Apple Challenges 'Unprecedented' €500M EU Fine Over App Store Steering Rules

[wbeasley]

That's certainly the biggest hurdle for external payments and app stores. The family library is a great feature.

This said I installed the old Mac shareware icon manager app Candybar on a 2011 MacBook Air. Having lost my.origonap serial number a decade ago I emailed Icon factory the developer and they were nice enough to give me a new one. Given this app isn't even supported on new Macs I thought that was awfully decent of them.

But I'm a nerd and the public are not.

well we can agree that was lucky and nice of them...

sadly i had the reverse with NTFS for Mac software... 6 weeks to sort it out, no discount for upgrade (as they tell you you can get). so many emails. would have been SO MUCH easier if it had been through the AppStore. and easy to install on all my Macs not just one.

eventually they sent me a link for the no activation needed version. and solved the problem.
weeks would go by without an answer from the Help Desk.
and then someone else took over.

all the hallmarks of truly bad service.

 

[AppliedMicro]

And now we’re back to the crap “duopoly” argument that’s already been handily refuted

Nothing has been refuted. Consumers want to use and download apps on their mobile devices (that‘s a given). And software developers want to distribute their apps. Avoiding both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store is not a viable option for any average consumer or developer.

There are many other options out there.

They have negligible market share and don‘t carry all the apps a normal consumer wants/requires.

And if governments were truly concerned about a “duopoly”, they could incentivize more newcomers to the market by doing things like deregulating the sector and removing the excessive body of regulation and red tape

The sector wasn‘t regulated much - and it’s subject to enormous entry barriers (costs of creating an OS). economies of scale and network effects. Consumers and developers have been converging on two or three platforms - just as consumers don‘t have ten different physical phone/internet lines directly leading into their housing units.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Besides, emulators are available in the App Store…

Yes - after Apple had to allow sideloading, they reversed their original ban on them.
Rather than let alternative stores become popular for them, they preferred keeping that business themselves.
It‘s a result of EU regulation.

Just buy something else. No one forced you to buy the phone. Apple spend years making the phones and their eco system. It's very nice. But, then you whine about it like their torture into buying it. There are alternatives.

There are simply no alternatives to Apple‘s iOS/App Store and Google‘s Android/Play Store that satisfy the demand and and functionality consumers expect. Do you talk to normal people at all? Do you know any normal people that have a smartphone arbutus use neither of those stores? Would you recommend options that don‘t use either of these stores to your family?

 

[AppliedMicro]

So basically you want to take away a companies rights to manage their own property, and allow devs to leach off of their property

That‘s what Apple has been doing: taking away developers‘ rights to manager their own property and market to consumers. Yes, the rights they waived (on a per platform basis) when accepting the developer agreement - but which Hüther had no other economically viable choice but to accept.

So, how many trillions of Euros will the EU be giving to Apple to pay for the freedom that they are ripping away from Apple to distribute to all these other people?

They are an remain free to compete for distribution of third-party apps.

we have freed you from having the the freedom to choose which of two systems you'd prefer, by taking away that choice

Quite the contrary: these two choices remain - consumers and developers are just awarded slightly more freedom what to do with these systems. The Orwellian control Apple imposes on them has been legally restricted, that‘s all.

it's an Orwellian NewSpeak situation

Quite literally Orwellian NewSpeak are the slogans „Less choice is more and“.
And the claim that providing businesses and consumers „more choice is taking away choice“.

 

[AppliedMicro]

but booking.com car hire is based in UK and doesnt bother to have an Australian bank account so when the charge was made, the bank issued an international txn fee and conversion fee. about $20. far in excess of the actual cost of doing so.

when companies blatantly rip off consumers with hidden fees that needs to be challenged.

Just book anywhere else then. You have a choice.

when companies blatantly rip off consumers with hidden fees that needs to be challenged.

That‘s what the EU has been and is doing.

 

[AppliedMicro]

When all you have (and know how to use) is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Even when your own people are telling you “using so many nails is a really big problem!”

