cropr

If one needs a PR heavyweight to influence the EU, he/she should be located in Brussels.  A person located in London won't be taken seriously by the EU commission and EU parliament.   This sounds like influencing the US government from Mexico City 

Cesar Battistini Maziero said:

The EU is terrible.

They regulate everything out to oblivion. 

Really bad =/

retrogusto said:

I may be wrong, but it seems like so many of these legal issues would be resolved if Apple offered a version of the iPhone hardware for sale without any OS installed, at a higher price that reflected the fact that the in-app purchases customers make help subsidize the hardware. Almost nobody would buy the hardware-only version, but it would help clarify the situation for lawmakers who may otherwise struggle to understand the bigger picture. 

Djacobs said:

That all being said, Apple SHOULD make money from providing the platform, the tools, the support, the marketing, and the market. Every other company gets paid when they do these things. The app store is NOT a monopoly. Nor is the iPhone. You have a choice to buy an iPhone, or a different phone. When you make that CHOICE, you agree to the rules that come with buying the product. Just as the developer shave a choice to produce apps for the iPhone or not. If the business terms are so terrible dealing with Apple, then don't develop for Apple products. Develop an app so good that users will switch platforms to buy your app.

I've been developing apps that are available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.  From the app developers point of view the App store was until very recently the only way to distribute my iOS version of the apps, while I have a secure distribution platform (made for downloading for Windows, macOS, Linux versions) that I was not allowed to use.  So indeed the App Store WAS a monopoly.   

For my most successful app, an electronic voting system, the app makes only sense it is available on all platforms: my customers, which are NPO organisations, are only interested in a voting app if all common platforms are supported, so their members can use any devices during the general assembly.  For the voting app, roughly 75% of the users use Windows or Android, but without an iOS version (or a macOS version) I would a very limited number of customers.   And concerning the marketing: a survey among my customers clearly revealed that no customer was acquired via the App Store. 

So I don't win any customers because I have an iOS version, but I would lose customers if I didn't.

hummerchine said:

As has been said countless times, if you don’t like the way Apple manages its App Store then buy an Android phone and shut up!  ߤ렉 do not see any reason for the courts to be legally mandating that Apple make a single change to the way they run their App Store.  Personally I prefer it exactly the way it is and am upset that some judge on a power trip is messing with me.

As has been said countless times, the issue is not about the end users, who have the choice between an iPhone and an Adroid phone, but about the app developers, who want to offer their apps on both platforms because their customers are using not only iPhones but also Android phones.

sflagel said:

robin huber said:

sflagel said:

it is ludicrous for a car manufacturer to give Apple access to all its car systems, which will invariably lead to Apple becoming the gatekeeper to the entire tech stack of a car. This in addition to the branding impact. CarPlay is not the end of evolution, for example, the music app is well on CarPlay. Audi music controls are much better. 

Who said all? We’re talking about user-facing information systems. Car manufacturers have farmed out components and subsystems from day one. Brakes, batteries, transmissions, gauges, radios, generators, on and on. More to the point, putting Bose, Harmon-Kardon and many other name brand audio systems is a selling point. Why should this be any different?

CarPlay Ultra is not just the display of car metrics, it also is the interface with, e.g., A/C, suspension settings, drive modes, alarm modes, etc. Apple CarPlay Ultra is upstream from the control systems and chips; before long, Apple will be dictating which chips the car manufacturers should use and what software architecture they should build. There is a big difference between buying batteries from Bosch and letting Apple control the central nervous system of the car.

Are you sure of that.  I thought CarPlayUltra is offering an API to the car internal system, but it does leave the choice of any car component to the car manufacturer.

But I do agree that car manufacturers are reluctant to hand over control to an external party who manages the display and its UI for everything that is not music.  What if  Car Play Ultra drives, for whatever reason, a car critical component in a such a way that the car is about to crash.  Who will take responsibility?

