EU sends Apple first DMA interoperability instructions for apps and devices
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It didn't work, they were forced to decouple it again (which was susprisingly simple), and despite the somewhat weak result for Win98 I think we can be thankful for that.
I don't want to imagine how Windows 2000 would have looked if they would have continued cementing IE6 into the frontend...
Heh ye. That was obvious BS. Wasn't there like, sometimes, it looked like IE was running as a widget inside an window? Like search or something?
If one company were to make a compelling OS as good as Windows for as cheap or cheaper, people would flock to them really fast.
We can talk about the software coupling all day, but similarly devs are going there primarily because that is where their customers are because of the cheap costs. Gaming and 3D software are notoriously Windows only because it's the only OS that has provided decent stability/features while allowing access to a competitive hardware proposition.
Now that Linux is somewhat viable, we can actually see some high-end software working there, in the 3D effects and video business.
Microsoft might be shady but at least they are providing good value. Apple is a major dickhead clamoring how much better they are while failing to actual value.
I am an Apple customer and I do think their OS is nice for many things but the reality is that outside of their laptop the value is extremely questionnable (and even for the laptop, because of RAM/SSD pricing you better have some justification for the benefit of battery life, otherwise its mostly a luxury).
But I don't think it'll hurt the Apple Watch sales all that much either, they still work very well as a fashionable accessory.
There is 3rd party software that makes the deal much better but it's ridiculous that they aren't able to provide the same quality/usefulness natively and it's added costs/frictions in the use experience.
I don't care much for the smartwatch thing (I think they are largely useless for the most part) and I believe this is exactly why Apple is trying very hard to not open up.
For smartwatch purposes, something as expensive (and with such a small life) as an Apple Watch doesn't make a lot of sense. You are spending way too much on some basic functionality and for sports tracking Apple really needs to step up to provide value matching the price.
The Apple Watch Ultra is decent but widely overpriced for what it does, even the most ardent Apple fans will say as much (like MKBHD who basically acknowledged that the Ultra primary feature was to be able to show that you had the most expensive watch from Apple).
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see a comprehensive and more open integration ecosystem for non-Apple devices, if only to encourage Apple to keep building. But it doesn’t exist now, why would I expect it to exist if Apple is also open?
It's entirely possible on Android? Pebble used to have decent integration with Android, from notifications/calls, to music controls, to sports tracking/health data. You could even get navigation integration! And that was a decade ago. That's what makes it so painful: the pebble android experience is really nice and integrates very well, while the iOS one is terrible due to the Apple lockdowns.
...yes, and that's exactly what has happened. Android has a thriving ecosystem of excellent smartwatches (Garmin, Pebble, Fitbit, Samsung & Pixel watches, etc) with lots of features (particularly around notifications and interactions with apps on the device) that are impossible to support on iOS. https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-... has some concrete details.
Most here would agree that a public API is a liability regardless. Anything you can keep private (SPI) you should.
Opening up an API that has all manner of hooks into your Apple device is going to be (obviously, I think) one of the most challenging of API to expose. While a 3rd party watch might needs these API, a whole lot of n'r-do-wells (looking at you, Meta) will likely figure out a way to exploit it in their apps.
It's a can of worms or a Pandora's Box if you will. If Apple is forced to expose these API, but only after kicking and screaming, I would not be surprised.
- They can lock the API behind entitlements that must be manually requested and reviewed by Apple
- They can lock the API behind a user approval
- They can regularly prompt the user if they still wish to share notification data with the watch (same way they do to keep giving an app localisation data)
- They could enforce that the notification is sent encrypted over bluetooth, without giving access to it to the app itself - forcing its handling to be done on-device - if they're so concerned about this.
It's also worth noting that this problem is a complete non-issue for Android, and nobody seems to believe it is an issue there...
Apple, probably due to their success and size, are trying "Make me!" as a response until, you know, someone makes them. But they're not willing to voluntarily offer these API up.
Not if the EU has anything to say about it. Apple is already in trouble for requiring prompts for 3rd party vendors, and you know that already.
Same for entitlements.
Well yeah, they're specifically in trouble for requiring prompts *only for 3rd party vendors*. The problem is that Apple treats their own platform differently. There would be _no issue_ with a prompt if the apple watch required it too. Case in point: Apple Maps has the same localisation prompt as Google Maps, and as such, there is no regulatory problems here.
Entitlements are a lot more complicated, and here the DMA isn't very clear about whether or not it's acceptable or not - it's really up to the regulator.
They are still fine to do that, but at the moment such a new feature/accessory is launched by Apple the necessary interfaces in iOS also needs to be available to competitors.
The result is that Apple will still be first with such features as they can orchestrate the launch of the feature in iOS with the product. They will still have a leg up in marketing and scale, as they will be able to market directly to their users and instantly sell in much larger volume.
They will JUST face a better balanced market where competitors will be able to catch up and match the experience.
The fact that this is causing any backlash at all is surprising. Apple still has the best cards in this game, they are just not allowed to change the rules in their favor all the time.
So if Apple (the product-company) requires changes in iOS to realize a new feature in an accessory product, the changes in iOS will have to be opened to accessory-competitors as well.
They would still be first-to-market with such new features (because they had a head-start in implementing and launching them with their accessory), they would just be facing competitors catching up over time like in every other balanced market.
I worked on public API's. If there's a justified need for a breaking change, make a new API and deprecate the old one. It can of course be harder than this, but its complication mainly comes from proper PLANNING of the action and AWARENESS of the environment.
