This is great news! We need to ensure maximum interoperability and no differentiation across different computing platforms and applications. And politicians are, of course, the most knowledgeable about these things. Perhaps they should also consider enforcing the following suggestions to open up the marketplace:
— All applications that expect to be in scope for EU regulations should be written in one of the programming languages approved by the Secretariat on Digital Interoperability. The Division of Programming Languages and Operating Systems within the aforementioned agency will also be tasked with adding, removing, or otherwise modifying the list of approved languages and runtimes. In the future, it may even design and release a new language of its own in order to minimize arbitrary uniqueness among digital services within the bloc.
— Companies must submit their feature plans to the Bureau for Open Competition before releasing them to their customers. The BOC will then convene a task force comprising of the submitter's competitors to ensure that the proposed feature would not unfairly harm them in the marketplace.
— Gatekeepers under the DMA must make their source code (extensively documented) available to any other gatekeeper upon request. This will ensure maximum competition in the marketplace.
— Non-EU compliant Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are hereby banned from being used by gatekeeper and future-gatekeeper companies. Compliant IDEs will enforce policies that discourage and prohibit anti-competitive practices as part of the bloc’s Shift-Left initiative. This will enable digital service providers to prevent tendencies that might harm their competitors.
> This is great news! We need to ensure maximum interoperability and no differentiation across different computing platforms and applications.
I don't get your point here. Apple's products are differentiated from others because of their excellent integration with other Apple products (the ecosystem(tm)). If they are compelled to also open that up to third-parties, what exactly are they losing?
Put a different way, are you implying people buy iDevices not only because they integrate so well with Apple's other products, but because they know other devices aren't able to?
> And politicians are, of course, the most knowledgeable about these things.
This doesn't make sense either. Just because you disagree with others' ideology doesn't mean they don't know anything about the subject matter. Why isn't it possible, in your view, for the relevant decision-makers in this case to know everything needed and still choose to make those decisions?
The examples to make your point are kind of silly. It can go to extreme, but clearly there is benefit in regulating and requiring interoperability in many cases. It doesn't mean innovation is going to go away.
In the light of the new normal of the world, EU should just follow the Chinese and American ways: ban foreign social media and telecommunication devices. This way it will guarantee that there’s a market for those willing to create EU specific devices and meanwhile will take back control of its comms.
The EU way of open market through regulations doesn’t seem to make anybody happy.
Banning worked wonders for China, Russia and USA. Nobody seems to be complaining.
The claim is that AI can write the software, ban everything and tell ChatGPT o3 to write you the alternative :)
It makes me extremely happy. My country will copy whatever the EU does, shouldn't take long before I can enjoy the same benefits as a consumer. And nobody really cares if the trillion dollar corporation is unhappy about it.
There are a number of places where mobile devices have replaced a "general purpose computer" - like replacing your internet connection or local/cloud photo storage.
I guess it depends if you believe that these resources should interoperate when a user is paying for them. e.g., the humane pin makes you get a separate internet connection, and competing cameras devise clunky/slow ways to access your camera roll. Competing photo services have no way to sync iCloud, etc. All of these things could work like Bluetooth - be secure and relatively open, but they are not.
Very honestly hope this stuff is all gated behind eu-only products/flags.
The thing that EU regulators don't seem to get is that I (and many others) have knowingly and intentionally opted in to this walled garden. It's simple, it generally works, it's relatively secure, and I don't give a half a shit about the cost. I do not want or need competition to drive down the price because I do not care about the price. It's a luxury product.
If the end result of this regulation was better software, better hardware, and better co-design, then I'd be all for it, but this just isn't going to be the case. We're just going to end up wading through sea of shitty, malware-ridden third-party bullshit that provides near-zero benefit to mainline apple consumers.
At least as likely as a positive outcome is that the experience for mainline apple consumers will get worse because Apple will need to dedicate engineering resources to interoperability instead of feature development.
I see these comments, and I just completely fail to understand this viewpoint. To me, this argument is kind of like the argument against gay marriage: "I don't want other people to have the option to do something that doesn't affect me at all, because reasons".
Don't like interoperability? Keep using what you're using, and be quiet.
Don't like alternative app stores? Keep using the app store you're using, and be quiet.
Don't like choice? Keep using the thing you were using before you had the option, and be quiet.
I'm sitting here with mac/linux/windows machines, and both iphones/android phones.......
What malware laden third party bullshit are you talking about? The stuff that is approved by Apple to be in the iOS App Store can be pretty heavily ridden with ads - especially the kind that pop open the App Store to show you a page selling their crappy app. But since there's no way to install system-wide app blocker on an iphone you kinda have to deal with it. [
I haven't had to deal with malware on any platform in a very very long time.
It would be nice if I could run proper firefox with proper ublock origin on my iphone though.
> What malware laden third party bullshit are you talking about?
None. No malware-laden third-party bullshit, because that's just a straw man. If the GP doesn't want third-party app stores, there's a very simple solution to that: Don't install them on your phone.
25-30% of smartphone owners have an iPhone. Something like 1.3b active iPhone users. That seems decidedly non-luxury. Neither here nor there but that’s part of your argument that seems pretty flawed (ie: it’s a luxury product so we shouldn’t have to worry about the vagaries of “anti/pro-consumer behavior, competition etc”). Sure most of Apple’s other products are in the more to much more expensive end of their categories, but the iPhone’s market penetration definitely makes the luxury categorization wrong IMO, even if it is expensive.
