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EU Provisionally Agrees on Law That Would Force Apple to Allow Alternative App Stores, Sideloading, and iMessage Interoperability
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Contrary to what 20 year old commenter soon this thread would have your believe, the modern siloed chat service that doesn't integrate with anything is a modern invention. IM protocols in the past used to be open. In fact, untill very recent versions of OSX I could read Google Talk and Facebook messages on my iMessage thanks to the XMPP protocol.
Decisions by apple
That is why this legislation don’t care what impact apple have on android. Apple with iOS and google with Android have such large market share independently, known as a dominating position that they independently impact developers negatively.
These regulations don’t care about unit sales, no Ip is stolen.
Eu is a bigger market than USA. We have 400 million citizens. Apple just have fewer customersUnless you can find better numbers than I have.
"The high revenue generated from the Americas is largely due to Apple’s strong performance in their home market, the United States. Apple has the largest market share among smartphone vendors in the U.S. by a large margin. Although international sales have a growing share of Apple’s total revenue, the U.S. still counts for around 40 percent of Apple’s net sales. The U.S. also has the highest concentration of Apple stores, which is Apple’s own chain of retail stores that showcase and sell Apple’s various products including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, among others."
Apple sales revenue by country/region 2024 | Statista
The Americas are Apple’s largest regional market, bringing in net sales of 50.43 billion U.S.www.statista.com
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I agree on double standards of Tim Cook but this regulation impacts business model of Apple that drives their differentiation and profits. Not even China asked for such invasive changes like EU is asking now. I still fail to see how this will supposedly help any competitiveness or improve anything for end users in terms of pricing or security.
I’m not saying it’s necessary a wrong thing to try, but it should be applied to everyone including game consoles, cars and other electronics. Why only phones? Many companies have walled gardens that were erected later than iPhone came along (car manufacturers and their software locks come in mind).
I used jailbroken iPhone 1st gen and had a fair share of experience with its stability so I hope they will not allow sideloading along with apps downloaded from App Store. It really should be binary - full security and Apple privacy & security or hands off and you’re responsible for it. I still come across spam calendar links and I really don’t want them to turn into apps that will be downloaded without your knowledge from god knows where and stealing your data.
Why don’t you educate yourself a little bit on how market and market monopoly is defined & tested from regulatory perspective before you start venting your frustrations online?
You do realise they have to get approval before allowing the ECG feature to work in a country right? Meaning this would be illegal?…
I agree with you - the EU bill is unlikely to have the effects that the regulators are hoping it will.
In fact, I would expect security, privacy and competition to lessen as a result in most areas.
And yet, it totally follows that the EU regulators would at least attempt to curb the power of big tech and the massive network effects that allow them to indulge in overt rent-seeking behaviors.
I just wish regulators everywhere were run not by people who are idealistic about how software *should* work and more by people who understand first-hand the effects of designing and changing complex, mass market software products.
A man can dream, right?
It's not uncommon for indutry experts to write legislation, in fact companies sometimes form organizations to allow them just to do that.
That doesn't mean there won't be unintended consequences. Having worked on expert groups with standards, they tend to become the lowest common denominator, sometimes with enough combinations so there really isn't one universal standard that works with everything.
My preference is, as I've pointed out, would be for Apple to comply by allowing users to chose how far they want to open up their phone. Build in toggles that let you choose where on the spectrum you want to be.
That is real choice, and each individual can have their own reasons why to allow or disallow access. For example, I don't want anyone being able to send me stuff to WhatsApp that are not in my contact list. I use What's App exclusively for work, so if I get a notification I know it is important, not some random offer to lower my car insurance. Same with Skype. Someone else may want to allow it.
The concept in the law is fine, but it's the execution that will matter.
At times it seems the legislation is carefully written to target certain companies while avoiding others. Which would not surprise me because every country wants to protect its industries at the expense of other country's.
In this legislation, Viadeo, despite having an estimated 65 million users, is excluded because they do not have the same financials, even if they exceed the user base that seems to be of concern.
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We need a new version of messaging that isn't developed by one company (eg Google's thing) and remains an open standard like SMS and Email. I would argue that it doesn't need E2EE because SMS and Email do not have it and are still very popular methods of communication.
The question is what should the new standard attempt to do? I just want to keep the ability to use a protocol and app that has features I want without having it be opened up to some standard. If you look at SMS and Email, they're pretty much a small set of features everyone supports and then adds to or creates a new protocol; so interoperability just means supporting a small subset of what can be done.
EU is usurping apples ip. The legislation is crap legislation and the EU will reap what it sows.
Scary..
Following that logic, Apple’s not going to have anywhere left to do business because the EU isn’t the only place looking to reign in big tech.
It is scary for what will be the future (or lack thereof) of tech.
In the end, big tech will find ways to use the regulations to their advantage and help maintain their dominance.
Then why all the fuss about poor ol’ Apple, Google, and Facebook?
It's the internet. We fuss over everything.
The EU considers the spirit of compliance alongside the actual letter of the law. Petty loophole abuse like this doesn't fly.
“Small and medium-sized companies "are exempt from being identified as gatekeepers, apart from in exceptional cases," the press release said.”
Translation: We’ve made sure no European companies are affected.
Translation: We’ve made sure no European companies are affected.
Alternatively, companies with relatively little power don’t have to worry about getting caught up in a law designed to rein in the most egregious offenders.