Apple

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Apple’s iMessage is not a “core platform” in EU, so it can stay walled off

Apple, beeper, beeper mini, brendan carr, Digital Markets Act, European Union, FCC, federal communications commission, iMessage, IPhone, messaging, Policy, SMS, Tech / /

Too core to fail —

Microsoft’s Edge browser, Bing search, and ad business also avoid regulations.

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Apple Messages in a Mac dock

Getty Images

Apple’s iMessage service is not a “gatekeeper” prone to unfair business practices and will thus not be required under the Fair Markets Act to open up to messages, files, and video calls from other services, the European Commission announced earlier today.

Apple was one of many companies, including Google, Amazon, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Meta, and Microsoft to have its “gatekeeper” status investigated by the European Union. The iMessage service did meet the definition of a “core platform,” serving at least 45 million EU users monthly and being controlled by a firm with at least 75 billion euros in market capitalization. But after “a thorough assessment of all arguments” during a five-month investigation, the Commission found that iMessage and Microsoft’s Bing search, Edge browser, and ad platform “do not qualify as gatekeeper services.” The unlikelihood of EU demands on iMessage was apparent in early December when Bloomberg reported that the service didn’t have enough sway with business users to demand more regulation.

Had the Commission ruled otherwise, Apple would have had until August to open its service. It would have been interesting to see how the company would have complied, given that it provides end-to-end encryption and registers senders based on information from their registered Apple devices.

Google had pushed the Commission to force Apple into “gatekeeper status,” part of Google’s larger campaign to make Apple treat Android users better when they trade SMS messages with iPhone users. While Apple has agreed to take up RCS, an upgraded form of carrier messaging with typing indicators and better image and video quality, it will not provide encryption for Android-to-iPhone SMS, nor remove the harsh green coloring that particularly resonates with younger users.

Apple is still obligated to comply with the Digital Markets Act’s other implications on its iOS operating system, its App Store, and its Safari browser. The European Union version of iOS 17.4, due in March, will offer “alternative app marketplaces,” or sideloading, along with the tools so that those other app stores can provide updates and other services. Browsers on iOS will also be able to use their own rendering engines rather than providing features only on top of mobile Safari rendering. Microsoft, among other firms, will make similar concessions in certain areas of Europe with Windows 11 and other products.

While it’s unlikely to result in the same kind of action, Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, said at a conference yesterday that the FCC “has a role to play” in investigating whether Apple’s blocking of the Beeper Mini app violated Part 14 rules regarding accessibility and usability. “I think the FCC should launch an investigation to look at whether Apple’s decision to degrade the Beeper Mini functionality… was a step that violated the FCC’s rules in Part 14,” Carr said at the State of the Net policy conference in Washington, DC.

Beeper Mini launched with the ability for Android users to send fully encrypted iMessage messages to Apple users, based on reverse-engineering of its protocol and registration. Days after its launch, Apple blocked its users and issued a statement saying that it was working to stop exploits and spam. The blocking and workarounds continued until Beeper announced that it was shifting its focus away from iMessage and back to being a multi-service chat app, minus one particular service. Beeper’s experience had previously garnered recognition from Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Ars has reached out to Apple, Microsoft, and Google for comment and will update this post if we receive responses.

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More on the Apple Vision Pro

Apple / /

Previously: On the Apple Vision Pro

The reviews are coming in. What say the people, other than the complaining about the two to three hour battery life?

Then later I’ll get to my own thoughts after the demo.

Ben Thompson reviews the Apple Vision Pro. He continues to find it a technical marvel, but is ultimately disappointed for uses other than entertainment. There is no support for multiple users beyond a highly unwieldy guest mode. There is insufficient width of coverage and inability to support multiple large screens, which is severely limiting to productivity. The eye tracking is a huge improvement over earlier attempts but not ready for such applications.

Ben anticipates that Apple will fail over time to evolve the product to support the things that would enable it to be a killer productivity app, which is what he was most excited about. He loves it for movies and watching sports (and presumably television), especially if new offerings support its features, but especially when the device is hard to share the $3,500 price tag is a tough sell.

Ben frames this as an intentional trade-off to maximize the entertainment experience. I do not get this claim. I see no reason the Vision Pro could not in the future support the entertainment experience it offers now, while also offering a distinct productivity experience that allows streaming multiple screens and using more precise controls and letting you use an iPhone or iPad as an additional control panel and navigation guide.

Andrej Karpathy offers his thoughts on the Vision Pro. Amazingly great in some ways, jank in other ways, including overly long setup. Several complaints here gave me hope, since they are concerns that won’t much matter over time, either you get through it or it gets fixed. Device weight is clearly a major issue. The review was essentially saying this is a device that will be great but has not yet handled the last mile.

Vanity Fair on why Tim Cook bet on the Apple Vision Pro, I would not call it ‘all-in’ since Apple will be fine no matter what. A strange article, worried about future versions being essentially too good. Like Thompson’s review, makes clear that the entertainment mode is well ahead of the productivity mode, although its motives lie elsewhere. The anecdote about having trouble finding apps after moving rooms is telling.

Aaron Slodov says ‘it’s amazing and this is the future’ as he moves objects around a room.

Senior Editior Devindra Hardawar of EnGadget calls it ‘beta testing the future.’ Her first warning is of eye strain. Her second is to not even think of buying one unless you are either a developer or an Apple fanatic. Her view is this is the beta, the real version will come a few years later. For now, it’s buggy, heavy, has a very short battery life and lacks native apps. She does find the interface intuitive and easy, and she praises both the ability to watch movies and the Mac integration.

She also notes the iPad Steam Link app works, so yes you can play at least many games on it. Similarly, it seems Sony’s Remote Play app will work for casting a PlayStation. For a Nintendo Switch and full portability, you will need to do more work, with a video capture card with HDMI input and then a USB-C output for the Vision Pro.

ZdNet’s Matthew Miller tried it for a workday. He recommends sticking to MacOS apps (what happened to ‘programs’?) because iPad ones aren’t ready yet, notes that you will need a Bluetooth keyboard to do any real work in practice, finds the ‘personas’ unplayable in practice, and found it hard to do productivity while traveling because of movement constraints and the lenses fogging up. He notes Microsoft’s apps (Word, Excel and so on) work but are currently bare bones.

He thinks it can work for those whose workflows only have 1-3 apps or content creators. He also oddly mentions day traders, from my experience trading no way in hell, you want precision above all, if you are tempted to day trade with the Vision Pro I am going to tell you to quit day trading.

