Apple's Decision To Drop iPhone Web Apps Comes Under Scrutiny in the EU 94
Apple could soon face an investigation over its decision to discontinue iPhone web apps in the European Union, according to a report from the Financial Times. The Verge: The European Commission has reportedly sent Apple and app developers requests for more information to assist in its evaluation. "We are indeed looking at the compliance packages of all gatekeepers, including Apple," the European Commission said in a statement to the Financial Times. "In that context, we're in particular looking into the issue of progressive web apps, and can confirm sending the requests for information to Apple and to app developers, who can provide useful information for our assessment."
They did not drop web apps (Score:2, Informative)
Apple only removed progressive web apps from the Home Screen. You can still run them in a browser just fine.
The reason they did so was clearly laid out by Apple - the EU rules say all browser engines must be treated equally, and Apple does not think it is secure to allow alternative rendering engines into the Home Screen (Springboard) which would allow for some much more extensive security breaches if the browser engine code were not well made.
Will the EU politicians next be instructing Apple on how they s
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Honestly, that's a stupid response. They cannot realistically do that.
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Are they under a contractual obligation to not discard 30% of their revenue?
Another option is to spin off a different company that is owned by them (through some round about way) and sells a slightly different product and service in the region. That would hurt revenue too but not as badly as a complete withdraw.
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Yes, to the shareholders.
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It depends if the Apple prospectus or later updates to shareholder rights includes a right to sue under some sort of vague gross incompetence clause. Closing all business in a region doesn't fall under a legal umbrella for a public company, so the option of using under a "wrongful act" is not available.
In practice without backing from voting shareholders, it's not possible to make such a direction change. Doing it without consent of shareholders would fall under opposition of shareholders which is a common
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Are they under a contractual obligation to not discard 30% of their revenue?
Another option is to spin off a different company that is owned by them (through some round about way) and sells a slightly different product and service in the region. That would hurt revenue too but not as badly as a complete withdraw.
You mean 7%.
That's what the EU means to Apple.
But if Apple pulls out of the EU, how much ya wanna bet the EU will try to fine them for THAT, too?!?
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Looks like 30.4% [statista.com] to me.
I'd argue that Multinationals shouldn't exist and we should fine them into oblivion. But my views aren't mainstream.
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Looks like 30.4% [statista.com] to me.
I'd argue that Multinationals shouldn't exist and we should fine them into oblivion. But my views aren't mainstream.
Or even remotely reasonable.
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Oh, yes.
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Which law are they breaking by removing support for these apps?
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Don't be an asshole.
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Indeed. Hence Apple better start complying with EU law.
No matter how ridiculous it gets, eh?
Re:They did not drop web apps (Score:5, Informative)
The EU isn't going to accept Apple's word for it that no other browser can be as secure as Safari. They might be persuaded if an independent expert agreed, but it'd doubtful that would happen because Safari has had plenty of security issues over the years.
So that leaves just Apple's naked attempt to frustrate the EU's requirement that they open their platform up to competition.
Re:They did not drop web apps (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm willing to accept that Safari/webkit are deeply entangled within iOS just as Internet Exploder was in Windows. But you know what? Microsoft made a clean break, removed a bunch of cruft and now Edge follows modern web standards. The world is better off not requiring quirks modes for IE6/11.
Apple have spent 11 years seething that Google forked webkit into Blink because neither management team was willing to compromise on the strategic direction of the project. Allowing Chrome to displace Safari as the dominant browser on iOS would internally be a matter of pride.
But anyway, you can pry Firefox from my cold, dead hands and I'm no great fan of Google but Android is the only mobile platform that gives me that freedom as well as F-droid.
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I'm willing to accept that Safari/webkit are deeply entangled within iOS just as Internet Exploder was in Windows. But you know what? Microsoft made a clean break, removed a bunch of cruft and now Edge follows modern web standards. The world is better off not requiring quirks modes for IE6/11.
