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The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

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Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#101

Post by MBCook »

crazygringo wrote: post #72
smallmancontrov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they were getting a reputation for churning the ports too quickly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyTA33HQZLA&t=19s and then they went all-USBC on the MBP before the ecosystem was ready, got absolutely slammed for it, and went back (on magsafe). 4 times bitten, once shy. I'm sure the cynical money reason played a role too, of course, but nobody else is mentioning the 4 times bitten so I felt obliged.

Seriously. I upgraded my iPad to a USB-C version and discovered I couldn't use my 1st-gen (Lightning) Apple Pencil with it even though it's compatible -- because I first had to buy a special female-female USB-C Lightning dongle just to be able to plug it in to pair it. (Even though I can keep using my Lightning charger to charge it separately from my iPad.) Moving from Lightning to USB-C hasn't been too bad for me si…

I wouldn’t blame USB-C for that, personally.

The Pencil situation is a disaster. There are at least 3 first party versions plus the 3rd party ones. And when version X + 1 comes out they don’t drop support for version X, they use it in a different product for some stupid reason. Probably because the tooling already exists.

So you can find entire matrices online attempting to explain which iPads support which pencils.

It’s horrible. The Lightning -> USB-C transition is probably one of least objectionable parts of pencil history.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#102

Post by MBCook »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #93
techpression wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They openly said why, millions upon millions of devices (speakers etc) people wanted to use with lightning connectors. There was never a good time and EU putting a deadline on it gets Apple free of the e-waste accusations.

No one was accusing Apple of e-waste when for decades the world had decided common standards were a great way to reduce e-waste. Outside of America this has been obvious since the mid 2000s when people complained about a proliferation of chargers with phones because pre-iPhone the non US cellphone market was far more advanced.

Really? Do you remember the user shit storm when they dumped the dock connector and went to lightning? People wouldn’t shut up for years, even though lightning was way way better.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#103

Post by closingreunion »

firefax wrote: post #32
CharlesW wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We call them "LINO"s.

Left libertarianism is compatible with such views. Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.

[dead]

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#104

Post by MBCook »

koyote wrote: post #64
llm_nerd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's resistance was presumably user inertia. Users had billions of cables and accessories for lightning, and Apple saw during a prior transition that people get really pissed off about this sort of change. And let's be real about Samsung et al -- before USB-C, they were using the utter dogshit micro USB connector (funfact -- this terrible connector became prevalent because the EU made a voluntary commitment with m…

> In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector Wait, I thought the Apple 30-pin connector was not reversible? USB-C has been out for over a decade now. There was only a small window of about two years where iphones had lightning and other phones did not yet have usb-c.

GP meant Lightning. It was reversible.

You are correct, the dock connector for was not.

And they couldn’t go to USB-C instead of Lightning initially as Lightning came out first.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#105

Post by MBCook »

lysace wrote: post #14
MBCook wrote: post #3

So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing. Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.

The headline is 100% correct.

It is literally correct. My point was I think it implies the EU had to force a totally belligerent Apple (which we’ve certainly seen) instead of Apple already working on this and EU perhaps speeding the timeline a little.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#106

Post by notepad0x90 »

bigyabai wrote: post #89
notepad0x90 wrote: post #81

Look, I don't like some of the things the EU is doing and I think Apple should consider (along with other tech companies) selling products tailed to the EU, Asia and rest of the world. In the long-run, it might be cheaper. That said, they are setting a good example of legislating for tech. We should be doing a lot of that here in the US. I don't need a bulletproof, ultra-secure, end-to-end encrypted, formally verifie…

> it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility. Okay, so, why don't we see competition in places where it matters, like Airdrop, iMessage and the App Store? The answer seems to be pretty simple, to me; Apple considers themselves above competition. It doesn't matter if a superior system exi…

We do see competition there, iMessage is superior, so many android apps try to emulate it. thunderbolt was around before USB 4, lightning was before USB-C, the Apple appstore is still a model of better quality/security. You can see google trying to emulate that and requiring devs to id themselves (competition isn't always pleasant). Why would you spend making something better, if it doesn't give your company a competitive edge? If you're forced to help your competition have the same capability, where is the ROI?

> Apple considers themselves above competition

In literally every market apple is in, they have intense competition!?

> they ultimately decide what is righteous and anyone who disagrees buys a different phone

Ugh.. yeah.. shouldn't they be allowed to sell things that they believe will sell well? I mean on one hand people complain about cheap devices engineered with planned obsolescence, and then you complain about what.. better quality? If they believe it is a superior system, then certain, I want that as a consumer. Why don't you? And I also thing being able to buy a different phone is great, that means no monopolies, that's what we all want right?

