I think the EU is getting all serious about trying to regulate Apple because
they're jealous yeah trying to regulate the regulator they're basically doing
they basically want the same things they're regular hater reg reg haters
regular haters regular haters regular haters apple is trying to like control
its user base make all these rules about how they're like users their
constituents if you will are you know can behave live aot act allowed to
interact with one another and you got the EU trying to do the same thing doing
the same thing except the user or citizens it's hypocrisy is what it is
yeah that why can't they be like other uh governmental jurisdictions and just
uh not make any laws at all complete La Fair just letting people drive on the
sidewalks download whatever they want side loading they call Sin I say it's
basically like running people down on the sidewalk if you sideloading an app
so think about that this was not condoned by God yeah that's right we're
here to talk about Apple and the EU and
uh some of the most recent developments um last week because this is coming out
on Monday February 19th last week Apple
was let off the hook in regards to iMessage when it comes to slap on the
wrist the EU um regulating them well
yeah sort of cuz like so the EU is digital markets act mhm uh they're
trying to kind of rein in all these Tech Giants who are you you know operating
willy-nilly doing whatever the heck they want closing down their ecosystems
behaving in a way that I don't
antitrust that was Half Baked and uh the I iMessage was going to
be they were investigating EU was investigating whether iMessage should be
one of these core platform providers and and thus subject to more regulations
especially because it technically meets the legal definition um it's what is it
I wrote down uh uh the legal definition is it's has at least 45 million EU users
every month and it's controlled by a firm with at least 75 billion EUR in
market capitalization and iMessage fits
those definitions but uh Apple
specifically was arguing that it should
that it should be excluded um for various reasons right which you know and
we heard oh sorry and I'll say that the development here is that so it even
though it fits that definition the EU decided has made an explicit Caro right
for not only iMessage but they also made the same thing for Bing uh edge browser
and Microsoft's ad Services right and so
we know you know we we we published our Tech link about this last week and we
got a lot of comments from you guys talking about espec specifically you the
ones of you that are in the you and you were like we don't use iMessage this is
not a big deal we're totally down with this because we all use WhatsApp instead
the other platform offered by a tech giant with like uh near complete control
over social media which is itself actually considered a gatekeeper by the
EU WhatsApp has been designated um under
the DM dma as it
should as it should yeah so so the EU
kind of has backed off and at least that aspect of it mhm and you know the EU
people uh people who live in the in Europe might be like okay it totally
makes sense over here in North America you know bit of a culture Clash
definitely because over here a lot of people use iMessage iPhones my entire
family yeah I think I think that Android phones altogether still have more market
share but apple is like it's like
Samsung and then Apple yeah it's up there I looked it up up recently I
forgot what it was but a ton of people use iPhones and iMessage over here and
it was it was interesting it it's always interesting reading uh people who live
in the EU posting online about how we're like they're like we don't understand
why North Americans are so worked up over this whole green bubble thing like
it's just a bubble you know like why does it matter uh and I would agree with
that to an extent I do think we get to tend to get over obsessed with the green
bubble because iMessage is interoperable
to an exent yeah it just sucks you can message them it's just you feel like a
second class citizen the entire time to yeah and I'm sure to some people they
they do I you know I'm somebody who my
friends and family nearly all of them
use iPhone oh I am the black sheep of the family group chat I 100% yeah
actually two of my brothers are I have four brothers two of them are Android
users that's important context you say two of my brothers immediately like is
there like 12 Riley Murdo wandering the countryside they they are it's a menace
well please be careful out there just mustaches rustling in bushes they will
laugh awkwardly uh all the time just for
no reason um two of them are Android users and basically every other person
in my friends and family uh Circle are
iPhone users so it is really annoying when I get a like I'll get messages cuz
it sucks for both parties mhm I'll get
messages with a with a photo or video from my parents and they're like look at
this and like they were babysitting my kid the other day and they sent me like
a video and I'm just like compressed blurry you're just like I don't remember
him being that pixelated when I dropped him off it looks like he's either having
fun or being disembed by a stuffed animal I don't know what's going on so