Their editor-in-chief Jason Hiner says try it for yourself, but most people should pass. Cheaper alternatives are coming or already here, and the ecosystem isn’t ready.

Mark Spoonauer of Tom’s Guide emphasizes how good the device is for watching movies, and likes the spatial video and photos features and ability to view photos in a new light, as well. He doesn’t talk about productivity.

Tim Urban, who like many others keeps having holy smoments with VR devices and then getting disappointed that they are not there yet and not finding sustained worthwhile uses, goes through that cycle once again. He is excited for the future, and finds the present super cool already, but thinks that the costs still exceed benefits for now. He expects that we are soon to be on the part of the development curve, like iPhones 3G to 5, where new models are importantly better and you start to get a lot of additional surplus each cycle.

Sam Altman thinks this is big. Point, counterpoint:

Sam Altman: Vision pro is second most impressive tech since the iPhone.

Peter Wildeford: Disagree, vision pro is the seventh best and the ranking is:

1.) LLMs 2.) CRISPR 3.) mRNA vaccines 4.) semaglutide 5.) Perovskite solar cell 6.) Faster internet 7.) Apple Vision Pro

I have mRNA vaccines at least at #2 here, and I think you can argue #1. Gemini splits LLMs into several discoveries and also suggests EVs, Starlink, self-driving cars, wearable health tech, cloud computing, internet of things, 3D printing, robotics and more. The Apple Vision Pro has potential, but it is hard to put it that high on such a list.

Grimes and derek guy emphasize the importance of aesthetics.

The giant Apple vision Pro is a look. It can be a good look, but if you want that you have to do the work. Which I agree is worth doing if you intend to do this on the regular. Also, she’s in Tokyo, so double cyberpunk points all around.

derek guy: Aesthetically, this is basically how you have to dress to make things like the Vision Pro and Cybertruck look cool. These things mainly look bad in public because there’s no congruity between the business casual gear most ppl wear and these futuristic designs.

Grimes: Good aesthetics are a moral good and directly related to the health of society.

The difference this woman and me? She makes this look good.

So what about my experience? On Thursday, I had the chance to do the demo at the Apple Store at Grand Central. It is about a 20 minute experience, with an employee walking you through various things they want to show off. You can try a few things, but your freedom of movement is highly limited in every sense, and there is no time for you to play around, although they will answer your questions.

There was an attempt to sell me the device, but he didn’t press when I made it clear it was a no on putting down $4k on the spot.

Like most others, I was impressed and disappointed, inspired and frustrated.

The great stuff is really great. The hardware itself is amazing. A true marvel. Visuals are off the charts. All the issues are about the software, and of course the price, except for questions of weight and battery life.

The killer app right now is as a video screen. If you want to watch movies or television, this is a damn good, movie theater level experience. Top notch, and a lot of customization, although I couldn’t make it quite as big as I would have liked during the demo. They didn’t show us the Apple TV+ theater experience, but I assume that is great. If I was richer I would buy purely for this.

The native software support is not there for all the uses of that screen. They will hook up your Mac, but they will not make it easy for your PC, PlayStation or Switch. The good news is there are workarounds.

But why not make this native? If you are selling me a four thousand dollar screen, let me use it with whatever I want, and do not make me work for it, this is 2024.

There are native games, but Apple did not even try to demo those. I assume they are not exciting yet, and Apple historically hates fun anyway.

The sound is very good natively, but it does leak a bit. They said you can use any headphones with it, and that even the big Bose-style ones can physically work, so that part looks good. I would appreciate the ability to watch things without disturbing those around me. For audio-only, of course, this is massive overkill.

Even better than a video screen were the panoramas, the full 180-degree experiences. The moment of being in the ballpark was fantastic. However, in order to get value, these have to be supported. There is no sign that anyone plans to actually offer MLB or other games in this mode. If and when they do for the Mets, if this is the only way to get that service and the additional costs aren’t too obscene, I think this would put me over the top. Going out to the ballgame is pretty great.

The other immersive environments also looked great, and I would love if we had lots of designed media experiences like that. It would be ten times better if you could meaningfully move around as well. There is a version of this, that is presumably coming within the decade, that will be worth paying a lot to get if necessary.

The special photos and personal video shots are nice, but not vital or killer apps.

The other killer app people mention is Mac integration, but that was not available during the demo.

Reading a book via Kindle seemed highly viable, including highlighting, but is it better than reading on a phone or tablet? My guess is no.

Playing board games with other humans via Tabletop Simulator, or playing Magic: The Gathering against someone who is not there, or other similar activities? Yes, please. That too could be the killer app for me. First they have to get there. For now, you can chat with someone’s avatar, but that is a totally different thing than simulating being in the same location.

What about productivity?

The virtual keyboard is password-entry only. They only track at most two fingers, so you cannot properly type even if you don’t need keys to do so. Effectively this is much slower than on a phone. You can dictate if you want, when that would work. It got regular English sentences reliably, as you would expect. For my name it thought I had a very different (and very Asian) name, whoops. You will 100% need a Bluetooth keyboard to do any real work.

The choice of what to include in the demo reveals what Apple thinks are the strong selling points. They lead with photos and personal videos and panoramas and watching movies. They give almost no attention to productivity of any kind, beyond showing you how to scroll through a web page. No mention of help with physical navigation or helping you with activities like cooking or shopping. No mention of AI of any kind, despite some very obvious things you would want to do there.

The navigation system relies on your eyes and their precision. I definitely worry about eye strain, and I had trouble hitting precise targets reliably. Meanwhile, my brain kept trying to use my hand to navigate like a mouse, which is totally supported once you start a movement, but unsupported otherwise. So they have the technology, but have chosen to deploy it differently than I would like.

Similarly, the Guest mechanism right now is rather poor and broken. You have to configure every time, it does not last, all your work gets lost and so on. It would be a big help if they would outright support multiple profiles.

Where I do see potential for productivity, and also for entertainment to shine as well, is while traveling. If you are on an airplane or a train, and you can suddenly work or watch on a real theater screen, that would be a big game. Travel enough and it is well worth paying for that, or it could even enable more travel.

So overall, yes. I see the potential. This could be an insanely great device with proper software support, both from Apple and support from others. Already it is likely a great device for watching movies. For other purposes, the software and ecosystem are not there yet.

I said in my previous post that I expect the Apple Vision Pro is either worth far more than the price, or it is worth very little, but it was unlikely to be something in between.

Could this still be a dud? Absolutely. What I do not expect is something I’d have been happy to pay $500 or $1,000 for, but not $3,500. Either the game will be changed, or it won’t be changed quite yet. I can’t wait to find out.

