Apple vs the Law • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple vs the Law

#301

Post by simgt » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

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.

Center right is spot on if you know anything about the EU's member states. Here left means some flavour of socialism. Running state monopolies to the ground and adding markets for essential services like electricity is not exactly that.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#302

Post by thewebguyd » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

alt227 wrote: post #100

Zopieux wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens in the confines of legal (EU, California, ...) institutions and courts with the occasional boring news reporting the average consumer doesn't read, like this article. It's clearly a win for Apple.

More people are getting annoyed with Apple over these issues, and they are bleeding into the mainstream media more frequently. I have a few die hard Apple friends (Non-professionals) that have recently got so frustrated with being pushed into corners that they have given up the fruity ecosystem altogether. In no way am I suggesting that Apple are on the way out, but they have definitely started to turn the same corne…

> I have a few die hard Apple friends (Non-professionals) that have recently got so frustrated with being pushed into corners that they have given up the fruity ecosystem altogether.

I'm nearly there myself. The problem is, and what the EU in theory is trying to solve, is there's no real competition. My choice is Apple, which while an anti-competitive PITA, provides some real nice quality of life features and some privacy protections, or Android which can be a mixed bag from needing to connect every new phone to my computer and use ADB to get rid of crapware, or Pixels where Google is increasingly expanding Gemini's tentacles into every aspect of your life to harvest data all while taking actions to slow down Graphene OS by limiting access to device trees.

Linux is fine enough on the desktop, but for everything else? (Phone, watch, etc.) I can either live within the walled garden and just accept it, or take my pick of crapware loaded devices, or sketchy vendors that don't patch their stuff, and have all my data sold to the highest bidder.

We desperately need more competition in the mobile & wearables space, and I don't mean many different flavors of Android, I mean more competitors that care about user experience, preserve your privacy to an extent, and aren't using the platform as just yet another way to serve ads and harvest data.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#303

Post by woah » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:12 PM UTC

mathstuf wrote: post #113

neuroelectron wrote: post #91

I basically stopped buying "apps" almost a decade ago when Apple unceremoniously removed an app i paid for with no refund because the in app browser defaulted to a certain website. Btw I have always hated their "app" branding. But the benefit of it, at least for me, is it's a strong reminder that it's a childish analog to an application. The only exception to this is I bought the game, Vampire Survivors, no wait. It…

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.

I do more writing on my iPhone (it's the one with the largest screen) than I do on a computer. I can do about 40wpm. To move the cursor you just hold down on the space bar. These complaints kind of sound like someone from the 90's saying that the close window button is on the wrong side

Re: Apple vs the Law

#304

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

isodev wrote: post #153

FinnLobsien wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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…

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#305

Post by itopaloglu83 » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

lxgr wrote: post #276

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I want my phone to be free like speech and I want free commerce. But I also know that if people start ganging up on and start taking over other people’s property, not because they did anything illegal but because they just don’t like them anymore, things soon turn savor really fast.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#306

Post by thewebguyd » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

alt227 wrote: post #200

mschuster91 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as MS keeps making Windows worse and worse each release (and no one willing to develop decent ARM SoCs) and Android smartphone manufacturers keep releasing utter dogshit, Apple will have customers. They already market themselves as the privacy-friendly, "just works" alternative - and that's legitimately hard to fight. Apple isn't in the position it is just because they make factually good hardware or because…

IMO Apple have started to do the same. Their software is consistently getting buggier with worse user experiences, along with their reputation. Tech savy windows users that are trying out Apple are finding that it very much doesnt 'Just Work' anymore, and that sentiment is starting to creep out more and more. Take a look at Linuses recent evaluation of macOS by using only a Mac for a solid 2 months. His conclusion is…

> Tech savy windows users that are trying out Apple are finding that it very much doesnt 'Just Work' anymore, and that sentiment is starting to creep out more and more.

