Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
EU Introduces Strict Rules on Big Tech Companies to Promote Competition and Protect Users
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yep. This and forcing Apple to allow third party App Stores will definitely make me and my entire family/friends/coworkers leave the iOS market. We pay a premium for this ecosystem. If iPhones and Android eventually become the same, why spend $1,000 on an iPhone when I can get a $500 Android with the same experience?!
Why? Third party apps have no inherent right to exist on the iPhone or anywhere else. Apple could stop allowing 3rd party apps tomorrow and it would be completely legal. Unless/until Apple has a monopoly or near monopoly on smart phones the App Store process should be dictated by consumers choosing to continue using iPhones and developers choosing to continue developing for iPhones. No developer is required to make apps for iPhone, no user is required to get an iPhone. That doesn't mean Apples review process is perfect (or even good), but a 3rd party deciding what is and isn't allowed on the App Store? Why? Where else does that happen? A 3rd party doesn't decide what products Wal*Mart or Target sell. it doesn't decide what shows Netflix or Hulu decide to offer. If you want a 3rd party app review board, start your own company, sell your own smartphone, and go with that model. Apple offers a curated, walled garden approach, which has pluses and minuses. As the consumer your choice is to buy it or not buy it, and voice your opinion as to whether its good or not. Forcing a company to abide by some arbitrary set of rules just because you don't like their approach is absurd.
Its dead simple to uninstall an app. Its the same for the Apple apps as it is for every other app. If someone can't figure it out, that's on them, its a very straightforward process and Apple has plenty of documentation that tells you how to do it. Meanwhile, figuring out how to use Google maps instead of Apple maps? Pretty easy, you tap the Google maps icon. Even my tech illiterate father learned how to use an iPhone. They are not that hard. If someone really struggles with it, they probably shouldn't be using a smartphone
Wait, a company tries to increase the value of its services/products by linking them together so people tend to stay with those services/products? Thats nothing new, and except in specific circumstances (such as monopolies) its also not illegal. Insurance companies do it too, offering discounts for bundling your various insurance with them (car, auto, etc.). Car companies do it by offering discounts on dealer provided servicing at time of purchase and loyalty discounts on buying your next car. Its part of doing smart business. Its why Apple doesn't offer iMessage for non-Apple devices. The whole value proposition is that using Apples products together gives you a better experience. Thats the whole point.
And yes Chrome on iOS is webkit because webkit is the only browser engine Apple allows on iOS. If you don't like that approach you can complain about it, or you can get an Android device where thats not a restriction. Same way if you get a Nintendo Switch you won't be able to install certain games/types of games because Nintendo doesn't allow them or offer them. If you want those games your choice is to hope Nintendo changes its mind or buy a competitors product.
When a product doesn't do what you want you buy a competitors product or don't buy any product. Forcing a company to do things how you want though? No thanks.
No, they really aren't. There are plenty of competitors to Apple products both big and small. They absolutely buy SOME companies and shut down parts of them. Thats not abnormal. Its also not illegal if they don't have a monopoly. But there remain plenty of competitors to apple. Google+Android being the obvious one. Adobe. Microsoft. Zoom. etc.
Why should Apple have to cater to your parents will? Just because you WANT something doesn't mean Apple is obligated to GIVE it to you. Apple offers a product, if you don't like the way it works, don't buy it. None of this stuff is hidden or secret. Apple is perfectly up front about what the iPhones does and doesn't do. There are no surprises there, no bait and switch. Tim Cook and his EMPLOYEES get the final say on the iPhone because they make it and sell it. Your choice is whether you want to buy it or not. And while it might be inconvenient to change from an iPhone to Android if you decide you don't like Apple, its also completely doable. Your choice to make. Your money to spend.
Any indication that private sector censorship is better? US election and twitter comes to mind...
It's literally shooting the messenger... The regulation is not the problem. Website that want to collect all your data.
Those website who are not into stripping you naked, have the pop up at the edge of the screen and clicking it is NOT required to just browse the page...
The regulation is not the problem. The completely broken monetizing systems of websites is.
