Technology

Bored open source devs with a deep hatred for apple: "Challenge accepted"

By all means. After Apple has painted themselves in a corner, when the legislation has been loophole proofed, that's when Apple gets hit in the face with the Brussels effect - like a big, floppy, dong slapped across Steve Apple's mouth in every country out there.

I'll do a dance for every country. I'll do a shimmy for Botswana, a conga for Japan, a shake for Sebia, etc, etc.

Slap! Other cheek. Slayap! Other cheek! And so on and so forth.

Hopefully.

The EU said the Apple's implementation isn't complying. The rules are clear. Sideloading means sideloading.

I don’t see why they wouldn’t be. iPadOS is still basically iOS Double Wide.

The rules will almost certainly be the iOS rules, but find and replace iOS for iPad.

The current implementation is what Apple (or Apple's lawyers) think complies with the EU, this doesn't mean the EU will fully accept this iteration. Apple is probably mainly playing with time here.

'Mericans - "I demand freedom©®™ from government intervention"

Also 'Mericans - "Why is this giant corporation allowed to not use lube while fuckin me in the ass?!?"

EU - Slowly slips a thumb into corporation's sphincter with untrimmed fingernail

Genuinely, good work getting involved.

I think this would need new legislation that would push software regulations further than they've been before.

Apple can allow apps to be installed outside their app store. The fee they are charging is likely related to accessing their APIs and tools for developing iOS apps. Apple would have to be forced to make these free.

Currently you could considerably make an iOS app without apple's tools and APIs. But it would require significant effort to develope/reverse engineer these tools to make the app. Effort that is outside of the scope of most modern app development.

To force apple to make the APIs and tools open would likely require additional legislation. Saying not only must the device allow third party distribution of apps, but apple must support these activities for free. This is significantly different from making apple allow third party apps. It puts on them a real cost (not potential loss like allowing third party app stores).

This isn't a problem for other systems because they actively invite people to develop and distribute their software for their system. But it would have implications for game consoles. Sony, MS and Nintendo would have to allow any potential developer access to their tools for free with little obligation.

Yeah apple is just going to turn this into "lol if you want to sideload go buy a new device" and end up reaping additional billions

For the entire line, that way I can use my totally functional iPad from 2010 that is a brick now because it cannot connect to the App Store.

I can see some arguments for not updating older devices. Apple isn’t being compelled by law to do anything more than the bare minimum to support competitive markets. For example, no digging into older abandoned code basis or releasing an update that wasn’t originally planned. It only specifies what must be done going forward.

With that said, it’s a shame because I expect it would be quite easy to backport the change.

I want to run unsigned apps on iPadOS, just like MacOS.

That said, regarding support for “slightly older” hardware. For all that Apple sucks at, they have usually been good about supporting older hardware. iPads have historically received 5 years of major releases, and then a couple years of security updates after that 5 years. The big exception being that very first iPad which was cut off after 3 years.

Moreover, software support for an old OS tends to become an issue after 2 or 3 years. Those of use who are developing iPad apps look at the traffic and start to deprecate support legacy OS versions that are in the low single digits.

Realistically, it’s about 7 to 8 years before I start to think about new hardware. That said, I still have an old ass 2013 iPad Air that I use for web browsing and messaging. Thing still works fine for that, but the third party apps are kind of stuck in 2020 / 2021 land.

I'm sure they've ran the numbers and the money they make from an exclusive app store is much greater than selling a few more devices to ppl like us.

Yep! I like their software, but I’m a developer and power-user, and the way their stuff is artificially locked down to protect their money-printing trust screws me over as both a developer and power-user. If they started opening things up - even if it’s “open” like MacOS… I’d be inclined to buy more stuff.

Businesses would avoid this by making their apps certain device only or using different companies to publish their apps on each platform to stop them from needing to allow cross platform ownership.