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Apple vs the Law

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271–280 of 450 posts

Re: Apple vs the Law

#271
post #69

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.

And yet odds are you continue to spend increasingly large sums on Apple products every year

Re: Apple vs the Law

#272
post #269

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 t…

I don't understand what you feel is "protectionist" about this? I would say that the US pressuring the EU on behalf of big corporations is arguably "protectionist", but I don't think that's what you mean.

But even if policies make companies less "capable" and less "competitive": that completely ignores what effect they have on society. I bet that a company that was given a free pass to use slavery would be very capable and very competitive -- but is that what we want for our society?

Re: Apple vs the Law

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Linux on the phone is not Linux on the desktop.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Linux on the phone is not Linux on the desktop.

Here's a working Bluetooth on a Linux laptop: https://forums.puri.sm/t/bluetooth-stopped-working-on-l14-wi...

Re: Apple vs the Law

#275
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we simply don't have any gatekeepers here Booking would love that to be the case. And last I heard, Zalando is currently fighting the EU over having to comply with the DMA.

No, this is under the DSA (digital services act), not the DMA. The DSA tells platforms how they must keep users safe and transparent, the DMA tells the largest gatekeepers how they must behave toward competitors and business users.

Booking is on the DMA designated gatekeepers list: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en

It looks like you're right that Zalando is on the DSA list, though.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How and why is that somehow fundamentally different from someone gaining complete access to your computer, which allows you to run anything freely? Both are your personal devices that store your sensitive personal information.

That’s a very good and valid question but did they sell the device with the premise that anyone can run any app they want or only the apps Apple approved can run? We believe in the same thing, our devices should be free like speech. But the whole thing turned into a show because some rich software companies don’t want to pay Apple 30% while they have no problem with other platforms like gaming consoles.

> some rich software companies don’t want to pay Apple 30% while they have no problem with other platforms like gaming consoles

Why would you think they don't have a problem with the cut game console manufacturers take?

It's also different kinds of companies: Epic and Spotify have quite different concerns, for example.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#277
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socially and economically left wing. Progressive socially and interventionist economically.

Is this a joke? The EU is the product of large industrialists institutionalising their liberalist, capitalist values as an international bureaucracy. It hardly cares about unions beyond what the ECHR and ILO treaties demands, i.e. it's obviously not left wing. If it was inherently left wing it wouldn't have the kind of parliament it has, but rather something like Yugoslavia or the DDR did. It's also not conservative,…

The Soviet Union had large industrialists and so does China. Large companies and large industry is the defining aspect of both socialism and capitalism.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow, Android manages to do it. Not only for browsers; all apps have JIT access without any entitlement/review needed. It doesn't seem like the average Android user is worse-off because of that, security-wise.

The average Android user is far worse off security-wise than the average iOS user, and it isn't even close.

Would you say that's primarily due to JIT, or maybe due to the budget for security patches for most Android devices being a tiny fraction of what Apple has?

Re: Apple vs the Law

#279
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First they have to enable competition, you're saying they have to support it but seemingly you want to enforce it. Where does it stop? Should Apple just pay out a part of their profits to their competitors? If a competitor wants market share they have to build a better service. Forcing users to go with a bad deal gets the incentives all wrong and is actually bad for consumer choice.

I think the EU started with the correct intentions. They saw a need to increase the competition in the digital marketplace and reduce the power iOS-Android duopoly has. However, instead of defining the market rules, the process has been more about competitors and companies (who’re not happy with Apple’s success) trying to take a chunk of their business. An iPhone is not a general computation device, it’s not an open…

> An iPhone is not a general computation device, it’s not an open ecosystem.

And yet it's many people's primary computing device. That's exactly the problem.

As a historical example, consider telecommunications. Phone networks were "natural monopolies" for many decades, and people must have found it hard to imagine any other way back then. Without regulatory intervention enforcing competition, we'd probably still be paying double-digit cent amounts for long-distance calls.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#280

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…

Steve Jobs was an asshat and the restrictions Apple puts on their software are exactly in line with what he would've done. He was firmly against third party apps on the iPhone in the first place and had to be convinced to permit it. Everything Apple is doing right now is in line with what Apple was doing when Jobs was still around. He would've had plenty to talk about, but none of it would be about no longer infringing users' rights.

Back in the early 2000's when Apple was still the cool, alternative, underdog computer company, it did things very differently, but for the same reason as it always did: make a profit.

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