EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
protocol.com
protocol.com
Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer? What if one day Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp want to implement something "different" that could make messaging better but this policy is making things harder to implement because it would be impossible to make it interoperate with other messaging apps?
I don't get why you would regulate such a thing. I get the feeling that people here enjoy seeing big tech companies "owned" by big governments without actually realising that it is actually going to make things worse, that's what regulation does in most cases.
Feels like a uniquely american take. Companies that are maliciously compliant are not the norm.
Leaving behind that most is an ambiguous enough term that means you could basically discredit anything I come up with, how do you feel about regulations that limit the use of harmful or toxic chemicals?
What about regulations that disallow predatory gambling, or the sale of products that do not meet their claims?
Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good.
If you think the regulations are bad then you should genuinely consider sending updated versions to your representatives.
The fallacy here is that you don't get to decide what "social good" is, especially in this case. People get to choose what is good for them, we're talking about tech products here. I see regulations in this specific case as something that goes against progress, whatever that means for the company of your favorite messaging app for the reasons I've explained above.
What about startups that will have to think about this one more thing and maybe put in twice the work when they want to validate their new product?
We're probably leaving out about thousands of other cases here, that's why I made the argument that it sounds nice but it's actually making things worse from my point of view.
Again, there's no clear-cut answer at any given time whether or not "this particular possibly-restrictive regulation is good for everyone." Sometimes it is, sometimes it ain't. That's what you use democracy/government for, to figure these things out.
He or she doesn’t get to, but the society does. Collectively. Not individually. That’s the premise that makes the difference between “society” and a “collection of individuals”
People have decided, by voting.
Why do you think voting with your wallet is the only legitimate way of expressing your wishes? What if someone is poor, they get no vote?
Maybe tbe poor person needs access to technology to not be poor, and the markets have locked them out?
> What about startups
The laws that apply to monopolies / oligopolies dont apply to startups
Well, technically I have a say, I elect my leaders and can write to them with my opinion. Often it is the case that salesmen and charletons get into those positions but the basic premise of those positions is that they're intended to act in the social good. What you propose is that somehow tech companies will act in the social good by themselves, which I find particularly dubious.
All capitalist companies (and by that I mean, any company that is enjoying success in a capitalist society) have an often unstated goal of monopolising their market.
It is a natural outcome of competition that eventually there is a victor. The whole premise of capitalism is that competition is good, but eventually the strongest will win and you have a monopolistic leader.
The only antidote to this is regulations.
Making the argument that regulation hurts smaller companies is also something uniquely American. This regulation (and many other tech regulations) are really aimed at people abusing their position today, not some theoretical startup that somehow captures 60% of a market overnight.
FWIW, I actually really like iMessage and agree with the decision Apple made not to open it, but I can't abide talk like this because a lot of people seem to think that regulation is somehow anti-capitalist, when in reality regulation is the only thing that could keep the capitalist machine running once there is a monopoly position or a sufficient moat around a service.
Apple is the last real holdout here, keeping SMS and MMS alive.
Regulations are the best tool for that. But there's always sabotage as a fallback.
How do you explain all these damn GDPR pop ups on every site that make it as difficult as possible to disagree?
New regulations were drafted that required these popups to be as easy to agree as to disagree, precisely because of this.
Right now, too many end users get fatigue fooled into blaming the EU rather than the companies tracking them, whereas on mobile they are aware that it's Facebook triggering the dialog, not the EU: just see how many users end up refusing Facebook tracking when they have a clear choice that doesn't push them one way or the other.
It would even help companies who currently delegate handling GDRP to thirdparty services that prey on small companies worried about being non-compliant.
Mojang and Skype come to mind. As well as three of my former companies that are now owned by Oracle.
The EU market is definitely harder, it is not as contiguous and large as the US one, even the smallest required task: localisation, is hugely expensive.
So you can hit a critical scale faster in the US, sure, but any time anyone actually conquers Europe all that awaits them is acquisition.
Flourish is a generous term.. There are countless examples of companies in all industries who will take full advantage of no regulations in the pursuit of profits solely.
And only when it's too late and they have caused so much chaos for people will they lobby for their own "symbolic" regulations.
There is a happy medium in there somewhere, but the US model is not it.
Also, anecdotally, SMS was invented in europe so no need to regulate something already open and european.
Because there's absolutely no downside to telling Apple it can't artificially make its iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices. We literally have seen leaked emails where Apple deliberately does this as an anti-consumer platform lock in play. The slippery slope hypothetical you provide is not the reality. Nobody is asking governments to regulate adding cool new features to the <Open Message Protocol> and force everyone to comply and implement them. What regulators are saying is that Apple can't deliberately make Sneetches out of us and needs to allow interoperability on their human-critical messaging platform. In the US the DMCA actually makes it explicitly legal to reverse engineer a protocol for the purpose of interoperability. This idea basically extends that to "and you can't punish users for building applications that interoperating with it" but of course is framed as "just fucking stop disallowing it greedy asshats".
If I could install a 3rd party SMS app on iPhone (like how Signal used to work on Android) I'd be more skeptical about needing this regulation.
