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Apple says it may stop shipping to the EU

92 points by LaGrange 1y ago

penguin_booze 1y ago
Please do. Apple might be banking on fanbois to throw tantrum and put political pressure. Thankfully, the EU hasn't yet been made a corporate serfdom as the US.
LaGrange 1y ago
My personal position is “go ahead then.”
austinallegro 1y ago
Thank God for that. Can Tesla and Meta stop as well? Thanks in advance. Sincerely, The EU.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  When we are doing that, Microsoft and Alphabet too please. Just some protections so that China doesn't take over and then let the free market do its work.
- shuckles 1y ago
  Extremely funny to speak on behalf of the continent about a niche EV brand that nobody has to buy if they don’t want to.
gbil 1y ago
>It said that rules under the act affected the way it provided users access to apps. “Pornography apps are available on iPhone from other marketplaces – apps we’ve never allowed on the App Store because of the risks they create, especially for children,” it said. Oh the children card! Too bad you do ship such an app with your device since forever, it's called a Browser!
- piva00 1y ago
  A browser, gacha-esque games with microtransactions to get kids addicted and spending, gambling and betting apps... Think of the children though, they can't see boobs.
  - balamatom 1y ago
    >Think of the children though, they can't see boobs. And now for a word from our sponsor, Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (JMÉL)...
  - pcdoodle 1y ago
    Back in my day we had to go out to the forest to see boobs...
    - balamatom 1y ago
      While some just had to look in the mirror!
- johnisgood 1y ago
  Are there people around who still believe the narrative and gives the benefit of the doubt to whoever says that it is for the children? Crazy.
  - garciasn 1y ago
    No; they just want to have cover for the real reason they don't like these apps: because it goes against their duplicitous religious morality.
    - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
      There's no morality. They'd sell porn in a minute if they thought it would be a net help to the bottom line.
    - some_random 1y ago
AndyMcConachie 1y ago
Is this a threat or a promise?
- fabianholzer 1y ago
  I consider it a promise, albeit an empty one
curiousObject 1y ago
Apple calls for changes to anti-monopoly laws and says it may stop shipping to the EU If that happens, then the demand is big enough that companies would import millions of iPhones from other regions and sell them in the EU. For warranty service, the company would ship the phones back to the original country where Apple sold them. Then, if that causes Apple too much trouble, then Apple would have to detect that the phone had been spending most of the time in the EU, and refuse to provide free servicing under warranty. That’s an interesting can of worms for Apple.
- dansmith1919 1y ago
  Tech behemoth attempts to blackmail an entire continent. In other news: the sky remains blue.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    This alone should have some consequences. Blackmailing done by a person is a criminal matter.
    - Zak 1y ago
      Blackmail, formally extortion or coercion is a crime only when specific kinds of threats (which may vary by jurisdiction) are used to compel someone's behavior. Threatening to stop offering certain products or services in jurisdictions with unfavorable regulatory environments doesn't meet those criteria in any jurisdiction I'm aware of. European car companies often have models that can't profitably be brought into compliance with USA regulations, and they're just not sold in the USA. Apple can almost certainly comply with EU regulations while remaining profitable in that market; they're just making a fuss because they don't like the regulations and they hope to get the public on their side.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        However a bus driver refusing to refusing/threatening to not provide service to a passenger is illegal, unless in some special cases. Apple is already somewhat classified as critical infrastructure, like via the DMA. I don't think the electricity provider will be allowed to say 'don't pass that law, or we don't provide your city with energy'. This would result in dispossession. This might not be encoded in current law. I'm just stating it should pointing to other legal subjects doing comparable things.
lucasyvas 1y ago
> Among the requirements of the DMA is that Apple ensures that headphones made by other brands will work with iPhones. It said this has been a block on it releasing its live translation service in the EU as it allows rival companies to access data from conversations, creating a privacy problem. This sounds bogus right? If all the headphones can do is transmit audio via first party operating system features how is this creating a data privacy issue? How are headphones going to exfiltrate data unless they have their own Wi-Fi connection or application that can serve as a bridge? Just disallow both.
- sippeangelo 1y ago
  It sounds like a straight up lie. Third party apps have always been able to record from microphones, and the live translation doesn't work without a connection to its app. They're just annoyed that they have to share their private APIs that let them do it without the normal restrictions for apps.
  - pk455 1y ago
    why should they have to share those private APIs?
    - fundatus 1y ago
      Because (since they control the platform/market) they're giving themselves an unfair advantage over competitors. Example: iCloud photos backup can upload a photo to iCloud in the background immediately after it was taken. Competing cloud storage providers cannot do this[1], because Apple withholds the API for that. Of course they're saying this is for "privacy" or for "energy saving" or whatever, but the actual reason is of course to make the user experience with competing services deliberately worse, so that people choose iCloud over something else. [1] There is some weird tricks with notifications and location triggers that apps like Nextcloud or Immich go through to make this work at least somewhat but those are hacks and it's also not reliable.
      - 1y ago
sippeangelo 1y ago
> delayed features are leading to a worse experience for users If they want to play fast and loose with the lack of consumer protections in the US market, by all means! Delayed features actually lead to a BETTER experience over here in the EU.
- okanat 1y ago
  Yup. People complain about bundled bullshit with Windows. You basically don't get most of it and you get to uninstall all bundled apps including Edge. This is a direct result of DMA.
- frizlab 1y ago
  Not on Apple devices. It just leads to missing features.
  - general1465 1y ago
    That sounds like Apple's problem.
    - frizlab 1y ago
      It is a lot my problem, because I actually do want those features… I could not care less about interoperability or whatever the current trend of regulation tries to “fix,” I want the features, period.
      - general1465 1y ago
        Apple made a decision to shoot itself in the foot and you are a collateral damage. Competitors are shipping those features without an issue. So it seems like the problem is not with regulations.
