avon b7

They have to try. That is clear, but Google is well out in front at the moment.

I went to a funeral yesterday up on the mountain. Google gave me directions for public transport right down … (more)to the unique identifier of the bus stop and the minutes to wait for the next bus. Updated in real time to reflect delays caused by traffic. (less)

rob53 said:

avon b7 said:

This:

"Specifically, we

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are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security," said Apple. "We are committed to collaborating with the European Commission in an attempt to find a solution that would enable us to deliver these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety."

And then this:

"From previous statements including ones to AppleInsider, it's known that Apple has been continually working with the EU on its responses to the DMA, so it's reasonable to assume that will continue.

Leads to the question: Why even bother putting the subject into the public domain if communication and clarification are ongoing? 

Far better to say as little as possible until things are clarified. All it takes is clarification and all for a roll out that isn't even planned for this year! 

Basically FUD on Apple's part and Vestager has a valid point in her response to a question that wouldn't have been asked if it weren't for Apple. 

Basically FUD on the part of EU-loving commenters. Apple has a right to provide whatever capabilities it wants to in whatever country/region it wants to. You're buying a product with certain features. There's nothing that says Apple has to provide the EU with everything it has the capability of including. The EU can demand Apple provide everything but that's not the way companies work. This is a brand new Apple capability and Apple has the right to provide it when they feel it's ready, not when a corrupt EU demands it. At this point, I feel Apple is well within its rights to start charging for features in countries it wants to. As far as I'm concerned, Apple should start charging for macOS, iOS, tvOS, iPadOS along with every Apple app and feature it wants to. I'd like to see the EU try and force Apple to provide everything for free. It isn't going to happen.

No one is disputing Apple's right to bring or not bring certain features to the EU. That is up to them and is irrelevant here. 

The point is 'making a meal out of something' and putting it down to the DMA even when Apple itself claims it's in contact with the EU on the subject and also claims not to know what is possible or not. 

It's all completely unnecessary on Apple's part. Why not simply ask the EU and wait for a reply?  (less)

"We always pay all the taxes we owe wherever we operate and there has never been a special deal"

Part of the investigation suggesed that Apple was effectively deciding for itself … (more)how much to make available and then paying what Apple itself said it, ehem, 'owed'.

That resulted in the 0,005% for one particular year. 

Then Tim Cook came out and said "Apple has values". It's a shame no one bothered ask him to define them with regards to taxation. 

And then, according to him, it was "political crap". 

That begs the question "what kind of crap was it when you paid 0.005% in the EU and funnelled taxation away from the countries that generated the income?" 

As for there never being a special deal, we know that Apple has admitted one in the past but claimed it was so long ago that no one remembered the details. 

Not dissimilar to when high ranking executives get hauled before Congress and suddenly 'lose' their memories. 

Apple has changed its ways over the years but only under pressure. 

In fact, there was a cut-off point for the investigation that led to this situation which meant it could not consider some of those earlier years. 

Of course way back then, Apple was a smaller company and that it why things didn't pop up on the radar for so long. 



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This makes a lot of sense if only because this technology has been in use on folding phones since 2019 (with the same claimed 2.5 times stronger than titanium specs) and, later, on … (more)smartwatches (and things like Tesla door lock casings).

Things took off when Eontec bought into Liquidmetal and both companies were able to pool their strengths.

I believe Liquidmetal was limited to parts of less than 100g whereas Eontec was able to produce parts beyond that limit.  (less)

All the 'maybe's' presented here are valid but Apple's biggest problem now is not actually having a car, and having to convince car manufacturers to buy into a deal that effectively wedges … (more)Apple in between them and their users.

That is a very hard sell (no matter what iPhone users may say about not buying a car with CarPlay) because NEVs are basically smart vehicles with batteries and the secret sauce is in all the 'intelligent' aspects. 

The big ICE era manufacturers blew it with their own efforts by not shipping effective solutions in good time. That applies to Apple to. Those manufacturers are now seeking joint ventures with many Chinese brands, many of whom don't make phones. 

Of course, Huawei and Xiaomi are the two elephants in the room here as they do have stakes in the automobile sectors which are tightly integrated with their phones. To a degree that was perhaps unthinkable four years ago. 

Another problem was that when Apple was announcing the next version of CarPlay, Huawei was shipping a far more advanced solution to its automobile partners with very deep integration and a spread of different solutions that partners could choose from. That has only taken giant leaps since then and to the point that if you are looking at something like an AITO M9 you are also probably weighing up a Huawei phone purchase if you don't already have one. At least in China and that's where the main market is. 

The same scenario applies to many Chinese manufacturers and right across the price bands from 'affordable' to 'ultimate luxury'.

Outside China most options will seem stone age in comparison and anyone letting Apple/Google provide a solution will probably not want to give them too much control over the car internals. It's not looking good for deeper integration but the EU and US markets are currently flailing in their efforts to come up with a stellar solution and no one knows what Apple plans to do with any core solutions it may have been developing. For example, does it have an equivalent to Huawei's GOD network system and, if it does, would it be willing to sell/licence it to car manufacturers? 
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iMacs and graphics/display issues are a common problem. Overall design is another problem in terms of repairability.

When my old iMac 27 2009 i7 - Radeon graphics card slow baked itself to … (more)death I was astonished by the amount of people who had the same problem. Apple never officially admitted to any issue.

That was because of poor thermals and the 'hidden' vent panel that was always going to get clogged with dust at some point. 

No more iMacs for me after that point. 

Then there was the short cable connection to the display on some laptops for which Apple redesigned the cable (making it longer) but then only issued a repair programme for some (not all of the affected models).