Even with all the faults and degrading quality, it's still above any of proprietary alternatives, particularly Windows. I'm running the Tahoe developer beta, and in comparison to my Arm surface laptop 7, it's still light years better. I have no problems with Bluetooth, which is an endless struggle on Windows. I don't deal with windows update failures, windows installer service crashing and requiring a PC restart to install an MSI (happens constantly on the Arm devices), I don't have copilot being shoved down my throat, I'm not nagged to start an Office trial, or redirect my folders to OneDrive, or have ads in my app menu, etc.

Even Apple at its lowest is still a better experience than the alternatives because the alternatives just suck worse, and have chosen the path of data harvesting and monetizing the hell out of its user base over anything else.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#307

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

cess11 wrote: post #244

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, as the EU is normally bashed by left people for being too right, and right people for being too left. Like, lots of the Treaties are pretty neo-liberal (private services, competition is always good, privatise stuff) but lots more are more left wring (the anti-monoploy stuff, the social charter etc). Really though the EU is 27 governments in a trenchcoat, so it tends to reflect those governments (which cha…

Anti-monopoly is left wing and doesn't fit the neo-liberalist compartment? The social charter is firmly liberalist, though not distinctly of the neo- flavour. Due to the institutional structures and processes EU rule making tends to be quite resistant to immediate political fashion. For one the power of framing from interest and lobby groups is quite strong, hence the influence from expert groups and lawyer like peop…

> Anti-monopoly is left wing and doesn't fit the neo-liberalist compartment?

Yeah, look it could go either way.

> Due to the institutional structures and processes EU rule making tends to be quite resistant to immediate political fashion.

I don't really agree with this. For an example of why not, the AI act is a good one. This was a great Act that got a lot of LLM nonsense pumped into it following ChatGPT. While I get why that happened, I would have preferred that they wait, as the original stuff made lots of sense, and the less well thought through AI/LLM stuff significantly weakens the act.

> It's why conservatives are pushing towards a kind of United States of Europe direction, they'd prefer a centralisation of power in areas currently governed by the founding agreements.

Can you give me some examples of people (national governments particularly) pushing for this? I think that lots of governments are pretty happy with inter-governmentalism even though it has lots of problems.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#308

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

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.

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#309

Post by viktorcode » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

jjcob wrote: post #57

I think at this point we should change the law so that Gatekeepers aren't just required to enable competition, but are somehow forced to actually support competition. I'm not sure how we could enforce that, but maybe the law could stipulate that a certain minimum percentage of users must use 3rd party app stores, or use web apps. They should pay a fine if less than say 5% of apps are distributed outside the app store…

I'm not sure if you are serious or not with that proposition that would treat gatekeepers more strict than monopolies.

Regardless, I wanted to point out the obvious: each new broad regulation increases the cost of operating in the market where said regulation applies. The gatekeepers of today might not leave, but every new potential newcomer will calculate is it even worth it to operate in a market like that? Maybe it pays off to invest hundred of millions into lawyers and lobbying instead of technologies? Or maybe we'll skip EU market altogether (for reference, according to a courtroom statement Apple gets 7% of their revenue from Europe)

Re: Apple vs the Law

#310

Post by jjaksic » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

Tainnor wrote: post #197

Y-bar wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree actually, my use of "medium-sized" was not best, in my personal view a medium-sized company is in the 200-500 employee range. These are definitively larger than that, however I assumed the person I replied to took "medium sized" to mean "significantly smaller than Apple/Google/Amazon/… …but not unknown". Because if I were to pull up a list of thirty unknown actually medium-sized companies pretty much nobody w…

These companies may be smaller than FAANG, but I also feel that if BASF disappeared overnight it would have a larger impact on the world than if Facebook disappeared. HN is sometimes incredibly biased towards consumer tech.

Define "impact on the world". Facebook has massive impact (arguably net-negative). I haven't heard of BASF since 5.25 floppies, though I'm sure they produce some very important things. Did you mean positive impact? Physical impact?