Anyways, your entire argument effectively boils down to “this problem does not affect me, therefore it is not a problem; I don’t care if there is a monopoly on some product or service or lock-in or anything because I’m fine with it, I like the service and have no plans on leaving anyways” - which is a position plenty of people take, and also one plenty of people disagree with, so I won’t try to argue either way with you here since you seem committed. It does seem short-sighted and generally anti-consumer to me (or like you are just evidence that their various lock-in strategies work and are good for their business - which you self-identified as being correct in re: intentionally buying into walled-garden).
Anyways, that’s not to say I totally disagree - I think most of your points are generally true/or something I could at least see being true even if I don’t feel convinced (ie potentially ending up in a sea of third party crap, creating a potentially undue burden on Apple engineering etc… tho even those I find questionable and not self-evident).
>25-30% of smartphone owners have an iPhone. Something like 1.3b active iPhone users. That seems decidedly non-luxury.
iPhones cost somewhere in the realm of $1000 to $2000 give or take. Meanwhile, actually cheap smartphones still from a reputable manufacturer (eg: Samsung) can be had for at least $200 to $300 or so.
So no, iPhones (and Apple products in general) are a luxury good. There is a lot more "want" than "need" involved when choosing to buy an iPhone.
I guess I disagree that price alone makes something a luxury good. Is a 10 year old Honda civic a luxury good (typically around $10-13k) even though there are probably cheaper and comparable alternatives? I would say no? Not a perfect analog because I do think there is merit in your point that there are “actually cheap” contemporaneously manufactured phones (Samsung etc). but still, maybe it’s just semantic or pedantic but when 1.3b active iPhones are out there, to me that indicates it is something other than luxury and more importantly does cross a threshold where there are real reasons to consider larger anti-consumer patterns, even if the consumer is choosing the more expensive option.
Anyways I don’t feel too strongly about this either way, I just think the argument here that the iPhone is a luxury device doesn’t absolve them. Other arguments I’m more sympathetic to is all.
iPhones are not a luxury good by any means. You can waltz right into an Apple Store TODAY and buy yourself a $429 iPhone SE or a $599 iPhone 14. Boost mobile was giving iPhone 12s away for $99. Virtually every carrier has a free-with 2-3 year commitment deal for the iPhone 16.
If you want to be fancy, get a folding phone like a Galaxy Fold or a Pixel Fold. Those do have steep discounts at times, but you're still going to have to fork up $800-1200 or so for them. Or get one of those niche phones like an Xperia 1 or an Asus ROG phone or whatever that costs >$1000 and isn't subsidized by ANY carrier.
When something like a Samsung Galaxy A15 can be had for $175[1] (and that's with no carrier commitments), any iPhone is a luxury good. Yes, even that $429 iPhone SE which is well over double the price of that Samsung.
Smartphones as a general good are a life necessity at this point, but esoteric offerings among them like iPhones or Sony Xperias or the higher end Samsung Galaxys or Google Pixels are luxury goods because nobody needs the features brought by the much bigger price tag.
It's like how a bottom trim Toyota Corolla or Honda Accord is a necessity because you probably need a car, but anything beyond it is a luxury because whether you want that car is different. Another example would be choosing name brand foodstuffs at the grocery store instead of the store brand, that's also choosing luxury goods assuming the store brand is cheaper.
> because nobody needs the features brought by the much bigger price tag
That sounds like a very bold claim, yet it reflects nothing from the real world. You may not need something, but that doesn’t mean others don’t or must not.
Technically, nobody needs anything beyond food, water, shelter and companionship (even the last one is arguable).
Nobody needs social media or HN or to be commenting on HN either, but here we are.
I think you’ve articulated it pretty clearly here, but I still have minor quibbles. Back to the original point… I might be misconstruing it, but reads a bit like this to me: something should be free of consumer protections if consumers have cheaper alternatives; they chose the more expensive option, and therefore they should suffer the consequences of that good or bad; and furthermore, we shouldn’t care if the company selling the product (allegedly) actively works to make it harder for them to transition to the cheaper alternatives in the future should they so desire.
Does that seem like a misconstruction of the part of the argument that we originally started this string of comments on? I think there are other slightly better arguments against it but this one seems pretty flawed to me.
It seems reasonable to me that when a product hits some critical, hard-to-define adoption threshold, even if it is a “luxury” choice by your definition, there is still a good argument for placing consumer protections in place. It’s also reasonable to believe those actions would be nanny-state failings, stifle innovation, drive business away etc etc, but I do think the first point of view is reasonable.
I'm not passing judgment one way or another regarding consumer protections here, though I personally find EU more draconian than my preferences and whether they're effective is up for debate (GDPR is a hilarious failure, USB-C mandate is a resounding success).
Though, I think that when someone deliberately chooses to buy a luxury good (much less one that costs a 4 figure sum) they lose some of their standing to complain. Kind of like how I don't complain about my beer because someone will yell at me that I just shouldn't buy the beer if I don't like it and he would be absolutely right.
> I'm not passing judgment one way or another regarding consumer protections here, though I personally find EU more draconian than my preferences and whether they're effective is up for debate (GDPR is a hilarious failure, USB-C mandate is a resounding success).
