Apple Says New EU Interoperability Rules 'Bad for Our Products and Our Users'

[AppliedMicro]

none of the EU’s ire. I wonder why that is?

For starters, both companies don't have nearly the outsized profit margins that Apple and Google have.

And from what I know, maintenance contracts and aftermarket services are (largely) not tied or limited to Aircraft manufacturers. They're provided in competitive markets by many independent maintenance service providers. As regulated by law and regulation - not by aircraft manufactures gatekeeping access.

Also, while aircraft and airline fleets enjoy network effect, they don't nearly as much as mobile operating systems. A new type of (possibly) niche aircraft can be marketed relatively easily. Aircraft work as dedicated "hardware" (with relatively few variations and customisations), not having as rich ecosystems of third-party developers to product giant network effects that would exclude market entry for competitors.

Last but not least, there just aren't that many (large) buyers of aircraft as there are smartphone users. They have much more negotiating power against Airbus and Boeing (and so do engine manufacturers etc.) than individual software developers - or accessory manufacturers - for smartphones do.

 

[surferfb]

For starters, both companies don't have nearly the outsized profit margins that Apple and Google have.

And from what I know, maintenance contracts and aftermarket services are (largely) not tied or limited to Aircraft manufacturers. They're provided in competitive markets by many independent maintenance service providers. As regulated by law and regulation - not by aircraft manufactures gatekeeping access.

It’s my understanding that while not “required” Airlines are strongly incentivized to use maintenance services offered by the manufacturers. They bundle service contracts into fleet purchases, only offer the best pricing if airlines remain exclusive, require OEM parts (that are cheaper through the airlines vs. third parties), etc. It’s been a while since I’ve had clients in the aviation industry, so maybe some of that has changed, but I doubt it.

Maybe when the EU competition authority is done designing Apple’s software by committee and giving away Apple’s inventions to its competitors for free they should take a look at Airbus.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Airlines are strongly incentivized to use maintenance services offered by the manufacturers

They are pushing into that market.

But looking at the overall picture…
I’m not sure what exactly might be the best analogy in the aircraft market.

But it’s all working and interoperating together quite beautifully. There are no “Airbus-only” airports and hardly any other exclusive infrastructure. Airports can easily switch between receiving and serving Airbus and Boeing aircraft - or do it simultaneously.

Feels to me as if you’re arguing
for the equivalent of allowing Boeing,
a “minority market share” firm,
the conclusion of exclusivity agreements
with airlines or airports in certain regions
free from any government regulation
as a way of being “compensated for their IP” etc.

Or, vice versa, a company
that operates 30% of all airports in Europr
and commanding about 50% of all revenue from such operations
from charging Boeing a 30% commission on all aircraft landings
to be compensated for their investments.

 

[darngooddesign]

Apple knows that this means they actually have to innovate to stay ahead of the pack now. Charging fees and growing their business with these fees has been their golden walled garden for a decade. Apple has been a freight train speeding through a valley of protifitablity since Jobs. Now that there's a massive hill, that inertia will slow and maybe even crap out. Tim Cook, it's time to haul ass. Nothing easy was ever worth anything.

I want the devices you decided to shelve like the car, AirPower, airport basestation mesh system HomePods with touchscreens, smart glasses that don't look like ski goggles, software that doesn't hit like the new photos app... etc.

Airpower isnt happening. Apple stopped the place anywhere idea because they use MagSafe for alignment and positioning.

 

[darngooddesign]

Borrowed? BORROWED?🤨🤨 Steve didn't borrow that quote. Like the great artist he was, he stole that quote.

SJ said "Picasso had a saying..." So how did he steal it when he literally attributed it to PP?

 

[duffman9000]

Would it shock you to know that I don't care if you don't want an Apple Watch? I only care that your desire to pay someone else for Apple's IP may very well reduce the value, function, security, and stability of the products I choose to buy as well as violate the property rights of Apple's shareholders.

Basic functionality isn’t IP. I’ll give you a good example of functionality not provided by other watches anymore. I want to filter the notifications I get sent to my watch. I shouldn’t have to decide between an all or none approach. But to people like you that’s “IP”. I don’t agree with all of the EU’s demands. But some things do make sense.

 

[surferfb]

Basic functionality isn’t IP. I’ll give you a good example of functionality not provided by other watches anymore. I want to filter the notifications I get sent to my watch. I shouldn’t have to decide between an all or none approach. But to people like you that’s “IP”. I don’t agree with all of the EU’s demands. But some things do make sense.

You say it’s basic functionality, but it’s more complicated than that. How are the notifications filtered? By the phone before they are sent to the device, or by the device?

