So this tap to pair won’t work in the US? The side loading stuff I can understand to restrict to the EU, but this just seems like a nice feature for everyone
If it were, they wouldn’t be asking. And you haven’t answered it either. Your parent comment is asking why the grandparent commenter thinks it makes sense to restrict third-party stores to the EU instead of having them everywhere.
They even restrict "letting you choose the default maps app" to jurisdictions that legally require it (EU and Japan), there is literally no justification for that other than "we want to increase KPIs for our shitty Apple Maps app by making people accidentally open it", it's an extremely basic toggle that pretty much any user of Google Maps would prefer.
Not only isn’t this or any other of the DMA features accessible in the USA, but Norway which is a member of the EEC and which therefore both have to and is in the process of ratifying the DMA. Don’t get this either.
That Apple is so petty that it blocks on legal technicalities like that, when everyone knows it is just a matter of time. Really sours me on the whole company.
That’s a rather silly view to take. We have a phenomenon called “the first mover advantage” for a reason.
Plenty of other markets and businesses operate just fine while operating in an environment that makes protecting individual innovation functionally impossible. Just look at any related to fast fashion (not that I think the fast fashion market is a healthy phenomenon) or any commodities market. Or for that matter, most of the software industry.
The incentive for creating features should be to remain relevant and competitive. It shouldn’t be to build moats and war chests.
Are you trying suggest that Apple’s margins are so small that they need state protection? Or that Apple can’t compete if they’re not able to tightly lock down every aspect of their ecosystem?
I don't understand. Robust markets don't have large margins. Why would a regulator even want markets with enormous margin? That's usually market failure.
I would agree in general, but in this specific case it’s still an advantage for the iOS platform in general. It just removes a buying incentive for the AirPods.
The general problem is that there must be a line.
Vendors don’t create lock-ins because they are malicious, they create it because it makes them money.
Now, if we limit these lock-ins, it will reduce their ability to make money and yes, it will impact some features - short term.
But looking at it long terms, vendor lock-ins are actually a reason to stop innovating: your customers are locked in anyway.
So, overall, I would say this is good for innovation in general.
I actually have a problem with this. I want AirPods to be undeniably the best experience for me because I am fully locked into the Apple ecosystem, and I know many folks have complaints against that. I find it to be rather pleasurable to use compared to all the other alternatives out there. So if I have to start sacrificing my experience in favor of universal support, that really sucks.
But this isn't sacrificing your experience, you're free to keep using your Apple AirPods with the quality and reliability you'd expect from Apple. This just means other brands can create products with similar features to AirPods, and if they're not as good or reliable, well that's why you're paying Apple for theirs.
I'm not seeing an incentive structure for them to change being the only source of good workflows for their users - it's their whole thing "It just works" - regardless of if it's true in practice or not.
If you want the "it just works" experience, you can still buy the Apple products though, that's not changing. You just also have the option to not do so.
the long term innovation outlooks are still better, so you benefit long term as well.
It’s just less obvious / measurable that immediate benefits.
And also, short term, isn’t it that other EarPods are getting better, rather than AirPods getting worse?
Medium term, I don’t think that Apple will stop innovating on AirPods just because of the EU market and this one feature not being exclusive to AirPods anymore. But it’s a possibility, I agree.
Your tortured argument tests credulity and is pretty much opposite of how actual markets work.
In this case, stopping Apple from degrading competitor products means they can compete on a level playing field and Apple will need to create better products to maintain a lead. Their ability to degrade competitor products has nothing to do with the features or quality of their headphones but rather that they control a closed platform. Thus the EU's action in maintaining fair competition.
They did their initial AirPod implementation in a pretty insecure manner because it was securely locked to their hardware and they could trust themselves to not be malicious. If they have to build a feature, plus all the security around it, plus documentation, etc… it makes it much harder to bring to market. They may opt to skip it in favor of something else.
Isn't Apple currently disincentivized to make features because they don't even allow competing smartwatches to access a basic feature set on iPhone?
You're basically saying Apple would be disincentivized to innovate on the Apple Watch because Apple would need to release the underlying APIs that make those work with the phone to competing solutions. But the status quo is that competing solutions that are already better than the Apple Watch straight up aren't allowed on the platform, and the Apple Watch generally costs more than its competitors.
You are unintentionally saying that if Apple had to allow third parties to use their private APIs, that the Apple Watch would have to cost less and/or innovate more in order to convince us all to buy it instead of buying a watch from Samsung or Google.
What you are describing is a more competitive and open market where consumers benefit from lower prices and more of an incentive to innovate and justify high prices.
I would also dispute the notion that merely releasing these APIs would somehow give away all your secret sauce. Competitors still have to build the experience on top of that.
Apple giving themselves an advantage in the markets for headphones and watches, because they have a dominant position in the market for phones is a textbook case of monopoly abuse.
They've done extra work to cripple competing devices. It's obnoxious.
That depends on the interpretation of a market, which is why laws like the DMA establish a market based on its size. In the iOS market, apple have a monopoly.
EDIT: Downvotes for what? That’s literally what the DMA is for. If you don’t like it, take it up with your representatives - it’s nothing to do with me.
Laws that mandate interoperability between devices are a net win for individual consumers and the market as a whole. They simplify people's lives, make society more efficient, prevent opportunities for blatant rent seeking and ultimately foster market productivity.
A government mandating standards in electricity transmission or gasoline composition may disincentivize the development of features that make some people's devices incompatible with charging at certain locations or cars that can only use gas from certain gas stations but that is the opposite of a bad thing.
We live in a much better world because people in the past decided that all telephones should be able to make calls to each other and that people don't really have to think about messing up putting fuel in their car because the size of the nozzles at pumps are standardized.
There are absolutely more opportunities for governments to make small but objectively measurable improvements in society with well placed regulations on interoperability.
I live in the EU and now traveling my family outside the EU. Today I’ve tried updating AltStore but it won’t let me. Even VPNing to my home won’t do it.
So until there will be more incentive to make it globally, the UX is intentionally crippled not only by making the minimal viable but also by region locking.
Imagine pairing headphones working great in EU and then you’re traveling somewhere and it’s broken.
This is the future of the internet. More and more countries have their local laws and international companies need to comply with local laws. This has been the case forever for companies selling products and (physical) services and some digital services restricting music and movie rights in certain countries, but it will expand to more and more services and apps in the future.
Hopefully third-party devices will actually implement what is necessary to take advantage of it. Being limited to the EU market, it’s not clear if it will happen much.
Let’s call them bureaucrats, but let’s not forget that their baseline is to be public servants, while that of product managers is to increase profits :-) . I think the system is working as intended though, because increasing profits can be a great driver for innovation and service to the consumer, until it’s not and the “immune system” (the bureaucracy) must be called on to fight the uncontrolled pathological growth…
Three months ago a commenter here on HN claimed to me that this will be bad for Apple users:
> There is simply no good way to make the API public while maintaining the performance and quality expectations that Apple consumers have. If the third party device doesn’t work people will blame Apple even though it’s not their fault.
And, competition probably can’t build for it anyway:
> It’s impossible to build Apple Silicon level of quality in power to watt performance or realtime audio apps over public APIs.
And:
> […] Apple has to sabotage their own devices performance and security to let other people use it. The EU has no business in this.
Well, I look forward to next year when we’ll have the receipts and see!
Apple can't perform well with audio on Apple Silicon, either. In 2025 macos is the only OS with audio cracking appearing with CPU load. Even Linux is better
I don't think it's CPU-based, but I've always had an issue with my AirPods Max on my iPhone with audio cracking (my AirPods Pro work fine, and the Max works fine with my Mac)
Yeah, this is a regression since macOS Tahoe.
Amazing that it still exists after several patch releases, is audio working not a basic test case for Apple?
I’ve found it to be worst when using Xcode / simulator and having headphones on for music.
sudo killall coreaudiod seems to fix it for a while.
It's ludicrous. I remember when Apple took pride in the audio never stopping. Once a very long time ago my entire Mac froze, even the Force Touch trackpad was unresponsive, but the music kept playing. Now, press Volume Up and the audio stutters. Or AirPods randomly get choppy and then stop playing until you reconnect them. The heck?
Considering how aggressive they’ve been about internet legislation lately, mandating age checks and asking companies to give them keys to encrypted data, I think I’d rather them not rejoin just yet, we don’t need another country trying to force Chat Control and making it worse.
Likely not. FTA: “The changes to proximity pairing and notifications are only available for device makers and iPhone and iPad users in the European Union.”
Depending on how you look at it, there may be two distinct parts to this:
a) API to not just read notifications but also perform the notification quick actions (if any), e.g snooze for a calendar event, mark complete for a reminder, and of course reply for a text (SMS or otherwise). This seems entirely reasonable and ludicrous that it doesn't exist.
b) API to access SMS / Messages. That one appears to be heavily guarded because security / E2E (for iMessage).
I mention b) because a lot of times people invoke the problem a being b) (and possibly a problem in its own right, forcing one to use Messages for SMS) but really for watches a) is sufficient and probably much more relevant.
There's also a.1) API access
to media (images) in notifications.
In any case, DMA could definitely help crack both.
I mean I’d settle for the status quo and Garmin itself not deleting big parts of my watch faces.
The last update from Garmin did this to my Epix. Funnily enough the complications can still be activated if you touch the screen, they’re just invisible.
