Apple blocks game streaming services unless individual games are approved(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Apple blocks game streaming services unless individual games are approved
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53693581
329 comments
Just more evidence that large platform and device owners will try to gate-keep and landgrab as much as they can and try to destroy the open web and force competitors into financial agreements to collect economic rent.
There finally needs to be regulation on this. No banning of end user services as long as they're legal, I don't want a phone maker controlling what I do on the internet. It's ridiculous. Microsoft in the 90s doesn't even compare to this, it's on an entirely different level. If competition regulation would actually still exist we'd tear apple a new one.
There finally needs to be regulation on this. No banning of end user services as long as they're legal, I don't want a phone maker controlling what I do on the internet. It's ridiculous. Microsoft in the 90s doesn't even compare to this, it's on an entirely different level. If competition regulation would actually still exist we'd tear apple a new one.
It's time for the DOJ to break up Apple. Together with Google, they're destroying the Internet and open computing. Soon, it'll be all information that is locked down and controlled.
Computers didn't use to be like this. Apple has land grabbed their way here and is now clamping down harder than ever before. If we don't revolt, we're going to wind up in a terrible place where Apple and Google make all the movies and games and we rent everything and own nothing.
Call your representative and ask them to put an end to this.
Demand open computing. You own the computer, you get to run whatever software you want.
(Side note: iPhones are the only computers a large segment of Americans own!)
Computers didn't use to be like this. Apple has land grabbed their way here and is now clamping down harder than ever before. If we don't revolt, we're going to wind up in a terrible place where Apple and Google make all the movies and games and we rent everything and own nothing.
Call your representative and ask them to put an end to this.
Demand open computing. You own the computer, you get to run whatever software you want.
(Side note: iPhones are the only computers a large segment of Americans own!)
Ain't gonna happen. This is how they want it. If they didn't, Big Tech would have been better regulated long ago. Having top down control over communication through private multinationals that all politically act in unison is exactly what the state desires.
The state desires what the voters demand. Apathy will be the death of liberty.
It is a simple matter to make voters demand central control of all computing resources. All they have to do is mention the fact that terrorists, drug dealers and child molesters also happen to be computer users. Can't even offer a counter-argument against that without being marked as a pedophile sympathizer.
Put enough fear into the population and they'll accept anything any authority presents as a solution. That's the danger of relying on democracy. You depend on the public to do the right thing and the public is easily manipulated.
Put enough fear into the population and they'll accept anything any authority presents as a solution. That's the danger of relying on democracy. You depend on the public to do the right thing and the public is easily manipulated.
This is exactly the apathy that threatens democracy.
What do you suggest? Give up? You have condemned democracy itself.
What do you suggest? Give up? You have condemned democracy itself.
That's right!
This sounds entirely plausible but I wouldn't be surprised if it's utter incompetence of government workers (most of them are old and have no idea how the internet works) and fear mongering on behalf of tech companies that if we regulate, we'll lose the tech race to boogeyman competitor country of the decade.
Regulating big tech and keeping all tech under government's thumb are not at odds, so it makes me lean towards incompetence as the more likely culprit.
I predict there will be some government intervention but it'll be clumsy and counter-productive for at least another decade or two.
Regulating big tech and keeping all tech under government's thumb are not at odds, so it makes me lean towards incompetence as the more likely culprit.
I predict there will be some government intervention but it'll be clumsy and counter-productive for at least another decade or two.
I demand open computing. I have it, it's cheaper than ever, like RPis are given away in cereal boxes.
I also have an iPad. I know I lose some software access (e.g. Facebook streaming games) but I also gain software, like Slay the Spire and FTL and Bastion. These games are iOS exclusive in part because iOS effectively prevents piracy, which is another way of saying that users cannot run whatever software they want.
I'm quite happy having some general-purpose computers, and also some purpose-built app-console devices. Why must every device be general purpose?
I also have an iPad. I know I lose some software access (e.g. Facebook streaming games) but I also gain software, like Slay the Spire and FTL and Bastion. These games are iOS exclusive in part because iOS effectively prevents piracy, which is another way of saying that users cannot run whatever software they want.
I'm quite happy having some general-purpose computers, and also some purpose-built app-console devices. Why must every device be general purpose?
>Slay the Spire and FTL and Bastion. These games are iOS exclusive
FTL and Bastion aren't iOS exclusive. Here are links to pages where you can find their Linux versions. Out of curiosity, where did you get the idea that they were iOS exclusive?
Edit: I hadn't previously heard of it, but googling reveals that Slay the Spire is also available on Steam. The steam page says it has a Linux version. That means that all of your examples of iOS exclusives could actually run on a Linux box, maybe even a raspi. ;)
I will counter with the claim that no major, artistically significant games of the past decade have been iOS exclusives. I might even go so far as to suggest that there are no leading iOS-only productivity apps (by leading, I mean better than what you can get elsewhere to the point where there's a major platform advantage, a status conferred to applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office which used to be Windows-only). That's a claim that you might be able to refute, but I can't think of any at the moment.
https://lutris.net/games/ftl-faster-than-light/ https://lutris.net/games/bastion/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/
FTL and Bastion aren't iOS exclusive. Here are links to pages where you can find their Linux versions. Out of curiosity, where did you get the idea that they were iOS exclusive?
Edit: I hadn't previously heard of it, but googling reveals that Slay the Spire is also available on Steam. The steam page says it has a Linux version. That means that all of your examples of iOS exclusives could actually run on a Linux box, maybe even a raspi. ;)
I will counter with the claim that no major, artistically significant games of the past decade have been iOS exclusives. I might even go so far as to suggest that there are no leading iOS-only productivity apps (by leading, I mean better than what you can get elsewhere to the point where there's a major platform advantage, a status conferred to applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office which used to be Windows-only). That's a claim that you might be able to refute, but I can't think of any at the moment.
https://lutris.net/games/ftl-faster-than-light/ https://lutris.net/games/bastion/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/
Fair point and thank you for the clarification. By "iOS exclusive" I should have said "not on Android." I honestly considered it common knowledge that these games are available on Windows, Switch, etc. but maybe not all readers know that.
To refine my point, many successful games come to iOS because it is a controlled environment, with negligible piracy. The games come to Android later or not at all, because it is more of a wild west.
As for productivity, iOS has an undeniable platform advantage, and by that I mean tablets. Apple focuses on the iPad but Android tablets are kind of a joke. Here's androidpolice agreeing: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/04/21/do-yourself-a-favor...
To refine my point, many successful games come to iOS because it is a controlled environment, with negligible piracy. The games come to Android later or not at all, because it is more of a wild west.
As for productivity, iOS has an undeniable platform advantage, and by that I mean tablets. Apple focuses on the iPad but Android tablets are kind of a joke. Here's androidpolice agreeing: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/04/21/do-yourself-a-favor...
>many successful games come to iOS because it is a controlled environment, with negligible piracy.
How does that make sense when all of those games were originally developed for the PC platform, which has rampant piracy, even above that of Android?
How does that make sense when all of those games were originally developed for the PC platform, which has rampant piracy, even above that of Android?
Every PC game developer sweats piracy. Windows is targeted first (or only) because it is the vastly dominant gaming platform. But the piracy aspect is real, and important, and it hurts Windows gaming.
If you are developing a Nintendo Switch game, you can focus on building a better game, instead of anti-piracy techniques, or futzing with hardware incompatibilities. That's iOS too.
If you are developing a Nintendo Switch game, you can focus on building a better game, instead of anti-piracy techniques, or futzing with hardware incompatibilities. That's iOS too.
> instead of anti-piracy techniques
Or you could simply focus on the legit PC market instead of worrying about people who will likely never be your customers.
Or you could simply focus on the legit PC market instead of worrying about people who will likely never be your customers.
My take (I develop games) is that it's a combination of piracy on Android, and a prevalent unwillingness to pay for things upfront. Android users have come to expect that all apps are (initially) free. On PC there is piracy, yes, but there is also a large audience that is eager to purchase premium games (mostly locked into Steam though, but that is another discussion)
Your educated choice here, together with the uninformed choices of millions of Americans, support an economic system that disenfranchises device owners, software engineers, and small businesses.
It's okay, have your iDevice. But that choice supports a company that makes the world less equitable for others. To deny that is to deny economics and the power of monopoly.
We need to educate our lawmakers about this situation so that they can make a decision that most Americans are unequipped to understand.
It's okay, have your iDevice. But that choice supports a company that makes the world less equitable for others. To deny that is to deny economics and the power of monopoly.
We need to educate our lawmakers about this situation so that they can make a decision that most Americans are unequipped to understand.
Well I strongly disagree with all of that. You're talking about "uninformed choices of Americans" that are "unequipped to understand," but I was there in 2007 when the iPhone was introduced, and there's a reason that EVERY phone is essentially an iPhone and not a Blackberry. This did not "disenfranchise" anyone, it radically empowered us all (in the same way that google.com did).
I don't think you're using "disenfranchise" in the same way the parent is. You're being denied the ability to truly own your hardware and run whatever you want on it. You're being hurt in ways you don't even know because by definition you can't, as you don't know what you're missing.
You're ok with this now, and may never change your opinion on that, but you are being harmed by this in the long run, as is the entire market for these sorts of devices. An entire generation is being brought up on devices that they're not allowed to tinker with -- and don't know that anything different is even possible -- and that will have negative long-term ramifications, though we may not be sure exactly what those are yet.
You're ok with this now, and may never change your opinion on that, but you are being harmed by this in the long run, as is the entire market for these sorts of devices. An entire generation is being brought up on devices that they're not allowed to tinker with -- and don't know that anything different is even possible -- and that will have negative long-term ramifications, though we may not be sure exactly what those are yet.
Break up how? Apple's main argument against Epic is that the iPhone (and related devices) wouldn't be successful without the app store and the app store wouldn't be a thing without the iPhone, thus they're both a part of the same product (the Apple ecosystem). It's hard to argue against that, so there's not many more places where it would make sense for an Apple break-up.
Apple could be forced to allow alternative stores and browsers.
They get money for iPhone there is really no reason for restrict the store.
So phone and app store could be naturally cut like for android ecosystem.
So phone and app store could be naturally cut like for android ecosystem.
What’s separating the App Store from XBox, PlayStation, or Nintendo? None of them allow third party stores either.
And if you want to remove them, that’s just arguing that a business model is at issue not a specific business. After all Epic is selling ports of the same game across multiple platforms any paying each of them a cut of games sold in other stores. If Apple just takes the same cut and allows more App Stores on their platform, or is that ok or is this just a question of money?
And if you want to remove them, that’s just arguing that a business model is at issue not a specific business. After all Epic is selling ports of the same game across multiple platforms any paying each of them a cut of games sold in other stores. If Apple just takes the same cut and allows more App Stores on their platform, or is that ok or is this just a question of money?
I still don't understand what enabling multiple browsers, from an engine standpoint, would achieve. Is it competition? Don't all browsers just implement the same set of standards? What is the lack of competition holding back?
Apple ties Webkit versions to iOS versions. Once they stop supporting your iOS device every browser on it becomes obsolete.
They don’t all implement the same set of standards equally. The one that comes immediately to mind is one that comes up frequently as “hey do you know your website is broken on iOS” on HN is when someone is demoing some really interesting web-tech that requires SharedArrayBuffer (since it enables thread-like behavior in JavaScript and is super useful also for performant interaction with the GPU).
Browsers can of course be non-conformant on other interesting issues. Imagine if a browser came out that allowed the Unity Web Player to work. Instantly, people wouldn’t need to use the App Store to purchase games. Instead, they could just use the browser.
Browsers can of course be non-conformant on other interesting issues. Imagine if a browser came out that allowed the Unity Web Player to work. Instantly, people wouldn’t need to use the App Store to purchase games. Instead, they could just use the browser.
For the first point, that sounds like a standards problem and an ecosystem challenge. The association/consortium or whatever it is needs to protect and fight for this.
For the 2nd, it sounds like there needs to be a way for the web platform to evolve for things that require engine modification. I wonder if the web will break down into smaller standard components and new browsers can be built from those.
For the 2nd, it sounds like there needs to be a way for the web platform to evolve for things that require engine modification. I wonder if the web will break down into smaller standard components and new browsers can be built from those.
It's not useful to cast this in terms of standards. If your users use a non-standards compliant browser, you fix your website, not the browser.
With regard to your second paragraph, I believe you have made a category error between "the App Store" and "the browser." The browser is not a store.
With regard to your second paragraph, I believe you have made a category error between "the App Store" and "the browser." The browser is not a store.
The browser contains stores, and the browser can contain fully working applications. The point wasn’t that the browser is a store, but rather that allowing certain features to work on the web would destroy the walled garden of the App Store by enabling certain kinds of stores that circumvent the App Store.
A bit of an aside, but SharedArrayBuffer is likely not the best example It was disabled by default in Chrome and Firefox until recently due to Spectre. Chrome is still working on improving their security around this feature, and does not yet enable the feature for Chrome on Android.
True PWA's, for example, including push notifications.
This is false. Google has the ability to create true PWAs on chromebooks with ChromeOS. Why did they include the play store + app model instead of embracing a true PWA experience? Google has enough influence that if they could build a showcase PWA experience on the chromeOS/chromebook platform, they could get web ecosystem adoption. They were able to do this with AMP for instance.