        frizlab 1y ago
        > Competitors are shipping those features without an issue. Actually not the ones I care about (for instance idgaf about live translation). > Apple made a decision to shoot itself in the foot and you are a collateral damage. Also not really true. Apple has always been straightforward about what they were doing, and suddenly the EU decided it was not good. But I truly and wholeheartedly disagree, and I actively want iOS the way it was. Let the market decide! As long as they do not deceive the users it’s ok/good, even, IMHO.
comrade1234 1y ago
Everyone will have to come to Switzerland to buy their apple gear. We have the live translation feature now. There's a few other countries in Europe where it's released but their vat is much higher. I think apple normalizes prices across countries but every now and then it's cheaper to buy apple gear here. There was even a time when iPhones were cheaper here than in the USA because of some exchange rate issues.
thw_9a83c 1y ago
Stop shipping to EU? Didn't work for Russia [0][1], will not work for the EU either. [0]: https://msk-apple.ru/ https://msk-apple.ru/ [1]: https://apple-com.ru/ https://apple-com.ru/
bilekas 1y ago
> “Pornography apps are available on iPhone from other marketplaces – apps we’ve never allowed on the App Store because of the risks they create, especially for children,” Why are they going to this now ? Nobody is holding apple responsible for that. It's just another 'think of the children' fear mongering while with the other face they want to be able to record everything without explicit consent or with some guadrails ? Apple can adapt if they want to participate in the EU market, like others have. They seem to think that it works like their lobby groups in the US. Just waiting for Macron to receive an expensive plaque from 'Tim Apple'.
- ryanmcbride 1y ago
  Eh it's not new, Apple is pretty much the reason tumblr got rid of nsfw content (I've heard it's sort of back now but idk I'm never going back to tumblr). It's why even if an app in the app store is rated 17+ it still can't really have nudity in it.
  - general1465 1y ago
    Then why Reddit and Twitter continue to have NSFW? Why I can open Safari and see porn if I want to? Should not be that removed from AppStore and iOS as well?
    - ryanmcbride 1y ago
      Because apple enforces things asymmetrically based on where the eye of the conservative news cycle is. NSFW content for tons of apps is buried in account settings that can't be changed from the iphone app but have to be changed from the browser. They've been doing this for a damn decade bro.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  The porn thing is unsurprising. Apple is notoriously picky about their brand image and what their devices can be used for, or seen being used for (famously, to use iPhones in movies they are not allowed to be used by villains).
Fizzadar 1y ago
This is great so long as the EU keeps its spine and doesn’t budge. Apple has behaved like a petulant child with the DMA and there’s zero chance their shareholders will willingly drop such a significant revenue %. The EU holds a lot of sway here, just don’t blink first please.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  EU is about 7% of Apple's revenue. Opening up the platform and allowing interoperability may actually harm more than that, I can envision a situation where Apple would actually be better off just pulling out.
  - Fizzadar 1y ago
    I believe that 7% is just App Store [1]? Including hardware it’d be much more significant. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/apple-says-eu-represents-7-of-global-app-store-revenue https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/apple-says-eu-represents-7...
bumseltagbaerbi 1y ago
[dead]
ENGNR 1y ago
Pretty scary for Apple shareholders. They're basically saying that the extremely expensive hardware alone isn't enough to make a profit anymore? They're that reliant on the app store monopoly now?
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  "Service" has already been about half of Apple's profits for a few years now, on par with hardware sales.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  They're reliant on ecosystem lock-in. An iPhone begets AirPods, Mac, iPad, Watch and Services (Apple Music, TV+, etc.). I use and like my macbooks, but the only reason I remain on iOS is for the integration. Auto switching with airpods, continuity camera, universal control, shared clipboard, etc. The moment that third party software & hardware can use those APIs and integrate to the same level that Apple's own tech can, Apple no longer as a unique selling point (outside of maybe Advanced Data Protection) vs. any other smartphone. I'd love to use my macbook, an Android phone, AirPods, and a Pixel watch all together to the level of seamlessness that Apple's own ecosystem integrates.
epolanski 1y ago
> “The DMA means the list of delayed features in the EU will probably get longer, and our EU users’ experience on Apple products will fall further behind,” That's an Apple problem, they're the ones going to lose market share to competitors offering those experiences. Samsung already has live translation, including in calls. In any case, I find it interesting that Palantir and Thorn are much better at lobbying the EU against its interests than Apple and other companies on much smaller and less relevant issues.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
  Apple has massive NIH issues. Not just with engineering etc but also their marketing and I wouldn’t be surprised if it extents to their legal/lobbying departments as well. Apple used to partner with some of the best external ad agencies and released some of the most memorable campaigns ever. But sometime over a decade ago they switched to doing it primarily in house and we haven’t seen a memorable ad campaign since forever. I suspect they similarly are driving their EU lobbying/legal decisions from California but the EU system is completely different from the U.S. system. It’s been quite evident, even from the outside looking in, that Apple keeps making arguments and keeps getting surprised by decisions that should be obvious to anyone who has even the slightest inkling of how the EU operates.
- aranelsurion 1y ago
  My anecdata is, I live in EU and have their Phone, Pad and Watch. Right now I’m not bothered by whatever “features” that are already delayed, but if the list gets larger, and their competitors find a way of not delaying them (I think they will), I’ll simply jump ship the next time I upgrade and that’s that. As a consumer I can’t care less about Apple’s woes around DMA.
  - StopDisinfo910 1y ago
    I have personally entirely divested myself of Apple this product generation because their overall attitude to EU regulation deeply annoys me. Between that and their pandering to the Trump administration, it will snow in hell before I buy another of their products.
sebtron 1y ago
What I get from this is that anti-monopoly rules are disrupting Apple's business model. That's great!
cicko 1y ago
can't wait!
parthdesai 1y ago
This is the same Apple that was talking about how privacy conscious they're and caved in to China but decides to strong arm Europe.
- unstatusthequo 1y ago
  China has trade leverage. EU is not negotiating from a position of strength.