> neither get superior software solutions nor cheaper products.

I am getting a superior hardware and software for apple. What his happening now is, for no amount of money I could possibly earn can I get a good quality product, I have to settle with EU's forced mediocrity even though I don't live in the EU. People who can't afford apple products have alternatives, but that isn't enough for you, you want everyone to get participation trophies? that's what it sounds like, i could be wrong, it sounds like you don't want to feel envious of people who get superior products? Even though there are many android phones more expensive than iPhones, so it isn't even a question of affordability. it's just forced mediocrity. With no upsides to anyone other than people who feel great about "america bad" "middle finger to apple".

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#107

Post by gmueckl »

internet2000 wrote: post #78
madeofpalk wrote: post #27

People keep mentioning Wi-Fi Aware with this, but so far haven't seen anyone actually prove that this is the case. Apple undoubtedly added Wi-Fi Aware support to iOS https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware , but its not clear whether iOS actually supports AirDrop over Wi-Fi Aware. Apple clearly hasn't completely dropped AWDL for AirDrop, because you can still AirDrop from iOS 26 to earlier devices. Note t…

It's frustrating how much people want this to be an EU win they'll fabricate evidence. The same happened with RCS in iOS, everybody jumped in to credit it to the EU, when you can find the document spelling out how RCS is a requirement for China.

Don't forget that Apple is feeling sore and playing the petulant child in their PR regarding EU regulations, especially regarding the digital markets act. They don't want to appear to give in the EU, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Apple doesn't want to admit that the EU forced them.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#108

Post by Aloisius »

SoKamil wrote: post #87
IshKebab wrote: post #31

The DMA also forces them to have interoperable end-to-end encrypted group video call support in like 5 years or something insane. No idea how that's supposed to happen!

Telegram implemented such feature. https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/group-calls

The problem isn't E2E encrypted group video calls. FaceTime supports that. The issue is interoperability with E2E encryption.

If Apple says sure, implement this FaceTime spec. Facebook does the same thing, go ahead and implement Messenger video chat.

Now you have the Android NewVideoChat app which supports its own protocol, Facebook's and Apple's. A user with NewVideoChat tries to invite a NewVideoChat user, an Apple user and a Facebook user to a video chat.

Except Facebook Messenger's app doesn't support Apple's Facetime app doesn't support Facebook Messenger, so you run into some issues. Something needs to dupe the stream out to all three services which use radically different payloads and encryption methods - and they have to do it without breaking end-to-end encryption. Do it at the client-side and the Android app users will need to dupe their own streams three times and at least one user will need to relay the other two other streams, with all the bandwidth and latency issues that entails. Do it on the server side and you somehow need to translate between protocols (and possibly codecs!) without decrypting them.

And if your video group chat supports private messaging between a subset of participants, you can end up in a situation where a Facebook user wants to send something to a Facetime user without the NewVideoChat user seeing it.. which is a bit of a problem.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#109

Post by nozzlegear »

echelon wrote: post #95
internet2000 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating how much people want this to be an EU win they'll fabricate evidence. The same happened with RCS in iOS, everybody jumped in to credit it to the EU, when you can find the document spelling out how RCS is a requirement for China.

I don't care which sovereign state or union forces the trillion dollar tech giant to behave. I'm just glad it happened. And I applaud China if this was their victory. I want it to happen with a thousand times more intensity for Apple and Google. We should own these devices. We shouldn't be subsistence farmers on the most important device category in the world. They need to be opened up to competition, standards, righ…

> They shouldn't be strong arming [...] the entire automotive industry.

Yes they should, the automotive industry is much shittier. I have a 23 Chevy Bolt EUV with wireless CarPlay. Chevy/GM have been emailing and snail mailing me relentlessly trying to get me to pay for their $150 update to my car's navigation maps, which no longer work in my vehicle (presumably because they're out of date). This is quite the deal, according to their marketing materials, but I won't be paying for it because I've never used those maps thanks to CarPlay.

With all this emphasis they're putting on upselling these $150 map updates, it doesn't take a genius to understand why GM is no longer making vehicles with CarPlay or Android Auto.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#110

Post by nozzlegear »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #91
llm_nerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede. To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad P…

> but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede There is no reason to believe this at all given how hard Apple fought the EU on this.

Apple likely didn't want the precedent or bad press of the EU mandating changes in their supply chain.
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