Unless and until the EU or another government decides this is too onerous.
Zero legal basis or policy for that
Once you accept government mandates on how your phone should operate, you don't only get what you think is good and right, you get what that particular governing body and their constiutents think is right. In this case, most likely the big businesses who lobbied the EU and mislead consumers in the EU.
The government have always dictated how the phone works. And now they are just enforcing your property rights.
Do you really not see the pure irony in telling them to use something else when you're supporting the EU in forcing Apple to operate like Android when everyone has the choice to use something else
Well it’s a little play on words as the common defence people use. While ignoring android and iOS aren’t competitors or a choice.
It’s only between phones, Google already tried to use that defence and got obliterated in court.
Or how about an add-on fee, in line-item, for phones sold in the EU. Like, the phone costs x + this EU service fee + the tariffs that the EU and member countries add onto the phone.
Eu is the only one with tariffs, and service fee?
What duopoly?
In phone sales? There are many more than two sellers of phones.
In OS? There's IOS, and then there's Android OS, which is an open-source OS. Many manufacturers modify Android, are free to modify it. Thus, there are not only "two" OS's, but many OS's.
So, what duopoly?
The duopoly could be argued in the digital store front of play store and AppStore.
And what if the EU decides that Apple should be liable for any and all problems arising from this?
And why would they when that has never been the case? And That would go against pretty much every legal principle already established.
Until the EU says that Apple must be liable for everything.
Would be interesting but close to impossible, considering Consumer still have the legal obligation to prove that they did nothing wrong.
Why should the EU be able to charge 20% of global revenue? It’s an American company, not an EU domiciled company, so surely, it should only be EU based revenue. I mean, not even the hegemonic US does that to US domiciled companies (the tax burden for global operations is based on the money the firm repatriates from abroad). The EU really seems to have small dog syndrome.
Why? It’s easy EU looks at apples registered global revenue from previous years and say 20% of that is the maximum amount that can be fined, and if they get a 5% fine, that would be consistent. Or did you expect fines to be part of doing business? Slap on the wrist? Continue as normal?
A simple way to manage sideloading? Just place another ToS before you install your first non-App Store app that put responsibility on the user. It would be no different than installing a non-App Store app on your PC/Mac at that point.
That’s always the case. No ToS is needed for that. It’s the consumers device and they are responsible for breaking it.
I know the biggest push for this is to not pay Apple's commission but theoretically what's stopping them from charging that commission in some other way?
The regulation explicitly spelling out that no fee is allowed to be levied.
Payments processing is not related to sideloading.
But those games will theoretically be able to run modified clients with cheats.
use anti cheat software like vale.
I believe it’s actually both about control and money, but if Apple is going to lose control, then at least retain the billing portion.
Or maybe not, let them choose. Apple already have Apple Pay, their could become more common.
…I wonder if Apple might be able to get away with something similar. Say disable certain features like
Apple Pay or iCloud if it detects the presence of sideloaded apps on an iOS device. All in the name of security.
So it may well be that while sideloading is technically possible, it becomes so onerous and inconvenient that nobody ends up using it?
Well unlikely your bank could even do that on iOS considering how the sandbox works, and no, Apple can’t discriminate against legitimate apps that are installed by the owner.
Just look at the companies complaining:
Spotify,
Meta,
Tencent,
Epic Games (Tencent),
ByteDance (Tencent),
Microsoft,
Google.
"nothing major", these are the biggest companies in the techworld.
And can you show any correlation? Especially when 4 of those 5 companies are impacted.
Especially with the DSA enforcing some good things.
Some part I absolutely love
- It shall be set out in clear, plain, intelligible, user-friendly and unambiguous language, and shall be publicly available in an easily accessible and machine-readable format.
- directed at minors …shall explain the conditions for, and any restrictions on, the use of the service in a way that minors can understand.
- very large online platforms and of very large online search engines shall provide recipients of services with a concise, easily-accessible and machine-readable summary of the terms and conditions
- act in a non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory manner and take into account the rights and legitimate interests of the recipients of the service, including fundamental rights as enshrined in the Charter. For example, providers of very large online platforms should in particular pay due regard to freedom of expression and of information, including media freedom and pluralism.
