This seems like more knuckle dragging over not supporting PWAs, in which they've been horribly behind. Security concerns are not to be taken lightly and are actively being addressed by the very...
This seems like more knuckle dragging over not supporting PWAs, in which they've been horribly behind. Security concerns are not to be taken lightly and are actively being addressed by the very community Apple hesitates to work with because of the fear it would take activity away from their precious app store.
It's almost like they DGAF about security and privacy unless it helps them tighten their ecosystem. They'd rather do nothing and claim PWAs can never be secure if it keeps people locked in. See...
It's almost like they DGAF about security and privacy unless it helps them tighten their ecosystem.
They'd rather do nothing and claim PWAs can never be secure if it keeps people locked in.
In the case of RCS, the common variant (as is supported by carriers) isn’t encrypted and so implementing it would either not improve security/privacy (since SMS isn’t either) or actively make it...
In the case of RCS, the common variant (as is supported by carriers) isn’t encrypted and so implementing it would either not improve security/privacy (since SMS isn’t either) or actively make it worse since people are more likely to use it due to capabilities closer to those of modern chat apps.
Google’s version of RCS is encrypted and should be what the industry standardizes on, but carriers probably aren’t interested in that since it prevents nickel-and-diming on number of messages, features, etc and can’t be snooped on as easily.
But since it's just Google + Apple, they don't really need the carriers. And Google has handed out an (expanded) standard on a silver platter, an olive branch so to speak. And Apple won't take it...
But since it's just Google + Apple, they don't really need the carriers.
And Google has handed out an (expanded) standard on a silver platter, an olive branch so to speak. And Apple won't take it because privacy only matters if it draws in the evosystem.
I don’t think it’s that simple. I looked into this a while back and I have not seen any evidence that any implementation of RCS is interoperable. Google’s implementation is proprietary and the...
I don’t think it’s that simple. I looked into this a while back and I have not seen any evidence that any implementation of RCS is interoperable. Google’s implementation is proprietary and the only messaging apps that are capable of talking to Google’s stuff are those which have licensed code from Google.
When I tried to look into the history of RCS it appears as if the standard was basically just “this is what we want our next generation messaging service to look like” and then dozens of implementations came up - none of them interoperable because it doesn’t seem like there are any detailed descriptions of how the protocol is supposed to work anywhere - and inevitably failed until Google came around and strong-armed the carriers into using their implementation. But the entire RCS game appears to always have been pay-to-play.
It is incredibly annoying that this is a fairly solved issue in a technical sense, and it's purely down to the two defacto monopolies to sit down and implement one of the dozens of perfectly-fine...
It is incredibly annoying that this is a fairly solved issue in a technical sense, and it's purely down to the two defacto monopolies to sit down and implement one of the dozens of perfectly-fine implementations.
Edit: And it looks like they're using the Signal Protocol...does that not provide any level of interop with other clients/servers?
Because of the EU's DMA, the exact thing they're blaming all these problems on in this article. They're doing so kicking and screaming in the face of legislation...not because it would actually...
Because of the EU's DMA, the exact thing they're blaming all these problems on in this article.
They're doing so kicking and screaming in the face of legislation...not because it would actually improve security and privacy of their users (and subsequentally the people the users interact with).
The DMA doesn't require Apple to build in RCS support, unless you're saying Apple is doing it to win enough favor with the EU that the EU won't drop the hammer on them. The EU decided within the...
The DMA doesn't require Apple to build in RCS support, unless you're saying Apple is doing it to win enough favor with the EU that the EU won't drop the hammer on them. The EU decided within the last week that the DMA doesn't apply to iMessage by the way, although that is still not proof that it's not a tactic by Apple to curry some favor.
Apple has since commented on this: Update on apps distributed in the European Union - Support - Apple Developer
Apple has since commented on this:
Why don't users in the EU have access to Home Screen web apps?
To comply with the Digital Markets Act, Apple has done an enormous amount of engineering work to add new functionality and capabilities for developers and users in the European Union — including more than 600 new APIs and a wide range of developer tools.
The iOS system has traditionally provided support for Home Screen web apps by building directly on WebKit and its security architecture. That integration means Home Screen web apps are managed to align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS, including isolation of storage and enforcement of system prompts to access privacy impacting capabilities on a per-site basis.
Without this type of isolation and enforcement, malicious web apps could read data from other web apps and recapture their permissions to gain access to a user’s camera, microphone or location without a user’s consent. Browsers also could install web apps on the system without a user’s awareness and consent. Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps. And so, to comply with the DMA’s requirements, we had to remove the Home Screen web apps feature in the EU.
