I don't live in the EU. My comment is based on what they do in the rest of the world.

>Apple only gives third-party app publishers access to the IDFA if they have obtained user consent through a dedicated consent prompt that is largely predefined by Apple – the so-called ATT prompt. If the user refuses to give consent in this prompt, the app publisher does not gain access to the IDFA. According to the Bundeskartellamt’s investigation, there are no other technical options available to app publishers that are equally suitable for exchanging data across companies.

In contrast, Apple’s own personalised advertising is subject to different conditions. Apple itself does not use the IDFA and cross-company data combination, but draws on user data from its own ecosystem – a wealth of data that is not available, in particular, to the large number of smaller app publishers. This is why Apple is not subject to the requirement of displaying an ATT prompt. Insofar as Apple requests consent to its own processing of user data for advertising purposes, the company uses a different consent prompt – the so-called PA prompt (“Personalized Ads prompt”). The design of the PA prompt differs from that of the ATT prompt for third-party app publishers.

In addition to that, there are permissions that Apple gives to its own apps that it denies to competitors even if the user consents to it, e.g. permission to install third party apps is given to Apple's store app without asking but can't be given to the Steam app even if the user wants that.

Oh, wow, haven't heard of Apple Mail plugins in a decade! I really thought Apple would have deprecated them by now.

Mail plugins are kind of a special case, they're REALLY "legacy", so they work by sharing process memory and being able to access way more than they should, like all your messages, possibly even passwords if the developer is clever enough.

Also notoriously difficult to build, since the Mail internal API breaks from time to time, so they're a rarity these days.

Also notoriously difficult to install.

Maybe.

But what does the "Access to photos" permission really do here? It's not like not having that permission would stop Apple from accessing them against your will, as they have access via the OS anyway. And it's clear, that when you open the Apple Photos app, that it will access your photos.

On the other hand, when you open a third party app, it may not have been clear to you that it wants to access your photos, and the company did not have prior access to them.

I still think apps should only be pre-blessed sparingly. For example, the camera app should not have GPS permission by default, as many people probably aren't aware that camera apps use that information.

That should be supported, but if its the only "Photo Gallery" app installed, I think its okay. Curious, do you use another one that's better? I have looked (though not very invested in looking) and didn't really see anything that caught my eye.

I don't think that is contradictory either. By limiting 3rd-party permissions, Apple is able to prevent many potential issues before an application even makes it to the vetting process. The less there is to vet, the more robust the vetting process should be in theory.

He who creates the operating system creates the terms for that system I don’t expect to use an OpenAI program and then tell them what to do at every turn in comparison to Anthropic or any of the other AI model makers. (whoops I forgot the lawyers work for other business interests they don’t want to do anything about rent letting not really their solution always framed in a way where they claim to be looking out for the public interest). when in reality, they are just looking out for other business interest.

In the case of operating systems, I simply select a different operating system, and the same principle applies to AI models. It is amusing that Microsoft and Linux are available to consumers, providing them with a choice. However, simply because the decisions made by one or the other are superior/better does not imply that everyone should be reduced to a similar low level.

Apple is not even close to being the dominant operating system or hardware platform, globally, yet you still expect them to be mediocre, akin to most of their competition.

I don't understand "first do the move"

iOS is a dominant OS with billions of users. In the US it has the majority market share of the smartphone market.

So whether Apple likes it or not, now their OS is a platform and has different responsibilities compared to your hobby OS that you developed to play with, and accidentally you got 10 users.

Can you share some of these Microsoft Windows and Linux phones that also run the popular apps that you often need to take part in daily life?

You can't because the duopoly prevents you to do it, that's why it's called a duopoly.