It's an OS, let's treat it as such and not buy into this narrative how hard and unfair the world is to this trillion dollar company.
Or how about the huge fight that systemd has been (and continues to be). If we imagine a world where os init was regulated by the EU, what do we imagine the systemd integration into RedHat would have looked like? We might imagine it would have looked the same, or we could also imagine that it gets challenged and beaten down in court because it’s breaking the current open standards “for no reason”.
The world already has an open phone os with multiple hardware vendors platform. It’s called Android. What do we expect actually gets better if iOS is forced open and why is that not already an option on Android?
to be blunt, it doesn't seem to suck whenever someone designs a consumer product around it. I have DVD-Players, BluRay Players, Network Radios, all based on Linux OS, and I never have to hassle with alsa and pulse-audio. In fact I never interact with the underlying Linux, just like accessory vendors don't use linux APIs to communicate with iOS.
> If we imagine a world where os init was regulated by the EU
We don't need to imagine anything like this, the EU is not regulating any OS. The EU identified that Apple is a gatekeeper to a market and simultaneously a player there, controlling the market in its favor.
To ensure fair competition, Apple is required to ensure that it's a fair market for all players.
As stated elsewhere, Apple is still enjoying a significant advantage, because they could still develop i.e. a Airpods feature which relies on a newly developed iOS-feature, launch both simultaneously and be the only one on the market using it.
The only major impact is that they are not allowed to restrict competitors from ever catching up with them.
That market being… software development for their OS? And the features they are regulating being OS features (see “newly developed iOS feature”). So they are trying to regulate the OS then right? Like if Apple release iPhones with two OS options, “iOS Core” with not private APIs and no developer restrictions, but limited (even for Apple products) to all their things any external developer is limited to now and “iOS Apple Edition” with a model exactly like the current iOS and reserved all their “competitive advantage” features to interactions running against that OS, this clearly wouldn’t be good enough to satisfy the DMA requirements right? The goal isn’t that Apple competes “fairly” on any arbitrary platform, it’s specifically that Apple competes “fairly” on the platform that Apple puts their best features on.
> The goal isn’t that Apple competes “fairly” on any arbitrary platform, it’s specifically that Apple competes “fairly” on the platform that Apple puts their best features on.
It's about putting features on the platform which are beneficial only to other products of Apple.
The goal is that if Apple offers products on the market it is gatekeeping, it does so in a way that doesn't hinder fair competition on that market.
Apple competing on headphones for iPhones while offering features that require iOS functionality not accessible to competitors is not fair competition.
Which seems a little ridiculously narrow doesn’t it? Why does any hardware vendor have an obligation to open all of their APIs and functionality to all comers just because they open some of them? Why is selling a highly sandboxed product not a valid thing to do? And especially why is that not valid when there is an entire other half+ of the market that is completely open and exactly the sort of free for all people are apparently looking for?
Ultimately it always comes down to this. Apple is one vendor, selling one piece of hardware that runs one OS. You can not buy or run iOS on anything other than Apple supplied phones. You can not run anything on an iPhone except an Apple supplied OS. Apple does not force carriers or retailers to exclusively carry Apple phones. They don’t require hardware manufacturers to buy iOS licenses even when they sell a phone without iOS. They don’t require 3rd party iOS developers to sign exclusivity contracts when developing for iOS. They don’t fine developers for making better versions of their software for other platforms. They don’t do those things for accessory manufacturers either. Apple sells Apple phones that run Apple software in a way that Apple feels is best for that phone. Why is this a problem? Yes I understand that iPhone users who want a pebble smart watch are given a worse experience. But they don’t have to use an iPhone. Nothing at all stops them from buying any of the hundreds of Android phones on the market and having the ultimate pebble smart watch experience. This whole thing feels like the equivalent of demanding the government force GM to support CarPlay. GM has decided they don’t want to do that. They think they can sell a better product without it. That might suck for people who want a Chevy and also want to use CarPlay, but is that really unfair competition and worthy of government regulation to force GM to open up their in-car entertainment systems?
I am at a loss when people defend Apple that much. You can prefer their stuff and are free to stick to what they offer only, but there is no reason to prevent others making other choices and allow other manufacturers to compete on features.
Apple has to allow access to their OS so that others can interoperate with it, and that's that. If Apple is not happy it can go into other business where interoperability is not required like say frying pan manufacturing or whatever. But they won't because the reality is that Apple has been investing from the large supply chain and innovations of other companies since the late 90's while refusing to play ball in recent years.
In the early 2000's Apple was promoting open source and open standard, how time have changed...
Who is preventing other people from choosing an open platform and who is preventing other manufacturers from competing on that open platform? Certainly it’s not Apple. There are no requirements that app developers exclusively publish for iOS only. There are no requirements that accessory manufacturers manufacture for iPhones only. Retailers are no required to sell exclusively either iPhones or Android phones and no one is charged any per device fees for iOS even if those devices don’t ship with iOS. How does a single manufacturer with less than half of the market share and no presence on any devices other than their own prevent other people from making different choices?
> Apple has to allow access to their OS so that others can interoperate with it, and that's that.
Why though? Why is it not a valid choice to sell a highly sandboxed device that limits the access developers of additional software can have to the device hardware? Why should it be illegal to sell a device where 3rd party developers can’t run their software as root?
windows has not given me pain around audio for the longest time.
for some reason my ipad has been running smooth though, no complaint even with semi-exotic stuff
This sounds very much like an edge case. Why didn't you use Windows or MacOS on the mini PC instead? Was it because you were unable to do so?