Wow, it's almost as if regulations were necessary to curtail the worst excesses of capitalism and steer it towards user interest instead of maximal exploitation...
Yeah this would be weird if it's only for EU based companies. I think apple strategy is overall 'divide and conquer' making all different stuff working different in EU, Japan, UK, US. To this already many variables also if the user has account in EU and also if is living in EU or for how long. Their whole compliance is not robust and reliable making this in fact dead on arrival. Any maker relying on this will have more complains from customers. Customers will think that all non-apple solution are buggy and reliable and will stick with apple stuff.
> I think apple strategy is overall 'divide and conquer'
I think Tim Cook’s strategy is rather “hoard and extract as much money as legally possible, no matter what it does to the experience”. Selling tech products is no different to him than selling car parts of frozen meat. What matters to him is the pile of money at the end.
Currently, on the AirPods side and not iOS side like the article covers, Apple breaks Bluetooth feature parity with other devices by not sticking to the Bluetooth spec with AirPods themselves.
For example, you need to root and patch your Bluetooth stack on your phone if you want to use all of your AirPods features on Android, and not because Android is doing something wrong, it's because the Android Bluetooth stack actually sticks to the spec and AirPods don't.
And even when you do that, you can't do native AAC streaming like you can with iOS/macOS. Even if you're listening to AAC encoded audio, it'll be transcoded again as 256kbps AAC over Bluetooth.
Even no name earbuds on Amazon manage to not break Bluetooth and can offer cross platform high quality audio over Bluetooth.
It doesn’t need “the cloud” (switching works offline) but it does need to verify that the device it’s switching to belongs to you, which it does using a keypair associated with your account.
I can stop music on my phone and immediately listen to music from my laptop. I have non-apple headphones, a non-apple laptop and an iPhone. There is no apple magic dust that makes this happen.
Yes, this is called Bluetooth multipoint and has been common on non-Apple devices (for example Bose) for a few years now. Requires no logins and is vendor-agnostic.
They do this on purpose if you didn't get it. Google will never "fix" this issue because they follow the spec. They shouldn't have to add an exception for AirPods.
> Google will never "fix" this issue because they follow the spec. They shouldn't have to add an exception for AirPods.
This seems to go against how OS development (and perhaps consumer software in general, just think about browsers!) works in reality, it's just piles of exceptions on top of exceptions for weird hardware.
On the other hand, there’s been a bug open to make a simple harmless change to fix this in Android for 9 months, with no response from Google other than asking for reproduction steps as far as I can tell.
Buganizer is not where you submit code to be reviewed and accepted into Android. And by the author's own admission that change is a hack and not a proper fix. Anyone is free to make a proper fix and upstream it if they wanted to.
"The bug", aka not implementing spec violating behavior, also exists in BlueZ, the Linux Bluetooth stack. Is the BlueZ team taking kickbacks to make sure earbuds don't work on Linux, too? They were Google Summer of Code partners, too, so this potentially goes pretty deep.
No one has presented a remotely correct fix anywhere on that issue, or elsewhere to my knowledge.
You're welcome to write an actually correct patch for android if you want, one that isn't just commenting out code and probably breaking some spec-compliant bluetooth devices.
Make sure to test your patch against all the bluetooth devices in existence to make sure it doesn't regress.
Do that, make a PR, wait the average third-party-android-PR review time (approximately 5 years), and then if your PR isn't accepted at that point we can maybe say Google is intentionally ignoring this issue.
Nobody actually productively commenting in the thread thinks it's a conspiracy theory and everyone acknowledges that the Apple hardware is off-spec. It would be nice to see Android add this workaround.
Even no name earbuds on Amazon manage to not break Bluetooth and can offer cross platform high quality audio over Bluetooth
That's because they're all based on a small set of BT SoCs from companies who are not exclusively dependent on the Apple ecosystem and need to interoperate with everything BT-compliant.
I have no doubt that Gruber will find reasons why the EU is bad and regulation is bad. At this point it's rather amusing how Daring Fireball (and many other American media) rants against regulation, and in another post complains about how companies exploit users.
Regulation is unfortunately necessary: the market isn't as magical as we would like it to be and competition is not a magic wand that makes everything good for users. Companies either become dominant, or universally screw over their users. Users either have no choice, do not understand the choices, or simply don't care.
I am glad the EU tries to do something. They aren't always right, but they should be trying. As a reminder, one of the biggest success stories of EU regulation: cheap cellular roaming within the EU. It used to be horribly expensive (like it is in the US), but the EU (specifically, Margrethe Vestager) regulated this and miracle of miracles, we can now move across the EU and not worry about horrendous cell phone bills.
They also capped credit card fees at 0.3% in 2015. It also included a prohibition on discrimination against any merchant based on eg size or category of goods sold. And as far as I can see neither Mastercard nor Visa had problems staying in business.
Yes! I forgot about this. The EU Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) effectively eliminated the high fixed minimum fees that previously made small-value card transactions unprofitable for merchants.
The net effect of this is that in Poland, for example, you can carry your phone and no wallet, because you can pay literally for everything using your phone. And I do mean everything, I've recently been to a club in Warsaw and the cloakroom had a terminal mounted on the wall, people just tapped their phones.
So you cannot compare it apples to oranges. There is much more regulation in EU.
In EU there is also more consumer protection by default, so charge backs can be rejected by merchants but a consumer can easily take a merchant to court. So capping card fees is also more reasonable.
Also, when a merchant goes bankrupt and customers perform charge-backs it would involve the entire payment chain. First merchant reserves, then acquiring bank, then MasterCard/Visa, then issuing bank (customer), and lastly the customer. With lower card fees, this has impact on the merchant reserves and their risk profile. Furthermore, acquirers can add additional fees on top if needed.
You can also get lower card fees in US if you have a low risk business model.
> You can also get lower card fees in US if you have a low risk business model.
It is only the maximum fee that is capped (along with various provisions for eg transparency). You can also get lower fees in EU, just twenty minutes ago I saw an ad for just such a zero-fee card.
Yeah, all too often discussion devolves into a religious war between free markets and regulation. Like they're somehow opposing forces. Markets are super cool and useful tools. Some regulation is good, some is bad, which exactly is which depends on your values and what you want to optimize for. Framing markets like they automatically do good, or ideas like "we need more regulation" or "we need fewer regulations" are all thought-terminating.
So far the DMA seems like a partial-win for technology users. I wish it enshrined the right to run software on your own computer in less ambiguous language, because as-is there are carve-outs that may let Apple get away with their core technology fee and mandatory app signing.
Oh exactly, it's great to have a single cable / charger for many different items in the household.
The biggest downside I see with USB-C in this case is that the cables and chargers get quite expensive if you want to be able to just grab one and charge stuff, without having to worry about wattage etc.
All in all a big improvement, with some future improvements left to make.
Fingers crossed for a more sane USB-D in twenty years.
Yesterday, I was trying to get a voice memo out of my Apple watch - on which the recording was made. I switched from Apple last year. My cousin had an iPhone. Apple would not let me transfer the voice memo out of their eco-system. It's not on my iCloud and the watch can no longer be paired with any other iOS device (even temorarily with authentication to transfer a file)...unless the iPhone is registered to me. This is malicious compliance in the name of security.
And mind you, I own 3 Apple devices - 2 Macs and 1 iPad and the watch can't connect to any of those. I must be forced to buy a $1000 device just because I made the mistake of recording something on their watch. We need more regulation because of things like this and I would absolutely hate to live in a society where this is the norm.
If you are not using iCloud, you could try activating it (you get 5 gigs for free IIRC) and switching off everything besides the Voice Memos app. Then you should see the recording on your Mac, and should be able to export it from there. Definitely a shitty workaround, but you might be able to make it work?
Even the most maligned lids attached to bottles looks stupid for 5 minutes but have the nice side effect of not having to hold the lid while you drink, which makes things easier most of the time you're holding something else
I don't think it's as black and white as you suggest.
He just wrote about Japan's implementation of a similar set of laws rather favourably - the theme is that Japan's implementation looks very much like a genuine attempt at protecting users and benefitting end users and developers.
While I don't agree with what a lot of what Gruber has to say. A point I do agree with is that the DMA is being sold (by Margrethe Vestager, Thierry Breton and Ursula von der Leyer) as a set of consumer protections, when it's plainly not that, and in some clear ways does the opposite.
There's also persistent transparency questions like why the EU has excessive meetings with Spotify, or why there is not a "music" gatekeeper in the DMA, or the requirement to easily move music libraries between music services - things that would actually help consumers and prevent genuine lock in.
(Note this isn't to excuse the behaviour of big tech.)
The only example he gave where the MSCA is better than the DMA is:
> E.g. apps distributed outside the App Store in Japan still require age ratings. There’s no such requirement in the EU.
Most of his description of what Japan does better is simply “mutual respect”. Which reinforces the idea that this isn’t about the actual practical differences but about ego. Apple hates how the EU forces them to make change.
And Apple has done this before. After the EU forced them to make a change, which emboldened other nations to push similar changes, Apple points to those other nations’s obviously more streamlined law making process (given that the EU has already gone through the hard work of drafting the law, working with a non-cooperative Apple, and then actually seeing it implemented and the practical issues that arise), to justify their hostility to the EU’s trend setting efforts, without which those other nations would almost certainly have not proceeded.
I bet if Japan’s MSCA had come before the DMA, Apple’s tone towards both those governments would have been reversed.
