5 ms·

Apple Intelligence won't be available in Europe, Tim's terrified of watchdogs

35 points by beardyw 2y ago

tester756 2y ago
which indicates that something shady is going on
- drooopy 2y ago
  I'm definitely not gonna get all misty eyed because my phone won't receive additional surveillence software this September. If, and that's a very big if, I need some sort of AI functionality, I will either use a web browser or download the app.
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    Can you specify what kind of surveillance you would be getting?
Havoc 2y ago
Bit odd to be claiming it (AI) is so bullet proof on privacy and then be concerned about EU regulators. I bet that's 100% bullshit and the actual problem is EU DMAs interoperability requirement especially given the list of services: Phone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing, and Apple Intelligence
- sschueller 2y ago
  Most likely. You should be able to mirror you phone on a pc as well if the api was open which I guarantee it is not.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  > Bit odd to be claiming it (AI) is so bullet proof on privacy and then be concerned about EU regulators. The DMA has next to nothing to do with privacy and almost everything to do with opening up systems/features which Apple (rightfully in some cases, wrongly in others) claims will erode privacy. I don’t understand the point you are trying to make here. They aren’t concerned their features aren’t privacy-focused enough, they are concerned that if forced to open up it will compromise on privacy.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
  It's not odd. The concern is that EU regulators would make it less private. By design Apple doesn't have access to your data used with Apple Intelligence, nor does anybody else. If EU regulators decide those features need to be interoperable and offered on a fully level playing field, that puts Apple in the position of having to provide third parties with access to data that they as platform owner have made a concerted effort to not have access to.
malthaus 2y ago
germany, with the eu held captive, is really going to die on the regulation hill. there are so many structural issues, everything trending downwards but instead of fixing those, the bureaucrats are ready to keep innovation out even more strongly and the people are so blinded by the "doing good" rhetoric that they even support it to a large part. the bigger news should have been the looming attack on chat privacy ("think of the children!") which is somehow ignored by the "look, we are fighting the evil american bigco over here" hand waving. it boggles the mind how this strategy is supposed to pay off in any sense over the next years / decades.
- sschueller 2y ago
  Germany is against chat control [1] , it is other member states trying to push this. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/6/20/orwellian-eus-push-to-mass-scan-private-messages-on-whatsapp-signal https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/6/20/orwellian-eus-pu...
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    Not German so correct me if I’m wrong but I had the impression that the mainstream parties (SPD & CSU) are mostly pro or neutral universal surveillance but the Social Democrats wouldn’t risk the coalition with the Greens and FDP over something like this?
gmerc 2y ago
Malicious compliance. the MDA is entirely clear here, Apple just doesn’t like the answers and is literally whining they can’t break the laws.
- rapjr9 2y ago
  Are companies now big enough that they can punish countries by withdrawing their products? This seems like yet another test of the boundaries.
  - consf 2y ago
    Companies today have grown so powerful that they indeed can exert influence over countries by withdrawing their products
    - simonh 2y ago
      If the country literally makes your product illegal, or ambiguously potentially illegal, what other option do you have?
  - stavros 2y ago
    Over entire trading blocs. It's crazy.
  - aetherson 2y ago
    Companies have decided that some markets aren't worth the headache since forever. Countries have fine-tuned their laws to be more or less open to foreign products since forever. The EU is acting like it has a natural right to have American companies bring every product to its market no matter how burdensome its regulations are: it doesn't.
    - microtonal 2y ago
      Sorry, but Apple is just acting stupid here. They are doing this out of spite and while doing it they are creating a large competitive advantage to others. Google, Samsung, etc. were earlier in rolling out AI features and now Apple is extending that window. Samsung has seen higher sales of their S series in some markets, driven by the AI features of the S24, whereas iPhone has been flatlining or doing slightly worse. Given that Apple's lock-in is less strong in the EU (due to the popularity of WhatsApp, etc.), there is a good chance that Apple will use marketshare over this. Given that Apple is also rapidly losing marketshare in China, I would be asking questions if I was on the Apple board or an Apple shareholder. The behavior of the leadership is increasingly becoming a risk.
joshstrange 2y ago
> The affected services are said to include Phone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing, and Apple Intelligence Let me me start by saying that Apple largely made its own bed here and has little room to complain about the rules not being clear (re: DMA) when they pull the same shit with their App Store: Dev: Can I release an App that does X? Apple: Build it, submit it, and then we will decide But the EU has also made their bed and this is a direct result of the DMA and not 100% punitive IMHO. I’m sure it’s slightly punitive but I also can see where Apple is coming from. They must be wary about releasing new features deeply baked into the OS that the EU might use the DMA to try to force them to open them up. I’m guessing they want to play a “wait and see” game for how far they get pushed on the existing features that are up in the air (DMA-compliance-wise) because they throw more feature out there.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  It's also worth noting that anytime anyone is offering AI inference "for free", they're doing so at a loss, because AI inference is not free. If they were forced to open it up for arbitrary programmatic usage, that would indeed be a huge problem. Though in an ideal world the DMA would work out so that you could just choose your AI provider. Though I guess (inevitably) having big tiddy unabomber chan as the face of your product may not be the look they're striving for.
- addicted 2y ago
  New legislation for rapidly moving new technology is not 100% clear at the outset. Shocking! The idea that if legislation is not perfectly crafted it’s bad is ridiculous. The only reason anyone even entertains this patently stupid concept is because the dysfunctional American system means you have to spend massive political capital to get legislation passed and once you did there’s almost no way to tinker the legislation to correct mistakes and handle unforeseen impacts. Fortunately most of the rest of the world, especially the EU, don’t act that way. Yeah the initial legislation will have flaws. And they will fix them. All that being said, considering Apple has consistently acted in bad faith with EU legislation I would wait until other non bad faith actors (so not Meta) also face similar issues.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339