What I neglected to think about was the possibility that it would be a great device for narrow use cases, while not being good enough for other uses cases.

In this case, That One Killer App that I am confident in, right now, is as a way to watch movies. Also television or YouTube or other video, potentially, but especially movies where you want to give your full attention and they are designed for the biggest possible screen.

Meanwhile, it is plausible that the other uses are still stuck at zero value until they get a lot better, given the costs of the mode shift involved, the extent to which Apple is protecting its ecosystem, and the potential isolation effects.

It is also plausible they are not zero value at all. I can see a MacBook Air plus a Vision Pro being very good for productivity, and I can see a lot of value in gaming as well. And if they ever get the sports panoramas online, we’re golden.

If you are buying an at-home movie theater level experience, including watching other things if they are high enough resolution to support that, what is that worth on its own?

So here we are, where I know I would pay $1,000 for the device, but am unsure whether I am willing to pay approximately $5,000, on the assumption that this implies being willing to also buy a MacBook Air.

What say you, dear readers? Should I take the plunge?

And what about you? Will you take the plunge?

More on the Apple Vision Pro Read More »

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Can a $3,500 headset replace your TV? We tried Vision Pro to find out

Apple, Apple TV, apple vision, apple vision pro, Disney, Features, Tech, visionOS / /

Apple Vision Pro Review —

We kick off our multi-part Vision Pro review by testing it for entertainment.

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  • The Apple Vision Pro with AirPods Pro, Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and an Xbox Series X|S controller.

    Samuel Axon

  • You can see the front-facing cameras that handle passthrough video just above the down-facing cameras that read your hand gestures here.

    Samuel Axon

  • There are two buttons for Vision Pro, both on the top.

    Samuel Axon

  • This is the infamous battery pack. It’s about the size of an iPhone (but a little thicker) and has a USB-C port for external power sources.

    Samuel Axon

  • There are two displays inside the Vision Pro, one for each eye. Each offers just under 4K resolution.

    Samuel Axon

  • Apple offers several variations of the light seal to fit different face shapes.

    Samuel Axon

  • A close-up look at the Vision Pro from the front.

    Samuel Axon

The Vision Pro is the strangest product Apple has introduced in the time I’ve been covering the company. By now, it’s well established that the headset is both impressively cutting-edge and ludicrously expensive.

You could certainly argue that its price means it’s only for Silicon Valley techno-optimists with too much money to burn or for developers looking to get in on the ground floor on the chance that this is the next gold rush for apps. But the platform will need more than those users to succeed.

Part of Apple’s pitch behind the price tag seems to be that the Vision Pro could replace several devices, just like the iPhone did back in the late 2000s. It could replace your laptop, your tablet, your 4K TV, your video game console, your phone or other communications device, your VR headset, and so on. If it truly replaced all of those things, the price wouldn’t seem quite so outrageous to some.

And those are just the use cases Apple has put a lot of effort into facilitating for the launch. Many of the most important uses of the company’s prior new product categories didn’t become totally clear until a couple of years and generations in. The iPhone wasn’t originally intended as a meditation aid, a flashlight, and a number of other common uses until third-party developers invented apps to make it do those things. And Apple’s approach with the Apple Watch seemed to be to just throw it out there with a number of possible uses to see what stuck with users. (The answer seemed to be health and fitness, but the device’s distinct emphasis on that took a bit of time to come into focus.)

So while I could write a dense review meandering through all the possibilities based on my week with the Vision Pro, that doesn’t seem as helpful as drilling in on each specific possibility. This is the first in a series of articles that will do that, so consider it part one of a lengthy, multi-step review. By the end, we’ll have considered several possible applications of the device, and we might be able to make some recommendations or predictions about its potential.

So far, I believe there’s one use case that’s a slam dunk, closer to clarity during launch week than any of the others: entertainment. For certain situations, The Vision Pro is a better device for consuming TV shows and movies (among other things) away from a dedicated theater than we’ve ever seen before. So let’s start there.

My (perhaps too) exacting standards

I know I’m not the usual TV consumer. It’s important to note that before we get too deep.

I bought my first OLED television (a 55-inch LG B6) in 2016. I previously had a 50-inch plasma TV I liked, but it only supported 1080p and SDR (standard dynamic range), and Sony had announced the PlayStation 4 Pro, which would support 4K games (sort of) and HDR (high dynamic range). Game consoles had always driven TV purchases in the past, so I sprung for the best I could afford.

I always cared about picture quality before I bought an OLED, but that interest turned into something more obsessive at that point. I was stunned at the difference, and I began to find it hard to accept the imperfections of LCD monitors and TVs after that. Granted, I’d always disliked LCDs, going straight from CRT to plasma to avoid that grayish backlight glow. But the comparison was even harsher once I went to OLED.

My fellow Ars Technica writers and editors often talk about their robust, multi-monitor PC setups, their expensive in-home server racks, and other Ars-y stuff. I have some of that stuff, too, but I put most of my time and energy into my home theater. I’ve invested a lot into it, and that has the unfortunate side effect of making most other screens I use feel inadequate by comparison.

All that said, some have argued that the Vision Pro is a solution in search of a problem, but there is one pre-existing problem I have that it has the potential to solve.

I travel a lot, so I spend a total of at least two months out of every year in hotel or Airbnb rooms. Whenever I’m in one of those places, I’m always irritated at how its TV compares to the one I have at home. It’s too small for the space, it’s not 4K, it doesn’t support HDR, it’s mounted way too high to comfortably watch, or it’s a cheap LCD with washed-out black levels and terrible contrast. Often, it’s all of the above. And even when I’m home, my wife might want to watch her shows on the big TV tonight.

I end up not watching movies or shows I want to watch because I feel like I’d be doing those shows a disservice by ruining the picture with such terrible hardware. “Better to hold off until I’m home,” I tell myself.

The Vision Pro could be the answer I’ve been waiting for. Those two displays in front of my eyes are capable of displaying an image that stands up to that of a mid-range OLED TV in most situations, and I can use it absolutely anywhere.

Can a $3,500 headset replace your TV? We tried Vision Pro to find out Read More »

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A password manager LastPass calls “fraudulent” booted from App Store

App Store, Apple, Biz & IT, lastpass, Security / /

GREAT PRETENDER —

“LassPass” mimicked the name and logo of real LastPass password manager.

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A password manager LastPass calls “fraudulent” booted from App Store

Getty Images

As Apple has stepped up its promotion of its App Store as a safer and more trustworthy source of apps, its operators scrambled Thursday to correct a major threat to that narrative: a listing that password manager maker LastPass said was a “fraudulent app impersonating” its brand.

