HUGE win for EU and for Developers with apps in Apple’s App store! 🚀

  • WolfLink@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    141
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    8 months ago

    It’s not a win. Apple is still requiring apps to undergo app review and even more exorbitant fees than distributing through the App Store. Apple is doing their best to comply to the letter but not the spirit of the EU ruling.

    • mark@programming.devOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      It will be fixed. It’s gov. So baby steps. The EU is working hard and it’s going to be a while before we get everything we want.

      • kautau@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        8 months ago

        Sure but hundreds of millions of dollars will go into compliance enforcement and litigation against Apple, which is taxpayer money. Apple should be fined Apple money right now for their bad-faith efforts to meet the requirements. They’ve already run the numbers, and they know making third party apps jump through all sorts of hoops, pay exorbitant fees, and fight the system tooth and nail is still cheaper than just complying in good faith.

    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      App downloads through websites don’t need to go through app review. The developers have some requirements that restrict it to profit-making developers though, see my other comment.

    • abhibeckert@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      I disagree - it’s definitely a win.

      There’s still more work to be done (you shouldn’t need to first deploy an app with a million downloads on the Apple App Store in order to deploy outside of it for example…) but I expect the EU will force them to change that rule.

      It will be interesting to see where they land on the Core Technology Fee. At face value it seems pretty clearly anti-competitive to make developers pay more if you don’t use an Apple service. But at the same time, the government can’t force Apple to give things away for free.

      I expect a middle ground will be reached with much lower prices and hopefully a per-app price (e.g. pay once to have your app go through an anti-malware scanning service) rather than a per-user price. Or even better, in my opinion, is to make users pay a fee to have their device scanned for malware by Apple. A cost that could be built into the price of the hardware.