There is a point in history where App Store, the way it is operating make sense. It is worth pointing out that Steve Jobs didn't even believe the App Store would make money. Even the 2nd year running he was surprised by the numbers and couldn't make sense of it.
But modern society depends on using Apps on Smartphone. Even people might disagree we are at this stage I dont think anyone would disagree it is the
trajectory we are heading. The web simply dont offer the same experience and is not an alternative for argument sake. App Store held so much power that Apple should have relinquish its control long ago. At least by 2020.
Yet without Steve Jobs, Apple has been left on Autopilot to do what they were doing since Steve Jobs left. Steve Jobs often spoke about the importance of intuition, referring to it as a powerful force that can guide decision-making and innovation, sometimes even more so than intellect. And right now Apple has plenty of intellect, practically zero intuition.
> But modern society depends on using Apps on Smartphone
It doesn’t have to be that way. Why is my bank’s website close to utterly unusable in a mobile browser (crazy timeouts, popups everywhere, etc) but their app is super smooth? You can argue about the root cause of the issue, but it’s fundamentally not a technology problem.
Better question: Why do I need to use my bank's special snowflake website, or their special snowflake app, when both do the exact same thing that I was doing via a text terminal dialing into Bank of America's HOMEBANKSF service on Tymnet? Why do I have to use their decommoditized solution when there could be a standard solution for banking activities?
Yeah, we both know the answer is lock-in... but maybe that's a sign that the gnomes and gnome-adjacent need to be tard-wrangled for the good of society?
This, I remember a time where each and every bank in Germany supported HBCI - the Home Banking Computer Interface. Later renamed to FinTS.
There were several generic apps that allowed you to add any of your banks and pull transactions, setup transfers, and all other basic things you can do with a bank account.
Then, banks discovered that they can lock their customers in an own app where they don’t hear about other banks. And also, where their developers don’t need to read and understand (and implement) the HBCI/FinTS standard.
Why not just use open, text-based "Web APIs" for internet-based transactions. Whether the client is "smartphone app" or "mobile browser" should not make any difference. Anything that can send and recieve HTTP should work. It is the computer owner's choice. For example, some might write their own software, while others might prefer to use a "smartphone app" or a "mobile browser", disributed by a so-called "tech" company that operates telemetry, collects data, performs surveillance and targets internet users with ads.
> The web simply dont offer the same experience and is not an alternative for argument sake.
The entire reason this is the case is because Apple and Google have intentionally prevented the web from offering the same experience. They've limited the APIs that web apps have access to and made them clumsy to use and "install". Web apps could easily compete with native, but that would limit their control over the app market and revenue.
But we’re talking about extremely basic things. Simple pages that display data, like a bank website showing my transactions. And you know what? The simplest of sites seem to work awful on the web… because the web developers make bad sites. I have seen examples of sites that are smooth, functional, and beautiful. But most sites are not. They are bloated messes where the user experience seems to be 15th on the list of concerns.
To answer to the question: “why does the web suck on mobile” is almost entirely “because web developers make awful websites”.
Google has pushed web harder than any other company. They popularized the very concept of a web app, back when the public didn't have that notion. They pushed the concept of progressive web apps. They tried to push web components. They tried to throw Dart into the browser. Under their guidance JS has advanced very quickly as a language.
PWA's can do background sync, there's push notifications, badge icons, the kinds of things that allow websites to feel more like apps — on Android and not iOS.
The AJAX approach was pioneered by the Outlook web team ~1998 and semi-standardized as XMLHTTP in IE 5 (1999).
So a decade before Chrome was released.
Admittedly, Chrome did a lot to push forward web apps, but that was 100% in Google's self-interest given they were competing against thick client MS Office.
An actual list would be long, nuanced and vary by platform, but I'll offer a sampling.
For many things there's might be a basic API available, but when you dig a little deeper you find huge limitations. Geolocation is a great example of that. Sure, it's available. But you couldn't implement a navigation app, for example. Because you can't watch the location and get updates in the background. Not to mention that accuracy and update frequency can be severely reduced in a PWA vs a native app.
Other limited APIs include things like bluetooth, audio, NFC, notifications, file system access, sensors (proximity, light, etc), camera functionality.
Safari (and therefore Apple) doesn't support things like accelerometer/gyroscope access, battery status, vibration, network info.
You can't access things like the user's contacts or calendar. And we could argue over whether limiting access to stuff like this is a good or bad thing. But the fact is that this stuff is available in various ways to native apps, but not at all to web apps.
