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
Great point.
This is why Americans have no consumer protections; they’re the ones fucking everyone.
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.
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.
Did N64 games work on the Sega Genesis?
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.
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.
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.
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
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
You don’t need to split the OS, it’s the App store that needs to be split out, and web browser to be free to choose like in Windows and Android. Microsoft had a judgement on that when they were a monopoly, so they were legally required to offer alternative web browsers equal access on Windows.
And yet, Microsoft is trying to push Edge down windows users‘ throat…
It’s not quite as bad as effectively not allowing other browsers but it’s not far behind. Apple is less obnoxious than that on macOS. They won’t beg for you to use Safari
Because they have counter arguments or because they like stuff that you don’t?
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
Just an opinion, but if they were forced to use open standards between products then it would still be easy to tightly integrate features between the various “companies”. The problem is this would also allow everyone else to play alongside them, meaning Apple would no longer have a monopoly on such things, and the open standards might even gasp be used by other operating systems. But what do I know about Apple products, they may already be using open standards?
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.
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.
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 would 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.
