Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple vs the Law

formularsumo.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 450 posts

Re: Apple vs the Law

#131

Post by nonethewiser »

jjcob wrote: post #65

The saddest part of this whole fiasco is that Apple itself is suffering from the lack of competition. Apple Watch for example gets a huge boost from being the only wearable that integrates with iOS. But it has a lot of quality issues, and is by far the worst Apple product in my opinion. Apple would have a lot more incentive to improve it if they had to compete with other smart watches on a level playing field.

>The saddest part of this whole fiasco is that Apple itself is suffering from the lack of competition.

The Apple watch suffers in your scenario. Not necessarily Apple.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#132

Post by alt227 »

shuckles wrote: post #59
lmm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This wouldn't be much of an issue, of course, if Chrome would just run on iOS like it does on any other OS, so Google can implement PWAs themselves. You do understand that the reason it doesn't is because Apple won't let it, not that Google don't want to?

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

PWAs are the primary way for small busineses to have internal private apps for running staff services on local devices. Apples App Store has way too many hoops to jump through and has far too high a wait time to publish for businesses to move fast and update internal apps with bugfixes and new services etc.

Android accomplishes this by allowing devices to connect to private app stores and repos, which enable companies to issue their own apps on their own terms. As Apple plays hard ball on this front, the only way is to use a PWA.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#133

Post by bzzzt »

grishka wrote: post #121
bzzzt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean those users that don't even know what an application is? And you mean that software that only has the users best interests in mind and is not spying on them, trying to scam or confuse them into buying unnecessary stuff? I think Apple has done a great job of protecting non-technical people from a lot of the possible harms of malware. There's a lot of incentive for them to make sure security is handled right.…

Maybe let's not optimize everything around people being tech-illiterate? We live in a society. You are expected to have some baseline knowledge to live in one. So let's instead educate people about that stuff instead of encouraging ignorance and punishing power users.

Would be nice if everything instantly became better with a bit of explanation, but I'm just a bit to cynical to trust that. Most people using tech need guard rails.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#134

Post by fsflover »

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.

If earlier actions of Apple didn't affect anything [0,1], then I doubt this one will. What's the alternative? Android [2]?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25607386

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261

Re: Apple vs the Law

#135

Post by rickdeckard »

qweiopqweiop wrote: post #70
rickdeckard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure why Apple leadership played it that way, maybe they have a stronger belief in the US administration ability to strongarm the EU into accepting a loss there Apple is playing it that way because they are rallying their USERS against the EU. They want to create pressure from EU citizens against these EU regulations, and amplify their narrative also to US Apple users in political positions. Unfortunately t…

Not just their users, the US government too. They've successfully turned it into a geopolitical issue. Apple not being viewed in the same light as Microsoft in the 90s is one of the best marketing ploys ever seen.

Towards the US government they surely play a different narrative and emphasize on revenues/profits as well as their leadership position as US company being threatened.

Towards the users the narrative is never about revenue/profit of Apple, and never acknowledge their leading market position.

But the end user narrative also works for US government members with influential position but low subject-matter knowledge.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#136

Post by surgical_fire »

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…

Massive companies typically smother small players anyway, especially in unregulated environments.

> 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 cause Europeans to buy from Temu instead.

Does this actually happen or are you just making shit up?

Is Temu exempt of any packaging requirements?

Re: Apple vs the Law

#138

Post by rickdeckard »

zarzavat wrote: post #76
FinnLobsien wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is the western European way though. It's supposed to be a nice place to live, not a nice place to do business. If that leads to Chaebolification of the economy then so be it. There are other parts of the world that specialise in deregulation at the expense of living standards.

I'd argue that actions like the DMA regulation are actively working against "Chaebolification" though.

It's not national law that can be bent locally, it's EU law that applies to all companies of certain size.

I think the EU learned the hard way that they can't rely on its members to prioritize common interests

(see Ireland vs. Apple tax avoidance, Germany vs. Car evolution, Austria vs. Reduction of Russian influence, Hungary vs. everything)

Re: Apple vs the Law

#139

Post by rickdeckard »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #110
dotandgtfo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Are you arguing that 27 different sets of laws was a better approach? That these countries would just gladly lie down and never regulate the societal-level harms, systemic lawbreaking, and…

The problem is that those 27 sets of laws basically still exist. Regulation is certainly not the only reason. Fragmentation is another massive problem. There's the EU-Inc initiative that the EU has basically made pointless (by wanting to introduce 27 new standards, not one, just making things more complex). Note that I'm not arguing for zero regulation.

This keeps coming up over and over on HN.

There are no 27 sets of laws to do business in Europe. It's not perfect, but it's a SINGLE MARKET, if you comply to the EU regulation you are allowed to sell everywhere.

It does however not absolve you from additional local market demands to be competitive, i.e. local language support, service infrastructure, etc.

For example: Miele is one of the largest washing machine manufacturers in Europe. They have their front panel translated to local languages for most of its markets. You can sell a washing machine with a English front panel, but you won't be able to compete in e.g. the German/Italian/French market

Re: Apple vs the Law

#140

Post by mschuster91 »

alt227 wrote: post #100
Zopieux wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More people are getting annoyed with Apple over these issues, and they are bleeding into the mainstream media more frequently. I have a few die hard Apple friends (Non-professionals) that have recently got so frustrated with being pushed into corners that they have given up the fruity ecosystem altogether. In no way am I suggesting that Apple are on the way out, but they have definitely started to turn the same corne…

As long as MS keeps making Windows worse and worse each release (and no one willing to develop decent ARM SoCs) and Android smartphone manufacturers keep releasing utter dogshit, Apple will have customers. They already market themselves as the privacy-friendly, "just works" alternative - and that's legitimately hard to fight.

Apple isn't in the position it is just because they make factually good hardware or because of their business practices - they are where they are because the competition constantly shoots itself with a sawn off shotgun.

Post reply on HN