Apple forced to allow sideloading and 3rd-party app stores under new EU law

The desire to collect rent drives so many nasty behaviors in companies.<p>At its core, this is a discussion about rent seeking. Apple and Google lust after their 30% cut, which is outrageous and would not be long tolerated in any other business arrangement. They keep the gravy train going because of gatekeeping.<p>“I want to root&#x2F;mod my device” and “right to repair” are interesting but orthogonal arguments. Those arguments are about “what does it mean to own a thing”.<p>I am glad the EU is doing this but I despair that Apple and Google will still avoid this in the US.<p>Personally, I’m mostly happy with the App Store except their bans based on political POV (disguised as content violations).<p>I’m much more unhappy with the content stores on mobile devices; I want to set Amazon as my book store and buy within the Kindle app.<p>Ed s&#x2F;list&#x2F;lust&#x2F;g stupid autocorrect

“Sideloading” is the perfect word to frame the behavior of downloading apps in a negative light or as an illicit activity. No-one has ever talked of sideloading an app on macOS – because sideloading is simply downloading an app from the Internet as we have known it from the very beginning of the Internet. I still cannot believe most people adopted this word as part of this discussion and keep using it, helping Apple’s narrative. Stop using “sideloading”, use “downloading from the Internet”!

I hope some healthy competition will make app development on Apple easier. Submitting to the AppStore is often half of the development time for a simple app, the user experience is terrible. Xcode sucks and they force you to use it. Just let us use third party tools it&#x27;s better for your own platform also. Just let us make iPhone apps in VIM, like civilized people. Maybe webapps will also now finally get proper support like Android, you just know the platform could be way better if they did not force you past their toll booth, even for free apps.

I’m not as optimistic as you guys. What I think we will get is a fragmented mess, with the app store that allows the most stealing of data winning. WeChat is a good example where on Android they require access to your whole contact list to even start but on iOS this is not the case because Apple don’t allow it. Competition is going to make this things worse not better. Once you have competition that uses dark patterns (ui), those guys earn more money and can drown out the marketing the “good guys” do. Look at New York Times unsubscription over the phone and others. I see some apps moving between app stores to chase the money, not the “best for the user”-award.

The best bit is that the proposal requires devices to support the original app store AND side-loading.<p>Which is exactly what Apple doesn&#x27;t want, because of (a) Fortnite &#x2F; alt payment options (b) Facebook &#x2F; privacy restrictions bypass, i.e. the loss of revenue and the loss of credibility as a (sort of) privacy-oriented platform.<p>So I am <i>sure</i> they will fight to at least make it an OR.

Good to see the general purpose computer in your pocket being recognised as one.

They should force apple and android manufacturers to add 1 button to jailbreak and root. Rooting is much more useful than that warranty

Apple will soon require 3rd party app stores to remit 27% of all revenue.

Misleading headline: this law has not been voted upon yet and is not effective today. It is currently proposed legislation, not law.

I don&#x27;t really care for the app stores. Just make Safari support web standards better. And give a decent Add to Home Screen functionality from the browser.

&quot;Apple would be forced to allow sideloading and third-party app stores under new EU law&quot;

So it sounds like it requires Apple to give away its IP at no cost. This is no different from (for example) requiring the linux kernel devs, or the fsf to allow people to use their IP without complying with the GPL.

I&#x27;m principally for allowing side-loading, but in this era of surveillance capitalism it might be a net negative for non-tech savvy iOS users. Facebook will leave the Appstore to circumvent Apple&#x27;s privacy policies. God knows what they will do to users installing Facebook or Instagram.

Then I hope Apple allows an option to enable an opt out for these third party stores