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It’s more than just where you set up your device as far as I understand. E.g.: if you buy an Apple Watch in a country where ECG isn’t activated, even if you moved somewhere else where it is and set up as new, it still won’t activate the feature despite having the hardware to do it. Probably tied to the serial number or something.
I don't know for sure, you may be right, but IIRC the ecg was enabled only in the US at first and then got activated later on in other regions (like the EU) with a software update.
 
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Seeing as how no one actually IN the European Union makes smartphones, Apple ought to tell the EU to get bent.
That’s what I thought. Apple needs to give them the proverbial finger. I have no idea how things work over there but it seems the only way the eu makes money is fining rich tech companies.
Never will understand how a country can force a company to change its business model? Once again if I wanted to side load or a more unsecured smartphone I would be all over Samsung and android. I don’t nor do I need that. Apple, give them their blackmail money of $5,000,000,000 that seems to shut them up for a bit.
 
Probably behind the scenes on hidden stipulations Apple will have to provide a back door to the EU. o_O
 
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This will most likely backfire spectacularly and cause all kinds of headaches for users and tech companies. I mean GDPR went great and I’m definitely not clicking away giant full screen boxes on half the websites I goto.

Why can’t we just have intelligent politicians? Or none.. that would be even better!
 
But can I still say yes please to ‘iMessage interoperability’? ? Would be nice to see the big players work together on this.

By law it would have to be the small players as well which means dozens if not hundreds of little-known messaging apps that iMessage would have to work with.
 
I don't know for sure, you may be right, but IIRC the ecg was enabled only in the US at first and then got activated later on in other regions (like the EU) with a software update.
It was, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that if you buy a watch in one of the countries where it’s still not enabled, even if you then go to a country where it is (let’s say the US) and set up your watch in the US with an account tied to the US, you won’t be able to use ECG.
 
Well, here comes the plethora of "New App Store for iPho--OOPS! WE STOLE YOUR CREDIT CARD!"
The enormous hole in this argument is that this isn't a problem on macOS or Windows, both operating systems where you've been able to use alternative app stores since the dawn of the internet - since before there was such a thing as official app stores, in fact.
 
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It won't be. If a service is built on end to end and sees that as their differentiator they aren't letting someone else in their sandbox. Which is good, because once a 3rd party has access to their keys then there is no more assurance of security.



I suspect Apple will get blamed and lawmakers demanding action when that happens.



I suspect this will have a lot of unintended consequences and collateral damage, which of course will be blamed on Apple.

One funny thought - will Epic have to open up their store to third parties and other payment systems? Valve?



You're likely to get the lowest common denominator feature set so while a plain SMS could be sent to a different app you're back to 1990's messaging.

Take a step back and think about this.

1. This is a proposal.
2. This isn't about just Apple. This actually hits Google harder IMO.
 
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The GDPR, and CCPA issue (in CA) could be resolved if there were a universal standard for which cookies a user might want to accept or reject. The user sets a preference in the browser, and passes it to the site. No need for annoying pop-ups, that often reappear on some sites just in case you might want to let them use your data. I doubt this would happen though.
 
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Simple, with some creative accounting Apple can position themselves as below the mark. Let’s see, companies valued at under €75 billion don’t qualify, need to do some math here to convert dollars to Euros… looks like AAPL market cap is about… €2,576 billion ? So, some REALLY creative accounting!
 
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In principle, I support governance that restricts the power of big business. But who is going to restrict the power of the EU? This just sounds way too heavy handed to me. Frightening actually.
These are the consequences of Apple, Facebook, etcs, own actions.

Most companies are smart enough to know that they need to self-regulate. They know that if you self-regulate, the government stays out of it and you can do a lot more than if they get involved.

Apple, in particular, showed nothing but contempt for... everything and everyone? Contempt for regulations, contempt for government, contempt for developers, and contempt for customers.

And so now Apple has successfully united the world against them and brought all these regulations down upon themselves from the EU.

This was such an atrocious business plan. Tim Cook has pretty successfully annihilated the Apple brand. Oh, Apple will keep bringing in massive amounts of money, don't get me wrong. But Apple is well on their way to competing with AT&T, Verizon and Comcast for the most hated brand. And the issue with being in that league is it makes growth very difficult. Apple can introduce all the new subscriptions, cars, and AR headsets they want - they'll be failures because few people trust Apple anymore.
 
They have market share AND profits. I'm not ceding one more inch to Android devices or the platform if I'm Apple. If people what commoditized devices and phone OSes, they have that choice. The rest of us don't and we're willing to pay. a premium to avoid that state of being.
yeah, Eu looks at all these US tech firms making billions and wants a piece of the pie. It would be like the US congress passing laws about French wine .... e.g. all expensive wines should be sellable in paper cartons to help the environment or Gucci bags should be made of synthetic leather to save the animals. Well meaning suggestions which are obviously out of step with reality - same for these bureaucrats having a go at Apple
 
In the EU and UK we all use Whatapp and 99.9% of Android owners don’t bother to use an alternate App Store or bother sideloading.

What a pointless law.
 
I think what they are saying is very reasonable. Allow people to install whatever they want, Allow people to remove whatever they want, allow interoperability.. That all sounds great to me!!! People worried about interoperability have never heard of an api before apparently. The fact is, this will allow people choice on the Apple platform finally. If you want to stay 100% in the apple ecosystem and buy into their whole security/privacy story, great do it. If you dont, great don't, do what you want, apple shouldn't get to decide that. At least you will have an option.
And you already have that choice, It is called buy an android phone.
 
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Apple, in particular, showed nothing but contempt for... everything and everyone? Contempt for regulations, contempt for government, contempt for developers, and contempt for customers.

And so now Apple has successfully united the world against them and brought all these regulations down upon themselves from the EU.

Spot on

Apple, if anything, has singlehandedly helped to continue "poking the bear"
 
Default apps are fine but default apps that cannot be uninstalled aren’t.



Some thoughts on that..

Presenting a list of options worked before. It would be nicer to have more options granted.


Even better solution: You could just download an .ipa binary from official TLS-enabled websites of each browser vendor.

“But people are too tech-illiterate to figure that out.”
  • Well, they have the default App Store option for simple baby mode,
  • and if they are that tech-illiterate, they statistically wouldn’t care about the nuances of browser engines in the first place.
But you'd have to have some pre -installed software just to do that - how you going to get any options installed without some software to download and install it.
Not sure any of this really benefits users but it will make the politicians look good - to themselves.
 
So to install Microsoft apps, you first have to install the Microsoft app store.
To install Epic games, you have to first install the Epic app store.
To install Google apps, you first have to install the Google app store. This is what will happen. Every big software developer will have its own app store -- thereby circumventing any payment to Apple.

Or many apps will possibly have to be downloaded directly from the web -- and be paid for through various payment processors. So eventually Apple can only make money from hardware sales and from developers that remain on Apple app store, but the bigger app developers will surely leave the Apple app store. Apple will have to let users pay for system upgrades, like in the past, to cover developing costs -- right now the eco system pays for the system upgrades. Developers will have to pay more for Apple developer tools too.

Sure, it is not all bad because it gives consumers more choice. But the cost will be that the phone sphere will get more complex, no more easy install of apps, and the attack vector for malware will surely rise. In the end Apple should have been more proactive in lowering their commissions on iOS app store. They should have done that 10 years ago and then there would have been less problems. I love Apple to bits, but Apple has not been using their brains to foresee the future. Even Phil Schiller saw this coming and he suggested Apple should lower fees more than ten years ago (known from internal email exposed during Epic lawsuit).
 
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