for a useful comparison.
Given the above two, if Apple were a country with a GDP matching its COGS, it would rank about 66th, using a mix of 2022/2021 numbers from the sources above:
1 China $24,861B
2 United States $21,132B
3 India $9,279B
4 Japan $5,126B
5 Germany $4,523B
6 Russia $4,027B
7 Indonesia $3,246B
8 United Kingdom $3,136B
9 Brazil $3,128B
10 France $3,048B
11 Turkey $2,817B
12 Italy $2,478B
13 Mexico $2,418B
14 South Korea $2,289B
15 Canada $1,832B
...
36 Switzerland $618B
37 Belgium $600B
38 Sweden $580B
39 Singapore $578B
40 Ireland $516B
...
63 Kenya $251B
64 New Zealand $220B
65 Burma $217B
66 Dominican Republic $207B
67 Angola $204B
68 Kuwait $192B
69 Ecuador $190B
70 Belarus $184B
...
150 Namibia $23.1B
151 Kosovo $21.2B
152 South Sudan $20.0B
153 Iceland $20.0B
154 Somalia $19.4B
...
220 Palau $248M
221 Falkland Islands $206M
222 Anguilla $175M
223 Montserrat $167M
224 Nauru $149M
225 Wallis and Futuna $60M
226 Tuvalu $55.2M
227 Saint Helena... $31.1M
228 Niue $18.7M
229 Tokelau $7.7M
Unless you're the people I've worked for, you would drop everything for the chance to impress Apple.
But my comment did have the false assumption that the contract size would be large.
The reality is (IMHO) running a small contract and running a big one requires different skills sets, procedures in place, etc. Doing well at one will not guarantee doing well at another, and I think they know it.
For millions of people, it's their main/sole computing and internet access device so should be a neutral platform - with clear evidence as cited that Apple has not maintained its neutrality. As a neutral platform, customers should have the freedom to use their devices without undue interference or restrictions from Apple.
These are similar arguments made in the Microsoft vs. Netscape case. The lone example of being unable to install non-App Store apps is enough to justify the DOJ's case. Question is what would the verdict be? Similar to the EU's DMA rules would be a likely starting point.
Extremely authoritarian / communist take.
A $1000 luxury phone is not a "public good" just because many have FOMO and feel like they need one. There are many cheap alternative Androids that are just as good with virtually identical features. Nor is it a device that is absolutely necessary to function in society, like say other real public goods like running water or electricity.
Like it or not, there are different rules for the biggest players who wield market power. If you want an iPhone, then Android is not an alternative option. DOJ's argument is that Apple has added artificial disincentives to enable switching to a non-iPhone and also favor its own apps/services.
This is verbatim the argument against Microsoft and how it was wielding its Windows monopoly to stifle competition like Netscape. Easy to forget that Microsoft had closed APIs for 3rd parties and dictated how OEMs installed its OS before the US government judgement. You could've made the same counterpoint at the time that there's theoretical alternative OSes like Linux and Unix.
that's how you know he's right
What's authoritarian is Apple's lockdown of the iPhone. I should be able to run whatever application I want on my own device. Not the governement telling Apple, "Hey, people should be able to run what they want on their own device".
“Authoritarianism is a _political_ system characterized by the rejection of democracy and political plurality.” - Wikipedia
When a company _sells_ you a device (that you choose to buy or not), it is _not_ about political freedom.
There are countries that are actually authoritarian. Let’s not blur the lines between that and a corporation. I can appreciate the free software movement as well as the right to repair and so on, but let’s keep things in perspective here. There are governments that jail people for dissent.
I’m curious what market opportunities the Apple suit could open up.
- Xbox cloud game streaming
- WeChat like super apps w e-commerce (X wanted to do this play but more likely Facebook Messenger and the like)
- iMessage on android
- a receipt tracking app or something directly tied into Apple Pay tapping
Part of the IBM settlement required them to document interoperability. That was used by the DoJ to force Microsoft to document their CIFS (distributed storage) and Active Directory (naming/policy) protocols.
The latter might be particularly instructive as my experience with CIFS when I worked at NetApp was the different ways that Microsoft worked to be "precisely" within the lines but to work against the intent. Documentation like "this bit of this word must always be '1'" Which as any engineer knows, if it really was always '1' then that bit didn't have to be in the protocol, so what did it do when it wasn't '1'?
As someone who makes apps in the health space, I couldn’t care less if other tracker data was integrated into HealthKit. HealthKit honestly sucks - it's some bastard of objc naming schemes and methods jammed into Swift. The async is horrible to debug, too. No one has a good time in HK.
The issue with other trackers is that they are more locked down than Apple. You can't just get HR from Oura for instance - and that's not a health kit issue either.
Many years ago I knew an ex-microsoft engineer. Microsoft had poor interoperability with something, and I speculated that engineers in microsoft didn't know what 3rd parties were doing and accidentally broke things.
He told me, "don't be naive - microsoft would have meetings saying 'how can we own this?'"
As an example, this was the era of the J2EE App Server. Almost none of the people I worked with knew what an App Server was, despite the #1 database in use by App Server customers being MSFT SQL Server.
Message buses were generally in memory or in process streaming brokers. Most of these have moved externally today via Kafka, RabbitMQ or cloud proprietary versions like SQS. Some people may lean on ZeroMQ to build similar behaviors when doing multiprocessing and some people may even do it in process if they like the api. Definitely very much part of large scale application development today although the terms of art have changed.
Dependency injection is just a fancy name for polymorphism via fields in your struct, although if you have too much exposure to spring you will associate it with that plus an inversion of control on the actual injection part: that is, you will associate it with heavy use of annotations. If you have polymorphism with a switch (or chained ifs) on a parameter, you don't have dependency injection but if you have polymorphism by having different inplementations of a field of your struct then you are doing dependency injection. Very much part of good software design today, the annotation driven wiring possibly not so common outside of Java + Spring.
Sure. I have worked on JVMs before, but not server side, and I never had to touch anything sold by IBM.
> Arguably, CGI servers for php/python etc. were also a type of app server, although I rarely heard them referred to as such.
No, I think there's a difference. The deployment story for PHP was that you copied it to the web server and that was that. The mandatory part was a webserver you had anyway. There is FastCGI, but in PHP's case it can be thought of as purely a cache and is not necessary.
> App servers standardize what it means to start an application which makes operating many applications much easier.
A PHP web app does have some moving parts like needing to start nginx/fastcgi/mysql, so in that sense it still needs a container.
But the difference between the PHP source itself and Java is that PHP is 1. stateless and 2. doesn't take nearly as long to start up.
The first one is the big one and means you don't need to restart anything to update the app. This part of PHP is so well designed it practically makes up for how bad the rest of it is.
The second one was more of a Java flaw; the runtime is undercooked (which is why it had all that other super complex stuff on top of it) and everything has to go on the heap, instead of having more of a concept of constant data that could just be mapped in from the binary/jar file. That's what they got for not adding value types I guess.
Maybe it was a deprecated part of the protocol, and setting it would cause an error or do nothing.
I also recommend a second field called protocol ID which is set to a known random value (your wife's birthday) so that if someone gets an unknown message if they see that value they can guess what the protocol is.
When I gave this talk in late 2016
https://www.slideshare.net/paulahoule/chatbots-in-2017-ithac...
there was huge interest in messaging-centric apps as this runs around the boondoggle of having even the tiniest patch to your app get reviewed.
I don't think that's enough to make them competitive though. For instance, a scandal in one feature of the app (or Facebook being considered lame by kids) will hurt the rest of it.
Forcing Apple to allow third party payments without Apple's cut would improve market opportunities for many businesses. Facebook could have its marketplace conduct peer to peer transactions. Amazon could allow the purchase of digital goods (books, movies, etc.) and put it on more equal footing with Apple itself. While big businesses are best positioned to take advantage today, the effects directly trickle down to small startup businesses.
While I personally don't care for it, cryptocurrency use would have more potential. Apple blocked apps for NFT features in the past because they couldn't get their 30%.
Having third party marketplaces might make it so that there is some actual curation at the App Store.
John Sircacusa (from ATP.fm) pointed out years ago that the heart of Apple's biggest issues is business relationship management. This was when Apple only had a handful of issues with a few companies and made some poorly received statements about developers. Their ability to build mutually agreeable relations has only gotten worse in recent years.
Sony and Microsoft have kept their relations with third parties tough but ultimately agreeable. They promote practically all of their third parties (unlike the App Store which has so many apps that its like winning the lottery to be promoted). Consoles have stores which are probably more curated but which third party publishers/developers actually like.
IMO, DoJ, EU, etc. are acting primarily because they have received so many complaints from Spotify, Microsoft, Epic Games, Google, Meta, Tile, etc. Governments don't take action for the "public" interest on its own.
It would, but that is how Apple collects their commission. Where regulations where Apple has been forced to provide this separation (such as the US), they have split 3% to cover payment fees out of the commission, and put additional considerations for when leaving the app to make a payment would result in a commission and that Apple may audit that you are properly reporting commissions.
The DMA mandated that Apple decouple their commission structure from a single App Store in favor of multiple marketplaces, and they put in a 50 Eurocent core technology fee per user per year (after a margin of free installs).
> Amazon could allow the purchase of digital goods (books, movies, etc.) and put it on more equal footing with Apple itself.
Amazon does have digital purchasing of Video. Amazon added the ability to subscribe to a limited video version of Prime using in-app purchasing, and that kind of account will bill purchases using in-app purchasing.
They likely have razor thin margins for anyone who chooses to do this, but expect customers to either have existing Prime accounts or to want to upgrade from Video to the full Prime account for the other services. I suspect they did the math and think their margins on Kindle wouldn't support this.
Sorry, I do not parse this. What did they add?
Later, as Amazon acquired more popular content and then created an in-house production studio, they added the ability to rent or "purchase" (rent) streaming video content on a per-episode/season/film basis without requiring the full Prime subscription service.
This was designed to address Amazon customers who were primarily (pun intended) interested in the video content, not the physical goods.
The idea that Apple is compliant with the DMA has yet to be tested. There are many direct statements by the enforcing commissioner and complaints from third parties that I think only a direct ruling will settle things.
I forgot about Prime Video purchases having a special back door deal for some of their purchases. I wasn’t referring to the subscription service but the purchase of digital books/movies. My point stands though. Digital goods could be sold and bought without special exceptions or loopholes from the 30% fee. That alone is a huge market opportunity.
And yea, Gamepass was an immediate thought of something a company wanted to ship but Apple blocked. Between that and the Epic Games store it looks like there's gonna be a lot more options to game on IOS by the turn of the decade.
Honestly we should just sunset MMS entirely. It's like using 56k dialup.
it is in fact a technical limitation.
I suspect the people whining the most are communicating with folks that have "Low Quality Image Mode" enabled on their iPhone.
If you're unable to send files that large from an iPhone there's a carrier issue in play.
How does Apple get around that MMS limitation?
How does Apple get around that MMS limitation?
Since you’ve never used an iPhone, let me explain the experience. When you type in a random new number it starts off green. If the user uses iMessage, once you finish typing it magically turns blue. Apple doesn’t care about whether the other number is an Android phone per se, although if it’s not using iMessage then it’s almost certain that the number routes to an android phone.
because they were sending to an iPhone
I really love how folks are frothing at the mouth over things they don't understand.
Are you sending that to another iPhone?
It's completely broken.
Apple wants to force Android users into iPhones so that their tect messages stop sucking, as if it's and Android issue.
> Repeat after me: Poor MMS implementations are not Apple limitations.
Except that some of my family cannot send me a text on my Android phone because iOS absolutely refuses to treat it as anything other than an iMessage. Their contact for me does not have my iMessage/iCloud email. My iMessage/iCloud account has had my phone number deregistered from it. However, their iPhones cannot send me a text. It always sends it as an iMessage, even on threads where I send a text from my Android phone. Any reply just goes straight back to iMessage.
There are plenty of instances where Apple just does not care about text messages and protocols and will refuse to treat them properly. It is absolutely anti-competitive. They have been taken to court over this, which is why there is even a website that allows you to deregister your number. You used to have to use your iPhone to do it, which isn't exactly convenient if you lose or steal it. If you switched to Android, there was no way to get a text message from an iOS device while your number was registered with iMessage.
Now try sending to an at&t iPhone.
By your experience it seems that Apple is limiting iOS-iOS image size, to promote iMessage
If you sent an h.264 for instance, many flip phones would be unable to play it. So I think the MMS standard itself is holding us back.
I still blame Apple. If they prioritized the experience of their own customers above the value of the blue bubble in getting teens to bully Android users they could have obviously been the ones pushing a good RCS implementation with carriers by threatening credibly to drop MMS support. Instead they left it to carriers and Google who each screwed things up pretty well.
if apple didn't do it's shenanigans, RCS or something similar with a
different name would've have replaced MMS by now.
Hell, if you've a rooted Android you can't access Google RCS and any RCS messages sent your way will disappear into the ether.
If you want to interact with the RCS world as a non-wireless carrier, expect to pay upwards of 10 cents a message and have a minimum revenue commit of thousands of dollars a month. Carriers also don't get paid for inbound texts on RCS, creating a huge new cost center instead of symmetrical texting volume resulting in minimal costs like the current SMS/MMS ecosystem.
The main reason people still use it is despite the issues with MMS (and SMS in general) the reality is that every vendor wants to own the messaging stack to build or strengthen moat, and the regulators who are in a position to enforce standard protocols have incentives in many or all countries to weaken the security of messaging protocols to meet surveillance objectives (whether those objectives are well scrutinized methods with judicial oversight, or blanket surveillance requirements).
Blaming the user as lazy or incompetent completely overlooks the significant financial incentives that platform owners and network providers have to maintain the status quo, or force the new status quo to strengthen their moats.
I'm curious where y'all's confidence comes from in user hostility or not and what indicators you have to tip your hand one way or the other. That might result in more elucidating conversation too.
All along the way people routinely attack users for making poor decisions when they are simply using defaults, or the easiest to use and most compatible technologies.
* Pffft... Of course they got hacked, they used IE * Of course they got hacked, they opened an email attachment * Of course they got hacked, they clicked that homoglyph
In this particular case, SMS and MMS are baked into the phone, and delivered by the wireless provider, and for better or worse on the UX front, work with just a phone number and across all mobile OS. For anything other than that, if users have peers using other device or services, the alternative is to use multiple services to communicate with different groups based on which services they use. That means repeating messages across multiple providers, and/or missing folks because all the platform services have actively silo'd their platforms to prevent interoperability.