If Apple wasn't doing this artificially and iMessage actually had features that were innovative, and that other people couldn't reasonably be expected to implement in a way that wouldn't be a detriment to the protocol, I'd be more skeptical. (TBH they've probably spent more resources on preventing interoperability than if they didn't care and let it be open...)
> Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer?
No, degrade gracefully. If the feature is an improvement for everyone and should be required, we know how to have working groups update a spec and have implementers follow (even when one leads the pack and drives the spec changes in the first place as is often the case these days). If that doesn't work build a new protocol and win people over with your obviously better CoolNewFeature.
It's like you don't believe it's possible with the countless man centuries of resources these companies have to have software both interoperate and degrade gracefully when one client doesn't support all protocol features. I don't buy it; I believe we can.
You're spreading FUD.
There are plenty. Like users thinking imessage is shit because of third party clients. Or taking away an app devs right to restrict how and where their app is used. You have no inherent right over how imessage is restricted. I mean, by what right or authority do you even get to even discuss forcing how a free(!) app is restricted or forcing an all network/server to provide services to arbitrary clients? If I block firefox on my webserver, will you or EU tell me I can't??
If those are the concerns against forcing them to open it, they shall force them now! I mean, lol...
>Or taking away an app devs right to restrict how and where their app is used. You have no inherent right over how imessage is restricted. I mean, by what right or authority do you even get to even discuss forcing how a free(!) app is restricted or forcing an all network/server to provide services to arbitrary clients?
There are no "inherent rights" period. Right comes from law, which ideally comes from what society deems worthy to have. If EU wants open messaging than can be made into a law. It's that simple.
Whether the app is free or not is irrelevant. It's enough a consideration that it occupies a big percentage of usage share, so having it close presents a moat against communicating with a big chunk of the population (and also restricts those using iOS just one client).
>If I block firefox on my webserver, will you or EU tell me I can't??
They very well could, if the right conditions applied...
Isn't that exactly what you're asking of Apple? Apple already has SMS. You want them to adopt RCS because it has cool new features that are lacking in SMS.
Let's say I propose this rule: Apple must publish the iMessage spec and allow other services to send/receive iMessages.
That doesn't force Apple or anyone else to implement any specific feature, beyond allowing others to send/receive messages. WhatsApp or Signal could decide they don't want to implement the iMessage protocol and they're free to do so. WhatsApp might support voice calling, but that doesn't force iMessage to implement voice calling. It's simply saying that third parties can choose to implement the iMessage protocol if they want.
There may be features that will only work within one platform, but that won't give anyone a lock-in advantage since others can implement those features if they're popular. For example, let's say Apple implements CoolNewFeature. They have to publish the spec for CoolNewFeature. Sure, maybe it will take 6 months for Google and WhatsApp to implement CoolNewFeature, but there's nothing preventing them from doing so. Likewise, WhatsApp already has voice calling, but you won't be able to do that with iMessage folks because Apple hasn't implemented that. That seems ok to me. If Apple starts to lose users to WhatsApp, they'll want to implement that interoperability. If it isn't an important feature, it isn't important whether they implement it or not.
To me, it seems like this is about preventing companies from creating walled gardens. It's not about forcing companies to adopt certain standards or features. Apple doesn't need to adopt RCS. If others could send/receive iMessage-protocol messages, it would provide an interoperable system. Some might complain that X protocol is better than Y protocol, but that's the history of everything. Ultimately, those types of things haven't prevented third parties from creating interoperability with less perfect protocols.
Every instance of that is a huge guesswork mess that I wouldn't wish upon average people to navigate though. RCS has tons of "maybe implement" features, and don't even get me started on the mess that's XMPP. If you ever tried to use OMEMO from two different clients at once, you know what I'm talking about.
If two clients have good implementation, there is nothing messy about user experience. The only problem is that most clients are developed by hobbyists in their spare time, who might have very different ideas on how to do key verification, etc, so you get only what you get. It is not because of the protocol.
No, I don't. OMEMO practically's only benefit is fixing that one usecase.
By the way, iMessage is XMPP. Whatsapp is XMPP. Just artificially closed. Long etc.
I would assume one downside is a higher amount of spam. Currently you need to have an Apple device to send an iMessage. So sending spam is an expensive proposition.
If I want to spam you I buy a bunch of numbers on Plivo and start sending your number messages with SMS, the existing standard. They show up in iMessage on your phone. The only difference is they're green instead of blue.
So, how do I need an iPhone to send you spam? iMessage doesn't do anything related to spam other than let you delete and report it.
But if it did work that way, then the standard could include that messages need to be signed with a device attestation key from an approved vendor or something like that. There could be a way to have your attestation keys registered like we do for CAs today so that your attestation hardware could be used. Phone manufacturers would all implement device attestation, like Apple and Google do.
Did you ever look into what happened with XMPP extensions?
I am looking forward to Google being able to finally get ahold of my iMessage and hoover it into their surveillance capitalism machine. What a huge benefit to me!
RCS will have no effect on iMessage whatsoever. Messages between a homogeneous group of iOS users has no reason to touch Google owned (or other) RCS servers. And for Android users, RCS is a meaningful upgrade from traditional SMS.