Apple have spent 11 years seething that Google forked webkit into Blink because neither management team was willing to compromise on the strategic direction of the project. Allowing Chrome to displace Safari as the dominant browser on iOS would internally be a matter of pride.
But anyway, you can pry Firefox from my cold, dead hands and I'm no great fan of Google but Android is the only mobile platform that gives me that freedom as well as F-droid.
Great! Glad you're happy, I really am!
Now kindly leave MY Platform THE FUCK ALONE!!!
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its not your platform, apple makes that clear in their TOS. you dont own any part of an apple product.
Unless you delusionally think you and apple are one. In that case find the nearest adult and seek help
You MUST be 12 years old, max.
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I'm willing to accept that Safari/webkit are deeply entangled within iOS just as Internet Exploder was in Windows. But you know what? Microsoft made a clean break, removed a bunch of cruft and now Edge follows modern web standards. The world is better off not requiring quirks modes for IE6/11.
But if it weren't for a decade of effort by the EU and and US courts, we'd still be on IE, having it shoehorned into every part of the Windows ecosystem. It is technically still in there as it's impossible to remove. Apple is going to have the same issue, Google recognised it with Android long ago and made the Google Services components independent from the OS (so you can have Google free Android if you want), so they can be updated independently and the OS isn't held back by them.
Right now, Apple is goi
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Because iOS is not in first place (Score:2)
I don't get why Apple gets a free pass when they're trying to be even worse.
When competition regulators determine who has "market power" as the law defines it, Apple tends to get a free pass because the worldwide usage share of phones running its operating system is much less than that of phones running Android.
Re:They did not drop web apps (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. And that Apple clearly was trying to do "malicious compliance" will not help their case one bit. My guess is that behind this stupid decision you will find somebody at Apple that is used to the US not enforcing laws against rich and powerful enterprises, but has overlooked that the same is very much not true in the EU. (Yes, those laws get enforced against EU companies just the same. But they are smarter, know this and hence make a real effort to be compliant. That is why the huge fines and other measures usually go against non-EU enterprises. Obviously some "patriotic" nil wit will now suggest the EU is just after the money...)
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Indeed. And that Apple clearly was trying to do "malicious compliance" will not help their case one bit. My guess is that behind this stupid decision you will find somebody at Apple that is used to the US not enforcing laws against rich and powerful enterprises, but has overlooked that the same is very much not true in the EU. (Yes, those laws get enforced against EU companies just the same. But they are smarter, know this and hence make a real effort to be compliant. That is why the huge fines and other measures usually go against non-EU enterprises. Obviously some "patriotic" nil wit will now suggest the EU is just after the money...)
It wasn't "malicious compliance". It was the only Compliance possible; due to the way that the EU structured the Law.
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Indeed. And that Apple clearly was trying to do "malicious compliance" will not help their case one bit. My guess is that behind this stupid decision you will find somebody at Apple that is used to the US not enforcing laws against rich and powerful enterprises, but has overlooked that the same is very much not true in the EU. (Yes, those laws get enforced against EU companies just the same. But they are smarter, know this and hence make a real effort to be compliant. That is why the huge fines and other measures usually go against non-EU enterprises. Obviously some "patriotic" nil wit will now suggest the EU is just after the money...)
It wasn't "malicious compliance". It was the only Compliance possible; due to the way that the EU structured the Law.
Citation needed.
I already explained how they could fully comply with the law very, very easily in the last story on the subject:
That's basically it. At that point, you're treating all browsers
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Indeed. And that Apple clearly was trying to do "malicious compliance" will not help their case one bit. My guess is that behind this stupid decision you will find somebody at Apple that is used to the US not enforcing laws against rich and powerful enterprises, but has overlooked that the same is very much not true in the EU. (Yes, those laws get enforced against EU companies just the same. But they are smarter, know this and hence make a real effort to be compliant. That is why the huge fines and other measures usually go against non-EU enterprises. Obviously some "patriotic" nil wit will now suggest the EU is just after the money...)
