{"id":44800,"date":"2024-09-10T15:07:30","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T19:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=44800"},"modified":"2024-09-16T18:29:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T22:29:25","slug":"eu-ios-envy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/10\/eu-ios-envy\/","title":{"rendered":"EU iOS Envy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allison Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

They’re getting all kinds of stuff because they have cool<\/em> regulators, not, like, regular regulators. Third-party app stores<\/a>, the ability for browsers to run their own engines<\/a>, Fortnite<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> and now the ability to replace lots of default apps<\/a>? 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Federico Viticci<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As I wrote on Threads<\/a> (much to the disbelief<\/a> 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<\/a>: some of the flexibility of Android, but on iOS, sounds like a dream to me.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

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<\/a>, and iPhones (and iPads<\/a> soon) must be made<\/a> more versatile. As a result, iPhones are more fun for people like me (a clipboard manager<\/a>! Fortnite<\/a>!), while very little has changed for those don’t care about new options.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Federico Viticci<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

We can finally use our phones like actual computers with more default apps and apps from external sources.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, delete stock Apple apps, buy from alternative App Stores, play Fortnite, use a clipboard manager<\/a>, and more.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

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.)<\/p>

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

John Voorhees<\/a> (Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n

At first, the differences between my iOS<\/em> and Federico’s didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Sure, it was easier for him to access AltStore<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Sebastiaan de With<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

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<\/a> 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<\/a>.) I only worry that these benefits wouldn’t be realized on iOS because Google wouldn’t be allowed to use its superior process architecture.<\/p>\n\n

Eric Schwarz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I like Safari, but if someone really likes Chrome, they should be able to use real<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I’m far more interested in a real clipboard manager than in Fortnite.<\/p>\n\n

See also: Sebastiaan de With<\/a>, 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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n