As an app developer, if the app is nothing but images and text and the full experience is just a series of json, it should be a website. Those kind of apps are the most boring to work on.
But our phones are more powerful than the computers that landed us on the moon and are packed full of sensors and connectivity. The web is incapable of matching a native app, if it is actually doing something interesting.
Outside of games, very few apps are doing anything interesting. The only reason for them to be apps at all seems to be to get a place on your Home Screen and to push notifications.
A website in your phone browser will not be able to see when you're leaving work (or a friend's house, vacation), calculate when you will be home, turn on your HVAC, raise your garage door, and unlock your door as you approach the door.
It also won't display the weather for the next few hours and your calendar on the same screen whenever you open up your phone without being an extremely bothersome action every time.
I was surprised by how wrong Jobs got that. Native PC (including Mac) apps had significant usage at the time despite the surge in web apps and were particularly advantageous on a memory and network constrained device.
I wouldn't claim to have better general intuition about consumer preferences than Steve Jobs, but I called this one right: when the iPhone launched without third-party apps, I thought that was a crazy decision that wouldn't last once the competition started to catch up.
Looking forward to more options for detecting compromised iOS devices.
We also need an option to stay on Version N-1 stable version of iOS, during the months when Version N is being fixed in public. Otherwise, iOS devices are only secure about 6 months of the year, between March and September, until the cycle of vulnerability begins anew.
That's not a reason to dismiss their use case. It's not that uncommon to have a software issue that requires a restore, which in Apple land is almost always an upgrade unless you just did one
The fact that Apple is still pretending that lack of sideloading is a consumer protection device is so despicable.
There are ways of squaring the circle. There are user experiences that can make even the dumbest user understand that they are taking the security of their device into their own hands.
Once they understand that, it isn’t up to Apple to decide for them that the iPhone that the user purchased must remain secure. Users must be permitted to make potentially dangerous choices with their own hardware if they so choose.
Mac users can disable system integrity protection and modify the OS or run unsigned apps (though the hoops to do this get more burdensome each OS release, and unsigned apps can’t use the secure enclave, or modern VPN apis, etc - another scumbag move by Apple) and the sky hasn’t fallen over there, nor in Europe where sideloading on iOS is mandated by law (and Apple implemented).
The fact that they refer to it as "sideloading" rather than just "installing" is all I need to know about where their priorities lie. As long as they view installation of arbitrary programs by end users as being something deviant then I can correctly conclude that they do not view me as the owner of my own hardware, and therefore I won't be buying anything from them.
On the last paragraph, while it should be possible to turn protections off I don’t think it should necessarily be convenient. If there’s no tradeoffs you end up with some number of users running unprotected for no good reason. The capability is there if one needs it, but it really should be a need that’s the motivation, and most users don’t actually have that.
If I want to see if a PC's unusual behavior is caused by hardware or software, I boot it from a USB stick with a known-good OS and some diagnostic tools on it. Phones could be designed so that such a thing is possible, though current phones mostly aren't.
But you could have a hardware problem (such as with the OS drive interface) that doesn’t show up with that sort of test, or a software-triggered problem that doesn’t go away easily (like a driver-caused hardware fault). It seems easier to just allow the warranty provider to perform whatever software changes they deem necessary, and leave the user to do what they want after it’s fixed.
> you could have a hardware problem (such as with the OS drive interface) that doesn’t show up with that sort of test
If the hardware is faulty, that sort of thing should show up on an automated test of the drive. In a professional setting, I'd expect this sort of thing to be run unattended: plug it in, turn it on, check back later to see if anything failed.
> a software-triggered problem that doesn’t go away easily
This sounds like re-image the OS territory. A user sophisticated enough to unlock and modify the OS is sophisticated enough to manage their own backups.
Allowing other browsers==allowing a potential distribution platform they don't control. There's absolutely a reason they're withholding better PWA experiences on Safari.
I'd love to be able to publish TWAs on the app store, there is even web APIs for handling app store payments.
That's exactly the reason why they shouldn't be able to control which browser engine an app can use. They should be able to encourage but not require usage of a specific engine
Good, they shouldn't control (exclusively that is) it which is the whole point of antitrust issue here. Their freak control and browser engines ban is causing anti-competitive damage to the whole Web.
Go ahead and read the first page of the April 31st, 2025 order that you linked:
"For the reasons set forth herein, the Court FINDS Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing."
But this stuff is presented in not the most accessible ways. I tried authoring the tweet-length version. It's up to you, whom to trust or not trust on the Internet!