It wasn't "malicious compliance". It was the only Compliance possible; due to the way that the EU structured the Law.
Citation needed.
I already explained how they could fully comply with the law very, very easily in the last story on the subject:
That's basically it. At that point, you're treating all browsers equally. You're not exposing any Safari data to other browsers, so there's no new security risk.
This shouldn't even be a large, complex change unless the Springboard code is a spaghetti-fest or something.
So, of course, you have out-engineered all of Apple's iOS Operating System Dev. Team?
Right.
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Would not be hard to do, its well known that apple is terrible at writing quality software.
Wrong.
It's long asserted by you.
Big difference!
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Would not be hard to do, its well known that apple is terrible at writing quality software.
Apple is a big company, with all the problems that come from being a big company. They absolutely *can* write quality software. That doesn't mean they always do.
Either way, it's not about whether Apple is capable of doing this. I could probably pick any three random Apple engineers and have this implemented in a week. It's about whether Apple is willing to do this. It's hard to convince a company to go against its own financial best interests, and web apps compete against Apple's iOS App Store, so maki
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Nonsense. Fortunately, the courts will decide that, not you.
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Nonsense. Fortunately, the courts will decide that, not you.
Apple did not have time to redesign iOS to make sure that PWAs and Web Apps running under Foreign Frameworks could not use them to compromise Security or Privacy. But they could not leave Safari/WebKit in a "more favorable position".
So, at least for now, Apple felt the safest option was to deny the ability to save Web Apps/PWAs to the Home Screen for EVERYONE.
You can still have them; but you have to Launch them from a Bookmark.
Big. Fucking. Deal.
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So they are incompetent and did not plan ahead? Yeah, judges love that type of excuse! Makes their judgments very easy to deliver.
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So they are incompetent and did not plan ahead? Yeah, judges love that type of excuse! Makes their judgments very easy to deliver.
No.
The EU gave them insufficient time; and then denied Apple's Request for an Extension.
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The EU isn't going to accept Apple's word for it that no other browser can be as secure as Safari. They might be persuaded if an independent expert agreed, but it'd doubtful that would happen because Safari has had plenty of security issues over the years.
So that leaves just Apple's naked attempt to frustrate the EU's requirement that they open their platform up to competition.
Apple never said Safari was safer.
What they said was, "We simply cannot run every $RANDOM_RENDERER and $RANDOM_BROWSER to Ground; and Browsers are nearly miniature Operating Systems, with fairly deep tendrils into the underlying resources, and so we would just rather not, thank you. If people want to take those chances, they are free to purchase any one of several Android Phones, like the vast majority of your Citizens have already done."
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Apple never said Safari was safer.
What they said was, "We simply cannot run every $RANDOM_RENDERER and $RANDOM_BROWSER to Ground; and Browsers are nearly miniature Operating Systems, with fairly deep tendrils into the underlying resources, and so we would just rather not, thank you. If people want to take those chances, they are free to purchase any one of several Android Phones, like the vast majority of your Citizens have already done."
That's not at all correct. The EU is forcing Apple to allow other browsers. Apple has no choice in whether they allow the browser to run.
The only thing they're doing is preventing browsers (including Safari) from saving PWA shortcuts to the home screen that open in the browser in full-screen mode with support for storing data on-device for more than a few days at a time.
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Apple never said Safari was safer.
What they said was, "We simply cannot run every $RANDOM_RENDERER and $RANDOM_BROWSER to Ground; and Browsers are nearly miniature Operating Systems, with fairly deep tendrils into the underlying resources, and so we would just rather not, thank you. If people want to take those chances, they are free to purchase any one of several Android Phones, like the vast majority of your Citizens have already done."
That's not at all correct. The EU is forcing Apple to allow other browsers. Apple has no choice in whether they allow the browser to run.
