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They would block all shipments of Apple devices at the border of the EU after a certain point. The EU controls the customs rules for most of Europe.

rglullis 5y ago
So, it's the latter. They will have another excuse to increase the prices further. "We had to spend $BILLIONS to change the design of the iPhone, so this is why the new iPhone EU Edition is going to be 1400€". This is the kind of thing that really makes me understand Brexit.
- toyg 5y ago
  Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product that also happens to be arbitrarily expensive. If somebody in Milan can't afford a Ferrari made in Maranello because the damn company insists in pricing their cars beyond what is reasonable for a 4-wheeled vehicle, it doesn't mean Milan should secede from Italy, surely.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product that also happens to be arbitrarily expensive. If anything, Apple's Lightning port (and the 30-pin connector before that) are significantly more consumer-friendly than USB. Where consumers are consumers of Apple products, but still. In the span of time when Apple only had two connectors, USB went through 3 or 4. USB didn't even have a charging standard until 2012 (the year Lightning was introduced). And even with USB-C it's still a hodge-podge of standards with multiple optional and non-optional parts, and it's not getting better: https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_architectural_explainer_usb4s_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_a...
    - toyg 5y ago
      A single, monopolistic market would also be "consumer friendly", given those parameters. Obviously we don't want that, do we? Getting multiple manufacturers to agree on anything is always going to be a challenge and produce some compromises. But it's still better for the market as a whole, which in turn is better for consumers. I look forward to the chance of buying a single, universal charger with great features that will last me decades, from a vendor that may or may not be a phone-manufacturer. Apple would gladly do their worse to stop me from doing that, if they could.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > I look forward to the chance of buying a single, universal charger with great features that will last me decades I really highly doubt about the decades part. I also highly doubt about the "single charger with great features" because USB has so many optional parts that many manufacturers are unlikely to implement.
    - alpaca128 5y ago
      I fail to see how any kind of proprietary product can be more consumer friendly than an open standard. As I see it that cannot be true by definition.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        There's definition and there's reality. These are all the plugs USB has come up with over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware I still have a bunch of USB cables and devices at home, and I every time I have to use them I struggle to find the right combination. Standardization is good. But in this case USB is objectively not a better standard than Apple's proprietary one.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product, period. Are you also going to push for governments to force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries? What about the headphone jack? Why not force Apple to open source their OS? Why not block the sale of any product that is made in a country that has concentration camps? These are all valid reasons that make me never want to buy an iOS device. But it is my choice. Why is there this constant need for individuals to delegate their consumer conscience to an ill-informed and corrupt entity?
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      > "Are you also going to push for governments to force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries?" Kinda - I am pushing my government to force Apple to provide spare parts, and give us right to repair. Make ownership of digital device mean something again. US obsession with choice is a red herring. I don't want sadistic 'choice' between getting going backrupt and dying of a treatable disease, I want the problem fixed.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        > Make ownership of digital device mean something again. Then just go buy from someone who actually is behind these values, and not someone who just greenwashes their products. > US obsession Sorry to spoil your ad hominem, but I am born in Brazil and have been living in Germany for 8 years. > I want the problem fixed. The problem is fixed already: I've been having this discussion while typing from a fairphone, which I was free to install /e/ OS without any Google services, and it cost less than an iPhone SE. I can open and replace not only the battery, but also the display and the camera. I didn't have to wait any bureaucrat in Brussels to do this, and quite frankly I believe that if it were up to them they would find a way to screw this small Dutch company out of existence. Stop buying Apple products. Stop buying anything from any company that is consumer hostile, even if the "ethical" alternatives are more expensive/less adequate for your needs. I can guarantee you this problem (and others that you don't even care about) will be fixed faster than by waiting for the EU.
        5y ago
  - petre 5y ago
    > Are you also going to push for governments to force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries That's not such a bad idea. Or at least make the iPhone more repairable by not having to tare it appart just to change the battery.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      If that was important for people, people would buy phones with removable batteries.