We’ve been there last year - I already quoted from that very same ˋDraghiˋ reportˋ:

„Open access and interoperability are pro-competitive forces, as is the adoption of common technological standards. Important advances in promoting open access and interoperability in digital markets have been achieved through the DMA.“

„In digital markets, in addition to the strong enforcement of the DMA provisions, new requirements involving open access and interoperability should be enacted when the presence of strong network effects and barriers to entry related to data impede market competition“

„the compliance assessment of tech platforms to the digital regulations share a high degree of complexity. It is of paramount importance for the EU that these new rules are applied effectively and result in the intended benefits for EU consumers and businesses“

 

[surferfb]

We’ve been there last year - I already quoted from that very same ˋDraghiˋ reportˋ:

„Open access and interoperability are pro-competitive forces, as is the adoption of common technological standards. Important advances in promoting open access and interoperability in digital markets have been achieved through the DMA.“

„In digital markets, in addition to the strong enforcement of the DMA provisions, new requirements involving open access and interoperability should be enacted when the presence of strong network effects and barriers to entry related to data impede market competition“

„the compliance assessment of tech platforms to the digital regulations share a high degree of complexity. It is of paramount importance for the EU that these new rules are applied effectively and result in the intended benefits for EU consumers and businesses“

Ignoring the first link? Here are some choice quotes:

“Taxes are higher, and regulations designed to corral big business become a costly and time-consuming headache for startups. It is easier for large AI companies in the U.S. or China to move to Europe than “growing out of Europe and to have to invest from the start to satisfy a much more complex regulatory framework,” said Sebastian Steinhäuser, chief strategy and operating officer at German software giant SAP.“

European businesses spend 40% of their IT budgets on complying with regulations, according to a recent survey by Amazon.

Software company Bird, one of the Netherlands’ most successful startups, said recently it plans to move its main operations out of Europe to the U.S., Dubai and other locations due to restrictive AI regulation. “Stop regulating, Europe. We might be the first, but we won’t be the last (to leave),” Robert Vis, the company’s founder, wrote on his LinkedIn page.

The Draghi report, said McAfee at MIT, did a great job diagnosing Europe’s lagging tech sector, but then urged governments to spend more public money spurring the sector, missing the point that it was private money that was absent—most likely due to regulation and other problems. Said McAfee: “That’s when I went from nodding my head in agreement to banging it on the table.”

And yes, the Draghi report praised the DMA, because presumably he thought not doing so would bite the hand that feeds him, or maybe he realizes it clearly targets non-European companies with the goal of making them less competitive, thereby increasing Europe’s competitiveness by pulling everyone else down.

if the EU is genuinely committed to reducing regulatory burdens, why is it doubling down on the DMA while relaxing other rules? The answer seems clear: Other regulations would place burdens on many European companies, but the DMA primarily targets American firms.

I notice you left out the part of the Report that warns that the DMA’s implementation “must not become an administrative and compliance burden” citing the GDPR as an example of what to avoid. Given the EU’s constant goalpost shifting and bad-faith dealing, one could argue it already has failed that instruction.

 

[Kal Madda]

That‘s what Apple has been doing: taking away developers‘ rights to manager their own property and market to consumers. Yes, the rights they waived (on a per platform basis) when accepting the developer agreement - but which Hüther had no other economically viable choice but to accept.

They are an remain free to compete for distribution of third-party apps.

Quite the contrary: these two choices remain - consumers and developers are just awarded slightly more freedom what to do with these systems. The Orwellian control Apple imposes on them has been legally restricted, that‘s all.


Quite literally Orwellian NewSpeak are the slogans „Less choice is more and“.
And the claim that providing businesses and consumers „more choice is taking away choice“.

Apple has not taken away any developers rights. Because developers don’t have an inherent right to make or distribute an iPhone app. Apple has provided terms and conditions by which they will allow developers who agree and abide by those terms and conditions to access Apple’s property. Apple has managed Apple’s property. Developers don’t have a right to make iPhone apps. Period.

The government, however, is trying to strip Apple of their rights to maintain their own property the way they see fit. Hüther isn’t entitled to Apple’s work/property. Hüther isn’t entitled to make an iPhone app. If Hüther doesn’t like Apple’s terms, he doesn’t have to do business with Apple, and can go put in all the sweat equity to make his own successful platform…

Again, so noble of government… 🙄😂. In reality, they are trying to dictate how private businesses can manage their own property, and what commissions they can collect for granting others access to that property… Which is well outside the proper scope of government authority…

Apple doesn’t force developers to make iPhone apps. Developers choose to make iPhone apps in accordance with Apple’s terms and conditions, which they get to determine since it’s their property. That isn’t Orwellian…

What’s Orwellian is government trying to strip away a business’s basic rights…

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Always interesting to see people on sites like this call for Apple to be exclusive to other tech companies in the market they have decided to trade in. People even suggestijg Apple should pull out of a market that provides around a third of their global revenue, astonishing. The truth is, if they did do that, consumers will simply buy what is available. I'm an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch user and if those were not available, I'd simply join the majority of the market elsewhere, whether I wanted to or not. Life goes on and I am sure Apple will settle whatever they need to, to continue to trade.