The only thing they're doing is preventing browsers (including Safari) from saving PWA shortcuts to the home screen that open in the browser in full-screen mode with support for storing data on-device for more than a few days at a time.
Quit with the obsfucation.
I never said Apple was trying to prevent foreign Browsers with foreign Rendering Engines from Running.
Never.
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That's besides the point. If someone replaces Safari with a less secure alternative, and yes, some alternatives will be less secure; that is on them, and isn't something Apple should be policing.
You can side-load on Android. Most people don't though, possibly in part because they trust Google more than the alternatives.
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Indeed, if Apple can arbitrarily say "we don't trust X to do this securely", than they can veto anything.
They did drop... (Score:1)
Pretty sure they did not drop storage (Score:2, Interesting)
it seems they did drop things like offline storage and push notification support.
I am a developer, Apple did not drop offline storage. The web app would be able to store state between visiting the app.
Push notification support for web apps I'm not as sure about, they do allow web apps to simply run in a browser, but I'm not sure then if web push notifications would get through with the browser closed.
It was always suspected it was to hamper app store competition.
Nope, security and privacy concerns, as is
Re: Pretty sure they did not drop storage (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox for Android has supported PWAs for seven years without any problems. Why is it that apple can't figure this out?
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Firefox for Android has supported PWAs for seven years without any problems
Actually, the problems were the tremendous numbers of Android exploits. That is what Apple is trying to avoid.
That is also soemthing you'd think the government would care about, but protecting citizens from criminals is no longer a concern for major governments.
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Of course protecting citizens from criminals is a concern, that is exactly why they are they are protecting their citizens from apple.
Just shut the fuck up, sicko.
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How many Android exploits can you cite that would have been enabled by way of PWAs? How many Android vulnerabilities do you have if you ignore sideloaded applications and rooted devices?
In all my time with android, there was *one* piece of malware that I experienced, and it only managed to put unlabeled spam in my notifications so it was hard to tell where it came from, and now the platform is better at letting you find the originator of the notification so that's been closed.
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> if you ignore sideloaded applications and rooted
> devices
That's a very big thing to ignore; considering that when iOS 17.4 is released, every... single... iPhone... in the EU is about to become a rooted device infested with "sideloaded" applications from the darkest depths from cydia and its ilk; with all of the vulnerabilities and malware that entails.
Re: Pretty sure they did not drop storage (Score:2)
The number of people with sideloaded Android apps, despite it being possible is small. The number with rooted devices is nearly zero nowadays, even among sideloaders.
Just because you are allowed to you are not forced to instantly sideload crap. And even when sideloaded, the applications are still subject to security restrictions that limit app access, unlike desktop applications.
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Clearly you don't remember how much of a cesspit Cydia was or just how many of the "apps" there bypassed those very same security restrictions.
How some people have such short memories, I've no idea. But I was there right from the iPhone 3g, and used to jailbreak the thing right off the bat... back then it was still missing features like playing 3rd-party music apps like Pandora in the background. Yes, it was neat to be able to ssh into my phone. Yes, backgrounder was nice to have in its time. And yes...
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Frankly, I haven't really ever messed with the iPhone ecosystem at all. However, Android had similar growing pains back in that era, and I assume both vendors took away lessons (how to deal with background execution of select features, how the application execution engine had to enforce security mechanisms and not just bank on store level filtering, and what functions they needed to officially and safely provide to applications to avoid the need to 'root' devices for fairly expected behavior).
I suppose it's
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Maybe apple shoud write better software? Divert some lawer money to programmers.??
Maybe you should just get a life.
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Maybe apple shoud write better software?
Apple writes great software, which is why they don't want to let other companies shit browser engines into the platform where they can harm users.
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> if you ignore sideloaded applications and rooted
> devices
That's a very big thing to ignore; considering that when iOS 17.4 is released, every... single... iPhone... in the EU is about to become a rooted device infested with "sideloaded" applications from the darkest depths from cydia and its ilk; with all of the vulnerabilities and malware that entails.