      - shawnz 5y ago
        Manufacturers that are interested in catering to that market don't have the capital/resources to compete with Apple on more common customer needs like performance and efficiency. So there's effectively a natural monopoly on high performance mobile devices which allows Apple, and a small number of other brands, to be customer-hostile in other ways.
        rglullis 5y ago
        Are you saying that companies like Motorola/Lenovo, Samsung, LG, Sony, Nokia/HMD, Huawei - who all were producing each a handful of different models at the most different price points, targeting all different market segments - didn't have the resources to build a model with a removable battery? I am more inclined to believe that they consumers have signaled that removable batteries are not as important as improvements on other constraints like size, durability and material look & feel. Let me flip the question: if removable batteries and repairability are important to you, why don't you buy a Fairphone?
        shawnz 5y ago
        No, I am saying they don't have the resources to produce phones which are competitive with iPhones on performance. And in the rare cases where a big vendor is able to achieve it, then they inevitably take advantage of that monopolistic position to drop consumer-friendly features like removable batteries, just like Apple. I am saying there is not enough competition at the highest level of performance for market forces to be able to work there.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    This purview that an iPhone is 'consumer unfriendly' is a hint of the arrogance that drives irresponsible legislation. Literally the most profitable product in history, that 100's of millions of Europeans - including literally probably most of EU government - want so badly they pay a very high price. 'But it's unfriendly!' No, it's not. Apple has 100x more credibility than most other parties on what a 'consumer friendly' product might be. Making something work as well as the iPhone is very hard.
    - alpaca128 5y ago
      Perhaps what you meant is "user friendly". Yes, iPhones are user friendly. No product Apple sells right now, however, is consumer friendly. Not even remotely. One glance at their history of handling product flaws, repair costs and their tendency to bend the truth until they can't deny the problems anymore will show that very clearly. But that's not just Apple, it's an industry-wide problem. Apple however have proven themselves to be the grand masters of consumer unfriendly practices.
- alwayseasy 5y ago
  I'm not sur if you know, but Apple complies with various local laws, and it impacts their margins. Interoperability favors competition, the EU is all about fair markets, not protecting Apple's margins.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    > EU is all about fair markets. If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. The EU, just like any political entity that has grown beyond the original intended responsibilities, has become the stage for cronies and the elites to play their power games. If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone would have been enough to wipe the German auto industry off the Earth. That is certainly something that has caused more environmental damage and stopped healthier market competition than a fucking power connector. And don't even get me started on the subsidies given to French farmers and the market quotas for eastern countries that kill any chance for them to develop their industries. But, hey, at least the EU is giving Apple fans another way to greenwash their consumer behavior, so that counts for something...
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      "If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone" Dieselgate has resulted in criminal prosecution, remind me how many people went to jaill after 2008? 2?
      - rglullis 5y ago
        "Criminal prosecution for Dieselgate" was political theater of the worst kind. It's an example of systemic and institutional corruption and all that has brought was a couple of scapegoats. If the same thing were to happen in a smaller country, say Poland or Czech Republic, it would be grounds for the bigger EU states to bulldoze the plants and to bankrupt the nations. Also, it's the second time that you try to counter an argument by throwing an American Whataboutism. Maybe you should let go of the nationalism and find better arguments?
        5y ago
- rualca 5y ago
  > They will have another excuse to increase the prices further. This sounds like a very poorly thought out slippery slope argument, specially taking into account that iPhones' manufacturing cost is already a fraction of the huge price they sell it to consumers (i.e., $200 vs $1200)
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Excuses do not have to be based on objective truths.
- linspace 5y ago
  If Apple thought they could charge more they would be already doing it, based on their considerable margins. If this makes you understand Brexit I doubt you really understand Brexit.