Great, now let's stack what you've written in both of your comments directly against what Gruber has written, and not what an imaginary strawman wrote.
You wrote:
1. I have no doubt that Gruber will find reasons why the EU is bad and regulation is bad.
2. The EU has already gone through the hard work of drafting the law, working with a non-cooperative Apple, and then actually seeing it implemented and the practical issues that arise.
3. Most of his description of what Japan does better is simply “mutual respect”.
Addressing point 1 (again):
I wrote words to the effect of (they're just above): Gruber's writing is not as black and white as you assert and then I made reference to the Japan regulation article as an example where Gruber again makes nuanced arguments towards regulated changes.
That article does not make a blanket statement that regulation is bad, and Gruber points to a long-standing idea that he has which neither the EU nor Japan have regulated, which he believes should be. He's also stated (repeatedly) that he's in favour of link-outs and other commonly requested changes to the app store terms, and believe's Apple are too slow to change on these.
So does Gruber believe all regulation is bad as you have asserted: no. His views are demonstrably in favour of well-minded regulation.
Addressing point 2: The belief that the EU bears the brunt of regulation teething, and that's why it goes well in other regions.
Maybe you skipped the part where Gruber points to a 2021 regulation requirement from Japan, which Apple in fact did not provide resistance to, but worked with the regulatory authority to achieve their goal - then Schiller himself (the overseer of the App store at the time) came out and spoke in public with supportive language.
That is an example Gruber provided, however there are plenty more examples of the app store changing policies long before the EU took notice. The EU gets all the attention here because they seem to be uniquely incapable of foreseeing unintended consequences.
So is the EU's leading the source of friction. No and they're not even first in many respects.
Addressing point 3: Gruber makes only immaterial "mutual respect" comparisons between DMA/MSCA.
I'm guessing you skimmed this bit too - Gruber talks at length to MSCA and DMA's approach to regulation, stating that MSCA's changes prioritise privacy and security in contrast to the DMA, and practical aspects such as user safety (that's a wee bit more than "mutual respect"). Secondly that users are not presented with onerous choice screens (see end note 1) which is making reference to the EU's requirement that browser selection screens must be repeatedly shown when the user's default browser is Safari (but not if it's any other browser), Japan doesn't take this approach to a browser selection screen.
So is it true that Gruber makes immaterial comparisons between the two: again no.
It's a totally reasonable position that both regulation and companies exploiting users are wrong. And it's also entirely a moral assertion that markets should resolve to outcomes judged by members of some political apparatus. Likewise, the idea that a third party should interfere with economic relations between two consenting parties is also a moral judgement, not an absolute fact.
Most arguments in favour of regulation cherry pick what they feel are success stories and ignore everything else. Interfering with highly complex and dynamical self-regulating systems has a cost. There are many examples of regulation leading to negative outcomes, and it's also telling that large corporations push for regulation because it's one of the most effective obstacles for competition in a market.
Free market absolutists don’t know what they are talking about.
The actual originators of market capitalism, most famously Adam Smith, but also proponents like Milton Friedman, had no such confusion.
In reality, today’s free market absolutists don’t get their ideas from economists (even free market economists). Instead, they get their ideas from terrible mid 20th century novelists (I’ll let you figure out who I’m talking about), who didn’t know much about how anything worked, never mind economics.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers
What is the point of responding to someone if you're going to completely ignore everything they say? Serious question, I'm curious what compels you to do this. Especially in such an arrogant and condescending way.
What you said is a bigger fantasy than the complete history of fundamentalist Marxism. There are precisely zero examples of a Laissez-faire economy succeeding in the real world. It is a wholecloth fiction.
If you'd like to reconsider your stance from a realpolitik perspective, it might clarify the parent's response.
Can you be specific about what I said being a complete fantasy? I feel like you're trying to extrapolate some view of economics onto me when I was making the point that there are reasonable arguments that can be made against government intervention. Or is that it, you don't even think a reasonable argument can be made? If so I would call that ideological, not reasonable.
Markets depend on regulations. You can make any case you want, but you must acknowledge this root fact if you are discussing real-world capitalist policy. Otherwise you are advocating to change a system that does not exist in real life, or reflect any modern economy anywhere on the planet.
Your claim that the parent ignored everything you said is bad-faith and objectively wrong. They are critiquing your attack on regulation and pointing out that reality works in the opposite way. Case in point, you have no bombshell argument against regulating Apple in this instance. You cited no real-world examples and gestured at generic and irrelevant anti-regulation boogeymen. Then you used ad-hominem to attack them instead of refuting the point they made.
The notion that I'm the one arguing in bad faith is laughable. Nobody has actually addressed any of the points I brought up, instead defaulting to assertions that regulations are necessary and thus I'm "objectively wrong". This is not how you foster good discussions - you need to be willing to listen and address the opposing viewpoints that are brought up. If I wanted to do the same thing you are doing, I would simply assert that "Markets don't require regulations" and I've made an argument of equal strength, but of course a meaningless one.
If you're actually interested in having a discussion it would be worthwhile to explain your reasoning behind why you think markets depend on regulation. I can think of a few good arguments for that position, because I'm capable of considering multiple perspectives and I'm actually interested in having a debate. You seem more interested in shutting down opposing viewpoints and bullying the other participants into submission.
Right, but regulations are necessary. And ideological opposition to regulation, as a concept, in inherently wrong and always will be.
Some regulations are good, some are bad. In order to have a free market, you MUST have some regulations. It's not optional.
The reason is simple and intuitive - if you don't regulate the free market, it will just make itself un-free, which is what we're seeing with Apple. You need to actively push back against that.
The reason is all free market players, no exceptions, have the utmost fundamental incentive to make the market non-free. Everyone, all the time, is devising new and innovative ways to make the market they control non-free. Because this is how you maximize revenue.
I would push back a bit on the ideological comment, just to say that ideological acceptance of regulation is also probably wrong. This is different from a philosophical opposition/acceptance of political authority, although it often appears the same.
I think it's fairly obvious that the base prerequisites for market economies are property rights and some form of legal system to handle disputes. I don't consider that to be "regulation", especially not government regulation, but if that is what you mean by the term then of course I would concede that markets require it. However since even the most fervent proponents of laissez-faire economies accept the necessary role of property rights and a legal system, I would consider those to be separate from what we commonly refer to as regulation.
Ok to respond to your main point: It seems reasonable to me that in a competitive market there is an incentive to win, and companies can win by preventing others from being able to compete. This is commonly done via regulation, for example the big companies are lobbying for regulation on AI to help cement their position at the top. The thing is, just because companies are incentivized to win doesn't mean that it's possible to sustain a monopoly position for a significant amount of time. Unlike other competitive activities there isn't a time clock with winners declared at the end. Economists have shown that absent of external cofounders, a position where a company can charge monopoly prices is unsustainable.
There is of course a stronger position to be made for regulating so called natural monopolies, but even then there isn't much evidence that they really exist. Some of the most cited examples, like telecom providers, end up not being true - look at Eastern Europe and what happened when they deregulated that industry for example.
Gruber’s take on the USB-C stuff has been hilarious.
All through that fiasco, where Apple was going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C, which was objectively better even if you’re an Apple partisan (given that I could carry a single charging cable for my Mac and Samsung phone, but not for my Mac and iPhone), he was going on and on about how the EU was killing creativity by forcing Apple to do something they didn’t want to.
And then Apple relented, their USB-C iPhone saw some of the fastest growth over a previous model despite having minimal other upgrades, indicating significant pent up demand for a USB-C phone.
And I’m guessing at this point even Gruber can’t imagine living life with a Lightning charger, so now the tune is that Apple was planning on switching to USB-C and they were playing a game to make it like like they were forced to switch by the EU so as not to alienate their current Lightning charger fans.
It’s a patently ridiculous idea but it’s necessary given how badly wrong he was on this issue because of how badly he continues to misunderstand how the EU works (which isn’t anything like how the US govt works).
> All through that fiasco, where Apple was going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C
Is there any evidence that "Apple was going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C"?
Apple worked to create the USB-C standard, was among the first to widely deploy it.
Apple fighting against a precedent where the EU would force them to switch everything to USB-C is strictly different from Apple going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C.
And many post before that. But was too late, by that time the words were spread on internet like wildfire. Especially in Apple focused publishing sites.
I cant find the exact one, but he at the time was suggesting AirPods was sold at cost. Along with plenty of American so called "analyst".
He might have his network within Apple on software. But anything that has to do with Hardware or things like MFi Licensing scheme he is completely wrong.
His business is too tied to being in Apple's good graces anyway to take him that seriously these days. In the past he's been given access well above a lot of bigger outlets and way above what a blog that size should have especially when most of his social media output is now on mastodon to an audience the fraction of his X size.
All though I would say EU regulation has far more misses than hits, this and forcing Apple to USB-C were great but millions of man hours a year are burned navigating cookie banners on every website and chat control being forced through soon.
So we have two wins on iOS device convenience, not a great trade off for the other overreach.
> were great but millions of man hours a year are burned navigating cookie banners on every website
Cookie banner are not, in fact, an obligation under GDPR. All you need to do to be GDPR compliant is “not collect and sell data to partners” and call it a day. Cookie banners are a loophole that the EC conceded to an ad industry that is addicted to tracking everyone all the time.
