Comment by popol12
5 days ago
I hope this will make Apple finally comply with EU law and allow app side loading on iOS. Real side loading, not the joke they implemented since iOS 17.
5 days ago
I hope this will make Apple finally comply with EU law and allow app side loading on iOS. Real side loading, not the joke they implemented since iOS 17.
I would not hold my breath. They are adept at malicious compliance. Cook will do a cost/benefit assessment and will come up with another workaround.
> They are adept at malicious compliance.
They just got fined 500 millions for failure to comply so I'm not sure adept is the adjective I would use.
How much additional profit have they made based on their malicious compliance? I bet it dwarfs this fine.
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Whether it's adept or not depends on what would have happened if they actually complied.
Sure, a half a billion fine sounds like a lot, but if you don't have another number to compare against, you can't tell if it was clever or not.
Perhaps "compliance" is the wrong term, but surely such a tiny fine will do little to convince them to comply.
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500 million is like half a days revenue.
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The EU should instead set targets.
Ie. "More than half of users have installed at least one app from a non-apple affiliated store by Jan 2026 or you shall pay a fine of $10 per month per iPhone in use in the EU".
That’s a terrible idea. How would they have any control over that. I think you are way overestimating the amount of iOS users that want to use software from outside the App Store.
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Isn't it just in the name of competition, i.e. alternative app stores? Or is sideloading an explicit goal of the EU's efforts?
Generally, as a society, we hold that a contract cannot be modified without both parties’ agreement. When you bought that phone, it was with the completely clear, overt, and in no way uncertain understanding that it does specifically X Y Z, and does not do A B C. Now, without additional payment to the counterparty, you’re demanding your phone do A B C. What am I missing? According to accepted understandings of contracts, how are you possibly in the right? How are you possibly in a position to demand government use force to modify a contract you accepted before to somehow benefit you more at a cost to your counterparty?
You are of the opinion that it is reasonable for a company to expect you to read, understand and fully agree with a contract that consists of countless pages of opaque legalese and that you have no say in whatsoever, just in order to use a service that's arguably a necessity to participate in public life?
The EU does not seem to share that opinion, and puts some restrictions on these types of 'contracts'. Are you really concerned that this is somehow unfair towards these companies? Companies that retain whole teams of lawyers to create a contract that hardly any of its billion counter parties (individual consumers) can fully comprehend, let alone push back on?
What service? You are free to use cellular service without your iPhone. There are other phones available. Apple is not gating your access to cellular
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Parts of the contract can be illegal, this is completely within the power of the EU to enforce a crackdown on illegal contracts.
I'm not sure what society you are referring to but contracts have to adhere to laws in the EU.
This is also about software that is being updated. So the transaction is not completed yet. Apple could probably go the route of not providing the update to phones that were sold before the law was voted on/in place. I would guess that would lead to other legal battles.
And is it reasonable that the laws are created after the contract was already agreed to and still apply to it? At least here in the United States, laws are not allowed to make things illegal that happened before the laws were written.
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There's a range of anti-competitive behavior which can subvert that ideal, and as such there's regulation aimed to prevent it. Apple used to forbid apps from telling users about Apple's 30% cut or cheaper places to buy the app, for instance, hindering users from making an informed choice.
Many of the policies in question are intentionally not publicized to end-users, often requiring first paying to be part of the developer program before you can even see what you need to agree to to publish an app.
Apple allows no-questions-asked full-refund returns for two weeks.
They are all available right here, online, without any purchase requirement: https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/
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