- nindalf 5y ago
  I think Apple is moving in this direction on their own. They sell 4 products that charge by USB-C (Mac, iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad Mini) and 4 that use lightning (iPhone, iPhone Mini, iPhone Pro, iPad). But it's a gradual change, each of the last few years has seen a product introduced using USB-C.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Which is one more indication that the law is not needed. EU bureaucrats are so useless and full of themselves, they think they can teach birds how to fly.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  > This is the kind of thing that really makes me understand Brexit. It seems a tad inconsistent to be against restrictions on imports but also for the kind of fallout that resulted from Brexit. That makes your understanding of Brexit seem incomplete. And if you don't like price increases on Apple products, don't buy them. That's the only language they understand.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    It's not the restrictions on imports that I am against. It is the all-encompassing political bureaucracy that the EU has become and how upside-down its priorities are. > And if you don't like price increases on Apple products, don't buy them. I don't buy them already, but the type of connector they use is way down on my list of reasons not to use them. Closed source? Hard to repair? Exploitative app store practices? Spyware that scans your data? An unwilling intermediary into developers and consumers? Greenwashed, overpriced hardware that can only be used by the terms dictated from Cupertino? Those are reasons to not use Apple. Yet, here we are discussing the most irrelevant feature of their devices like it is the only issue that is wrong with them.
    - toyg 5y ago
      Note how many of the topics you mention as critical are actually discussed at EU level: GDPR, support for FOSS in various programs, ongoing examination of the appstore monopolistic practices, tax-dodging... And chargers too, yes, if anything because it's a pretty simple thing to mandate.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        What is "simple to mandate" has not been effectively turned into results even after a decade of "legislation". The rest is nothing but "discussions" or big laws that don't really accomplish anything. What is the point again? To have "discussions" or to effect change? I wish I could say something like "keep waiting for the EU to being actually effective, I will be over there with the people that can get stuff done", but the main problem is that the more time passes, the more the EU finds a way to fuck with ordinary citizens and the more we have midwits asking to be supervised, afraid to step outside the lines and pointing out at those that fight the absurdity of it all.

rglullis 5y ago

So, it's the latter. They will have another excuse to increase the prices further. "We had to spend $BILLIONS to change the design of the iPhone, so this is why the new iPhone EU Edition is going to be 1400€". This is the kind of thing that really makes me understand Brexit.

toyg 5y ago
Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product that also happens to be arbitrarily expensive. If somebody in Milan can't afford a Ferrari made in Maranello because the damn company insists in pricing their cars beyond what is reasonable for a 4-wheeled vehicle, it doesn't mean Milan should secede from Italy, surely.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product that also happens to be arbitrarily expensive. If anything, Apple's Lightning port (and the 30-pin connector before that) are significantly more consumer-friendly than USB. Where consumers are consumers of Apple products, but still. In the span of time when Apple only had two connectors, USB went through 3 or 4. USB didn't even have a charging standard until 2012 (the year Lightning was introduced). And even with USB-C it's still a hodge-podge of standards with multiple optional and non-optional parts, and it's not getting better: https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_architectural_explainer_usb4s_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_a...
  - toyg 5y ago
    A single, monopolistic market would also be "consumer friendly", given those parameters. Obviously we don't want that, do we? Getting multiple manufacturers to agree on anything is always going to be a challenge and produce some compromises. But it's still better for the market as a whole, which in turn is better for consumers. I look forward to the chance of buying a single, universal charger with great features that will last me decades, from a vendor that may or may not be a phone-manufacturer. Apple would gladly do their worse to stop me from doing that, if they could.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > I look forward to the chance of buying a single, universal charger with great features that will last me decades I really highly doubt about the decades part. I also highly doubt about the "single charger with great features" because USB has so many optional parts that many manufacturers are unlikely to implement.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    I fail to see how any kind of proprietary product can be more consumer friendly than an open standard. As I see it that cannot be true by definition.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      There's definition and there's reality. These are all the plugs USB has come up with over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware I still have a bunch of USB cables and devices at home, and I every time I have to use them I struggle to find the right combination. Standardization is good. But in this case USB is objectively not a better standard than Apple's proprietary one.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Nobody forces you to buy a consumer-unfriendly product, period. Are you also going to push for governments to force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries? What about the headphone jack? Why not force Apple to open source their OS? Why not block the sale of any product that is made in a country that has concentration camps? These are all valid reasons that make me never want to buy an iOS device. But it is my choice. Why is there this constant need for individuals to delegate their consumer conscience to an ill-informed and corrupt entity?