If you read a newspaper you probably will have a full-page add once in a while. Meanwhile when you want to read a website: at least 5-10 ad and analytics providers with each of them:
running scripts, tracking, incl-cross-site tracking, profiling,...
Only in terms of digital infrastructure to the end-customer. In every other way it's pretty much the opposite...
Evidently people don't care and want to do coke anyway.
Let's just legalize drugs.
Notice something?
Obligatory EU nanny state and-socialism post. Thanks for contributing to the statistics.
At least it's not monopolized. Also, there's not much we can do it about legally anyway. Private sector has 1A rights too.
So if I go around telling everyone you are a serial killer you won't try and stop me? You won't complain to the authorities that I am lying? You would oppose a law that punishes me for spreading false information about you?
I seriously doubt it.
The problem with absolute positions is the seldom hold up in real life.
Its absolutely better because the private sector can't throw you in jail for saying something they don't like. Private sector censorship is an inherent form of free speech. If I make a service that allows people to publish content (Facebook, Twitter, this forum, etc.) I retain the right to decide if I want to let you say whatever you want or not because its ultimately MY service. I should be able to kick you off my service if I don't like what you are saying just like I could kick you out of my house if I don't like what you are saying. Its the same principle. We don't want government to have as much of that power because of the harm they can do with it. Obviously there are limits (no yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc.) but the 1st Amendment simultaneously limits government censorship and protects private censorship (in the US only of course, other countries situations may vary)
Yeah man, I try to find the reason that would make the decisions seem to come from a good place, however with governments and politics is hard... where do the fines money goes to? To the consumers that were “harmed” by a pre-installed app? Hardly think so...
What’s gonna happen when buying a next new phone? Will it have apps in it (because pre-installed app is a no-go)?
Finding the free nice apps that used to be embedded (keynote, garage band, reminders, messages, notes, calendar, music, tv, books, contacts, mail, etc times 300) will also be harder because they would Apple’s, so searching will drop them to the last page?
Will this extend beyond mobile devices, so new macs will also come without anything installed? So all the previous apps mentioned that synchronize marvelously between devices and all, I’ll have to find them also there? And the harder way? Will it be pushed to the extreme one day? Like without MacOS installed?
What’s that about metrics, and metrics to advertisers and publishers... what metrics and what publishers. Aren’t they the worst regarding collecting and selling sensitive private data without the user consent? But now they are FORCED to share these “metrics”? Or else they get up to 10% of yearly... that, again full circle, GOES WHERE.
I seriously think a lot of these decisions do not think about the costumer... I had the same opinion regarding messing too much with AppStore fees potentially risking going back to the not unheard of $100k in dev kits and licenses instead of $100 a year + 30% (now 15%). In this case I wouldn’t want to go back to the 80s where finding an application would sometimes incur in some underground network of sorts and myths and gossip, sure it was fun, but devices today come with most what’s needed and does so so much out of the box (iOS for me at least)... can you imagine, get a phone, doesn’t come with a browser or something.
You can say what you like and people will either believe you or they won’t. I won’t like it, but the real question is should I have the right to ban you from calling people serial killers? The answer is obvious.
It is, and the answer is yes. Its called defamation, and its a long established area of law that spreading false information about someone that does them harm is and should be illegal. Your rights are not, and should not, be unlimited. When you use your rights to do harm to others YOU ARE WRONG.
The original question that you took issue with was ”who gets to decide?”
What happens when you want to accuse me of being a serial killer, and I am, but you can’t, because I’ve decided you can’t, and I’m the government. Freedom of speech has to be all or nothing. That is my opinion. You’re free to disagree. Luckily.
No, it literally does not. it has never been this way. It can never BE this way. Because unlimited freedom of speech for you NECCESIARILY would mean limited freedom for someone or someone's else. Its not your "opinion" it is a verifiable fact, and it is one you are wrong about.
My point is, you can say what you like and I can challenge you or even prosecute you, but I cannot stop you from saying it to begin with. If I can, I can stop you from accusing anyone of being a serial killer. This is potentially a bit of an issue if I am in fact a serial killer. More so if I make the rules. If you cannot see this as an issue then we will never agree. Have a good day.