The short version is that they were given a lot of flexibility in how they complied with the previous ruling and a lot of time in which to do it. The judge found their implementation did not comply, so she decided how they were to comply with very little flexibility and a short timetable.
I am pretty sure the majority of Apple and Google's privileged legal communications equate to "how do we draw this out as long as possible". They know what they're doing isn't legal, but since neither the US or the EU will actually claw back ill-gotten gains it makes sense to continue as long as they can.
Instead of cynically assuming you can't trust anything, you could read the text of the bill and see whether it has loopholes. You never know, you might be pleasantly surprised, and get the chance to update your worldview in a positive direction
Most of these bills are not setup for layman to consume. Probably a good application to use an LLM, honestly. It's like reading an EULA agreement.. which I'm sure we all do every time.
There is a point in history where App Store, the way it is operating make sense. It is worth pointing out that Steve Jobs didn't even believe the App Store would make money. Even the 2nd year running he was surprised by the numbers and couldn't make sense of it.
But modern society depends on using Apps on Smartphone. Even people might disagree we are at this stage I dont think anyone would disagree it is the trajectory we are heading. The web simply dont offer the same experience and is not an alternative for argument sake. App Store held so much power that Apple should have relinquish its control long ago. At least by 2020.
Yet without Steve Jobs, Apple has been left on Autopilot to do what they were doing since Steve Jobs left. Steve Jobs often spoke about the importance of intuition, referring to it as a powerful force that can guide decision-making and innovation, sometimes even more so than intellect. And right now Apple has plenty of intellect, practically zero intuition.
> But modern society depends on using Apps on Smartphone
It doesn’t have to be that way. Why is my bank’s website close to utterly unusable in a mobile browser (crazy timeouts, popups everywhere, etc) but their app is super smooth? You can argue about the root cause of the issue, but it’s fundamentally not a technology problem.
Better question: Why do I need to use my bank's special snowflake website, or their special snowflake app, when both do the exact same thing that I was doing via a text terminal dialing into Bank of America's HOMEBANKSF service on Tymnet? Why do I have to use their decommoditized solution when there could be a standard solution for banking activities?
Yeah, we both know the answer is lock-in... but maybe that's a sign that the gnomes and gnome-adjacent need to be tard-wrangled for the good of society?
This, I remember a time where each and every bank in Germany supported HBCI - the Home Banking Computer Interface. Later renamed to FinTS.
There were several generic apps that allowed you to add any of your banks and pull transactions, setup transfers, and all other basic things you can do with a bank account.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinTS
Then, banks discovered that they can lock their customers in an own app where they don’t hear about other banks. And also, where their developers don’t need to read and understand (and implement) the HBCI/FinTS standard.
I think less lock in than marketing opportunity / ads.
....a little of column A, a little of column B, really.
Why not just use open, text-based "Web APIs" for internet-based transactions. Whether the client is "smartphone app" or "mobile browser" should not make any difference. Anything that can send and recieve HTTP should work. It is the computer owner's choice. For example, some might write their own software, while others might prefer to use a "smartphone app" or a "mobile browser", disributed by a so-called "tech" company that operates telemetry, collects data, performs surveillance and targets internet users with ads.
> The web simply dont offer the same experience and is not an alternative for argument sake.
The entire reason this is the case is because Apple and Google have intentionally prevented the web from offering the same experience. They've limited the APIs that web apps have access to and made them clumsy to use and "install". Web apps could easily compete with native, but that would limit their control over the app market and revenue.
There is absolutely some truth to this.
But we’re talking about extremely basic things. Simple pages that display data, like a bank website showing my transactions. And you know what? The simplest of sites seem to work awful on the web… because the web developers make bad sites. I have seen examples of sites that are smooth, functional, and beautiful. But most sites are not. They are bloated messes where the user experience seems to be 15th on the list of concerns.
To answer to the question: “why does the web suck on mobile” is almost entirely “because web developers make awful websites”.
Google has pushed web harder than any other company. They popularized the very concept of a web app, back when the public didn't have that notion. They pushed the concept of progressive web apps. They tried to push web components. They tried to throw Dart into the browser. Under their guidance JS has advanced very quickly as a language.
PWA's can do background sync, there's push notifications, badge icons, the kinds of things that allow websites to feel more like apps — on Android and not iOS.
Debatable.
The AJAX approach was pioneered by the Outlook web team ~1998 and semi-standardized as XMLHTTP in IE 5 (1999).
So a decade before Chrome was released.
