davidw

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davidw
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  • Apple EU anti-competition fine is a relatively modest $570 million to avoid Trump retaliat...

    davidwdavidw
    danox said:
    reroll said:
    Companies must comply with the regulations of the regions in which they operate—no exceptions. Failure to do so results in penalties. In fact, US tariffs have cost Apple significantly more than all the fines the EU has imposed combined.

    To take the wording of the previous post that would make the US more evil, and Trump more wrong. With that reasoning one could wish biblical judgment on the US. But that’s not the US. It’s just Trump&friends.  

    Another ridiculous action by the EU, I do not expect the Dutch company ASML for example or any company in the United States or anywhere for that matter, be required to give up share their research and development for free because some government somewhere says you should for made up competitive reasons, Apple, ASML got where they did through hard work research and development over time. 

    They did not stop anyone else outside their company from pursuing the same results and the same applies to any company that does the actual research and development, it’s not about tariff escalation you have just given the Bumpkins in the White House, the idea that they can do the same thing in reverse to other companies outside the United States require them to share whatever have of value at a whim.
    The US federal government forced AT&T to provide its patents (including for the transistor) for free to other US companies.

    Please inform yourself on why ATT was a monopoly. The US government handed ATT a monopoly because our government wanted everyone in the US to have an affordable telephone from which they could call anyone else in the US. Having a dozen different telephone standards did not fit that goal. Therefore, as a result of being handed a government monopoly, ATT had to allow other telephone companies to use their patents, so that all the telephones made by different companies were compatible with each other. ATT also had to run telephone lines to the least populated rural communities, so they had access to a telephone. Something smaller telephone companies could not afford to do. Eventually, the US government went on to approve ATT buying out all its competition. 

    This is no different than how now of days, we use SEP and FRAND to hand patent holders a monopoly, in exchange for allowing others to use the patents at a minimum cost. So that all mobile infrastructures are standardized and companies can make mobile phones that can communicate with each other on any network, without having to pay an arm and leg to patent holders.

    If the EU handed Apple a monopoly in the EU, then I wouldn't have a problem with the EU Commission forcing Apple to allow others in the EU to use their patents, for free. 
    sphericmigselvwatto_cobra

  • EU antitrust agency may not fine Apple much to avoid tariff war escalation

    davidwdavidw
    This just further exposes the extortion racket that the DMA is. The calculus is now, "How much can we get without it costing us more?"

    The DMA was never written and enacted, to solve any anti-competitive problems the EU was having with the 5 largest US tech companies. The DMA was written and enacted, to have the 5 largest US tech companies solve the age-old problem with Socialism eventually running out of other peoples money.
    nubussconosciutotrustnoone00watto_cobra

  • EU will force Apple to totally expose its iPhone features to all who ask

    davidwdavidw
    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. 


    williamlondontiredskillswatto_cobra

  • Calls for Tim Cook's resignation over Apple Intelligence miss that he has made Apple what ...

    davidwdavidw
    charlesn said:
    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. 
    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. 
    ........
    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".

    muthuk_vanalingamtiredskillsronnjroywatto_cobra

  • UK says Apple stifles browser innovation, but chickens out of imposing regulation

    davidwdavidw
    avon b7 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. 
    This isn't about the EU or the DMA. 
    Sure it is, the UK is just copycatting the EU on these issues.

    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.<




    muthuk_vanalingamtiredskillswatto_cobra