At the time this article on Ars went live, Apple had removed the app—titled LassPass and bearing a logo strikingly similar to the one used by LastPass—from its App Store. At the same time, Apple allowed a separate app submitted by the same developer to remain. Apple provided no explanation for the reason for removing the former app or for allowing the latter one to remain.

Apple warns of “new risks” from competition

The move comes as Apple has beefed up its efforts to promote the App Store as a safer alternative to competing sources of iOS apps mandated recently by the European Union. In an interview with App Store head Phil Schiller published this month by FastCompany, Schiller said the new app stores will “bring new risks”—including pornography, hate speech, and other forms of objectionable content—that Apple has long kept at bay.

“I have no qualms in saying that our goal is going to always be to make the App Store the safest, best place for users to get apps,” he told writer Michael Grothaus. “I think users—and the whole developer ecosystem—have benefited from that work that we’ve done together with them. And we’re going to keep doing that.”

Somehow, Apple’s app vetting process—long vaunted even though Apple has provided few specifics—failed to spot the LastPass lookalike. Apple removed LassPass Thursday morning, two days, LastPass said, after it flagged the app to Apple and one day after warning its users the app was fraudulent.

“We are raising this to our customers’ attention to avoid potential confusion and/or loss of personal data,” LastPass Senior Principal Intelligence Analyst Mike Kosak wrote.

There’s no denying that the logo and name were strikingly similar to the official ones. Below is a screenshot of how LassPass appeared, followed by the official LastPass listing:

The LassPass entry as it appeared in the App Store.

Enlarge / The LassPass entry as it appeared in the App Store.

The official LastPass entry.

Enlarge / The official LastPass entry.

Here yesterday, gone today

Thomas Reed, director of Mac offerings at security firm Malwarebytes, noted that the LassPass entry in the App Store said the app’s privacy policy was available on bluneel[.]com, but that the page was gone by Thursday, and the main page shows a generic landing page. Whois records indicated the domain was registered five months ago.

There’s no indication that LassPass collected users’ LastPass credentials or copied any of the data it stored. The app did, however, provide fields for users to enter a wealth of sensitive personal information, including passwords, email and physical addresses, and bank, credit, and debit card data. The app had an option for paid subscriptions.

A LastPass representative said the company learned of the app on Tuesday and focused its efforts on getting it removed rather than analyzing its behavior. Company officials don’t have information about precisely what LassPass did when it was installed or when it first appeared in the App Store.

The App Store continues to host a separate app from the same developer who is listed simply as Parvati Patel. (A quick Internet search reveals many individuals with the same name. At the moment, it wasn’t possible to identify the specific one.) The separate app is named PRAJAPATI SAMAJ 42 Gor ABD-GNR, and a corresponding privacy policy (at psag42[.]in/policy.html) is dated December 2023. It’s described as an “application for Ahmedabad-Gandhinager Prajapati Samaj app” and further as a “platform for community.” The app was also recently listed on Google Play but was no longer available for download at the time of publication. Attempts to contact the developer were unsuccessful.

There’s no indication the separate app violates any App Store policy. Apple representatives didn’t respond to an email asking questions about the incident or its vetting process or policies.

A password manager LastPass calls “fraudulent” booted from App Store Read More »

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Apple overhauls its entire Windows app suite, including iCloud and Apple Music

Apple, Apple Music, iCloud, iTunes, Tech, Windows / /

apple <3 windows —

New iCloud, music, TV, and device-management apps bring macOS features to PCs.

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  • The new iCloud for Windows app, which does a surprisingly good job of looking like a native Windows 11 app. It also respects the system dark mode setting.

  • The old iCloud for Windows app, which has looked pretty similar to this for its entire existence up to this point.

Big news for people who prefer iPhones but also prefer to use Windows PCs: Apple has quietly overhauled its entire suite of Windows apps, including non-beta versions of the Apple Music, Apple TV, and Devices apps that it began previewing for Windows 11 users over a year ago. Collectively, these apps replace most of the functionality from the iTunes for Windows app; iTunes for macOS was discontinued all the way back in 2019. Apple has also released a major iCloud for Windows update with an overhauled design.

All of the apps are currently available in the Microsoft Store. While the previews that Apple released last year required Windows 11 22H2 or newer, the final versions of all four new apps also work in Windows 10 for people who have chosen not to upgrade or whose PCs do not meet the system requirements.

The Apple Music and Apple TV apps both offer access to Apple’s streaming music and video libraries for people with subscriptions, though both apps will also import and play your local music and video libraries from iTunes if you have them.

That said, these apps don’t put the final nail in iTunes for Windows’ coffin just yet; iTunes is still used to manage podcasts and audiobooks in Windows, as the app will inform you if you try to launch it after installing the Music or TV apps. If Apple eventually plans to launch Windows versions of the Podcasts or Books apps from macOS and iOS, the company hasn’t done so yet.

The Apple Devices app is what you’ll use if you want to back up an iPhone or iPad to your PC or perform system restores for iDevices in recovery mode. It can also be useful when trying to install updates on devices without enough free space to download and install updates themselves. This app doesn’t exist in macOS, but it’s broadly similar to a bunch of features that landed in the Finder when Apple initially discontinued iTunes for macOS back in 2019.

The biggest change in the new iCloud for Windows app is an overhauled design, and though some will lament the decreased information density, it actually does a surprisingly good job of looking like a native Windows 11 app. It supports Dark Mode in both Windows 10 and Windows 11, and in Windows 11 it even uses the “mica” background material that Settings and other Windows 11 apps use to pick up a color tint from your PC’s underlying desktop wallpaper (Apple does something similar in macOS). The app also features a streamlined first-time setup process that asks you what you would like to sync and how.

But functionally, the app still does pretty much what it did before. The iCloud for Windows app will sync iCloud Drive files locally; offers password syncing via a Chrome/Edge browser extension; will bookmark syncing for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox; has mail, contact, and calendar syncing via the new Outlook for Windows app; and also provides iCloud Photos syncing, with the option to download either native HEIF images that modern iPhones capture by default, or more-compatible JPEG versions.

There are still plenty of iCloud features that aren’t available in Windows, including syncing for Notes and Reminders, native versions of the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps, and a handful of other things. But iCloud for Windows has gradually become much more useful and full-featured after existing for many years as a glorified sync service for browser bookmarks.