  - parthdesai 1y ago
    Apple's main strategy back when Cambridge analytica incident happened was that they're privacy first company. Clearly, they were not and this incident just shows they only talked the talk as long as it was convenient for them
  - richwater 1y ago
    > EU is not negotiating from a position of strength. This is starting to become apparent in a variety of aspects of life. The past 2 or 3 decades the EU (and most of the world) has sort of ignored "might makes right" in favor of mutual respect. However, when shit hits the fan, you need to negotiate from a strong position like you've said and the EU lacks that -- customers, supply chains, military, economic, you name it.
ElectronBadger 1y ago
Presumably I speak not only for myself. My reply is zero. Zero is the exact number of fucks given.
amoss 1y ago
Company that makes vast profits from its monopoly over a digital market is against legislation to stop companies from exploiting monopolies over digital markets. I am shocked!
giancarlostoro 1y ago
This reminds me that recently I was trying to find any and all headsets that implement well into the Apple Ecosystem, then I remembered that Apple owns Beats, while I dont usually care about Beats, I wanted over the head headphones that were not an arm and a leg, only one out of all their headsets going on years now has some support, and it was really confusing figuring out if its even the latest ones. This is a product wholly owned by Apple and even that doesn't get access to Apple's Bluetooth magic? Wild. I'm not spending the cost of an entry level Mac (nearly) on headphones, that's just insane to me. An entry level Macbook Air is $50 more. That is wild to me. I've never spent that much on Headphones, and if it aint a DAC headset, I just can't justify it. I do wonder, how much of what Apple is doing is proprietary, and patented? Or is the fear that Apple could not patent it, and competitors will realize they could do the same for other ecosystems?
- jonny_eh 1y ago
  Beats use Apple’s Bluetooth chips. My Beats Studio headphones work great with all my Apple devices, and was much cheaper than the Max.
  - giancarlostoro 1y ago
    Does it sync automatically? It was really confusing googling for this stuff. I love my Airpod Pros but the mic is dead on them. I hate having to switch back and forth from bluetooth to wired.
    - jonny_eh 1y ago
      yes
  - jsheard 1y ago
    Not to mention they're 120g lighter than the Max, since Beats aren't subject to Apples mandate of making everything out of metal.
    - stockresearcher 1y ago
troupo 1y ago
It's quite interesting to see the sentiment turn against Apple. Even here, on a site which is generally anti-EU no one is buying Apple's whining.
- baobun 1y ago
  Timezones. The US lobby has barely started their work day. In any case it's a bit premature to make conclusions on overall community sentiment an hour in.
clownpenis_fart 1y ago
[dead]
pier25 1y ago
Obviously Apple will never leave a market with 450M people and give this market to its competitors.
- leakycap 1y ago
  They threatened to & then followed through turning off Advanced Data Protection in the UK and removed the features, pointing to the pending laws in that region. Apple does not seem to have a reputation for bluffing.
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    Plus the EU is only like 7% of Apple's revenue, so I'm also in the camp of "I don't think they are bluffing." They'd still have UK & Norway, both of which have a higher share of iOS than other European nations. The US & China are much bigger, more important markets for Apple.
    - troupo 1y ago
      > Plus the EU is only like 7% of Apple's revenue I doubt that. E.g. according to these charts, it's at least a quarter of profits: https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/aapl/metrics/revenue-by-geography/ https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/aapl/metrics/revenue-by-geo... > so I'm also in the camp of "I don't think they are bluffing." How big is Russian market do you think? They didn't quit even that, and here we are pretending that Apple is going to quit EU. > They'd still have UK & Norway, both of which have a higher share of iOS than other European nations. UK and Norway is ~75 million people EU is 450 million people > The US & China are much bigger, more important markets for Apple. So, a wealthy US market with 350 million people is very important. Unlike the wealthy EU market with 450 million people which Apple can just easily abandon.
      - thewebguyd 1y ago
        You are correct, I had my numbers mixed up. EU is 7% of Apple's app store revenue specifically, not total revenue. Definitely makes it seem more likely they are bluffing in that case unless they plan on just selling dumb phones with no app store.
BoredPositron 1y ago
Oh no... I am sure it won't be like the last 80 times one of the big tech companies threatened to leave the market.
remix2000 1y ago
Oh no, I can't buy the overpriced feature phone that can't even perform basic tasks like blocking ads, whatever will I do-! Flippin' Symbian phones from early 2010's are more capable and yet they are the ones we call "dumbphones"...
- leakycap 1y ago
  > Flippin' Symbian phones from early 2010's are more capable As a person who used them then and still have a few working that I turn on now and then, this is nostalgic bunk. Symbian phone hardware & software SDK were a disorganized mess. By 2010, Symbian phones were stagnant and the market was mostly abandoned. The Symbian OS had promise, but it was not realized. There is a reason the 2007 iPhone totally disrupted PalmPC/PalmOS/webOS/Symbian and wiped them from the landscape.
  - remix2000 1y ago
    Well at least you could sideload apps…
    - leakycap 1y ago
      Symbian v9.x started requiring mandatory code signing in 2006, which was before the iPhone existed and before your comment about 2010 Symbian. You could convince a user to turn off this code-signing requirement by having them alter the firmware on their device; not exactly friendly for sideloading
      - remix2000 1y ago
        You could selfsign stuff though.
        leakycap 1y ago
        I sense you don't like being wrong, but your memory is not serving you well Self-signed symbian apps: - had no lasting persmissions... EVERY single time a self-signed app did something like use network or bluetooth, the user gets a popup... every.single.time - had no background task ability; save before you switch apps! and music players? nope. - could not write to or browse the general phone filesystem - could only write to files created BY that app - could not use any of the phone functions (call records, making calls, filtering calls, recording calls, SMS/MMS) - had no kernel access for any access to custom plugins or methods outside the official SDK The self-signing tools provided for Symbian devs were MakeKeys and SignSIS & barely worked then. Nowdays, getting them to work takes a dark art incantation and rolling your VM back in time a few decades. Symbian was a shaky, shortsighted OS that switched directions in software and hardware multiple times before finding a lane that it quickly abandoned.
ThinkBeat 1y ago
