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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

The terms and conditions for web distribution [0] are concerning to say the least. In short, you have to have at least one million first installs annually on iOS to even qualify, in addition to other terms such as "good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more". I doubt Epic and the like would be considered in good standing as far as Apple is concerned. Also, quote unquote, developers will pay a core technology fee of €0.50 for each first annual install over one million in the past 12 months.

I don't see this ending well for Apple in any measure. It seems they think the EU lawmakers will just go away if they stick their fingers in their ears hard enough, but that's not how the EU works. The gears of EU turn slowly, but grind finely.

[0] https://developer.apple.com/support/web-distribution-eu/

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~20% of Apple's total earnings (not revenue) could come from the App Store: https://deepwatermgmt.com/apples-app-store-is-an-important-p...

When you look at the multiple on services - the App Store could easily be >40% of Apple's total market cap.

They're going to stick their fingers in their ears as long as they can to defend that.

You don't give up the golden goose. You defend it.

This can't be repeated often enough. App Store revenue (part of Services segment) is a key growth driver and Apple will drag this out for as long as they can.

I think it's inevitable iPhone 16 prices will increase in EU starting later this year. Arguably similar to Valve's Steam Deck, iPhone prices are subsidized by the apps revenue. Apple is going to try preserve their profit margins one way or another.

People seemingly keep forgetting that you can have direct installs and alternate stores on Android but somehow Play Store is still dominant.

Because there's not much you can't put on the Play store that's worth managing separately. (And because of this alternate stores are extremely meh.)

What is the argument for Apple’s App store if there are no benefits in Android world? Just wondering.

Exactly what Apple now provides. Hand-reviewed apps. Trust, quality, safety, integrated in-app payments, etc.

The problem is that there's no opt-out, no one can (even try to) offer (real) alternatives, and thus it's impossible to judge the App Store's value proposition on its actual merits, and in the end consumers cannot vote with their wallets, there's no realistic way from the status quo (of Apple simply extracting economic rent) to a competitive market of stores.

Increasing prices in response to this is irrational. Prices are a function of what people are prepared to pay.

If people are prepared to pay more for an iPhone then Apple should have already increased prices, and if they are not then increasing prices will make less money.

It's a function of what people are willing to pay and what suppliers are willing to sell for. So I think the price will go up a little bit, but probably not much.

I mean, "unlocked" iPhones can be worth more money than regular ones, at least in theory. In practice, Apple can probably raise prices by 50% even if they would release the same phone just with an incremented number and people will still buy their stuff.

I’m not sure the DMA works like that. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I understand the DMA applies to Apple’s operations in the EU, not devices that are sold in the EU. If you buy a “locked” iPhone outside the EU and bring it to the EU and set it up in the EU, I believe that Apple still has to comply with the DMA for that device because all of Apple’s services are still operating in the EU. So Apple wouldn’t be able to charge a premium for “unlocked” devices.

Good thing goose is eaten in Europe traditionally.

It's not even the harshest thing we do to that sort of bird.

Patè des californiens is going to be delicious.

>You don't give up the golden goose. You defend it.

Meanwhile, Android has dozens of stores and Google Play keeps the lion's share because it's built into almost every phone, has most of the apps anyway, and google's own safety assurances built-in. Google has gotten dinged but for much more insidious stuff behind the scenes, which still amounts to a few large publishers out of hundreds.

It's just paranoia at this point. Most of the market is captured, and any part Apple couldn't capture after 15 years (say, maybe premium games) is one they probably weren't every going to capture anyway. This is being worried about a crack in the brick wall while 99.999% of devs will just keep entering the front door like normal people. And most of the remaining people bypassing apple will just throw a brick at the door instead of meticulously exploit said crack.

That's a bit of an exaggeration financially. I think Apple is afraid 100% of their market cap depends on the App Store, just not so directly.

Phones are "done". Geese don't live forever.

Switching away is hard. In the not too distant future a $99 no brand phone will be equivalent to the iPhone experience for 80% of use cases, modulo the camera.

If apps are just web apps and run on whatever hardware, Apple will need to come up with something new. Maybe the goose was really named Steve.

> In the not too distant future a $99 no brand phone will be equivalent to the iPhone experience for 80% of use cases, modulo the camera

I'm not so sure, for the same reason people still buy MacBooks when cheap Windows laptops are available, and luxury cars when there is no shortage of lightly used Kias.

