Apple blocks PC emulator in iOS App Store and third-party app stores

https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/09/apple-blocks-pc-emulator-utm-app-store/

by ajdude • 2 years ago

413 191 2 years ago

9to5mac.com

oneplane2• 2 years ago

Yes, we know. (from earlier:) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40627155 It's not surprising.

justin662• 2 years ago

Odd that Apple gets a veto over what can go into a third-party app store.

CamperBob2• 2 years ago

Almost as if the third-party app store is not really an independent third party.

Hamuko• 2 years ago

It's not that odd considering that they made their approval aka notarization an explicit requirement for non-App Store apps. They also have that same veto power for all apps on macOS, although tech savvy users can bypass that veto.

justin662• 2 years ago

they made their approval aka notarization an explicit requirement for non-App Store apps

I mean, okay, but that's just another thing that seems odd. I don't know why anyone is calling it a "third party" app store in that case.

intrasight2• 2 years ago

Why do you think it odd? It makes total sense to me that they decide what software is allowed on their device.

kevingadd3• 2 years ago

Whose device is it again? It doesn't belong to the person who paid for it? Are computers a subscription product now?

gray_-_wolf• 2 years ago

It is not their device... Or at least it should not be.

grishka2• 2 years ago

It stops being their device once they sell it to you.

AlienRobot• 2 years ago

I don't like this PC as a service era.

WheatMillington• 2 years ago

I can't believe some people think this way. When did MY phone become THEIR device?

wiseowise5• 2 years ago

their device.

pquki42• 2 years ago

Did you read this comment twice yourself to see the problem?

jjav• 2 years ago

It makes total sense to me that they decide what software is allowed on their device.

What do you mean their device?

If they gift it to me for free, ok it is their device.

If I buy it, it is MINE and only I must be able to control what runs on it.

darby_nine2• 2 years ago

I don't understand why there isn't appetite to simply regulate them out of controlling what software you put on your device.

I've been using Macs my whole life (since the early nineties) and I'm as loyal a user as anyone. I've given them probably enough money to put down a downpayment on a small house. Behavior like this will drive me away if it cannot be addressed, even if it means I have to go to china to find a better hardware vendor.

oneplane2• 2 years ago

Maybe someone will. Either way, such a move would break their business model, and you'd end up with just another android which is not what the market wants (because if they did, Apple would have gone out of business already).

I was looking for an earlier thread (which also involved Nokia and Windows Mobile) which shows the sort of timelines/cascading effects you'd have where vendors generally either become overly generic or just outright fail (i.e. BlackBerry). When I'll find it I'll edit and add it here.

Edit: didn't find it yet, but there are variations on appliance vs. general purpose hardware where things like smart TVs and android phone bootloaders are used as similar examples. I wish I had a better timeline search for threads.

shaan72• 2 years ago

That is an interesting take, so basically in your opinion the main thing that makes iOS better than Android is that Apple has tighter control over the apps? What I've heard from most iOS users is other things like smoother interface, better battery life, great camera etc. I've never heard "I like iPhone because Apple moderates the App Store" from laymen (i.e. non-HN crowd).

funkyfourier• 2 years ago

Non-technical iOS users probably don't give a flying crap and would not even know if it was possible to download a PC emulator from a third party app store. The iPhone does lots of things right, and having some obscure options which only the technical crowd cares about will not change that.

To become another Android iOS would have to be licensed to other vendors and appear on cheaply made devices dragging its name through the mud.

linguae• 2 years ago

There are other reasons to buy an iPhone. I loathe the App Store’s restrictions, and this is a showstopper for me regarding the iPad, which would’ve been Alan Kay’s Dynabook if it weren’t for being limited to the App Store. However, I’m willing to tolerate a restricted app environment on a phone, though I wouldn’t mind a less restrictive experience. Ignoring the App Store, I find iOS to be more polished than Android, and I also like how Apple provides OS updates for its iPhones for roughly five years. I’m on my third iPhone (a 14 Pro) after using an SE and a 7; I switched to the iPhone SE after two years of using a Google Nexus, which I loved and was disappointed when Google discontinued it.

wkat4242• 2 years ago

Tight control isn't the only thing that defines iOS. I hate Google (and on my android phones i don't log in with a Google account). I would go with apple for more privacy. But their strict control of the platform is unacceptable for me.

