EU law will force Apple to blow open its entire hardware and software stack

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 98
    IMO, the EU has only two goals with this legislation:

    A. To levy huge fines on American companies

    B. To compromise privacy/security on mobile devices
    igorskytdknoxscstrrfentropyslongpathmattinoz
  • Reply 22 of 98
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    longfang said:
    crowley said:
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    Weird how the EU dictatorship has so many elections.  
    To be fair, dictatorship and democracy are not mutually exclusive. Ceaser become dictator by way of senate vote for example.
    You think comparing the five year term electoral process of the European Parliament to Caesar's declaration as dictator perpetuo after the civil wars at the head of the largest army in the Empire is "to be fair"?  

    Wow, I didn't realise the election of MEPs was seen as so exciting.
    darkvaderAlex1N
  • Reply 23 of 98
    lam92103lam92103 Posts: 122member
    Excellent. Cant wait
    darkvader
  • Reply 24 of 98
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,331member
    I suspect this is just a platform fork for Apple. They have the scale and the revenues to do it. So why not just follow the Microsoft compliance tradition and essentially break your product for EMEA. Don’t break it so bad that you lose all your customers who are well locked in, but break it badly enough that there’s a very partial App Store, that there is no payment stack, that there is a messaging variant with limited features. For this season anyway, reduce functionality enough to balance still serving users, but create a distinctly different experience that is limited. Maybe everything comes later to Europe as well.  While you’re doing this, your development team gets to explore potential accommodations, and think about future architecture should the rest of the world follow along. Maybe you can lose 10 to 20% of market, but that doesn’t kill your market.  Then wait and see what North America does. I’m just not sure that Tim Cook is agile enough to execute a strategy like that, otherwise I would assume that is what is coming. 

    Not a bad idea, at least in theory. Not sure how it would play out in practice. I know that certain products, like defense systems and equipment have domestic versions and international, or export, versions, e.g., export versions of US and Russian fighter jets. This makes sense for national security reasons. I cannot think of a consumer product or service where the private owner of the trade secrets and creator of a vast product ecosystem has been forced to surrender company confidential information, trade secrets, proprietary infrastructure, market differentiation, competitive advantage, etc., that jeopardize the private owner's entire ability to sell their products worldwide in order to sell their products and services into one specific market.

    The sort of "remedies" the EU is asking for call the whole notion of global markets into question, which may be exactly why they are pursuing the strategy in the first place. They are basically creating a hostile environment for certain companies to operate within. This could very well be aimed at protecting their owns self interests by leveling the playing field so current under-performers in their home market can collect their participation trophies, or they are simply trying to drive companies that they are not able to compete against from their home market using regulations as weapons, thereby ceding the home market to the home entities that are behind the regulations.

    I strongly suspect that this strategy is not being driven by a broad base of consumer demand but rather by a drastically smaller number of highly vocal and influential special interest groups who want to skew their home markets to remove or diminish outside competitors. I don't think the EU is unique in this regard. We've seen similar manipulation applied by other countries and consortia, the US, Australia, Canada, South Korea, and all other countries included.

    It's actually very easy to figure out exactly what their intentions are because they clearly advertise it, but in contrarian form. For example, what is the very first thing you always hear a company say after their security system has been breached? They always say "we take security very seriously." Yeah right, that's why they were breached. So when the backers of these regulations say that they are doing this to "promote competition" or "improve consumer choice" what they really intend to do and are actually saying is "we'll remove outside competition" and "force our home consumers to buy our shit." 100% Guaranteed.
    edited May 2022 scstrrfAlex1Nvztrv1DBSync
  • Reply 25 of 98
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,564member
    lam92103 said:
    Excellent. Can't wait
    I'm also thrilled, but we might be thrilled for different reasons. Your reason for being thrilled might be because you think Apple will open up its operating system and online services, whereas I'm thrilled that Apple could be removing its products from sale in the EU (it has several options in this regard. I won't list them again.)
    dewmescstrrfslow n easyDBSync
  • Reply 26 of 98
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    The imperialists will have their vengeance on those uppity colonies and their more dynamic and innovative industries.
    edited May 2022 dewmeAlex1Nlongpath
  • Reply 27 of 98
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    lam92103 said:
    Excellent. Cant wait

    Same.  If Apple doesn't make these changes worldwide (which I think they will, similar legislation is coming in the US soon), I'll be ordering my next iPhone from the EU.

    It's MY iPhone, not Apple's iPhone, and I should be allowed to install any software of MY choosing on it, from any source of MY choosing.  Apple has no right to stop me, and if legislation is what it takes to force them, then so be it.  Apple should have abandoned the idiotic walled garden nonsense before it ever got started.
  • Reply 28 of 98
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    longfang said:
    crowley said:
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    Weird how the EU dictatorship has so many elections.  
    To be fair, dictatorship and democracy are not mutually exclusive. Ceaser become dictator by way of senate vote for example.
    The plebeians totally agree that it was much better to leave that stuff to the patricians, who told them it must be so. And they should be grateful that is the way it is. The plebeians went to the circus to eat the bread they were given and tugged their forelock at the patricians.
    Alex1Nlongpath
  • Reply 29 of 98
    vztrv1vztrv1 Posts: 19member
    All the political opinion aside my fear is that this mandate will backfire and take away our choice for privacy.  A couple of examples:
    Facebook - once there is an App Store that isn’t policed, Facebook will switch to that channel and by pass current protections and you won’t be able to get a policed version any more.
    Malware/Spyware - there will now be all sorts of opportunity for other trackers - not coincidentally government ones.  

