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Comment by vletal | Hacker News Reader

I do not get it. If they are really into "private cloud", "your data belongs to you", ... They should be compliant out of the box.

This decreases my trust in Apple.

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It's the other way around. They are worried they will be forced to open their privacy to third parties who could circumvent their privacy controls.

Then it could be said, that their privacy control does not work, when you need to rely on security through obscurity.

It’s not security by obscurity. The law makes Apple turn over the keys to third parties.

You can’t secure your house if the law requires you to open the door to anyone who asks.

Apple throwing a tantrum like this doesn’t seem like a winning strategy. It’s a giant finger for devs and consumers in Europe.

It's not a tantrum; it's Apple saying to EU regulators we can't provide these features securely and privately while also while also making them DMA-compliant.

Many Apple Intelligence won't fully rollout until sometime in 2025, so there's time for the EU to decide what they want to do.

> it's Apple saying to EU regulators we can't provide these features securely and privately

They can't, or they won't?

Just because they say they can't do something doesn't mean it's true, especially when that something can negatively affect their profits and market share, so then they weaponize it as "think of your security!".

Considering Apple's insane wealth and technical expertise, it's definitely possible, they just don't want to do it because they want things their way not the government's way, unless that government is China, then everything is suddenly technically possible. Using Chinese cloud providers for iCloud? You got it. CCP backdoors for everything? Consider it done.

So no, it's just a tantrum.

The EU accounted for more than $24 billion in revenue last quarter, the most revenue outside of North America. Obviously this isn't something Apple takes lightly.

Take a look at Apple's Private Cloud Compute white paper [1] and explain how Apple's supposed to make it DMA-compliant without sacrificing its security and privacy guarantees. Short answer: they can't without essentially starting over.

EU residents will get all of the other iOS 18 features but not Apple Intelligence and a couple of others. The average EU citizen won't even know anything is missing.

Even for those who are paying attention, they're used to getting tech features long after they're available to the rest of the world.

[1]: https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

>Take a look at Apple's Private Cloud Compute white paper [1] and explain how Apple's supposed to make it DMA-compliant without sacrificing its security and privacy guarantees.

Why should I figure it out for them? That's why they have so many highly skilled well paid engineers on their payroll, to solve stuff like this.

It's not my job to solve their cloud architecture design issues. Why don't they use some of that 24 Billion in EU revenue to engineer it to be EU privacy compliant?

And excuse me for not trusting their own biased interpretation of the reasoning why their clod architecture is incompatible with EU regulations. I have as much trust in that explanation as in a school kid explaining how he can't do his homework because his dog is eating it.

Until I get an unbiased opinion form a independent third party, I'm not buying Apples sob story tantrum.

> Until I get an unbiased opinion form a independent third party

A core feature of Apple’s Private Cloud Compute platform is the ability for 3rd parties to validate the integrity of the platform.

What would help if it were open source than we can say fi it's true or if it's BS, but until then it's just trust me bro.

> The EU accounted for more than $24 billion in revenue last quarter, the most revenue outside of North America. Obviously this isn't something Apple takes lightly.

"Europe", not the EU.

And Apple's "Europe" segment isn't even just Europe. It also includes India, the Middle East and Africa.

Thanks for the correction.

Why did they not take the DMA into consideration when designing Apple Intelligence?

>It’s a giant finger for devs and consumers in Europe.

If EU would have a VC sector anywhere near the US or even Chinese ones, this is actually the perfect time and market opportunity for a local EU competitor to come out and launch a privacy focused smartphone that's compliant with local market regulations and also includes the AI features that Apple refuses to release out of spite.

Apple only does shit like this because they know that the alternatives EU has in the consumer facing smartphone tech space is weak AF and poses no significant competition and no threat to them, unlike in China where Huawei and Xiaomi are ready to pounce if Apple were to slip.

Regulations are good, but having domestic alternative competitors is even better, and the EU is lacking here and Apple knows this hence it can play chicken.

I will be more than happy to get additional alternatives. Apple is big here, but not as dominant as it is in the US. It won’t be a big deal for folks to skip an upgrade cycle or turn to Samsung, Fairphone and others.

Apple users in the EU aren't going to abandon their iPhones, ecosystem ties and AppStore purchases en masse, and move to Android or some boutique maker like Fairphone just because Apple disabled AI feature for them. A handful might but not enough to scare Apple.

Once people are tied to an ecosystem for many years, they're not just gonna abandon it without a major life inconvenience.

Looking at the DMA, it’s not about security. It’s about opening things up so big tech can’t benefit from their position.

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

I think a company not being allowed to add features for their customers is a bit silly.

What would be the implication? I do not believe that DMA forces Apple to make iPhone sharing to Windows. How would it reduce "security"?

I think it's not that they have to make it able to screen share with Windows, but allow the same APIs they use to screen share to Mac open to anyone that want's to make a iPhone to Windows/Linux/Android screen sharing app.

That is just a baseless speculation.

Until something more definitive comes out, that's all any of us can do

I know right? The DMA resonates closely with what Apple supposedly highlights as their values. It seems they’re not so good after all. For one, I’m happy about Apple Intelligence, like Microsoft Recall it felt kind of creepy.

The DMA has nothing to do with privacy, it’s about fixing platforms to open up. you’re thinking of GDPR or something else.

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