35 points by beardyw 2y ago

tester756 2y ago

which indicates that something shady is going on

drooopy 2y ago
I'm definitely not gonna get all misty eyed because my phone won't receive additional surveillence software this September. If, and that's a very big if, I need some sort of AI functionality, I will either use a web browser or download the app.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  Can you specify what kind of surveillance you would be getting?

Havoc 2y ago

Bit odd to be claiming it (AI) is so bullet proof on privacy and then be concerned about EU regulators. I bet that's 100% bullshit and the actual problem is EU DMAs interoperability requirement especially given the list of services: Phone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing, and Apple Intelligence

sschueller 2y ago
Most likely. You should be able to mirror you phone on a pc as well if the api was open which I guarantee it is not.
joshstrange 2y ago
> Bit odd to be claiming it (AI) is so bullet proof on privacy and then be concerned about EU regulators. The DMA has next to nothing to do with privacy and almost everything to do with opening up systems/features which Apple (rightfully in some cases, wrongly in others) claims will erode privacy. I don’t understand the point you are trying to make here. They aren’t concerned their features aren’t privacy-focused enough, they are concerned that if forced to open up it will compromise on privacy.
dialup_sounds 2y ago
It's not odd. The concern is that EU regulators would make it less private. By design Apple doesn't have access to your data used with Apple Intelligence, nor does anybody else. If EU regulators decide those features need to be interoperable and offered on a fully level playing field, that puts Apple in the position of having to provide third parties with access to data that they as platform owner have made a concerted effort to not have access to.

malthaus 2y ago

germany, with the eu held captive, is really going to die on the regulation hill. there are so many structural issues, everything trending downwards but instead of fixing those, the bureaucrats are ready to keep innovation out even more strongly and the people are so blinded by the "doing good" rhetoric that they even support it to a large part. the bigger news should have been the looming attack on chat privacy ("think of the children!") which is somehow ignored by the "look, we are fighting the evil american bigco over here" hand waving. it boggles the mind how this strategy is supposed to pay off in any sense over the next years / decades.