If “by the phone” new APIs need to be written, or Apple needs to make existing APIs stable enough to handle a wide range of devices. Does it send them encrypted? What sort of specs does it assume the other device has?

If “by the device” are there privacy implications of allowing the device to interact with notifications? What’s to say, stop Meta from reading the content of all notifications sent to their Sunglasses and storing that data to sell ads against? Are users going to be aware that that’s what they’re signing up for when they say “yes, send my notifications to the glasses”? What about the sketchy Alibaba smart watch?

No matter how they’re filtered, if it doesn’t work well, is it Apple’s fault or the developers? Who had to troubleshoot? Does Apple get blamed for a third party implementing the API badly and does that reflect poorly on Apple’s product?

And on top of it all, why should Apple be forced to do all this work to make their competitors products better? Apple said they have 500 engineers are working on this stuff. Assuming $250k per engineer (which is probably low) that’s already $125m a year before any executives’ time, any lawyer’s time etc. just to enable this ridiculous overreach of a law. I’m sure the true cost is over a billion dollars by the time it’s all said and done. All spent to improve its competitors’ products with zero ROI for Apple because a bunch of bureaucrats think they, not Apple, are the true arbiters of how Apple’s software should work. The hubris is mind boggling.

Yes, I’m sure they’re all solvable problems, but why should Apple be forced to think through that and spend all that money to enable their competitors when they have 30% marketshare in the EU?

It’s clear why innovation is dead in Europe. Their leaders killed it, and now don’t understand that’s why they’re falling behind so assume those doing real work are cheating.

This is where Apple really misses Steve Jobs. He’d have no problem flipping the EU the bird and telling them “have fun explaining to your citizens why they can’t have iPhones anymore”.

 

[panzer06]

If I were Apple, I would pull out of the EU altogether. I would sacrifice 24% of the revenue in the EU countries and focus on the rest of the world. I wouldn't pay a dime in fines and would never release another product in the EU. The situation is bad for Apple and ultimately stifles innovation by forcing companies to make all their products interoperable. Some shareholders would object until the company adjusted its product mix and strategies to remove EU revenue and replace it with something else. Someone needs to put a stop to the regulatory tyranny in the EU.

This is my opinion, but I'd like to see some companies tell the EU to shove it and refuse to sell products in their countries. That would stifle the competition they desperately claim to support and reduce consumer choice.

 

[panzer06]

This is where Apple really misses Steve Jobs. He’d have no problem flipping the EU the bird and telling them “have fun explaining to your citizens why they can’t have iPhones anymore”.

This is my thought exactly! Pull out of the EU altogether.

 

[poorcody]

You may have misspelled “the US”

No, we already surrendered to Russia on January 20.

 

[Mousse]

SJ said "Picasso had a saying..." So how did he steal it when he literally attributed it to PP?

It's fine if you think Jobs was merely a good artist. I still think he's a great artist and does the things great artists do.

 

[Stuwil]

Because if Apple is required to give away its innovations to those who did not pay for the research and development that led to those innovations, Apple has no incentive to innovate.

If I spend $50 million dollars to develop a new pairing system for my headphones, but I’m required to give that invention away to competitors who didn’t spend $50m to create it, they can effectively undercut me on price. I’m at a competitive DISADVANTAGE for having done so, because I just made my competitors products better without being able to profit on the exclusivity of that feature in my products. So new features stop coming out and innovation stagnates.

If the EU had said something like “Apple can keep a feature exclusive for 3-5 years, but then must create a public API for it” I might agree with you.

But they didn’t say that. They said the second a feature comes out, Apple must allow its competitors to use it. Which will absolutely chill innovation, or more likely, means Apple withhold innovations from the EU for years until it gets the ROI from the rest of the world.

it’s not about innovation
It’s the fact they own the operating system so they are giving themselves a deliberate advantage by writing code that only there products can have like for example better interaction with the OS
It doesn’t matter how much a product 3rd party innovates they will never achieve that because Apple own the operating system and that’s the point

 

[JapanApple]

You would think they’re giving him time Apple Be down. But when Apple releases dividends it’s not the case. So I really don’t care about these events that are saying that Apple is in trouble. Because more than that it doesn’t affect them as much as they want us to believe.

 

[Stuwil]

If I were Apple, I would pull out of the EU altogether. I would sacrifice 24% of the revenue in the EU countries and focus on the rest of the world. I wouldn't pay a dime in fines and would never release another product in the EU. The situation is bad for Apple and ultimately stifles innovation by forcing companies to make all their products interoperable. Some shareholders would object until the company adjusted its product mix and strategies to remove EU revenue and replace it with something else. Someone needs to put a stop to the regulatory tyranny in the EU.

This is my opinion, but I'd like to see some companies tell the EU to shove it and refuse to sell products in their countries. That would stifle the competition they desperately claim to support and reduce consumer choice.