Yeah sure that will happen in the real world It is of Apples most lucrative markets. I fully understand their frustration but I sincerely doubt that their shareholders will accept it. Doing it for a week, perhaps, to make a point and see if EU caves from it, which I dont see happening either.
jakobnissen 1y ago
It's sad to see how poorly the U.S. has been enforcing (and interpreting) its own anti-trust legislation the last ~40 years. In my view that decline has been one of the contributing factors to the growing business oligarchy in the country. Funnily, the previous EU commissioner for competition, who has spearheaded these clashes between EU and the U.S. tech giants has stated that the U.S. basically wrote the book on sensible anti-trust legislation back in the day, and that the EU's current laws are greatly inspired by the historical example of the U.S.
Zak 1y ago
> Apple added that Brussels was creating unfair competition as the rules were not applied to Samsung, the largest smartphone provider in the EU. This is disingenuous. The DMA gatekeeper rules apply to Android and Google Play, and Samsung's live translation feature does not appear to be tied to specific earbuds.
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
To play devil’s advocate a little bit, being required to make every new API publicly available right away can be a real pain in the rear for the first several iterations of these APIs, for both first and third parties. A common pattern in Apple platforms has been for APIs to be private initially, then made public 2-4 major versions after introduction, once the bulk of the design churn is over with and it can remain relatively stable. Essentially, they focus on making it functional and shaped correctly and then make it public once they’re satisfied. They don’t do this with every API obviously, but have with several. I think the DMA would be stronger if it had a “beta clause” that allowed that form of development for some stretch of time (a couple of years maybe) after public release before requirements kick in. This way companies don’t have to try to juggle making the APIs functional vs. fit for public consumption.
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  They'd have to iterate in public for sure. Now, Apple shipping an API has never been a guarantee they'll keep it compatible for any specific length of time, they've kept some APIs half broken without much afterthought as well. Versioning APIs wouldn't be some incredible techbical burden either. At the size and position of Apple they sure can do it.
- troupo 1y ago
  > A common pattern in Apple platforms has been for APIs to be private initially, then made public 2-4 major versions after introduction, once the bulk of the design churn is over with and it can remain relatively stable. I think DMA is what it is partly because Apple has stopped doing that for signifiant chunks of functionality, and started removing features available to third-party developers. See "Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones" https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-with-iphones https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...
- STKFLT 1y ago
  The requirement for making APIs immediately public only applies to connected devices under specific circumstances, which I would expect are a little more solidified at launch on account of how much integration work has to happen between different groups at Apple. AFAICT other APIs can remain private indefinitely unless they are subject to an interoperability request. Assuming the request is valid, Apple has 9-21 months to plan and implement any necessary changes to make the API public, where the time range is based on a self-assessment of the technical complexity of the request. (See pages 87-88): https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202523/DMA_100204_2073.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...
tempodox 1y ago
That’s rich. They do malicious compliance until they’re blue in the face and then blame the EU for it. Not even that tired “think of the children” shtick is too low for them. Pfui.
riccardomc 1y ago
> disrupting the seamless way Apple products work together this defense argument seems really counter productive as it feels exactly the point of antitrust laws. Just like disrupting the seamless way internet explorer worked together with Windows was exactly the point. Also the "Pornography, in my iPhone?!" has meme potential.
sceptic123 1y ago
Apple's statement is here: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/the-digital-markets-acts-impacts-on-eu-users/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/the-digital-markets-a...
jonnat 1y ago
What an empty threat. Apple has 1/3 of the mobile market share in Europe and people here are not locked into the ecosystem, with 3P messaging apps like WhatsApp dominating communication. And they are trying to pull this BS at a time that they are facing ever stronger competition from foldable phones and their inability to do anything useful in AI.
hollow-moe 1y ago
Please do so, we sure won't miss you. Hope Google does the same. Back to good ol' no tech world, this ultra connected surveillance dopamine farm thingy was just a fever dream.
butz 1y ago
Do not allow underage kids use smartphones. All problems solved. Thank you for attending my TED talk.
seec 1y ago
As far as I'm concerned, I lowkey want them to do that. Would open up space for an alternative. As good as Apple hardware is (well in the designe department at least) their behavior is terrible for consumers and their OSs are becoming a joke. So, it's not like we would lose something particularly great.
deleted 1y ago
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cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Empty threat. Apple is answerable to shareholders and the EU is too big a market to exit. But if they do - great! Imagine the exciting industry that will flourish without them! Tragic how much goodwill Apple has squandered.
tedmaj0rPeye 1y ago
[dead]
627467 1y ago
Please do? I mean, all this public grandstanding between sides is exhausting: - apple says its walled garden is the best for consumers so they should have a spine and push back - the EU has been pushing their Brussels effect around because it's also good for consumers so they should just stiffen their spine and stop dragging courts cases and media attention for years. Not only that: all the EU complains on how Apple has not paid their fair share of taxes by using European tax loopholes. They should just keep their spine stiff and impose a massive penalty on Apple non-compliance! In the end it's a win-win isn't it? Europe gets a chance to come up with local players to fill in the market for a walled garden device and apple keeps their reputation with consumers
pastapliiats 1y ago
Unlikely to happen, but I would rather have European regulations than american products
dariosalvi78 1y ago
what Apple (and most US companies) do not understand is that the DMA is made to protect EU companies first and foremost. The EU is doing what US should have done decades ago: fight monopolies. Giving up part of Apple's market is the intended purposes. If Apples leave the continent entirely (spoiler: they won't) it's all gained for other companies. These are empty threats that are honestly pathetic given the power and the history that company has.
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92 points by LaGrange 1y ago

