The law specifically calls out the quanitative metrics that a platform has to reach for the DMA to apply. The EU themselves say that iPadOS does not meet those metrics, but the law still applies to iPadOS because "reasons". What is the point of having quantitative metrics in the law if you're just going to ignore them?
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Indonesia Wants Larger Apple Investment to Lift iPhone 16 Ban
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The US has just elected a President who will use Tariffs to artificially force businesses to manufacture in the US and not engage in world trade or they will find their goods priced out of the market they are aimed at. Pot meet kettle.
And they explained very clearly that iPadOS and iOS are part of the same ecosystem. They didn't rule at different times, the second choice was delayed because Apple appealed the decision.
Are you surprised? Don't you know they are basically the same OS in two versions for different device sizes by thr same company? The EU, as any kind of legal entity, cares about the agent (Apple) and the malicious finality, which obviously includes iPadOS. They don't care about the name of products.
That’s factually incorrect. iPadOS wasn’t originally included. When iOS was included, the EU opened an investigation to decide if they should arbitrarily add iPadOS. Don’t believe me? Here’s a link from the EU Commission.
Also, the reason the EU claimed the DMA applies is not because “they’re the a part of the same ecosystem”. It’s because iPadOS is used by a significant number of “business users”. Don’t believe me - here’s a quote from Verstager from the same link above.
“Our market investigation showed that despite not meeting the thresholds, iPadOS constitutes an important gateway on which many companies rely to reach their customers”
Then why not VisionOS? It’s the same OS. macOS is the same ecosystem too. It’s the EU making up the rules as they go along.
App Store was included in the first ruling.
VisionOS is not remotely as relevant.
The DMA is an attack on Apple’s ability to differentiate through integration. The App Store is a tiny, tiny part of it.
And “the App Store being included” doesn’t change the fact that the EU came up with quantitative metrics to determine whether or not the law applies, and then said “never mind - we want it to apply to iPad so it’s going to apply to iPad even though it doesn’t meet those metrics.”
An absolute farce of a law. They should be embarrassed.
App Store on both OSs had the purpose to lock into the same ecosystem, part of the same illegal scheme that corporate-lovers may call "differentiation". It's not, it's just the same thing with the same policies the EU made illegal, by the same company that obviously doesn't care about complying until forced. Not sure if you get it but I don't care, it's just important to me that the EU does and it became my law.
BTW, even if you disagree it's exactly the same ruling with clarifications, it wouldn't matter. First ruling didn't say iPadOS was exonerated, made sense to clarify and, to me, to punish as a slightly different product by the same company with the same intentions.
That is not the purpose of the App Store. It’s to keep the vast, vast majority of iOS users with a safe and secure place to buy and install software. I’m tired of power users making normal users less safe and secure because they want the ability to install porn apps or use emulators to play pirated games. If you want an open ecosystem go buy an Android device.
Apple has been 100% clear since the day the App Store was announced almost seventeen years ago what the deal was. And hundreds of millions of people said “yes please, that’s what I want”. And I don’t want that ruined by bunch of EU regulators who think encryption back doors are a good idea and gave us the crowdstrike fiasco.
Apple is clearly trying to comply with the law. Just because the EU can’t write a coherent law does not make Apple guilty of noncompliance. Apple aren’t mind readers.
A thought exercise: You pay the amount of taxes required by the laws your country. You then get told “we know according to the quantitative metrics written in our tax law the “rich person surtax” doesn’t apply and you owe €2.000, but we’ve decided that even though you don’t meet the definition of “rich” we WROTE INTO THE LAW, we’ve decided you’re rich anyway, the “rich person surtax” applies, and you owe €200.000”. Do you think that fair? Do you think not immediately paying up would you be “not complying until forced”?
At least Indonesia has the common courtesy to tell Apple what they want when they’re shaking down the company. The EU writes vague laws, doesn’t apply them fairly, intentionally writes said vague law to not apply to the one successful consumer tech company based on the continent; then fines Apple up to 20% of global revenue (a larger percentage than the EU even represents) for not reading regulator’s minds.
Embarrassing corruption.
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You're welcome. I cannot say this negative punishment is not bad either. We also have tax holiday, low labor cost, etc as further incentives for participating companies.
