davidw
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EU will force Apple to totally expose its iPhone features to all who ask
kkqd1337 said:I don't understand the horror here?
I think the EU's position is perfectly reasonable and sensible.
Why shouldn't all manufacturers of peripheries such as Digital Watches / Headphones have the same access to the iPhone as Apple's own Watch/headphones?
Or are we suggesting anyone wanting to make a competing Apple Watch should just go and make their own phone to go with it?You are aware that there are other smartwatches and headphones for the iPhone, than just the Apple Watch and Apple brand headphones .... right?In case you don't understand, it's not about access to the iPhone, but access to Apple Intellectual Property (IP) in both the Watch and iPhone, IP that gives the Apple Watch a competitive edge. IP that Apple invested 10's of millions of dollars, if not billions, in RD.Ask yourself this, why can't we make money selling fancy $20 (Fortnite Bucks) virtual outfits to Epic Games Fortnite players? Are we suggesting that anyone wanting to compete with Epic in selling virtual outfits to customers playing games by Epic Games, develop our own games? You bet that hows it works. Fortnite is Epic Games IP. Nearly all develop countries hands the IP owner a monopoly in the ways they can monetize their IP. Google chose to make their IP (Android) Open Source. Thus (with limits) available for free to use and modify. Apple IP (iOS, Watch OS, iPadOS, etc.) are not Open Source (nor Public Domain) and solely belongs to Apple and only runs on Apple devices . They can charge for the use of their IP to recover the cost of RD or should be able to limit its availability, to give Apple products a competitive advantage.
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Calls for Tim Cook's resignation over Apple Intelligence miss that he has made Apple what ...
charlesn said:
Love the way the Cook naysayers love to have it both ways. The EV business has been an absolute proven bloodbath for virtually every carmaker who's in it except the Chinese--and I'll bet Tesla will join the club once the latest U.S. and China sales figures are reported--but it's a "failure" that Cook made the smart business decision to cut his losses and not move forward. According to the naysayers, if's a "failure" that he didn't forge ahead and maybe joined Rivian (which is at least still in business unlike Fiskar) in losing nearly $40,000 on every vehicle sold for the most recently reported quarter, up from about a $30,000 loss YOY. Or maybe Ford, which was losing $130,000 for every EV sold. As the song lyrics go, "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away." And Apple is FAR better off for Cook walking away.DAalseth said:Yes he has done great things at Apple. But that’s in the past. the last few years are filled with Apple Intelligence, Apple Car, Declining quality, and missed deadlines. Even Michael Jordan knew when it was time to hang it up. If Cook stays in the top seat he risks being the Willy Mayes falling down in the outfield.
Cook was the perfect person to replace Jobs, but that was a long time ago.
........Not only, as it turned out, is producing and selling EVs not a profitable venture, the only real valuable assent from selling EVs is for the carbon credit. The likes of Ford, GM, Mercedes and other gas auto makers depend on carbon credits, that allows them to sell more highly profitable gas guzzling SUV, while avoiding being fined by their government for exceeding over all emission standards. Even with Tesla, that don't make a gas auto, relies on selling their carbon credits to be as profitable as they are. And by most metric, they re not very profitable when factoring how much is being invested to make their EVs.I can't imagine for a second that Apple Inc. would want to sell EVs, whose only way of being profitable, might be to sell their carbon credit to gas auto makers, so they can sell more gas guzzling SUVs. . Can you imagine the hate Apple is going to get for doing that. And probably from the same group that is now criticizing Apple CEO for not going through with producing an "Apple Car".
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UK says Apple stifles browser innovation, but chickens out of imposing regulation
anonymouse said:
Sure it is, the UK is just copycatting the EU on these issues.avon b7 said:
This isn't about the EU or the DMA.9secondkox2 said:It’s not chickening out.It’s doing the right thing.For once.In this case, the EU doing nothing is doing the right thing.The whole DMA fiasco needs to be reversed ASAP.
