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Open Letter to Tim Cook: Sabotaging Web Apps Is Indefensible (letter.open-web-advocacy.org)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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We need to exert more pressure on apple and eu to not remove PWAs. Every signature counts, please sign and share EU has already started a preliminary investigation on this http://archive.today/2024.02.26-223134/https://www.ft.com/content/d2f7328c-5851-4f16-8f8d-93f0098b6adc

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Isn't it the other way around? Afaik the EU commission investigates them, makes a decision, and sets a due date for Apple to comply or pay a potentially hefty fine. It would be Apple who'd have to sue against that, and they'd have to pay the fine until a court confirms or nullifies it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The fine will have to be pretty hefty to cancel out the risk to Apple of PWAs taking off.

A free and open app platform sitting above the OS is surely a terrible threat to both Google and Apple.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Up to 10% of global revenue, 20% if they keep repeating the same offense, so nothing to sneeze at.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is that revenue from all sources, the mobile division, or just the revenue from this particular mechanism (essentially zero)?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much all sources as far as I understand it. The exact definition is here if you're interested (Article 5).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

not exceeding 10 % of the aggregate turnover of the undertaking concerned within the meaning of Article 5

So I'm not sure what "the undertaking concerned" means exactly, but it's probably the mobile portion of the business (and maybe just app store sales). But I guess that's yet to be determined.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The article even explicitly lists subsidiaries and holdings with >50% of the ownership or voting rights, so I don't think it's limited to just one department or devision of a company. But yea, we'll have to wait and see how this is applied in a real case.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Google and apple both allow pwas right now though, don't they? I don't think it's a threat. It's just apple trying to say fu to the eu. The eu will slp a billion dollar fine on them. They'll pay it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

A PWA running in a browser engine that they can’t control can have access to features that they can’t vet and restrict. If PWAs aren’t restricted to 50MB of storage and have near feature-parity with native apps then they’ll eventually lose the ability to enforce their revenue cut on In-App Purchases.

Not sure how it works on android, but on iOS I’m pretty sure this means that mobile game devs will start shipping games as WebGL/WASM with asset streaming and implement their own payment channels for micro-transactions.

Apple can’t risk it and I believe they will fight it tooth and nail to the bitter end.