> Or how about the huge fight that systemd has been (and continues to be).
That fight was over pretty much when Devuan and Artix formed.
> If we imagine a world where os init was regulated by the EU,
The EU would only be interested in regulating this if it were an OS init controlled by a monopoly abusing their position.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=linux%20radeon%20audio...
> Why didn't you use Windows or MacOS on the mini PC instead? Was it because you were unable to do so?
Because despite what you might assume from reading what I've written here today, I'm not against or opposed to open source and open protocol stuff. Everything I personally write I release open source. I push my own company to publish as much as we can as open protocols. I've been running some form of linux in one form or another since I first pulled down the MkLinux CDs over a 33.6 modem. I don't hate open systems. But I recognize that open systems have their own disadvantages and that a system being open doesn't inherently mean it's going to be a better experience or solution.
> The EU would only be interested in regulating this if it were an OS init controlled by a monopoly abusing their position.
And so as I've asked before in other places, what monopoly are they regulating here? If the other comments in this discussion are to be believed, iOS represents < 50% of the EU market. Not only that, but iOS represents a single os and a single hardware vendor. The only way to run iOS is to buy Apple hardware, and the only OS you can run on the Apple hardware is iOS. Meanwhile the entire rest of the cellphone market exists, has a fully open OS just like people want, and supposedly has an equal or superior experience to iPhone/iOS. Apple doesn't do anything to prevent retailers from selling non-Apple devices, they don't require app developers to sign exclusivity agreements, they don't require accessory vendors to sign exclusivity agreements. They don't require retailers to buy iOS licenses even for hardware sold without iOS. The only way one can construe Apple to have a monopoly is to say that they have a monopoly on the hardware that they manufacture. Which is a tautology. Sony has a monopoly on their TVs, Bose has a monopoly on their stereos, and Nintendo has a monopoly on their consoles. This is not a useful definition of a "market"
This supports that it seems to be an edge case.
> Because despite what you might assume from reading what I've written here today, I'm not against or opposed to open source and open protocol stuff.
And the point of asking what I did was to point out maybe you wouldn't be able to get as far as you did without linux; certainly macos wasn't an option, right? Not a modern version at least. Why criticize an area linux is falling short when you're preferred OS isn't even an option? It just doesn't make sense in this context.
> And so as I've asked before in other places, what monopoly are they regulating here?
Are you the same type of person who would argue never had a monopoly because Apple and Netscape were available?
That’s an awful lot of assumptions about both what I’m doing and what my preferences are based on the fact that I’m defending Apple having private APIs. To answer those assumptions:
1) my preferred OS for projects is actually Linux, because as I said I don’t hate open standards. Where I can get a better experience, or where I feel the trade offs are worth it, I prefer to start with an open resource
2) both macOS and windows would have been viable options for the project
3) in the project space, windows is actually the preferred os (or the one with the most general support anyway), but it’s not my preference (again see 1)
4) I’m criticizing an area where Linux is falling short because I’m using it as an example of open systems and standards not being some panacea or guarantee of a better experience. If open automatically meant better, one should be able to have a superior experience on Linux for this project. And yet…
> Are you the same type of person who would argue never had a monopoly because Apple and Netscape were available?
I assume you’re talking about Microsoft here, and no I’m would not argue they didn’t have a monopoly. But surely you can see the difference between a software vendor having 95% of the market for operating systems across multiple competing hardware vendors ( and that same software vendor forcing hardware vendors to buy licenses even for hardware that doesn’t include the OS) and a single vendor of both a piece of phone hardware that only runs one os and that same os which only runs on that hardware (both from the same vendor) who has less than half of the market for phones in general and does nothing to discourage retailers and sellers of their phones from selling competing products.
Bad example. It's a bad example because in order to achieve that Linux has has many, many sound API's over the years. Most of them interacted in bad ways. Often the new boy on the block had emulate all the previous ones to have a hope of being adopted. If a great, reliable sound system depended on the ability to iterate on API's Linux's should have been stellar in very short order.
That said, Linux's sound is very good now. Echoing other responses here, it's now much better than MacOS. Given your your "easy and painless" comment about it, I'm wondering it you've used a modern mac. "You can't hear me? Wait, while I turn sound off and or, restart the app, restart the laptop" is a very familiar ritual now work forces me to use a mac.
As for standard's causing ossification - you're wrong on that too. What causes ossification is a wide deployment. Once it's out there you can't change the API without breaking all the deployments. Yes, a successful standard means it's been widely deployed, but it doesn't cause it. Apple has so many watches out there it can't make breaking changes to the API it uses to talk to the iPhone. Publishing that API as a standard doesn't change that.
The way you fix API fragility isn't by avoiding standards. A successful API will become a defacto standard - whether you want it to or not. You fix the issue by designing your API's so they can be upgraded. This is why Google's Protocol Buffers allow you to add stuff at the end, and IP has a version field. Without those things API's based on Protocol Buffers would be hard to change, and we could never have had IPv6.
Yes, that was the point. A public API in use by its very nature will have negative impacts on future development of that API. Or as I put it in the original comment: "Open protocols are great but they are also absolutely a hinderance on change"
> Apple has so many watches out there it can't make breaking changes to the API it uses to talk to the iPhone. Publishing that API as a standard doesn't change that.
They can, all they have to do is push out an update for those watches. That's the point. Because that API is private an exclusively used by Apple and Apple's software, they can replace it as many times as they want provided they are willing to push the updates. On the other hand, if hundreds of third parties are using that API independently, even if they push an update they still have to contend with a whole ecosystem of products that will or won't update on whatever schedule those developers feel like operating on. Apple already catches a bunch of flak for the speed at which they update and abandon their current public APIs, hardly an incentive to also open up their private APIs.
