Apple to update EU browser options, make more apps deletable(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Apple to update EU browser options, make more apps deletable
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-update-eu-browser-options-make-more-apps-deletable-2024-08-22/
10 comments
I wish I could delete the phone app. The real people I know never call, calling is for spammers and scammers.
clearly spoken by someone that’s never had a loved one in the hospital, a furniture delivery, or a follow up from their doctors office…
if you have a significant other, do you never call them? you never call your parents? You never need to call to schedule appointments?
if there is an emergency, you want to re-download the phone from the App Store again before calling 911. brilliant.
is your comment intended to be sarcasm? i hope so. so out of touch.
if you have a significant other, do you never call them? you never call your parents? You never need to call to schedule appointments?
if there is an emergency, you want to re-download the phone from the App Store again before calling 911. brilliant.
is your comment intended to be sarcasm? i hope so. so out of touch.
Clearly spoken by an American, still stubbornly using ancient technology like paper checks.
>if you have a significant other, do you never call them?
Sure, using a chat app. Not voice calling with an old fashioned "telephone number". Lots of people outside the US never use voice calling for people in their personal circle.
>you never call your parents?
Same as above. Using traditional telephone numbers is extremely expensive for international calls, and chat apps like Messenger are free and also have video calling.
>You never need to call to schedule appointments?
You can do that on websites these days.
>if you have a significant other, do you never call them?
Sure, using a chat app. Not voice calling with an old fashioned "telephone number". Lots of people outside the US never use voice calling for people in their personal circle.
>you never call your parents?
Same as above. Using traditional telephone numbers is extremely expensive for international calls, and chat apps like Messenger are free and also have video calling.
>You never need to call to schedule appointments?
You can do that on websites these days.
so how are these situations handled? i’m curious, and i’d like to understand your perspective. And i’ve traveled outside of america but thanks haha.
• you have a scheduled furniture delivery to your home, but you forgot. The driver texts you they are nearby. Then again when they arrive. You don’t respond because you forgot and you are not near your phone. Would they not CALL you to please come to the front door and let them into the home?
• emergency call after getting into a car accident, or if trapped in elevator, etc?
• waiting for rideshare pickup in a busy location where there are many vehicles and it’s hard to spot your uber / lyft. Like at an airport or after a concert. The driver may need to CALL to quickly describe where you should meet them.
• Your spouse or parent or child was admitted to the ER at the hospital. Their phone lists you as an emergency contact. You’re suggesting the hospital would use a chat app to contact you?
If your answer is just “wechat”, then that’s fine - but that basically IS the phone app in china (and many other minis apps combined into a super app) lol.
• you have a scheduled furniture delivery to your home, but you forgot. The driver texts you they are nearby. Then again when they arrive. You don’t respond because you forgot and you are not near your phone. Would they not CALL you to please come to the front door and let them into the home?
• emergency call after getting into a car accident, or if trapped in elevator, etc?
• waiting for rideshare pickup in a busy location where there are many vehicles and it’s hard to spot your uber / lyft. Like at an airport or after a concert. The driver may need to CALL to quickly describe where you should meet them.
• Your spouse or parent or child was admitted to the ER at the hospital. Their phone lists you as an emergency contact. You’re suggesting the hospital would use a chat app to contact you?
If your answer is just “wechat”, then that’s fine - but that basically IS the phone app in china (and many other minis apps combined into a super app) lol.
Not GP, but from a Southeast Asian perspective here.
> waiting for rideshare pickup in a busy location where there are many vehicles and it’s hard to spot your uber / lyft. Like at an airport or after a concert. The driver may need to CALL to quickly describe where you should meet them.
Grab (widely used in SEA) has a built-in call and chat feature for this situation so both the passenger and the driver don't reveal their phone numbers.
> you have a scheduled furniture delivery to your home, but you forgot. The driver texts you they are nearby. Then again when they arrive. You don’t respond because you forgot and you are not near your phone. Would they not CALL you to please come to the front door and let them into the home?
> Your spouse or parent or child was admitted to the ER at the hospital. Their phone lists you as an emergency contact. You’re suggesting the hospital would use a chat app to contact you?
Since WhatsApp is prevalent here, yes. Most people will call you using WhatsApp, SMS and direct calls are usually last resort (and frankly, most direct call/SMS nowadays are either credit card sales, scams, or illegal gambling ads).
> waiting for rideshare pickup in a busy location where there are many vehicles and it’s hard to spot your uber / lyft. Like at an airport or after a concert. The driver may need to CALL to quickly describe where you should meet them.
Grab (widely used in SEA) has a built-in call and chat feature for this situation so both the passenger and the driver don't reveal their phone numbers.