Please do. Apple might be banking on fanbois to throw tantrum and put political pressure. Thankfully, the EU hasn't yet been made a corporate serfdom as the US.

LaGrange 1y ago

My personal position is “go ahead then.”

austinallegro 1y ago

Thank God for that. Can Tesla and Meta stop as well? Thanks in advance. Sincerely, The EU.

1718627440 1y ago
When we are doing that, Microsoft and Alphabet too please. Just some protections so that China doesn't take over and then let the free market do its work.
shuckles 1y ago
Extremely funny to speak on behalf of the continent about a niche EV brand that nobody has to buy if they don’t want to.

gbil 1y ago

>It said that rules under the act affected the way it provided users access to apps. “Pornography apps are available on iPhone from other marketplaces – apps we’ve never allowed on the App Store because of the risks they create, especially for children,” it said. Oh the children card! Too bad you do ship such an app with your device since forever, it's called a Browser!

piva00 1y ago
A browser, gacha-esque games with microtransactions to get kids addicted and spending, gambling and betting apps... Think of the children though, they can't see boobs.
- balamatom 1y ago
  >Think of the children though, they can't see boobs. And now for a word from our sponsor, Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (JMÉL)...
- pcdoodle 1y ago
  Back in my day we had to go out to the forest to see boobs...
  - balamatom 1y ago
    While some just had to look in the mirror!
johnisgood 1y ago
Are there people around who still believe the narrative and gives the benefit of the doubt to whoever says that it is for the children? Crazy.
- garciasn 1y ago
  No; they just want to have cover for the real reason they don't like these apps: because it goes against their duplicitous religious morality.
  - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
    There's no morality. They'd sell porn in a minute if they thought it would be a net help to the bottom line.
  - some_random 1y ago

AndyMcConachie 1y ago

Is this a threat or a promise?

fabianholzer 1y ago
I consider it a promise, albeit an empty one

curiousObject 1y ago

Apple calls for changes to anti-monopoly laws and says it may stop shipping to the EU If that happens, then the demand is big enough that companies would import millions of iPhones from other regions and sell them in the EU. For warranty service, the company would ship the phones back to the original country where Apple sold them. Then, if that causes Apple too much trouble, then Apple would have to detect that the phone had been spending most of the time in the EU, and refuse to provide free servicing under warranty. That’s an interesting can of worms for Apple.

dansmith1919 1y ago
Tech behemoth attempts to blackmail an entire continent. In other news: the sky remains blue.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  This alone should have some consequences. Blackmailing done by a person is a criminal matter.
  - Zak 1y ago
    Blackmail, formally extortion or coercion is a crime only when specific kinds of threats (which may vary by jurisdiction) are used to compel someone's behavior. Threatening to stop offering certain products or services in jurisdictions with unfavorable regulatory environments doesn't meet those criteria in any jurisdiction I'm aware of. European car companies often have models that can't profitably be brought into compliance with USA regulations, and they're just not sold in the USA. Apple can almost certainly comply with EU regulations while remaining profitable in that market; they're just making a fuss because they don't like the regulations and they hope to get the public on their side.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      However a bus driver refusing to refusing/threatening to not provide service to a passenger is illegal, unless in some special cases. Apple is already somewhat classified as critical infrastructure, like via the DMA. I don't think the electricity provider will be allowed to say 'don't pass that law, or we don't provide your city with energy'. This would result in dispossession. This might not be encoded in current law. I'm just stating it should pointing to other legal subjects doing comparable things.

lucasyvas 1y ago

> Among the requirements of the DMA is that Apple ensures that headphones made by other brands will work with iPhones. It said this has been a block on it releasing its live translation service in the EU as it allows rival companies to access data from conversations, creating a privacy problem. This sounds bogus right? If all the headphones can do is transmit audio via first party operating system features how is this creating a data privacy issue? How are headphones going to exfiltrate data unless they have their own Wi-Fi connection or application that can serve as a bridge? Just disallow both.

sippeangelo 1y ago
It sounds like a straight up lie. Third party apps have always been able to record from microphones, and the live translation doesn't work without a connection to its app. They're just annoyed that they have to share their private APIs that let them do it without the normal restrictions for apps.
- pk455 1y ago
  why should they have to share those private APIs?
  - fundatus 1y ago
    Because (since they control the platform/market) they're giving themselves an unfair advantage over competitors. Example: iCloud photos backup can upload a photo to iCloud in the background immediately after it was taken. Competing cloud storage providers cannot do this[1], because Apple withholds the API for that. Of course they're saying this is for "privacy" or for "energy saving" or whatever, but the actual reason is of course to make the user experience with competing services deliberately worse, so that people choose iCloud over something else. [1] There is some weird tricks with notifications and location triggers that apps like Nextcloud or Immich go through to make this work at least somewhat but those are hacks and it's also not reliable.
    - 1y ago

sippeangelo 1y ago

> delayed features are leading to a worse experience for users If they want to play fast and loose with the lack of consumer protections in the US market, by all means! Delayed features actually lead to a BETTER experience over here in the EU.