 

[I7guy]

We’ve been there last year - I already quoted from that very same ˋDraghiˋ reportˋ:

„Open access and interoperability are pro-competitive forces,

Exclusive of government intervention. When governments give away property it is neither open nor pro.

as is the adoption of common technological standards. Important advances in promoting open access and interoperability in digital markets have been achieved through the DMA.“

No it hasn’t. The above is a pipe dream that is anything but.

„In digital markets, in addition to the strong enforcement of the DMA provisions, new requirements involving open access and interoperability should be enacted when the presence of strong network effects and barriers to entry related to data impede market competition“

„the compliance assessment of tech platforms to the digital regulations share a high degree of complexity. It is of paramount importance for the EU that these new rules are applied effectively and result in the intended benefits for EU consumers and businesses“

This is some puff piece I’ll say.

 

[Kal Madda]

Yes - after Apple had to allow sideloading, they reversed their original ban on them.
Rather than let alternative stores become popular for them, they preferred keeping that business themselves.
It‘s a result of EU regulation.

That’s pure speculation and irrelevant.

Nothing has been refuted. Consumers want to use and download apps on their mobile devices (that‘s a given). And software developers want to distribute their apps. Avoiding both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store is not a viable option for any average consumer or developer.

They have negligible market share and don‘t carry all the apps a normal consumer wants/requires.

The sector wasn‘t regulated much - and it’s subject to enormous entry barriers (costs of creating an OS). economies of scale and network effects. Consumers and developers have been converging on two or three platforms - just as consumers don‘t have ten different physical phone/internet lines directly leading into their housing units.

It has been refuted time and again, but you want to keep using this recycled argument anyways… There are not only two options. There are many options. It isn’t a “duopoly”. You can say “duopoly” until you’re blue in the face, and that won’t make it so…

And that isn’t true, pretty much all of these alternatives can run the major apps that most people need. In fact, most common apps now have web versions, which makes things even easier. But even assuming your argument here, whose fault would it be that they “don’t carry all the apps a normal consumer requires”? That would fall on developers. If developers felt so repressed by Apple, they could always take their apps to other platforms. And since you argue that the apps are what draws people to iOS or Android, then the developers aren’t the poor repressed victims you paint them as, they hold all the power, and if they leave the platforms that have “abused” them to another platform, then consumers would also likely follow since apps are the draw in your argument. See how simple that is?

The sector is already regulated too much… There’s an oversized excess bloat of legislation and red tape in the sector, which basically always makes it harder for newcomers to the market. Government should focus on that, and deregulating the sector to make free market competition easier, and let the free market play out rather than trying to strip basic rights away from some businesses to prop up others, which is unjust…

 

[CopiumWafu]

Apple will not leave but will most likely pass the fines onto EU customers through higher prices.

The version of EU MacOS will most likely be a smaller subset of MacOS (i.e. many new MacOS features will never be available in the EU).

Doubtful. The pricing will skew them enough to have any competitive edge. Say they increased the prices by 5%? Just loosing 0,1% of their customer base would be worse than just complying. It's not like these rules are unbeknownst to them. They just prefer to pay lawyers to bend the rules than engineers to follow them.

 

[theluggage]

Android is open source and you can strip all the google services away, which plenty have already done.

...partly because the EU and other jurisdictions have fought off Google's attempts to knobble the open source version of Android:

Antitrust cases against Google by the European Union - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Google Play Store isn't open source and that's where the vast majority of Apps that people need for work, personal finance and social media are available... One of the antitrust complains against Google was that they were forcing 3rd parties to license and promote all of their apps and services bundle (all tied to Googles market-dominating online ad business) just to get the Play Store.

but none of this gets back to the core topic (please, let's try to do that) and explain why the EU are fining global sales values and forcing OS changes on all users worldwide with system code changes.

Your core topic. Which is trying to conflate the amount of the fines with the infractions companies are being fined for, to raise the bogus claim that the EU are trying to interfere in other jurisdictions' markets.

They're fines - meant as a painful deterrent proportional to the size and wealth of the company - not an "EU Prime" subscription to let companies with deep pockets opt out of EU rules in an affordable way. Global sales is just a measure of how much the company can afford to lose. If the size of the fines were based on EU sales you'd be amazed at how little the likes of Google actually make (according to their accountants) from sales taking place in the EU - that's proven a whole other can of worms when it comes to getting these large companies to pay their taxes.