The hell are you talking about GPDR being a resounding failure? It's been pretty awesome. I love bills like that.
My experience is that GDPR added a lot of compliance activity at companies but did not materially improve actual privacy. Companies pretty much do what they did before GDPR, just with a layer of bureaucratic indirection in between now. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent but that's where we are, and in that sense it was a failure.
I wish there was a way to move my account to the US so I can get the best experience and tools instead of having to live through this digital iron curtain the EU regulators created. Who is using alternative app stores anyway? I surely don't.
Features are not arriving here and likely won't in their original form because Apple needs to adapt to local regulations... which I don't care.
Just the other day some stupid rule came out forcing developers even the smaller ones to publish their address which prompted non EU developers to just unregister their apps on the region.
Yes. It's an iron curtain and another stupid outcome of misguided EU regulations that might have good intentions but end ruining everything like GDPR cookie modals.
>going to end up wading through sea of shitty, malware-ridden third-party bullshit
>the experience for mainline apple consumers will get worse because Apple will need to dedicate engineering resources to interoperability instead of feature development.
I'm skeptical, why would interoperability mean this? Concretely? You are free to buy Apple only, to maintain the first party "luxury" experience. Apple adding dev time to make their APIs interoperable means making them more robust and stops them from cheating in their privacy promises. i.e "No sharing personal data with Big Tech, except Apple."
Also, Apple will add headcount if necessary to deal with EU compliance, they aren't a small startup.
Only if the new features violate the obligations of a DMA gatekeeper. 120Hz screen is fine, 120Hz screen that runs at 60Hz for all 3rd party apps is not.
It enhances the incentive to innovate for smaller companies who would otherwise be locked out by Apple. This ruling for instance will allow smartwatch mfgs to compete with Apple on a level playing field for iOS users' money.
All these walled gardens and lock in nonsense need to get wiped off the face of this earth. I'd rather they got banned and stopped existing than suffer the status quo where iPhone users look down on us inferior Android users because we got segregated by speech bubble color.
Not that Android is hackable these days anyway. Remote attestation, yet another thing that needs to get banned. It should be illegal for them to discriminate against us in any way whatsoever on the basis of the hardware or software we choose to use. They should serve us whether we use iPhones or Linux on a tamagotchi.
Idk all the people in my friend group who started on Android have ended up on iOS so they can participate in these Apple only features. It seems the ecosystem is already doing great and getting people to switch is not a problem at least here in the US.
> But the same Apple is more than happy with providing the Apple Music app on Android as a means to boost their music revenue...
Exactly. On the other platforms they provide services because the services provide revenue. The big two things that people say Apple needs to open up are Messages and FaceTime - both of which cost Apple money to maintain and don’t have independent revenue streams. Airplay and CarPlay have similar development costs and I’d imagine that Apple would like to be able to continue to evolve their software without getting blamed for being anti-competitive because they broke some company’s flawed integration.
I’d imagine if Apple said “sure, we’ll open up FaceTime, Messages, Airplay, and CarPlay to Android devices as part of our Apple One subscription” you’d have people up in arms because Apple was charging for it. Which lays bare the challenge - for many it’s about wanting these services for free on a platform where Apple receives no revenue.
Antitrust is good but it's treating the symptom, not the disease.
The disease is the fact it's illegal to crack open their locks. We need their permission to interoperate. If we don't have it, we're criminals if we try.
All we need to do is legalize reverse engineering and circumvention for the purposes of interoperability. In less than a year the iMessage nonsense will be solved because all competing platforms will add support for its protocols whether they want it or not. They'll try to make it hard to do it but it won't matter.
Adversarial interoperability should be the norm. They shouldn't have a choice in whether they are interoperated with. It should just happen organically.
Chromecast only works from iOS for apps that have integrated with the Chromecast SDK. Like Netflix and Youtube.
Maybe the EU can ask Google to open Chromecast up so Apple can integrate it into iOS. Then you can use it from any app without needing special integrations.
Does everyone else have access to the data mining that Google has on every Chrome and Android user? Does every other company have unfettered access to Google Maps without providing identifying data? Does every other company have the ability to utilize Youtube vidoes as they wish?
You are comparing Apple's primary product/service against a throwaway part of Google's. Google has walled gardens around its primary business too. But they are so deeply ingrained into our world that nobody questions it, because there's also no viable competitors.
The DMA doesn't make having exclusive features illegal, this ruling is specifically about exclusive hardware interoperability features that use Apple's control of the OS to advantage their products in related product segments. Google has been hit with a ton of DMA rules for other aspects of the OS and their business model but very few of Android's hardware interoperability features are exclusive to Google devices so I'm not sure what they would even need to do differently. Samsung is worse with that sort of thing but they aren't classified as a gatekeeper so the rules don't apply to them anyway.
What's the problem with that? That's a win for everyone involved. Maybe finally we'll have an open, universal file transfer and proximity screen casting protocol, thanks to it already having a critical mass of compatible devices.
When the incentive is that when you develop features to distinguish yourself from the competition that stand out and make your own product better, but then the government comes along and tells you that you have to give that away, the value of developing new features for your own products starts to diminish and you start looking at different business opportunities instead. It actually undermines Apple as a competitor to Android, in a market where they are far from a dominant force, and the way the EU is doing it looks completely arbitrary.