Admittedly, Chrome did a lot to push forward web apps, but that was 100% in Google's self-interest given they were competing against thick client MS Office.
Which APIs are limited? I feel like almost every app I use could easily be a website. They don't seem to do anything especially fancy.
An actual list would be long, nuanced and vary by platform, but I'll offer a sampling.
For many things there's might be a basic API available, but when you dig a little deeper you find huge limitations. Geolocation is a great example of that. Sure, it's available. But you couldn't implement a navigation app, for example. Because you can't watch the location and get updates in the background. Not to mention that accuracy and update frequency can be severely reduced in a PWA vs a native app.
Other limited APIs include things like bluetooth, audio, NFC, notifications, file system access, sensors (proximity, light, etc), camera functionality.
Safari (and therefore Apple) doesn't support things like accelerometer/gyroscope access, battery status, vibration, network info.
You can't access things like the user's contacts or calendar. And we could argue over whether limiting access to stuff like this is a good or bad thing. But the fact is that this stuff is available in various ways to native apps, but not at all to web apps.
As an app developer, if the app is nothing but images and text and the full experience is just a series of json, it should be a website. Those kind of apps are the most boring to work on.
But our phones are more powerful than the computers that landed us on the moon and are packed full of sensors and connectivity. The web is incapable of matching a native app, if it is actually doing something interesting.
Outside of games, very few apps are doing anything interesting. The only reason for them to be apps at all seems to be to get a place on your Home Screen and to push notifications.
A website in your phone browser will not be able to see when you're leaving work (or a friend's house, vacation), calculate when you will be home, turn on your HVAC, raise your garage door, and unlock your door as you approach the door.
It also won't display the weather for the next few hours and your calendar on the same screen whenever you open up your phone without being an extremely bothersome action every time.
We have "netbanking" which works but its slightly less convenient, has some features left out and so on
I was surprised by how wrong Jobs got that. Native PC (including Mac) apps had significant usage at the time despite the surge in web apps and were particularly advantageous on a memory and network constrained device.
I wouldn't claim to have better general intuition about consumer preferences than Steve Jobs, but I called this one right: when the iPhone launched without third-party apps, I thought that was a crazy decision that wouldn't last once the competition started to catch up.
>> (Apple PR) We are concerned this EU-style regulation will...
Ha. Yeah, I bet you are.
Looking forward to more options for detecting compromised iOS devices.
We also need an option to stay on Version N-1 stable version of iOS, during the months when Version N is being fixed in public. Otherwise, iOS devices are only secure about 6 months of the year, between March and September, until the cycle of vulnerability begins anew.
I think as devices stop being supported and become obsoleted, it should be possible to install arbitrary iOS versions on them.
Stop supporting? Great, release the source and firmware.
Should go for all code IMO, games included.
I just want to be able to install iOS 8 on my iPhone 6 so I can play Rock Band Reloaded without the bugs that come from trying to play it on iOS 10
You have that option now? iOS updates aren't forced.
iOS update to most recent release is always forced during reinstallation.
It's not possible to reinstall any older version you were previously running.
You will lose access to apps which are not compatible with newer iOS.
You're an extreeeeeme outlier.
That's not a reason to dismiss their use case. It's not that uncommon to have a software issue that requires a restore, which in Apple land is almost always an upgrade unless you just did one
After an iOS device is compromised, is there any option other than reinstall?
I didn't know reinstalling is even possible so I would just throw the device away.
It's an Apple option when restoring an iOS device backup on Apple Macbook.
Many zero-day security flaws are documented as fixed in Apple updates, actively used to compromise iOS devices.
It doesn't even take a Mac. Windows iTunes allows restoring to signed versions of iOS
Too Android-pilled?
Yeah. I have a habit of waiting a very long time to update.
You don’t receive security updates for older versions when your device supports a newer version.
The fact that Apple is still pretending that lack of sideloading is a consumer protection device is so despicable.
There are ways of squaring the circle. There are user experiences that can make even the dumbest user understand that they are taking the security of their device into their own hands.
Once they understand that, it isn’t up to Apple to decide for them that the iPhone that the user purchased must remain secure. Users must be permitted to make potentially dangerous choices with their own hardware if they so choose.
Mac users can disable system integrity protection and modify the OS or run unsigned apps (though the hoops to do this get more burdensome each OS release, and unsigned apps can’t use the secure enclave, or modern VPN apis, etc - another scumbag move by Apple) and the sky hasn’t fallen over there, nor in Europe where sideloading on iOS is mandated by law (and Apple implemented).
