They aren’t handicapping Apple. Apple are free to operate Apple Pay just the same as before.
And it‘s not as if the competition couldn’t come up with alternatives - they‘ve been locked out by Apple.
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EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms
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And it‘s not as if the competition couldn’t come up with alternatives - they‘ve been locked out by Apple.
Why can't the competition come up with their own phones? Then they can use whatever payment method they like. Why is the EU forcing Apple to include products from the competition?
Are they going to force McDonald's to allow Whoppers to be sold in their stores next?
It's unfair that McDonald's locks out Whoppers, right?
I feel like the EU wants to end Phone privacy as we know it in the Apple ecosystem. Glad I don’t live in the EU today.
They are locked out as they should be. Apples' ip until now was not made so that competitors can come in and pick it apart like a carcass being attacked by flocks of birds. EU has turned tech companies value added product into a public utility, which is going to result in the death of innovation in the EU. Who the heck will want to sell anything in the EU going forward?
The problem is that if Apple complies to these rules, the changes will impact all iPhones regardless of where we purchase them. The implications are huge.
The EU is the largest, wealthiest economy in the world and has 110 million more people than the US. Apple isn't going anywhere and if they do, their shareholders should sue.
Of course they’re not going anywhere but common sense isn’t really that common around here. 😂
The shareholders do not care about sales - they care about profit. It may take some time for Apple to figure out how to compete in this particular market at an acceptable profit level. The shareholders would be more than happy to wait for that. We have no idea if Apple has even started a version of IOS built to work this way.
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Banks, credit card companies or payment provider aren’t going to develop their own phones with an OS, just so that people can add virtual payment cards to them and carry them around.
And people aren’t going to carry around dedicated devices for payment (anymore) when they can have it on their phone.
These are realities of behaviour and the situation.
It won’t. Apple just has to allow some access to it, that’s it.
Sort of, yes.
And rightly so!
Apple themselves is pushing for inclusion of personal identification devices (official government-issued identity cards and driver’s licenses, as well as standards-based payment card) in their products.
They want the product to become a basic utility for everyday public life.
I haven't forgotten. I just hope there is a greater chance the UK Parliament will see this as the lunacy that it is. In general I think regulating giant companies is a good thing, but forcing Apple to allow sideloading will kill the app store and the security risks will skyrocket as a consequence as unvetted apps are sideloaded. It might also have implications about whether I can use Apple devices in the same way as I do now for work.
That's a stupid misdirection attempt.
Users are free to add bank ATM cards and credit cards to their Wallets for use with Apple Pay. They don't have to develop their own phones.
Why should Apple be forced to allow competing products like Google Pay or Samsung Pay on to their phones?
That's different as there is a lot more competition in the fast food/restaurant business. Mobile OS (with Android and iOS) and desktop/laptop OS (with Windows and OS X/macOS) are each dominated by two players. Also, the business model of these operating systems is to invite a wide variety of other products/apps onto the platform for money (a fee, commissions, etc.) and to make the devices more appealing to purchase.
Conversely, Apple doesn't dominate the retail store space which is why they aren't being asked to sell Samsung phones or Dell computers in their Apple Stores.
Not if this legislation turns iPhone into a public appliance.
While things like death and taxes are out of my control, this is bad legislation all around, imo. And the EU will get exactly what it is taking away from companies who spend billions on innovative tech solutions.
RE: competition
Let's be clear... Apple didn't choose to be one of only two mobile operating systems today.
Apple simply ended up there because most of the other older mobile platforms died out.
That's capitalism, right? Every market has winners and losers. Survival of the fittest and all that jazz.
But it's almost like Apple is being punished today because Symbian, Blackberry, Palm, WebOS, and Windows Mobile sucked so bad 10-15 years ago.
Maybe the EU should have tried to save those weaker companies all those years ago. Then there might be some competition today.
🤣
So iOS and Android should be punished for the failings of Research In Motion (aka Blackberry), Palm, Symbian, Tizen, and Windows Mobile?
It wasn't too long ago when Apple was on the brink if bankruptcy and extinction, they persevered and made better products and entered in to a market already dominated by Blackberries, Nokias, and Motorolas. They competed on their own merits without the need for any government to cripple the competition.
Awesome news! Now I'll be able to sideload open source alternatives and finally have a Youtube app that blocks ads.
If you don't want to sideload, you aren't forced to.
If you want to pay extra so Apple gets their 15% or 30% go for it.
Finally I'll be able to use a real Firefox browser, although might be a few years.
If you don't want to sideload, you aren't forced to.
If you want to pay extra so Apple gets their 15% or 30% go for it.
Finally I'll be able to use a real Firefox browser, although might be a few years.
I'll be shocked if developers lower their prices after this regulation takes effect.
Besides... aren't mobile application prices already low? People aren't buying $60 boxed software anymore.
Some of the best iPhone apps are already just a few dollars.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Side loading will make software piracy much easier. Hard to beat "free"...
That's not particularly relevant. Most dominant companies could say the same thing.
Antitrust laws are largely designed to make sure "dominant" companies don't engage in anticompetitive behavior that could stifle competition one way or another. Once a company achieves some sort of dominance in an industry/segment, they are open to more scrutiny from regulators as their business activities can have a much bigger impact and influence on the market in question and/or related markets.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc. deserve to be scrutinized here IMO. I think the debate comes in as to whether or not their activities meet the illegal antitrust/anticompetitive behavior criteria and if so, whether or not the "punishment" fits the "crime." Clearly, people on this forum have differing opinions on much of this.
It's simply part of being a company that happens to have a dominant position in a market or markets. It's ultimately up to regulators and courts to decide if a "dominant" company is engaging in anticompetitive behavior and what actions, if any, need to be taken to try to bring more balance, fairness, etc. to the market(s) in question. These are reasons why countries/regions have antitrust laws and regulations.
That is almost, but not quite, entirely NOT what marketshare represents. 50 percent of the population of the US does not own iPhones. 20 percent of the population of the EU does not own iPhones.
And, as of last month, that business continued to be hugely profitable. However, one would have to have forcefully ignored the news of the last few days to not understand that, for some companies, the cost of doing business has materially changed. For these companies, in January, if they did nothing, they would continue to make money as they had before. In August, if they do nothing, they would see fairly serious fines that would eat into whatever profits they’re making. If they decide to not alter their business, they could continue to see fines levied against them. Fines, I’d like to remind you, that didn’t exist when the most recent quarterly reports were announced.
Due to the seriousness of the fines, these companies WILL have to adjust how they do business. AND, just like with prior EU regulations, it could mean that certain businesses simply stop doing certain business in the EU. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again.
No way to do it ONLY in the EU. As with any privacy/encryption/sideloading scheme, once it’s out there in any way, it’s effectively available to anyone in the world that wants to obtain and use the method. As that would materially affect how the App Store works worldwide, I doubt that’s something Apple will do.
I can see how the model in the EU changes, though. Developers are no longer allowed to deploy their Apps to an open App Store, they must submit them to Apple and Apple could license them for submission on the store. In the EU, it would just be a first party store. While there are interesting ways to remain in the EU market while being in compliance (and, really, compliance is left to the companies to do for themselves, not difficult to make that work), they’re all a good amount of work which will cut into revenue continually (as, with every change, they’d have to have a separate set of tests to execute to validate those other set of requirements).
It does NOT inherently exist in non-GSM networks.
And yet, Google and no one else has done otherwise. Every implementation is tied to a mobile telephone number. Almost like it’s a requirement (as has been mentioned).