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.
Yeah, I don’t think they read the article… Sovereignty only applies, well, in the bloc or nation.
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.
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.
To be fair, USB-C didn’t exist when Lightning was introduced
Hmm, I wonder why that was?
Lightning is a proprietary computer bus and power connector, created and designed by Apple Inc. It was introduced on September 12, 2012
Design for the USB-C connector was initially developed in 2012 by Apple Inc. and Intel.
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)
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
apple fanboys are horrible.
Because they have counter arguments or because they like stuff that you don’t?
no, its because they come up with all sorts of egregious and nonsensical arguments to defend apple no matter the shitty thing they do.
if an apple product was killing babies they would bend over backwards to justify how it cant be apples fault.
their marketing did a number on peoples head, in a scary fucking way.
no way i would ever justify the shitty things google does just because I use a fork of their os on my shitty phone.
they come up with all sorts of egregious and nonsensical arguments
In the first sentence, and then
if an apple product was killing babies
in the very next…
If Apple users are horrible, logic like this ensures that “fanboy” haters remain a tier worse.
you are bending over backwards to misinterpret what i said, and you prove my point somewhat.
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.
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?
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.”
Of course, they want to make it as complicated as possible so that people don’t actually do it.
I absolutely love how Mozilla has been calling out Apple, Google, and Microsoft. So good.
They still gladly accept Google’s sweet money (while asking for donations). So brave of them! /s
Bluntly, where would Mozilla be without Google’s funding?
Gone, probably.
So while I agree that it is poisonous and there is something very wrong with Mozilla corporate structure, it is a necessary evil.
Who cares? Nobody needs Mozilla anyway.
You appear to be lost, corporate deepthroaters anonymous is down the hall on the left.
Get lost.
Tis you who seems lost
Get lost you too.
When a company’ website doesn’t work on Firefox I don’t get angry at Firefox, I just don’t use the site. When a company makes their cookie popups are a pain in the ass I don’t get angry at the EU, I get angry at the company that made the popup. I use Firefox as a Canary that dies when a website is a piece of shit.
Maybe it’s a win-win, I don’t have to deal with Apple’s bullshit and Apple doesn’t have to waste resources on me, for me to block all their shady shit.
I feel the same but I also cannot avoid some sites. Ohio’s unemployment and job board only works with Chrome based sites and I have to use those when I’m in between jobs.
This brings up an interesting thought though. Should governments and states be able to prefer you to use a certain browser or should they be required to make the website function on all…
If the government cared at all about accessibility, then you’d be able to do your taxes in an HTML form.
Got to buy material for house renovation, several hundreds € of saving if I bought on one website that didn’t work with Firefox. Guess what I did.
Almost everyone choose money and commodity over everything else. Firefox is doomed to fail, and I say that as Firefox user.
You could have said the same for Internet Explorer some years ago, and they got their lunch eaten despite being free AND the default owned by a monopoly
The difference is that Google had the capital and a monopoly itself. Mozilla doesn’t have shit.
Mozilla has a regular income from Google.
Yeah, they’re pretty much owned by Google, thus not a competitor.
Except and arguably better product in the browser space?
Both Mozilla and Opera had better browsers.
This is why I support Linux and open source stuff whenever I can. Always used Firefox. Linux on the server and desktop. Doesn’t work for everyone but it’s the last free open thing we’ve got. What’s been great about Linux is now that basically everything is a Web app Linux is the perfect OS. But now we are dealing with bullshit browser wars. Uhg. Firefox will be the Linux if browsers in no time.