Yeah, SMS and MMS suck, but they suck less for the simple use case of messaging folks with cell phones, because the barrier to messaging those folks is having their phone number.
It's lazy and incompetent to attack users when users actually have very little control over the actual security or usability of the services and systems they use, especially as everything is hosted in cloud platforms.
Start with brownouts, make them more frequent, and in a few months we could all be off that whole mess. There'd be some chaos for a bit, but future generations would look back and wonder why we clung to this antiquated pile of wires for so long.
It's way better than being on Whatsapp or iMessage or Slack or Teams or whatever you're proposing to replace it because I have a lot of control over who can contact me and nobody is using my presence on the phone network as a means to drag all of my friends over to the same phone network.
If we invented the legacy phone system today, it would be illegal to operate because it's so insecure. We certainly wouldn't dream of forcing everyone to use it.
You can already see this type of fraudulent traffic occur on Telegram with the constant crypto bots and on Signal with the romance scams.
A PSTN sunset would force this fraudulent traffic to migrate to the over the top communications platforms, eliminate many people's ability to access emergency services reliably, destroy reliable voice quality on cellular networks as there's no consistent way to prioritize third party voice and video traffic.
We've had SSL on the web for 30 years now. We don't visit our bank's web site and wonder if we're really talking to our bank, but we casually accept that of course someone calling from our bank's phone number could be a fraudster. There might be some fraud that is able to migrate, but it wouldn't be the smorgasbord for fraudsters that the legacy phone system has created.
> eliminate many people's ability to access emergency services reliably
This is like saying that we can't put out the dumpster fire because it provides some people with warmth. The 911 system (at least in the US) is already a travesty. Caller locations are a crapshoot for wireless calls. Call centers aren't centralized, standardized, or coordinated, and they're overloaded. The technology is outdated. Moving it off the phone network and onto a centralized digital platform would be a massive improvement.
What TLS does do is ensure that when I communicate with a third party on the internet, that communication can't be intercepted by any intervening switches or routers. TLS per se does not have any other properties. However, we've constructed a system of chains of trust using TLS certificates and trusted third parties. That system is not a technical system and TLS does not have the innate property of enabling you to trust or not to trust someone.
It's an important distinction because the PSTN and our system of TLS Certificate Authorities is a social solution to a social problem. And so suggesting that TLS somehow magically has a property that it prevents fraud is hard for me to follow, because fraud is also a social problem and you can't use technology to solve social problems. Technology can be used to lubricate, to bring people together, and to ensure that conventions are followed and that peoples' solutions can interoperate. But the real innovation in TLS from a fraud perspective is actually the network of companies, nonprofits, third parties, and government agencies who have collectively established root Certificate Authorities and who have ensured that those CAs control who you trust. None of that is specified in any RFC. It's entirely something we humans made up after someone created an enabling technology.
As for problems with PSTN, there are similar technical solutions, but largely PSTN fraud and spam are a social problem and require social interventions. This is why we have the FCC in the US, for example, because when the scope of an intervention becomes large enough it has to be administered by someone. When you say PSTN doesn't work because of fraud and spam, in my mind what you're saying is that the FCC does not do enough to prevent fraud and spam.
This is actually a bug, not a feature, as it enables all kind of robocalls and sms spam. That's why I love the iPhone feature that allows me to block all the calls from numbers not in my contact list. It does not allow this for SMS though...
https://www.guidingtech.com/how-to-block-text-messages-from-...
Even if it couldn't do this, that would just bolster the case that Apple is making SMS worse than it has to be on their platform to promote iMessage and its network effects.
EDIT: I booted up my iPhone 14 on the latest iOS and I guess this has changed? There isn't a "SMS Filtering" option near the Filter Unknown Senders option which has moved to the top level Messages settings page versus when the guide was written.
I'm not sure if that means it always filters SMS or it never does, but again if it doesn't filter SMS at all that's an Apple choice, it doesn't mean you can't do it on SMS.
In general, solve problems in the same way that email does but add protocol support for realtime direct communications and end-to-end encryption.
Or you could have thousands of medium-sized companies that each operate nodes that interoperate with each other even though none of them is the size of Google or Meta, and users could choose one based on whether they want to see ads or pay a few bucks a year, or run their own if they're into that sort of thing.
> It just so happens that you need a certain amount of infrastructure to implement it, which is true of everything, even email.
The infrastructure you need for email is any functioning general purpose computer, including ones you can find in the trash, and a domain name, which you can also get for free if you really want to and in practice costs around $15/year to do it properly. Anyone with the inclination can do this and many solitary individuals actually do.
The infrastructure you would need for this thing would be even less, because the premise is that you already have an email address/provider, so all you'd really need is the ability to map a port so you can make a direct connection to the other endpoint -- or IPv6.
Whereas the infrastructure you need to participate in the PSTN... I think you're required to be a CLEC to even have a block of numbers assigned. If all you had to do was install Asterisk on the trash PC it would be something else entirely, but the telcos do a lot of regulatory gatekeeping, which is another reason the legacy phone network should be decommissioned and replaced by a modern IETF protocol.
Currently the only similar thing I'm aware of is https://delta.chat/en/, though I believe it does all of its networking over email, rather than only using it as a fallback.
I wonder what the pitfalls of using email this way are; it seems like a great way to get a free backend and growth-hack a chat app, so there must be some reason it's not more common.
It's the sort of thing you get when somebody builds it as a hobby project, or a skunkworks project escapes from a large corporation and is already open source by the time the MBAs get their hands on it. Or, in the old days, DARPA funding.
Point me to the existing IETF RFC for e.g. mapping email addresses as identifiers for use in a standard communications protocol for voice and video calls.
Not any more, at least for any semi-popular chat. The throwaway and no-names? Yeah you can, well until IF they get big. And well, they won't.
This might be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s literally legal in my country to spam me on my phone number and there is ZERO I can do to change that. Ergo I have fuck all control over who can contact me.
Where we're all captive subjects of some cloud asshole spoon-feeding us bits of infrastructure we used to be able to run ourselves
Only android people fuss with third party apps because their phones can’t reasonably send messages by default.
IOW, SMS is cross-platform. Whats the issue?
Unlike modern messaging platforms, SMS has no:
- guaranteed delivery
- read receipts
- proper support for group chats (MMS adds this, but the implementation is poor compared to modern platforms)
- support for multimedia (again, MMS added this, but support is poor)
- support for replies
- support for reactions
- support for any kind of encryption
- support for typing indicators
- ability to work independently of an active cellular connection
If SMS works for your needs, and you have no issues with it, that’s great. Ultimately, SMS does work, but many users rightfully expect more of a messaging platform at this point. There are real benefits to users from upgrading to a more modern system.
I am fine with using SMS, and it has always served me well.
But that didn't address GP's comment. Apple states that green bubbles are pariahs because messages can't be sent to androids so it breaks the system, or something like that [BS]
Iphone users think that green bubbles are pariahs because they aren't part of their exclusive group, and because green bubbles turn chat groups into rubbish, because yada yada not iphone. (spoiler alert, apple does it on purpose)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/android-users-stig...
For laughs: Tim Cook telling someone he has to buy her mom an iphone (1hr 0mins 17secs)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=3615&v=sdvzYtgmIjs&feature=you...
This is a dumb complaint honestly. The carriers and Qualcomm closely control the standards bodies and could address this problem. Instead they focused on the bag-of-garbage that is RCS, which Apple has finally said they will support. But because RCS is a bag-of-garbage, Apple plans to support a different flavor (the basic standard) from Google's. $0.50 says Google will magically start supporting the basic standard too once Apple ships it.
So I'm guessing you're a very young person based on how little MMS you claim to have received. Which is fine, it's fair to point out that technologies us old folk use may differ slightly from what the whippersnappers are doing. And there are no wrong answers there, except that it's also fair to point out that when you purchase a cell phone, before you install any apps, you have some ingrained cell phone messaging features. One of which is a messenger app built on top of SMS and MMS.
I've probably sent and received thousands of MMS messages over the years, because it was the primary method for a cell phone user to send a picture to your friends and family. Back in the day, at least, and still today for some. It was also the way that us old folk were able to send group texts at a time.
MMS was indeed order of magnitude more expensive than SMS and several orders of magnitude less used.
Reasoning for such high prices was more about mobile internet/data back then being really expensive "1G" - and MMS was (still is I guess) using mobile data to send/receive "multimedia messages".
At this point I expect that cost of MMS is more about maintaining legacy systems/servers for that.
Although in something like 2008/2009 integrating through legacy SMS protocols (those previously used by beepers/pagers) was cheaper than through modern protocols. Some operators had hardware boxes supporting those that were already paid off long time ago.
Thanks for teaching me a new thing about life outside of the US. Out here, cell data plans (which is the budget that sending/receiving MMS would eat into) were relatively affordable (even for my somewhat modest household) through the latter half of the 2000s and early 2010s. And now it's basically assumed that most people have "unlimited" data. So I guess MMS was a regional phenomena based on prices.
You didn't miss out on much, not that you probably thought you may have. MMS was a useful tool for sharing pictures digitally, but it was somewhat poor user experience waiting for it to reach the other person. Sometimes waiting for a reaction for an hour because the person on the receiving end wasn't near enough to a cell tower owned by their provider. Less of an issue with all the cell towers around now, but there are better mediums than MMS now.
I’m around 30, I grew up with a dad who was a fan of modern phones and technologies (first camera phones, Windows smartphones, PDAs) so I always had fancy phones, and I’ve received < 20 MMS in my whole life.
The newer RCS standard would be better, but Apple has already announced they're going to support it this year (after dragging their heels for a few years).
That is, indeed, a technical limitation of MMS.
The last time folks got worked into a frenzy over RCS I ended up looking at the MMS specs. If memory serves 3GPP recommended an upper bound of at least 5 megabytes. American carriers typically limit attachments to like 3 megabytes or less and they mandate ancient video codecs.
I think Apple has enough pull with carriers to tell them whatever configuration parameters for MMS they want.
MMS being basically SMS with a link/url to where the phone fetches multimedia part from - it could also be sent via older EMI-UCP (that was originally used for pagers).
At some point pre 2010 (when I worked in Routo Messaging - now called Telesign) we also got an SS7 connection - so we could finally start doing stuff like a real mobile operator/provider.
I realize this isn’t what you are asking for. But it works well and doesn’t depend on Google’s closed version of RCS
thank you for posting!
FYI for those others who don't know: click on a video in your photos app. click share --> "Copy iCloud Link"
EDIT: Tried it on my iPhone and it does not require an Apple account, kudos Apple. It does show my full real name as others have mentioned.
You still cannot send livephotos via Whatsapp/Telegram. They convert to still photos. So you still lose something there.
You can send whatever you want through SMS, as a link.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24050430/apple-app-store-...
What are challenges for implementing such "payment" system on iOS that can transfer, say Monopoly money vs real USD? Aren't those almost entirely legal or compliance matters for very good reasons? The Alaskan 737 MAX 9 landed largely intact thanks to still-working parts of regulations and we all value that.
So why not they just do that? Or CAN'T they?
X, the company formerly known as twitter, fairly explicitly plans to, they are just taking time to pivot, in part because they don’t seem to have any real clear roadmap from where they are to where they want to be.
>don’t seem to have any real clear roadmap
not your fault, but that's pretty funny
Could you expand on that?
Personally, I don’t think Western (or at least American) consumers are all that interested in a super app. Asia has a ton of players in this space like WeChat, QQ, Line and Kaokao but those have never taken off in the West outside of diaspora communities.
Tim Hortons had gift and loyalty cards ("every 7th coffee free"). Then they introduced an app with "rewards" as an alternative to loyalty and gift cards. Then the app turned into a bank. Then they stopped the physical loyalty cards. Now you can't "earn" free coffee without giving them your personal information and signing up for the bank of Tim Hortons. It's ok though. I stopped being a customer because of it.
if I was going to dream big, I would like to point the iCloud hooks to a personal server instead of apple in a meaningful way.
Hopefully you can accomplish all this within the return window of the computer (or purchase a used one). The iCloud subscription fees are non-refundable. You can also just give up, keep the computer, and embrace the Apple ecosystem.
Thank you Tim Apple, very cool!
Sent from my iPhone
And hoping Apple's broken client actually downloads full history or by forcing it to download by scrolling up through years of chat by hand.
And hoping Apple doesn't interpret a read lock on the db as malicious activity and temporary ousting you from iMessage and causing every message you send on unrelated hardware to drop to SMS until you login / logout from every device you "own".
gotta love when someone is so deep into fanboyism that they go through life utterly paralyzed and victimized by the apple that only exists inside their head.
literally, unsarcastically, why do you do this to yourself? it’s a fearsome depth of parasocial attachment in a way that’s incredibly unhealthy and warping. Why do you choose to get this bent out of shape about what phone other peolle buy? it doesn’t matter.
Interacting with Apple's products as a software developer who cares about open source, data portability, etc. is getting harder and harder to justify. The same goes for Google.
What drew me to Apple initially was that they had an actually-existing polished POSIX-compliant desktop environment that was far more open than anything Windows had (or has, to this day).
What you're seeing here are the lamentations of early adopters witnessing all those great features, and the philosophy behind them, slowly going away.
When Apple Music launched it was around the time that 3rd party apps were allowed to hook into Siri - so you could say "Hey Siri, tell MyToDoApp to remind me to do X in six hours" and MyToDoApp would add the reminder.
But it was only allowed for certain categories of app (strangely enough, categories where Apple didn't have a paid service). It wasn't permitted for music apps until a few years later, by which time Apple Music was established.
Similarly - when I connect my iPhone to my car over Bluetooth or wired connection[1] - with Spotify I get the normal play/pause/skip controls. But I can't see the upcoming play-queue, nor browse my playlists through the car's interface. If I listen through Apple Music, I can see not only my queue, playlists, albums and artists but also podcasts from the totally separate Apple Podcasts app.
Of course, the car interface is shite, but why can Apple's app do this and the third party not? Is it just that Spotify didn't bother implementing the relevant APIs or because those APIs were not available?
As a long-time Apple fan, my distrust of them is so great at the moment, I suspect the latter.
[1] The inbuilt head-unit doesn't do CarPlay, but I have a standalone wireless CarPlay screen. I like to connect the phone through Bluetooth (or wired) so the display unit shows my apps but I can adjust the volume and skip tracks using the steering wheel controls.
My understanding - Siri is at its heart a command and control system. It was able to do Music (and iTunes before) because it knew The Who and The Rolling Stones from the hosted music catalog, even if those weren’t downloaded locally.
