Hartley Charlton:
Apple faces allegations of misleading the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over a user interface issue in iOS related to changing the default browser, Open Web Advocacy reports.
[…]
Now, in a formal response to the CMA, Apple has denied that this issue ever existed.
[…]
Apple has not provided an explanation for how its claim in the August response aligns with these findings, leaving open the question of whether the company's internal processes failed to verify the accuracy of its statements or whether it is actively attempting to minimize the situation.
Open Web Advocacy:
The only realistic interpretation is that statements made by the CMA and OWA on this topic are “not correct” or false. That is, at the time either OWA or the CMA’s statements were written, Apple was not employing a deceptive pattern to hide the option to switch default browser if Safari was the default. This is certainly a bold claim given this was independently verified by us, ArsTechnica and the CMA. This verification included screenshots, documents and a video of the whole process. Apple presumably also retains copies of the original code that implement this “functionality” and can easily replicate the issue.
Why didn’t Apple just say that it was a bug and that they fixed it?
Previously:
Antitrust Dark Patterns iOS iOS 17 United Kingdom Web
Allison Johnson:
Whining about stuff is a treasured American pastime, so allow me to indulge: the iPhone is more fun in Europe now, and it’s not fair.
They’re getting all kinds of stuff because they have cool regulators, not, like, regular regulators. Third-party app stores, the ability for browsers to run their own engines, Fortnite, and now the ability to replace lots of default apps? I want it, too! Imagine if Chrome on iOS wasn’t just a rinky dink little Safari emulator! Imagine downloading a new dialer app with a soundboard of fart sounds and setting it as your default! Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t seem interested in sharing these possibilities with everyone.
Federico Viticci:
As I wrote on Threads (much to the disbelief of some commentators), I personally feel like the “DMA fork” of iOS is the version of iOS I’ve wanted for the past few years. It’s still iOS, with the tasteful design, vibrant app ecosystem, high-performance animations, and accessibility we’ve come to expect from Apple; at the same time, it’s a more flexible and fun version of iOS predicated upon the assumption that users deserve options to control more aspects of how their expensive pocket computers should work. Or, as I put it: some of the flexibility of Android, but on iOS, sounds like a dream to me.
[…]
I think that Apple is doing a pretty good job with their ongoing understanding of the DMA. It’s a process, and they’re doing the work. I don’t find the installation of third-party marketplaces as horrible as others have painted it, and I’m excited about the idea of more default apps coming to iOS. Whether you like it or not, this is the world we live in now. A law was passed, and iPhones (and iPads soon) must be made more versatile. As a result, iPhones are more fun for people like me (a clipboard manager! Fortnite!), while very little has changed for those don’t care about new options.
Federico Viticci:
We can finally use our phones like actual computers with more default apps and apps from external sources.
Jason Snell:
One of Apple’s greatest fears has come to pass: fragmentation has come for the iPhone and iPad. By the end of the year, users in part of the world will be able to harness the power of Apple Intelligence for various tasks–while users in the European Union will be able to set default apps, delete stock Apple apps, buy from alternative App Stores, play Fortnite, use a clipboard manager, and more.
[…]
It strikes me that Apple has tried to make residents of the European Union envious of other regions by withholding Apple Intelligence, at least at first. There are legal reasons to do so, of course, but it’s also a lesson to Europeans that if they support such a strict regulatory regime, they’re going to be left on the side of the road while the rest of the world enjoys the bounty of AI features inside iOS. (Whether that bounty actually exists is beside the point.)
Yet, when I consider everything being experimented with in the EU, I start to wonder if the envy is actually going to flow in the other direction.
John Voorhees (Mastodon):
At first, the differences between my iOS and Federico’s didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Sure, it was easier for him to access AltStore, but it’s available outside the EU if you jump through some extra hoops. However, over time, the differences have multiplied. I’ve also had the chance to try Apple Intelligence in 18.1, and although there’s more to come from Apple on the AI front, which could change my calculus, from where things stand today, I’d gladly trade iOS 18.1 for the EU’s 18.0.
Sebastiaan de With:
I’m feeling pretty strongly that with the EU / US ‘forking’ of iOS thanks to the DMA, the only people who really being helped here are other tech giants and not users and small developers like us.
John Gruber:
Imagine if Chrome could deplete your iPhone battery as fast as it does your MacBook battery. Imagine if you were one of the millions (zillions?) of people whose “incognito mode” browsing history was observed and stored by Google and deleted only after they lost a lawsuit. Imagine — and this takes a lot of imagination — if Google actually shipped a version of Chrome for iOS, only for the EU, that used its own battery-eating rendering engine instead of using the energy-efficient system version of WebKit.
It would be great to have that as an option. I’m having so many problems with Safari for Mac: sites that don’t work properly, or that stall and stop updating, or that forget that I just logged in; the app beachballing for 30 seconds at a time, the whole browser getting wedged and not loading any pages until I restart it. After 20 years of using Safari, I find myself using Chrome more and more, and it seems faster and much more reliable. (Surprisingly, it even offers more search engine choices than Safari.) I don’t like this. Chrome is still not as good of a Mac app, and I want it to have solid competition. But Apple has dropped the ball, and Chrome “just works.” (Except that Apple prevents it from auto-filling SMS codes.) I only worry that these benefits wouldn’t be realized on iOS because Google wouldn’t be allowed to use its superior process architecture.
