I'll go a step farther. iOS is the only mobile OS that restricts PWA's and I think they do it on purpose to force you out of PWAs and into native apps. I think Apple should 100% support PWAs with no shenanigans, they should work 100% without Apple needing to approve of anything too.
Steve Jobs pitched PWAs way back when, I don't know why all we've gotten is a half-baked solution from Apple other than they want you in their App Store with a native app.
What specific aspects of PWAs are still not supported on iOS these days?
I know that Apple made some huge advances in that within the past couple of years, but I...generally don't want PWAs myself, so I haven't paid very close attention. If you don't use Apple devices, and thus also don't pay very close attention, you might check and verify whether what you expect to be true still is.
So why aren’t there any great PWAs for Android and why do all of the companies that make apps for iOS make apps for Android instead of telling Android users to just use the web?
I get the point you're making (that standards evolve, and Apple will drag its feet again if it sees a profit), but that doesn't change that they've been gating functionality behind app-only APIs for decades to grow their walled garden and make the rest of us worse off for it.
You shouldn't have to install things on your phone. Most "apps" should just be websites, with a bookmark if you so choose.
> I get the point you're making (that standards evolve, and Apple will drag its feet again if it sees a profit)
No, that's not my point.
My point is that there's no such thing as PWA. There's a lose collection of standards, and everyone choses a set that benefits their narrative when defining PWAs.
For a very long time Apple supported all APIs (except maybe notifications) that even Google defined as necessary for something to be a PWA. Didn't stop people from pretending that this is somehow not PWA.
> Most "apps" should just be websites, with a bookmark if you so choose.
As Android shows, even there no one wants that, and there are very few PWAs of note.
The main reason/value I find for a pwa over a normal bookmark is the isolation of data, and the way most browsers hide the address bar and toolbar. The actual service worker etc logic...could pretty much take it or leave it.
Apple told the European Commission it would roll out the new terms in January 2026. This letter is saying that the uncertainty leading up to January 2026 is causing damage and not in concordance with the European Commission finding in August 2025. Do I understand that right?
Did the European Commission agree to the January 2026 deadline or not? Have they been working internally behind the scenes with Apple or are they as in the dark as these developers? What is the legal mechanism to push disclosure a month earlier and why is the letter only being published now?
These are sincere questions of mine, in case it's not clear.
The commission might have agreed with the timeline. It is unclear. But on the other hand this is not just about the relationship between Apple and the EC. Their understanding might actually have meant that the damage to users and other developers remained as is claimed here so the commission now has to listen to the injured party and adjust their posture.
Think of it this way: I am blocking part of your driveway for some reasons, and after a while me and the city inspector agree that I will remedy the situation next year. Would you accept that, or would you tell the inspector that your driveway is still not useable and that I should be quicker?
I think the confusion stems from The Register mixing up two different sets of DMA cases against Apple. The March and August EU actions are regarding hardware and software interoperability under DMA Article 6(7). For these cases, the August specification decision has a number of different deadlines specified, and I don't think any of these have passed yet.
The April 2025 non-compliance decision the app devs reference is regarding the DMA anti-steering provisions (Article 5(4)). This decision was that Apple failed to meet their compliance obligations that were specified way back in June 2024, that they would be subject to a fine, and that they would have 60 days to comply before being subject to periodic fines [1].
The Coalition for App Fairness is saying that they don't believe Apple's App Store anti-steering remediation is compliant or timely and that the EU needs to take further action.
This is normal Apple behaviour going at least as far back as the noughties, if not the 1980s.
Apple care about the American and Asian markets. They have long treated the EU as a joke whose consumer laws they can ignore.
That is why, the past few years, Apple has behaved so petulantly and strangely in reaction to EU stipulations. They feel it's beneath them.
In reality there are only two mobile operating systems where there is any hardware to purchase in my town. These two operating systems are the only mobile devices where my bank (and as far as I am aware other competing banks in my area) offer banking on.
There are many variables that goes into the purchase of a mobile phone, the App Store is only one of many. Google is marginally better at allowing side-loading or alternative stores, there is a degree of flexibility in hardware choices and so on. But on the other hand I trust Apple more (absolutely not fully, mind you) with regards to general privacy for example. This privacy protection in conjunction with significantly better movie recording compared to Android are the two primary reasons I stay on iOS.
But at the same time, I am highly critical of Apple’s conduct here. And because it is effectively impossible to vote with my wallet I am voting with my vote so that politicians enact policies that allow me to use my devices the way I want.
Not all banks, government services, travel and ticketing systems, and the list goes on.
The unfortunate reality is that we have a duopoly in the mobile device market and having one of those devices are now a practical necessity to live a normal life for most people. Without regulation to force the market to open up there's little to stop organisations that want ever more control over the devices you can use to access their systems. Trying to go outside the two big players just means you're going to get a substandard or completely pointless experience. And even governments are in on it.
Which is going to be interesting when both the huge US corporations that form that duopoly and/or the government of their home nation decide to do something that goes against what the government or laws in other places want to happen.
You're not wrong, but I'm trying to raise the issue with any service forcing me into the duopoly by showing them my Librem 5. Sometimes it's quite entertaining. This is another venue for making the change.
Now show what banks (and where) have apps targeting that phone
Not glorified webpages. Full on apps. Preferably by the banks themselves (sorry bedroom hobbyists, I don't quite trust you with my banking details yet!)
And this is the problem. We should insist on standard web pages for everything, and never allow closed source apps on our devices. Native apps are far less sandboxed and under certain conditions make it trivial to spy on the user by accessing contact lists, other apps installed and more.
