The antitrust investigation into Apple started prior to the current President's term. So you're saying both the current and previous presidents aren't functioning or sane?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New EU Law Could Force Apple to Allow Other App Stores, Sideloading, and iMessage Interoperability
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
Think they picked up pace with the current president.
OriginalAppleGuy
Suspended
F* the EU. One of the reasons Apple iOS is more secure than the others is you can't side load apps or have third party app stores available. You want those things? There's other options. THAT's the competition!!!!! How can they not understand that?
There are reasons why us Yanks gave the middle finger to Europe. If our founding fathers were still around, they would be pissed.
There are reasons why us Yanks gave the middle finger to Europe. If our founding fathers were still around, they would be pissed.
OriginalAppleGuy
Suspended
Idiots everywhere. How can people NOT understand there are other options out there - competition exists! Long live Android so we can keep saying that!
AppliedMicro
macrumors 68040
You can sideload and have alternate app stores today.
They're just run by bad guys, since Apple doesn't allow for public/consumer use.
There are reasons why Europe rejected the kind of ***hole capitalism championed in the US.
So it's obviously not US vs. Europe thing.
There seems to be some transatlantic agreement that Apple's ways aren't good for competition or consumers.
most of these "extreme securities" are service/app based, independent of the OS. However, in fact, i hate the forced 2FA on apple devices too...
This keeps being stated but you need a Mac to do so. Not really relevant to the conversation. And if its easy to do today, why is there even a law in place?
Yeah you can side-load on a $1,000 device by spending ANOTHER $1,000 for a Mac!
AppliedMicro
macrumors 68040
You don't. You need a enterprise developer certificate.
You just trust the developeron your device and install apps (that could be from outside of the app store).
No Mac required. No signing with your own Apple ID required.
Apple's Enterprise Developer Program Also Being Used to Distribute Hacked Apps
Misuse of Apple's enterprise developer program certificates continues to make news, with a new report from Reuters outlining how software pirates have been using the program to distribute hacked versions of popular apps like Minecraft, Pokemon Go, Spotify, Angry Birds, and more.
www.macrumors.com
Google Also Exploiting Enterprise Certificates to Bypass iOS App Store for Data Collection [Update: Disabled]
Facebook is facing the wrath of Apple today for misusing an enterprise certificate meant for internal use to get Facebook users to sideload a data harvesting "Facebook Research" app that violates App Store policies, and as it turns out, Google has been doing the exact same thing. According to...
www.macrumors.com
Apple forbids their use to distribute apps to end-users.
Again, their enforcement doesn't seem to serve as an effective security measure - but merely an efficient protection of their revenue streams.
Last edited:
CarlJ
Contributor
You're arguing against points that I did not make. I stated (and have done so repeatedly) that people keep arguing, "no, see, you don't have to use the alternate stores if you don't want, everything will stay just exactly the same for you, why are you raining on our parade", when, as you point out, a bunch of apps are, indeed, likely to pull out of the App Store (and thus out of most of Apple's supervision), leading to a worse experience for most consumers where they have to choose between sticking with Apple's App Store (and thus Apple's testing of apps, and using Apple's payment methods), and NOT having access to some apps that were formerly on the App Store, or they have to venture off the App Store, and give out their credit card details to a bunch of other stores, and install apps that aren't as thoroughly vetted. It lowers the overall quality of the iOS ecosystem for most users, so that some people, like Tim Sweeny, can make more money.
Neonblue
macrumors 6502
It’s basically like a Zara store selling Zara clothes being told they have to include H&M clothes in their store now, and whilst you’re at it your Zara clothes should also be sold in H&M stores.
Retail stores wouldn’t stand for it and I don’t see why Apple should either.
Retail stores wouldn’t stand for it and I don’t see why Apple should either.
Yeah. Great results too.
Just can't believe all these world-changing companies didn't fall all over themselves to base out of Europe.
Man that pisses people off.
Last edited:
AppliedMicro
macrumors 68040
If you're being honest with yourself, you'd want to ask, "how come the EU didn't manage to develop any of those "garage tech" companies that exploded onto the world.
Whether Apple changed or didn't change its so-called rules is not particularly relevant here. However, what is very much relevant is dominance, market power, etc. and that has changed a lot for Apple since 2008 and is a reason behind the (deserved) regulatory scrutiny, legal actions, etc.
When a company reaches a dominant position in a market like Apple has in mobile OS, they can unfairly use that market power to block competition, stifle innovation, etc. Antitrust laws and regulations (which can vary by country) are meant to try to prevent that.
There is no vast constituency actual of Apple customers demanding changes. Sure, some do. They are a tiny minority.