> Without those things API's based on Protocol Buffers would be hard to change, and we could never have had IPv6.
I'm not sure I'd call the transition to IPv6 an example of a resounding success of fast iteration on a change to a protocol or API. It's only been 30 years and we're still using IPv4 for most things and slapping band-aid upon band-aid on the problems, never mind the list of headache switching to exclusive IPv6 (for example, unless something has changed recently, you still can't use DHCPv6 to manage IPs for android devices)
And my point was I don't agree. It's not that it's public. It's that it's in use.
> They can, all they have to do is push out an update for those watches.
An update they can't be sure every watch has done. The usual solution is to that situation is to plan for it from day 1, design the watches so the very first ones you release can detect that's happened, and when it has issue an error message like "sorry, you'll have to update your watch to continue". Compare to: you design an API, as part of the design it queries what version the servers support, and issues a message like "your new end point doesn't support me any more, you need to upgrade something". Sounds very similar, doesn't it?
Example: ssh will stop running if your old client connects to a new server. It's a public API.
Example: SSL/TLS has moved through multiple incompatible versions. It's a very public API.
So apparently the API being public didn't stop transitioning to new, incompatible versions when the need arose. What will stop it is not designing your API with upgrades in mind. If you don't do that, you will end up in a world of pain regardless of whether the API is public or not.
You say it slows things down, but that's not necessarily correct either. Apple can continue to update it's API's and devices at any rate it pleases. If the 3rd party devices don't updates fast enough to follow, well that's their problem.
And an API that isn't public can have its use restricted to a controlled set of environments and places, which inherently makes it easier to update.
> Apple can continue to update it's API's and devices at any rate it pleases. If the 3rd party devices don't updates fast enough to follow, well that's their problem.
Until the EU decides that a public API that changes without warning and "arbitrarily" to suit Apple's needs is also anti-competitive. An argument that would easily be made the first time Apple shipped an update to the API that broke a bunch of third party devices even while their own devices continued to work fine because they received an update at the same time, or even early in preparation.
Again, my argument is not that it is impossible to make a public API or to transition that API. My argument is that a public API by its very nature often implies a slower pace of change. Even in your examples, SSL and TLS upgrades often happen over many years, with deprecated older versions being supported along side the current version for a while.
In fact, TLS is a great example of this, where TLS 1.1 had fixed the vulnerabilities that made the BEAST attacks possible, and yet in 2011, when BEAST was discovered, it was still a problem because in 5 years, TLS1.1 still hadn't had a lot of adoption. Or consider that TLS 1.3 has been out since 2018, and yet I can still connect to this very site using TLS 1.1 with weak encryption keys. In fact, if I change firefox to require TLS 1.3, I can't even connect to this site. Or consider further that initial TLS 1.3 rollout was hampered by middle layers that had implemented the spec badly (https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-tls-1-3-isnt-in-browsers-yet...).
Again these are not insurmountable problems, but they are problems inherent with a public API or protocol that multiple vendors are implementing, and problems that Apple either does not have to deal with, or deals with on a much smaller scale with their private internal APIs and therefore can move faster when iterating on those APIs.
The usual solution is not to break the existing API, but to add new features and deprecate old ones. I doubt the EU will demand Apple not improve their API's.
The EU may have something to say about the rate Apple drops of depreciated API's. Maintaining them does impose a burden, but it can't be that bad as Linux, Windows and Android have maintained old API's for literally decades, so I'm sure Apple would cope.
Or to put it another way, the fact that Apple has to support a depreciated API for a while doesn't mean they are forced to use it. If they want to make a change, they publish their shiny new API and move to it immediately. The existence of the old one doesn't need to slow Apple down at all.
> In fact, TLS is a great example of this
If you're using it as an example of how a public API can't evolve then it's a lousy example. TLS did evolve, and fairly rapidly. The fact that some people elected to stay with the old version doesn't change that.
Frankly for most people BEAST didn't matter, as what they were doing on the internet didn't need a lot of security. But when it did matter, like say for a bank, then you were forced to upgrade. And guess what - that new browser still worked with old sites that support the new version. So some people chose to not move didn't slow the protocol's evolution at all. I think you are confusing the rate of adoption of something new, and the rate new things can arise and change. They are at best vaguely related.
And to state the obvious, the old SSL API's being public had no effect on speed of the introduction a new version, which is the opposite of what you seem to be claiming.
So you agree then that a public API would likely necessitate a slower pace of change. It’s good to finally get on the same page.
> If you're using it as an example of how a public API can't evolve then it's a lousy example.
I agree, so it’s a good thing I have never once claimed that a public API can’t evolve, or that would have been a terrible example of that. In fact that argument would be completely ridiculous in the face of a number of APIs that have absolutely evolved in public.
What my argument is and always has been since the beginning is that a public API imposed costs on that evolution and almost certainly implies a slower pace of change. And TLS absolutely backs that up. If you want to use TLS1.3 everywhere, you can’t. If you don’t want any sites to use TLS1.1 anymore, you can’t make that happen either. And the folks that make TLS can’t do anything about that either.
Not at all. The pace of change is determined by how fast you introduce new API's. Apple in particular can change API's the iPhone talks to their watches as fast as they want, because they control both ends. Them publishing the protocol has absolutely no effect on that.
> What my argument is and always has been since the beginning is that a public API imposed costs on that evolution and almost certainly implies a slower pace of change.
