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Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

(arstechnica.com)
380 points rezonant | 3 comments | 30 Apr 24 04:44 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kevingadd ◴[30 Apr 24 05:35 UTC] No.40207559[source]▶
I'm genuinely surprised by this. I figured the differences between tablets and phones, combined with Apple's efforts to distinguish between 'iPadOS' and 'iOS', would be enough to get them a win on this point. If the shared app store is part of the problem I wonder if that makes it a liability for any new apple ecosystem to tie into the App Store, like Vision OS for example.
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kvdveer ◴[30 Apr 24 05:49 UTC] No.40207618[source]▶
Why would IpadOS not be held to the same DSA rules as IOS? Apple has applied the same model of gatekeeping (walled garden) to both the iPhone and the iPad. DSA attaches requirements to the gatekeepers if they are big enough.

Software similarity and market positioning don't really come into consideration once the role of gatekeeper has been established.

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threeseed[dead post] ◴[30 Apr 24 05:53 UTC] No.40207638[source]▶
[flagged]
beretguy ◴[30 Apr 24 06:14 UTC] No.40207743[source]▶
Why are you defending having less ownership over devices that you own? It’s like your employer wants to give you a salary increase but you complain and say you don’t want more money.
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massysett ◴[30 Apr 24 09:02 UTC] No.40208739[source]▶
Because I should have that choice. Government should not make this decision for me. If it’s important to me that I have devices I fully own, I should seek that out. If I like the products and prices that result from walled-garden business models, I should be able to choose them.
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lupusreal ◴[30 Apr 24 09:14 UTC] No.40208819[source]▶
You will have the choice of installing or not installing the software you wish. The "choice" as you're describing it is a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome.
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massysett ◴[30 Apr 24 09:29 UTC] No.40208918[source]▶
I might not want that choice. That requires that I use my brain as I use the device and not do the harmful thing. Or maybe I want to hand the device to my child and be assured that she cannot install software, or use it as a publicly-accessible kiosk and be assured members of the public can’t break it. People who have handed Windows PCs to software illiterates and have to constantly return to eradicate crapware understand this problem.

Also, it costs the vendor to implement support for installing other software - resources the vendor could have spent on features I value, rather than features I don’t want. If only a government didn’t dictate to the vendor what it should do, stripping the vendor and the user of the power to decide for themselves.

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lupusreal ◴[30 Apr 24 09:55 UTC] No.40209096[source]▶
Having a choice will not harm you. The "brainpower" required to stick to one appstores is virtually nil, evidenced by the vast majority of android users sticking with only the play store. You don't want other people to have that choice because you're a sycophant for a corporation.
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1. massysett ◴[30 Apr 24 10:14 UTC] No.40209210[source]▶
So if Android already offers the choice you seek, why does government need to make Apple offer that choice?
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2. 76SlashDolphin ◴[30 Apr 24 10:42 UTC] No.40209464[source]▶
Because there are already users with Apple devices and those users might have been locked into using Apple's ecosystem for other reasons (already purchased apps, already owning Apple accessories that don't work with other devices, etc).

As an anecdote myself, the main reason I haven't switched to a Galaxy S24 is because my Airpods work amazingly with my iPhone and Macbook, and my Apple Watch only works with iPhones. But very often I sorely miss having Termux, NewPipe, Tachiyomi, a non-gimped version of GBoard, Syncthing, a sensible launcher, and probably other things that I can't remember off the top of my head. I've decided that I value the Apple system more than the value I get from those apps but this regulation means I get to have my cake and eat it too.

3. talldayo ◴[30 Apr 24 15:21 UTC] No.40211997[source]▶
Because Apple is not necessarily entitled to an anticompetitive market just to provide product differentiation.