you seem excited I'll judge from Context that he's not dead yes exactly no it's
it's designed to annoy both sides of the interaction it is designed to annoy the
Android users and we're the one who tend to fix a on it but it's also intended to
annoy iPhone users right into not doing
anything well but that's the that's what I'm confused about you want your own
users annoyed with but I think that's I
think they're depending on iPhone users on mass not really understanding the
root cause of the issue no they don't understand that Apple could fix it they
think the problem is that oh I'm I'm texting this broke Android user with
their inferior device yeah why don't they just buy an iPhone and it's like no
Tim Apple specifically said in his in his giant Tower of evil oh he has been
plotting to make it so that your grandkids photos look like absolute
messes look upon your photo library and
despair oh my gosh can may I just say
that I found recently that some people have actually made compilations of me
doing the Tim Cook impression and it made me so happy if you if if whoever
did I think there's two big ones that are out there maybe a third one I don't
want to make anyone angry if you made those I sincerely think you they are fun
they bring me joy um but yeah this
iMessage thing it's h got North Americans confused and there was another
thing that kind of came out last week about apple and the EU and the
regulations and whatnot um which was these the Apple's attitude towards
Progressive web apps mhm can you summarize exactly this is not something
that is in the official build yet this is in beta builds and uh in the past
three so like with the first two they're like oh this might be a
mistake this might be a glitch right now
that it's been like three separate builds Apple has not fixed this this was
previously functional they're like okay this this is probably intentional this
is probably Apple doing something intentionally especially because it's
happening at the same time as all of these other changes right um and it's
that they are making uh Progressive web
apps um nonfunctional in this build so um so
they're just B they're breaking them they're breaking them they're breaking them they're making them no longer act
as apps that you can open from the home screen you know Boop there you go uh and
they're making them into essentially they function now as shortcuts that just
open a web browser they just open the web page which to be fair is essentially
what Progressive web apps are right like
I mean shortcuts they kind of like they're they're shortcuts but they kind
of also like some processing is done on the device and some is pro done it's the
illicit lovech of an app and a web page
right they have features of both um they
do allow you to have like local storage which is no longer operable on iOS um
they do allow notifications which is no longer operable on iOS um and the big
thing is about Progressive web apps like I don't actually see like a huge user
backlash to this yeah well and and because this is
mostly something that the brands themselves really like yeah so I was
doing I you know I have in the years
that I've been covering Tech news I've encountered the idea of progressive web app obviously and I've like seen them
you know because they they support caring for the homeless and they they
want they want healthare Progressive and also they're really
convenient they open straight from the from straight from the homepage they're
web apps they're web apps that push for change um no yeah so there's sort of
like um there's there's sort of uh changes to the the the app design that
allows it to kind of like you know launch more responsively and uh you know
be be a bit easier to use uh in the way
that an app is like a like an actually installed app but it is an it's
basically a web site still yes because it is yeah you're going through a
browser and in my it's an Uber web page
that operates like the Uber app yeah looking these up a little bit just a few
minutes ago I cuz I I asked myself I'm
like why do these exist who wanted these does this really make life better for
users or for like business owners and it seems like the people who really wanted
these were were business owners I don't want to speak for anyone if you're uh
you know on the user side of this and you're like I love Progressive web apps
every time I you know go on my browser and look up a we don't me invalidate
your lived experience yeah i' go on a website and it tells me maybe you want
to switch to the web app or whatever uh
and you do that and you're very happy then fair enough but for me every time
that it gave me that prompt on my phone I'm like no just go to the just go to
the website please stop yeah and uh so we are old
men so we don't like this new fangled business as far as I can tell the reason
web apps really became a thing is because they allow businesses to kind of
farm more interaction and engagement from users when they go to a website so
apparently they they decreased the friction of getting the cons consumer on
on the app engaging with the material buying the Goods yeah so apparently uh
Pinterest a 2018 review published by Forbes this is just on Wikipedia found
