Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

Apple is not stopping you from buying a phone that isn’t from Apple.

If most people thought like you did, they would just not buy iPhones. The problem is nobody wants what you’re asking for, because you’re buying into the euro-populist cope that it helps consumers, even though this was just a play to allow European companies to even have a small chance at making money in tech because of how over regulated the industry is in Europe.

You’re asking for iOS to be a flavor of Android, and the reality is the Android experience fucking sucks.

The problem with the "freedom-for-security" tradeoff is that there is nothing to keep the security provider - a government or private corporation - from continuing to provide security once you've surrendered freedom. Apple was very good at combating scams and fraud on the App Store when the iPhone was new. The problem is, that's expensive, which is why Apple decided to charge 30% in the first place. Once competitors stopped trying to release mobile operating systems and users had been accustomed to "just download App Store stuff it's safe", Apple moved away from investing in App Store security. We can see this with how many outright scams wind up on the store today.

Singapore is a similar situation. The security a government is supposed to provide is protection against, say, organized criminals, but government and organized crime has the same structure, function, and incentives as one another. A government that takes away your freedom may be able to protect against organized crime, but that also lets them do exactly the same things organized crime might do. The only security this provides is security of Singapore's tax revenue and political control from appropriation by competing violence-users.

Same thing with Apple. They aren't securing you, they're securing themselves in power, with your security trickling down from their handcuffs.

> Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this

this is a silly false dilemma/double standard you've set up.

if you want to apply the "do I need this exact device" standard - then no, you do not need a PS5, and you do not need an iphone. Therefore there is no need for regulation.

if you want to apply the "can I live my life without this whole category of Thing" - you probably can't live your life without some form of entertainment, and some form of generalized computing device, right? So no, you can't "do without" something like a PS5 or a phone or a laptop, no.

And the Xbox and PS5 are general purpose computing devices - there is no technical reason you shouldn't be able to check emails or run a word processor on your Xbox, other than that's not the market segmentation MS wants. Again, this is an example of a device so successfully convincing people that it's really an appliance that literally the EU wrote it into a law that there's no need for this appliance to comply.

Again: what's the problem? Just do the same thing with the iphone.

regardless, you are choosing to ignore the whole point about Windows S - you certainly can't life your life without Windows or MacOS, right? And if you want to point to niche solutions... nobody is stopping you from buying a Sailphone, but you would probably agree that's not a sufficient solution for the market as a whole.

Again, the whole thing is very narrowly a bill of attainder, both in its written form and application. If the purpose is "protecting consumers" there is no logical reason to exclude Windows S or PS5 or Xbox or other general-purpose computing devices from being utilized as such by consumers.

The EU has no business to be declaring these classes of devices as having no need to comply with market act requirements, especially when the boundaries are so fuzzy. Apple TV is pushing into mobile gaming. Series S is pushing downwards into mobile gaming. What is the difference between these 2 classes of devices, why should one get a pass? Why should Motorola be allowed to refuse to unlock their bootloaders without voiding a warranty? Etc etc. Literally narrowly targeted at ios and nothing else - even when it would benefit the consumer.

And more generally people are deliberately (and knowingly) missing the point that these types of appliances are common and are widely accepted - literally so widely accepted that the EU wrote special permission for many of them. Phrasing it as if Apple is somehow uniquely denying users access to the capabilities of their hardware is incredibly misleading - literally the EU wrote into the DMA special permission for many vendors to continue denying their users access to the capabilities of their hardware.

But, it's apple, I get it, everyone hates apple. But at a technological level they're not special or different.