kiltedgreen

rob53 said:

Apple owns its products not the EU. The EU has no right to dictate to Apple how its products operate. As I’ve said before, the EU has every right to build their own platforms but it’s obvious they don’t have the ability or talent to design and manufacture anything people, including those in EU countries, want. It’s time to boycott everything made in the EU but I’m not so sure there’s actually anything they make I really want. 

The EU absolutely can dictate to Apple how aspects of its products operate, that's what EU law is for. If you want to sell tech, fruit, cars, aeroplanes, clothes or whatever to members states of the EU then those products must abide by the rules that the EU sets. This will be in just the same way that the USA dictates the standards products sold there must meet (unless the USA is content to have dog meat sold as beef and TVs sold with totally unsafe wiring and cars made of old bits of rusty tin). They can be challenged, as Apple is doing and depending on the result Apple can either comply or withdraw from the market. In this case, I think the EU is overreaching and Apple is in the right (in what I know of the issue) but what is relevant is what the lawyers say.

To say that "they [EU member countries] don’t have the ability or talent to design and manufacture anything people, including those in EU countries, want" is just ridiculous and verifiably so. So, nobody wants cars from BMW, Ferrari, or Mercedes? Nobody wants British HiFi or ARM's tech? Not even in Europe? Are you seriously suggesting that?

Boycotting everything made in the EU? So no more French cheese or Champagne? No Italian clothing or wine? No Belgian chocolates? No IKEA or Lego? No Airbus? You seem to be using the same playbook as Trump! Hilariously, given his "Made in the USA" obsession, none of the merch in his Trump shop is made in the USA - most is from his evil enemy, China. You can't make up this kind of blinkered economic foolishness.

I’m sure that Tim Cook, and Apple generally, have been waiting for Ming-Chi Kuo to pronounce before they decide on a strategy for iPhone production.

Too busy? When you’re golfing for 20% of your presidency it must be hard to find time for the day job.

all those countries lining up to negotiate tariffs? Who? Well, he can’t say because the number is 0. Says he is going to just set a number and send out letters - so, just like “Liberation Day” then. Maybe that island where only penguins live will get their tariff removed …

Trump is like a 5 year old with a flame thrower.

Just think of this (A lack of significant new features in the Apple Watch Series 10 and no updates to the Apple Watch SE or Apple Watch Ultra, is claimed to be behind another year of declining sales.) concept logically; to address it, Apple would have to build new features into Apple Watch this year, in 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, 2033, 2034, 2035, 2036, 2037 …

You get the picture.

Just what exactly would you expect? How many features can be added to an Apple Watch, every year until the end of the product line? What are buyers demanding? What crucial feature must an Apple Watch have before these others buy it? Maybe everyone who wants one has bought one? Do iPhone sales keep rising every single year?

I know computers are different from anything else in that they contain software which can be updated whereas your TV, cooker, car, grass mower, microwave and the like stay the boring same, year after year. Such is the strange life we lead as humans in the West today where it’s expected that there will always be more features in our tech products. Every. Single. Year.

The problem, for the USA, is that Trump is a delusional, economically illiterate idiot surrounded by a bunch of sycophants. His “plans” can change by the hour as can be seen in the tariff madness. He wants all those 75 countries “kissing his ass” so that he looks like the king. 

China does not think like Trump or America. They know what they are doing and are leaps and bounds ahead in their determination and economic trading intelligence. They will be in for the long haul and will no doubt come up with retaliation if required to which Trump will have no response. Trump blinking will be just the start.