AFAIK the only Android derivative that has patched the most obvious security issues of this kind is Graphene.
What recourse do you have if the app store review process finds "issues" with your app that are "obviously unrelated" to your payment setup but seemingly can't be resolved after multiple review iterations?
It seems like the app store review process is designed to be opaque enough to ensure Apple gets their way in their sandbox, regardless of judicial ruling. In my experience, the review process is wildly inconsistent.
I know Netflix, Amazon’s Kindle app and DuoLingo have outside links.
Apple and Amazon made a deal years ago where you can buy digital videos within Amazon Prime Video using your Amazon account.
But let’s be real, the only apps making money directly from in app purchases are pay to win games. It came out in Apple vs Epic that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games.
The other companies making money are mostly selling subscriptions to SaaS apps/services that you can use one subscription anywhere and have always been paying outside of the App Store.
> In the US you can because of the judgement against Apple.
Indeed. It took a court battle, and holding Apple in contempt of court, and perjury by one of Apple's executives before Apple was forced to do it (did it comply?).
Why not everywhere?
> Even in the store, Apple charges 15% if your revenue is below $1 million and charges 15% for renewals after the first year.
No, Apple was going to charge 27% on sales happening outside of the App Store, if linked in the app.
Also, you keep trying to diminish/dismiss this as if was no big deal.
Also, the latest court order was a victory for Apple, not for devs. Apple, again, can charge commission in external links, restrict language in those links etc.
Apple can not charge for external links In the US.
I am saying that if the indie devs didn’t have go pay Apple a dime, it wouldn’t matter. You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize compared to companies selling loot boxes and coins that make up 90% of App Store revenue. You will still have the same discovery problem, people’s unwillingness to pay money for apps on the App Store aside from games and the same race to the bottom.
Just like no matter what, the indie band playing at the local bar is not going to make money off of Spotify and all of the money is going to go to Taylor Swift and Drake.
> Apple can not charge for external links In the US.
1. Yes. Yes it can.
2. This was literally my first question you keep dancing around: "Why can't those services show a link in their app to their page without Apple claiming it's owed 27% of the sale?"
> You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize
What does this have to do with my question? Literally nothing.
But we've been at this twice already, and I am not inclined to go for a third round.
> But let’s be real, the only apps making money directly from in app purchases are pay to win games. It came out in Apple vs Epic that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games.
But is that the chicken or the egg? Is it that surprising that when such an oppressively large margin is being extracted, the primary survivors are the things that are themselves scams? Normal businesses typically don't have 30% margins to begin with, much less have that much to spare for a extractive middleman.
No it’s the same for every marketplace. Profits accrue to a few. Look at YouTube, books, artist on Spotify etc.
Software has near 0 marginal costs unless you are dependent on a third party server side AI models (instead of on device models) or other API vendors. 15% (if you are making less than 1 million) is not the reason you aren’t making money on the App Store. That sane person wouldn’t be making money on the web no more than the indie artist isn’t making money on Spotify compared to Drake or Taylor Swift.
If Apple reduced in app commissions to 0, the same developers would still fail. Well known publishers have tried the pay $10 once for a premium game on iOS and users wouldn’t pay for it.
> No it’s the same for every marketplace. Profits accrue to a few. Look at YouTube, books, artist on Spotify etc.
Many of those are things where the value of a single user is very low and then you need a significant audience just to earn an ordinary salary.
> Software has near 0 marginal costs
But it has significant development costs, and the fact that you're required to use Apple's store makes them even higher, because their restrictions are incompatible with free software licenses, which locks you out of even using LGPL code on iOS, much less anything else.
Apple's hardware has those fancy chips in it, right? Suppose you want to create a front end for Blender and run it on iOS. Your front end doesn't have to use the same license as Blender itself if it's a separate program, so you could charge for it. But Blender is GPL so you can't run it on iOS at all. Then you'd have to write Blender yourself, by which point you're talking something that would need a million a year in revenue, and a 30% deadweight loss could very well make the difference between viable and not.
It's also incredibly disheartening, because you do the work and take the risk and then if you actually succeed you know someone else is going to cut out a huge chunk of the revenue, which discourages people from making the attempt.
> Well known publishers have tried the pay $10 once for a premium game on iOS and users wouldn’t pay for it.
Which is kind of weird when they're empirically willing to do it on other platforms, right?
But that's what happens when you establish a reputation for being capricious while taking a large cut. Who wants to make a significant investment into a platform when the platform is eroding their profits and there is a non-trivial chance they could be arbitrarily cut off at any time with no recourse? At which point the users come to expect apps to be scummy and become disinclined to pay for them up front.
And you are still blaming the 15% cut. How does that have anything to do with discoversbility and people’s unwillingness to pay money for mobile apps? Apple’s “capriciously” has nothing to do with it.
We have an existence proof. In the US, any developer has been able to link out to their own payment scheme for awhile now without paying Apple a dime. That hasn’t solved a single problem for indie developers. It’s not the 15% cut - the same that every other marketplace has
All the while Android users - or at least those on the Samsung Galaxy sub-ecosystem - are happily downloading free, as in open source, software from alternative sources like F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/), Obtainium (https://obtainium.imranr.dev/), Accrescent (https://accrescent.app/), and even can access the main app store through a more privacy friendly way using Aurora (https://auroraoss.com/) - although with the latter you will probably break a license agreement you never read anyway, so fuck that.