Laptops and cars have been around substantially longer than smartphones, but it's still very easy to see the difference between cheap and expensive. While technically yes all of them do "the same thing", people are willing to pay for premium, and I suspect (due to relative affordability if nothing else) that the market of people able and willing to pay for a nicer phone is and will remain quite large.

There's a very nice premium in execution. (And vertical integration.) For example their laptops are selling like hot cakes ... because they are seen as better made then the competition by consumers. (Sure, it seems the (premium?) laptop market finally getting some competition thanks to Framework/StarLabs/etc.)

Obviously the same is true of the iPhone. And software is a big part of it. (I don't want to deal with Dell and Windows. And Asahi is getting better day-by-day.) And hardware too. (M1, M2, M3, etc.. and the A series chips allow their devices to really shine with the big battery, etc.)

And ... while I don't like the actual UX of Apple-land, I don't like it either that Google with all their PhDs and big brain still cannot fucking solve the jankyness.

Yes, they will hopefully be forced to give up the free money rent from the walled garden, and hopefully it will encourage them to invest in being a good platform, invest in software, win/keep market share on merits instead of by decree.

That’s why I hope they compete hard in the AI-in-your-pocket space. Seems like they got the hardware talent to make that happen (software-wise I’m not so sure, but at least it sounds like they focus a bit more on that now the car project is dead). I want Apple to win by selling expensive devices, not by collecting 30% fee on minors gambling for loot boxes.

IPhone is a status symbol. Why people buy designer purses or designer clothes. Someone people will look down on you if you text messages show up green on their phone.

Also IPhone still has more revenue opportunity. AI assistant is the next one. Chat GPT has proven people are willing to spend $20 a month on AI that doesn't even hook up to your email, calendar, or files.

> IPhone is a status symbol.

Maybe for some but not for everyone. In the past you could trust that your phone works 7 years instead of 2 years by having software updates. It also is very stable on software side.

I have saved so much money by buying iPhone and using it for more than 5 years.

> Chat GPT has proven people are willing to spend $20 a month on AI that doesn't even hook up to your email, calendar, or files.

The biggest benefit for paying is the large rate limit and the best accuracy on the market. Copilot is useless with 30 responds per day.

And from what I read, only 7% of the App Store revenue comes from the EU.

The EU should make a public service announcement.

Something along the lines of:

"We urge all EU citizens with Apple devices to have an alternate means of accessing critical internet services like banking, to protect themselves in the event we are forced to block all Apple services EU-wide for legal non-compliance."

... then watch AAPL stock drop below NVDA ...

... and Apple come crawling back, suitably obedient.

Ironically, the iOS banking apps I use are particularly finicky about only running on customer installs without developer capabilities enabled. I very much doubt that banks would queue up to install from web sites etc.

EU App Store revenue is 7% of total App Store revenue.

How's that relevant? It's their second largest market for iPhone sales, representing around 25% of total units sold. If, as the parent comment suggested, the EU intervened and somehow banned Apple's services in the EU until they started complying with the law, new iPhones sales would effectively drop to 0.

If all App Store sells stopped in the EU, it would be 7% of their App Store revenue which is only part of their services revenue which is only 1/5 of their overall revenue.

EU is Apple’s third largest market. The largest market ping pongs between China and the Americans

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/08/29/china-biggest-iphone-ma...

China iPhone sales are down 24% yoy. With continuing friction this will not be a market they can count on in the future.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-11/apple-to-...

iPhone sales are always down until there is a new form factor. This has been true since at least the 6S

Why do you keep talking about their app store revenue? IF the EU applied pressure on Apple by blocking their services, both app store and iPhone sales would disappear overnight. Nobody is going to buy an iPhone that doesn't work.

That sounds awfully like market manipulation. We need something a tad more subtle.

It is, but all regulation is market manipulation (like, literally. It forces the market equivalent away from the free market). We have decided it's ok to vest that power in governments.

Market manipulation would be if they shorted the stock first.

This would be:

A) looking out for their citizens

B) making it clear who's boss

In other words, you're only "eligible" for web distribution if you meet the threshold to pay the Core Technology Fee tax? (on top of the other requirements). Sounds convenient.

Conveniently non-compliant.