> Why did they include the play store + app model instead of embracing a true PWA experience?
I can think of a few possible reasons:
1. Chrome (as in the browser) came out after the first iPhone was released (2007), and around the same time of Android's first release (2008). Chrome OS didn't come out until 2011. Android's app ecosystem started developing before Google had all that much influence on web standards, and likely before they realized that it would be a good idea to have that influence, or even knew that Chrome (the browser) would become as popular as it ended up being. I'll also note that Chrome OS wasn't anywhere near as successful as Google hoped it would be; while that doesn't invalidate Chrome OS's app model, it doesn't validate it either.
2. Android has done a decent amount of copying of iOS features (I say this without judgment or malice; I've been a generally happy Android user continuously since 2010 and have no axe to grind). Not having native app development on Android could have been seen as a possible market disadvantage when compared against Apple.
3. Google may have actually desired more Apple-like control over what runs on Android, or at least wanted to allow for the possibility that they'd want it in the future. That's harder when you base your app platform on web standards.
I can think of a few possible reasons:
1. Chrome (as in the browser) came out after the first iPhone was released (2007), and around the same time of Android's first release (2008). Chrome OS didn't come out until 2011. Android's app ecosystem started developing before Google had all that much influence on web standards, and likely before they realized that it would be a good idea to have that influence, or even knew that Chrome (the browser) would become as popular as it ended up being. I'll also note that Chrome OS wasn't anywhere near as successful as Google hoped it would be; while that doesn't invalidate Chrome OS's app model, it doesn't validate it either.
2. Android has done a decent amount of copying of iOS features (I say this without judgment or malice; I've been a generally happy Android user continuously since 2010 and have no axe to grind). Not having native app development on Android could have been seen as a possible market disadvantage when compared against Apple.
3. Google may have actually desired more Apple-like control over what runs on Android, or at least wanted to allow for the possibility that they'd want it in the future. That's harder when you base your app platform on web standards.
Is your claim simply that “true” PWA’s don’t exist? I don’t care what you want to call it, I still can’t do web push notifications on my iPhone.
"Enabling multiple browsers" is a red herring. Android enables multiple browser engines, but non-Blink browsers are a rounding error; it's bought nothing in terms of browser diversity.
Really it's just code for "let me, a web developer, target Chrome only, so I can just tell Safari users to install Chrome."
Really it's just code for "let me, a web developer, target Chrome only, so I can just tell Safari users to install Chrome."
Exactly. Run into this problem all the time on Mac with things like Youtube TV and Stadia.
That argument goes both ways. The iphone would be pretty lame without other people's content to gatekeep.
I am still waiting for someone to explain why an iPhone is a computer but not my Car, TV or Fridge.
All of them can access web content, facilitate payments, do shopping and run applications.
The reason it's important is because it would be the end of the gaming console model if they were forced to accept anything onto their app stores. Which would have pretty broad implications.
All of them can access web content, facilitate payments, do shopping and run applications.
The reason it's important is because it would be the end of the gaming console model if they were forced to accept anything onto their app stores. Which would have pretty broad implications.
All of these things are.
Because the iPhone's purpose is to be a computer. A car's purpose is to move people. My toothbrush isn't a computer just because it has a chip in it which technically computes things.
I do agree the lines can be blurry and poorly defined.
I do agree the lines can be blurry and poorly defined.
> "the end of the gaming console model"
How so?
How so?
Sony, Microsoft etc sell their hardware at a loss and recoup through software licensing.
Which is not possible if you going to force them to do things like have alternative app stores or to allow any content to be used.
Which is not possible if you going to force them to do things like have alternative app stores or to allow any content to be used.
Ok, let's say this happens. Why is this a bad thing?
So consoles get slightly more expensive, or other revenue streams are created. Steam, Origin, Epic, UPlay and GOG all compete on the desktop while earning plenty, even though people can download games directly from the publisher today. Why can't the same model be applied to consoles which have always been basically pre-built mini computers anyway?
If you say that all these devices are computers then why have arbitrary treatment of desktops, phones and consoles?
So consoles get slightly more expensive, or other revenue streams are created. Steam, Origin, Epic, UPlay and GOG all compete on the desktop while earning plenty, even though people can download games directly from the publisher today. Why can't the same model be applied to consoles which have always been basically pre-built mini computers anyway?
If you say that all these devices are computers then why have arbitrary treatment of desktops, phones and consoles?
I am all in favour of even going after game consoles if it helps other platforms but smartphones are worth fighting for first.
Smartphones are logical successors to PCs as general purpose computing devices. A lot of people just have them as their device for photo editing, emails, gaming, spreadsheet editing, web browsing etc.
PCs had open software and hardware access, I think it is reasonable for us to want their logical successors to atleast have open software access.
There is trillions of dollars of ecosystem which PC had which has largely extended/moved to smartphones. Everyone should get a chance to compete on fair and equal terms in this ecosystem.
Smartphones are logical successors to PCs as general purpose computing devices. A lot of people just have them as their device for photo editing, emails, gaming, spreadsheet editing, web browsing etc.
PCs had open software and hardware access, I think it is reasonable for us to want their logical successors to atleast have open software access.
There is trillions of dollars of ecosystem which PC had which has largely extended/moved to smartphones. Everyone should get a chance to compete on fair and equal terms in this ecosystem.
Game consoles aren't computers. They're much cheaper and last longer than phones. You can also buy and sell your games.
This is increasingly becoming less true as more people purchase the "digital only" version of most of their games. I haven't purchased a boxed copy of a game in many years, both on my consoles (PS3/PS4 + Switch) and my PC (Steam/Origin/Blizzard stores, etc). The only feasible way to resell a game tied to one of these digital accounts would be to sell the entire account.
You do you. But stop thinking that your economic choices and a lack of regulation don't impinge upon my freedoms. There are a lot of other people to consider outside of your circle.
I recently (6 years ago?) decided to purchase thousands of dollars of music on Google Play Music and look where that got me.
I can (and do) still play my Gamecube games.
I recently (6 years ago?) decided to purchase thousands of dollars of music on Google Play Music and look where that got me.
I can (and do) still play my Gamecube games.
This statement is a valid as: phones aren’t computers.
You can’t have such an arbitrary definition.
You can’t have such an arbitrary definition.
Smartphones are very much computers and intended for general purpose computing.
I think people with this notion either work at Apple, love their iPhone, or have lots of AAPL.
Please see what their behavior is doing to the rest of us. Fixing it is more important than any personal stake you have in this.
I think people with this notion either work at Apple, love their iPhone, or have lots of AAPL.
Please see what their behavior is doing to the rest of us. Fixing it is more important than any personal stake you have in this.
Game consoles run many applications that aren’t games (particularly entertainment), I’m still not seeing the distinction. Even their historical lockdown trends are similar; phones, even early smartphones, have traditionally been locked down and newer consoles are generally less so (e.g. UWP development on Xbox can be done without being a studio and buying a special console). In fact your ability to throw a dart on a board of phone models and hit one that you can root without fighting your manufacturer is as high as its ever been.
For what it’s worth I’ve never worked at Apple, down’t own any AAPL (unless you count indexes), and have bought Android phones off and on. So I’d focus less on acusing everyone who disagrees with you of alterior motives.
For what it’s worth I’ve never worked at Apple, down’t own any AAPL (unless you count indexes), and have bought Android phones off and on. So I’d focus less on acusing everyone who disagrees with you of alterior motives.
Have fun doing your taxes on your car, your banking on your tv, and your dating on your fridge.
I definitely enjoy sending emails and shooting movies on my Nintendo.
Speaking of which, should I get Shovel Knight on Nintendo Switch, Wii U, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, or Nintendo 3DS? I have lots of these, and I'm not sure which inexpensive device is the best for playing Shovel Knight.
Cancel that. I'm not sure I like all of that choice. Which of my seven affordable iPhones from a wide variety of vendors should I download and install it to? Can I redeem my Steam credit?
Fuck Apple. Their behavior makes them a blemish upon our industry.
I definitely enjoy sending emails and shooting movies on my Nintendo.
Speaking of which, should I get Shovel Knight on Nintendo Switch, Wii U, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, or Nintendo 3DS? I have lots of these, and I'm not sure which inexpensive device is the best for playing Shovel Knight.
Cancel that. I'm not sure I like all of that choice. Which of my seven affordable iPhones from a wide variety of vendors should I download and install it to? Can I redeem my Steam credit?
Fuck Apple. Their behavior makes them a blemish upon our industry.
> Have fun doing your taxes on your car, your banking on your tv, and your dating on your fridge.
Thanks! Just got to finish the level of Doom first.
Thanks! Just got to finish the level of Doom first.
> Have fun doing your taxes on your car
My car’s 17-inch touchscreen-based web browser happily runs turbotax.
My car’s 17-inch touchscreen-based web browser happily runs turbotax.
> The reason it's important is because it would be the end of the gaming console model if they were forced to accept anything onto their app stores. Which would have pretty broad implications.
Which implications precisely? Because consoles not being sold at a loss seem like a positive outcome.
Which implications precisely? Because consoles not being sold at a loss seem like a positive outcome.
Your best time to break up Apple was when Trump was President. Now it is President Biden on Jan 20th, 2021. Biden likes Apple and Trump does not.
Apple would be broken up into Mobile devices, Desktops, Software, MacOSX, and Internet services. MacOSX would have to be ported to the PC then with no owning the hardware the same with iOS.
Apple would be broken up into Mobile devices, Desktops, Software, MacOSX, and Internet services. MacOSX would have to be ported to the PC then with no owning the hardware the same with iOS.
Citation needed.
I am not being glib when I say: just don't use Apple. Yes, what they do is bad. But it isn't force. It isn't coercion. It's people coming to them and wanting to use their services.
Just don't use their services. Just because you feel powerless in making individual choices doesn't mean advocating for the use of force against the company is moral.
Just don't use their services. Just because you feel powerless in making individual choices doesn't mean advocating for the use of force against the company is moral.
Bundling absolutely is coercion. Apple makes some of, if not the best mobile hardware in the world. It would definitely be reasonable to purchase Apple hardware and run third-party software on it, just like on Macintosh. It would also be reasonable to run iOS on alternative hardware. Neither of those scenarios is possible today because Apple uses the compelling nature of individual aspects to force consumers to accept the entirety of their ecosystem.
No, it's not. There's no use of force or threats. Just like if I have a backyard BBQ, you come over, and I say you can't bring your friend because I don't like him. Just don't come to my BBQ.
Individual action can be important. Regulation is also a valuable tool. When we discover behaviors that are dangerous, regulating them is absolutely reasonable and moral.
Nah, most of the regulations that people want is just reactionary BS to something or another, in this case, Apple is keeping a certain class of toys out of the App Store. I mean, that's not to say it isn't scummy, but scummy to the level that it ought to be illegal and Apple should be treated like I dunno, PG&E or Old Ma Bell? Not even close.
Destroying the open web? What are you talking about? Apple has a fantastic track record of making Safari a world class web browser for iOS. If Microsoft, Google, and others made these gaming offerings web apps, they’d likely work just fine.
> Apple has a fantastic track record of making Safari a world class web browser
From a quick glance it looks behind Firefox and Chrome on HTML/CSS/JS feature support.
https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+84,chrome+89,safari+14&...
And then there's Safari's broken autocomplete:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23646158
From a quick glance it looks behind Firefox and Chrome on HTML/CSS/JS feature support.
https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+84,chrome+89,safari+14&...
And then there's Safari's broken autocomplete:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23646158
I'm not sure how iOS can be considered a bastion for the web when it doesn't even have WebM support, which has been used across the web for years.
And yet video streaming in Safari seems to work fine for users, and better still, it leverages the native hardware decoding capabilities to minimize battery usage.
WebM is widespread, royalty free media format that's hardware accelerated with zero cost license.
The reason non-WebM stream services might work on Safari is because said service engineers implemented alternatives to it.
The reason non-WebM stream services might work on Safari is because said service engineers implemented alternatives to it.
Right. My point is, the WebM solution was not needed to fulfill customer demand (just like Flash turned out not to be needed either). Customer demand isn't "give me WebM" - it's "give me high quality video in my mobile browser that doesn't kill my battery."
There is wisdom sometimes in saying "no."
There is wisdom sometimes in saying "no."
There is no wisdom in comparing WebM to flash. They couldn't be further appart in various aspects. For one, WebM is hardware accelerated whilst flash wasn't.
There's also no wisdom in Safari preventing users from viewing a widespread royalty free media format. It simply causes frustration which is evidenced by the many frustrated customers in results for "safari stream not working "webm"" search.
There's also no wisdom in Safari preventing users from viewing a widespread royalty free media format. It simply causes frustration which is evidenced by the many frustrated customers in results for "safari stream not working "webm"" search.
How do you know that the iPhone and iPad hardware have the IP core for performing hardware decoding of WebM formats? And how many such searches are actually taking place relative to the number of successful video views?
They obviously don't have the decoder because Apple didn't implement them.
I think you're ignoring other aspects of that kind of decision-making. Yes, the feature here is "power efficient, high quality mobile video streaming", but consider that content producers have to encode, store, and serve multiple different formats (plus more licensing fees for the encoders) in order to serve all their users. That's incredibly wasteful and causes people all sorts of headaches on the backend. Both Apple's stuff and WebM do indeed satisfy the user-facing feature requirements, but Apple could have just used WebM and saved content producers a lot of time and money (which often -- but admittedly not always -- translates into saving end-customers money as well).