The ones demanding changes are various other corporations whining and complaining because they want to use what Apple built to enrich themselves at Apple's expense. That's all that's going on. Apple built the iOS ecosystem essentially from scratch. They were given virtually no chance to succeed by the oddsmakers. Oops! Now everyone else wants in, because they couldn't be bothered to succeed with what Apple has done, after tremendous investment to do so.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
I think all companies should be routinely reviewed. However, I believe this is government overreach. We clearly have different thresholds into which directions the government should be focusing resources.
I’m okay with dominant positions. Apple pushed the needle in a positive way and I think the government should be doing something more useful, like fix the country. (I know this an EU thread but speaking generally)
AppliedMicro
macrumors 68040
Oh, I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons. Size of the country, jurisdiction and its laws, access to capital, etc. The US are undeniably a great place and success in software development. And, more broadly, scaling businesses. They've had less success elsewhere.
That’s not the point the post was making.
It‘s not only about the number of end users demanding changes.
It's not just that they want in - it's that many need to be in, in order to succeed a viable (or just maintain) business.
Operating systems are a market that almost naturally converges onto one, two, maybe three dominant products/platforms that will divide the market amongst themselves. We've seen it in desktop operating systems, we've seen it with game consoles, we've seen it with mobile operating systems (and the app stores tied into them). The reality is that not every bank, not every dating app, not every game developer, not every ride-hailing business, not every cellular provider will develop their own hardware devices, let alone their own operating system - and find a developer audience for it. Neither will the EU - and neither is there public demand for it.
👉 Operating systems are, succinctly put, a "winner(s) take(s) it all" market. And given the intermediary role these mobile app platforms (iOS, Android) took on between businesses and consumers today, they have assumed the characteristics of a public utility.
👉 And public utilities will - and should be - regulated. They are, even in the US.
Apple can't complain that they haven't been very well rewarded for their innovation and success in establishing their platform. And they will continue to be rewarded, even with this law.
But these platforms has become too important to economies and societies to leave consumers/businesses at the whim of their gatekeeping owners and let the latter do as they please.
Some iPhone buyers are upset, some may not care or even know there are restrictions, etc. but keep in mind too that people who buy iPhone aren’t Apple’s only customers. There are also app developers, browser companies, retailers, etc. which also serve the consumer market one way or another.
Going back to the Microsoft and browsers example, there probably weren't a lot of Windows/PC end users who were complaining about Microsoft providing Internet Explorer for "free" (compared to Netscape which was mostly charging for Navigator at the time) but that didn't mean Microsoft wasn't using its market power, dominance, etc. to unfairly control the market and block competition. Consumers and "corporations" can both be negatively and unfairly impacted by dominance in a market. Antitrust laws and regulations are meant to try to prevent that.
But, a ‘small upstart’ company, focused on the ENTIRE rest of the world doesn’t have any new regulations applied on them just because they become successful. Selling only outside the EU means that, if they come up with something cool and unique that they want to control, it remains in their control. Sure, they’d miss out on any potential EU monies, but, last I checked, there are far more people in the world OUTSIDE the EU than in. For a company like Apple, it’s 75% or more of revenue (depending on how much of “Europe” is “The EU”). That’s a price worth paying for autonomy.
Just think about an Apple/iPhone with the current “don’t be successful” regulations in place, back then. There would be a serious discussion inside Apple regarding how much it would cost to take a system that only uses SMS and iMessage and support, seamlessly and securely, ALL the other messaging technologies from day one. Weighed against how much they would make if they just continued to focus on growing their marketshare outside of the EU. It wouldn’t be insane for them to “skip the EU, for now” and just increase in popularity around the rest of the world.
EU will soon be over with their ridiculous bans on cars and now technology. Apple should ignore and abandon the market altogether.
So, you would've been okay with something like two or so dominant carriers back in 2007 saying that phones using their network could only be sold through their websites or stores and/or must have a physical keyboard and/or could only use apps sold by the carrier and/or were required to display ads sold by the carrier? I doubt it.
I think what you are really saying is that you are "okay with dominant positions" only if you like the dominant company and their products. That's not how fair and open competition is meant to work.
Unless, of course, Granny is being helpfully provided the direction to toggle it off so the helpful “vendor representative” can resolve their virus problem, or help them with that banking mistake (which is what currently happens on platforms that have steps that can be used to reduce the security profile). It’s an extremely low chance (zero) that, given the opportunity, malicious actors would NOT target iOS in the same way if the option becomes available.
The “good” in the case of sideloading is a few, very likely far less than 1% (as seen on Android) utilizing the feature. The “bad” is opening up millions upon millions of folks to the same exploits already common on other platforms with the security posture that folks want iOS to have.