Despite everything you've said here, I still don't know what those costs are beyond maintaining deprecated API's and documenting the API.
> If you want to use TLS1.3 everywhere, you can’t.
You're not Apple. Trust me, if Apple decided their watches and phones should only connect using TLS 1.3, then that's what would happen on the next release. You apparently are claiming being forced to publish they are now using TLS 1.3 would slow them down, but haven't offered a shred of evidence or a coherent reason on why that would be so.
On looking back, you haven't said anything new in this reply - you just repeated the same assertions. Sadly I have said anything new either, which means it's time to move on.
If you're also wondering whether Apple being mildly inconvenienced matters for the EU court or most users in general: honestly no.
They're at fault in the first place, and if for a new feature that took 2 years to build, users have to wait some extra months because of that decision, so be it IMHO. That has always been happening with the US only launch features, and nobody's been crying a river.
unless you are saying you have inside knowledge about the amount of refactoring and new development necessary to comply, that would be fascinating to hear more about
such restrictions would be likely to spill over into customer impact
> you’re speculating
which is essentially the same as providing an estimate in a work setting
so… yes
They are now no longer allowed to play like that, so that maybe adds a new burden to them compared to before. But I wouldn't chime in on the framing how much they are suffering from that...
After TikTok getting banned(postponed for now) in US for national security reasons, and after US cutting military support and intelligence in Ukraine I was expecting for things to start rolling by now.
They already start doing things on the military side of things with restricting the military equipment purchases to EU only with exceptions granted on the basis that foreign supplier should NOT have a way to shut down equipment use(be it a Killswitch, political pressure or supply chain control).
If USA decides to side with Russia on the invasion of Europe or maybe just annexing Greenland, they can shut down EU telecommunications or air propaganda messaging over Apple/Google devices or platforms and other social media platforms.
What worked for Russia and China was to restrict their markets and guarantee opportunities for homegrown alternatives.
I still expect for EU and pretty much all the world to end up doing this. I'm not enjoying it, I don't want things to go this way but no way that EU can afford giving full communications control to a hostile country.
Tough times ahead, this DMA stuff was the right approach last year. Sometime in the next 4 year a private company will be used to do something acutely military or political to EU like they did in Ukraine and enough people will panic and a similar response will be generated.
IMHO Apple will be served better if they play ball and make themselves useless for public warfare purposes and ensure continued access to EU market even if it means potential losses on services revenue. This will give them opportunity to say that you can just use EU services and keep buying the iPhones.
USA is still part of the NATO, siding with Russia while it hits any of the NATO member will be a problem beyond shutting down EU telecommunications.
Now if your question is whether the EU can sustain an open war with the US and Russia simultaneously, I honestly don't think so, irrelevant to whether Apple/Google sabotage their EU infra or not.
I naively think it would need to get China on its side, but that sounds like the literal end of the world.
The moral of the story is, if people don't feel like getting invaded you actually can't. There are a very few places that were successfully invaded, like Northern Cyprus or Crimea but those already had significant ethnic population with ties to the invaders.
Obviously it's very damaging and obviously some powers attempt to invade but I don't think that there's a credible case to just give up. Also, that argument is a good example of why EU should control its own communications.
So the only option an actual war would happen is IMHO extremely violent and short-lived, Hiroshima/Nagasaki levels of impact. I don't know how that would happen, and also don't want to know, but I see it at some rhetorical probability.
It won't be easy but considering what Huawei was able to accomplish in 5 short years, it definitely isn't impossible, we just need political will and a minimum amount of funding behind it.
I enjoy the US technologies but there is no reason we can't do as well (if not better with the benefits of hindsight) and we definitely should work on that.
I was one of the French minitel critics, but it now seems like they were just wrong on the technical part, not the political side. Even if something might be inferior at some point, it seems like it's worth taking a hit to be able to control your own future.
That most of these capabilities exist at all reflects Apple’s belief that they’re a way to differentiate their (closed) ecosystem through vertical integration. If the EU takes that away, Apple’s motivation to invest in these areas for EU customers goes away, too.
We already see it in another regulatory regime, with AI features coming much later to the EU, if at all.
It isn't hard at all. "Develop stuff the way we want, or lose sales" is really not a hard decision at all. Funny how you end up with an answer that defies all common and business sense
> with AI features coming much later to the EU, if at all.
They are coming despite all of Apple's posturing, and on a schedule that was already determined before all the posturing.
I think the wants (of the EU buyers) are far less homogeneous than the group of open integration activists make it look like, so there's no "we". We hear the opinions of the vocal ones and based on those voices regulation is enacted, but nothing changes for the silent majority. However, a lot of people in the EU may start caring if they can no longer buy what they want just because of the vocal few, and they may stop being silent about it when it touches them.
Sure, most people don't care. That's the case for every regulation - policy is made by activists. Better than by corporations any day.
That was my point. There is no "we".
>That's the case for every regulation - policy is made by activists.
Maybe, but when regulation made by activists starts touching the lives of people that don't care about the thing activists want, they may not like the idea of activists deciding for them. So far all the companies regulated by EU have accepted the regulation - we don't know how most people will react if suddenly something they want is not available to them because of a minority that think their expertise is above their wants.
That's not just any regulation, that's any act of government.
> we don't know how most people will react if suddenly something they want is not available to them because of a minority that think their expertise is above their wants.
My best guess, tbh, is apathy. That's rather why they're not activists in the first place.