This is the problem with the current duopoly. Both options are pretty terrible.

I think it's great what the EU is doing though they're leaving too many loopholes for Apple to weasel through. And I think they should be attacking Google much harder.

akira2501• 2 years ago

which is not what the market wants

I'm sure the market wants more than two providers.

(because if they did, Apple would have gone out of business already).

The market of "low hanging fruit."

or just outright fail (i.e. BlackBerry).

AT&T made a deal with Apple which should have been stopped by regulators.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 2 years ago

I'm having trouble finding the perfect way to articulate the idea, so here's the half-assed version.

Whatever it is that I, and everyone, likes about iPhones/iPads, it has absolutely nothing to do with Apple deciding that I'm too stupid to get to override what software to install on it.

leptons• 2 years ago

The DOJ is suing Apple in an antitrust lawsuit for this very reason (among many other anticompetitive reasons)

asimovfan• 2 years ago

Weren't they literally like this since the first iphone?

dylan6042• 2 years ago

They were like this from the first Mac. Woz wanted the Mac to be open like the Apple II, but Jobs wanted it closed. Jobs won. That's how Apple has been ever since. The crazy days of Mac clones got shut down quick upon Jobs' return. It is just not in the Jobs' Apple's DNA to be open. Why this is confusing to anyone is just a sign of not understanding history. If you want open, Apple is not your platform. That's fine, move along. It's a dead horse.

rchaud• 2 years ago

In 2007, you couldn't run more than one app at a time on the puny 128MB of RAM the iPhone came with.

Today, iPhones are now more powerful than a lot of computers, yet those computers can run rings around iOS in terms of doing actual computer stuff.

Workaccount22• 2 years ago

(I'm an American speaking about Americans)

Because to non-technical people, iPhones are a sparkling clean oasis in deceitful confusing crime ridden cryptic hell-hole.

You might think I am simping for Apple, but my stance is identical to yours. However I have the situation in my life of being surrounded primarily regular people. I don't live in a tech bubble or work in a tech job. My rants against apple are notorious, and I have largely stopped, because I can see how ignorant yet still apathetic people are about it.

Just a short story to encapsulate it:

On a recent trip with lots of friends we ended using my phone for most group shots and other nice pictures. The Pixel's camera really does shine.

However when it came time to share those pictures, I informed everyone it would be best to get google photos where we could all dump the hundreds of pictures into one communal album. This was quickly met with "What? I don't want to deal with that, why don't we just share them the regular way?" (imessage).

throwaway4847610• 2 years ago

The greatest thing I ever did to help non technical people is to make sure they all have adblockers. I can only install ublock on android firefox and this is why I never recommend iphones. Too much malvertisement crap that apple won't let me block.

nozzlegear• 2 years ago

However when it came time to share those pictures, I informed everyone it would be best to get google photos where we could all dump the hundreds of pictures into one communal album. This was quickly met with "What? I don't want to deal with that, why don't we just share them the regular way?" (imessage).

My family, including myself, all have iPhones. We’ve done exactly this for our family trips to the Black Hills and Ozarks over the last couple years, but we just share them with Apple’s shared albums. It works exactly the same as Google’s shared albums but with the iMessage and other iOS/macOS integration niceties. That could be why your family didn’t want to download another app to do what’s “already built in” to the phone, so to speak.

Just speculating, you know your family better than I ever could obviously.

malermeister2• 2 years ago

That's exactly what the EU's DMA does. It tends to get a lot of flak here for some reason.

sorenjan• 2 years ago

Will it though? It's not like it's new behavior from them.

resoluteteeth• 2 years ago

I don't understand why there isn't appetite to simply regulate them out of controlling what software you put on your device.

I think this is what the EU is basically doing but Apple is trying to work around that by minimally implementing 3rd party app stores in a way that still gives them control to see if they can get away with that (they probably won't be able to).

