Comment by pornel
1 day ago
Google Pixel Buds have a translation feature, and a bunch of other "Gemini AI" gimmicks, available in the EU.
Apple managed to get approvals for medical devices and studies (highly regulated everywhere), custom radios and satellite communication (highly regulated everywhere).
Apple already has machine translation, voice recognition, voice recording, and dictation features shipped in the EU.
But when EU hurt Apple's ego by daring to demand to give users freedom to run software they want on devices they bought (that could break them out of a very lucrative duopoly), Apple suddenly is a helpless baby who cannot find a way to make a new UI available in the EU.
The EU has not declared that Android gatekeeps headphone technology, so the comparison to Pixel Buds is totally irrelevant. There is no interop requirement placed on them.
So all Apple needs to do is stop gatekeeping headphone technology.
What is the definition of gatekeeping technology?
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So Apple is welcome to divest AirPods into a separate company and problem solved. Who knows, "AirPods Inc" may discover there are a great many phone brands out there that could use a nice integration and extra features. Win for consumers.
I agree, the Beats takeover should have never happened. The US is basically allowing everything to be swallowed by big-tech.
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The integration works so well because airpods and apple phones use a protocol that isn't bluetooth, their "Magic protocol". You have to own the whole stack to make it work so well.
That's literally the Boeing model
So, the problem is indeed the EU.
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I wish this would happen. I loved my AirPods Pros 2 but the Android/Windows support was so abysmal that I eventually ditched them.
Or you know Linux/Windows PCs that would definitely be a big win.
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So many other features, such as iPhone mirroring also don't work. Quite ridiculous.
Vote with your wallet?
Easier said than done, but this relatively small annoyance is not a dealbreaker to change the phone. I had it before this feature was announced :D
Half of the new Google Pixel AI features are not enabled in EU. Magic cue, text image editing... These are on-device features too, so really not sure why
I'm a disappointed Pixel 10 owner living in Germany
Most probably as you say they can't ship the capability yet, so they're blaming the regulations.
Or really the headphones actively register and send data outside of the EU. There's been some pushback recently on this front (ie. recent MSFT case [1]) since it's a known fact in the field that the approved 2023 EU-US DPF is basically BS, as it doesn't really address the core issues for which US companies were deamed not-compatible with GDPR.
[1] https://www.senat.fr/compte-rendu-commissions/20250609/ce_co...
In my quest to check if deamed was the correct spelling, I stumbled upon an interesting read https://reginajeffers.blog/2024/03/04/damned-or-deemed-or-de...
Indeed. But in my case it’s quite easy as it was a typo. Deemed is the correct one
Instead of these conspiracy theories, the more likely answer is that it takes time to get through these additional regulations, and they didn't want that to hold back their US rollout. Its a pattern that we've seen plenty of times already in the tech industry.
So Samsung could nail the regulation part with their earbuds, but Apple with Airpods can't.
Samsung isn’t a “gatekeeper” under the DMA. The regulations in question here don’t apply to them.
EU isn't forcing Google to let random 3rd parties replace Gemini AI with TotallyHonestAndNotStealingYourData Corp's AI.
Google is a designated gatekeeper carrying all the same DMA obligations for:
Google Search, YouTube, Chrome, Shopping, Maps, Ads, the Play Store, and Android.
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en
You already can replace the default assistant app with any app that declares itself as an assistant on Android, and have always been able to.
You can replace Gemini with Perplexity or whatever you want on your Android phone, that includes the main system-wide assistant.
It's almost like you can only shakedown your victims so many times before they say no mas.
Did you just describe Apple as a victim?