Exactly. A few people want interoperability and everyone accepts it because they don't care since it doesn't affect their lives. I'm not a policy expert, but this seems a bit like riding the high horse. The answer to "what's best for others" should not be "that which we want for ourselves" regardless of expertise.
We're not talking about regulation improving human lives in general. We're talking about regulation that will stick it to foreign companies we think are too big, in the name of enabling competition, which will again, due to the real reasons for EU tech decline, come from the USA.
Do unto others what you would do unto yourself and all that.
On top of that, a lot of people want interoperability, they just don't know how to express it in terms that the regular highly technical divorced from reality crowd on HN understands.
An anecdote: My mom has used Apple's Books it since it first came out. Apple keeps redesigning the app, and making it worse and more cumbersome to use. Even if there is an app that better suits my mom, I can't recommend it to her because Apple in its infinite wisdom does not let you change the default epub reader on iOS/iPadOS.
And it's just on anecdote out of hundreds. There won't be a single person who wants all of the interoperability. There will be multiple people with multiple different requirements for interoperability. From epub readers to navigation apps to Pebble watches (https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...).
Too bad they can't express their wishes in terms of "we want interoperability", and instead express them in terms of "why the hell Apple redesigned Books again" and "why can't Pebble show notifications". Then their wishes don't count, apparently.
> We're not talking about regulation improving human lives in general. We're talking about regulation that will stick it to foreign companies we think are too big
How did "Let's make platforms more open to increase competition and the umber of things people can do on those platforms" become "it's bad, and only exists to stick it to big US companies" is beyond my understanding (and defies all logic, if we're honest).
Sure, let's just have supranational companies create walled gardens with arbitrary rules. Nothing bad has ever come out of that.
I think that means to treat others as you’d like to be treated when you interact, not actively do to people what you’d like others to do to you. “I know what’s best for you and I’m going to make sure it happens” is a threat to most people, I’d say, and that was my point about regulation enacted by expert groups without public vote.
> An anecdote: My mom has used Apple's Books it since it first came out.
When my mom was fed up with lack of a specific game (can’t remember which) on her iPhone, she switched to Android and hasn’t looked back since. No additional regulation was necessary and nobody was left behind.
> Sure, let's just have supranational companies create walled gardens with arbitrary rules. Nothing bad has ever come out of that.
Only when monopoly was involved.
I’m not against interoperability, but I think it’s wierd to force anyone into it, be it a company, or a consumer, since nobody is in a monopolistic position, and everyone has a choice. When people have a choice they can make it as they wish, and they do, that’s why Apple is not in a dominant position - because people can make a choice.
The thing that’s funny to me is that regulation now caters to people that want a specific device type with specific functionality dictated by government allegedly on behalf of the average consumer.
How is "let's make a platform more open and interoperable" a threat to anyone?
> When my mom was fed up with lack of a specific game (can’t remember which) on her iPhone, she switched to Android
"I know what's best for you: you must switch to Android". The irony.
> Only when monopoly was involved.
Word of the day: duopoly.
When there are only two platforms, and the world is very much dependent on them for a huge chunk of people's lives (to the point that banks refuse to support other platforms), it's strange to claim that a requirement for interoperability is a threat, or is forcing someone to do something, or is bad, or shouldn't be done.
Just listen to yourself. At which point did simple things like "setting default apps" or "letting apps use OS-level functionality" become "threats", "weird to force" and "government dictate"?
BTW. This is literally one of the government functions: to dictate and force common ground, interoperability, common standards etc.
It's not and I never said it was. I was replying to your "do unto others" quote which I find is not applicable in this case: I think in regulatory cases you shouldn't assume you know what's best for others (let them vote instead). So, if you say "we're a group of experts, we know you don't need product X, so we're pushing for additional taxation of it" it's a threat. Sorry if I was not clear enough the first time.
But on another note, if I was selling a product based on exclusivity, would regulation forcing me to ditch the exclusive part not threaten my business if it was its main selling point? If people have a choice to buy something else, who am I hurting here and how?
> "I know what's best for you: you must switch to Android". The irony.
I was just trying to illustrate that she had a choice. I personally don't think regulation demanding that a game publisher either publish on every platform or on none in order not to discriminate users is needed or positive.
> Word of the day: duopoly.
First it was monopoly. Now it's duopoly. Tell me, when there are 3 dominating companies, will there be a "triopoly"?
> This is literally one of the government functions: to dictate and force common ground, interoperability, common standards etc.
This makes sense in a lot of cases, but less so when people have choices.
My quote was in relation to the context about some unnamed activists and expertise that is somehow harmful to people.
> if I was selling a product based on exclusivity, would regulation forcing me to ditch the exclusive part not threaten my business if it was its main selling point?
Depends on the product, of course. E.g. you can sell an exclusive phone, and companies like Vertu made good money on it. What you can't do is make it non-interoperable with other phones, or phone networks, or...
> I was just trying to illustrate that she had a choice. I personally don't think regulation demanding that a game publisher
In short response you've now come up with the following attempts at analogies: additional taxation, game publishing, triopoly...
And none of them are applicable in this case.
> First it was monopoly. Now it's duopoly.
If you were discussing this in good faith, you wouldn't have typed this. I never claimed Apple was a monopoly. The EU never claimed it was a monopoly.
I described the situation as it exists, and why this regulation appeared. Yes, if there's a third company with the same size, influence, and problems, it will also be subject to the same regulation.
Since you are a fan of analogies: just like car manufacturers are subject to standards and regulations, and electronics manufacturers, and construction companies, and ship builders, and airlines, and food companies, and...
