Is this a European Union politian speaking, I wonder?
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Apple needs to be broken up
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Are we so blinded by the belief that more competition and therefore more division is a necessity in life, that wondering whether more cooperation and therefore more unity might bring us more than more competition has become a ludicrous idea?
This happened to AT&T back in the 80's. The breakup resulted in the formation of the Baby Bells and eventually Qwest, Verizon, Century Link and others.
Breakup of the Bell System - Wikipedia
Anyone who owned AT&T stock before the breakup and held their resulting stocks from the breakup is sitting very, very, very pretty today. I'm not saying I'm for the breakup of Apple, but can you imagine what life would be like if the breakup never occurred and AT&T controlled everything today? Hindsight...
This is all that needs to be pointed to from now on when people bring up this foolish topic…. Smdh..
Whether it is a single human being or a company, people only compete/divide to conquer. As above, so below. And people only want to break up things around them because they are broken up themselves within. Those who are whole seek to unite and therefore to cooperate, not divide because they’re not seeking to conquer.
This happened to AT&T back in the 80's. The breakup resulted in the formation of the Baby Bells and eventually Qwest, Verizon, Century Link and others.
Breakup of the Bell System - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Anyone who owned AT&T stock before the breakup and held their resulting stocks from the breakup is sitting very, very, very pretty today. I'm not saying I'm for the breakup of Apple, but can you imagine what life would be like if the breakup never occurred and AT&T controlled everything today? Hindsight...
I guess many would argue this was a very very different situation. A single company dominating almost all of the US telephone network made it almost impossible for other companies to break into the market. The same cannot be said for any category Apple currently operates in.
As long as what I think is a fairytale of ‘the more competition there is, the better it will be’ prevails in the world, I don’t think it will matter a lot whether Apple goes on as it is now or broken up in multiple companies.
For example, I believe we have just one huge pharmaceutical company, ‘broken up’ in multiple ‘competing’ companies. I’m sure some of us here on MR know which two gigantic investment companies own almost all pharmaceutical activity in the world. Does anyone believe these two enormous investment managers allow real competition between their pharmaceutical companies? The same for banking, oil, tech or any other world wide, global business. I believe competition between the parts of the largest multinationals is a show.
For example, I believe we have just one huge pharmaceutical company, ‘broken up’ in multiple ‘competing’ companies. I’m sure some of us here on MR know which two gigantic investment companies own almost all pharmaceutical activity in the world. Does anyone believe these two enormous investment managers allow real competition between their pharmaceutical companies? The same for banking, oil, tech or any other world wide, global business. I believe competition between the parts of the largest multinationals is a show.
Apple has a vertical business model meaning they control the hardware and software for their computers but that does not make them a monopoly because there are other companies making computers using different operating systems on the market. Apple doesn’t control the computer market. About 15% is MacOS while Microsoft Windows is 75%. Just buy or build a PC and install Windows or Linux on it if you don’t want to use a Mac. Heck go make a Hackintosh if you really want to. Apple made MacOS so it’s only fair for them to decide how they want to market it.
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No, just no. Customers already have a lot of options. There is plenty of cheap android and windows hardware out there. If cheap is the thing you want you already have it. There is also a lot of expensive android and windows top-spec hardware out there. What? Breaking up the market still allowed for this. How is that possible?
What makes Apple Apple, is the fact that software, hardware and services are integrated and work cohesively compared to the alternatives which exist.
You clearly don’t see the value of Apple’s ecosystem and sound like you should maybe look elsewhere.
> Apple: Produces one of the biggest steps forward in PC Desktop Processor chips in years by moving to ARM
> MacRumours: “they need to actually put effort into hardware again”
But… I want to get a Big Mac at Wendy’s! What a crock! McDonald’s walled garden must be opened up!
I want to put cheaper Honda Civic parts on my BMW! BMW has a monopoly on BMW parts! What a crock! We need law makers to step in! This is important!
Seriously… The walled garden-themed gripes are exhausting. Why are so many clamoring for marginalization? It’s so weird. Fostering differentiation is actually in the best interest of everyone. The opposite is where innovation goes to die and we turn into grey blobs of sameness. No thanks.
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It's more than that - the personal computer market has long been dominated by Microsoft and Intel (who have both faced serious antitrust charges) and Apple have been one of the few sources of competition. Choice has been improving since the 80s/90s, and while Apple isn't the only cause of that, they've been one of the prime movers - particularly the role of the iPhone & iPad in stopping Wintel extending their dominance into the mobile sector. There's lots of indirect effects - such as killing off proprietary Adobe Flash in favour of standards-based HTML5/Javascript, and encouraging crossplatform, rich internet apps.