That’s not how the law is structured. You CAN do that no problem but it’s then WHAT you do WITH that which is where the law comes into play. If it’s just for security purposes then there’s no problem I believe.
Of course you can. And you don't need any consent from the user for doing so.
The only thing you need to do is to have some document where you list all the personal information you process and store, for how long and what you do with the said data.
What you cannot do is store data that you don't have a legitimate interest in storing. And this is why you have to document what you do with the data, because if you're not doing anything with it (“I want to store 10 years worth of IP address logs just in case”) then you aren't allowed to (on the opposite “I want to store IP addresses for a month for DDoS protection purpose ” is allowed).
You realize he just famously got in Apple’s “bad graces” this year with his “Something is rotten in Cupertino” post and for the first time in a decade they didn’t make an Apple executive available to be on his post WWDC live show?
Let’s not forget also that the EU first wanted to standardize on micro USB.
There is this idea that regulations are unnatural and no regulations are natural. But the environment where in Apple can operate and make profit is completely artificial. We could go really deep into the origins of nation states, but there is also a practical example like IP law. Is it natural that no one is allowed to copy a iPhone one-to-one? Imagine our ancestors weren’t allowed to copy bow and arrows.
Recently bought an apple watch for my mom and got it set up with her iphone. Almost instantly she notices that she cant accept WhatsApp calls on her watch, and after looking into it I found out that it was another one of those apple things where they assume youre obviously using facetime so that functionality isnt available for any other app. For context, in europe Whatsapp is the dominating messaging app and alot of people use it for calling as well as messaging. The apple watch is, as far as I can tell, a simple Bluetooth wearable with a speaker and a microphone, so the only reason its like this is that apple has a concept of how the device is "supposed" to be used and only lets you use it that way. After that experience I fully support all the regulations the EU is putting on apple to open up.
I was genuinely sure it’s not a problem, as I personally know quite a few people who do that. But I think they use either FaceTime or regular cellular. That’s sure weird a simple call does work in iPhone 4S (imagine a price for it in 2026), but doesn’t on modern Apple Watch Ultra, which is quite expensive.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Third-party app calls don't go to the Watch. It's so annoying, I have to tell people to call me using regular phone calls or FaceTime instead of using Signal or WhatsApp because I always miss the latter ones.
Seems like you’d just need to set WhatsApp as the default calling app on iOS and make sure to install WhatsApp on the watch too. The ability to set another app as the default for calls has been around since early this year. Doesn’t this work?
Most probably. WhatsApp is also still using the old way of accessing photos where you have to define which photos WA has access to every time you want to share newly taken photos. I’m pretty sure they do that deliberately so you get annoyed and give them blanket access to all your photos. (Which they then probably secretly analyse in the background.)
Then you will see here thousands of comments explaining how that is bad for small businesses, and apple is forcing them out of the market… is a balance…
WhatsApp did not have a dedicated Watch app until 1 or 2 months ago – it was not even possible to respond to WhatsApp messages on the Watch, only seeing the mirrored notifications was possible.
You can blame Apple for other things if that is the intention, but this particular one was a decision made by Meta and by Meta only.
Write to your regulator and make a complaint that Meta is keeping the WhatsApp stage gate.
Got a MacBook for work recently, paired it to my AirPods I had for months, and it was funny noticing you could enable FindMy for them from the settings but they wouldn't show up in my devices on the map. Indeed, for this you need to pair with an iPhone or iPad. However it did enable the beacon on the airpods as the next day AirGuard notified a device was following me. And since, I can't disable it, the switch in the settings doesn't disable the beacon AirGuard still detects them. Even within their ecosystem they'll punish you for not being fully "part of the familly".
Are we learning the wrong lessons? Integrated always works better than modular components. Here, Apple is being asked to enable their versions of software for third party devices, which do not have the same hardware assumptions as Apple did. (Apple will not release the exact hardware spec for airpods anyway). This means the newer version will be designed modularly, with some tradeoffs to enable the "same" kind of access to third party. Then there is a caveat that it there is even a bit of experience change from 1st party to third party access, it will be complained about and investigated. so, the way fwd is designing with third party in mind, and that almost always leads to bloat and substandard experience for end user.
Probably better would have been just simpler access, even if not the integrated experience like. But that would lead to complains from third party manufacturers.
The lesson being learned is that Apple could’ve avoided all this trouble if they had used or produced standards for the connection between their components. The whole concept of a gatekeeper was created in response to Apple-likes being difficult and simply hostile to interop opportunities even though they’re defacto the phone company and there is no way around them.
So if the solution is not optimal, that circles back to Apple who are responsible for coming up with a solution that works. Then choosing to prioritise platform lock-in is a business strategy, leaving regulation the only recourse.
A company making an integrated experience would inevitably provide a better experience/performance than a company asked to build for 100s of devices with different spec. That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
My contention is this: expecting a third party provider to be able to provide the same experience as the first party is an impractical goal. Even pushing companies towards that means a lot of second order effects where everyone ends up like Intel or Windows for that matter. We already have android on that level.
You can have a reasonable requirement where Apple should not be able to block other companies from providing similar services based on an iphone. But clearly the directive here is that Apple's competing products should not be better based on better integration, which can only go in one direction. Apple degrades its own products to comply. Yes, competition wins, but consumers lose. In this case specifically - consumers who would want to choose Apple, better experiences would not be able to simply because Apple cannot ensure the level of software/hardware alignment as it works today if the same software is written with modular hardware in mind.
> You can have a reasonable requirement where Apple should not be able to block other companies from providing similar services based on an iphone.
This is what the requirement is. The EU isn’t demanding that Apple provide the same experience for 3rd Party and 1st Party products. It only requires that Apple allow 3rd Parties access to the same capabilities as 1st Party products, so 3rd Parties could build 1st Party quality experiences.
Nobody is asking Apple to degrade their own products. They’re just demanding that Apple don’t artificially degrade other people’s products.
> That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
This is the only point of discussion here. Because all the EU requires is that Apple open up their internal protocols so others can implement them.
We’re talking about a UI interface here. How exactly would you ask Apple to “license its technology” there? Apple needs tell people how to trigger that interface, and Apple needs to support 3rd parties trigging that interface.
Apple could “license its technology”, but what use would that be. Having other phone manufacturers implement the same UI doesn’t change the market distorting effects of the iPhone.
> A company making an integrated experience would inevitably provide a better experience/performance than a company asked to build for 100s of devices with different spec. That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
I disagree, this is not a given. Usually the opposite is true.
Meaning, properly designed APIs and protocols for public use are more robust than one-off private protocols. Because there are expectations.
Apple could be malicious and make the API stupid, but if they were genuine then they wouldn't. They would make a good API, which is much more likely, I think, when the API is public versus some secret private API.
> Meaning, properly designed APIs and protocols for public use are more robust than one-off private protocols. Because there are expectations.
This is the polar opposite of my experience. Whether it's Bluetooth, PDF's, or a web audio JavaScript spec, actual products are plagued with inconsistencies and incompatibilities, as they implement the spec in different ways or brand A has bugs that brands B, C and D need to write special code for to get interoperability working. And brand C has other bugs brands A, B and D now need to also handle.
Whereas private protocols are much more likely to just work because there's only one implementation. There are no differing interpretations.
> A company making an integrated experience would inevitably provide a better experience/performance than a company asked to build for 100s of devices with different spec
This isn't given. For example the company that makes smart light switches doesn't provide a code entry pad and the company that makes the alarm doesn't provide a light switch. If they were interoperable I'd have a better system. Futhermore they'd both sell more widgets, as I'm holding off on further units in case I find a better third option and end up disposing of my current ones.
You're missing the point. Apple isn't in trouble beacuse of user's choice between iPhone and Android. They're in trouble because of 20-50 headphone makers who Apple prevents from truely competing Apple for 2 billion iPhone users.
It's the same with all of these issues Apple (and Google) are running into. It's not about the user's choice to buy iPhone or Android. It's about 100s of thousands of businesses ability to reach those billions of users without a gatekeeper.
I am saying that if you force Apple to move away from integrated devices to something which has to be generic (modular like Intel) which does not know which hardware it will pair up with and hence needs baseline performance, it turns into android to a large extent. Other businesses may have legit incentives to reach those customers, but unless Apple makes drastic changes to current setup, the software would not support other manufacturers to the same extent. So they will go to EU and then Apple will write a more generic code - to ensure all manufactures are similarly supported, and it takes them away from integrated system they currently have. Competition wins, but customers dont.
Apple makes a choice here, they don’t degrade anything they just choose to be difficult and to have to be forced to do the right thing by “whomever has enough money to sue us”.
If you’re a user of Apple devices, I don’t know why you’re defending them because noting this corporation does is meant for you once they double dip on you buying their hardware and then signing up for their services.
There is no “produced standard” to allow three Bluetooth devices - each headphone and the case - to register as one Bluetooth device or to automatically register a Bluetooth device to all devices using the same cloud account.
Big disagree that integrated always works better than modular writ large, but in any case maybe they could just hire this guy to do it? https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods
Its mostly true when the integrating company cares for the user experience. Which apple clearly does.
The example you shared is the opposite. I am imagining a kernel today written in a manner that airpods would be able to use it to extract the max out of it. Now, it has to support 10 other third party pods, so at the minimum, kernel would be more generalized.