That, and:
* Customization is better -- Apple has nothing like Good Lock, which is developed AND officially supported by Samsung,
* AI is better -- And Samsung even gives the choice to run AI features completely locally on your phone -or- in the cloud,
* Features for power users are all around better -- As a example did you know Google built a freaking virtualization service which allows you to run a full Linux operating system, with an complete KDE Plasma or GNOME UI on top of Android? Well, now you do. Super fun feature to have on a phone. Even more super fun feature to have on a tablet.
And then there's DeX -- at least on the Galaxies, as long as Google is working on the built in desktop features for the next Android release.
And for those times you quickly want or need a Linux shell you can launch Termux (https://termux.dev/en/).
Most notably and importantly: for all these things you don't have to root or jailbreak ANYTHING... They work completely out of the box -- Although you can get a scary sounding warning when downloading stuff from outside the Play store, but if you really understand and can deal with the consequences this can be easily solved using a toggle button.
How Apple keeps managing to drive themselves and their developer ecosystem completely in the ground still is completely baffling to me. And that comes from someone who really used to love Apple, back in the Jobs era (Got the first iPod, iPhone, iPad, and first Intel MacBook Pro to prove it).
PS: Because lots of people got super pissed about Google abandoning sideloading on Android they walked back on their initial decisions and it will keep working for the foreseeable future
Android is definitely the superior choice as long as you have no expectation of privacy and never need to dial 911 in an emergency. [1]
More serious problems blocking a transition to Android: instead of developing Health Connect in 2015 or before when Apple made HealthKit, Android waited until the mid-2020s, and many apps do not support it. And the implementation is busted if you use multiple devices. Meanwhile on iOS, I have a perfect database of all my health information going back years, and all the apps interpolate nicely - my nutrition tracking app can see my exercise and blood glucose, my glucose tracking app can show exercise on the timeline, my training readiness app can read my sleep data and HRV/RHR from the watch.
And as far as I know Android still doesn’t have Focus Modes, which I rely on to customize my phone and watch. It works really well, integrates with apps, and is easily automatable.
Android is strictly superior to iOS in terms of privacy. On iOS, you can't even get your location without sending it to Apple or install an app without telling Apple which one. Unlike iOS, you can even replace your default maps app with a fully offline app. User choice is the key to ensuring privacy.
Google Fit was released in 2014 and implemented data migration to Health Connect when that launched. Similarly, Samsung Health synchronizes data with Health Connect.
The long-fixed bug tickled by Teams was in functionality iOS still doesn't provide. If I use Google Voice, Skype, Signal, or some other telephony service, Android lets me route all outgoing calls through that service automatically.
I am switching back to Android after nearly 10 years and:
- no native CalDAV support
- third party open-source DavX offers that, although it's hacky and the push support is even more experimental
- but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!
- you ned to give Gemini full access to your Google Calendar (again) to get it to save your appointments or reminders. You can't use it with non-Google calendar.
None of these were an issue on iPhone, I was able to use my NextCloud instance to host all my events privately and securely, including with Siri.
I am actually super frustrated and find it odd that this is even legal in EU, because it definitely looks like protectionism.
> - but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!
That seems like a bug in Google's Calendar app. Can't you simply install a third party calendar app like Fossify Calendar and set it as the default for handling calendar intents?
I don't even see an option to to set a default calendar in Settings, it's just not on the list. I can change the digital assistant or a browser, but not Calendar. You sure it's a thing?
As long as an app registers itself as a handler for ics files and calendar intents, you'll see the app picker when you get one of those. There is no notion of calendars in the OS. Apps just register with the OS what kinds of intents and URIs they can handle.
Are calendar intents handled by the designated calendar app? This particular app adds event directly to calendar, no modal dialog is shown. I assumed therefore this is done on the OS level?
Google Health Connect is still not mature. Believe me, if it was, I’d have likely at least attempted to switch back to Android by now. [1]
Apple Maps can be uninstalled, and many people rely on Google Maps. There are plenty of alternatives. I like how convenient the iOS APIs make it to choose alternatives. The Transit app can read the address information from my calendar (a caldav calendar self-hosted on Synology) which makes it really easy to navigate to appointments.
Re: privacy. That same system for violating privacy works on iOS. Just run a local web server, and there you go.
The big difference is in what Apple won't let you do, like get your GPS location without telling Apple or install an app without telling Apple. It looks like Apple finally allowed changing the default navigation app this year, but only in Europe: https://www.androidpolice.com/make-google-maps-app-default-i.... If you want to change the default voice assistant, you still can't do that.
iOS apps can not create a network connection without explicit consent from the user.
And given all the privacy breaches Meta's engineers did manage to succesfully execute on iOS until now, given the sandbox restrictions, they are in fact pretty creative if you ask me.
Don't believe for a second you are safe from these fuckers on either Android or iOS.
> I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS
Presumably, they have a simpler way to tie the same ids together on iOS.
> The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up
If you ask your phone to navigate for you, you cannot use another app with better privacy. You have to use whatever Apple forces on you. The same with hotword-triggered assistants.
But yes, these are minor compared to the fact that you cannot get your GPS location at all in any app without telling Apple or the fact that you cannot install an app at all without telling Apple. These are egregious privacy violations done simply because Apple can.
Re: Google Maps - I really like Organic Maps as a open source privacy friendly Google Maps replacement. They use geographical data from OpenStreetMaps so "pretty good" is a understatement.
They have developed a Android app (available through different and aforementioned distribution channels, ofcourse), but they have one for iOS too!
