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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

#251

Post by f1shy »

riversflow wrote: post #216
mbirth wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most probably. WhatsApp is also still using the old way of accessing photos where you have to define which photos WA has access to every time you want to share newly taken photos. I’m pretty sure they do that deliberately so you get annoyed and give them blanket access to all your photos. (Which they then probably secretly analyse in the background.)

I wish apple would deprecate the old way and force apps to adopt the new photo picker.

Then you will see here thousands of comments explaining how that is bad for small businesses, and apple is forcing them out of the market… is a balance…

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

#252

Post by TheDong »

Schnitz wrote: post #175

I really wonder what the technical detail is that makes it so much harder for this feature to work when your phone is outside the EU, does anyone know?

The same technical detail that makes it so the "Default Navigation App" toggle to change the default from 'Apple Maps' to 'Google Maps' only shows up if you live in the EU but not in the US.

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

#253

Post by rafram »

formerly_proven wrote: post #87
pityJuke wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they on the same iCloud account? I believe that's the magic needed.

Of course not, that's the whole point of having a separate corp phone ;) But why would switching headphone connections need the cloud... ah... nevermind...

It doesn’t need “the cloud” (switching works offline) but it does need to verify that the device it’s switching to belongs to you, which it does using a keypair associated with your account.

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

#254

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

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…

I disagree with the premise. For me, "works better" means that I can swap out one of the devices in my fleet with a different brand and still have a functioning setup.

But even ignoring that, I think your claim can be true while forcing Apple to be compatible is still the right thing to do, because optimizing for personal convenience and user experience only is not the best outcome if it comes at the expense of market failure due to vendor lock-in.

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

#255

Post by stavros »

tt24 wrote: post #235
stavros wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you purchase a physical device, yes. You don't buy devices from AWS, you rent. I'm not sure what's hard about this.

I notice how you intentionally didn't respond to the other two points, interesting.

I responded to all the points. What's unclear?

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

#256

Post by mdhb »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #233
littlestymaar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> were great but millions of man hours a year are burned navigating cookie banners on every website Cookie banner are not, in fact, an obligation under GDPR. All you need to do to be GDPR compliant is “not collect and sell data to partners” and call it a day. Cookie banners are a loophole that the EC conceded to an ad industry that is addicted to tracking everyone all the time.

> All you need to do to be GDPR compliant is “not collect and sell data to partners” Are you asserting that I can log IP addresses in my Apache logs? Seems like no one can give me a straight answer there.

That’s not how the law is structured. You CAN do that no problem but it’s then WHAT you do WITH that which is where the law comes into play. If it’s just for security purposes then there’s no problem I believe.

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

#257

Post by heavyset_go »

commandersaki wrote: post #234

Does proximity pairing also mean seamless switching between iDevices? As it stands non Apple earphones need to disconnect from the currently paired device to only then connect with another. My Beats Studio pro on the other hand can control primary device and on secondary device I can prompt it to connect and it will switch.

This is already part of the Bluetooth spec that Apple didn't implement: multipoint pairing.

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

#258

Post by concinds »

indemnity wrote: post #109
fabioborellini wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple can't perform well with audio on Apple Silicon, either. In 2025 macos is the only OS with audio cracking appearing with CPU load. Even Linux is better

Yeah, this is a regression since macOS Tahoe. Amazing that it still exists after several patch releases, is audio working not a basic test case for Apple? I’ve found it to be worst when using Xcode / simulator and having headphones on for music. sudo killall coreaudiod seems to fix it for a while.

It's ludicrous. I remember when Apple took pride in the audio never stopping. Once a very long time ago my entire Mac froze, even the Force Touch trackpad was unresponsive, but the music kept playing. Now, press Volume Up and the audio stutters. Or AirPods randomly get choppy and then stop playing until you reconnect them. The heck?

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

#259

Post by DANmode »

supermatt wrote: post #250
DANmode wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why they need to be forced to, you mean?

I'm not seeing an incentive structure for them to change being the only source of good workflows for their users - it's their whole thing "It just works" - regardless of if it's true in practice or not.

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