They just want to destroy security and ecosystem.
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EU Planning to Force Apple to Give Developers Access to All Hardware and Software Features
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The EU has essentially just ruled that the slippery slope is no longer a fallacy.
I'm waiting for someone, likely the EU, to come to the conclusion that since Apple's chips are ahead of their competitors, that they should be forced to sell them to competitors at regulated prices. Or be forced to split off the division entirely. Ooo, or how about forcing Apple to develop iOS for other devices, and allow Android on iPhone.
The problem with tech is that until fairly recently, they haven't been spending much on lobbying. Certainly not to the extent that Pharma, petroleum, automotive, and other industries have. At this point, it would be easier for the EU to just state what is legal, since it seems that any company trying to gain any sort of competitive advantage in the marketplace will swiftly have that advantage taken away.
I'm waiting for someone, likely the EU, to come to the conclusion that since Apple's chips are ahead of their competitors, that they should be forced to sell them to competitors at regulated prices. Or be forced to split off the division entirely. Ooo, or how about forcing Apple to develop iOS for other devices, and allow Android on iPhone.
The problem with tech is that until fairly recently, they haven't been spending much on lobbying. Certainly not to the extent that Pharma, petroleum, automotive, and other industries have. At this point, it would be easier for the EU to just state what is legal, since it seems that any company trying to gain any sort of competitive advantage in the marketplace will swiftly have that advantage taken away.
My solution for Apple:
1) Remove any and all future products from that EU. So if it was built before 2022. It can remain, but new stuff nope...
2) Close all but 10% of the Apple stores in the EU. Bye.
3) New products will come to the EU "later". With 2 options. Open OS - Bring/Build/Buy your own. Or Apple iOS.
4) Limit sales of both products in the EU to no more than 25% of previous sales. Increase pricing across the board.
1) Remove any and all future products from that EU. So if it was built before 2022. It can remain, but new stuff nope...
2) Close all but 10% of the Apple stores in the EU. Bye.
3) New products will come to the EU "later". With 2 options. Open OS - Bring/Build/Buy your own. Or Apple iOS.
4) Limit sales of both products in the EU to no more than 25% of previous sales. Increase pricing across the board.
Yeah, I'd imagine with all the chain rattling of the last few years Apple has probably already designed/developed a system for managing sideloading. Once it becomes clear that they can no longer fight it, it will be announced as a new feature.
I have mixed feelings about this, to be honest. As a dev I get that it would be kinda great to have access to the same resources that internal Apple devs have. But I also get that Apple kinda deserves an advantage for being the ones who actually designed and built the system in the first place. I mean, there are probably some internal APIs that are essentially private IP/trade secrets, which have just been wrapped up in API by one of the devs, for convenience—i.e., to allow other internal devs to benefit from the technique. I don't really see why Apple should be forced to open those things up. Mind you, if the EU forces their hand, Apple would probably just make these kinds of API closed source code, shared internally between Apple devs. Not sure how the EU could regulate that. On the other hand, it could be that opening up internal techniques like this to third-party devs would just become a further strength of the platform itself, making it harder, not easier, to compete with... could go either way, I suppose. (That is admittedly less likely, as it's hard to imagine a function so mysterious that third-party devs couldn't reverse engineer it. But at an extreme, I could see a situation whereby forcing Apple to reveal its hand could lead to bizarre forms of obfuscation—internal devs writing impenetrable functions with bizarre names, taking meaningless parameters, just to throw third-party devs off the scent! ? Or maybe they'd just make their already impenetrable documentation even worse... hahaha...)
Also, while it seems intuitively clear who the "gatekeeper" companies are, has an actual definition been proposed? I don't see any concrete definition in the document—it refers to high-level attributes of a gatekeeper, or conditions in which a gatekeeper might arise, but isn't very specific about what it actually is. It seems to be a matter of degree, as much as anything else, but the actual degree isn't specified (this may be an opening for Apple's lawyers). If, for example, a company becomes particularly dominant in a given vertical, and they have a hardware+software ecosystem to support that, do they automatically become gatekeepers? Should they? If I'm a small player, in a particular vertical/niche, then surely any bigger player with a closed hardware+software platform is a "gatekeeper" from my perspective, no? But that's also just how IP and competitive advantage work. The only instance in which that isn't the case is in the open source community.
And forcing everything to become open source surely isn't the solution, since it's not that uncommon for large corporations to have parasitic relationships to open source projects, using the tech without contributing in any meaningful way. You just further promote a slave labour class of unpaid devs producing and maintaining code for the corporate giants who had the advantage of filling their coffers first—kinda like how composers and musicians essentially subsidize Spotify with their part-time jobs and side-hustles.
