EU to Accuse Apple of Unfairly Blocking Third-Party Access to NFC Payment Technology on iPhone

[DeepIn2U]

I loved my N97. So much I purchased it twice (I drowned my first one). I still wish I could get a modern incarnation of this design.


Ah - the truth. It hurts. We really need to start pulling our head out of China's behind or we'll be caught with our pants down again sooner rather than later.

“Ah the truth hit hurts” what is this grade 5?

Come back with factual information. Also since when does a business for profit nOT be about money?! Every public trades company on any trading index is about money.

Seems that you’re butt hurt for facts and are playing the emotional game here. I’m not.

Apple is a GLOBAL company.

So is:
Dell,
HP,
Intel,
AMD,
Microsoft,
Google,
Arm Holdings Inc - still owned by another company,
Sony,
Krafts parent company,
FOrd,
GM,


So why should ANY company pull out of the worlds LARGEST, economy?!
Is there a war going on there? Any war China is involved in currently?

It’s about profits. Regardless of the humanitarian issues there - in all likelihood having democratic based companies do business there COULD influence the people and maybe just maybe their government will ease oppression there. Left alone with no business the corporations miss out on profits, no lobbying would make sense. Much value would be lost to shareholders and other Chinese based businesses would gain and increase their global market share.

So again publicly traded companies are mostly global companies and are for profits. One YOU understand that above your emotions then you’ll not be singing this “get out of China” emotional stance.

Edit:
Not sure what you mean by “our pants down again” comment.

China has owned over 3 trillion dollars (US) of USA’s debt for over a decade!

China is building a HUGE trade route across Europe and Asia. Long started. China has huge amounts of owned farm land in various countries across the globe!

How do you reduce debt? You pay it off. Or make a lot of sales and services to whom you owe $ to and hope that’ll being new partnerships to further reduce debt beyond just simple payments. You haven’t been paying attention like much of the world hasn’t. We’ve already lost - the world in terms of chip mania factoring assemblies and supplies of all of those. It’ll take decades to even get close to catching up. The recent Covid lock down shows exactly the strangle hold asemblies and plants have there.

Apple like Tesla had the foresight to purchase source marídelas or parts long in advance to continue their profits.

Again global companies are for profit. Not for emotion.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I loved my N97. So much I purchased it twice (I drowned my first one). I still wish I could get a modern incarnation of this design.


Ah - the truth. It hurts. We really need to start pulling our head out of China's behind or we'll be caught with our pants down again sooner rather than later.

Also notice you had nothing intelligent or anything to say about visa or Mastercard not being affected by the EU? You come with talk of China lol.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Apple‘s revenue share of mobile app/game downloads is estimated to be about 70% of the global market.

Numbers for Apple Pay‘s share of mobile wallet transactions are harder to come by (accurately), but has been given as more than 90% in the U.S. Most probably lower in the EU. Yet even in Germany, the most populous EU country and an Android-leaning market, surveys show it on par with Google Pay as the most popular service by far.

So yes, they are a dominant player in mobile.

They haven’t. You’re obviously ill-informed how credit cards work.

Mastercard and VISA operate payment networks - but they do not issue cards to consumers and they aren‘t setting interest rates. They‘re merely licensing their brand and providing access to their networks. It’s the individual bank or credit card issuer (say, BoA, Capital One, Barclays, HSBC) that issued your card that sets their interest rates - and bears the risk of consumers failing on payments.

And yes, interest rates for credit cards are set in a competitive market. Again, that’s the point of EU regulation: To open up these devices to enable competition- and have a dominant player such as Apple charge competitive prices.

Lmao!

Visa & Mastercard don’t issue cards to consumers? You need to recheck that. Cause they absolutely do. Mostly with banks and other financial institutions yet they still do directly.

The EU is not looong wat these credit card companies because the fluctuations on offerings and interest tastes in the same region are too fluctuate. This affects citizens consumer ratings when payments or interest is applied. That is a bigger threat to an economy or consumers than anything else. But you’re ok with overlooking that.

Seems the EU is as wel and why I’m stating it’s about lobbying dollars and where they pick preference of their goals and actions.

Apple has earned higher revenues and profits for sales of apps in their App Store. The developers many in the early years developers of quality apps for macOS (like things!) made quality apps. Forstall forcing developers early on, on the quality of icons for apps to be better than chicken scratch of what Android had even up to is 9!

Users want quality apps not just more apps. Today many shrewd developers make apps for both android and iOS. Nothing is stoping their choices here. The higher prices for higher quality apps is set by developers not app. Regardless of the 15-30% cut Apple takes - you still see higher revenues and profits PAID to developers from iOS App Store than on Android.

