blitz1

verne arase said:

teejay2012 said:

The EU does not generate enough profit for Apple to be happy about a $2B fine. That is going to hurt. Why for all this, when Apple was responding to DMA and making accommodations for their anti steering practices?... Because Margrethe Vestager is still very angry from losing the Irish tax case, which was over ruled on appeal as it did not provide proof of wrong doing. I think on appeal the same could happen here, as the EU commission is not the same as EU courts which adhere to the law and not vendetta driven. Apple could have allowed more information to music customers of course, but Spotify and Daniel Ek are nasty pieces in this. US tech companies have every right to become paranoid about future business in the EU, as clearly they are being targeted, to the advantage of EU companies. The corruption is obvious imo, but I suppose that is what businesses are all about. In the future, I doubt Apple will leave the EU, but certainly the products and services in the EU will differ, and likely will be more expensive.

I've long held that Apple should begin to manufacture devices for highly regulated markets like the EU which comply with EC regulations and are released some time after Apple releases their world market devices at a higher price to accommodate the additional engineering costs. They could also tack on regulatory fine costs and spread them over the EU devices uniformly.

This would mean that when the EC comes up with bonkers design decisions like all devices need replaceable batteries the whole world won't have to suffer with phones that aren't waterproof or lack inductive charging because a battery and cover being where the inductive charging coil currently sit today.

Of course, Europeans could still try and smuggle in grey market world phones, but that's a matter for the EU and their enforcement agencies to try to stop.

Everyone outside of these regulated countries could also buy the regulated phone but chances are they'd opt for the cheaper world phone (unless for some perverse reason you had the need to carry around a phone with a bunch of replaceable batteries).

IOW, just treat the Europeans and their demands as a cost of doing business, and have a side engineering department whose sole job is refitting a higher cost European iPhone to satisfy the more restrictive European market. Heck, the European phones could even be manufactured in the EU which would contribute to an even higher cost but would keep EU regulators happy.

rorschachai said:

blitz1 said:

mike1 said:

The US should really should be targeting European companies that do significant business in the US and start finding (or making up) reasons to issue significant fines and other penalties. Every time the EU targets an American-based company, the US should do the same. Time to start putting some retaliatory pressure on the EU.

Our market is much too important to the US.

Our iPhones will work differently from the US iPhones. 

We'll have more options and more freedom to choose.

Unless you want to choose a product with better privacy and security, or with better integration of hardware and software.

mike1 said:

The US should really should be targeting European companies that do significant business in the US and start finding (or making up) reasons to issue significant fines and other penalties. Every time the EU targets an American-based company, the US should do the same. Time to start putting some retaliatory pressure on the EU.

foregoneconclusion said:

avon b7 said:

This is part of what the EU had to say:
"Today's decision concludes that Apple's anti-steering provisions amount to unfair trading conditions, in breach of Article 102(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU'). These anti-steering provisions are neither necessary nor proportionate for the protection of Apple's commercial interests in relation to the App Store on Apple's smart mobile devices and negatively affect the interests of iOS users, who cannot make informed and effective decisions on where and how to purchase music streaming subscriptions for use on their device.

Nutshell: EU is arguing that smartphone users only have access to information that's inside the App Store and apps. They're totally ignoring the fact that an iPhone also has access to the internet, social media, phone calls/texts, email and push notifications. Apple doesn't control the content in any of those. The idea that consumers in 2024 have no idea where to get information without the app telling them is TOTALLY BONKERS. 

radarthekat said:

nubus said:

pulseimages said:

Let the security breaches begin! 

And let the freedom of apps begin. EU got tired of having a company from California being a gatekeeper on apps.
Like having Ford decide where you can go. No longer.

Why do the red states accept that a company from San Francisco place personal properties of their citizens in a padded cell?
Is it the "Make America Less Free" movement? Or "California knows what is best for us"?
Perhaps do an amendment "the right to install apps" or "freedom to use the apps you want"? 

Not sure if we can fit the Statue of Liberty in the EU HQ, but we will give it a try :-D
- end of gloating.

What's this personal property noise?  You don't own the copy of iOS on your iPhone.  That's property of Apple that you have license to use, subject to Apple's terms.  If you want to remove it, build your own OS and then build apps for that, you're free to do so.  And no, that's not the same as jailbreaking the OS.