iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by idle_zealot » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:48 AM UTC

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…

Yeah, all too often discussion devolves into a religious war between free markets and regulation. Like they're somehow opposing forces. Markets are super cool and useful tools. Some regulation is good, some is bad, which exactly is which depends on your values and what you want to optimize for. Framing markets like they automatically do good, or ideas like "we need more regulation" or "we need fewer regulations" are all thought-terminating.

So far the DMA seems like a partial-win for technology users. I wish it enshrined the right to run software on your own computer in less ambiguous language, because as-is there are carve-outs that may let Apple get away with their core technology fee and mandatory app signing.

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

#42

Post by Lio » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:50 AM UTC

port3000 wrote: post #28

Lio wrote: post #12

I wonder, could this means we get better support for things like sending messages from Garmin smartwatches? Previously, this was available on Android but not iOS as Apple didn’t expose the APIs for watches other than their own.

I would settle for my Garmin not disconnecting every few days at this point

I mean I’d settle for the status quo and Garmin itself not deleting big parts of my watch faces.

The last update from Garmin did this to my Epix. Funnily enough the complications can still be activated if you touch the screen, they’re just invisible.

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

#43

Post by fersarr » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

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…

also usbc in iphones! finally we can just carry one cable

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

#44

Post by geraldwhen » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

vachina wrote: post #29

x3ro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean it will benefit Apple’s customers, who prefer headphones not made by Apple? If only the incentive for Apple to improve their interface was that its paying customers will have a better interface.

non-apple headphones work just fine with Apple products. In fact, Apple's bluetooth stack seem to work best among all the portable devices I come across (no random droppings, connects on first try etc.)

I was unaware that my headphone experience as impaired in some way.

I exclusively use non Apple headphones and I have no issues. I had AirPods for a while and I don’t remember them being better.

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

#45

Post by rikafurude21 » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

Recently bought an apple watch for my mom and got it set up with her iphone. Almost instantly she notices that she cant accept WhatsApp calls on her watch, and after looking into it I found out that it was another one of those apple things where they assume youre obviously using facetime so that functionality isnt available for any other app. For context, in europe Whatsapp is the dominating messaging app and alot of people use it for calling as well as messaging. The apple watch is, as far as I can tell, a simple Bluetooth wearable with a speaker and a microphone, so the only reason its like this is that apple has a concept of how the device is "supposed" to be used and only lets you use it that way. After that experience I fully support all the regulations the EU is putting on apple to open up.

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

#46

Post by eptcyka » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

vachina wrote: post #29

x3ro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean it will benefit Apple’s customers, who prefer headphones not made by Apple? If only the incentive for Apple to improve their interface was that its paying customers will have a better interface.

non-apple headphones work just fine with Apple products. In fact, Apple's bluetooth stack seem to work best among all the portable devices I come across (no random droppings, connects on first try etc.)

My iPhone has plenty of trouble connecting to various devices at times. God forbid it has to manage connecting to my car and my headphones at once. It works OK most of the time, but at least once a week it proves to be a problem.

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

#47

Post by eptcyka » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

bluescrn wrote: post #34

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…

Can headphones that stick to the spec actually play nicely with multiple devices? - switching quickly between phone and laptop like Airpods do?

I can stop music on my phone and immediately listen to music from my laptop. I have non-apple headphones, a non-apple laptop and an iPhone. There is no apple magic dust that makes this happen.

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

#48

Post by officialchicken » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

dsign wrote: post #22

madspindel wrote: post #6

Apple should dump their Product Managers and hire the EU bureaucrats directly then we will finally see improvements and innovations again.

Let’s call them bureaucrats, but let’s not forget that their baseline is to be public servants, while that of product managers is to increase profits :-) . I think the system is working as intended though, because increasing profits can be a great driver for innovation and service to the consumer, until it’s not and the “immune system” (the bureaucracy) must be called on to fight the uncontrolled pathological growth…

[flagged]

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

#49

Post by jwr » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

Y-bar wrote: post #40

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…

They also capped credit card fees at 0.3% in 2015. It also included a prohibition on discrimination against any merchant based on eg size or category of goods sold. And as far as I can see neither Mastercard nor Visa had problems staying in business.

Yes! I forgot about this. The EU Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) effectively eliminated the high fixed minimum fees that previously made small-value card transactions unprofitable for merchants.

The net effect of this is that in Poland, for example, you can carry your phone and no wallet, because you can pay literally for everything using your phone. And I do mean everything, I've recently been to a club in Warsaw and the cloakroom had a terminal mounted on the wall, people just tapped their phones.

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

#50

Post by neya » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:56 AM UTC

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…

Yesterday, I was trying to get a voice memo out of my Apple watch - on which the recording was made. I switched from Apple last year. My cousin had an iPhone. Apple would not let me transfer the voice memo out of their eco-system. It's not on my iCloud and the watch can no longer be paired with any other iOS device (even temorarily with authentication to transfer a file)...unless the iPhone is registered to me. This is malicious compliance in the name of security.

And mind you, I own 3 Apple devices - 2 Macs and 1 iPad and the watch can't connect to any of those. I must be forced to buy a $1000 device just because I made the mistake of recording something on their watch. We need more regulation because of things like this and I would absolutely hate to live in a society where this is the norm.