Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
That is how most companies operate in the US, which is why we are so confused by the EU’s actions here. My GE refrigerator can only use GE water filters. We don’t force GE to advertise LG products and allow me to ou

Horse puckey.

With a bit of work, I could easily use a different brand of water filter with your fridge. Plumbing isn't hard, and is easy to modify with basic tools.

It would still not be at all unreasonable for the government to write a regulation that required all refrigerator water filters to have a standard fitting that would accommodate any brand of water filter. And most plumbing IS standardized, it doesn't matter which brand of schedule 40 PVC your drain pipe is, it'll fit any other brand of schedule 40 PVC elbow, it just has to be the same standardized size. Those sizes are defined in the plumbing code.

And government absolutely should do the same for software interoperability. Apple has abused the consumer for long enough that lots of you have been Stockholm Syndromed into believing that abuse is the way things should be. It isn't. And no, Apple isn't the only company that's done it, Micro$loth is notorious for doing the same thing, game console manufacturers are just as egregious, and it's hurting everybody but the trillion dollar multinational corporations.
 
  • Disagree
  • Love
Reactions: I7guy and davide_eu
A bit of a side-question, but I am still curious to know why Apple Intelligence, as it is now, is not compatible with the DMA?
It‘s a petty move by Apple to cause a stir and turn costumers in the EU against the DMA.

Nothing stops Apple from releasing the 3 missing headline features in the EU other than their try at making the DMA look bad.
 
No. Apple Intelligence currently focuses on on-device processing of personal data. Your own data and relationships.

Ok, so if it stays on device, what are the privacy risks? Data leaks from Apple or third party apps getting access to it?
 
I think that's the problem...The EU seems to think that American firms would not be what they are without European consumers but by simply looking at the data, it's clear that there are other markets - even outside of China and Europe that contribute to Apple's overall success. To some, that's typical European arrogance - "If it weren't for us..." Truth is, the older generations failed Europe because there's not enough working folks to service the debt so there's really not much to look forward to, from a market/consumption standpoint, I'm afraid.

Writing is on the wall and US firms will pivot accordingly if there is any risk to margin.

Other markets? It’s US, Europe and China (currently declining), the rest of them are not so relevant:

1. United States: ~43-45% of total revenue

2. Europe: ~23-25%

3. Greater China: ~18-20%

4. Japan: ~7-8%

5. Rest of Asia Pacific: ~7-8%

6. Rest of the Americas (Latin America and Canada): ~4-5%

7. Middle East and Africa: ~2-3%
 
“Oh no! Won’t somebody please defend/think of the trillion dollar corporations!”

This forum, every single EU article
There is a reason why Apple is a trillion dollar company. It is because they make products that WORK. They design the hardware and software together so they are connected and function smoothly.

Everything the EU is doing is breaking the things that make iOS a great platform. Stability, security, privacy simplicity, integration with the hardware… opening the floodgates to every third party to install whatever they want is just going to ruin the whole experience.

if you want to open up your phone to spyware and malware and have unstable shovelware that sucks down your phones resources, then just buy an Android.
 
I think that's the problem...The EU seems to think that American firms would not be what they are without European consumers but by simply looking at the data, it's clear that there are other markets - even outside of China and Europe that contribute to Apple's overall success. To some, that's typical European arrogance - "If it weren't for us..." Truth is, the older generations failed Europe because there's not enough working folks to service the debt so there's really not much to look forward to, from a market/consumption standpoint, I'm afraid.

Writing is on the wall and US firms will pivot accordingly if there is any risk to margin.
The problem is that american firms would do the business in EU as they were in US.

Even if EU is not the center of the world, but very often many EU laws are copy&paate by other countries. And that's good!
 
  • Haha
Reactions: iOS Geek
if you want to open up your phone to spyware and malware and have unstable shovelware that sucks down your phones resources, then just buy an Android.
I though that there are no virus on a$$le, that the os was the safest.

Accordingly to you, the security is only in the store controls...

Very bad...
 
There is a reason why Apple is a trillion dollar company. It is because they make products that WORK. They design the hardware and software together so they are connected and function smoothly.
Sorry but you are referring to a time looooooooooooong ago. Apple, „just works“ was the mantra of Jobs but not of Tim Cook.

Steve nailed it by implementing a smaller feature set following the 80/20 rule. Instead of implementing tons of feature that only a few people use, Apple focussed on fewer features that work rock solid.

