That was literally the point of this ruling. The EU only has the power to enforce things in the EU and they can’t force Apple to act differently outside of it.
Ugh… I mean, they could, but the fact is I guarentee you many members of the EU commission and parliament themselves use these products, and they are popular in the EU, just not as overwhelmingly so as in the US. Ultimately, that wouldn’t really fly in a democracy and, as much as I may hate apple, for good reasons.
Well, not really, because you could use android, and it commands 70% of the global market share
Also, the way the law is, you have to have both a monopoly & also be causing substantial harm to the public. I.e. you can have a monopoly if it’s really nice and more like a public utility. So after the Microsoft antitrust case (for basically same thing), it’s been very hard to justify breaking up tech companies or banks
If a company acquires its monopoly by using business acumen, innovation and superior products, it is regarded to be legal; if a firm achieves monopoly through predatory or exclusionary acts, then it leads to anti-trust concern
For example, business can defense that its business conducts bring merits for consumers
(Wikipedia)
What happened with Microsoft browser tie ins antitrust?
Ultimately, the Circuit Court overturned Jackson’s holding that Microsoft should be broken up as an illegal monopoly. However, the Circuit Court did not overturn Jackson’s findings of fact, and held that traditional antitrust analysis was not equipped to consider software-related practices like browser tie-ins
So in short, Apple’s legal / business strategy here is totally solid. Arguably helps users, defended by precedent, and doesn’t dominate market share. Of course they have to debate all this
if a firm achieves monopoly through predatory or exclusionary acts, then it leads to anti-trust concern
Hey, ChatGPT …?
Closed Ecosystem: Apple is known for its closed ecosystem, which can limit users’ choices. For instance, iOS users can only download apps from the App Store, and Apple tightly controls the app approval process.
Proprietary Connectors: Apple often uses proprietary connectors and cables, such as the Lightning port, which can be inconvenient for users who want more universal standards like USB-C.
Repairability Issues: Apple products are often criticized for being difficult to repair. For example, the company discourages third-party repairs and designs its products with components that are challenging to replace.
To be fair, USB-C didn’t exist when Lightning was introduced, and it was vastly superior to Micro-USB.
It doesn’t really have any reason to exist now…
Agreed with your other points though!
I have an old iPad that I try to reuse for another purpose and all the locks to stop me to keep using it make it such a pain in the butt, when the alternative is simply to enable developer mode on an Android tablet.
Thankfully I remembered when buying a laptop and skipped the very enticing M-series hardware, because in 5-7 years that thing is a brick destined for the landfill.
Obviously it would be updated? Why would it be obvious when Apple hasn’t updated it at all, it was introduced in the Iphone 5 where it had USB 2 speeds, the Iphone 14 also has lightning connection and has… USB 2 speeds.
10 years and no update. Seems more like you liking Apple to mucb to think rather then us hating them too much.
So basically you would want every device to use a nonexistent updated lightning just because “it feels better”? Are you aware that lightning is a proprietary connector?
Additionally, USB-C debuted only two years later than lightning, so age is no excuse here.
Because it’s not a superior connector. Lightning is better as a purely charging port. It’s less fragile and doesn’t have a million competing implementations. One of the most frustrating things about USB-C is you can’t be sure if a cable is actually going to work.
Serious dumb question, how is it considered a monopoly? What forms the monopoly?
The company? If so, what is the proposal? Apple HW team is separate company from SW team? Apple phones and Apple computers are separated?
The app store? There’s only one Xbox store on the Xbox, one Nintendo shop on the switch or Wii. It wouldn’t make sense to require supporting competition on your hardware. Did N64 games work on the Sega Genesis?
What is constitutes the monopoly and what’s the proposed fix?
I’d say that forcing Apple to make it easy to install other operative systems in their hardware would be a good start. And yes, making firmware available for those.
If Apple were to be splitted, I’d separate the whole iPhone branch from the rest of the company.
The app store? There’s only one Xbox store on the Xbox, one Nintendo shop on the switch or Wii. It wouldn’t make sense to require supporting competition on your hardware. Did N64 games work on the Sega Genesis?
those had enough competitors and weren’t the richest companies in the world. Although if it was my decision, I’d force them to open the hardware up too and allow third party software not approved by the manufacturer.
People are paying for the hardware, they should own it and not be imposed artificial limitations.
Here’s the section for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Bleemcast! is an independently developed commercial emulator by Bleem! that allows one to load and play PlayStation discs on the Sega Dreamcast. It is compatible with most Dreamcast controllers and steering wheels, and leverages the Dreamcast’s superior processing power for enhanced graphics. It was created by using the MIL-CD security hole found in the Dreamcast BIOS.
