Clearly the recent 1.8B Euro fine the EU levied against Apple didn't send a message. Perhaps the EU needs to ratchet it up by an order of magnitude.
You're acting like the EU is some poor country in the outback and not their second biggest market after the US.
Or better yet, we fork Android and have a non-Google EU-only appstore similar to Huawei's Andorid fork OS and appstore but with EU's privacy rules. If so many companies bother to make apps just for Huawei's separate appstore, then they'll definitely do that for the EU as well. Of course, then Google will go bitch about it to "daddy", and the US will probably start a trade war with the EU.
No one would use it and no developers would publish to them. All brands have their own appstore already, but no one uses them so they also all ship with the Google app store.
You're wrong. A lot of Apps are on Huawei's store in EU.
If Google can do this, certainly Apple can do it too. Biden doesn’t strike me as having much appetite for a trade war with the EU (he famously has a lot of soft diplomacy skills instead), but if Trump were reelected? Maybe that’s something Apple’s holding out for, who knows. Wild speculation on my part.
People will get over it switch to alternative services.
The idea of leaving Europe is nonsense. Apple is a publicly owned corporation, and Tim Cook would be immediately dismissed for such financial recklessness.
It seems crazy that Apple is going to die on this hill, but I’m really curious what the accountants are sending the execs. I could see them willing to gamble a chunk of revenue to prevent every other market from trying to write similar laws, especially if they’re losing that revenue regardless.
Maybe there’s a complex solution here, but the naive one of global compliance to local demands needs an evaluation of cost vs reward. There’s also the somewhat possible concern that the EU might actually just be hostile to Apple and cutting losses now against possible future losses makes sense. (Again, remember we’re presuming order of magnitude increases in fines).
There's an extremely simple solution here. Just comply with the EU regulation in good faith. Sure, you lose some revenue that you'd otherwise get, but only for extremely popular games/apps like Fortnite etc, but your overall margins remain very thick. The vast majority of users would keep using only the App Store and vast majority of developers would publish there, so what's the big deal?
Instead it seems that what Apple is afraid of, is that this would lead to a chink in their armor, _eventually_ leading to their no-compromise attitude being re-evaluated in other markets as well, both by users (just a couple of TikToks from high-profile influencers would be enough to bring this issue into a more public light) and regulation bodies.
And you expect those same share holders to just support leaving of a massive market? Cook would be taken through NYSE by his nether regions by just thinking that. This whole idea is nonsense.
And even if, by any bizarre chance (it's 2020s after all) it happens, we'll suffer with... *checks list*... Samsung Galaxy Phones? Lenovo, Samsung and ASUS laptops? Sony headphones? Huh. What horrible existence. I'm sure that would be an end of the Union. Imagine using a great Samsung foldable instead of an iPhone.
Most people would understand that these huge, aggressive corporates must be brought to heel. The sooner the EU establishes credibility in this respect, the sooner we all win.
This uniquely American type of arrogance where TikTok/Huawei is guilty even if it complies will the laws, and American companies are innocent even if they break all our laws.
There are, I am afraid, only two ways to respond - aggressively or subserviently. As US economy loses its position as the centre of the universe, the second option becomes less appealing.
What if Apple complied with the law.
They don't want to lose all those sales anyway.
[Added] ... And continue to support products and services already sold?
It’s not a five year old who can do something mean and then just quickly run home.
I don't know where I fall on this issue personally, but siding with Apple is probably more authoritarian.
I still find it weird that people spent the last 5 years complaining about practices that started when they still were an underdog, and which were applauded at the time, and which don't even fully apply now to all developers anyway.
But you're right, they're not underdogs any more.
Apple's choice was apparently to die as a hammer-wielding hero or live long enough to become the patriarch on the telescreen.