Comment by ankit219
19 hours ago
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> Apple degrades its own products to comply
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> We already have android on that level.
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.