Apple doesn’t have a monopoly they have a platform that a lot of other organisations (including Mozilla) depend on. The EU has legislated restrictions for any platform that is in that position.
They drew a line in the sand for what size a platform needs to be for this new legislation to apply and Xbox isn’t big enough.
see, apples a hard one… i usually agree with breaking companies up, but most of apples value comes from their extremely tight integration. would that be possible if they were separate? i don’t know - i wouldn’t want to lose the value that i get from apple products
like, how would that work?
you’d usually split like hardware and software, but we have m series chips and macos working so damn well because they collaborated really closely
or iphone, mac, homepod? airdrop between devices, airplay, etc is pretty seamless and i’m not sure how well that’d work if they were separated… and again the m series chips are there because they planned for scaling up an iphone to mac size quite a while ago
retail maybe - that could be a good option, but honestly probably a drop in the ocean and wouldn’t solve anything
perhaps if they separated app store from the rest of apple, or music - like a services division? they’re not so tightly integrated (yet)
or perhaps they should just be separated and be made to deal with it - then we would hope they don’t get a bunch of shit business majors in to run them who don’t understand apple and want to make their turf as profitable as possible… but that always ends up happening eventuallly
Integration between products can be done well through standards and public apis.
Apple just doesn’t expose this functionality to other developers because they want you stuck in their system because of the benefits of the integration between products.
“Tight integration” means the company’s software works well with their other software. It doesn’t mean locking out all others, whether they integrate well or not.
This argument is dumb, open up the specs, APIs, etc and allow integration with their products. There’s no reason only Apple should be able to write software for these products. The specification makes the product appear seamless, there’s no reason it couldn’t remain so if others developed or manufactured for the platform.
I mean, yeah, turns out that when you are in a quasi monopolistic position in many different markets and you get to decide the rules for all of your competitors you can absolutely integrate your “ecosystem” very smoothly. Go figure.
Their stubbornness on this makes the software/hardware divide the most obvious and a good place to start. Right now they’re keeping the hardware hostage to benefit first party software and exclude everyone else’s. That clearly has to change.
has anyone attempted using right-to-repair laws to gain direct access to the hardware they purchase? i like the idea of purchasing a phone i can do whateverthefuck i want with
If there’s any company that doesn’t need to be broken up, it’s Apple. They only really have 3 core functions: hardware, software, and cloud services. And the cloud services really only matter to people using their hardware and software.
A better approach for Apple specifically are pro-consumer regulations. Breaking them up seems unnecessary to me.
Breaking up the music, tv, news, arcade, banking, and possibly cloud storage branches makes more sense to me than simply divorcing hardware from software. Not that I see any reason to do that since competition for those services already thrives on Mac/iOS.
You seem to have forgotten that there were Safari and iTunes for Windows, and QuickTime player (for whatever reason everything was associated with that on our PC in my childhood, so I didn’t know it’s Apple) too.
There’s nothing in any of their services which wouldn’t make them useless outside of the ecosystem, provided Apple doesn’t intentionally kill itself with behaving stupid.
Actually if that breakup happens, then maybe in like 10 years something decent may come out of it.
I’m fine with Apple retaining interoperability between their first party software products, they just need a way to bypass the walled garden. If they have sideloading (everywhere and without restrictions) and ideally also bootloader unlocking, they provide a sanctioned path around the walls of their ecosystem and now it’s up to the user to choose to leave that garden. If the user is comfortable there, they can stay. Trying to fuck over sideloading is the issue here. I’m fine with the App Store being restrictive if there’s a way around it, and simply sideloading an app shouldn’t break the rest of the OS’s capabilities.
separate the phone branch from the desktop computer branch. that’d be a good start.
I understand the logic behind not wanting to separate hardware and software, that’s the only selling point Apple has over any other manufacturer. So just make the iPhone a different company.
That’d ruin what makes Apple products so good. The fact is, people like Apple because everything is connected. It’s one of the largest draw points of apple and would only piss 90% of the users off for no tangible benefit to anyone else.
smells like legally actionable monopolistic behavior. apple clearly needs to be broken up… when was the last time we did that?
That was literally the point of this ruling. The EU only has the power to enforce things in the EU and they can’t force Apple to act differently outside of it.
Bit the EU could still go nuclear and just refuse to let apple trade I the EU. It’s not an EU company and it doesn’t make products in the EU.