okanat 1y ago
Yup. People complain about bundled bullshit with Windows. You basically don't get most of it and you get to uninstall all bundled apps including Edge. This is a direct result of DMA.
frizlab 1y ago
Not on Apple devices. It just leads to missing features.
- general1465 1y ago
  That sounds like Apple's problem.
  - frizlab 1y ago
    It is a lot my problem, because I actually do want those features… I could not care less about interoperability or whatever the current trend of regulation tries to “fix,” I want the features, period.
    - general1465 1y ago
      Apple made a decision to shoot itself in the foot and you are a collateral damage. Competitors are shipping those features without an issue. So it seems like the problem is not with regulations.
      - frizlab 1y ago
        > Competitors are shipping those features without an issue. Actually not the ones I care about (for instance idgaf about live translation). > Apple made a decision to shoot itself in the foot and you are a collateral damage. Also not really true. Apple has always been straightforward about what they were doing, and suddenly the EU decided it was not good. But I truly and wholeheartedly disagree, and I actively want iOS the way it was. Let the market decide! As long as they do not deceive the users it’s ok/good, even, IMHO.

comrade1234 1y ago

Everyone will have to come to Switzerland to buy their apple gear. We have the live translation feature now. There's a few other countries in Europe where it's released but their vat is much higher. I think apple normalizes prices across countries but every now and then it's cheaper to buy apple gear here. There was even a time when iPhones were cheaper here than in the USA because of some exchange rate issues.

thw_9a83c 1y ago

Stop shipping to EU? Didn't work for Russia [0][1], will not work for the EU either. [0]: https://msk-apple.ru/ https://msk-apple.ru/ [1]: https://apple-com.ru/ https://apple-com.ru/

bilekas 1y ago

> “Pornography apps are available on iPhone from other marketplaces – apps we’ve never allowed on the App Store because of the risks they create, especially for children,” Why are they going to this now ? Nobody is holding apple responsible for that. It's just another 'think of the children' fear mongering while with the other face they want to be able to record everything without explicit consent or with some guadrails ? Apple can adapt if they want to participate in the EU market, like others have. They seem to think that it works like their lobby groups in the US. Just waiting for Macron to receive an expensive plaque from 'Tim Apple'.

ryanmcbride 1y ago
Eh it's not new, Apple is pretty much the reason tumblr got rid of nsfw content (I've heard it's sort of back now but idk I'm never going back to tumblr). It's why even if an app in the app store is rated 17+ it still can't really have nudity in it.
- general1465 1y ago
  Then why Reddit and Twitter continue to have NSFW? Why I can open Safari and see porn if I want to? Should not be that removed from AppStore and iOS as well?
  - ryanmcbride 1y ago
    Because apple enforces things asymmetrically based on where the eye of the conservative news cycle is. NSFW content for tons of apps is buried in account settings that can't be changed from the iphone app but have to be changed from the browser. They've been doing this for a damn decade bro.
thewebguyd 1y ago
The porn thing is unsurprising. Apple is notoriously picky about their brand image and what their devices can be used for, or seen being used for (famously, to use iPhones in movies they are not allowed to be used by villains).

Fizzadar 1y ago

This is great so long as the EU keeps its spine and doesn’t budge. Apple has behaved like a petulant child with the DMA and there’s zero chance their shareholders will willingly drop such a significant revenue %. The EU holds a lot of sway here, just don’t blink first please.

thewebguyd 1y ago
EU is about 7% of Apple's revenue. Opening up the platform and allowing interoperability may actually harm more than that, I can envision a situation where Apple would actually be better off just pulling out.
- Fizzadar 1y ago
  I believe that 7% is just App Store [1]? Including hardware it’d be much more significant. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/apple-says-eu-represents-7-of-global-app-store-revenue https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/apple-says-eu-represents-7...

bumseltagbaerbi 1y ago

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ENGNR 1y ago

Pretty scary for Apple shareholders. They're basically saying that the extremely expensive hardware alone isn't enough to make a profit anymore? They're that reliant on the app store monopoly now?

makeitdouble 1y ago
"Service" has already been about half of Apple's profits for a few years now, on par with hardware sales.
thewebguyd 1y ago
They're reliant on ecosystem lock-in. An iPhone begets AirPods, Mac, iPad, Watch and Services (Apple Music, TV+, etc.). I use and like my macbooks, but the only reason I remain on iOS is for the integration. Auto switching with airpods, continuity camera, universal control, shared clipboard, etc. The moment that third party software & hardware can use those APIs and integrate to the same level that Apple's own tech can, Apple no longer as a unique selling point (outside of maybe Advanced Data Protection) vs. any other smartphone. I'd love to use my macbook, an Android phone, AirPods, and a Pixel watch all together to the level of seamlessness that Apple's own ecosystem integrates.

epolanski 1y ago

> “The DMA means the list of delayed features in the EU will probably get longer, and our EU users’ experience on Apple products will fall further behind,” That's an Apple problem, they're the ones going to lose market share to competitors offering those experiences. Samsung already has live translation, including in calls. In any case, I find it interesting that Palantir and Thorn are much better at lobbying the EU against its interests than Apple and other companies on much smaller and less relevant issues.

hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
Apple has massive NIH issues. Not just with engineering etc but also their marketing and I wouldn’t be surprised if it extents to their legal/lobbying departments as well. Apple used to partner with some of the best external ad agencies and released some of the most memorable campaigns ever. But sometime over a decade ago they switched to doing it primarily in house and we haven’t seen a memorable ad campaign since forever. I suspect they similarly are driving their EU lobbying/legal decisions from California but the EU system is completely different from the U.S. system. It’s been quite evident, even from the outside looking in, that Apple keeps making arguments and keeps getting surprised by decisions that should be obvious to anyone who has even the slightest inkling of how the EU operates.
aranelsurion 1y ago
My anecdata is, I live in EU and have their Phone, Pad and Watch. Right now I’m not bothered by whatever “features” that are already delayed, but if the list gets larger, and their competitors find a way of not delaying them (I think they will), I’ll simply jump ship the next time I upgrade and that’s that. As a consumer I can’t care less about Apple’s woes around DMA.
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago
  I have personally entirely divested myself of Apple this product generation because their overall attitude to EU regulation deeply annoys me. Between that and their pandering to the Trump administration, it will snow in hell before I buy another of their products.

