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iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

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Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#241

Post by ankit219 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #224
ankit219 wrote: post #104

Are we learning the wrong lessons? Integrated always works better than modular components. Here, Apple is being asked to enable their versions of software for third party devices, which do not have the same hardware assumptions as Apple did. (Apple will not release the exact hardware spec for airpods anyway). This means the newer version will be designed modularly, with some tradeoffs to enable the "same" kind of acc…

The components are modular under the hood, they have to be. Apple just doesn't let you take advantage of it. iOS has a daemon that reads your notifications and ships them to Apple Watch. They have a daemon that scans for AirPods and gives you UI to pair them. But you as an app developer cannot do any of those things. There was no public API for notification stream access, scanning for specific Bluetooth devices, floa…

modular does not mean in terms of how the library is architected, but in terms of how many vendors/customers it needs to support. Airpods' hardware is built and then kernels are written in a way to compliment each other and get the most out of the system. With another set of headphones with a different chip, there is a very good chance that code written today would not be optimal because other builders could manufacture different things based on the same spec. You cannot bring everything to software, nor can you have hardware doing everything. Tradeoffs would be needed.

The issue comes in second order effects. If third party headphones are given access and then the experience is not as good, they complain that Apple hasnt open up the spec enough, and it just results in Apple being forced to be modular in their approach.

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#242

Post by beeflet »

djtango wrote: post #229
tiffanyh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it disincentivizes creating those features, if you must give it to your competitors.

I thought the first thing they teach you about capitalism is that competition is good, and monopolies are anti-competitive...

competition is for losers

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#243

Post by miohtama »

alextingle wrote: post #240
tiffanyh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it disincentivizes creating those features, if you must give it to your competitors.

Apple giving themselves an advantage in the markets for headphones and watches, because they have a dominant position in the market for phones is a textbook case of monopoly abuse. They've done extra work to cripple competing devices. It's obnoxious.

Apple market share is 10% in the EU. Hardly a monopoly.

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#244

Post by ankit219 »

jonway wrote: post #222
ankit219 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its mostly true when the integrating company cares for the user experience. Which apple clearly does. The example you shared is the opposite. I am imagining a kernel today written in a manner that airpods would be able to use it to extract the max out of it. Now, it has to support 10 other third party pods, so at the minimum, kernel would be more generalized.

I guess if apple changes the way it works completely it would be different, with the kernel and such but like Aren’t peripherals inherently modular kind of definitionally? You should check that GitHub, it makes AirPod functionality mostly agnostic. The warts could (in some world) be mere bug reports for the manufacturer firmware team. Personally, I think the Bluetooth standards suck a big one even recognizing how goo…

Modular in the sense you have to support multiple hardwares (of different kinds) instead of just one. Eventually you arrive at a place where software is good enough, and hardware + kernels cannot do the exact heavy lifting that is happening today in conjunction. Not the intel level but directionally similar kind of tradeoffs.

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#245

Post by ankit219 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #181
ankit219 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company making an integrated experience would inevitably provide a better experience/performance than a company asked to build for 100s of devices with different spec. That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion. My contention is this: expecting a third party provider to be able to provide the same experience as the first party is an impractical goal. Even pushing companies towards that means a l…

> We already have android on that level. You're missing the point. Apple isn't in trouble beacuse of user's choice between iPhone and Android. They're in trouble because of 20-50 headphone makers who Apple prevents from truely competing Apple for 2 billion iPhone users. It's the same with all of these issues Apple (and Google) are running into. It's not about the user's choice to buy iPhone or Android. It's about 100…

I am saying that if you force Apple to move away from integrated devices to something which has to be generic (modular like Intel) which does not know which hardware it will pair up with and hence needs baseline performance, it turns into android to a large extent. Other businesses may have legit incentives to reach those customers, but unless Apple makes drastic changes to current setup, the software would not support other manufacturers to the same extent. So they will go to EU and then Apple will write a more generic code - to ensure all manufactures are similarly supported, and it takes them away from integrated system they currently have. Competition wins, but customers dont.