Steve Jobs loved the iMac's terrible hockey puck mouse. Jony Ive is probably to blame for the terrible (yet very thin) butterfly keyboard making it into Apple laptops. However, these missteps do not prove that Apple doesn't care about user experience.
I guess if apple changes the way it works completely it would be different, with the kernel and such but like
Aren’t peripherals inherently modular kind of definitionally?
You should check that GitHub, it makes AirPod functionality mostly agnostic. The warts could (in some world) be mere bug reports for the manufacturer firmware team.
Personally, I think the Bluetooth standards suck a big one even recognizing how good it’s gotten and I _almost_ resent apple for not pushing this out as anither standard.
Modular in the sense you have to support multiple hardwares (of different kinds) instead of just one. Eventually you arrive at a place where software is good enough, and hardware + kernels cannot do the exact heavy lifting that is happening today in conjunction. Not the intel level but directionally similar kind of tradeoffs.
The components are modular under the hood, they have to be. Apple just doesn't let you take advantage of it.
iOS has a daemon that reads your notifications and ships them to Apple Watch. They have a daemon that scans for AirPods and gives you UI to pair them. But you as an app developer cannot do any of those things. There was no public API for notification stream access, scanning for specific Bluetooth devices, floating UI widgets, or even just persistent daemons. All of those capabilities more or less exist on Android, which is why multiple smartwatch ecosystems have been built on top of it while iOS only supports the first-party option.
Back in the 2000s, when Apple was just getting into mobile devices, the app development landscape was far less bleak. iTunes on Windows could happily index your entire music and video collection and sync it to an iPod and there was nothing Microsoft could do to stop them. Everything is just finding the appropriate file and connecting to the appropriate USB device to transfer it. And that's more or less how things still work today, except now on smartphones all of that is put into isolated containers and walled off behind private APIs.
modular does not mean in terms of how the library is architected, but in terms of how many vendors/customers it needs to support. Airpods' hardware is built and then kernels are written in a way to compliment each other and get the most out of the system. With another set of headphones with a different chip, there is a very good chance that code written today would not be optimal because other builders could manufacture different things based on the same spec. You cannot bring everything to software, nor can you have hardware doing everything. Tradeoffs would be needed.
The issue comes in second order effects. If third party headphones are given access and then the experience is not as good, they complain that Apple hasnt open up the spec enough, and it just results in Apple being forced to be modular in their approach.
I disagree with the premise. For me, "works better" means that I can swap out one of the devices in my fleet with a different brand and still have a functioning setup.
But even ignoring that, I think your claim can be true while forcing Apple to be compatible is still the right thing to do, because optimizing for personal convenience and user experience only is not the best outcome if it comes at the expense of market failure due to vendor lock-in.
Waiting to read the news that this unblocks all functionalities in the re-pebble so I could finally purchase one that fully works with iPhones. Way to go EU!
Third-party accessories like smart watches will be able to receive notifications from the iPhone
This seems incorrect, or at least misleading. I have always (since I switched to iPhone in 2020) been receive notifications on my Garmin Fenix watch. In fact, the only problem I have with notifications is that I have no ability to blacklist apps from notifying on my watch, and its all or nothing. This is a huge downgrade from Android, and I wish whomever is responsible could fix that.. That's probably my biggest annoyance with my iphone.
Apple removed the headphone jack to sell AirPods. This was always one of the dirty little details: You could buy non-Apple BT headphones, but they weren't able to work the same way.
I've had no trouble using corded headphones with my iphones (either via an adapter or e.g. the $20 usb-c earpods). In fact, it seems like people using corded headphones is a news cycle[1] every 6 months.
I bought that adapter, because I wanted to keep using my good old, high quality, corded earphones. It technically works, but it's not a nice experience. The adapter looks and feels out of place. It's the only white part in the setup (can't buy it in black), the cable is thin as a hair and feels like it might break soon, and I now have the additional plug and socket on that cable, which makes it awkward to put the phone in my pocket.
I really wonder what the technical detail is that makes it so much harder for this feature to work when your phone is outside the EU, does anyone know?
The same technical detail that makes it so the "Default Navigation App" toggle to change the default from 'Apple Maps' to 'Google Maps' only shows up if you live in the EU but not in the US.
Something like 5% of the time when I pair my airpods to my apple wathc to go for a run, only one of them pairs. So, if I've actually started running, I then have to circle back to get the headphones case, unpair them, stick them back in the case and hope it then works after i close the lid for a minute.
I don't know much about this, but does "proximity pairing" use some open standard API that's part of the bluetooth spec? Are there any examples of other devices using something like this?
Part of the appeal of Airpods is how seamless they are to pair and share between devices. The UX of bluetooth headphones pairing and device switching before Airpods came along seemed atrocious.
Is this a case of Apple arbitrarily locking out third parties, or is a case of Apple doing the work to get something to work nicely and now being forced to give competition access?
Does proximity pairing also mean seamless switching between iDevices? As it stands non Apple earphones need to disconnect from the currently paired device to only then connect with another. My Beats Studio pro on the other hand can control primary device and on secondary device I can prompt it to connect and it will switch.
clayhacks | a day ago
justapassenger | a day ago
Otek | a day ago
Just curious: why do you understand they restrict it to EU?
hu3 | a day ago
They do so with third-party app stores.
And if they wanted to have airpods-like pairing to third-parties in US, they would already have.
The only reason they might bring this to US is customers will be royally pissed.
latexr | a day ago
If it were, they wouldn’t be asking. And you haven’t answered it either. Your parent comment is asking why the grandparent commenter thinks it makes sense to restrict third-party stores to the EU instead of having them everywhere.
kalleboo | a day ago
einarfd | 10 hours ago
That Apple is so petty that it blocks on legal technicalities like that, when everyone knows it is just a matter of time. Really sours me on the whole company.
isodev | a day ago
tiffanyh | 23 hours ago
avianlyric | 23 hours ago
Plenty of other markets and businesses operate just fine while operating in an environment that makes protecting individual innovation functionally impossible. Just look at any related to fast fashion (not that I think the fast fashion market is a healthy phenomenon) or any commodities market. Or for that matter, most of the software industry.
The incentive for creating features should be to remain relevant and competitive. It shouldn’t be to build moats and war chests.
websiteapi | 22 hours ago
avianlyric | 20 hours ago
stefan_ | 19 hours ago
illiac786 | 22 hours ago
The general problem is that there must be a line.
Vendors don’t create lock-ins because they are malicious, they create it because it makes them money.
Now, if we limit these lock-ins, it will reduce their ability to make money and yes, it will impact some features - short term.
But looking at it long terms, vendor lock-ins are actually a reason to stop innovating: your customers are locked in anyway.
So, overall, I would say this is good for innovation in general.
websap | 22 hours ago
reorder9695 | 22 hours ago
DANmode | 19 hours ago
If Apple knew they would need to expand this feature past their gear, possible they’d never have implemented.
We may never know what stays unimplemented due to this.
(This is a neutral take - note I do not have a personal opinion formed in this “debate”.)
supermatt | 12 hours ago
And this is EXACTLY why they need to open up more core access to their devices. So someone else can innovate.
DANmode | 12 hours ago
I'm not seeing an incentive structure for them to change being the only source of good workflows for their users - it's their whole thing "It just works" - regardless of if it's true in practice or not.
supermatt | 11 hours ago
reorder9695 | 9 hours ago
illiac786 | 22 hours ago
It’s just less obvious / measurable that immediate benefits.
And also, short term, isn’t it that other EarPods are getting better, rather than AirPods getting worse?
Medium term, I don’t think that Apple will stop innovating on AirPods just because of the EU market and this one feature not being exclusive to AirPods anymore. But it’s a possibility, I agree.
nutjob2 | 22 hours ago
In this case, stopping Apple from degrading competitor products means they can compete on a level playing field and Apple will need to create better products to maintain a lead. Their ability to degrade competitor products has nothing to do with the features or quality of their headphones but rather that they control a closed platform. Thus the EU's action in maintaining fair competition.
wiseowise | 22 hours ago
ruszki | 20 hours ago
phatfish | 18 hours ago
jessecurry | 18 hours ago
wiseowise | 22 hours ago
phatfish | 18 hours ago
morshu9001 | 19 hours ago
dangus | 15 hours ago
You're basically saying Apple would be disincentivized to innovate on the Apple Watch because Apple would need to release the underlying APIs that make those work with the phone to competing solutions. But the status quo is that competing solutions that are already better than the Apple Watch straight up aren't allowed on the platform, and the Apple Watch generally costs more than its competitors.
You are unintentionally saying that if Apple had to allow third parties to use their private APIs, that the Apple Watch would have to cost less and/or innovate more in order to convince us all to buy it instead of buying a watch from Samsung or Google.
What you are describing is a more competitive and open market where consumers benefit from lower prices and more of an incentive to innovate and justify high prices.
I would also dispute the notion that merely releasing these APIs would somehow give away all your secret sauce. Competitors still have to build the experience on top of that.
djtango | 14 hours ago
beeflet | 12 hours ago
alextingle | 12 hours ago
They've done extra work to cripple competing devices. It's obnoxious.
miohtama | 12 hours ago
supermatt | 12 hours ago
EDIT: Downvotes for what? That’s literally what the DMA is for. If you don’t like it, take it up with your representatives - it’s nothing to do with me.
tordrt | 11 hours ago
https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe
layer8 | 5 hours ago
Teever | 10 hours ago
A government mandating standards in electricity transmission or gasoline composition may disincentivize the development of features that make some people's devices incompatible with charging at certain locations or cars that can only use gas from certain gas stations but that is the opposite of a bad thing.