Why can’t Android match this? Many possible reasons but competition is NOT one of them. Apple still has less devices and users in circulation purchasing apps than Android. You missed stating that fact. Apple has less oS fragmentation of those devices - THAT is a Google and manufacturer partnership issue that Google should properly resolve with their partners !!

There is still an issue where a top tier phone less than 2yrs old running Android still cannot run a basic app because wel the developer chose to ONLy support a specific vendor of said phones or specific chipset or model. That is ridiculous! That also affects revenues abs profits for both Google and developer abs the metrics you’re focusing on.

Forest for the trees. Zoom out to look at all components of app sales revenues and profits. Look at the competition and fragmentation and support across all. Then you’ll see the issues isn’t Apple it’s just crappy implementation on the co petition side.

 

[DeepIn2U]

You could make the same argument in favour of protecting access to the Keyboard.

What protection to the keyboard?

Swipe? We have that since iOS 12 I think. Extensions like grammarly yup we’ve had that for a while too.

But if you mean just open inferred access to anything I type and previous keystrokes such as password entries for accounts or credit card info that I’ve type. you can have a middle extremity to that. One major security flaw there.


Explain to me, intelligently why an application needs access to keystrokes or previous copy/paste cache. Y? Can what is sought after be done without it?

 

[DeepIn2U]

If Apple ever did quit the EU there would be someone to step in, probably with some more inventive ideas TBH.

Before 2007 the biggest phone manufacturers were the likes of Nokia and (Sony) Ericsson and they were European. We had an endless parade of inventive, innovative phone designs. This actually continued into the smartphone era, giving us design classics like the Xperia Play and the Lumia 1020.

Apple becomes top dog and every phone is now a glass rectangle. Bendy, folding devices from South Korea might not be the future of smartphones but at least they are people trying to do something interesting.

I loved my N97. So much I purchased it twice (I drowned my first one). I still wish I could get a modern incarnation of this design.

Nokias S60/S40 as well as SonyEricsson’s UIQ/SE smart abs feature phones where great.

Many innovations from Nokia on hardware design were interesting but problematic due to too many moving parts.

Ericsson’s Xperia gaming slider phone with touch pads for remote PlayStation play nice but problematic and not powerful enough past 1yr Sony got smart and seen what Apple brought and realized it’s about the software implantation and having larger screens (they can thank Samsung for showing them that) was a better way.

Nokia had some really strange innovations:
Taco feature phone which led to the Ngage and NGage QD which I’ll get to in a moment.

Lipstick phone lol or that rotational dialer on an S60 made headlines but was terrible implantation.

From all communicators to the final double hinged E90 - that double hinge really was unnecessary and such a small external screen this late in the smartphone age was a terrible mistake - the current Samsung folds with larger external screen si what novia should’ve done with the E90.

Ngage - the first somewhat App Store was that of using MMC cards you’d buy at Egames store or similar. But was hacked and available games to download onto SD cards, save and run on a huge plethora of S60 2nd edition devices like the 6600/6620/6630/N97/N97 mini/N95/n75 etc activism and many many other game developers that partnered for Ngage which in the USA exclusively sold on TMobile USA and had just a $9.99/mth data plan for unlimited game and mms was a HUGe sweet deal (I was Tier2 support then) didn’t differentiate which S60 phone could use that plan. You just had to ask and say you had an nGage QD.

It want just game developers and developement teams that lost huge revenues, nor just Nokia loosing face and those partnerships (that hack), it was also TMobile in lost revenues.

TMobile USA tried to limit data plan association when the HP iPaq 6460(?) their first launched and boy I cannot tell you how stressful that week was on calls with absolutely not a second break between we all had across all call. This change on the SGGNs (databases on the data systems) affected all smartphones for data regardless of being on different data plans except BBOS devises (blackberries before BB10/AndroidOS). Only BBs and data air cards (lol remember those?!) had no issues with data. TMobile was so stubborn lost millions of customers and $ for 2-3mths refunds it toook them a full month to remove that plan to fix it. Nobody was dumb enough to stay on that.

Ngage game cards did that affect sales of home gaming consoles? No. Did it upheld embedded games on feature phones sold by carriers, not immediately. Those games were complete garbage too btw.

