We need a law saying users can run exactly what software they want on their own devices. If people are worried about malware or whatever, have the apps be optionally notarised and big warning's if they aren't. I do not want any company or government telling me what software can run on my devices that I paid for and I own. This is clearly against the spirit of the DMA.
> We need a law saying users can run exactly what software they want on their own devices.
That's absolutely the opposite of how most of EU operates. See every single EU banking application. You can't run on rooted Android. Yes, EU absolutely should focus of their own tech first and foremost.
> I do not want any company or government telling me what software can run on my devices that I paid for and I own.
Device manufacturers that are also service providers want nothing more than to adopt the licensing business model. The public has mostly accepted that when you buy physical media that contains digital media, you buy a limited use license to the digital media, and the physical media just happens to be the delivery mechanism. In that same sense, it could be construed that buying a mobile device grants you a license to a digital service, without which the device is useless. You technically own the device, but you license the operating system.
So the argument is: feel free to do what you want on any other operating system, if you can manage to run it, but on our OS, you'll abide by our rules. Apple has been successful at this for years, Google is well on its way there with Android, and even desktop OSs have been trending in this direction.
The last bastion of OSs that give users actual freedom are Linux, BSDs, and other niche OSs. Everything else is becoming a walled garden.
Not relevant; a child consenting (or "consenting") to a parental lock on their (or "their") phone isn't the same as Apple locking down their OS. Ditto an employee using a company device.
Why is it that your stance isn't the wrong one? Apple sells a device that is locked down. You buy it. You then complain that it was locked down, yet you knew this from the off. They do not sell it as a general purpose compute device. It is sold as a thing that runs apps. We don't complain when Playstations will not play Xbox or Switch games.
If you want to hack a device and get it do something other than what it was designed for, then that's the hacker spirit so go for it. But why does that mean we* all have to accept your way when we just want to run apps.
*royal we. i do not use apps as i don't trust any of you app developers to not be shady.
I think there is a big difference due to the requirement of phones to live a normal life. I can't access my banks without the IOS or Android app, which require me to have a phone running one of those two fairly locked down OS's, and on Android custom ROMs frequently not working due to play integrity checks. I need a phone to go to concerts using ticketmaster, I need a phone with a mobile number to receive SMS 2fa codes, I need a phone for TOTP.
I can work around most things but not the banks, therefore a phone is required to live in a modern society, therefore I am required to use either Android or IOS. I am not required to have a PS5 or Xbox. This is the main reason I am so opposed to locking down phone OS's, I only have a choice of IOS or stock Android, and I have to choose one.
The way you have set up your argument suggests you would not use smartphones if they weren't "necessary" to live a normal life. But in that case, your smartphone can simply be one of the many black boxes you use daily, such as, for example, your public transportation or credit cards, which have a literal computer inside of them you never think about. You just create various accounts, install the apps you need, and use the phone as a tool when you are required to. Once its job is done, you tuck it away and you go on about your day.
I was coming from the perspective more of I can't use alternative operating systems on it due to these issues. For example, my laptop came with Windows, I got fed up with one drive and the tracking etc so I put linux on it, which was fine. I cannot do the same with my phone due to especially the banks, I know at least some of mine are unusable if I unlock my bootloader, so something like Lineage is off the table. This is what I mean by I have no choice in it, I have to use IOS or Android.
Probably because you can buy a gaming PC. I don't complain very often about consoles being locked down because it doesn't affect me unless there's some platform exclusive I can't play. If there was a viable alternative to iOS or Android I wouldn't care quite so much about them.
You can't buy a phone with Sailfish or a Linux phone and continue to access your banks that require apps for 3DS that check the play integrity API so compatibility layers like Sailfish has or bluestacks won't work. I'd say the inability to access my money makes it a lot less of an option.
PS3 orig allowed yellow dog linux, and there was only a slight murmur when that feature was removed. to me that's worse as it is obvious it is possible, but only now not possible because vendor took it away compared to never allowing it from the start.
That's because it was there 100% for tax evasion :D
IIRC EU had a rule that "general purpose computers" had a significantly lower tax than "gaming devices" -> let users install Linux on it -> general purpose -> more money for Sony.
But here is the problem: just like with cryptography it's an all-or-nothing game. You can either have E2EE all of the time or none of the time. There is absolutely no mechanism that would allow your child to truly own his phone but magically allow you to take complete control of it when necessary.
Correct. The parent can truly own the phone and allow the child restricted access. It's reasonable for this to be true in a technical sense even if the child owns the phone in a legal sense.
>It's reasonable for this to be true in a technical sense even if the child owns the phone in a legal sense.
By the same metric, it's reasonable for a consenting adult to own their phone in a legal sense while the true owner is Apple (which they willfully paid for this). So in this case yes, iPhone owners are real owners even if it's a complete walled garden.
What I find unreasonable is a situation where the owner of the hardware can't back out of the arrangement (while continuing to use the hardware). Someone might initially want Apple as their sysadmin, then learn that Apple is making decisions they don't like.
No? In virtually all cases it was purchased by the parents who also pay the bill, so it's only theirs to use. Even if they somehow bought it with their own money, parents ultimately have the final say over how they're allowed to use it until they're 18.
You give your kid a smart phone when you trust them with one? The standard parental control, money. They can't afford the phone or the cellular plan on their own.
what difference does it make to have a phone between your hands and having paid for it vs. not having paid for it? does the circuitry inside somehow know you are the "rightful" owner?
>>All three are more generic computers than any Apple mobile device and are purely walled gardens where we can't run whatever we want.
No they aren't. Game consoles are designed for a singular purpose. Apple's mobile devices are not singular purpose. I guess their watch might be? but that's the closest you'd get IMO.
I guess it's just as good as any other of the vendors you mentioned. I don't see why we shouldn't start with Apple but at the same time I don't think anyone opposes to the other companies being forced too.
At least I know I would like to run personalized software on my Switch without having to rooting it by other 'ways'.
The developer had his app distribution rights removed in mid-July.
i am the one who reached out to TorrentFreak; they were the first to respond. (The Verge /MacRumors/9to5Mac ignored me)
Two days, two app store news. Yesterday it was Google and there was a large discussion.
And today it is Apple, and I'm curious to see whether HN folks feel the similar passion. Historically, people pick up pitch forks for Google but give Apple a pass - so looking forward to the conversation here.
I think most people concerned with sovereignty over their own devices gave up on Apple long ago.
This is the kind of conduct I expect from Apple and the reason I have no interest in using one of their devices. I think it's bad for them to do this. I think it's bad for them to have the ability to do this. I don't think ranting about it on HN will accomplish anything. It has been this way for nearly 20 years and it will only change if governments make even stricter laws against it.
Google, on the other hand is trying to lock down a previously (somewhat) open platform. That's a rug pull for those who picked Android for its openness, and it's possible that sufficient outrage from the tech community will stop that plan.
>and it's possible that sufficient outrage from the tech community will stop that plan.
I highly doubt that. It would take the common non-tech person to be outraged. This is where google makes all their money. Not from a small minority of tech workers.
As one of the people objecting to Google's actions yesterday, I think I was pretty clear that I was objecting to them descending to Apple's level, not below.
This is the behaviour I, unfortunately, expect out of Apple.
Thanks for the reasonable response. If you are a company and you saw your competitor was "getting away" with something so egregious, which also turns out to be hugely profitable, wouldnt you also do it?
I'm not sure it matters what I would do if I was the company. I'm an individual evaluating what phone to buy next, regardless of motivation, Google being less abusive is no longer a reason to purchase an Android.
But to actually answer the question, I think this is a strategic mistake. I'm broadly of the opinion that:
The android ecosystem is reliant on Android capturing part of the high end market, without it their won't be sufficient money in the ecosystem. Money in the ecosystem is necessary to justify things like developers making apps, phone companies investing in product lines, advertisers paying high prices for in app ads, etc.
Android captures part of the high end market only because of enthusiasts and developers choosing and evangelizing the less abusive company. From other perspectives (hardware quality, software quality, signalling wealth, etc) Apple has generally been better. There's the occasional exception like Android being the first to flip-phone-touch-phones, but not enough to sustain an ecosystem.