> you have a scheduled furniture delivery to your home, but you forgot. The driver texts you they are nearby. Then again when they arrive. You don’t respond because you forgot and you are not near your phone. Would they not CALL you to please come to the front door and let them into the home?
> Your spouse or parent or child was admitted to the ER at the hospital. Their phone lists you as an emergency contact. You’re suggesting the hospital would use a chat app to contact you?
Since WhatsApp is prevalent here, yes. Most people will call you using WhatsApp, SMS and direct calls are usually last resort (and frankly, most direct call/SMS nowadays are either credit card sales, scams, or illegal gambling ads).
got it! thanks for sharing.
Here in Japan, you'd use the traditional phone service for those things. For normal people, those are all extremely rare events. I'm not the one who suggested eliminating the caller app altogether, I'm just pointing out that I wouldn't miss it too much if it was gone. Your prior examples were about "loved ones" and parents, and outside the US/Canada, people don't generally use traditional voice calling (or SMS texting) for those people, or really anyone inside their personal circle.
Also, we don't have Uber/Lyft here. Taxi services have their own apps (Go is the big one), and you'd use those. (Actually, we do have Uber, but I've never heard of anyone using it, and it seems to just connect riders with taxis anyway, unlike the "ride sharing" thing it does in the US.) But again, for most people, using these is rare: public transit is far cheaper, and taxis are generally expensive. I haven't used Uber/Lyft in a long time (since I was in the US), so I don't remember, but I'm surprised they don't have a voice-calling function built-in so drivers and customers aren't exposed to each others' phone numbers, as this seems like a security risk.
And this is Japan, which is generally a rather conservative country that still hangs onto a lot of old tech and practices (a lot of businesses still use faxes, crazily enough). But even here, absolutely no one uses traditional SMS or phone calling for their friends/family: they all use LINE. And making restaurant reservations using websites is very common (there are some behind-the-times places that don't support this though), something I never saw in the US.
Also, we don't have Uber/Lyft here. Taxi services have their own apps (Go is the big one), and you'd use those. (Actually, we do have Uber, but I've never heard of anyone using it, and it seems to just connect riders with taxis anyway, unlike the "ride sharing" thing it does in the US.) But again, for most people, using these is rare: public transit is far cheaper, and taxis are generally expensive. I haven't used Uber/Lyft in a long time (since I was in the US), so I don't remember, but I'm surprised they don't have a voice-calling function built-in so drivers and customers aren't exposed to each others' phone numbers, as this seems like a security risk.
And this is Japan, which is generally a rather conservative country that still hangs onto a lot of old tech and practices (a lot of businesses still use faxes, crazily enough). But even here, absolutely no one uses traditional SMS or phone calling for their friends/family: they all use LINE. And making restaurant reservations using websites is very common (there are some behind-the-times places that don't support this though), something I never saw in the US.
thanks for sharing your perspective.
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Depending where one lives not using traditional telephony calls for these things can be the norm instead of out of touch. I think the sole exception is probably emergency services like 911, which is an important thing many people forget counts as a phone call through the app since it's not a regular task (for most of us thankfully at least).
as far as i’m concerned that’s a weird edge case. Most of society uses a phone at least once a month for something, unless they’re young and have no responsibilities yet.
You can enable “silence unknown calls”, let everything go to voicemail, and then screen your voicemails once a day, once a week, whatever your preference is. Problem solved?
You can enable “silence unknown calls”, let everything go to voicemail, and then screen your voicemails once a day, once a week, whatever your preference is. Problem solved?
More people in e.g. China alone rely on data based communication apps for these things than there are people who use traditional calls in all of Europe and America combined for a given month. Your personal experience is not the cultural norm for all humanity, nor is it the example of how someone with responsibilities must be like.
is a data based app used for emergency service calls as well? Just curious (as someone that’s never been to asia - yet)
> I think the sole exception is probably emergency services like 911, which is an important thing many people forget counts as a phone call through the app since it's not a regular task (for most of us thankfully at least).
It's not universal. In some places you can reach emergency services via WeChat instead of contacting 110 and what have you but, in general, it's the most likely to be applicable reason to make a traditional phone call in many places you'd otherwise not.
It's not universal. In some places you can reach emergency services via WeChat instead of contacting 110 and what have you but, in general, it's the most likely to be applicable reason to make a traditional phone call in many places you'd otherwise not.
This is clearly written by someone who is way too attached to their phone and worries too much. I don't understand what any of your points have to do with the user having the choice to remove the phone app.
Society did survive for a long time without carrying a device that constantly tracks you, bothers you, and causes you problems.
Society did survive for a long time without carrying a device that constantly tracks you, bothers you, and causes you problems.
i’m a caretaker for aging parents and i have a spouse and a child. I’m also working full time. People need to be able to reach me. not sure what’s unusual about that?