(It's probably Google we need to worry about today, monopoly-wise)
We wouldn't have seen Apple Silicon if Apple hadn't built their expertise making processors for the iPhone - and beyond Mac sales that has given a lot of industry credibility to ARM and other non-x86 architectures. Apple couldn't have rolled out Apple Silicon if they didn't control Mac production & instead had to persuade a dozen independent Mac-compatible hardware makers to take the leap (MS is trying with Windows on ARM but it's not taking the world by storm - I'm sure there are already more M1 Macs in circulation than WoA machines).
Breaking up Apple and throwing the chunks (individually too small to compete with MS or Google) into an otherwise Windows/Android-dominated world would probably just take Apple off the stage (which is why it's a favorite hobby-horse of internet shills). Unless your idea of "consumer choice" is an Android phone and Windows laptop with Apple logos.
If you want to "enforce" consumer choice, enforce open standards for document formats, connectors and network protocols (and make sure the standards bodies are truly independent). That's how the sort of lock-ins that keep people stuck on a particular platform work.
The difference between apple and AT&T was competition. And I would argue the breakup of AT&T gave us competition but not real differentiation in products or services. US cell phone service should be cheap and fast, but it’s anything but.This happened to AT&T back in the 80's. The breakup resulted in the formation of the Baby Bells and eventually Qwest, Verizon, Century Link and others.
Breakup of the Bell System - Wikipedia
Anyone who owned AT&T stock before the breakup and held their resulting stocks from the breakup is sitting very, very, very pretty today. I'm not saying I'm for the breakup of Apple, but can you imagine what life would be like if the breakup never occurred and AT&T controlled everything today? Hindsight...
Well, that idea went over well...
This happened to AT&T back in the 80's. The breakup resulted in the formation of the Baby Bells and eventually Qwest, Verizon, Century Link and others.
Breakup of the Bell System - Wikipedia
Anyone who owned AT&T stock before the breakup and held their resulting stocks from the breakup is sitting very, very, very pretty today. I'm not saying I'm for the breakup of Apple, but can you imagine what life would be like if the breakup never occurred and AT&T controlled everything today? Hindsight...
For much of the country, AT&T was the only choice in town. I’m not sure there is a market anywhere in the world where Apple is the only choice.
(Imo) Enforcing anything results in winners and/or losers. See the EU legislation where the losers are devs and consumers and apple. Opening up choice in the cell phone market means legislating easier access to smartphone tech patents and the losers are the holders of these patents. As far as lock in, I do not believe value added products should be forced to be open. Would be nice if they were, but not forced.
It’s called vertical integration, and there’s nothing wrong about that.
Competition exist in any categories Apple is in.
Selling a new computer with a new OS and a new office suite isn't actually all that difficult.
Raspberry Pi meets that criteria, I'd say. I recommend them to people all the time. I never recommend a Mac to anyone anymore.
Are you tech literate?
Yes? Buy a Pi.
No? Buy something with Windows. IDK, can't help you much. Don't buy the cheapest one (if you're really on that tight of a budget, go for the Pi - it's friendly enough). But I'm pretty sure you can get an acceptable computer at an acceptable price.
Do you have money burning a hole in your pocket? Looking to declare to the world your financial illiteracy? Buy a Mac. If you want the aesthics without spending the money, buy a used Mac. Virtually nothing has changed about them in 15 years as far as an end consumer is concerned. (Oh no, ARM!? So what? It's a mac. Nobody writes native software for the Mac. I don't think the iLife and iWork teams even exist at Apple anymore, thus how fantastically stagnant the software is.)
For whom does Raspberry PI meet that criteria? A hobbiest?
Apple doesn't care. My family bought 4 macs last year. We'll make up for your lack of recommendation.
Think enterprise level, not individual. But the concept will trickle down. https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus-pc-in-the-enterprise/
And y et. MAc as a better roi than windows.
Apple can be a real jerk to us customers, but I don't want it to be broken up. I like Apple's integration and ecosystem, and I don't want it to be broken up and have different departments negotiating and fighting and hindering one another. In any big company this is already bound to be happening, and it might explain some of the issues we have been seeing in recent years, but at least now it is still under one centralized leadership, and indeed we might be paying a premium for this. But if it is broken up the inefficiencies will become too great and you might lose some of what makes you like Apple in the first place. And in fact you might end up paying more, because now three or five companies want your money to make ONE thing work like before.
Yes. As arrogant Apple is, they shouldn't be punished for successfully building up their brand. The fact that most of their competitors are simply more incompetent shouldn't be Apple's fault .
What Apple needs is simply better competition, a company that is less incompetent than the existing competitors. But if people here think Tim Cook is just a bean counter, it's a lot worse in the rest of the tech companies out there.
😂 at “losers are devs and consumers”. EU rules are pure consumer and third -party devs driven. The only loser here is Apple, and not even Apple will end as a loser, this will drive the innovation inside Apple and they will learn how to compete again.
Apple is currently at a level like the “Roman Empire” was, without any groundbreaking innovations, just having a decadent living based on the foundation that has been set by Steve Jobs.