Does games on iOS affect Android game sales? Some may argue yes BUT the sales are not cross dependent between the two platforms so not directly. Does iOS games an android games affect Gameboy or DS or Switch games I’d say yes because of competition. Same said for android store sales. Competition. If better quality games available appeal to wider market and easily attainable and usable that’ll always happen. That is competition. Profits or revenue share of such apps shouldn’t determine need for regulation when the number of users are much smaller than other platform. The other platform should get their act together and that must be done by Google first to resolve their os fragmentation with their device vendor partners.

Nothing wrong with competition.

Nokia got Trojan horsed with their CEO with previous employment with and existing ties with Microsoft. Where was the EU then? Nokia was destroyed from the inside out just like a classic Trojan horse story of Troy. That wasn’t competition at all.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Lmao!
Visa & Mastercard don’t issue cards to consumers? You need to recheck that. Cause they absolutely do. Mostly with banks and other financial institutions yet they still do directly.

? …how about you show us just one each then?

(Please provide some proof, e.g. link to terms and conditions that clearly indicate the issuer of the card, and which company is in a contractual relationship with the customer. Preferably an EU one, since that’s what we’re talking).

 

[BaldiMac]

Ah yes, while you are at it let's have PLS code in it as well, since, after all, it is also a "digital device". Your beating around the bush proves my point exacly - no other OS or ecosystem has such a tight lockdown as Apple/iOS.

I had a feeling you’d just move the goalposts. If devices that are more locked down don’t count, then you’re right.

But that still leaves devices like a Nintendo game system that were just as locked down.

 

[djphat2000]

You can also switch (move) countries. Already did it for a few hundred dollars.

Not everyone can do this that need to, and switching phones is way simpler than switching countries.

So…? You find an app that suits you!

I did find an app that suits me. Now I have to worry about it not being available via my normal means of purchase.

Where‘s the problem with that? If Apple App Store/iOS and Google Play Store/Android are „enough“ choice for consumers that governments and regulators need not take action (as has been suggested by you and others), surely there‘ll be more than enough choices for individual apps?!

There maybe many choices for apps. Not available on the Apple AppStore.

You‘re also assuming that Apple will continue to approve particular apps to the App Store and not just ban them (competitor’s apps) from the platform.

I assume they will continue to function the way they have been functioning. I expect other app developers to move off the AppStore and onto other stores or other means of which to install them. Taking people like myself out of our safety zone. Or we simply will not use them anymore.

I mean, as was so often emphasised by people here: It was Apple who created the platform, so they entitled to operate their App Store as they please, aren‘t they?

Yes, so long as it's legal.

There’s no legal entitlement to be on the App Store, let alone against Apple inventing new rules to prohibit certain practices, content or functionality.

Glad you understand this.

? An app being admitted on the App Store isn‘t a right, it‘s a privilege, isn’t it!?

100%. Just that Apple would very much LIKE you to be on the AppStore.

Well, with the current model so is an app being admitted for iOS at all then.

Again, this is by design. And we all understand there are those that don't agree with this model. For those of you that feel that way, pick Android. It does what you want how you want. Or build something new that does if Android doesn't cut it for you.

If Adobe moves off, you can use something from Corel or Serif. No problem. Or…

I could. All depends if they are on the AppStore no? You haven't stated that any of these developers will remain on the store & be available by other means.

…pick something from Corel or Serif. Or build your own DTP or image / vector editing program.

Luckily we "could" build something and use it ourselves on our devices. Just have to have a developer account and spend a $99 a year, and write some code on a Mac.
Otherwise, we would have to hope these apps are available on the AppStore after these laws get past.

Privacy will be guaranteed by either technology - or government regulation.

oh stop it. C'mon. You serious. Guaranteed? Do you know what's happening in Europe these days?
An no, I don't expect developers to guarantee my privacy and or security. They can't for anyone security, and privacy? Please, they want our data.

Google did. If Apple is forced to, that’s only good for user‘s privacy. Cause their review process missing obvious fake/phishing apps has proven not to be secure.

So now let's have more stores with less reasons to care about security? Is Apple perfect? No, no one states that. Is it better than 20 stores that don't care much about your privacy, or the security of your device/OS. They just want to sell you something, like any other business.

I totally disagree with that. And so does consumer usage. Only a tiny fraction of usage/time on these devices is spent to make calls or send SMS over as cell phone network. Their cell phone call capabilities aren‘t even really advertised by Apple (as is linked by Apple under the headline „What makes an iPhone an iPhone“ on their landing page).

So they should carry around a laptop, or a tablet if they don't need to make calls or send messages. Clearly they are using the device for other capabilities it has. Which is great. But, it's a cell phone (smartphone) first.

