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EU Chief Calls on Apple CEO Tim Cook to Open Hardware and Software Ecosystem
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Translating "Our companies are hobbled by insane regulations and taxes, so they can't innovate. Please give up all your intellectual property and capital investment so that our non-competitive companies don't get squashed by your superior products and services."
Oh look, a valid critique. This doesn't belong on the internet.
It's not like the U.S. DOJ hasn't gone after/investigated tech companies too, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple.
According to Statcounter, the desktop browser share for Chrome in Europe is around 59% with Edge coming in second at around 15%, Firefox third at around 11% and Safari fourth at around 9%. Perhaps if Apple actually tried to compete and offered Safari on Windows or other (non-macOS) desktop operating systems, it would take away some of Chrome's share.
"Killing capitalism" is unnecessarily dramatic. This is only cut 147 in the death of a thousand cuts. And interventionism, broadly speaking, is a call EU, and its constituents, gets to make. They like regulation. That's just how it is.
However the problem here isn't over-regulation, it's stupid regulation by an entity which lacks the first clue about tech...and is arrogantly oblivious to its ignorance, re: that statement, which essentially says "I'm smart. Not like everybody says" while adopting a moronic, paper-thin credo-driven approach to tech regulation.
That's the problem.
It's not just an Apple thing. The EU regulations apply to all companies meeting "gatekeeper" status who are engaging in "anticompetitive behavior." For example, if Android restricted things like sideloading, alternative app stores, browser engines, etc. like Apple/iOS does, they would be facing similar consequences.
I'm not saying the EU solved the issue. Ultimately it was the ARM-based iPhone which broke the Wintel monopoly. That's why Apple isn't the villain in this story. Tim Cook only got his homework on how to enable more competition and innovation on his gated platform. The golden cage without the cage. 🙌
Oh EU absolutely cares about it. But being a monopoly isn’t In of itself illegal as long as getting there isn’t anticompetitive or prevents other from entering the market.
Today it just seems that chrome has won fairly
Nonsense. Apple is mot required to write software for other platforms. It's required to open iOS so that others can write apps, which make use of the NFC chip and install apps without the AppStore.
Ultimately, they're all WebKit based except for Firefox. It's already a quasi-monopoly.
I can't use Apple Pay in Norway because Norwegian banks gatekeep them out. The banks gatekeep because they are all part owners of the local competing electronic payment system. I wish the EU would go after this kind of behavior rather than destroying something that consumers already have an alternative to in Android, i.e. preventing a company from competing in the marketplace with its own benefits it offers to consumers.
It was interesting to see Microsoft from the other side. They were attempting to cut off Digital Research (CP/M, DR-DOS, GEM) and others from having any presence on the x86 platform. They even hoodwinked Apple. They also put secret APIs into Windows to make MS Office much faster than other office products that had to use the publicly available APIs.
who use iMessage these days when whatsapp and other messaging platforms are there.
Sometimes the EU really does a policing the US is incapable of (like on privacy and forcing Apple to adopt USB) but sometimes the EU reeks of envy. The EU will never have a significant role in the digital markets by regulating the hell out of it (which the representatives in Brussels seem to think is their only job) but instead by fostering innovation across borders.
Some EU successes? ARM (no longer in the EU but still), ArchiCAD (look it up, it is a wonderful story of a company born behind the iron curtain..) and many more. But the EU representatives should stop seeking the spotlight by attacking US companies without merit and concentrate more on fostering the EU innovation.
Some EU successes? ARM (no longer in the EU but still), ArchiCAD (look it up, it is a wonderful story of a company born behind the iron curtain..) and many more. But the EU representatives should stop seeking the spotlight by attacking US companies without merit and concentrate more on fostering the EU innovation.
What do you mean substandard? It IS the defacto standard connector. And Apple didn’t innovate Lightning in 10 years so I don’t know what you have been smoking: USB-C in the iPhone opens a world of new peripherals and much needed speed improvements.
Also, the EU didn’t swoop in to mandate a standard connector but asked the industry for many many years to fix the issue of incompatible chargers. They refused. They only mandated it as a last resort.
capitalism ≠ market economy
I'm absolutely fine with the wording. There are many negative consequences of private ownership. Just ask the Brits who privatized every public service short of healthcare. They are literally swimming in rivers full of poop, because it's more profitable to just dumb untreated sewage water. We need to make sure working markets and open competition, not the private accumulation of wealth.
Well, as if a few large companies matters for a overall healthy economy. The EU does not care to support any monopoly or duopoly companies, especially if they tend to circumvent taxation in a big way like Apple & Friends does. They care about competition and about a healthy economy, smaller companies that keeps the machinery running. A bunch of smaller companies contributes more to the health of an economy than Apple does. Apple has almost zero economic value for any country, even to the US.
It’s one of the reasons why in the EU we have a working healthcare, and the USA don’t. A cancer treatment costs here almost zero, compared to the US.
Size doesn’t matter!
Honest question: Is Apple versus Android a valid comparison on any level?
One is company, the other is software.
Just because it is a “standard” doesn’t mean it is a solid and robust connector. This is the only claim I am making for Lightning. The USBC connector is not solid and will probably fail at a much higher rate than lightning.
Also, “ as a last resort”? There is no need to regulate connectors, period. What happens if a great connector is invented tomorrow? Right, we will never see it.
No they shouldn't. Being innovative is the job of private companies. EU commissioners are supposed to regulate the market. You don't blame the referee for not shooting enough goals. He's the guardian of the rules of the game. But as always, Americans got it all backwards with soccer.
There’s a mostly open platform for smartphones that has a bigger market share in the EU than Apple.
Exactly. Remember the EU wanted the world to adopt Micro-USB as the be-all-end-all charging port in the early 2010s. USB-C likely wouldn’t exist today if they got their way back then.
Can’t wait to see someone mentally contort themselves to an all-powerful government entity that they think will always do the right thing, and if or when they don’t, there will be repercussions, in the comments. 🙄