Okay, this is where I think we need to make clear who this requirement applies to. If we click through the first link, found in the first sentence in the article, to the actual source text[0] and run it through Google Translate, we can find that this requirement only applies to companies...
>... whose market capitalization reaches at least 75 billion euros or whose annual turnover exceeds 7.5 billion euros. To qualify as gatekeepers, these companies must also provide certain services such as browsers, messaging or social media which have at least 45 million end users per month in the EU and 10,000 business users per year.
[0]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/fr/press-room/20220315IP...
This again is a talked up hypothetical problem at best. We've had chat for 30y now and while progress has been disruptive in the beginning, things have considerably consolidated.
I don't quite get what's so great about having to install 5 different chat clients just because your social network is too varied to force them onto one.
It's a case of corporate greed where sensible solutions (like licensing out the protocol) are not done to damage the opponent. I don't profit from this - if companies hadn't been this evil, the EU wouldn't have come down on them. If they don't like it, they can just stop selling smartphones in Europe.
Of course you don't see it, the innovation was stifled by the regulation! /s
That's still possible. The company owning that platform just has to ensure that its services are accessible by any client. Protocols/APIs can still be further developed or brand new ones introduced. But they still have to be documented & be made accessible.
Yes all those regulations that actually make things worse.
Which ones are those again? specifically?
I find that generally people who make hand-wavey boogeyman 'regulation is bad' arguments typically struggle to identify which regulations are bad and why, and conveniently forget about the thousands of regulations that make their life livable every day.
That's allowed. There's not some new law that all messaging apps must implement the iMessage protocol, or that they must interoperate with iMessage.
I couldn't care less if Apple is 'owned' or not, its nothing special to me compared to all other corporations. Having at least a bit compatible messengers is definitely something positive, its quite a mental gymnastics to immediately try to come up with some theoretical reasons why this shouldn't happen at all (and failing at that). If apple didn't do typical apple thing to create its own standards and share it with nobody, they wouldn't be hammered by regulators 15 years down the line (lightning port, now this, we will see what comes next, plenty of topics to pick up).
Apple knew very well this will eventually come, same for USB, but they made it into operational cost of having some sort of advantage to get more income till its stopped. Now correction happens. You regulate such thing because clearly corporations only care about profits. And markets, as wonderful as they are, always put money on the first place so waiting for them to move corps into more considering-society territory is often a fruitless effort unless you have gigatons of patience.
The job of most government officials is to find plausible solutions to real problems, get a mob engaged and mobilized to solve it, then get the money voted into play so they can extract it via kickbacks and other indirect payments from the contractors.
They're gonna be trying to regulate anything they think is capable of justifying the racket.
Example: Youtube.com 17million dollars running for 18 months, healthcare.gov, 2 billion dollars failed on launch and not used at all.
For a different comparison, why don't we look at Uber: it has market dominance to the point of being a verb, yet it loses more money per year than Healthcare.gov has cost in its entire existence.
Also, worth noting is that dozens of states managed the Obamacare site rollouts just fine as an example of government managing tech projects just fine.
Remember ICQ? The official clients were bloated and generally meh. Many people didn't ever see them, not even once. Almost everyone I knew used QIP, Miranda, Adium, or something else third-party. ICQ the company sometimes broke the protocol and then there was a massive uproar. Then clients got updated and everyone carried on messaging. But the system being involuntarily open like this meant that there were ICQ clients for so many things that wouldn't ever get official treatment otherwise. Basically — if it has a network interface, a screen, a means of text input, and can run arbitrary code, it'd have an ICQ client built for it at some point. There was one in the form of an ELF binary for Siemens phones for example.
No one is asking for a standardized protocol. It is my understanding that what is being asked for here is the documentation of their existing protocol that would allow third-party clients and bridges to be built. And this is an unequivocally good thing.
No, I don't think so. You can set a standard that defines a baseline of features that all interoperable messaging apps must support. But that doesn't preclude apps from offering additional functionality over and above the standard.
Idk though maybe I misunderstood it
This is never how it was supposed to be. The internet was the massive success it is because it is built on open standards.
Back in the day, if anyone wanted to build a better protocol at something, you had open discussions and eventually come up with an RFC that anyone and everyone can implement and be interoperable.
While it's difficult to shove that genie back into the bottle, anything that in any way promotes interoperable standards above these terrible proprietary walled gardens is a huge win.
Seriously, there's no serious argument that suggests that this is the likelihood. Sometimes it gets better, sometimes it doesn't. The problem is, no one notices the good stuff due to regulation because you're just used to it.
Frankly, it's getting irritating that people aren't understanding this more?
Signal is actually removing SMS support, so problem solved on that end. But Signal can be installed on most platforms anyway, so if someone wanted to participate in the extra features, they always had the option of simply installing the client app. I can't install iMessage for Android if I want to be in the family group message and not see "Mom liked an image" 15 times. I personally dislike iPhones, but I still want to participate in my family's group chat, Apple doesn't give me that option. At least with WhatsApp, Signal or whatever what phone we have doesn't matter and we don't have to join the walled garden to use really basic features. I don't know what phone my friends in Signal group chats or WhatsApp use, because it doesn't matter.