EU users will be able to continue accessing websites directly from their Home Screen through a bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality. We expect this change to affect a small number of users. Still, we regret any impact this change — that was made as part of the work to comply with the DMA — may have on developers of Home Screen web apps and our users.
You mean web apps which Apple already enforces to be built upon with Safari's Webkit (Firefox is infamously just a Safari skin on IOS for this reason)? So either this has never been an issue and...
Without this type of isolation and enforcement, malicious web apps could read data from other web apps
You mean web apps which Apple already enforces to be built upon with Safari's Webkit (Firefox is infamously just a Safari skin on IOS for this reason)? So either this has never been an issue and is now being used as justification to break features, or has always been an issue and they are admitting that the non-EU forks (which allow web apps) are compromise. Not a good look either way.
EU users will be able to continue accessing websites directly from their Home Screen through a bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality.
Ahh yes. So not a web app at all. If people wanted to access a website they'd just do that.
No. The issue at hand is the DMA is requiring true alternative browser support on iOS. Correct. The explicit point is that they aren't going to do the engineering work to add support for...
You mean web apps which Apple already enforces to be built upon with Safari's Webkit?
No. The issue at hand is the DMA is requiring true alternative browser support on iOS.
So not a web app at all.
Correct. The explicit point is that they aren't going to do the engineering work to add support for non-webkit webapps in iOS.
And that Apple based on other news on this issue still wants to verify any app, even if it's not on the App Store. Because they still want to take 17% of the revenue for anything developed on IOS...
The issue at hand is the DMA is requiring true alternative browser support on iOS.
And that Apple based on other news on this issue still wants to verify any app, even if it's not on the App Store. Because they still want to take 27% 17% of the revenue for anything developed on IOS period.
they aren't going to do the engineering work to add support for non-webkit webapps in iOS.
But they will profit from it. Perhaps if they didn't want to take that barely less than App store cut I could understand their justification for not putting in the work. But they still want to eat that cake.
Fair: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-changes-to-ios-safari-and-the-app-store-in-the-european-union/ Though, 17% + 50 cents Core Technology fee may not be as far off from...
Though, 17% + 50 cents Core Technology fee may not be as far off from 27% at the end of the day. Still enough investment that they probably should take some responsbility here.
17% + 0.50 only in specific circumstances.. It could be 10%. It could be 17%. It could be 0.50. It could be 17% + 0.50. It could even be free! Feels like bad faith arguing here when you pick the...
17% + 0.50 only in specific circumstances.. It could be 10%. It could be 17%. It could be 0.50. It could be 17% + 0.50. It could even be free! Feels like bad faith arguing here when you pick the absolute worst case scenario and neglect to mention the other configurations.
If you would like to know my bias: I am a game developer, I know Apple makes 70% of its IOS revenue on mobile games and this clause of: is pretty much targeting microtransactions of games that may...
If you would like to know my bias: I am a game developer, I know Apple makes 70% of its IOS revenue on mobile games and this clause of:
17 percent on transactions for digital goods and services.
is pretty much targeting microtransactions of games that may be considering leaving the app store. In addition, 1 million downloads is a tiny goal for such games to reach at launch. Them saying the clause is one of "the vast majority of developers" is about as honest as saying that the vast majority of mobile game players do not pay anything for mobile games, so they are clearly free, right?
The biggest legal case of the decade involved a game and several other mobile games introduce PC clients precisely to try and avoid such transactions. They will probably be both the most likely to consider alternative stores and have the most impact on Apple should they get off the App store. As far as I'm concerned, most of the biggest targets and impacts for such an imitative will be taking the 17% hit.
I was kind enough to search up and link to an official report when i was corrected with a simple statement; those that can't do the work to click into that link (both in your first response and edited into my original comment) probably don't care enough about the specific figures to begin with.
Regardless, this is all a nitpick to my main point: Apple is choosing to take both rev share and install counts on apps outside of the app store to developers who need to both buy hardware and dev licenses to even develop on IOS to begin with. If they feel like existing on the OS is enough to take any cut (something that Microsoft would get torn to shreds publicly and legally), I will hold them to a higher standard when it comes to providing such features to his OS. It wouldn't matter to my point if they took 1% revenue and $0.001 install fees for apps > 10m. Its still infinitely more than other popular OS's get for apps that choose not to interface with the native store.
Apple never took money from web apps? They're not on the store, there is no review process. This is just Apple saying "we're not going to do the work for this webapp feature for n different...
Apple never took money from web apps? They're not on the store, there is no review process. This is just Apple saying "we're not going to do the work for this webapp feature for n different browser engines" and the DMA wouldn't let them just keep supporting webkit, so they took it out.
