And Apple is getting forced to UNLOCK the iphone app store in the EU lmao
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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It seems Apple find it less difficult to comply with China's censorship policies than EU pro-consumer regulations.
It’s pretty simple… removing apps a country doesn’t want people to have access to doesn’t meaningfully affect Apple’s revenue
Allowing you to install things outside of their control does affect their revenue
Of course the first is less difficult for them
That doesn't make any sense at all. If 10% of apps are not getting users in china anymore then there's fewer subscriptions and in-app purchases apple is getting a cut of (and we all know the actual math will be far harsher since china has a vested interest in blocking the most popular apps)
The apps getting removed weren’t popular apps there in the first place
The most popular apps here have never been the most popular apps there
Yes, the CCP is trying to cut them off before they become popular, but it’s better for Apple to get money from the currently popular apps there
Nice of the headline not to specify this only applies to the Chinese version of the apple app store.
But then again, this is the verge, so clickbait in the norm.
Thanks for clarifying that. While still shit, it's obvious China would do that. Censorship is the norm there
I think this has always been Apple's weakest aspect. They position themselves as a thought leader and ethical company, but when push comes to shove, will do whatever it takes to get market access.
Say what you want about Google - at least they put their money where their mouth is on China.
Only after they found out it would be unprofitable.
Google has no high ground here, project dragonfly was worked on for a long while until it wasn’t going to be a cash cow.
They pulled out of China in 2010. They were considering a return internally and scrapped it. Buy they didn't leave because they "found out it would be unprofitable."
Google's no saint, I get it, but everyone and their mother knew in 2010 that China is a hundred-billion dollar market opportunity and businesses were (and still are) pumping tens of billions of dollars into unlocking that. Google was there very early for tech, and while their lunch was still being eaten by Baidu in 2010 due to government pumping up the local competitor, there was no business sense in leaving. That's why I think they really did leave exactly why they said - a refusal to censor search results. They would still be there if it was just a business decision.
2019, and only after it was exposed and they got bad press in the USA.
Google abandoned the search market in China in 2010. They moved some portion to Hong Kong but stopped censoring search results. They provided narrow services like Translate but as far as I know never reversed their position against that censorship and reentered China.
Project Dragonfly was an internal project that was dropped ("prototype" is the ninth word in the Wikipedia article you linked). Google has nibbled around the edges of reentering China since 2010 but hasn't actually done so.
Google left China because they couldn’t comply with the government’s expectations.
When they started building that prototype, they knew EXACTLY what the censorship requirements were and they didn’t give the slightest fuck. Why? Because money.
Why build the prototype if they were taking a moral stand?
I'm so confused by your logic. They didn't release it. Sure, every company develops things, I'm sure because some VP thought they'd make money and get promoted. But you're saying an internal prototype which has no business impact (because it was never released) outweighs them leaving the market and remaining out for 13 years which has a substantial business impact (because they forewent billions in opportunities) while giving no weight to the fact that their ultimate choice was to not release that prototype (again, foregoing billions in opportunities).
It's a chain of reasoning that is only possible if you've tautologically assumed they're operating in bad faith, so that can't be probative of if they're operating in bad faith.
I mean, I'm not even saying Google is good, I'm comparing them to Apple who is now agreeing to actively refuse to post apps that are not registered with the government. If you're debating me to argue they're equivalent, yikes.
Google also removes apps from the play store.
Google developed it with the intention of releasing it, and willingly cooperating with the Chinese regime. While they didn’t end up going through with it, it wasn’t until the bad press in the USA pushed them to avoid releasing it. I think that’s fairly substantial proof that Google is more than willing to go along with the regime unless it directly hurts them.
They didn’t forgo that much profit by leaving China because they were forced to leave China. Their current offerings in2010 were being pressed by Chinese authorities to do things and monitor/filter in ways that Google wasn’t capable of doing at the time. AI they spun it as “do no evil” when the reality is that they were being walked out by the Chinese anyways.
Enter project dragonfly, aka “we still want that money and we don’t actually have a moral stand on this”
We disagree, because I still think the fact that they did make the right choice in the end controls vis a vis an imputed moral choice on Project Dragonfly, and think Google did have the ability to make keyword-filtering changes in 2010. But thank you for engaging in a civil debate about it.
I appreciate you being civil aswell!
Yep I’m in the “Google is evil” club 😝
I would like to add that this was considerably recent, they pulled out of China deliberately when they were asked to censor search. Idk what changed but there have been too many changes there to pinpoint what's the actual reason.
My point is that they were fine censoring search for a long time so it seems unlikely that the censorship was the issue.
They position themselves as a thought leader and ethical company, but when push comes to shove, will do whatever it takes to get market access.
One way to look at it is what is best in the real world for actual Chinese citizens. On one hand we have Apple, who generally does the bare minimum to comply with Chinese regulations and occasionally picks its battles on what things are worth pushing back on and which are worth just dealing with. On the other hand we have every Chinese service provider, all of whom bend over backwards not only to comply with their legal requirements to go above and beyond to do whatever the party wants. The government doesn't even really need to censor people's chats because the companies happily do it themselves.
Are Chinese citizens better off without iMessage and FaceTime, fully end-to-end encrypted services? Are they better off with a phone that is sending all of their usage data to a Chinese company?
Apple could refuse to operate in the Chinese market on principle and feel very haughty about itself, but that wouldn't make the life of its former customers any better.
China is a toxic shithole. I feel sorry for the people and culture destroyed because of the revolution.
It's not revolution when same person stays in power for decades.
Indeed. Mao and everyone after him were total shitheads.
This is why Taiwan (ROC) is the true China who tried their best to preserve their own culture and country as much as they could, moving artifacts and such to the island (colloquially mainlanders even call Taiwan "treasure island). The CCP were demolishing temples and artifacts as well as killing millions and people and destroying their country.
I just want to add some additional context: Taiwan existed as a nation long before the RoC fled to the island and massacred the population (look up the White Terror). There continues to be quite a bit of tension between the original population and the RoC about the national identity. I wouldn't really call Taiwan the true China. My family is native Taiwanese and I know there is a lot of anger at how their government was taken over.
Apple when Europe wants them to protect their customers vs. Apple when China wants them to lock every profitable app out
No, they treated it the same as the EU regulations and held back until the policy was effective.
But if they use that same VPN they can just access the US App Store,... The step has just been moved forward... 😅
VPNs are useless for accessing the US App Store, you need to change your Apple ID region which is even easier
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple’s iPhone App Store in China is getting a whole lot more locked down.
China recently updated an existing online software regulation to lay out strict criteria for app stores and apps in the country, and after looking for ways around it, Apple has started to comply.
Now, as Apple honors the regulation, it closes a loophole that had let iPhone users in China download and, with a VPN, use apps that the government there has blocked for most or all of the country, like WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube.
Reuters writes that, in order for an app to qualify for an ICP license, they are “effectively” required to host their back end in China.
Apple was pushing back on the requirement, but app stores from Tencent, Huawei, and others had apparently already complied with the rule.
We asked Apple for a comment and whether the rule has affected any apps yet but did not receive a response by press time.
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