KennyBlanken• 2 years ago

Because media and game console publishers don't want you to be able to run games they haven't distributed (because they force game developers to work with game publishers, and game publishers to agree to all sorts of terms), or programs that can access media and games in a way they don't want you to.

If you think Apple is bad, wait until you see Sony's terms for publishing a crossplatform game on Playstation (Xbox is a bit better.) The agreement they force publishers to sign has all sorts of stipulations, including rules that require payments when PSN users spend more on the PC version of a game than they do the Playstation version, and a prohibition on moving purchased cosmetics to accounts on other platforms.

Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft - all of them would be dead set against third party stores. So would all the media conglomerates (that Sony doesn't own.)

Many software developers would also be against it. If you sell an app on the iOS store, you're virtually guaranteed it won't be pirated. That guarantee goes away the second iOS devices can use third party stores and run any app.

That TPM chip in every x86 system? That isn't there for you, friend (although now it can be used to store FDE keys.) TPM was for storing the keys to decrypt media files.

People seem to keep forgetting that many of the security systems in MacOS and Windows aren't designed for your security, but the security of licensed content.

szasamasa• 2 years ago

if you have to distribute via website or alternative app store, everybody can always have a known person to be responsible for piracy, in addition, it is just as easy to block as apps in apple's app store

sony is not yet a gatekeeper, might be in the future... apple does not have to sell in Europe, if it does, and big enough (no need to be monopoly) to be a gatekeeper, law and rules say they operate a critical infrastructure/platform in the EU economy and hence they cannot tax developers (a country has such powers)

the question is not whether Apple has to change but a question might be why? this is the field of monopolistic power and competition law... monopoly profit is not inherently bad, can help innovation but along the way we figured out it is probably best to curb this power in the long run

Apple had its time of their life and to be honest, I see little meaningful innovation in the last 5+ years, however, they suppress competition and innovation in the economy, controlling a gateway between innovative developers and users

another aspect is consumer prices... should consumers get lower prices or let apple take monopolistic tax from them? of course lower prices seems to be better nd it is one goal... however, we should and we do allow success and monopolistic profit by each and every big innovation, in the beginning and Apple has already had that

it is a bit like an economy supports patent law and competition law at the same time

most people are motivated by financial success and most company pay research and innovation for potential monopolistic profit and this works and it is protected! however, competition law or new forms of it like DMA kicks in later on

it is like you innovate, use patents, get big money but if you grow big you are not allowed to become like all companies become if not controlled: shifting from competitive innovative power to a country like taxing power

I think it is correct that we need competition law too, if we really think about our past, economics, history, and what motivates people

m4632• 2 years ago

With trust, trade is unrestricted.

But when you don't have trust, trade doesn't happen.

It's ironic. When apple first introduced the ios app store (decades ago) I thought "wow, they will protect me from the nonsense". But over time I learned, they don't really protect, there is still nonsense, and further they remove the ability to protect myself from the nonsense (you can't firewall your phone or detect/prevent network access by apps)

kmeisthax6• 2 years ago

EU DMA was supposed to do exactly that, which is why they're talking about Notarization, but Apple is maliciously half-complying. The good news is that the DMA also has specific legal penalties for this kind of half-compliance[0], the bad news is that the EU is a slow and bureaucratic organization so who knows when that will actually be enforced.

[0] oddly enough called "anti-circumvention provisions", which is fucking hilarious

kelthuzad• 2 years ago

If Apple can block what's on "independent" third-party app stores, then the letter of the DMA may be violated or not, but its spirit is most certainly violated. Hope the EU cracks down on such malicious compliance.

outside2344• 2 years ago

Pretty clear anti-competitive activity

malermeister2• 2 years ago

Yeah there's no way this is gonna fly.

speedylight• 2 years ago

Lawyers don’t care about the spirit of any law, it’s the language that matters!

HaZeust• 2 years ago

That's right. There's something I always say: "Lawyers are only purposivists when it benefits them, and textualists at any other avenue."

