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EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

appleinsider.com

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Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#441

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

pb7 wrote: post #422
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opening the doors for more EU app companies to rake more money? EU technology companies are not known for their profiteering compared to American ones. Just saying.

They're not known for it because they don't have the ability, not because they don't have the willingness. It's not a matter of culture or policy as evidenced by the profiteering of European luxury goods monopolies. Europe can't compete in tech so it has its lunch eaten by American companies.

> It's not a matter of culture or policy as evidenced by the profiteering of European luxury goods monopolies

I'm sorry but what?

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#442

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

nicbou wrote: post #434
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted this because you're ignoring iMessage. The fact that Apple purposefully not only gives Android users a shitty experience when communicating with iOS users, but also ensures that the presence of an Android user can break the experience for everyone else in a group chat (e.g. degraded videos now for everyone) in iMessage is a blatant attempt to abuse their monopoly power (in the US at least where iMessage d…

iMessage is pretty rare. Europe is on WhatsApp

The opposite is true in the US. I'd guess that 95%+ of iOS users in the US text primarily on iMessage (excluding those who are primarily texting international contacts).

I'm fact, that's probably the biggest reason I think Apple has been able to abuse their iMessage stance for so long: the EU has been far stronger at regulating compatibility and interoperability (we can thank the EU for the fact that we can finally get rid of tons of dongles), but I think they've been less vigilant about iMessage solely because it's much less of a factor in Europe.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#443

Post by blackoil »

Aeolun wrote: post #347
martimarkov wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have freedom to chose the platform.

I have the freedom to choose between Google or Apple. That’s not very free at all.

Yeah two American companies with HQ next to each other.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#444

Post by pb7 »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #441
pb7 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not known for it because they don't have the ability, not because they don't have the willingness. It's not a matter of culture or policy as evidenced by the profiteering of European luxury goods monopolies. Europe can't compete in tech so it has its lunch eaten by American companies.

> It's not a matter of culture or policy as evidenced by the profiteering of European luxury goods monopolies I'm sorry but what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica

And many others. For example, Luxottica is an eyewear monopoly that owns 80% of brands selling $5 worth of plastic for hundreds.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#445

Post by zappb »

grishka wrote: post #209
cmdli wrote: post #184

I, for one, do not look forward to having to sideload Facebook, Instagram, Google, Gmail, and every single other megacorps app just because they want to track my every click. I would rather give power to Apple than all the other companies.

A good solution to apps wanting to track your every click is not organizational but technical. Just don't give them APIs for reliable cross-app tracking. That advertising ID? It simply does not need to exist at all . Same for all the attribution bullshit. Besides, sideloading enables installation of modded apps giving users more choice.

[dead]

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#446

Post by Apocryphon »

Affric wrote: post #436
Apocryphon wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta is already in the regulators' sights. Data harvesting is not something the EU is blind to. Presumably there would be injunctions made against them from so easily pied pipering users into doing that. Not to mention, most users do not want to have to jump through more hoops just to have the same old FB/IG/WhatsApp experience. They'd balk.

Ah yes... so give Meta a couple of years of all gas no brakes with regards to user data while the legislators play catch up. They have gone for Apple out of pride and short sighted electoral strategy. The answer is to deal with Facebook(Meta) and Google(Alphabet) et cetera first. Pumping money into Gecko development. This is serving up regular people who use smart phones (which in the west are essentially mandatory)…

What’s your explanation for Japan doing the same to Apple? It’s hardly only the EU who has them (and Google, and the rest of Big Tech) in their crosshairs.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393809

> regular people who use smart phones

That’s the beauty of it. I’m not convinced that ‘regular people’ are going to have the patience to deal with Meta forcing them to get and manage yet another damn account to use Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp. Just a terrible hurdle that will cause FB to shed a non-zero number of users, at a time where their DAU has not been hot, never mind their long term growth potential.

Without a compelling reason for them to join (free Oculuses? Oculii?) you can’t expect users to be forced to sign up for yet another account- not to mention most people are aware at the invasiveness of Meta- and remain quiet. Users already have more streaming services than they can handle, they’re not going to have the patience to juggle multiple app store accounts, just to get the same apps they already have!

Forcing users to adopt a new walled garden right away is going to inspire mass consumer backlash right away. And that will cause regulators to weigh in immediately, data gathering operation or no data gathering op.

I just don’t see Meta having the product or marketing stones to pull this off. Their last thing with positive buzz is what, Threads? Something dependent on the failure of another’s platform? And that only lasted for like a week.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#447

Post by Sylamore »

cmcaleer wrote: post #216
tinus_hn wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were phones that did exactly what you wanted

The Pixel 5's security update end of life is in two weeks[0]. This is a phone that launched October 2020. My iPhone XS which I bought in 2018 just got the iOS 17 update and it's working pretty well. I want to be able to load whatever I want on my phone, but I also don't want to have to buy a new phone every couple years (or sooner! Looks like the 5a is still in production with security updates ending in 11 months) to…

Ultimately it was the need to buy a new phone every couple of years even when I otherwise wouldn't need to that pushed me to Apple devices. I only this year had to replace my daughter's iPhone 7, but not because it wasn't supported as a 4 year old device. Granted it won't get iOS 16 or 17 but 15 is still supported.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#448

Post by sircastor »

sbuk wrote: post #207
grishka wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about personal choices, it's about enabling fair competition. If you sell a general-purpose computing device and market it as one, you should relinquish any control of it once it's sold.

Who decided the iPhone is a general-purpose computing device?

It can be argued (I think effectively) that we don’t know how to make non-general purpose computers. We can kind of fake it by putting blocking software in the way, but you can’t have math that only works when the data isn’t copyrighted.

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#449

Post by jefftk »

Aeolun wrote: post #351
jkaplowitz wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates, including not only security fixes and bug fixes but also feature drops. We’ll see what’s announces next month, but Google might be about to jump ahead of even the iPhone on this point. Disclosure: although I have worked for Google in the past, I haven’t worked for them in more than 8 years, never worked on Android or Pix…

> The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates I’m not sure promises by Google are worth anything at this point.

I'm having trouble thinking of Google breaking any explicit promises like "Pixel 6 and later phones, including Fold, will get updates for at least 5 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US"? What are you thinking about?

Re: EU tells Apple to open everything up to its rivals

#450

Post by ggreer »

kibwen wrote: post #280
kajumix wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition is the natural state of affairs. Nobody has to enable it. IBM/Microsoft weren't forced by the EU to give up market dominance in PCs. And if the EU tried, it couldn't ever do a better job than Apple did. It's no surprise that EU lags so much behind the US in tech innovation.

> Competition is the natural state of affairs. This is not even remotely true. Economies of scale mean that power accumulates and monopolies emerge, and monopolies are the antithesis of competition. In order to ensure competition, you need regulation to shake the jar regularly.

How is Apple a monopoly? iPhones are less than 20% of phones sold in the world. Samsung sells more phones than Apple.
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