I know it's fashionable to go "apple greedy bad!" but it just looks really bad when people wheel that out for things it doesn't really have anything to do with, it dilutes the actual, very reasonable point.
Hard to say, depends on a lot of factors. Apple can audit a company if they think they are trying to go around Apple's finances. The public answer is "no" but I wouldn't dismiss it. sure. And they...
Apple never took money from web apps?
Hard to say, depends on a lot of factors. Apple can audit a company if they think they are trying to go around Apple's finances. The public answer is "no" but I wouldn't dismiss it.
This is just Apple saying "we're not going to do the work for this webapp feature for n different browser engines"
sure. And they weren't still going to take 17% + 50 cents per install above 1 million installs, they may be justified. I don't expect Google to do any extra headway of support but they also don't take any money for any non-Play store apps.
I know it's fashionable to go "apple greedy bad!" but it just looks really bad when people wheel that out for things it doesn't really have anything to do with, it dilutes the actual, very reasonable point.
I can't do much but disagree. They are making an experience worse, likely in retaliation to mandates they clearly don't like. The fact that still want to profit from apps they are pre-emptively crippling is a core reason I hold them more accountable than the competition.
And so far I haven't seen a counterargument for disabling a feature for Apple's own browser or future browsers while still taking a comission on them.
What is this source? It seems from looking at a handful of their other pages that it's an advocacy group formed entirely upon this one issue. Everything on their website comes across as incredibly...
What is this source? It seems from looking at a handful of their other pages that it's an advocacy group formed entirely upon this one issue. Everything on their website comes across as incredibly alarmist to me, and while I would agree that Apple's handling of web apps is not ideal and they have other ideas I would agree with, having them yell "fire" over this makes me reflexively want to side against them.
But then again I am outside of the EU, and from my understanding Apple is making a lot of these changes exclusive to their EU handsets, so perhaps I am missing something.
It seems based on something real but “all web apps that only work in iOS’s special environment and not in a regular web browser” might not be all that many. Someone needs to figure out the impact...
It seems based on something real but “all web apps that only work in iOS’s special environment and not in a regular web browser” might not be all that many. Someone needs to figure out the impact of this change. These activists seem uninterested in that?
This seems like more knuckle dragging over not supporting PWAs, in which they've been horribly behind. Security concerns are not to be taken lightly and are actively being addressed by the very community Apple hesitates to work with because of the fear it would take activity away from their precious app store.
It's almost like they DGAF about security and privacy unless it helps them tighten their ecosystem.
They'd rather do nothing and claim PWAs can never be secure if it keeps people locked in.
See also: RCS support.
In the case of RCS, the common variant (as is supported by carriers) isn’t encrypted and so implementing it would either not improve security/privacy (since SMS isn’t either) or actively make it worse since people are more likely to use it due to capabilities closer to those of modern chat apps.
Google’s version of RCS is encrypted and should be what the industry standardizes on, but carriers probably aren’t interested in that since it prevents nickel-and-diming on number of messages, features, etc and can’t be snooped on as easily.
But since it's just Google + Apple, they don't really need the carriers.
And Google has handed out an (expanded) standard on a silver platter, an olive branch so to speak. And Apple won't take it because privacy only matters if it draws in the evosystem.
I don’t think it’s that simple. I looked into this a while back and I have not seen any evidence that any implementation of RCS is interoperable. Google’s implementation is proprietary and the only messaging apps that are capable of talking to Google’s stuff are those which have licensed code from Google.
When I tried to look into the history of RCS it appears as if the standard was basically just “this is what we want our next generation messaging service to look like” and then dozens of implementations came up - none of them interoperable because it doesn’t seem like there are any detailed descriptions of how the protocol is supposed to work anywhere - and inevitably failed until Google came around and strong-armed the carriers into using their implementation. But the entire RCS game appears to always have been pay-to-play.
It is incredibly annoying that this is a fairly solved issue in a technical sense, and it's purely down to the two defacto monopolies to sit down and implement one of the dozens of perfectly-fine implementations.
Edit: And it looks like they're using the Signal Protocol...does that not provide any level of interop with other clients/servers?
RCS support was announced a few months ago.
Because of the EU's DMA, the exact thing they're blaming all these problems on in this article.
They're doing so kicking and screaming in the face of legislation...not because it would actually improve security and privacy of their users (and subsequentally the people the users interact with).
The DMA doesn't require Apple to build in RCS support, unless you're saying Apple is doing it to win enough favor with the EU that the EU won't drop the hammer on them. The EU decided within the last week that the DMA doesn't apply to iMessage by the way, although that is still not proof that it's not a tactic by Apple to curry some favor.