There's of course a balance to be maintained; if we single-source our streaming video codecs, that will dampen innovation in that space. But I'd hope there's a less wasteful middle ground than the place we're at now.
There's of course a balance to be maintained; if we single-source our streaming video codecs, that will dampen innovation in that space. But I'd hope there's a less wasteful middle ground than the place we're at now.
HLS and H.264 are by far the most popular streaming technologies according to a 2019 survey. If anything, I’d say Apple made the smart bet, and that WebM is the real distraction for content delivery providers.
Technology license cost is not the only consideration that goes into business decisions. Consider the whole end to end process of making, distributing and consuming video, and all the parties and technology providers involved, not to mention installed bases, cost of switching, etc.
Technology license cost is not the only consideration that goes into business decisions. Consider the whole end to end process of making, distributing and consuming video, and all the parties and technology providers involved, not to mention installed bases, cost of switching, etc.
That’s literally only because Amazon worked with them to introduce the needed features so they could launch Luna. Controller support was shoddy before iOS14, for example, so the web app approach wasn’t viable for xCloud or Stadia.
I look at it like this, without a horse in this race: some enterprising mofos are trying to create additional value for Apple's platforms, pay Apple's fees if they have to (or at least Microsoft was willing to, from what I hear they didn't expect to be shot down entirely), and Apple is saying no. No.
I mean what they're offering, at least in theory, is pretty neat, pretty compelling. Play Xbox Series whatever games, but on your iPhone or iPad. Apple just says No.
Well, if Apple wants to reject the value that these enterprising mofos is trying to bring to their platforms, who is the government to tell them that they can't shoot themselves in the foot? If it causes a few people to switch to Android such as Mike over at Penny Arcade, and maybe discover that they don't need an Apple-branded phone after all, that's Apple's loss. There's been no shortage of compelling Apps and services to be had in the App Store, no shortage of money to be made there if you have something that people 1. want and 2. are willing to pay for. Companies like Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Facebook, even Google have been making bank in the last 10 years off the back of iPhone users, built up a good portion of their business around iPhone and iPad users. Apple can keep the good times flowing through their platform, tighten up on the squeeze and get out of their own way, or they can lose out on opportunities that are literally sitting right in front of them, practically begging for Apple to pick them.
The people that care, that really care, are either going to switch to Android, or purchase an extra device just for this, or iPhone users are going to not give that much of a damn and just live life as they always have: without being able to stream games. Life is tough like that.
Markets always sort crap like this out in the long run though. Give it a few years, we'll come back to this and see if it actually matters.
I mean what they're offering, at least in theory, is pretty neat, pretty compelling. Play Xbox Series whatever games, but on your iPhone or iPad. Apple just says No.
Well, if Apple wants to reject the value that these enterprising mofos is trying to bring to their platforms, who is the government to tell them that they can't shoot themselves in the foot? If it causes a few people to switch to Android such as Mike over at Penny Arcade, and maybe discover that they don't need an Apple-branded phone after all, that's Apple's loss. There's been no shortage of compelling Apps and services to be had in the App Store, no shortage of money to be made there if you have something that people 1. want and 2. are willing to pay for. Companies like Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Facebook, even Google have been making bank in the last 10 years off the back of iPhone users, built up a good portion of their business around iPhone and iPad users. Apple can keep the good times flowing through their platform, tighten up on the squeeze and get out of their own way, or they can lose out on opportunities that are literally sitting right in front of them, practically begging for Apple to pick them.
The people that care, that really care, are either going to switch to Android, or purchase an extra device just for this, or iPhone users are going to not give that much of a damn and just live life as they always have: without being able to stream games. Life is tough like that.
Markets always sort crap like this out in the long run though. Give it a few years, we'll come back to this and see if it actually matters.
I am not so sure Android's policy won't evolve to better match what Apple does. At the end of the day both of these platforms serve to defend their core ecosystems. It is clear that the app /container concept is the one thing Apple holds dearly. Streaming services represent a leak/wedge into another app/container ecosystem. That alternative ecosystem has its own business models, review process, developer relationship, etc). It will never fly in it's current form, for any of these streamers (geforce now, stadia, xbox, etc).
I don't think we are stuck though. Both major mobiles would love to have a way to make this work from both a product and business standpoint. The platform just needs to evolve to support them properly and we aren't there yet.
For Apple, I could see a path where upon pairing your existing Xbox console with Apple, it unlocks an Xbox branded app store across your devices. Apple would be fed meta-data for that entire store so they would have some levers of control over the experience. The key thing here would be no onboarding flow to the xbox store. You are a clear xbox platform user and you want to extend that experience onto your Apple devices through a pairing flow originating on your purchased xbox. Same could work for any hardware console.
I don't think we are stuck though. Both major mobiles would love to have a way to make this work from both a product and business standpoint. The platform just needs to evolve to support them properly and we aren't there yet.
For Apple, I could see a path where upon pairing your existing Xbox console with Apple, it unlocks an Xbox branded app store across your devices. Apple would be fed meta-data for that entire store so they would have some levers of control over the experience. The key thing here would be no onboarding flow to the xbox store. You are a clear xbox platform user and you want to extend that experience onto your Apple devices through a pairing flow originating on your purchased xbox. Same could work for any hardware console.
> to destroy the open web
Except this rule doesn't prohibit anybody from putting anything on the internet. TFA is only about putting a streaming service on the App Store. Not to say that's not problematic, but Apple's not holding the web back in any way with this rule.
Except this rule doesn't prohibit anybody from putting anything on the internet. TFA is only about putting a streaming service on the App Store. Not to say that's not problematic, but Apple's not holding the web back in any way with this rule.
> Apple's not holding the web back in any way with this rule.
Yeah, not with this rule. They are holding the web back by refusing to run 3rd party browsers or modernize their one.
Yeah, not with this rule. They are holding the web back by refusing to run 3rd party browsers or modernize their one.
They are. MS could have shipped their browser with features that can support game streaming but they can't.
Open Web on mobile is being held hostage on iOS side.
At least on Android I was asked to choose my default browser and other browsers are allowed to have their engines.
Open Web on mobile is being held hostage on iOS side.
At least on Android I was asked to choose my default browser and other browsers are allowed to have their engines.
If you’re pro open-web, don’t you want these game streaming services to operate on the open web, i.e. in the browser, i.e. can’t be gate-kept by Apple (or Google)?
Why do you think regulation (forcing Apple to compromise their editorial decisions) the answer?
Nobody is forced into buying an iPhone.
Customers willingly opt-in to these platforms.
Nobody is forced into buying an iPhone.
Customers willingly opt-in to these platforms.
Do you support any regulations for corporations? If so, what's the difference?
Why should trillion-dollar megacorps that run our lives with little competition or escape be allowed such freedom?
Why should trillion-dollar megacorps that run our lives with little competition or escape be allowed such freedom?
Why shouldn't they? The burden to demonstrate a compelling argument should always be on those who want to restrict freedom, not on those who want to enjoy (or retain) freedom.
We're talking about restricting the freedom of a corporation to increase the freedom of people. So, as you stated, why should the status quo exist and restrict the freedom of consumers?
The people's freedom is not restricted by Apple deciding to include or exclude certain features from their phones.
If people don't like the phones, they don't have to engage with the ecosystem at all. Many diehard anti-Apple (or anti-smartphone-in-general) people do just this today.
You also have this freedom if you don't like Apple products.
I, for example, have just purchased my last iPhone.
If people don't like the phones, they don't have to engage with the ecosystem at all. Many diehard anti-Apple (or anti-smartphone-in-general) people do just this today.
You also have this freedom if you don't like Apple products.
I, for example, have just purchased my last iPhone.
It's not certain features. It's an app store that determines what software you can run on the hardware you already purchased, even retroactively disabling it. This is on top of their continued intensive efforts to thwart repairs of the hardware itself outside of Apple.
Plenty of corporations and corporate actions are regulated even when the consumer has choice. Because choice alone is not the issue, and that's usually with options that have far more than 2 ecosystems.
Plenty of corporations and corporate actions are regulated even when the consumer has choice. Because choice alone is not the issue, and that's usually with options that have far more than 2 ecosystems.
Because it has become a democrat vs republican kind of choice in all practicality.
I think there's a difference between regulations controlling externalities, or protecting the dispossessed, and protecting people from phones that don't have certain games. Do you not?
No, because the regulation isn't protecting people from phones that don't have certain games. That would be silly.
Allowing over a billion users the freedom to install and use software on their smartphone (a critical computing device and the only one for many) without corporate approval can indeed control externalities, protect the dispossessed and even save lives.
Allowing over a billion users the freedom to install and use software on their smartphone (a critical computing device and the only one for many) without corporate approval can indeed control externalities, protect the dispossessed and even save lives.
I do willingly opt-out of the Apple platform. However, if I lived in the US, I would be forced to buy an iPhone, because of the (you guessed it) propietary lock-in that is iMessage.
Regulation is necessary.
Regulation is necessary.
I don't think that's correct, there is nothing forcing you to use iMessage. Lock-in is not compulsion, you can simply stop using the product.
"Stop using the product" works for coffee, where if you don't like it you can try an alternative. But with the cash cows of mega corps you often have few alternatives and it's intentionally difficult to switch.
I don't understand why some are wary of government regulations, but have no qualms about being controlled by major corporations where you don't even have a vote.
I don't understand why some are wary of government regulations, but have no qualms about being controlled by major corporations where you don't even have a vote.
I used to use iMessage every day. It was my primary mode of communication for 10-ish years. I bought iPhones as gifts for others who didn't have them, just so we could iMessage.
Today, I never use iMessage. I'm not logged in to it on any devices. A big part of this was Apple backdooring the end-to-end cryptography (with full plaintext message history and key escrow via iCloud Backup, which is not e2e encrypted, and on by default for all users) which makes it way less secure.
Turns out that iMessage is optional. All of the other forms of communication that existed before and after it are still available to you as options. There's no law or any requirement anywhere that you use it.
"Lock-in" is colloquial: you're free to leave at any time. I was, and I did. Anyone can.
Today, I never use iMessage. I'm not logged in to it on any devices. A big part of this was Apple backdooring the end-to-end cryptography (with full plaintext message history and key escrow via iCloud Backup, which is not e2e encrypted, and on by default for all users) which makes it way less secure.
Turns out that iMessage is optional. All of the other forms of communication that existed before and after it are still available to you as options. There's no law or any requirement anywhere that you use it.
"Lock-in" is colloquial: you're free to leave at any time. I was, and I did. Anyone can.
What are you talking about?
How is it that people successfully move from iPhone to Android if iMessage is locking them in?
Yet some people still choose to use iPhone (as if it's their most reasonable choice)
Pretty good regulation already in place.
Don't like it? Don't buy it.
Don't like it? Don't buy it.
Apple is a crony capitalist company looking to collect rents from other people's work. We need to aggressively call out Apple for being a crony capitalist company rigging the economy.
Crony capitalist companies break competition to rig the economy. That is what Apple is doing by working to collect rents from other people's work.
Crony capitalist companies break competition to rig the economy. That is what Apple is doing by working to collect rents from other people's work.
That’s rich. One might argue that the guy arguing the government should force Apple to let him sell his service through the platform Apple invented, built and operates is the crony capitalist.
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In many ways I echo your sentiment. One thing I can’t stop thinking about though is how utterly hopeless we are at creating good regulations. The regulations seem to have good intentions but end up doing more harm than good, often ending up giving even more of an advantage to the big tech companies.
Look at GDPR, it’s resulted in a tidal wave of horrible pop ups across the entire web that create the worst user experience ever. Apple probably loves this, it makes their Apple News product look amazing because in comparison it’s so slick and smooth, but it’s not at all web-like since you can’t link to articles. So the open web takes a massive hit.
Same with content filters, only the big guys can afford to have them, so they gain a massive advantage. There doesn’t appear to be a way to make good regulation, so why bother at all?
Look at GDPR, it’s resulted in a tidal wave of horrible pop ups across the entire web that create the worst user experience ever. Apple probably loves this, it makes their Apple News product look amazing because in comparison it’s so slick and smooth, but it’s not at all web-like since you can’t link to articles. So the open web takes a massive hit.
Same with content filters, only the big guys can afford to have them, so they gain a massive advantage. There doesn’t appear to be a way to make good regulation, so why bother at all?
> There finally needs to be regulation on this. No banning of end user services as long as they're legal
I was with you up until this moment.
Doesn't this just shift the power to a less accountable authority in the state?
What about content that isn't legal but which is, you know, not child abuse or similar? Does that deserve a platform also? I think that being able to view content on a phone regardless of its approval by the state is essential to a free society.
And, as always, the question is: legal where?
Healthier is for people to find and enact workarounds to this censorship, and to cause Apple to be unable to profitably proceed.
I was with you up until this moment.
Doesn't this just shift the power to a less accountable authority in the state?
What about content that isn't legal but which is, you know, not child abuse or similar? Does that deserve a platform also? I think that being able to view content on a phone regardless of its approval by the state is essential to a free society.
And, as always, the question is: legal where?
