EU accuses Google and Apple of stifling competition under Digital Markets Act
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This might be incorrect but I thought Linux lives is Portland, Oregon.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/linustorvalds/
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From a European perspective: the only thing that the DMA has achieved is that you can now install porn apps on iPhones, via third party app stores. Which, of course, hoover up user data to a degree that would not be permitted in Apple's App Store.
That's the whole point.
Spotify and Epic lobbied for this, because they found the App Store too restrictive for the degree of privacy abuses that are beneficial to their businesses.
Regulation is a Good Thing, but the only thing regulators in the EU have achieved with Apple is to make their devices less secure, and compromise privacy.
That's the whole point.
Spotify and Epic lobbied for this, because they found the App Store too restrictive for the degree of privacy abuses that are beneficial to their businesses.
Regulation is a Good Thing, but the only thing regulators in the EU have achieved with Apple is to make their devices less secure, and compromise privacy.
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Funny to see how all the pro-EU/DMA comments happened from about 5-8 PM in American time, when Americans are getting off work and have time to sit down and make comments, and then suddenly there's a whole slew of anti-EU comments starting around 8-9 AM for Beijing / East Russia, almost like a bunch of paid government trolls got up and started their workday 
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Am I the only one scratching their head on the iOS access for headphone manufacturers item? I'm having a tough time imagining what that might be targeting.
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A few more observations:
I find it perfectly understandable that much of the discussion revolves around the madman on the throne.
But the subject matter is not. It's about how regulation affects people here in Europe.
The crucial point for me is not the 'what' - protecting user privacy and fair competition are fundamentally good things.
It's the 'how' - the EC's DMA has failed miserably in achieving anything actually beneficial for us end users.
I find it perfectly understandable that much of the discussion revolves around the madman on the throne.
But the subject matter is not. It's about how regulation affects people here in Europe.
The crucial point for me is not the 'what' - protecting user privacy and fair competition are fundamentally good things.
It's the 'how' - the EC's DMA has failed miserably in achieving anything actually beneficial for us end users.
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Arm used to belong to the UK but they sold it to the Japanese. It’s no longer a European EU company..…. The Brits have long ago, deindustrialize themselves.
But at the time of sale I think Britain was still part of the EU and yet the EU did nothing to stop the sale of something so important to the Japanese everyone connected on the European side, took the money and ran so much for being competitive in the world of tech a critical moment.
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What's to prevent the EU from demanding that Apple open up its operating system to other smart phone makers, or open up its hardware to run android? This is pure overreach by the EU. If Apple wants to run a closed ecosystem, and people are willing to buy into it, let them.
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It was never about the end users. It’s about what Spotify originally wanted which was a free ride on Apple tech, Apple made the mistake of flying Apple engineers out to Sweden giving Spotify free on site Tech-support, and Apple was paid back by Spotify refusing to update to the new APIs made by Apple as they updated their OS.
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also known as 'the same access basically every other operating system besides iOS already offers'
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Better give some of the money to wine makers cause they're probably going to get hit harder in retaliation.
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Nothing really. At some point, Apple is going to have to decide how much they are willing to capitulate, whether it’s better to just pull out of the EU, or if they want to coordinate with other tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Facebook to exert leverage on the EU commission to either back off or water down the demands of the DMA.
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The problem is that the only alternative to iOS which can also run things like banking and public transport apps, is Google Android
I am on iOS because Google's spying and adtech are the worse of the two evils. Doesn't mean I'm happy with Apple walling off third parties - just means that I am less willing to sacrifice privacy to Google's panopticon
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???
I have both banking apps and public transport apps on the iPhone.
There is no need to make iOS more like Android. If you want to use Android, choose Android.
Phone operating systems are not free.
There are two basic business models to choose from:
- you pay for hardware (iPhones), the money finances iOS
- you give away your user data to an advertising company (Google), the ad revenue finances Android
Both are valid business practices.
Android is not 'open'. Every phone manufacturer uses their unique proprietary Android variant, with pre-installed apps from the hardware companies.
As a user, I have never seen any actual real world disadvantage from the 'walling off' - I use 3rd party headphones without any issue, send MIDI clock from the iPad to a Looper without issue, use Signal and WhatsApp in parallel to Messages without issue, and have low enough timing latency between the OS and 3rd party apps to run soft synths without issue. In Europe, Google Maps still often works better than Apple Maps, so that's what I use.
I do remember Meta's excessive whining when Apple restricted Facebook's inter application tracking for the sake of privacy...
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I live in the EU and I’m an iOS app developer, so Apple and Google pulling out of Europe would affect me heavily. However, I would truly welcome that change. There would be some many opportunities to create something new! Everyone would rush in to fill the vacuum left by those giants.
Apple says “we’re giving you access to our market (AppStore), these are the rules, non-negotiable”. Well, why they’re having problems when EU says the same thing? “We’re giving you access to our market, these are the rules, non-negotiable”
Apple says “we’re giving you access to our market (AppStore), these are the rules, non-negotiable”. Well, why they’re having problems when EU says the same thing? “We’re giving you access to our market, these are the rules, non-negotiable”
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I also have those on iPhone, and I don't want to change iOS - the problem is that you can only choose Apple or Google and they both suck
I want something that I pay for (option 1), which is interoperable and not a walled garden
There is no reason the sustainably funded business can't be open for interoperability
For an example of what is impossible on iOS, see the problems Pebble have just publicly aired with building a third party smart watch for iOS: https://www.osnews.com/story/141951...d-strongly-suggests-you-dump-ios-for-android/
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You American's bent the knee to GDPR. You'll do so here too. I don't want a transactional transatlantic relationship - but since that's where we're at, let's transact.