As for OS changes. No, the EU isn't demanding that Apple change the OSs they distribute outside the EU. The fact that Apple has been facing a string of lawsuits over related issues in the US, or that other jurisdictions are contemplating their own versions of the EUs DMA (if companies aren't breaking existing anti-trust laws) may have more to do with that. Anyway, most of these "changes" are just flipping artificial software locks in iOS from "on by default" to "off by default" and Apple already manage a whole bunch of regional options in their software.

 

[surferfb]

Always interesting to see people on sites like this call for Apple to be exclusive to other tech companies in the market they have decided to trade in. People even suggestijg Apple should pull out of a market that provides around a third of their global revenue, astonishing. The truth is, if they did do that, consumers will simply buy what is available. I'm an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch user and if those were not available, I'd simply join the majority of the market elsewhere, whether I wanted to or not. Life goes on and I am sure Apple will settle whatever they need to, to continue to trade.

While I agree pulling out of the EU would be silly, the EU provides 10-15% of Apple’s revenue, not “around a third.”

In addition, the DMA (in theory) only applies to companies operating in 3 or more EU countries. Presumably Apple could stay in France and Germany and recoup a lot of that revenue. (I say “in theory” and “presumably” because I’m sure the EU would say “the DMA still applies because we say so, no matter what the text of the law”, just like they did with the iPad).

But they’re not going to pull out over this, not in a million years.

 

[theluggage]

but booking.com car hire is based in UK and doesnt bother to have an Australian bank account so when the charge was made, the bank issued an international txn fee and conversion fee.

...just as an aside, it may not be directly relevant to your anecdote, but booking.com are already on the EU's naughty list of Gatekeepers.

DMA designated Gatekeepers

European Commission designated for the first time six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In total, 22 core platform services provided by those gatekeepers have been designated.

digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu

 

[surferfb]

...partly because the EU and other jurisdictions have fought off Google's attempts to knobble the open source version of Android:

Antitrust cases against Google by the European Union - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Google Play Store isn't open source and that's where the vast majority of Apps that people need for work, personal finance and social media are available... One of the antitrust complains against Google was that they were forcing 3rd parties to license and promote all of their apps and services bundle (all tied to Googles market-dominating online ad business) just to get the Play Store.

Android allows third party stores, so in theory someone could come in and undercut on price, attracting developers. The fact that no one has, even though big players like Amazon and Samsung had their own stores, blows a big hole in the argument that forcing Apple open will result in lower prices for everyone and increase competition.

Not to mention: "let's punish Apple because Google is tying Play Store access to other services" makes about as much sense as "let's punish BMW because VW cheated on emissions."

Your core topic. Which is trying to conflate the amount of the fines with the infractions companies are being fined for, to raise the bogus claim that the EU are trying to interfere in other jurisdictions' markets.

They're fines - meant as a painful deterrent proportional to the size and wealth of the company - not an "EU Prime" subscription to let companies with deep pockets opt out of EU rules in an affordable way. Global sales is just a measure of how much the company can afford to lose. If the size of the fines were based on EU sales you'd be amazed at how little the likes of Google actually make (according to their accountants) from sales taking place in the EU - that's proven a whole other can of worms when it comes to getting these large companies to pay their taxes.

It's patently ridiculous. Say "fines up to 200% of EU revenue"; if you think they're skirting sales rules to get around the fines, investigate and punish them for that (although given the fines are on revenue, not profit, I'm not sure how they could use accounting tricks). But punishing them based on worldwide revenue is a massive overreach, which tracks, because the rest of the law is too. But they know 200% of EU revenue sounds ridiculous (because it is) and might get thrown out by the courts, so they overreached.

As for OS changes. No, the EU isn't demanding that Apple change the OSs they distribute outside the EU. The fact that Apple has been facing a string of lawsuits over related issues in the US, or that other jurisdictions are contemplating their own versions of the EUs DMA (if companies aren't breaking existing anti-trust laws) may have more to do with that. Anyway, most of these "changes" are just flipping artificial software locks in iOS from "on by default" to "off by default" and Apple already manage a whole bunch of regional options in their software.

It's introducing additional attack vectors and wasting valuable engineering time on features virtually no one is asking for. (How many people do you think wanted the ability to remove the camera app, for example. I'd be shocked if it was more than 1,000 people worldwide. I can only imagine what sort of engineering had to be done to get that to work given the OS has assumed the existence of camera.app since before the App Store even existed.) The time would have been much better spent on fixing existing bugs and developing new features that people actually want.