The car manufacturer might not have the best skill to develop a great UI on a touch screen, but a car manufacturer has much higher skill level  than Apple when it comes to handling car critical exceptions in real time.

Notsofast said:

Well you assume wrong.  Think about could they have a "reasonably accurate" sales metrics for Apple when Apple doesn't release Apple Watch sales???  Not only does Apple sell through many third party, like Target, Best Buy, Kohl's, etc., but Apple has the bulk of its sales through its own stores and websites that these guys can only take a WAG at.  As a result, they end up making up a lot of stuff.  No one can call them on it because no one knows and it becomes nice click bait (Apple Watch sales plunge 75%!) .  Finally, Cook had enough and called them out on their fake news. Good for him to show them up as liars and frauds.

The exact figure is not known, but if Best Buy, Target and the others resellers are saying their sales figures are 10% down versus previous quarters, then chances are pretty big that the actual sales figures went 10% down.  If a manufacturer like Apple does not provide figures,  IDC (and other research companies) not only correlate data form the resellers side but also from the component suppliers side.  This means that the published figures will definitely have an significant margin of error.  However because a research company always make the correlation in the same way,  trends from quarter to quarter are quite accurate

entropys said:

Understandable if the iPhone was only a few weeks old (which I suspect is what happens anyway), but up to two years? What a joke!
One approach is that Apple could issue the owner a beat up old iphone 4S loaner while they repaired the iphone with the problem. Just like a car dealership would do.

What is wrong a decent consumer law that gives the consumer 2 years of warranty?
The lame 90 days warranty in some countries is an absolute joke. 

EsquireCats said:

For most users the ports will not be an issue as we're literally talking about swapping a cable for nearly all issue resolutions – don't give me that SD card is essential crap, pro photographers have been on wireless for 5+ years now (at worst the faux-pros will have to use an adapter instead of the floppy-disc like SD cards.)

What makes a pro machine is pro application performance: testing has already shown that ram/page outs aren't an issue and pro application performance is through the roof. The new SSD's significant leap in performance is more than making up for any ram limitation scenarios. (Along with macOS's superior handling of RAM.)

What this actually means for pros:

1. No more proprietary thunderbolt for screens, every HD screen 5k+ will be on the USB-C plug.
2. No more proprietary chargers, you can charge this with any USB pack. (literally just throw out your old USB-A cables.)
   
3. No more dead ports, every port on this machine is whatever you want it to be - this is the most versatile mac ever.

A short term inelegance of adapters for old peripherals is paving the way for when we don't need to think about plugs, adapters or which way that f'n USB cable goes in.

This is why pros are eating it up, not because they're starved - but because this is the most future proof mac ever.

The fact that the RAM and the SSD are not upgreable is a clear indication that Apple does has not given a  lot of attention to the future proof nature of the new MacbookPro
As a software developer I am currently at the edge of the 16GB of RAM of my machine.  Giving that  a new machine I buy need to last at least 3 years and that the RAM requirements are only growing in time, the new Macbook Pro is for me definitely not a future proof system. 
Of course your mileage may vary.

spliff monkey said:

What's the point of a 4K ~5" screen anyway? As noted, there are many ways to make a better screen than just packing more pixels in there. Is 4K on a 5" screen really a droid/ Samsung feature? While I do like my 4k TV because I sit quite close. 10 Bit RGB color makes the bigger difference. I basically "can't see" the pixels on my iPhone as it is. Not sure how "MORE PIXELS" makes a better phone anyway except maybe for some one who doesn't know any better, bragging to another friend (who also doesn't know any better) that their phone is measurably superior to another. I don't even waste my disputing it with Droid fans. They go down that road of "well, droid does x better". And I just nod my head and say of course it does.  

Not sure how "wide color" makes a better phone neither.   Both pixels and wide color make a slight difference if you look at the screen in perfect circumstances, but do not improve the user experience.  If you surf to a website, all images are compressed and scaled down, so why bother?