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Other What if regulators push for an iPhone without iOS?

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Jarutais

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Dec 23, 2020
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Apple will probably have to give up on the App Store exclusivity on iPhones next year and adopt USB-C because of governments and regulators. What if the next step for them is that mobile phones should not have Operational Systems locked in, much like a PC?

Do you think it would be beneficial, being able to dual boot Android or some linux distros on your iPhone? Or maybe even boot iOS on a Google Pixel phone?

This is the way or would it be too far?
 
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Jarutais said:
This is the way or would it be too far?
Click to expand...

Hell no! It's already gone too far. Let the market decide what it wants, not any governmental agency! It disgusts me that anyone even supports the USB-C and App Store-related government mandates. It may be what they personally want, but that's not the point. It's the principle of any government forcing a private company to manufacture their products in a certain way for anything other than public safety reasons (obviously, we wouldn't want Apple to be polluting water sources or their devices causing severe injury or death by virtue of their design, etc.)
 
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Jarutais said:
Apple will probably have to give up on the App Store exclusivity on iPhones next year and adopt USB-C because of governments and regulators. What if the next step for them is that mobile phones should not have Operational Systems locked in, much like a PC?

Do you think it would be beneficial, being able to dual boot Android or some linux distros on your iPhone? Or maybe even boot iOS on a Google Pixel phone?

This is the way or would it be too far?
Click to expand...
An iPhone without iOS is like bread without peanut butter. Booting Android on an iPhone would be both uncanny and tough to implement due to the vastly different internals with the majority of Apple's parts being proprietary, and optimized for the software. If that must happen, it should be optional.
 
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usagora said:
Hell no! It's already gone too far. Let the market decide what it wants, not any governmental agency!
Click to expand...
The government has to define the playing field for the market because an unregulated market would be a dystopian hell. That said, I don't think pushing for an iPhone without iOS would be a good idea, because in itself it wouldn't achieve much. Apple would have to be forced to publish how their hardware is programmed and not be allowed to lock their chips down. To level the playing field and allow for the presumably intended competition they'd have to share their roadmap, well in advance, with makers of competing operating systems. That's a lot to ask for. And who would use this? Would Google port Android to iPhones? If a customer wants Android they already have a lot of devices to choose from. Sure, somebody would port Linux, but that's a niche market at best.
 
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If they do that they will have to do it for Android phones, Chromebooks, and Windows laptops too. Apple will try to take everybody else down with them, and so all of them will collectively resist. So I think it is very unlikely to happen.
 
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Basic75 said:
The government has to define the playing field for the market because an unregulated market would be a dystopian hell.
Click to expand...

Which letting them continue with Lightning and the App Store only would NOT result in. It's simply government overreach, plain and simple. As I indicated, yes, some things government needs to regulate. The charging/data cable type and method of app installation ain't among those.
 
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Sounds like they want back doors into our phones to me

I mean are that many voters emailing their reps like “if only I could install google spyware OS on iPhone, please force apple to let me install android!!!” 😂

Historically if the gov wants it it’s probably not exactly a increase in your individual security or privacy

I agree, just let the free market do it’s thing
 
Personally, I might like it if Apple were to license the iOS operating system to other manufacturers (similar to what they did with the Macintosh clone program in the 1990s) so that their devices could be integrated into the Apple ecosystem. If the licensing fees were high enough to break even (unlike the $50/system flat fee of the Macintosh clone program), Apple could make loads of money as all the smartphone manufacturers switch over to iOS, leading to Apple holding a monopoly over the smartphone market (which they were always destined to do since most young people use iPhones) and getting split up due to antitrust law.
 
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It's strange. Politicians in most countries want competetion on a free market. Companies heed to that and end up differently. But politicians don't like that and start to regulate things so that the competetion on a free market isn't that free any more. Go figure.
 
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LeoI07 said:
Personally, I might like it if Apple were to license the iOS operating system to other manufacturers (similar to what they did with the Macintosh clone program in the 1990s) so that their devices could be integrated into the Apple ecosystem. If the licensing fees were high enough to break even (unlike the $50/system flat fee of the Macintosh clone program), Apple could make loads of money as all the smartphone manufacturers switch over to iOS, leading to Apple holding a monopoly over the smartphone market (which they were always destined to do since most young people use iPhones) and getting split up due to antitrust law.
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There’s a difference between a monopoly and popularity. AT&T in the day was a monopoly. Apple is popular but not a monopoly.
 
floral said:
An iPhone without iOS is like bread without peanut butter.
Click to expand...
Why should Apple be required to run a different OS? That is not Apple's responsibility. If another OS wants to run on Apple hardware, it is up to that other OS to make the necessary adjustments.