In this time you could sync any phone to a mac, the OS release cycle was quite low and the system itself was lean and mean.

All of this degraded under Tim. Yearly releases with ton of bugs, cumbersome features like exchange sync, lots of bloat, proprietary features like Metal and much more.

But yes, macOS is hard to destroy even for Tim and still far better compared to Windows. But „just works“? No way,


Everything the EU is doing is breaking the things that make iOS a great platform. Stability, security, privacy simplicity, integration with the hardware… opening the floodgates to every third party to install whatever they want is just going to ruin the whole experience.

if you want to open up your phone to spyware and malware and have unstable shovelware that sucks down your phones resources, then just buy an Android.
EU doesn‘t brake anything it just forces Apple to allow competition.
 
If a consumer discretionary for profit corporation is legal in its dealings, you buy another product that suits you better.
If a company builds a beautiful car, but it doesn't have any rearview or side mirrors (and for the sake of argument no replacements for them like cameras, which is another can of worms anyway frankly), then the solution isn't to buy another car, it's to tell that manufacturer to **** off and do it right.

Hey guys, now that the big bully tech company has changed, let’s remind them of all the things they did to annoy us
There's a fair amount of complaining going on in this report for sure, but to say that Apple "changed" already is very misleading, they did the absolute minimum they thought they could get away with, and they ignored huge swathes of the legislation they didn't agree with and started a legal fight over those clauses being against EU law instead.
 
  • Like
Reactions: davide_eu
There’s a reason why all those android app stores are niche and why forcing Apple to give its users tons of choices will actually make the system less desirable. I’ve said this before. The science-denying DMA lovers like to deride it, but here goes again…

It’s often called The Paradox of Choice (the title of a book about the subject). People actually don’t want lots of choice. It leads to decision fatigue, indecision, avoidance, and dissatisfaction. People prefer a small number of choices and they prefer to make their choice and stick with it (e.g. brand loyalty) unless some major event forces them to rethink it. These results come out of several fields: behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and behavioral marketing.

People who’ve studied the science or have an MBA from a half-way decent program know this. People who rely on their gut and their “common sense” (read, uninformed prejudice) think more choice is always better.

Yes, exactly, and as I stated in other topics, once novelty will wear off, we will see that not much will change. Maybe we will get some small indie shops vegetating on, but the only true winners would be another American big techs like Epic. And answer is easy - if it would to be different it would be already different on Android, and it is not different there.

And let put it straight, even if I'm EU citizen, I would rather name this law SMA (like Spot$$$ Markets Act) :p as what we as customers will get from this law are just scraps from EU businesses tables.
 
Last edited:
No thank you. I love my iPhone and iPad just as they are, without third party crap, and without iOS changes to support third party crap. The EU can go F itself here. And I’m writing this from Europe, to be clear.
You can use your phone as Tim Cook intended. I don't know why anyone would use an iPhone without apps from independent developers, but it's certainly possible.
 
You can use your phone as Tim Cook intended. I don't know why anyone would use an iPhone without apps from independent developers, but it's certainly possible.
It’s not about apps from independent developers. It’s about alternative app stores, and all the code needed to support that.
 
Meta is also a gatekeeper. Google too. EU is basically telling them to play nice or else. Not that I mind.

True, but unless Meta wants to interoperate with Apple or Apple with What's App there is no requirement they do. The big players can simply decide not work with each other and the DMA does not force them to, it merely requires them to allow it. If they decide they are better off with teh status quo they won't bother to change, and only smaller companies will want to interoperate in an attempt to compete with teh big players. But unless they offer something compelling, getting traction will be hard. Then, of course, there is the whole issue of encryption...

And government absolutely should do the same for software interoperability.

Do it like the USB-C requirement - any software must interoperate, so even a new messaging app would be required to interoperate.

But that's the problem with such rules - you end up with a lowest common denominator rather than innovation, or like USB-C require a minimum but allow proprietary additions as long as it meets the minimum required for the purpose.


As a result, you could have 2 USB-C cables that are not 100% compatible but still 1000% compliant with teh regulation.

It‘s a petty move by Apple to cause a stir and turn costumers in the EU against the DMA.

Nothing stops Apple from releasing the 3 missing headline features in the EU other than their try at making the DMA look bad.

