Apple says third-party app marketplace creators must have €1,000,000 'letter of credit'
Apple today officially announced support for third-party app stores in the European Union, as part of iOS 17.4. In a...
Apple: builds their entire software ecosystem on free, open-source foundations.
Also Apple: better have a million euros if you want to even start distributing software.
The best use case for an external app store is free open-source software, like we have on the Android side with F-Droid. Apple stopped that before it even started. Jeez.
This is why copyleft licenses like gpl, agpl, mit, creative commons exist. If they use those projects then the derivatives would also need to be open source.
Edit: mit is not copyleft
Correct. This is also why Apple switched to zsh as the default shell over bash. They still ship Bash 3.2 in macOS, because from 4.0 on, Bash started using GPLv3 instead of GPLv2.
I'm not against the idea of creating proprietary software out of open-source software, if the license allows that. However, I am always against this practice of "closing the door behind you".
Note that third party app stores like F-Droid still aren't first-class citizens like Google Play, since every installation still needs to be confirmed by an os popup, they can't automatically install updates on most phones.
F-Droid can do unattended installs, you just need A13+ and the basic client.
NOTE: The Basic version of F-Droid Client has a reduced feature set (e.g. no nearby share and no panic feature). It targets Android 13 and can do unattended updates without privileged extension or root.
The whole point of side loading apps is to not need the app store. One of the most important features of an app store is to distribute and update apps. Storage and bandwidth isn't free, but it is quite cheap.
I'm sorry if it hurts apples feelings when we tell them they're not allowed to charge for every aspect of their hardware. But if they didn't want us to own our iPhones then they shouldn't have sold them.
EU should double down with a regulation stipulating that people are free to install whatever OS they want on devices (smartphones included) and companies can't gatekeep it.
the problem is firmware. the community has been porting postmarketos to android phones for years, there are a ton of phones where PmOS will boot but most things like camera, phone service or bluetooth won't work because they are missing the firmware necessary.
What a shitshow. I didn't see the whole story, but which is it: the regulators didn't see all these ridiculous demands coming, or intentionally left loopholes in the legislation that basically allowed apple to retain their control and even profit from it? What was their original intent?
Probably didn't see them, Epic's already suing again because of their compliance plan.
Can someone help me understand: marketplace makers will need to prove they have access to $ 1 million. Then Apple will charge 50 cents per marketplace install? So that means no possibility of a 100% free store for open source apps. Is that correct?
Non-Profits are exempt and nearly all large open source projects are non-profits. Small apps are also exempt - the 50c fee only applies if at least 2% of people in the EU use your app.
... however it seems like these exemptions might not apply to third party app stores for some reason.
If that’s the case, then it really defeats the purpose of the whole 3rd party store idea for me. Most apps I would consider installing are open source projects.
for developers and customers
Ah yes, of course.
“App store is not a monopoly”
“We’re going to defend this non-monopoly till our dying breath”
I don't expect the EU to fine Apple enough that it might actually hurt them, but if we suppose the regulators wanted to, is there anything to stop them?
The highest GDPR fine was 1.2 billion. As far as I know nothing is stopping the EU from imposing higher and higher fines with continued breach of guidelines there, and I would expect these fair market regulations to work similarly.
Also for reference, that fine was against meta, who had 34 billion in revenue in 2023. So that fine cost them around 3% of their global revenue, which I'm sure is tolerable, but definitely approaching the point of hurting.
Now that Apple are aggressively displaying their monopolistic attitude to anything 3rd party and their wanton greed. I wonder if we'll see regulators going harder on them.
I very much doubt it and fully expect the regulators to effectively say "Oh well we told them and gave them parameters!"
Edit: All their products are fucking over priced, When YOU purchase YOUR phone YOU should be able to do what YOU want with it. Disagree? FUCK YOU
Apple are clearly fleecing anyone who purchases their shit and will continue to fuck you at every opportunity.
Lmmfao! They really are bucking for a fine
I don't even care anymore, they're just trolling.
Delaying the inevitable. The fines that are coming are inevitable too but for Apple it's just a cost of running their business.
The EU under the DMA can find 10% of global revenue the first time and then 20% thereafter.No corporations can maintain that.
Apple revenue in 2023 was ~$380b and their cash reserves were ~$160b. They can take a couple of worst case scenario fines technically, especially given that they'd be challenged in courts for years. Just makes you realize how important that 30% cut is for them.
Uh, for that kind of money I could start my own Top Level Domain.
Of course, in this interest rate economy, I would only dare create one dedicated to sharing cat pictures or pornography. Anything else sounds too risky.
You can honestly start your own TLD for a lot less with any DNS server. That doesn't mean anyone else will necessarily use it, but you can.
It is such a shame that you have to jump through extra hoops to get a .cat domain. They could make so much money.
No awards to anyone who correctly guessed that Apple would drag their feet on this and put up as much resistance as they could possibly get away with.
God bless the EU for taking this fight, and many others, on behalf of all of us. Only major entity actually making an effort at the moment.
Hasnt apple crashed and burned yet. Why are so many shiny hunting round edged magpies still sucking apples pecker
Honestly, it doesn't surprise nor please me that they're looking exclusively for the corporations with the large amounts of money capable of running a full system, as opposed to the random Joe down the street running an f-droid repository.
I feel every other hardware manufacturer with a store that sells software for it should be held to the same rules then… Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo…
That sounds pretty good actually
