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Apple vs the Law

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#81

Post by pyman »

scheeseman486 wrote: post #72
pyman wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's your opinion, and I respect it. But let's look at the facts: - He sued Apple and Google for monopolistic behaviour. He's been fighting for fair access and better deals for all developers, not just Epic Games Store. - His fight's not about open source or open platforms, it's about fair access, lower fees, and giving developers more control. - He speaks for millions of independent computer scientists who build g…

> He sued Apple and Google for monopolistic behaviour. Meanwhile he doesn't substantially support the one option for computing that doesn't result in vertical control. He uses the tools that enable that control, rather than criticize their existence. > He speaks for millions of independent computer scientists who build games. Epic's apparent support for indie developers is marketing to grow his business. This isn't i…

I'm not sure what your expectations are when it comes to billionaires. Tim's definitely not Linus Torvalds, that's for sure. But he's one of the few actually pushing back.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#82

Post by pyrale »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #52
pyrale wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is an argument made in good faith. Then I suggest you rework your "good-faith" discussion methods. You're answering a poster who explained how companies are onboarded to new regulation with a gotcha question about a law that isn't voted yet.

I'm answering someone who said that the response to being "onboarded to new regulation" should be to "face reality", rather than fight it and try to stop it. Whatever level of tooth-and-nail fighting you'd expect someone to do in response to a law you do think is wrong, it's reasonable think someone would wish to do in response to a law they think is wrong.

You're missing the point. A law in the process of being voted is up for discussion and political involvement.

Once the law has been voted, you can still complain about it, but it is not wise to use the talks given to you by the regulator in order to help you adapt to new regulation as a soapbox for your complaints. That will burn goodwill with the regulator and make them discard any legitimate feedback you might have.

Or, in short, lobbying parliament is fine, trying to strong-arm regulatory bodies is not.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#83

Post by celeryventure »

ankit219 wrote: post #32

> Unintentionally installing something from the app store is all good though, because App Store review absolutely ensures that nothing could go wrong, that there's no scam apps, and more than makes up for the web's "orders of magnitude" stronger sandboxing, more stringent permissions model, and better phishing prevention. And so, web apps logically require a convoluted 4-step process including "share" and "add to hom…

With the latest versions of Android, they made sideloading apps way more difficult so I wouldn't be surprised if your parents weren't able to find how to it. Also, if you really want to block it you can use parental controls.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#84

Post by bzzzt »

threatofrain wrote: post #73
shuckles wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fantasy. No customer wants PWAs. They exist to make developers' lives easier, not consumers' lives.

Developer efficiencies can be translated to customer wins.

Then allowing Apple the efficiency of not implementing yet another way to build a GUI also is a customer win.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#85

Post by jeroenhd »

planb wrote: post #79
simonask wrote: post #46

As a European, I have to say I am generally impressed with the EU in these cases. I'm from a country that's rich and capable, but with a GDP a fraction of Apple's market cap. There is no chance that national laws and entities would be sufficient to protect my consumer rights from corporations this size. The EU is fundamentally a centre-right, liberalist, pro-business coalition, but what that means is that it is pro-c…

As a former European, I agree with your first statement. I love that the EU is taking this seriously, and I like how they introduced the "gatekeeper" term to apply regulations only to the "big ones" and not small businesses (even though I don't agree with many of the individual laws in the DMA). That said, you can't argue that this isn't protectionist - we simply don't have any gatekeepers here, so if we're fair the…

> we simply don't have any gatekeepers here

Booking would love that to be the case. And last I heard, Zalando is currently fighting the EU over having to comply with the DMA.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#86

Post by Zopieux »

amelius wrote: post #69
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big companies like that have a vested interest in paying their legal team A Lot Of Money to find stupid details like this and to argue the toss over them because a ruling can cost them billions. If arguing over a comma means they don't have to, or that it pushes the point where they have to pay forwards, it's worth the expense to them.

It also costs them my trust, though.

This happens in the confines of legal (EU, California, ...) institutions and courts with the occasional boring news reporting the average consumer doesn't read, like this article.