The thing is though, the government punished Apple because:
1. Apple fell short of their initial investment. Although the amount is rather minuscule, broken promise that's 6 months overdue is still a broken promise.
2. The government got no word on their further investment after this first round over. No assurance for the factory, no assurance for the official Apple Store either. "We're still considering it." is the words the government hear all the time they asked Apple.
3. Those two points above happened while Indonesia's government saw the news about recently built Apple Store in Malaysia, further investment and factories in Vietnam & India. Then the government pulled the Apple sales data, compared them, and got shocked even further.
I cannot say the punishment is not bad. It's bad to some extent, of course. But I'm curious. Let's say there's a way to do a form of positive punishment and/or positive reinforcement. What are those? What will you propose to the government to do?
It is.
There was nothing illegal about the App Store to begin with.
Yep. Because the regulations were full of holes.
Maybe some of this junk will be dialed back a bit.
You’re going to be stuck with what you got. The grass is always greener.
Of course with Indonesia we’ll see how valuable a market apple considers it.
Reasons being: it’s the same OS and same ecosystem. Runs the same apps.
Apple just cleverly got ahead of the impending legislation by “forking” them in name.
If they did that today by splitting it into iPadOS and iPadProOS or something, that would be dealt with the DMA‘s anti-circumvention provisions.
The EU initially did conclude that „the core features and technical characteristics of iOS and iPadOS are similar and result in similar environments“ to such degree that they should be considered only one (the same) core platform service - but Apple successfully challenged that as part of the designation process for iOS.
The EU may have just decided it wasn’t worth to fight it, considering they could „get“ iPadOS with a separ designation anyway.
…but not in meeting its objectives.
Ask me what I think about the announced tariffs...
My short answer: I'm not a fan.
You can say they’re the same all you want, and even if we assume it’s true (which it isn’t) That’s not what the commission said. They said it was important because a significant number business users use iPad.
(Side note: I just came back from my kids gymnastics class - they were playing music from Spotify. I promise there are a significant number of business users using Spotify (even before counting the artists who are forced to use Spotify) but EU won’t look there. I wonder why.)
Because the EU was wrong, they’re not the same platform.
Exactly. They were going to get iPadOS no matter what the pesky law they wrote said. In any other country you’d scream that is corruption. Because it is.
The objectives are to hobble Apple and other American tech companies with burdensome regulations because the EU can’t compete otherwise. Of course they’re complying to the lowest extent possible.
To be fair, US companies/gov does the same to other countries all the time. And what’s 100 mil to them, when there’s years of sales opportunity.
At least this COP29 BS is collapsing. Yet another year it was taken over by dirty hippies wearing terrorist scarves and corrupt politicians from banana republics who want to be given $500 billion a year to hide in their offshore bank accounts. They call themselves climate activists but they never go protest in Saudi against OPEC.
It's the same scam as all this governments threatening Apple with fines over nonsense like USB cables and App Stores. They just smell money, manipulate the plebs don't make noise, and then pocket the money.
It's all thieving clowns on the left and right, up and down, these days. They have given up on vision and just want to line their pockets. They treat everyone as either a puppet or disposable dirt.
It's the same scam as all this governments threatening Apple with fines over nonsense like USB cables and App Stores. They just smell money, manipulate the plebs don't make noise, and then pocket the money.
It's all thieving clowns on the left and right, up and down, these days. They have given up on vision and just want to line their pockets. They treat everyone as either a puppet or disposable dirt.
Apple literally advertised their „iPhone“ and „iPad“ hardware devices as running the same operating system.
For years - the longest part of their existence in fact.
Does iPadOS have some “exclusive” functionality over iOS? Yes, but it’s very minor, particularly if you exclude the ones limited by hardware compatibility. My iPhone or Mac mini don’t support everything that other iPhone or Mac models either.
If different versions of Microsoft Windows (or YouTube) are considered one platform, so can iPadOS/iOS.
No - they always foresaw that platform developers/operators may split their offerings and brand them differently. The law takes that into account and allows for lawful designation of CPS accordingly.
And given how Apple used to advertise them (right up until the DMA was conceived by the EU), how similar they are, how part of the same ecosystem they are, the designation is more than appropriate.
No - they are to ensure competitive digital markets and consumer choice.