And thus Google's general movement to matching Apple here is shortsighted, and likely to significantly contribute to the collapse Android's phone ecosystem, which in turn will destroy the huge source of profit that is Google Play.
> Google being less abusive is no longer a reason to purchase an Android.
But still better than Apple, yeah? Last I checked, still allows alternate stores, still allows sideloading (but requires verification), still allows customization, still allows OEM choice ..
You didnt say it explicitly what you'll switch to, but my assumption is that you were going to go to iPhone but isnt it worse over there?
Google while rapidly trending downwards remains marginally better on this axis, yeah. It's not the only thing I'm making a decision based on though... I haven't really made up my mind, but I am strongly considering an IPhone for a handful of unrelated reasons.
There seems to be a difference between Google announcing an official policy change and speculation about why this developer is having issues distributing their app.
As mentioned in TFA:
> While there may be a perfectly logical explanation for iTorrent’s revoked rights, Apple’s handling of the matter so far only fuels speculation. Some might even argue that the lack of transparency in revoking distribution rights violates the letter or the spirit of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
If Apple is truly trying to block an app that has substantial legal uses that is being distributed outside of its own App Store, there is a problem.
Its interesting that you're giving the benefit of the doubt to Apple, when all signs from the past point to Apple kicking the developer out and protecting their app store control.
You're technically right that we havent seen Apple do the thing _in this instance_ but why do you still give the company the benefit of the doubt.
The issue is app distribution outside of the first party app stores.
One one hand we have an official policy announcement from Google, and on the other hand we have speculation about why one developer is having issues distributing one app.
Speculation is not on the same level as an official policy.
Historically speaking, Apple didn't allow side loading at all.
The EU changed the laws within their jurisdiction to require third party app store availability.
Historically speaking, Google made claims that Android would allow you to run anything you like (they didn't even have their own app store at first), and also that Android was open source.
They have incrementally been rolling back those stances ever since.
the article that caused such outrage yesterday was about Google making it more difficult for devs to deploy arbitrary software on Android mobile devices outside of the official store. This is something that Apple does not allow at all for devs on iOS devices (except in regions where forced to by law). I don't like Google's changes, but its still better than Apple's stance.
Mostly because the people who want sideloading are using Android. And on Android the situation is constantly getting worse, while on iOS it's largely just sticking to the status quo.
Nevertheless, this serves as an excellent demonstration of the problem with the changes Google are making, since they would allow Google to do exactly what Apple just did.
I don't feel similar passion but that's because I don't have an iphone and gave up on ios long ago. I use android because it gave me more freedom. The freedom to root my phone, the freedom to install whatever app I wanted to.
I use a macbook pro as my main laptop because macos is bearable (also it's become steadily worse in the last few years) and their hardware is great. But, ipads and iphones are just locked down trash from my perspective and I refuse to use money to get a device that I can't control.
You will not see the same level of engagement. Many more people care about changes to sideloading on Android as a whole than something affecting one torrent app on one app store in one region on iOS.
I admit that many give apple a pass, but I think the outrage is greater for Google because people think there's a chance they'll actually listen to their consumers
We aren’t a monolith, as evidenced by the supportive comments in response to yours and throughout the comments here. I also don’t think Apple deserves a pass.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to have different models for an ecosystem and market.
Android exits, it's relatively open. I can download an APK and easily install it on my device (unless this changed since I last did this).
Apple is a walled garden. That's both a gift and a curse. I see a lot more spammy low-quality apps on Android, but I also have more choice. I prefer Android for mobile and Mac for desktop.
As an aside, any time I've seen the state intervene in affairs like this it has made my experience as a user worse. I remember something about Google can no longer "favor" their services. So for instance, if I search for an address, it can't show me Google maps because it theoretically harms all the fledgling map companies. But now it's just more clicks for me. I don't care about competition, I care about the best product. If I search for an address I want google maps. If I search for a video, show me YouTube. And if Google fails to deliver the best product, I'll switch.
It's no different than going to a restaurant and them serving only Pepsi products.
> I don't care about competition, I care about the best product.
Competition is how you get to the best product. Lack of competition leads to malaise of product improvements as the market dominators are owning the space and happily exert their power over people.
> It's no different than going to a restaurant and them serving only Pepsi products.
There are two viable players for the average Joe in the phone market. There are I would guess 200-300 restaurants in my not so big town.
The number of choices matters a lot. If there were only two real option for restaurants around me, I would hope the management does not decide to be evil and lower food quality, jack up prices, or collude to only offer specific food while the other restaurant does not offer.
Also, in the restaurant example, we always have the option to buy our own food and cook at home. So to match the phone market situation, imagine cooking at home is illegal, and the only food you can eat is from two restaurants.
> Competition is how you get to the best product. Lack of competition leads to malaise of product improvements as the market dominators are owning the space and happily exert their power over people.
I think the malaise is when you require every company to take the exact same approach.
Let two companies take different approach. One is walled garden and the other is bazaar. I wish we had more walled gardens personally. I'm tired of wading through hundreds of results in Amazon through shady third party sellers. At this point I go to Best Buy, knowing that they won't sell me absolute garbage. Curation is very useful.
This seems like a distinction without a difference. Curation is totally allowed, in Apple's own app store. They just can't prevent people from using their devices how they see fit to maintain that curation.
> I think the malaise is when you require every company to take the exact same approach.
I think you're arguing against yourself here. The way to allow companies to take different approaches is to require any app store/approach be allowed. Then Apple can curate, FOSS app stores like FDroid can use their approach, etc.
Fundamentally I think this issue is about ownership. Modern companies/products like to pretend that you don't own the things you buy, because it makes them money. Apple loves their 30% cut of apps, and hides behind "protecting the users" to maintain it, but they really want to control the your device. People would never ever tolerate not being in full control and maintaining true ownership of most things in their lives, but for some reason we let it slide with phones, which, like it or not, are one of the most important objects people own. They should be treated that way, and provided full ownership of them.
Sorry but allowing you to side load apps for a product like Apple makes it shittier. If helps companies that don't want to pay the Apple tax, but that's a bit funny considering that Apple essentially made this ecosystem and now they want to pretend it was just inevitable or always there.
I don't want to worry about giving my dad an iPhone and making sure he doesn't sideload some scammy app because that's essentially what you'll get. The same was the "third party sellers" on places like Amazon are pretty terrible.
I'm on an Android because I like the freedom. But again, Apple would not exist if you had this rule in place because it would immediately be en-shittified and no one would voluntarily pay the Apple tax that allows them to invest and invent this new ecosystem if they feel they can't control it.
If you don't want walled garden, don't use Apple. Plenty of people don't use Apple products. iOS is about 25% of European market, so what are we even talking about here?
Preventing every other iPhone owner on the planet from having full access to their own property because you don't want to do tech support for your dad is not an acceptable argument.
Preventing bad things at the cost of certain fundamental freedoms is not a desirable goal. Law enforcement is intentionally made harder by the 4th Amendment. It's literally there to obstruct the police, because it's more important for people to have privacy.
The same applies to your phone. A device you buy should be yours to use however you want, especially a device as important as a smartphone in the 21st century. No one expects to be able to run Linux on their toaster if it didn't already come with it, but preventing certain major functionality because ToasterCorp wants a walled garden is not acceptable. I see no difference with a phone.
Going forward, you could emphasize to Pops: "Never install anything not from the Apple App Store. Only use the Apple App Store." Problem solved. The rest of keep our freedom, Pop is safe.
I'd also like to see more walled gardens. Imagine an app store on iOS that only contained truly hand curated, exhaustively audited and continually monitored apps. I'd have no problem paying for access to this store or paying more for apps purchased via this store because it's adding something valuable to me.
Unfortunately we have the platform owners controlling (or essentially controlling) which stores are allowed to operate on those platforms right now. This needs to change.
> It's no different than going to a restaurant and them serving only Pepsi products.
I don't think that accurately depicts the situation.
> Apple has threatened to remove creator platform Patreon from the App Store if creators use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS, instead of using Apple's own in-app purchasing system for Patreon's subscriptions.
This happened because 5 years after Patreon published their app, Apple decided they were now due a 30% recurring cut of "indie creator" revenue. And that's ignoring that they did this while under court order to allow external payment options. And we've seen them try to force IAP purchases and subscriptions into WordPress, to Hey, and other apps too.