Healthier is for people to find and enact workarounds to this censorship, and to cause Apple to be unable to profitably proceed.
The state already bans illegal content. The question is whether we also want a second party banning it.
It seems to me that society desperately needs parties working to subvert such bans. Requiring that private companies instead actively participate in it seems like exactly the opposite.
This is silly. They’re not seperately approving every app on my VNC server either.
If you break any concept/law down far enough, it becomes kinda meaningless.
Terms of use, or laws don't have to be written in perfect logical consistency. The important thing is intent.
The intent is not to block things that resemble running an application remotely. The intent here is controlling everything that could possibly be sold/distributed as something resembling an application or game.
I see these kinds of comments a lot, where someone describes a rule or law, break it down to it's core components and declare it's illogical.
Generally laws are not enforced exactly by how they are written, but by their original intent. This is also why legal precedent and testing laws in court is so important.
Terms of use, or laws don't have to be written in perfect logical consistency. The important thing is intent.
The intent is not to block things that resemble running an application remotely. The intent here is controlling everything that could possibly be sold/distributed as something resembling an application or game.
I see these kinds of comments a lot, where someone describes a rule or law, break it down to it's core components and declare it's illogical.
Generally laws are not enforced exactly by how they are written, but by their original intent. This is also why legal precedent and testing laws in court is so important.
> If you break any concept/law down far enough, it becomes kinda meaningless.
I call bullshit, I think it's mostly just bad laws that become ridiculous when 'broken down'. If you want to convince me otherwise, demonstrate your claim using laws against murder (unambiguously good laws.)
I call bullshit, I think it's mostly just bad laws that become ridiculous when 'broken down'. If you want to convince me otherwise, demonstrate your claim using laws against murder (unambiguously good laws.)
Hmm I'd like to see your "laws against murder" that cover every possibly corner case of homicide being acceptable or unacceptable without relying on intent of the law to come into consideration regardless of circumstance. It would be infinitely long.
There is no unambiguously good law because of the simple fact nothing is unambiguously good. Given billions of people and many years some ambiguous scenario is going to come up even around the most "obviously good/bad" things.
There is no unambiguously good law because of the simple fact nothing is unambiguously good. Given billions of people and many years some ambiguous scenario is going to come up even around the most "obviously good/bad" things.
It has corner cases, that's not a breakdown that makes it become "kinda meaningless" or the law itself ridiculous.
Of course the law isn't ridiculous at face value, it's extending it to corner cases without looking at intent that can be. That's the point, the same thing is true of any law. It's impossible to cover all corner cases, at some point you need intent when you try to take it too far from what it was written to cover.
Yes, that's your point. But you're arguing a different point than treve.
Treve was saying that anything becomes ridiculous when inspected closely enough. Even the core components.
You are saying that the extension to corner cases becomes ridiculous.
The extension can be ridiculous without the original core being ridiculous.
So you're saying a correct thing, but it's not relevant to the conversation that existed before your comment.
Treve was saying that anything becomes ridiculous when inspected closely enough. Even the core components.
You are saying that the extension to corner cases becomes ridiculous.
The extension can be ridiculous without the original core being ridiculous.
So you're saying a correct thing, but it's not relevant to the conversation that existed before your comment.
I understand what you're trying to say but "core components" and "corner cases" are part of the same concept. You can't say "I have concept <x> which is made of core components <y> and corner cases <z>" in one breath and then in the next say "<x> is unambiguous without looking at <z>" and unless you have a concept that depends on nothing else for it's construction this applies recursively as well.
E.g. "murder is always illegal" is not true and a bad law/take on the concept. Expanding the law to include "murder is always illegal except when... <other laws>" is only unambiguous if <other laws> are unambiguous. I don't think I need to take it further to explain justifiable homicide isn't unambiguously black and white or always possible to rule on without looking at intent of the various laws and what happened.
Bringing that back to the original thing this is true of any concept or law, including reviewing some remote apps and not others based on what they are for not that they are remote. I'm not saying I agree the way Apple regulates these is good I'm just saying I agree the fact some remote apps are regulated and others aren't isn't proof alone the regulation is contradictory.
E.g. "murder is always illegal" is not true and a bad law/take on the concept. Expanding the law to include "murder is always illegal except when... <other laws>" is only unambiguous if <other laws> are unambiguous. I don't think I need to take it further to explain justifiable homicide isn't unambiguously black and white or always possible to rule on without looking at intent of the various laws and what happened.
Bringing that back to the original thing this is true of any concept or law, including reviewing some remote apps and not others based on what they are for not that they are remote. I'm not saying I agree the way Apple regulates these is good I'm just saying I agree the fact some remote apps are regulated and others aren't isn't proof alone the regulation is contradictory.
> I understand what you're trying to say but "core components" and "corner cases" are part of the same concept.
Sure! And if you look at the overall concept, it does not become meaningless. To get to meaninglessness requires you separate the two.
"Unambiguous" is a much much higher bar that we don't need to worry about. Something can be 5% ambiguous but still very meaningful.
> Bringing that back to the original thing this is true of any concept or law, including reviewing some remote apps and not others based on what they are for not that they are remote. I'm not saying I agree the way Apple regulates these is good I'm just saying I agree the fact some remote apps are regulated and others aren't isn't proof alone the regulation is contradictory.
It's not proof by itself, but if you can show that there's no good reason for the distinction then it's a strong mark against Apple.
Sure! And if you look at the overall concept, it does not become meaningless. To get to meaninglessness requires you separate the two.
"Unambiguous" is a much much higher bar that we don't need to worry about. Something can be 5% ambiguous but still very meaningful.
> Bringing that back to the original thing this is true of any concept or law, including reviewing some remote apps and not others based on what they are for not that they are remote. I'm not saying I agree the way Apple regulates these is good I'm just saying I agree the fact some remote apps are regulated and others aren't isn't proof alone the regulation is contradictory.
It's not proof by itself, but if you can show that there's no good reason for the distinction then it's a strong mark against Apple.
I think you must have misunderstood. The idea was to make laws against murder sound ridiculous by breaking them down, not make yourself sound ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure you cannot do as I requested.
I'm pretty sure you cannot do as I requested.
If I was in incredible pain and wanted to end my own life but was not capable on my own I might ask a close friend to help me with that. If that friend had enough empathy to help me fulfil my hypothetical wish then they would be a murderer, but a kind and helpful one.
edit: maybe we want to define murder as killing someone who does not want to be killed. I would ask what you have to say about the "trolley problem". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
edit: maybe we want to define murder as killing someone who does not want to be killed. I would ask what you have to say about the "trolley problem". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
The trolley problem is a bit silly.
If you just boil it down to the actual question
You can pick one of:
1 random person dies, or
5 random people die.
Which one do you choose?
The correct answer is obvious. The question is more interesting with more context.
If you just boil it down to the actual question
You can pick one of:
1 random person dies, or
5 random people die.
Which one do you choose?
The correct answer is obvious. The question is more interesting with more context.
If you remove the action/inaction part you've ruined the question.
Yes, I sometimes see a logical sounding but naive argument that laws should be completely free of grey area and understandable by laypersons because it would be unfair to require people to conform their conduct to laws they cannot fully understand or predict. A little experience with law shows that when the “problem space” you are trying to regulate is the real world including human intentions there is no way to make things logically complete and airtight and free of unfair edge cases so in practice law is somewhat a social construct where you have to have the human enforcers interpreting fairly.
Nah. This is silly even at face value. Google Play allows these apps, because of course they would since blocking them is silly.
> Generally laws are not enforced exactly by how they are written
I think that’s pretty much untrue. Laws are enforced exactly as written. Where the judges come in is the interpretation of what was written. If that’s in line with the intent then that’s great, but I very much doubt that’s always the case.
I think that’s pretty much untrue. Laws are enforced exactly as written. Where the judges come in is the interpretation of what was written. If that’s in line with the intent then that’s great, but I very much doubt that’s always the case.
Does this mean that soon you will only be able to visit websites that Apple whitelists for Safari?
Of course. There are so many dangerous websites out there. Scams, low quality content and user experience, websites that won't let you cancel easily. Have you ever tried to see what a terrible place the Internet is on Android? That's why I pay a premium to Apple, so I don't have to worry about using subpar websites. Apple quality control ensures only good websites are allowed to be accessible on Apple ® Internet Pro Max ®. The 100$ per year registration fee and the 30% cut to Apple keeps the low quality out and the Apple review makes sure there are no malware and scams. Do you remember what a horror show it was back in the days of the Open Web? That's why I recommend iPhones and Macs to my family, so I don't have to worry about them getting scammed or reading bad content on the internet. /s
Replace websites with apps and open web with PCs and you get the usual defence many people on HN make about Apple's practices in App Store.
Replace websites with apps and open web with PCs and you get the usual defence many people on HN make about Apple's practices in App Store.
To be consistent, yes, it has to mean that. This is worth discussing every time this comes up.
No - it clearly doesn’t mean that.
They regulate the store, not the web.
They regulate the store, not the web.
They do regulate how Safari works making a lot of native-like experiences impossible.
No, because then they couldn't point apps they don't like to the web.
Don't go giving them ideas...
Not yet!
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The distinction is that the app developer is also selling access to specific computer software running on the developer’s infrastructure, to be run in a way that appears to function just like on-device code.
I don’t fully agree with Apple’s decision but I do understand it and recognise that it’s an awkward intersection between selling software and access to software that’s running elsewhere.
I don’t fully agree with Apple’s decision but I do understand it and recognise that it’s an awkward intersection between selling software and access to software that’s running elsewhere.
Couldn’t web assembly remove this line entirely?
If only Safari on iOS fully supported it, which it doesn't.
You’re not VNC’ing into a game machine, though.
How do you know? I've done it before.
I remote into gaming machines on my phone. What is the difference between a game and an app with respect to personal liberties?
ahem a game machine you’re playing rented games on
VNC is used for machine you already own, so that’s why it’s allowed.
VNC is used for machine you already own, so that’s why it’s allowed.
The machine is rented, in many cases, you already own the game.
Yes I am
It's weird that they specifically worked with Amazon to make their Luna game streaming service work as a PWA on iOS:
“We worked with the Safari team to ensure that some of the things that weren't there are there, and that allowed us to kind of get to where we are today,” Luna head of engineering and technology George Tsipolitis said.
https://www.engadget.com/luna-amazon-cloud-gaming-interview-...
“We worked with the Safari team to ensure that some of the things that weren't there are there, and that allowed us to kind of get to where we are today,” Luna head of engineering and technology George Tsipolitis said.
https://www.engadget.com/luna-amazon-cloud-gaming-interview-...
I don't think it's weird that the Safari team work with big developers. They want to make their mobile browser competitive with other browsers, particularly ones that support advanced features that enable cloud gaming.
"Safari team" doesn't necessarily have the same motivations as "App Store review team." Apple, as a company, needs to play nice with the web.
lol. There's a reason Safari is called the new IE. So many features missing or buggy, not following standards.
Actually, most developers with an opinion on "new IE" says that Google Chrome is the new IE. There are cases of Firefox and Safari implementing features and Chrome-specific behavior that they won't endorse but are used by webistes (notably, unsurprisingly, Google's sites) [1, 2, 3]. Additionally, there are features that most have requested but are effectively being blocked by Google [3].
1: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/04/twitter-direct-message-cac...
2: If you have Firefox, browse about:compat to see Firefox's workarounds to websites which relies on Chrome-specific behavior.
3: Firefox implementing a wholesale change that maps "-webkit"-prefixed CSS properties (usually implemented by Chrome even, so Google should used "-blink" (the name of their HTML/CSS engine) since "-webkit" is for Safari's changes) to the standard and/or "-moz" equivalents for websites who are using it.
4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959588
1: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/04/twitter-direct-message-cac...
2: If you have Firefox, browse about:compat to see Firefox's workarounds to websites which relies on Chrome-specific behavior.
3: Firefox implementing a wholesale change that maps "-webkit"-prefixed CSS properties (usually implemented by Chrome even, so Google should used "-blink" (the name of their HTML/CSS engine) since "-webkit" is for Safari's changes) to the standard and/or "-moz" equivalents for websites who are using it.
4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959588
I think you’re really cherry picking here. Most developers that frequent “caniuse” most likely encounter lack if safari support above every other browser. Also have you seen webgl 2? What a joke from the webkit team. Yes webgpu is on the way but it’s been like a decade now.
Memory is hazy, but from what I've read most people that call Chrome the new IE is because it likes to incorporate non-standard aspects that other browsers don't (because they're not standard) which causes apps to lose functionality (or outright break) outside of Chrome.
I can kind of see it both ways. I appreciate that Chromium browsers may have little extras you can tap into as it'll make for neat features (Project Stream and I imagine later Stadia is because of that sort of thing), but it does break browser compatibility so it runs the risk of replicating that "works in IE" experience from way back when.
The IE I don't specifically miss though was needing to support older releases of it at work, personally. But I could see disliking the "what do you mean it doesn't work in Safari/Firefox/etc.?" discussions that may happen.
I can kind of see it both ways. I appreciate that Chromium browsers may have little extras you can tap into as it'll make for neat features (Project Stream and I imagine later Stadia is because of that sort of thing), but it does break browser compatibility so it runs the risk of replicating that "works in IE" experience from way back when.
