The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money. If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out. They will have to find alternatives. Shut down the EU App Store. If it goes to trial. I hope apple wins….. there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there. With the exception of Linux.
Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.
That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.
... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
If the EU care more about consumer privacy, then they would not be forcing CSAM scanning on EU companies. Which would put an end to End to End Encryption in the EU. Truthfully, the EU only care more about consumers privacy when it pertains to a third party accessing consumers private data. They have a lot less concern about privacy when it's the government accessing consumers private data. Here in the US, we have the 4th Amendment to prevent government from over reaching their authorities over its citizens.
As for competition, the EU don't get that in order to have "fair" competition, there's going to be "unfairness". The EU would rather a force a company that innovates, to share their innovations with its competitors, than for them to use it to compete and maybe eliminate their competitors. That how "fairness" works in the EU.
Back in 2013, there were 5 main mobile OSes. Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and Android. With iOS and Android having the smaller market share. It was competition that led us to iOS and Android having over 90% of the mobile OS market share. That's because the consumers overwhelmingly chose the innovations they got from using iOS and Android. Should the EU back in 2013, had forced Apple and Google to share their innovations with its competitors, for the sake of "competition"? If the EU forces every company to be "fair" when competing and don't allow them to have any competitive advantages, then there is no "competition". And why would companies innovate to gain a competitive advantage, if in the end, they must give away their innovations to their competitors, because the EU thinks that its only "fair".
Nothing from 2013 is remotely comparable to 2023 in digital lifestyle terms. The reason for that is the digital backbone infrastructure which makes truly digital lives possible today on a wide scale.
Back in 2013, devices were smaller, more mobile versions of our PCs and mostly single user setups. Infrastructure was key to moving more users online for more time and for more everyday tasks.
In 2023, mobile devices have substituted most of them (or made them unnecessary) for our 'digital' lives and the lack of OS competition has been accentuated by the 'gatekeeper' status of the two main OSs which serves to protect and perpetuate their interests. Those interests are what lead companies like Apple et al to try and limit competition and as digital services become an even greater part of our digital lifestyles, they also become a bigger target for legislation.
In 2013, only two companies made smartphones that were already smaller versions of PC's from the get go, Apple and Google. When Microsoft CEO Ballmer heard about the iPhone, he laughed at the idea of a $599 fully subsidized phone with no keyboard. BlackBerry CEO didn't care because he thought the iPhone was a consumer toy and didn't think it would ever make it in the business world. The CEO of Nokia was quoted as saying he wasn't worry because what does a computer company know about the telecommunication business. (To which Jobs later replied .... It's much easier for a computer company to put a phone in a computer, than it is for a telecommunication company to put a computer in a phone.) What did Google do? They said "Holy shit" we need to immediately stop what were doing with Android and copy Apple. Their first Android phone that never made it, was to have a physical keyboard, before they got wind of the iPhone. That's why the first Android phone had a touch screen keyboard and came out a year after the iPhone.
The reason why our digital life is as easy as it is is because Apple got something else from PARC other than licensing their GUI. There was a banner on their wall that stated ...... "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." ( PARC Alan Key paraphrasing a famous quote by P. Drucker). Well, what PARC wasn't able to do with their inventions, Jobs and Apple did. Then Google copied Apple. Our digital life as it exist today is the result of companies like Apple and Google inventing it. Not the other way around. Apple and Google platforms, are not the results of our digital life. Our digital life did not just naturally evolve. Apple and Google just didn't happen to be in the right place and the right time. They didn't get lucky because any tech company, even one from the EU, could have been there. These tech companies invented our digital life and when the consumers saw what they had to offer, they wanted it. Or as Jobs put it ... "people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Before the iPhone, no one was sitting around thinking ... I wish I had a computer in my mobile phone. They were thinking ... why would I ever need to carry around a computer with a tiny ass screen?
You could look back 10 years to 2013 and with hindsight say that it can't compare to the digital life were living in now. But in 2013, Apple and Google could already predict what 2023 digital life was going to be like because they were going to invented it. And right now, I would rather trust Apple and Google to predict how our digital life will change in the next 10 years, rather to leave in the hands of the tech ignorant politicians in the EU government (or any government for that matter.).
The thing about our now digital life is that it's much easier with only two major mobile OS's. The Hell with trying to stir up more competition and more consumer choices. Over 85% of the World's population owns a mobile phone and already made their choice. It's either going to be iOS or Android. That's not going to change much anytime soon.( It's been over 20 years since Microsoft lost the anti-trust case against them and they still have a monopoly with 75% of the desktop OS market.) You really think our digital life would be better if businesses had to develop their free mobile apps for their customers, for 5 mobile OSes? What about game developers, you think they want to develop 5 different OS version of their games? Right now, developers only have to develop for 2 OSes, to reach over 90% of mobile users. What happens when developers stop developing for the mobile OS that you like because there's not enough consumers using it to justify their cost. It's not only consumers choice that gives them the power to determine whether an OS survives or not. Develops have even more power. Without enough apps, an OS is as good as gone. (Witness the Lumia phone by Microsoft/Nokia.)