That‘s exactly what they are. Have you ever taken a look at Apple‘s App Store and advertising. These are very capable machines for photo editing, speech-to-text dictation, internet searches / browsing, email, online banking, video conferencing, document scanning, 3D gaming machines.

Because of advancements in both CPU and battery technology. You only had some of those listed above on the first rounds of iPhones. Stop acting like we had iPhone 13's in 2007. And that we don't have desktops and laptops for what they are for. Can an iPhone perform as well and in case better than a desktop or laptop? Sure. Are you rendering the next Pixar movie with your iPhone or iPad? I highly doubt it. They are similar in many ways, but they are built for different use cases. They are separate products for that reason. I can tow a boat with a motorcycle if I really wanted to. You wouldn't because a truck would do a better job of it. I can go faster on a Motorcycle too, but I can't go as far as a car. And on and on.

And I‘m honestly not sure what you’re alluding to with your distinction between mobile and desktop computing? The difference between them is literally the screen and keyboard size only.

I'm not sure how we all just decided they are the same thing? Anyone writing novels on an iPhone? Anyone designing the next AAA gaming title on an iPhone or iPad?

The don‘t. These apps are sandboxed, have privacy settings for all these items today, and VPN apps (have to!) use specific API.

Good for you.

? There is no reason why all this wouldn’t apply to „sideloaded“ apps just the same.

Since you can't know what will happen. I will go with what I know has happened. No side-loading on iOS/iPadOS devices, no issues. I don't have to hope or wonder or guess. I don't have to think about it.

…unless Apple has been that their sandboxing doesn’t exist or work as they claim. Well, that would then be the real issue.

It would be an issue. But, I can say that opening more doors into the device is a security risk. This isn't a question of fact or opinion. It's full fact. Any security minded entity will tell you to minimize your attack surface. The less ways in/out the harder it is to be hacked. Not impossible. Some parts of the OS will always be vulnerable to something. But, add that vulnerability to more ways to get into the device, and you're bound to end up on the wrong end of a hack.

? But getting back to the question of choice:

How are availability of Adobe‘s or Microsoft’s apps a substantial issue - to the point of people claiming to be (potentially) „forced“ to sideload or calling for clauses that mandate their availability on the App Store („if there’s sideloading, there should be a rule requiring all app to also be available on the App Store“)?

How do you enforce that rule? Since being on the device itself "IS" a choice. How can you say, if you choose to be on the device, you have to be on all stores? How does that work in the physical world? If you sell at Target, you also have to sell at Best Buy? No, it doesn't work that way. Each company will make up their own minds about how to sell to the consumer. If they are big enough, and sell many apps. They will instruct users to go to a webpage and download what they want. They will entice them with lower prices than the AppStore, and hope a user will purchase direct from them. This may not be such a big deal with Adobe or Microsoft. But, EPIC? Would you purchase a Tencent backed VPN service direct?

In other words: how and why are particular apps a thing that should regulated (by Apple), their availability and people’s apparent dependence on them a real (potential) problem?

Chicken/Egg? Apple's AppStore, Apples device. Don't like it, buy something else. When Apple as a business suffers because more people stopped buying their products. They will either change up how they do business or go away?
They get to state what apps are on the platform. Just like any store can choose to have a product or not in their store. This isn't new. Ford doesn't have to sell Chevy, BMW doesn't have to sell Mercedes and so on. You want the product any particular company makes, you get it from them as they made it. And if they don't want to make a V12 to compete with a Bugatti. They don't have to.

You can't be dependent and still state you can pick another app if it leaves the store. That doesn't go together at all. If your dependent on an App that no longer is available on the store. You are forced to either switch to another means of getting the app. Or, finding something else within the store. If none exist, you can do without or go third party appstore/side-load. Developers don't have to develop for iOS/iPadOS. As a customer of the AppStore, losing an App because Apple states they broke a rule or the developer doesn't want to pay the 30/15% cut to Apple. It's unfortunate for sure. We lose an App and have to find another. Which is different than having lost the App to another store or having to side-load. Both of which I and many others feel is a security issue not worth taking in many instances. You say, it's not a big deal Google does it. I, and many other say "great buy Google and leave our platform of choice the F alone!". My choice doesn't impact your ability to get what you want via another vendor. Your choice doesn't impact my choice to stay in a walled garden. Everyone wins.

Yet Apple‘s stranglehold on iOS

Stop. It's theirs to strangle.

, being able to throw them off the App Store at will

It's their store.

, at any time, isn’t an even bigger issue - that supposedly requires no regulation at all?