The IE I don't specifically miss though was needing to support older releases of it at work, personally. But I could see disliking the "what do you mean it doesn't work in Safari/Firefox/etc.?" discussions that may happen.
I do also appreciate the so-called experiments by the Chrome team, but my gripe is that they are implemented directly instead of hiding it in flags. Other people do want to comment on the specific implementation and probably change the API so that for example it is less destructive when there are new subfeatures in the specification. I personally hate how they handled the Polymer specification: thry are still using their draft instead of the standardized version in YouTube for example.
> I do also appreciate the so-called experiments by the Chrome team, but my gripe is that they are implemented directly instead of hiding it in flags
IIRC all of them start as flags, and there are tons of them available, most disabled by default. Most move up to stable and enabled by default after some time and testing and feedback though.
IIRC all of them start as flags, and there are tons of them available, most disabled by default. Most move up to stable and enabled by default after some time and testing and feedback though.
I'm arguing on to the "Safari is the new IE" here (unless you're being pedantic on this and say Safari is Mac IE's replacement in 2003), not on what Safari actually lacks (which is many and it also bugs me to no end). There are more features that are actually being essentially "vetoed" by the Chrome team not implementing than by Safari's implementation being delayed (which is somehow around 5 years late).
My experience with pretty complicated web development (interactive graphical tools built in webgl, synchronous behavior across hundreds of active clients) was that Safari was responsible for massively more bugs than any other browser we dealt with. IE11, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Chromium, across OSs from a decade back through modern ones - all of those permutations combined.
Most commonly we'd see just weird things. Every other browser could handle "render this circle lightly colored, put some text inside it." But random versions of Safari would draw "solid black circle" with illegible text. Update the OS (the only way to update Safari) and the bug goes away. So we wrote work around after work around to make the same code that ran everywhere else run on Safari. And before you ask, all of our devs were on macs, but they weren't running random versions of the os where the bug was present. Or worse, the simulator in xcode wouldn't show the error but it would on a device. At one point over 90% of browser-specific bugs (and almost all customer-reported ones) were due to Safari or Safari mobile, despite making up less than 20% of our traffic.
Plus Apple keeps trying to stop people from running test infrastructure of every permutation of os and hardware. It's a nightmare and we just eventually put up a "safari may not work" warning on all our help docs.
For our team Safari was worse than ie6, because at least there everyone shared workarounds and knew how to handle the MS foolishness.
Most commonly we'd see just weird things. Every other browser could handle "render this circle lightly colored, put some text inside it." But random versions of Safari would draw "solid black circle" with illegible text. Update the OS (the only way to update Safari) and the bug goes away. So we wrote work around after work around to make the same code that ran everywhere else run on Safari. And before you ask, all of our devs were on macs, but they weren't running random versions of the os where the bug was present. Or worse, the simulator in xcode wouldn't show the error but it would on a device. At one point over 90% of browser-specific bugs (and almost all customer-reported ones) were due to Safari or Safari mobile, despite making up less than 20% of our traffic.
Plus Apple keeps trying to stop people from running test infrastructure of every permutation of os and hardware. It's a nightmare and we just eventually put up a "safari may not work" warning on all our help docs.
For our team Safari was worse than ie6, because at least there everyone shared workarounds and knew how to handle the MS foolishness.
Okay, I forgot that side of IE to be honest, and we have encountered some weird bugs (real bugs, Safari was out-of-spec). It just didn't dawn on me that maybe what they meant on Safari is the new IE in terms of the workarounds (which were harder because there is no conditional comments unlike in IE). I have said that Chrome is the new IE because not of the bugs but more of the very Microsoft way of apparent EEE (but otherwise they tend to try to implement specs in a more tested way).
I should have worded it in a better way, and when someone said "X is the new IE" I should view the context of it. "Chrome is the new IE" is a very valid opinion, but not in all contexts, and so is "Safari is the new IE".
I should have worded it in a better way, and when someone said "X is the new IE" I should view the context of it. "Chrome is the new IE" is a very valid opinion, but not in all contexts, and so is "Safari is the new IE".
Apple has always wanted to block "browser" type apps. If it can be used to install or view hundreds of other apps, then it's probably not a good fit for the iOS garden.
We willingly give Apple money under this premise. I'm not sure why this is surprising.
We willingly give Apple money under this premise. I'm not sure why this is surprising.
The situation is more complex.
For instance I have a subscription to a magazine publisher that pushes me any new issues of several magazines as they are published (roughly 10 to 20 every months). And the content of the subscription is not fixed, for a few months some magazines appeared, and other disappeared. Some of the content is gore/mature, while not straight porn.
The catch of course is that the subscription payment goes to Apple, and only Apple (no concurrent web version exists), and additional in-app purchases also go through Apple, no bypassing.
There is also audio subscriptions apps working on the same principles. The one I follow has been there for years.
Basically, as long as Apple gets a decent cut the "browser" nature or fine grain policing content doesn't seem to matter much.
For instance I have a subscription to a magazine publisher that pushes me any new issues of several magazines as they are published (roughly 10 to 20 every months). And the content of the subscription is not fixed, for a few months some magazines appeared, and other disappeared. Some of the content is gore/mature, while not straight porn.
The catch of course is that the subscription payment goes to Apple, and only Apple (no concurrent web version exists), and additional in-app purchases also go through Apple, no bypassing.
There is also audio subscriptions apps working on the same principles. The one I follow has been there for years.
Basically, as long as Apple gets a decent cut the "browser" nature or fine grain policing content doesn't seem to matter much.
That sounds good, what's the magazine app?
Kadokawa’s manga pre-publishing app, comic days (japanese only):
https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/%E3%82%B3%E3%83%9F%E3%83%83%E3...
For those interested there is the equivalent for Jump comics and a few others (Pixiv etc.), those must also be available as web only subscriptions.
For those interested there is the equivalent for Jump comics and a few others (Pixiv etc.), those must also be available as web only subscriptions.
Thanks!
>We willingly give Apple money under this premise.
There are not enough competitors for this to actually be something you can choose. I use and will continue to use iphones because I care about privacy and updates. That doesn't mean I like what is happening with this case.
There are not enough competitors for this to actually be something you can choose. I use and will continue to use iphones because I care about privacy and updates. That doesn't mean I like what is happening with this case.
I agree but you're supporting the practice financially.
Apple does not support Privacy.
See PRISM
See PRISM
Then it should also ban other browsers, movie streaming apps, music streaming apps, ebook readers, etc. Be consistent.
Didn't they effectively ban other browsers some time ago? Other browsers were effectively reduced to reskinned Safari on iOS for a while.
They still are.
[deleted]
It is consistent. There are fundamental differences between the apps you've mentioned and these game-streaming apps that clearly delineate why those are approved and why these are not.
I'll bite - what's the difference between a movie-streaming app and a game-streaming app?
Netflix is bigger than the nascent game streaming market and more apple users (including me) expect to be able to use it. If they told netflix "we have to approve each movie and tv show on your service, and possibly take revenue from you on a per-video basis", then netflix would walk and would be smart to do so because it's pretty likely apple would come up the loser in that fight. Again, huge number of users, existing expectation of the status quo (i can stream from netflix on my device) from those users. Game streaming is new and not yet established to the general user base. Apple is in a huge position of power relative to game streaming and is using that to get the best possible deal.
As a devoted apple product user, these kind of behaviors really worry me. I understand that this is normal behavior for powerful organizations, but apple is making the user experience worse for money. I don't see how that ends well.
As a devoted apple product user, these kind of behaviors really worry me. I understand that this is normal behavior for powerful organizations, but apple is making the user experience worse for money. I don't see how that ends well.
So if an entirely new Netflix were to be created, with its own content and all, it shouldn't be allowed to be hosted on the Appstore..... because it isn't Netflix?
Sometimes I wonder how an industry that relies on logical thought ends up with folks who think the extreme opposite.
This isn't normal behavior for powerful organizations. Microsoft isn't stiffing me now, is it? Heck, even Google hasn't gone full retard. Would you like it if your car only allowed you to use gasoline from Shell and no other company, simply because Shell is "big"?
Sometimes I wonder how an industry that relies on logical thought ends up with folks who think the extreme opposite.
This isn't normal behavior for powerful organizations. Microsoft isn't stiffing me now, is it? Heck, even Google hasn't gone full retard. Would you like it if your car only allowed you to use gasoline from Shell and no other company, simply because Shell is "big"?
Your argument is that majority consensus overrides individual freedoms and that is preposterous.
That seems like a reductive interpretation. Can you explain which individual's freedoms are being overridden? And why is the argument preposterous?
I, the individual, cannot decide what content is allowed on my own Apple device which costs more than half a thousand dollars.
Yet the collective can decide at my expense: Netflix gets a free pass via the argument that Netflix's movies are somehow more important than the content I wish to experience.
It's great to see collective bargaining in action, for sure. I don't blame the people, and I don't blame Netflix. I blame Apple.
Yet the collective can decide at my expense: Netflix gets a free pass via the argument that Netflix's movies are somehow more important than the content I wish to experience.
It's great to see collective bargaining in action, for sure. I don't blame the people, and I don't blame Netflix. I blame Apple.
I think you’re kind of conflating what I believe is the ideal versus what I perceive to be reality.
We are one of billions of people. The fundamental nature of existence is that our sum ability to affect the world around is generally quite small in comparison to the sum of the consequences of others as a whole.
More people use Netflix, ergo Netflix has more leverage in negotiations with Apple. I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial conclusion?
We are one of billions of people. The fundamental nature of existence is that our sum ability to affect the world around is generally quite small in comparison to the sum of the consequences of others as a whole.
More people use Netflix, ergo Netflix has more leverage in negotiations with Apple. I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial conclusion?
The controversy is that this is an artificial phenomenon brought upon by Apple's blatant disregard of inalienable digital rights by refusing to allow a user to do as they please with their mobile personal computing platform.
There should be no leverage, and the fact that Netflix uses this privilege without taking a stand for others left behind is also controversial.
There should be no leverage, and the fact that Netflix uses this privilege without taking a stand for others left behind is also controversial.
It's not an argument, it's an observation, and it's something we have to deal with.
I deal with it by not owning Apple products and online activism against their increasingly anti-consumer policies.
How do you deal with it?
How do you deal with it?
There is none. Either can have content that would offend Apple's conservative American sensibilities, though I'd wager that more movies would than games.
If Apple thought they could get away with content policing movies, they surely would.
If Apple thought they could get away with content policing movies, they surely would.
The difference is that a movie streaming app streams fixed content while game streaming essentially streams arbitrary apps, albeit limited to gaming in this situation. From Apple's perspective, this sort of precedent could lead to entire app ecosystems bypassing the app store via streaming. It would be a workaround to Apple's refusal to allow third party stores on iOS. The same risk doesn't apply to more constrained and static content like video, books, and music.
I feel its important to mention that the issue is not quite as clear cut as this, since we have interactive Netflix movies and an ecosystem of web-based apps via Safari, but this seems to be Apple's rationale.
I feel its important to mention that the issue is not quite as clear cut as this, since we have interactive Netflix movies and an ecosystem of web-based apps via Safari, but this seems to be Apple's rationale.
Fair point. But the more likely explanation is simpler, Apple can do it with little risk of losing customers. Then they can justify it with flimsy arguments like 'quality control' if/when challenged.
Netflix has plenty of obscene and naughty content that Apple doesn't insist on policing.
Netflix has plenty of obscene and naughty content that Apple doesn't insist on policing.
Officially, the web is where things that aren't allowed in the app store are supposed to go. Anyway, can't you buy videos and games from the Amazon app?
I assume the difference (to Apple) is that movies generally don't have varied accounts and in-app purchases. You can't buy MTX to reskin the Avengers in Endgame (yet) or unlock extra DLC chapters (well Disney+ is trying I'm sure). You log into one provider (Netflix) instead of potentially an account/provider per game, plus the streaming app. So, money.
I disagree there are fundamental differences. The reason Apple is blocking game streaming apps is because games could contain content that violates the standards of the app store.
An easy violation is nudity, there is an app for Playboy, but there is zero nudity in it. However, I can get the full, uncensored Playboy magazine in the Nook app. I can watch movies with nudity in Netflix or Amazon Video. I can even buy or rent movies FROM APPLE with nudity in the iTunes store, like Eyes Wide Shut, Walk Hard, Boogie Nights (which is about porn!), and Barbarella, all right from my iPad or iPhone.
So why can I see nudity if I buy it directly from Apple in a movie, but not an app?
I can download the Twitch app and watch streams of video games, but I can't download an app to let me PLAY the very same games?
There is no difference, it is simply Apple capriciousness.
An easy violation is nudity, there is an app for Playboy, but there is zero nudity in it. However, I can get the full, uncensored Playboy magazine in the Nook app. I can watch movies with nudity in Netflix or Amazon Video. I can even buy or rent movies FROM APPLE with nudity in the iTunes store, like Eyes Wide Shut, Walk Hard, Boogie Nights (which is about porn!), and Barbarella, all right from my iPad or iPhone.
So why can I see nudity if I buy it directly from Apple in a movie, but not an app?
I can download the Twitch app and watch streams of video games, but I can't download an app to let me PLAY the very same games?
There is no difference, it is simply Apple capriciousness.
How do apps like WeChat are allowed then? There are entire platforms and mini-programs inside.