If you're going to bridge different platforms, allow the other platforms to update to support it. It is exclusionary. Apple does this with FaceTime, I have my family install Duo/Meet on their Apple phones because I have to explain to them I don't have an Apple device for it, or if I do, its my work machine. At least that's a little less hostile than, "you can chat with your family but you're going to see activity you can't participate in".
Just open the standard/api/protocol, document it, and it'll get integrated into pidgin or some other alternative within a few days. Currently it's not a problem of not having apps trying to integrate protocols, but protocol designers intentionally locking other apps out of the ecosystem.
This is incidentally the reason moxie cited for not making Signal federated.
Absolutely. These corporations laugh all the way to the bank as they destroy our privacy and exploit us for profit with surveillance capitalism, destroy our computer freedoms with hardware cryptography only they have the keys for, pollute our web with unending advertising and annoyances driven by "engagement engineering". Someone really ought to check their goddamn audacity. My only complaint is the fines aren't big and frequent enough to surpass their cost of doing business.
I'm sorry, I just don't feel sorry at all about the trillion dollar corporations. Maybe they should try not being monopolists who want to own the platform and their users. Then maybe the state won't feel the need to remind them we are not cattle to be sold to the highest bidder.
The others, this law is trying to force interaction with, not just did, but actively and aggressively do.
To the point that Brian Acton of WhatsApp walked away from a billion dollars and donated $50M to Signal rather that watch it happen.
When I saw that I figured they were aware and would soon start blocking it.
The bigger they get, the less they want to interoperate.
It is great having a unified tool with minimal resource usage that is fully integrated into your platform.
Many clients including Empathy and Kopete allowed this at the time.
There a bunch of bridges[0] available for pretty much any communication network you can think of and some people even go so far as to use their Matrix client for email too.
That's a pretty uncharitable way to interpret the statement, when the three features OP mentioned are a part of literally every modern messaging platform that people use. Not just iMessage and RCS (the open protocol which is the best analog to iMessage), but WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Discord, Messenger, Instagram, Slack... It's actually hard to think of one that doesn't. I guess IRC, if you consider that in any way comparable to the others, but it really isn't at this point, being a now fairly obscure protocol reserved mostly for tech-savvy people and niche cases.
I signed up the moment it came out and they had some teething reliability problems for a while, but it's been great for months now. Element is a much better web client than any of the others and it's nice to not have to worry about which computer or platform I'm on when I want to write a message.
It will be impossible to build an app that supports everything. And with 10%-20% global turnover as a fine, the EU is turning into a dictator.
[ ] - Can send and receive basic text messages [ ] - Can send and receive rich text messages (bold, italics, underline, headings, etc.) [ ] - Ability to send and display file formats (debatable which ones - maybe force custom animated emojis to be transmitted, cached for later use as compatible file formats (webm, gif, etc.)
Just as an example.
The EU is going to mess it up, as they likely will by forcing all companies to "fall in line" with standards that will likely not be updated frequently, instead of allowing smaller companies to innovate first, then enforcing current policies if there's too much BS behaviour in the industry.
See - current rumors of Apple creating "special" Apple USB-C cables that will be the only ones to allow faster charging and data transfers, compared to other high-quality USB-C cables that an iPhone won't permit to have high data transfer rates and will charge devices slowly. You can set the standard, but companies with enough money and legal know-how can still bypass the intent of the law! Smaller companies can't compete on the accessories market.
Unless other government are serious about this (the EU is a fairly small market segment compared to the rest of the world), we're going to see more of this regulation dodging and chicanery from massive companies while smaller ones suffer or struggle to succeed in a marketplace dominated by capital interests.
If E2E were not available for any reason whatsover, we could go back to that as necessary, though might lose some extra benefits of integrated E2E platforms like perfect forward secrecy (or maybe not; I'm not really up to date on my crypto).
With a standard and open protocol enforced, we could create a FOSS client that automatically pre-shares a public key and de/encrypts messages before sending them, so the UX would be much better than the awkwardness of early PGP.
In fact, this line from the article is far more serious: “Apple, for instance, will also need to contend with a reported requirement to allow side-loading of apps outside of its App Store, something it's spent years fighting internationally”.
>>> allow side-loading of apps outside of its App Store
Previous app submissions were rejected on the basis of being "too close to existing functionality". Maybe they meant dysfunctionality? If the EU needs witnesses of anti-competitive behavior I volunteer.
[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-use-f...
I rented a car with Android Auto, went inside my podcast app, and couldn't go back to Google maps, and of course Android Auto makes google maps stop working on my mobile phone when android auto is on.
So i was trying things like ,,go to maps'', ,,go to navigation'', ,,maps'', but none of them worked.
Disconnecting and reconnecting andorid auto worked mostly (but not always)
oooh that would be awesome. I'm at a point where I only use it for timers and it even gets that wrong sometimes "I created an alarm named Timer for 01:30am".. oh yeah I can't just say "timer one hour thirty" because Siri hates British people and parses the numbers wrong lmao.
Also can we get multiple timers yet? Why is a device more powerful than the computer we used to send people to the moon limited to one timer?