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Maybe automatic pairing over BLE? When you bring AirPods or Beats near an iPhone it pops up a dialog asking to pair them and use them from now on.
Also, in the past you couldn’t make any kind of Lightning audio device at all without paying Apple or using a cloned knockoff chip, but thankfully the EU has gotten them to abandon Lightning entirely now. A lot of cheap Lightning headphone adapters just use the power pins to run a cloned Beats Bluetooth chip that you pair using the proximity system and it receives the audio wirelessly and outputs it to the headphone jack. It’s absurd.
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Apple? Lots of stuff. They have very limited public api, while their own apps use private apis and don’t have to adhere to the same rules.
They’ve got some arbitrary limits, like max 100 test devices per app for a developer. I work in a big company and we have more than 100 people working on an app. We run up against that limit quite often and have to create hacks to circumvent this because Apple won’t budge. And we tried to negotiate, to pay whatever they want, but no. They say that’s the limit and that’s it.
We build our hardware that communicates with the app via Bluetooth. Apple doesn’t give you full access to Bluetooth stack on iOS and limits what you can do.
Apple won’t let you build software that runs a virtual machine and runs other code.
Once, on one of our screenshots we had the word “Android” (which was actually referencing a robot and not the google OS) and after a few versions someone at Apple saw that and removed the app from AppStore until we removed that screenshot. With no warning the app just disappeared.
Those are just some of many of my adventures that came up without thinking too much… it’s 6:25am here…
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Presumably because the EU changed the rules part way through the game. That’s probably where the wrinkle is.
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Do you know how many times Apple changed the AppStore rules since the beginning?
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That would mean that whoever started first would basically have no regulations because the industry hasn’t existed before so no regulations were made. Any new entrants would be on a losing position.
Rules have to change because the technology is changing, the environment in which they work is changing and things that no one thought before were going to be a problem come up.
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The company I work at was founded in the 1800s. What rules about computers and software could be created by the government then?
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You mean the tiktok maneuver? We may actually consider to just kill the whole damn thing. Tech is getting way too dominant.
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Hmmm, Huawei seems to have tried recently. The commissioners are no saints. ( maybe they are if you compare them to Trump, Musk and Vance)
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Apple and Google are officially owned by Irish holding companies, and thus EU companies. Spotify only recently got above the market cap requirement of the law, and doesn't fullfill the third requirement yet, but is in line to be checked soon.
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The same protocols Apple are using for their own headphones? I remember they made some extensions to Bluetooth, and apparently EU might not think those are open?
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I dont think they would do that voluntarily, but might be forced if Trump makes some kind of decree forbidding them from following EU law or paying EU fines. Though I think they might just split the companies in two instead.
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I'm quite flabbergasted to read how folks are taking this out of proportion. This bloodthirsty defence for corporations is irrational and rather self-destructive.
Have you actually read the proposed technical changes?
The result of the changes (for example) would be vendors will be able to create products which can compete with AirPods in terms of control, ability to easily pair and update firmware. It also means, 3rd party devs will finally be able to create AirDrop-like apps so we can share files with everyone, not just "the one other friend who has an iPhone". Apple is not loosing anything and not being asked to develop anything they haven't already created. They just need to document it and stop blocking people from trying to use it. You and I, consumers, can only gain from the changes the DMA is imposing.
Have you actually read the proposed technical changes?
The result of the changes (for example) would be vendors will be able to create products which can compete with AirPods in terms of control, ability to easily pair and update firmware. It also means, 3rd party devs will finally be able to create AirDrop-like apps so we can share files with everyone, not just "the one other friend who has an iPhone". Apple is not loosing anything and not being asked to develop anything they haven't already created. They just need to document it and stop blocking people from trying to use it. You and I, consumers, can only gain from the changes the DMA is imposing.
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Russia doesn't trust Trump. In fact, it's because Russia understood the US (and others) are not to be trusted (regardless of Clinton then or Trump now) that they could attack Ukraine.
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I'm willing to bet most of the apologists here, don't buy products from other companies besides Apple.
How would that impact their "security/privacy" if they continue to stay in their bubble?
Forcing companies to play fair with other companies is not a consumer violation, it's good for you, the consumer. I know they told you differently in the US aka Corporica.
How would that impact their "security/privacy" if they continue to stay in their bubble?
Forcing companies to play fair with other companies is not a consumer violation, it's good for you, the consumer. I know they told you differently in the US aka Corporica.
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I think you're saying the quiet part out loud. Then again, I'll take honesty over Hollywood's "we are the good guys" version of the USA.
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The ideal product for consumers is one which a) does everything they need and want and b) is as locked down as possible outside of meeting that need.
Products that are open beyond what the consumers needs or wants are just attack vectors that shouldn’t exist. We don’t philosophically need every product to be as open as possible.
Consumers already have the choice of that kind of product if they want it.
We don’t need every product to offer the same level of ‘openness’. That just reduces consumer choice.
I want consumers to be able to choose products with different levels of ‘openness’ as meets their needs.
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