Section 5.1.2(iii) of the App Store Review Guidelines has a special exception for Apps with a 1 billion install base from a country where the government doesn't give two hoots about your App Store Review Guidelines.
The actual guideline made for WeChat is 4.7:
> Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary (e.g. HTML5-based games, bots, etc.), as long as code distribution isn’t the main purpose of the app, the code is not offered in a store or store-like interface, and provided that the software (1) is free or purchased using in-app purchase; (2) only uses capabilities available in a standard WebKit view (e.g. it must open and run natively in Safari without modifications or additional software); your app must use WebKit and JavaScript Core to run third-party software and should not attempt to extend or expose native platform APIs to third-party software; (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement; (4) does not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations; (5) adheres to the terms of these App Review Guidelines (e.g. does not include objectionable content); and (6) does not offer digital goods or services for sale. Upon request, you must provide an index of software and metadata available in your app. It must include Apple Developer Program Team IDs for the providers of the software along with a URL which App Review can use to confirm that the software complies with the requirements above.
> Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary (e.g. HTML5-based games, bots, etc.), as long as code distribution isn’t the main purpose of the app, the code is not offered in a store or store-like interface, and provided that the software (1) is free or purchased using in-app purchase; (2) only uses capabilities available in a standard WebKit view (e.g. it must open and run natively in Safari without modifications or additional software); your app must use WebKit and JavaScript Core to run third-party software and should not attempt to extend or expose native platform APIs to third-party software; (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement; (4) does not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations; (5) adheres to the terms of these App Review Guidelines (e.g. does not include objectionable content); and (6) does not offer digital goods or services for sale. Upon request, you must provide an index of software and metadata available in your app. It must include Apple Developer Program Team IDs for the providers of the software along with a URL which App Review can use to confirm that the software complies with the requirements above.
That's simply not true.
To the people saying it's obviously a joke: The App Store Review Guidelines have become huge and I wouldn't have been surprised to find something like this in there, although not in these exact words. Actually, I wish the App Store Review Guidelines WOULD state exceptions like the one mentioned. At least that would be transparent.
To the people saying it's obviously a joke: The App Store Review Guidelines have become huge and I wouldn't have been surprised to find something like this in there, although not in these exact words. Actually, I wish the App Store Review Guidelines WOULD state exceptions like the one mentioned. At least that would be transparent.
It's not a real guideline, they were making a joke. But it's true that Apple risks alienating their iOS user base there if they try to ban WeChat now.
Seems obvious that was a joke
Apple seems to have modified the rules just enough so that apps like WeChat can operate,
From https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1137321.shtml
> According to a statement the WeChat Team sent to the Global Times, the pulldown menu has been a function that WeChat always has and has always tried to optimize. > But the team stressed that the pulldown menu only provides WeChat users a convenient way to open the Mini Programs that they have used before. The menu does not recommend new Mini Programs to the users, neither does WeChat have a commercial model based on centralized traffic distribution like app stores.
Also changes to their Payment rules, https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/16896008/apple-wechat-tip...
From https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1137321.shtml
> According to a statement the WeChat Team sent to the Global Times, the pulldown menu has been a function that WeChat always has and has always tried to optimize. > But the team stressed that the pulldown menu only provides WeChat users a convenient way to open the Mini Programs that they have used before. The menu does not recommend new Mini Programs to the users, neither does WeChat have a commercial model based on centralized traffic distribution like app stores.
Also changes to their Payment rules, https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/16896008/apple-wechat-tip...
Let’s face it. It has never been about fairness. Only profit maximization.
WeChat didn't start like that. Now they have the network effects to stay because Apple doesn't want to risk the backlash of the China market.
But I can play games from my browser. And I can play games that are available through the Facebook app.
Facebook or WeChat, Apple can't ban them. Game streaming, they can. Maybe they'll change the rule in 1, 2 or 5 years if game streaming becomes so big to move enough of their customers to Android.
Then they'll claim they're introducing an incredible thing. Remember copy and paste on the iPhone 3 GS?
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2009/07/17/iphone-3gs-stupid-t...
The can ban them. They don't want to. They could just as easy say "we'll remove the Facebook app until you remove the gaming part". Same for WeChat.
Of course Apple doesn't want to. Both them and Apple know that without WeChat Apple won't sell any iPhone in China and without Facebook no iPhone in the western world.
You cant even bring your own browser engine to iphone
This includes platforms to stream games from users local PC to clients. As an example RainWay
https://rainway.com/
So this ban is broader than the article suggest.
So this ban is broader than the article suggest.
> This includes platforms to stream games from users local PC to clients
Steam Link seems to do that just fine: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/steam-link/id1246969117
And Rainway also as you note: https://rainway.com/ios/
Steam Link seems to do that just fine: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/steam-link/id1246969117
And Rainway also as you note: https://rainway.com/ios/
It does not include those platforms and Steam is mentioned explicitly in the article. Additionally, this article is from August so I don't see why it's being posted as if this is new information. Apple has already clarified their position multiple times since this article was published.
Apple allows the Xbox remote play app functionality. You can play Xbox Series S or X games on your phone from your console.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/remote-play
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/remote-play
Also Playstation remote play. There's a specific allowance for personal, local-network remote viewing.
I don't use an iPhone/etc so I'm curious, do they block remote desktop applications?
No they don't. They don't have a competing service there yet.
Apple Remote Desktop has been around for nearly 20 years.
That's not a 'service', which is the key part. There's no 'services revenue' to be had there.
They don't make billions of dollars from it like they do from app store.
They did block steam link remote desktop for a while
You mean it isn’t a way to bypass the store?
Apparently they're blocking rainway end user iOS clients from connecting via external networks to end user host PCs. Local host client and server works as expected.
No.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today"; "The solution is patenting as much as we can... a future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors" - Bill Gates, cited in https://youtu.be/uH4RskpUFiA?t=1069
I believe what formerly happened with Software patents is currently happening with platforms. Lawrence Lessig (if you haven't read his works, highly recommend) talks a lot about how copyright is used to restrict creativity / culture / innovation. In this talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH4RskpUFiA] he makes the case that:
1. Creativity and innovation always builds on the past
2. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it
3. Free societies enable the future by limiting the past
4. Ours is less, and less, a free society
What's fascinating is Apple has gone a step above and beyond here to use their control over a platform to control the innovations built upon it. The end-state is that no one can do to Apple what Apple did to other players (leveraging free software--Unix--and open hardware Schemas to kick off their computing platform). This pattern is one we've seen with other players, and will result in more and more people "defensively" building out platforms (what I suspect Google is doing with Android and FB with Oculus; if Apple's monopoly is allowed to stand it's only reasonable that other companies will need competing personal-computing platforms as a bargaining chip).
I believe what formerly happened with Software patents is currently happening with platforms. Lawrence Lessig (if you haven't read his works, highly recommend) talks a lot about how copyright is used to restrict creativity / culture / innovation. In this talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH4RskpUFiA] he makes the case that:
1. Creativity and innovation always builds on the past
2. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it
3. Free societies enable the future by limiting the past
4. Ours is less, and less, a free society
What's fascinating is Apple has gone a step above and beyond here to use their control over a platform to control the innovations built upon it. The end-state is that no one can do to Apple what Apple did to other players (leveraging free software--Unix--and open hardware Schemas to kick off their computing platform). This pattern is one we've seen with other players, and will result in more and more people "defensively" building out platforms (what I suspect Google is doing with Android and FB with Oculus; if Apple's monopoly is allowed to stand it's only reasonable that other companies will need competing personal-computing platforms as a bargaining chip).
Seems odd (to be charitable and say the least)... Do they vet music/movie streaming services content too?
Streaming apps arrives are a way to bypass the App Store.
That’s why they are banned unless the individual apps or games are submitted individually.
It’s not really surprising they don’t want other companies running storefronts on iOS.
The ‘consistency’ argument is just not valid.
That’s why they are banned unless the individual apps or games are submitted individually.
It’s not really surprising they don’t want other companies running storefronts on iOS.
The ‘consistency’ argument is just not valid.
> Streaming apps arrives are a way to bypass the App Store.
>
> That’s why they are banned unless the individual apps or games are submitted individually.
Spotify is a streaming app. Spotify didn't submit and Apple didn't approve every song.
Shadow is a remote game streaming app. Apple allowed them in the App Store when they removed the ability to launch directly into a game. [0] They won't allow Moonlight to do the same. [1]
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357771/apple-cloud-gamin...
[1] https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-ios/issues/417
>
> That’s why they are banned unless the individual apps or games are submitted individually.
Spotify is a streaming app. Spotify didn't submit and Apple didn't approve every song.
Shadow is a remote game streaming app. Apple allowed them in the App Store when they removed the ability to launch directly into a game. [0] They won't allow Moonlight to do the same. [1]
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357771/apple-cloud-gamin...
[1] https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-ios/issues/417
Spotify is a streaming app, but Spotify doesn’t stream apps.
These are completely unrelated things.
These are completely unrelated things.
[deleted]
Apple has always distinguished between interactive apps and read/view-only content.
Music/Movies are in all countries regulated by well established rules which govern what level of objectionable content is permitted i.e. you will never find porn on Netflix. Apps/Games have similar regulations in some countries but definitely not all. So Apple has opted to "fill in the blanks".
Music/Movies are in all countries regulated by well established rules which govern what level of objectionable content is permitted i.e. you will never find porn on Netflix. Apps/Games have similar regulations in some countries but definitely not all. So Apple has opted to "fill in the blanks".
There’s as many exceptions to that rule as there are examples: Twitch, video conferencing (Zoom, Teams, etc), text chat (Slack, IRC, Telegram, WhatsApp), social media (Twitter, Facebook), web pages themselves.
I think the reason is Apple are making a stand here is simply because Xbox and Google have released subscriptions games streaming services after Apple released a subscription gaming service (albeit not streaming) whereas the other exceptions were released before Apple entered its own subscription services into those respective markets.
I think the reason is Apple are making a stand here is simply because Xbox and Google have released subscriptions games streaming services after Apple released a subscription gaming service (albeit not streaming) whereas the other exceptions were released before Apple entered its own subscription services into those respective markets.
>There’s as many exceptions to that rule as there are examples: Twitch, video conferencing (Zoom, Teams, etc), text chat (Slack, IRC, Telegram, WhatsApp), social media (Twitter, Facebook), web pages themselves.
How are these exceptions to the rule? None of those platforms are the source of the content being provided. That's the primary reason why this distinction exists.
How are these exceptions to the rule? None of those platforms are the source of the content being provided. That's the primary reason why this distinction exists.
The point of the discussion was about gateways to other 3rd party content, which all of my examples fall in line with. But even Netflix, Spotify, Plex and Prime Video all have content produced by 3rd parties available via their apps.
Then what about shopping sites like eBay and Amazon? It’s not multimedia but it’s still an interactive process where you can access adult content.
There comes a point where a company’s position is so nuanced that you have to suspect it’s more to do with financial motivations than a moral stance.
Then what about shopping sites like eBay and Amazon? It’s not multimedia but it’s still an interactive process where you can access adult content.
There comes a point where a company’s position is so nuanced that you have to suspect it’s more to do with financial motivations than a moral stance.
Netflix isn't really the source of most of its content, either.
Why should me playing a game be more restricted than me watching someone else (and anything else their commentary/antics might entail) play the very same game on twitch?
Netflix has interactive movies that are like games.
Not many, and AFAIK none have in-app purchases that Apple is missing out on. If they do then it's not enough to be worth starting a fight over yet.
It is still a movie and so would be regulated under existing movie classification systems.
And since movies are over a century old every country has a similar regulatory framework.
Most countries do not have an equivalent for apps/games and so it is ultimately left to Apple to regulate.
And since movies are over a century old every country has a similar regulatory framework.
Most countries do not have an equivalent for apps/games and so it is ultimately left to Apple to regulate.
What regulations are those? Netflix has Minecraft Story Mode now https://www.netflix.com/title/80227995 . What regulations are being applied, and how are those incompatible with video games?
Also aren't movie rating systems like the MPA self-regulated? Not required by law. There's already equivalent systems for video games with PEGI and ESRB.
Also aren't movie rating systems like the MPA self-regulated? Not required by law. There's already equivalent systems for video games with PEGI and ESRB.
The American MPA is self-regulated (probably simply to put it into legal territory, since legislating it would probably prevent freedom of expression and translates to censorship, especially if the authority is directly government-controlled) but some other systems are legislated (not just in countries you think as opressive, mind you: Britain has an independent organization that rates movies but are approved by the government).
Still a bit flawed though: I thought that there is already a ratings board in America for software?
Still a bit flawed though: I thought that there is already a ratings board in America for software?
Yeah. I don't think there's been any authority that Netflix has submitted all their films to, to be on Apple's devices. Why should Microsoft's Game Pass be any different.
You understand that there is more to the world than the US.
Every country has regulations for music/movies/TV. US and a handful of other countries have them for games and I am not aware of any for apps.
Every country has regulations for music/movies/TV. US and a handful of other countries have them for games and I am not aware of any for apps.
That's why I'm asking what regulations are there? I'm not claiming they don't exist. If something like Minecraft Story Mode is a movie on Netflix, what movie ratings does it have? For example, I can find it on ESRB's website rating, but it's not like it's on MPA's https://www.filmratings.com/
https://www.esrb.org/ratings/34178/Minecraft%3A+Story+Mode+-...