More competition leading to more choices for consumers is not the Holy Grail you think it is.
That is a distortion of the situation.
Today's digital lifestyles are a direct result of many factors but none of them would be possible without the infrastructure capacity to manage data and cloud infrastructure. The more that has come online the more we have moved online.
Apple and Google have ridden that wave as 'first movers' and actually taken advantage of that status to cement their respective positions. That's fine as they've both grown as a result. The problem is they should be using their gatekeeper status to impede competition and yes, stifle innovation. That is clearly happening and is why they are being investigated. Legislation will always follow behind technology. Apple spent a decade of its euphemistic 'stickiness' (lock in) without anyone really picking up on it. You inevitably end up on the radar though and that is what is happening as for example, bank branches and cash machines close and we move to 'digital' equivalents.
'internet' access existed before Apple and Google released their own solutions. That is way earlier than 2013 of course.
WAP would not have remained as clunky as it was and would have improved with more infrastructure and use of that infrastructure. Interfaces would have improved too (with or without physical keyboards or a stylus etc).
What was needed across the board was LTE and then the subsequent improvements. They arrived.
Not even Apple knew how things were going to go because they had no idea where (or how) ICT infrastructure would develop. If they had seen the vital importance of 5G/6G in the coming industrial revolution, they would have had a homebrew modem long ago and tried to influence the standards. It saw literally none of that as 5G development got off the ground way back in 2009. Apple was simply trying to stay alive back then.
The trend was away from web based solutions to platform solutions. The trend was away from ownership and to streaming. Both could have gone either way and may still do so. There are even rumours of hardware subscriptions now. Who knows?
It does not matter in this case who copied who.
All of that is really irrelevant because 2013 and 2023 just aren't comparable in any meaningful way and that was the whole point.
Times change. We are talking about 'gatekeepers' now.
Gatekeepers, especially by EU definition, can abuse their dominance and impede natural competition in the market.
Legislation changes too - to meet those challenges.
This is actually now demonstrable as seen with the fall in Huawei handset sales in the EU due to the lack of GMS. A brand with superior hardware and underlying technology in many areas is actually being held back through not being able to offer GMS on its phones. Competition is being stifled artificially.
Huawei is a notable exception (in the mid to long term) in this case as it has the resources and knowhow to bring its own HMS to market and is doing so.
Other companies (the vast majority in fact) are simply unable to compete because of the gatekeeper position of Google and to a lesser extent, Apple. In global platform terms. Within iDevice land, Apple is just as much a gatekeeper as Google and abuses its position in exactly the same ways.
It is highly likely though, that Apple would not be immune to losing GMS on its devices but that kind of situation would put Google squarely between the crosshairs of every government investigative board on the planet so that isn't going to happen.
Oh good god: Apple is abusing their "dominance". What dominance?
But the funniest thing you wrote is that Apple is impeding "natural" competition in the market! You, and obviously the EU, don't know what natural competition is. It's when you take your own money, time and effort to come up with something better than what is in the market. That is what's fair. And that's natural competition.
Natural competition is when larger companies do not attempt to stifle it.
Remind me what the core complaint described in the article is.
Comments
Today's digital lifestyles are a direct result of many factors but none of them would be possible without the infrastructure capacity to manage data and cloud infrastructure. The more that has come online the more we have moved online.
Apple and Google have ridden that wave as 'first movers' and actually taken advantage of that status to cement their respective positions. That's fine as they've both grown as a result. The problem is they should be using their gatekeeper status to impede competition and yes, stifle innovation. That is clearly happening and is why they are being investigated. Legislation will always follow behind technology. Apple spent a decade of its euphemistic 'stickiness' (lock in) without anyone really picking up on it. You inevitably end up on the radar though and that is what is happening as for example, bank branches and cash machines close and we move to 'digital' equivalents.
'internet' access existed before Apple and Google released their own solutions. That is way earlier than 2013 of course.
WAP would not have remained as clunky as it was and would have improved with more infrastructure and use of that infrastructure. Interfaces would have improved too (with or without physical keyboards or a stylus etc).
What was needed across the board was LTE and then the subsequent improvements. They arrived.
Not even Apple knew how things were going to go because they had no idea where (or how) ICT infrastructure would develop. If they had seen the vital importance of 5G/6G in the coming industrial revolution, they would have had a homebrew modem long ago and tried to influence the standards. It saw literally none of that as 5G development got off the ground way back in 2009. Apple was simply trying to stay alive back then.
The trend was away from web based solutions to platform solutions. The trend was away from ownership and to streaming. Both could have gone either way and may still do so. There are even rumours of hardware subscriptions now. Who knows?
It does not matter in this case who copied who.
All of that is really irrelevant because 2013 and 2023 just aren't comparable in any meaningful way and that was the whole point.
Remind me what the core complaint described in the article is.