Seems pretty much written to keep Epic, Valve and others off the phone i imagine.

Charging per install rather than per subscription is hilarious, almost as if all of this is designed to wind up the EU and cause the largest possible fine.

It's designed to sow confusion among the big vendors in the app store driving most of the revenue, and keep them walled in where it's 'safe'.

It's per year, not per install. All subsequent installs/updates in that year do not incur additional charges.

> "Developers will pay a CTF of €0.50 for each first annual install over one million in the past 12 months."

That really doesn't change their point. It's only slightly less ridiculous, but still completely unworkable and obviously against the spirit of the regulation.

I say spirit of the regulation because I'm not a lawyer and don't want to make absolute claims about the law as written, and I trust the EU to close any loopholes that may arise.

I’ve actually come to the conclusion Apple has stopped behaving rationally here, they are behaving quite erratically.

It's sad to see Apple adopting kind of an Oracle way of business. "Kind of"...

They were screwed by Microsoft in the past. And now they're the ones screwing every single small and mid-sized software shop everywhere.

When will we stop buying their products?

I never bought an Apple product.

Before the iPhone, because I never liked the Mac UI with the bar at the top and the apps menu over there and I didn't need an iPod.

After the iPhone, a personal boycott because of the walled garden. It was not immediately clear what the endgame would be but it was pretty clear that this level of control by a single corporation on a large part of the world is a bad thing.

There is no software to be written for me on this platform and it's growing.

People who do write for it live in this electronic ghetto regardless of their size.

The customer isn't king, she is a serf.

Never buying an apple product again personally, or building ios apps.

> When will we stop buying their products?

When their competitors finally bother to pay attention to build quality.

Some of them do! Go check out a Huawei store, or, to a lesser degree, a Samsung one.

It's true that it might not apply to all their products, because they also cater to people without 6-figure USD equivalent incomes, but you can buy the expensive stuff.

It would be awesome to have a great quality hardware like mentioned but with an easy ability and support for Linux. Windows is just meh.

When? When Apple products will stop being perceived as something better than competition. They somehow created the image that they are some sort of luxury, but if that was ever an actual case its long gone. Don't take me wrong, its a fine long term marketing performance and I respect them for it, but lets be a bit more technical and less emotional here.

Some phones are way more expensive than A top line, have massive cameras, better screens, batteries (I mean real life, one of failures on A side for first decade), better integration with rest of the electronic world (like streaming fullhd tv from phone to any TV I saw so far, or having mouse&keyboard desktop on big screen via single USB-C cable out of box, or very good pen within the phone - image editing goes to another level). Plus you have much bigger variety, anything from 50$. And they are open, not unimportant aspect not only for many HN users.

That doesn't mean they do bad products, in contrary. But emotions aside, its now just another set of products with personally weird philosophy, even weirder emotional fanbase and just a much more closed ecosystem.

I am not a fanboy, but I do use Apple products. They are pretty excellent, and every feature you stated is available within their ecosystem, and more. Their stuff is expensive but it works pretty well together and I've had nearly no issues. The physical quality is at least worth the price I paid for my Apple stuff. The closed ecosystem is semi-annoying to me as a developer but it really doesn't stop me from doing everything I want to.

tl;dr: Some people are just happy with Apple products; we're not cult members and saying that is insulting, frankly.

Only if you take it that way. But when your smartphone is from Apple, along with you laptop, desktop, monitor, mouse, keyboard, calendar, notes, earpods, with a bevy of charging infrastructure to support that, it's not hard to see that you don't have to squint real hard to see it that way. There were some that went as far as to try and nominate Steve Jobs as president.

What about those who have Google phones, run Chrome on everything, have those Google audio pods, Google branded email, Google TVs, etc?

Some people are fanboys of Linux products, and all their shit runs Linux or some other Unix or BSD (more fanboys than for Apple, probably).

I even know a few people who just LOVE Microsoft and their products.

It's fun to make fun of Apple people, I know because I do that too, but in reality the reason people like me own all that stuff is because it "just works together" and I don't have to fiddle with a bunch of random brand stuff to get it to work together, plus I have had a bad experience with Google so I won't use their products. If I hadn't had a bad experience with Google, I may have everything Google branded right now so it "just works together" too.