Though it’s still nowhere near as seamless as using an iPhone with a Mac, using an iPhone with a PC has gradually become more pleasant over the past year or two. Besides the addition of iCloud photo and password syncing, Microsoft also added rudimentary iMessage support to its Phone Link app back in April, finally allowing iPhone users to see and respond to basic text messages via their PC. The app (previously called “Your Phone”) had already supported syncing Android phones for years.

If you want to know why Apple is putting more care into its Windows apps these days, a look at the company’s revenue offers a potential suggestion: for the past few years, its “Services” division has continued growing at a steady clip even as revenue from hardware sales has stayed level or declined slightly. The Services division encompasses all the revenue Apple makes from iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, and its other subscription plans.

Though Apple would clearly prefer that you buy Apple hardware to use Apple services, offering decent apps for competing ecosystems at least ensures that people who use a mix of devices—an iPhone with a PC, or an Android phone with a Mac or iPad—have the option of staying within Apple’s ecosystem rather than going with broadly compatible third-party apps like Spotify or Dropbox.

Listing image by Apple/Microsoft/Andrew Cunningham

Apple overhauls its entire Windows app suite, including iCloud and Apple Music Read More »

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MacBooks, Chromebooks lead losers in laptop repairability analysis

Apple, ASUS, chromebooks, Google, laptops, MacBook, repairability, right to repair, Tech / /

Disappointing Disassembly processes —

Analysis heavily weighs how hard the brands’ laptops are to take apart.

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A stack of broken Chromebook laptops

Enlarge / A stack of broken Chromebook laptops at Cell Mechanic Inc. electronics repair shop in Westbury, New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.

Chromebooks and MacBooks are among the least repairable laptops around, according to an analysis that consumer advocacy group US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) shared this week. Apple and Google have long been criticized for selling devices that are deemed harder to repair than others. Worse, PIRG believes that the two companies are failing to make laptops easier to take apart and fix.

The “Failing the Fix (2024)” report released this week [PDF] is largely based on the repairability index scores required of laptops and some other electronics sold in France. However, the PIRG’s report weighs disassembly scores more than the other categories in France’s index, like the availability and affordability of spare parts, “because we think this better reflects what consumers think a repairability score indicates and because the other categories can be country specific,” the report says.

PIRG’s scores, like France’s repair index, also factor in the availability of repair documents and product-specific criteria (the PIRG’s report also looks at phones). For laptops, that criteria includes providing updates and the ability to reset software and firmware.

PIRG also docked companies for participating in trade groups that fight against right-to-repair legislation and if OEMs failed to “easily provide full information on how they calculated their products.”

Chromebooks, MacBooks lag in repairability

PIRG examined 139 laptop models and concluded that Chromebooks, “while more affordable than other devices, continue to be less repairable than other laptops.” This was largely due to the laptops having a lower average disassembly score (14.9) than the other laptops (15.2).

The report looked at 10 Chromebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, and HP and gave Chromebooks an average repair score of 6.3 compared to 7.0 for all other laptops. It said:

Both of these lower averages indicate that while often considered an affordable choice for individuals or schools, Chromebooks are on average less repairable than other laptops.

Google recently extended Chromebook support from eight years to 10 years. PIRG’s report doesn’t factor in software support timelines, but even if it did, Chromebooks’ repairability score wouldn’t increase notably since the move only brought them to “industry norms,” Lucas Gutterman, Designed to Last campaign director for the US PIRG Education Fund, told me.

The Chromebooks PIRG considered for its report.

Enlarge / The Chromebooks PIRG considered for its report.

He added, though, that the current “norm” should improve.

At the very least, if it’s no longer financially viable for manufacturers to maintain support, they should allow the community to continue to maintain the software or make it easy to install alternative operating systems so we can keep our laptops from getting junked.

Turning to its breakdown of non-ChromeOS laptops, PIRG ranked Apple laptops the lowest in terms of repairability with a score of D, putting it behind Asus, Acer, Dell, Microsoft, HP, and Lenovo. In this week’s report, Apple got the lowest average disassembly score out of the OEMs (4 out of 10 compared to the 7.3 average)

MacBooks, Chromebooks lead losers in laptop repairability analysis Read More »

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What I learned from the Apple Store’s 30-minute Vision Pro demo

Apple, Apple Store, apple vision pro, ar, Features, Mixed Reality, spatial computing, Tech, visionOS, vr / /

Seeing is believing? —

Despite some awe-inspiring moments, the $3,500 headset is a big lift for retail.

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These mounted displays near the entrance let visitors touch, but not use, a Vision Pro.

Enlarge / These mounted displays near the entrance let visitors touch, but not use, a Vision Pro.

Kyle Orland

For decades now, potential Apple customers have been able to wander in to any Apple Store and get some instant eyes-on and hands-on experience with most of the company’s products. The Apple Vision Pro is an exception to this simple process; the “mixed-reality curious” need to book ahead for a guided, half-hour Vision Pro experience led by an Apple Store employee.

As a long-time veteran of both trade show and retail virtual-reality demos, I was interested to see how Apple would sell the concept of “spatial computing” to members of the public, many of whom have minimal experience with existing VR systems. And as someone who’s been following news and hands-on reports of the Vision Pro’s unique features for months now, I was eager to get a brief glimpse into what all the fuss was about without plunking down at least $3,499 for a unit of my own.

After going through the guided Vision Pro demo at a nearby Apple Store this week, I came away with mixed feelings about how Apple is positioning its new computer interface to the public. While the short demo contained some definite “oh, wow” moments, the device didn’t come with a cohesive story pitching it as Apple’s next big general-use computing platform.

Setup snafus

After arriving a few minutes early for my morning appointment in a sparsely attended Apple Store, I was told to wait by a display of Vision Pro units set on a table near the front. These headsets were secured tightly to their stands, meaning I couldn’t try a unit on or even hold it in my hands while I waited. But I could fondle the Vision Pro’s various buttons and straps while getting a closer look at the hardware (and at a few promotional videos running on nearby iPads).

  • Two Vision Pro headsets let you see it from multiple angles at once.

    Kyle Orland

  • Nearby iPads let you scroll through videos and information about the Vision Pro.

    Kyle Orland

  • The outward-facing display is very subtle in person.

    Kyle Orland

  • Without an appointment you can feel the headstrap with your hands but not with your skull.

    Kyle Orland

  • To Apple’s credit, it did not even try to hide the external battery in these store displays.

    Kyle Orland

After a few minutes, an Apple Store employee, who we’ll call Craig, walked over and said with genuine enthusiasm that he was “super excited” to show off the Vision Pro. He guided me to another table, where I sat in a low-backed swivel chair across from another customer who looked a little zoned out as he ran through his own Vision Pro demo.

