3 ms·
EU law will force Apple to blow open its entire hardware and software stack
- dangus 4y agoThis is excellent news, and I love the fine structure that has teeth in regard to being based on global revenue. It seems like there's no way to weasel out of it. These rules are so important because Apple and Google are firmly a duopoly in the smartphone space. If the 10 richest people in the world got together and formed a company to start a competing mobile platform, they would likely fail – and even if they didn't, they'd probably never commit that amount of liquid capital making that attempt in the first place. Can an operating system be analogous to electric, water, and sewer service? At this point, I think the answer is a resounding "yes." These operating systems are so vital to modern life that they ARE utilities.
- smoldesu 4y agoI largely agree, but I think this goes beyond proprietary services. We pay exorbitant fees for hardware that we cannot run software of our choice on. That is crazy, and the fact that the option has been taken away from us over time is very concerning. Even if it's not in the interests of the "average smartphone user", being able to run alternative OSes are what fosters healthy competition. Apple needs a community to push them forward by forcing them to confront difficult issues; look at MacOS. When Apple competes with it's audience, everyone wins. What we can't allow is abuse of the capitalist gambit we've set up for them: if they want to play the "largest company in the world" game, they have to play fair.
- chris37879 4y agoYup, and Apple already showed their hand with that too. The new M1s have a complex, but open, boot process. There's already a tailor made linux distro that can boot on the M1s, so it's not like it's not technically possible to maintain the device's security while allowing it.