My wife has consistently bad experience with iphone, namely 13 mini. Just a badly designed product from her perspective, doesn't integrate well with anything via open standards that others implement effortlessly. She is not a techie, so theoretically an ideal customer, but no she still hates it with passion and next phone will be something-android. Personal anecdotes are sort of meaningless here, aren't they. But apple fans like you seldom disappoint, you seem to take my post personally, not sure why.

I don't get why you immediately try to move discussion into extremes, maybe your style but not most of folks - either you have everything X, or everything Y. Sort of proving exactly my point. You don't even try to understand my argument - I can integrate anything, from any manufacturer. Plug in DELL monitor via usb-c, just works, immediately. Connect Sennheiser earplugs (since airpods pro sounds quality leaves a lot to be desired), bam and flacs flow via aptx-hd seamlessly. I could go on and on.

Apple has very tiny offer to cater to all our needs and budgets. These days, even if price is not the problem, often they don't offer the best on the market. So smart thing is to have a diverse set, the opposite of locked-down you describe. People are beginning to be fed up with that since apple is showing its true colors, and this topic and discussion is exactly about it.

I mean, some people make fun of them too. While it can go too far into mean spirited bullying, no one's above reproach thanks to the first amendment.

The first amendment gives you the right to say what you want free of us government interference but doesn’t say anything about people thinking you’re an asshole because you repeat the oldest joke in technology.

speak for yourself I've had two apple products, ever, an Ipod touch 4 (trash) and an ipod nano 7th gen, the nano was good but for music playback, I'd never get an iphone, I'm not down to lock myself down to their terrible ecosystem

That's probably to prevent the most obvious workaround of creating a new shell company for every million users. (Which would be not so ridiculous as it sounds, there is plenty of software you cannot buy directly but only through a reseller. Epic could become a pure b2b shop on paper and sell Fortnite clients to regional distributors, or something like that.)

Some time ago somebody made an alternative App Store for emulators, https://altstore.io . I think it works by having users get a developer's certificate and installing the apps like an in-development app. I think it would be really neat if this model got tested in court and declared completely legal.

> That's probably to prevent the most obvious workaround of creating a new shell company for every million users.

Which would be all around moot because the fee itself is illegal.

> Which would be all around moot because the fee itself is illegal

I haven’t seen any statement in any jurisdiction by lawmakers or judges that supports that claim. It also would, to me, feel inconsistent with the rulings I read about:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Decision: “Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut”

- https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...: “Consistent with the interim relief ruling of the Rotterdam district court, dating apps that are granted an entitlement to link out or use a third-party in-app payment provider will pay Apple a commission on transactions. Apple will reduce its commission by 3% on the price paid by the user, net of value-added taxes. This is a reduced rate that excludes value related to payment processing and related activities”

What did I miss?

The Epic ruling is in the US and are irrelevant to EU regulations. Dutch regulators have rejected Apple's response to the dating app ruling, and that matter is currently in the courts[1]. Lastly, these latest changes are in response to a new law, the Digital Markets Act.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/01/apple_app_rules_nethe...

You may have missed the “free of charge” wording in the DMA.

You missed that this is the DMA we're talking about. All those cases are either out of its jurisdiction or predate the Act's passage.

This makes no sense. All that Apple would have to do to close this loophole is to count installs per group of associated companies or developer accounts.

You make it sound trivial to unmask shell companies, when even governments struggle with it currently.

It makes no sense for app vendors to behave like crime cartels or sanctioned regimes in order to avoid a 30% fee. The margins are not high enough. It's fraud. Executives could go to jail.

Also, this whole web of companies would have to distribute the same set of apps, which would make it relatively easy for Apple to spot. Contrary to a prosecutor, Apple doesn't have to prove anything. They just close the accounts without recourse if they have any suspicion. End of story.

And the app vendor would have to forego the benefit of accumulating reviews under one name. Or they could have the opposite problem, users gravitating to one of the clones that ranks highest. How would they make sure each clone has no more than 1 million users?

This is no way to run a company. It's totally bonkers.

I think Siemens Germany is a nice example of just such a cartel. Nicely distributed in small chunks to abide to the letter of (labour) law.

I would not be surprised to find similar structures leveraging Amazon or Google posing as small shops.

Apple choosing to splinter their app store rules, eulas regionally doesn't make it easier (for them) to surveil and control their Apple cosmos either.