The fact of the matter is my version of iOS has fewer features and more bugs because Apple was being forced to implement a massive number of worthless "features" like "let user remove the camera."

The EU doesn't know what it's doing, and its regulators aren't qualified to work in the Apple Store, let alone dictate API choices and make hardware design decisions. Remember, they thought making everyone use Micro-USB would be a good idea in 2014, two years after Lightning was introduced!

 

[theluggage]

the valid security concerns are FUD (despite the obvious example of Android malware)

The Mac has had "sideloading" for so long that nobody even calls it that - because it used to be the only way of installing software. It's far more open than even what is being proposed for the iOS app store. Locking it down to app store only has been a user option for a long time, turning that off is the user's choice - you can even run totally unsigned code by jumping through a few hoops and ignoring warnings.

Yet, the Mac still has a far reputation than Windows when it comes to malware (still not immune, but neither is iOS). It's the sideloading==malware claim that is the FUD.

Android has a different problem: install an app on the Play Store and you are often asked to grant it a laundry list of permissions, some of which are non-obvious and there's no way a non-techie user can make an informed judgement. So people just get trained to say "yes" to whatever warning comes up. Windows has had a similar problem.

The App store has made most of those decisions for you, by placing much stricter restrictions on what developers can do, and there are usually far fewer permission requests to deal with (esp. with App Store apps), so less conditioning of users to keep clicking yes. None of the proposed concessions make that go away - in fact I'm not sure there's even a demand for sideloading arbitrary apps, as opposed to allowing approved third party app stores to be added.

OK, yes, a gullible person might be tricked into sideloading malware - but such a person can also be tricked into going to a malicious website and entering their credentials. Security is broken the moment that they decide the spam caller really is from Microsoft Support and that they urgently need to patch an urgent security vulnerability - and start following their instructions. In fact, a popular ruse is not to get them to install malware, but, rather, a perfectly legitimate screen capture or remote access App from the regular app store that the hacker can subsequently use to capture credentials or download files.

Again, Android is more prone to this because the play store is so much less restrictive - I've installed things like SFTP servers and WiFi sniffers from the main Google Play store on my Android phone - no scary sideloading involved, just tick the nice friendly boxes to open up the necessary security holes. If Android is less secure it's not "because sideloading" or "because alternate payment methods" (Pretty sure the previously-free Play Store music syncing app that was going to charge me £9.99 <microscopic font>per week</microscopic font> was going to do so via Google Pay...).

 

[theluggage]

Remember, they thought making everyone use Micro-USB would be a good idea in 2014, two years after Lightning was introduced!

Didn't happen.

The phone industry was a mess of incompatible chargers. The EU threatened to impose some standard unless the industry put its house in order. That resulted in an industry "memorandum of understanding" to adopt MicroUSB. They couldn't adopt Lightning, however wonderful it was, because Apple owned it.

Apple, being a special snowflake as usual, was allowed to get away with offering a lightning-to-MicroUSB adapter.

Harmonisation of a charging capability of common charger for mobile phones - frequently asked questions

Harmonisation of a charging capability of common charger for mobile phones - frequently asked questions MEMO\/09\/301 Brussels, 29 th June 2009 Harmonisation of a charging capability of common charg

ec.europa.eu

Apple could probably have licensed Lightning to the rest of the industry for a reasonable fee (they wouldn't have to give it away) if they'd wanted to. Not unprecidented - Apple developed and effectively gave away the MiniDisplayPort connector, Firewire became an IEEE standard.

 

[surferfb]

The Mac has had "sideloading" for so long that nobody even calls it that - because it used to be the only way of installing software. It's far more open than even what is being proposed for the iOS app store. Locking it down to app store only has been a user option for a long time, turning that off is the user's choice - you can even run totally unsigned code by jumping through a few hoops and ignoring warnings.

Yet, the Mac still has a far reputation than Windows when it comes to malware (still not immune, but neither is iOS). It's the sideloading==malware claim that is the FUD.

And MacOS has ~100 million users, a large percentage of them are technically minded. iOS has somewhere between 1 and 2 billion users, depending on the source. It's orders of magnitude greater. And allowing sideloading does result in a higher instances of malware. That's not a debatable point. Almost 10% of all Android malware can be directly attributed to a side loaded app. Users who sideload are 200% more likely to have malware on their devices.