that users of pinterest's progressive web app spent 40% more time on the site
compared to the previous mobile website Revenue increased by 44% core
engagements by 60% so I'm like okay I
understand you know because a a progressive web app is a bit easier to
use than like a lot of mobile experience it has less friction less of those Petty
annoyances that make you go oh yeah I should really go
make something to eat I should really go clean clean the house right it it it's
easier to just suck you in I guess the benefit though for users is that you can
have they spend less time with their kids and more time sucked into a screen
you know and anything that can that can get you away just that little bit of a
dopamine hit to take away the nigh
unstopping pain of existence and apple doesn't want that because they they want
your families to remain intact absolutely Ely and buy more Apple
products this is this is a Tim Cook
conspiracy to maintain the the traditional family I'm not going to do
another impression the the the bait didn't work we get so
excited on the writing Team every time every time Tim Cook makes an
announcement I'm like yes yes he's back
yes um but the benefit for the users is
the fact that you can have like an applike experience outside of the
distribution channel that is the
um the Apple App Store or the or Google Play So businesses can deliver this sort
of experience to users without going through all jumping through all those Hoops necessarily having to use those
stores as an intermediary right and that's why Apple wasn't really a fan of
it to begin with apple was never a fan of it they caved a bit to pressure yeah
and it looks like they're unav looks like they're digging out that cave oh
wait really I thought they I mean this
well they're killing them right yes but they didn't want to put them in the first place oh they cave to the pressure
to allow you're right right now they're unav yeah I get what you're saying the
cave you know I don't do well with cave analogies caving right and and like
caving is not it's something that is not
Excavating a cave it just means going inside a cave splunking there's that
what wait what is caving I I'm honestly well I mean
I don't know if there's multiple definitions of the word cave um I know
that like caving also known as spelunking yep and
potholing so I have never heard of that before they're just making them up at
this point sounds dirty now does this have anything to do
with the EU thing really because Apple was forced to open up iOS to thirdparty
App Stores sort of we'll get into that um
because they were forced to do that now they're like well I guess we don't need
Progressive web apps which was the previous method to kind of like skirt
the App Store now you're going to have your very own third-party App Store
instead of the Apple App Store on your iPhones so you don't need Progressive
web apps anymore so they're only killing are you happy now developers stop
crying so they're only killing it in the European Union Yes it's exclusive to the
EU and that's another hint is like okay
you you're doing this intentionally it's exclusively in the EU is this a response
to the other things going on in the EU because you know Apple does do these
things to keep Regulators happy and if it's making a making a concession
another area maybe we don't have to make this concession anymore and of course uh
as their official explanation Apple has to claim that malicious web apps could
read data from other web apps and gain access to a user's camera of microphone
and location without user consent and like think of the user when they they
said similar things like this
they said user they said similar they did Scary language like this as well
when they released their like new rules for the App Store in the EU but like
those things are true yes they are of any platform if malware gets it so it's
like the the you know maybe we should talk about this when we like as we talk
about the other regulations but just
quickly anytime Apple talks about security as a reason for why they need
to lock things down it always reads so Hollow because every other platform
allows these things and and is able to have reasonable security like Reon prote
but apple is the only uh massive company like overseeing
one of these massive platforms used by so many people who insists that they
have to have things locked down so know best yeah it's very paternalistic it is
and it it's it's one of those competing values kind of things where it's like
well you you want you want these these services to be safe right and I
do I I very much do but it's the
question is not should this be safe is are you balancing this correctly with
other concerns and largely I I it it is almost always
the case that apple is pushing always like 10% too far yeah yeah 10% too far
it's interesting because even when they do kind of open up they open up in the
most limited way possible which like a reluctant child who's been told to
apologize dragging their feet and saying
I'm sorry I well but it's even it's
worse than that because they're not acting petulant or like like like a kid
so much as they're acting like a
dictator that was just forced to like
