EU Provisionally Agrees on Law That Would Force Apple to Allow Alternative App Stores, Sideloading, and iMessage Interoperability

[Danfango]

E2E RCS

This is a comedy answer. RCS is a crapfest. No native E2E to the point Amnesty International had a go at it publicly. Google had to run a carrier independent RCS network to support it which uses Signal's protocol which is back to ground zero: siloed messaging networks.

ZERO PROBLEMS SOLVED. Again.

 

[Thebrochure]

Time to pull out of Europe.

 

[ashdelacroix]

It’s already like this, so what is your point?

I disagree. Yes, there are certain things that take time to stream through, such as Apply Card, but essentially Europe gets parity on most things launched in the US. Indeed sometimes UK and Europe gets things before the US. This could be extended much further though, with innovations offered to versions of iOS that never reach European shores (except the UK's).

 

[Solomani]

How in the world are you you supposed to make iMessage, WhatsApp, and everything else compatible when they all use different protocols? A lot of the stuff in this bill is stupid, but this makes no sense.

Forcing iMessage to be interoperable with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and hundreds of minor texting apps.... will equate to thousands of glitches and bugs every week. Absolutely stupid.


It would be a different story had the EU simply laid forth a strategy saying: "By so-and-so Year, all major texting apps should adopt a single universal open standard, which would easily facilitate inter-operability regardless of what app is being used to send or receive the messages."

THAT kind of strategy would be more adoptable by companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, etc. In fact, they already embrace texting standards to a good degree.... embracing SMS, MMS, and universal Emoji standards.


Simply threatening companies like Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook to "Open up or else" is stupid and near-sighted. Which then results in the chaos and thousands of glitches situation as I stated above.

 

[Danfango]

Forcing iMessage to be interoperable with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and hundreds of minor texting apps.... will equate to thousands of glitches and bugs every week. Absolutely stupid.


It would be a different story had the EU simply laid forth a strategy saying: "By so-and-so Year, All major texting apps should adopt a single universal open standard, which would easily facilitate inter-operability regardless of what app is being used to send or receive the messages."

THAT kind of strategy would be more adoptable by companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, etc. In fact, they already embrace texting standards to a good degree.... embracing SMS, MMS, and universal Emoji standards.


Simply threatening companies like Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook to "Open up or else" is stupid and near-sighted. Which then results in the chaos and thousands of glitches situation as I stated above.

They built an open standard for this (RCS) which is run by the (ugh) carriers with no transport or legal neutrality in place.

It doesn't even support end to end encryption. I suspect intentionally as there is commercial and surveillance value in the message contents based on how pissy the carriers get if you ever mention encryption.

 

[BootsWalking]

Politicians running around ruining things they didn’t build and don’t understand.

You mean the same governments that clamped down on previous anticompetitive behavior, something which allowed upstart companies like Apple to come into being and have a chance to succeed?

 

[Solomani]

BadgerBadgerSnakeSnake browser? ?

A snaaaake!! It’s a snaaaake. It’s a

Badger, badger, badger
Badger, badger, badger
Badger, badger, badger
Badger, badger, badger

Mushroom, mushroom

Thank you. I will amend my post to reflect this. Your BadgerBadgerMushroomMushroom browser is clearly superior to my proposed BadgerBadgerSnakeSnake browser..... which is ill conceived, like many EU laws.

 

[robco74]

While I don't think Apple would or should exit the EU, given the level of fines, they may be required to suspend sales for a while. There is no way they will be able to comply within six months. Everything is too integrated. It would take at least a year, minimum, to redevelop iOS, or an EU-compliant version of iOS, to satisfy these requirements.

The EU should also then launch a certification program, where Apple, Google, etc. can show beta builds to regulators and have them sign off on them before release, rather than waiting until after release and slapping them with fines.

This will not change the fact that the EU is stagnant, with low access to capital, and massive startup costs. If the EU wants more home grown tech, work on these issues.

 

[Thebrochure]

You mean the same governments that clamped down on previous anticompetitive behavior, something which allowed upstart companies like Apple to come into being and have a chance to succeed?

Capitalism, that great millennial and gen-z evil, is what's responsible for Apple. Which is ironic, considering they love their iDevices so much.

 

[jarman92]

While there are many good ideas, like being able to cancel a subscription easier (I once subscribed to the NYT and had to call them from Germany to cancel the subscription - never again!), I’m really interested how on earth the message interoperability should work. I use Signal and iMessage. How can Signal still be secure and end to end encrypted if it has to be able to work with WhatsApp?

I'm sure that question is beyond the comprehension of 90% of these bureaucrats.

 

[joiwomcow]

I’m glad the uk left the EU

I thought you Russians were no longer able to buy Apple products or access Facebook - so why do you care?

 

[jarman92]

Well, here comes the plethora of "New App Store for iPho--OOPS! WE STOLE YOUR CREDIT CARD!"