Exactly.
And then the word on the street will be "Apple is no safer than Android."
You know it. I know it. And NOBODY will remember WHY. . .
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But Apple is no safer than Android even now.
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But Apple is no safer than Android even now.
Prove it.
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But Apple is no safer than Android even now.
Prove it.
You made the assertion that Apple was inherently safer... so the onus of evidence is on you... However at every Pwn2Own competition the Apple products tend to go down first... not to mention how often they get "jailbroken". Seems that Apple's superior security is nothing but a delusion.
Apple's security through obscurity is a safety blanket that you've urinated in, in order to keep warm. We didn't put up with this bollocks from Microsoft, why should we give Apple a free pass?
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But Apple is no safer than Android even now.
Prove it.
You made the assertion that Apple was inherently safer... so the onus of evidence is on you... However at every Pwn2Own competition the Apple products tend to go down first... not to mention how often they get "jailbroken". Seems that Apple's superior security is nothing but a delusion.
Apple's security through obscurity is a safety blanket that you've urinated in, in order to keep warm. We didn't put up with this bollocks from Microsoft, why should we give Apple a free pass?
Apple went down first because the prize was usually a nice, new MacBook Pro that the majority of the Hackers used themselves; so there was far more effort aimed at hacking them than everyone else combined.
Not to mention that fully 90% of those hacks were actually aimed at Flash Plugins. Talk about your Low-Hanging Fruit! Apple had little control over that.
One of the biggest reasons Apple stopped including Flash before everyone else, and then banning it from iOS, and was instrumental in finally getting that
Re: Pretty sure they did not drop storage (Score:2)
Actually, the problems were the tremendous numbers of Android exploits. That is what Apple is trying to avoid.
Like what, exactly? How has PWA been exploited on Android? Be specific.
Though I get the feeling that you're trying to blame every vulnerability ever, even ones totally unrelated to PWA. If so, here's some numbers:
https://www.cvedetails.com/vul... [cvedetails.com]
https://www.cvedetails.com/vul... [cvedetails.com]
https://www.cvedetails.com/vul... [cvedetails.com]
https://www.cvedetails.com/vul... [cvedetails.com]
Remote code vulnerabilities:
Android: 617
Chrome: 137
iOS: 1011
Safari: 602
So apple is securing what, exactly? Rootkitted by text parsing bugs much? A messaging app that o
Try searching? (Score:1)
Forget how to use Google [blogspot.com] did ya?
That was the first link!
Sickening you would cover for a technology that is actively able to harm non-technical users.
And no, I don't think PWA is the only way to attack Android, I am well aware of the thousand other holes the system has - like that makes it better???
That's the last response I have on this topic - you will simply cover for Android ignoring the truth we all know, it's simply not a secure platform by any metric.
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Re: Try searching? (Score:2)
Your head isn't secure by any metric. This is just a general web vulnerability caused by XSS. If you were a competent developer, you'd know this already, and you'd know how to mitigate it. You'd also know that that remains applicable, even with this half-assed non-fix that you think is a brilliant idea.
https://www.koombea.com/blog/p... [koombea.com]
It's your own fuckin fault that you're allowing scripts to run on your own same origin domain, PWA or not, which is why you're a shitty developer. Furthermore, the download bu
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And if you create them on Firefox, are they locked to Firefox? Or can you run that PWA under Chrome instead? What happens if you uninstall Firefox?
Having PWAs break because they become browser dependent is violating the DMA. If you have PWAs you made then installed 17.4, those PWAs will run in Safari. But if you want to run Firefox, they need to run in Firefox as well, not Safari. Running
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And if you create them on Firefox, are they locked to Firefox? Or can you run that PWA under Chrome instead? What happens if you uninstall Firefox?
Having PWAs break because they become browser dependent is violating the DMA.
