teejay2012

I think Apple is expecting this to go to EU courts as Verstager has a history of policy and regulation that has been successfully challenged on legal grounds. Contracts are contracts, and Epic deliberately broke theirs with Apple. Apple had every legal right to terminate Epic, from a US court ruling and those contracts are signed in Cupertino. It would not be wise for the EU to ignore contract laws anywhere, particularly in the US. Apple and EU may still remain reasonable in this, as Apple has asked for reassurances from Sweeney, and the EU has asked Apple for clarification. Apple can park whatever fine the EU imposes and those funds will grow in escrow, like in the Irish tax case, and be returned if they get a favourable court ruling. We can hope that cooler heads prevail here, as destroying companies and markets can never be good.

spheric said:

mike1 said:

blitz1 said:

mike1 said:

The US should really should be targeting European companies that do significant business in the US and start finding (or making up) reasons to issue significant fines and other penalties. Every time the EU targets an American-based company, the US should do the same. Time to start putting some retaliatory pressure on the EU.

Our market is much too important to the US.

Our iPhones will work differently from the US iPhones. 

We'll have more options and more freedom to choose.

Sorry. The European market is not a major consumer of US-based products outside of food and tech. Not sure how well BMW or Daimler or Airbus or Siemens or the French wine industry would feel about being targeted in one way or another. I generally dislike the idea of tariffs as they only hurt consumers, but inflicting retaliatory pain on European companies so they begin to influence EU decisions is fair game.

a) Europe accounts for about a QUARTER of Apple's global revenue. Not sure how you consider that "not major". 

The EU market represents roughly 7% of Apple's global app store revenue.

The EU does not generate enough profit for Apple to be happy about a $2B fine. That is going to hurt. Why for all this, when Apple was responding to DMA and making accommodations for their anti steering practices?... Because Margrethe Vestager is still very angry from losing the Irish tax case, which was over ruled on appeal as it did not provide proof of wrong doing. I think on appeal the same could happen here, as the EU commission is not the same as EU courts which adhere to the law and not vendetta driven. Apple could have allowed more information to music customers of course, but Spotify and Daniel Ek are nasty pieces in this. US tech companies have every right to become paranoid about future business in the EU, as clearly they are being targeted, to the advantage of EU companies. The corruption is obvious imo, but I suppose that is what businesses are all about. In the future, I doubt Apple will leave the EU, but certainly the products and services in the EU will differ, and likely will be more expensive.

There is a certain amount of schadenfreude anticipation going on here. While Apple certainly would not wish harm to come to anyone's phone, Apple users who were most vocal against side loading would likely take some pleasure in seeing side loaded EU phones melt.. not that they would LOL. Myself, I am happy not to have regulators here trying to give me more store choices as I am fine using the App Store. Full disclosure, I have 2 newer Android phones collecting dust here (given to me), but can't be bothered selling them. I prefer iPhone and iOS, even though the Android phones offer more user choices, and might have technical superiority in some areas. My prediction is that this will end up like Y2K where little happened as there was enough attention, that safety planning actually happened. Apple will do what it can to protect iPhone users, even the side loaders, as why wouldn't they? They are still important Apple customers after all.  But if their phones cause them serious security issues ... and they whine about it ... well, I might crack a small schadenfreude smile.