Apple needed to provide the localized commands, but also still needed the nouns to go with the verbs.
> Is it just that Spotify didn't bother implementing the relevant APIs or because those APIs were not available?
The former. There are plenty of other CarPlay media apps. They are all limited (first and third party) in that CarPlay is basically like a low bandwidth VNC display.
Maybe they should be. Our societies are ostensibly consumer-centric. It's about time our laws and organisations strongly sided with consumers against any opposition, especially against business.
As a really specific example in the case of Apple, I really hope the DMA causes wider availability of browser choice on iOS so that we as a business that ships a web app can offer our customers features like notifications and other PWA benefits. Our customers are somewhat willing to switch browsers to get the best experience when using our app. But switching to Android? Not a reasonable ask from us.
Most consumers also have jobs right? Making their lives better and easier at work, increasing competition to give their employers more opportunity to thrive, is just as important as making their groceries cheaper.
I can't remember the last time I saw a "this site only works in XYZ" message. Some of that is a lot of modern sites are all built on big frameworks, but some of that is also because only supporting Safari, or only supporting Chrome or only supporting IE is going to lose you huge swaths of customers.
What if I don't want to switch browsers for the "best experience" when using your app? What if I want you to make your app the best experience on my browser of choice?
As always these things are tradeoffs and balances.
What if I cannot do that due to there being no incentive for Apple to support web standards in Safari?
We don't want our users to have to switch browsers, but that leaves us with no ability to use lots of the features that make modern web apps competitive at all with native apps.
Several years ago I wouldn't have even bothered trying to do that on my phone. There is some benefit to Safari being so ubiquitous.
Then all websites would be designed for the one browser!!
After that, Google leverages its other service monopolies, Chrome goes to 95%+ market share, standards fall by the wayside, and nobody has any choice.
I guess the answer to that is antitrust against Google, but I’d rather do that first than go through the Chrome domination phase.
It will be a sad day in the near future when the web becomes “Chrome”, even on mobile, much as it was “IE” not that long ago, alas, we seem to never learn.
Everybody who says “Safari is the new IE” seems to be too young to know what IE and front-end web development were really like during the 00s. I’d take WebKit on iOS over a Blink monoculture any day, and so should any web developer.
I don’t know what the solution would be, not like you can mandate the existence of a web browser engine into existence and making one gets harder for every new thing added.
Google Chrome, Google Search, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, YouTube, Android, Alphabet's online advertising service.
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en
And here's what that designation means for them:
https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...
If Chrome wins on merit and Chromium remains a viable option to build competing browsers then that is fine.
I don't want Apple to prevent that by forcing an inferior browser down peoples' throats to make sure the web can't win against native apps.
Isn’t chromium still bloated with tracking? Last time I read about it, it was far from a “clean Chrome” at least, now if it was truly open sourced and not mainly controlled by Google I would be much more hopeful.
As someone who’s heavily invested in web I don’t see it being a competition with apps at all, different sports altogether, but sure, supporting notifications are nice, allowing websites to scan networks and Bluetooth, not so much.
I don't think Chromium based browsers such as Brave, Vivaldi or Edge have to send data to Google.
Chromium development is highly dependent on Google of course. Google could theoretically do to Chromium what they have done to AOSP, i.e make sure it's not longer a viable platform for competitors. But I think that's exactly what the DMA could prevent.
>As someone who’s heavily invested in web I don’t see it being a competition with apps at all
I think it's an empirical fact that they do compete. Almost all the installed apps I use could be web apps if it wasn't for arbitrary restrictions.
>but sure, supporting notifications are nice, allowing websites to scan networks and Bluetooth, not so much.
How about not randomly deleting or arbitrarily restricting local data?
Chrome is such a complicated piece of software that the “forks” are highly dependent on Google and when Google unilaterally makes decisions they have to follow suit. Brendan Eich explains that Brave will continue to support Manifest V2 as long as Google doesn’t remove the underlying code paths: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1534893414579249152
I think a lot of people don’t appreciate how delicate the balance of web standards is right now. We have it so good (three high-quality implementations of an open spec) and I’m not willing to throw that away just to run Chrome on my iPhone.
Agitation for consumer rights might actually be an easier way to get benefits to small business.
Because when you try to lobby for small business it becomes lobbying for all business and in the end it's the big business that benefits because somewhere in the process they outlobbied every other interested party and the end form of legislation or action benefits them the most.
Like the right to repair. If it was focused on helping small business it would have been defanged way easier.
I've had some great conversations with folks about why this form of "American Capitalism" is the most efficient economic engine with regard to an industrial economy. As a system, this, and a graduated taxation that provides a damping function on "infinite wealth" and feeds it into government services has the potential to create an economy where everyone has a chance to get rich, and everyone's basic needs are met. That combination maximizes participation in the economy and thus GDP.
The macroeconomics class I took spent several weeks on this relationship and the "Great Courses" economics class also talks about it.
The challenge is that rich men (typically its men) don't like being told they can't do something, or told they have to do something which will reduce their total wealth, and they respond by corrupting legislators into changing the rules.
It isn't "good" or "bad" per se, some people always eat all the cookies if they think they can get away with it. As a systems analyst though the system is an excellent study in 'tuning.' In theory, as a government maximizing GDP is a goal because the more GDP the more gets done the happier people are, etc etc. Technology strongly affected the rate of change of wealth, people who were middle class at a startup suddenly being in the top 10% in terms of wealth over the course of a few years, rather than a life time of work and savings. Others leveraging their wealth in technology startups having it rocket them into the 1%.[1] Something that the US system of laws does not do well is respond to changes "quickly" (my lawyer friends tell me that is a design feature not a bug). But as we saw with Microsoft's antitrust case they do respond eventually.
[1] Back in the dot com days there was an article in Wired about the "Billionaire Boys Club" which talked about members of the several VC firms whose net worth had ballooned to over a billion dollars.
I think if the system could limit the ability of rich guys to corrupt legislators, then regulation would just work. I think "Citizen's United VS FEC" kind of broke regulation in that sense. It probable had a positive effect on the economy for some years, but imo it broke American politics. We've even started to see regulators like the EPA and SEC lose high profile court cases.
I'm no lawyer and I think this looks like a great case, but I'm not too confident.
An example being Intel, which is currently getting billions in government subsidies via the CHIPS Act, because their business fell behind because it was impeded by the government suing them for antitrust issues.
While the business in US was content to sit on their throne and milk the consumers, US consumers uplifted the entire country of China. Consumers are way more economically powerful than the business. Seeing economy through business and workers lens is as misguided as it is traditional.
This is the easiest way to tell someone is wrong about politics. This doesn't happen, but everyone who doesn't know how anything works thinks it does. You just can't handle the truth that other voters actually believe different things than you.
> While the business in US was content to sit on their throne and milk the consumers, US consumers uplifted the entire country of China.
Think you forgot every other country exists here.
The alternative is that either supporting largest business is completely accidental or that it's done for the good of the voters.
Both alternatives are completely rudiculous. You can be sure that money is flowing. You can see some of the money flowing in the form of lobbying and cosy retirements if government officials in corporate boards. You can be sure there's more. US is incredibly overtly and covertly corrupt at every level.
> Think you forgot every other country exists here.
All other countries that are running trade deficit for decades without much issue?
When are people going to stop buying Apple?
Just look at how he reacted even back when Woz invented the universal remote.
Do you allow your neighbors to use your yard and driveway that you pay for?
I f%$@ing do. I paid when I bought an iPhone, Mac and iPad.
And even if it’s not enough - provide it as a service for a fee.
But I don't need any of those because 99% of the people I communicate with are on iMessage.
While the smartphone market is not exactly a broad selection of competing standards, you can chose between Android and iPhone, and over time they've more or less come to represent opposing poles, where Android initially embraced openness and iPhone was the walled garden.
People picked based on preferences, but it's not like any of the platforms lock you in. They even have tools to facilitate easy switching between platforms.
Many companies, especially in highly regulated industries, specifically pick iPhone over Android for the ability to lock down the device. In my industry, our IT department has essentially given up getting Android "certified" to comply with regulations.
Apple recently opened up the App Store in the EU, in theory allowing 3rd party stores, but despite almost everybody i know using iPhones, i have yet to see anything 3rd party installed.
Better competition for cloud streaming apps? Seems good for me as a user. Better messaging interoperability? I don't have anyone in my family or friends group who wasn't already on an iPhone, and I thought this was coming already with RCS anyway, but sure let's go. Better smartwatch support? If it makes Apple want to build even better Apple Watches, I'm all for it. And all of my cards already work with Apple Wallet so this has no bearing on me either.
The only one that's really ambiguous is "Super Apps". I'd be greatly inconvenienced if Apple things stopped working so well together, but I wouldn't be inconvenienced at all if others get a chance to build their own "super apps".
I'm skeptical that adding RCS will actually fix the problems because of how Apple is likely to implement it. Their malicious compliance in the EU strongly hints that they are going to hobble their RCS implementation just enough to maintain the status quo just like they are with the DMA requirements. Hopefully legal efforts like this push Apple more towards actual interoperability.
This would let Google get rid of dedicated apps like Gmail or Google Maps, and then just force everyone to go through a central Google app itself.
90% of marketshare with monopolistic practices is relevant?
On top of that, 87% of the teen mobile market in the US own an iPhone.
Apple definitely has a dominant position in the western smartphone market.
In this case, could a resolution involve resolving the individual claims, or are the plaintiffs looking for a more all encompassing solution?
Such cases always seem to reach a pre-determined conclusion, that has more to do with the political winds of the era, than true legal determinism.
Looking at the accusations from that lens:
1. Super Apps - I don't see how 'Apple doesn't share enough data with Chinese super apps' is going to fly 2024 America. It also has huge security and privacy impliciations. This accusation seems DOA.
2. Streaming games is tricky, but it isn't a big revenue stream. The outcome for this point appears immaterail to Apple stock.
3. iMessage - This is the big one. I see the whole case hinging on this point.
4. Smartwatches. Meh, Apple might add inter-op for apple smartwatches on android. I don't think this will lead to any users switching over or an actually pleasing experience.
5. Digital Wallets. This seems tacked on. Apps are PhonePe and PayTm work just fine on Apple and Android. I have never heard of anyone using a Digital Wallet that is not Apple pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay. Are digital wallets a big revenue stream for Apple ?
Google: true, BUT you can install and publish other app stores
MSFT: false, they charge 15% for apps and 12% for games (talking about the Microsoft Store)
But WeChat is available on iOS isn't it? If not the iPhone would be pretty impossible to sell there, just like Huawei's android without Google play don't sell here in the west.
- NFC
apple does have full NFC support for their products but for other apps there are tons of road blocks for using anything close to full NFC functionality
- Bluetooth
same, similar more usable, but some functionality is still not available for 3rd party apps at all meaning certain things can only be provided 1st party by Apple
- Strange behaviour when releasing questionable competive Apps
There had been multiple cases where Apple released 1st party apps and it "happened" that the previous leader(s) of previous existing 3rd party apps "happened" to have issues with releasing updates around that time (or similar strange coincidental behavior). Additionally such new apps often had some new non-documented non public APIs which makes it harder for 3rd parties to compete.
- Questionable app store reviews
Stories of apps running in arbitrary you could say outright despotic harassment when wrt. the app store reviews are more then just few (to be clear legal non malicious apps which should be fully legal on the apple app store).
EDIT: To be clear for the first 2 points apple always have excuses which seem reasonable on the surface until you think it through a bit more (e.g. similar to there excuse for banning PWAs in the EU, I think they might have undid that by now). And for the other points it's always arbitrary enough so that in any specific case you could call it coincidence, but there is a pattern.
It stands in stark contrast to literally everything else about the device, which is almost universally easy and thoughtless.
the reason is that it crippled a whole industry of smart door looks
NFC is (by far!) technically the best way to handle them (for many of the common security levels). (Through I mean proper secure application of NFC, something you often do not get in a satisfying way with a lot of the RFID card solutions. And I'm aware that a ton (most?) of smart door room solutions are a complete security nightmare, but that is companies cheeping out and/or not hiring anyone who know anything about security etc.)
EDIT: stuff like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39779291 is what I mean with most RFID based solutions are shit. Through not sure how much this specific case was very competent hackers and how much bad security.
Otherwise if they fail to walk on their own feet it’s not the fault of their stewards and their poor performance. Nope, it’s Apple’s fault for not having helped enough.
NFC has not been a "shaky" standard long long long before Apple adopted it
and most other phone vendors had at least some models which support it
even before that there where extension systems to try out and test it before phones did support it
so it was pretty much Apple holding the industry in that specific area back
and like I said it wasn't anti-competive, it was there right to do so
but it shows how apple often doesn't care too much about what would be good for the user if it isn't good for them, I mean they are in the end a stock traded company it would be strange if they didn't
and if one vendor has a huge usage base to a point it has monopoly like powers (even if the usage base is only around ~50% that still is monopoly like power in the phone marked due to the marked/usage dynamic of phones) then you can't rely on a technology 50%+(1) of your customers can't use because the vendor they use doesn't support it or artificially locks it down especially if it's something like a phone where the network effects makes it basically impossible to expect people to switch it (1: 50%+ as while the marked share wasn't 50%+ the marked share in the audience such a system would reach was.)
EDIT: And yes I'm fully aware of the while NFC<->SIM secure module<->carrier power being annoying thing. But that thing had been solved a long time ago outside of the US (and later in the US by virtual secure modules) and while the initial solutions to that problem (e.g. in the EU) where still annoying non of it was a major road block and would have been resolved if there would have been insensitive to do so. But if your product doesn't work with iPhone users and you potential customers are mainly people which high end phones it just never mattered because the marked was dead anyway.
Jihad against anything actually working well (ie firefox and ublock origin) due to to be polite dubious reasons. Apple gatekeeping is just a move to ads for themselves, it was already multibillion business for them last year. Thats monopolistic behavior in plain sight.
As things are, this lawsuit seems like the government striking an aggressive posture torwards tech companies for no good reason. It's almost like -- as the tech companies get bigger and more powerful -- the government wants to remind them who's really in charge.
Customers don't really have great choices right now when it comes to smartphones:
1. One OS is locked down, has a walled-garden ecosystem, but has many privacy-protecting features.
2. The other OS more open (interop & user-choice-wise, not really in the FOSS sense), but is run by a company that seems hell-bent on eroding user privacy.
