Reading this I felt embarrassed for the author. It is strange to me that for a place for "hackers" that ostentatiously love technology, there are so many free passes and wishful mental gymnastics given over to a profit driven company that has no qualms stifling innovation through platform abuse and litigation. Here its own projection is simply a confession of itself.
This article serves as little more than a mouthpiece to sway public opinion and maintain a sense of exclusivity for being locked into an ecosystem. The author uses a particular set of features and that's why the EU is wrong, what?
Complying with the rulings will not somehow break the platform. This trillion dollar company will do just fine, usually in the form of weaseling out of its obligations, a tactic it has honed to an art over the years. And if not weaseling, it has the resources to solve those problems.
No, the author's post, and often hn comments, are more complaints about opening up the platform to others, and is reminiscent of the same complaining that playstation fans went through when formerly exclusive titles were being ported to other platforms. It turns out many played certain games only because they were exclusives.
zevon · 1d ago
John Gruber's mental gymnastics are a fascinating read sometimes. Here, he basically says 'Apple (and the other giants) will try to not comply with the spirit of the EU regulations, so less regulation it is better for customers'. Weird argument, IMO.
theshrike79 · 1d ago
You don't find it interesting how Google and Samsung aren't getting the same scrutiny?
What if I want Siri on my Samsung phone? Or Mistral on a Google phone, integrated as deeply as Gemini is?
zevon · 1d ago
Don't they get the same scrutiny? Google certainly has had its troubles with regulations (Samsung, specifically, I'm not sure about but based on their size alone, I would assume as much). Microsoft as well, to name another (in)famous example of regulatory clashes from the past.
As to your question: I personally think you should be able to install and use whatever you want on whatever platform you want. I also think that is the general direction these EU regulations are aiming, so I'm not entirely sure what your point is, exactly?
theshrike79 · 1d ago
My point is, why are they singling out Apple?
Apple was forced to add 3rd party stores to their devices.
Why didn't they do that for Xbox, Playstation and Switch? They're all locked "walled gardens", where you can't add 3rd party software outside of the official stores.
zevon · 1d ago
Are they doing that in this case? The DMA is not targeted at Apple specifically. The clarifications linked by Gruber are - and I would assume that there are similar clarifications for other companies' products as well (especially if those other companies raised as much stink in the press as Apple does).
I also assume Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo would also face more targeted regulatory attention if their consoles were as ubiquitous and utility-like as smartphones are (MS certaintly has for Windows). I would even assume that a company could accelerate this process by being as persistent and public as Epic is in regards to Apple.
aPoCoMiLogin · 1d ago
You can do that
DanAtC · 1d ago
I will never understand why John Gruber holds water for a multi-trillion dollar corporation.
drivingmenuts · 1d ago
Probably best if Apple separates MacOS into a Secure Edition that contains their desired security layers and a European edition that adds in all the holes that the EU wants in their users software.
Then, if Europe wants to shit all over user privacy and security, well, that's their users' problem and good luck with that.
112233 · 1d ago
Not keeping up with affairs too much — which countries would you recommend that currently are not doing it and not planning and working hard to do it?
zevon · 1d ago
Is this supposed to be irony?
stop50 · 1d ago
Lets analyze this:
1. Paragraph: intro and an citation
2. paragraph:
2 wrong things, Airdrop is proprietary, the opensource programs are reverse engineered and the EU gave Apple two options that they can do within the timeframe they gave: open it for others to use and implement or to replace it with an existing public solution.
3. paragraph:
Mostly the authors opinion
4. Paragraph:
captures what the EU intends to do. Apple could allow an service to read notifications or send the notifications themself to an device by making the protocol public.
5. Paragraph:
Another Opinion. Nothing to judge at.
last paragraph:
The Allegory is in my opinion wrong:
not all doors need to be open. To stay in the Hotel:
The customer checks in but he needs to use an unreliable keycard instead of his phone for opening the door, because only Apple devices can open the door to the room. With an Appledevice the room is already at the temperature, the light is at an prefered color and the staff knows at which time you want to be waked up. with any other phone you have to manually adjust the temperature, the lightcolor is an uncomfortable white that can't be changed and you have to inform the staff by going down about the wakeup time.
This article serves as little more than a mouthpiece to sway public opinion and maintain a sense of exclusivity for being locked into an ecosystem. The author uses a particular set of features and that's why the EU is wrong, what?
Complying with the rulings will not somehow break the platform. This trillion dollar company will do just fine, usually in the form of weaseling out of its obligations, a tactic it has honed to an art over the years. And if not weaseling, it has the resources to solve those problems.
No, the author's post, and often hn comments, are more complaints about opening up the platform to others, and is reminiscent of the same complaining that playstation fans went through when formerly exclusive titles were being ported to other platforms. It turns out many played certain games only because they were exclusives.
What if I want Siri on my Samsung phone? Or Mistral on a Google phone, integrated as deeply as Gemini is?
As to your question: I personally think you should be able to install and use whatever you want on whatever platform you want. I also think that is the general direction these EU regulations are aiming, so I'm not entirely sure what your point is, exactly?
Apple was forced to add 3rd party stores to their devices.
Why didn't they do that for Xbox, Playstation and Switch? They're all locked "walled gardens", where you can't add 3rd party software outside of the official stores.
I also assume Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo would also face more targeted regulatory attention if their consoles were as ubiquitous and utility-like as smartphones are (MS certaintly has for Windows). I would even assume that a company could accelerate this process by being as persistent and public as Epic is in regards to Apple.
Then, if Europe wants to shit all over user privacy and security, well, that's their users' problem and good luck with that.
2. paragraph:
2 wrong things, Airdrop is proprietary, the opensource programs are reverse engineered and the EU gave Apple two options that they can do within the timeframe they gave: open it for others to use and implement or to replace it with an existing public solution.
3. paragraph:
Mostly the authors opinion
4. Paragraph:
captures what the EU intends to do. Apple could allow an service to read notifications or send the notifications themself to an device by making the protocol public.
5. Paragraph:
Another Opinion. Nothing to judge at.
last paragraph:
The Allegory is in my opinion wrong: not all doors need to be open. To stay in the Hotel:
The customer checks in but he needs to use an unreliable keycard instead of his phone for opening the door, because only Apple devices can open the door to the room. With an Appledevice the room is already at the temperature, the light is at an prefered color and the staff knows at which time you want to be waked up. with any other phone you have to manually adjust the temperature, the lightcolor is an uncomfortable white that can't be changed and you have to inform the staff by going down about the wakeup time.