Japan prepares regulation requiring Apple to allow sideloading

9to5mac.com Japan prepares regulation requiring Apple to allow sideloading

As the Digital Markets Act antitrust law passed in the European Union, Apple has until March 2024 to let users...

Japan prepares regulation requiring Apple to allow sideloading::As the Digital Markets Act antitrust law passed in the European Union, Apple has until March 2024 to let users...

86 comments

Having app developers be able to avoid Apples forced 30% fee is great. The fee is pure rent seeking masquerading as curation.
- 30% might be a bit much, but Apple and Google are offering ongoing services for the price you pay as a developer. From hosting, to payment processing and APIs you can use in your apps, I think what they're offering has some monetary value that would be acceptable if it wasn't so damn much. I don't think it's toxic rent-seeking in and of itself. What's pretty toxic is that there's no way around those fees on Apple phones and tablets.
  
  Agreed, If it wasn't a forced arrangement I wouldn't necessarily nave a problem with the price
  
  The high price is a result of monopolistic exclusivity.
  
  I suspect you're just repeating arguments you've heard, so don't take this internet rage personally, but that is complete bullshit.
  
  Hosting costs nothing. Devs will gladly foot the bill for that if given the option. Even if you distribute your apps on AWS (which is notorious for severely overcharging on egress), your expenses will be no where near 15%-30% of your revenue.
  
  Payment processing is a competitive field outside the appstores. Even 15%-30% is ludicrous when "overpriced" processors like stripe charge 2%-3%
  
  APIs are not something sold to developers. They build them as part of the operating system because they have to. That's how it works. They could try selling licenses, but it would result in devs not building on their fancy new features.
  
  (you didn't mention the ones below, but people with your argument usually do, so I'm adding them for completeness)
  
  Security is also bullshit. The Appstore and Play store are FILLED with malware. It is not physically possible to manually review the sheer volume of apps published to those stores. They also are not incentivized to improve the process much, because each time your kid or grandma accidentally activates a $40/week subscription, Apple/Google take a 15%-30% cut.
  
  Curation/promotion is bullshit. Discoverability on these stores has always been bad, but has been particularly awful since both Apple/Google have started selling search ads in the store. The other day I almost accidentally downloaded a fake ChatGPT app because it was the first result when I searched, it had a very similar icon, "ChatGPT" in the name, 5 stars, and millions of downloads.
  
  These stores also heavily incentivize devs to push subscriptions. I suspect (but haven't confirmed) that the Appstore and Google Play both rank subscription based apps higher than others, and subs tend to pay a lower revshare fee than other monetization types.
  
  I could go on all day about the rotten dumpster fires that are these disgusting stores. The only people who defend them are fanboys and people who have never actually had to deal with them professionally.
- Their curation is terrible too. The app store has so much shovelware crap
legislation is expected to be sent to parliament next year and focuses on four areas: app stores and payments, search, browsers, and operating systems.

We also get Linux on iPhones??

And the talk is just about sideloading... :-)
- I do wonder what they mean with "operating systems". If they legislate that iPhones should allow operating systems besides iOS to be installed, that would be huge. Android, Linux, or BSD on an iPhone... imagine!
  
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
  
  Most likely it means what the OS allows and won't allow. In this case, it will focus on iOS and allowing you to install software without using the app store (3rd party stores)
  
  Wouldn't putting Android on an iPhone be redundant? It would have less features and capability for a higher cost.
- Big if true. Apple owners might actually be owners of their devices.
  
  Permanently Deleted
- Wouldn't putting Android on an iPhone be redundant? It would have less features and capability for a higher cost.
- lol right
  
  Good luck getting any of the hardware to work properly without Apple's help.
  
  It's actually not that hard once you have access. ARM Chips can be difficult to get into, but programming for them is not that hard. The peripherals and other segments might be married components but that should be fine as long as they don't get swapped out at any point.
Based Japan once again. I would love to see other countries requiring this too, but I'm not going to hold my breath unfortunately.
- I mean, the EU has already done this and now Japan is doing the same. So i guess it's very well possible that other countries besides Japan will also follow suit.
  
  Hehe Brussels effect go brrrr
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  I think India and Brazil have also made initial efforts.
I tried to install an old version of San Andreas recently on my phone cause the last update broke controller support (which I actually bought with money).

Apparently we don't own our Android OBB directories anymore because of "safety".

