Well, if you're not an American, chances are you speak multiple languages anyway and probably don't need the live translation feature as much. So it's not a gimmick to us Americans, we need it hahaha.
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AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users With EU Apple Accounts
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They can impose stupid rules but can’t keep the city from looking like a dump!
I'm pretty sure the issue here is the European Commission will requiere apple to open the system so that live translation also works with other brands of earplugs. They will see the fact that it only works with AirPods as anticompetitive and a way to force clients to buy Apple branded stuff and to further strengthen the ecosystem.
Yeah I wonder why, and why Apple still doesn’t pull the trigger and quit EU market altogether, if they despise heavy EU regulations so much. Apple certainly have the freedom to not operate in EU.
The EU wants open doors but only the open doors they choose. Hard to satisfy the EU.
I’ll use the feature and be sure to tell all of my European counterparts on here how great it is! 😂 💋
Good luck! They will simply tell you, they had this feature on their Pixels since 2021 and can use it with the headphones and microphones of their choice - no special heavily overpriced Buds needed for that! 🤣
The EU Rules are a lot like the Measure 65 Rules for California. The fines and issues are so high and burdensome for even the tiniest error, everyone errs, in relation to measure 65, to just saying that everything could cause Cancer. In Apple's case, the just err on, don't release it to the EU, until after release and they can take a look at it. They don't get approval ahead of time, because the EU regulatory bodies, are leaker than a submarine with a screen door, and we would have known all about this feature last year.
Judging from the information in your post and the obvious fact that Apple is not willing to give away the technology that makes the Airpods communicate with iOS (they would’ve done so in the 1st place) this feature will never work in the EU. Unless the EU changes its own rules which is highly unlikely.
I'm no fan of cumbersome bureaucracy, but I am a fan of checks and balances to the free market when it comes to privacy.
I suspect this is because of data leaving the EU, but who knows. It would be good if Apple explained the absence.
I suspect this is because of data leaving the EU, but who knows. It would be good if Apple explained the absence.
People from the US criticise the EU for regulating stuff...
Well, I guess that's what happens when corporations can't buy your politicians.
Enjoy your opioid epidemic.
Well, I guess that's what happens when corporations can't buy your politicians.
Enjoy your opioid epidemic.
Yet they care enough to choose to not quit EU market altogether, but not enough to make the device appealing against android counterparts, at least on certain high profile features. It is really puzzling as a result.
They're just collateral damage; although IIRC the CH does adopt or follow a number of EU rules. At any rate, why should Apple risk people buying iPhones in Switzerland and then going into the EU and no doubt expecting Apple to follow EU rules. geofencing a border area is a simpler solution.
No one knows why Apple chose to do this, but clearly they saw some potential compliance issue, perhaps with data or interoperability that lead to this decision. As a gatekeeper, the EU has forced Apple to do various things and Apple may have simply decided they did not want to risk yet another round of back and forth over this feature.
I think the EU's regulatory approach shares some blame, without clear guidance and "spirit of the law' approaches it makes it hard to know what exactly you must do for compliance, and companies don't like uncertainty.
You're assuming Apple does it the exact same way and not take a different approach in the actual implementation.
Their “one click unsubscribe” >chef’s kiss<. They just need to do a better job keeping some folks away from the rule making.
Strangely enough, China’s easier to deal with. They don’t mess around with fines, they hit them where it REALLY hurts, by restricting access to the market to any phone that does not meet their requirements and regulations. The EU COULD have restricted the sale of new iPhones until all their demands were met, the question is simply why didn’t they?
(Because it was about the money, not the regulations)
I don’t see an issue here except: Apple hasn’t (yest) been transparent about how these conversational data are processed, and whether (or how) they’ll be used for Apple’s commercial benefit.
For me, this isn’t about blocking innovation. It’s about accountability. If data are being collected, users deserve to know exactly how that information will be handled.
Honestly, I’d pose the same question to other governments too — if they’re scrutinizing corporations, then they should be equally clear themselves about how citizen data is managed.
For me, this isn’t about blocking innovation. It’s about accountability. If data are being collected, users deserve to know exactly how that information will be handled.
Honestly, I’d pose the same question to other governments too — if they’re scrutinizing corporations, then they should be equally clear themselves about how citizen data is managed.
That wouldn’t be accurate because there’s zero guarantee that it would ever get EU approval. If a regulator rejects it, the DMA says it’s rejected, even if there’s nothing in the DMA that specifies why it was rejected.
If Apple releases a live translation service in the EU that works only between Apple devices, the EU considers that anti-competitive because Apple’s a gatekeeper. Were they not a gatekeeper, no harm, no foul. BECAUSE they’re a gatekeeper, the EU requires interoperability. Other companies can release iPhone apps for their headphones and several already do. They can add live translation to those apps. The issue is when Apple releases anything that works mainly with other Apple devices.
As long as the feature not released in a region where the DMA is the law, then they don’t have to worry about fines or interoperability.
Lol? Why does nobody need to translate between spanish and English? I think that's a very, very common scenario?
Same with French and Italian?
I highly suspect most people would say "Apple's translation feature doesn't work" not "oh, I guess my headphones aren't of appropriate quality." History is full of examples: users blamed Microsoft when Windows ran poorly on underpowered PCs, not the PC manufacturers. They blamed Google when Android felt sluggish on cheap phones with insufficient RAM. Netflix gets criticized when streaming quality drops due to ISP throttling, not the internet provider.
Apple has built their brand on "it just works" reliability, and, while I know many on here think that is going away, I'd argue it isn't in the minds of most users. Opening translation APIs to random headphone manufacturers would almost certainly result in bad experiences that Apple would be blamed for, not poor microphones, latency, or bad Bluetooth implementations.
EU regulators are essentially forcing Apple to either compromise their competitive advantage and damage their brand promise, or withdraw features entirely. Apple is damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Literally nothing was (or is) preventing Bose from developing and introducing a similar feature within their app. So why should Apple be forced to do Bose's R&D for them for free?
Especially in Europe with so many languages would online-translation be of advantage.
Apple? Displaying contempt for their customers?
There's nothing new under the sun.
There's nothing new under the sun.
Money... Apple is expert where it comes to milking the system - either by closed ecosystem and forcing AppStore model and doing everything they can so that alternatives won't exist or avoiding taxes (yes, finding loopholes and any sort of "tax optimisation" while legal is still tax avoidance)... to the point where they have trackloads of cash in weird jurisdictions and they don't use it because moving it to EU/USA would imply taxation... what a 🤡 company...