No it doesn't. Not unless we want to regulate all stores the same way. Physical and virtual/digital/online etc.
Which brings me back to why this is not fair to begin with. I can't get every ingredient from my grocery store of choice. I have to go to another store just for one item. Well, lets change that. All stores sell all things, at least within the same category of store. So food stores, sell all foods. Car stores, sell all cars. Electronic stores sell all electronics. And so on. Lets stop having any differentiation between companies. They all compete wit the same stuff? Your iMessage has to compete and work with WhatsApp, and Facebook messenger, and... If you invent something new and better, it also has to work with those other apps too. When is the EU going to regulate that all power chargers are the same. Everything has to be USB-C even your fridge or washing machine. And while we are at it, why can't my fridge talk to my toaster and coffee machine. Tell the coffee machine you're out of milk, and the toaster we are out of bread.

 

[PlayUltimate]

Why is the “choice” on the hardware side? There is lots of software that is only available on a PC; that is only available on certain game systems. Why are developers not forced to create their products on all platforms so that I can have a choice of what type of hardware to buy? For some reason, it is ok for certain software to be only available on specific hardware.

 

[AppliedMicro]

I think it's wrong to demand Apple build something to benefit its competitors without compensation.

They don’t even have to build things.
As far as I understand, they’re rather arbitrarily blacklisting certain functionality.
They just have to stop actively locking locking out others.

They have a minority share of the cell phone market

I wouldn’t lump them in with other „dumbphone“ cell phone manufacturers.
Looking at devices is pretty pointless anyway, since it ignores the the economics of apps and mobile payments. Google sells relatively few smartphones - but their application store and services are still almost a duopoly with Apple.

Really I thought android was the clear winner in the mobile app payment space

Don‘t think so. Regardless if it’s transactions or devices, in the end what matters is share of the turnover involved - and Apple seems to have a majority there. And that’s where their market power derives.

 

[McDaveH]

„If all the countries in the world were free democracies, people wouldn’t have an option anymore.
So let‘s preserve authoritarian regimes, so that people have such choice and options.“

Well, that’s not wrong, if we are purely technically speaking.
But retaining or promoting authoritarian regimes isn’t promoting freedom or free choice in the world.

When the penny drops and you finally work out what democracy is, you may want those regimes to still be in place. You may even come to see them as salvation. Please don't use "free" as an adjective for democracy, the privilege of choosing from pre-determined options isn't "free", our choices betray us.

I'd rather leave the alternative intact and let the people gravitate to what suits - that would be a truer for of democracy than a fundamental hegemony masked by superficial pre-determined 'options'.

 

[RadioHedgeFund]

Nokias S60/S40 as well as SonyEricsson’s UIQ/SE smart abs feature phones where great.

Many innovations from Nokia on hardware design were interesting but problematic due to too many moving parts.

Ericsson’s Xperia gaming slider phone with touch pads for remote PlayStation play nice but problematic and not powerful enough past 1yr Sony got smart and seen what Apple brought and realized it’s about the software implantation and having larger screens (they can thank Samsung for showing them that) was a better way.

Nokia had some really strange innovations:
Taco feature phone which led to the Ngage and NGage QD which I’ll get to in a moment.

Lipstick phone lol or that rotational dialer on an S60 made headlines but was terrible implantation.

From all communicators to the final double hinged E90 - that double hinge really was unnecessary and such a small external screen this late in the smartphone age was a terrible mistake - the current Samsung folds with larger external screen si what novia should’ve done with the E90.

Ngage - the first somewhat App Store was that of using MMC cards you’d buy at Egames store or similar. But was hacked and available games to download onto SD cards, save and run on a huge plethora of S60 2nd edition devices like the 6600/6620/6630/N97/N97 mini/N95/n75 etc activism and many many other game developers that partnered for Ngage which in the USA exclusively sold on TMobile USA and had just a $9.99/mth data plan for unlimited game and mms was a HUGe sweet deal (I was Tier2 support then) didn’t differentiate which S60 phone could use that plan. You just had to ask and say you had an nGage QD.

It want just game developers and developement teams that lost huge revenues, nor just Nokia loosing face and those partnerships (that hack), it was also TMobile in lost revenues.

TMobile USA tried to limit data plan association when the HP iPaq 6460(?) their first launched and boy I cannot tell you how stressful that week was on calls with absolutely not a second break between we all had across all call. This change on the SGGNs (databases on the data systems) affected all smartphones for data regardless of being on different data plans except BBOS devises (blackberries before BB10/AndroidOS). Only BBs and data air cards (lol remember those?!) had no issues with data. TMobile was so stubborn lost millions of customers and $ for 2-3mths refunds it toook them a full month to remove that plan to fix it. Nobody was dumb enough to stay on that.

