cincytee

22july2013 said:

The EU has now learned that when it makes any demands, of any type, hardware or software, even against user privacy and security, Apple will capitulate.

You say that like the company is spineless. The EU is the master regulatory body for the continent. If Apple wants to sell its products in EU countries, it can file a few years' worth of appeals on rules it doesn't like, but, in the end, it has no choice but to capitulate if it wants to keep doing business there. The same situation applies in China.

Not really germane to the story, but, for the record, I like the Siri-over-Apple HQ illustration.

At 96¢ annually, that's barely a 0.5% payout. I'm not exactly overwhelmed by the Apple board's generosity in not cutting the company's relatively feeble dividend. 

Players can select from four distinct factions: the United Federation of Planets, Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, or Cardassian Union.

The immediate effect might be the loss of $20 billion in payments to Apple, but Apple would clearly then institute its own search engine, which would generate billions in revenue, much like Google, so the overall impact would be much smaller financially and also put Apple in charge of its own search revenues. The question then would be whether that in itself would raise regulatory scrutiny.