PS--Yes, there will some purely legit ones also.

PPS--It is sad the previous Postscript needed placed.

Also, "Want to download Facebook? First you have to download our FB App Store, and then the FB browser, then you're required to use FB Messenger..."

 

[iPadified]

Who does not want interoperability of messages and for video calls? I mean it is nearly brain dead that you need about 5 different clients for video calls. Even mobile phones can call a land line phone and vice versa. E-mails can be sent and received by different clients on different OS.

PS. iPhones and there Apple devices are already hamstrung in large part of EU. Maps features takes years to roll out and homepods are not available in all countries. DS

 

[iAFC]

If an app that you use is pulled from the App Store and only made available through the developer's store, then YES...you will be forced to side load.

That is true. However, isn't that already the case with Macs?

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Seems most of this is a product of the attention of the Epic v Apple case? Had Apple just allowed other payment systems and made iMessage play nice with Android, they wouldn't have to clean their whole house.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

If an app that you use is pulled from the App Store and only made available through the developer's store, then YES...you will be forced to side load.

In a lot of cases, if you have a choice of Mac apps from App Store or company web site, the web site version has more functionality as Apple's "rules" get in the way.

 

[JM]

The answer: no amount of regulation.

Just look at what Apple is putting up with in China.

In the end, the almighty dollar is what determines what Apple does. They'll complain, but they'll keep selling their devices as their shareholders want them to do.

Which is why I’m curious how much money Apple makes in EU countries; and would they be willing to part with that money to make a statement against EU?

 

[tcgjeukens]

Seeing as how no one actually IN the European Union makes smartphones, Apple ought to tell the EU to get bent.

Not quite true. There is a dwarf in NL: https://www.fairphone.com/en/

 

[return2sendai]

Paved with good intentions.

I wonder how many fold here got your reference. Tick, v.g.

 

[Diamond Dog]

Afaik, this is all in software. Depending on the region you set up the watch in, the functionality may differ.
So unless you pretend to be in the EU (which you perhaps could do with VPN and a US bought device as well), the EU model will not help you.

There is precedent for Apple hardware locking certain features. Back when I worked for AppleCare, and perhaps even now, FaceTime was completely disabled on all Saudi Arabian devices. It didn't matter if you took the device to the US and did a full reinstall of iOS via a .ipsw file, or changed the region on the phone itself to another region-- FaceTime simply would never, ever work on those devices due to a hardware flag.

This was a fairly common issue. We would get customers who had bought from eBay or other third-parties these Saudi phones, and they'd ask us to enable FaceTime for them, and we literally could not do so.

 

[JM]

.

But can I still say yes please to ‘iMessage interoperability’? ? Would be nice to see the big players work together on this.

so much “yes please”. I haaaaaaaate the garish green color on messages. Not because it’s not iMessage or Apple or anything like that: it’s because it’s HARD TO READ!!!!! and if you turn on darken colors in accessibility it makes it puke green.

Everyone says that Apple does it on purpose is absolutely right: I will not include people on group texts because I can’t read the light green they use. ?

 

[iHorseHead]

Have you tried? Because it’s not allowed.

Ooh, it's not allowed anymore.
I remember back in 2012 I deleted Safari and couldn't get it back and had to reinstall the whole OS.

 

[bsolar]

While I don't think Apple would or should exit the EU, given the level of fines, they may be required to suspend sales for a while. There is no way they will be able to comply within six months. Everything is too integrated. It would take at least a year, minimum, to redevelop iOS, or an EU-compliant version of iOS, to satisfy these requirements.

The EU is a huge market: there is IMHO zero chance Apple will stop or suspend sales there. More likely, the regulation will include a period of time to allow companies to comply and companies will be likely able to in part negotiate it. For some of the most complex changes there will likely be a significant grace period.

As example, many companies in my field are still dealing with implementing the full array of GDPR requirements and the deadline for becoming compliant before fines starts to be levied has been pushed back repeatedly under the companies' requests due to the reality of how complex some of the requirements are to implement.

 

[zoomp]

At least EU is actually trying to do something, unlike leaving Zuckerberg running loose without even a board to control him. Congress hearings in US has come to bare no fruits so far. So much of what is actually good in regulation is coming from EU, like the right to delete all of our personal info if we want to... The biggest issue for apple would be side-loading, and it seems EU is not requiring that, only a alternative payment option. That's OK.

I don't think you realize how much power Whatsapp has in the whole world. Some countries, like mine, the internet traffic is free on WA, you can receive legal notices on WA... etc. So, I for one, applaud being able to use signal and receiver msgs from WA.

(iMessages is basically irrelevant worldwide apart from US)

 

[bousozoku]

While Windows survived under similar conditions, the free-for-all scheme isn’t likely to produce good results on mobile phones.

I would appreciate a complete Firefox, instead of having to use Apple’s backend. Multiple stores and side loading seems as though it will hurt everyone, even if everyone is not using them.