Can't wait!
Try: "Hey Siri give me a 90 minute beef timer", "Hey siri give me a 25 minute chips timer"
Considering the number of people who celebrated in response to your comment, I think I get it now why people support side-loading---they don't actually understand it and are merely projecting their own interpretations.
Is this what you're wanting from an OpenAI integration?
Tomorrow I can guarantee they will immediately cut costs and ship out piles of sideloaded garbage
Sure, it’s up to the consumer to choose, but they’re not going to write that on the package
As a technical user, it doesn't bother me. When I consider many of my friends, it does bother me—most of them I know with non-iOS devices have complained about their devices moving slowly due to the junkware and the third-party app stores they've acquired (never F-Droid, always something sketchy). When I think about family members, I think about how web push notifications have rendered two of their phones borderline unusable.
Most "consumer-friendly" choices the EU makes are actually about developer & manufacturer profit. This isn't consumer-aligned. It eliminates the profit motive that's left iOS devices as more or less the only LTS phones on the market.
I don't like Apple products that much—I use Linux on my cell phone, but at the same time I refuse to adopt cheap rhetorical tactics to make app developers wealthier.
If they really wanted things to be consumer-friendly, they'd ban proprietary software. Instead, they make it easier for proprietary software developers to make profit off of users.
From Article 7:
"The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services."
I can't imagine much more than E2EE & maybe encrypted-at-rest (which is not a protocol-level feature anyway).
What happens if interoperability is enforced and messages have to be end-to-end encrypted? Wouldn't that mean that any side-loaded Android app would have to be able to get hold of my friend's private iMessage key?
On iOS I guess you could still keep the key private through Apple's SDK, but what about other platforms?
It's such a huge win for Facebook and Google - I'm not worried about "sideloaders", it lets them crack open the privacy of iMessage by simply having a view on conversations they can't see under the guise of interoperability.
The EU are just rolling a surveillance capitalist's wet dream with rulings like these.
If I were an entrepreneur, and say that I wanted to fork a Unix-like OS so that I could make a cross-device OS for consumer hardware that I, too, make---shouldn't I have the right to program my OS to seamlessly integrate only with the apps and the hardware that I want it to seamlessly integrate with (i.e., mine), because my suite of apps and hardware is exactly the kind of platform that I want to offer? Isn't it regulatory overreach when lawmakers are dictating how an OS should be designed and how a company should differentiate its product from the rest of the market?
I believe there is a philosophical misunderstanding here. Your users do not exist to serve your whims. Your projects continued existence is not a right and is subject to the will of the people as decided by their representative governments. If that bothers you, perhaps you’re part of the problem? Collaboration is how humanity has survived so long and you’re seemingly arguing against that for your own fights of fancy without an iota of respect for the overwhelming population of people effected by your whims.
I struggle to wrap my head around how accomplished professionals can be so cavalier when speaking about civilization scale problems. I’m not sure if it’s hubris, mental illness, immaturity, or what. Regardless, it is revolting behavior to witness.
As a result, I don't understand why people are so mad at iMessage that they need it crippled. You're not forced to use it. Apple doesn't block other messaging applications.
Plus, this law in question is a great foot in the door. Wait until they start lowering the monetary valuation of companies to slowly encompass all major messaging apps. At which point they'll have leveraged themselves right into a position of ending E2EE forever.
>There's is a near infinite number of competitors to iMessage
50% of phones in the US are apple phones. Nearly everyone is exclusively using iMessage (and doesn't even realize that it's proprietary while trying to mix in SMS). Hardly anyone uses anything like whatsapp here. Good luck getting any somewhat older person to use multiple messaging apps. So to say there are an infinite number of competitors is completely disengenious.
>As a result, I don't understand why people are so mad at iMessage that they need it crippled. You're not forced to use it. Apple doesn't block other messaging applications
First, apple is not perfect with SMS integration. I was on android for many years. My mom (an apple fanatic) would constantly complain that her messages wouldn't go through, or my messages wouldn't come in. Apple has some SMS issues that, while rare, are either intentional to some degree or they refuse to fix. It got to the point that my mom literally wanted me to move to an iphone simply so I could message her properly.
THIS IS WHAT APPLE WANTS. You are absolutely a fool if you don't acknowledge that.
They have half the market share and create a walled garden to the point where people feel they must move to their platform simply to properly communicate with people.
That being said, I did move to iphone recently. Not just for this- I was sick of android because I want a phone that just works. However, even I felt compelled to just make the switch since everyone I know does use an iphone and iMessage will make it easier for me to communicate with everyone. It was definitely a large factor, even though I hate myself for doing it.
Apple is not innocent at all here- it's an objective fact that they have half the market share and specifically do not open up their messaging platform in order to get more people to switch over. It's a flagrant abuse of their power.
I don't want it crippled. I want them to have to publish their code/spec publicly, so other people can interoperate with it.
And to your point about comms infrastructure—how does interoperability across messaging apps even look like, and does the idea even make sense? It’s not specified within the article.
