Apple knows exactly what the DMA wants from them, they're just deathly terrified of handing it over.
(Just because newer iOS devices have a USB-C port doesn't mean that all USB-C devices will work with them! Devices still require drivers; if iOS doesn't know how to handle a device, it won't work.)
Apple could fully comply with the letter and spirit of the DMA and remain profitable in the EU, but they would be less profitable. They probably have a very good estimate of how much less profitable, and they're doing their best to minimize the impact.
The idea that you would be forced to give it away for nothing would be a pretty extraordinary and unworkable intervention in the market.
So at some point you have to interact with Apple SDKs.
1 million downloads for an app sounds like a lot for a paid app.
But on the desktop, popular OSS software packages do those kind of numbers in well under a year. There's no reason to believe OSS mobile apps on iPhone would be any different.
In almost every other case application software is not considered to be a derivative work of the operating system it runs on. If this wasn't the case, then Apple could have easily sued Cydia and AltStore for offering the equivalent of iOS fanfiction. Hell, even the Copyright Office was perfectly fine with adding a DMCA 1201 exemption for jailbreaking iPhones to install non-Apple software on them - and they're extremely tightfisted with those.
The reasons why this is different is very simple: you don't distribute Apple's SDK along with your application, but you do distribute Unreal's. The user got access to Apple's code when they bought their iPhone, you have to give them Unreal Engine, so you need a license for that.
Are you sure about that? Seems like a pretty bold statement where you would have to have some kind of inside information.
I don't have anything to substantiate this but I would like to believe that Apple still has the best interest of it's customers and security in mind when fighting these kinds of legislation. I switched from Android to Apple BECAUSE of those restrictions and the improved security the walled garden model provides. The other reason was the middle finger Apple gave to the cell providers about applying firmware updates to their phones. When I was using Android it was maddening to wait months for an update to be 'approved' and able to install. That led me to rooting and installing firmware that was outside of the manufactures control and who knows what might have been in that.
So for me everything that Apple does to keep a walled garden is what actually keeps me as a customer and helps their bottom line.
Also I never needed to wait for a carrier to approve an Update for my Android Phone. Neither for my Pixel, Nexus or Samsung Galaxy ones.
And beside the "strict" controls, malicious Apps got in the App Store, and the iPhones themselves also pwned.
Are there other Apple Fanboy Horror Stories about Android that you've missed?
Certain as I can be, without having seen the cards. Apple is a company about margins; you see it in their hardware profitability, but also in Tim Cook's service initiative. They fought Dutch regulators over this for months preceding the regulation, and it's not a stretch to say the DMA and DSA is a direct legislative response to Apple's wanton behavior.
Apple can move literal mountains, when it aligns with their incentive of increasing profit margins. Anything that falls outside that purview ends up sidelined or worse-yet, lobbied against.
> So for me everything that Apple does to keep a walled garden is what actually keeps me as a customer and helps their bottom line.
That's great, and Apple has every right to provide you a differentiated experience. I've been a historical Apple customer, and I still keep a Magic Trackpad around because it's mostly quite good.
But you and I aren't entitled to a sustained monopoly because it benefits us. Happy IE users or Bell Telephone customers aren't an argument against antitrust action, and it's ultimately entirely tangential to how legal they are.
Consider how Apple behaves in hardware, sponsoring dubious Chinese labor to make shareholders happy. They set industry-leading profit margins by sparing no expense in their exploitation of labor and parts manufacturing. Is it legal? They say so. But of course Apple would, and they have no incentive to ever stop the squeeze if shareholders cheer them on. They will behave just as insidiously with software, and if you do not treat their every action with that scrutiny then you'll pave the road to hell with good intentions.
I want businesses to be good people. I want God to run a killer froyo stand. But men are fickle, and Apple has been a swindling bastard of a company ever since Jobs cheated Woz out of $4,500 over an Atari contract.
Does 20.1 percent market share constitute a monopoly?(2023 Forbes) Seems like people have plenty of choices of what kind of cell phone to purchase.
>treat their every action with scrutiny
Is that not what the free market does? When companies make poor choices customers punish them. (Budweiser 2023)
Apple is not subject to market forces because Apple is not a capitalist entity, it is a feudalist one. It is not a merchant buying metal and glass to turn into phones, it is a feudal lord that has put a gate on the river that anyone passing buy has to pay 30% in order to open.
Other than desktop computing, this describes nearly everything sold to consumers. For people in the Hacker News audience, desktop computing would feel like a gargantuan exception, but for most other people it isn't. Android is a partial exception, but one gets the sense from Google's recent behaviour that openness is an unwelcome vestige of its open source beginnings.
If there's a good reason iOS can't run third-party software, now's the time to fix it. Otherwise, Apple might have to find a new economic zone to invest in.
Among the earliest examples of this emerging new normal in its gestational phase would be game consoles from the 16-bit era onwards. It also included just about all pre-smart cellular phones (but for occasional a rather pointless Java support), nearly all printers, nearly all camcorders, and so on. There are probably between 5 and 50 internet connected "computers" in the typical home and the typical consumer has some semblance of software control on maybe three of them.
> nearly all printers, nearly all camcorders, and so on.
I'm really starting to think nobody here read the Digital Service Act. Unless your toaster or smart-refrigerator is a gatekeeper platform with the required number of users, it doesn't matter. Apple is rightfully being called out for anticompetitive conduct, regardless of how you feel about the morality of an App Store.
If App Stores are the future, we'll have to Think Different and implement them in better way. Apple has their work cut out for them, the preemptive apologism falls on deaf ears.
Depends how it's used. Wabash v. Illinois set the precedent that a far-minority can be a monopoly if they block a government-designated common carrier. Europe's DMA doesn't even mention monopolies at all, and instead sets a new compliance bar for large tech-related companies. Japan's legislation is headed in the same direction.
Seems entirely feasible to me that the App Store or Safari policies could be seen as obstruction of a common service. Apple's de-facto tax hasn't been explicitly blocked in the US yet, but it also has never been explicitly sanctioned. Without guidelines like the DMA in place, Apple is flying blind against US regulators. Microsoft got trapped deep in that hall of mirrors, and nearly paid the ultimate price.
> Is that not what the free market does?
The free market is supplanted by a government that ensures that only a non-lethal portion of rat feces is processed into your container of SPAM or McDonalds meal. They prevent you from exposure to what businesses call, "profit maximization".
If you have a good government, they treat you a little better. They punish the companies that violate consumer rights and scrutinize anticompetitive behavior when it shows up. The free market chooses between regulated competitors; if you think that's unfair, you can move to a country without the rat-feces regulators and see how your breakfast tastes over there. Then we can all be happy.
> When companies make poor choices customers punish them. (Budweiser 2023)
Your evidence is proof to the contrary of your claim. Budweiser wasn't "punished" for making an anticompetitive move, they were boycott because insecure Budweiser customers had a slow news cycle. If Apple had customers protesting for the same reasons, they'd never even know.
"Poor choices" notwithstanding, Apple customers couldn't be assed if they were angry. Suicide nets go up at Foxconn and the harshest words HN or MacRumors can muster is 'poor choice of manufacturing partner'. Conscientious startups and their Macbooks, nary separated any easier than protesting trailer parks and Budweiser.
Except this never happened.
And it doesn't even make any sense because MFi is when there is proprietary Apple technology involved which isn't the case for USB-C nor 3.5mm, Bluetooth etc.