> when you develop features to distinguish yourself from the competition that stand out and make your own product better, but then the government comes along and tells you that you have to give that away,
Crippling a standard to reduce interoperability is not making a product better.
iPhone market share is above 80% in my country (Denmark), and smartphone ownership among adults is close to 100%. At that point, you're infrastructure.
If that's how the Danish feel, it makes more sense for Denmark to pass its own laws than rather than the EU, but I would posit that even at 80% marketshare, that's not enough to warrant the level of demands even from the Government of Denmark alone that the EU is imposing on Apple because in all the ways that matter for public purposes, the iPhone is already open enough: telephony, message exchange, open standards on the web, Bluetooth, I mean you name it, and if it's not a QoL thing like AirPlay or AirDrop, it's already there.
Tell me this -- whatever the next technology is, why would a business spend the time or money to develop it?
Why would Apple, Google, or any of the EU Phone OS developers bother creating a new feature that they will immediately be forced to allow everyone to use?
> Why would Apple, Google, or any of the EU Phone OS developers bother creating a new feature that they will immediately be forced to allow everyone to use?
Because new hardware/interoperability features are an opportunity to sell more hardware. Apple still gets to make and sell accessories, their product just has to compete on the merits with other products in the segment. People will keep buying Airpods even if Sony's can hand-off between Apple hardware because Airpods are a great product that can stand on their own.
Just like the horrible government banning leaded fuel. I'm not joking, a stronger argument is needed about regulation than "any gubernatorial directive is bad". Apple isn't a person with natural rights. What are the actual drawbacks of this? Are we stifling innovation by forcing interop of the disruptive technology of "wireless filesharing"? It's infrared media transfer, but with 2.4GHz.
You say that government intervention is not always a win. Sure, totally true, also it isn't always Sunday. I'm was asking for concrete arguments or reasons, vaguely gesturing at regulation having drawbacks isn't one. And calling it out isn't a strawman.
The parent articulated pros, you responded with a truism instead of cons or refuting his points, which certainly makes arguments easier.
Apple is not "people". It's a trillion dollar corporation. I'd rather see it forced to open up all of its "value add" nonsense so that we can have interoperabiliry and truly own our devices.
The zealots think Apple is a person with rights. Look at how they talk about the company. It’s not exclusive to this thread and is apart of the Apple faith.
Another one that surprised me was the “share WiFi credentials” feature. Not too psyched about any shitty device being allowed to pup that notification up on my phone.
You mean "Automatic Wi-Fi connection" section? Maybe I'm not reading it right, but it seems that it's actually about something already fully paired (e.g Smartwatch) having access to the WiFi like the Apple Watch.
They need to be in your contacts with their iCloud email. And similar you need to be in their contacts with your iCloud email. Doesn't work without iCloud.
Doesn't seem to be needed, there's a web and iOS SDK right there. Google is no angel with interoperability, but the Apple lock-in is another level. Filesharing should be an open protocol imo, making it proprietary is behavior straight out of a scummy telecom company in the 2000's.
This is great news! We need to ensure maximum interoperability and no differentiation across different computing platforms and applications. And politicians are, of course, the most knowledgeable about these things. Perhaps they should also consider enforcing the following suggestions to open up the marketplace:
— All applications that expect to be in scope for EU regulations should be written in one of the programming languages approved by the Secretariat on Digital Interoperability. The Division of Programming Languages and Operating Systems within the aforementioned agency will also be tasked with adding, removing, or otherwise modifying the list of approved languages and runtimes. In the future, it may even design and release a new language of its own in order to minimize arbitrary uniqueness among digital services within the bloc.
— Companies must submit their feature plans to the Bureau for Open Competition before releasing them to their customers. The BOC will then convene a task force comprising of the submitter's competitors to ensure that the proposed feature would not unfairly harm them in the marketplace.
— Gatekeepers under the DMA must make their source code (extensively documented) available to any other gatekeeper upon request. This will ensure maximum competition in the marketplace.
— Non-EU compliant Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are hereby banned from being used by gatekeeper and future-gatekeeper companies. Compliant IDEs will enforce policies that discourage and prohibit anti-competitive practices as part of the bloc’s Shift-Left initiative. This will enable digital service providers to prevent tendencies that might harm their competitors.
> This is great news! We need to ensure maximum interoperability and no differentiation across different computing platforms and applications.
I don't get your point here. Apple's products are differentiated from others because of their excellent integration with other Apple products (the ecosystem(tm)). If they are compelled to also open that up to third-parties, what exactly are they losing?
Put a different way, are you implying people buy iDevices not only because they integrate so well with Apple's other products, but because they know other devices aren't able to?
> And politicians are, of course, the most knowledgeable about these things.
This doesn't make sense either. Just because you disagree with others' ideology doesn't mean they don't know anything about the subject matter. Why isn't it possible, in your view, for the relevant decision-makers in this case to know everything needed and still choose to make those decisions?
This seems great but wouldn’t this just create a moat to becoming a DMA gatekeeper and entrench the current players?
The examples to make your point are kind of silly. It can go to extreme, but clearly there is benefit in regulating and requiring interoperability in many cases. It doesn't mean innovation is going to go away.
