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Apple vs the Law

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#261

Post by [deleted] »

microtonal wrote: post #205
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.

Yeah. I recently got a Garmin Watch after years of using an Apple Watch. On Android you can enable/disable notifications per app. On iOS you are stuck with all or nothing because Apple does not permit the same amount of integration as they permit their own products.

[deleted]

Re: Apple vs the Law

#262

Post by [deleted] »

shkkmo wrote: post #243
pieds wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn't. The question was that if regulation creates more competition with Apple what are the markets with this competition? European companies compete with US companies, including Apple, in areas where there is competition. In music software, music streaming, engineering and finance software, services and so on. Apple has around 33% smartphone market share in Europe. Where is the US competition? Google at 3%. T…

Apple has <60% market share in the US. It's pretty dominant, but there are definitely still real competitors.

[deleted]

Re: Apple vs the Law

#263

Post by carlosjobim »

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:…

Significant about your list is that most of them are businesses who sell to other businesses, not to consumers. That's what is propping up the European economy, since European companies don't seem to be able to make an export that foreign customers are interested in. With some exceptions of course, mostly food and luxury goods. Nokia could have been a forerunner for lots of other European companies taking on the world, but sadly it fizzled out.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#264

Post by tempodox »

fsflover wrote: post #231
bzzzt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most people are not developers? Between ad-infested Google, enshittified Microsoft and still not ready for the desktop Linux the Apple ecosystem might be the most accessible and easy to use platform for most non-technical users. As a developer it's an annoyance but I have to admire the elegance in the way Apple uses their core software and hardware technologies over their entire stack. As a user I don't care…

> still not ready for the desktop Linux This has been a myth for the last decade. I'm even using GNU/Linux on my smartphone, which is arguably not ready for the average consumer but can be good enough for the HN audience.

My Bluetooth headset does not work with Debian. But it does with WinDOS.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#265

Post by youngtaff »

drexlspivey wrote: post #159
isodev wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regulatory environment so complex only massive companies like big tech or Europe's legacy players have the resources to comply This is a very inaccurate view. I’ve worked with multiple SMEs and no such “complexities” ever become operational challenges. Even as a indie developer, my compliance is a default provided I’m not trying to do something shady. Looking into the EU regulations, in most cases what they want yo…

This indie dev begs to differ https://x.com/levelsio/status/1833126426142179653

There’s some definite nope’s in there — excluding small companies from GDPR, exempting them from corporation tax on profits etc

Re: Apple vs the Law

#266

Post by jeroenhd »

agust wrote: post #107
jeroenhd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hate Apple's anti-consumer practices as much as anyone, the PWA platform is a system set up by Google first and foremost. Take-up has been limited outside of Google Chrome. I wouldn't say Apple's PWA approach is necessarily an example of Apple's fuckery. 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.

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.

Mobile web apps were what Apple wanted developers to use, but they weren't new, let alone invented by Apple.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#267

Post by horsawlarway »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #213
jeroenhd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prod…

Ah, yes - tiny numbers like "Slightly less than the total GDP produced by 91 million people in Iran" or "Slightly more than the 6th most productive metro of the most populous country on the planet".

I agree - such a small player like checks notes "the 3rd most valuable company in the history of humanity" has no chance at implementing these troublesome rules.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#268

Post by jeroenhd »

lmm wrote: post #51
jeroenhd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hate Apple's anti-consumer practices as much as anyone, the PWA platform is a system set up by Google first and foremost. Take-up has been limited outside of Google Chrome. I wouldn't say Apple's PWA approach is necessarily an example of Apple's fuckery. 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.

> 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?

Of course, Apple is sabotaging Chrome and has been for years, and that's a much bigger problem than PWAs. The Safari team shouldn't need to implement PWAs against their will, Apple should instead let Google bring out a browser that does PWAs and then let the users decide if they want to use PWAs or not.

Google does something quite similar, though; Chrome can install applications into Android's app drawer, but that requires privileges other browsers can't attain, needing to resort to things like widgets instead. Firefox doesn't care about PWAs and Apple doesn't care about any platform but their own, so it's not as obvious a problem, but Android is full of "you must be the manufacturer or Google to compete" permissions. Android is just a lot better at fair competition than iOS, to the point you'd barely notice.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#269

Post by quitit »

I'm interested to see what this will all be in ~20 years time.

Policies with protectionist side effects (even if they're not marketed as such) have historically led to local businesses being less capable and less competitive over time. Whereby there is no need to compete or innovate as the business is insulated from genuine competition.

My assumption is that the EU believes this will lead to local businesses having the breathing space to grow to a critical mass where they could compete more robustly.

Looking back to historical examples we saw that businesses that benefitted from artificial protections were less competitive than ones that did not receive a benefit. We also saw that favoured businesses tended to be trapped inside the market where they receive those protections, i.e. they were optimised for those conditions. We see this more contemporarily with protected Russian and Chinese firms.

I am also curious if state-sponsored competitors will engineer a way around being labelled a gatekeeper. Such as by having a range of products with shared intellectual property spread across a number of legally discrete entities, effectively using a distributed form of anti-competitive practices.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#270

Post by fsflover »

tempodox wrote: post #264
fsflover wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still not ready for the desktop Linux This has been a myth for the last decade. I'm even using GNU/Linux on my smartphone, which is arguably not ready for the average consumer but can be good enough for the HN audience.

My Bluetooth headset does not work with Debian. But it does with WinDOS.

My Bluetooth headphones work even with my GNU/Linux phone. Perhaps your problem is not with Linux but on the other side of the connection.
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