human rights like they're like okay I guess we will uh allow just so you know
this is letting the Communists win yeah but just so you know if we let people
out of their cells they could punch each other so on the street so everyone needs
to stay that's why we need a curfew H this video doesn't have quick bits but
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your order so that that brings me to the the App Store rules that Apple uh
instituted because they were forced to because there was a deadline um
or the deadline is coming up we haven't hit the deadline yet but they know that
they have to get these rules out and then there's a review process and like
the EU has to approve them and all that stuff and that I don't think anything has really moved forward on that but uh
if I'm not mistaken the deadline is it's
coming up March 6th I believe so yeah
apple allowing apple is now allowing third-party app marketplaces what they
call well they they do have the bit of the kleenex problem where the their word
for an app store became the default word for an app store yeah and I guess they
were really like the first big one yeah they called them apps you we Al the Play
Store is also an app store not only so so they they're they're saying we're
allowing you to have these third party app stores however every app that goes on the app
Marketplace that is notorized like a wedding we still have to scan it we
still have to like make sure that it's cool which is you know somewhat Fair on
macOS and on Windows you can install
any app you want and the system Security will scan the app when it's installed
and be or or it'll check it against a list of currently known you know
malicious apps or whatever and it'll give you a warning or like whatever but
Apple's saying that in order for you to publish an app on this other app store
at all they need to notorized downloading it it must pass
yeah through a test which is just and this is yeah it's just so Apple uh they
if you want to launch an alternate app Marketplace you need to have a letter of
credit from an a-rated financial institution and at least a million euros
in the bank uh which I heard some developers say is actually kind of re
reasonable it does mean that they have a back stop in case something terrible
happens yeah um which you do want for a
company that's dealing with very large amounts of refunds potentially right um
but the what they're definitely not allowing is so like there's some
progress here they're definitely not allowing side loing no like people keep
saying that I've seen articles published in the last week that are saying that
apple is alluding sidel loading as far
as I can tell they are not I heard I I saw a bunch of initial articles talking
about it but like there if it's so annoying because you you have some
people who I think view side loing as just anything that isn't the App Store
yeah which is like well words have meanings yeah side loing should mean
going to a website or something or downloading a file an APK file or I
forget what they're a package file on I don't know what it is on iOS but and
then double clicking that file to install it and you're not getting it
through an app store at all to me that's side loing but you know fair enough
Apple people you know they're in they're in their own world sometimes like you're
calling her your side chick and she's just your wife going I
will I will say that every time I talk
about Apple I get self-conscious about whether like apple people listening to
this people who are Apple Fans listening to this think that I like absolutely
just hate apple and I don't I don't at all I think that they every day he walks
into the office and he just punches a picture of Tim Cook just got a on a dart
board he doesn't even throw the darts he's just I will defeat you and take
your place that's what he's been practicing for yeah Barbara come on um
Tim Tim Cooks skin suit no I love Apple I used to be an
Apple user uh before I I got hired at NC
and like just fully got brainwashed into PC ecosystem uh my wife uses Apple
everyone like a lot of people I know use apple and I'm like it's good for you it's good for a certain type of people
very high quality products the UI is is
is simple the design is slick uh and they're easy to use and they're secure
you know for better or worse that the the measures that Apple takes does uh
help these people these these poor people who don't know how to use a phone
unless Apple tells them how to um see I
just I did it again I I can't be fully
positive so you got some notes Here uh commissions paid to Apple have been
reduced to 10% for most devs and for
subscriptions after the first year and then there's a 177% commission for for
digital goods and services and that is
if if developers choose to adopt the new business terms yes you can stay on the
old business terms where it's like 30%
or 15% depending on what your position is in the developer Marketplace how
popular you are you know etc etc how much revenue you're getting etc etc yeah
um but here's the kicker see just just
from that it sounds like sounds awesome
you should move but they also introduced oh and so add on to that potential 17%
the 3% fee if you still want to use Apple's Payment Processing if you want
