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

[duffman9000]

Seriously, Android has had the option to install third party apps since the beginning yet the vast majority of regular users stick to the Play Store. Nobody’s forcing you to install non Tim approved apps.

You want Apple to be like Android and Apple doesn’t want to be like Android.

 

[Deguello]

I don’t get how that is so hard to understand to some of these people, they act like they are being forced to install those apps ….

It’s probably just a “get off my lawn” moment, but it feels like people are increasingly believing their viewpoint is the only valid one. “I don’t like it so others shouldn’t be able to do it.”

 

[GrumpyCoder]

EU is only about privacy when it benefits them, either politically or financially. Only you are naive if you think opening up the platform will benefit the privacy of the end user.

Interesting. Why is it then that Android-based GrapheneOS tailored for security is considered the most secure mobile OS available, especially when installed on Nitro phones with Titan security chip (but also when "only" using a Pixel for example)?

 

[GLS]

Who exactly is keeping you from putting a BMW engine into your Porsche or vice versa? https://engineswapdepot.com/?p=17780

And of course manufacturers are bound to certain rules and what they can and can not do. Just look at all the electronics on board and tell me again they can do whatever they want.

Nothing, of course. People have swapped engines from different manufacturers for decades now. But you are doing that on your own, without any support from Porsche or hope of a warranty, where the EU wants to force Apple to do things they don't want to do for whatever reason, while maintaining support, warranty, etc.

Putting it a different way. Why isn't the EU forcing Nintendo to allow their consoles to play Playstation games? Or forcing Nintendo to port their software titles onto an XBox? I mean, Nintendo has locked their stuff down for decades. Yet, I'm not seeing any kind of outcry here.

So what makes a game console different from a phone?

Apple's business practices are an issue, and honestly, they should be questioned on some of their decisions and policies. But why is Apple seemingly the one targeted here by the EU over and over? Why aren't other types of products that have very similar locked in experiences, yet there is no push to force those products into becoming a one for all?

 

[Deguello]

Yes, the irony. Apple is FORCING their way and the EU is FORCING their way. There is a difference though, when it's the Apple way than a user can't make a choice. When it's the EU way the user can make a choice... go A) with the Apple way by not flipping a switch or B) flip that switch and have it the EU way. Or in other words, Apple is offering feature set A and nothing else and the EU is offering feature set A (same as Apple) and in addition feature set B. So which one do you pick? ?‍♂️

I pick the one in which third parties who aren’t accountable for implementing or using their dictates don’t make the dictates.

 

[duffman9000]

It isn’t beside the point. Again, it is the point.

Your argument — and Apple’s, really, on this point — is that allowing people to ride motorcycles makes your car less safe. That other people choose other options which aren’t as safe as you believe yours to be doesn’t make you any less safe.

Your car analogy fails because your motor cycle can’t talk to my car (yet). My phone and your phone on the same network are probably talking to each other.

 

[nwcs]

Perhaps the real end game of this set of rules isn’t so much “openness” as it is a way to force some holes for the government to insert themselves into “for our protection”?

 

[Deguello]

Your car analogy fails because your motor cycle can’t talk to my car (yet). My phone and your phone on the same network are probably talking to each other.

It doesn’t fail because your phone is still secured by Apple if you haven’t installed anything from outside the garden.

 

[MacFan23]

Well said. I know there isn't a lot of love for Android here but most of the EU requirements that the Apple fans trash here, you find working well on Android. USB-C? I have never had a broken cable in a port and all of my devices are USB-C, even my beard trimmer. And yes, I am only one experience but it's not as though Android forums are swimming in a sea of failed cables. Sideload apps? Works on Android and funnily enough, on Mac. Sure, there are some bad programs out there but that's my risk, not yours. This? Android does it with ease and if there is one thing that ever Apple fan on this channel agrees on, if Android can do it, iOS can do it better

Isn’t that just the point though. Consumers do have choice. If those are things which are important to your purchasing decisions you have the option to purchase a wide variety of Android device which are already on the market.

Apple isn’t even monopolistic in this space given the popularity of android.

 

[PC_tech]

There have been complaints from banks that Apple pay is so good that it discourages them to develop their own system… Let’s not forget this is once more a bid for your data! Apple pay makes it difficult for vendors to gather data on your purchases.

There has been no such thing, why do you guys insist on making up stuff to defend Apple? Seriously? What do you get out of it? Apple DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU ?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I just want to tap an NFC tag to play a Spotify playlist without having to create a shortcut that's phone specific. It's been decades at this point, and Apple hasn't done anything.

 

[PC_tech]

Get ready to launch individual banking apps to pay using your iPhone or Apple Watch

Like people do now? ?

 

[Deguello]

Your car analogy fails because your motor cycle can’t talk to my car (yet). My phone and your phone on the same network are probably talking to each other.

But, sure, lay out a cogent argument for how my using a non-Apple app that accesses NFC on my iPhone makes your pristine Apple iPhone less secure. Maybe you’re right and I’m not seeing it.

 

[PC_tech]

I am sure that going forward the EU will leave their headquarters in Brussels open to whoever would like to come in. Or maybe they'll continue to limit entry, but allow whoever wants to to work there as a security guard.

Because this is totally the same ???????

 

[nikusak]

How about letting the users individually decide what experience they prefer via settings: closed or open garden.

How about not getting an iPhone if you don’t like the “closed garden”.

How exactly are you folks suffering now? Why are you using iPhone?

Sideloading on Android has been a dazzling success…for malware makers and pirates.

Also, NFC is open on Android.