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    > "Are you also going to push for governments to force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries?" Kinda - I am pushing my government to force Apple to provide spare parts, and give us right to repair. Make ownership of digital device mean something again. US obsession with choice is a red herring. I don't want sadistic 'choice' between getting going backrupt and dying of a treatable disease, I want the problem fixed.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      > Make ownership of digital device mean something again. Then just go buy from someone who actually is behind these values, and not someone who just greenwashes their products. > US obsession Sorry to spoil your ad hominem, but I am born in Brazil and have been living in Germany for 8 years. > I want the problem fixed. The problem is fixed already: I've been having this discussion while typing from a fairphone, which I was free to install /e/ OS without any Google services, and it cost less than an iPhone SE. I can open and replace not only the battery, but also the display and the camera. I didn't have to wait any bureaucrat in Brussels to do this, and quite frankly I believe that if it were up to them they would find a way to screw this small Dutch company out of existence. Stop buying Apple products. Stop buying anything from any company that is consumer hostile, even if the "ethical" alternatives are more expensive/less adequate for your needs. I can guarantee you this problem (and others that you don't even care about) will be fixed faster than by waiting for the EU.
      - 5y ago
- petre 5y ago
  > Are you also going to push for governments to force Apple to make iPhones with removable batteries That's not such a bad idea. Or at least make the iPhone more repairable by not having to tare it appart just to change the battery.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    If that was important for people, people would buy phones with removable batteries.
    - shawnz 5y ago
      Manufacturers that are interested in catering to that market don't have the capital/resources to compete with Apple on more common customer needs like performance and efficiency. So there's effectively a natural monopoly on high performance mobile devices which allows Apple, and a small number of other brands, to be customer-hostile in other ways.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        Are you saying that companies like Motorola/Lenovo, Samsung, LG, Sony, Nokia/HMD, Huawei - who all were producing each a handful of different models at the most different price points, targeting all different market segments - didn't have the resources to build a model with a removable battery? I am more inclined to believe that they consumers have signaled that removable batteries are not as important as improvements on other constraints like size, durability and material look & feel. Let me flip the question: if removable batteries and repairability are important to you, why don't you buy a Fairphone?
        shawnz 5y ago
        No, I am saying they don't have the resources to produce phones which are competitive with iPhones on performance. And in the rare cases where a big vendor is able to achieve it, then they inevitably take advantage of that monopolistic position to drop consumer-friendly features like removable batteries, just like Apple. I am saying there is not enough competition at the highest level of performance for market forces to be able to work there.
- jollybean 5y ago
  This purview that an iPhone is 'consumer unfriendly' is a hint of the arrogance that drives irresponsible legislation. Literally the most profitable product in history, that 100's of millions of Europeans - including literally probably most of EU government - want so badly they pay a very high price. 'But it's unfriendly!' No, it's not. Apple has 100x more credibility than most other parties on what a 'consumer friendly' product might be. Making something work as well as the iPhone is very hard.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    Perhaps what you meant is "user friendly". Yes, iPhones are user friendly. No product Apple sells right now, however, is consumer friendly. Not even remotely. One glance at their history of handling product flaws, repair costs and their tendency to bend the truth until they can't deny the problems anymore will show that very clearly. But that's not just Apple, it's an industry-wide problem. Apple however have proven themselves to be the grand masters of consumer unfriendly practices.
alwayseasy 5y ago
I'm not sur if you know, but Apple complies with various local laws, and it impacts their margins. Interoperability favors competition, the EU is all about fair markets, not protecting Apple's margins.