to use an alternative Payment Processing you can drop that 3% fee but Apple also
introduced an additional core technology fee of half a Euro for each annual
install per user after the app crosses
of 1 million install threshold and I am almost positive that they
make this so hard to understand on purpose yeah like if you if math was
your least favorite subject in school
this is meant to trick you yeah for sure th it because it doesn't sound like a
lot but it's super complicated to to understand to like
really grock what's going on here yeah and it it took me a while to wrap my
head around it but so essentially the first time a user goes to install an app
on their device if they've never installed this app
before uh the when they install it the developer will pay half a Euro then that
user can install that app anywhere they want on other devices and the developer
won't be charged for 12 months 12 months
after the day that the user installs the app for the first time then if they
uninstall it and reinstall it or install on another device then the developer
will be pinged again ding yeah dinged not pinged
they won't get a little message reminding them to reply to an email or something um yeah so and that happens
for every user over after the app has been
installed 1 million times so if you've got 2 million that's half a million
euros in fees yes so and they have a
handy calculator so developers can go and see how much they might lose see how
absolutely ruined they are going to be and most velers it seems if you have a
an app that's popular in any way to any degree if you have particularly if you
do not have inapp purchases like if you
cuz I was thinking about my favorite game back in the day which was Plants
versus Zombies the first one before they ruined it and in that game I only paid
for that game once yeah but I like to redownload it every few years to play it
again I would be financially well the developer would the
developer no like I would be punishing them yes yes they would be getting
punished for my love Yeah my affection and my Nostalgia
for this game and the fact that they're not pushy with inapp purchases mhm that
you don't it's not a live service game that's constantly trying to suck the
life out of you that would actually be penalized it's by this kind of game but
this kind of payment structure and Apple has said that they are like oh we're
gonna we're gonna protect against uh people maliciously doing yeah people
taking advantage of the system if they want to like can developers UNM
maliciously be severely punished by this and that's actually far more likely I
think it was it was it was such Whiplash oh and one more thing uh that core
technology fee of half a Euro it applies
to alternate app marketplaces for every install they don't need are not
protected by the 1 million install threshold yeah so you don't have to wait
for uh an app Marketplace to be installed a million times
now all these numbers like it does it
only have to be installed 1 million times in the
EU presumably I feel like that's true presumably yeah it must be it'd be weird
if it wasn't it'd be weird if like you had like a million installs in like I
don't know Tajikistan yeah and you had one install over that limit in the EU
and suddenly you owed Apple like a dollar yeah so there's like
there's sort of that's un intuitive there there's sort of a you can see
Apple's side here a little bit because as we've said EU people say again and
again how not popular iPhones are and
iMessages in Europe although iPhone is more popular than iMessage that's true a
lot of people will still have iPhone WhatsApp on it yeah WhatsApp gets
dinged um but yeah this came out and the
the the news came out and it seemed like oh my gosh the EU got Apple you know
they we've we've been forcing they basically forced them to put USBC in the
iPhone yes um Apple finally C to that I
think before they really had to but like
they made it clear I think at some point I remember a press release inev about
how they were like this is worse but we're doing it anyway I guess for you
even though the connector's better than lightning whatever um I don't know if
it's if it's like a factual thing I always felt that the the lightning
connectors wore out faster ah the actual connector that's
themselves are are pretty are pretty robust but like the the I found the
cables fraying the cables Fray like anything else like nothing else um yeah
or maybe that's because I was jumping a rope with them that'll do it um Apple I
got I got whiplash when we Rec reported on this it was like wow the EU got apple
and then the more you read into it they more like oh this is so this is why
people have called it malicious compliance however one one other thing
that came out at the same time was Apple announced that globally
gaming uh apps uh cloud gaming apps can
Now list all of their library and have their library of games accessible from
within the iOS app on the app store which was not allowed before yeah they
list them all individually well that's what Apple wanted them to do like Xbox
Evil 1 Resident Evil 2 res Evil 3 and
Code Veronica XO Xbox basically said
yeah no we're not doing that and then they just you know had the web app
