darelrex

venomxxr said:

The notion that Apple would leave the EU even if they were hit with a $39B fine is laughable. Check the 10-K. Apple’s revenue was over $95B in Europe in 2022 alone. The EU probably represents >80% of that. Apple isn’t giving up the $500B in revenue and $100B+ in net income they’d make there the rest of this decade alone just to “stick it” to politicians. Get real.

When Apple was highly profitable in the EU, in 2022 and for many years before, did they make that money selling a flea-market, free-for-all, uncontrolled hardware product, spec-dictated by EU regulators, and while paying $40 billion, then $80 billion, then more, in massive, accelerating fines? Um, no. Just because the EU has been a fertile market for iOS for the past fifteen years, doesn't mean it will be in the future.

It was inevitable that somewhere, some day, a government was going to demand such immense fines, and such massive, "antitrust" changes to Apple's products, that Apple would have to bow out of that market until/unless things become viable again. Not sure if this is that breaking point, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was.

"We applaud President Biden for upholding the ITC's ruling," AliveCor CEO Priya Abani said in a statement to AppleInsider, "and holding Apple accountable for infringing the patents that underpin our industry-leading ECG technology."

I haven't studied these patents myself, but I've heard that people who have say it's nothing more than a patent on the very idea of using ECG in conjunction with a smartwatch. It's not "industry-leading ECG technology." ECG is an incredibly simple technology that's been around since before anyone alive today was even born.

AliveCor was probably hoping for a juicy settlement, but Apple chose to fight it. The patents have already been invalidated, and now it's just a question of whether the appellate forum agrees with that invalidation.

avon b7 said:

StrangeDays said:

...

But customers aren't aware of what is really going on. Shouldn't they be informed at least? Clearly and up front. 

I'm sure the vast majority wouldn't agree with Apple choosing for them.

Nothing silly to see here. 

Perhaps the customers should be informed, clearly and up-front. That sounds reasonable on its face. But be aware of a few things:

1. Nobody's informing (clearly and up-front) Android phone buyers about all the potential problems with choosing Android over iPhone. Not a peep, just totally positive, "this phone's great, you should buy it."

2. Vipps doesn't give a hoot whether or not Apple buyers are clearly informed, up-front, about how NFC works on iPhone — Vipps just wants the government to force Apple to let Vipps control iPhone's NFC hardware directly whether Apple likes it or not.

3. A big part of any purchasing decision is trust: Do I trust this company to make good decisions, overall, for how this product is built and how it functions? What is the general history of this company and its products, as compared to its competitors and their products? A lot of Apple's customers trust Apple, and even if they don't know the particulars of NFC or any other specific feature, they don't want you and/or the government stepping in and forcing Apple to change its products into something that Apple didn't intend them to be.

One more note: Apple is worrying about the long term quality and success of iPhone, especially as differentiated from Android. Vipps is not; Vipps would be perfectly happy if iPhone was completely blown away, and all former iPhone users had to switch to Android. Vipps just wants to be able to harvest user data from NFC transactions, period, however they can make that happen.

avon b7 said:

iOS_Guy80 said:

avon b7 said:

...

I don’t want t let other banking financial ecosystems into apples ecosystem.

That's fine as a personal opinion but do you really think your opinion should outweigh those of others? 

Should every company's products' features/policies be up for public vote? Maybe people who don't like iPhone can go buy an Android phone — last time I checked, 50% already do that in the USA, and it's at least 70% worldwide.

Here's what I should have said about NFC the first time I commented here: NFC is an open standard, and as such, everyone can use it, including Vipps. But no one is required to use it the way anyone else wants them to use it. Apple is using NFC the way Apple wants to. Vipps can use NFC the way Vipps wants want to. But Vipps isn't satisfied with that: in the name of "antitrust," it wants to force Apple to use NFC the way Vipps wants Apple to.