So, I read articles like this about what seems to me heavy-handed EU regulations and it makes my blood boil. But maybe my perspective is way off. I’d love to hear from my fellow MPUers whether the consensus is that these moves by the EU are beneficial to consumers and something we should applaud or whether I’m right to be annoyed. Honestly, I’m not trying to stir up trouble or to encourage polemics. My question is sincere and I hope those weighing in will respond in the spirit of objectivity and truth-seeking. Disagreement is fine, strong opinions are fine, but let’s not be disagreeable with each other. I’m not aiming for that.
There is always a trouble maker in the group. 
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I don’t need to use my AI-based, EU-sanctioned prediction engine to predict that this thread will get pretty warm.
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On a serious note, I find this absurd. The government’s role in regulation should focus on safety, justice, and preventing predatory monopolistic practices, as these are matters of economic justice. However, it should not dictate product features beyond these concerns. Forcing a private company to give away the technology it developed and invested in is unjust. If companies want access to Apple’s proprietary features, they should be required to pay substantial fees.
I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, but that is my current perspective.
Well, I’ll add perspective but hopefully not heat. 
As always. In this particular case I don’t agree with you, but at this time of the day I need more energy to engage in a proper constructive argument.
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Again, not heated, but pretty jaded at this point…
I keep being surprised at this massive support for Yuge Companies, and that they should never be forced to do anything to benefit us consumers. Apple is among the richest companies in the world, and the way they STILL don’t manage to innovate around iPadOS (to take an example) is baffling to me. We are mostly users and enthusiasts over in this forum, Apple’s profits don’t benefit any of us. Apple will be okay, even if they might need to open up some APIs that will drive innovation, not stifle it. Sure, maybe the innovation will come from a company that is not Apple, but what do we care?
How many here are truly missing their Lightning cables? Talk about predatory monopolistic practice… My drawer is full of various “Lightning-to-something-useful” dongles. Without EU pressure, we’d still be stuck without access to USB-C.
Apple will always do what’s best for Apple first, shareholders second, politicians third and maybe somewhere down the line, employees and customers.
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Maybe explain what/why?
Also today: Apple is not the only gatekeeper that has to deal with the EU.
I appreciate your take. I’m not — at least not intentionally trying to side with Apple, So, if you are open to weighing in more, here is what I want to know. How do these particular regulations help consumers and is there a risk of making things worse in terms of the platform we like using. That’s where I come in on this. I don’t care about protecting Apple as an entity. But I know that iOS works and works well. I don’t deal with malware, I don’t mind the walled-garden, the platform is functional and effective. Do these regulations risk jeopardizing that or is it just all good. Thank you for your comments thus far.
Fair request. I think my recent response to @airwhale hints at this.
My perspective is that I like iOS, I like the way it works, and I don’t want it to be screwed up by opening it up. I think Android is a total mess, and I don’t want iPhone to become that same mess.
Additionally, generally, I don’t think regulators should be telling companies how to run their businesses. As an Austrian School free market Econ guy, I find all of this meddling irksome.
I also despise that there is a regulation mandating USB-C. It’s great today, as @airwhale points out, but it will stifle innovation tomorrow. I dislike that.
The answer could be: “Tom, these things will make life better for all of us by giving us freedom without ruining the iOS experience. Apple is grossly overstating the need to protect the platform because all it really wants to do is protect its profits and scare you.”
On the other hand, the answer could be: “Tom, truly Apple is right and the platform will not be the same, but our collective preference should be more freedom to do what you want with your tech without Apple’s heavy-handed opinions.”
Or, there could be an entire spectrum of differing analyses.
Does that help clarify where I’m coming from?
I also like how iOS works generally, and as you say, Android is a mess. So we have the free market choice of paying really high margins to Apple to get a decent experience, or we choose to live in the madness that is Android-based solutions.
You’d think “The Free Market” should have a solution for that, like a good third or fourth option? We don’t, right? At best, it’a a duoploy, UX wise (because, yes, there are multiple hardware providers for Android).
I truly don’t buy the argument that iOS will in any way be a worse experience because it now can push notifications to my Garmin SmartWatch. I never choose Apple’s headphone systems because I prefer other brands. Sure would be neat if they too would be allowed to integrate with some of the more “fancy” iOS features…
So, that’s my take - I want more choice and freedom, not being forced to always choose the Apple product for everything. I feel that is more of the spirit of the free market, such as it is.
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Thank you. All things being equal, if there is no platform degradation, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Open it up. Let us have a compiler for crying out loud.
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Stick with me,
In general, I believe that if a company spends money on R&D, they should reap the benefit of that investment for a period of time.
BUT when you own half of the smartphone market, and in that, the half which provides most of the profit (by a long, long way) and attracts customers who are more likely to buy other “accessories” which link to that device, then you are in a very strong position, and are able to lock potential competitors out of actually being able to compete with you on a level playing field.
It harms the experience of your users, it harms the ability of other companies to create more compelling products, and it harms your company because absent of any significant competition for accessories (watch, airpods) with the same functionality, it reduces your need to compete on product features and price.
That’s talking about hardware, but what about software i.e. syncing services. Imagine if a competitor could technically provide a competitor to Photos in the Cloud (Google photos isn’t a true competitor, it has great functionality but it’s not fully integrated into iOS), or Backups, or fully integrated file providers.
Apple customers pay more for their accessories, and for things like iCloud storage because no-one else is able to compete with Apple on a feature level.
