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Apple vs the Law

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#181

Post by oaiey »

Aeolun wrote: post #17
Fizzadar wrote: post #4

I really hope the EU keeps up the pressure. The level of control the gatekeepers have is beyond ridiculous. Sure there’s the “take your money elsewhere” option but we’re at a point where that’s just not realistic to be a normal person. (My sons nursery for example requires an app that only exists on iOS/Android). EU looks set to be the only big enough institution with any spine or willingness to take this on. Will pr…

Starting to feel like it'd be more sensible to just have the EU fund an independent phone OS/Hardware. Export the hardware specs so everyone can build the hardware for it, then come preinstalled just like Android is doing now.

I think there is enough very good competition on the phone side. Google, Samsung, many other asian brands. The DMA (to my understanding) is about what happens on top of the phone once you are a (golden caged) user of that product and cannot move out.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#182

Post by inatreecrown2 »

xandrius wrote: post #173
nntwozz wrote: post #147

I dream of an alternate reality where Steve Jobs makes snide remarks about politics, sets things right with the App Store (worldwide), Siri, Ai and the lackluster UI and quality control of software lately. Steve would get on top of things and speak his mind and we were all better off for it. There's a severe lack of character in Tim Cook, I think the best thing to come out under his reign is the M-series hardware and…

Sane computer design, in what way? I still see unopenable devices, batteries glued to death and even more closed systems. Next they reverted to liquid glass UI, is that sane?

the keyboards on the laptops don't break in masses for one.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#183

Post by piva00 »

giingyui wrote: post #163
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…

Europe is centre right? That is an interesting claim. I guess someone’s right is someone else’s left.

Yes, the EU as an institution is centre-right, its main purpose is to regulate a common market, it's a economic liberal institution, and liberal in this sense is a right-wing political philosophy, not the bastardised "liberal" usage in American politics meaning "progressive".

Re: Apple vs the Law

#184

Post by grishka »

mattlondon wrote: post #103
grishka wrote: post #3

> "...unfortunately, it's impossible to do all the complex engineering to comply with the Commission's current interpretation of the DMA..." There's nothing complex and impossible about removing some "if" statements responsible for code signature enforcement.

I suspect it goes a lot deeper than just a single if-statement somewhere, and hundreds of thousands of lines of code and various interfaces and all the rest are built on the core assumption of the signatures being there and the packages etc being signed. These sort of things can be tricky to refactor and more complex than they first seem. For example I recently spent the past 12 weeks or so just moving some fields ar…

They share a lot of "AMFI" infrastructure between iOS and macOS, with macOS having a much more permissive security model (you can run self-signed code) while still retaining "private" entitlements for sensitive private APIs, only available to Apple-signed apps. Unless you disable SIP, then you can just do whatever.

(Disclaimer: I may be wrong, I haven't done much of my own research, it's just things I read in various articles over the years)

Re: Apple vs the Law

#185

Post by andruby »

vegabook wrote: post #174
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 wish people would stop comparing a stock (market cap) with a flow (GDP).

Can you also expand on why? Especially in this case I do feel like it’s an (imperfect) proxy for power they wield.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#186

Post by exe34 »

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…

> continuing to make its regulatory environment so complex

To be fair, the regulations are there because companies are out-of-control paperclip maximisers. For example, the cookie banner didn't have to be obnoxious - companies choose to comply maliciously to adhere to the text and shit over the spirit of the regulations, which have to become more and more verbose and explicit.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#187

Post by xandrius »

dan-robertson wrote: post #160

I’m a bit conflicted: when I used to care more about this freedom stuff say 10 years ago, I would have been more in favour of these regulations. Today I care less about that and more about security and I mostly think that Apple’s preferred approach is better for security than what the EU proposes. That said, I am not super happy about the rate of scams or junk in the App Store. I think even for Americans who like the…

I think you are seeing it slightly skewed: in the past, for a variety of reasons, the US got at the forefront of tech and got even richer in some pockets of the country.

The EU and other countries had some pretty compelling competitors which got more or less slowly crushed by the US.

After over 30 years of this, a handful of the remaining US megacorps turned around and started fencing their own little profitable field, disallowing anyone else to even try to get in.

EU is the only non-purely adversarial entity to uphold laws also to these seemingly untouchable megacorps.

What I find weird is that there is a selective memory in people who are either from the US or pro-big businesses where on one side they are openly against these claims the EU makes (calling them anti-innovation) while also being a fervent supporter of "liberal" policies like medicaid, right to repair, warranties and such. As if they do not realise that they stem from the exact same place, and often they do come directly from Europe.

I'm at a point where I believe that if someone is against what the EU is doing against these megacorps (not saying everything the EU does is gold btw) has either A) vested interest in such companies, B) hates the concept of EU and anything it touches, C) they are rich and don't really care about anything, D) not very bright.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#188

Post by tobias3 »

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'd argue that it doesn't go far enough at this point. There are imaginable scenarios now where the US uses AWS/Microsoft like China currently uses rare earth exports or even further and AWS/Microsoft + Android/iOS are critical infrastructure. Having some "sovereign cloud" etc. won't help since this needs continuous monitoring and improvements from the mothership.

Merely doing monopoly regulation won't help. We have to actually destroy the monopolies.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#189

Post by johndhi »

Y-bar wrote: post #122
FinnLobsien wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 "U…

> Then show me the handful of European, medium-sized companies competing for customers. Competing in category chemicals: BASF, Akzo Nobel, Lanxess, Air Liquide, and a bunch others Competing in category engineering: Siemens, Bosch, ABB, Alstom, ThyssenKrupp, Airbus and a bunch others Competing in category metals: Aurubis, Umicore, Norsk Hydro, Gruppo Riva, ThyssenKrupp, and a bunch others Competing in category pharma:…

Where are the software companies that compete with apple though? Wasn't that the question?

Re: Apple vs the Law

#190

Post by pimeys »

giingyui wrote: post #163
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…

Europe is centre right? That is an interesting claim. I guess someone’s right is someone else’s left.

Quite right, yeah. See the map:

https://www.foiaresearch.net/sites/default/files/styles/body...

I would consider ALDE center-right still, and S&D the first left coalition.

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