sschueller 2y ago
Germany is against chat control [1] , it is other member states trying to push this. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/6/20/orwellian-eus-push-to-mass-scan-private-messages-on-whatsapp-signal https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/6/20/orwellian-eus-pu...
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  Not German so correct me if I’m wrong but I had the impression that the mainstream parties (SPD & CSU) are mostly pro or neutral universal surveillance but the Social Democrats wouldn’t risk the coalition with the Greens and FDP over something like this?

gmerc 2y ago

Malicious compliance. the MDA is entirely clear here, Apple just doesn’t like the answers and is literally whining they can’t break the laws.

rapjr9 2y ago
Are companies now big enough that they can punish countries by withdrawing their products? This seems like yet another test of the boundaries.
- consf 2y ago
  Companies today have grown so powerful that they indeed can exert influence over countries by withdrawing their products
  - simonh 2y ago
    If the country literally makes your product illegal, or ambiguously potentially illegal, what other option do you have?
- stavros 2y ago
  Over entire trading blocs. It's crazy.
- aetherson 2y ago
  Companies have decided that some markets aren't worth the headache since forever. Countries have fine-tuned their laws to be more or less open to foreign products since forever. The EU is acting like it has a natural right to have American companies bring every product to its market no matter how burdensome its regulations are: it doesn't.
  - microtonal 2y ago
    Sorry, but Apple is just acting stupid here. They are doing this out of spite and while doing it they are creating a large competitive advantage to others. Google, Samsung, etc. were earlier in rolling out AI features and now Apple is extending that window. Samsung has seen higher sales of their S series in some markets, driven by the AI features of the S24, whereas iPhone has been flatlining or doing slightly worse. Given that Apple's lock-in is less strong in the EU (due to the popularity of WhatsApp, etc.), there is a good chance that Apple will use marketshare over this. Given that Apple is also rapidly losing marketshare in China, I would be asking questions if I was on the Apple board or an Apple shareholder. The behavior of the leadership is increasingly becoming a risk.

joshstrange 2y ago

> The affected services are said to include Phone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing, and Apple Intelligence Let me me start by saying that Apple largely made its own bed here and has little room to complain about the rules not being clear (re: DMA) when they pull the same shit with their App Store: Dev: Can I release an App that does X? Apple: Build it, submit it, and then we will decide But the EU has also made their bed and this is a direct result of the DMA and not 100% punitive IMHO. I’m sure it’s slightly punitive but I also can see where Apple is coming from. They must be wary about releasing new features deeply baked into the OS that the EU might use the DMA to try to force them to open them up. I’m guessing they want to play a “wait and see” game for how far they get pushed on the existing features that are up in the air (DMA-compliance-wise) because they throw more feature out there.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
It's also worth noting that anytime anyone is offering AI inference "for free", they're doing so at a loss, because AI inference is not free. If they were forced to open it up for arbitrary programmatic usage, that would indeed be a huge problem. Though in an ideal world the DMA would work out so that you could just choose your AI provider. Though I guess (inevitably) having big tiddy unabomber chan as the face of your product may not be the look they're striving for.
addicted 2y ago
New legislation for rapidly moving new technology is not 100% clear at the outset. Shocking! The idea that if legislation is not perfectly crafted it’s bad is ridiculous. The only reason anyone even entertains this patently stupid concept is because the dysfunctional American system means you have to spend massive political capital to get legislation passed and once you did there’s almost no way to tinker the legislation to correct mistakes and handle unforeseen impacts. Fortunately most of the rest of the world, especially the EU, don’t act that way. Yeah the initial legislation will have flaws. And they will fix them. All that being said, considering Apple has consistently acted in bad faith with EU legislation I would wait until other non bad faith actors (so not Meta) also face similar issues.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751339