So far the "we Android users already have this"...
- Yep, it's unfortunate that manufacturers are taking more and more control away from users. That's why open-source software like Linux is so important, you can do anything you want to with it.
  
  Back in the old days, Android OS used to be Open Source. You can still get firmware built up from the last release, such as CalyxOS, but in order to install it you have to buy directly from Google with the Bootloader Unlocked as a feature.
  
  Yeah Android is Linux. But Manufactures are limiting it so hard that it is sometimes nearly impossible to get a custom ROM on the phone.
sideloading would be nice; i have no idea how people can get proper work done on an ipad as of now (especially with apple at one point acting like it was only a matter of time for them to replace laptops). everything is so overly glossy and surface level and designed for children or the elderly; you can't actually DO anything!
- Even with side loading, you will still be pretty limited as the iPad is decently locked down. First of all it needs a decent window manager. That alone would go a long way.
  
  But honestly, these things should be running full blown macOS when they are docked to a mouse and keyboard.
  
  They had an 11” air at one point, so screen size can’t be the issue.
  
  This could be the real "pro" iPhone. Running m3, acting as a phone by itself and throwing a full macOS with Office and Adobe Cloud apps when docked.
- Yuh-huh! Just get a terminal emulator from the App Store. I will be just a few dollars a month. Then you can ssh into a Linux server you have somewhere.
  
  See it’s an entire computer!
  
  So a $1,200 thin client?
- My iPad has basically become a YouTube machine. There are no useful productivity features, no file manager, and no good games coming out that aren't already on PC with mods.
  
  Back in 2013 I loved my iPad, but now I'm thinking of just getting a surface
- I don’t take a laptop with me when I travel, because the iPad is more than enough for my work needs for a few days. Working with large spreadsheets is the only thing I absolutely need a computer for.
  
  I have friends who are programmers and regularly work on just an iPad. As I understand it, they only need a computer for some more horsepower-hungry parts of their workflow.
  
  The real problem with iPads is iPadOS. It’s intentionally gimped so you need a computer for some tasks. The iPad Pro has more than enough processing power and memory for full workloads (as well it should, given the price point), the OS is the restricting factor.
- What real work can even be done on any tablet that is not running desktop OS? I guess you could write stuff or edit spreadsheets, but that's it.
  
  “Write stuff” and “edit spreadsheets” covers 75% of corporate america.
Cool. This would be great. Hopefully a push to allow that in all other countries.
Life finds a way
Usb-C, side loading, what's next? APK or snap packages compatibility?
Great, now force them to open up their NFC, so mobile banking apps can skip Apple Pay for their contactless payment feature
It's happening guys, apple is start to a open source platform
I was against sideloading, because I’m in it for the walled garden and if governments were to use their own stalls to publish their apps, then, actually it doesn’t matter anymore! Our gov apps still invasive anyway, imo.

For the clueless, the particular app scans your face with various coloured screens being blasted through the phone screen, doesn’t matter if you have face ID enabled or not, its their own scan.

Power to sideloading.
- You being paid by apple to fear monger about sideloading?
  
  If you fear this, just leave the sideloading to others.
  
  Wherever I ever see a comment complaining about sideloading, I just assume they're an Apple financed marketing shill.
  
  Even if they're just a brainwashed moron, the argument is so stupid they deserve nothing but ridicule.
  
  Um, I said I believed before. I don’t believe it works anymore (walled garden). And that the government apps already doing this in the walled garden. Even said power to sideloading….
  
  And I get downvoted to oblivion?
- About 90% of my apps from fdroid. A Foss store that will do they're best to ensure no anti or invasive features break through to my phone. I am certain that apple will have a similar store.
  
  Yeah, I'll even go as far as to say that because F-Droid apps are usually not for profit you get actually good apps without ads or trying to sell you anything.
  
  They're just an app that some dude found they needed and developed, and then made available for everyone else.
  
  This is the most jarring difference I find when I go to the App Store, so a FOSS repository for iOS would be so huge.
  
  And I’m sure of that. Suffice to say it doesn’t matter because Apple’s walled garden allowed the Gov’s invasive app regardless.
  
  Just to be clear: it doesn’t matter because the walled garden sucked and didn’t work and I don’t mind a third party store anymore.
- You guys downvoting me do realize that I’m fine with sideloading right?
  
  Your first sentence, after the comma, should say “because I was in it…”. That was a bit confusing.
  
  And then you went completely off the rails with some colored light government conspiracy stuff.
  
  So I think that’s causing the downvotes.

You've viewed 86 comments.