Eric Schwarz:
I like Safari, but if someone really likes Chrome, they should be able to use real Chrome on their iPhone. If it ends up being a resource hog, Apple can build tattle-tale resources in the operating system to educate the user. Likewise, I also would really prefer the ability to use my own storage for cloud-based device backups and photo storage—I could cut back on iCloud just for sync and the suite of non-storage features.
John Gruber:
On the rest-of-the-world side we have the imminent release of iPhone Mirroring and Apple Intelligence. I don’t play Fortnite, and even if I did, I wouldn’t on my phone, but I find the latter far more interesting — and fun — than the former.
I’m far more interested in a real clipboard manager than in Fortnite.
See also: Sebastiaan de With, though note that Apple Intelligence will not be in the initial world release, either, and Visual Intelligence and Genmoji aren’t coming until December or 2025 for non-English-speaking countries outside of the EU. Also, many people have older phones that can’t run Apple Intelligence. Apple and the EU may well work this out before they upgrade.
Previously:
Update (2024-09-12): MarkV:
Worth noting that every major service that Apple ever launched has come to the EU member states with a 1-3 year delay, if ever.
I’m talking about everything from the iTunes Music Store, iBooks, MobileMe, iCloud, Siri, Apple Maps (+ FlyOver, traffic data, bike lanes), Apple Pay, Apple TV+, Apple Watch cellular, Fitness+, Apple News, Apple Card, eSIMs, Satellite SOS, …
For Apple to pretend like AI being delayed is a DMA issue rather than regular business as usual is hilarious & sad.
Stefanus Secundus:
Also, using Apple services in non-English or mixed languages has always been a second-class experience—whether it’s waiting for new Siri voices or the latest transformer-based autocorrect improvements.
App Marketplaces Battery Life Digital Markets Act (DMA) European Union Google Chrome iOS iOS 17 iOS App Safari Web Distribution of iOS Apps
Damien Geradin:
Apple took everyone by surprise by announcing on 25 January 2024 how it intended to implement the app store-related provisions of the DMA in advance of the 7 March 2024 deadline. However, it became immediately clear to app developers that Apple’s implementation failed to comply with the DMA. This led Apple to make some limited changes to its terms in rapid succession to then bring more significant changes on 8 August 2024. The purpose of this blog post is to explain (in summary form, as many of these issues are complex and would deserve the sort of granular analysis that would not fit within a blog post) the reasons why Apple’s new terms still fail to comply with the DMA.
[…]
Apple’s August 2024 terms still fail to comply with the DMA. As explained below, they represent minimal progress on all key issues. In some cases, they still violate the letter of some DMA provisions. In other instances, they make it very hard, and in some cases impossible for app developers and their users to take advantage of the benefits of the DMA through a combination of unattractive fees and friction, amounting to circumvention.
[…]
Some of the requirements imposed on app developers who want to make their apps available for direct downloading are problematic: (i) it is not clear why direct downloading is only permitted from the app developer’s website and not, for instance, from a web app store as is the case in the PC space (web app stores may be an efficient means for app developers to distribute their apps and for users to find the apps that may cater to their needs.); (ii) in order for an app developer to be allowed to make its apps available for direct downloading, it has to be “a member in good standing of the Apple Developer Program for two (2) continuous years or more, and have an Application that had more than one (1) million First Annual Installs on iOS and/or iPadOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.” There is no justification for such onerous requirements, which will strictly limit the number of apps that may be eligible for direct downloading; and (iii) for the same reasons as those mentioned in the context of alternative marketplaces, the payment of the CTF to Apple is problematic.
Previously:
Antitrust App Marketplaces App Store Digital Markets Act (DMA) European Union iOS iOS 18 Legal Web Distribution of iOS Apps
John Gruber (Mastodon):
For several months this year — while receiving, I’d say, around half a dozen such messages per day, every day, every week — I tried using Messages’s “Delete and Report Junk” feature. As far as I can tell it didn’t do a damn thing. Now that I see Apple’s own documentation, I can see why. Using this feature doesn’t even block the sender from sending more messages.
About a month ago I switched tactics and started responding to all such messages with “STOP”. I usually send it in all caps, just like that, because I’m so annoyed. I resisted doing this until a month ago thinking that sending any reply at all to these messages, including the magic “STOP” keyword, would only serve to confirm to the sender that an actual person was looking at the messages sent to my phone number. But this has actually worked. Election season is heating up but I’m getting way way fewer political spam texts now. Your mileage may vary, but for me, the “STOP” response works.
It works in the sense that I don’t get any more from that number, but I do get more from other numbers about the same topic.
Jeff Gamet:
It’s crazy that I have to open a message, block the sender, then delete and report junk. The delete part often doesn’t show up so I have to report the junk message and then delete. This is multiple times a day. Such a great use of my time.
Update (2024-09-12): Tim Johnsen:
Should’ve done this ages ago #shortcuts #automation
iOS iOS 17 Mac macOS 14 Sonoma Messages.app Short Message Service (SMS) Spam
