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Apple vs the Law

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#211

Post by mattashii »

b112 wrote: post #161
Tainnor wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all huge companies in my view. In addition to them there are also countless small to medium sized companies that nobody's ever heard of, that don't experience hypergrowth but have slow and steady growth - especially in the B2B sector. I've worked at some such companies.

All of this seems reasonable, and I see the value in keeping things competitive. I do have one concern though. Established markets are more entrenched, and hearing that smaller companies may have "slow and steady growth" here seems excellent. Yet emerging markets move incredibly fast, and the goal is to discover those trenches and occupy them. Being held back in such a market can be troublesome. So this is what I'd w…

> Yet emerging markets move incredibly fast, and the goal is to discover those trenches and occupy them.

Well, only if you make it a goal to occupy all the trenches. The EU has realized that it does not want all possible trenches occupied. For example: There is a lot of market share to be had in waste disposal by dumping it in the rivers and oceans. Regulation generally prohibits this, because we don't want our rivers and oceans full of waste.

Capitalist market self-regulation wouldn't have done this without external pressure (regulation, litigation, etc.) because the capitalist market would externalize all costs if it would increase profits.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#212

Post by hnlmorg »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #192
pjmlp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAP, Spotify, Sitecore, Roche, Airbus, CERN (the ecosystem powers its research), CodePlay, SN Systems, BAYER, Roche,....

Since when is Airbus a small company and not part of the large state supported corp monopoly gang? Same with SAP, Roche and Bayer. These are all masive corporations that swallowed entire sectors. Same with Spotify having used its monopoly status to screw over smaller artists. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I read such comments. Let me ask you guys something else, if EU hates large monopolist companies so muc…

How is Tesla an example of your point? It’s the biggest EV manufacturer owned by one of the world’s richest men.

Perhaps the problem here isn’t that smaller brands don’t exist, it’s that if we give examples of smaller brands then you’ll argue

“Never heard of them. Thus proof that the EU is holding them back”

And if we mention household names then you’d argue

“Those aren’t small companies”

You’ve basically crafted an impossible to satisfy condition. A question that would be equally impossible for you to satisfy with US firms as it is for EU firms.

———

By the way, there’s quite a few car manufacturers that are small listed here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobile_manufactu...

A few of them are relatively big names despite their small company size, for example Noble Automotive.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#213

Post by thaumasiotes »

jeroenhd wrote: post #6
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.

That sounds way too hard to accomplish. Remember, Apple is a company with limited means, only bringing in the GDP of a small country. There's no way they can afford to pay programmers to check all of those if-statements! Those kinds of complex operations are only possible if a third party app manages to interact with iMessage's servers, or if someone figures out a way to replace a screen on their phone without Apple'…

> Apple is a company with limited means, only bringing in the GDP of a small country

For reference, in 2023, Apple produced a little less than Romania or Hong Kong, and a little more than Egypt or the Czech Republic.

Hong Kong is small (though not a lot smaller than the Czech Republic); Egypt is big.

--- edit ---

I accidentally compared Apple's revenue in 2023 to the IMF forecast of GDP for 2025. For 2023: Apple produced very slightly more than Hong Kong or Nigeria, and a little less than Malaysia or Iran.

Nigeria is even bigger than Egypt. It still produced less than Hong Kong.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#214

Post by MatthiasPortzel »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #179
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…

I admire Steve Jobs as a visionary as much as everyone else, but I never thought it was fair for people to keep discounting Tim Cook as the “lesser” man between the two. He was the one who took the company to a trillion dollar valuation. He took on the operations and supply chain work that no computer nerd or product visionary ever wants to take. He did the hard, unsexy work that no one wanted to do and yet people se…

It's easy to assume that Apple is where it is today because of Jobs. But when you look back, there are actually a number of key decisions made by Tim Cook since Job's death that led Apple here.

Cook has plenty of leadership vision. He's led Apple into the VR space with Vision Pro, and has pushed into services/content (Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Fitness+), and wearables (Beats acquisition, Apple Watch, AirPods). He's defined Apple as a company that cares about privacy, and it's because of him that Apple is so stubbornly fighting regulation in the EU and US.

If anything, you could criticize Cook for being too ambitious, if you thought that his attention to these areas came at the expense of iPhone & Mac quality.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#216

Post by resource_waste »

jb1991 wrote: post #23
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #19

The greatest gem is found in the footnote, IMO > "They managed to convince the courts that iPadOS is a separate operating system to iOS (it's not), which delayed iPadOS being designated as a gatekeeper for almost a year. They are currently challenging all of the rest: the iOS, Safari, and App Store designations, and successfully managed to avoid iMessage being designated at all. They have taken the DMA law to court f…

I am certainly not surprised that Apple is employing a lot of legal tricky to work around judgments. 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 is a very stylish kind of company. Their public perception matters more because when you use an Apple product, it creates an image of you.

If I buy a Google phone, no one is going to comment on it. If I buy an Apple, or a Tesla, or luxury vehicle, people are going to comment on it.

If Apple is known to be scummy and you buy it, it makes you look bad. I think we are seeing that with Tesla now, I doubt too many liberals are buying a cybertruck.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#217

Post by grishka »

bzzzt wrote: post #199
grishka wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, guard rails are good. I'm not denying that. They are an important part of user education. But only when they can be overridden. MacOS around 10 years ago is a good example. It came out of the box in a foolproof state — only apps from the app store or registered developers would run, and SIP is enabled. But if you know what you're doing, you could disable both those things without any loss of functionality.

You can see the problem by browsing old help forums and see how often people suggest 'disable SIP' as a solution to some problem instead of really fixing the problem. Also, the clueless user will -at best- just follow instructions and disable all kinds of security features making them more vulnerable to malware.

If someone is trying to help themselves by participating in forums and following instructions, that's already very much an above-average user. They'll be fine anyway. I'm talking more about the kinds of people who would download a .jpg.exe and run it. Or transfer their savings to a "safe account" because someone called them out of the blue and told them to do so. Or fall for scammy ads. You get the idea.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#218

Post by ethan_smith »

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.

While signature verification could be disabled with a few code changes, the real challenge is maintaining security boundaries when opening up previously controlled interfaces - it requires rebuilding permission models, API stability guarantees, and sandboxing mechanisms that were designed with closed-system assumptions.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#219

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

andruby wrote: post #185
vegabook wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The same reason you don't compare speed with distance. Distance is meters, speed is distance per the unit of time, meters / seconds, m/s.

Likewise, market cap is measured in monetary units, dollars, euros, etc., while GDP is measured in money per the unit of time: $XXXX / year.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#220

Post by saagarjha »

johndhi wrote: post #189
Y-bar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

That's why the DMA exists.
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