abhibeckert @ abhibeckert @lemmy.world

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They aren’t even allowing sideloading. They are allowing alternative app stores that they approve

Meh. It's basically the same thing - an alternative app store is the most user friendly way to do this anyway and the EU courts will force Apple to approve any reasonable app store.

and Apple expects a 27% cut from all app sales after it hits a million downloads.

No you're thinking of the changes Apple just made to comply with their recent loss in the USA court. That only applies to the USA.

In the EU (and only the EU) instead of charging a percentage fee there's going to be two* 50 cent fees (per user, per year). Spotify, for example, would pay $100 million per year if they choose to "sideload".

(* the app developer pays 50 cents per user per year, and whoever distributes the app also pays 50 cents per user per year)

I'm not upset or surprised.

But I do believe Apple has failed to comply with the law, and they either need to start complying or else I'd like to see the EU apply the maximum penalty. Which, by the way, is to split Apple into multiple companies.

Being split up has happened before and it generally doesn't go well for anyone - it'd be a lot better (including for Apple) if they just complied with the law and stopped being so anti-competitive... but ultimately I'm fine with either outcome.

I'm definitely not ok with things continuing as they are right now... but that's not going to happen so I'm not putting any energy into that.

Wheels that don’t puncture have been around for centuries

What does that have to do with it? Those were a different design. Sure, this invention shares a couple of features with past inventions but that doesn't mean it's the same invention.

Most puncture proof tires are too hard. A good tire is soft enough to have a large flat area where it touches the road (or some other shape, if the road is bumpy).

That's not true - one of the proposed use cases for these tyres is airplane landing wheels which are typically designed to work at up to 235mph. Aircraft engineers have to make major compromises to make sure they can land safely with a flat tire and when they get it wrong it ends really really badly. The concord crash, for example, was caused by a flat tire. Pieces of rubber from the flat tire flew up and punched a hole into a fuel tank. The jet fuel was on fire as it poured out of the rank creating a horrific fireball and the loss of fuel pressure caused two engine failures.

113 people died and the concord was declared unsafe since there wasn't any (affordable) way to redesign the aircraft to handle a flat tyre.

Sure - the wheels they use on the rover can't handle those speeds, but it could easily be modified to work. The bicycle tyre they demonstrated is a better example. It has a rubber coating which will heat up and provide plenty of traction if properly designed.

The real issue is weight. These tires would be too heavy.

For me size matters more than quantity. A lot of modern software is designed to have windows at least 24 inches wide and at that width you can't really fit four monitors on a desk. At 100 inches (horizontal not diagonal) you need to turn or roll your chair to see some of your windows.

So - at least one really big/wide monitor is the way to go in my opinion.

For that one I'd go with a Dell U4021QW - that's a 40" ultra wide that will comfortably support three or four large windows and more critically a single window with a bunch of internal sections. You really do need a curve at that size otherwise the left/right edge of the monitor is too far away.

You can also configure it as multiple virtual monitors, if you want for example the left half to be one computer and the right half to be another computer... or if your software just works better with multiple monitors you can make it into two monitors without any bezel separating them...

While it's nice and wide, it's not super tall... but I actually don't mind that. You need somewhere on your desk to put a glass of water, phone, etc without being in front of your monitor.

To get some height I'd go with two regular aspect ratio (and flat) 27" panels in portrait mode. Personally I'd go with Dell again - specifically the U2723QE which is a reasonably priced (for the quality) monitor with very small bezels. Rotated sideways and touching your desk at the bottom, it will be about as tall as you would ever want a monitor to be.

The middle panel will be 140ppi and the side panels 160ppi. That is not "retina" at laptop viewing distance (with the panel right next to your keyboard) but it is retina at a comfortable viewing distance for a monitor that large (at least 24in/60cm or so - personally mine is further away than that).

Finally, I recommend buying VESA arm mounts. Multi-arm mounts usually don't work well with a 40" panel (it might "work" but only if the panel is low to your desk) - so you're probably going to have to buy three single arms. It will free up loads of desk space (and you're going to be low on desk space), give you more flexibility to get the position/height/angle just right, and also be more stable than the stand that comes with any of those monitors.

Make sure the one for your 40" panel in particular can handle that much weight. I'd go for one that is advertised as handling quite a bit more weight than what you're putting on it. Less of an issue for the side monitors since I'd have those resting on your desk.

Apple doesn’t have a monopoly they have a platform that a lot of other organisations (including Mozilla) depend on. The EU has legislated restrictions for any platform that is in that position.

