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Apple vs the Law

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251–260 of 450 posts

Re: Apple vs the Law

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

BYD Q4 sales (only NEV): https://tridenstechnology.com/byd-sales-statistics/ approx 600k. Tesla Q4 sales: https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-fourth-quarter-2024... approx 500k. So Tesla are not the biggest anymore (which honestly surprised me).

It doesn't surprise me at all. BYD invests heavily into R&D. I don't know how much Tesla invests into R&D but if their latest product is an ugly Homercar for incels, then they should probably think a bit about their strategy.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#252
I attended the workshop remotely (one of my questions is in the recording, if you watched it) and IMO it was mostly a waste of time. I didn't even stick around past the App Store section. Partly because it was daytime CEST but mostly because the format was awful. Apple would spend half the time talking about how the EU was forcing them to make their OS worse and then the EC thought it was a good idea to make Q&A a batched thing so Apple could just talk for five minutes about none of the questions instead of actually being forced to answer anything. I was thinking the EC would ask questions like why nobody actually used the provisions that Apple so generously provided third party developers (obviously, because Apple designed them to be unworkable) but they mostly just stayed silent and let the Apple lawyers talk the entire time :(

Re: Apple vs the Law

#253

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I also find editing on an iPhone to be an exercise in futility. Is it no longer possible to place a cursor in the middle of a word? I end up having to go to a word boundary and erase from there and retype everything. The keyboard touch areas also seem offset from Android and I end up one row off too much of the time.

if you hold down the space bar you can use that to slide the cursor around :)

I use that on Android all the time. But I feel I've only gotten it to work once or twice on iPhone. And even then the word boundaries were very "sticky" (IIRC) and precision placement still very difficult.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#254
post #202

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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…

Easy, on the car companies that already exist with much better build quality. We don't need cars from fascists.

>We don't need cars from fascists.

Really? Because look up on the history of VW, BMW, Porsche, Fiat, etc and their founding families, some of who still own a large part of the shares of those companies today. Most of them worked with fascists no problem, some by force of the era some by opportunity but none of them opposed them.

You see this is the typical European hypocrisy that I dislike. Pointing fingers that Elon is somehow a fascist cause he raised his arm once, but Porsche or BMW who used slave labor from work camps is somehow not fascist now because ... reasons I guess.

Explain me that with logic and reason, and not with the "Elon is a fascist because reddit told me he is".

Re: Apple vs the Law

#255

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…

Timid? Dude seems pretty ruthless by all anecdotes and how his company has operated. But he has a quiet demeanor and Southern accent, so many will assume he is weak and stupid. He seems to use it to his advantage.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#256
post #122

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> 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:…

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.

Siemens has 330,000 employees. I'd always consider that huge.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#257

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…

> regulatory environment so complex

The DMA really isn't particularly complex though. And what complexity it has only becomes complex once you're a manager of a whole consumer platform (a "gatekeeper" in its jargon).

To wit: your point is backwards, the DMA is structured such that the only companies that need to bear its burdens are "big tech or Europe's legacy players". If you're a little company wanting to add a paid app store to your Tiny AI Robot Virtual Experience or whatever, go nuts. The DMA absolutely won't stop you.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#258
post #126
post #107

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Mobile web apps that can be installed on device were invented by Apple. This was the way developers were supposed to develop apps for the iPhone when it was released, before Apple introduced the App Store.

Another Apple myth, Symbian had a Web runtime before anyone at Apple came up with the idea. Also that was precisely the idea behind Windows 9x Active Desktop apps.

IMHO. Apple were the first to make it useful. Because the iPhone was always online and the browser window was limited. Active Desktop aimed for the technological stars and was just buggy and slow as a result, it was cool but too flaky to be used.

Symbian I just never had an Phone expensive enough to use like that.

In the end none of them really worked out I guess.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#259
post #122

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> 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:…

Small nitpick but FYI Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia merged. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise still exists but is just the bit nobody wanted.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as a developer, you often don't get that choice, for example, if your product is an online service. Either you have an iOS app and play by Apple's stupid rules, or you don't, and your iPhone users go to a competitor that does have an iOS app, or at the very least complain quite loudly.

If your product is an online service, having a website seems like a slam dunk.

It’s a good start. But then people want push notifications, Sign in with Apple, to pay with card but they have an iPhone etc - so many points Apple makes a lot harder than they should be. Eventually, it’s economically better to just suck it up and make an app.

Do you know why QRCodes are by far the most popular banking system? Because, Apple didn’t like it if apps use NFC for payments that’s not Apple Pay. There was a time BLE beacons had to be iBeacons too etc. it’s really decades of pressure in all kinds of ways.

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