TillE• 2 years ago

The DMA repeatedly requires gatekeepers to act in a "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" manner. The "spirit" is very much baked into the language.

layer8• 2 years ago

European courts often do.

whimsicalism2• 2 years ago

EU is much more about the spirit of the law than American law

spiderfarmer• 2 years ago

This is such an obvious violation that I think Apple is testing it on purpose. They gain nothing by blocking this specific app. Maybe they just want to see what they can do.

derefr8• 2 years ago

They gain nothing by blocking this specific app.

I dunno, I think there's an obvious thing Apple would be worried about by allowing PC emulators on iOS (iPadOS specifically): the only thing that stops an iPad Pro from being the only computer of, say, a software engineer these days, is that iPadOS doesn't function as an non-inter-app-sandboxed parallel-multitasking development platform in the way that a desktop OS does.

But a (performant) PC emulator on iPadOS would fix that. You could buy an iPad Pro with a keyboard case, boot up a Windows or Linux (or maybe even macOS) VM, and work inside that — running shells, editors/IDEs, compilers, Docker containers, etc. And then swipe back over to (less-heavyweight) iPad apps when you're just taking notes / watching videos.

Honestly, it's something I've personally wanted for a long time. Despite loving my laptop, I'd love to be able to pack only an iPad when travelling to e.g. conferences. Right now I can't, because what if prod goes down and I need to investigate + develop a critical bugfix + deploy it? If I could run a PC VM on my iPad, I could do all that and more.

lxgr• 2 years ago

Based on the horror stories I've heard about App Store reviews, this might literally just be a part of their review org that's not up to date on third-party EU app stores applying the wrong set of rules (or for that matter, any type of rules at all).

Doesn't make it any better, of course.

iamkonstantin• 2 years ago

Apple's compliance with the DMA has been painful to begin with. Instead of embracing the intended spirit of the regulation, they opted to be as difficult and as toxic as possible.

As a developer, I feel tired and exhausted from constantly having to battle with the platform giants just so that eventually we can find a way to co-exist on "their" platforms.

gorkish2• 2 years ago

I remember the flash-in-the-pan moment where through some strange conflux of exploits and firmware features UTM on iOS was able to access full hardware virtualization support. It was a glorious glimpse into an alternate reality that we will likely never get to see again.

I don't have enough superlatives to express my disappointment when seeing all of that effort suppressed and restricted by Apple.

When the UTM authors say "it's not worth it" -- they may be onto something. Apple is slowly but surely beginning to be "not worth it" for me and for many other professional users. Happy WWDC everybody; enjoy getting fucked.

ShellfishMeme• 2 years ago

I was naively hoping that with the M4 iPad the opposite of this would happen and they would let us unlock the power of this device so I could use it as my dev machine when I'm traveling.

Instead, no real improvements are coming to iPad OS and if you're not gaming or video editing, all you get to do is marveling at how powerful your YouTube player is in benchmarks.

Please Apple, let the Pro device finally be a Pro device and let us use virtualization.

gorkish2• 2 years ago

The fact that the new $3k+ M4 iPad Pro cannot run regular OS X in some kind of VM or something is flat-out insulting.

nathanasmith• 2 years ago

The bright side is over the last couple of years I've been broken of my lust for every new device that comes out promising "newer and shinier." The reality is it's the same old locked down slab just a little faster with added bing bings and wahoos. So now I just save most of the cash and spend the rest on upgrading my PC.

m4632• 2 years ago

the same old locked down slab

with more locks.

gtvwill2• 2 years ago

Apples not been worth it for pro users for a good decade. The only thing it's been good for is a litmus test of users care for ethics in computing.

The whole iPad will eat MacBook business so let's cuck its capabilities is insanely wasteful. Like should be illegal levels of wasteful given the current climate of consumption and climate change problems facing us.

Apple and their whole culture of product rollout and consumption is a massive part of our wasteful problem as a global society. Terrible company really.

jb19913• 2 years ago

Apples not been worth it for pro users for a good decade.