Android has a different problem: install an app on the Play Store and you are often asked to grant it a laundry list of permissions, some of which are non-obvious and there's no way a non-techie user can make an informed judgement. So people just get trained to say "yes" to whatever warning comes up. Windows has had a similar problem.

The App store has made most of those decisions for you, by placing much stricter restrictions on what developers can do, and there are usually far fewer permission requests to deal with (esp. with App Store apps), so less conditioning of users to keep clicking yes. None of the proposed concessions make that go away - in fact I'm not sure there's even a demand for sideloading arbitrary apps, as opposed to allowing approved third party app stores to be added.

And the EU is demanding that Apple give developers more access; anything Apple gets access to third parties do too. They're absolutely going to bring Android's problem to Apple because the regulators have proven absolutely incapable of thinking through the actual second and tertiary effects of their regulations. They never assume bugs, mistakes, bad actors, or anything like that.

OK, yes, a gullible person might be tricked into sideloading malware - but such a person can also be tricked into going to a malicious website and entering their credentials. Security is broken the moment that they decide the spam caller really is from Microsoft Support and that they urgently need to patch an urgent security vulnerability - and start following their instructions. In fact, a popular ruse is not to get them to install malware, but, rather, a perfectly legitimate screen capture or remote access App from the regular app store that the hacker can subsequently use to capture credentials or download files.

Yes, that recently almost happened to my mother in law. But I see absolutely no reason to have the government trample on Apple's property rights to give yet another attack vector because users who want to sideload can't be bothered to use Android. The choice is already there, no need to make everyone less safe because you want to have your cake and eat it too and the EU is incapable of thinking that bad actors exist.

Again, Android is more prone to this because the play store is so much less restrictive - I've installed things like SFTP servers and WiFi sniffers from the main Google Play store on my Android phone - no scary sideloading involved, just tick the nice friendly boxes to open up the necessary security holes. If Android is less secure it's not "because sideloading" or "because alternate payment methods" (Pretty sure the previously-free Play Store music syncing app that was going to charge me £9.99 <microscopic font>per week</microscopic font> was going to do so via Google Pay...).

I agree Android is less secure because of more than just allowing sideloading and third party stores, but sideloading and thirty party stores are a significant reason why it's less secure. There is a reason security professionals tell Android users not to use third party stores and not to sideload, and it's not because they're spreading FUD or on Apple's payroll, it's because those actions make users less safe and secure.

Frankly, the idea that this is a debatable point is mind-boggling to me.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

While I agree pulling out of the EU would be silly, the EU provides 10-15% of Apple’s revenue, not “around a third.”

In addition, the DMA (in theory) only applies to companies operating in 3 or more EU countries. Presumably Apple could stay in France and Germany and recoup a lot of that revenue. (I say “in theory” and “presumably” because I’m sure the EU would say “the DMA still applies because we say so, no matter what the text of the law”, just like they did with the iPad).

But they’re not going to pull out over this, not in a million years.

My apologies for the incorrect claim. I am from the UK and not the EU but perhaps I still think in my mind after 40 odd years that we are inclusive. I know my market, Europe is around 26-27% of Apples revenue, the EU is slightly smaller. Apple isn't going to kiss goodbye to the EU as they are approximately a fifth of their revenue, which is absolutely huge.

 

[surferfb]

Didn't happen.

Absolutely happened. In 2014 the EU passed a delegated regulation encouraging all manufacturers to use Micro-USB. Yes they didn't force it, but they absolutely wanted Apple to drop Lightening for Micro-USB. In 2014. Because they don't know what they're doing. Per Ars Technica:

The proposed design for a universal charger uses a Micro USB connector—already used by many mobile manufacturers, including Samsung and Nokia.

The phone industry was a mess of incompatible chargers. The EU threatened to impose some standard unless the industry put its house in order. That resulted in an industry "memorandum of understanding" to adopt MicroUSB. They couldn't adopt Lightning, however wonderful it was, because Apple owned it.

Apple, being a special snowflake as usual, was allowed to get away with offering a lightning-to-MicroUSB adapter.

Harmonisation of a charging capability of common charger for mobile phones - frequently asked questions

Harmonisation of a charging capability of common charger for mobile phones - frequently asked questions MEMO\/09\/301 Brussels, 29 th June 2009 Harmonisation of a charging capability of common charg

ec.europa.eu

Because it was obviously better. Had the EU gotten it way, we might have never gotten lightening or USB-C. I will never understand why anyone, after the EU wanted to mandate Micro-USB, thinks "yes, having the government mandate charging ports is a good idea."