Financially it doesn’t care about apple being able to sell there
Ugh… I mean, they could, but the fact is I guarentee you many members of the EU commission and parliament themselves use these products, and they are popular in the EU, just not as overwhelmingly so as in the US. Ultimately, that wouldn’t really fly in a democracy and, as much as I may hate apple, for good reasons.
Great point.
This is why Americans have no consumer protections; they’re the ones fucking everyone.
They’re fucking themselves. In the EU the EU, not the US, is sovereign. Apple has to follow EU rules, but again, only with the EU.
Yeah, I don’t think they read the article… Sovereignty only applies, well, in the bloc or nation.
Probably like 15-20 years ago when Microsoft was forced to de-bundle IE with Windows.
Well, not really, because you could use android, and it commands 70% of the global market share
Also, the way the law is, you have to have both a monopoly & also be causing substantial harm to the public. I.e. you can have a monopoly if it’s really nice and more like a public utility. So after the Microsoft antitrust case (for basically same thing), it’s been very hard to justify breaking up tech companies or banks
(Wikipedia)
What happened with Microsoft browser tie ins antitrust?
So in short, Apple’s legal / business strategy here is totally solid. Arguably helps users, defended by precedent, and doesn’t dominate market share. Of course they have to debate all this
Hey, ChatGPT …?
Closed Ecosystem: Apple is known for its closed ecosystem, which can limit users’ choices. For instance, iOS users can only download apps from the App Store, and Apple tightly controls the app approval process.
Proprietary Connectors: Apple often uses proprietary connectors and cables, such as the Lightning port, which can be inconvenient for users who want more universal standards like USB-C.
Repairability Issues: Apple products are often criticized for being difficult to repair. For example, the company discourages third-party repairs and designs its products with components that are challenging to replace.
To be fair, USB-C didn’t exist when Lightning was introduced, and it was vastly superior to Micro-USB.
It doesn’t really have any reason to exist now…
Agreed with your other points though!
I have an old iPad that I try to reuse for another purpose and all the locks to stop me to keep using it make it such a pain in the butt, when the alternative is simply to enable developer mode on an Android tablet.
Thankfully I remembered when buying a laptop and skipped the very enticing M-series hardware, because in 5-7 years that thing is a brick destined for the landfill.
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Its USB 2 speeds, so no
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Obviously it would be updated? Why would it be obvious when Apple hasn’t updated it at all, it was introduced in the Iphone 5 where it had USB 2 speeds, the Iphone 14 also has lightning connection and has… USB 2 speeds.
10 years and no update. Seems more like you liking Apple to mucb to think rather then us hating them too much.
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Ah right, obviously you would change the core specs, how stupid of me
that’s based on nothing. technically, it’s inferior in every way.
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So basically you would want every device to use a nonexistent updated lightning just because “it feels better”? Are you aware that lightning is a proprietary connector?
Additionally, USB-C debuted only two years later than lightning, so age is no excuse here.
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Hmm, I wonder why that was?
So Apple helped develop USB-C but failed to integrate it into their products for a decade. Now, why would they do that?
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C
Because it’s not a superior connector. Lightning is better as a purely charging port. It’s less fragile and doesn’t have a million competing implementations. One of the most frustrating things about USB-C is you can’t be sure if a cable is actually going to work.
Serious dumb question, how is it considered a monopoly? What forms the monopoly?
The company? If so, what is the proposal? Apple HW team is separate company from SW team? Apple phones and Apple computers are separated?
The app store? There’s only one Xbox store on the Xbox, one Nintendo shop on the switch or Wii. It wouldn’t make sense to require supporting competition on your hardware. Did N64 games work on the Sega Genesis?
What is constitutes the monopoly and what’s the proposed fix?
I’d say that forcing Apple to make it easy to install other operative systems in their hardware would be a good start. And yes, making firmware available for those.
If Apple were to be splitted, I’d separate the whole iPhone branch from the rest of the company.
those had enough competitors and weren’t the richest companies in the world. Although if it was my decision, I’d force them to open the hardware up too and allow third party software not approved by the manufacturer.
People are paying for the hardware, they should own it and not be imposed artificial limitations.
No, but Playstation games did https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem!#Bleemcast! And Sony sued them but failed
Here’s the section for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Bleemcast! is an independently developed commercial emulator by Bleem! that allows one to load and play PlayStation discs on the Sega Dreamcast. It is compatible with most Dreamcast controllers and steering wheels, and leverages the Dreamcast’s superior processing power for enhanced graphics. It was created by using the MIL-CD security hole found in the Dreamcast BIOS.
to opt out, pm me ‘optout’. article | about
Apple doesn’t have a monopoly they have a platform that a lot of other organisations (including Mozilla) depend on. The EU has legislated restrictions for any platform that is in that position.