You forgot to mention Google's upcoming developer verification push, which will prevent users installing apps - even from third-party sources - if the developers have not verified their identity with Google:
They already announced side loading will continue to work, while making it slightly more difficult for average users to install suspicious crap on their phone or tablet. I can live with that:
Also, how sideloading works seemingly varies from vendor to vendor. On my Samsung devices I never had to fiddle with ADB or developer mode to install a APK from outside the Play store, I just download something, toggle crapware protection off, install, toggle crapware protection on and I'm done. Think it might has something to with all the customization work Samsung put into One UI (and just outright removing stuff from Google they didn't like).
Well, if Apple were really clever, they'd have introduced an 'EU DMA CAPTCHA' by now, requiring anyone EU-adjacent-resident to mark all the evil EU bureaucrats in a picture of room before allowing them to resume their doomscrolling.
I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the GDPR, where pretty much everyone now equates that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed, despite never requiring these banners in any way, shape or form in the first place.
But, yeah, despite that, I'd say they'll get away with this as well...
> I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the DMCA, where pretty much everyone now equites that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed.
I don't think DMCA has anything to do with that though I did wish everyone hated it. You probably meant GDPR.
It doesn't require consent for cookies or similar data that are strictly necessary to do what the user has asked for - a token for logging in or the contents of a shopping cart are the two canonical examples.
It certainly does require informed consent in other situations though and the dreaded cookie banners were the industry's attempt to interpret that legal requirement.
No, it's now entirely accurate. Nothing in the GDPR requires 'cookie banners', and your Wikipedia link doesn't 'dispell' that 'misconception', but nice try...
My point is that it was never the GDPR that required any sort of "cookie banner" in the first place.
The cookie banner requirement is itself a widespread misconception because the actual rule is neither specific to cookies (it would also cover other locally stored data) nor universal (for example it doesn't require specific consent for locally storing necessary data like session/login mechanics or the contents of a shopping basket).
The requirements for consent that do exist originate in the ePrivacy Directive. That directive was supposed to be superseded by a later ePrivacy Regulation that would have been lex specialis to the GDPR - possibly the only actual link between any of the EU law around cookies and the GDPR - but in the end that regulation was never passed and it was formally abandoned earlier this year.
So for now rules about user consent for local data storage in the EU - and largely still in the UK - do exist but they derive from the ePrivacy Directive and they are widely misunderstood. And while there has been a lot of talk about changes to EU law that might improve the situation with the banners so far talk is all it has been.
> Apple has said it will roll out new App Store terms in January 2026, but developers say the company has provided no clarity on what those changes will involve or whether they will actually comply with the DMA.
> "We have seen this playbook before in Europe and beyond," the signatories warn, adding that they suspect any new terms will continue to impose fees that would violate the law.
So the complaint is that they might violate the law next month?
Give people an inch and they will want a mile. I hope Apple resists these bullies who feel entitled to use all the hardwork Apple put into building their platform.
Developers are free to delete their apps from Apple's store ar any time. Yes, apps bolster their own pockets, but they also bolster the pockets of the developers themselves.
Devs might have deleted their apps from AppStore, but Apple literally doesn't allow to distribute software any other way, and even in the EU where it oretends to allow competing AppStores, it still interjects itself into the process
Apple owns ios, Apple owns the iPhone. It would make sense that those factions within Apple would still be involved even if the AppStore people are not.
"There are clearly Apple employees whose job is to build the iPhone product and ones who market it to consumers" does not in any way, shape, or form equate to "Apple ownes the iPhone (as the physical product that consumers buy)".
When you buy a table from IKEA, IKEA doesn't own it, and has no right to tell you which food you're allowed to eat on it.
Back in the real world Apple phones are made by Chinese subcontractors who do not work for Apple and who’s working conditions are so poor that people kill themselves at work on such a regular basis that they had to install suicide nets to just stop people of jumping out of windows.
I'll go a step farther. iOS is the only mobile OS that restricts PWA's and I think they do it on purpose to force you out of PWAs and into native apps. I think Apple should 100% support PWAs with no shenanigans, they should work 100% without Apple needing to approve of anything too.
Steve Jobs pitched PWAs way back when, I don't know why all we've gotten is a half-baked solution from Apple other than they want you in their App Store with a native app.
They figured out that the App Store made them more money than PWAs do, that's why
It came out in the epic trial that 90% of App Store revenue came from games. Those were not going to be web apps.
What specific aspects of PWAs are still not supported on iOS these days?
I know that Apple made some huge advances in that within the past couple of years, but I...generally don't want PWAs myself, so I haven't paid very close attention. If you don't use Apple devices, and thus also don't pay very close attention, you might check and verify whether what you expect to be true still is.
I have a local transit map as a PWA, and iOS asks me for permission to use my location every time.
It didn’t go in the app drawer and is relegated to the home page. And no access to certain APIs which native apps do.
So why aren’t there any great PWAs for Android and why do all of the companies that make apps for iOS make apps for Android instead of telling Android users to just use the web?
> I think Apple should 100% support PWAs with no shenanigans
Where "support PWA" and "no shenanigans" are which of the ever shifting sets of APIs?
I get the point you're making (that standards evolve, and Apple will drag its feet again if it sees a profit), but that doesn't change that they've been gating functionality behind app-only APIs for decades to grow their walled garden and make the rest of us worse off for it.
You shouldn't have to install things on your phone. Most "apps" should just be websites, with a bookmark if you so choose.
> I get the point you're making (that standards evolve, and Apple will drag its feet again if it sees a profit)
No, that's not my point.
My point is that there's no such thing as PWA. There's a lose collection of standards, and everyone choses a set that benefits their narrative when defining PWAs.
