The EU ripple effect. Good job US, if it actually passes.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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I am so grateful that the EU exists to set an example for this sort of thing.
Can we elect the EU to be our next president instead of the current crop of political windbags?
I’d vote to join the EU in a heartbeat.
Beeper gets a lot of credit, I remember hearing the DoJ was investigating apple over iMessage due to them blocking beeper from supporting iMessage on android.
It’s not a law, it’s a lawsuit.
Well, they are suing them for breaking the law.
Allegedly breaking the law.
But what I’m pointing out is that the US is not passing new legislation like the EU did.
Yes. They're suing them, alleging that they're breaking the law. Or, as I said "suing them for breaking the law".
Reading on different Apple sites, it's hilarious. People are acting like they are being sued. Crazy to watch how cult members react. I mean it's unhealthy but it is what it is.
I don't get the fanboy culture around phone manufacturers. None of them have done anything innovative in a decade. They're just adding more cameras and trying to make them thinner even though I'm pretty sure most people don't care about either.
Phones have stopped getting thinner like 10 years ago
Not in any practical sense of the word but that didn't stop them from removing headphone jacks in order to shave an additional 1/16 of an inch off.
~~in order to shave an additional 1/16 of an inch off.~~
In order to sell more of their "premium" wireless earbuds.
"Think differently"
Which is why they designed their wireless ear pods as if they cut off the cord for the wired variant.
Um, you know you can use any bluetooth earbuds right?
Just got my first phone without a headphone jack, and it's thicker than my previous phone that had one. But honestly it's mildly annoying at most. A dongle works, I guess, but it's certainly weird and seems like an unnecessary omission.
I moved on to Airpods shortly after they came out and honestly I have had 0 desire to use wired headphones with a phone. The Airpods pro sound great for earbuds.
If I want a real super high quality audio experience I'd use a dedicated DAC and AMP because the ones in phones have never been amazing. Plus if I'm out and about there's probably too much background noise to even appreciate good headphones.
That's good. Spend most of my time indoors in noise free environments and in ears/earphones do not work for me for medical reasons.
They make over the ear bluetooth headphones too.
Oh I am aware and own a good pair. Latency is still an issue, and my best sounding cans are wired.
I'd prefer they make it fatter if the battery would last more than a day as consequence.
They literally have done that. For example iPhone 15 Pro Max is 12.5mm thick. The iPhone 6 (thinnest iPhone ever made) was 7mm.
There are several iPhones with different batteries but the largest one is 17Wh. The iPhone 6 had a 7Wh battery.
That’s what they do. Compare an iPhone 6 to the current ones, you’ll see they’ve gotten fat
Rapidly advancing capitalist/materialistic brain rot is more of an issue, than people realize. For a lot of people it's a status symbol. A lot of others have to justify spending copious amounts of cash on a bad product, by bringing others down, who made different choices. At the end of the day, none of it matters whatsoever, because the only winner here is the company who took your money
It’s so strange. I have realized over the last few years that I think I prefer apples stuff to Google or Microsoft but like, they ain’t my family. Just the least bad tech company I can buy certain products from.
These suits will either make the products slightly better or change nothing at all. Why the fuck would any consumer be upset by that???
I’m the same. I prefer apple products generally speaking, but Apple sucks just as much as every other giant asshole company and I don’t like Apple. There’s no ethical consumption in capitalism. Fuck all these companies.
These are the main points according to the article:
Disrupting “super apps” that encompass many different programs and could degrade “iOS stickiness” by making it easier for iPhone users to switch to competing devices
I'd imagine this is about setting standard apps for many different things (for example maps, music) and also allowing these apps the same levels of system access as the Apple apps have (for example allowing Google Maps to display full screen directions on the lock screen during navigation). Also the 30% fee for competing services like Spotify.
Blocking cloud-streaming apps for things like video games that would lower the need for more expensive hardware
This is about Apple blocking game streaming apps from the App Store.
Suppressing the quality of messaging between the iPhone and competing platforms like Android
This is obviously about iMessage and the blue/green bubble "issue". This is irrelevant where I live as we simply use other messengers, but okay.
Limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches with its iPhones and making it harder for Apple Watch users to switch from the iPhone due to compatibility issues
Essentially allowing access to more system functionality and integrations with non-Apple smartwatches.
Blocking third-party developers from creating competing digital wallets with tap-to-pay functionality for the iPhone
So the ability to bind the double-click to Apple Pay to other services.
Basically what the DMA aims to give the Europeans. Nice copy-paste on the DOJ’s part, but at least they’re finally moving into any direction at all 😭
The messaging bubble issue may seem silly, but could I not open the gates to more unified messaging in general? Like WhatsApp to Signal to iMessage? I would hope there is a greater scope than just the bubble.
What I hate is that the alternative that they're switching to is RCS, which puts control of your texting in the hands of your carrier. iMessage is great because you don't need a phone number, I can send texts to my moms iPad even though she doesn't have an iPhone.
Good. They're learning from the EU.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit.
It alleges that Apple “selectively” imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical ways of accessing the phone, according to a release.
“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote in a press release.
“For years, Apple responded to competitive threats by imposing a series of ‘Whac-A-Mole’ contractual rules and restrictions that have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers, impose higher fees on developers and creators, and to throttle competitive alternatives from rival technologies,” DOJ antitrust division chief Jonathan Kanter said in a statement.
Apple is the second tech giant the DOJ has taken on in recent years after filing two separate antitrust suits against Google over the past two administrations.
It’s instituted new rules through the Digital Markets Act to place a check on the power of gatekeepers of large platforms, several of which are operated by Apple.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
We need more options besides iOS and Android.
Android is open source platform, you don't need Google for Android.
Android gives you a base system so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel while creating an operating system. All phone manufacturers build on Android to create OS for their mobile.
Googles monopoly is because a lot of things we benifit from Android is cross compatibility of devices from different companies which is facilitated by Google - Play Store, Etc.
This monopoly of Google is not forced but domination of it in Android space since the very beginning.
Anyone can create an OS without Google services but it would be very less useful compared to Android with Google services, because of lack of compatibility.
Using anything that pushes google’s technology is supporting Google. Chromium is pushing Google’s vision on the web. Android of any distribution is pushing Google’s vision on mobile.
There needs to be an alternative to the two major players that don’t help them.
Have you heard of e os? https://e.foundation/e-os/
De googling your android is at least a possibility, ripping apple out of ios is not possible
Again, using tech that came from Google, even if you removed the telemetry and the Google apps is still supporting Google.
We need more 100% independent projects.
KaiOS (which has a fairly specific reason to exist that doesn't apply to most iOS or Android users) notwithstanding I don't see a third competitor gaining any serious traction (traction = apps actually existing = phone actually being usable) this late into the game.
I wish a web tech based phone would take off. There’s not much that can’t be a pwa.
Can't wait for this to get thrown out.
Like don't get me wrong, it's long overdue, I just do not believe our current system will actually have it be enforced.