They drew a line in the sand for what size a platform needs to be for this new legislation to apply and Xbox isn’t big enough.
It doesn’t, the poster just doesn’t like Apple (neither do I) and those are apparently magic words for “stop this company I don’t like.”
see, apples a hard one… i usually agree with breaking companies up, but most of apples value comes from their extremely tight integration. would that be possible if they were separate? i don’t know - i wouldn’t want to lose the value that i get from apple products
like, how would that work?
you’d usually split like hardware and software, but we have m series chips and macos working so damn well because they collaborated really closely
or iphone, mac, homepod? airdrop between devices, airplay, etc is pretty seamless and i’m not sure how well that’d work if they were separated… and again the m series chips are there because they planned for scaling up an iphone to mac size quite a while ago
retail maybe - that could be a good option, but honestly probably a drop in the ocean and wouldn’t solve anything
perhaps if they separated app store from the rest of apple, or music - like a services division? they’re not so tightly integrated (yet)
or perhaps they should just be separated and be made to deal with it - then we would hope they don’t get a bunch of shit business majors in to run them who don’t understand apple and want to make their turf as profitable as possible… but that always ends up happening eventuallly
Integration between products can be done well through standards and public apis. Apple just doesn’t expose this functionality to other developers because they want you stuck in their system because of the benefits of the integration between products.
“Tight integration” means the company’s software works well with their other software. It doesn’t mean locking out all others, whether they integrate well or not.
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Because they have counter arguments or because they like stuff that you don’t?
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In the first sentence, and then
in the very next…
If Apple users are horrible, logic like this ensures that “fanboy” haters remain a tier worse.
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They didn’t bend over at all. You literally made a ridiculous argument while complaining about other people doing that.
You really think if Apple killed babies people would be ok with that? Of course you don’t.
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This argument is dumb, open up the specs, APIs, etc and allow integration with their products. There’s no reason only Apple should be able to write software for these products. The specification makes the product appear seamless, there’s no reason it couldn’t remain so if others developed or manufactured for the platform.
I mean, yeah, turns out that when you are in a quasi monopolistic position in many different markets and you get to decide the rules for all of your competitors you can absolutely integrate your “ecosystem” very smoothly. Go figure.
Their stubbornness on this makes the software/hardware divide the most obvious and a good place to start. Right now they’re keeping the hardware hostage to benefit first party software and exclude everyone else’s. That clearly has to change.
has anyone attempted using right-to-repair laws to gain direct access to the hardware they purchase? i like the idea of purchasing a phone i can do whateverthefuck i want with
What right to repair laws? The one’s we’ve been trying to make are barely even there yet.
If there’s any company that doesn’t need to be broken up, it’s Apple. They only really have 3 core functions: hardware, software, and cloud services. And the cloud services really only matter to people using their hardware and software.
A better approach for Apple specifically are pro-consumer regulations. Breaking them up seems unnecessary to me.
Breaking up the music, tv, news, arcade, banking, and possibly cloud storage branches makes more sense to me than simply divorcing hardware from software. Not that I see any reason to do that since competition for those services already thrives on Mac/iOS.
You seem to have forgotten that there were Safari and iTunes for Windows, and QuickTime player (for whatever reason everything was associated with that on our PC in my childhood, so I didn’t know it’s Apple) too.
There’s nothing in any of their services which wouldn’t make them useless outside of the ecosystem, provided Apple doesn’t intentionally kill itself with behaving stupid.
Actually if that breakup happens, then maybe in like 10 years something decent may come out of it.
Even if it’s broken up de jure: Design and R&D, manufacturing, software, it’ll be a just step in the right direction.
I’m fine with Apple retaining interoperability between their first party software products, they just need a way to bypass the walled garden. If they have sideloading (everywhere and without restrictions) and ideally also bootloader unlocking, they provide a sanctioned path around the walls of their ecosystem and now it’s up to the user to choose to leave that garden. If the user is comfortable there, they can stay. Trying to fuck over sideloading is the issue here. I’m fine with the App Store being restrictive if there’s a way around it, and simply sideloading an app shouldn’t break the rest of the OS’s capabilities.
separate the phone branch from the desktop computer branch. that’d be a good start.
I understand the logic behind not wanting to separate hardware and software, that’s the only selling point Apple has over any other manufacturer. So just make the iPhone a different company.
That’d ruin what makes Apple products so good. The fact is, people like Apple because everything is connected. It’s one of the largest draw points of apple and would only piss 90% of the users off for no tangible benefit to anyone else.
There’s no monopoly. Use an Android.