The fact that they refer to it as "sideloading" rather than just "installing" is all I need to know about where their priorities lie. As long as they view installation of arbitrary programs by end users as being something deviant then I can correctly conclude that they do not view me as the owner of my own hardware, and therefore I won't be buying anything from them.
Louis Rossman was right.
On the last paragraph, while it should be possible to turn protections off I don’t think it should necessarily be convenient. If there’s no tradeoffs you end up with some number of users running unprotected for no good reason. The capability is there if one needs it, but it really should be a need that’s the motivation, and most users don’t actually have that.
Would it be ok if they said they won’t attempt any service or repair to a device in this mode without a full factory reset?
Do Windows repair shops refuse to work with computers where the user installed anything from outside the Microsoft Store?
No, unless they can prove that the problem was caused by software.
How would you prove that? It seems like a nearly impossible burden.
If I want to see if a PC's unusual behavior is caused by hardware or software, I boot it from a USB stick with a known-good OS and some diagnostic tools on it. Phones could be designed so that such a thing is possible, though current phones mostly aren't.
But you could have a hardware problem (such as with the OS drive interface) that doesn’t show up with that sort of test, or a software-triggered problem that doesn’t go away easily (like a driver-caused hardware fault). It seems easier to just allow the warranty provider to perform whatever software changes they deem necessary, and leave the user to do what they want after it’s fixed.
> you could have a hardware problem (such as with the OS drive interface) that doesn’t show up with that sort of test
If the hardware is faulty, that sort of thing should show up on an automated test of the drive. In a professional setting, I'd expect this sort of thing to be run unattended: plug it in, turn it on, check back later to see if anything failed.
> a software-triggered problem that doesn’t go away easily
This sounds like re-image the OS territory. A user sophisticated enough to unlock and modify the OS is sophisticated enough to manage their own backups.
I seem to recall having to accept that loss of all data is a possibility when getting warranty service on laptops. That seems fair for phones too.
Of course they shouldn't wipe/reflash devices needlessly if a hardware problem is obviously the cause.
Apple should be also fined huge amount for banning competing browser engines on iOS and forced to remove the ban or continue being fined.
Allowing other browsers==allowing a potential distribution platform they don't control. There's absolutely a reason they're withholding better PWA experiences on Safari.
I'd love to be able to publish TWAs on the app store, there is even web APIs for handling app store payments.
That's exactly the reason why they shouldn't be able to control which browser engine an app can use. They should be able to encourage but not require usage of a specific engine
Good, they shouldn't control (exclusively that is) it which is the whole point of antitrust issue here. Their freak control and browser engines ban is causing anti-competitive damage to the whole Web.
Surely this bill allowing you to load any app would fix the problem of not being able to install browser apps?
How did Apple get away with all this? They went from having a visionary to a mercenary as CEO.
They abuse competition law being toothless for quite a long time already. Basically they got away with it because everyone let them.
"A tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." C. S. Lewis
In other news, the Senate parliamentarian just nixed a bunch of terrible, non-budgetary things from the reconciliation bill.
Apple got away with disobeying the Epic v Apple orders for like 4 years. Something tells me they don’t care too much for laws.
Three days to implement recent ruling?
2025-04-31, "Judge rules Apple executive lied under oath, makes criminal contempt referral", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43856795
2025-05-02, "Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43867692
2025-06-04, "Court denies Apple appeal in Epic Games case, keeping App Store changes in place", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44186891
Go ahead and read the first page of the April 31st, 2025 order that you linked:
"For the reasons set forth herein, the Court FINDS Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing."
But this stuff is presented in not the most accessible ways. I tried authoring the tweet-length version. It's up to you, whom to trust or not trust on the Internet!
The short version is that they were given a lot of flexibility in how they complied with the previous ruling and a lot of time in which to do it. The judge found their implementation did not comply, so she decided how they were to comply with very little flexibility and a short timetable.
I am pretty sure the majority of Apple and Google's privileged legal communications equate to "how do we draw this out as long as possible". They know what they're doing isn't legal, but since neither the US or the EU will actually claw back ill-gotten gains it makes sense to continue as long as they can.
[flagged]
Instead of cynically assuming you can't trust anything, you could read the text of the bill and see whether it has loopholes. You never know, you might be pleasantly surprised, and get the chance to update your worldview in a positive direction
Most of these bills are not setup for layman to consume. Probably a good application to use an LLM, honestly. It's like reading an EULA agreement.. which I'm sure we all do every time.
The article does say the bill does not mention Apple or Google, though the author presumes they are the real topics of the bill.