randominternetperson

CrossPlatformFrogger said:

I hope Apple continues to ignore Epic, not because I have anything against Fortnite being on the App Store, but this brings more attention to Apple and its abuse of its platform. So Apple, please carry on! 

Thanks for the chuckle.

I'm surprised you say "its platform." It almost seems like you're conceding that the App Store is something Apple created and controls rather than a natural human right that Apple is obligated to manage for the public good.

Xed said:

SiTime said:

It’s $3500?!?!?

I’m on Apple news sites all the time and even I didn’t know it is $3500. For some reason I thought it was $2500 or so. So I would have been way off as well. Although my bid of $2500 would have been the highest without going over.

Your bid should've been $1002 if you were the last to go if you didn't know the price -and- $2500 would've been over if the price you thought it to be followed the same pattern as the current price, which would've made it retail for $2499.

And you would have lost. As the article said, the high price was $1,250. 

But I'm with SiTime. I thought it was $2500 too.

The original "fat" Mac was US$3,195 (equivalent to $9,670 in 2024)

The image of the tweet doesn't make any sense unless you click thru and see that the dude is referring to the top of the image.  (Not sure how this is "punishment," but that's a different issue.)

nubus said:

hammeroftruth said:

One of the things that has always bothered me is that there isn’t any news about other companies like Nintendo, or Sony having proprietary hardware and not running afoul of the EU. Is that because they grease the wheels and Apple does not?

TikTok got fined €530 million this week for sending data to China. Sony €13.5 million in 2023 for abuse of dominant position and for disabling controllers for PS4. But the main fines have been on truck manufacturers (billions), snacks (Mondelēz - €338 million in 2024 and Coca-Cola just got raided), car glass (+ €700 million), and so on. Airbus, AWS, and Google are taking massive hits as well.

Some companies try to operate like EU doesn't have antitrust, anti-corruption, or privacy regulations at all. They fail miserably. Old tech like IBM... not a case in 15 years and they didn't even get fined for that. I would say it is a problem at C-suite level in some companies and Apple is on that list. It really is for Cook or the board to fix it.

To suggest that Apple simply ignores European "antitrust, anti-corruption, or privacy" regulations (why not toss in "human trafficking" while you're at it?) is ridiculous.

It is often literally impossible to comply with the letter of the law when it comes to international regulations. Or at least completely infeasible. Thus, every company has to make strategic decisions about how strictly they will try to comply with which regulations in which countries. These are often C-suite and board level decisions.

I have no reason to believe there is anything to "fix" with respect to how Apple handles this on-going challenge. It could very well be that a half billion dollar fine is the optimal outcome. I mean, sure, Apple doesn't want write a check that big, but it could well be that the expected cost of half-assed compliance was lower than the expected cost of rigorous compliance.

I will also point out that Apple is a leader in privacy, so tossing antirust and privacy in the same regulatory bucket is disingenuous. Nor have I heard of any corruptions complaints against our favorite fruit company.