Craig told me that the Vision Pro was the first time Apple Store employees like him had gotten early hands-on access to a new Apple device well before the public, in order to facilitate the training needed to guide these in-store demos. He said that interest had been steady for the first few days of demos and that, after some initial problems, the store now mostly managed to stay on schedule.

Unfortunately, some of those demo kinks were still present. First, Craig had trouble tracking down the dedicated iPhone used to scan my face and determine the precise Vision Pro light seal fit for my head. After consulting with a fellow employee, they decided to have me download the Apple Store app and use a QR code to reach the face-scanning tool on my own iPhone. (I was a bit surprised this fit scanning hadn’t been offered as part of the process when I signed up for my appointment days earlier.)

It took three full attempts, scanning my face from four angles, before the app managed to spit out the code that Craig needed to send my fit information to the back room. Craig told me that the store had 38 different light seals and 900 corrective lens options sitting back there, ready to be swapped in to ensure maximum comfort for each specific demo.

  • Sorry, I think I ordered the edamame…

    Kyle Orland

  • Shhh… the Vision Pro is napping.

After a short wait, another employee brought my demo unit out on a round wooden platter that made me feel like I was at a Japanese restaurant. The platter was artistically arranged, from the Solo Knit Band and fuzzy front cover to the gently coiled cord leading to the battery pack sitting in the center. (I never even touched or really noticed the battery pack for the rest of the demo.)

At this point, Craig told me that he would be able to see everything I saw in the Vision Pro, which would stream directly to his iPad. Unfortunately, getting that wireless connection to work took a good five minutes of tapping and tinkering, including removing the Vision Pro’s external battery cord several times.

Once everything was set, Craig gave me a brief primer on the glances and thumb/forefinger taps I would use to select, move, and zoom in on things in the VisionOS interface. “You’re gonna pretend like you’re pulling on a piece of string and then releasing,” he said by way of analogy. “The faster you go, the faster it will scroll, so be mindful of that. Nice and gentle, nice and easy, and things will go smoothly for you.”

Fifteen minutes after my appointed start time, I was finally ready to don the Vision Pro.

A scripted experience

After putting the headset on, my first impression was how heavy and pinchy the Vision Pro was on the bridge of my nose. Thankfully, Craig quickly explained how to tighten the fit with a dial behind my right ear, which helped immediately and immensely. After that, it only took a minute or two to run through some quick calibration of the impressively snappy eye and hand tracking. (“Keep your head nice and still as you do this,” Craig warned me during the process.)

Imagine this but with an Apple Store in the background.

Enlarge / Imagine this but with an Apple Store in the background.

Kyle Orland

As we dove into the demo proper, it quickly became clear that Craig was reading from a prepared script on his iPhone. This was a bit disappointing, as the genuine enthusiasm he had shown in our earlier, informal chat gave way to a dry monotone when delivering obvious marketing lines. “With Apple Vision Pro, you can experience your entire photo library in a brand new way,” he droned. “Right here, we have some beautiful shots, right from iPhone.”

Craig soldiered through the script as I glanced at a few prepared photos and panoramas. “Here we have a beautiful panorama, but we’re going to experience it in a whole new way… as if you were in the exact spot in which it was taken,” Craig said. Then we switched to some spatial photos and videos of a happy family celebrating a birthday and blowing bubbles in the backyard. The actors in the video felt a little stilted, but the sense of three-dimensional “presence” in the high-fidelity video was impressive.

After that, Craig informed me that “with spatial computing, your apps can exist anywhere in your space.” He asked me to turn the digital crown to replace my view of the store around me with a virtual environment of mountains bathed in cool blue twilight. Craig’s script seemed tuned for newcomers who might be freaked out by not seeing the “real world” anymore. “Remember, you’re always in control,” Craig assured me. “You can change it at any time.”

From inside the environment, Craig’s disembodied voice guided me as I opened a few flat app windows, placing them around my space and resizing them as I liked. Rather than letting these sell themselves, though, Craig pointed out how webpages are “super beautiful [and] easy to navigate” on Vision Pro. “As you can also see… text is super sharp, super easy to read. The pictures on the website look stunning.” Craig also really wanted me to know that “over one million iPhone/iPad apps” will work like this on the Vision Pro on day one.

What I learned from the Apple Store’s 30-minute Vision Pro demo Read More »

report:-apple-is-testing-foldable-iphones,-having-the-same-problems-as-everyone-else

Report: Apple is testing foldable iPhones, having the same problems as everyone else

Apple, foldable, IPhone, Tech / /

the story unfolds —

Don’t expect these clamshell-style foldables in 2024 or 2025 or maybe ever.

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Report: Apple is testing foldable iPhones, having the same problems as everyone else

Samuel Axon

Apple is purportedly working on a foldable iPhone internally, according to “a person with direct knowledge of the situation” speaking to The Information. They’re said to be clamshell-style devices that fold like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip series rather than phones that become tablets like the Galaxy Z Fold or Google’s Pixel Fold.

The phones are also said to be “in early development” or “could be canceled.” If they do make it to market, it likely wouldn’t be until after 2025.

The report has a long list of design challenges that Apple has faced in developing foldable phones: they’re too thick when folded up; they’re easily broken; they would cost more than non-foldable versions; the seam in the middle of the display tends to be both visible and feel-able; and the hinge on an iPad-sized device would prevent the device from sitting flat on a table (though this concern hasn’t stopped Apple from introducing substantial camera bumps on many of its tablets and all of its phones).

If many of those challenges sound familiar, it’s because it’s a detailed list of virtually every bad thing you could say about current foldable Android phones, even after multiple hardware generations. Our first Pixel Fold didn’t even survive the pre-release review period, and those well-earned durability concerns plus the relatively high cost have limited foldable phones to roughly 1.6 percent of all smartphone sales, according to recent analyst estimates.

It makes sense that Apple would be testing some big swings as it thinks about the next era of iPhone design; our iPhone 15 review called them the iPhone’s “final form,” insofar as it feels like there’s not much room to continue to improve on the iPhone X-style full-screen design that Apple has been iterating on since 2017. It sounds like foldable phones will only be in Apple’s future if the company can manage to overcome the same issues that have tripped up other foldables—though to be fair, the company does have a pretty good decadeslong track record on that front.

