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EU to Accuse Apple of Unfairly Blocking Third-Party Access to NFC Payment Technology on iPhone
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I wouldn't necessarily be against hitting the big gaming companies with some of these kinds of regulations as well. Why can Sony require their authorization and a financial cut to make a game for their system? Some would say it's because they sell the console at a loss, at least initially and make profit through game sales. Is that enough justification for their business model? Maybe not. Maybe they need to cut their fees and price the hardware higher. I'll point out that a huge difference between Apple and Sony here is that Apple makes a mountain of profit from their hardware sales. The App Store isn't subsidizing the hardware in any way.
Some would say it's because there is no monopoly or duopoly power in gaming. Consider the various players in the gaming market: Sony (Playstation), Microsoft (Windows/Xbox), Nintendo (Switch), Apple (macOS/iOS/iPadOS/tvOS), Google (Android), Meta (Oculus). I'm not the gamer I used to be so there may be more. But where is the concentrated market power here? There's isn't any. Unlike smartphones with iOS and Android, there are a multitude of popular options in gaming platforms.
An additional but related point is that there is frequent cross-shopping in the gaming market that doesn't exist with smartphones. Few people simultaneously use both an iPhone and and Android. People may switch from time to time, but most people use one at a time and as such must choose one or the other. Conversely, many gamers already participate in the market by buying products from multiple competitors. I don't even game much, but yet I have the hardware to play games on macOS, iOS, tvOS, Playstation, Windows, and Switch. The 'choose one or the other' situation of smartphones doesn't generally exist in gaming.
Like I said, you may disagree that those reasons should allow Sony to keep people from developing for their hardware without their blessing and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that stance myself, but we don't need to pretend like it's an apples to apples comparison between smartphones and consoles when that's clearly not the case.
They can't, because it doesn't.
They can leave whomever, with all of these countries starting to look into Apple’s business, they aren’t going to have many places to go eventually.
You can run your iPhone as a closed system by not downloading apps from outside the App Store and/or not allowing „sideloaded“ apps NFC access.
The choice remains. Everything else is just new, additional choice.
Yeah, Japan, Korea, EU. They’ll be running out of developed countries with high purchasing power rather soon (outside of the Arabian peninsula).
And how do you think Apple got here if not by merit? Proprietary is not always bad as sometimes it entirely enables innovations and technologies to enter the market that otherwise wouldn’t, because there would be no incentive for companies to do so. Regulation is a form of restriction and it slows down natural progress. To the point, why would Apple keep NFC in the iPhone if they can’t use it the way they solely intended to? There’s no law that forces Apple to have NFC in the iPhone.
”Commie” EU is obviously an exaggeration, but it’s funny that you think that a form of market regulation doesn’t lean in that direction.
You have complete freedom of choice to pick whatever you want from what’s available on the market. In this case what’s at stake is the freedom of companies, private initiative companies to develop their products the way they desire to (within reason of safety and health for the public) and instead force providers, who already have the merit of providing, to give the public all the options they arbitrarily decide are important, on the regulation’s own timing instead of the companies’, at the expense of these companies’ own resource planning, freedom to market and so on, ultimately throwing wrenches in the gears of the entities that actually offer products and services to the public. Ultimately it’s just a form of backseat management and some sort of power fantasy from politicians and bureaucrats to see them having control over successful, market-embraced businesses.
They want phones to have this and that for consumers? Create the euPhone then.
I am not against every form of regulation but when a region is such an outlier compared to other regions with their constant attempts of regulating every single feature with this holier-than-thou attitude, yeah that’s cringe for me.
Funnily enough EU can’t even standardize their own wall plugs, but I guess Brexit has helped with that lmao ???
And it’s interesting that you assume I’m american.
Sure, it's obviously more complicated than I'm making it out to be. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that there's no way for consumers to vote for these things in specific with their wallet, and so the government may need to step in. If I don't buy an iPhone next year, there's no way for me to signal that it was because I'm unhappy with their choices regarding NFC access or screen size or that I don't like the lightning cable or whatever. It's an all-or-nothing deal, and the iPhone as a basic phone is good enough that most people will just accept whatever Apple tells them to put up with.
I think they should have to prove that they're the best in all things they do. If their payment system is the best, people will still use it. If their app store is the best, sideloading won't happen at any real scale. Let people choose to use your services if they really are the best out there.
Just sell Macs and maybe iPads in the EU. The sale of phones is simply not worth it.
Please stop. These new requirements, which don't come from the manufacturer are serving to make the lowest common denominator of product. Don't like what the product does? Don't buy it or, if you already bought it...return it. That's the way to really force change. Let the entirety of the EU use android.
It's change in general, that's why people are afraid. Not just technology, but really anything, it could be your favorite snack changing one ingredient and people would go nuts without having tried it.
For technological changes, many people are scared without even understanding why. If we'd do a poll and assume honest answers (which doesn't work of course), how many people would actually be qualified to make comments about this topic? And by qualified a mean a track record of security experience, actually developed systems, peer reviewed publications, a masters degree or PhD in a relevant field, etc. I can hear the crickets chirping...
That doesn't mean people can't voice their opinion ("I don't want Apple to do this"), but that's different from stating an"expert opinion" based on "I've read that somewhere on the internet in a news article". Yet for some reason everyone is a security-, political- or Covid expert these days.
That's not what the EU wants and not what Apple does right now. When you have a problem with any 3rd app sold via the App Store, does Apple maintain it or provide support? They don't. They provide support for developers and they in turn have to provide support to the end user and maintain the app. Sure back in the day of "small Apple" we were invited to Cupertino, Apple would provide hardware and we could invite our industry clients to show off our new software, teach them how to use it and have a chat with Apple engineers about new unreleased OS features or build demos/benchmarks that Jobs showed off on stage during an event. When it came to support for our software, that was still on us. But those days are long gone, so no, Apple is not providing support for 3rd party apps to the end user and never did.
