Apple has called for the European Commission to repeal a swathe of technology legislation, warning that unless it is amended the company could stop shipping some products and services to the 27-country bloc.
The Silicon Valley company hit out in a submission to the commission’s review of the three-year-old anti-monopoly legislation, which is intended to regulate the gatekeeper power of the largest digital companies including search engines, app providers and messaging services.
It said it had already delayed the launch of features such as live translation through AirPods and mirroring iPhone screens on to laptop because of the act’s demands for interoperability with non-Apple products and services.
“The DMA means the list of delayed features in the EU will probably get longer, and our EU users’ experience on Apple products will fall further behind,” it said. Apple added that Brussels was creating unfair competition as the rules were not applied to Samsung, the largest smartphone provider in the EU.
Knowing Apple, they’ll probably find a way to ‘comply’ that feels more like a loophole than a solution…
knowing the EU they are probably gonna fold and let apple do what it pleases.
Apple is such a piece of shit company.
Learn how to compete without behaving anti competitively or quit your fucking jobs. It’s not complicated.
Yep. Although that is the only way they’ve ever operated. They will never change without the force of law.
The problem is, and I’m pretty sure that’s the reason nothing will change, the problem is that people act like corporations have some kind of obligation to act morally. Then they are angry at apple, Microsoft, Monsanto and co.
Corporations are a fucking tool, that try to maximize profit not more, not less.
What everyone has forgotten is, that there should be people setting the rules and optimizing this tool for the best of the people. Instead we all accepted these neo liberal bullshit, where we allow corporations to influence the law. And, oh wonder, who would have thought, these fucking tools use their money and influence to maximize profit even though everyone but the stakeholder suffers from it.
Renewable energy is an example, how in the world can someone prefer burning coal or oil instead of letting the wind turn a fan? But because big oil companies have a way to big part in creating those laws, we fuck the planet until it’s too late and when it’s too late, everyone will blame the tool for it. Which won’t change a fucking thing.
Apple wouldn’t stop. They need that money too much. Also, Europe is OK with going Huawei if Google and Apple keep up with their shit.
Came here to say the same. It’s an empty threat. After all this is famously the company who made dual physical SIM iPhones for China and other Asian regions because eSIM isn’t/wasn’t legal.
And zero SIM in America so they can force their controlling narrative rather than consumer choice.
Europe is OK with going Huawei if Google and Apple keep up with their shit.
They should be OK with going Huawei and Xioami, but unfortunately they really want to remain America’s faithful dogs.
Big tech only cares about money, something that makes them very predictable. Very high fines and banning costs them money, so they will comply to all demands to avoid. Easy as that :)
Apple sold well over $10 billion worth of Iphones in the EU in 2024, but rather than deal with the annoyance of EU regulation they’re just going to take their ball and go home.
They must think EU regulators are imbeciles.
Or they think the people in the EU will do mass protests if they don’t get their product— forcing the regulators hands; maybe because of what happened with tiktok in Nepal— missing the nuance of the political and economic factors there however.
And Apple shareholders will revolt if Apple revenues drop by $10 billion because they’re having a tantrum. I hope EU regulators call Apple’s bluff. The U.S. is a corporate hellscape, the EU doesn’t have to be.
Be pretty funny if Europe just banned them instead.
I give a fuck, I anyway prefer to lick ny belly before buying something from Apple.
I will add foldable display, perhaps categorized under “innovative hardware” or “hardware diversity”. That’s why I switched from iPhone after 17 years.
That yellow part is about to shrink and the orange part is about to go away completely when Google’s dev verification hits next year unless you have a custom rom.
In the EU Fairphone with /e/OS and a middle finger for the US
The yellow part depends on where you are. Xiaomi and Honor still offer great value for money.
They’re just bluffing, they’d lose more money by withdrawing from the EU market, than finding ways to comply. Greedy corporations are easy to predict, since their only goal is money and they don’t do things “out of principle”.
Am I misreading this or are their arguments all complete nonsense? From what I can see in the article they have:
- They have to allow third-party headphones, i.e. the anti-monopoly policy prevents a monopoly.
Among the requirements of the DMA is that Apple ensures that headphones made by other brands will work with iPhones. It said this has been a block on it releasing its live translation service in the EU as it allows rival companies to access data from conversations, creating a privacy problem.
- Other companies will “twist laws” to prevent competition, i.e. exactly what Apple is trying to do by removing regulation. I don’t see any way to interpret this other than an outright lie, anti-monopoly policies encourage competition.
Apple said that under the DMA, “instead of competing by innovating, already successful companies are twisting the law to suit their own agendas – to collect more data from EU citizens, or to get Apple’s technology for free”.
- Porn exists? I don’t even know what they’re trying to say with this one?
It said that rules under the act affected the way it provided users access to apps. “Pornography apps are available on iPhone from other marketplaces – apps we’ve never allowed on the App Store because of the risks they create, especially for children,” it said.
the absurdity of their claims is how you can tell it’s working. we need more of it acsoss the board
Am I misreading this or are their arguments all complete nonsense?
Its apple … what did you expect? They have always been like this.
- This is actually a privacy problem. If any company can access the live feed, it opens up serious surveillance issues. Granted, we have to trust Apple won’t surveil…
- I agree
- This has more to do with content moderation than prudishness. If you’re being held accountable for what kids can access on your platform, you take a very draconian approach. Granted, no one is yelling at Dell for allowing Steam to install porn games…
This is actually a privacy problem.
Only so far as using any kind of product you haven’t built yourself from scratch is a privacy problem. I.e. it’s Apple imposing vendor lock-in.
This has more to do with content moderation than prudishness.
You’ve defeated this yourself pointing that no one goes after Dell. Again, this has to do with Apple imposing vendor lock-in.
They’re headphones. Somehow we’ve managed until this point without headphone-based spy devices. How is their translation software different?
I like my iPhone. It’s solid hardware and reasonably capable software. It does everything I need it to do, and gives me really solid control over API access to privacy-centric controls like location and microphone.
I still wouldn’t skip a beat to switch to another phone manufactured by another company (though I regret how much of a duopoly there is). The inconvenience is minor; Apple just needs to give me a shove and I’ll switch.
Yeah I’m sure Apple’s going to give up on half a billion potential customers. Sure.
Please stop shipping to anywhere.
Among the requirements of the DMA is that Apple ensures that headphones made by other brands will work with iPhones. It said this has been a block on it releasing its live translation service in the EU as it allows rival companies to access data from conversations, creating a privacy problem.
I’m not really understanding this. Where is the privacy problem? What is different with airpods that solves this? At the end of the day, are they not just bluetooth headphones? Do they add some extra security layer beyond what bluetooth itself offers?
For real. It’s not like the processing power is done through the headphones. If they can act like a microphone and speaker, that’s all you should need.
Who cares? The average EU citizen will benefit far more from the regulation. I don’t think any of their laws have been bad so far, mostly requiring standard connectors, requiring user access to install what they want without apples permission, and monopolizing software stores in general. This might be a great opportunity to actually get some consumer friendly competition out of Europe for once. Also Samsung already allows third party app stores, has USB C like every other modern device, and allows side loading. It’s going to get interesting once Google starts complaining that they can’t control users devices after they buy them as well with their upcoming ban on non Google approved software installations.
They need us (our money). We dont even like them enough to not replace them the second they go away.
I remember when apple used to reverse engineer microsoft software… :/
