I think what’s happening here is that the EU mandated browser choice, but Apple hasn’t had enough time to implement APIs for other browsers to handle launching PWAs. So to make things fair and equal between Safari and the other browsers and to ensure that your default browser choice is respected, they disabled the Safari frameless PWA mode. It’s EU mandated browser choice, and hopefully they’ll figure out hooks so you can have eg frameless Firefox launch when tapping a homescreen browser bookmark.
The DSA was not written overnight. The agreement was made in 2022, the text is from 2020, preliminary versions probably available years before that. And even without having the exact wording Apple must have known their anticompetitive behavior wouldn’t be tolerated forever way before that. Mandatory Browser Choice exists since when, Windows XP times? There was enough time, there is no excuse.
Can someone help me understand what the strategy is here? As an outsider, it seems like Apple is just defying the EU for spite. How does this change contribute to Apple’s bottom line?
A crack in the app store walled garden would be an existential threat because it's their fire hose of cash. It's the whole reason they make so much more money than other hardware manufacturers. They will defend it aggressively.
> There are indications that iOS 17.4 is using SIM carrier information to geo-lock the changes to web app functionality singularly to users in the EU. Web apps in other regions around the world remain unaffected.
> > There are indications that iOS 17.4 is using SIM carrier information to geo-lock the changes to web app functionality singularly to users in the EU. Web apps in other regions around the world remain unaffected.
Right, we know that they're doing things in the EU specifically because they're required to do so; their insistence on using geo-locking for that is grudging but not sinister. It would be sinister to say "let's intentionally remove web app functionality, only for EU users", but I don't see anything in the story that makes it implausible that what actually happened is that somebody rushed out shoddily written code for EU users, and it had this unintended effect.
This may seem like special pleading for Apple, but, as chongli's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39321362 to which I responded pointed out, why would they want to do this? Apple is many things as a company, but small minded and spiteful (as opposed to simply dictatorial) against its users isn't usually one of them. At the very least, to present that as the only possible explanation seems to be over-reaching.
I don't usually go back into my comment history to reply to someone with new facts, but it took only six days for Apple to tell us how they really feel.
> And so, to comply with the DMA’s requirements, we had to remove the Home Screen web apps feature in the EU.
They are small minded, they are spiteful, and you are specially pleading on their behalf. I don't blame you for being wrong. I just hope you learn not to trust companies, as their interests will almost certainly never be aligned with yours.
It’s also possible that given the timeline, this was the only way to comply with the law and allow a different default browser and it’ll be fixed in the future?
It's not even like Apple is hiding that they hate their DMA when they're announcing their compliances with it.
Looking forward to the EU Commission taking Apple to the ECJ over this, I strongly suspect the EU Commission will win, because even if it doesn't, it will just propose legislation changes to outlaw Apple's behaviour anyway.
Indeed, you can do it in your own way that complies with the intention of the law. We don't do this malicious compliance weasel wording game in the EU.
Despite common belief in Europe, there is plenty of strongly binding consumer and labor protection legislation in the US (especially at the state level). It just happens to be much more verbose and specific to take "interpretation" out of the equation. And when companies slither around some loophole, it gets amended, ideally; if some corporate lobbyist doesn't get their way (something that also, definitely occurs in the EU).
That being said, I'm rooting for the ECJ to win here. Maybe it would kickstart a change that's also sorely needed in the US.
Hoping it's just a beta issue. Otherwise there goes the "for the user" pretense, reminding us that there are no "trustworthy" companies, only temporarily aligning interests.
Edit. Links below suggest a less than nefarious explanation but the reality of the point above stands.
(I have not personally verified the behavior described in that tweet, but if it's true then a lot of the reporting and commentary around this story has left out important details and the actual change is positive for users. Intentionally configured PWAs still work; everything else opens in your default browser, without any potentially unwanted magic.)
PWAs pose a security risk. Any malicious site can masquerade as another app, such as your bank. If Apple is implementing this intentionally, then they are justified.