No, it isn't. It's violating your interpretation of the DMA.
The DMA requires that the user be able to change browsers, and that Apple do nothing to prevent that.
The reality is that not all web apps will necessarily work in other apps, and even if they did, you would lose all your on-device data, because it isn't reasonable to expect every web browser on the planet to store on-device data in a common format.
So in practice, if you don't lock it to the browser that created it, such a design would be causing b
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Nope, security and privacy concerns, as is the case now.
To be clear, this is Apple's *claim*. Given the inherent conflict of interest, this can't be taken at face value. Apple isn't going to publicly declare "we wanted to undermine web browsers because we didn't want Chrome being the target platform instead of the App store". Given the circumstances, with the OS closed and their word suspect, it warrants scrutiny.
Maybe the result of the scrutiny is that the review concludes that Apple was sincere and their approach ultimately validated, but we shouldn't just sc
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it seems they did drop things like offline storage and push notification support.
I am a developer, Apple did not drop offline storage. The web app would be able to store state between visiting the app.
Push notification support for web apps I'm not as sure about, they do allow web apps to simply run in a browser, but I'm not sure then if web push notifications would get through with the browser closed.
It was always suspected it was to hamper app store competition.
Nope, security and privacy concerns, as is the case now.
This getting canned at the same time as being forced to open third party app stores is pretty damning evidence IMO.
I think a pretty clear technical description as to why they are taking this action greatly outweighs crazy theories.
Save your e-Breath.
The Haters refuse to let Facts ruin their carefully-nurtured Conspiracy Theories.
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it seems they did drop things like offline storage and push notification support.
I am a developer, Apple did not drop offline storage. The web app would be able to store state between visiting the app.
For a week. Then it gets purged. Home screen PWAs didn't have that limitation, which is what made them actually able to compete against real native apps.
So you're technically correct — the best kind of correct. :-)
That one-week retention policy began back in iOS 13.4 as a "privacy feature" People screamed at the time, because it prevented a lot of really useful things that you could do with web apps. Apple's response was that home screen web apps don't have that limitation, which mostly satisfied
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> It was always suspected it was to hamper app store
> competition.
Nope. In fact, "app store competition" is one thing that you can absolutely rule out as any sort of motive here. If you will think back and recall your tech history; you will recall that the iPhone didn't even have an app store when it launched. Native apps were forbidden and not supported. Web Apps were the official and only way to add additional functionality. And people screamed bloody murder about it. Web apps were denigrated
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Well, the rationalization was given by Apple, but that shouldn't be accepted at face value.
If they were doing it explicitly to keep other browser platforms down, even if it meant their own, for anti-competitive reasons, do you think they'd be honest about that? Of course they are going to come up with a plasuible excuse.
Now is that excuse also happen to be correct? Well, that's going to likely be a dragged out debate. I presonally think forcing browsers to display navigation elements even from home screen "
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No, Apple is now stopping even webkit from providing the PWA experience. So yes, something is preventing them.
No one wants to use Webkit code, Apple forbade any other browser engine, just like they forbade any interpreter or any emulator.
Now that Google and Firefox are allowed to render things with their own HTML engine, Javascript runtime and wasm engines, Apple doesn't want that to be possible.
Two theories are:
-Apple says its hard, or insecure to let other browser engines do that, so they'd rather their o
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Just wanted to say, you don't deserve the troll mod. You have a different opinion, one that doesn't seem to understand how the EU works, but it's not a troll.
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one that doesn't seem to understand how the EU works
His comment about tabs vs spaces it's clearly hyperbole but also either trolling or staggering (and in his case, persistent, ignorance).
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I just think that the troll mod should be reserved for a very small number of cases where there is a clear intent to disrupt the discussion, not merely ignorance or a difference of opinion.
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Some people are persistent wrong about the EU. At some point it tips over from ignorance to willful ignorance, and I think that is an intent to disrupt the conversation.