Why is this such a difficult concept to wrap your head around when it comes to supranational corporations, is beyond me.
While also ignoring the simple facts that people do want interoperability, and that it's government's literal job to enforce standards and interoperability.
Stuff like that is why I can never use Apple products. It's my device, not theirs; I own it, I'm not renting it. Let me do what I want with it. Or be honest and rent it out to people instead.
When a modern Apple device stops getting updates, for all intent and purpose it is mostly a useless brick to most people. The saving grace of their older computers was that they could run alternative OS because they used a mostly compliant PC architecture, but with Apple Silicon it's not even on the table anymore.
It's like if a car manufacturer could decide exactly the date at which will stop using the car, no matter how many miles you put on it or how useful it is to you in the current situation.
That's why I think it should be regulated, and don't find the arguments about stifling innovation to ever be convincing.
Even though Amazon is not a great actor in the field, they still manage to be not as bad as Apple so people went there.
In any case, there is something fundamentally broken with ebooks, because of DRM. Because you know, somehow you weren't able to share books before. I know that don't "lose" your copy when you share digitally but for all intent, once a book has been read it is "consumed" the residual value it has for the owner is very little and mostly about archiving or collecting.
Sadly, as with many things of modern Apple they had a bad influence on the market and they continue to do so and it is especially aggravating since, like you explained, their software isn't even good anymore. iBooks and macOS is just as bad, if not worse, which is something.
E.g. changing default navigation app: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-default-ma...
--- start quote ---
> The upcoming iOS 18.4 update introduces an option to set a default navigation app, other than Apple Maps, but unfortunately this new setting is limited to users in the EU.
This one seems kind of spiteful. I get that Apple doesn’t want to make sideloading available throughout the world just because the EU and Brazil have mandated it, but they’re going to hide the very useful maps setting in countries that don’t have a DMA?
--- end quote ---
And what exactly will people not buy because of activists?
Here's however, the counterexample of "companies are so good for customers why do activists try to ruin a good thing": https://mastodon.nu/@mentese@mastodon.world/1141937468220224...
--- start quote ---
I’ve been an owner of Volvo’s like since I can afford to buy my own cars. Nowadays the full Volvo experience can only be achieved with a Google Account and log-in.
For me it was the end of Volvo’s in my garage and I switched brands.
--- end quote ---
I think that was my reply to a post about Apple exiting the EU market (completely unlikely IMO, since that would reduce profits), which may cause those unable to buy what they want to question the sensibility of specific regulation.
> "companies are so good for customers why do activists try to ruin a good thing"
I don't think anyone said that. But enacting regulation forcing Volvo to give you a full experience without Google Account login is just acting a step too late if you already bought it, or taking a step too far if you'd like to buy it but don't like it enough, and are now demanding they change it.
Translation: no one should demand sensible things from companies ever. Because it's either too late, or too far.
How has the world, especially the tech world, become so enamoured with corporations, walled gardens, and the idea that nothing done by any corporation can ever be challenged?
Are you trying to make a career of misunderstanding my replies? Or am I just really that bad at writing?
_People_, potential buyers, are _supposed_ to demand sensible things from companies. By voting with their money. Does that not work anymore?
No, I'm just looking past the florid language. You've literally said that regulation is useless because it's either too late or too far.
There's probably some fantastical perfect moment when regulation is just right, but it will never come because there will always be people for whom regulation is either too late, or too far.
> _People_, potential buyers, are _supposed_ to demand sensible things from companies. By voting with their money. Does that not work anymore?
It has never worked. At least not to the extent people pretend it's working.
If the car market is such that all car manufacturers are in a way colluding with Google to require such login, that's different and should already be regulated (if not, regulate). But if another manufacturer will sell me what I want, I fail to see the issue for me as a consumer.
But, I'm not against regulation per se (as you've accused me of), so I'm not ready to die on this hill :) You may be right after all.
Just compare how Apple cripples third party smartwatches on ios.
This is FUD from Apple fanboys, Apple delayed their shit in UK and other non EU countries. Apple was probably incapable to release those AI features at the same time in more then a few countries.
And guess what, OpenAI , Anthropic and other AI companies will for sure try to replace Siri and Apple will try to avoid that and hopefully would pay fair and not cripple competitors.
I am from EU and I am not missing any AI providers, maybe some alpha/beta stuff that launches first in USA before they add the features about protecting the privacy of the user or until the lawyers are done rewording the ToS on how they sell your data but word it as a good thing.
Macron in France and the current German government are centre right. Poland is socially way to the right. Baltics, Scandinavia, Italy, all pretty right wing.
Only Putinistas support what the US is doing with Trump, which is to say, almost no one in Europe.
He's literally a former investment banker who's been trying to dismantle the welfare state, lower taxes, increase business friendliness, etc... He's also been tough on immigration lately. Not sure in what world any of this would be considered leftist policies...
Apple doesn't have the market share it has in the US - it's at 33% in the EU compared to 57% in the US. Sure, they are popular, but they are still just another phone brand. They simply don't have enough hardcore fans to make a huge impact on a political level.
The EU doesn't have the same kind of large-scale quasi-religious "all government bad" movement seen in the US. People may be skeptical about some details of some government regulation, but in general it is understood that consumer protection regulation actually protects the consumer. Calling the EU evil for this isn't going to work.
Due to Trump's recent political movements there is a huge anti-US sentiment, especially around US tech companies. We're seeing near-unanimous support for governments exploring ways of getting rid of Microsoft and Amazon, and even tech-illiterate Boomers are asking me if I switched to Signal yet. (For context, WhatsApp is universally adopted here - even my 95-year-old grandma is on it!) People aren't going to trust Apple, simply because it is American.