Ngage game cards did that affect sales of home gaming consoles? No. Did it upheld embedded games on feature phones sold by carriers, not immediately. Those games were complete garbage too btw.

Does games on iOS affect Android game sales? Some may argue yes BUT the sales are not cross dependent between the two platforms so not directly. Does iOS games an android games affect Gameboy or DS or Switch games I’d say yes because of competition. Same said for android store sales. Competition. If better quality games available appeal to wider market and easily attainable and usable that’ll always happen. That is competition. Profits or revenue share of such apps shouldn’t determine need for regulation when the number of users are much smaller than other platform. The other platform should get their act together and that must be done by Google first to resolve their os fragmentation with their device vendor partners.

Nothing wrong with competition.

Nokia got Trojan horsed with their CEO with previous employment with and existing ties with Microsoft. Where was the EU then? Nokia was destroyed from the inside out just like a classic Trojan horse story of Troy. That wasn’t competition at all.

I'm not saying those phones were necessarily that good but they were interesting! And it takes some balls to try to take on Nintendo in the portable gaming space. Even Sony couldn't win that one.

The OG N-Gage was a design nightmare and you could tell the designers didn't have a games console in mind otherwise it wouldn't have had the terrible taco talking or require changing the battery to switch game cards.

The QD is hands down one of the most curious portable consoles I ever owned. It was pocket sized and fixed all the issues with the original. At that time the N-Gage software library was starting to see some really interesting exclusives like Pocket Kingdom, Glimmerati, Ashen and Pathway to Glory.

It never stood a chance against the PSP though.

 

[RadioHedgeFund]

Finally, thank you!

We also have yet more hypocrite posters who are happy with 3rd party browser and podcast apps but argue that 3rd party NFC apps are somehow wrong.

This is just like the 'Im ok with downloading whatever I like on my laptop but somehow not ok with that option on my phone'.

 

[I7guy]

[…].

I wouldn’t lump them in with other „dumbphone“ cell phone manufacturers.
Looking at devices is pretty pointless anyway, since it ignores the the economics of apps and mobile payments. Google sells relatively few smartphones - but their application store and services are still almost a duopoly with Apple.

Don‘t think so. Regardless if it’s transactions or devices, in the end what matters is share of the turnover involved - and Apple seems to have a majority there. And that’s where their market power derives.

So revenue is the critical metric and not market share?

 

[jeffpeng]

“Ah the truth hit hurts” what is this grade 5? [... plus the rest ... ]

Jesus, brother.

I literally (actual meaning of literally) meant that the truth hurts because I did (and do) actually agree with you, so the truth literally hurts me - or more specifically: it hurts me that this is true because I feel like it should not - but it is. I am from the EU (specifically: Germany), and it kinda hurts that we (EU, but specifically: Germany) have to get our head out of China's behind, because a lot of legislation and other decisions we've been making (or: not making thinking of TTIP) over the last decade was specifically anti-US and often benefited China wholesale - which I don't think is a coincidence.

Not sure what you mean by “our pants down again” comment.

That we (again, EU, but most frivolously: Germany) found ourselves in bed with someone we now do not particularly like, but have deep ties with that are hard to cut now it becomes clear we should/must as their social, political and/or military enterprises have made relations with them mostly untenable. I'm sure you have noticed that we are facing quite the conundrum on our wonderful continent at the moment.

However:

So why should ANY company pull out of the worlds LARGEST, economy?!
Is there a war going on there? Any war China is involved in currently?

Considering China's current posturing I'm not convinced that a military conflict in the region is out of the question, in the contrary. Plus there is the "issue" with the Uyghurs which should be self explanatory, so I will not comment on that in greater detail.

Then again: I'm personally not of the conviction that any company should do or not do anything by means of virtue. More precisely I am of the belief that companies should remain as politically neutral as possible, and do what is their purpose: generate profit for them, and by proxy for all employees and share holders, within the confines of the law. As long as it is legal to trade with, produce in and/or sell goods in whatever country any company should and has to to remain competitive. If there is a political interest to limit such endeavors political players have to pass adequate legislation - which I believe they should.

I do not subscribe to the notion that a company should adhere to arbitrarily defined moral standards, be they political, ecological, social or whatever-cal. If there is something wrong legally with what a company is doing prosecute them. If there is something wrong politically, ecologically or socially with what a company is doing produce adequate legislation to change that. (That doesn't mean: produce legislation against one company to benefit another - that's pretty much the EU style).

