Steve Jobs pitched PWAs way back when, I don't know why all we've gotten is a half-baked solution from Apple other than they want you in their App Store with a native app.

Did the European Commission agree to the January 2026 deadline or not? Have they been working internally behind the scenes with Apple or are they as in the dark as these developers? What is the legal mechanism to push disclosure a month earlier and why is the letter only being published now?

These are sincere questions of mine, in case it's not clear.

  Apple care about the American and Asian markets. They have long treated the EU as a joke whose consumer laws they can ignore.
  That is why, the past few years, Apple has behaved so petulantly and strangely in reaction to EU stipulations. They feel it's beneath them.

As a consumer with the resources to leave, the choice is simple.

That, and:

* Customization is better -- Apple has nothing like Good Lock, which is developed AND officially supported by Samsung,

* AI is better -- And Samsung even gives the choice to run AI features completely locally on your phone -or- in the cloud,

* Features for power users are all around better -- As a example did you know Google built a freaking virtualization service which allows you to run a full Linux operating system, with an complete KDE Plasma or GNOME UI on top of Android? Well, now you do. Super fun feature to have on a phone. Even more super fun feature to have on a tablet.

And then there's DeX -- at least on the Galaxies, as long as Google is working on the built in desktop features for the next Android release.

And for those times you quickly want or need a Linux shell you can launch Termux (https://termux.dev/en/).

Most notably and importantly: for all these things you don't have to root or jailbreak ANYTHING... They work completely out of the box -- Although you can get a scary sounding warning when downloading stuff from outside the Play store, but if you really understand and can deal with the consequences this can be easily solved using a toggle button.

How Apple keeps managing to drive themselves and their developer ecosystem completely in the ground still is completely baffling to me. And that comes from someone who really used to love Apple, back in the Jobs era (Got the first iPod, iPhone, iPad, and first Intel MacBook Pro to prove it).

PS: Because lots of people got super pissed about Google abandoning sideloading on Android they walked back on their initial decisions and it will keep working for the foreseeable future

I mean, it absolutely worked for effectively sinking the GDPR, where pretty much everyone now equates that law with obnoxious 'cookie banners', to the point that these regulations are being relaxed, despite never requiring these banners in any way, shape or form in the first place.

But, yeah, despite that, I'd say they'll get away with this as well...

> "We have seen this playbook before in Europe and beyond," the signatories warn, adding that they suspect any new terms will continue to impose fees that would violate the law.

So the complaint is that they might violate the law next month?