For a very long time Apple supported all APIs (except maybe notifications) that even Google defined as necessary for something to be a PWA. Didn't stop people from pretending that this is somehow not PWA.
> Most "apps" should just be websites, with a bookmark if you so choose.
As Android shows, even there no one wants that, and there are very few PWAs of note.
The main reason/value I find for a pwa over a normal bookmark is the isolation of data, and the way most browsers hide the address bar and toolbar. The actual service worker etc logic...could pretty much take it or leave it.
Apple told the European Commission it would roll out the new terms in January 2026. This letter is saying that the uncertainty leading up to January 2026 is causing damage and not in concordance with the European Commission finding in August 2025. Do I understand that right?
Did the European Commission agree to the January 2026 deadline or not? Have they been working internally behind the scenes with Apple or are they as in the dark as these developers? What is the legal mechanism to push disclosure a month earlier and why is the letter only being published now?
These are sincere questions of mine, in case it's not clear.
The commission might have agreed with the timeline. It is unclear. But on the other hand this is not just about the relationship between Apple and the EC. Their understanding might actually have meant that the damage to users and other developers remained as is claimed here so the commission now has to listen to the injured party and adjust their posture.
Think of it this way: I am blocking part of your driveway for some reasons, and after a while me and the city inspector agree that I will remedy the situation next year. Would you accept that, or would you tell the inspector that your driveway is still not useable and that I should be quicker?
I think the confusion stems from The Register mixing up two different sets of DMA cases against Apple. The March and August EU actions are regarding hardware and software interoperability under DMA Article 6(7). For these cases, the August specification decision has a number of different deadlines specified, and I don't think any of these have passed yet.
The April 2025 non-compliance decision the app devs reference is regarding the DMA anti-steering provisions (Article 5(4)). This decision was that Apple failed to meet their compliance obligations that were specified way back in June 2024, that they would be subject to a fine, and that they would have 60 days to comply before being subject to periodic fines [1].
The Coalition for App Fairness is saying that they don't believe Apple's App Store anti-steering remediation is compliant or timely and that the EU needs to take further action.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...
This is normal Apple behaviour going at least as far back as the noughties, if not the 1980s.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43421180If I had to develop commercial applications expecting interoperability from the 2nd largest mobile operating system I would be very pissed.
As a consumer with the resources to leave, the choice is simple.
I disagree that the choice is simple.
In reality there are only two mobile operating systems where there is any hardware to purchase in my town. These two operating systems are the only mobile devices where my bank (and as far as I am aware other competing banks in my area) offer banking on.
There are many variables that goes into the purchase of a mobile phone, the App Store is only one of many. Google is marginally better at allowing side-loading or alternative stores, there is a degree of flexibility in hardware choices and so on. But on the other hand I trust Apple more (absolutely not fully, mind you) with regards to general privacy for example. This privacy protection in conjunction with significantly better movie recording compared to Android are the two primary reasons I stay on iOS.
But at the same time, I am highly critical of Apple’s conduct here. And because it is effectively impossible to vote with my wallet I am voting with my vote so that politicians enact policies that allow me to use my devices the way I want.
Alternatively, GNU/Linux phones can be used. But not all banks support them, of course.
Not all banks, government services, travel and ticketing systems, and the list goes on.
The unfortunate reality is that we have a duopoly in the mobile device market and having one of those devices are now a practical necessity to live a normal life for most people. Without regulation to force the market to open up there's little to stop organisations that want ever more control over the devices you can use to access their systems. Trying to go outside the two big players just means you're going to get a substandard or completely pointless experience. And even governments are in on it.
Which is going to be interesting when both the huge US corporations that form that duopoly and/or the government of their home nation decide to do something that goes against what the government or laws in other places want to happen.
You're not wrong, but I'm trying to raise the issue with any service forcing me into the duopoly by showing them my Librem 5. Sometimes it's quite entertaining. This is another venue for making the change.
Now show what banks (and where) have apps targeting that phone
Not glorified webpages. Full on apps. Preferably by the banks themselves (sorry bedroom hobbyists, I don't quite trust you with my banking details yet!)
Why don't you like "glorified" webpages? Some banks give you a full control on those. Also, I can run Android apps with Waydroid.
> not all banks support them, of course.
And this is the problem. We should insist on standard web pages for everything, and never allow closed source apps on our devices. Native apps are far less sandboxed and under certain conditions make it trivial to spy on the user by accessing contact lists, other apps installed and more.
AFAIK the only Android derivative that has patched the most obvious security issues of this kind is Graphene.
Funny enough because of the judge’s ruling, anyone can link outside of the App Store in the US to accept payments without paying Apple anything.
What recourse do you have if the app store review process finds "issues" with your app that are "obviously unrelated" to your payment setup but seemingly can't be resolved after multiple review iterations?
It seems like the app store review process is designed to be opaque enough to ensure Apple gets their way in their sandbox, regardless of judicial ruling. In my experience, the review process is wildly inconsistent.
I know Netflix, Amazon’s Kindle app and DuoLingo have outside links.
Apple and Amazon made a deal years ago where you can buy digital videos within Amazon Prime Video using your Amazon account.
But let’s be real, the only apps making money directly from in app purchases are pay to win games. It came out in Apple vs Epic that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games.
The other companies making money are mostly selling subscriptions to SaaS apps/services that you can use one subscription anywhere and have always been paying outside of the App Store.
> that you can use one subscription anywhere and have always been paying outside of the App Store.
Why can't those services show a link in their app to their page without Apple claiming it's owed 27% of the sale?
In the US you can because of the judgement against Apple. When you link outside of the store, Apple gets nothing.
