Comment by mrtksn
1 day ago
If Apple can't work out a legal structure that works, it will be forced to refund for the devices then so the consumer can use the money to buy compliant devices probably from Korea or China. EU can work out special deal with the Asian manufacturers as there will be hundreds of millions of people with cash in hand looking to buy a high end smartphone.
Being messy isn't a worse outcome than US invasion. Europeans aren't rooting to live like Americans or go to wars for America and the tech thingy will be a nuisance at most.
If Apple can't work out a legal structure that work, it will be forced to refund for the devices
How is that going to happen if the US attacked Europe?
EU freezes/takes over all Apple assets in EU, users with Apple devices get the money in cash upon delivering their devices. If the money isn't enough for the refunds, a finance mechanism can be created that will be settle after the war.
The returned devices may be sold to 3rd party markets if Apple isn't cooperating.
EU freezes/takes over all Apple assets in EU
Most value/assets are in the US, I don't see how Apple in the EU would have enough interesting assets to refund. If 30% of the 450M inhabitants in the EU have an iPhone and the purchase price was 1000 Euro on average, that would be 135B Euro. I would be surprised if they have a fraction of that in the EU as assets. The primary useful asset I could think of is if the iOS source code was also stored somewhere in the EU. I guess in war it would be fair game to fork it. Wouldn't help with the existing iPhones, since the EU doesn't have the signing keys, but you could bootstrap a new phone ecosystem (and even revert Liquid Glass :p).
If the money isn't enough for the refunds, a finance mechanism can be created that will be settle after the war.
There are huge assumptions in this, like the EU wins the war, the war doesn't end in a sort-of cold war, Apple cannot get away from liability because it was not their decision, etc.
The returned devices may be sold to 3rd party markets if Apple isn't cooperating.
Flooding a 3rd-party market with over 100M second hand iPhones would drive down the prices by an extreme amount.
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