They drew a line in the sand for what size a platform needs to be for this new legislation to apply and Xbox isn’t big enough.

Seriously - try PHP.

It's a much much nicer language than Java or JavaScript and unlike some of the latest languages (which are, arguably, even nicer) PHP has a massive library of third party packages that you can either use or just learn from.

And unlike Python, which is a general purpose language, PHP is purpose built for exactly the type of work you're doing.

Most PHP websites are wordpress, which deserves all of the crap people ditch on it, but all of that crap is wordpress not PHP, and there are other options. Start with this: https://phptherightway.com/pages/The-Basics.html

They didn’t bend over at all. You literally made a ridiculous argument while complaining about other people doing that.

You really think if Apple killed babies people would be ok with that? Of course you don’t.

Humans can get pretty close to perfect recall with enough practice - show a human that exact joker image hundreds of thousands of times, they're going to be able to remember every detail.

That's what happened here - the example images weren't just in the training set once, they are in the training set over and over and over again across hundreds of thousands of websites.

If someone wants these images nobody is going to use AI to access it - they'll just do a google image search. There is no way Warner Brothers is harmed in any way by this, which is a strong fair use defence.

Do Training weights have the data?

The answer to that question is extensively documented by thousands of research papers - it's not up for debate.

But where is the infringement?

This NYT article includes the same several copyrighted images and they surely haven't paid any license. It's obviously fair use in both cases and NYT's claim that "it might not be fair use" is just ridiculous.

Worse, the NYT also includes exact copies of the images, while the AI ones are just very close to the original. That's like the difference between uploading a video of yourself playing a Taylor Swift cover and actually uploading one of Taylor Swift's own music videos to YouTube.

Even worse the NYT intentionally distributed the copyrighted images, while Midjourney did so unintentionally and specifically states it's a breach of their terms of service. Your account might be banned if you're caught using these prompts.

It is miss-leading. You don't pay any money unless more than 2% of the EU population uses your app (there's about 50 million people in the EU who own an iPhone, and you need a million of those people to run your app to pay this fee).

If you have that many users, and zero income, then all you need to do is register as a non profit - then Apple will exempt your app entirely from the fees.

Every mass market truly free app that I can think of is already run by a non profit - so most don't have to do anything at all.

Apple isn't even required to comply with these new laws yet - so wishing the EU to enforce the rules now is pretty unrealisitc.

Non-Profits are exempt and nearly all large open source projects are non-profits. Small apps are also exempt - the 50c fee only applies if at least 2% of people in the EU use your app.

... however it seems like these exemptions might not apply to third party app stores for some reason.

GPL is also free for commercial use... all open source licenses are. The rendering engines used by Safari (and Chrome/Edge) are GPL.

A popular FOSS store like f-droid would have to cough up thousands of Euros.

They're probably not big enough. This only applies to apps that are on 2% of all iPhones in the EU. It also doesn't apply to non-profits. If f-droid is that big, they probably should be a non-profit.

Sure but they're also sold secondhand. Also people can be born in one country, but move to live in another one... bringing their devices with them. Apple's DRM can't be tied to hardware.

Also - what if a user doesn't have an account with Apple at all? How can Apple know what country they're from? Signing up for an Apple ID is optional when you setup an iPhone - you only really need one to access the App Store and there are now alternative methods available to install apps in the EU.

There are different antennas on different devices, but all of them generally work everywhere in the world - it worst your bandwidth might be a bit lower.

If Apple is fined for breaking these rules - the fine would be $80 billion. That would be two thirds of Apple's annual global net profits or $200 for every citizen in the EU.

It wouldn't bankrupt the company, but it would definitely hurt and they don't want to pay that.

Their OS runs on exactly 2 devices (iPhone and iPad) from 1 manufacturer

It runs on the primary device for over a billion people. Which means supporting it, for app developers, isn't really optional at all assuming you want your app to be available to all users.

This isn't about users, it's about EU based businesses. If you run a hotel for example, you need to be on iOS with some kind of app (obviously it could be a web app).

The courts generally don't like it when you run two identical lawsuits at the same time - it's a massive waste of limited tax payer funded resources. They would've likely postponed a hypothetical amazon case indefinitely until after the lawsuit against Apple had concluded (which hasn't happened yet, it's still in the appeals process).

After his case with Apple is over, if he wins that case, then he can privately talk to Amazon and try to reach a settlement that doesn't involve any court cases.