Even in the store, Apple charges 15% if your revenue is below $1 million and charges 15% for renewals after the first year.
> In the US you can because of the judgement against Apple.
Indeed. It took a court battle, and holding Apple in contempt of court, and perjury by one of Apple's executives before Apple was forced to do it (did it comply?).
Why not everywhere?
> Even in the store, Apple charges 15% if your revenue is below $1 million and charges 15% for renewals after the first year.
No, Apple was going to charge 27% on sales happening outside of the App Store, if linked in the app.
Also, you keep trying to diminish/dismiss this as if was no big deal.
Also, the latest court order was a victory for Apple, not for devs. Apple, again, can charge commission in external links, restrict language in those links etc.
Apple can not charge for external links In the US.
I am saying that if the indie devs didn’t have go pay Apple a dime, it wouldn’t matter. You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize compared to companies selling loot boxes and coins that make up 90% of App Store revenue. You will still have the same discovery problem, people’s unwillingness to pay money for apps on the App Store aside from games and the same race to the bottom.
Just like no matter what, the indie band playing at the local bar is not going to make money off of Spotify and all of the money is going to go to Taylor Swift and Drake.
> Apple can not charge for external links In the US.
1. Yes. Yes it can.
2. This was literally my first question you keep dancing around: "Why can't those services show a link in their app to their page without Apple claiming it's owed 27% of the sale?"
> You still aren’t going to stand out and monetize
What does this have to do with my question? Literally nothing.
But we've been at this twice already, and I am not inclined to go for a third round.
Adieu.
I am not dancing around anything. I’ve said repeatedly in the US Apple doesn’t get a cut of payments when you link outside of the store.
> But let’s be real, the only apps making money directly from in app purchases are pay to win games. It came out in Apple vs Epic that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games.
But is that the chicken or the egg? Is it that surprising that when such an oppressively large margin is being extracted, the primary survivors are the things that are themselves scams? Normal businesses typically don't have 30% margins to begin with, much less have that much to spare for a extractive middleman.
No it’s the same for every marketplace. Profits accrue to a few. Look at YouTube, books, artist on Spotify etc.
Software has near 0 marginal costs unless you are dependent on a third party server side AI models (instead of on device models) or other API vendors. 15% (if you are making less than 1 million) is not the reason you aren’t making money on the App Store. That sane person wouldn’t be making money on the web no more than the indie artist isn’t making money on Spotify compared to Drake or Taylor Swift.
If Apple reduced in app commissions to 0, the same developers would still fail. Well known publishers have tried the pay $10 once for a premium game on iOS and users wouldn’t pay for it.
> No it’s the same for every marketplace. Profits accrue to a few. Look at YouTube, books, artist on Spotify etc.
Many of those are things where the value of a single user is very low and then you need a significant audience just to earn an ordinary salary.
> Software has near 0 marginal costs
But it has significant development costs, and the fact that you're required to use Apple's store makes them even higher, because their restrictions are incompatible with free software licenses, which locks you out of even using LGPL code on iOS, much less anything else.
Apple's hardware has those fancy chips in it, right? Suppose you want to create a front end for Blender and run it on iOS. Your front end doesn't have to use the same license as Blender itself if it's a separate program, so you could charge for it. But Blender is GPL so you can't run it on iOS at all. Then you'd have to write Blender yourself, by which point you're talking something that would need a million a year in revenue, and a 30% deadweight loss could very well make the difference between viable and not.
It's also incredibly disheartening, because you do the work and take the risk and then if you actually succeed you know someone else is going to cut out a huge chunk of the revenue, which discourages people from making the attempt.
> Well known publishers have tried the pay $10 once for a premium game on iOS and users wouldn’t pay for it.
Which is kind of weird when they're empirically willing to do it on other platforms, right?
But that's what happens when you establish a reputation for being capricious while taking a large cut. Who wants to make a significant investment into a platform when the platform is eroding their profits and there is a non-trivial chance they could be arbitrarily cut off at any time with no recourse? At which point the users come to expect apps to be scummy and become disinclined to pay for them up front.
And you are still blaming the 15% cut. How does that have anything to do with discoversbility and people’s unwillingness to pay money for mobile apps? Apple’s “capriciously” has nothing to do with it.
We have an existence proof. In the US, any developer has been able to link out to their own payment scheme for awhile now without paying Apple a dime. That hasn’t solved a single problem for indie developers. It’s not the 15% cut - the same that every other marketplace has
All the while Android users - or at least those on the Samsung Galaxy sub-ecosystem - are happily downloading free, as in open source, software from alternative sources like F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/), Obtainium (https://obtainium.imranr.dev/), Accrescent (https://accrescent.app/), and even can access the main app store through a more privacy friendly way using Aurora (https://auroraoss.com/) - although with the latter you will probably break a license agreement you never read anyway, so fuck that.
That, and:
* Customization is better -- Apple has nothing like Good Lock, which is developed AND officially supported by Samsung,
* AI is better -- And Samsung even gives the choice to run AI features completely locally on your phone -or- in the cloud,
* Features for power users are all around better -- As a example did you know Google built a freaking virtualization service which allows you to run a full Linux operating system, with an complete KDE Plasma or GNOME UI on top of Android? Well, now you do. Super fun feature to have on a phone. Even more super fun feature to have on a tablet.
And then there's DeX -- at least on the Galaxies, as long as Google is working on the built in desktop features for the next Android release.
And for those times you quickly want or need a Linux shell you can launch Termux (https://termux.dev/en/).