Then don't delete the phone app.
that’s the plan. ;)
I was surprised with this comment “someone who is way too attached to their phone and worries too much”.
I thought most adults in middle and older age may have similar responsibilities. Didn’t realize i was such an outlier (honestly)
I was surprised with this comment “someone who is way too attached to their phone and worries too much”.
I thought most adults in middle and older age may have similar responsibilities. Didn’t realize i was such an outlier (honestly)
The article is about giving people the option to remove the built in phone app if they want to. The comment you replied to is saying that it would be useful for them, because they only get spam calls.
There is no need to bring responsibilities (or loved ones, or deliveries, or adults, or age) into this. Just accept it that some people will find it useful, and it will have zero effect on you.
There is no need to bring responsibilities (or loved ones, or deliveries, or adults, or age) into this. Just accept it that some people will find it useful, and it will have zero effect on you.
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Letting you delete the App Store is funny. There must be a system-level escape hatch which lets you get it back, I can't imagine they would make you do a factory reset.
The two apps Apple will not let you delete are Phone and Settings. So I bet the section in Settings about which store is your default includes the App Store, so if you select it it makes it reappear. I’m sure that if you delete all the third-party stores then the App Store reappears as well.
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Shouldn't EVERY app be deletable by law, everywhere? I don't care if it breaks the phone, it's my right damnit.
Carry a computer around then. Most people want the assurance of knowing their phone works like a phone in an emergency.
I support pro-level access, but I hope there's a very, very meaningful boundary between amateur and pro users so that my parents don't brick their device. There's something quite nice about the Chromebook that satisfies both casual family members and programmers.
I think this should come to the USA too. We don't have any browser choice.
What choice do you have if you want and adblocking and syncing with a Windows computer?
Firefox has Firefox Focus, without sync, but Firefox itself has no built-in adblocker. Makes you wonder whether that's because of their contract with Google?
What choice do you have if you want and adblocking and syncing with a Windows computer?
Firefox has Firefox Focus, without sync, but Firefox itself has no built-in adblocker. Makes you wonder whether that's because of their contract with Google?
It's really annoying when tech companies section off user freedom and privacy protections to specific regions. Maybe if there was a ton of countries that had contradictory laws, but these app store decisions for sure could be implemented in the US, but alas... they want to squeeze as much out of us as possible.
This reminds me of Amazon, they allow users to cash out their gift card balance in a few states, but not in most. They have the technical implementation but still limit their users.
Firefox lets you use uBlock Origin on Android. After the EU's recent moves, that will come to iOS eventually.
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All the browsers on iOS are running the Safari rendering engine underneath so Firefox et al can't do their own extensions like ad blockers. Apple restricts apps so you have to only use their engine.
The new EU regulations apparently require them to allow third party engines but I'm not sure if that will happen anytime soon.
The new EU regulations apparently require them to allow third party engines but I'm not sure if that will happen anytime soon.
The Orion Browser [1] has rudimentary WebExtension support on iOS despite being a Safari wrapper. Apple's policy also doesn't prevent browsers from bundling adblockers in, which both Brave and Edge do.
[1] - https://kagi.com/orion/
[1] - https://kagi.com/orion/
The support is already there, via BrowserEngineKit. The problem is that no browser company wants to put the effort into maintaining an entirely different version of their browser that works only in the EU.
This is, presumably, exactly as Apple intended. So sneaky.
This is, presumably, exactly as Apple intended. So sneaky.
Has there been any movement on "real" browser options (i.e. not just calling the built-in webkit in the backend)? I know there were a boatload of requirements Apple gave to do it and I'm out of the loop after that (was it consider a reasonable set, has anyone been trying to apply anyways, etc).
Mozilla seems to be working on porting Gecko to iOS (I think they're trying to build a new frontend for the stack used in Android Firefox):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1882872
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1882872
In the EU, different engines are allowed. If that's what you mean. There is an entitlement specifically for that, see: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
Yeah, that's what a meant. Apple "allowed" them but they tied a boatload of requirements to that and I don't think anyone has actually applied yet.
Yeah including a really high cost per download. That will really discourage FOSS efforts :(
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Related:
Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41322297
Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41322297
Can’t wait for the time when one of the next OSs rolls around and there are a ton of bugs on the EU implementation, as Apple famously doesn’t really test their stuff outside California
I'd love for this to trickle into macOS. Not being able to delete Apple Music or News is crazy. I will never use these, and them auto-launching all the time is very shitty.
> Users will also be able to delete certain Apple-made apps
can we have the same for Android? for chrome, youtube, etc.
can we have the same for Android? for chrome, youtube, etc.