Microsoft does nothing to allow Linux to run on Windows devices, or even on Windows devices. That same should apply to apply.

Forcing another company to develop and run a foreign OS is just plain silly. Then again, elected officials have never been known for their intelligence, more so when dealing with technology.
 
raythompsontn said:
Why should Apple be required to run a different OS? That is not Apple's responsibility. If another OS wants to run on Apple hardware, it is up to that other OS to make the necessary adjustments.

Microsoft does nothing to allow Linux to run on Windows devices, or even on Windows devices. That same should apply to apply.

Forcing another company to develop and run a foreign OS is just plain silly. Then again, elected officials have never been known for their intelligence, more so when dealing with technology.
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Exactly. With all the stuff I've seen about iOS, I think it works best with the device and find no reason for a change.
 
I don’t think options are a bad thing but it shouldn’t be mandated by government. That said Apple will understandably disagree: their hardware could suffer reputational damage as a result of a poor implementation of android for example
 
They didn't push against laptops and desktops with preinstalled Windows, therefore it is unlikely they will push for phones that are useless out of the box until you install some OS.

What they might push for, though, is that iPhone must have unlocked bootloader so that the iPhone can accept some OS other than the iOS if the user wants so.
 
Jarutais said:
Apple will probably have to give up on the App Store exclusivity on iPhones next year and adopt USB-C because of governments and regulators. What if the next step for them is that mobile phones should not have Operational Systems locked in, much like a PC?

Do you think it would be beneficial, being able to dual boot Android or some linux distros on your iPhone? Or maybe even boot iOS on a Google Pixel phone?

This is the way or would it be too far?
Click to expand...
it aint gonna happen regarding app store
 
Regulators can cram that nonsense where the sun don't shine. Apple is still below the threshold for any kind of monopoly designation. An iPhone without iOS is not an iPhone. Folks don't like it? Go buy an Android phone. That's the key - people still have an alternative to Apple's iPhone. Checkmate.

I have a Google Pixel 5 I sometimes switch to for a bit. I like it too. Just not as much as an iPhone/iOS. As a Mac user at home the integration is just far superior with iOS and MacOS.
 
Jarutais said:
What if the next step for them is that mobile phones should not have Operational Systems locked in, much like a PC?
Click to expand...

I don't see this happening. While Apple (with iOS) and Google (with Android) have a duopoly in mobile OS and is why regulators are addressing alleged anticompetitive behavior issues around alternative app stores, alternative browser engines, etc. on mobile operating systems, it's a different situation in the hardware market where there are many more players.
 
martint235 said:
I don’t think options are a bad thing but it shouldn’t be mandated by government. That said Apple will understandably disagree: their hardware could suffer reputational damage as a result of a poor implementation of android for example
Click to expand...
Yes, options are bad. It means a lot of extra work and support and generally degrades the experience.

How many Java applications do you really and truly love? They have the option of running on different systems, but what you get is something that isn't quite right on any of them.

Flexibility comes at a cost.
 
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Basic75 said:
The government has to define the playing field for the market because an unregulated market would be a dystopian hell.
Click to expand...
This is the heart of the matter, but there needs to be an understanding of what constitutes a market.

Is the OS market based upon the entire phone market? Who gives the government any rights to define a market as narrow as something like "phone market with Apple Silicon chips".

As for the App marketplace, is the market "phone apps" or is it "iOS apps"?

To me, governments should err on the side of caution, that is regulating with a light touch and risking under-regulation, rather than regulating with a heavy hand and risking over-regulation.
 
What makes Android users so butt-hurt that they whinge about iMessage? It's not cross-platform by design. It's NOT SUPPOSED to be cross-platform.

"Waaaaa!!1! We want access!!" Sometimes the answer is "nope." The Bertram Scudders of the world, especially Europe, can just sod off.
 
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rambo47 said:
What makes Android users so butt-hurt that they whinge about iMessage? Europe can just sod off.
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WTH is that supposed to mean? Europe doesn't give a **** about iMessage. The two-class society based on the colour of your text bubbles only exists in America.
 
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