I'm curious what you mean by this. In my country, a large percentage of developers are often seen working on Macs, and these are not developers of iOS or macOS apps, they just like using linux tools but on a non-linux OS UI. Visit a Clojure conference, for example, and notice how many are using macs. Same is true in many other engineering communities.

throwaway4847610• 2 years ago

Apple should be allowed to block whatever they want from their app store. And users should be allowed to run whatever software they wish on their devices not installed through Apple's store.

jb19913• 2 years ago

It really is a simple as this. People often make it more complicated than this fundamental issue.

postalrat• 2 years ago

Show apple be able to block apps from third party stories like in the article?

throwaway4847610• 2 years ago

Apple should allowed to block apps from third party app stores on devices they paid for.

immibis4• 2 years ago

Only if Apple's app store doesn't have any special placement. Remember when the EU wouldn't let phone have default browsers? The first time you started the phone, it had to show you 5 browsers in a randomized order and you picked one.

pmontra• 2 years ago

Those were Windows PCs, not phones.

zzo38computer3• 2 years ago

It should not require you to even install one of five; if you do not want to install a browser at all (or if you wish to install one other than those five, possibly some time in future) then it should not be required.

Although, I think it would be better to just not install any browser by default and not even ask; you can install it yourself later if you wish to do so, and can install any one you want (or more than one, if you wish) instead of having to pick one from the provided list.

cobbal• 2 years ago

I'll go a step further and say that users should be able to distribute software without needing to get apple's approval. Instead we get the lie of "_ is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash."

SkyBelow• 2 years ago

Is a person* able to sell something while restricting how it can be used? This is before we even get into the issues of selling software vs. selling the right to use a copy of the software. Things like copyright laws, IP laws, and even ownership ends up getting complicated when deciding what is just or not. I think we mostly agree you shouldn't be able to resell copies of a book if you buy a book, but selling your own specific copy of a book is fine. But why does this distinction exist? Do you really own the book if you can't resell copies of it?

*or company. Perhaps part of the answer is that sometimes we say yes for people but no for companies.

throwaway4847610• 2 years ago

Is a person* able to sell something while restricting how it can be used?

Of course, this is the domain of contract law. Often car companies restrict how soon a desirable model can be resold and for how much.

edit: And robust anti trust enforcement keeps contract terms reasonable. Contracts are limited by unconscionability and superseded by legislation but otherwise fair game.

zzo38computer3• 2 years ago

I think that copyright (and patents) is no good, and should be abolished. They should not restrict making copies of books, selling copies, and other stuff, by copyright. What you should not be allowed to do is to make an inexact copy and then sell it and then claim that the inexact copy is the same as the original, if it is not the same as the original; however, it can still be allowed if you do not make such invalid claims.

zzo38computer3• 2 years ago

Yes, I agree, with both.

SergeAx2• 2 years ago

"Their devices"? The owner of the device is the one with root privileges.

jb19913• 2 years ago

"Their" is referring to the owner of the phone in that comment. Or perhaps that is what you mean?

LeoPanthera• 2 years ago

UTM is open source, so you can build it yourself for your own iOS device, if you really want to.

rcarmo2• 2 years ago

But you have to keep re-signing it every week or so, which is a major pain

adamomada• 2 years ago

Check out https://sideloadly.io to ease that pain

oflebbe• 2 years ago

But you may not have access to API capabilities needed without an paid account.

xutopia• 2 years ago

That's not the same as being available as an easily installable executable and such a drawback for most people.

JDW1023• 2 years ago

Doesn't building an iOS app requires an Mac?

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

the whole point of the third-party stores currently is to help you avoid doing all of that

holoduke2• 2 years ago

There should be very strict counter penalties for false claims in my opinion. I once received a dmca from a much larger (foreign) company than us. Result was complete loss of revenue for one month. We survived, but it felt like a mafia action. Unfair and powerless.

immibis4• 2 years ago

Isn't it your responsibility to sue them for that?

kevingadd3• 2 years ago

Suing a foreign company is something like 5-25x more expensive and less likely to be successful. It's a huge defect in the DMCA that they can do this - every lawyer I talked to for a similar problem told me not to bother.

holoduke2• 2 years ago

The investigation phase alone would have costed me arround 50,100k minimum. Serious money for a small business.

mfuzzey• 2 years ago

This is the reason I will never use the Apple ecosystem, even if the hardware is pretty good.

