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Re:Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leader... by user_7832 on Thursday August 22, 2024 @01:30PM (#41322515)
> There will now be one team for the familiar, Apple-run App Store, and another one to handle alternative app stores in the European Union

Could someone explain why Apple needs someone to handle something they're not doing? I assume 3rd party companies are running their own servers and everything, is this just for the client-side software development?

Tangential but it's funny how by digging their heels in so tightly Apple's being forced so much. Sideloading (or "installing an app") has hardly been difficult on android (or desktop OSes), I don't think Google needs to set up a new team.

Re:Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leader... by nostrademons on Thursday August 22, 2024 @02:00PM (#41322807)
Why do all the Big Tech companies have teams dedicated to Privacy, Trust & Safety, AI Ethics, etc?

The way a large organization functions is to have a directly-responsible individual for each attribute that they care about (or don't care about, but are legally required to do), and then assume that person is looking out to advance that interest. They may or may not succeed - in large companies it's often very difficult to push the ball forward on attributes that the organization at large does not care about. But that gives the company somebody to fire and pin the blame on when negative consequences arise, which in turn shields the corporation itself from liability. And since the employees are themselves protected by the corporate liability shield, the worst that can happen is they lose their job, and don't get personally sued.

This also explains why the role at Apple is being split between two executives: it gives them the option of firing the one in charge of the EU DMA efforts, if Apple is found in violation of them, without firing the one who is actually running the App Store.

Re:Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leader... by moi2388 on Friday August 23, 2024 @03:26AM (#41326846)
This. Compliance - and preferably through deferred accountability, is the modus operandi of most, if not all, larger organisations.
Re:Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leader... by TheGlav on Thursday August 22, 2024 @01:37PM (#41322605)
If there was never infrastructure to handle third party app stores, then such infrastructure would need to be built, and assumptions based on idea that there are no third-party app stores have to be revisited and reworked. They have to then provide hooks for those third party app stores that never existed before (like anything related to launching download of an app, for example.)
Re:Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leader... by tpmoney on Thursday August 22, 2024 @02:49PM (#41323289)
Presumably they want to keep a pretty tight grip on what 3rd party app stores are doing. For all the usually assumed control reasons, but also because when some 3rd party App Store becomes a major vector for some malware or another, the headlines won’t be “Uncle Bobs Bait Shack App Store Wracked by Scandal”. You can be assured that the headlines will all very prominently use “Apple” and “iPhone”
Re:Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leader... by transpute on Thursday August 22, 2024 @01:41PM (#41322651)
> why Apple needs someone to handle something they're not doing

Regulatory compliance on the boundary between doing, "not doing", not "doing", "not" doing and not "not doing".