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The reason they did so was clearly laid out by Apple - the EU rules say all browser engines must be treated equally, and Apple does not think it is secure to allow alternative rendering engines into the Home Screen (Springboard) which would allow for some much more extensive security breaches if the browser engine code were not well made.
The problem is, their explanation is the most laughable steaming pile of horseshit I've ever heard in my life.
There's provably, beyond the slightest doubt, no detectable additional security risk from allowing PWAs from other browser engines on the home screen. Why? Because the only way you can get a PWA onto the home screen is to open the PWA in that rendering engine in the first place and then save it to the home page, which means any security risk will have already happened by the time the PWA ends up o
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The reason they did so was clearly laid out by Apple - the EU rules say all browser engines must be treated equally, and Apple does not think it is secure to allow alternative rendering engines
We all know this is not the reason but a pretense and Apple is lying about the security part to keep their monopolistic abuse on users.
Like criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Often criminals, even when under crime investigation, continue to perform more crime until they are under arrest and imprisoned.
Even after that, some criminals are forever and continue to commit crimes after their prison time, or even continue crimes by procurement when in prison.
Corporations acts like the psychopaths they are by design. Not only Apple, but all corporations will continue to game the law and act criminally as long as they can go with it and as long as they can make profit. Sanctions don't work. Judgments only profit attorneys. This system is broken by design. If you want things to change, you need a new system where humans personally take responsibility for their choices.
This is a witch hunt (Score:2)
“I don’t do things wrong. I do things right. I’m a legitimate person!”
— A very stable genius
Good for Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody is going to develop PWAs if they won't work on iPhones sold in the EU, and the sooner PWAs die the better.
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I'm all for wishing an end to technologies that are counterproductive. For instance, I don't miss the steady flow of problems that win9x and IE brought as a consequence of negligent quality control. Cars making annoying beeps? I'm already in a hurry for that trend to be history.
But PWAs? Are they creating support issues for your users? Extra work for you as a developer?
If you're not Apple, what's the problem? Can you point on the doll where PWAs hurt you?
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A not-so-glowing review of Apple's decision (Score:2)
https://infrequently.org/2024/02/home-screen-advantage/
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I agree with most of it. There's one thing they got wrong, though.
This doesn't prevent browsers from creating PWAs. They won't be able to provide notification badges like apps, but frankly, that's not a huge deal. But they absolute can create bookmarks with URLs specific to their browser that open in their browser and give them custom icons, and their browser can then realize that it needs to give it a full-screen treatment and handle it like a PWA.
Also, this doesn't prevent PWAs from storing data for mo
See, this is why (Score:2)
That'll get old. Really, really, REALLY fast. Governments aren't exactl
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government micromanagement of companies is simply a bad idea.
No, if anything, this tells me that way more legislation is absolutely needed to bring this out-of-control convicted monopolist back under control.
The EU passed laws that, among other things, required Apple to compete on equal footing with third parties largely in response to Apple abusing its regulatory control over the iOS platform to compete unfairly against other companies. Then, in response to Apple being forced to allow third-party browsers on their devices, Apple shut down a feature that allowed non
Re: See, this is why (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apple has a THIRD of the European smartphone market. For every iPhone, there are 2 non Apple smartphones in the ecosystem. In no rational universe does that count as a monopoly.
Apple is a convicted monopolist, at least in the U.S. That's indisputable. And unfair competition doesn't require an absolute monopoly. It merely requires abusing your market power in one space to harm competition in a different space.
You say this is about punishing bad behavior. Maybe, but it could be argued that EU actions are doing exactly the opposite - punishing excellence and rewarding companies that have deliberately given up all their profit margin so they can sell their subpar products at lower prices.
Hardly. As much as I like Safari as an end user, as a developer, it's an absolute mess of half-implemented functionality that lags far behind both Chrome and Firefox in my experience. It is the worst of all of the major browsers by far, and although some of that is becaus