It seems ridiculous if you think about it. Imagine you're running a market and as part of that you allow vendors. The vendors have to pay some percent of sales to you, either credit card or cash. And then you start selling things in crypto thinking you can save on the market cut.
It's their market. No one is forcing you to participate. But if you do you should have a good faith effort to abide by the rules. If not, bow out. If enough people bow out then he market is no longer the best market and they will lose to competitor markets.
It's their market. No one is forcing you to participate.
On the regular 'market', you have plenty of options. You can sell to supermarkets, you can make a webshop, you can sell on a local market, etc. You could even directly sell goods from your own farm (which works in a lot of places). Similarly, a buyer can get most products from a lot of places.
If you make an smartphone app, you practically only have two markets: the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. They can dictate outsized fees and draconic rules, because there is no other way to sell your product. Moreover, they can kill apps that they decide to compete with or pick winners. It is everything but a free market and the EU is right to regulate it with the DSA/DMA.
Patreon weren't violating their rules, Patreon weren't doing anything wrong, and Patreon aren't getting anything out of this modified deal other than "their business not getting burned down if they comply" with a new condition that compelled a 30% fee. For which customers had to pay an extra $4.50/month in fees per creator they support.
It's not. That's the entire point. The EU Single Market is the EU's. No trying to take it away, that is exactly what this is all about.
We, the European people, are the ones that have set up the world's largest market of well-off consumers. Apple is the one that is trying to subdivide it and create a walled-off area where they don't have to follow our rules.
> Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to have different models for an ecosystem and market.
The practice of charging different prices for the same digital good depending on the buyer’s country is generally called international price discrimination (or geo-based price discrimination). Just so you know.
I would start with EU citizens first. Couple of telecom CEOs come to mind, notably ones from the ISP implementing censorship even without court orders and threatening security researchers for (responsibly) disclosing vulnerabilities in their networks. EU folks should start looking around first, where they clearly have power to do so.
Every time I am tempted to switch to iPhone, it does not take long for me to remember that Apple is a hostile enemy.
FWIW, I get tempted to switch when my Android starts feeling like it works for Google and not for me. The advantage of the iPhone is that it works for nobody.
I've never had an iPhone and I'm sure it's even more locked down, but I've always felt like my Android phones worked for Google rather than for me.
Always some new notification to be disabled (or cannot be disabled without ADB). The Play Store "helpfully" refuses to install some software on my phone that doesn't meet the minimum specs or whatever. Can't remove protected applications from phones (such as Facebook on some Samsung phones). For all its talk about being open source, it's certainly always been more locked down than a Windows PC or a Mac.
At least Windows Phone did almost nothing, which was more relaxing lol
Google is implementing changes here soon that require their approval and digital signing to side-load apps. So Google is an equal and more hypocritical "hostile enemy."
I mentioned this yesterday on the Google only allowing verified developers story, but my banking app works fine on GrapheneOS, as do many others. There is a crowd sourced list of their status here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
It does not matter whether it works. It is a contract violation and, for some banks, a reason to debank you if found - check the bank app's usage terms and conditions.
It’s surprising that anyone would think EU politicians might punish Apple for deplatforming a single BitTorrent app. Surely those politicians aren’t dense enough to believe users are relying on their phones to distribute Linux ISOs.
iTorrent's ability to play while "sharing" was the bridge too far. There are plenty of players for personal media in the App Store (Plex, Jellyfin, etc.), but as a BitTorrent client it's clear that its primary purpose was to play media that was vanishingly unlikely to be the user's.
It also didn’t help that AltStore PAL regularly spotlighted these apps, basically taunting corpos and eurocrats alike. On the bright side, qBitControl won’t be affected, since it isn’t a BitTorrent client itself but merely a remote for qBittorrent.
The fact that they retain the technical capability to deplatform apps outside their app store is a violation of the DMA.
It would be surprising if the EU they didn't hit Apple with billions in fines for the most obvious form of malicious non-compliance after going through all that effort of passing the regulations.
> The fact that they retain the technical capability to deplatform apps outside their app store is a violation of the DMA.
Not in general, and courts would have to decide whether it's a violation in this specific case. The DMA doesn't force Apple to platform apps used primarily for piracy, it just requires that they be able to justify restrictions and keep them as narrow as possible. De-platforming a specific app is about as narrow as it gets.
Also, it's arguable that the DSA (Digital Services Act), which is just as applicable, actually compels Apple to de-platform this app. The DMA is a competition law, and allowing an app whose primary purpose is distribution of infringing content undermines fair competition among legitimate content providers.
i use it to share pictures from my NAS to my phone. And play video from it.
Also, in Belgium, it's completely legal to rip and share ( within family circle ) copyrighted content.
This is an unusual (and risky) choice for most people, since BitTorrent is designed for swarm distribution, and ISPs generally don't look kindly on subscribers seeding torrents on their networks. I think it's safe to say that 99.99% of people use options like DLNA/UPnP, Plex, Jellyfin, or simple SMB/NFS shares for personal media sharing.
I play video games through emulation and using vision LLM's and OCR to tell me what's going on in a particular moment. Only Google employees get to use Astra right now. But I can't play anything passed PS1 and PSP with the most accessible mobile OS, iOS, because Apple needs Safari to win so no JIT for other apps. But at least on Android I can play PS2 and get TalkBack to describe the screen.
> This app using Firebase Analytics and so it collects next information from your device:
I wonder how the data compares to the data Apple could send and do they respect when user's have opted to NOT send app developers data?
I know when you first sign on to the App Store it prompts you about 2 things, sending Apple data, and sending app developers data.
*EDIT* I know it's not fair and doesn't mean they're all bad but given the current circumstances in the world, I am going to be quite skeptical of developers with .ru in their email or anything else.
It highlights the fact that regulators are scamming the tax payers. They take money to protect us from such predatory behaviour and then sit on their hands and maybe do a token "fine" from time to time.
The EU already told Apple in April 25 that the preliminary findings regarding the conditions they impose on alt stores and developers distributing through alt stores are in violation of the DMA.
Apple fully knows they are looking forward to a huge fine. I guess they are banning a torrent app here to be able to tell: look the EU is sponsoring piracy. They are also trying to get Trump to intervene on their behalf obviously. Given how spineless the current European Commission is, that might even work.
To my fellow European, my advice remains the same: boycott American companies, stop voting for parties affiliated with the EPP.
You are of course correct, but you misunderstand the PR machine. Apple can easily claim they are combatting piracy, and 99.5% of all people will accept that as doctrine. The truth doesn't matter.
the benefit is private. Nobody would publicly claim they support piracy, because it's too politically incorrect.
So the PR machine doesn't have a hard job at all convincing law makers of a non-truth, despite privately that people would generally not agree with said non-truth.
Here's a question on expected value. Do you think Epic makes more money if:
(a) they agree to Apple's demands and have Fortnite on the App Store during its peak of popularity for years and eat the junk fees on mtx or
(b) they fight an extremely costly lawsuit, which they have no guarantee of winning, for years, during which time Fortnite could leave the cultural zeitgeist (which it to some extent has) and maybe eventually one day get closer to 95% of mtx money?
If you think it's not (a), I would love to know why. Sweeney seems not that motivated by money, he's already filthy rich.
I think he wants to be Steam. He wants to grow to be a foundational pillar of the market. He is to a certain degree with Unreal Engine, but that's split with Unity. He wants Epic to be the top player. Might be ego/power more than cash, but it's still coming from a place of greed.
So maybe he wants to use mobile as the lever to make the Epic Store relevant, and suing the first party markets is the path to do that.
Or maybe he's just used to being the richest guy in the room and doesn't like to be pushed around.
Either way, I think it's misplaced to herald him as a folk hero. I don't think he actually cares about individual freedom. He cares about whatever is good for Tim/Epic.
Epic's got its own anticompetitive bullshit. They don't let you play their games on Linux. They make excuses about Linux being a haven of cheaters, but really, they're just trying to add friction to keep people from moving to SteamOS.