These properties are dictated by Apple and Google. But due to the barrier for entry, there are no alternatives that come even close to duplicating Android's and iOS's feature sets. Even simply using a community-developed Android-based OS can cause you to lose access to many useful features Android provides.
I guess I went off on a little tangent here, but my position is that the existence of Android is only a defense if switching between the two doesn't incur high costs, both financial and non-. That's demonstrably not the case.
I wonder, if you open up iOS, do you lose the privacy-protecting features? One of the benefits of iOS is that it makes good privacy decisions for you, where it can
If you take away the defaults, you kind of take away the design choices that were made to improve privacy. People (myself included) are not the best at making decisions that preserve their own privacy
Many people will hit whatever button gets them to the next stage of whatever it is they are trying to achieve. If Apple is not allowed to intervene in that experience, will we see a lot more people being taken advantage of by dark patterns and other software tricks?
If people want to buy an iphone and shit it up, let them do it.
macOS has proven for decades that a reasonably proprietary OS can be distributed and kept reasonably secure when apps are installed on it outside of an App Store. There's even third-party App Stores on macOS like Steam, Homebrew, and a few more that Indie developers use to distribute apps.
I want this personally for me. But I paid extra money to get my mom and iPhone exactly because she won't be able to stuff like this.
I used to regularly have to fix her android phone and the last time she was tryinf to download an app for tracking hours at work, and somehow downloaded the wrong app with a similar name, this app loaded with 3 different pop ups telling her to install other ad filled apps with generic names like "PDF reader".
OP is right, it should be an explicit jailbreaking process that has a technical barrier to entry where my mom can't be talked into doing it over the phone but an enterprising young person could figure it out.
People have been saying this for more than a decade, but it still hasn’t happened; there are still zero restrictions about what you can and can’t install on macOS.
It probably doesn't need to be as cumbersome as a jailbreak. Maybe it's just a "Allow apps not approved by Apple" toggle hidden deep in the settings. I actually would love the ability to set "IT administrator account" on device setup. Then mom can't even change the setting without notifying "dmix" :)
> but "the exact same problems" is absolutely an incorrect statement
> the last time she was trying to download an app for tracking hours at work, and somehow downloaded the wrong app with a similar name
> There was even a post on HN last week about an scam app being the first result in the app store
it's the _exact same problem_
To me, for the problem to be "exactly" the same, it would need to occur at a similar level. I do not believe (based on my personal or professional experience) that this is occuring at a similar level on iOS or Android.
You're right the same specific style of problem happens at both, but if it's significantly more on one than the other then it's hard to honestly say they're the same.
That being said I don’t think that’s necessarily a valid reason to completely lock things down, but it definitely should be prohibitively difficult for a vulnerable-to-phishing person to enable.
I love that I have all non tech savvy people in my life are using. Devices that just work, they all seem happy too. I get the idealistic nature of these lawsuits but people buy these phones for the fact they work and for the protected App Store. Including myself.
At first I got into Apple’s ecosystem because it ticked the boxes of being Unix-compatible yet very capable (perhaps rivaling Windows) of working with multimedia, which I did and do.
However, the older I get and the more I lurk here and elsewhere, the more I realize there is another reason: I am not an expert, the aforementioned weeks spent on securing my device are not substantially benefitting my life and are better spent on something else, and while no one should completely give up on keeping up-to-date with modern attack vectors paying someone to do that work more competently is worthwhile.
I still go to crazy lengths to avoid closed products in actual work I do, but I consider a base system that is maybe proprietary but just works, and securely enough, to be providing value in that way and enabling me to provide more value in turn.
And I still consider myself more knowledgeable than 95% of my friends and relatives, so there’s them to think about.
If you want to child-lock you mom's phone, you should have the ability to do so. Default for adults getting any sort of hardware should be that they are in charge, and any nanny should be opt-in.
I like how iOS works and I would prefer the government does not force Apple to change anything about it.
It's much safer! Just think what could happen to you in some ghetto! And that guy is completely creepy anyway.
That's pretty much what your argument sounds like to me. Hardware vendors (perhaps other than hardware preconfigured for a particular purpose, i.e. picture frame) should have no say in what runs on that hardware, full stop.
That’s called public transit.
I assume it is legally possibly to sell a car under those conditions, so I don’t even have to imagine. Nobody does it because it would be unpopular and serve no benefit to anyone, not because it’s illegal.
Oh, and pay a 30% tax on all petrol purchases straight to Mr Ford, how's that?
Just not the freedom to choose a walled garden (with its own set of - yes - positives). That choice needs to be taken away. For your freedom.
One might say - managed freedom.
There, problem solved.
Wrong, they are not giving anything up. They gain an option and lose nothing. Gaining a new opt-in feature is not a loss and is in fact the opposite. Nobody has to "give up" anything.
> Remind me again why "buy any other phone in the world" isn't sufficient for everyone else if this check box is supposed to be sufficient for current iPhone customers?
Also - whilst you're correct in spirit - people are giving up an element of safety. The concept of being able to install anything I want on my iPhone is appealing to me, but not to when I support the technology my 90 year old grandmother uses. Having a locked down device is appealing to me and a complete non-issue to her.
We (in my country, I assume yours has similar rules) don't allow children to buy alcohol, cigarettes, knives or spraypaint, don't allow people to drive without seatbelts, don't allow guns without a license, don't allow cars to be sold without minimal safety ratings etc. These restrictions are annoying for a few but are a positive for most of society.
And unlike most of the above examples, you can easily and legally purchase another smart phone without the guard rails in place. This is for sure a loss for the consumer market as a whole.
Yes, you can buy a different phone, but Apple still has a serious hold on the market that affects its competitors, especially when it acts in a way that is anti-competitive. If Apple locking down their store in a way that is extremely user-hostile makes them a billion dollars and they walk away unpunished, how long will its competitors refrain from doing the same for? Apple is large enough that they affect me personally even if I do not use their products.
Agreed. But just because there are multiple potential vectors doesn't mean we should ignore them.
> If you believe it is an issue regardless then safeguards can be implemented such as child safety features or simply allowing you to opt-out (or even not opt-in) when you're setting up your grandma's iPhone for her or whatever.
You can MDM lock an iPhone (and I assume Android), but only from initial setup. This also requires a technical skillset and a backend or paid subscription. I agree opt-in safeguards are more appropriate. However until those are a simple option, taking away the alternative is not great.
> If Apple locking down their store in a way that is extremely user-hostile makes them a billion dollars and they walk away unpunished, how long will its competitors refrain from doing the same for? > Apple is large enough that they affect me personally even if I do not use their products.
How? I genuinely don't understand this rationale, it always seems so vague.
If a vendor acts in a way you don't like, you purchase from elsewhere. If an Android vendor decided to follow suit, another would choose not to and you could stick with them.
If bizarrely they all chose to, ColourOS, Graphine etc are all options, significantly easier than in the past.
Even Linux phones and KaiOS are potentially viable alternative to fill the needs of the average user.
How does Apple having a walled garden have any impact on you at all, aside from a theoretical house of cards that consumers wouldn't tolerate?
I'd love it if Apple provided a way to protect against this sort of thing.
But there was nothing on the Mac stopping Zoom from putting a backdoor web server on Macs.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689644/apple-zoom-web-s...
No, I don’t want Apple to set the precedent that they will delete your whole business if you make an architecture choice they feel is not perfect.
That’s not really true. Despite the dangers of centralized app censorship, the state of security on iOS is far beyond that of macOS.
This is Hacker News; maximizing the freedom to hack our own property is an inviolable position.
I agree we should force platforms to be more.open and interoperable, but we can get at least part way there by not allowing them to sue innovators.
Luckily, you have a choice. Other companies make handheld computers that align better with your definition of ownership.
—they were marketed as phones that can compute, instead of as computers that can phone.
That's the crux: people would never have accepted the restrictions on computers like the iPhone, if that thing were instead sold as a general computer called the iPalm or similar. But since it's sold as a phone, any thing else it can do is more easily perceived as a bonus, and we hardly feel the restrictions at the beginning.
Only people who see smartphones for what they really are, general purpose palmtops that can make phone calls, can really perceive the egregiousness of those restrictions. The first step then, is generalising this understanding to everyone.
A good first step, I think, would be to start naming those things more accurately. I'd personally suggest "palmtop".
A general purpose computer would be hard to use if it had an OOM killer instead of swap and if running the CPU full speed shut it off because it got too hot inside. (Using it too hard can also drain the battery even if it's on a full strength charger.)
phones are actually more general-purpose since they travel with you and know where you are.
This is straight up lala-land. Phones do banking, browsing, document writing, printing, video editing. Many people don't even have a computer.
> OOM killer instead of swap
Windows 10 apps work like that.
> Running the CPU full speed shut it off because it got too hot inside.
Happens to some crappy laptops. These are basically irrelevant details.
And remember, they don't do Flash ;)
It's web pages that changed to fit on phones, more than the other way round.
Don't most modern (>2010) CPU's thermal throttle until they are back within operating temps? You'd have to stuff a laptop inside a backpack while maxing it to get it to overheat to the point of resetting
Yes, apple has about half the market today, that’s not the same thing as being first-mover. In fact it’s actually completely different because people had to make the choice to move away from the first-movers to apple.
People literally did give up their blackberries and palms and Jornadas for iPhone, consciously and deliberately, because it was a better product. And now you want to change the product and erode the benefits back to the minimum standard defined by android. That’s a taking.
It was a better product because of its capacitive multi-touch screen and its overall speed (which I must insist depends more on what apps are installed by default than on the restrictions on third party apps).
Do you remember the first iPhone? Or for that matter what "mobile development" looked like before the iPhone? The first iPhone was more "tolled" and "gate kept" than any iPhone we have today. There was NO app store. To get an app on the iPhone, Apple had to make it, which meant you had to be big enough for Apple to care. Google got a Youtube app because they were that big. At some point Facebook had a built in integration (though I don't remember if it was a full fledged app). That was it. Development for the phone was going to be "web apps" only, without the biggest "web app" framework at the time, Flash. Compared to the first iPhones, a modern iPhone is wide open to all sorts of developers.
But perhaps more than that, even that first iPhone was leaps and bounds for most people over what prior devices were (save perhaps Palm Treos) in terms of "openness". Before the iPhone, the carriers decided what your phone could and couldn't do. A Razr phone from AT&T could send and receive data over bluetooth (like contacts and ring tones). That same exact phone from Verizon could only use bluetooth for headsets. Data transfer was locked down to vVrizon's own service (with a fee of course). Mobile app development was a crap shoot of different sdks and licensing costs per device, and then a hope that each carrier would allow your bejeweled clone, and served up through their services, of which they took HUGE cuts of the revenue. The 30/70 split of the iPhone app store was quite literally "revolutionary" in the cell phone space.
Which leads one to wonder if the tolling and gate keeping is such a hinderance, why is it that the iPhone remains so successful despite their largest competitor having none of those restrictions, pretty much from the get go. It's not like Apple was open and suddenly slammed the gates down on apps and iPhone development. And it's not like Android's openness is brand new. So the question that has to be asked is why does Apple continue to sell so well despite the restrictions? Why hasn't Android eaten all of Apple's market share as a massive open platform where anyone can do anything?
I don't know, perhaps you should ask that to someone who actually made that argument? If I recall, people are still buying cigarettes, are they not? Stuff doesn't have to be good for you to sell good.
---
I don't dispute the facts you lay out here. I'll even cite game console as other general purpose computers that were (and still are) quite heavily locked down too. Apple however made one step further, and managed to sell a locked down general purpose computer for purposes other than gaming.
At the root of it all, I think, is how hardware vendors got away with selling their stuff without the full manual. Some instead provide a proprietary Windows driver. Others hide keys in them, don't tell users what they are, and then lobby to send heroic reverse engineers to jail. If I was the regulator I would probably start there.
It's even worse than that: though I stand by what I said, you're correct, people are gradually realising that the difference between their smartphone and laptop/desktop (if any), is one of degree, not kind. But we don't see the push back we would have seen if they had realised right away. Instead, as you rightly point out, companies are building on Apple's precedent to try and expand their model to our good old laptops and desktops.
And it looks like they're succeeding. It would seem one has to pay Apple to even get the right to distribute a regular MacOS program regular users can actually execute (no Apple developer plan, no code signing). And newer versions of Windows are displaying increasingly scary warnings for programs telling you they "protected" your computer, which are bad enough that we get tutorials about how to get past them.
So long as it is the customers making that choice, and they have access to alternatives, then it's not really a problem. If apple were advertising the iphone as a consumer product that had no such digital restrictions in an effort to hoodwink people into buying them, or if iphone were the only serious game in town, then those restrictions would be an issue, but right now iphones are advertised as being worth more than their competitors specifically because of those restrictions, and people are willing to pay such premiums. That you personally would not make the same decision does not mean they've been manipulated by anti-competitive measures into making theirs.
If someone were to make a consumer product that worked better for my use cases at the expense of being worse at or even incapable of doing things I don't intend to use it for, I should have the option to buy it. If you don't like the restrictions, buy something else. That's not anti-competitive, that is exactly how competition is supposed to work.
Can you buy the display from a supplier that supplies Apple and put together your own phone? No, they have exclusive agreement with apple.
Their anticompetitive practices Make It incredibly difficult and complex to put together a device. That's the whole point!
If the linux community as small as it is can produce multiple varied and unique linux distributions largely on the backs of volunteers, there's no reason why these manufacturers (especially some of the bigger names) couldn't do the same with Android / Linux and their own hardware. And whatever reason is behind the failure of literally the entire cellphone industry to do what they were doing before the advent of iOS and Android, it isn't because Apple is somehow stopping them from making their own OS, and SDKs and app stores.
Huh, I must've missed all the iPhone ads touting the device's inability to play Fortnight as a premium feature.
I mean, what gp wants is literally just there on the shelves and they don’t want it. But they also want it, but in Apple, because it’s nicer when Apple does[n’t] it. Why would they want it after Apple does it?
Voting with your wallet works very badly when there are two main options. Which anti-consumer behaviors do you pick? When something is bad enough, it's better to make it illegal for all options.
But allowing software vendors to ignore AppStore will eventually lead to my bank apps, local maps apps, delivery apps etc to go non-AppStore-only route and do whatever they want on my phone, because I have no alternative (except for not using my phone). The first thing one of my bank apps did on my android phone was to install some sort of an “antivirus firewall” which abused every access and semi-exploit to make sure I’m “safe”.
Your ideas will affect me, and I can’t see why your (and my) inconvenience is more important than my security. It’s not just “better”. I’m asking to consider this perspective as well.