Meanwhile Netflix's own Bandersnatch is not ESRB rated, and isn't too different as a game. Yet Apple has supported both of these perfectly fine regardless of their lack of proper ratings.
https://www.esrb.org/ratings/34178/Minecraft%3A+Story+Mode+-...
Meanwhile Netflix's own Bandersnatch is not ESRB rated, and isn't too different as a game. Yet Apple has supported both of these perfectly fine regardless of their lack of proper ratings.
> Most countries do not have an equivalent for apps/games and so it is ultimately left to Apple to regulate.
We literally have ESRB that's a whole lot less arbitrary than Apple's review system.
We literally have ESRB that's a whole lot less arbitrary than Apple's review system.
ESRB isn't for apps and is US only.
Hence my point that there isn't a global regulatory framework for apps/games like there is for music/movies.
Hence my point that there isn't a global regulatory framework for apps/games like there is for music/movies.
Maybe they are seeking "special arrangements" from major providers, like their very lucrative search agreement with google. Maybe that's Apple's model going forward.
So what Apple is saying is basically "Nice app you've got there, shame if anything happened to it"
Apple has always individually approved apps on iPhone. Is that news to anyone here? Why would they change that policy just because of some low-level implementation detail around whether the interface is rendered on the server or the client?
Apple doesn't have to approve every video streamed from the YouTube app. Apple doesn't have to approve every website accessed from a browser app. So why does apple have to approve every video game accessible though a video game streaming app?
Wasn't even a year ago that I was singing Apple's praises for focussing on privacy.
I don't feel the same way any more, and I've been happier with an Android device since.
I don't feel the same way any more, and I've been happier with an Android device since.
I've used iphones from the 6s till 11 and this week I switched to an android. I hadn't realized how limiting iOS is.
For me it’s the anti-gaming sentiment that Apple promotes which is at fault.
Not going back to Apple until they change their ways.
So hello Sony Xperia 5 II and goodbye IPhone 11.
Not going back to Apple until they change their ways.
So hello Sony Xperia 5 II and goodbye IPhone 11.
I doubt they are anti gaming - they spotlighted League of Legends mobile in the iPhone 12 launch.
They just want to milk everything on the app store. I'm so torn on Apple - on the one hand their ecosystem is the most complete and works the best, but on the other hand they try to take a cut from every revenue stream on their platforms, keep a walled garden and often lock out things that are useful to me.
For example iPad pro is an amazing tablet - hardware wise - I would use it as a on the go dev machine - but iOS is so pointlessly locked down I couldn't use it for anything non-trivial. Compare that to an Android device where I can get Linux userland running or Windows tablets. But then Apple couldn't monetise all my apps on the device.
Samsung is the closest you can get to Apple ecosystem but they suck badly - their hardware is acceptable but software is nowhere near close - apps are bad, bixby is horrible, tizen OS is missing basic stuff.
Microsoft could be a player here but they just started experimenting with mobile after a long time, they have no wearable, and the surface line seems promising but always has that one or two flaws that makes it unsatisfying. I'm hoping they can create something in the future, I have no expectations from Samsung - they seem both incompetent and insistent on doing their own thing when it comes to software.
They just want to milk everything on the app store. I'm so torn on Apple - on the one hand their ecosystem is the most complete and works the best, but on the other hand they try to take a cut from every revenue stream on their platforms, keep a walled garden and often lock out things that are useful to me.
For example iPad pro is an amazing tablet - hardware wise - I would use it as a on the go dev machine - but iOS is so pointlessly locked down I couldn't use it for anything non-trivial. Compare that to an Android device where I can get Linux userland running or Windows tablets. But then Apple couldn't monetise all my apps on the device.
Samsung is the closest you can get to Apple ecosystem but they suck badly - their hardware is acceptable but software is nowhere near close - apps are bad, bixby is horrible, tizen OS is missing basic stuff.
Microsoft could be a player here but they just started experimenting with mobile after a long time, they have no wearable, and the surface line seems promising but always has that one or two flaws that makes it unsatisfying. I'm hoping they can create something in the future, I have no expectations from Samsung - they seem both incompetent and insistent on doing their own thing when it comes to software.
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I’m on iPhone thinking of making the switch too. Any privacy tips you recommend for Android?
It's imo not possible to have perfect privacy on Android and a good experience, you must make a tradeoff: Here is my completely subjective list of steps, from easy to hard: 1. Go to google privacy for your account and disable all tracking. 2. Do not connect your main google account to your phone. 3. Use firefox. 4. Use a 3rd party map app with offline maps. 5. Do not connect any google account to your phone. This locks you out of the app store, so you have to rely on other stores. 6. Use linageos. 7. Do not use gapps or google play services.
It really depends where you fall between John Doe and Richard Stallman. In no particular order:
- Disable GApps. Note that this can absolutely be done without root [1], as I've done so on my BlackBerry KeyOne and a previous LG G6. This has the additional benefit of a dramatically faster UI on nearly any device.
- Use F-Droid instead of the Google Play Store when possible. If you've disabled GApps like I have, the Aurora Store can be used to fill in the few apps your employer may require.
- Use web versions of apps when possible. mbasic.facebook.com or simply facebook.com is a reasonable alternative to the app, and won't steal you contacts. The former even allows messages to be sent without the app :)
- Use a custom ROM. Note that this will require an unlocked bootloader and either a maintainer for your phone, or to build LineageOS for yourself.
- Minimize permissions you give apps. Don't get thrown when some apps request Location when you don't think they need though: Google has tied Location to Network Access, meaning you must grant Location Access for most apps to see Bluetooth & WiFi networks (which could reasonably be used as a proxy for your location).
- Unless you need it, don't leave Bluetooth on all the time. Retail locations use Bluetooth beacons to ping devices and follow consumers through the store. Bluetooth is reasonably localized, and gives the retailer fascinating data relating to where you went, how long (or if) you lingered in front of junk food, if you had to search for something, where you went first, and possibly payment card information (waiting in line vs walking away after a payment is made at a certain terminal).
[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/disable-system-app-bloatware-...
- Disable GApps. Note that this can absolutely be done without root [1], as I've done so on my BlackBerry KeyOne and a previous LG G6. This has the additional benefit of a dramatically faster UI on nearly any device.
- Use F-Droid instead of the Google Play Store when possible. If you've disabled GApps like I have, the Aurora Store can be used to fill in the few apps your employer may require.
- Use web versions of apps when possible. mbasic.facebook.com or simply facebook.com is a reasonable alternative to the app, and won't steal you contacts. The former even allows messages to be sent without the app :)
- Use a custom ROM. Note that this will require an unlocked bootloader and either a maintainer for your phone, or to build LineageOS for yourself.
- Minimize permissions you give apps. Don't get thrown when some apps request Location when you don't think they need though: Google has tied Location to Network Access, meaning you must grant Location Access for most apps to see Bluetooth & WiFi networks (which could reasonably be used as a proxy for your location).
- Unless you need it, don't leave Bluetooth on all the time. Retail locations use Bluetooth beacons to ping devices and follow consumers through the store. Bluetooth is reasonably localized, and gives the retailer fascinating data relating to where you went, how long (or if) you lingered in front of junk food, if you had to search for something, where you went first, and possibly payment card information (waiting in line vs walking away after a payment is made at a certain terminal).
[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/disable-system-app-bloatware-...
The only thing you can do to retain some level of privacy is find a phone with great lineageOS support, install with no gapps, install fdroid as a system app so it can manage updates.
You still won't get kernel updates when security issues come around because not even the OEM can update that without convincing all the vendors to update their blobs.
You still won't get kernel updates when security issues come around because not even the OEM can update that without convincing all the vendors to update their blobs.
Logout from every Google service. The only one you must stay logged in into on standard Android is Google Play.
Disable and remove every Google or pre-installed app you don't want to use. You won't be able to do it for all of them though.
Use something like Blokada to block ads everywhere, including apps. https://blokada.org/index.html
Disable and remove every Google or pre-installed app you don't want to use. You won't be able to do it for all of them though.
Use something like Blokada to block ads everywhere, including apps. https://blokada.org/index.html
Get a raspberry pi and setup pihole with wireguard and dnscrypt-proxy. Get a hostname and basically tunnel your DNS requests to that pihole.
Use Firefox and signal instead of say chrome. Disable the assistant and be aware of the privacy controls of your google account.
Looking at the DNS requests made so far, it doesn't seem that much worse than an ipad or iphone.
I think it depends on what you are also keeping private from who.
Use Firefox and signal instead of say chrome. Disable the assistant and be aware of the privacy controls of your google account.
Looking at the DNS requests made so far, it doesn't seem that much worse than an ipad or iphone.
I think it depends on what you are also keeping private from who.
Why would you tunnel your DNS requests when you can just switch DNS on the phone to a filtering one and also use blocklists, IE. with Blokada? Unless you route everything, not only default DNS, through the VPN, any app can just hardcode its own DNS ip and if you route everything through the VPN Blokada will do exactly the same but without an extra hop. Sounds terribly complicated for something that gives less security and privacy. Mind you that is coming from someone who runs 3 Piholes on a homelab.
You make no sense.
It's less secure and likely more privacy problems trusting a service with Blokada compared with my own pihole.
My own pihole is accessible wherever I want, I know who has the logs for the DNS requests performed by my pihole which is done over DNS over HTTPS.
The DNS requests are made securely through wireguard and just those requests.
There is no extra hop?
It's less secure and likely more privacy problems trusting a service with Blokada compared with my own pihole.
My own pihole is accessible wherever I want, I know who has the logs for the DNS requests performed by my pihole which is done over DNS over HTTPS.
The DNS requests are made securely through wireguard and just those requests.
There is no extra hop?
There's no extra hop? Do you carry the pihole around with you?
Do you have a firewall running on your phone to block or redirect DNS requests? Since hardcoding and bypassing the one in network settings is extremely easy and done by default by even some Google apps. DNS leaking VPN is trivial.
What logs are you talking about? Blokada can use the same upstream DNS as your pihole so the logs are exactly the same if any exists.
Without a firewall and a VPN (both on the phone) you are not secure. With a VPN and a custom DNS service with blocklists you have an identical setup as one who uses Blokada, but without an external service.
Do you have a firewall running on your phone to block or redirect DNS requests? Since hardcoding and bypassing the one in network settings is extremely easy and done by default by even some Google apps. DNS leaking VPN is trivial.
What logs are you talking about? Blokada can use the same upstream DNS as your pihole so the logs are exactly the same if any exists.
Without a firewall and a VPN (both on the phone) you are not secure. With a VPN and a custom DNS service with blocklists you have an identical setup as one who uses Blokada, but without an external service.
>Do you carry the pihole around with you?
No I leave my pihole at home?
>Do you have a firewall running on your phone to block or redirect DNS requests? Since hardcoding and bypassing the one in network settings is extremely easy and done by default by even some Google apps. DNS leaking VPN is trivial.
I assume wireguard's DNS field sets/redirects all DNS traffic through the VPN. If it ignores that setting, then Android's VPN design itself is broken. Switching to blokada won't fix this problem either.
Either way, Android's Firewall/Network aspects don't give me enough control here. But I can see enough hits on my pihole to have some reasonable confidence.
>What logs are you talking about? Blokada can use the same upstream DNS as your pihole so the logs are exactly the same if any exists.
I don't have to trust the owners of blokada aren't keeping logs? Why would I need to trust them when I can use my pihole which I know doesn't keep logs?
You are offering no advantages here compared to using my setup.
>Without a firewall and a VPN (both on the phone) you are not secure.
Well there is no competent firewall on the phone without root. Yes there is a VPN on both and it seems to work.
>With a VPN and a custom DNS service with blocklists you have an identical setup as one who uses Blokada, but without an external service.
Yes, I have an identical setup that I run myself without trusting some random owner of blokada. It runs externally just fine using my home network.
No I leave my pihole at home?
>Do you have a firewall running on your phone to block or redirect DNS requests? Since hardcoding and bypassing the one in network settings is extremely easy and done by default by even some Google apps. DNS leaking VPN is trivial.
I assume wireguard's DNS field sets/redirects all DNS traffic through the VPN. If it ignores that setting, then Android's VPN design itself is broken. Switching to blokada won't fix this problem either.
Either way, Android's Firewall/Network aspects don't give me enough control here. But I can see enough hits on my pihole to have some reasonable confidence.
>What logs are you talking about? Blokada can use the same upstream DNS as your pihole so the logs are exactly the same if any exists.
I don't have to trust the owners of blokada aren't keeping logs? Why would I need to trust them when I can use my pihole which I know doesn't keep logs?
You are offering no advantages here compared to using my setup.
>Without a firewall and a VPN (both on the phone) you are not secure.
Well there is no competent firewall on the phone without root. Yes there is a VPN on both and it seems to work.
>With a VPN and a custom DNS service with blocklists you have an identical setup as one who uses Blokada, but without an external service.
Yes, I have an identical setup that I run myself without trusting some random owner of blokada. It runs externally just fine using my home network.
Honestly, this is the right answer.
Apple makes sure iOS apps don't ask for anymore permissions than they need. Google doesn't really care. That is the ONLY major difference. If you're mindful of what apps are asking for what permissions, you aren't gaining much from Apple's garden.