    Of course there will be a new market - virus and firewall protection products just like windows.  JOY!!!
    Alex1Nbaconstanglongpath
  • Reply 30 of 98
    Joer293Joer293 Posts: 29unconfirmed, member
    This is almost identical to what occurred to Microsoft Windows decades ago when they were the dominant monopoly. Regulation forced Microsoft to do all of this. They fought it hard, played all the same tricks all your comments are saying apple and Google will attempt. History repeats itself. 

    I’m honestly surprised Microsoft hasn’t been calling foul for decades where apple and Google get away with all the things M$ got in trouble for. 

    Skip to the lessons learned. M$ sacrificed windows OS and Office quality to satisfy regulations. By way of moving software development en mass to developers a country that did not use the product. This Quality disaster opened up the market for a new comer (Apple) to fill the void. If history repeats. Apple and Google sacrifice and open up a market to ????
    edited May 2022 Alex1N
  • Reply 31 of 98
    CheeseFreezeCheeseFreeze Posts: 1,247member
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    You should read up on the definition of ‘dictatorship’. You are responding as a child does. 
    baconstangdarkvader
  • Reply 32 of 98
    jimh2jimh2 Posts: 611member
    I suspect this is just a platform fork for Apple. They have the scale and the revenues to do it. So why not just follow the Microsoft compliance tradition and essentially break your product for EMEA. Don’t break it so bad that you lose all your customers who are well locked in, but break it badly enough that there’s a very partial App Store, that there is no payment stack, that there is a messaging variant with limited features. For this season anyway, reduce functionality enough to balance still serving users, but create a distinctly different experience that is limited. Maybe everything comes later to Europe as well.  While you’re doing this, your development team gets to explore potential accommodations, and think about future architecture should the rest of the world follow along. Maybe you can lose 10 to 20% of market, but that doesn’t kill your market.  Then wait and see what North America does. I’m just not sure that Tim Cook is agile enough to execute a strategy like that, otherwise I would assume that is what is coming. 
    We may end up with different phones for different markets or two types of phones to buy where one is what we have now and the other is the wide open. The only difference will be the premium cost. Something like $200 for the special version. That recaptures the lost income from using another store and allows for these phones to be easily identified. The EU special edition. 

    Many products are like this including a lot of software. Think the “lite” version or regulate and not “pro”. 
    Alex1Nbaconstang
  • Reply 33 of 98
    bsnjonbsnjon Posts: 39member
    It is very unlikely Apple will leave the EU, and very unlikely the US will actually adopt such far reaching regulation. 

    Apple could offer an iPhone without iOS and let people install android on it and wash their hands of the consequences for users. Or offer a  “basic” version of the operating system with out many of the standout features apple fans would want. They could even lower the quality of the aesthetics of the basic OS. Apple has a lot of customers because of its differentiation against alternatives. The company has millions of reasons why to continue down its preferred path. This regulation is unlikely to stop this. 
    Alex1N
  • Reply 34 of 98
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    So companies can no longer produce integrated solutions, we’re being forced back to components-based computers of the 70s. And all because idiots can be seduced & exploited by giving them choices.

    Interesting to see how they’ll disintegrate the European car industry, forcing BMW to a component-model.


    Alex1Nvztrv1longpath
  • Reply 35 of 98
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    crowley said:
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    Weird how the EU dictatorship has so many elections.  
    That how you hide a dictatorship - behind the superficial inclusion of pre-determined options.
    Alex1N
  • Reply 36 of 98
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    williamh said:
    crowley said:
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    Weird how the EU dictatorship has so many elections.  
    Calling the EU a dictatorship seems way overblown, but still, when did the European public get to vote for the EU Council president?  European Commission president?  How about the European parliament president?  That's right, there aren't public elections for those positions.  

     https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/leadership/presidents_en
    When did American Citizens get to vote for the Speaker of the House? The head of any of the major agencies; DoD, IRS, HUD, etc., etc.  
    Alex1Nbaconstang
  • Reply 37 of 98
    waveparticlewaveparticle Posts: 1,497member
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    You should read up on the definition of ‘dictatorship’. You are responding as a child does. 
    Democratic dictatorship hides behind laws. 
    Alex1Nlongpath
  • Reply 38 of 98
    cambercamber Posts: 20member
    In their own jurisdiction the EU is perfectly entitled to pass whatever laws they think their citizenry will obey. However, there is one aspect of this proposed legislation that is illegal and immoral. The EU does not have the right to levy fines on any company's WORLD WIDE revenue or income. They are only legally entitled to level such fines on revenue or income produced in their jurisdiction!!!
    waveparticleAlex1Nbaconstang
  • Reply 39 of 98
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    mcdave said:
    crowley said:
    rob53 said:
    EU is a dictatorship, plain and simple. At this point Apple needs to seriously tell the EU to GTH. The US needs to triple import duties on EU goods effectively shutting the EU down. The US should also reduce exports to the EU and cut off any financial support. 
    Weird how the EU dictatorship has so many elections.  
    That how you hide a dictatorship - behind the superficial inclusion of pre-determined options.
    You're suggesting that MEP elections are rigged?   :D
    Alex1N
  • Reply 40 of 98
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    camber said:
    In their own jurisdiction the EU is perfectly entitled to pass whatever laws they think their citizenry will obey. However, there is one aspect of this proposed legislation that is illegal and immoral. The EU does not have the right to levy fines on any company's WORLD WIDE revenue or income. They are only legally entitled to level such fines on revenue or income produced in their jurisdiction!!!
    Why?  If I commit a crime in the USA where the penalty is a fine then I don't get out of it because my income is all outside of the USA.  Judges often set penalties with one eye on ability to pay and appropriate level of discomfort to the judged.
    muthuk_vanalingamdarkvader
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