So no, I don't think Apple will be able to successfully paint a picture like that. They could try, but they would just be made fun of in late-night talkshows.
It will hurt their competitiveness and sales, but that’s a relatively small price to pay vs. giving up the product design culture they’ve honed for almost 50 years.
That's an interesting way to phrase not supporting non-Apple interoperability.
The flexibility and agility you have when the only engineering constraints are internal are night and day vs. having to evolve a documented external spec with interop requirements.
As an EU citizen, I don't like everything they do, but the DMA is rocking as otherwise we'll end up with 5-10 companies basically running all technology and way less competition.
It's very interesting to me that so many people claim to be in favour of competition but don't like laws like the DMA.
They don't support everything, but to say they don't support interoperability is silly.
But they also need to support the updates to these standards, rather than purposely holding it back to push people to their own services which are not open.
Then the requirements will be adjusted.
Because it's a huge wealthy market.
After all, in which other market are they expected to grow? China already shifts to domestic brands, and other regions lack the purchasing power.
The precedent set by the USB C is in line with Apple complying.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/16/slimmer-iphones-without...
For iPhone Pro, USB-c has uses beyond charging, e.g. SSDs for video recording, or desktop docking as macOS and iOS converge with VisionOS.
Just open it up and let people sideload - 90% won't do it anyway and it'll cause people to switch from Android, which is a lot more prevalent in Europe
You mean that Apple will fight this war over the user's back?
That's one more reason to not buy Apple.
Sorry, "abuse of power" is what that's called and all the more reason to fight it.
Not because the alternatives are better, but just because the exceptions that were made from valid legislation will not be prolonged in face of the “New American Way”.
All hinges on the future of the TDPF.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/tech/news/deafening-commiss...
Lots of public servants will have to suffer through Linux desktops.
How successful this all will be, another question.
But if Apple cripple their devices further I think a lot more of their core user base will be willing to try an Android, depending on what features they axe. If they make iPhones inconvenient in addition to somewhat lagging behind the market, all they'd have left is their brand and marketing and that's about to take a beating in the looming tariff wars.
No, I think they may do a little of that for symbolics and they certainly will throw a lot of fits but ultimately they'll just comply and that will be that.
That's not Apple that's everyone. Computers randomly crashing hasn't been a thing for a long time.
If you have a business, every new jurisdiction you do business in requires you to register as a business and comply with their tax/labor laws.
They stole from european and american tax payers.
I think it is really good if Apple becomes weaker in the EU, more space for other competitors to step in...
I don't want their shitty OS, but I like their hardware.
Unfortunately, the law makers prefer to cement oligopolies (Android-iPhone), instead of installing fines for not documentating how their hardware works.
What does make sense - to me anyway - is for Apple to embrace Linux because they'd sell a lot more Macs. I assume there are many thousands of developers like me that detest macOS and won't even consider a Mac. But like you said, Apple is making some amazing hardware these days. I would buy a Mac if Linux was well supported.
Apple did just fine in the early days when their hardware and software was open source. But while it got them up and running, it's not a viable business model to get to be a multi trillion dollar company. It became understood in tech that the way to be profitable was to make your competitors stack a commodity.
I say that as someone that prefers to use Linux.
Out of millions of buyers. Developers are almost an irrelevant demography to consider for such a fundamental change.
Not Linux, but any Operating System. They just have to publish the documentation of how the hardware works.
If that was the case, I think they'd have done it a long time ago. It is more likely that keeping users on Apple-controlled operating systems brings them more profit
Selling more hardware would be profitable, and a user being able to dual boot into Linux wouldn't reduce any revenue.
They identified something more abstract and much less arguable:
They identified that Apple has created a closed market of significant size, made themselves the gatekeeper and invited companies to compete there.
But ON TOP Apple decided to enter the market also as a player, and skew the playing field in their favor.
So it's an unjust market where forces are unable to flow freely, and the EU is attempting to rectify that.
They wouldn't be in this mess if their behavior wasn't so unfair and anti-competition. The worst is that Apple could very well compete on their own merits (I think their solutions have a lot of benefits, the problem is their ability to dictate pricing because of said behavior).
It is completely insane that Apple has the right to dictate how I want to use my device and restrict its capabilities/access under the pretense that they know better than me what's good for me. People who want to do everything the Apple way are free to do so but people who would like freedom to use their devices as they see fit (and potentially give access to Apple designated bad actors) should be free to do so.
The same thing happened to car companies and now everybody agrees it was for the better, making big tech comply with the same rules is past due.
The hilarious part is that Apple complained about the same things when Microsoft was the dominant player, displaying their hypocrisy in play sight.
I can make my own decisions about which platforms and software to use, thank you very much. I don’t need or want EU to force companies to build software and products a certain way for some pipe-dream goal of making everything "interoperable."
And if anything, given that EU has repeatedly failed to implement sensible tech regulation, why should the same institution have the authority to dictate how tech businesses build their products?
I’m completely convinced that no one at the EU wants to micro manage any of this. But they have to. Because Apple has been failing to read the room for years.
Very few startups (innovative or otherwise) will ever come close to that. Only a handful of companies globally are subject to these regulations.
That doesn't make sense to me and this is what will be fixed.
Apple fanboys, no need to worry!
If you’re in the US, all these features will be geoblocked, so you can enjoy your walled garden as much as you like. If you’re in the EU, just stick to Apple products and avoid any alternatives.