Lettuce

strongy said:

cropr said:

The title is misleading:  Apple must not pay the amount to the EU, but to the Irish government.     The court has decided that the reduced tax rate  must be considered as illegal government aid to a private company.  This illegal aid must be reimbursed to Ireland.    

Ireland is on apple's side they said as much, i bet you the all the EU wanted was get its hand on all that money at least they don't get any of it.

stencil said:

Apple might very well shoot itself in the foot with here.
There are economic reasons for once. Apple products are already sold with a premium in Europe. European customers are very price conscious. This makes Apple products less popular in Europe, i.e. Apple's market share in Europe is considerable but not as big as in the US.
If Apple withholds features it might make competitors devices more desirable when those all of a sudden see an opportunity and decide to implement popular AI features. On top of this would be the fact that most of the competitions devices are still cheaper.
Taking all of this in consideration and add to it the economic headwinds Apple is experiencing in China it might turn out not to be the smartest move.

On the other hand and apart from economic reasons this is also about loosing credibility for Apple. I have lived in a couple of country in my life and I can say that no matter how critical people are towards their institutions they don't like it if someone from outside criticizes the same thing. Big cooperations need to learn to respect local customs and institutions no matter how worthy of criticism they are. Apple's wording is quite condescending, though.

avon b7 said:

My scheduled video conference with HP has hit the skids. I was told at 8am this morning that IT support were working on the problem but I doubt they'll apply the machine-by-machine workaround offered by Crowdstrike which requires booting into Safe Mode and deleting a file.

It's touch and go for the meeting which is scheduled to start in 30 minutes. 

It is more likely they'll wait for the fix from Crowdstrike to flush through the systems. 

Global automated updates should be rolled out in phases to catch these glitches before they become wildfires. 

I see some airlines still have boarding cards that can be handwritten for the lucky ones who have been able to get off the ground.

EDIT: meeting postponed.

rob53 said:

Why does Apple has to have an alternative App Store payment process? When I go to any store, I pay the store. I don't pay the manufacturer of an individual product. I just don't understand why people can't see this. It's Apple's product so you pay Apple. 

rob53 said:

spheric said:

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. 

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. 

freeassociate2 said:

No worries. The EU will continue to screw itself. Taxing its way out of stalled growth and the strain of maintaining the Euro on partner countries will make it implode. Bet they’ll have fun with Putin when their actions help get the Orange Turd elected again.