We live in a much better world because people in the past decided that all telephones should be able to make calls to each other and that people don't really have to think about messing up putting fuel in their car because the size of the nozzles at pumps are standardized.
There are absolutely more opportunities for governments to make small but objectively measurable improvements in society with well placed regulations on interoperability.
rock_artist | 13 hours ago
So until there will be more incentive to make it globally, the UX is intentionally crippled not only by making the minimal viable but also by region locking.
Imagine pairing headphones working great in EU and then you’re traveling somewhere and it’s broken.
WA | 10 hours ago
layer8 | 5 hours ago
madspindel | a day ago
Vespasian | a day ago
I guess "the regulations will continue until product management improves".
dsign | a day ago
Y-bar | a day ago
> There is simply no good way to make the API public while maintaining the performance and quality expectations that Apple consumers have. If the third party device doesn’t work people will blame Apple even though it’s not their fault.
And, competition probably can’t build for it anyway:
> It’s impossible to build Apple Silicon level of quality in power to watt performance or realtime audio apps over public APIs.
And:
> […] Apple has to sabotage their own devices performance and security to let other people use it. The EU has no business in this.
Well, I look forward to next year when we’ll have the receipts and see!
fabioborellini | a day ago
Y-bar | a day ago
bdcravens | a day ago
codesnik | 18 hours ago
indemnity | a day ago
I’ve found it to be worst when using Xcode / simulator and having headphones on for music.
sudo killall coreaudiod seems to fix it for a while.
charliebwrites | 23 hours ago
For me this fixes it for about 30 minutes then I have to do it again… and again… and again…
I wonder why some folks need to do it more than others
concinds | 12 hours ago
_fzslm | 9 hours ago
dawnerd | 15 hours ago
zeristor | a day ago
isodev | a day ago
matthewcanty | a day ago
saubeidl | a day ago
We miss you, British Friends <3
hdgvhicv | a day ago
saubeidl | a day ago
But I wouldn't let that be the sticking point, y'all are too important to us to get hung up on it.
latexr | a day ago
Someone | a day ago
Lio | a day ago
Previously, this was available on Android but not iOS as Apple didn’t expose the APIs for watches other than their own.
lloeki | a day ago
a) API to not just read notifications but also perform the notification quick actions (if any), e.g snooze for a calendar event, mark complete for a reminder, and of course reply for a text (SMS or otherwise). This seems entirely reasonable and ludicrous that it doesn't exist.
b) API to access SMS / Messages. That one appears to be heavily guarded because security / E2E (for iMessage).
I mention b) because a lot of times people invoke the problem a being b) (and possibly a problem in its own right, forcing one to use Messages for SMS) but really for watches a) is sufficient and probably much more relevant.
There's also a.1) API access to media (images) in notifications.
In any case, DMA could definitely help crack both.
port3000 | a day ago
Lio | a day ago
The last update from Garmin did this to my Epix. Funnily enough the complications can still be activated if you touch the screen, they’re just invisible.
saubeidl | a day ago
Someone | a day ago
Will that mean we’ll see some last step assembly move into the EU, or does it only require legal presence?
pzo | a day ago
latexr | a day ago
I think Tim Cook’s strategy is rather “hoard and extract as much money as legally possible, no matter what it does to the experience”. Selling tech products is no different to him than selling car parts of frozen meat. What matters to him is the pile of money at the end.
heavyset_go | a day ago
For example, you need to root and patch your Bluetooth stack on your phone if you want to use all of your AirPods features on Android, and not because Android is doing something wrong, it's because the Android Bluetooth stack actually sticks to the spec and AirPods don't.
And even when you do that, you can't do native AAC streaming like you can with iOS/macOS. Even if you're listening to AAC encoded audio, it'll be transcoded again as 256kbps AAC over Bluetooth.
Even no name earbuds on Amazon manage to not break Bluetooth and can offer cross platform high quality audio over Bluetooth.
bluescrn | a day ago
formerly_proven | a day ago
They do that? Mine can't even switch quickly between my corporate and my own iphone.
pityJuke | a day ago
formerly_proven | a day ago
But why would switching headphone connections need the cloud... ah... nevermind...
rafram | 12 hours ago
formerly_proven | 9 hours ago
eptcyka | a day ago
raw_anon_1111 | 22 hours ago
fsh | 22 hours ago
morshu9001 | 16 hours ago
worldsavior | a day ago
monerozcash | a day ago
This seems to go against how OS development (and perhaps consumer software in general, just think about browsers!) works in reality, it's just piles of exceptions on top of exceptions for weird hardware.
pests | 16 hours ago
aprilnya | a day ago
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/371713238
Some comments on the bug accuse Google of intentionally not fixing it to make people buy Pixel Buds instead of AirPods.
I wouldn’t say that myself, but then again I also wouldn’t say that Apple intentionally violated the spec just to make AirPods not work on Android.
charcircuit | 16 hours ago
heavyset_go | 14 hours ago
TheDong | 12 hours ago
You're welcome to write an actually correct patch for android if you want, one that isn't just commenting out code and probably breaking some spec-compliant bluetooth devices.
Make sure to test your patch against all the bluetooth devices in existence to make sure it doesn't regress.
Do that, make a PR, wait the average third-party-android-PR review time (approximately 5 years), and then if your PR isn't accepted at that point we can maybe say Google is intentionally ignoring this issue.
wzdd | 9 hours ago
Nobody actually productively commenting in the thread thinks it's a conspiracy theory and everyone acknowledges that the Apple hardware is off-spec. It would be nice to see Android add this workaround.
userbinator | 22 hours ago
That's because they're all based on a small set of BT SoCs from companies who are not exclusively dependent on the Apple ecosystem and need to interoperate with everything BT-compliant.
jwr | a day ago
Regulation is unfortunately necessary: the market isn't as magical as we would like it to be and competition is not a magic wand that makes everything good for users. Companies either become dominant, or universally screw over their users. Users either have no choice, do not understand the choices, or simply don't care.
I am glad the EU tries to do something. They aren't always right, but they should be trying. As a reminder, one of the biggest success stories of EU regulation: cheap cellular roaming within the EU. It used to be horribly expensive (like it is in the US), but the EU (specifically, Margrethe Vestager) regulated this and miracle of miracles, we can now move across the EU and not worry about horrendous cell phone bills.
Y-bar | a day ago
jwr | a day ago
The net effect of this is that in Poland, for example, you can carry your phone and no wallet, because you can pay literally for everything using your phone. And I do mean everything, I've recently been to a club in Warsaw and the cloakroom had a terminal mounted on the wall, people just tapped their phones.
whazor | a day ago
In EU there is also more consumer protection by default, so charge backs can be rejected by merchants but a consumer can easily take a merchant to court. So capping card fees is also more reasonable.
Also, when a merchant goes bankrupt and customers perform charge-backs it would involve the entire payment chain. First merchant reserves, then acquiring bank, then MasterCard/Visa, then issuing bank (customer), and lastly the customer. With lower card fees, this has impact on the merchant reserves and their risk profile. Furthermore, acquirers can add additional fees on top if needed.
You can also get lower card fees in US if you have a low risk business model.
Y-bar | a day ago
It is only the maximum fee that is capped (along with various provisions for eg transparency). You can also get lower fees in EU, just twenty minutes ago I saw an ad for just such a zero-fee card.
idle_zealot | a day ago
So far the DMA seems like a partial-win for technology users. I wish it enshrined the right to run software on your own computer in less ambiguous language, because as-is there are carve-outs that may let Apple get away with their core technology fee and mandatory app signing.
fersarr | a day ago
littlestymaar | a day ago
showsover | a day ago
All in all a big improvement, with some future improvements left to make. Fingers crossed for a more sane USB-D in twenty years.
neya | a day ago
And mind you, I own 3 Apple devices - 2 Macs and 1 iPad and the watch can't connect to any of those. I must be forced to buy a $1000 device just because I made the mistake of recording something on their watch. We need more regulation because of things like this and I would absolutely hate to live in a society where this is the norm.
ggsp | a day ago
raverbashing | a day ago
llmslave2 | a day ago
quitit | a day ago
He just wrote about Japan's implementation of a similar set of laws rather favourably - the theme is that Japan's implementation looks very much like a genuine attempt at protecting users and benefitting end users and developers.
While I don't agree with what a lot of what Gruber has to say. A point I do agree with is that the DMA is being sold (by Margrethe Vestager, Thierry Breton and Ursula von der Leyer) as a set of consumer protections, when it's plainly not that, and in some clear ways does the opposite.
There's also persistent transparency questions like why the EU has excessive meetings with Spotify, or why there is not a "music" gatekeeper in the DMA, or the requirement to easily move music libraries between music services - things that would actually help consumers and prevent genuine lock in.
(Note this isn't to excuse the behaviour of big tech.)
hshdhdhj4444 | a day ago
The only example he gave where the MSCA is better than the DMA is:
> E.g. apps distributed outside the App Store in Japan still require age ratings. There’s no such requirement in the EU.
Most of his description of what Japan does better is simply “mutual respect”. Which reinforces the idea that this isn’t about the actual practical differences but about ego. Apple hates how the EU forces them to make change.