It's clearly a win for Apple.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#87

Post by Y-bar »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #68
simonask wrote: post #46

As a European, I have to say I am generally impressed with the EU in these cases. I'm from a country that's rich and capable, but with a GDP a fraction of Apple's market cap. There is no chance that national laws and entities would be sufficient to protect my consumer rights from corporations this size. The EU is fundamentally a centre-right, liberalist, pro-business coalition, but what that means is that it is pro-c…

I would argue the opposite: It actually makes European businesses worth off by continuing to make its regulatory environment so complex only massive companies like big tech or Europe's legacy players have the resources to comply. Add to that feel-good green initiatives like a packaging initiative that might lower packaging waste from European companies, but more likely will just make European goods more expensive and…

The EU has basically said that it's better to have a handful medium-sized companies in competition for customers than one or two mega-corps owning and dictating the market. And to resolve that they employ two things, one is the DMA/DSA and similar laws which mostly takes effect when your company reaches a certain large market penetration, the other is standardisations such as the Radio Equipment Directive (think "USB-C law" and similar ones) that make it easier for consumers to avoid vendor lock-in.

> just make European goods more expensive and cause Europeans to buy from Temu instead

Temu is under active investigation for breaching these laws, anyone operating within EU is subject to those laws, not just European companies (e.g. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-ope...)

Re: Apple vs the Law

#88

Post by shuckles »

threatofrain wrote: post #73
shuckles wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fantasy. No customer wants PWAs. They exist to make developers' lives easier, not consumers' lives.

Developer efficiencies can be translated to customer wins.

Certainly in theory, almost never in practice. The enterprise slop shop that chooses web technologies because the consultants are cheaper is not trying to make anything lasting or delightful.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#89

Post by LoganDark »

culturestate wrote: post #60
LoganDark wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what does surprise me is that there’s a very common attitude in forums that somehow Apple is the only company doing this, or they’re doing it worse than any other company. Apple creates vertically integrated devices. For many people, Apple dictates their entire digital life - far more so than any megacorporation on the mere level of, say Google, could ever hope to, considering Apple owns the hardware, software,…

> You cannot buy a device with entirely Google-designed hardware and software - Pixels with Android come close I don’t really understand this distinction. How is eg a Pixel 9 Pro running Android with GMS on a Tensor any less entirely Google-designed than an iPhone 16 is entirely Apple-designed?

> How is eg a Pixel 9 Pro running Android with GMS on a Tensor any less entirely Google-designed than an iPhone 16 is entirely Apple-designed?

Android is developed by the Open Handset Alliance[0], which is not just Google:

    Its member firms included HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics(formerly), T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.
Android is more of a collaboration than Apple's entirely in-house. (Technically Apple's current generation of operating systems traces back to NeXTSTEP, which itself traced from some other things, but it's still had much cleaner provenance and been much more tightly controlled than Google's continuous conglomeration.)

I will say though I'd never heard of the Tensor until now, that's very interesting. I guess I am out of date on Pixels.

Apple owns manufacturing and patents for most of the tech they use in their phones (e.g. batteries, biometric sensors, and so on). Google Pixels use third-party suppliers (e.g. their fingerprint sensors are usually from FPC, Goodix or Qualcomm), they follow the same sets of protocols as other Android devices, and they use many of the same drivers provided by the third-party component vendors. For this reason I also wouldn't say the Microsoft Surface is vertically integrated. At best it's designed to work well with the software that's on it, and the software has had some features added for the device. Maybe that's some measure of vertical integration, but not quite to the level of Apple.

Apple certainly doesn't own everything; for example the actual display panel in an iPhone usually is manufactured by Samsung or LG Display. In my opinion though they still own enough to be far more integrated than Pixels are.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance

Re: Apple vs the Law

#90

Post by pas »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #68
simonask wrote: post #46

As a European, I have to say I am generally impressed with the EU in these cases. I'm from a country that's rich and capable, but with a GDP a fraction of Apple's market cap. There is no chance that national laws and entities would be sufficient to protect my consumer rights from corporations this size. The EU is fundamentally a centre-right, liberalist, pro-business coalition, but what that means is that it is pro-c…

I would argue the opposite: It actually makes European businesses worth off by continuing to make its regulatory environment so complex only massive companies like big tech or Europe's legacy players have the resources to comply. Add to that feel-good green initiatives like a packaging initiative that might lower packaging waste from European companies, but more likely will just make European goods more expensive and…

... where is it easy to do business anyway? sure, there are degrees, levels, grades of this, the size of the barriers to entry matters, there are metrics about how easy it is to start a business for example, but that's just one aspect, and I'd argue mostly an unimportant one (if it takes 2 hours or 2 days or 1 weeks it's fine, what matters is how much does it cost to do it and how much does it cost to maintain the legal entity, and to do the filings, etc.)
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