But, it's hard not to see corrupt intent here from the UK "regulators" when they blithely accept, against all objective evidence, the word of Meta, et al. that they are being prevented from doing good for consumers by "not being allowed to innovate" with browser technology. First of all, consumers don't need (or probably want, if they were to actually think about it) innovation in rendering engines (HTML/CSS/DOM/Javascript). "Innovation" in rendering engines serves only one purpose and that purpose is anticompetitive — user and developer lock-in to a specific rendering engine. And, no, that is not what Apple is doing with WebKit, they follow standards and don't add "features" that make websites incompatible with other browsers. Secondly, the facile representation by these companies that they are in any way interested in improving the user experience is laughable; they are interested in improving their own experience in monetizing users, period. So, how do we explain this attack on user privacy, in both the EU and the UK, that is cloaked in terms like "competition" and "fairness" but seems to have no purpose other than to destroy privacy and pervert the concept of fairness?
The regulators in the UK, like those in the EU, are either so ignorant of these issues that they have no business regulating anything or they are so corrupt that they view their job as selling "regulation" to the highest bidder. Personally, I think it's a combination of both. But, the UK in particular have a track record of being anti-privacy in all regards, and the EU has a track record of hobbling US companies to benefit EU companies. It's not surprising that they are engaged in these blatant attempts to undermine privacy and competition, but it is particularly hypocritical of them to pretend they are doing the opposite.It's not that the consumers don't want or need, "innovation" in browser engines ....... so long as it's in the browser they are already using. But for sure, developers don't want to have to develop websites for more than the 3 main browser engines (WebKit, Blink and Gecko) we have now. The last thing they want is to develop websites to be compatible for another browser engine, no matter how much more "innovative" it might be. And Blink is a fork of Webkit but there are enough differences *(improvements) made over the years, that Blink is now considered another browser engine. And have an over 75% market share. All three are open source and "innovation's " are still possible with-in each browser engine. But Google with their 75% Blink market share has nearly full control on how browsers will have to work in order to properly render internet websites. Once Blink approach the 90% market share, developers will begin to no longer see a need to develop for the WebKit engine.With the EU forcing Apple to allow browser engines other than WebKit, this will only serve to cement Blink "monopoly". What did Microsoft do when they needed to "innovate" their Edge browser ...... they adopted Blink. If company has the money to come up with a new innovative browser, it's Microsoft (not to say that they actually have the talent.). Any market share that Webkit looses in mobile, will be Blink gain. Gecko has no mobile presence. This has already happened on desktop computers when Edge started using the Blink browser engine. But the EU politicians are too tech ignorant to see what most here already know. Do the EU politicians actually think some EU firm is going to develop a new innovative browser engine that will compete with or replace .... Blink?If the US DOJ get their wishes and prevent Google from sharing their ad revenue with the owner of the browser, (in exchange for being the default search engine), then we can probably see the end of Gecko engine "innovations", as Google ad revenue sharing accounts for 80% of Mozilla Firefox revenue. And most of Gecko market share will most likely go to Blink.
Here's a good article detailing the criteria thresholds that the EU came up with, to determine which companies would fall under the regulations outlined in the DMA.With the conclusion being .......>The Commission has not disclosed the thinking behind these thresholds. However, a reading of the Digital Markets Act Impact Assessment support study annex, which reported an analysis of various quantitative indicators[1] for 19 digital firms[2], shows three things: (1) the exercise carried out by the European Commission was subjective. There is no magic economic formula that would suggest that these are the optimal quantitative thresholds that maximise the efficacy of the restrictions and obligations imposed by the DMA. (2) The approach applied by the European Commission was most likely based on a backward induction process: the Commission had a rough idea of the companies that the DMA should capture, it then crafted the thresholds accordingly, to be sure the bigger players would be included. (3) Finally, the Commission had to make a clear trade-off: too-high thresholds would limit the impact of the DMA because companies with strong market leverage and capable of limiting competition in digital markets could fall out of scope; too-low thresholds would, however, entail high costs, for example burdening companies with compliance duties when they do not restrict competition in the digital market, or increasing pressure on resource-constrained public enforcers.<
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CarPlay helps Australian police scan license plates automatically
lesterkrimbaugh said:
Police in the US have side facing cameras as well as front and rear cameras. The cameras are constantly scanning license plates and automatically alert police to any suspicious vehicle – even parked cars. We sometimes see them at the mall driving up and down the rows of parked cars.ApplePoor said:The UK police have had a camera on the front of their squad cars for years. When they come up behind you, they know immediately if the road tax has been paid, the MOT inspection is current and there is a valid insurance policy in force. They also know the gender of the mandatory listed drivers on the insurance policy. So if a girl friend is driving the boy friend's car and no females are on the policy, there will be a pull over for clarification. Another feature is if there is no insurance, they have the option to take the car to the crusher right then.