Are you employed or vested in this industry? This rhetoric is disingenuous and can be seen as bad faith argumentation. We are, rather explicitly, not talking about mere design decisions. We’re actually discussing the functionality of one of the largest messaging providers in the world with one the largest valuations in the world. You should keep the facts of the topic in mind and not detour into baseless hypotheticals that are antithetical to TFA.
> Where, even, is the disrespect in being a mere option amongst many?
We’re not talking about a guy in his garage. When a company, as large as apple, provides a service they enter a social contract to provide a reasonable quality of service for all users. Apple is willfully and repeatedly violating this contract. Hence, they are being held to account by the governments comprised of their users and enacting the will of said governments constituents.
>It’s not like Apple is forcing people to buy into their ecosystem.
By deliberately differentiating between customers and non customers in the quality of service experienced by their customers and those non customers their customers communicate with they are exerting market force. TFA is about the EU responding to this force with force.
> how does interoperability across messaging apps even look like, and does the idea even make sense?
This is likely the purview of an organization like ISO. If this is such an alien idea to you, perhaps you should expound on your perspective because at first blush it seems to me that you don’t understand the history of how modern communications were developed and implemented.
I can flip your question around and ask "should you have the right to play dirty?". Which is what Apple has been doing, there's exactly zero good reason to not license out access to the protocol.
I don't own Apple, I am a consumer. If this leads to me not having to install 5 different chat clients, I am grateful. It was the exact same with all the proprietary charging plugs for smartphones.
There's at least three good reasons:
* Keeping the protocol private is a competitive advantage * Licensing a protocol and managing those licensees is not free * A shared protocol dramatically decreases Apple's ability to innovate on top of that protocol
I would argue that it'd be worth while to ignore these issues if Apple was hampering competition in the messaging space, but I just don't see it. I can easily use any messaging app I want on my phone, the only thing stopping me is that iMessage is good enough.
You can even build a REST endpoint for Apple to invoke when your business receives a message from a user: https://register.apple.com/resources/messages/msp-rest-api/m...
Where's the playing dirty and undermining businesses part?
I'm too lazy to research why exactly Microsoft can't use this API to interface with iMessage and instead opting for a half-baked bluetooth solution, but there must be some hurdle.
is Apple playing dirty in this scenario? and if it is, then what exactly is stopping regulators from improving SMS thus making Apple's position moot?
I would like a practical way to have a single chat app on all my devices, some of which Apple makes.
So, you won't have to worry about that until you reach 75 billion Euros.
For example Meta's Instagram chat doesn't even have feature parity across devices. Let alone into their other properties, so the idea that they'd be able to telegraph features into some interoperable standard isn't realistic, however I can imagine them slashing features until they meet the required level of interoperability.
At its core the problem is that governments write tech legislation under the wrong assumption that these companies will take it then innovate from that point onwards - but that's not how it plays out. Developers aren't mind readers, so the moment the government says they're interested in legislating how some kind of service should be run, development freezes in wait of the final legislation (and if need be, any court cases that may stem from that legislation.)
From this point development is focused on meeting the legislative requirements and the usually short timelines imposed by the EU (Because bugs never happen and testing is just something we do for lolz.)
Depending on the wording of the legislation there are limited opportunities to differentiate the product and there is the constant risk that the EU interprets any new features as an attempt to circumvent the legislation. So the best thing to do is just put the product out to pasture.
I'm also entirely of the mind that this is simply not needed. What is so hard in closing one chat app and opening another? The majority of people in the EU are using whatsapp, and new entrants are constant. This just seems like such a non-issue, especially as the mac notification system allows for immediate replies regardless of where the message came from, that is totally abstracted.
No, it won't hurt you or your grandma that you can choose app store, choose browser engine, choose payment provider, that you can charge with usb c, etc., and in this case that non-apple users won't be mocked with different colored bubbles and other limitations. Every concern is either blown out of proportions or can easily be solved with the slightest bit of willpower.
Choice leads to better competition and thus better products whereas lock-in leads to complacency and stagnancy.
I made my choice for Apple in part because of its relatively closed nature compared to its only meaningful competitor. But it was a choice. I used to be the biggest anti-Apple person, too. Until I used their products. The quality is just superior in every way that consumers actually care about. Hypothesis: a substantial fraction of current Android users would switch if they could afford an iPhone (either by a price drop from Apple or an increase in their disposable income).
I can easily afford an Apple phone, it's weird that you would even mention the price because they're not expensive compared to top end Android phones. But I wouldn't touch one with a 10ft pole.
I'm a power user who customizes everything and needs to do lots of nerdy things like use dvorak keyboard layout, ssh to my home server, use apps connected to services on my home server, use an offline password manager, "sideload" all kinds of shit that would never be allowed in their crappy dongle-addicted consumer-hostile "ecosystem", write my own apps, etc, etc. I prefer to have local backups/encryption keys, and as little cloud profile as possible.
I'm already irritated even just thinking about being forced to use an iPhone. "Quality is superior", HAAHAHA. I've actually worked supporting macOS stuff before. HAHAHAHA.
Yes I know I'm not the target market for Apple crap but Apple's success encourages other corporations to do the same bullshit.
I love computers, always have. I always thought Computers should make human lives better, more enjoyable and more connected, not be a mechanism to segment society and shovel more disposable dongles and earpods.