And Apple has done this before. After the EU forced them to make a change, which emboldened other nations to push similar changes, Apple points to those other nations’s obviously more streamlined law making process (given that the EU has already gone through the hard work of drafting the law, working with a non-cooperative Apple, and then actually seeing it implemented and the practical issues that arise), to justify their hostility to the EU’s trend setting efforts, without which those other nations would almost certainly have not proceeded.
I bet if Japan’s MSCA had come before the DMA, Apple’s tone towards both those governments would have been reversed.
ksec | a day ago
quitit | a day ago
Great, now let's stack what you've written in both of your comments directly against what Gruber has written, and not what an imaginary strawman wrote.
You wrote:
1. I have no doubt that Gruber will find reasons why the EU is bad and regulation is bad.
2. The EU has already gone through the hard work of drafting the law, working with a non-cooperative Apple, and then actually seeing it implemented and the practical issues that arise.
3. Most of his description of what Japan does better is simply “mutual respect”.
Addressing point 1 (again):
I wrote words to the effect of (they're just above): Gruber's writing is not as black and white as you assert and then I made reference to the Japan regulation article as an example where Gruber again makes nuanced arguments towards regulated changes.
That article does not make a blanket statement that regulation is bad, and Gruber points to a long-standing idea that he has which neither the EU nor Japan have regulated, which he believes should be. He's also stated (repeatedly) that he's in favour of link-outs and other commonly requested changes to the app store terms, and believe's Apple are too slow to change on these.
So does Gruber believe all regulation is bad as you have asserted: no. His views are demonstrably in favour of well-minded regulation.
Addressing point 2: The belief that the EU bears the brunt of regulation teething, and that's why it goes well in other regions.
Maybe you skipped the part where Gruber points to a 2021 regulation requirement from Japan, which Apple in fact did not provide resistance to, but worked with the regulatory authority to achieve their goal - then Schiller himself (the overseer of the App store at the time) came out and spoke in public with supportive language. That is an example Gruber provided, however there are plenty more examples of the app store changing policies long before the EU took notice. The EU gets all the attention here because they seem to be uniquely incapable of foreseeing unintended consequences.
So is the EU's leading the source of friction. No and they're not even first in many respects.
Addressing point 3: Gruber makes only immaterial "mutual respect" comparisons between DMA/MSCA.
I'm guessing you skimmed this bit too - Gruber talks at length to MSCA and DMA's approach to regulation, stating that MSCA's changes prioritise privacy and security in contrast to the DMA, and practical aspects such as user safety (that's a wee bit more than "mutual respect"). Secondly that users are not presented with onerous choice screens (see end note 1) which is making reference to the EU's requirement that browser selection screens must be repeatedly shown when the user's default browser is Safari (but not if it's any other browser), Japan doesn't take this approach to a browser selection screen.
So is it true that Gruber makes immaterial comparisons between the two: again no.
llmslave2 | a day ago
Most arguments in favour of regulation cherry pick what they feel are success stories and ignore everything else. Interfering with highly complex and dynamical self-regulating systems has a cost. There are many examples of regulation leading to negative outcomes, and it's also telling that large corporations push for regulation because it's one of the most effective obstacles for competition in a market.
hshdhdhj4444 | a day ago
Free market absolutists don’t know what they are talking about.
The actual originators of market capitalism, most famously Adam Smith, but also proponents like Milton Friedman, had no such confusion.
In reality, today’s free market absolutists don’t get their ideas from economists (even free market economists). Instead, they get their ideas from terrible mid 20th century novelists (I’ll let you figure out who I’m talking about), who didn’t know much about how anything worked, never mind economics.
littlestymaar | a day ago
llmslave2 | a day ago
bigyabai | 22 hours ago
If you'd like to reconsider your stance from a realpolitik perspective, it might clarify the parent's response.
llmslave2 | 22 hours ago
bigyabai | 22 hours ago
Your claim that the parent ignored everything you said is bad-faith and objectively wrong. They are critiquing your attack on regulation and pointing out that reality works in the opposite way. Case in point, you have no bombshell argument against regulating Apple in this instance. You cited no real-world examples and gestured at generic and irrelevant anti-regulation boogeymen. Then you used ad-hominem to attack them instead of refuting the point they made.
llmslave2 | 21 hours ago
If you're actually interested in having a discussion it would be worthwhile to explain your reasoning behind why you think markets depend on regulation. I can think of a few good arguments for that position, because I'm capable of considering multiple perspectives and I'm actually interested in having a debate. You seem more interested in shutting down opposing viewpoints and bullying the other participants into submission.
array_key_first | 21 hours ago
Some regulations are good, some are bad. In order to have a free market, you MUST have some regulations. It's not optional.
The reason is simple and intuitive - if you don't regulate the free market, it will just make itself un-free, which is what we're seeing with Apple. You need to actively push back against that.
The reason is all free market players, no exceptions, have the utmost fundamental incentive to make the market non-free. Everyone, all the time, is devising new and innovative ways to make the market they control non-free. Because this is how you maximize revenue.
llmslave2 | 20 hours ago
I would push back a bit on the ideological comment, just to say that ideological acceptance of regulation is also probably wrong. This is different from a philosophical opposition/acceptance of political authority, although it often appears the same.
I think it's fairly obvious that the base prerequisites for market economies are property rights and some form of legal system to handle disputes. I don't consider that to be "regulation", especially not government regulation, but if that is what you mean by the term then of course I would concede that markets require it. However since even the most fervent proponents of laissez-faire economies accept the necessary role of property rights and a legal system, I would consider those to be separate from what we commonly refer to as regulation.
Ok to respond to your main point: It seems reasonable to me that in a competitive market there is an incentive to win, and companies can win by preventing others from being able to compete. This is commonly done via regulation, for example the big companies are lobbying for regulation on AI to help cement their position at the top. The thing is, just because companies are incentivized to win doesn't mean that it's possible to sustain a monopoly position for a significant amount of time. Unlike other competitive activities there isn't a time clock with winners declared at the end. Economists have shown that absent of external cofounders, a position where a company can charge monopoly prices is unsustainable.
There is of course a stronger position to be made for regulating so called natural monopolies, but even then there isn't much evidence that they really exist. Some of the most cited examples, like telecom providers, end up not being true - look at Eastern Europe and what happened when they deregulated that industry for example.
chongli | 16 hours ago
Apple is the result of a broad class of regulations: IP laws. Would Apple even exist without IP laws? I doubt it.
hshdhdhj4444 | a day ago
All through that fiasco, where Apple was going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C, which was objectively better even if you’re an Apple partisan (given that I could carry a single charging cable for my Mac and Samsung phone, but not for my Mac and iPhone), he was going on and on about how the EU was killing creativity by forcing Apple to do something they didn’t want to.
And then Apple relented, their USB-C iPhone saw some of the fastest growth over a previous model despite having minimal other upgrades, indicating significant pent up demand for a USB-C phone.
And I’m guessing at this point even Gruber can’t imagine living life with a Lightning charger, so now the tune is that Apple was planning on switching to USB-C and they were playing a game to make it like like they were forced to switch by the EU so as not to alienate their current Lightning charger fans.
It’s a patently ridiculous idea but it’s necessary given how badly wrong he was on this issue because of how badly he continues to misunderstand how the EU works (which isn’t anything like how the US govt works).
AnonC | a day ago
WA | 10 hours ago
monerozcash | a day ago
Is there any evidence that "Apple was going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C"?
Apple worked to create the USB-C standard, was among the first to widely deploy it.
Apple fighting against a precedent where the EU would force them to switch everything to USB-C is strictly different from Apple going through all sorts of twists and turns to avoid switching to USB-C.
ksec | a day ago
And that is exactly Gruber's take. Apple created USB-C standard and gave it to the USB committee for free.
And it is not even half true. But it spread across the internet as if it was verified.
The other one being Apple AirPod sold at cost, and suggest Apple invented big.SMALL CPU core.
monerozcash | a day ago
Apple certainly didn't create USB-C, but was one of the biggest contributors.
ksec | 13 hours ago
And many post before that. But was too late, by that time the words were spread on internet like wildfire. Especially in Apple focused publishing sites.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/03/17/cybart-apple-pr...
I cant find the exact one, but he at the time was suggesting AirPods was sold at cost. Along with plenty of American so called "analyst".
He might have his network within Apple on software. But anything that has to do with Hardware or things like MFi Licensing scheme he is completely wrong.
websiteapi | 22 hours ago
https://www.those.ch/designtechnik/wp-content/uploads/2014/0...
simondotau | 21 hours ago
Conversely, the inference you leave readers with from your description of Apple’s contribution to USB-C and CPU design is just as untrue.
ksec | 13 hours ago
Not my description. Or you mean Gruber's description of Apple's contribution.
His post on USB-C, CPU Design and AirPod is still Up on his site.
Those who actually worked on USB-C before it was even known also posted on HN.
whywhywhywhy | a day ago
All though I would say EU regulation has far more misses than hits, this and forcing Apple to USB-C were great but millions of man hours a year are burned navigating cookie banners on every website and chat control being forced through soon.
So we have two wins on iOS device convenience, not a great trade off for the other overreach.
littlestymaar | a day ago
Cookie banner are not, in fact, an obligation under GDPR. All you need to do to be GDPR compliant is “not collect and sell data to partners” and call it a day. Cookie banners are a loophole that the EC conceded to an ad industry that is addicted to tracking everyone all the time.
rogerrogerr | 14 hours ago
Are you asserting that I can log IP addresses in my Apache logs? Seems like no one can give me a straight answer there.
mdhb | 12 hours ago
littlestymaar | 11 hours ago
The only thing you need to do is to have some document where you list all the personal information you process and store, for how long and what you do with the said data.