And I'm skeptical that governments would stop Apple from enforcing a rule that says apps have to let you refuse permissions.
This is the very definition of bad-faith motte-and-bailey argumentation, and it’s logically incoherent to boot. Get apple out of regulating apps and App Stores, no more telling developers what they can do! Oh and i guess they can tell developers to do one thing…
My opinion isn't changed by the fact that I can purchase from a company that doesn't do that.
Why not? If you don’t want a car with this property, don’t buy one — how are you being harmed?
One good reason in this particular examples is I don’t want subscription based heated seats to become popular, because then I won’t have a choice anymore.
How the DMCA hasn't been struck down by the Supreme Court as an abridgment of the 1st Amendment, I really don't know.
This whole situation maps to iPhones as well. As things stand when you purchase an iPhone you own a glass brick, and Apple owns the phone part. They graciously allow you to use their phone to perform a certain limited set of activities. I am fundamentally opposed to this sort of non-ownership. Whether the buyer had an option to purchase a roughly-equivalent item with different terms is irrelevant; selling someone a product while retaining ownership of it is a mockery of property rights. Some rights are too important to allow people to sign them away with the tap of a button. When the market missteps by rewarding bad behavior like this it is the job of our democratic governments to step in and mandate good behavior.
[0]: this is made up to illustrate a point, I don't actually know how Roomba service works
I feel like someone who woke up in the middle ages with a fever and they are trying to cure me with leeches. Yes yes. No need to worry. Let the leech do it's work and you too will be secure from the plague.
Does anyone actually know anyone that has gotten hacked on their Android phone?
I do see people saying they like how Apple devices work, and that they consciously choose Apple devices over devices from other manufacturers. Those are informed consumers making a choice you wouldn’t make. It’s not sad. Some people won’t agree with you in life. That’s normal.
Choice does exist in the market. There are far more than 2 manufacturers, and some of them focus on more HN-ish people who have more principles than I do.
I don’t really want the government to limit my smartphone choices in this way, but I also realize that Apple devices will continue to exist and will mostly work the way they do today, so it’s not that big a deal to me.
Point 2 being the H in HN stands for Hacker defined as: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data." Then the argument becomes why are people who are reading HN and, presumably, calling themselves hackers so interested in keeping status quo and letting Apple control everything? I think we go back to argument 1 and excluding others, green bubbles and such making a subset "better" than others. Elitist as F and some folks, like myself cannot stand for this and take time to explain the failure to others.
Pretty simple really ;)
It sounds like you’re assuming that people are in a “cult” because they don’t share some of your opinions. I’m sure that’s not what you’re doing, because you are a rational person engaging in a rational discussion. Can you help me understand what you really meant?
> Then the argument becomes why are people who are reading HN and, presumably, calling themselves hackers so interested in keeping status quo and letting Apple control everything?
Because they like Apple devices. Next question.
> I think we go back to argument 1 and excluding others, green bubbles and such making a subset "better" than others. Elitist as F and some folks, like myself cannot stand for this and take time to explain the failure to others.
It sounds like you’re upset because some people who buy Apple devices make jokes about “green bubbles” and “blue bubbles”. I’m sorry that happened to you. Nobody likes getting their feelings hurt.
I’m generally opposed to snobbery, but I don’t think it’s illegal.
> Pretty simple really ;)
Cool winky face.
I don't even use an iPhone, I do use some Apple hardware as well as my household, but still stand for openness and am not in favor of walled gardens.
Snobbery is mostly about people trying to explain their usage of devices that break core tenements of open [internet, hardware, software ...] with poor arguments of "I like what I get" or simply "I got mine" and you can't for reasons.
Pretty sure some of the shills here are heavily invested in Apple stocks.
Excellent comment, it sums the situation up very well. And the above extract encapsulates the matter in just a few words.
The issue is that your choice is constrained by vertical integration. If you like Apple's hardware, or iOS, or iMessage, or any number of other things, these are all tied together with Apple's app store when they should not be. It's like encountering a retail monopoly in California and someone tells you that you're lucky because you can shop at another store and all you have to do is move to Florida, which also has a retail monopoly, but a different one.
Obviously this is not the same thing, and does not have the same benefits, as multiple stores being right next to each other and allowing you to choose the one you want on a per-purchase basis.
The counterpoint is: if bacon is so bad awful and bad for you we should probably regulate its sale, rather than leave that up to a company bullying other companies.
No it’s not. It’s constrained by one’s preferences as a consumer. If I am concerned about vertical integration, I will not choose an Apple device. Personally, I am not concerned about vertical integration. It seems to make my devices work better.
> If you like Apple's hardware, or iOS, or iMessage, or any number of other thing, these are all tied together with Apple's app store when they should not be.
Why not? Because you say so? Or because it harms consumers? Can you describe how it harms consumers? Smartphones are cheap and plentiful. Cloud-based apps and services are too.
Yes, I might have to make some tough choices as a consumer. Maybe no company makes the perfect device for me. I might really like iMessage, but hate iPhone hardware. But there are lots of viable competitors to iMessage and plenty of viable mobile devices on which to run them. “I don’t get to use iMessage on my Pixel phone” is not evidence of harm.
> It's like encountering a retail monopoly in California and someone tells you that you're lucky because you can shop at another store and all you have to do is move to Florida, which also has a retail monopoly, but a different one.
No, it’s not. Switching mobile platforms is nothing like migrating 2000+ miles in terms of difficulty or expense. If you want to use a retail analogy, it’s like complaining that you can’t buy Kirkland-branded products at Wal-Mart.
They didn't tell Apple not to charge 30% for their App Store. They can charge 90% for all they care.
They told Apple they mustn't block other installation methods.
So the question remains whether the spirit of the DMA is "users should be able to install the software they want on their computers" or "businesses offering apps and services should be able to compete with Apple on the iPhone". Is this a fundamentally a pro-user law or a pro-business law? There may be overlap, but they are not the same.
It really is amazing hearing Apple people talk about the world.
Nope, the problem very much is that they won't allow alternative browser engines, specifically so that they can force a crippled Safari browser with limited APIs to force people to write apps instead of web apps, forcing more traffic to their store. It's explicitly anti-competitive behavior.
>It's their store and they ought to be able to curate it however they like.
It's kind of forced fraud to call Chrome in iOS as "Chrome". It's like trying to sell someone a Ferrari that's just a facade bolted onto 2010 Honda. It's not Chrome, it's actually Safari - and its seems like people are finally starting to wake up to this abusive behavior that Apple has been getting away with for far too long.
Microsoft had a famous anti-trust case against them for simply bundling IE with Windows - not from forcing their engine on every other "browser" that gets installed. Apple is doing far worse than that and getting away with it for far too long.
>The problem is that users cannot reasonably install software through any means other than that single store.
That's one of the many other problems outlined by the DOJ today.
>The problem is that Apple reserves special permissions and system integrations for their own apps and denies them to anyone else.
Also another problem.
>However, these sorts of lawsuits or regulations that seek to force Apple to change App Store policies feel so wrong-headed and out of touch.
I was clapped out loud when I watched the DOJ announcement today. I cheered. They actually mentioned "Developers", which is a group I am part of, and I feel the pain that dealing with Apple and Safari is. Apple absolutely deserves this, and it's about time.
Your goals aren’t aligned, you’re just a useful idiot to them and they’ll cast you aside as soon as they no longer need you. The end result of the push isn’t going to be “free as in freedom” for everybody here, just Microsoft capturing 90% of a revenue stream instead of 70%.
Classic populism moment - but of course it’s “populism, but on the computer”.
Freedoms for users and freedom for business are two fundamentally opposed and conflicting goals, see: GPL vs MIT/BSD. And in their moment of victory, businesses will just steamroll right over you - just like they literally already did with consoles.
It’s just crazy that they have these exceptions when their own hardware is very much general-purpose on a technical level, and when they’re actively pushing to use that general-purpose capability to ensnare users with AI features and other crap.
Sony and Microsoft are two of the platforms that stand to gain the most from AI adoption literally purely on the basis of being closed platforms with proprietary APIs (plus a minimal amount of interop for embrace-extend-extinguish) with millions of active users and a captive audience of dev studios who have no choice but to use Sony and Microsoft’s closed, gatekept platforms.
Somehow the plight of poor little Larian being stepped on by Sony and Microsoft and Epic just doesn’t make the front page of HN like apple hate.
I know some of us like to think of Apple as some kind of corporate diety, but even Apple has to answer to the US government.
The next generation isn't necessarily choosing, though.
Their parents are giving into their demands for *an iPhone due to social pressures entirely originated by Apple's monopolistic behavior (iMessage green bubbles).
Then, when they're locked into the Apple ecosystem from the start, it's almost impossible to break out -- even if you grow up into a mature adult that doesn't give a shit about bubble colors.
Interoperability (being able to exit an ecosystem without massive downsides, specifically) between the only two parties in a de facto duopoly is absolutely necessary and morally right, and it's a shame market failures force the judiciary to intervene. But we are where we are and there's no use putting lipstick on a pig -- the system as it stands is broken, and if left alone will feed on itself and become even more broken.
First of all, we don't have that problem here in europe. People just use cross-platform messengers.
Secondly, I don't understand why a company should be forced to bring its service to a platform it doesn't care about. Apple supports the default carrier messaging standards (SMS/MMS). It's not Apple's fault that they suck. In fact Apple explicitely created iMessage because SMS/MMS were absolutely terrible.
If RCS is considered a standard (is it?), then Apple should absolutely support it and apparently they plan to do so. Seems fine to me.
While I personally don't use iMessage I'd prefer it if the service was available everywhere, but I don't see why Apple should be forced to support other platforms. Just because iMessage is popular? Imagine a world where WhatsApp was either an iOS- or Android-exclusive app. Should they be forced to develop for a platform they don't care about too? What about popular iOS-exclusive apps like Things? What about Garageband or Logic? Or Super Mario games on Nintendo?
> Their parents are giving into their demands for *an iPhone due to social pressures entirely originated by Apple's monopolistic behavior (iMessage green bubbles).
First of all, we don't have that problem here in europe
Apple could have open up their API. Or not try to shut it down so hard when someone finds a way around to use their API
Find me any other service that would ok with this? Beeper wanted to piggyback on Apple's network _and_ charge users for using Apple's servers for free. Are we going to force companies to provide an open API for all their services _and_ offer them at a reasonable cost? We saw what happened with Reddit and I have no doubt Apple would similarly charge high fees. I'm not saying I think this would be bad thing (forcing open APIs) but it better be a wide sweeping change not something targeted at a single company.
Lastly what are the rules around spam? Where is the line where Apple can tell a client or a company they refuse to do business with them due to the spam/malicious messages they send. Say what you will about iMessage being locked down but I can count on 2 hands max the number of spam iMessage messages I've recieved. On the other hand I get multiple SMS spam messages every day that I cannot unsubscribe from or block (they change numbers with every message). Aside from TOTP (which I wish they'd just let me use my own client instead of sending them) I could block pretty much all SMS and be happier for it.
As it currently stands, the options for Linux VMs on an iPad are:
- iSH, a Linux kernel ABI compatible user-mode x86 emulator that uses threaded code (ROP chains) as a substitute for a proper JIT, but doesn't support all x86 applications[0].
- UTM, a port of QEMU that requires JIT (and thus, either an external debugger or a jailbreak) to run a full x86 or ARM OS.
- UTM SE (Slow Edition), which is UTM but using the threaded code technique from iSH, which is not only slower than iSH because it runs both kernel and user mode, but also got banned from TestFlight before they could even make an App Store submission (probably because it can get to a desktop while iSH can't).
All of these suck in different ways.
[0] Notably, rustc gives an illegal instruction error and mysql crashes trying to do unaligned atomics
I do avoid Windows for those things, though.
Very nearly every halfway serious computer-involved activity I do these days (=last seven or eight years) that matters in my actual, real life takes place on my phone, including approximately all banking. All the other computers—even the "real" ones—in my life are basically toys. 90% of my real-life important or meaningful stuff I do with computers happens on my phone, 9% on a tablet, and at-most 1% on everything else.
(in my personal life, I mean—unfortunately I still have to try to use "real" computers to accomplish allegedly-important things at work)
> On my workstation and phone, where I do my banking and read emails, I'm willing to trade control and customizability for an extremely locked down high trust operating environment.
Excuse my French, but uh what? A browser accessing a bank in a Linux virtual machine running on bare metal is by far more secure than desktop MacOS running on bare metal.
At the end of the day, for the activity you described (browsing), what you must be able to defend against is the inherent insecurity of the browser. Linux provides all manners of process, network, etc isolation via CGroups and can be enhanced by SecComp to limit the usage of typical exotic syscalls used in kernel exploits.
MacOS has what for that? The best opportunity you have for defense is to run qemu so that you can run... Linux. The corporation you work for doesn't use Apple because of their stellar security posture, it uses Apple because they can buy mobile devices (phones, laptops) preconfigured with MDM which saves a lot of money.
It has sandboxing, which does all that stuff.
(iOS has even more, like JIT protections.)
Facts are most definitely not in evidence for this claim.
I get a lot of hard to solve Google CAPTCHA on many websites I visit so I know Google is having a hard time tracking me :-)
In terms of security, I don't think Pixel is less secure than the iPhone. It gets security updates regularly, Google invests a lot in security and I don't think the Pixel has more zero days than the iPhone...
So all in all, I don't buy into the "iPhone is more secure and handles your privacy better than Android" narrative
And all that is way easier than rooting/jailbreaking. I doubt that will be enough of a deterrent considering the anti-trust angle being that you can't compete with apple's native software
The reason that Google lost the same type of cases that Apple won was because consumers knew iOS was closed before they bought it.
That would be significantly more fair to the end users than the current status quo, if they won't intentionally make obstacles for those users.
Obviously, that's not happening.
Just look at cases where governments abuse Apple's power over users to squash protests and delete important Apps from the Appstore. Without competing Appstores users are left at the mercy of a trillion dollar company which cares about profits and profits only. Not being able to freely install apps from any source the owner of the computing device prefers is outrageous and we can only thank the EU commission for recognizing that.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/768841864/after-china-objects...
With an iPhone you are stuck with whatever new decision from Apple with no opt-out. That’s abnormal.
See, I’d be ok to say that Apple can do whatever they want with iOS the day they give me the keys to the boot loader. Until then, they’ll have to assume their role of gatekeeper.