In the light of the new normal of the world, EU should just follow the Chinese and American ways: ban foreign social media and telecommunication devices. This way it will guarantee that there’s a market for those willing to create EU specific devices and meanwhile will take back control of its comms.
The EU way of open market through regulations doesn’t seem to make anybody happy.
Banning worked wonders for China, Russia and USA. Nobody seems to be complaining.
The claim is that AI can write the software, ban everything and tell ChatGPT o3 to write you the alternative :)
> The EU way of open market through regulations doesn’t seem to make anybody happy.
Makes me, and probably every other EU consumer, super happy.
It makes me extremely happy. My country will copy whatever the EU does, shouldn't take long before I can enjoy the same benefits as a consumer. And nobody really cares if the trillion dollar corporation is unhappy about it.
I can’t tell if this is satire.
There are a number of places where mobile devices have replaced a "general purpose computer" - like replacing your internet connection or local/cloud photo storage.
I guess it depends if you believe that these resources should interoperate when a user is paying for them. e.g., the humane pin makes you get a separate internet connection, and competing cameras devise clunky/slow ways to access your camera roll. Competing photo services have no way to sync iCloud, etc. All of these things could work like Bluetooth - be secure and relatively open, but they are not.
I do not want random cheap electronics like a neighbor's smart lightbulb to be able to AirDrop me.
The App Store 30% thing is anticompetitive for sure. But system features are not.
But random expensive electronics like a rando's phone is fine?
Very honestly hope this stuff is all gated behind eu-only products/flags.
The thing that EU regulators don't seem to get is that I (and many others) have knowingly and intentionally opted in to this walled garden. It's simple, it generally works, it's relatively secure, and I don't give a half a shit about the cost. I do not want or need competition to drive down the price because I do not care about the price. It's a luxury product.
If the end result of this regulation was better software, better hardware, and better co-design, then I'd be all for it, but this just isn't going to be the case. We're just going to end up wading through sea of shitty, malware-ridden third-party bullshit that provides near-zero benefit to mainline apple consumers.
At least as likely as a positive outcome is that the experience for mainline apple consumers will get worse because Apple will need to dedicate engineering resources to interoperability instead of feature development.
Any kind of interoperability is optional to you to use, so why would you want Apple to force you to not even have the choice if you wanted it?
Apple has vast amounts of extra money, so it’s hard to imagine why they’d be forced to stop dedicating resources to other features.
I see these comments, and I just completely fail to understand this viewpoint. To me, this argument is kind of like the argument against gay marriage: "I don't want other people to have the option to do something that doesn't affect me at all, because reasons".
Don't like interoperability? Keep using what you're using, and be quiet.
Don't like alternative app stores? Keep using the app store you're using, and be quiet.
Don't like choice? Keep using the thing you were using before you had the option, and be quiet.
None of this is about you, at all.
I'm sitting here with mac/linux/windows machines, and both iphones/android phones.......
What malware laden third party bullshit are you talking about? The stuff that is approved by Apple to be in the iOS App Store can be pretty heavily ridden with ads - especially the kind that pop open the App Store to show you a page selling their crappy app. But since there's no way to install system-wide app blocker on an iphone you kinda have to deal with it. [
I haven't had to deal with malware on any platform in a very very long time.
It would be nice if I could run proper firefox with proper ublock origin on my iphone though.
> What malware laden third party bullshit are you talking about?
None. No malware-laden third-party bullshit, because that's just a straw man. If the GP doesn't want third-party app stores, there's a very simple solution to that: Don't install them on your phone.
> It's a luxury product.
25-30% of smartphone owners have an iPhone. Something like 1.3b active iPhone users. That seems decidedly non-luxury. Neither here nor there but that’s part of your argument that seems pretty flawed (ie: it’s a luxury product so we shouldn’t have to worry about the vagaries of “anti/pro-consumer behavior, competition etc”). Sure most of Apple’s other products are in the more to much more expensive end of their categories, but the iPhone’s market penetration definitely makes the luxury categorization wrong IMO, even if it is expensive.
Anyways, your entire argument effectively boils down to “this problem does not affect me, therefore it is not a problem; I don’t care if there is a monopoly on some product or service or lock-in or anything because I’m fine with it, I like the service and have no plans on leaving anyways” - which is a position plenty of people take, and also one plenty of people disagree with, so I won’t try to argue either way with you here since you seem committed. It does seem short-sighted and generally anti-consumer to me (or like you are just evidence that their various lock-in strategies work and are good for their business - which you self-identified as being correct in re: intentionally buying into walled-garden).
Anyways, that’s not to say I totally disagree - I think most of your points are generally true/or something I could at least see being true even if I don’t feel convinced (ie potentially ending up in a sea of third party crap, creating a potentially undue burden on Apple engineering etc… tho even those I find questionable and not self-evident).
>25-30% of smartphone owners have an iPhone. Something like 1.3b active iPhone users. That seems decidedly non-luxury.
iPhones cost somewhere in the realm of $1000 to $2000 give or take. Meanwhile, actually cheap smartphones still from a reputable manufacturer (eg: Samsung) can be had for at least $200 to $300 or so.
So no, iPhones (and Apple products in general) are a luxury good. There is a lot more "want" than "need" involved when choosing to buy an iPhone.
