It makes a whole lot more sense to just go worldwide with this and have one set of rules for everyone.
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Apple to Allow iPad Users in EU to Download Apps From Third-Party App Stores From September 16
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Unless you, like Apple and many of us on here, think that this change being forced on Apple by the EU is bad for users. Then it doesn’t make sense to roll it out to everyone.
Oh no, the world is GOING TO END because some people might be able to run whatever software they want on their phone-shaped computer.
Also, I’m not in the least bit worried about it, but I’m posting here ANYWAY.
BAD EU. UNFETTERED CAPITALISM FTW!!
Also, I’m not in the least bit worried about it, but I’m posting here ANYWAY.
BAD EU. UNFETTERED CAPITALISM FTW!!
But this here is the thing. I understand why Apple is against this type of ruling. Profit will out. I can’t for the life of me work out why someone else would be.
This is coming from someone who started off siding with Apple until I realised that yes - the drawer with perfectly working and in good order older iPhone and iPads are defunct precisely because of their closed nature. Realising that the ultimate control remains with Apple even though I myself with my own money have purchased the device.
I mean : surely it is me who decides what I do with the device? It can’t affect a user who wants to remain in apples closed system should I wish to install what I like on my device, it’s an irrelevant argument.
Once one understands fully the nature of how the os sandboxes itself from nefarious apps, and the realisation that nefarious apps still do exist within the ‘walled garden’, the whole thing is very much a moot point.
Until it’s available and working as it should, the I suspect that most people who would have previously thought as you do but want to install something from say, GitHub, which for Android, MacOS, Windows and Linux, has an abundance of useful and generally unavailable apps for iOS or iPadOS, may change their minds. To the ones that don’t want or need that, nothing needs to change.
Ask a$$le, they are much more expert than me to apply/disapply rules in non 100% democratic countries to avoid profits cut.
The law doesn't distinguish between American and non-American companies.
In truth, it is essential the same operating system. Apple's been marketing it as such And you know it.
And so are the many apps that are cross-purchases and sold through the same store.
"iOS and iPadOS are two separate operating systems"
is just as honest and truthful a claim as your banana republic dictator claiming:
"I'm not benefitting and I've got nothing to do with the companies that receive government contracts".
If enough users eventually use iOS (or the derivative that is called iPadOS), it will still be subject to the regulation.
The DMA concerns developers "business users" and their distribution and "sale" of applications and services.
They are in business to make money, of course, go for the platform where they can make sales.
As such, revenue is relevant.
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Again, I have a philosophical problem with regulating a company with less than 30% market share like it is a monopolist. And in the case of the iPad, Vestager herself is quoted in an E.U. press release saying iPadOS doesn’t qualify to be regulated based on the numbers written in the law, but they’re applying it anyway because….reasons. I can’t tell what’s more egregious, that or the EC multiplying Apple’s Spotify fine 45x because, again they can.
That’s literally third-world level corruption.
So no response. Just your typical “a$$le” taunt that you must think is clever but actually makes you sound less mature than my preschooler.
I’m going by the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.
Apple is estimated to command more than half (50%) of mobile app spending.
Side note: And while I haven't looked up recent figures, I believe they also command (much) more than half of smartphone profits.
The law posits that a few tech companies - wherever they may be from - leverage their dominant market position in certain software/internet services anticompetitively.
And is written in such a way to intentionally avoid impacting European companies and to intentionally impact American ones.
And then, when a platform doesn’t actually meet the criteria to be regulated, they regulate it anyway.
You can quote that statistic as much as you want. Doesn’t change anything. Apple is BY FAR the minority player in the market.
You're making the point about everything I postulated about the DMA.
"iOS and iPadOS are two separate operating systems"
is just as honest and truthful a claim as your banana republic dictator claiming:
"I'm not benefitting and I've got nothing to do with the companies that receive government contracts".
Apple "forking" their operating systems after the DMA came into force, would most certainly swiftly be dealt with as a means of circumventing the DMA by artificially segmenting its business.
Since Apple did so before the DMA entered into force, iPadOS had to be retroactively designated as a covered core platform service.
Given how Apple "forked" the two (only) in 2019, and in little else than name, it can be surmised they may have done that exactly just for this purpose: Segmenting their business and pre-empting impending regulation.
Versus developers that are making apps to be sold, they aren't.
Apple represents roughly half of the market to them.
software developer here. been using GitHub for over a decade. never installed an app by GitHub.
The EU rules may help the largest developers in the short term, but it certainly won't help smaller developers as they would have little visibility with the masses in a third-party app store., but in the long term, I doubt the app store will not fundamentally reorganize its framework to make up for the losses. That's the way it works. The store was set up for Apple to make money directly through the App Store for their devices, They will not subsidize third-party App Stores to just walk in and siphon their revenue. That's never going to happen, that's not how the free market works. The EU has taken it upon itself to implement something nobody but big developers wanted and it is so misguided it is so obvious it is not going to work how they hoped.
A successful company will forge forward and invest and innovate if there is value in something, once that's gone, no one is going to operate anything that is not worth it to the bottom line. The EU can do whatever it wants, but it may be to do it in a way to cut off its nose to spite its face.
A successful company will forge forward and invest and innovate if there is value in something, once that's gone, no one is going to operate anything that is not worth it to the bottom line. The EU can do whatever it wants, but it may be to do it in a way to cut off its nose to spite its face.
Questionable.
I think they (smaller developers' apps) have better visibility on, for example, SetApp, than on Apple's App Store.
No one is talking about subsidising third-party App Stores - the law merely requires Apple to allow them.