I have no issues with walled gardens as long as you’ve got the key to leave. Here the key to leave is called "throw your $1000 phone to buy another".
And Airport security loves invasive search - why do people understand one is a violation of privacy, but tolerate the other?
Which iPad owner ever thinks "oh I wish my iPad were even less capable"? Most people are annoyed by its limitations but they accept it as a trade off. I personally would use my iPad much more if it were as capable & open as a Mac.
Me, kinda. I've disliked most of the moves to make it more like a general purpose computing platform and less like a slab of glass that becomes different tools (but mostly one at a time!). I have other options for that other crap, the iPad was (still is... barely) a distinct different category that I liked also having. iOS 6 is peak-iOS to me.
https://www.qubes-os.org/intro/, snapd and BSD jails are all forms of locking down a general computer OS ways similar to the way iOS is locked down, and things that individual users choose to do on their own computers. Sure those users can install anything else they want as well, but then there's also a reason why these things are niche, even within the nice of *nix users. Because the administration and management is a headache and people don't generally want to do that.
>Turns out that grown ups don't need Apple to babysit them for additional "security"
I think you have an over estimation of the average "grown ups" ability to judge the safety and security of their computer or the software they run on it. There are plenty of people out there who do not want or need to understand system security and administration and are much better served by having someone else manage that for them. There's a reason why Windows and MacOS are still more popular than Linux, and there's a reason why in the Linux world, Red Hat, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu are more popular than Arch. People only have a limited amount of time and energy to dedicate to things and not everyone wants to dedicate theirs to our shared hobby.
And having certain restrictions to hide complexity from users to hide complexity is by no means comparable to "security" whose only purpose is to shackle users so they can never escape obscene fees because Apple uses the same strategy as the mafia: "pay us for protection".
If it's not voluntary, what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Tony Soprano's behavior?
If you read past the first sentence, you would discover I wrote more than just that one. In fact, the second sentence which starts with:
>Sure those users can install anything else they want as well
and then goes on to explain why super hardened security OSs aren't even mainstream among tech people who should in theory be all about super hardened security in their OS.
>If it's not voluntary, what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Tony Soprano's behavior?
Except it is voluntary. Apple didn't force anyone to buy an iPhone. They didn't walk into people's homes with a baseball bat in hand commenting on the "nice general purpose computers you've got here". They didn't promise free computing and the ability to install anything from anywhere and then suddenly switch away locking people in after investing in a huge open system where none of their apps are available anywhere else. Any user can walk away from the iPhone simply by buying a device from any one of a number of other sellers, all of which offer Android OSes with all the freedoms they could possibly want, and Apple can't do anything about it, nor will Apple show up at their house in the middle of the night to leave a headless server in their bed sheets.
>and then goes on to explain why super hardened security OSs aren't even mainstream among tech people who should in theory be all about super hardened security in their OS.
You are intentionally arguing in bad faith, the point is and was that Apple's intention is not restriction for the sake of "security" but for the sake of funneling everything through their gate so they can impose a tax on everybody. It's the same with their sanctimonious "privacy" arguments, it's all BS and the DOJ realized this too. [0]
>>If it's not voluntary, what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Tony Soprano's behavior?
>Except it is voluntary. Apple didn't force anyone to buy an iPhone.
That's a bullshit framing that's a bait and switch in level, which is similar to saying "well the rail barons didnt force you to use their railroads, just use other railroads LOL". If a product or service becomes so prevalent in society then certain rules and regulations apply in a fair market and the EU commission has recognized that and finally the U.S has recognized that as well. By making that argument you also implicitly admit that the "security" argument is actually bogus and not really for the user's protection otherwise they would see no problem in granting an escape hatch for power users, but they don't do that because it's not about security an it never was.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/21/doj-calls-apples-privacy-j...
That's not true, if those "design decisions" are anti-competitive in nature then they are absolutely not allowed to do that, that's what the EU commission is fixing with the DMA and now the U.S. is suing Apple too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux
the delightful irony is you’re literally so wrong they put it right in the name. Security Enhanced.
The military knows damn well that limiting unprivileged users to running a limited selection of vetted and approved apps and restricting their ability to make tools that might aid their ability to jump the sandbox increases security. They literally built the canonical OS extension to do it. It’s not sufficient for security by itself, but it does additively increase security vs a non-policy-enforced environment with higher freedom.
It is, however, necessary for security. Literally every enterprise sysadmin, every single one, windows or Linux or otherwise, knows that letting users set policies on their own devices decreases security. And in the real world, those policies/access control are either: (a) mandatory, or (b) ineffective. If you allow a mechanism for users to opt out - they will opt out 100% of the time, and it’s ineffective. There is no middle ground, if there is a way to go around then users will do it, it's either a matter of policy or it functionally doesn't exist.
Facebook et al will certainly exploit their network power to push users to do that, just like any other attacker. No different than Chinese agents going after a debt-laden private. They literally already got caught using their dev credentials trying to pull a sneaky and tunnel users data via a VPN for data mining purposes.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
But I’m sure you know infosec better than the NSA. This is HN after all.
And again - such escape valves already exist. You can sideload apps on an iphone without paying any extra money. Altstore/Appstore++ exist to refresh your app notarization automatically etc.
Almost as if this is really all about the transaction fees and apple's cut of money that tim sweeney sees as rightfully his, and not user freedom at all... but I'm sure there's a very good, very pro-consumer reason Sony and Microsoft exempted themselves from the DMA?
The example you mentioned is fundamentally different, why? The owner has the option to completely disable anything they dislike or install a different OS, especially on linux which prides itself on maximum user choice. And even then it's asinine to compare features that are for enhanced security and Apple's version of "security" which just limits user choice to products that have to pass Apple's gate so they have to pay a tax to enrich Apple.
Wow, gold standard for sure. Is this why iOS zero day costs less than Android one?
I would argue it's much more secure and more private this way
I'm no security expert, but I know that security is certainly not a linear, at the very least it's some multi-dimensional thing that's exceptionally hard to generalize.
One system can be more or less secure than another for some party or parties, for some particular threat models if you can or cannot install certain apps, etc etc. Skipping all those bits makes the statement vague, increasing the risk of misunderstanding of the implied conditions.
Just a quick example. Installing an app could paradoxically make the device simultaneously more and less secure for the owner. Let's say it's an advanced firewall app. On the one hand it improves the network hygiene, improving the device security against its network peers. On the other hand, it may help in compromising the device, if someone gains access to its control interface and exploits it for nefarious purposes.
Bit confused by this. What prevents me from sending or receiving good quality images to/from Android users?
So I think the specific answer to your question is "iMessage and its lack of support for <protocol (RCS?)>".
But there are other ways to send images or arbitrary files. Why does iMessage need to support it?
Why do you have to defend every little thing that Apple does as if you were their lawyer? I get that you like some parts of their walled garden, but why do Apple stans behave as if Apple was a sacred company that could do no wrong, when there examples like this that they are literally harming their own customers to protect their moat. I get why Apple does it, I don't get why anyone here would side with Apple.
If someone doesn't like the fact that the Messages app doesn't support <X>, they should not buy an iPhone then, if it's that important to them.
Pretty simple calculus. Apple made a choice, and then they can suffer the consequences of a lost sale because of that choice.
imessage (the protocol) doesn't. iPhones should, because it's a common way for people to communicate. It was fine for us to start laissez faire but now that we see Apple abusing things by not interoperating -- deliberately in order to sell more phones [1], the people should intervene.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...
> "The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage ... iMessage amounts to serious lock-in"
> "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why."
iPhones are fully capable of transmitting images (and even other types of files--what an amazing world we live in). Feel free to install any of the numerous apps available that allow you to do this.
The US government claims that Apple is engaging in anticompetitive practices by degrading the behavior of iMessage when communicating to non-Apple devices.
Your stance seems to be, this should not be something for the government to be involved in, let the market decide.
This is ambiguous. Perhaps you believe that US antitrust laws shouldn't exist, or should be changed so they don't apply to this case, or actually don't apply to this case (ie the government is wrong that Apple's behavior violates the law).
Those are all coherent stances you could have, though I think it would be helpful if you identified which of them you hold if you want to engage in meaningful discourse with others.
Competitors stuffed around trying to build a competitor for over a decade and failed. Is that Apple's fault?
So... what?
Remember, this is all a very arbitrary restriction by Apple that lets them take advantage of their monopoly to suppress sales of competitive products. That's the illegal part.
WhatsApp also enable free international voip calls.
[1]: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP51933524
[2]: https://japantoday.com/category/tech/study-shows-iphone-the-...
Apple has a monopoly on what, exactly?
Let me answer. Apple has a monopoly on iPhones.
Just like Chevy has a monopoly on Corvettes and Ford has a monopoly on Mustangs.
> Remember, this is all a very arbitrary restriction by Apple
What are they restricting? I am still unclear. Their choosing not to do something is not restricting anything.
> that lets them take advantage of their monopoly to suppress sales of competitive products.
And we're right again back to them having a monopoly on iPhones.
Ask yourself, would MacOs have all of the restrictions an iPhone has? If not even Macbooks block installation of 3rd party applications, why does it change when you add a cell radio?
Honestly,if someone were being paid to change public opinion around the case, this is what i would expect to read. Don't fall for Apple's marketing
Just like I can put cases from arbitrary manufacturers on my iPhone.
> -use oil from arbitrary manufacturers
Just like I can use chargers from arbitrary manufacturers.
> -drive to arbitrary locations
Visit arbitrary websites...
> -use a universal port to get error codes (OBD-II)
OBD-II is actually a good analogy because it exposes only a small set of standardized data, but the more interesting data (and ability to run diagnostics) is sometimes behind a manufacturer proprietary protocol and requires something more than just the standard OBD-II interface. Similarly Apple can choose what standard interfaces and protocols to implement and which proprietary ones they would like to create.
> why does it change when you add a cell radio?
Because that's what Apple chose to build and sell. You're free to build your own phone with your own feature set and sell that.
> Don't fall for Apple's marketing
Fortunately I'm capable of my own rational thought.
Edit: Just realized that you I misread your comment and you and I agree
Plenty of other ways to send images.
That’s hard to do without the vertical integration.
If I can, I always use iMessage as the integration is just better - especially for media.
There's a reason Apple hasn't taken their garden wall that far, lmao. Same as being able to use "non Apple WiFi and Bluetooth devices".
Half the replies in this thread make me think they'd be happy if Apple restricted iPhone WiFi to only connecting to Apple APs becuz muh security, muh feature ecosystem
I want it to be semi onerous to enable apps outside the App Store, for this reason.
It’s the role of regulators to stop data hoarding.
Also this narrative is complete bullshit from Apple since those protections never came from App Store’s policies enforcement but from iOS sandboxing mechanisms which are not going to disappear for sideloaded apps.
I’m pretty amazed that on HN, of all the places, people still believe the narrative that the Apple reviewing process can enforce app behavior while all they’ve got to review is a binary. The App Store reviewing is just there to check if you are loyal into Apple.
Okay well they can stop Apple's enforcement of their tracking policies after they make regulations against data hoarding. Not beforehand leaving us with the only choices of be tracked or give up on the app entirely when we currently have a third option to use apps without accurate tracking.
> I’m pretty amazed that on HN, of all the places, people still believe the narrative that the Apple reviewing process can enforce app behavior while all they’ve got to review is a binary.
You don't need to believe Apple. You can believe all the ad companies revenue dropping by 30% for mobile users the quarter after Apple rolled out the tracking changes. There's a reason all these apps began you to click yes before showing the iOS system popup for tracking permissions.
The App Store review process actually does do a surprisingly good job at keeping malware apps off it.
Honestly, as an iPhone user I don't mind these changes as long as apps and services don't force me to use alternative app stores.
Sure, there was the direct commercial impact the moment the changes were implemented. But Meta is still doing the same business, it still keeps track of a tremendous amount of user data, and it's revenue is back to where it was before Apple's changes.
Same for Google or Reddit, they are in a position where Apple limiting their tracking range seem to have little to no impact on their whole business.
I still think some limitation is better than none, but it also doesn't look like a huge deal for any of them. At least not enough to force all users to go through sideloading just to get that extra bit of data.
If they had one set of APIs for smartwatches that can be used by them for the apple watch and everyone else for their smartwatches they wouldn’t get sued. But instead they give themselves deep integration into the OS and limit everyone elses access. When you are one of the only available platforms thats not okay.
If only they had it left it there.
Just let people wipe the phone completely - no drivers, no kernel, nothing, and bring their own. That's the proper solution to people wanting to own their hardware and do whatever they want with it. Want to install a different app store/browser/etc? Go for it, start by installing the new kernel and drivers.
If your walled garden (App Store) is really better, people will stay in it voluntarily.
Some examples:
- A lot of these changes are like mandating that cars have a manual transmission option. Sure, there are plenty of people that love the control, but there are many, many more that appreciate not having to deal with it.
- Every dollar and engineering hour that Apple spends complying with these new requirements is time they won't spend on things people actually want, as well as increasing the surface area for bugs and security holes.
- Apple is the intermediary between other companies like FB, Google, ad networks, data harvesting, government apps, etc. They can't do things on my phone because Apple forbids it. The more Apple is forced to open up, the less protection I have from other powerful players in the tech market.
- Every place where Apple is forced to open up is a place where there's a choice that many users didn't ask for but will have to make (e.g. default browser).
- I've never had to help a relative with their phone. I've had many of them come to me for help with their computers. Their and my experience with computing platforms is worse without the guardrails
- A lot of these changes are like mandating that cars have a manual transmission option. Sure, there are plenty of people that love the control, but there are many, many more that appreciate not having to deal with it.
- Every dollar and engineering hour that Apple spends complying with these new requirements is time they won't spend on things people actually want, as well as increasing the surface area for bugs and security holes.
- Apple is the intermediary between other companies like FB, Google, ad networks, data harvesting, government apps, etc. They can't do things on my phone because Apple forbids it. The more Apple is forced to open up, the less protection I have from other powerful players in the tech market.
- Every place where Apple is forced to open up is a place where there's a choice that many users didn't ask for but will have to make (e.g. default browser).
- I've never had to help a relative with their phone. I've had many of them come to me for help with their computers. Their and my experience with computing platforms is worse without the guardrails
Have you not had to use a third party security product on your work computer? All third party security products for computers are scams and inefficient
This seems a baseless statement.
" - A lot of these changes are like mandating that cars have a manual transmission option. Sure, there are plenty of people that love the control, but there are many, many more that appreciate not having to deal with it."