Apple could probably have licensed Lightning to the rest of the industry for a reasonable fee (they wouldn't have to give it away) if they'd wanted to. Not unprecidented - Apple developed and effectively gave away the MiniDisplayPort connector, Firewire became an IEEE standard.

Apple (correctly) spent a lot of effort designing and developing USB-C. (There's a reason why it's the only USB port that isn't a pain to use). And Apple was clearly moving to USB-C on the iPhone, despite the protestations on MacRumors claiming otherwise. And now we're stuck with USB-C for all eternity now because no one has any incentive to develop a better port if it can't be used in Europe; once again proving the EU is completely unable to think through the actual end results of its regulations. "Let's freeze innovation because we're impatient" - again, absolutely no idea what they're doing. They should let the free market do its thing and leave hardware and software design to the professionals.

 

[surferfb]

My apologies for the incorrect claim. I am from the UK and not the EU but perhaps I still think in my mind after 40 odd years that we are inclusive. I know my market, Europe is around 26-27% of Apples revenue, the EU is slightly smaller. Apple isn't going to kiss goodbye to the EU as they are approximately a fifth of their revenue, which is absolutely huge.

No need to apologize! It's a common misconception, mainly because Apple counts revenue in "Europe" (which is, as you point out 26-27% of their total revenue), but Apple's definition of "Europe" for purposes of financial reporting includes the EU, all non-EU European countries, Africa, the Middle East, and India. Both the UK and India are bigger than any single EU country from a revenue perspective, so that cuts down the EU's percentage dramatically.

Again, I agree Apple isn't going to pull out over this. Just correcting the record because I see it misquoted all the time.

 

[theluggage]

Absolutely happened. In 2014 the EU passed a delegated regulation encouraging all manufacturers to use Micro-USB.

Try reading your own sources.

A common charger for mobile phones sold in the European Union should be developed in order to reduce waste and hassle for consumers, according to MEPs voting on an update to radio equipment laws this week.

"should be developed" is not "was developed". That was in 2014 when the 2009 MicroUSB memorandum of understanding had expired (at which point pretty much everybody but Apple had adopted MicroUSB).

The proposal might have been to use MicroUSB, but the wheels ground slowly and the result was the 2022 directive to use USB-C.

Because it was obviously better. Had the EU gotten it way, we might have never gotten lightening or USB-C.

Did the EU force MicroUSB on the industry or didn't it? At least pick one story and stick to it. EU didn't invent MicroUSB, it was the best the industry could agree on at the time (2009). Lightning didn't exist then - Apple were using the 30-pin connector. The 2014 proposal to actually mandate MicroUSB never happened and it was changed ti USB-C.

Anyway, I'm trying to imagine the sort of barren dystopian hellscape that would have resulted from my iPad having a MicroUSB socket... I'd probably waste about 0.5 seconds per day having to plug a slightly fiddlier connector into my iPad and save 1.5 seconds not trying to plug Lightning into my Android phone. Oh the humanity! OTOH for the last 10 years, I'd only have needed one lead trailing on the table to charge my phone, kindle, Apple TV remote etc. rather than the typical 3 (RIP MiniUSB, long live USB-C) - not to mention using the same cable for my Logitech mouse as for the Magic Trackpad and Keyboard...

Yeah. I think we'd survive.

And now we're stuck with USB-C for all eternity now because no one has any incentive to develop a better port if it can't be used in Europe

By that argument, we should currently be stuck with MicroUSB forever. Yet here we are fondly waving it goodby and good riddance...

Meanwhile, this mythical "better port" would need to be pretty darned amazing for it's benefits to outweigh the huge advantage of having the vast majority of portable devices using the same charging plug. Hard to see - phones are already hitting the limits of how thin you can make a camera, how thin you can make a phone without it bending or how rapidly you can charge a battery - and the way forward is almost certainly wireless.

If the EU are wrong about USB-C I'm happy to take the risk that, in a couple of years time, we in the EU and UK will be looking in envy at all the wonderful and diverse new proprietary connectors that the US, China and/or Japan are using on their phones. 'cos if Apple, Samsung et. al. can make different keyboards, different packaging, different power leads, support different WiFi frequencies and TV standards then they could easily make phones with different power connectors for the EU. Except they won't, because the benefits of standardisation will probably outweigh any minor improvements in phone power connectors for the next decade or so.

 

[surferfb]

Try reading your own sources.