I guess I disagree that price alone makes something a luxury good. Is a 10 year old Honda civic a luxury good (typically around $10-13k) even though there are probably cheaper and comparable alternatives? I would say no? Not a perfect analog because I do think there is merit in your point that there are “actually cheap” contemporaneously manufactured phones (Samsung etc). but still, maybe it’s just semantic or pedantic but when 1.3b active iPhones are out there, to me that indicates it is something other than luxury and more importantly does cross a threshold where there are real reasons to consider larger anti-consumer patterns, even if the consumer is choosing the more expensive option.
Anyways I don’t feel too strongly about this either way, I just think the argument here that the iPhone is a luxury device doesn’t absolve them. Other arguments I’m more sympathetic to is all.
iPhones are not a luxury good by any means. You can waltz right into an Apple Store TODAY and buy yourself a $429 iPhone SE or a $599 iPhone 14. Boost mobile was giving iPhone 12s away for $99. Virtually every carrier has a free-with 2-3 year commitment deal for the iPhone 16.
I live in the US where iPhones were 61.26% of smartphones sold in the US in the most recent quarter https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/us-smartphone-market-share
If you want to be fancy, get a folding phone like a Galaxy Fold or a Pixel Fold. Those do have steep discounts at times, but you're still going to have to fork up $800-1200 or so for them. Or get one of those niche phones like an Xperia 1 or an Asus ROG phone or whatever that costs >$1000 and isn't subsidized by ANY carrier.
When something like a Samsung Galaxy A15 can be had for $175[1] (and that's with no carrier commitments), any iPhone is a luxury good. Yes, even that $429 iPhone SE which is well over double the price of that Samsung.
Smartphones as a general good are a life necessity at this point, but esoteric offerings among them like iPhones or Sony Xperias or the higher end Samsung Galaxys or Google Pixels are luxury goods because nobody needs the features brought by the much bigger price tag.
It's like how a bottom trim Toyota Corolla or Honda Accord is a necessity because you probably need a car, but anything beyond it is a luxury because whether you want that car is different. Another example would be choosing name brand foodstuffs at the grocery store instead of the store brand, that's also choosing luxury goods assuming the store brand is cheaper.
[1]: https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-a15/buy/galaxy...
> because nobody needs the features brought by the much bigger price tag
That sounds like a very bold claim, yet it reflects nothing from the real world. You may not need something, but that doesn’t mean others don’t or must not.
Technically, nobody needs anything beyond food, water, shelter and companionship (even the last one is arguable).
Nobody needs social media or HN or to be commenting on HN either, but here we are.
I think you’ve articulated it pretty clearly here, but I still have minor quibbles. Back to the original point… I might be misconstruing it, but reads a bit like this to me: something should be free of consumer protections if consumers have cheaper alternatives; they chose the more expensive option, and therefore they should suffer the consequences of that good or bad; and furthermore, we shouldn’t care if the company selling the product (allegedly) actively works to make it harder for them to transition to the cheaper alternatives in the future should they so desire.
Does that seem like a misconstruction of the part of the argument that we originally started this string of comments on? I think there are other slightly better arguments against it but this one seems pretty flawed to me.
It seems reasonable to me that when a product hits some critical, hard-to-define adoption threshold, even if it is a “luxury” choice by your definition, there is still a good argument for placing consumer protections in place. It’s also reasonable to believe those actions would be nanny-state failings, stifle innovation, drive business away etc etc, but I do think the first point of view is reasonable.
I'm not passing judgment one way or another regarding consumer protections here, though I personally find EU more draconian than my preferences and whether they're effective is up for debate (GDPR is a hilarious failure, USB-C mandate is a resounding success).
Though, I think that when someone deliberately chooses to buy a luxury good (much less one that costs a 4 figure sum) they lose some of their standing to complain. Kind of like how I don't complain about my beer because someone will yell at me that I just shouldn't buy the beer if I don't like it and he would be absolutely right.
> I'm not passing judgment one way or another regarding consumer protections here, though I personally find EU more draconian than my preferences and whether they're effective is up for debate (GDPR is a hilarious failure, USB-C mandate is a resounding success).
The hell are you talking about GPDR being a resounding failure? It's been pretty awesome. I love bills like that.
My experience is that GDPR added a lot of compliance activity at companies but did not materially improve actual privacy. Companies pretty much do what they did before GDPR, just with a layer of bureaucratic indirection in between now. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent but that's where we are, and in that sense it was a failure.
I wish there was a way to move my account to the US so I can get the best experience and tools instead of having to live through this digital iron curtain the EU regulators created. Who is using alternative app stores anyway? I surely don't.
Since when is forcing a company to give you more options considered an “iron curtain”?
Features are not arriving here and likely won't in their original form because Apple needs to adapt to local regulations... which I don't care.
Just the other day some stupid rule came out forcing developers even the smaller ones to publish their address which prompted non EU developers to just unregister their apps on the region.
Yes. It's an iron curtain and another stupid outcome of misguided EU regulations that might have good intentions but end ruining everything like GDPR cookie modals.
It's wild to watch hackers say shit that could have come straight outta the Apple marketing/legal department verbatim.
I can hack my desktop machine all I want. I prefer my phone walled. If I ever wanted to hack my phone I would buy some pixel device.
