[bri3d]

It's DMA. Certainly part of it is punitive, but it makes sense, too - building and especially supporting interoperability for these protocols is a burden that they can avoid by not shipping features to the EU. They're free to change the key exchange, APIs, wire format, etc. without having to deal with documentation, key issuance, etc. outside of their walls. And, being forced to open up Screen Mirroring would reduce its value as a moat, since someone would presumably be able to build an Android client quickly and with no reverse engineering work.

[cyberpunk]

So do I understand it correctly; the problem is not MacOS having a client app, the problem is iOS acting as the server with only apple approved client implementation?

I really don't see how it falls outside of the DMA.

[seec]

> And, being forced to open up Screen Mirroring would reduce its value as a moat, since someone would presumably be able to build an Android client quickly and with no reverse engineering work.

Which is everything wrong about current Apple. How far the Apple has fallen off the tree. Back in the resurgence of the Mac after Steve Jobs returned, the policy was to make everything as open as possible, now it's entirely the reverse.

If the iPhone/Mac were a competitive product as they are, there would be no need to retort to that sort of shenanigan, the whole thing would be openly documented but implementation quality would be the deciding factor. It is not surprising that Apple doesn't want to compete because they wouldn't necessarily win, before even talking about price.

In any case, while it's a nice feature to have, it can only be considered worthwhile because all of Apple's strategies for convergence have failed pretty hard (after mocking Microsoft) and there are now too many annoying things you need to do specifically on a smartphone (because of Apps, Auths, or other nonsense of the sort).

If anything, it is extremely dumb (considering the price and marketing around ecosystem) that you cannot just use whatever data is on the phone but with correct desktop app implementation even (and especially) for Apple first party app.

As a Mac user that is getting old (I remember System 7 from my youth, and I used System 9 for a bit) I feel extremely saddened that we are now celebrating what is basically a custom implementation of VNC/Remote Desktop for a completely locked device/OS. This feature was considered essential/basic 20 years ago, having to use it to access a limited device because a company can't figure out proper convergence, largely out of pure greed, is really not something to be happy about.

I'm sure one day they'll figure out how to make a Mac App to properly exploit all the health/sport data of their very expensive Watch products (that require an iPhone for no good reason). But when this day will come I probably won't be a customer anymore so whatever...

[Cockbrand]

> Back in the resurgence of the Mac after Steve Jobs returned, the policy was to make everything as open as possible

My perception is quite different. One of the first things Steve did after his return was to revoke the licenses for Mac clones (Power Computing, Daystar, UMAX, etc). Also, the iPod, iPhone and iPad were created under his leadership and have always been very far from open in their designs, regarding both hardware and software.

Apple was (and still is) very open when it helps them, e.g. by adopting and enforcing USB (original iMac) or USB C (laptops from ca 2015 on).

[threeseed]

> supporting interoperability for these protocols is a burden

Also an unprecedented and unacceptable privacy and security risk.

You would be allowing third parties the ability to continuously record your iPhone's screen. Which includes websites you browse, apps you open, health information, text messages etc.

And the Mac is so much open that you could do this, have a local model to transcribe it and ship it to a remote server without the user noticing.

There isn't a government or advertising company on this planet that wouldn't want to get at this information.

[amluto]

> Also an unprecedented and unacceptable privacy and security risk.

> You would be allowing third parties the ability to continuously record your iPhone's screen. Which includes websites you browse, apps you open, health information, text messages etc.

> And the Mac is so much open that you could do this, have a local model to transcribe it and ship it to a remote server without the user noticing.

MacOS is not secure in the way you would like to think it's secure. This is already risk. And Apple really could do this right: make screen mirroring use the DRM playback paths, and open up the API to trigger it to competitors (who would get precisely the same DRM-playback-pathed result of a screen mirror showing up in a window from which they cannot read). I don't really know why a competitor would want to compete here, but they could.

[threeseed]

Most people interact with apps like Health on their phone not their Mac.

And there are also many third party apps that never made Mac versions.

So the amount of data we are talking about exposing is significantly higher.

And the issue is that the DMA is ambiguous about what competition and interoperability specifically means and so it would just take one company to complain about your solution for Apple to be fined 10% of global revenue.

[Nextgrid]

Many people log into their Mac using the same credentials (Apple ID) that give access to the Health data, and in fact Apple makes it really hard or even impossible to use it without (you can't selectively grant access, you need to use a separate Apple ID but then you lose some useful features such as universal clipboard, etc).

This is again a misinformed take. Your Mac can already get all your iPhone's data from the cloud where it is synced without viable opt-out or compartmentalization.

[threeseed]

> Your Mac can already get all your iPhone's data from the cloud

Only if the data is available in iCloud and it is stored in files and it is not encrypted.

Otherwise data from apps like Instagram will be exposed exclusively via screen sharing.