"should be developed" is not "was developed". That was in 2014 when the 2009 MicroUSB memorandum of understanding had expired (at which point pretty much everybody but Apple had adopted MicroUSB).

The proposal might have been to use MicroUSB, but the wheels ground slowly and the result was the 2022 directive to use USB-C.

My source says: the proposed design for a universal charger uses a Micro USB connector—already used by many mobile manufacturers, including Samsung and Nokia." I don't know how much more clear I can be than that. The EU, in 2014, wanted to make everyone use a connector based on MicroUSB.

Did the EU force MicroUSB on the industry or didn't it? At least pick one story and stick to it. EU didn't invent MicroUSB, it was the best the industry could agree on at the time (2009). Lightning didn't exist then - Apple were using the 30-pin connector. The 2014 proposal to actually mandate MicroUSB never happened and it was changed ti USB-C.

Again, my claim was the EU wanted to force MicroUSB on everyone, not that they were successful. And, the fact that they wanted to shows they're idiots who shouldn't be making those sorts of decisions. Just because they got bailed out by industry (in large part due to Apple's assistance) pushing USB-C to the forefront doesn't make them any more qualified to do so. The free market was handling this fine, there was absolutely no need for the EU to get involved and chill innovation.

Anyway, I'm trying to imagine the sort of barren dystopian hellscape that would have resulted from my iPad having a MicroUSB socket... I'd probably waste about 0.5 seconds per day having to plug a slightly fiddlier connector into my iPad and save 1.5 seconds not trying to plug Lightning into my Android phone. Oh the humanity! OTOH for the last 10 years, I'd only have needed one lead trailing on the table to charge my phone, kindle, Apple TV remote etc. rather than the typical 3 (RIP MiniUSB, long live USB-C) - not to mention using the same cable for my Logitech mouse as for the Magic Trackpad and Keyboard...

Yeah. I think we'd survive.

Lots of little things Apple does to make using its devices nicer aren't life or death. But you add them all up together and you get a product that's significantly better than the competition. But the EU is trying to take all of that away.

By that argument, we should currently be stuck with MicroUSB forever. Yet here we are fondly waving it goodby and good riddance...

Meanwhile, this mythical "better port" would need to be pretty darned amazing for it's benefits to outweigh the huge advantage of having the vast majority of portable devices using the same charging plug. Hard to see - phones are already hitting the limits of how thin you can make a camera, how thin you can make a phone without it bending or how rapidly you can charge a battery - and the way forward is almost certainly wireless.

We've already hit the limit of a phone that can't be any thinner because of the USB-C port. Thanks, EU!

Find series product manager Zhou Yibao has now shared photos that highlight its size, adding that the obstacle to making it any thinner is now “the limit of the charging port.”

If the EU are wrong about USB-C I'm happy to take the risk that, in a couple of years time, we in the EU and UK will be looking in envy at all the wonderful and diverse new proprietary connectors that the US, China and/or Japan are using on their phones. 'cos if Apple, Samsung et. al. can make different keyboards, different packaging, different power leads, support different WiFi frequencies and TV standards then they could easily make phones with different power connectors for the EU. Except they won't, because the benefits of standardisation will probably outweigh any minor improvements in phone power connectors for the next decade or so.

Again, the point is there is no incentive for anyone to develop a better port for the US or China or Japan. No one is going to invest the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a phone connector and popularize it if it can't be used by 450m people in the EU. So it won't exist in the US, China, or Japan, thanks to the EU thinking they know better than hardware engineers.

Maybe it wouldn't have anyway, I'm not saying it definitely would have. But there is definitely a possibility we'd all be laughing about how big and clunky USB-C was in ten years (remember, USB-A was svelte when it came out). The tech companies know better than bureaucrats who have repeatedly shown they are out of their depth when it comes to technology.

 

[breenmask]

...partly because the EU and other jurisdictions have fought off Google's attempts to knobble the open source version of Android:

Antitrust cases against Google by the European Union - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Google Play Store isn't open source and that's where the vast majority of Apps that people need for work, personal finance and social media are available... One of the antitrust complains against Google was that they were forcing 3rd parties to license and promote all of their apps and services bundle (all tied to Googles market-dominating online ad business) just to get the Play Store.

1. Google-free android existed before these complaints. See China.
2. The "forcing" is just Google requiring the play store for APIs related to google services. Of course if you remove google services, you shouldn't have access to those APIs. Since most people desire google services, phone manufacturers will want to support Google Play.