basically you could go to GeForce now.com or Xbox game pass or whatever
and you could like use the browser to stream games but it's not it's not a
great solution so that at least they kind of like that's the one thing that
they unequivocally like gave ground on
but the rest of it it's it is it it
remains to be seen how the whole Apple versus the EU situation will continue to
play out here where do you think where do you see things going from here do you see the EU kind of calling Apple out on
this and being like no this is not good enough or are they going to do like a
similar thing that they did with imessage because they know that iMessage
like qualifies but you know it's it's only their jurisdiction in Europe you
know it makes kind of sense so do you think has a lot to do with just how we're defining what a market is it's if
we're only defining it as the EU and we're only defining it as
a lot of antitrust is like that and it can be quite frustrating because it
feels like you know principally you should be doing it this way but no it it
it it is done by rule it is done by these esoteric very specific principles
that are we have been using legally as
jurist Prudence for hundreds of years and they don't
really make a lot of sense unless you're very immersed in them yeah I mean that
but I I do think that Apple's going to get significantly more push back for
what they've been doing with the App Store than they will for like I do not
think it's going to go maybe they're not going like maybe Regulators are not
going to push them that hard but I cannot
imagine they'll just give them a complete carve out and accept these new rules yeah they're just they're
ridiculous becauseas actively worse than the rules
they were forced to change developers basically have a choice between sticking
with Apple's old rules which are the proper right rules that you should
follow or switching to this new system because they really really really want
to launch a third party uh like like their apps on the third party app store
or like epic they want to launch their own third party app store but by doing
that they're getting a so much worse of
a deal a hefty Financial penalty and basically the only people you know EP
epic has said they we're going to launch fortnite on iOS through the Epic game
store when we launched that as a a new app Marketplace you know when we later
this year but you know like the epic
game store it promises to be a losing an
exercise in losing money because they're going to be they're still going to be
paying Apple crazy amounts of fees if they do this I I half expect them to
just say like you know what we're still not going to do it because I I feel like
they wanted to take this win quote unquote they wanted to they wanted to
Revel a little bit in apple being forced to allow third party app stores by
saying haha we're we are going to launch our app store because they just weren't
allowed that to do that at all before now they can do it but it's going to be
like at what cost at a a big one but the
thing is like we're not the only ones who are aware of this like Regulators
are likely to be aware that like offering someone a choice that
technically exists but is effectively the exact same Choice as before it's
just is like well like previously I said you could go by my rules and now you
have the option of going by my rules or stepping into this bear trap yeah like I
I just I cannot imagine that will fly
yeah and then there's the whole question of whether like the EU should be
attempting to regulate these companies in this way you know
because I as far as as far so far it
seems like the EU has kind of like put
through regulations that at least to us in the tech sphere we don't you know
obviously we we aren't really involved in uh keeping up with with European
regulations in non-te uh uh speak for
yourself sure yeah potholes I and we can't talk about it now uh even if we
are caught up with it but like with other areas of politics we're not going
to like delve into like oh the EU is regulating you know like healthc care
all these things right we like should there be a tariff on Brussels brout yeah
exactly we're we're talking Tech stuff and as far as that we like what the EU
has done so far broadly um but the
question becomes when do they stop you know like at at at what point will the
EU say all right that's enough regulation now like the market is is uh
sufficiently deedom IED a little bit so
that uh you know it's a bit more fair but I I I hope that they stop at the
right Point instead of just continuing to like impose more and more regul ation
on companies such that because sometimes
you can foster Innovation other times you can stifle Innovation with
regulations so I don't know I don't know I'm I don't live in Europe we live in
Canada which is essentially the Europe of North
America I think you offended a lot of Europeans there and I'm glad primarily
because it's a country and not uh okay well let me say goodbye to
the Europeans in in their own language thank you for watching guys
um don't forget to subscribe to
TechLink uh see you okay that might be
too offensive to include in the video but I'm not going to do an
alternative so we're forced to use it