- Providers of the intermediary services should clearly indicate and maintain up-to-date in their terms and conditions the information as to the grounds on the basis of which they may restrict the provision of their services. In particular, they should include information on any policies, procedures, measures and tools used for the purpose of content moderation, including algorithmic decision-making and human review
- 1. Providers of intermediary services shall include information on any restrictions that they impose in relation to the use of their service in respect of information provided by the recipients of the service, in their terms and conditions. That information shall include information on any policies, procedures, measures and tools used for the purpose of content moderation, including algorithmic decision-making and human review, as well as the rules of procedure of their internal complaint handling system. It shall be set out in clear, plain, intelligible, user-friendly and unambiguous language, and shall be publicly available in an easily accessible and machine-readable format.
- 2. Providers of intermediary services shall inform the recipients of the service of any significant change to the terms and conditions.
- 3. Where an intermediary service is primarily directed at minors or is predominantly used by them, the provider of that intermediary service shall explain the conditions for, and any restrictions on, the use of the service in a way that minors can understand.
- 4. Providers of intermediary services shall act in a diligent, objective and proportionate manner in applying and enforcing the restrictions referred to in paragraph 1, with due regard to the rights and legitimate interests of all parties involved, including the fundamental rights of the recipients of the service, such as the freedom of expression, freedom and pluralism of the media, and other fundamental rights and freedoms as enshrined in the Charter.
- 5. Providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines shall provide recipients of services with a concise, easily-accessible and machine-readable summary of the terms and conditions, including the available remedies and redress mechanisms, in clear and unambiguous language.
- CHAPTER II
LIABILITY OF PROVIDERS OF INTERMEDIARY SERVICES
Article 4
‘Mere conduit’
1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the provision of access to a communication network, the service provider shall not be liable for the information transmitted or accessed, on condition that the provider:
| (a) | does not initiate the transmission; |
| (b) | does not select the receiver of the transmission; and |
| (c) | does not select or modify the information contained in the transmission. |
2. The acts of transmission and of provision of access referred to in paragraph 1 shall include the automatic, intermediate and transient storage of the information transmitted in so far as this takes place for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission in the communication network, and provided that the information is not stored for any period longer than is reasonably necessary for the transmission.
| 45) | Whilst the freedom of contract of providers of intermediary services should in principle be respected, it is appropriate to set certain rules on the content, application and enforcement of the terms and conditions of those providers in the interests of transparency, the protection of recipients of the service and the avoidance of unfair or arbitrary outcomes. Providers of the intermediary services should clearly indicate and maintain up-to-date in their terms and conditions the information as to the grounds on the basis of which they may restrict the provision of their services. In particular, they should include information on any policies, procedures, measures and tools used for the purpose of content moderation, including algorithmic decision-making and human review, as well as the rules of procedure of their internal complaint-handling system. They should also provide easily accessible information on the right to terminate the use of the service. Providers of intermediary services may use graphical elements in their terms of service, such as icons or images, to illustrate the main elements of the information requirements set out in this Regulation. Providers should inform recipients of their service through appropriate means of significant changes made to terms and conditions, for instance when they modify the rules on information that is permitted on their service, or other such changes which could directly impact the ability of the recipients to make use of the service. |
| (46) | Providers of intermediary services that are primarily directed at minors, for example through the design or marketing of the service, or which are used predominantly by minors, should make particular efforts to render the explanation of their terms and conditions easily understandable to minors. |
| (47) | When designing, applying and enforcing those restrictions, providers of intermediary services should act in a non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory manner and take into account the rights and legitimate interests of the recipients of the service, including fundamental rights as enshrined in the Charter. For example, providers of very large online platforms should in particular pay due regard to freedom of expression and of information, including media freedom and pluralism. All providers of intermediary services should also pay due regard to relevant international standards for the protection of human rights, such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. |
No, actually it's not simple. Once alternative App Stores with lower commission (or zero commission if you set up your own) become possible I very much expect the developers of some popular apps to make their apps only available that way, meaning it's no longer possible to get all the best apps in the Apple App Store.
Now why would any developer lower their customer exposure? Why are developers sticking with steam? Even tho epic store takes way smaller fee? Can it be steam is gives more benefits and value for developers and consumers than epic store currently does?