Dunno. Seems like a quagmire, to me.
PS: I'm not against regulation, btw. I think regulating the big tech companies is almost essential, at this point. It's a matter of how it's done, and how to avoid falling into vaguely altruistic, hand-wavey forms of overreach.
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At this point, all I can figure is the folks in the EU making these types of decisions are led not by technologists, but their kids and friends complaining on social media and in other channels about how they want their phone to work. Because to me that makes more sense than a group of software engineers sitting around having these kinds of thoughts, because they (software engineers) would know better and how difficult, if not impossible some of these things are.
Au revoir!
In that case our unemployment won't raise much, but we might miss those geniuses(cough-cough).
If this happens, Apple will be replaced, why rely on half backed crap.
Didn't they almost leave the EU already at 1)?
While I think their heart is in the right place, this legislation just goes too far. FaceTime and iMessage do not need to be regulated. However I think apps should be allowed to be sideloaded, like emulators, and for developers to be given more access to the system like default apps. Why can’t I set a default music app, or camera/photos app?
Apple should just choose to leave the EU market altogether.
I think they want to do what India’s doing to create a government provided phone and services. However, instead of just saying that’s what they’re doing, they want to first drive out all competition and then say ‘We have no choice but to…’
Even better, after driven out of the EU, they never have to sell any directly to EU citizens in order to still profit from EU citizens. If someone in the EU wants an iPhone, I’m sure that a number of enterprising entrepreneurs will figure out a way to sell it to them. At a pretty steep markup, of course, but commerce finds a way
I my analogy, walls are the same, number of guards are the same, only guards per mile changes.
Apple chips ahead of competitors? Without TSMC(a taiwanese company) Apple would still be licking their circuit drawings.
This seems like a bad idea. I don't want random developers to have direct access to FaceID or fingerprint data. They don't need that, all they need to know is that I am me. I don't need Facebook or Google or some other company harvesting my biometrics directly from my iPhone.
Im not sure what is going on with the EU lately but they seem intent on destroying encryption or privacy in order to "save the children." This is another proposal that would essentially require algorithms to scan ALL emails, messages, or other communications in order to detect "grooming" not just CSAM (remember the uproar when Apple tried to do this in a comparatively small fashion). Maybe Apple saw this coming last year and tried to get out ahead of it with their CSAM scanning approach? If this proposal passes it would essentially create China level internet surveillance in the EU.
ec.europa.eu
More info in this thread:
Im not sure what is going on with the EU lately but they seem intent on destroying encryption or privacy in order to "save the children." This is another proposal that would essentially require algorithms to scan ALL emails, messages, or other communications in order to detect "grooming" not just CSAM (remember the uproar when Apple tried to do this in a comparatively small fashion). Maybe Apple saw this coming last year and tried to get out ahead of it with their CSAM scanning approach? If this proposal passes it would essentially create China level internet surveillance in the EU.
Fighting child sexual abuse: Commission proposes new rules to protect children
Today, the Commission is proposing new EU legislation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse online.
More info in this thread:
Not even IF this was just affecting Apple. Don’t see either Apple or Google departing the area.
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15 minutes in before someone shows their ignorance of economics and language.
We should have access to all bank accounts, phone calls and internal discussion recordings for all the EU elite who are pushing this.
They have provided a definition of a gatekeeper and API is just a description of system calls apps do to the system. There is no possible way for apple to prevent developers from using them. If any iOS app uses it, then any developer can use it. Right now apple just actively can deny a developer access to the AppStore for using itYeah, I'd imagine with all the chain rattling of the last few years Apple has probably already designed/developed a system for managing sideloading. Once it becomes clear that they can no longer fight it, it will be announced as a new feature.
I have mixed feelings about this, to be honest. As a dev I get that it would be kinda great to have access to the same resources that internal Apple devs have. But I also get that Apple kinda deserves an advantage for being the ones who actually designed and built the system in the first place. I mean, there are probably some internal APIs that are essentially private IP/trade secrets, which have just been wrapped up in API by one of the devs, for convenience—i.e., to allow other internal devs to benefit from the technique. I don't really see why Apple should be forced to open those things up. Mind you, if the EU forces their hand, Apple would probably just make these kinds of API closed source code, shared internally between Apple devs. Not sure how the EU could regulate that. On the other hand, it could be that opening up internal techniques like this to third-party devs would just become a further strength of the platform itself, making it harder, not easier, to compete with... could go either way, I suppose. (That is admittedly less likely, as it's hard to imagine a function so mysterious that third-party devs couldn't reverse engineer it. But at an extreme, I could see a situation whereby forcing Apple to reveal its hand could lead to bizarre forms of obfuscation—internal devs writing impenetrable functions with bizarre names, taking meaningless parameters, just to throw third-party devs off the scent! ? Or maybe they'd just make their already impenetrable documentation even worse... hahaha...)