- rglullis 5y ago
  > EU is all about fair markets. If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. The EU, just like any political entity that has grown beyond the original intended responsibilities, has become the stage for cronies and the elites to play their power games. If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone would have been enough to wipe the German auto industry off the Earth. That is certainly something that has caused more environmental damage and stopped healthier market competition than a fucking power connector. And don't even get me started on the subsidies given to French farmers and the market quotas for eastern countries that kill any chance for them to develop their industries. But, hey, at least the EU is giving Apple fans another way to greenwash their consumer behavior, so that counts for something...
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone" Dieselgate has resulted in criminal prosecution, remind me how many people went to jaill after 2008? 2?
    - rglullis 5y ago
      "Criminal prosecution for Dieselgate" was political theater of the worst kind. It's an example of systemic and institutional corruption and all that has brought was a couple of scapegoats. If the same thing were to happen in a smaller country, say Poland or Czech Republic, it would be grounds for the bigger EU states to bulldoze the plants and to bankrupt the nations. Also, it's the second time that you try to counter an argument by throwing an American Whataboutism. Maybe you should let go of the nationalism and find better arguments?
      - 5y ago
rualca 5y ago
> They will have another excuse to increase the prices further. This sounds like a very poorly thought out slippery slope argument, specially taking into account that iPhones' manufacturing cost is already a fraction of the huge price they sell it to consumers (i.e., $200 vs $1200)
- rglullis 5y ago
  Excuses do not have to be based on objective truths.
linspace 5y ago
If Apple thought they could charge more they would be already doing it, based on their considerable margins. If this makes you understand Brexit I doubt you really understand Brexit.
nindalf 5y ago
I think Apple is moving in this direction on their own. They sell 4 products that charge by USB-C (Mac, iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad Mini) and 4 that use lightning (iPhone, iPhone Mini, iPhone Pro, iPad). But it's a gradual change, each of the last few years has seen a product introduced using USB-C.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Which is one more indication that the law is not needed. EU bureaucrats are so useless and full of themselves, they think they can teach birds how to fly.
alpaca128 5y ago
> This is the kind of thing that really makes me understand Brexit. It seems a tad inconsistent to be against restrictions on imports but also for the kind of fallout that resulted from Brexit. That makes your understanding of Brexit seem incomplete. And if you don't like price increases on Apple products, don't buy them. That's the only language they understand.
- rglullis 5y ago
  It's not the restrictions on imports that I am against. It is the all-encompassing political bureaucracy that the EU has become and how upside-down its priorities are. > And if you don't like price increases on Apple products, don't buy them. I don't buy them already, but the type of connector they use is way down on my list of reasons not to use them. Closed source? Hard to repair? Exploitative app store practices? Spyware that scans your data? An unwilling intermediary into developers and consumers? Greenwashed, overpriced hardware that can only be used by the terms dictated from Cupertino? Those are reasons to not use Apple. Yet, here we are discussing the most irrelevant feature of their devices like it is the only issue that is wrong with them.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Note how many of the topics you mention as critical are actually discussed at EU level: GDPR, support for FOSS in various programs, ongoing examination of the appstore monopolistic practices, tax-dodging... And chargers too, yes, if anything because it's a pretty simple thing to mandate.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      What is "simple to mandate" has not been effectively turned into results even after a decade of "legislation". The rest is nothing but "discussions" or big laws that don't really accomplish anything. What is the point again? To have "discussions" or to effect change? I wish I could say something like "keep waiting for the EU to being actually effective, I will be over there with the people that can get stuff done", but the main problem is that the more time passes, the more the EU finds a way to fuck with ordinary citizens and the more we have midwits asking to be supervised, afraid to step outside the lines and pointing out at those that fight the absurdity of it all.