The EU isn't forcing anyone to port 3rd party apps to anything. If that were the case, we'd have macOS for PCs and Final Cut for Windows. And neither is the EU forcing Apple to release an app for any bank or a different App Store. They're forcing to open up what they already have and use to others so they can use it provide apps and that without hurting any intellectual property as that is not how APIs work. You get access to a function "do something" without actually knowing how that happens under the hood.
In general a game console is a device for a dedicated purpose, play a game. I can't run general purpose applications on it. I can't install Word, Excel or similar. A phone these days (thanks to Apple) is a general purpose device, which requires the functionality to install "anything". That didn't exist back in the pre-iPhone Nokia/Samsung/Motorola days.
It's like buying a sandwich maker, I'm not expecting it to smoke ribs. But when I buy a gas grill I expect it to be able to smoke ribs, steaks, burgers and even to grill a sandwich on it.
Who says they are? Everyone is targeted, it's just that Apple has some attention while others don't. Remember when everyone blamed Apple for the guy who jumped out of a window working on an assembly line manufacturing iPhones? The next assembly line at the opposite side of the room or in the next building other guys were working for Dell or HP or... and yet no-one ever complained because that would make it to the news.
Why are people complaining about the EU regulations when Apple and others are already heavily regulated? Just think about the whole Apple Watch ECG issue and FDA clearance. That was in the US, in the EU you need CE and then additional certifications depending on country (everyone needs those if they want to sell in that market).
That's true for all type of products. Why do we need safety regulation for building houses? I mean, if it's my house and it's collapsing on me, that's on me. So why do I need regulations? And yet everyone is fine with that and Apple already plays along with certain regulations for manufacturing and everyone is ok with it. I don't like some regulations either, but I have to follow them. Back when I specifically developed systems for a global market, everything had to be developed according to each countries specific regulations. And if that country changed regulations, then that system had to change to be sold there. The other option was to opt out, which is usually only an option in smaller countries, so not the US, Canada, everyone in EU, China, India, Japan and Australia. The rest is up to "is it financially feasible to comply?".
Governments are already pushing quite hard for backdoors for encryption. That isn’t an assumption. They’re at the “criminals are using this to evade detection and we need a way to see what they’re doing” stage, and have been for a while.
As far as assumptions go, anyone who‘d be surprised by governments mandating compromised encryption wouldn't have been paying much attention.
That actually doesn’t sound as dumb as I initially thought. If Apple released an Android Phone for consumers that would just about eliminate any government monopoly claims. Keep the iPhone and iOS but also make an Apple branded Android phone that consumers could choose to purchase a phone as open or as closed as they want.
Why does Apple have to allow anyone access to their device? Any piece of it. Why? Are they not free to build a closed system? Is that illegal? Or is the EU just making it illegal? There is a difference.
Why don't they sue MasterCard and Visa (and they pretty much charge what they want), they have a large market share so much Discover
and American Express don't matter, that would be my defense.
and American Express don't matter, that would be my defense.
Of course you do…. If this was anyone but Apple ?
This is not a ridiculous idea at all. AND it would be freaking hilarious. "Introducing the latest model of iPhone. The iPhone EU. YES! You can have whatever you want on this device, cause it runs Android OS, and it's WIDE OPEN. NFC, Bluetooth, WIFI, all the cameras and mics and side loading/triple App Store access from any place on earth that wants to make it! In full partnership with Google, this Android OS is free from any privacy protection, or restriction of any kind! Do you EU! Pricing starts at 1500 euros!"
Venmo and PayPal, Samsung Pay, etc.... How many Wallets do we need to manage? It's insane! I just want to manage one. Can't they all a common point to collaborate?
Apple Wallet is built into my Apple devices, easily accessible by a double-click. I don't want to have to juggle apps in front of the register line trying to figure out how to pay. People behind me will get mad.
It's enough that there's an app for every single thing we need to do on our phone. Many are just glorified web browsers disguised as apps. I feel like deleting most of them and just use the browser link to access what I need.
I do use PayPal and Zelle for certain online transactions.
Truly, having Zelle is the greatest thing, as there are no fees involved for either side of the transaction.
The EU needs to focus more on their own internal issues; and Technology is not one of them.
I guess I should have been more specific and said Free Market Capitalism. The inflection point is you have the choice of wether to buy an iPhone or go with some other product. When a restaurant carries Pepsi products and you want Coke you have the choice to go somewhere else. When a car dealership sells Chevys and you want a Ford you have the choice to go somewhere else. When a grocery store doesn't carry your brand of peanut butter you go somewhere else. When a clothing store only takes Visa and you want to pay with American Express you go somewhere else. If the iPhone doesn't support the payment system you want, or the App Store you want, or use the port you want then you have the choice to go with a different phone. IMO the solution aren't to force the Restaurant to sell Coke, the dealership to sell Fords, the grocery store to sell Skippy and the clothing store to take American Express. If enough people go somewhere else is what would drive the change, again not government regulation.
Every gaming console being sold right now could easily run the same kinds of apps that appear on smartphones. The only reason they don't is because the console makers choose not to allow that functionality.
Nope, it is supported by polling data, pew research reports etc.
Some of their things genuinely do succeed on merit, but not all of them do. That's the point. They protect their weaker products by locking their successful products to them.
You know non-proprietary things can still be sold for a profit, right?
Please don't come to me with argument for fully unregulated markets. This isn't high-school economics, there are very clear examples of why regulations are a good thing.
Because they make a profit from people buying their phones, and a modern phone without NFC is a joke that no one will buy?
Regulation that promotes competition leans towards communism? Please elaborate on that.