What you cannot do is store data that you don't have a legitimate interest in storing. And this is why you have to document what you do with the data, because if you're not doing anything with it (“I want to store 10 years worth of IP address logs just in case”) then you aren't allowed to (on the opposite “I want to store IP addresses for a month for DDoS protection purpose ” is allowed).
raw_anon_1111 | 22 hours ago
Let’s not forget also that the EU first wanted to standardize on micro USB.
enaaem | 18 hours ago
Hnrobert42 | 16 hours ago
Unless you mean ol' Hans Gruber. He is quite the villain.
TheDong | 12 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gruber
Arn_Thor | a day ago
rikafurude21 | a day ago
aprilnya | a day ago
wltr | a day ago
stefandesu | a day ago
pests | 16 hours ago
AnonC | a day ago
dijit | 22 hours ago
So this sounds like a “whatsapp didn’t want to do it” more than a “Apple disallowed it”
mbirth | 17 hours ago
riversflow | 16 hours ago
f1shy | 12 hours ago
sleepychu | 11 hours ago
"You have 100M MAU, you need to be keeping up with the standards"
inkyoto | 19 hours ago
You can blame Apple for other things if that is the intention, but this particular one was a decision made by Meta and by Meta only.
Write to your regulator and make a complaint that Meta is keeping the WhatsApp stage gate.
hollow-moe | a day ago
ankit219 | a day ago
Probably better would have been just simpler access, even if not the integrated experience like. But that would lead to complains from third party manufacturers.
isodev | a day ago
So if the solution is not optimal, that circles back to Apple who are responsible for coming up with a solution that works. Then choosing to prioritise platform lock-in is a business strategy, leaving regulation the only recourse.
ankit219 | a day ago
My contention is this: expecting a third party provider to be able to provide the same experience as the first party is an impractical goal. Even pushing companies towards that means a lot of second order effects where everyone ends up like Intel or Windows for that matter. We already have android on that level.
You can have a reasonable requirement where Apple should not be able to block other companies from providing similar services based on an iphone. But clearly the directive here is that Apple's competing products should not be better based on better integration, which can only go in one direction. Apple degrades its own products to comply. Yes, competition wins, but consumers lose. In this case specifically - consumers who would want to choose Apple, better experiences would not be able to simply because Apple cannot ensure the level of software/hardware alignment as it works today if the same software is written with modular hardware in mind.
avianlyric | 23 hours ago
This is what the requirement is. The EU isn’t demanding that Apple provide the same experience for 3rd Party and 1st Party products. It only requires that Apple allow 3rd Parties access to the same capabilities as 1st Party products, so 3rd Parties could build 1st Party quality experiences.
Nobody is asking Apple to degrade their own products. They’re just demanding that Apple don’t artificially degrade other people’s products.
> That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
This is the only point of discussion here. Because all the EU requires is that Apple open up their internal protocols so others can implement them.
ExoticPearTree | 20 hours ago
Apple supports Bluetooth just like Android phones do and does not degrade that.
A fair way of dealing with this is to ask Apple to license its technology to third parties, not be forced to give it away for free.
avianlyric | 8 hours ago
Apple could “license its technology”, but what use would that be. Having other phone manufacturers implement the same UI doesn’t change the market distorting effects of the iPhone.
array_key_first | 21 hours ago
I disagree, this is not a given. Usually the opposite is true.
Meaning, properly designed APIs and protocols for public use are more robust than one-off private protocols. Because there are expectations.
Apple could be malicious and make the API stupid, but if they were genuine then they wouldn't. They would make a good API, which is much more likely, I think, when the API is public versus some secret private API.
crazygringo | 21 hours ago
This is the polar opposite of my experience. Whether it's Bluetooth, PDF's, or a web audio JavaScript spec, actual products are plagued with inconsistencies and incompatibilities, as they implement the spec in different ways or brand A has bugs that brands B, C and D need to write special code for to get interoperability working. And brand C has other bugs brands A, B and D now need to also handle.
Whereas private protocols are much more likely to just work because there's only one implementation. There are no differing interpretations.
georgefrowny | 20 hours ago
This isn't given. For example the company that makes smart light switches doesn't provide a code entry pad and the company that makes the alarm doesn't provide a light switch. If they were interoperable I'd have a better system. Futhermore they'd both sell more widgets, as I'm holding off on further units in case I find a better third option and end up disposing of my current ones.
socalgal2 | 18 hours ago
You're missing the point. Apple isn't in trouble beacuse of user's choice between iPhone and Android. They're in trouble because of 20-50 headphone makers who Apple prevents from truely competing Apple for 2 billion iPhone users.
It's the same with all of these issues Apple (and Google) are running into. It's not about the user's choice to buy iPhone or Android. It's about 100s of thousands of businesses ability to reach those billions of users without a gatekeeper.
ankit219 | 12 hours ago
isodev | 11 hours ago
Apple makes a choice here, they don’t degrade anything they just choose to be difficult and to have to be forced to do the right thing by “whomever has enough money to sue us”.
If you’re a user of Apple devices, I don’t know why you’re defending them because noting this corporation does is meant for you once they double dip on you buying their hardware and then signing up for their services.
raw_anon_1111 | 22 hours ago
jonway | a day ago
ankit219 | a day ago
The example you shared is the opposite. I am imagining a kernel today written in a manner that airpods would be able to use it to extract the max out of it. Now, it has to support 10 other third party pods, so at the minimum, kernel would be more generalized.
ngetchell | 22 hours ago
musicale | 20 hours ago
throwaway314155 | 19 hours ago
That was never proven. Although their PR response was atrocious.
musicale | 19 hours ago
“All phones have sensitive areas,” Jobs wrote. “Just avoid holding it in this way.”
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/06/jobs-on-iphone-4-ant...
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/24/steve-jobs-describes-ip...
Jobs wasn't exactly wrong - bridging the antenna with your finger was not a good way to hold the iPhone 4.
What's hilarious is how they "fixed" it in software - by changing the signal bar display curve, and then making the lower bars appear taller.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/10/08/a-15-year-mystery-solved-the-...
jonway | 15 hours ago
Aren’t peripherals inherently modular kind of definitionally?
You should check that GitHub, it makes AirPod functionality mostly agnostic. The warts could (in some world) be mere bug reports for the manufacturer firmware team.
Personally, I think the Bluetooth standards suck a big one even recognizing how good it’s gotten and I _almost_ resent apple for not pushing this out as anither standard.
ankit219 | 12 hours ago
kmeisthax | 14 hours ago
iOS has a daemon that reads your notifications and ships them to Apple Watch. They have a daemon that scans for AirPods and gives you UI to pair them. But you as an app developer cannot do any of those things. There was no public API for notification stream access, scanning for specific Bluetooth devices, floating UI widgets, or even just persistent daemons. All of those capabilities more or less exist on Android, which is why multiple smartwatch ecosystems have been built on top of it while iOS only supports the first-party option.
Back in the 2000s, when Apple was just getting into mobile devices, the app development landscape was far less bleak. iTunes on Windows could happily index your entire music and video collection and sync it to an iPod and there was nothing Microsoft could do to stop them. Everything is just finding the appropriate file and connecting to the appropriate USB device to transfer it. And that's more or less how things still work today, except now on smartphones all of that is put into isolated containers and walled off behind private APIs.
ankit219 | 12 hours ago
The issue comes in second order effects. If third party headphones are given access and then the experience is not as good, they complain that Apple hasnt open up the spec enough, and it just results in Apple being forced to be modular in their approach.
ulrikrasmussen | 12 hours ago
But even ignoring that, I think your claim can be true while forcing Apple to be compatible is still the right thing to do, because optimizing for personal convenience and user experience only is not the best outcome if it comes at the expense of market failure due to vendor lock-in.
volemo | 22 hours ago
2dvisio | 22 hours ago
drewg123 | 21 hours ago
This seems incorrect, or at least misleading. I have always (since I switched to iPhone in 2020) been receive notifications on my Garmin Fenix watch. In fact, the only problem I have with notifications is that I have no ability to blacklist apps from notifying on my watch, and its all or nothing. This is a huge downgrade from Android, and I wish whomever is responsible could fix that.. That's probably my biggest annoyance with my iphone.
morshu9001 | 19 hours ago
big_toast | 14 hours ago
[1]:https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025/dec/19/bluetooth-wi...
fainpul | 11 hours ago
Schnitz | 19 hours ago
bigyabai | 19 hours ago
TheDong | 12 hours ago
cdrnsf | 18 hours ago
sfblah | 18 hours ago
Anyone have a solution for this?
nradov | 18 hours ago
Hnrobert42 | 16 hours ago
DebugDruid | 18 hours ago
hapticmonkey | 18 hours ago
Part of the appeal of Airpods is how seamless they are to pair and share between devices. The UX of bluetooth headphones pairing and device switching before Airpods came along seemed atrocious.
Is this a case of Apple arbitrarily locking out third parties, or is a case of Apple doing the work to get something to work nicely and now being forced to give competition access?
commandersaki | 13 hours ago
heavyset_go | 12 hours ago