When someone has obtained a dominant (or monopolist) market position, that inevitably may include some “hobbling”.
If they just wanted to “hobble Apple” or American tech, they could have done so by various much easier means.
Just look at the U.S. and their dealing with TikTok.
Again. That’s not what the EU said. The EU did not say “We consider iPadOS and iOS are the same platform, so the DMA applies.” They said “We deem iPadOS important for business users.”
So either you’re right and the EU Commission is lying about why the DMA applies, or I’m right they’re arbitrarily declaring iPadOS as a core platform for “reasons”. Either way, not a good look for the EU.
As I said previously, if your government’s tax law had a “rich person surtax” that had quantitative definition that laid out when it applied, and you didn’t meet them, and the government said “We acknowledge you don’t meet the metrics to be rich in the law we wrote, but we think the rich person should apply to you anyway, so pay up” you’d be outraged.
Or another thought experiment. What if the EU declared “we understand iOS meets the quantitative metrics we’ve laid out in the law, but we love the wall garden so none of the DMA applies to iOS.” You’d be outraged the EU isn’t taking people who want a walled garden’s choice away.
If they wanted the DMA to apply to iPadOS they should have written the law better. Not arbitrarily and corruptly deem iPadOS a platform after the fact because they can.
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Again, their preliminary view indeed was that they are the same.
Though they subsequently
Not a good example, IMO.
While it’s often true with regards to headline tax rates, the definition of tax status or taxable income varies. It often subject to interpretation and assessment on an individual level that lacks clear, defined and unambigous thresholds.
Example: the distinction between between personal income and wealth management vs. professional securities trader status for individuals (whose stock/securities trading is considered a business).
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So you’re telling me you’d be fine if the government declared you had to pay an extra tax, even though you didn’t meet the qualifications that were written into the law that determined whether or not the extra tax applies? And that’d be fair?
And what about my second example. What if Vestager’s replacement came in and said “actually, despite iOS meeting the quantitative metrics we’ve laid out in the law, we say the DMA doesn’t apply to iOS.” That kosher too?
There are no fixed thresholds in the law.
„An undertaking shall be designated as a gatekeeper if:
(a) it has a significant impact on the internal market;
(b) it provides a core platform service which is an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and
(c) it enjoys an entrenched and durable position, in its operations, or it is foreseeable that it will enjoy such a position in the near future.“
That’s it. And that‘s nothing unusual.
I believe you are somewhat (maybe more) familiar with U.S. competition law and are aware that it (often) does not have exact quantitative thresholds - as in „number of users X, revenue Y - either.
Please read the very next section of the law. Immediately below the part you quoted.
An undertaking shall be presumed to satisfy the respective requirements in paragraph 1:
| (a) | as regards paragraph 1, point (a), where it achieves an annual Union turnover equal to or above EUR 7,5 billion in each of the last three financial years, or where its average market capitalisation or its equivalent fair market value amounted to at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, and it provides the same core platform service in at least three Member States; |
| (b) | as regards paragraph 1, point (b), where it provides a core platform service that in the last financial year has at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and at least 10 000 yearly active business users established in the Union, identified and calculated in accordance with the methodology and indicators set out in the Annex; |
| (c) | as regards paragraph 1, point (c), where the thresholds in point (b) of this paragraph were met in each of the last three financial years. |
If they’re just going to declare whoever they want gatekeepers, why bother putting that in there.
But don’t take my word, or the text of the law for it. Here is Vestager’s quote announcing iPadOS is a “core platform service”:
"Our market investigation showed that despite not meeting the thresholds, iPadOS constitutes an important gateway on which many companies rely to reach their customers."
And with that, I’m done replying here because we don’t need to spar again for the 500th time and we’re off topic at this point. see you in the next EU thread!
Edit: PS - You know why point b is an AND statement not an OR statement? So the law doesn’t apply to Spotify. Funny how that works!
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My last o/t post. So all a product has to do is meet an arbitrary and undefined threshold of “important” and the company that makes it is a gatekeeper?
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 Whoops. My (_!_) just fell off because I LMAO.🙃 This is the most ridiculous stipulation I've ever seen, especially from a market that's a rounding error on Apple's bottom one.
If every country made the same demand, Apple could only sell the iPhone in China.😏