How will you be forced to hack your phone?
long as all companies can do this same thing, I'm ok with it..but right now it does feel like apple gets away with a ton more than everyone else
>going to end up wading through sea of shitty, malware-ridden third-party bullshit
>the experience for mainline apple consumers will get worse because Apple will need to dedicate engineering resources to interoperability instead of feature development.
I'm skeptical, why would interoperability mean this? Concretely? You are free to buy Apple only, to maintain the first party "luxury" experience. Apple adding dev time to make their APIs interoperable means making them more robust and stops them from cheating in their privacy promises. i.e "No sharing personal data with Big Tech, except Apple."
Also, Apple will add headcount if necessary to deal with EU compliance, they aren't a small startup.
> The thing that EU regulators don't seem to get is that I (and many others) have knowingly and intentionally opted in to this walled garden.
The walled garden shouldn't be forced on everyone who buys a device. Having an opt out is not unreasonable.
> Apple will need to dedicate engineering resources to interoperability
Actually, I think they put more effort into not being interoperable, so feature development should increase.
Don't install it if you don't want it. I for one would very much like to run Linux on the "luxury" Apple products. Nobody is forcing you though.
does this mean apple cannot come up with new features unless they support interoperability? Isn’t that taking away the incentive to innovate?
Only if the new features violate the obligations of a DMA gatekeeper. 120Hz screen is fine, 120Hz screen that runs at 60Hz for all 3rd party apps is not.
It enhances the incentive to innovate for smaller companies who would otherwise be locked out by Apple. This ruling for instance will allow smartwatch mfgs to compete with Apple on a level playing field for iOS users' money.
I wish.
All these walled gardens and lock in nonsense need to get wiped off the face of this earth. I'd rather they got banned and stopped existing than suffer the status quo where iPhone users look down on us inferior Android users because we got segregated by speech bubble color.
Not that Android is hackable these days anyway. Remote attestation, yet another thing that needs to get banned. It should be illegal for them to discriminate against us in any way whatsoever on the basis of the hardware or software we choose to use. They should serve us whether we use iPhones or Linux on a tamagotchi.
Linux didn't stop being innovative and it's the most interoperable OS there is. No Apple excuses are accepted.
The UE doesn't benefit that much from Apple's innovation, if any. But Apple's stock owners do.
I hope this happens. Sometimes Apple must be saved from itself. Ironically, this would be better for the iOS ecosystem.
Idk all the people in my friend group who started on Android have ended up on iOS so they can participate in these Apple only features. It seems the ecosystem is already doing great and getting people to switch is not a problem at least here in the US.
Which features?
Roughly in order of FOMO
iMessage, AirDrop, Find My Friends, AirPlay, WiFi password sharing, iPhoto sharing
> It seems the ecosystem is already doing great and getting people to switch ...
They shouldn't have to switch, but Apple forces them to do so by imposing artificial limitations on other platforms.
But the same Apple is more than happy with providing the Apple Music app on Android as a means to boost their music revenue...
> But the same Apple is more than happy with providing the Apple Music app on Android as a means to boost their music revenue... Exactly. On the other platforms they provide services because the services provide revenue. The big two things that people say Apple needs to open up are Messages and FaceTime - both of which cost Apple money to maintain and don’t have independent revenue streams. Airplay and CarPlay have similar development costs and I’d imagine that Apple would like to be able to continue to evolve their software without getting blamed for being anti-competitive because they broke some company’s flawed integration.
I’d imagine if Apple said “sure, we’ll open up FaceTime, Messages, Airplay, and CarPlay to Android devices as part of our Apple One subscription” you’d have people up in arms because Apple was charging for it. Which lays bare the challenge - for many it’s about wanting these services for free on a platform where Apple receives no revenue.
Dare I say it, if you convince 60% of the US to communicate on your platform exclusively, you deserve to be hit hard with an antitrust violation.
IMHO iMessage should be broken off from Apple and they shouldn't be allowed to run a messaging platform like this.
Antitrust is good but it's treating the symptom, not the disease.
The disease is the fact it's illegal to crack open their locks. We need their permission to interoperate. If we don't have it, we're criminals if we try.
All we need to do is legalize reverse engineering and circumvention for the purposes of interoperability. In less than a year the iMessage nonsense will be solved because all competing platforms will add support for its protocols whether they want it or not. They'll try to make it hard to do it but it won't matter.
Adversarial interoperability should be the norm. They shouldn't have a choice in whether they are interoperated with. It should just happen organically.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...
Why the legal focus on Apple when Android devices are much more popular and Google and other providers have plenty of locked features?
You can use any smartwatch or earbuds with Android, there aren't private Google-only APIs for those things.
Apple also has a big enough marketshare to matter to the DMA.
I think the question is why they aren’t also forcing Android Cast etc to work with Apple.
One reason may be that it already works with iOS devices? https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/ios_sender
You mean Chromecast? Which does work from iPhones?
Chromecast only works from iOS for apps that have integrated with the Chromecast SDK. Like Netflix and Youtube.
Maybe the EU can ask Google to open Chromecast up so Apple can integrate it into iOS. Then you can use it from any app without needing special integrations.
Does everyone else have access to the data mining that Google has on every Chrome and Android user? Does every other company have unfettered access to Google Maps without providing identifying data? Does every other company have the ability to utilize Youtube vidoes as they wish?
