Apple Gets EU Warning to Open Up iPhone Operating System | Hacker News Reader

Apple Gets EU Warning to Open Up iPhone Operating System

bloomberg.com

23 pointsyett26 comments

Finally someone is doing something about Apple's abusive practices.

The support of abusive monopolistic practices around here is something else though. Temporarily-embarrassed-tech-billionaire syndrome is the only explanation.

> Apple's abusive practices

which abusive practices are you referring to?

Locking down access to NFC to smother competition to Apple Pay comes to mind.

Hard to see that as “abusive”…

Disagree. They're abusing a monopoly in one market to push their product in another. It's very much illegal in EU competition law.

that was already settled. this article is about other things.

I mean what else is Europe going to do? Develop its own successful products?

That's difficult, without openness or protectionism. How do you compete with iOS without supporting iOS apps, iCloud, and iMessage blue bubbles? The switching costs (practical, and psychological) are too high.

Android competes very healthily with Apple in the EU!

Android is at nearly 70% OS market share: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe/

[I say this as a keen iOS user]

Android isn't competing with iOS. Apple users stay Apple users, mostly, and Android users stay Android users. Android manufacturers are competing with each other, but iPhones are their own thing.

I'm an "Apple user" that switched from iPhone/iPad/Apple Watch to Android alternatives; while remaining a happy user of Macbooks.

The statement doesn't make sense because people don't keep 2 phones in their pocket, or 2 smart watches, and rarely have 2 tablets that are actively used. And people definitely move between ecosystems. Choosing one excludes the other, and they have equivalents for each product type.

Hence they are direct competitors.

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The real problem is that the mobile OS & app store market is a stable duopoly.

"How do you compete with iOS without supporting iOS apps, iCloud, and iMessage blue bubbles?"

You build good alternatives for each of those.

That rarely works with monopolies.

Ask Microsoft, who tried developing Windows Mobile after the market was taken over by iOS and Android. Or who still tries competing with Chrome without much success, despite it being pushed on Windows as the default, with annoying settings and ads included. Nevermind that they gave up developing their own engine because they couldn't keep up.

Microsoft has been doing various flavors of mobile OS development since LONG before iOS or Android. The first release of Windows CE was back in 1996, roughly contemporary with PalmOS and Apple's NewtonOS.

Indeed, which makes their failure even more glaring, strengthening the argument that the mobile OS market is now an impenetrable duopoly.

Nokia and BlackBerry found that out as well.

Look, either you force everyone to be open to competition and interoperable or you allow everyone to lock down. How would you like all other manufacturers to do the same as Apple? BMW, VW, Ford, Mercedes, GM ec all have their own petrol stations, their own approved roads, their own approved tyres, their own approved parking spots. LG, Samsung, GE, Panasonic etc each require their own electricity distributor, their own wiring and plugs, for the washing machine their own approved clothes, for the fridge and cooking appliances their own food and cookware. Each emplyoyer requires you to buy their approved apparel and use their own aplhabet and writing system. And YOU get to pay for it all.

I want Apple to have competition, but I also don't want Apple to lose its unique advantages, which mostly come through the tight vertical integration between hardware and software.

If I don't want tight vertical integration, I could easily buy any number of Android devices.

EU regulators want to compromise vertical integration, which means depriving consumers of a legitimate choice many of them make.

> EU regulators want to compromise vertical integration

No. Apple somehow convinced people that: "our products work great with each other" *must* somehow involve: "we won't let competing brands work well with our products". Slick marketing!

The EU's warning involves the iPhone's interoperability with other watches and headphones when it comes to "notifications, device pairing and connectivity" (quoting Euronews). For example, you can reply to texts from an Apple Watch, not a Garmin (it works fine on Android). That's an arbitrary software restriction.

Nobody is forcing you to buy an iPhone.

This seems like such a gross overstep by the EU. What's next, they push for macOS being installable on every PC?

With regard to the idea that Apple should stop selling iOS devices in the EU: https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenu...

Is this Poe's law? That does sound like a very reasonable requirement (albeit perhaps relatively low priority).

To be clear, I would love to be able to install macOS on any PC. As a former Mackintosh user, I'm not excited about drivers, but I'd love to see it nonetheless.

But pushing Apple to make iOS available on other phone hardware is a massive undertaking. iOS is developed for a very constrained hardware set. When you move away from that and the optimizations thereof, what's left? It's a major distraction, you'll either get a much worse experience on other hardware, or the general polish and performance of iOS takes a nose dive. I don't see why Apple would spend the money to support this the way it would need to be supported rather than leave.

> But pushing Apple to make iOS available on other phone hardware

Wait where are you getting this from?

> While the announcement is a step shy of being a formal investigation, the EU aims to compel Apple to re-engineer its services to allow rival companies to access the iPhone’s operating system. One of the aims of the DMA is to ensure that other developers can gain access to key iPhone features, such as its Siri voice commands and its payments chip.

It sounds more like pushing Apple to open some APIs and allow for some more integrations, which seems much more reasonable than your interpretation.

I had interpreted “the EU aims to compel Apple to re-engineer its services to allow rival companies to access the iPhone’s operating system” to mean that they want other phone manufacturers to be able to install iOS on their phones. I agree that your interpretation is much more reasonable.

I'd like to see Apple hold back more of its technology from EU users, in order that we can finally get some political pressure on the EU and their innovation-stifling over-regulation.

We're already likely to see hold-back with Apple Intelligence.

But will it be enough for citizens to pressure lawmakers?

Due to the process of law-making in the EU it's very hard for citizens to exert their will on lawmakers.

In the EU, law can only originate from the Commission, which operates behind closed doors, and comprises entirely of unelected bureaucrats (often unpopular former member-state politicians). The Commission then pushes its edicts, repeatedly if necessary, through a "Parliament" of careerist politicians until they approve it.

Here in the UK we tried, and failed, to help the EU to reform its democratic structures and burdens.

Our only remaining option was to leave this political project, and since then, we proved that the sky does not fall within a country that leaves the EU. We have secured a number of trade deals with countries outside the EU, including Japan and Australia, we have seen increased foreign direct investment, sustained low unemployment compared to many EU nations and a stabilising currency.

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