If you're going 1:1 on the apps that run on both android and iOS, you'll soon see that there's very little difference.
One more area where iOS is better is security. Your iPhone is basically a paperweight if it's stolen and the thief doesn't know your password. But that's another story.
Apple makes sure iOS apps don't ask for anymore permissions than they need. Google doesn't really care. That is the ONLY major difference. If you're mindful of what apps are asking for what permissions, you aren't gaining much from Apple's garden.
If you're going 1:1 on the apps that run on both android and iOS, you'll soon see that there's very little difference.
One more area where iOS is better is security. Your iPhone is basically a paperweight if it's stolen and the thief doesn't know your password. But that's another story.
What? This is completely false.
I don't know what other manufacturers are doing but Google on stock android and on Pixel does mandate asking for permissions. Even Google's own apps ask for them.
If your Pixel is stolen you have remote wipe options and newer Pixels contain Titan M chips that disallow tampering to gain access.
I don't know what other manufacturers are doing but Google on stock android and on Pixel does mandate asking for permissions. Even Google's own apps ask for them.
If your Pixel is stolen you have remote wipe options and newer Pixels contain Titan M chips that disallow tampering to gain access.
You can do all the stuff people say, or if you already use gmail and google search, you can understand they already have a lot of your info, and still use the GApps. Definitely don't give third party apps permissions they dont need, and if you do root, the app that lets you spoof the gps given to apps is wonderful (as well as the one that lets you spoof other info).
I'm not who you replied to but using privacy focused apps from the F-droid store when you can rather than the play store is a good start.
Their App Store team is completely shooting the rest of Apple in the foot, and I’m amazed that no one there seems to realize this. They are burning good will faster than they can create it.
interesting how the title here omit that it's about Microsoft's game streaming services. Because in that case it could be that Apple is specially going after a concurrent rather than just being annoying
Feels like an opportunity for malicious compliance by requesting approval of a massive set of games. I'm sure Microsoft can produce a list of a few thousand given their acquisitions and licensing deals.
I can't imagine this isn't epic/fortnite specific
It's not, at all. They're also blocking Microsoft's Xbox game streaming.
Its not at all because there is one more target...
It doesn't seem like a coincidence, since this showed up recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25003441
I say all companies should boycott Apple until it learns to play fairly. Apple is nothing if majority of bigger services and apps are not available on it's app store while available elsewhere. People should realize this is similar to uniting and revolting against dictatorships. The premise of the situation is same. Apple should realize it's 1 trillion+ valuation is nothing if no one buys or sells anything to/from it.
Apple is going to get lot of flak for this and rightfully so. Do they really watch all the videos YouTube or Netflix has to offer to review and approve?
Too bad no one will take Apple to court after all these shenanigans.
It's quite funny actually, I was planning to join the Apple ecosystem with a new iPhone this year, and then they pull all of these shenanigans.
It's quite funny actually, I was planning to join the Apple ecosystem with a new iPhone this year, and then they pull all of these shenanigans.
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Just trying to think functionally here:
Netflix now has “interactive” video content (see: Bandersnatch). Isn’t a streaming video game service same as “interactive” video. If so, isn’t Apple almost saying they’d also have to approve every video on the Netflix platform?
Or am I missing something?
Netflix now has “interactive” video content (see: Bandersnatch). Isn’t a streaming video game service same as “interactive” video. If so, isn’t Apple almost saying they’d also have to approve every video on the Netflix platform?
Or am I missing something?
Device makers should stay in their device-making roles.
Apple is, and has been for a very long time, both a hardware and software company. They sell this as an advantage. Since long before the iPhone was a thing.
“More and more, software is getting integrated into the hardware… Yesterday’s software is today’s hardware. Those two things are merging. And the line between hardware and software is going to get finer and finer and finer. And one of the ways that we’re approaching the problem of trying to remove the barrier is to try to look ahead a few years and try to make some predictions at how the technologies are merging, and at the same time very carefully looking at the kinds of high level tools our customers are going to need and trying to make those two points the same target.“
“More and more, software is getting integrated into the hardware… Yesterday’s software is today’s hardware. Those two things are merging. And the line between hardware and software is going to get finer and finer and finer. And one of the ways that we’re approaching the problem of trying to remove the barrier is to try to look ahead a few years and try to make some predictions at how the technologies are merging, and at the same time very carefully looking at the kinds of high level tools our customers are going to need and trying to make those two points the same target.“
—Steve Jobs, 1980Remember when Apple only allowed web apps through pinned links on the home screen? How things have changed since the 3G.
The only reason to have a native app for this is marketing.
Really this goes for the majority of iOS apps since native apps can't do a whole lot anyway. This doesn't even need push notifications though, I don't know why anyone would bother putting up with all the crap native apps take just to have to deal with all the crap apple gives you.
Really this goes for the majority of iOS apps since native apps can't do a whole lot anyway. This doesn't even need push notifications though, I don't know why anyone would bother putting up with all the crap native apps take just to have to deal with all the crap apple gives you.
Whats next iphones only opening approved websites?
EDIT: While that seems super sarcastic. Consider this: Game streaming services are in the end just a gateway app to games, in the same way the browser is a gateway to the internet. Furthermore apple already did hinder "browserish" gateways, like apps which are a gateway to more ergonomically reading word-press blogs or message apps which where gateways to a federated "internet of messaging".
EDIT: While that seems super sarcastic. Consider this: Game streaming services are in the end just a gateway app to games, in the same way the browser is a gateway to the internet. Furthermore apple already did hinder "browserish" gateways, like apps which are a gateway to more ergonomically reading word-press blogs or message apps which where gateways to a federated "internet of messaging".
There’s a simple consistent principle in operation. If an app is simply a neutral front end to a distributed set of independent back end services that are not managed by the owner of the app, then the app owner is not responsible for the content. Web browsers clearly match this description as the browser developer isn’t responsible for all the web sites you could visit. But it also applies to email clients, Mastodon clients, arguably even podcast clients and many more.
If the client app is only used to access content also owned, curated or managed by the client app vendor, then the client app vendor is on the hook for that content. Audible falls in this category, even though it’s superficially similar to a podcast app, because the app client vendor also owns or curates all the content. Sure there are some odd edge cases, but games streaming services pretty clearly fall into this category, and not the same category as web browsers.
If the client app is only used to access content also owned, curated or managed by the client app vendor, then the client app vendor is on the hook for that content. Audible falls in this category, even though it’s superficially similar to a podcast app, because the app client vendor also owns or curates all the content. Sure there are some odd edge cases, but games streaming services pretty clearly fall into this category, and not the same category as web browsers.
A closer analogy would be “what’s next? Apple approving all movies in Netflix?”
The simple and consistent principle Apple applies is “how much negotiating leverage does this app developer have?”
The simple and consistent principle Apple applies is “how much negotiating leverage does this app developer have?”
If Netflix started putting porn in their portfolio, how long do you think their app would stay in the store?
That could be a principle, but they've mucked around with Mastodon and podcast clients that such a rule would say are fine.
And all of those issues were resolved, because they complied with the App Store rules which implement these principles.
“There’s a simple consistent principle in operation:” protect our monopoly power over gaming on IOS via the app store by any means necessary.
So what if somehow you implement the gaming service to work inside a browser? What is your opinion?
> So what if somehow you implement the gaming service to work inside a browser? What is your opinion?
You mean like Amazon's Luna game streaming service, which will run in Safari as Apple worked with them to provide the necessary support in webkit?
You mean like Amazon's Luna game streaming service, which will run in Safari as Apple worked with them to provide the necessary support in webkit?
The owner of the gaming service is still curating the content available through that service. It's not like simply running the service through the browser allows any and every game to be on the service. Game devs for instance, would still need to negotiate with the owners of the game service in order to have their game available on the service. Might even need to pay the game service?
So why should Apple allow a web browser based service but block the same one (XBOX) if it uses a native application?
let's be honest, Apple dopes it for money not for users, blocking XBOX will not protect anyone , Apple wants a big cut or even better they want to sell their own gaming service in future.
let's be honest, Apple dopes it for money not for users, blocking XBOX will not protect anyone , Apple wants a big cut or even better they want to sell their own gaming service in future.
The Amazon service won’t appear in the App Store and won’t be sold by Apple. With the Microsoft client it would be sold by Apple in the App Store. If Apple sells you something they want a degree of say in what gets sold.
Yes of course this is about money.
Yes of course this is about money.
I’d use a browser.
I mean the only reason this seems sarcastic is because the web predates the App Store by a few decades and so we are used to the web working this way. If the concept had come up after the App Store had been published, Apple would have done exactly this.
100%
Why do individual games need to be approved but not individual movies in movie streaming services? I think clearly we need to ban movie apps until every program has been vetted.
That's not necessarily true. The difference is that the streaming services don't have exclusivity on those licenses which is not the case for game services. Additionally, Apple runs its own movie service and allows movies that it has access to screen. The same wouldn't be true for games.
Netflix and Amazon definitely has exclusivity on their IP which means that there is far more exclusive content on video streaming services than on game streaming services which outside of Microsoft currently which has a few first party exclusives all license content from other publishers - and that content that is available on multiple platforms.
That doesn't matter. Netflix still has to go through the same processes as movie companies regardless if their specific IP is exclusive to their platform. My point was that they don't have exclusivity when it comes to providing that content which is not the case with Microsoft's XCloud, for example. All of that content is only available from Microsoft because every game on the platform has to be licensed by Microsoft.
I still don’t see the difference between licensing an IP for video media and licensing the same IP for a video game the process is identical.
If it’s rating you talk about then again both of them are rated.
If it’s rating you talk about then again both of them are rated.
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It honestly does not seem very far fetched especially given recent fortnite news ( https://www.slashgear.com/fortnite-iphone-workaround-may-byp... ).
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Apple encourages streaming services to use Safari: https://www.engadget.com/luna-amazon-cloud-gaming-interview-...
> Whats next iphones only opening approved websites?
Unironically, I think that this could happen soon.
That sounds crazy, but here me out. Pretty recently there was an announcement regarding a streamer service, that would allow people to play Fortnite, from their phone, through a mobile safari
So, in order to block fortnite form being played on an iPhone, Apple would literally have to do what you are suggesting.
Unironically, I think that this could happen soon.
That sounds crazy, but here me out. Pretty recently there was an announcement regarding a streamer service, that would allow people to play Fortnite, from their phone, through a mobile safari
So, in order to block fortnite form being played on an iPhone, Apple would literally have to do what you are suggesting.
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Apple does encourage streaming apps to use Safari, they even worked together with Amazon to improve Safari for game streaming: https://www.engadget.com/luna-amazon-cloud-gaming-interview-...
So no, they are not going to block websites.
So no, they are not going to block websites.
Except that playing Fortnite isn't the thing that's being disallowed. It just happened to contain an in-app purchase system that did not use the Apple-approved method, and Fortnite's developers refused to remove that.
Apple has always clearly stated that this is perfectly fine on websites, just not in apps.
Apple has always clearly stated that this is perfectly fine on websites, just not in apps.
> Except that playing Fortnite isn't the thing that's being disallowed
Alright, and fortnite is now going to be playable with in web browser purchases, on the safari web browser pretty soon.
So the purchases, without going through Apple, are going to happen on the iPhone, as well as the playing of fortnite on the iPhone.
And Apple would have to prevent certain websites, if they wanted to stop those purchases that go outside of Apple's app system.
Alright, and fortnite is now going to be playable with in web browser purchases, on the safari web browser pretty soon.
So the purchases, without going through Apple, are going to happen on the iPhone, as well as the playing of fortnite on the iPhone.
And Apple would have to prevent certain websites, if they wanted to stop those purchases that go outside of Apple's app system.
They'd try that if they thought they could get away with it.
Don’t they already do this to block access to domains they think may be negative for user experience? I think chrome does this for phishing sites, malware sites? If not they should consider something like googles blocks
This is just petty on their part.
apple no longer makes computers for people who actually like tech, they make easy mode devices for normals
apple no longer makes computers for people who actually like tech, they make easy mode devices for normals
Since 1984. That was the whole point of the Macintosh.
Since 1984. That was the whole point of the Macintosh.
What’s so bad about that?
Their processor technology is ahead of every android phone on the market, and they put their high end cpu into their low end device (iPhone SE).
I really don't notice Instagram or Twitter or my mail client running any faster on my iPhone than on my Android device.
Good reason for users to ditch Apple.
Not really. Stadia wasn’t exactly a big success either
I don't think this should be even the main reason. But it's as good as many others, it just extends the list.
GeForce Now is quite good.
I think it started OK, just as a VM renting service where you could run games you already bought in any store. But it went sideways when they started restricting what kind of games you can run.
At least Google Stadia makes developers port games to Linux. Geforce Now isn't doing anything like that.
At least Google Stadia makes developers port games to Linux. Geforce Now isn't doing anything like that.
This is a losing proposition for apple.
Good, Apple shouldn't let random people run whatever virus infected nonsense they want on phones.
This is such genius.
Somebody had to throw cold water on the bubble idea of game streaming.
Somebody had to throw cold water on the bubble idea of game streaming.
If this is their policy, how can we trust that Apple won't then move to censoring websites in the browser? Or even taking control of DNS?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084373
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24444987
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077615