So, no, no company should arbitrarily pull out of China or anywhere else for that matter if it wants to stay competitive, but both the EU and US as political actors should look very thoroughly at if expanding trade relations with Chinese companies actually serves their own interest - and I would suggest it does not. Especially the EU should think very, very carefully if choosing Chinese partners over those in the US is really what they actually want.

We’ve already lost - the world in terms of chip mania factoring assemblies and supplies of all of those. It’ll take decades to even get close to catching up. The recent Covid lock down shows exactly the strangle hold asemblies and plants have there.

Then I would say now is a pretty good time to start. Just sitting there and accepting that we (the west, whatever that means) handed the globe to an authoritarian regime is exactly not what we should do if we value our own values at all. But again: this, if at all, is a political endeavor, not something any company should or can do. In a world that actually works the way it should work companies merely play the game, not make the rules. (I know, it often does not work out that way.)

Edit: Plus ... no it would not take decades if we are talking chip making. A decade to get the capacity, yes. But first of all: TSMC isn't Chinese (yet), Samsung isn't Chinese (period?), and then, despite what some people are thinking: intel is very much competitive. Not leading, but close enough. The problem is not technology leadership, the problem is capacity. Which we could get to if we actually wanted. The bigger problem is everything else, there we agree (I think?) starting with raw materials, ending with assembly.

Also notice you had nothing intelligent or anything to say about visa or Mastercard not being affected by the EU? You come with talk of China lol.

Sorry I did miss an opportunity to explicitly agree with you. But: I do.

 

[Philip_S]

In combination these two requests to open up the iPhone are rather disturbing.
Having uncontrolled side loaded apps on the iPhone and providing an open API to the payment system is really not what I consider a safe system I would trust with my credit cards or bank account information.

If they just open it up as a straight character device plus a configuration API (ioctl or similar) there wouldn’t be a security risk as only one process (not even an app) would have access at a time, plus it would be most useful to other app developers.

Alternatively, they could do some malicious compliance and expose it as a GNU Radio-compatible block.

 

[boyarka]

I had a feeling you’d just move the goalposts. If devices that are more locked down don’t count, then you’re right.

But that still leaves devices like a Nintendo game system that were just as locked down.

I am not moving any goalposts - you however are blurring the waters. Of ALL sensible demands that (either EU or whoever else) has come with in the past - like forcing MS to notify users of altenrative browsers (a non issue but still and improvement for user choice) - there were no tears shed what so ever.

But when a company that has the single largest share in mobile phones (as a mfg, not as OS) is pointed out to have a proprietary charging cable, a locked down app market, a draconian enforcement of what apps are "acceptable" and what apps are "redundant" because the device is shippe with similar apps, a non-negotiable "developer tax" for every app sold and every purchase made, a locked payment system etc... ooohh, it's suddenly about "user choice", it's about "security", and the now dead horse which ignorant fanboys continue to kick - the "just buy some other device" argument that completely ignores the problem.

Let me explain in simpler terms, as a european: we have laws that force companies to pay the taxes we set - not the taxes they's like, or what some bought for lobbying muppet would suggest. We have employment laws and minimum wage laws designed to force employers to treat people with fairness and a base level of decency - instead of showing the same people the door and/or forcing them to work 3 jobs to make a living decent enough for someone living in the 21'st century. In the same spirit we force companies to play by the rules we set - to respect privacy, to compete fairly, to avoid huge monopolies and to avoid some billionare re-writing every rule that is unfit... for them that is.

 

[boyarka]

We also have yet more hypocrite posters who are happy with 3rd party browser and podcast apps but argue that 3rd party NFC apps are somehow wrong.

This is just like the 'Im ok with downloading whatever I like on my laptop but somehow not ok with that option on my phone'.

That's Orewellian Doublethink for you. To despise monopoly - while being a stonch supporter of the biggest IT monopoly. To demand rights and freedom of choice as a customer and to refusing any freedom of choice for others. To say that free market is the best thing invented since fire - and to openly support the complete opposite.

 

[Philip_S]

it’s a big step from “I want Apple to do this” and “I want the government to force Apple to do this.”

Not really: if you can get legislation saying what you want, that’s often a more effective way to force businesses to act as you desire than market pressure.

 

[Deguello]

Not really: if you can get legislation saying what you want, that’s often a more effective way to force businesses to act as you desire than market pressure.

