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Comment by no_wizard | Hacker News Reader

While I don’t think it’s great they don’t allow other browser engines to run on iOS I find this article to be hollow on the details as to how the new guidelines Apple put out are unworkable that it will be insurmountably hard to implement on for the platform. It is scant on these details.

I don’t like the verbiage Apple used either but this doesn’t layout what the actual “unworkable” issues are

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One thing that comes to mind for web developers outside of Europe, how can they even properly test that their website operates and renders correctly if they can't even run the version with their own rendering engines on their iOS devices?

If an issue arises, how can they even troubleshoot it adequately if they cannot reproduce the problem reliably?

> how can they even properly test that their website operates and renders correctly if they can't even run the version with their own rendering engines on their iOS devices?

We will have to see. This is a natural experiment.

Would be ironic if the EU strengthens native apps’ hand. More entrepreneurially: there might be a niche for a testing suite that emulates across these phone-OS-browser sets, perhaps on real devices.

How does Apple apply the geo-fence? Could one VPN into Europe and bypass it?

I guess the user can't stop them from using the GPS to get your real location and send it home, so maybe there really isn't a solution with such a tightly controlled platform.

This doesn't matter. Apple will impose "app notarization" (you can distribute apps through alternative app stores BUT apple still approves (or not) apps)

This approval is not optional, not free, and dependent on developer acceptance of a runtime fee. If your app gets installed on >1 million devices, it's 0.5euro per install (heh ... euro, I bet someone in apple management thought that was clever, funny and very insulting to the EU. I get it ... heh. Funny. I hope they'll be made to regret that)

By the way, NO, not just a runtime fee. Also a 10% tax on all payments made through any third party payment service, you don't get to use Apple APIs, ... lots of other limitations.

So they removed the app store requirement, but aren't allowing sideloading (anymore than before), and kept both Apple as gatekeepers AND the fees everyone's complaining about.

So now the question is: does the EU have the balls to restrict apple imports or impose the fines they threatened?

Indeed, that is the question. My guess is no, and Apple knows it which is why they're complying in such a malicious way. They could definitely surprise me, and i hope they do. I'm in the US so don't have a perspective on the EU beyond what I've read online, but it takes so long to iterate and Apple can drag it out a long time and wear people down, and they are clearly going to embrace malicious compliance to the maximum extent.

Same way you can today: test in the mobile builds.

It’s highly unlikely the iOS engine will be too different from the Android one for example. There may be some differences but I doubt it’ll be in the rendering, at least in practice

I thought the key issue was most likely Apple's Geo-locking of open browser engines to Europe only. The article should have expounded on the challenges of browser providers having to now essentially maintain two entirely seperate apps, one for a global market and one for the EU market.

There's a ton to go through, we're working on a story for late next week that will go through all the detail. We wanted to make sure the story was out there, and that we posted all the links so that people could go through it.

+ the article is a bit of celebration of a milestone, it took us 3 years and collectively thousands of hours of work to force Apple to do this.

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