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AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users With EU Apple Accounts
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Heh… EU based tech company?
I mean, it’s the right way of thinking. They could have combined the collective technical might of all the countries in the region to create a new, better, more EU consumer focused EU phone platform. Designed by EU regulators, it would do all the things they want it to do better than Google and Apple ever could have and could have swept the market. And, if it’s good enough, then that hardware/OS combo could have gained traction around the world drawing billions and billions of dollars into those companies that design/produced the hardware and that generated revenue from the EU App Store. But, as the EU already regulated all the successful tech companies out of the EU (other than Spotify), the likelihood of an EU based company being able to create anything that that works that well is quite low.Incidentally, China doesn’t force Apple to ensure every feature on the iPhone works with all the random non-Apple devices, so releasing it to China is no big deal. This is really just an EU problem created by Vestager and they let it happen!
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I understand that Apple needs more time to comply with the world’s most progressive privacy regulations, but I can’t help wondering how much time Apple is willing to waste. Many European customers who would have bought the AirPods Pro immediately are now holding back, meaning lost revenue for Apple. And Apple should care. After all, the European market is larger than the U.S. in terms of population.
Perhaps Apple should work harder to ensure that new products meet EU requirements from the very start, assuming Apple is truly interested in our money. If they expect European customers to pay premium prices, we should at least be able to expect premium effort behind the scenes to make that possible.
Now, does Android work on just ONE phone already or does it work on myriad different phones? See the difference between Android and iOS now?
That’s absolutely not a requirement in the EU. Note that many Apple features like predictive text are only available for a few of the EU languages.
That’s not a requirement of the DMA or DSA. You are grasping for straws.
its Apple blocking features, not EU. EU does not care whether feature is complete or not, just whether its compliant or not. oh, and they dont block, they fine.
and Apple has been known to ignore language features for smaller countries. i get it, market not big enough to justify investment.
as a side note, its actually very good excuse not to release that feature in EU and blame regulations, but the big tech would never resort to such move, no?
Every country abuses in one way or another.
It's jut that people get so used to it that it becomes normal.
Here’s the upside, if so many folks in the EU hate Apple such that Apple sales tank in the EU, then that could eventually drop iPhones from being designated as gatekeepers. Then they drop the EU specific App Stores, the EU specific dev rules, everything.
Well they aren’t releasing this in the EU. They are looking at the regulations before they do.
There is no reason for them to hold up the rest of the world over EU regulations.
Hmmm, you don't think Apple's manipulating you at all here? "Hey, we'd love to offer you this, but <sigh> those nasty EU bureaucrats... You really need to do something about them..."
Not likely. Apple had previously indicated this would happen due to the DMA. The DMA is still in place, Apple’s still a gatekeeper and it’s happening. So…
Apple hasn’t said, so we’re all guessing, but I think my guess is better.
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I guess we just need to know then if “some amount of audio is uploaded to the cloud … to create an analysis or voicePRINT for the user”
Each and every one of those officials was voted for or vetted by the representatives of parliament. You can complain about how tech companies decide to implement features (in ways that seemingly skirt the law) but these are not "dictators" and they didn't disallow a live translation feature (if its implementation can be shown compliant with the law).
Must be embarrassing to think Europe is a country. or know absolutely nothing about it.
The issue is almost certainly that because the translation is done on the phone, not the AirPods, and per the DMA Apple is required to allow access to that feature to any headphone manufacturer who asks for it. Under the DMA Apple is not allowed to differentiate with software features.
From the text of the DMA, bold parts highlighted by me:
In other words, if the translation is done by iOS, then Apple has to give access to that feature to the headphone companies it is competing against. It's not a surprise Apple doesn't want to do that.
This is absolutely a result of EU regulations. Don't be mad at Apple for withholding features when the EU has declared iOS is a public utility.
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This is not quite true. The vast majority of Europeans are very supportive of privacy and personal data protection laws. Even if the implementation like Cookie warnings is incredibly annoying.
If given the choice between having private conversations uploaded to Big Tech server farms, or waiting a year until the security is proven, most will prefer the latter.
(Besides, we don’t know if this a GDPR issue or a DMA issue. DMA is deeply capitalist, as it promotes competition which is THE core requirement for capitalism to work).
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I’m wondering if “the feature won’t be available” means it’s just not going to be available. Not “more time to comply” but instead that it doesn’t even work with all of Apple’s products (Only back to the iPhone 15) so having the AirPods Pro be interoperable and have the feature available with any random Android phone is simply a non-starter.
They could change the regulation so that Apple isn’t forced to make every feature available on non-Apple devices, but, assuming they’re not, this just simply won’t be available. Ever. And, if Apple loses sales, customers, then that’s just the cost (to them) of the regulation. When the GDPR was implemented, companies had to shut down and move out of the EU. It’s not the regulators job to ensure that every company can continue to profit (and Vestager was particularly interested in seeing gatekeeper’s profits drop, so it’s no surprise that they would). In the end, if the EU chooses Android (why wouldn’t they), then Apple eventually drops from being a gatekeeper and can go back to operating as they had.
I'm curious how it will handle machinegun spanish
and british slang ... will the system translate british slang?