These regulations stop the largest companies from strangling the market. Yes, there’s focus on Apple, but EU regulations have hit ALL of the major tech companies. They’re all US companies, it’s true, but the regulations are not anti US, they’re anti demi monopoly.
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Depends if you look at it top down or bottom up.
From a bottom up perspective, there are plenty of specific issues the EU have pushed that I don’t agree with, and it can be annoying when it inhibits some feature that is commonplace in the US.
However from a top down perspective, the EU is prepared to actually take on the tech giants in order to enforce measures of privacy, security and competition. In my opinion this is a very good thing.
Shame we left… 
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It’s always important to remember that we occasionally do need intervention of governments through regulations or the courts to get redress against company practices that may not be in the consumers best interests.
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Yes, it does. Thank you.
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I find value in legislation that sets standards. Especially where electricity is involved. The USB-C Standard is a good thing that eliminates E-Waste and makes things less complicated for the consumers. Standardizing RCS is also appropriate in my book. We should have a common texting network not beholden to one company.
The real golden goose is privacy. I trust Apple more than Google on privacy but not by much. They are a trillion dollar company and our data is a huge untapped resource that Post Cook Apple might be tempted to grab. The only way we can get real data privacy is through legislation.
Anti-Trust and monopoly law is like the most made up law. Its Government trying to set rules for doing something that would be perfectly lawful if the company was 3 Million dollars instead of 3 trillion. These are extremely hard questions that an objective standard is difficult.
Now I do quibble with the meddling of how they operate their platforms. I do think Apple is a little to precious with protecting the app store model/security. Their current compliance with EU laws screams malicious. But I don’t know if crossing over into legal action is appropriate. I’m a Proton subscriber and I would kill for Proton to be my default cloud and photo provider for more privacy. I have considered android because of that. I wish iOS and iPadOS was more Mac Like than it currently is. There is a clear “Apple Way” of doing things but you can make it “your” device.
*Edit: I am open to rules that allow use to be able to use different OSes to keep our devices longer. I’d find a purpose for my third generation Apple TV if you could DIY something onto the hardware. Even if its a “SafariOS” that rivals the ChromeBook for aging hardware. This wouldnt force apple to change their OSes that onus would be on others to find things for aging hardware to do. Only thing apple would be forced to do is open the doors for others to wipe the OS. (Maybe even have it where Apple doesn’t have to unlock it until Apple declares the hardware obsolete).
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We all need to be wise about how all this is framed, who is framing it and why they are framing it that way.
At a fundamental level, there is a clash of politics (with a small p) at play.
There is a long and honourable tradition, especially in Europe, which sees government as the embodiment of the people, working for the common good and for everyone’s benefit (The “fraternité” part of the French slogan) Part of this model sees government as protecting citizens from harm, including from those whose search for profit may not provide the best for consumers.
There is another tradition which sees government as at best a “necessary evil” that restricts the liberty of its people, takes their wealth and should therefore be as small and have as few functions as possible.
The latter model has been, and probably is still, in the ascendant, but that does not mean it is correct. It is undoubtedly attractive to many wealthy individuals and corporations who pay a vast amount to ensure that their interests are protected and furthered.
There’s no reasonable doubt that Apple and many other tech corporations have used their economic and even political power to maximise their profits and have been extremely successful in that regard. That’s their purpose, after all. There’s no reasonable doubt that some of their practices have made things more expensive and less beneficial to customers than they could be (just take a look at Apple’s RAM and storage prices or lightning cables) and realistically, there’s very little consumers can do about that, unless a government that represents them regulates pars of the market.
The EU process is an investigation: to evaluate the evidence that (for example) restrictions on third party inter-operation with notifications is anti-consumer: unfairly and unreasonably pressuring towards buying an Apple Watch when a competitor’s might suit you better. If that evidence is found, there is an opportunity for Apple to address the issue itself before regulation is imposed.
If Apple truly had consumer’s interests at heart, it could solve all these problems itself, in a way that protected consumer interests (like privacy) and not invite the regulators to impose specific (and often clumsy) solutions.
As for “giving away their inventions” for free - Apple provides APIs for vast amounts of third party tech (e.g. USB connected devices). If there are no APIs to allow other smart watches to access push notifications, (which is important to how smart watches operate) that smacks of protection much more than it does anything else.
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I think we’re in the early days of what is going to prove to be a tectonic global shift in far more than tech regulation though that’s currently at the forefront. 2025 looks to be a turning point for a lot of things and the world that comes after won’t be the same.
But specific to the EU and US-based tech giants, I’m hoping to see big, long-term shifts away from those US companies. A good starting point would be a new global standard for web rendering. It’s obvious but taken for granted that the web browser is one of the most important and complex applications on any computing device. And yet we find ourselves stuck with only 3 choices: Chromium/Blink, Safari/Webkit and Firefox/Gecko.
In theory those three are all sort-of-open source. Clearly Chromium/Blink is dominant with Mozilla struggling to stay afloat with a tiny marketshare. It seem to me that a solution would be the creation of an international consortium/cooperative to fork one of those three rendering engines and put it under the guidance of a non-US based non-profit. International public funding, perhaps weighted towards the EU. The intent would be a foundation for standards based open source web rendering engine beyond the control of any one company. Why is this not already a thing?
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Firefox is probably gone as soon as Google is ordered to quit paying Mozilla and Apple to make Google the default search engine on Safari. And Blink is already a fork of Webkit.
Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium in 1994 and there are other standards organizations.
I’m not sure how much support could be found for yet another group.
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