Banning apps like Kindle and Patreon from linking to their own payments should never have happened. Especially Patreon - Apple wrote a rule commandeering 30% of a then-five-year old app's revenue and coerced them into using IAP to get it, nobody should be supportive of this whatever Sweeney's shortcomings or motivations.
No I disagree that we need a "better" person to disrupt what Apple is doing, that's just shifting the goal posts to favor Apple doing it longer. The best person to do it is the one who did it.
Once again, not the proposition that was being offered. It's not that he's better. It was claimed he has a spine and it was pointed out that he doesn't. It's not a comment on if Apple is good or not. It's not a comment on whether or not there is someone better. It is a comment on Tim's motivations.
As an American I would advise people to, when practical, boycott these companies, regardless of their country of origin, when they do things anti-consumer/anti-ownership. But more importantly we should demand our communities/governments to break these companies up and take more measures to reduce their power to do these things.
> The EU already told Apple in April 25 that the preliminary findings regarding the conditions they impose on alt stores and developers distributing through alt stores are in violation of the DMA.
Preliminary findings from the European Commission are legally meaningless. The EU court of justice has annulled fines against tech companies before, ruling that the EC has not done enough of an investigation. For example, here is a ruling that confirms that the one billion Euro fine against Intel should have been annulled because the EC did not do a satisfactory investigation:
It’s not meaningless at all. It means a fine is likely to come unless Apple has a very good answer.
I understand your confusion but the EU is still a liberal democracy. Obviously we have appeal courts and some judgements are overturned. One being overturned concerning Intel has absolutely no bearing on what will happen in the Apple case.
It’s the General Court which cancelled the Intel fine by the way. The Court of Justice is the next in line jurisdiction and confirmed the court decision after the Commission appealed.
You do realize this is for a torrent app, right? Do you think the EU will slap a 38B fine on Apple because it's not allowing users to access movies illegally or download malware?
Then I'm sure the developer of the app would be happy to screen for copyrighted content or malware, and attempt to remove it. It wouldn't even be hard, they could just poke a lightweight LLM at it and have the llm make the call, and maybe add a submission field to report illegal content.
That’s what we’re preventing here. The agreement is ISP’s/infrastructure gets the clear, and applications need to regulate the content they host. If they stop regulating content, ISP’s will
In the US, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, Section 512
In the EU, E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (2019/790/EU, “DSM Directive”), Digital Services Act (DSA).
Additionally specific countries each have their own laws on the matter.
1. You have absolutely no clue how the BitTorrent protocol works.
2. You have never maintained a widely used app as a single developer.
3. The extent of your use of LLMs is either academic / hobby or very narrowly focused and not integrated into a global product.
Just these points make your "suggestion" about using "LLMs to detect stuff is extremely easy" laughable at best.
The reason why people want to install their own software is to have freedom over their devices. The copyrighted content removal has a mechanism for it, called DMCA. And this is not how it works. The application does not have any content or means to circumvent any measures.
> Just these points make your "suggestion" about using "LLMs to detect stuff is extremely easy" laughable at best.
I ran a company doing this for real time internet traffic and the tech worked great. My mistake was suggesting a specific solution; the reality is there is a dozens ways to go about it, and it doesn't matter to me how its solved. What does matter is the EU probably isn't going to work overtime to protect people illegally downloading music, and I don't fault Apple for wanting to limit how many people can do it
I mean it has already been shown that needing a license to sell apps in an alternate store is in violation. I feel we need to be moving to non-punative fines for every day Apple violate.
Between this and Google announcing their move to a similar system for controlling third-party Android developers, I feel like FAANG is declaring itself above the law.
Apple's prior approach to DMA compliance was to loudly grumble about it, but do the absolute bare minimum to kinda sorta comply if you squint at it. The whole idea with iOS notarization was that Apple was ceding control over iOS apps for editorial but not technical reasons; i.e. that they'd only ever refuse to sign an app because it broke iOS, used private APIs, or was literal malware. Not because they didn't like it. This scheme is already kind of dubious, if OAMA had passed it would definitely be illegal in the US, but I'm told EU regulators enforce the law differently than in the US[0].
Now Google wants to adopt the same system Apple has just proven doesn't work. I hope the EU regulators are not only listening, but willing to actually fight this. The related debacle of digital services taxes would indicate that the EU is spineless enough that Apple thinks the DMA is already unenforceable enough to start killing apps they don't like.
[0] US regulation is something like "if we say jump, each foot must leave the ground for at least 0.8 seconds and clear at least 20cm off the ground", and then people figure out you can just lift one foot at a time and still comply. EU regulation is more like "if we say jump, you must jump", and then the regulators decide whether or not you made a good-faith attempt at jumping. So no stupid loopholes like lifting one foot at a time, but the regulators can be very subjective as to if you jumped high enough or not.
> This allows for easier access to software that's typically prohibited by Apple, including the popular iTorrent BitTorrent client.
Just as the regulators planned, I'm sure. I really doubt anyone will have luck getting apple to approve an app which is so often used to distribute copyright content and malware, and I doubt the EU is going to fight for people to be allowed to download movies illegally
We need a law saying users can run exactly what software they want on their own devices. If people are worried about malware or whatever, have the apps be optionally notarised and big warning's if they aren't. I do not want any company or government telling me what software can run on my devices that I paid for and I own. This is clearly against the spirit of the DMA.
> We need a law saying users can run exactly what software they want on their own devices.
That's absolutely the opposite of how most of EU operates. See every single EU banking application. You can't run on rooted Android. Yes, EU absolutely should focus of their own tech first and foremost.
Banking isn't the same as everything else.
you could argue about anything that it isn't the same as everything else.
What is a device, exactly? A smartwatch? A gaming console? A washing machine? A smart home controller?
If you say a general-computing device, I’d agree. It’s a slippery slope, though.
Anything what can execute software is a computer. From a tamagochi to a mainframe.
> I do not want any company or government telling me what software can run on my devices that I paid for and I own.
Device manufacturers that are also service providers want nothing more than to adopt the licensing business model. The public has mostly accepted that when you buy physical media that contains digital media, you buy a limited use license to the digital media, and the physical media just happens to be the delivery mechanism. In that same sense, it could be construed that buying a mobile device grants you a license to a digital service, without which the device is useless. You technically own the device, but you license the operating system.
So the argument is: feel free to do what you want on any other operating system, if you can manage to run it, but on our OS, you'll abide by our rules. Apple has been successful at this for years, Google is well on its way there with Android, and even desktop OSs have been trending in this direction.
The last bastion of OSs that give users actual freedom are Linux, BSDs, and other niche OSs. Everything else is becoming a walled garden.
Ok: your kid which has parental control can now do everything he wants with the phone. What's next?
Not relevant; a child consenting (or "consenting") to a parental lock on their (or "their") phone isn't the same as Apple locking down their OS. Ditto an employee using a company device.
I consent to Apple controlling my device for security reasons. Again, now what?
Great, you can have it. No need to force it on every one else
Why is it that your stance isn't the wrong one? Apple sells a device that is locked down. You buy it. You then complain that it was locked down, yet you knew this from the off. They do not sell it as a general purpose compute device. It is sold as a thing that runs apps. We don't complain when Playstations will not play Xbox or Switch games.
If you want to hack a device and get it do something other than what it was designed for, then that's the hacker spirit so go for it. But why does that mean we* all have to accept your way when we just want to run apps.
*royal we. i do not use apps as i don't trust any of you app developers to not be shady.
I think there is a big difference due to the requirement of phones to live a normal life. I can't access my banks without the IOS or Android app, which require me to have a phone running one of those two fairly locked down OS's, and on Android custom ROMs frequently not working due to play integrity checks. I need a phone to go to concerts using ticketmaster, I need a phone with a mobile number to receive SMS 2fa codes, I need a phone for TOTP.
I can work around most things but not the banks, therefore a phone is required to live in a modern society, therefore I am required to use either Android or IOS. I am not required to have a PS5 or Xbox. This is the main reason I am so opposed to locking down phone OS's, I only have a choice of IOS or stock Android, and I have to choose one.
The way you have set up your argument suggests you would not use smartphones if they weren't "necessary" to live a normal life. But in that case, your smartphone can simply be one of the many black boxes you use daily, such as, for example, your public transportation or credit cards, which have a literal computer inside of them you never think about. You just create various accounts, install the apps you need, and use the phone as a tool when you are required to. Once its job is done, you tuck it away and you go on about your day.