Yes, really. Moving from ”I want Apple to do this” to “I want the power of the government to force Apple to do this” is a big step.

Think of it more abstractly: “I want people to eat more vegetables.” “I want the government to force people to eat more vegetables.” See the difference?

 

[GalileoSeven]

How?

By giving access to third-party APIs

 

[BaldiMac]

They don’t even have to build things.
As far as I understand, they’re rather arbitrarily blacklisting certain functionality.
They just have to stop actively locking locking out others.

I think you are begging the question by calling it arbitrary. To be clear, I am in favor of third-party NFC access. And I would be willing to bet that it's announced next month at WWDC along with specific APIs and guidelines.

And people will still complain because Apple will reserve the double-click to pay functionality to Apple Wallet.

I am not moving any goalposts - you however are blurring the waters. Of ALL sensible demands that (either EU or whoever else) has come with in the past - like forcing MS to notify users of altenrative browsers (a non issue but still and improvement for user choice) - there were no tears shed what so ever.

But when a company that has the single largest share in mobile phones (as a mfg, not as OS) is pointed out to have a proprietary charging cable, a locked down app market, a draconian enforcement of what apps are "acceptable" and what apps are "redundant" because the device is shippe with similar apps, a non-negotiable "developer tax" for every app sold and every purchase made, a locked payment system etc... ooohh, it's suddenly about "user choice", it's about "security", and the now dead horse which ignorant fanboys continue to kick - the "just buy some other device" argument that completely ignores the problem.

Let me explain in simpler terms, as a european: we have laws that force companies to pay the taxes we set - not the taxes they's like, or what some bought for lobbying muppet would suggest. We have employment laws and minimum wage laws designed to force employers to treat people with fairness and a base level of decency - instead of showing the same people the door and/or forcing them to work 3 jobs to make a living decent enough for someone living in the 21'st century. In the same spirit we force companies to play by the rules we set - to respect privacy, to compete fairly, to avoid huge monopolies and to avoid some billionare re-writing every rule that is unfit... for them that is.

That's quite the rant. It has little sense of perspective and a lot of loaded interpretations. And it is just a distraction from the fact that you were wrong when you claimed "no other OS [...] jailed their users" like Apple.

 

[duffman9000]

We also have yet more hypocrite posters who are happy with 3rd party browser and podcast apps but argue that 3rd party NFC apps are somehow wrong.

This is just like the 'Im ok with downloading whatever I like on my laptop but somehow not ok with that option on my phone'.

When Craig Federighi admitted that the state of malware on MacOS was unacceptable, the security communication said “duh”. If iOS were open like MacOS it would probably be as bad as MacOS.

Most people don’t run AV on MacOS due to a false sense of security. I have to run battery sucking AV on a company issued phone. No thanks.

 

[omihek]

Think of it like this: this is no law in place that says an ICE car needs a petrol tank. Of course nobody would buy such a car if it existed. But if you put in that petrol tank, it needs to work with all brands of fuel rather than some proprietary one.

Your hypothetical phone doesn’t have to have NFC and indeed some phones still don’t. But it is clearly unfair that if there is an NFC chip in your phone it only works with one payment provider. You should be able to buy an iPhone and not be locked into any Apple-led system. There are 3rd party replacements for nearly every 1st party app on the iPhone. You can use GCal, Outlook, FantastiCal or any other calendar app if you so wish and Apple’s own app has no distinct advantages over those others bar maybe Siri integration.

I see nobody bemoaning the fact that 3rd party replacements are available for core system functionality (Could you imagine somebody complaining that there are 3rd party camera apps available?!)

Payments should be no different. It’s not like Venmo or PayPal are some dodgy apps. People trust these brands.

I hear you, but I don't see why you would be required to make your car work with all brands of fuel. I mean, like you said, obviously if you're thinking of actually selling any of your cars, you would, but that's exactly my point. Isn't the free market supposed to make these decisions automatically by how they spend their money? If the car you make is so amazing in other areas that people are buying it even though it only works with your proprietary fuel, then what's the problem?

 

[RadioHedgeFund]

I hear you, but I don't see why you would be required to make your car work with all brands of fuel. I mean, like you said, obviously if you're thinking of actually selling any of your cars, you would, but that's exactly my point. Isn't the free market supposed to make these decisions automatically by how they spend their money? If the car you make is so amazing in other areas that people are buying it even though it only works with your proprietary fuel, then what's the problem?

I for one do not look forward to the future of every company on earth merging into one and charging sky high prices for everything just because a generation refused to say enough is enough.