The iPhone App Store in China is about to be more locked down.

China forced Apple to remove any app where the developer isn’t registered in China. Meaning they asked Apple to remove 95% of the apps and games available in the App Store.

Poor iPhone users, basically they will get a “wechat handheld” and that’s it…

  •  smileyhead   ( @smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
    99•1 year ago

    Apple is to blame too. They created a device that gives them so much power to make such lockdowns possible in the first place. The only proper response from Apple should be “we would really like to do it, but we can’t be sure users won’t install those apps outside of our store”.

    Something like that should not be possible with universal computing devices. This is why freedom to install any OS you want on mobile devices is more important than ever.

    •  antizero99   ( @antizero99@lemmynsfw.com ) English
      17•1 year ago

      This is why I never had anything more than an original ipod classic. Android let’s you do whatever the fuck you want with your own device. Don’t like having Google all over your phone? You can install roms with no Google services and use other app stores.

        •  antizero99   ( @antizero99@lemmynsfw.com ) English
          9•1 year ago

          But, that wasn’t your only choice for a device. Android runs on basically anything and you have plenty of options for devices that let you do what you want with it.

          Basically, the bootloader being locked is a manufacturer problem and not an android problem. Buy a different phone, smartphones have fully matured at this point. Grab a pixel 7 or 7 pro for a couple of hundred bucks and make that device your biotch.

          •  june 🌿   ( @junezephier@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
            2•1 year ago

            Yeah, I didn’t look into it beforehand because i was naive and my previous devices were unlocked so i assumed this would be the same. And it’s even more frustrating because while this phone in other regions is unlocked, specifically my canadian model is locked. I won’t be getting another phone any time soon, but yeah, ill be more careful in the future. Just sucks that manufacturers still do this sporadically

            •  antizero99   ( @antizero99@lemmynsfw.com ) English
              3•1 year ago

              That wasn’t an attack on you specifically. Most people don’t need to know nor care if they can unlock the bootloader. We need some kind of federal mandate/law/whatever that says that they have to be unlocked and people can do what they want with the $1k+ devices they buy. It’s not even a question with a pc, you can even buy prebuilt systems with no OS or with linux installed if you choose.

              This is why I have been a so called Google fanboy/super fan for what feels like a couple of decades. First nexus and now pixel because I’m guaranteed to be able to install whatever flavor of android exists for whatever phone I am using (if I so choose), I haven’t played with roms in years but it’s an option if I feel like it and I’m considering doing it for my work phone, get that shit running as lean as possible, no need for 99% of the Google apps that come with it.

            •  antizero99   ( @antizero99@lemmynsfw.com ) English
              6•1 year ago

              I don’t believe that for a second. Some specific apps are only on one platform or the other but every app has a ton of alternatives that do the exact same thing.

              I’m not sure if you are trolling, shilling, astroturfing, whatnot but either way that argument is disingenuous at best.

            •  Empricorn   ( @Empricorn@feddit.nl ) 
              4•1 year ago

              none of the apps I use regularly on my iPhone are available on Android.

              Uh, yeah. That’s the point. It wouldn’t be Apple’s walled garden if you could just access those apps outside of iOS! You’re just used to that being the status quo…

            •  averyminya   ( @averyminya@beehaw.org ) 
              3•1 year ago

              In fact, none of the apps I use regularly on my iPhone are available on Android.

              Okay, so… Apollo for iOS wasn’t available on Android but it was far from the only android app for reddit available.

              So you’ll have to explain what you mean. I find it hard to believe that there are apps on iOS that have functionality that doesn’t exist on Android. I can however definitely think of a few examples of what you’re talking about. In iOS I want able to find a way to interface with car maintenance software, or to connect to USB devices, or to visualize WiFi signal strength in AR. Or loading songs onto an SD card… or use wired headphones while charging my phone.

              Seems like a pretty weird limitation.

      •  smileyhead   ( @smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
        10•1 year ago

        If you have universal devices Web cannot be blocked at all, you can install different browser or share websites via physical media, you can fit whole Wikipedia on SD Card. Same with overall computer networks, you can run a cable to your neighbor, unless you want to do it on a mass scale.

        But I think you mean the Internet (please, don’t confuse Web and Internet), which is in fact very limited on ISPs side.

        This is the difference. While with computers you can only censor what is done by them on public network (cables on the street, radio, etc.), with jail like iPhone you can also censor what is happening on the device itself. Those devices are dangerous and Apple made a big mistreatment for the world by creating iPhone like that.

        •  realharo   ( @realharo@lemm.ee ) 
          1•1 year ago

          You need to look at this from a practical standpoint.

          The vast majority of phone apps are not local-only. They are merely the frontend to services provided by some company - e.g. a Reddit app is really about Reddit the service, a food delivery app is about the service, not the locally running code, etc.

          Apple controls what users can and cannot install on devices made by them, but the web and things like PWA are an alternative that would be viable for some portion of these.

          You can make a web app that can be added as an icon on the homescreen, can access the camera, location, notifications, storage, authentication (e.g. require fingerprint), etc. It still can’t do everything native apps can do, but it would be good enough for a good portion of popular apps.

          But in China, that is not really possible without the government’s approval either, because China requires the same kind of registration and an ICP license for websites, otherwise things will get blocked. Which, even if you could install anything you want on a device, would effectively limit you to purely local-only apps anyway.