Apple's App Store is just a store.
And it's a not a very good store at that (weak search functionality, non-existing filtering functionality, no possibility of comparing apps' functionality, hard to see subscription pricing, limited options for developers to showcase their apps and functionality in detail - all that just off the top of my head).
From a user interface* perspective, it's frankly one of the worse online stores I'm using regularly.
And neither do I see much investing, forging forward or innovation on Apple's part in it.
Apple can just afford to operate it in that state, due to being a monopoly operator.
* though admittedly the licensing for unlimited number of personal devices policy and centralised update management is nice.
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Only if you view third party app stores as its own separate set of rules, and not part of the DMA.
John Gruber perhaps summed it up best.
The iOS Continental Drift Widens
What’s happening with Apple Intelligence and iPhone Screen Sharing this year is what I expect to happen with every new product or service Apple creates that integrates with iOS: they will come late, or never, to the EU.
daringfireball.net
So what you are all actually cheering for is for an Apple which is not allowed to integrate their products together, and we are already seeing what that means for users. No Apple Intelligence or iPhone mirroring. I know what some of you will say - Apple could sidestep all this by giving the same treatment to third parties (eg: allowing users to set spotify as default when invoking Siri on your Apple Watch, or mandating that android tablets must be allowed to work with sidecar), but if you expect Apple to extend the same treatment to all third parties for every single feature they design, then the outcome is that they may simply not bother if they feel that the payoff is not worth the effort (eg: it removes the incentive to own multiple Apple devices), or if it prevents them from meaningfully differentiating their products.
In this context, it makes sense for Apple to keep pushing back against the demands of the DMA whenever possible.
It just makes Apple a little less money to just go worldwide with this and have one set of rules for everyone.
Exactly - that's what the DMA and why Gruber is wrong.
Quite the contrary. It's an attack only on leveraging integration to lock out competitors - an favour your own "integrated" solution, even if it's (in whatever worse) worse than competing solutions.
It enables competitors integrating with gatekeepers' products, thereby giving consumers more choice.
Integration does not necessarily require locking out competition - particularly not to the degree Apple is doing it.
This may "work" or stall things for a while.
But what's not happening in Europe is a major backlash by consumers against the EU commission or legislators, as predicted by some. Apple's playing victim and their cringeworthy attempts at spreading FUD about the DMA cut little ice with consumers.
Also, Apple is in the business of selling phones - and so does their App Store and Services revenue depend on users that have bought phones. More so than America (see the market share of Android vs. iOS), Europe has been receptive of non-Apple competition in the smartphone market.
Someone will pick up the slack. I've been around several European countries the last few days - and competing manufacturers are (for instance) definitely marketing AI features in the European market. Google, too, has released their Gemini app for EU users. And don’t count out Microsoft, who don‘t have a smartphone, smartphone OS or mobile app store business - but are invested in AI.
Withholding popular features and functionality from European consumers will, over the long run, cut into Apple's hardware sales and market share, especially with younger consumers. It‘s going to hurt Apple.
(Cue armchair CEOs here quipping "who cares?" or that Apple should withdraw from EU altogether. They don’t run publicly listed trillion dollar companies - but some of them do advocate for taking pains just to stick it to the other guy(s)).
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Why is Apple obligated to say, allow users to mirror their android tablet to an Apple TV if it means that Apple is not able to capture the proceeds of a sale of said android tablet? Or to put it another way - I have paid for access to the Apple ecosystem, which is what enables the continued R&D in this area.
The whole point of integration is that some devices and services are going to work better together compared to other alternatives. Whether it is sufficient to discourage competition or not is besides the point.
The Apple ecosystem is built around such ecosystem. Apple Watches work only with phones. Siri defaults to Apple Music. You can only airdrop to other Apple devices. You can only use sidecar with Macs and ipads. Third party styluses don’t seem to work as well as Apple pencils. AirTags leveraging a massive iPhone install base. AirPlay mirroring to an Apple TV only works with Apple devices. You can only iMessage other Apple users. That sort of thing.
Apple hardware costs more upfront, but the promise is that they work well with one another and spare users a lot of the complexity that users may otherwise face when attempting to cobble together a similar solution using other options (eg: windows PCs with android phones).
It seems you are all expecting Apple to absorb the costs of R&D and make them accessible to everyone for free, regardless of whether they use Apple products or not. Despite the fact that Apple’s entire business model is predicated on one buying as many of their hardware and services as possible.
Not to mention when even such solutions exist, companies like Spotify refuse to adopt them, and then complain when their own homebrew solutions don’t work as well.
Am I the only one who sees the inanity of it all?
They aren‘t. Neither the Apple TV nor tvOS are core platform services subject to the DMA‘s regulations.
It not besides the point from a perspective of competition law.
Not when dominant products/platforms are stifling competition through deliberate denial of interoperability.
Wrong. Apple doesn‘t have to make their R&D accessible to everyone.
They just have to allow certain interoperability.
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Core platform services are a moving target based on the phase of the moon I guess.
If AirPlay mirroring were released today, you can get sure that’s what would be happening, similar to why iPhone mirroring on the Mac is being delayed in the EU.
Existing features seem to be left alone. For now. But the writing on the wall is clear. And legislation can work both ways, in that users can either the full benefits of integration fully or not at all (which is what I suspect will ultimately happen).
We will see.
Until Vestager (or her successor) decides that they are, you know like iPadOS.
They’re not stifling competition. If they are, please explain how Spotify has 56% of the E.U. market despite being less well integrated than Apple Music.