Report: Apple is testing foldable iPhones, having the same problems as everyone else Read More »

google-and-mozilla-don’t-like-apple’s-new-ios-browser-rules

Google and Mozilla don’t like Apple’s new iOS browser rules

Apple, Google, google chrome, mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, safari, Tech / /

Surely US regulators will help us… —

Google and Mozilla want iOS’s new EU browser rules to apply worldwide.

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Extreme close-up photograph of finger above Chrome icon on smartphone.

Apple is being forced to make major changes to iOS in Europe, thanks to the European Union’s “Digital Markets Act.” The act cracks down on Big Tech “gatekeepers” with various interoperability, fairness, and privacy demands, and part of the changes demanded of Apple is to allow competing browser engines on iOS. The change, due in iOS 17.4, will mean rival browsers like Chrome and Firefox get to finally bring their own web rendering code to iPhones and iPads. Despite what sounds like a big improvement to the iOS browser situation, Google and Mozilla aren’t happy with Apple’s proposed changes.

Earlier, Mozilla spokesperson Damiano DeMonte gave a comment to The Verge on Apple’s policy changes and took issue with the decision to limit the browser changes to the EU. “We are still reviewing the technical details but are extremely disappointed with Apple’s proposed plan to restrict the newly-announced BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps,” DeMonte said. “The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations—a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear.” DeMonte added: “Apple’s proposals fail to give consumers viable choices by making it as painful as possible for others to provide competitive alternatives to Safari. This is another example of Apple creating barriers to prevent true browser competition on iOS.”

Apple’s framework that allows for alternative browser engines is called “BrowserEngineKit” and already has public documentation as part of the iOS 17.4 beta. Browser vendors will need to earn Apple’s approval to use the framework in a production app, and like all iOS apps, that approval will come with several requirements. None of the requirements jump out as egregious: Apple wants browser vendors to have a certain level of web standards support, pledge to fix security vulnerabilities quickly and protect the user’s privacy by showing the standard consent prompts for access to things like location. You’re not allowed to “sync cookies and state between the browser and any other apps, even other apps of the developer,” which seems aimed directly at Google and its preference to have all its iOS apps talk to each other. The big negative is that your BrowserEngineKit app is limited to the EU, because—surprise—the EU rules only apply to the EU.

Speaking of Google, Google’s VP of engineering for Chrome, Parisa Tabriz, commented on DeMonte’s statement on X, saying, “Strong agree with @mozilla. @Apple isn’t serious about supporting web browser or engine choice on iOS. Their strategy is overly restrictive, and won’t meaningfully lead to real choice for browser developers.”

Today, you can download what look like “alternative” browsers on iOS, like Chrome and Firefox, but these browsers are mostly just skins overtop of Apple’s Safari engine. iOS app developers aren’t actually allowed to include their own browser engines, so everything uses Safari’s WebKit engine, with a new UI and settings and sync features layered on top. That means all of WebKit’s bugs and feature support decisions apply to every browser.

Being stuck with Safari isn’t great for users. Over the years, Safari has earned a reputation as “the new IE” from some web developers, due to lagging behind the competition in its support for advanced web features. Safari has gotten notably better lately, though. For instance, in 2023, it finally shipped support for push notifications, allowing web apps to better compete with native apps downloaded from Apple’s cash-cow App Store. Apple’s support of push notifications came seven years after Google and Mozilla rolled out the feature.

More competition would be great for the iOS browser space, but the reality is that competition will mostly be from the other big “gatekeeper” in the room: Google. Chrome is the project with the resources and reach to better compete with Safari, and working its way into iOS will bring the web close to a Chrome monoculture. Google’s browser may have better support for certain web features, but it will also come with a built-in tracking system that spies on users and serves up their interests to advertisers. Safari has a much better privacy story.

Even though only EU users will get to choose from several actually different browsers, everyone still has to compete in the EU, and that includes Safari. For the rest of the world, even they don’t get a real browser choice; competing in the EU browser wars should make the only iOS browser better for everyone. The EU rules have a compliance deadline of March 2024, so iOS 17.4 needs to be out by then. Google and Mozilla have been working on full versions of their browsers for iOS for at least a year now. Maybe they’ll be ready for launch?

Google and Mozilla don’t like Apple’s new iOS browser rules Read More »

apple-declares-last-macbook-pro-with-an-optical-drive-obsolete

Apple declares last MacBook Pro with an optical drive obsolete

13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple, CD, dvd, MacBook Pro, optical drive, Tech / /

Physical media —

The laptop hadn’t been for sale in more than seven years.

–

A bulky-looking older Apple laptop

Enlarge / The 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2012.

Sometimes, it’s worth taking a moment to note the end of an era, even when that ending might have happened a long time ago. Today, Apple announced that it considers the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro obsolete. It was the last MacBook Pro to include an optical drive for playing CDs or DVDs.

This means that any MacBook Pro with an optical drive is no longer supported.

Regarding products deemed obsolete, Apple’s support page on the topic says:

Products are considered obsolete when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago… Apple discontinues all hardware service for obsolete products, and service providers cannot order parts for obsolete products. Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability.

Apple stopped selling the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro in October 2016 (it was available for a while as the company’s budget option in the Pro lineup), so anyone doing the math saw this coming. Further, it’s been years since this particular Mac was supported by the latest Apple OS releases. Released in 2020, macOS Big Sur ended support for the device, though older versions of macOS continued to get security updates.

The exclusion of an optical drive in subsequent MacBook Pro models was controversial, but it’s now clear that whether Apple was jumping the gun at that point or not, optical drives have fallen away for most users, and many Windows laptops no longer include them.

Apple still sells an external optical drive it calls SuperDrive that can read and burn CDs and DVDs. However, it hasn’t been updated in ages; it still uses USB-A, which most Mac hardware no longer includes. So, even if you have Apple’s external CD/DVD drive, you probably need an adapter to use it with your modern Mac.

That’s a sign of just how relevant optical drives are for today’s users, but this seems like a good time to remember a bygone era of physical media that wasn’t so long ago. So farewell, mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro—honestly, most of us didn’t miss you by this point.

Apple declares last MacBook Pro with an optical drive obsolete Read More »

apple-warns-proposed-uk-law-will-affect-software-updates-around-the-world

Apple warns proposed UK law will affect software updates around the world

Apple, apple security updates, end to end encryption, Government surveillance, investigatory powers act, Online Privacy, Online Security, Policy, Security Updates, united kingdom / /

Heads up —

Apple may leave the UK if required to provide advance notice of product updates.