So I'm insistent on the government "invading" the Apple ecosystem because the Apple ecosystem is an anticompetitive cancer that infects other corporations, normalizing terrible behavior and creating arbitrary limits on the usefulness of computers where there should be none.
Of course it's more lucrative to milk your victims... That's why when corporations step over the line, governments need to step in. Yes I know how rarely that works properly.
Fuck Apple and fuck Apple apologists. They're ruining technology one dongle at a time.
It’s egregious that the EU will force a lowest-common-denominator implementation of messaging on independent private companies who, up to this point, have all been innovating in this space.
The EU desperately wants to compromise end to end encryption, so we KNOW that that the EU is not acting in the public interest when it comes to legislating messaging services.
> bodies like the EU (led by appointment, not elected politicians) decide on technical standards
The president of the United States is not directly elected.They are voted by the electoral college, which introduces all the problems of gerrymandering. EU council are appointed - by politicians from each country, directly elected. You could argue it is less problematic.
> will force a lowest-common-denominator implementation on independent private companies who, up to this point, Havel all been innovating in this space
I prefer to see this as “they will mandate a minimum interoperaability standard on a public, regulated, communications service, which is conceded by the nations. And colouring bubbles green or blue is not innovation. Neither is refusing to work with others that have at least as good implementations just to keep your walled garden. > the EU desperately wants to compromise end to end encryption
Not “the EU”, some council members. A sufficiently large number of EU countries are adamantly against that proposed legislation, it has more chance of not passing at this point.
But I do agree with you; I see three likely scenarios:
1. An application offers two payment options: app store and standalone, with a "discount" given to standalone.
2. They change nothing
3. They remove app store subscriptions and force you to their website/app for managing payment/subscription.
If an app chooses option 3, this is where the user is "hurt". I don't see this happening often because I would wager that a service's subscription numbers would take a massive hit. Too many users are accustom to the simplicity that has been offered by in-app purchases/subscriptions.
It is mostly a response to the army that shows up to attack Apple with a bunch of FUD.
I see speech bubble contents.
Making iMessage available to android would be nice, but there’s no way Apple would make it convenient.
Some technical workshops [1] are being organized with interested stakeholders to receive their views on specific issues and questions that may arise in relation to the specific implementing measures by gatekeepers that are to ensure effective compliance with that legislation.
[0]: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...
[1]: https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/dma/dma-workshops_en
- Interopability between walled gardens like messenger apps
- Side-loading software on your devices
I'm also hoping that we see this specifically lead to the following:
- Installing your own operating system on any electronic device
- Third-party video games running on proprietary consoles without the vendor's approval
- Less tech-savvy folks side loading viruses
Can’t wait for all the calls for help from my parents and friends. It’ll be just like the good old days.
/s
It has a very negative connotation, like you are doing something odd, out of the ordinary, unorthodox, even semi-forbidden.
In reality it's just: installing and running the software of your choice on a device you own.
As it is the difference between sending photos via iMessage vs sending photos via WhatsApp is like night and day. I don't know how Apple managed to f. that up but if I have to send more than 2-3 photos the app asks me to do horizontal scrolling, which is not optimal, to say the least.
Plus the very process of sending and receiving the photos themselves seems very clunky in comparison.
You can build basic app functionality into iMessage, something you can't do with WhatsApp.
The desktop app for iMessage is simple, but efficient and gets the job done. The WhatsApp desktop app is slow by comparison.
WhatsApp has the user numbers, but it has never been the best when it comes to functionality.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services [1] https://signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/
Yes.
Is this happening organically via market forces?
No. That's why.
If there were a common standard that was widely supported and cross-app compatible, these regulations wouldn't have happened. Email doesn't cut it for real time messaging. Governments will pursue no brainer policy like this if the private sector doesn't reach the conclusion on their own.
Crappy as they are, they are still life savers.
Part of the reason spam is so rare on iMessage is because it requires an iCloud account on an Apple device, which not only raises the barrier to entry significantly but also means that spammers are easily dealt with via account and device serial bans.
I am very intrigued to see how the various platforms will enable such features in software terms - WhatsApp recently allowed the usage of proxies via their platform, and there is talk of Apple maintaining the Made for iPhone program when they roll over to USB-C which is allowed under the "USB-C for phones" law they passed recently. So expect some creative applications/interpretations of the DMA.
I think it'll work similar to telegram, they'll "open up" without the E2EE aspect and basically enable a "compatibility" mode. Otherwise, and being more cynical, this does feel like a 'ploy' to get around E2EE by making large, privacy-focused platforms such as Signal 'open up' (I do wonder if Signal would be classified under the rules for turnover etc). Suppose it depends on the final text of the law and how lawyers interpret what "opening up" means. Haven't really seen much about what the EU is going to expect there.
But if we are cynical, expect the end of E2EE messaging apps entirely.
[1]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/fr/press-room/20220315IP...
>The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services. [0]
As for forcing them to open up, I think Matrix has a good response to it [1]. As well as their follow-up technical implementation article [2].
[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
[1] https://matrix.org/blog/2022/03/25/interoperability-without-...