That’s a silly position to have
We don’t like it so just pull out the EU
How about either don’t make headphones or watches for your operating system that gives you a direct advantage over the competition or you allow competitors access to said software & actually compete on a level playing field

 

[Tomasulu]

Can't believe there are still people out there that will defend greedy corporations that do nothing for innovation, and are all about milking the consumers. I've said it many times, the real problem in any industry, are blind loyalists. They are the ones that truly slow down innovation, because they allow these greedy corporations to bring out one minor update to every "new" product that's introduced. Zero criticism to their dear leader, for doing this. So these greedy corporations keep putting out one minor update after the next, with no worry for push back or losing their customer, because they know they have blind loyalists. In China, competition is fierce with a customer base that only cares about value. That's why you see tech products that keep offering more and more for the money. Same with their electric cars. If they came to North America, the car industry would take a beating.

Agree 100%. If apples competitors operating in eu are under the same set of rules why should apple be exempted? Makes no sense why anyone would prefer that apple continues to operate with monopolistic powers and anti competition advantages.

 

[AppliedMicro]

You say it’s basic functionality, but it’s more complicated than that. How are the notifications filtered? By the phone before they are sent to the device, or by the device?

Well, how are they filtered today, when - or before - being sent to an Apple Watch?
Before (by the phone)? No problem, just filter them the same way before sending them to a third-party watch.
On the accessory device? Again, sent them and let the accessory deal with it.

If “by the device” are there privacy implications of allowing the device to interact with notifications? What’s to say, stop Meta from reading the content of all notifications sent to their Sunglasses and storing that data to sell ads against?

You mean like Apple is able to read all of the notifications from all third-party app that get displayed in notifications. What’s to say, stop Apple from reading it and store that data to sell ads?

Apple said they have 500 engineers are working on this stuff. Assuming $250k per engineer (which is probably low) that’s already $125m a year before any executives’ time

…in other words: small change, compared to the monopoly rents Apple are collecting from the App Store.

“App Store revenue was about $27B in FY22. I estimate the operating margin on the segment is about 85% or accounting for $23B in FY22 operating income.”

Apple’s App Store Is an Important Part of Its Profitability — And It’s Not Changing | Deepwater

deepwatermgmt.com

And you don’t believe these engineers are working full-time on it, do you?
It’s nothing more than a marketing figure.

It’s clear why innovation is dead in Europe. Their leaders killed it, and now don’t understand that’s why they’re falling behind so assume those doing real work are cheating.

Quite the contrary.
And if one stifles innovation, it’s Apple here by denying interoperability.

👉 When there’s just a single brand of smartwatches, AR glasses or headphones that can connect well to the preeminent smartphone platform, that does not encourage innovation. That’s just Apple bulldozing over the smartwatch, AR glasses and headphone market and killing innovation.

 

[vantelimus]

The EU is going to be part of the Russian Union soon anyway.

You would think if they don’t want that, they wouldn’t be passing selective protectionist legislation targeted at the US. Given our administration’s antipathy towards any trade policy it perceives as unfair, its love of Putin and plutocracy, and its inability to reason beyond “what is best for the billionaires,” Europe is going to lose its last remaining official support from the US government. When Ukraine falls, leaving the Baltic states and Poland as the next target for the Russian Federation, I hope Europe enjoys the right-wing political powers that takes it over to protect it from Putin’s expansionist tendencies.

I get it, Europe. You don’t like really like capitalism. Reasonable people certainly agree that it must be regulated. But your attempts to impress industrial-revolution-era socialist rules on a post-information-age global economy and strip innovators of their intellectual property rights isn’t a winning strategy. Right-wing politics and plutocracy are on the rise. Your socialist EU actions will hasten it and will hasten either your fall or the start of WWIII.

Please understand, I’m not saying “US good; Europe bad”. I’m also not saying this action will be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But it is losing you the support of those of us who have been your allies, those of us fighting the current American fascist regime.

 

[user1234]

Allowing notifications for third party smart watches after informing the user of the privacy risks sounds fine to me. The rest sounds like absolute crap.

I’d prefer the EU to finally get rid of DST instead of telling companies how to make their products.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I get it, Europe. You don’t like really like capitalism. Reasonable people certainly agree that it must be regulated. But your attempts to impress industrial-revolution-era socialist rules on a post-information-age global economy and strip innovators of their intellectual property rights isn’t a winning strategy. Right-wing politics and plutocracy are on the rise. Your socialist EU actions will hasten it and will hasten either your fall to or the start of WWIII.

Please understand, I’m not saying “US good; Europe bad”. I’m also not saying this action will be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But it is losing you the support of those of us who have been your allies, those of us fighting the current American fascist regime.