Nonsense analogy. Computers are General Purpose Computing Devices which people increasingly depend on in their lives where single point of control from Apple makes their lives artificially more difficult solely for the purpose of being able to squeeze out profits. It increases prices for consumers and allows oppressive dictatorships to demand certain apps to be removed and Apple always complies, leaving users without alternatives.
" - Every dollar and engineering hour that Apple spends complying with these new requirements is time they won't spend on things people actually want, as well as increasing the surface area for bugs and security holes."
Boohoo, the trillion dollar company has to do a little more work. They could just stop putting so much work into anti-consumer propaganda so they would have more time for actual work.
"- Apple is the intermediary between other companies like FB, Google, ad networks, data harvesting, government apps, etc. They can't do things on my phone because Apple forbids it. The more Apple is forced to open up, the less protection I have from other powerful players in the tech market."
This is exactly the kind of exaggerated, fear mongering narrative I've expected. Increased competition and openness could also lead to better privacy and security solutions as companies would need to compete on these features to win over users. Also, despite Apple's policies and safeguards, there have been instances where apps have found ways around these limitations or have used data in ways that are not transparent to users, because Apple only cares about Privacy as far as it benefits their bottom line, that why Apple also started to work on an advertising platform. They care about "Privacy" because now they can exclusively monetize user data.[Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims - https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company]
" - Every place where Apple is forced to open up is a place where there's a choice that many users didn't ask for but will have to make (e.g. default browser)."
Nonsense, the only thing that changes is that other people can change the default app, so when they don't care nothing changes for them, they don't have to do anything. this argument of yours is the kind of absurd reach that makes your overall position look absurd.
" - I've never had to help a relative with their phone. I've had many of them come to me for help with their computers. Their and my experience with computing platforms is worse without the guardrails"
I've read this meme so many times and every time I read it I doubt that it's an actual thing instead it's something you desperately need to say in order to uphold your indefensible position of defending Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's not a good argument either, just because your relatives are incompetent we all should suffer under that?
" I think many computer savvy people don't realize how freeing and liberating it is for normal people to have an "appliance" computer."
Ah yes, less choice is actually more choice, slavery is freedom and war is peace.
Small indie company, btw.
My guess is that this is not as much of an issue as Apple claims, and this 30% premium will not be worth it to the consumer.
Like damn, what if I intend to build this ecosystem from the outset, does that mean as soon as it reaches critical mass the government is going to come in and dismantle it? It's bullshit. This is essentially saying you're not allowed to build ecosystems.
Consumer products don't demand the same flexibility in this regard that enterprise products do. This is just other companies crying that they want a slice of the pie.
Their ecosystem was closed from the beginning.
This is basically saying you only use TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Tinder, Gmail, Google Maps, and play zero to some handful of mega huge F2P games.
Why have an App Store at all then? You don't use it. It's an installation wizard for you, not a store.
Don't you see? This stuff doesn't interact with restrictions at all. The problem with the App Store is that it sucks, not that it's restricted.
> making their app store worse
I've heard this take from so many people. It is already as bad as it gets. The App Store is an utter disaster. They have failed in every aspect to make a thriving ecosystem. It is just the absolute largest, hugest, best capitalized, least innovative apps and games.
This doesn't have to be the case at all. Look at Steam. Even Linux package managers have more diversity with more apps that thrive.
For me, one of the features of a centralised app store is that I buy and subscribe to apps through the app store, which centralises my app subscriptions within my Apple account. I wouldn't have this functionality if I was pulling in apps outside of the app store.
I can go into my Apple account and see every subscription I have and cancel it from within. No shoddy dark website behavior that makes it hard to unsubscribe, I can do it all there.
This just one feature that I find handy in having a single store.
My phone isn't a general-purpose computer in the way that my laptop is. My phone is an appliance. When I use my phone, I'm not actually using the phone itself, I'm using the email app to manage my emails, or the web browser to look at some news website, or Instagram to watch some reels, or Slack to communicate with my colleagues, or etc. The phone is just a conduit for apps/workflows.
My grandma won’t understand the difference. So when she gets a text saying, hey install this cool new thing, and then gets hacked, these changes will be to blame.
Why can’t we have a close ecosystem and an open ecosystem? If you want to side load, Android is right there ready for you.
That's the whole problem. People don't know any better so they follow the instructions to get what they think they want. They don't know what they don't know.
I was in such a role in the exact time period you're writing about. At the time, most computer users were still at least kinda enthusiasts, if not particularly well-educated on their new toy. It's no accident that ordinary people got seriously interested using computers for important things in their lives when smartphones came around, and especially the iPhone—phones are like computers that are 80% less rage-inducing utter shit, as far as normal folks are concerned. "Real" computers are horrible for a majority of people. Notoriously horrible, like, listen to people talk about how they interact with "real" computers and their attitudes toward them; they don't trust them at all and often hate them, to them they're like expensive bulky frustration-machines that barely make any sense, don't do very much (the pieces of crap can't even replace a pocket camera, what a joke), and break entirely at random and frequently.
And I don’t give a crap. If it’s so bothersome for you - don’t do it. Just say no. People complain about shit all the time, shall we now remove all advances of humanity?
Open your bank account:
* Enter IBAN
* Enter amount
* Press send
Shall banks remove “send” feature completely to protect user?
I had a customer come in one morning steaming mad and demanding a refund for her new macbook. She was mad because (to paraphrase) she has been told that she wouldn't have all the problems and crashes her windows machine had and wouldn't have to deal with viruses and a host of other windows specific issues if she used a mac. But after a few weeks she was still having all of the same problems. The more she described the issue, the more it sounded like she'd never even bought a mac, but here she was with a 3 week old macbook in a box. And beyond that, she described having some hardware issues that had been corrected with a firmware update months earlier. The first boot and software update should have corrected all of that.
So I asked her to show me some of what it was doing. She took it out of the box, switched it on and it booted right into windows. And then proceeded to dump a ton of malware popups all over the screen just as she'd said. It turns out, she did indeed buy the macbook 3 weeks earlier, and then gave it to her "computer smart nephew" to setup for her. Well Mr. Nephew apparently decided in his infinite wisdom that is aunt didn't need macOS, she just needed an expensive windows machine. And so he'd downloaded bootcamp, shrunk the macOS partition to the smallest size it could be, and then installed windows and configured the machine to boot into windows by default. She'd never used macOS and didn't even know it was there, and so had never gotten the firmware updates for the hardware, and was of course having all the same problems she had in windows normally, because she was still using windows, only this time without any malware software because "macs don't need Norton".
The end result is I showed the customer what had happened, got them squared away with the mac OS side an asked them to give it a try for a few weeks with a personal guarantee we'd return it if she still didn't like it. She became one of our best customers. But the moral of the story is twofold:
1) Not everyone who uses tech makes the decisions for how that tech is configured
2) "no support" is a good way to ensure that those #1 people hate your product
The more I read from you people, the more I get amazed. I can’t believe how somebody would use such anecdotes with serious face against software freedom.
Have you ever had to do tech support for non-technical users? People will make poor tech choices and fault the manufacturer for it.
It never crossed my mind to reduce literal supercomputer that costs 1,5k euro, and can fit into my pocket, to a feature phone.
I want Apple hardware, iOS, sideloading and custom browsers with plugins.
This isn't like the late 90's computer era. Apple doesn't fine BestBuy and AT&T for carrying non-apple smart phones. They don't obligate Samsung and Sony to buy licenses to iOS for every phone they ship, regardless of whether iOS is installed on it. Heck, even though they're bundling the web browser with the OS you can't even reasonably make the argument doing so is giving them a monopoly in the web browser space.
At the end of the day, virtually any hardware you hand over to a user they will be able to break past its security.
I agree people should be able to choose different things. But I also agree with the suit, that once someone gets in the position to control the market of 1000s and 1000s of companies, it's not longer just about user choice in phones. It's about the digital goods (apps/subscribtions/IaP) market itself.
Those choices also affect me, though. Any shared albums, messages or other data I transmit with these users has a higher risk of being leaked.
There's some security in knowing almost all phones are not jailbroken and thanks to regular os upgrades, have a pretty solid security floor.
One way to handle this would be to decorate the comms ID, email / phone name whatever to show they aren't running a standard iOS. But I would want to know as easily as I do that messages I exchange with someone are going to an android device.
I shudder to imagine the headlines complaining about the "scarlet bubbles apple is using to shame freedom loving users" or whatever nonsense the media would scare up if they tried to do something like that.
Nope, that's covered by basic consumer protections. Apple still has to offer support if the user has issues that weren't likely to have been caused by the modifications.
Your car maker doesn't get to refuse to honor your powertrain warranty just because you put in a custom stereo.
Almost none of the "free" apps are actually free. However, the App store makes it impossible to find this out without first supplying credit card information and installing the app, and possibly setting up an account with an app.
It used to be great. Frankly, it's now abusive.
Note that Apple doesn't allow alternative web browsers on iOS, so Safari/WebKit is the only Super App allowed on iOS.
https://open-web-advocacy.org/apple-browser-ban/
> When you download Chrome, Firefox or any other browser that isn't Safari on an Apple device, that browser is forced to use Safari's rendering engine WebKit. Chrome normally uses Chromium, and Firefox Gecko. However, Apple will not allow those browsers to use their own engines. Without the ability to use their own engines, those browsers are unable to bring you their latest and greatest features, and can only go so far as whatever WebKit has added.
Second, third-party browsers use their own rendering engines (Gecko, Blink) on MacOS, while iOS only allows WebKit.
If Chrome was let loose indiscriminately on any platform, how long before it became a Macromedia Flash, hobbling battery life and performance on whatever platform didn’t align to Alphabet’s strategy?
Also, how long before Alphabet began prime-timing Android, leaving Apple versions trailing months of not years behind, and restoring the “Works best on IE” experience of the ‘00s?
This isn't a sufficient description. Apple actually requires all third-party browsers to use the WebKit framework. If they actually allowed browsers to use the WebKit engine, then you could make a new browser incorporating the open source WebKit engine compiled into it. But this is not allowed.
> Saying there is only one browser on iOS is like saying Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are the same browser because they both use chromium.
No, Edge and Chrome both use the Chromium engine. They are different browsers that incorporate the same engine. Edge can do this because Chromium is open source.
But Chrome on iOS doesn't have its own engine at all (not even the Webkit engine). It just offloads to the WebKit framework.
This is the correct take, though. They ARE the same web browser, just with different skins.
You cannot for iOS. On iOS, you have to use the WebKit framework. Your app will not be compiled with any WebKit open source code.
No, I do not think it's fair to say that Apple allows other browsers, and neither does the DOJ.
Nor [embedded] programming languages (e.g. Python).
No, for a a platform to survive, its maintainers need the leverage to call out laggards and make them truly sweat and work with it. Not just build 10 layers of Cordova fluff
This is malicious compliance from Apple to try and make the law ineffective.
(It's not just a link to a web app on the homepage, it can also hold state, receive notifications, and (within reason) take over most of the screen.)
Windows, macOS and Android all support PWAs while also allowing them to be run by different browser engines.
> Apple itself offers a "super app" of course, which is the Apple ecosystem of apps.
To be fair to Apple, both Google and Meta have loads of apps for iOS that compare to the Apple suite of apps. Although there is definitely a pre-installed advantage for the Apple apps.
I’d call that an app marketplace, not a super app.
1 - Might have an argument there.
2 - OK, but only if the user is willing to accept the security risk to their apps, Apple and non-Apple. Apple has an interest in keeping the apps they create, or sell for others, secure but should bear no responsibility if a third-party fails to keep to the same standard.
3 - OK. I personally kind of like it because I am a bad person, but OK.
4 - Aren't most of them behind Apple's watches, anyway? I don't have an issue with Apple Watch not being compatible with Android - while Apple shouldn't prevent a third-party (see 2 above) from creating a bridge, they should, in no way, be forced to do it themselves.
5 - (see 2 above) And I don't have an issue with Apple torquing the nuts of banks - the banks do the same to us. And yes, it's my money they're taking from banks, but the banks don't like that, so ... I'm gonna call that one a tie.
You can read the full document but of course very few of us would do that.
Instead, I think this Youtube video of the US Attorney General is giving a good summary of the case.
- Apple Watch can directly use your credit cards without needing to separately add them to Fitbit/Google Pay.
- Apple Watch can "find my" your phone, whereas Fitbit's version of this is limited to just making it beep, and even that only works if the phone is running the Fitbit app in the background (which it often isn't).
- Apple Watch can stream data to the phone all the time, whereas Fitbit relies on the app being opened, meaning your morning sleep data isn't available immediately since opening the app (to look at it) just enables it to begin transferring.
- Apple Watch can unlock itself when your phone unlocks.
- Apple Watch gets much richer notification integration.
And yeah, you can argue that all of this is optional "extra" stuff that is just Apple's prerogative to take advantage of as the platform holder, and maybe that's so to some degree... but these little things do add up. Particularly when Apple doesn't even have a device that competes with Fitbit, it feels unfair that they shouldn't be made to open up all the APIs necessary for this kind of interoperability.
I see:
* third-party apps not being able to send/receive carrier messages (SMS)
* only Messages getting background running
* blue/green colored bubbles.
The background running thing is a bit of a surprise. If you had asked me, I’d have said iMessages didn’t run in the background given it’s load delay for new messages.
WhatsApp on iOS does a much better job, ironically (it just sends all queued outgoing messages once connectivity is back in the background, like every email client did back in dialup days).
15 basis points (0.15%) from the issuing bank on something that _undoubtably_ increases tx volume and associated interchange revenue. Sure, the issuing banks would like tx volume for absolutely free. Sure, DOJ should argue the point on NFC access. But 15bp from the party that's making more money on a service that's free and beneficial for {consumer, merchant, card network} just seems like good business.
That's the point of the lawsuit. Chase can't currently make Chase Pay to compete with Apple Pay and offer a mobile payment service with less than 15 basis points.
And fine, let apple collect their fee, but also open up payments on iPhone to other providers. Why can't my native bank app use the nfc hardware itself, hmmmmmmmmm? Oh Apple lock in so they can collect their $$$ for literally no reason; the payment network already exists, Apple is just a middleman.
The richest company in the world is purposefully generating social and psychology stress for young people so they can edge up their market share just a little bit more. In a just world, people would be imprisoned over this.
I do however find them extremely hypocrite of suggesting how they "care" about young people and yet not acting on it while causing this problem.