Most notably and importantly: for all these things you don't have to root or jailbreak ANYTHING... They work completely out of the box -- Although you can get a scary sounding warning when downloading stuff from outside the Play store, but if you really understand and can deal with the consequences this can be easily solved using a toggle button.
How Apple keeps managing to drive themselves and their developer ecosystem completely in the ground still is completely baffling to me. And that comes from someone who really used to love Apple, back in the Jobs era (Got the first iPod, iPhone, iPad, and first Intel MacBook Pro to prove it).
PS: Because lots of people got super pissed about Google abandoning sideloading on Android they walked back on their initial decisions and it will keep working for the foreseeable future
Android is definitely the superior choice as long as you have no expectation of privacy and never need to dial 911 in an emergency. [1]
More serious problems blocking a transition to Android: instead of developing Health Connect in 2015 or before when Apple made HealthKit, Android waited until the mid-2020s, and many apps do not support it. And the implementation is busted if you use multiple devices. Meanwhile on iOS, I have a perfect database of all my health information going back years, and all the apps interpolate nicely - my nutrition tracking app can see my exercise and blood glucose, my glucose tracking app can show exercise on the timeline, my training readiness app can read my sleep data and HRV/RHR from the watch.
And as far as I know Android still doesn’t have Focus Modes, which I rely on to customize my phone and watch. It works really well, integrates with apps, and is easily automatable.
[1]: edit - I thought this was old news, from years ago, but it turns out Android not being able to make emergency calls is an evergreen story. At one point it was Teams’ fault [2] - can you imagine that? Teams being so bad it can block your phone from calling 911? But really it’s android’s fault such a thing is possible. https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pixels-most-dangerous-b... [2]: https://medium.com/@mmrahman123/how-a-bug-in-android-and-mic...
Android is strictly superior to iOS in terms of privacy. On iOS, you can't even get your location without sending it to Apple or install an app without telling Apple which one. Unlike iOS, you can even replace your default maps app with a fully offline app. User choice is the key to ensuring privacy.
Google Fit was released in 2014 and implemented data migration to Health Connect when that launched. Similarly, Samsung Health synchronizes data with Health Connect.
The long-fixed bug tickled by Teams was in functionality iOS still doesn't provide. If I use Google Voice, Skype, Signal, or some other telephony service, Android lets me route all outgoing calls through that service automatically.
I am switching back to Android after nearly 10 years and:
- no native CalDAV support
- third party open-source DavX offers that, although it's hacky and the push support is even more experimental
- but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!
- you ned to give Gemini full access to your Google Calendar (again) to get it to save your appointments or reminders. You can't use it with non-Google calendar.
None of these were an issue on iPhone, I was able to use my NextCloud instance to host all my events privately and securely, including with Siri.
I am actually super frustrated and find it odd that this is even legal in EU, because it definitely looks like protectionism.
> - but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!
That seems like a bug in Google's Calendar app. Can't you simply install a third party calendar app like Fossify Calendar and set it as the default for handling calendar intents?
I don't even see an option to to set a default calendar in Settings, it's just not on the list. I can change the digital assistant or a browser, but not Calendar. You sure it's a thing?
As long as an app registers itself as a handler for ics files and calendar intents, you'll see the app picker when you get one of those. There is no notion of calendars in the OS. Apps just register with the OS what kinds of intents and URIs they can handle.
Are calendar intents handled by the designated calendar app? This particular app adds event directly to calendar, no modal dialog is shown. I assumed therefore this is done on the OS level?
I'll try your approach, though, and report back.
Google Health Connect is still not mature. Believe me, if it was, I’d have likely at least attempted to switch back to Android by now. [1]
Apple Maps can be uninstalled, and many people rely on Google Maps. There are plenty of alternatives. I like how convenient the iOS APIs make it to choose alternatives. The Transit app can read the address information from my calendar (a caldav calendar self-hosted on Synology) which makes it really easy to navigate to appointments.
Re:privacy: https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/03/meta_pauses_android_t...
[1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-health-connect-usel...
Re: privacy. That same system for violating privacy works on iOS. Just run a local web server, and there you go.
The big difference is in what Apple won't let you do, like get your GPS location without telling Apple or install an app without telling Apple. It looks like Apple finally allowed changing the default navigation app this year, but only in Europe: https://www.androidpolice.com/make-google-maps-app-default-i.... If you want to change the default voice assistant, you still can't do that.
I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS. I guess their engineers aren’t creative enough.
The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up. You can disable Siri and use the action button to use any other app as an assistant.
iOS apps can not create a network connection without explicit consent from the user.
And given all the privacy breaches Meta's engineers did manage to succesfully execute on iOS until now, given the sandbox restrictions, they are in fact pretty creative if you ask me.
Don't believe for a second you are safe from these fuckers on either Android or iOS.
> I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS
Presumably, they have a simpler way to tie the same ids together on iOS.
> The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up
If you ask your phone to navigate for you, you cannot use another app with better privacy. You have to use whatever Apple forces on you. The same with hotword-triggered assistants.
But yes, these are minor compared to the fact that you cannot get your GPS location at all in any app without telling Apple or the fact that you cannot install an app at all without telling Apple. These are egregious privacy violations done simply because Apple can.
Re: Google Maps - I really like Organic Maps as a open source privacy friendly Google Maps replacement. They use geographical data from OpenStreetMaps so "pretty good" is a understatement.
They have developed a Android app (available through different and aforementioned distribution channels, ofcourse), but they have one for iOS too!
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/organic-maps-offline-map/id156...
Droid - Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.organicmap...
Droid - Obtainium: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/wiki/Installing-O...
