avon b7

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 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? 

tht said:

nubus said:

thrang said:

Umm, so we really want the EU or other governments to start directing product development? 

At times we do. The car industry didn't remove lead from gas. The tobacco industry invented nicotine products with watermelon flavor for kids. We got baby powder with asbestos as it was cheaper to produce. Food with carcinogenic ingredients. Building materials that burst into flames. Would you say Boeing did improve quality after government let Boeing control Boeing? That banks could do better without regulation?

This time it is about Apple producing e-waste and letting taxpayers pay. Apple agreed 15 years ago to fix it but did nothing. What would you have done?

Mandating charging standards is great. I'm all for it. Wish there were standards for battery storage, combiner boxes, EV chargers, plug-in solar+storage, etc. Also, getting rid of the middlemen and red tape is great too. Those two have to work together to become a force multiplier.

The EU's USBC mandate isn't doing anything regarding e-waste. In terms of e-waste, only difference is that what used to be Lightning cable e-waste in the EU has now turned into USBC cable e-waste. It won't be less wasteful until phone companies stop putting USBC cables in the box. Apple, who is the most likely to stop putting USBC cables in the box, probably will ship a USBC cable in the box for the next 3 to 5 years. The higher the cost Apple product, the longer it will ship with a USBC cable.

For any high cost product, a USBC cable is going to be in the box for the foreseeable future. Some low cost products may not come with USBC cables in the future, but that is a long road ahead. I just recently bought, and returned, a Bluetooth Keychron mouse for $40. It came with 2.4 GHz wireless USBA transceiver, a USBC cable, a USBC C to A adaptor, and a USB A to C adaptor. It was intended to be Bluetooth mouse.

The prevalence of wireless 2.4 GHz peripheral connections in the PC world is basically driven by Bluetooth not being available on all PCs in the past; and, Windows' Bluetooth UI probably sucks, and it is easier to just plug in the Wireless-G USBA dongle for wireless mice than to connect through Bluetooth. It seems every Bluetooth mouse for Windows comes with 2.4 GHz dongles. Meanwhile, virtually every computing device has Bluetooth! Argh!

Anyways, to reduce e-waste, gov'ts have to mandate OEMs to take back their used stuff and recycle them. The EU has something like this, but they need to be stronger measures. Or, have an actual gov't recycling program that they do themselves. Not ship and dump to some other country with a promise of recycling, but it needs to be done in our own backyards.

This is from a 2020 EU Impact Assessment:

"Consumer inconvenience:

Most mobile phone users (84% according to the consumer panel survey) have experienced problems related to their phone chargers in the last two years. Commonly cited problems (each experienced by between one third and half of respondents) were the inability to charge certain devices (as fast) with certain chargers; having too many chargers taking up space in the home and/or workplace; situations where they needed to charge their phone, but the available chargers were incompatible with it; and confusion about which charger works with what device. Around 15% to 20% of all survey respondents who experienced one or more of these problems reported it had caused them significant issues.

thrang said:

avon b7 said:

hammeroftruth said:

Is this actually “better” for EU customers who do not want the latest Apple technology and are more
comfortable using the older technology because the barn door is already open and the horse got out years ago with lightning cables.

So the customer ends up paying more for tech that they do not want all in the name of compatibility with competitors that they never wanted in the first place. 

....The EU has simply created a legal framework to move industry in the same 'harmonised' direction. 

And it's huge in scope so most people will be better off in the long run, especially as it covers far more than phones....

Umm, so we really want the EU or other governments to start directing product development? Broadly, there may be technical, security, performance reasons (and more) for a company to prefer a particular technology that is considered non-standard. This was the reason Lighting was originally invented. 

I have no love to keep Lightning going, but that is not the point. When governments start to dictate the development of products either through mandates or fines, you are going down a slippery road that you will not like. 

For example, what if Apple or someone else invents a demonstrably better connector? Better than USB-C. More secure, faster, much greater bandwidth. Can they develop and introduce it? What if USB-C limits functionality for other endeavors a company envisions for its products?

Let the market decide, and let innovation guide.

When we let the market decide we end up with fragmentation. That is what this directive aims to correct. Fragmentation is a form of lock-in too, used by manufacturers to ensure customers can only use their solutions. 

Years ago an MoU was used but that was deemed unsuccessful with regards to the results achieved (in spite of effectively reducing fragmentation by a large margin) so this time around, legislation has been used. 

Ironically, the wireless charging market is not affected by this regulation as it wasn't considered sufficiently fragmented but the EU has made it clear that if it were to reach the same stage as the wired charging market, it would end up being included in the directive. 

Similar legislation is very likely in other areas. 

As for future development, the original texts of the EU proposal made specific reference to future charging technologies and even mentioned one by name.

As long as everyone moves on the same 'common charger train', improvements will not be stifled. Apple of course is a founding member of USB-IF which is undoubtedly where the next advancement of USB-C will emerge from. 

elijahg said:

The dumbest thing here is Apple won't let you (or third party apps) block a range of numbers. Why can't I block +1 800 *, or +1 800 850 {0-999} for example? Or indeed block or silence anyone who's not in my contacts? 

Try this for unknown callers...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/111106#:~:text=To turn on Silence Unknown,in your recent calls list. 

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'. 

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.