As for design in terms of repairability, it was absolutely crazy to require a a complete screen disassembly just to replace a hard disk on that 2009 iMac.  (less)

It's all basically nonsense and definitely has nothing to do with the blanket claim of 'national security'.

Even the Pentagon still relies on waivers to skirt 'obligations'. 

… (more)https://fortune.com/asia/2024/07/03/pentagon-huawei-ban-national-defense-authorization-act/

Much of the internet ends up running over vast networks of fibreoptic cables and Huawei has laid (and manages) thousands of km of underwater lines. 

The so called 'clean networks' that the US tries to promote (while trying to keep a straight face) are also nonsense.

Huawei offered to licence its entire 5G stack to a US consortium (just to allow it to have something of 'its own' to control) but the US refused.

The reality is (and always was) that the US sees China as being able to overtake it in key areas and instead of trying to compete with better products and technologies it chooses to try and bludgeon any rival out of the game. 

That includes 'allies' who used Chinese technology (5G for example) and who refused to play along. Just ask Boris. 

https://www.ft.com/content/a70f9506-48f1-11ea-aee2-9ddbdc86190d

https://frontierindia.com/cias-black-ops-led-the-uk-to-drop-huawei-5g-book-reveals/?srsltid=AfmBOopICiosJ_OrLJshH8Hvh5XsjrMdXnaWYFfPhtMlbJg6G-7Q_XcV&utm_content=cmp-true

The UK was a prime example, seeing its 5G capacity and performance crumple into one of the worst in the EU and costing billions in the process. 

As a result China has become more self sufficient and is on an accelerated path to further self sufficiency. 

Erradicating TP-Link from US systems will do nothing to enhance national security and using Cisco might even make things riskier! Maybe that's tongue in cheek.

The internet is what it is, and has to be, for what we expect of it even if the US (and China too) would like to see it split apart in order to gain more 'control'. 

I believe Trump once put forward the idea of an 'American 5G' and had to be 'informed' of reality. If that is true (and I believe he suggested Apple create it) I'm sure it wasn't tongue in cheek. 

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anantksundaram said:

“Online security” in the US is such an oxymoron. 

We laugh —I do too — at the EU when it comes to tech, but I do wonder, how come we never hear

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about such regular breaches (on a similar scale) over there? 

(It’s honestly a serious question. Spare me the predictable hackneyed responses, please.)

Breaches happen of course and fines are issued. Some of them are huge, others tiny but the obligations are there and the authorities take complaints seriously, no matter how small. 

Here is a good summary on what is required:

https://www.upguard.com/blog/cybersecurity-regulations-in-the-european-union

And one small example:

https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2024/polish-sa-administrative-fine-failure-notify-personal-data-breach_en

And a bigger one:

https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2021/dutch-sa-fines-transavia-poor-personal-data-security_en

Some of the biggies under GDPR (not necessarily breaches) but underscores how bad Meta still is:

https://dataprivacymanager.net/5-biggest-gdpr-fines-so-far-2020/




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This doesn't look good for Apple on the face of it.

Apple has the last word on 'trust'?

I can't see that going down well in the EU. 

I suppose Epic will accuse Apple of discrimination. 

We'll see. 

rob53 said:

spheric said:

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Fidonet127 said:

tlinn said:

I will forever be grateful to the Europeans for forcing Apple to adopt USB-C. But the idea that Apple shouldn't be compensated for developing a platform that allows thousands of developers to make a living, or that the "fair" amount of compensation should be decided by developers seems ridiculous to me. Apple is not a charity, nor do they exist to be the world's R&D department. Much of what the Europeans are doing feels like protectionism.

That said, there are plenty of examples where Apple disadvantages its own customers and stifles innovation—like forcing all browsers to use the same engine. This is where government action should focus. 

There is no evidence that EU forced Apple to go USB-C as Apple was already heading there. Yes they put it into law, but the market was already forcing Apple to go USB-C. Due to timing, EU got the credit. 

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These statements are so telling: you all think the EU is all about Apple. Fact is, the EU doesn’t give a SHIT about Apple: the USB-C standardisation was about getting EVERYBODY to unify their charging. Apple was already headed there because they aren’t stupid and knew it was coming (and they probably talk regularly with the Commission), having sat out the horrific micro-USB suggestion. 

The EU rightfully gets the credit for kicking everybody into supporting a single standard — they’d already been working with various manufacturers for a decade before Apple finally switched their iPhones, as well. 

Why does everybody have to unify their charging standard? Europe has all kinds of electrical "standards" so why don't they adopt America's standard? There's no way America will adopt any non-American electrical standard. This is the EU having a double standard. They want to keep their standard and force others to adopt theirs even if it's inferior to others. How many electronic products are actually developed by the EU? Not anywhere near the number developed in the USA yet the EU continues to force American companies to do the stupid things the EU demands they do. 

"Why does everyone have to unify their charging standards?" 

Please read the impact assessments and the preamble to the legislation because you obviously haven't done that. The answer to your question is there. 

'Standardisation' is a common goal in many fields but there are always exceptions, even within standards. The more ingrained a national standard, the harder it is to standardise across a bloc. That is why, in the case of electrical equipment we have power supplies that cover a range of options.

The common charger initiative was relatively easy to implement in that sense (but there are exceptions there too) because of the fast moving pace of that industry, which is not limited to mobile phones by the way and does allow for better options down the line. The difference will be that the changes are implemented uniformly across industry.

No one is asking America to adopt non-American standards. America can do as it pleases and EU companies have to comply. Just like US companies (and EU companies) have to comply with EU regulations if they want to do business here.