What do you mean Europe doesn’t like capitalism? See, it’s this kind of ill informed comment that is rife. Just because we have a socialist mentality when it comes to citizens, and a social net to help those worse off than others, that equates to not liking capitalism? You know we also are capitalist nations?
Get your facts straight, learn a bit about other countries and how theyre run, then you can come back a state a valid point.

 

[vantelimus]

Fascinating. I will be sharing stuff between my iPhone and Pixel with Google’s Quick Share, whether Tim Apple likes it or not. Can’t wait for it.

This stuff should’ve always been cross-platform anyway. There is not a single good reason for Chromecast and AirPlay to exist and compete; for having separate Android Auto and CarPlay; for having AirDrop and Quick Share, Find My and Find My Device, and so on.

All these technologies should be interoperable, just like we’re so used to online cross-play in video games nowadays. You value Apple more than yourself if you think otherwise, and that’s not a great thing to do.

You miss the fact that these technological innovations were created so that the creators (individuals and companies) could profit from them. There would be far less to interoperate if you took away the capitalist incentive. Indeed, if the internet were still a non-commercial government-controlled system, most of the stuff you list wouldn’t have been commercially available even if it had been invented.

 

[vantelimus]

Yes, i do hear the meaning of what he said has been changed since he said it, posthumously by other people. The world is like that - it happens regularly. But the words he said stand true in the way he said them, and meant them, and history shows it’s exactly what they did - and continue to do. So no real misinterpretation of anything then.

You should have quoted Oscar Wilde, not Picasso.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

By promoting imitation (the stealing of intellectual property) as a substitute for innovation, the EU is legislating itself into mediocrity.

 

[cupcakes2000]

By promoting imitation (the stealing of intellectual property) as a substitute for innovation, the EU is legislating itself into mediocrity.

They want to ensure that 1 companies products can work with another companies products. It’s very bizarre, that you as a consumer, are unhappy about the prospect of, for example, being able to buy a sonically better set of headphones, or indeed a more inexpensive set of earphones, and have them work with the same fluidity as apples own products do. Or being able to quickly airdrop that file from you phone on to your work Windows PC. Or tap to share a contact with that friend who doesn’t have an iPhone.

At no point is anyone trying to ‘steal’ anything.

Facts are no longer a thing to ground people of the world, we just make **** up and thats just fine.

 

[vantelimus]

There's a reason why Apple as a company is worth more than Google in market capitalisation - and why Google, the dominant search engine in the world pay Apple billions of dollars every year to retained their default position on Apple's devices.

Apple makes devices that attract an affluent customer base. Google, a company which makes most of its money advertising, wants to reach that customer base. Apple’s customer list is an extremely valuable asset that Apple has spends tens of billions of dollars per year to attract and keep satisfied. Why should Apple turn down a way to monetize access to its customer list? (You do know that advertising is a $1 trillion market worldwide; and that direct marketing is a $200 billion industry, right?) If you aren’t satisfied, go buy a phone running Google’s spyware. Don’t make me crap up my iPhone with spyware.

 

[AppliedMicro]

There would be far less to interoperate if you took away the capitalist incentive. Indeed, if the internet were still a non-commercial government-controlled system, most of the stuff you list wouldn’t have been commercially available even if it had been invented

You’re missing the part where the internet is an open and interoperable design that can serve any- and everyone as a platform to market their offerings and deliver services. Indeed, if the internet were still a non-interoperable closed source system controlled by the biggest gatekeepers, Apple wouldn’t even have an iPhone business.

Local - in Europe European telcos - would would be the gatekeepers that control access to customers. Not Apple.
Apple would probably pay them 30% commission or something, or not exist as a smartphone manufacturer.

I get it, Europe. You don’t like really like capitalism

Nonsense. Capitalism is well in Europe, and it’s broadly accepted. What Europe doesn’t like: unrestricted and unregulated monopolisation. The dominance of big American tech companies is not rooted in innovation - it’s rooted in monopolisation.

Capitalism does not mean “I’ll corner the market - and once I’ve succeeded in doing that, I’ll be able to do whatever the heck I want with impunity”.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Apple makes devices that attract an affluent customer base. Google, a company which makes most of its money advertising, wants to reach that customer base. Apple’s customer list is an extremely valuable asset that Apple has spends tens of billions of dollars per year to attract and keep satisfied. Why should Apple turn down a way to monetize access to its customer list?

Exactly. 👍

And so why should anyone else decline marketing to Apple customers?
That’s where the money is to pay for innovative products and services.

That’s why I’ve been saying: talking down Apple to the status of a “small” firm with minority market share (and no monopoly power) is absurd.