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Apple warns proposed UK law will affect software updates around the world

Apple is “deeply concerned” that proposed changes to a United Kingdom law could give the UK government unprecedented power to “secretly veto” privacy and security updates to its products and services, the tech giant said in a statement provided to Ars.

If passed, potentially this spring, the amendments to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) could deprive not just UK users, but all users globally of important new privacy and security features, Apple warned.

“Protecting our users’ privacy and the security of their data is at the very heart of everything we do at Apple,” Apple said. “We’re deeply concerned the proposed amendments” to the IPA “now before Parliament place users’ privacy and security at risk.”

The IPA was initially passed in 2016 to ensure that UK officials had lawful access to user data to investigate crimes like child sexual exploitation or terrorism. Proposed amendments were announced last November, after a review showed that the “Act has not been immune to changes in technology over the last six years” and “there is a risk that some of these technological changes have had a negative effect on law enforcement and intelligence services’ capabilities.”

The proposed amendments require that any company that fields government data requests must notify UK officials of any updates they planned to make that could restrict the UK government’s access to this data, including any updates impacting users outside the UK.

UK officials said that this would “help the UK anticipate the risk to public safety posed by the rolling out of technology by multinational companies that precludes lawful access to data. This will reduce the risk of the most serious offenses such as child sexual exploitation and abuse or terrorism going undetected.”

According to the BBC, the House of Lords will begin debating the proposed changes on Tuesday.

Ahead of that debate, Apple described the amendments on Monday as “an unprecedented overreach by the government” that “if enacted” could allow the UK to “attempt to secretly veto new user protections globally, preventing us from ever offering them to customers.”

In a letter last year, Apple argued that “it would be improper for the Home Office to act as the world’s regulator of security technology.”

Apple told the UK Home Office that imposing “secret requirements on providers located in other countries” that apply to users globally “could be used to force a company like Apple, that would never build a backdoor, to publicly withdraw critical security features from the UK market, depriving UK users of these protections.” It could also “dramatically disrupt the global market for security technologies, putting users in the UK and around the world at greater risk,” Apple claimed.

The proposed changes, Apple said, “would suppress innovation, stifle commerce, and—when combined with purported extraterritorial application—make the Home Office the de facto global arbiter of what level of data security and encryption are permissible.”

UK defends proposed changes

The UK Home Office has repeatedly stressed that these changes do not “provide powers for the Secretary of State to approve or refuse technical changes,” but “simply” requires companies “to inform the Secretary of State of relevant changes before those changes are implemented.”

“The intention is not to introduce a consent or veto mechanism or any other kind of barrier to market,” a UK Home Office fact sheet said. “A key driver for this amendment is to give operational partners time to understand the change and adapt their investigative techniques where necessary, which may in some circumstances be all that is required to maintain lawful access.”

The Home Office has also claimed that “these changes do not directly relate to end-to-end encryption,” while admitting that they “are designed to ensure that companies are not able to unilaterally make design changes which compromise exceptional lawful access where the stringent safeguards of the IPA regime are met.”

This seems to suggest that companies will not be allowed to cut off the UK government from accessing encrypted data under certain circumstances, which concerns privacy advocates who consider end-to-end encryption a vital user privacy and security protection. Earlier this month, civil liberties groups including Big Brother Watch, Liberty, Open Rights Group and Privacy International filed a joint brief opposing the proposed changes, the BBC reported, warning that passing the amendments would be “effectively transforming private companies into arms of the surveillance state and eroding the security of devices and the Internet.”

“We have always been clear that we support technological innovation and private and secure communications technologies, including end-to-end encryption, but this cannot come at a cost to public safety,” a UK government official told the BBC.

The UK government may face more opposition to the amendments than from tech companies and privacy advocates, though. In Apple’s letter last year, the tech giant noted that the proposed changes to the IPA could conflict with EU and US laws, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation—considered the world’s strongest privacy law.

Under the GDPR, companies must implement measures to safeguard users’ personal data, Apple said, noting that “encryption is one means by which a company can meet” that obligation.

“Secretly installing backdoors in end-to-end encrypted technologies in order to comply with UK law for persons not subject to any lawful process would violate that obligation,” Apple argued.

Apple warns proposed UK law will affect software updates around the world Read More »

apple-announces-sweeping-eu-app-store-policy-changes—including-sideloading

Apple announces sweeping EU App Store policy changes—including sideloading

App Store, Apple, Apple App Store, Browsers, Digital Markets Act, European Union, NFC, sideloading, Tech / /
iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max lined up on a table

Enlarge / The iPhone 15 lineup.

To comply with European Union regulations, Apple has introduced sweeping changes that make iOS and Apple’s other operating systems more open. The changes are far-reaching and touch many parts of the user experience on the iPhone. They’ll be coming as part of iOS 17.4 in March.

Apple will introduce “new APIs and tools that enable developers to offer their iOS apps for download from alternative app marketplaces,” as well as a new framework and set of APIs that allow third parties to set up and manage those stores—essentially new forms of apps that can download other apps without going through the App Store. That includes the ability to manage updates for other developers’ apps that are distributed through the marketplaces.

The company will also offer APIs and a new framework for third-party web browsers to use browser engines other than Safari’s WebKit. Until now, browsers like Chrome and Firefox were still built on top of Apple’s tech. They essentially were mobile Safari, but with bookmarks and other features tied to alternative desktop browsers.

The changes also extend to NFC technology and contactless payments. Previously, only Apple Pay could fully access those features on the iPhone. Now, Apple will introduce new APIs that will let developers of banking and wallet apps gain more comparable access.

Developers will have new options for using alternative payment service providers within apps and for directing users to complete payments on external websites via link-outs. They’ll be able to use their apps to tell users about promotions and deals that are offered outside of those apps. (Apple warns that it will not be able to provide refunds or support for customers who purchased something outside its own payment system.)

Apple says it will give users in the European Union the ability to pick default App Stores or default contactless payment apps, just like they already can for email clients or web browsers. EU users will be prompted to pick a default browser when they first open Safari in iOS 17.4 or later, too.

Developers can “submit additional requests for interoperability with iPhone and iOS hardware and software features” via a new form.

All of the above changes impact only the EU; Apple won’t bring them to the United States or other regions at this time. There is one notable change that extends beyond Europe, though: Apple says that “developers can now submit a single app with the capability to stream all of the games offered in their catalog.” That opens the door for services like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass or Nvidia’s GeForce Now.

Apple notes that “each experience made available in an app on the App Store will be required to adhere to all App Store Review Guidelines,” which could still pose some barriers for game streamers.

Apple announces sweeping EU App Store policy changes—including sideloading Read More »