You are comparing Apple's primary product/service against a throwaway part of Google's. Google has walled gardens around its primary business too. But they are so deeply ingrained into our world that nobody questions it, because there's also no viable competitors.
You're comparing apples (heh) and oranges. This order requires Apple to allow functionality that Android permits.
Criticism of Google is fair, but it has nothing to do with excusing Apple here.
The DMA doesn't make having exclusive features illegal, this ruling is specifically about exclusive hardware interoperability features that use Apple's control of the OS to advantage their products in related product segments. Google has been hit with a ton of DMA rules for other aspects of the OS and their business model but very few of Android's hardware interoperability features are exclusive to Google devices so I'm not sure what they would even need to do differently. Samsung is worse with that sort of thing but they aren't classified as a gatekeeper so the rules don't apply to them anyway.
The “Overview of Proposed Measures” is worth a read.
They want to force Apple to let any device use AirDrop and AirPlay. No such similar requirement for Android Cast, of course.
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/document/download/8...
> let any device use AirDrop and AirPlay
What's the problem with that? That's a win for everyone involved. Maybe finally we'll have an open, universal file transfer and proximity screen casting protocol, thanks to it already having a critical mass of compatible devices.
When the incentive is that when you develop features to distinguish yourself from the competition that stand out and make your own product better, but then the government comes along and tells you that you have to give that away, the value of developing new features for your own products starts to diminish and you start looking at different business opportunities instead. It actually undermines Apple as a competitor to Android, in a market where they are far from a dominant force, and the way the EU is doing it looks completely arbitrary.
> when you develop features to distinguish yourself from the competition that stand out and make your own product better, but then the government comes along and tells you that you have to give that away,
Crippling a standard to reduce interoperability is not making a product better.
iPhone market share is above 80% in my country (Denmark), and smartphone ownership among adults is close to 100%. At that point, you're infrastructure.
If that's how the Danish feel, it makes more sense for Denmark to pass its own laws than rather than the EU, but I would posit that even at 80% marketshare, that's not enough to warrant the level of demands even from the Government of Denmark alone that the EU is imposing on Apple because in all the ways that matter for public purposes, the iPhone is already open enough: telephony, message exchange, open standards on the web, Bluetooth, I mean you name it, and if it's not a QoL thing like AirPlay or AirDrop, it's already there.
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Tell me this -- whatever the next technology is, why would a business spend the time or money to develop it?
Why would Apple, Google, or any of the EU Phone OS developers bother creating a new feature that they will immediately be forced to allow everyone to use?
> Why would Apple, Google, or any of the EU Phone OS developers bother creating a new feature that they will immediately be forced to allow everyone to use?
Because new hardware/interoperability features are an opportunity to sell more hardware. Apple still gets to make and sell accessories, their product just has to compete on the merits with other products in the segment. People will keep buying Airpods even if Sony's can hand-off between Apple hardware because Airpods are a great product that can stand on their own.
I'm sure e.g Jolla would be happy to develop a new feature that helps them become big enough that politicians feel like they need to regulate them
AirDrop and AirPlay are 13 and 14 years old — an eternity in software development.
Even full patents only last for 20, and the "utility model" (AKA minor patent*) last 6-15 years depending on jurisdiction.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_model
There are those of us that don’t see government forcing people to act a certain way as always a “win for everyone involved”
Just like the horrible government banning leaded fuel. I'm not joking, a stronger argument is needed about regulation than "any gubernatorial directive is bad". Apple isn't a person with natural rights. What are the actual drawbacks of this? Are we stifling innovation by forcing interop of the disruptive technology of "wireless filesharing"? It's infrared media transfer, but with 2.4GHz.
I specifically said that it isn’t always a win to address this. But yes, creating a strawman certainly makes arguments easier.
You say that government intervention is not always a win. Sure, totally true, also it isn't always Sunday. I'm was asking for concrete arguments or reasons, vaguely gesturing at regulation having drawbacks isn't one. And calling it out isn't a strawman.
The parent articulated pros, you responded with a truism instead of cons or refuting his points, which certainly makes arguments easier.
Apple is not "people". It's a trillion dollar corporation. I'd rather see it forced to open up all of its "value add" nonsense so that we can have interoperabiliry and truly own our devices.
The zealots think Apple is a person with rights. Look at how they talk about the company. It’s not exclusive to this thread and is apart of the Apple faith.
Another one that surprised me was the “share WiFi credentials” feature. Not too psyched about any shitty device being allowed to pup that notification up on my phone.
You mean "Automatic Wi-Fi connection" section? Maybe I'm not reading it right, but it seems that it's actually about something already fully paired (e.g Smartwatch) having access to the WiFi like the Apple Watch.
I think the Apple one is limited to people you are somehow iCloud “friends” with, I’ve never seen a prompt for someone I don’t know
My understanding is, the person simply needs to be in your contacts. Nothing related to iCloud or friend connection.
They need to be in your contacts with their iCloud email. And similar you need to be in their contacts with your iCloud email. Doesn't work without iCloud.
Doesn't seem to be needed, there's a web and iOS SDK right there. Google is no angel with interoperability, but the Apple lock-in is another level. Filesharing should be an open protocol imo, making it proprietary is behavior straight out of a scummy telecom company in the 2000's.
https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/overview
The number of Apple apologists in this thread is why we can't have nice things with Apple.