Droid - F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/
Samsung is so good that… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46123747
You forgot to mention Google's upcoming developer verification push, which will prevent users installing apps - even from third-party sources - if the developers have not verified their identity with Google:
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification
They already announced side loading will continue to work, while making it slightly more difficult for average users to install suspicious crap on their phone or tablet. I can live with that:
https://www.androidauthority.com/android-power-users-install...
Also, how sideloading works seemingly varies from vendor to vendor. On my Samsung devices I never had to fiddle with ADB or developer mode to install a APK from outside the Play store, I just download something, toggle crapware protection off, install, toggle crapware protection on and I'm done. Think it might has something to with all the customization work Samsung put into One UI (and just outright removing stuff from Google they didn't like).
Google has already backpedaled on that, luckily.
But you are right, insofar that it likely is only a matter of time until Google's walled garden is as walled in as the one of Apple.
Well, if Apple were really clever, they'd have introduced an 'EU DMA CAPTCHA' by now, requiring anyone EU-adjacent-resident to mark all the evil EU bureaucrats in a picture of room before allowing them to resume their doomscrolling.
I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the GDPR, where pretty much everyone now equates that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed, despite never requiring these banners in any way, shape or form in the first place.
But, yeah, despite that, I'd say they'll get away with this as well...
> I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the DMCA, where pretty much everyone now equites that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed.
I don't think DMCA has anything to do with that though I did wish everyone hated it. You probably meant GDPR.
Yes, indeed, thank you! Fixed now, but, well... abbreviation fatigue takes its toll...
Even with the fix that's still not really accurate - though it's a widespread misconception.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPrivacy_Directive
ePrivacy Directive doesn't require those obnoxious banners either
It doesn't require consent for cookies or similar data that are strictly necessary to do what the user has asked for - a token for logging in or the contents of a shopping cart are the two canonical examples.
It certainly does require informed consent in other situations though and the dreaded cookie banners were the industry's attempt to interpret that legal requirement.
No, it's now entirely accurate. Nothing in the GDPR requires 'cookie banners', and your Wikipedia link doesn't 'dispell' that 'misconception', but nice try...
My point is that it was never the GDPR that required any sort of "cookie banner" in the first place.
The cookie banner requirement is itself a widespread misconception because the actual rule is neither specific to cookies (it would also cover other locally stored data) nor universal (for example it doesn't require specific consent for locally storing necessary data like session/login mechanics or the contents of a shopping basket).
The requirements for consent that do exist originate in the ePrivacy Directive. That directive was supposed to be superseded by a later ePrivacy Regulation that would have been lex specialis to the GDPR - possibly the only actual link between any of the EU law around cookies and the GDPR - but in the end that regulation was never passed and it was formally abandoned earlier this year.
So for now rules about user consent for local data storage in the EU - and largely still in the UK - do exist but they derive from the ePrivacy Directive and they are widely misunderstood. And while there has been a lot of talk about changes to EU law that might improve the situation with the banners so far talk is all it has been.
> Apple has said it will roll out new App Store terms in January 2026, but developers say the company has provided no clarity on what those changes will involve or whether they will actually comply with the DMA.
> "We have seen this playbook before in Europe and beyond," the signatories warn, adding that they suspect any new terms will continue to impose fees that would violate the law.
So the complaint is that they might violate the law next month?
The complaint is that they're violating the law right now.
No, the complaint is the established pattern of neglect.
Give people an inch and they will want a mile. I hope Apple resists these bullies who feel entitled to use all the hardwork Apple put into building their platform.
You got it the wrong way around: Apple feels entitled to use all the hard work developers put into their apps to bolster their own pockets.
Developers are free to delete their apps from Apple's store ar any time. Yes, apps bolster their own pockets, but they also bolster the pockets of the developers themselves.
Devs might have deleted their apps from AppStore, but Apple literally doesn't allow to distribute software any other way, and even in the EU where it oretends to allow competing AppStores, it still interjects itself into the process
Apple owns ios, Apple owns the iPhone. It would make sense that those factions within Apple would still be involved even if the AppStore people are not.
"Apple owns the iPhone". That's quite a statement.
There are clearly Apple employees whose job is to build the iPhone product and ones who market it to consumers. It is not a contenstable statement.
"There are clearly Apple employees whose job is to build the iPhone product and ones who market it to consumers" does not in any way, shape, or form equate to "Apple ownes the iPhone (as the physical product that consumers buy)".
When you buy a table from IKEA, IKEA doesn't own it, and has no right to tell you which food you're allowed to eat on it.
Back in the real world Apple phones are made by Chinese subcontractors who do not work for Apple and who’s working conditions are so poor that people kill themselves at work on such a regular basis that they had to install suicide nets to just stop people of jumping out of windows.
Please, someone think of the trillor dollar company.
This isn’t an argument.
The bully here is Apple. They try to use their market power to put themselves above our law, but they shall not get away with it.
Not just above law, but above common sense as well
You've mixed up your bullies.
It's Apple which is the bully.
No I think he had it right the first time. It’s Apple’s platform. They should have the right to do as they like with it.
1. Users paid for it. So it's not entirely Apple's.
Also, Mac is also Apple's platform.
2. Why would Apple be entitled, for example, for any money that people pay to a service outside of Apple's platform?
3. Apple is a part of duopoly for devices which are integral part of life. No, they don't get to dictate everything that's happening on their platform
4. All EU said: behave, be more competitive. Apple behaves as we have seen: a cross between a bully and a petulant child
Their platform, that runs on devices they don't own?
Yes.