I was coming from the perspective more of I can't use alternative operating systems on it due to these issues. For example, my laptop came with Windows, I got fed up with one drive and the tracking etc so I put linux on it, which was fine. I cannot do the same with my phone due to especially the banks, I know at least some of mine are unusable if I unlock my bootloader, so something like Lineage is off the table. This is what I mean by I have no choice in it, I have to use IOS or Android.
Exactly.
Everyone is so gung ho about running whatever they want on the very custom hardware Apple is selling.
But then complete silence about the PS5 and Xbox, which are 99% plain old PC hardware with a custom OS.
Why?
Probably because you can buy a gaming PC. I don't complain very often about consoles being locked down because it doesn't affect me unless there's some platform exclusive I can't play. If there was a viable alternative to iOS or Android I wouldn't care quite so much about them.
You can also buy a phone with Sailfish OS or use a Linux phone. The option is always there.
I want to buy a PS5 and install SteamOS on it and play PC games. Why can't I?
You can't buy a phone with Sailfish or a Linux phone and continue to access your banks that require apps for 3DS that check the play integrity API so compatibility layers like Sailfish has or bluestacks won't work. I'd say the inability to access my money makes it a lot less of an option.
PS3 orig allowed yellow dog linux, and there was only a slight murmur when that feature was removed. to me that's worse as it is obvious it is possible, but only now not possible because vendor took it away compared to never allowing it from the start.
That's because it was there 100% for tax evasion :D
IIRC EU had a rule that "general purpose computers" had a significantly lower tax than "gaming devices" -> let users install Linux on it -> general purpose -> more money for Sony.
Do you also buy an xbox and complain you can't install steam on it?
Yes I do. Hardware should be independent from software.
Parents get to override their kids' ownership rights in other contexts, so it would reasonably be the same in this one.
But here is the problem: just like with cryptography it's an all-or-nothing game. You can either have E2EE all of the time or none of the time. There is absolutely no mechanism that would allow your child to truly own his phone but magically allow you to take complete control of it when necessary.
Correct. The parent can truly own the phone and allow the child restricted access. It's reasonable for this to be true in a technical sense even if the child owns the phone in a legal sense.
>It's reasonable for this to be true in a technical sense even if the child owns the phone in a legal sense.
By the same metric, it's reasonable for a consenting adult to own their phone in a legal sense while the true owner is Apple (which they willfully paid for this). So in this case yes, iPhone owners are real owners even if it's a complete walled garden.
What I find unreasonable is a situation where the owner of the hardware can't back out of the arrangement (while continuing to use the hardware). Someone might initially want Apple as their sysadmin, then learn that Apple is making decisions they don't like.
Why would a kid be able to bypass parental control?
The phone is theirs, is it not?
No? In virtually all cases it was purchased by the parents who also pay the bill, so it's only theirs to use. Even if they somehow bought it with their own money, parents ultimately have the final say over how they're allowed to use it until they're 18.
So you are saying that every teen under 18 who has had their phone bought by their parents doesn't consider it theirs?
You presumably own the device, not your kid
You give your kid a smart phone when you trust them with one? The standard parental control, money. They can't afford the phone or the cellular plan on their own.
sure, if they buy their own phone.
what difference does it make to have a phone between your hands and having paid for it vs. not having paid for it? does the circuitry inside somehow know you are the "rightful" owner?
well presumably as the responsible parent you believe you are , you would know to set up the parental controls before giving the phone to your child.
But then again you seem to be confusing parental controls with Apple controlling who can make apps for a a 3rd party store
As long as they don't start with Apple.
They can first force Sony to let us run anything on the PS5, then go for Nintendo and Switch, after that Microsoft and the Xbox.
All three are more generic computers than any Apple mobile device and are purely walled gardens where we can't run whatever we want.
>>All three are more generic computers than any Apple mobile device and are purely walled gardens where we can't run whatever we want.
No they aren't. Game consoles are designed for a singular purpose. Apple's mobile devices are not singular purpose. I guess their watch might be? but that's the closest you'd get IMO.
> As long as they don't start with Apple.
I guess it's just as good as any other of the vendors you mentioned. I don't see why we shouldn't start with Apple but at the same time I don't think anyone opposes to the other companies being forced too.
At least I know I would like to run personalized software on my Switch without having to rooting it by other 'ways'.
This is HN, the down arrow isn't an "I disagree" button.
Use your words, don't downvote. Do that on Reddit.
Consider donating to the developer ( he is a solo dev )
https://github.com/XITRIX/iTorrent#donate-for-donuts
The developer had his app distribution rights removed in mid-July. i am the one who reached out to TorrentFreak; they were the first to respond. (The Verge /MacRumors/9to5Mac ignored me)
(i had no input in the article.)
Two days, two app store news. Yesterday it was Google and there was a large discussion.
And today it is Apple, and I'm curious to see whether HN folks feel the similar passion. Historically, people pick up pitch forks for Google but give Apple a pass - so looking forward to the conversation here.
I think most people concerned with sovereignty over their own devices gave up on Apple long ago.
This is the kind of conduct I expect from Apple and the reason I have no interest in using one of their devices. I think it's bad for them to do this. I think it's bad for them to have the ability to do this. I don't think ranting about it on HN will accomplish anything. It has been this way for nearly 20 years and it will only change if governments make even stricter laws against it.
Google, on the other hand is trying to lock down a previously (somewhat) open platform. That's a rug pull for those who picked Android for its openness, and it's possible that sufficient outrage from the tech community will stop that plan.
>and it's possible that sufficient outrage from the tech community will stop that plan.
I highly doubt that. It would take the common non-tech person to be outraged. This is where google makes all their money. Not from a small minority of tech workers.
As one of the people objecting to Google's actions yesterday, I think I was pretty clear that I was objecting to them descending to Apple's level, not below.
This is the behaviour I, unfortunately, expect out of Apple.
Thanks for the reasonable response. If you are a company and you saw your competitor was "getting away" with something so egregious, which also turns out to be hugely profitable, wouldnt you also do it?
I'm not sure it matters what I would do if I was the company. I'm an individual evaluating what phone to buy next, regardless of motivation, Google being less abusive is no longer a reason to purchase an Android.
But to actually answer the question, I think this is a strategic mistake. I'm broadly of the opinion that:
The android ecosystem is reliant on Android capturing part of the high end market, without it their won't be sufficient money in the ecosystem. Money in the ecosystem is necessary to justify things like developers making apps, phone companies investing in product lines, advertisers paying high prices for in app ads, etc.
Android captures part of the high end market only because of enthusiasts and developers choosing and evangelizing the less abusive company. From other perspectives (hardware quality, software quality, signalling wealth, etc) Apple has generally been better. There's the occasional exception like Android being the first to flip-phone-touch-phones, but not enough to sustain an ecosystem.
And thus Google's general movement to matching Apple here is shortsighted, and likely to significantly contribute to the collapse Android's phone ecosystem, which in turn will destroy the huge source of profit that is Google Play.
> Google being less abusive is no longer a reason to purchase an Android.
But still better than Apple, yeah? Last I checked, still allows alternate stores, still allows sideloading (but requires verification), still allows customization, still allows OEM choice ..
You didnt say it explicitly what you'll switch to, but my assumption is that you were going to go to iPhone but isnt it worse over there?
Google while rapidly trending downwards remains marginally better on this axis, yeah. It's not the only thing I'm making a decision based on though... I haven't really made up my mind, but I am strongly considering an IPhone for a handful of unrelated reasons.
There seems to be a difference between Google announcing an official policy change and speculation about why this developer is having issues distributing their app.
As mentioned in TFA:
> While there may be a perfectly logical explanation for iTorrent’s revoked rights, Apple’s handling of the matter so far only fuels speculation. Some might even argue that the lack of transparency in revoking distribution rights violates the letter or the spirit of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
If Apple is truly trying to block an app that has substantial legal uses that is being distributed outside of its own App Store, there is a problem.
Its interesting that you're giving the benefit of the doubt to Apple, when all signs from the past point to Apple kicking the developer out and protecting their app store control.