[2] https://matrix.org/blog/2022/03/29/how-do-you-implement-inte...
Isn't that exactly what the Messages app does now? SMS is that compatibility mode.
Apple will probably make it very, very challenging to access this "open" iMessage outside of EU, and/or will make it very uncomfortable to use (especially for competing developers, but we've already seen this with the blue/green imessage bubbles)
Microsoft responded to a similar 'integration' sort of scenario with neutered versions of Windows (such as Windows N/Windows KN) that almost no one outside of the targeted areas would choose, which is almost certainly similar to how Apple will respond.
They might also release different versions of hardware with different components missing. In fact, Apple has already responded this way already, with regional iPhones:
* Japan iPhones have an obnoxious shutter-click sound because that's required for all cameras, so people know when they're being photographed.
* Chinese iPhones have no option to make Audio Facetime calls, only video.
* United Arab Emirates (UAE) do not support Facetime at all.
So, I don't see that this will likely result in much change at this point. Apple has proven itself to be smart, wily, and very aggressive about flouting laws or regulations that might reduce its stranglehold on its customers.
For iot it would be amazing; government should mandate that all iot devices have a common communication method/channel (local where possible) so that they're totally interoperable.
Everyone cries about innovation etc etc but think about Apple: they love their custom stuff like this, iMessage, Lightning, AirDrop etc, they always come up with such nice marketable names. But where would they be without supporting _standard_ bluetooth/wifi as well, hmm?
Tbh I think if Apple _could_ get away with it then they'd create their own "AirConnectProMax" wireless communication standard and force everyone to buy new routers that only work with iPhones and MacBooks.
Honestly this is suprisingly close to how it works for a fair subset of devices. I.e. I can get basically any zigbee enabled device and expect it to work with my home assistant setup.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
My anecdote is that iMessage is only place where I get spam almost daily. All other messengers - once per month, at most.
You can use the web version, but it sucks on a tablet.
You can link a device (but I haven't checked it)
https://faq.whatsapp.com/1317564962315842/
https://faq.whatsapp.com/378279804439436
WhatsApp companion mode lets you use the same account on multiple phones https://mashable.com/article/whatsapp-companion-mode-multipl...
Android tablet, that is. If it's an iPad, you're SOL completely.
Even funnier is that the new native app for macOS [0] (i.e. not using Electron) is made with Catalyst… a tool made for porting iPad apps to macOS.
Somewhere, someone at WhatsApp works on a version of the app for the SOLE PURPOSE of porting it to another platform, while NOT releasing the original. It's completely baffling.
0 – https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-native-beta-for-macos-is-now...
And who decides which application(s) are forced to implement those enhancements?
For example, iMessage supports iMessage apps. I imagine providing interoperability for those would be a monumental task, if not impossible. Would Apple now be forced to abandon its iMessage app store due to lack of interoperability?
Or does this new law apply only to the core tenants of a message application? That a message app must only be interoperable with other apps/services in the sense that it can send and receive basic text?
I think this is the worst idea.
I don't need Apple Message to work with Facebook or Android.
Who wants that? All it means is spammers from Facebook are going to find me on Apple Message. Oof.
Why do we think having government mandating what tech can do, or how tech can work, is a good thing?
Apple has made two dumb decisions in 40 years... the touchbar on the MBP, and all the dongles on the last-gen of MBP. Everyone is allowed to fail, but jumping straight to, "We need government to tell companies how things should work..." No, that's fucking cringe.
This just comes across as super anti-American. "We don't like that American companies doing stuff, let's penalize them!"
The irony being that the universal messaging app of choice in Europe is made by Facebook.
I know people who are trapped on iOS because they will become second-class citizens within their social circles if they "downgrade" to an android phone.
Opening up iMessage is a decent move, but we also need to get RCS well-supported everywhere so that we can all share a reasonably modern communication foundation.
In order words, if it wants to improve its service, it will need to get buy in from a committee of its competitors.
This is a solution in search of a problem. Consumers today can choose from iMessage, Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Google Chat. There's competition, and there's so many great options for each person. This regulation can only make things worse.
In other words, iMessage will need to be able to send messages to WhatsApp, and WhatsApp needs to be able to send messages similarly to iMessage.
As someone who benefitted greatly from the era when thirdparty MSNP clients were extremely common, I think they need to do the same with Microsoft Teams.
Looking and ChromeOS, iOS, and even direction taking by Windows 11.
Something I find fascinating. Apple bad, Facebook good?
Maybe when they run out of things to fine firms for that don't benefit their citizens ... they'll just stop fining them ...
You created an advanced easy to use connector for your line of phones? Fuck you, you have to change it to a plug that came later and has a different set of trade offs that may not align with your product.
You created a messaging service that was way ahead of its time, and it basically took a decade for others to catch up? Fuck you, provide the fruits of your innovation to everyone for free, erasing your competitive advantage.
Leveraging bundling to avoid having software compete on their individual merits 1:1 with competitors is not good for innovation
Quick reminder that Apple was literally one of the companies that invented USB-C and already uses USB-C across many lines of their products. You're making it sound like EU is making them use HDMI for charging or something.