[Nextgrid]

> Only if the data is available in iCloud and it is stored in files and it is not encrypted.

Health data is available in there, just to go after your example. iPhone backups are also available in there.

At no point am I being asked anything else beyond my Apple ID, password, and two-step approval on another device (such as the Mac) to set up a new iPhone and download all my data.

Thus the outcome is that the Mac indeed has everything it needs to get access to all your iCloud data. In fact, reverse-engineering how to get it directly is unnecessary work - instead, just reverse-engineer enough to capture the Apple ID password (or prompt to it - given there's still no way for the user to tell a real system dialog from one drawn by malware) and approve the 2FA prompt, get an actual, real iPhone and sign into the person's account and then extract all the data from there (via screenshots if necessary).

[amluto]

There’s a universe in which your Mac is a locked down device like your iPhone, with a proper immutable filesystem, carefully controlled persistent state, and a strong sandbox in which the terminal, Homebrew, and apps (App Store and otherwise) can act within the sandbox but cannot do things like, say, reading your entire iMessage database.

We do not live in this universe. Consider getting a Chromebook instead if you want to be in that universe. (But then you have a tradeoff: Apple itself seems pretty good about not using your data inappropriately. Google, not so much.)

[the_mitsuhiko]

> Also an unprecedented and unacceptable privacy and security risk.

Put a prompt up that asks for permission? Failing to understand why we're drawing the line on the screen.

[seszett]

If it's so sensitive and dangerous, how do you explain that scrcpy has been available for years under Android?

Are governments recording the screens of Android users?

[elzbardico]

Assume it is trivial for the government to do so if they want.

[wpm]

>You would be allowing third parties the ability to continuously record your iPhone's screen

Apple is first-party to the device, but third-party to me, the user. Why are they more trustworthy than a free open-source tool? Who the hell are they to tell me who I can and cannot trust?

[Nextgrid]

It is sad to see such a misinformed take on a technical forum. You can already do everything you want. It will take some reverse-engineering work, but it's possible.

Similar things were said about iMessage interoperability with Android, until Beeper proved them wrong. They managed to reverse-engineer it, build a compatible client and clearly proved Apple's claims were BS (and no, this didn't lead to a mass-scale compromise of iMessage, contradicting fanboys' claims).

If the feature allows to pull up the iPhone's screen without any user consent, then it is vulnerable to begin with - the reverse-engineering requirement would become an insignificant hurdle compared to the value of such a vulnerability. Presumably however, there will be a consent step, either on the spot or prior (maybe it can reuse the cryptographic pairing mechanism that happens when the phone asks you to "trust this computer?" the first time), and no third-party (whether using an approved API or reverse-engineered) would be able to bypass it without the user intentionally consenting.

[threeseed]

> the reverse-engineering requirement would become an insignificant hurdle compared to the value of such a vulnerability

The idea that breaking device attestation that is secured through Secure Enclave hardware i.e. not accessible from user code is an insignificant hurdle is hilariously ridiculous. It is borderline impossible for any ordinary developer.

And people that bring up the "just ask the user" argument clearly don't remember how poorly that has worked in the past e.g. Microsoft Vista. Users will blindly approve any dialog which is why Apple has been so careful to limit them to targeted actions which a "do you approve this app to record everything on your iPhone" is not.

[Nextgrid]

You're approaching this from the idea that the impenetrability by third-parties is the primary security feature.

If this is true, then my worry isn't even about malicious attackers, it's my neighbor (with a real Mac) being able to (accidentally!) eavesdrop on my phone screen (since according to you this is the primary security measure).

It's obviously ridiculous, and the primary security measure is that there must be a prior key exchange and consent step. If that part is secure, then it would be secure against a third-party.

If that part is not secure, then no Secure Enclave-ing will help you, because worst case scenario, the attacker can just use a real Mac as part of his attack to pass the secure-enclave-protected authentication step, or just exploit the good old "analog hole" by using the real Mac as the main attack vector (and then just capture its HDMI output and feed in inputs via a USB-capable microcontroller simulating a keyboard).

[latexr]

> It is sad to see such a misinformed take on a technical forum.

If you’re going to make such a claim, you should be very careful to ensure you’re not misinformed yourself.

> Similar things were said about iMessage interoperability with Android, until Beeper proved them wrong.

No, they did not. We already knew Apple not allowing iMessage on Android was a lock-in choice. The trial with Epic brought that unambiguously to light, years before the release of Beeper Mini¹.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406303/imessage-android...

> They managed to reverse-engineer it, build a compatible client and clearly proved Apple's claims were BS

What claims? The only time I remember Apple publicly addressing iMessage on Android was after cutting off Beeper Mini’s access.

¹ Which is an important distinction from the earlier Beeper, which used trickery with iPhones to accomplish the task.