>I think Siemens Germany is a nice example of just such a cartel.

No, Siemens is not a criminal organisation running a web of hidden shell companies. Siemens is a conglomerate comprising a large number of subsidiaries and associated companies that they publish right on their website [1].

I have no doubt that large companies use complicated structures in order to exploit loopholes. But there are limits to that, especially as Apple doesn't require a complex lawmaking process in order to change their ToS. They can close a loophole at the stroke of a pen. And they can close developer accounts at will if ToS are violated.

[1] https://assets.new.siemens.com/siemens/assets/api/uuid:830cf...

The speed at which apple can alter their ToS is indeed a key differentiator.

Any cartel instantly becomes a criminal cartel if governance over laws/EULAs is basically absent and biased against the cartel.

[added]

Not saying Siemens is nefarious, but they do seem to be subverting the spirit of law. The conglomerate sure makes it easy to "reorganize" without due process for firing lots of employees.

> I think Siemens Germany is a nice example of just such a cartel. Nicely distributed in small chunks to abide to the letter of (labour) law.

Siemens is not a good example. If you're looking for better examples, there's Aldi. It intentionally splits its structure to avoid triggering stricter labor and reporting laws.

Altstore and Altserver got approved as 3rd party marketplaces by Apple. The implementation will be key.

Agreed. Apple's stubbornness and clear attempts to retaliate against everyone for these changes are not going to go well for them, and they need to realise that at some point.

It's genuinely shocking how petty the company is acting with these changes, and how obvious their attempts at only doing the bare minimum to follow the law are.

Remember when Apple taunted bigger companies to sue them, in the name of technological freedom? Pepperidge Farm remembers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi

So sad to see them on the other side of the table now, using every trick in the book to screw over the entire sector. Mr. Cook, tear down this wall!

The list of companies bigger than Apple is now very small. All that’s left, really, are countries.

I'm a little bit playing devil's advocate here, but: concerning how?

> you have to have at least one million first installs annually on iOS to even qualify

That's not what the site says at all? "Membership in the Apple Developer Program includes one million first annual installs per year for free for apps distributed from the App Store, alternative marketplaces, and/or Web Distribution." That seems to indicate that there is no minimum, and installs up to 1 million are free. That means that (wild guess) 99.5% of all apps ever released will pay no fee. EDIT TO CORRECT: see below, you have to have an app over 1 million downloads in the previous year to participate, but this description of the fee structure is correct. Which is...weird?

> I doubt Epic and the like would be considered in good standing as far as Apple is concerned.

If Apple plays games like this, they deserve consequences. But does it make sense to take this interpretation rather than just assuming the language means what it means: you haven't been kicked off the platform, and you've been around for two years?

Search for the first occurrence of million:

> To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must: ... have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.

Ah, sorry, I missed that part. It's a weird distinction -- you could have one app with a million installs, and a million apps with one install each, and all could be installed from your web page?

So this points to the other thing I said, which is that there are very few developers that will meet this requirement.

It's less "concerning" and more "flagrantly ridiculous".

A company has to pay Apple half a euro for every executable download from the company's own website? If Microsoft tried this shit with Windows people would be apoplectic.

And yet, it's pretty common in commercial software and in other industries.

For instance, my application uses a particular commercially-licensed software library. I have to pay a per-copy-sold royalty to the vendor.

Or I write a video game for a console: I have to pay a percentage of my revenue to the console vendor.

Or I use a particular algorithm (eg. an AV codec) and I have to pay patent royalties.

So if your application uses Apple's provided frameworks, and they choose to charge you a license fee (discounted to zero for your first million sales), you're calling it "flagrantly ridiculous"?

It's not: it's a wide-spread, standard practice. It might suck, sure. But hyperbole helps no-one here.

> And yet, it's pretty common in commercial software and in other industries.

Is it common in general purpose operating systems? Android? Linux? ChromeOS? Windows? Hell, MacOS?

No? Then why did you bring it up?

They’re the same terms as those required for an alternative app marketplace.

Not exactly, looks like there's no requirement to have €1,000,000 in your bank account like you need for alternative app marketplaces.

They dropped that too.

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/05/apple-tweaks-eu-app-sto...

Unfortunately this is backwards for me. My mac usage is direct download (when possible) for small developers, but get the advantages of the mac app store when using an app written from someone big. So if I were inclined to download something from Epic I'd want to use the app store anyway.