You're technically right that we havent seen Apple do the thing _in this instance_ but why do you still give the company the benefit of the doubt.
The issue is app distribution outside of the first party app stores.
One one hand we have an official policy announcement from Google, and on the other hand we have speculation about why one developer is having issues distributing one app.
Speculation is not on the same level as an official policy.
Historically speaking, has Apple sided with developers or themselves in such cases?
Historically speaking, Apple didn't allow side loading at all.
The EU changed the laws within their jurisdiction to require third party app store availability.
Historically speaking, Google made claims that Android would allow you to run anything you like (they didn't even have their own app store at first), and also that Android was open source.
They have incrementally been rolling back those stances ever since.
the article that caused such outrage yesterday was about Google making it more difficult for devs to deploy arbitrary software on Android mobile devices outside of the official store. This is something that Apple does not allow at all for devs on iOS devices (except in regions where forced to by law). I don't like Google's changes, but its still better than Apple's stance.
Mostly because the people who want sideloading are using Android. And on Android the situation is constantly getting worse, while on iOS it's largely just sticking to the status quo.
Nevertheless, this serves as an excellent demonstration of the problem with the changes Google are making, since they would allow Google to do exactly what Apple just did.
the developer had his app distribution rights removed in mid-July.
TorrentFreak are the first to respond to our emails, Getting the news out is hard.
(i am the one who alerted Ernesto, but i had no input in the article.)
I don't feel similar passion but that's because I don't have an iphone and gave up on ios long ago. I use android because it gave me more freedom. The freedom to root my phone, the freedom to install whatever app I wanted to.
I use a macbook pro as my main laptop because macos is bearable (also it's become steadily worse in the last few years) and their hardware is great. But, ipads and iphones are just locked down trash from my perspective and I refuse to use money to get a device that I can't control.
HN folks won't feel a similar passion. Apple has a way better PR department than Google and the reality distortion field is still strong.
Google did away with the “do no evil” slogan. That irked a lot of people. Apple never pretended they were anything else.
Just a slight modification. They dropped the “no”.
What? Apple keeps pretending to care about things like privacy yet they run a 6B ads division and phone home when you execute apps in macOS.
You will not see the same level of engagement. Many more people care about changes to sideloading on Android as a whole than something affecting one torrent app on one app store in one region on iOS.
I admit that many give apple a pass, but I think the outrage is greater for Google because people think there's a chance they'll actually listen to their consumers
We aren’t a monolith, as evidenced by the supportive comments in response to yours and throughout the comments here. I also don’t think Apple deserves a pass.
You're right, but hard to ignore the fact that the other article had 2000 (!!) comments, and this thread has 120 comments.
They are not at the same level.
What was the other app store news?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028
> Historically, people pick up pitch forks for Google but give Apple a pass
This hasn't really been the case for the past year or two. People are pretty fed up with Apple's BS, even here in their historic stronghold.
What I'm seeing is that we need a true open source phone and os. Looks like there's been some work on those fronts, but we need to do more.
Exactly as predicted [0] and ahead of schedule. I didn't think they would be so bold while the EU investigations are still pending.
Can we now revisit the arguments that people were making in those threads to defend this?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39137090
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to have different models for an ecosystem and market.
Android exits, it's relatively open. I can download an APK and easily install it on my device (unless this changed since I last did this).
Apple is a walled garden. That's both a gift and a curse. I see a lot more spammy low-quality apps on Android, but I also have more choice. I prefer Android for mobile and Mac for desktop.
As an aside, any time I've seen the state intervene in affairs like this it has made my experience as a user worse. I remember something about Google can no longer "favor" their services. So for instance, if I search for an address, it can't show me Google maps because it theoretically harms all the fledgling map companies. But now it's just more clicks for me. I don't care about competition, I care about the best product. If I search for an address I want google maps. If I search for a video, show me YouTube. And if Google fails to deliver the best product, I'll switch.
It's no different than going to a restaurant and them serving only Pepsi products.
> I don't care about competition, I care about the best product.
Competition is how you get to the best product. Lack of competition leads to malaise of product improvements as the market dominators are owning the space and happily exert their power over people.
> It's no different than going to a restaurant and them serving only Pepsi products.
There are two viable players for the average Joe in the phone market. There are I would guess 200-300 restaurants in my not so big town.
The number of choices matters a lot. If there were only two real option for restaurants around me, I would hope the management does not decide to be evil and lower food quality, jack up prices, or collude to only offer specific food while the other restaurant does not offer.
Also, in the restaurant example, we always have the option to buy our own food and cook at home. So to match the phone market situation, imagine cooking at home is illegal, and the only food you can eat is from two restaurants.
> Competition is how you get to the best product. Lack of competition leads to malaise of product improvements as the market dominators are owning the space and happily exert their power over people.
I think the malaise is when you require every company to take the exact same approach.
Let two companies take different approach. One is walled garden and the other is bazaar. I wish we had more walled gardens personally. I'm tired of wading through hundreds of results in Amazon through shady third party sellers. At this point I go to Best Buy, knowing that they won't sell me absolute garbage. Curation is very useful.
This seems like a distinction without a difference. Curation is totally allowed, in Apple's own app store. They just can't prevent people from using their devices how they see fit to maintain that curation.
> I think the malaise is when you require every company to take the exact same approach.
I think you're arguing against yourself here. The way to allow companies to take different approaches is to require any app store/approach be allowed. Then Apple can curate, FOSS app stores like FDroid can use their approach, etc.
Fundamentally I think this issue is about ownership. Modern companies/products like to pretend that you don't own the things you buy, because it makes them money. Apple loves their 30% cut of apps, and hides behind "protecting the users" to maintain it, but they really want to control the your device. People would never ever tolerate not being in full control and maintaining true ownership of most things in their lives, but for some reason we let it slide with phones, which, like it or not, are one of the most important objects people own. They should be treated that way, and provided full ownership of them.
Sorry but allowing you to side load apps for a product like Apple makes it shittier. If helps companies that don't want to pay the Apple tax, but that's a bit funny considering that Apple essentially made this ecosystem and now they want to pretend it was just inevitable or always there.
I don't want to worry about giving my dad an iPhone and making sure he doesn't sideload some scammy app because that's essentially what you'll get. The same was the "third party sellers" on places like Amazon are pretty terrible.
I'm on an Android because I like the freedom. But again, Apple would not exist if you had this rule in place because it would immediately be en-shittified and no one would voluntarily pay the Apple tax that allows them to invest and invent this new ecosystem if they feel they can't control it.
If you don't want walled garden, don't use Apple. Plenty of people don't use Apple products. iOS is about 25% of European market, so what are we even talking about here?
Preventing every other iPhone owner on the planet from having full access to their own property because you don't want to do tech support for your dad is not an acceptable argument.
Preventing bad things at the cost of certain fundamental freedoms is not a desirable goal. Law enforcement is intentionally made harder by the 4th Amendment. It's literally there to obstruct the police, because it's more important for people to have privacy.
The same applies to your phone. A device you buy should be yours to use however you want, especially a device as important as a smartphone in the 21st century. No one expects to be able to run Linux on their toaster if it didn't already come with it, but preventing certain major functionality because ToasterCorp wants a walled garden is not acceptable. I see no difference with a phone.
Going forward, you could emphasize to Pops: "Never install anything not from the Apple App Store. Only use the Apple App Store." Problem solved. The rest of keep our freedom, Pop is safe.
I'd also like to see more walled gardens. Imagine an app store on iOS that only contained truly hand curated, exhaustively audited and continually monitored apps. I'd have no problem paying for access to this store or paying more for apps purchased via this store because it's adding something valuable to me.
Unfortunately we have the platform owners controlling (or essentially controlling) which stores are allowed to operate on those platforms right now. This needs to change.
I don't know why this needs repeating every time this comes up, but no one - absolutely no one - is asking you to leave the App Store walled garden.
> It's no different than going to a restaurant and them serving only Pepsi products.
I don't think that accurately depicts the situation.
> Apple has threatened to remove creator platform Patreon from the App Store if creators use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS, instead of using Apple's own in-app purchasing system for Patreon's subscriptions.