Also, while it seems intuitively clear who the "gatekeeper" companies are, has an actual definition been proposed? I don't see any concrete definition in the document—it refers to high-level attributes of a gatekeeper, or conditions in which a gatekeeper might arise, but isn't very specific about what it actually is. It seems to be a matter of degree, as much as anything else, but the actual degree isn't specified (this may be an opening for Apple's lawyers). If, for example, a company becomes particularly dominant in a given vertical, and they have a hardware+software ecosystem to support that, do they automatically become gatekeepers? Should they? If I'm a small player, in a particular vertical/niche, then surely any bigger player with a closed hardware+software platform is a "gatekeeper" from my perspective, no? But that's also just how IP and competitive advantage work. The only instance in which that isn't the case is in the open source community.
And forcing everything to become open source surely isn't the solution, since it's not that uncommon for large corporations to have parasitic relationships to open source projects, using the tech without contributing in any meaningful way. You just further promote a slave labour class of unpaid devs producing and maintaining code for the corporate giants who had the advantage of filling their coffers first—kinda like how composers and musicians essentially subsidize Spotify with their part-time jobs and side-hustles.
Dunno. Seems like a quagmire, to me.
a gatekeeper must operate a ‘core platform service’ (CPS). The CPS list includes:
A CPS provider may qualify as a gatekeeper if it meets three qualitative criteria. A gatekeeper:
The DMA further defines quantitativecriteria for gatekeepers:
The Commission attempted to reconcile points (1) to (3) by including a review clause in the proposed DMA. According to the proposed DMA Art. 4 and Art. 15, the Commission may revise the list of gatekeepers and conduct market investigations. Essentially, the Commission can establish that a company not meeting the quantitative criteria (a) to (c) may still be considered a gatekeeper if it meets the qualitative criteria (A) to (C).
More details exist in the proposal that’s going to be voted on.
Dream all you want but this will never happen. The EU has way much more power than Apple. At the same time as someone living in the EU, using Apple products, I couldn't care less if Apple left. Apart from the fact that they would fall into their own demise I would be perfectly fine with all the alternatives, there is not a single technology that Apple has exclusivity over.
Quite clever how their made up terms simply means “non-EU companies”.
Which is, of course, what this is all about.That is, quite literally, what everyone against these actions have been saying. It’s interesting that even people FOR these actions are starting to say it
Why would someone who is FOR these actions deny the fact that there is no technology that Apple has exclusivity over? The fact that you choose to use it as an argument against EU's actions doesn't automatically make it a non-argument for the opposite side. The EU is clear, "these are our rules, accept them or leave". All I'm saying is that unless Apple is interested in committing suicide they will accept them. And like I said, I and the world will be just fine without Apple.That is, quite literally, what everyone against these actions have been saying. It’s interesting that even people FOR these actions are starting to say it
If you had continued to read you would see it contains Eau companies as well with the word ofQuite clever how their made up terms simply means “non-EU companies”.
has a significant impact on the internal market.
Good luck being a EU based company selling goods and services in EU without impacting it.
Plus the user base criteria and revenue criteria for the INTERNAL EU MARKET.
Then your analogy doesn't fit with the example you're trying to make. Apple themselves admit that their operating systems are not inherently secure, and that they need to continue to rely on a locked ecosystem to keep them secure.
Yes, that's the point—you can't put an app on the App Store if it's using Apple's internal/private APIs (you might get away with it, but probably not). That's exactly what I was saying. Not to mention the fact that internal APIs aren't obvious to devs anyway, so not a lot of people even know about them.
Hmm, okay... I can't find this in that doc, but thanks for pointing it out... I guess it's a good thing I'm not a lawyer. ?
I suppose there is a degree to which companies with so much power and reach should be expected to function more as public institutions than private companies. They have too much direct impact on too many lives to be given the arbitrary freedoms that corporations are afforded. But ultimately I'm pretty skeptical that this is going to matter all that much. Clearly the way things are currently functioning is broken, and something has to be done. I'm just not sure this is the fix...