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#246

Post by TheDong »

aprilnya wrote: post #60
heavyset_go wrote: post #32

Currently, on the AirPods side and not iOS side like the article covers, Apple breaks Bluetooth feature parity with other devices by not sticking to the Bluetooth spec with AirPods themselves. For example, you need to root and patch your Bluetooth stack on your phone if you want to use all of your AirPods features on Android, and not because Android is doing something wrong, it's because the Android Bluetooth stack a…

On the other hand, there’s been a bug open to make a simple harmless change to fix this in Android for 9 months, with no response from Google other than asking for reproduction steps as far as I can tell. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/371713238 Some comments on the bug accuse Google of intentionally not fixing it to make people buy Pixel Buds instead of AirPods. I wouldn’t say that myself, but then again I a…

No one has presented a remotely correct fix anywhere on that issue, or elsewhere to my knowledge.

You're welcome to write an actually correct patch for android if you want, one that isn't just commenting out code and probably breaking some spec-compliant bluetooth devices.

Make sure to test your patch against all the bluetooth devices in existence to make sure it doesn't regress.

Do that, make a PR, wait the average third-party-android-PR review time (approximately 5 years), and then if your PR isn't accepted at that point we can maybe say Google is intentionally ignoring this issue.

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#247

Post by supermatt »

miohtama wrote: post #243
alextingle wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple giving themselves an advantage in the markets for headphones and watches, because they have a dominant position in the market for phones is a textbook case of monopoly abuse. They've done extra work to cripple competing devices. It's obnoxious.

Apple market share is 10% in the EU. Hardly a monopoly.

That depends on the interpretation of a market, which is why laws like the DMA establish a market based on its size. In the iOS market, apple have a monopoly.

EDIT: Downvotes for what? That’s literally what the DMA is for. If you don’t like it, take it up with your representatives - it’s nothing to do with me.

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#248

Post by TheDong »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #211
jwr wrote: post #36

I have no doubt that Gruber will find reasons why the EU is bad and regulation is bad. At this point it's rather amusing how Daring Fireball (and many other American media) rants against regulation, and in another post complains about how companies exploit users. Regulation is unfortunately necessary: the market isn't as magical as we would like it to be and competition is not a magic wand that makes everything good…

Who is this Gruber? Searching ddg just brings up this post. Unless you mean ol' Hans Gruber. He is quite the villain.

Searching "gruber apple" brings him up as the first nine results on ddg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gruber

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#249

Post by [deleted] »

websap wrote: post #121
illiac786 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree in general, but in this specific case it’s still an advantage for the iOS platform in general. It just removes a buying incentive for the AirPods. The general problem is that there must be a line. Vendors don’t create lock-ins because they are malicious, they create it because it makes them money. Now, if we limit these lock-ins, it will reduce their ability to make money and yes, it will impact some fe…

I actually have a problem with this. I want AirPods to be undeniably the best experience for me because I am fully locked into the Apple ecosystem, and I know many folks have complaints against that. I find it to be rather pleasurable to use compared to all the other alternatives out there. So if I have to start sacrificing my experience in favor of universal support, that really sucks.

[deleted]

Re: iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA

#250

Post by supermatt »

DANmode wrote: post #179
reorder9695 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't sacrificing your experience, you're free to keep using your Apple AirPods with the quality and reliability you'd expect from Apple. This just means other brands can create products with similar features to AirPods, and if they're not as good or reliable, well that's why you're paying Apple for theirs.

I see their point. If Apple knew they would need to expand this feature past their gear, possible they’d never have implemented. We may never know what stays unimplemented due to this. (This is a neutral take - note I do not have a personal opinion formed in this “debate”.)

> If Apple knew they would need to expand this feature past their gear, possible they’d never have implemented.

And this is EXACTLY why they need to open up more core access to their devices. So someone else can innovate.

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