The EU doesn't believe that Apple built "great products". They believe that Apple locked-in consumer and business users with anticompetitive practices.
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iPadOS Identified as Digital 'Gatekeeper' Under New EU Tech Rules
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Both can be true at once, a product can be great but it can also be locked down and anticompetitive. Should Apple stop improving its products because they are already great and no further improvement is necessary ?
That’s apple’s problem to deal with. If you break the law you pay the fines
Android is already designated a gatekeeper, it’s just that most of the manufacturers are already complying but Google most often isn’t
Here is the quote from the commission in September of 2023
Commission designates six gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act
Today (6 September 2023) the European Commission has designated, for the first time, six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In total, 22 core platform services provided by gatekeepers have been designated.
Samsung internet and the galaxy store is installed on Samsungs phones.
So is this why Samsung and other smartphone aren’t more expensive than Apple? Those that can’t profit of the play store.
- I never said SWAP. I said BOOT.
- Apps don't need to be changed necessarily. We can already run iPad apps on MacOS when allowed by the developer. No need to assume all apps need to be optimized or supported by both.
Come to think of it - it would probably even be easier to just support MacOS with a Springboard subsystem (like Xcode Simulator or the way MacOS support single iPad app today). Then all that needs to really be done is lock the Springboard subsystem full screen when undocked and allow MacOS UI when docked.
The purpose of anticompetitive practices is to avoid having to make improvements while continuing to rake in the cash. That's why it's considered to be a negative: the only purpose is to control the market.
Nothing except their decisions aren't their own any longer. I have no confidence in the European bureaucracy's ability to build a great product with a great user experience.
Sure I have, you're just not acknowledging them.
"The only changes will be the good ones!"
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time seeing that as anything but naive.
Which undermines your argument that I can still have the experience I want if I just pretend nothing is changing and proceed as I always have.
Corporations do not pay fines. Their customers pay the fines with increased prices for the product of the corporation.
You basically are unable to browse on certain sites uninterrupted by the cancer called advertisers.
When I compare Firefox Mac + uBlock Origin with Safari and "Content Blocker Addons". -> Night & Day difference.
Yep. It took years for Microsoft case. 5-10 years (or more) for Apple is highly probable. But we'll see positive results of pending lawsuit as well. Hopefully.
OMG! So looking at that picture I see an outside Government that is going to tell all these successful mostly American corporations how they need to run their companies? Can't you see the nightmare this will cause! I see America being singled out! There is another word for this you know!
No the issue is Apple is the defacto bottleneck in the iOS market.
Google android and apple iOS aren’t competitors.
Galaxy phones, iPhones and Pixel phones etc are competitors.
Galaxy store, Amazon store and play store are competitors. iOS AppStore, cydia, Altstore etc are competitors.
On android chrome, Firefox, edge etc are competitors on the browser market
On iOS there only safari and WebKit reskins of an inferior version of safari.
You're splitting hairs for your argument the App Store is part of the iPhone experience. It isn't a separate product.
Exactly. And the software they run are differentiating features. Making that software more alike is removing competition from the market.
Sure. This is bad. I'm aware of one case (well documented by journalis here). Still, the question is open, is level of corruption higher than avarage. Some level of corruption is inevitable (human nature).You can start looking at how salaries & especially (travel) benefits are paid out & what is required of the elected to receive them. (Tip of iceberg) ”EU is for the people”
Is the walled garden approach that Apple take, and millions of customers choose them for, kept secret from buyers somehow? I'm going to take a wild guess that they all know exactly what they are buying into, and the limitations and benefits of that platform. Don't like it, buy something else. Why is that so hard these days for people to comprehend. If enough people don't like it and take that approach then the company lose revenue and either go busty or change their direction to suit the majority.
As it happens however, the majority seem to like the devices and software they buy and accept some limitations as either a benefit to them (security for instance) or find them minor enough not to be a deal breaker.
Why do people these days feel the constant "everyone should bend to my will" mentality. Just go out and buy something else you do like, instead of demanding that a product already on the market, that no one is forcing you to buy, changes to suit you. It's an extension of the "me, me, me" attitude that is prevalent these days - millions and millions of other people in fact like what they are buying - if they didn't then they wouldn't buy or wouldn't be repeat customers, and Apple would lose $billions. Vote with your feet if you don't like it instead of trying to force your idea of what it should be on everyone else. Better still, go and design your own device and operating system and run it how you want and see how many customers you get - I wish you well in your endeavours - but leave everyone else to use their free will to do as they see fit.
It certainly is, no argument from most people. However... you know when buying an Apple device that there are some restrictions on what you can download and install, and many people accept that limitation, and indeed welcome it as a benefit of the platform.
Don't like it, buy something else and stop complaining. No one is forcing anyone to buy into the Apple ecosystem or indeed to stay in it.
The argument about which browser is best has been going on for as long as browsers have been around. It's largely down to personal preference. I use Safari extensively, but for some tasks find Firefox better. And also occasionally use Chrome for some things (usually a site which renders terribly on the others).
I buy Apple devices and know they come with Safari. I am freely able to download other browsers if I wish.
Apple designed the platform and we as consumers can choose to buy into it or not. I do so willingly, and if I wanted a browser that didn't exist on it, and it was a deal breaker, then I'd take my money elsewhere, as would most people.
But people still buy in the millions, and accept a number of limitations (or benefits as many see them).
“Gatekeepers are large digital platforms providing so called core platform services, such as online search engines, app stores, messenger services.”
This definition is copied verbatim from the EU DMA definition:
About the Digital Markets Act
The DMA is one of the first regulatory tools to comprehensively regulate the gatekeeper power of the largest digital companies. The DMA complements, but does not change EU competition rules, which continue to apply fully.
Can you give me a list of European companies that meet the requirements to the same order of magnitude as the currently listed gatekeepers?
Every country around the planet is telling foreign (and domestic) companies how to conduct business within their country.
This is the most normal thing of all normal things.
Country A has domestic laws, and every company (regardless of where the company is from) will need to obey those laws to be able to trade within country A jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, this prerogative is sometimes abused.
For example, see the current debacle between the US government and TikTok, whereby the US are demanding the company to be sold to a US entity.
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I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the first questions the committee asked their staff before deciding to proceed so rigorously on this.
As you perfectly know, I was responding to your generalised accusations of corruption.
If they think fines are the cost of doing business then the fines just need to be increased to be a deterrent for breaking the law instead of a slap on the wrist.
If the products become more expensive because of the fines that customers no longer can afford the products and the company loses revenue and market share… well they should perhaps stop doing their criminal business behavior.
It being part of the experience just how Apple Music is part of the experiences doesn’t change that it’s a separate service Apple provides in the form of a storefront on consumers devices.
This is an absurd notion. Would you say windows and MacOS is the same because both have an application store and allows third party software to be installed by the user without using the store? Or that developers can sell their apps by giving a cut though the store or sell it from anywhere without Microsoft or Apple getting a single cent?
Which part of my comment are you calling absurd? You also said that iOS doesn't compete with Android, it's the phone products that compete.