Maybe they want to avoid a fight with the EU? Companies do that, such as those who block their website from EU IP address to avoid getting caught up n data protection requirements.

they did the absolute minimum they thought they could get away with,

That's all they legally need to do - the bare minimum.

and they ignored huge swathes of the legislation they didn't agree with and started a legal fight over those clauses being against EU law instead.

That's typical with regulations. Just becasue a regulator thinks you must do X the law may not require it so you litigate.
 
I've had two family members who went to the EU this July for vacation. Ever since their phones have been messed up due to geo-detection and the changes Apple installed on their phones to comply with the EU. It rendered their phones almost useless when they got back to the States. I even had to get one of their phones traded in at the Apple Store. So, taking phones back and forth between the US and the EU is becoming a real issue, and it's definitely affecting Americans too.
Thats codswallop. Its either made up or massively misunderstood. Its just doesn't work like that. You need to actually change the region as to where your appstore is. To do that you need a local bank card and a local address. Travelling to the EU from a non EU country does nothing to your phone. Stop spreading fud.
Source: I live in Britain and France at the same time and travel weekly between the two counties. My store is the UK store, ie non EU. Nothing whatsoever changes on my phone due to solely geo location, aside the time zone.
 
I think that's the problem...The EU seems to think that American firms would not be what they are without European consumers but by simply looking at the data, it's clear that there are other markets - even outside of China and Europe that contribute to Apple's overall success. To some, that's typical European arrogance - "If it weren't for us..." Truth is, the older generations failed Europe because there's not enough working folks to service the debt so there's really not much to look forward to, from a market/consumption standpoint, I'm afraid.

Writing is on the wall and US firms will pivot accordingly if there is any risk to margin.
There will be an even bigger risk to margin if Apple decide to not sell in the EU and Europe and kiss goodbye to 25%-28% of their annual revenue.
 
There will be an even bigger risk to margin if Apple decide to not sell in the EU and Europe and kiss goodbye to 25%-28% of their annual revenue.
Technically, wrong. Apple’s margin in EU might be lower due to all the extra cost of all these features, so leaving EU might increase their overall margin.

Now, if you talk about their revenue, yes, and profit as well. But not margin.
 
I've had two family members who went to the EU this July for vacation. Ever since their phones have been messed up due to geo-detection and the changes Apple installed on their phones to comply with the EU. It rendered their phones almost useless when they got back to the States. I even had to get one of their phones traded in at the Apple Store. So, taking phones back and forth between the US and the EU is becoming a real issue, and it's definitely affecting Americans too.
That looks like something I read on 'didn't happen of the week'.
I travel between the UK and the EU regularly and we have different region settimgs too. It is never an issue and I thi k your family members are simply pulling your leg 😄
 
Technically, wrong. Apple’s margin in EU might be lower due to all the extra cost of all these features, so leaving EU might increase their overall margin.

Now, if you talk about their revenue, yes, and profit as well. But not margin.
Maybe, I haven't looked into margins and pre-tax costs to be honest as I have never needed to.
 
There will be an even bigger risk to margin if Apple decide to not sell in the EU and Europe and kiss goodbye to 25%-28% of their annual revenue.
Those are the figures now, yes. However, overregulation and demographic concerns will affect Apple’s margin so while I don’t see them exiting - they will not release features that could result in fines. Either way, EU consumer will miss out.

Europe can always start tech companies too…
 
  • Like
Reactions: CyclingHermit
Europe can always start tech companies too…
Aside from the rather obvious fact that the EU is the base of many tech companies, this comment is rather missing the point.

The point is the power of the current tech leaders is too great. They dictate everything, from the users point of view, the developers point of view, their suppliers point of view, the accessory makers point of view - in some cases an entire country or regions point of view and political points of view. They have everyone in a stranglehold, and they're commanding the entire industry around their products, solely for themselves to gain profit to the detriment of everyone else. Nothing more or less than that.

Capitalism is all well and good, until it gets out of hand. And in some regions where these companies operate, its deemed so. That its not deemed so in other regions or their home regions is besides the point.

It cannot be possible that a company has this much power over the entire segment, and it certainly cannot be possible for said company to have more control than a governing body. Thus, the governing body has every right and every expectation of compliance if they wish to continue their operations in the region.

Apple has a great ecosystem which it built itself. But once that grand plus has exchanged hands, the device is yours, to do with what you want. Apple should not have a say after the fact, certainly not the absolute say as they currently have.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.