sebtron 1y ago

What I get from this is that anti-monopoly rules are disrupting Apple's business model. That's great!

cicko 1y ago

can't wait!

parthdesai 1y ago

This is the same Apple that was talking about how privacy conscious they're and caved in to China but decides to strong arm Europe.

unstatusthequo 1y ago
China has trade leverage. EU is not negotiating from a position of strength.
- parthdesai 1y ago
  Apple's main strategy back when Cambridge analytica incident happened was that they're privacy first company. Clearly, they were not and this incident just shows they only talked the talk as long as it was convenient for them
- richwater 1y ago
  > EU is not negotiating from a position of strength. This is starting to become apparent in a variety of aspects of life. The past 2 or 3 decades the EU (and most of the world) has sort of ignored "might makes right" in favor of mutual respect. However, when shit hits the fan, you need to negotiate from a strong position like you've said and the EU lacks that -- customers, supply chains, military, economic, you name it.

ElectronBadger 1y ago

Presumably I speak not only for myself. My reply is zero. Zero is the exact number of fucks given.

amoss 1y ago

Company that makes vast profits from its monopoly over a digital market is against legislation to stop companies from exploiting monopolies over digital markets. I am shocked!

giancarlostoro 1y ago

This reminds me that recently I was trying to find any and all headsets that implement well into the Apple Ecosystem, then I remembered that Apple owns Beats, while I dont usually care about Beats, I wanted over the head headphones that were not an arm and a leg, only one out of all their headsets going on years now has some support, and it was really confusing figuring out if its even the latest ones. This is a product wholly owned by Apple and even that doesn't get access to Apple's Bluetooth magic? Wild. I'm not spending the cost of an entry level Mac (nearly) on headphones, that's just insane to me. An entry level Macbook Air is $50 more. That is wild to me. I've never spent that much on Headphones, and if it aint a DAC headset, I just can't justify it. I do wonder, how much of what Apple is doing is proprietary, and patented? Or is the fear that Apple could not patent it, and competitors will realize they could do the same for other ecosystems?

jonny_eh 1y ago
Beats use Apple’s Bluetooth chips. My Beats Studio headphones work great with all my Apple devices, and was much cheaper than the Max.
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  Does it sync automatically? It was really confusing googling for this stuff. I love my Airpod Pros but the mic is dead on them. I hate having to switch back and forth from bluetooth to wired.
  - jonny_eh 1y ago
    yes
- jsheard 1y ago
  Not to mention they're 120g lighter than the Max, since Beats aren't subject to Apples mandate of making everything out of metal.
  - stockresearcher 1y ago

troupo 1y ago

It's quite interesting to see the sentiment turn against Apple. Even here, on a site which is generally anti-EU no one is buying Apple's whining.

baobun 1y ago
Timezones. The US lobby has barely started their work day. In any case it's a bit premature to make conclusions on overall community sentiment an hour in.

clownpenis_fart 1y ago

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pier25 1y ago

Obviously Apple will never leave a market with 450M people and give this market to its competitors.

leakycap 1y ago
They threatened to & then followed through turning off Advanced Data Protection in the UK and removed the features, pointing to the pending laws in that region. Apple does not seem to have a reputation for bluffing.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  Plus the EU is only like 7% of Apple's revenue, so I'm also in the camp of "I don't think they are bluffing." They'd still have UK & Norway, both of which have a higher share of iOS than other European nations. The US & China are much bigger, more important markets for Apple.
  - troupo 1y ago
    > Plus the EU is only like 7% of Apple's revenue I doubt that. E.g. according to these charts, it's at least a quarter of profits: https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/aapl/metrics/revenue-by-geography/ https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/aapl/metrics/revenue-by-geo... > so I'm also in the camp of "I don't think they are bluffing." How big is Russian market do you think? They didn't quit even that, and here we are pretending that Apple is going to quit EU. > They'd still have UK & Norway, both of which have a higher share of iOS than other European nations. UK and Norway is ~75 million people EU is 450 million people > The US & China are much bigger, more important markets for Apple. So, a wealthy US market with 350 million people is very important. Unlike the wealthy EU market with 450 million people which Apple can just easily abandon.
    - thewebguyd 1y ago
      You are correct, I had my numbers mixed up. EU is 7% of Apple's app store revenue specifically, not total revenue. Definitely makes it seem more likely they are bluffing in that case unless they plan on just selling dumb phones with no app store.