...if that counts, is the suit claiming that they somehow don't let other developers have multiple related apps? Because it seems that something like Meta's suite of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) that all share login data and suchlike should qualify if "the Apple ecosystem of apps" does.
iMessage is an Apple service, created as a way to provide additional value to people on Apple platforms so that they aren't limited by SMS. The DOJ argument appears to be "oh, you made a better mousetrap, and now you have to let people outside your platform use it." Why? What's the rational argument there?
They then extend that argument to the watch, which is just bananas. It's designed to work with one set of platforms. The tightly coupled nature of Watch/Phone/Mac provides benefits, but Apple is never going to open the technical kimono up to Samsung (e.g.) watches to use the same hooks, and they shouldn't be required to do so.
> 4. Smartwatches [interoperability]
Where do you draw the line on forcing interoperability?
This is kind of like (in-person) movie theaters.
Movie theaters don't allow you to bring your own food, you have to buy their food/drink.
Why should a movie theater be forced to allow patrons bring their own food?
Why should Apple be forced to allow it's patrons to brining competitive things to their business?
Note: I ask these questions out of genuine curiosity. Not to troll/stir-the-pot.
I don't think there's a good real-world "venue/food" analogy. However, hypothetically: Imagine if half of all homes/apartments were controlled by the same company and they also happened to be the largest food producer. They then decided to limit what food could be brought into your home, saying "We have the safest food, so you can only buy our food." Now, they might even be right that their food is the safest, but the market impact would be significant enough to warrant anti-trust action.
So you're saying in this situation the government should step in and force the successful chain with standards to allow competing movie theatres, junk food sellers, and low-budget movie producers to sell their wares in their theatres?
That's literally what's happening with these moves against Apple.
The peddlers of crap are upset that they're locked out of a well-managed market frequented by discerning customers.
That's it.
Nonetheless, it isn't an issue of "quality" or "discerning customers". A company can earn market-share by providing a better product (or a worse product at a lower price) and that's fine.
The issue is when that company uses their market dominance to limit competition. Then it becomes an anti-trust issue. Movie theaters aren't a good analogy since they're far less central to our day-to-day lives, and therefore will have less overall impact on the economy. Nonetheless, imagine your dominant chain makes deals with film producers to prevent their competition from screening popular movies. This prevents the other chains from competing, even if they wanted to.
People have a choice: it’s called Android.
I don’t see why a private company that isn’t a monopoly should be forced to open up their proprietary products to direct competitors.
This is a very slippery slope and the people advocating for it in the case of Apple will be screaming about how unfair it is for the government to get involved when it happens to them.
Let’s say you have a successful startup selling something like an API marketplace.
One day the government says: It’s unfair to MalwareAPI Co that you lock them out of the market and require a fee. You now have to let them sell their viruses to your customers and you don’t even get a cut.
Would you make the same arguments? Why not?
"Gatekeeper" is an EU legal term, which I'm aware doesn't apply in the US, but the term is on point. These gatekeepers are nothing more than unelected, unregulated, and unaccountable points of taxation that limit and control the flow and type of trade that is allowed to happen in the economy. Through network effects, they keep a stranglehold on both sides of the TWO-sided market because one of the sides (providers) doesn't have any alternatives and the other side (users) is chained to the platform through a variety of lock-in effects.
Financial transactions? Give Apple 30%. Porn? Apple says no! Perhaps 20 years from now, the only way to get a tech job will be to go through a an intermediary called Apple Jobs, and they'll take a 30% of your salary. How would you like that?
- Should the government force marketplaces to allow competing marketplaces to set up shop within their area, collect fees, but not pay any fees to the larger market?
- Should the government make laws to require restaurants to allow competing chefs to bring a hot plate and start cooking food at the tables and serve them to their customers?
- Should Google be forced by the government to include support for formats in Android that are used by Apple such a HEIF and HEIC? What about Microsoft and Linux?
These rules are not about individual choice or freedom. This is about giant corporations using the government to give them a way into the walled garden built by a competing mega corporation. This is completely self-serving and in no shape, way, or form serves the common good.
As an iPhone user I do not want government interference in a market place that has been kept mostly free of malware precisely because it keeps out the riff-raff. I want the hucksters and the scammers blocked. I really don't care if they scream "unfair!" at the top of their lungs from outside of the fence.
Similarly, general SMS messaging is a cesspit of unceasing spam precisely because it is so interoperable. Because Apple keeps out garbage devices with zero security, I've seen precisely zero iMessage spam in the last decade. I got a spam SMS in the last hour. I'll get several more today.
> Should Google be forced by the government to include support for formats in Android that are used by Apple such a HEIF and HEIC? What about Microsoft and Linux?
Yes, please.
> As an iPhone user I do not want government interference in a market place that has been kept mostly free of malware precisely because it keeps out the riff-raff.
Citation needed.
Those are patented formats. This would make Android no longer open source in the truly free software sense.
Are you sure you want this kind of precedent on the books?
This is just not the world we live in. The Play store is also malware-free, and yet you can sideload apps on Android phones.
3. Messages do interop. But it’d be hilarious if the US created some kind of precedent where everything has to work on everything.
4. Samsung, and Google both fall into this trap, where more functionality is available between like devices.
5. So when my Amex isn’t accepted, that’s Visa or Mastercard restricting APIs - and causing lock in right?
These strange legal cases are odd to me. If we think these large tech conglomerates should be regulated, then write laws for them, don’t use the court system to muck things up for no reason.
I don’t use Apple in spite of this, I use it because of this. Trying to support everything will likely lead to a worse experience for everyone in a multi-device world.
Apple is a hardware company making their own software to run that hardware, much like a game console. It seems like many of the criticisms here could be adapted and applied to Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation. Why can’t my PS VR work with my Xbox… it’s a Sony monopoly /s
There are areas where I think Apple can improve, such as right to repair and reliability in general. But it seems like some of what these governments are trying to kill is the very reason some people went to Apple in the first place. That doesn’t lead to more choice, it leads to less choice… as the government tries to turn iOS into an Android clone. Kind of odd that Apple is being told to act more like the platform that has the lead in global market share.
Like my Xiaomi phone was able to store any card I wanted and do a Tap to Pay, but I have to use Apple Pay and I can’t do that because my region is locked to somewhere Apple Pay isn’t a thing. Here in Melbourne even public transport is affected by this. The local myki transport cards can be digitally carried on an Android phone but not an iPhone.
• Allowing alternate web browser implementations, including alternate Javascript and WebAssembly implementations.
• Which would include third party developer access to the memory allocation/permissions API used for JIT compilers. Make iOS a first class ARM development OS. Please.
Perhaps removing restrictions to general APIs for competitive apps and "Super apps" would implicitly include those changes?
Interesting that this doesn't address Apple's iOS "taxation" of tangential non-web transactions, or the lack of App Store alternatives. If Apple has monopoly power, those seem like suitable concerns.
The WeChat super-app is available on iOS, complete with installable "mini apps", and most of the same functionality that is available on Android. So it's not clear exactly what the complaint is here. Unless Apple makes exceptions for WeChat and China that are not available to developers elsewhere?
Suing Apple(or any other company over stuff like this) when the fines will be a tiny slap on the wrist at worst will not incentivize proper behaviour, so there is literally zero reason for doing this except for the govt to feel good about itself, see!! we got a few hundred million from that evil corp for doing bad things. LOL. Apple could plead guilty tomorrow, pay the fine and continue doing business and not even notice.
Page 76 of the lawsuit PDF goes into some specifics under the section "Request for relief".
It basically boils down to: stop doing the bad things and pay a fine. The fine being an amount equal to it's costs for bringing the suit, pennies on the dollar next to the dollars Apple made.
There is no incentive to change future behavior here. When the govt broke up AT&T's monopoly, there was an incentive to change behavior. Since then it's weakly enforced "fines" that do nothing to curtail future monopolistic behavior.
I imagine this will happen: Some of this will stick, but it will be stuff Apple has already promised (like adopting RCS) and they will pay a small(to them) fine and will continue on business as usual with no actual changes being made, just like all the other lawsuits of this type the US govt has done in the last few decades. Some people will feel better I suppose, even though absolutely nothing of substance will have changed.
Isn't this .. not "super apps" then? If it's multiple apps? Said 3rd party super apps could instead be multiple apps people install a la carte. But companies want to do uber apps for funnel purposes etc.
With regards to the "super apps", Apple can just as well argue that it aspires to retain access for multiple players ("avoiding monopoles", ironically), so naturally it does not want only a single app becoming the majority of all downloads, which leads the app store idea ad absurdum.
Makes you wonder about something else: Could Apple one day be broken apart like "Ma Bell"? It seems the Apple brand is inconsistent with notions of modularity and openness (which brings with itself a certain messiness), everything is supposed to look at feel alike up to the slightly silly (as a problem to solve, as long as there are still children starving on this planet at the same time) device unpacking experience.
It's good that the U.S. government are doing their job as expected, in this case that's relevant for all other countries, where a lot of the device owners/users are based.
My ultimate wish would be some someone to launch a third mobile platform - beside Apple IOS and Alphabet-Google Android - based on a new open W3C standard (not HTML). Such a standard would get a chance to grow with the support of the legal apparatus: judges should force the oligopolists to implement said standard, and then people might just say "hey, I can just implement ONE app, and catch all THREE platforms."
On the other hand, I would like to see interoperability in stuff like airdrop. But that would not be something that other FAANG would make money of, so that is probably not so interesting for these regulators.
Do you think no one else should be able to build a mobile payment service? Should banks be block from making, say, ChasePay?
It's fine to prefer Apple Pay and to choose Apple Pay even if there are other options. The question is, should everyone be locked into Apple Pay vs choosing Apple Pay because it is better than ChasePay?
If it was just up to me, the "mobile ecosystem" would just burn to the ground.
But that's not a claim. It might be a fact that supports a claim. One which Apple might contest. It seems that no matter how many times web publications in spades remind readers that monopolies are not per se illegal, i.e., something more is required, e.g., anti-competitive conduct, forum commenters remain convinced of some other reality.
- Monopolization: actual, attempted, conspiracies, etc.
- Restraints of trade. Horizontal (rigging bids, fixing prices, allocating markets to avoid competition) and Vertical (resale price limits, exclusive deals)
- Tying: leveraging one monopoly to gain another
- Merger, where the resulting market would not be competitive
- other Unfair Competition (FTC)
While lawsuits are not uncommon, actual relief is rare, in part because the few judgments are overturned on appeal. Antitrust has been steadily eroded for decades.
Recent relief includes US v AT&T 2018 (imposed conditions on the Time Warner acquisition), but there are many more overturned.
So: 1. Super apps and 2 cloud streaming apps (restraint of trade): it's hard to compare all of apple to all of these multi-function apps. One question is whether all the apple functionality in fact complies with whatever constraints are imposed. I suppose the theory is restraint of trade. In NCAA v. Alston (2021) the NCAA lost their ability to restrict student compensation, but that was a blanket restriction.
3. Message interoperability: Apple also color-codes SMS messages, and will argue it helps to indicate the kind of data that can be transferred. That's a losing argument.
4. Smart watches (Restraint and tying): Unclear what limits are placed on other watches. Easy to fix with an updated API, but some risk the court will try to order Apple to license WatchOS. As with patent, watches may end up adding more legal exposure than the product is really worth in the portfolio.
5. Digital wallets (tying): Hard to see the courts requiring openness here when they have not done so for other financial networks, and the government doesn't really want this.
Most are based on tying, but tying has not been effective for some time. Virtually every successful tying case lacked a distinct business or technical rationale. (The right to repair and maintain (from Xerox on) is the furthest they go in rebutting technical rationale's, and they still permit technical standards.)
This is true, my wife and I have Huawei smart watches.
After my wife's android phone broke she got an iPhone and the watch is basically useless.
It can't receive notifications, can't control music playback, it can't use "find my phone" which makes the phone shout "I'm here" really loud.
The only thing it can do is sync the step counter.
In the US, people tend to use iMessages, which is not interoperable with other ecosystems. But iPhone place no limitation on third party messaging apps. Indeed, the rest of the world simply ignores the existence of iMessages and uses other applications for messaging (these vary per country/region, but I don't think that iMessages has any significant market share in any other country).
There's not technical reason preventing people in the US from using another messaging platform, and there are no limitations imposed on third party messaging apps. It's really just a cultural issue of people _choosing_ iMessages. Probably just network effect.
I just find it a bit questionable that Apple is being forced open this much. If you want a super app, why don't you just use the browser? Also, is cloud streaming apps such a big deal?
And re smartwatches, isn't it somehow expected that apps made by the same company will always have an edge? You can see this in the Windows+Microsoft Auth combo where Microsoft apps can do stuff that non-Microsoft apps can't just because it is a Microsoft app.
Maybe iPhones are much more popular in the US, but I feel Apple doesn't have such a strong hold of the mobile market in Europe.
My worry is that Apple is be forced open and will have to allow everyone to access the same APIs with all the security implications of it. Surely, if people don't like the way iPhones work they can move to Android or Tizen. I personally wish people moved away from iPhones AND Androids so we could have the thriving and healthy competition we had at the beginning of the smartphone revolution with Android, iOs, Symbian and similar. Support a market full of mobile OSes competitors and not a duopoly with open APIs.
1. "Super Apps"
Apple has restrictions on what they allow on the App Store as far as "Super Apps", which are apps that might offer a wide variety of different services (specifically, an app which has several "mini programs" within it, like apps within an app). In China, WeChat does many different things, for example, from messaging to payments. This complaint alleges that Apple makes it difficult or impossible to offer this kind of app on their platform. Apple itself offers a "super app" of course, which is the Apple ecosystem of apps.
2. Cloud streaming apps
Similar to "super apps", the document alleges that Apple restricts apps which might stream different apps directly to the phone (like video games). It seems there are several roadblocks that Apple has added that make these kinds of apps difficult to release and promote - and of course, Apple offers their own gaming subscription service called Apple Arcade which might be threatened by such a service.
3. Messaging interoperability
Probably most people are familiar with this already, how messages between (for example) iOS and Android devices do not share the same feature-set.
4. Smartwatches
Other smart watches than the Apple Watch exist, but the document alleges that Apple restricts the functionality that these devices have access to so that they are less useful than the Apple Watch. Also, the Apple Watch itself does not offer compatibility with Android.
5. Digital wallets
It is claimed that Apple restricts the APIs available so that only Apple Pay can implement "tap to pay" on iOS. In addition to lock-in, note that Apple also collects fees from banks for using Apple Pay, so they get direct financial benefit in addition to the more nebulous benefit of enhancing the Apple platform.