For phones though I don't have the tools I do on the mac (ios is too opaque) so if I couldn't get it from the Apple app store I just wouldn't download the app at all.

That's fine. Not every citizen has to actively use every right made available to them by the law. That doesn't diminish its value for the ones who do need it.

Sure, that's why I said, "for me".

Perhaps there are many more, perhaps I'm an outlier, and maybe some HN threads might uncover a which (sometimes happens).

Apple’s requirement that you already have a lot of downloads pretty much defeats the support for small indie developers. But I doubt many people care much about supporting them anyway.

These are some cult-like requirements. The term "good standing" comes not from business, it comes directly from the domain of authoritarian-destructive cults.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_standing

It’s possible to criticize Apple without making stuff up. It’s a road traveled by few, but it is there.

I'm not sure why the EU would let Apple make up the terms of their surrender. It's like letting a convicted felon decide on their punishment.

Nonsense. The term "customer in good standing" has a well-established legal tradition in contract law. You're just making stuff up.

https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/customer-in-good-stand...

No business is using this term in real life, but it's heavily used by cults.

Uh. I assure you, the term is widely used by companies and governments.

Source:

"Your PG&E residential account is in good standing at the time of the outage and at the time PG&E issues payment" - https://www.pge.com/en/outages-and-safety/outage-preparednes...

"Must remain on qualifying service in good standing for duration of EIP agreement." - https://www.t-mobile.com/accessories/category/mounts-docks-a...

"Request for Certificate of Good Standing" - https://cand.uscourts.gov/attorneys/request-for-certificate-...

"Tangerine may reject the overpayment and your Account may not be considered to be in Good Standing." - https://www.tangerine.ca/en/legal/credit-card-cardholder-agr...

"Use this form to pay the United States Tax Court to order a Certificate of Good Standing" - https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/802285219

"Your account must be in good standing to sign up" - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/899060/y...

"To maintain status as a member in good standing, SCCs must notify the SCC program manager of any changes to information collected to administer the program." - https://www.sw.siemens.com/en-US/community-catalyst-program/

It's mobspeak.

Apple is going to have a hard explaining if the regulator asks why it costs €0.50 per first annual install when it's free on Android.

Isn't the point of third party stores being able to not interact with Apple gatekeeping whatsoever? What's this €0.50 per install thing?

On my pixel I can download and install any .apk I want. Easy breezy. Isn't this what the EU intended with the recent veredict?

I do own an iPhone, but I do like the idea of Apple filling up the EU economy by paying out the fines that the EU lawmakers serve and will serve onto them.

What does "quote unquote" mean in this context?

"Developers will pay a core technology fee of €0.50 for each first annual install over one million in the past 12 months."

His "" must be difficult to type. Ease of use.

Yeah it's not much of an 'announcement' at all. In Holland we call that "making someone happy with a dead sparrow". My cat tries that sometimes:')

> The gears of EU turn slowly, but grind finely.

What would happen if big companies simply refuse to pay? Will EU put the European employees in jail? Would they put Americans in their jail? Will they do DNS block? Credit card block? Remove apple products from physical store? Many of the EU countries like Germany are export driven and certainly they don't want to close the market.

Apple has so much stuff and money in the EU, that there will be plenty to take. Only recently have the started to take back some of the funds from Ireland. Apple would be in a pretty bad place if those accounts were all seized, not in the last place because it would block all transactions including customer ones, ones to may for servers, rent etc. Apple might look stupid but they aren't that stupid.

The EU won’t even seize Russia’s assets. You think they’ll start a shitstorm with the united states?

Can't they take all the money out a month before they are planning to refuse to pay fine? I am pretty sure EU could never block Apple's fund unless they want to totally remove all the business from EU.

For Apple they could just ban iPhones from the market, that should be enough to make Apple comply.

What happens when any company fails to pay the government? Their bank accounts are frozen and assets are seized, at a minimum.

And at some point, the effects may well ripple back to the US as well.

"The gears of EU turn slowly, but grind finely." QFT.

Apple legal's playbook is contempt:

> "So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad." - https://filklore.com/wordpress/2012/10/are-apple-in-contempt...

Edit: Removed, I used too harsh language for Apple

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https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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