Apple has since commented on this:
Update on apps distributed in the European Union - Support - Apple Developer
You mean web apps which Apple already enforces to be built upon with Safari's Webkit (Firefox is infamously just a Safari skin on IOS for this reason)? So either this has never been an issue and is now being used as justification to break features, or has always been an issue and they are admitting that the non-EU forks (which allow web apps) are compromise. Not a good look either way.
Ahh yes. So not a web app at all. If people wanted to access a website they'd just do that.
No. The issue at hand is the DMA is requiring true alternative browser support on iOS.
Correct. The explicit point is that they aren't going to do the engineering work to add support for non-webkit webapps in iOS.
And that Apple based on other news on this issue still wants to verify any app, even if it's not on the App Store. Because they still want to take
27%17% of the revenue for anything developed on IOS period.EDIT: corrected an outdated figure: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-changes-to-ios-safari-and-the-app-store-in-the-european-union/
But they will profit from it. Perhaps if they didn't want to take that barely less than App store cut I could understand their justification for not putting in the work. But they still want to eat that cake.
It's not 27%; that's a really outdated number given the latest news.
Fair: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-changes-to-ios-safari-and-the-app-store-in-the-european-union/
Though, 17% + 50 cents Core Technology fee may not be as far off from 27% at the end of the day. Still enough investment that they probably should take some responsbility here.
17% + 0.50 only in specific circumstances.. It could be 10%. It could be 17%. It could be 0.50. It could be 17% + 0.50. It could even be free! Feels like bad faith arguing here when you pick the absolute worst case scenario and neglect to mention the other configurations.
If you would like to know my bias: I am a game developer, I know Apple makes 70% of its IOS revenue on mobile games and this clause of:
is pretty much targeting microtransactions of games that may be considering leaving the app store. In addition, 1 million downloads is a tiny goal for such games to reach at launch. Them saying the clause is one of "the vast majority of developers" is about as honest as saying that the vast majority of mobile game players do not pay anything for mobile games, so they are clearly free, right?
The biggest legal case of the decade involved a game and several other mobile games introduce PC clients precisely to try and avoid such transactions. They will probably be both the most likely to consider alternative stores and have the most impact on Apple should they get off the App store. As far as I'm concerned, most of the biggest targets and impacts for such an imitative will be taking the 17% hit.
I was kind enough to search up and link to an official report when i was corrected with a simple statement; those that can't do the work to click into that link (both in your first response and edited into my original comment) probably don't care enough about the specific figures to begin with.
Regardless, this is all a nitpick to my main point: Apple is choosing to take both rev share and install counts on apps outside of the app store to developers who need to both buy hardware and dev licenses to even develop on IOS to begin with. If they feel like existing on the OS is enough to take any cut (something that Microsoft would get torn to shreds publicly and legally), I will hold them to a higher standard when it comes to providing such features to his OS. It wouldn't matter to my point if they took 1% revenue and $0.001 install fees for apps > 10m. Its still infinitely more than other popular OS's get for apps that choose not to interface with the native store.
Apple never took money from web apps? They're not on the store, there is no review process. This is just Apple saying "we're not going to do the work for this webapp feature for n different browser engines" and the DMA wouldn't let them just keep supporting webkit, so they took it out.
I know it's fashionable to go "apple greedy bad!" but it just looks really bad when people wheel that out for things it doesn't really have anything to do with, it dilutes the actual, very reasonable point.
Hard to say, depends on a lot of factors. Apple can audit a company if they think they are trying to go around Apple's finances. The public answer is "no" but I wouldn't dismiss it.
sure. And they weren't still going to take 17% + 50 cents per install above 1 million installs, they may be justified. I don't expect Google to do any extra headway of support but they also don't take any money for any non-Play store apps.
I can't do much but disagree. They are making an experience worse, likely in retaliation to mandates they clearly don't like. The fact that still want to profit from apps they are pre-emptively crippling is a core reason I hold them more accountable than the competition.
And so far I haven't seen a counterargument for disabling a feature for Apple's own browser or future browsers while still taking a comission on them.
What is this source? It seems from looking at a handful of their other pages that it's an advocacy group formed entirely upon this one issue. Everything on their website comes across as incredibly alarmist to me, and while I would agree that Apple's handling of web apps is not ideal and they have other ideas I would agree with, having them yell "fire" over this makes me reflexively want to side against them.
But then again I am outside of the EU, and from my understanding Apple is making a lot of these changes exclusive to their EU handsets, so perhaps I am missing something.
It seems based on something real but “all web apps that only work in iOS’s special environment and not in a regular web browser” might not be all that many. Someone needs to figure out the impact of this change. These activists seem uninterested in that?