So big brother is watching every where.Here in San Francisco, meter person scooters had cameras on them for years. But back when they were first installed, the public was told that those license plate readers were to check for overtime parking violations. In SF (and I imagine in most cities) parking meters are usually placed in front of businesses. Those meters usually have a 20 minutes to 2 hours time limit. One is not allowed to keep feeding the meter all day long, without moving their vehicle. If the meter person suspects that a vehicle been there for longer than time limit of the meter, they would need to chalk mark the tires and then check for the mark after the time limit had passed again.But with the vehicle mounted cameras, the on board computer can inform the meter person that the same car been parked in the same spot, since the last time the meter person passed by. So even if there is still time on the meter the second time around, the meter person would know if a vehicle been parked there for over the time limit of the meter. So the vehicle will get a ticket for overtime parking, regardless if there's still time on the meter. It seems that in these metered business areas, the employees of the businesses would take up these metered spaces and keep feeding the meters all day long. Thus taking away parking spaces for those that are there to patronize the businesses.But of course today, those cameras are now tied to the police data base and vehicles with a high amount of unpaid tickets will get booted. While stolen vehicles or vehicles that the police might be searching for also get flagged and reported to the police.Right now, SF through a Federal grant, is in the process of installing 400 pole mounted license plate readers through out the city. (I believed Oakland (across the Bay) is doing the same.) But we're still a long way from being as efficient as London or Paris or Berlin or most other major cites in the EU, in tracking any car as it makes its way through the city. Here, we are still mainly depending on license plate readers instead of live video "traffic" cameras.When ever there is a terrorist attack in some major EU city, I'm still amazed at how the police is able to track the car used in the crime, back to the neighborhood where the criminals first boarded the vehicle and the path it took through the city to get to (or away from) the crime scene. Criminals there can't fool law enforcement by changing the plates half way to or from, the crime scene. The police there would know exactly where they stopped to change the plates. -
Don't expect cheaper iCloud storage as Apple wins another monopoly lawsuit
DAalseth said:
The point being that yes you can connect your Mac or iPhone or iPad to these services, but can you set Photos to backup and share through them? I mean natively within the app. I write a lot in Pages. Can you use one of these services as the default saving location so you can share the files between devices as it is with iCloud? I don’t think it is. If it is let me know, I’d love to use some of these less expensive services, but I haven’t found a way. If you can’t then Apple is being a bit heavy handed.9secondkox2 said:It’s not mandatory to purchase iCloud storage.And competitor services exist from Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, etc.
Sure you can link to these and other cloud services, but if everything you want to do is kludgy you are limited as to how you can use them, then you really don’t have access.The thing is that Photos (on iOS), Pages and others are Apple free software. Of course they're highly integrated with their iCloud. If you want to use Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive to easily save your data and save on cost, then use their free software. Nothing is stopping you from using Google and Microsoft software, in order to easily save your data on their cloud services. Apple do not have to make their free software easy to use with Google Drive or Microsoft One drive. You don't think Microsoft One Drive is more easy to use with Microsoft software than with Apple or Google software? So long as Apple do not prevent their users from using Google and Microsoft software or prevent Google and Microsoft from using their own cloud services on their software (that runs on Apple devices), Apple is not doing anything wrong or illegal.You think its Google that makes it easy to transfer your data from an Android phone to an iPhone? No, Google makes it easy to transfer your data from an iPhone to an Android phone. Apple and Google have no interest in providing free software, that makes it easy to switch to a competitors devices. I'm sure that if you use Google Doc, you can just as easily save your data on Google Cloud, as you could saving your Pages data in the iCloud. And this also goes for Microsoft software being more highly integrates with their own cloud services.There's a reason why iCloud storage is more expensive than that of Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Apple lease cloud storage from Google and Amazon. Apple have no where near the cloud storage capacity that Google, Amazon and Microsoft has. What cloud servers Apple has is mainly for their own internal business like iTunes Store, App Store, pushing software upgrades and updates on their devices, music and movie streaming, etc. and it's still not enough. Apple rely on Google and Amazon for their customers iCloud storage. No way Apple can compete with Google, Amazon and Microsoft when it comes to profiting from charging for cloud storage.