This happened because 5 years after Patreon published their app, Apple decided they were now due a 30% recurring cut of "indie creator" revenue. And that's ignoring that they did this while under court order to allow external payment options. And we've seen them try to force IAP purchases and subscriptions into WordPress, to Hey, and other apps too.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-says-patreon-must-switc...
It seems ridiculous if you think about it. Imagine you're running a market and as part of that you allow vendors. The vendors have to pay some percent of sales to you, either credit card or cash. And then you start selling things in crypto thinking you can save on the market cut.
It's their market. No one is forcing you to participate. But if you do you should have a good faith effort to abide by the rules. If not, bow out. If enough people bow out then he market is no longer the best market and they will lose to competitor markets.
It's their market. No one is forcing you to participate.
On the regular 'market', you have plenty of options. You can sell to supermarkets, you can make a webshop, you can sell on a local market, etc. You could even directly sell goods from your own farm (which works in a lot of places). Similarly, a buyer can get most products from a lot of places.
If you make an smartphone app, you practically only have two markets: the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. They can dictate outsized fees and draconic rules, because there is no other way to sell your product. Moreover, they can kill apps that they decide to compete with or pick winners. It is everything but a free market and the EU is right to regulate it with the DSA/DMA.
Patreon weren't violating their rules, Patreon weren't doing anything wrong, and Patreon aren't getting anything out of this modified deal other than "their business not getting burned down if they comply" with a new condition that compelled a 30% fee. For which customers had to pay an extra $4.50/month in fees per creator they support.
> It's their market.
It's not. That's the entire point. The EU Single Market is the EU's. No trying to take it away, that is exactly what this is all about.
We, the European people, are the ones that have set up the world's largest market of well-off consumers. Apple is the one that is trying to subdivide it and create a walled-off area where they don't have to follow our rules.
> I can download an APK and easily install it on my device (unless this changed since I last did this).
It changed with Google's announcement yesterday.
> I can download an APK and easily install it on my device (unless this changed since I last did this).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028
> I don't care about competition, I care about the best product.
You can’t have the best product if there’s no competition.
> And if Google fails to deliver the best product, I'll switch.
You won’t if there’s nothing to switch to because due to monopolistic practices no other service was able to survive.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-si...
> Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to have different models for an ecosystem and market.
The practice of charging different prices for the same digital good depending on the buyer’s country is generally called international price discrimination (or geo-based price discrimination). Just so you know.
They aren't going to listen unless execs start going to jail.
Who precisely should go to jail in this particular case?
Well, pick any of them, it'll work
I would start with EU citizens first. Couple of telecom CEOs come to mind, notably ones from the ISP implementing censorship even without court orders and threatening security researchers for (responsibly) disclosing vulnerabilities in their networks. EU folks should start looking around first, where they clearly have power to do so.
Holy deflection.
It may or may not be a valid point, but it's a red herring in this thread.
Nah, just shoot them dead in encounters. Commercial cases, criminal cases all the same. EU need to learn from HN law experts.
One can see world wide where jail time or extra judicial punishments has made business people most upstanding citizens.
All the EU based ones, immediately, and then Tim Cook.
Every time I am tempted to switch to iPhone, it does not take long for me to remember that Apple is a hostile enemy.
FWIW, I get tempted to switch when my Android starts feeling like it works for Google and not for me. The advantage of the iPhone is that it works for nobody.
I've never had an iPhone and I'm sure it's even more locked down, but I've always felt like my Android phones worked for Google rather than for me.
Always some new notification to be disabled (or cannot be disabled without ADB). The Play Store "helpfully" refuses to install some software on my phone that doesn't meet the minimum specs or whatever. Can't remove protected applications from phones (such as Facebook on some Samsung phones). For all its talk about being open source, it's certainly always been more locked down than a Windows PC or a Mac.
At least Windows Phone did almost nothing, which was more relaxing lol
Google is implementing changes here soon that require their approval and digital signing to side-load apps. So Google is an equal and more hypocritical "hostile enemy."
You can always install a de-googled version of Android, such as GrapheneOS.
And then you won't be able run your bank app.
I mentioned this yesterday on the Google only allowing verified developers story, but my banking app works fine on GrapheneOS, as do many others. There is a crowd sourced list of their status here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
Depending on what your bank's app actually does, that might not be a big problem.
If it is, there's a good chance LineageOS with root and Play Integrity Fix will work, at least it's been working for me for years.
It does not matter whether it works. It is a contract violation and, for some banks, a reason to debank you if found - check the bank app's usage terms and conditions.
...on a VERY specific model of phone
It’s surprising that anyone would think EU politicians might punish Apple for deplatforming a single BitTorrent app. Surely those politicians aren’t dense enough to believe users are relying on their phones to distribute Linux ISOs.
iTorrent's ability to play while "sharing" was the bridge too far. There are plenty of players for personal media in the App Store (Plex, Jellyfin, etc.), but as a BitTorrent client it's clear that its primary purpose was to play media that was vanishingly unlikely to be the user's.
It also didn’t help that AltStore PAL regularly spotlighted these apps, basically taunting corpos and eurocrats alike. On the bright side, qBitControl won’t be affected, since it isn’t a BitTorrent client itself but merely a remote for qBittorrent.
The fact that they retain the technical capability to deplatform apps outside their app store is a violation of the DMA.
It would be surprising if the EU they didn't hit Apple with billions in fines for the most obvious form of malicious non-compliance after going through all that effort of passing the regulations.
> The fact that they retain the technical capability to deplatform apps outside their app store is a violation of the DMA.
Not in general, and courts would have to decide whether it's a violation in this specific case. The DMA doesn't force Apple to platform apps used primarily for piracy, it just requires that they be able to justify restrictions and keep them as narrow as possible. De-platforming a specific app is about as narrow as it gets.
Also, it's arguable that the DSA (Digital Services Act), which is just as applicable, actually compels Apple to de-platform this app. The DMA is a competition law, and allowing an app whose primary purpose is distribution of infringing content undermines fair competition among legitimate content providers.
i use it to share pictures from my NAS to my phone. And play video from it. Also, in Belgium, it's completely legal to rip and share ( within family circle ) copyrighted content.
This is an unusual (and risky) choice for most people, since BitTorrent is designed for swarm distribution, and ISPs generally don't look kindly on subscribers seeding torrents on their networks. I think it's safe to say that 99.99% of people use options like DLNA/UPnP, Plex, Jellyfin, or simple SMB/NFS shares for personal media sharing.
Next on the bucket list: ban all LLM apps for violating copyrights, including respective iOS functionality.
I play video games through emulation and using vision LLM's and OCR to tell me what's going on in a particular moment. Only Google employees get to use Astra right now. But I can't play anything passed PS1 and PSP with the most accessible mobile OS, iOS, because Apple needs Safari to win so no JIT for other apps. But at least on Android I can play PS2 and get TalkBack to describe the screen.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QPJmj2HmRTy7Zv3L8
Coming to an Android phone near you next year. Yay!
> This app using Firebase Analytics and so it collects next information from your device:
I wonder how the data compares to the data Apple could send and do they respect when user's have opted to NOT send app developers data?
I know when you first sign on to the App Store it prompts you about 2 things, sending Apple data, and sending app developers data.
*EDIT* I know it's not fair and doesn't mean they're all bad but given the current circumstances in the world, I am going to be quite skeptical of developers with .ru in their email or anything else.
I have been collecting stories like these at https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/app-store-rejections and will probably add this one, too.
However, this is beyond Apple’s own App Store, which is sort of interesting. I think it still highlights the dangers of App stores, though.
The dream would be Apple letting https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium (a decentralized app store 4 Android) on IOS
It highlights the fact that regulators are scamming the tax payers. They take money to protect us from such predatory behaviour and then sit on their hands and maybe do a token "fine" from time to time.
Appaling.
The EU already told Apple in April 25 that the preliminary findings regarding the conditions they impose on alt stores and developers distributing through alt stores are in violation of the DMA.
Apple fully knows they are looking forward to a huge fine. I guess they are banning a torrent app here to be able to tell: look the EU is sponsoring piracy. They are also trying to get Trump to intervene on their behalf obviously. Given how spineless the current European Commission is, that might even work.
To my fellow European, my advice remains the same: boycott American companies, stop voting for parties affiliated with the EPP.