Look at the “flourishing” NFC payment app ecosystem on Android. There isn’t any. Banks aren’t running their own payment apps.

Hundreds of EU banks support Apple Pay. They aren’t going back and start developing their own wallets.

With stuff like transit cards it gets incredibly clumsy if you have to switch from settings which wallet is “active” at any given time, or choose the wallet every time you do contactless.

It’s quite amusing that EU is effectively trying to dismantle the whole iPhone ecosystem (20% market share) and turn it into garbage.

We already have that: Android.

(Even more amusing is the fact that MR commenters seem to be largely in favour of destroying the iPhone ecosystem. So weird.)

 

[Robotti]

To sum up this conversation, as a free citizen I must defend Apple’s right to restrict my choices because of freedom and capitalism.

 

[contacos]

I swear this was already in the making over 2 years ago and is not just against Apple but how payment + NFC is supposed to be handled universally

edit: yep, there are already articles about this topic from 2020

Apple Pay: EU will Apple zur Freigabe von NFC-Chip bringen - Golem.de

Neue Regeln der EU-Kommission könnten Apple dazu zwingen, seinen NFC-Chip für Entwickler freizugeben - etwa für drahtlose Zahlungen.

www.golem.de

[...] the new regulations would stipulate that manufacturers could no longer block access to NFC technology in their mobile devices, as Apple currently does. As a result, financial institutions are currently obliged to take the diversions via Apple Pay if they want to enable their customers to make contactless payments with the iPhone or the Apple Watch. Apple justifies the decision to block developers from the NFC interface with security concerns.

 

[PC_tech]

Things like this make people, especially certain groups in the US, despise regulations and government oversight as they see it as overreaching and anti-capitalism. It is a reason for hating all regulations including the important and meaningful environmental regulations. If the people in the EU ever wonder why the US has shifted so far right, things like this and the other regulations the EU has proposed lately are a big reason why.

/rant

So you assume you know what people in other countries feel? ?

 

[DJ_Envo]

As an EU citizen all i can do to all of these regulations and accuse: FINALLY!

 

[duffman9000]

It doesn’t fail because your phone is still secured by Apple if you haven’t installed anything from outside the garden.

Your network is as secure as your least secure device. I know my company will not allow a device like that on the network unless you run battery sucking AV or their managed apps.

 

[CarlJ]

At this rate, I'm halfway expecting the next ruling from the EU is going to be, "we don't like the color palette you're using for your latest phones - you must change your phones to only be offered in our approved colors."

 

[PlayUltimate]

The inhibition of consumer choice thing is something that only Americans support because of a weird form of Stockholm Syndrome. There’s no freedom in proprietary restrictions run amuck, and they use that psychology against us here constantly.

The EU doesn’t make all the right choices, but any advancements in consumer protection in modern times (within a technology/privacy context) almost exclusively come from the EU and trickle down to the US. And protections usually only come here because it merely costs corporations more to tailor the screwing-over just to us. Americans embarrassingly celebrate corporations making consumers eat dirt all while we get gaslit into defending them based on free market ideals. It explains just about every hopelessly broken policy we have in some form or another. Think cell phone companies and ridiculous phone taxes, think going to Las Vegas and paying $14.99 for the hotel with a $42 resort fee and $15 in taxes. Or, my personal favorite, the ad saying $1 bus fares* in huge print.





* $19.99 booking fee

Crap like this just doesn’t fly in Europe. Americans tolerate it, complain about it, but ultimately do nothing. Support opening everything unless there is a white paper articulating why it MUSTN’T be.

Disagree to a degree: There is consumer choice between a closed system (iOS) vs an open system (Android). The argument is that the EU is de facto removing those choices by making all devices act the same. This seems it is level-playing field but it is actually creating homogeneity under the guise of choice. These decrees are removing any opportunity to differentiate (why does everybody have to use USBC?). Instead everyone needs to be the same, act the same, and provide a similar experience across the board.
RE: NFC Apple fought the battle to create something that is now proving to be valuable. (Let's not forget how everyone thought that Apple could not be successful in this space). Now that Apple has created it, everyone wants access to it. No one was very supportive when they started. But now Apple is being unfair.

And I do agree with the misleading pricing examples that you cite above. Sadly, we in the US always have to read the fine print. And take into consideration tax + gratuity anytime we go out.

 

[AppliedMicro]

opening up the NFC chip though is entirely different and puts much more secure/vital data & information at risk.

Agree.

The only thing worse would be if third-party apps had access to Bluetooth. With Bluetooth’s much higher range, and throughput, imagine the amount of secure/vital data put at risk through that!

Still worse, imagine the amount of secure/vital data put at risk if third-party apps had access to an internet connection!!! I mean, NFC transmits only a couple of bytes or so each second. Over the internet, you can easily leak megabytes (!) of data every second.

So thank god (err… Apple!) that Apple aren’t allowing third-party apps any access to Bluetooth or the lawless cesspool that is the open internet.

Even if they did, I‘m sure Apple would care so much about my privacy that I could surely restrict that (internet access) with a privacy setting, couldn’t I?

 

[hasanahmad]

No, constantly defending Daddy Apple is ridiculous. While I like my locked in ecosystem just as much as 99.9% on here, not allowing third party companies to access NFC is anti-capitalistic.

NOBODY is saying you have to use PayPal, venmo, etc. Why are you against options?

why are you on this forum?

 

[Deguello]

Your network is as secure as your least secure device. I know my company will not allow a device like that on the network unless you run battery sucking AV or their managed apps.

Explain, specifically, how my using a third party app accessing NFC on my phone makes your phone less secure.