A hardware manufacturer has no business telling me what I may or may not run on hardware I have purchased, period.

solarkraft• 2 years ago

It's so nice of them to act so openly maliciously so that not even the most naive person can believe they should have a say in which apps get published in third party stores.

kmeisthax6• 2 years ago

It's really weird seeing Apple say "sure, we allowed a console emulator, but PC emulation is still banned". If anything I expected them to allow the latter before the former.

On the other hand, the reason why UTM got banned is completely obvious: it lets users operate desktop software with a finger. That's the same reason why iDOS 2 got banned[0], and if iSH shipped with a graphical output they wouldn't have unbanned that either. The whole reason why the iPad exists at all as a separate product line with a separate UI toolkit from Macs is purely because Apple - specifically, Steve Jobs - said so.

Apple's entire foray into multitouch was borne out of Steve Jobs wanting to spite a 'friend'[1] at the pen computing division of Microsoft. It can be summed up with the phrase "who wants a stylus"?[2] That's why they continue to saddle the iPad with inferior, buggier phone software, because they think it's literally the only way a tablet can be made. So literally anything that might let someone turn an iPhone or an iPad into a Windows tablet is considered the worst kind of heresy in the Apple religion.

Anyway, I hope the EU smacks Apple down on this, because Apple very clearly promised that EU DMA compliant Notarization would only filter for technical compatibility, not taste.

[0] Yes, Apple said a bunch of stuff about how it "allows content without licensing", but we saw with Delta how easily that concern crumbles away.

[1] I do not believe Jobs could have friends in the way we understand the word.

[2] The Apple Pencil doesn't count. A "stylus" is a physical tool intended to work around software not being designed for touch.

humzashahid982• 2 years ago

Is the "no JIT' policy somehow baked into the hardware/software of iOS devices, instead of something Apple finds by doing an app review?

I thought it was the latter (that running a JIT on iOS would be possible but not accepted on the app store), but then I'm left wondering why they seem to have submitted a JIT-less version on a third party app store.

Maybe the intent was ease development by having only one version to support for the first-party and also third-party app stores.

grishka2• 2 years ago

IIRC it's part of the sandbox apps run in, which, in turn, makes use of the hardware memory protection. To do JIT, you need to first write your dynamically generated code into the memory, and then execute it. The memory you obtain via e.g. malloc() doesn't allow execution, only reading and writing (this is controlled by permission flags, in the page table, on the memory pages your app is given by the kernel). To obtain memory that is both writable and executable, you call mmap() specifying corresponding flags. The kernel just refuses to allocate such memory for your app because it doesn't have necessary permissions, or "entitlements" in Apple speak.

humzashahid982• 2 years ago

Thank you for the insightful answer! That's nice to know. I hadn't considered that they had a system like that in place.

andrekandre• 2 years ago

doesn't it seem a bit strange that apple would allow emulation of game consoles which (for the most part) are used with pirated games but a pc emulator that is more easily can use legitimate copies is blocked for 'reasons'... its almost like apple is encouraging piracy...

btw, i think the top comment on that article nails it:

  > This is clearly Apple just blocking anything that could allow the iPad to be used as a real computer

pquki42• 2 years ago

Personally I care about this much more than whatever AI stuff happens at WWDC.

This is the real "developer" issue we are talking about.

xnx• 2 years ago

This leaves a market need open to Android and Windows tablets, but they haven't made anything nearly as good for the price. (Except for a short period where the Pixel tablet was less than $200)

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

We need new anti trust legislation and harsh enforcement, enacted retroactively. Until executives have compensation clawed back and face jail time, this will continue.

Woshiwuja• 2 years ago

How tf can they block third parties app?

Apple blocks PC emulator in iOS App Store and third-party app stores

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