This is not a piracy app; it's a torrent client app.
It's just used to share files. I use it to share my videos & photos of my cat.
it would be nice if someone had a backbone and fought Apple like Epic's Tim Sweeney.
You are of course correct, but you misunderstand the PR machine. Apple can easily claim they are combatting piracy, and 99.5% of all people will accept that as doctrine. The truth doesn't matter.
But people benefit from piracy, so I doubt people will support Apple here. Media companies on the other hand…
> But people benefit from piracy
the benefit is private. Nobody would publicly claim they support piracy, because it's too politically incorrect.
So the PR machine doesn't have a hard job at all convincing law makers of a non-truth, despite privately that people would generally not agree with said non-truth.
> Nobody would publicly claim they support piracy, because it's too politically incorrect.
Many in Europe do, there are even political parties for that.
People benefit from robbery too. Words have still a meaning and we should at least try to word it in a way which sounds legal.
Everyone and their dog knows that torrents are exclusively used for piracy.
It's not true, of course, but everyone and their dog still knows it.
Surely we all know that when we post or upvote comments like this that we are being incredibly disingenuous.
Tim Sweeney's backbone is in whatever shape makes him the most money. He's an opportunist (and probably a narcissist), not a freedom fighter.
Here's a question on expected value. Do you think Epic makes more money if:
If you think it's not (a), I would love to know why. Sweeney seems not that motivated by money, he's already filthy rich.Fair question.
I think he wants to be Steam. He wants to grow to be a foundational pillar of the market. He is to a certain degree with Unreal Engine, but that's split with Unity. He wants Epic to be the top player. Might be ego/power more than cash, but it's still coming from a place of greed.
So maybe he wants to use mobile as the lever to make the Epic Store relevant, and suing the first party markets is the path to do that.
Or maybe he's just used to being the richest guy in the room and doesn't like to be pushed around.
Either way, I think it's misplaced to herald him as a folk hero. I don't think he actually cares about individual freedom. He cares about whatever is good for Tim/Epic.
Epic's got its own anticompetitive bullshit. They don't let you play their games on Linux. They make excuses about Linux being a haven of cheaters, but really, they're just trying to add friction to keep people from moving to SteamOS.
Banning apps like Kindle and Patreon from linking to their own payments should never have happened. Especially Patreon - Apple wrote a rule commandeering 30% of a then-five-year old app's revenue and coerced them into using IAP to get it, nobody should be supportive of this whatever Sweeney's shortcomings or motivations.
Seems like you are having a different conversation: "it would be nice if someone had a backbone and fought Apple like Epic's Tim Sweeney."
No I disagree that we need a "better" person to disrupt what Apple is doing, that's just shifting the goal posts to favor Apple doing it longer. The best person to do it is the one who did it.
Once again, not the proposition that was being offered. It's not that he's better. It was claimed he has a spine and it was pointed out that he doesn't. It's not a comment on if Apple is good or not. It's not a comment on whether or not there is someone better. It is a comment on Tim's motivations.
As an American I would advise people to, when practical, boycott these companies, regardless of their country of origin, when they do things anti-consumer/anti-ownership. But more importantly we should demand our communities/governments to break these companies up and take more measures to reduce their power to do these things.
> The EU already told Apple in April 25 that the preliminary findings regarding the conditions they impose on alt stores and developers distributing through alt stores are in violation of the DMA.
Preliminary findings from the European Commission are legally meaningless. The EU court of justice has annulled fines against tech companies before, ruling that the EC has not done enough of an investigation. For example, here is a ruling that confirms that the one billion Euro fine against Intel should have been annulled because the EC did not do a satisfactory investigation:
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/202...
It’s not meaningless at all. It means a fine is likely to come unless Apple has a very good answer.
I understand your confusion but the EU is still a liberal democracy. Obviously we have appeal courts and some judgements are overturned. One being overturned concerning Intel has absolutely no bearing on what will happen in the Apple case.
It’s the General Court which cancelled the Intel fine by the way. The Court of Justice is the next in line jurisdiction and confirmed the court decision after the Commission appealed.
This fuckery needs to stop. Apply the 10 percent revenue penalty and slap a 38B fine.
You do realize this is for a torrent app, right? Do you think the EU will slap a 38B fine on Apple because it's not allowing users to access movies illegally or download malware?
Then they came for torrent apps, and I was silent, because I don't use torrent apps.
Torrents are used legally all the time; it’s not always piracy.
Then I'm sure the developer of the app would be happy to screen for copyrighted content or malware, and attempt to remove it. It wouldn't even be hard, they could just poke a lightweight LLM at it and have the llm make the call, and maybe add a submission field to report illegal content.
Why? Should ISPs start MITM traffic? Internet connections can be used for downloading illegal content after all.
That’s what we’re preventing here. The agreement is ISP’s/infrastructure gets the clear, and applications need to regulate the content they host. If they stop regulating content, ISP’s will
> would be happy to screen for copyrighted
Are they legally required? Why would they then.
Apple on the other hand...
There is nothing about torrent apps in DMA.
Here's what I found after asking chatgpt:
In the US, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, Section 512
In the EU, E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (2019/790/EU, “DSM Directive”), Digital Services Act (DSA).
Additionally specific countries each have their own laws on the matter.
What this tells is the following:
1. You have absolutely no clue how the BitTorrent protocol works. 2. You have never maintained a widely used app as a single developer. 3. The extent of your use of LLMs is either academic / hobby or very narrowly focused and not integrated into a global product.
Just these points make your "suggestion" about using "LLMs to detect stuff is extremely easy" laughable at best.
The reason why people want to install their own software is to have freedom over their devices. The copyrighted content removal has a mechanism for it, called DMCA. And this is not how it works. The application does not have any content or means to circumvent any measures.
> Just these points make your "suggestion" about using "LLMs to detect stuff is extremely easy" laughable at best.
I ran a company doing this for real time internet traffic and the tech worked great. My mistake was suggesting a specific solution; the reality is there is a dozens ways to go about it, and it doesn't matter to me how its solved. What does matter is the EU probably isn't going to work overtime to protect people illegally downloading music, and I don't fault Apple for wanting to limit how many people can do it
I mean it has already been shown that needing a license to sell apps in an alternate store is in violation. I feel we need to be moving to non-punative fines for every day Apple violate.
This would be a perfect example to show to an EU politician.
Sadly not - the lobbyists of the media industry would very much support Apple in this case. That carries a lot of weight for EU politicians.
There is a fair chance apple blocked the app in response to legal or political pressure from the EU.
I would say the chance is very, very slim.
I had the impression that many governments have a very pro-IP stance and little concern about blocking access to
Between this and Google announcing their move to a similar system for controlling third-party Android developers, I feel like FAANG is declaring itself above the law.
Apple's prior approach to DMA compliance was to loudly grumble about it, but do the absolute bare minimum to kinda sorta comply if you squint at it. The whole idea with iOS notarization was that Apple was ceding control over iOS apps for editorial but not technical reasons; i.e. that they'd only ever refuse to sign an app because it broke iOS, used private APIs, or was literal malware. Not because they didn't like it. This scheme is already kind of dubious, if OAMA had passed it would definitely be illegal in the US, but I'm told EU regulators enforce the law differently than in the US[0].
Now Google wants to adopt the same system Apple has just proven doesn't work. I hope the EU regulators are not only listening, but willing to actually fight this. The related debacle of digital services taxes would indicate that the EU is spineless enough that Apple thinks the DMA is already unenforceable enough to start killing apps they don't like.
[0] US regulation is something like "if we say jump, each foot must leave the ground for at least 0.8 seconds and clear at least 20cm off the ground", and then people figure out you can just lift one foot at a time and still comply. EU regulation is more like "if we say jump, you must jump", and then the regulators decide whether or not you made a good-faith attempt at jumping. So no stupid loopholes like lifting one foot at a time, but the regulators can be very subjective as to if you jumped high enough or not.
> This allows for easier access to software that's typically prohibited by Apple, including the popular iTorrent BitTorrent client.
Just as the regulators planned, I'm sure. I really doubt anyone will have luck getting apple to approve an app which is so often used to distribute copyright content and malware, and I doubt the EU is going to fight for people to be allowed to download movies illegally