BoredPositron 1y ago

Oh no... I am sure it won't be like the last 80 times one of the big tech companies threatened to leave the market.

remix2000 1y ago

Oh no, I can't buy the overpriced feature phone that can't even perform basic tasks like blocking ads, whatever will I do-! Flippin' Symbian phones from early 2010's are more capable and yet they are the ones we call "dumbphones"...

leakycap 1y ago
> Flippin' Symbian phones from early 2010's are more capable As a person who used them then and still have a few working that I turn on now and then, this is nostalgic bunk. Symbian phone hardware & software SDK were a disorganized mess. By 2010, Symbian phones were stagnant and the market was mostly abandoned. The Symbian OS had promise, but it was not realized. There is a reason the 2007 iPhone totally disrupted PalmPC/PalmOS/webOS/Symbian and wiped them from the landscape.
- remix2000 1y ago
  Well at least you could sideload apps…
  - leakycap 1y ago
    Symbian v9.x started requiring mandatory code signing in 2006, which was before the iPhone existed and before your comment about 2010 Symbian. You could convince a user to turn off this code-signing requirement by having them alter the firmware on their device; not exactly friendly for sideloading
    - remix2000 1y ago
      You could selfsign stuff though.
      - leakycap 1y ago
        I sense you don't like being wrong, but your memory is not serving you well Self-signed symbian apps: - had no lasting persmissions... EVERY single time a self-signed app did something like use network or bluetooth, the user gets a popup... every.single.time - had no background task ability; save before you switch apps! and music players? nope. - could not write to or browse the general phone filesystem - could only write to files created BY that app - could not use any of the phone functions (call records, making calls, filtering calls, recording calls, SMS/MMS) - had no kernel access for any access to custom plugins or methods outside the official SDK The self-signing tools provided for Symbian devs were MakeKeys and SignSIS & barely worked then. Nowdays, getting them to work takes a dark art incantation and rolling your VM back in time a few decades. Symbian was a shaky, shortsighted OS that switched directions in software and hardware multiple times before finding a lane that it quickly abandoned.

ThinkBeat 1y ago

Yeah sure that will happen in the real world It is of Apples most lucrative markets. I fully understand their frustration but I sincerely doubt that their shareholders will accept it. Doing it for a week, perhaps, to make a point and see if EU caves from it, which I dont see happening either.

jakobnissen 1y ago

It's sad to see how poorly the U.S. has been enforcing (and interpreting) its own anti-trust legislation the last ~40 years. In my view that decline has been one of the contributing factors to the growing business oligarchy in the country. Funnily, the previous EU commissioner for competition, who has spearheaded these clashes between EU and the U.S. tech giants has stated that the U.S. basically wrote the book on sensible anti-trust legislation back in the day, and that the EU's current laws are greatly inspired by the historical example of the U.S.

Zak 1y ago

> Apple added that Brussels was creating unfair competition as the rules were not applied to Samsung, the largest smartphone provider in the EU. This is disingenuous. The DMA gatekeeper rules apply to Android and Google Play, and Samsung's live translation feature does not appear to be tied to specific earbuds.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago

To play devil’s advocate a little bit, being required to make every new API publicly available right away can be a real pain in the rear for the first several iterations of these APIs, for both first and third parties. A common pattern in Apple platforms has been for APIs to be private initially, then made public 2-4 major versions after introduction, once the bulk of the design churn is over with and it can remain relatively stable. Essentially, they focus on making it functional and shaped correctly and then make it public once they’re satisfied. They don’t do this with every API obviously, but have with several. I think the DMA would be stronger if it had a “beta clause” that allowed that form of development for some stretch of time (a couple of years maybe) after public release before requirements kick in. This way companies don’t have to try to juggle making the APIs functional vs. fit for public consumption.

makeitdouble 1y ago
They'd have to iterate in public for sure. Now, Apple shipping an API has never been a guarantee they'll keep it compatible for any specific length of time, they've kept some APIs half broken without much afterthought as well. Versioning APIs wouldn't be some incredible techbical burden either. At the size and position of Apple they sure can do it.
troupo 1y ago
> A common pattern in Apple platforms has been for APIs to be private initially, then made public 2-4 major versions after introduction, once the bulk of the design churn is over with and it can remain relatively stable. I think DMA is what it is partly because Apple has stopped doing that for signifiant chunks of functionality, and started removing features available to third-party developers. See "Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones" https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-with-iphones https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...
STKFLT 1y ago
The requirement for making APIs immediately public only applies to connected devices under specific circumstances, which I would expect are a little more solidified at launch on account of how much integration work has to happen between different groups at Apple. AFAICT other APIs can remain private indefinitely unless they are subject to an interoperability request. Assuming the request is valid, Apple has 9-21 months to plan and implement any necessary changes to make the API public, where the time range is based on a self-assessment of the technical complexity of the request. (See pages 87-88): https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202523/DMA_100204_2073.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...

tempodox 1y ago

That’s rich. They do malicious compliance until they’re blue in the face and then blame the EU for it. Not even that tired “think of the children” shtick is too low for them. Pfui.

riccardomc 1y ago

> disrupting the seamless way Apple products work together this defense argument seems really counter productive as it feels exactly the point of antitrust laws. Just like disrupting the seamless way internet explorer worked together with Windows was exactly the point. Also the "Pornography, in my iPhone?!" has meme potential.

sceptic123 1y ago

Apple's statement is here: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/the-digital-markets-acts-impacts-on-eu-users/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/the-digital-markets-a...

jonnat 1y ago

What an empty threat. Apple has 1/3 of the mobile market share in Europe and people here are not locked into the ecosystem, with 3P messaging apps like WhatsApp dominating communication. And they are trying to pull this BS at a time that they are facing ever stronger competition from foldable phones and their inability to do anything useful in AI.

hollow-moe 1y ago

Please do so, we sure won't miss you. Hope Google does the same. Back to good ol' no tech world, this ultra connected surveillance dopamine farm thingy was just a fever dream.

butz 1y ago

Do not allow underage kids use smartphones. All problems solved. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

seec 1y ago

As far as I'm concerned, I lowkey want them to do that. Would open up space for an alternative. As good as Apple hardware is (well in the designe department at least) their behavior is terrible for consumers and their OSs are becoming a joke. So, it's not like we would lose something particularly great.

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cadamsdotcom 1y ago

Empty threat. Apple is answerable to shareholders and the EU is too big a market to exit. But if they do - great! Imagine the exciting industry that will flourish without them! Tragic how much goodwill Apple has squandered.

tedmaj0rPeye 1y ago

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627467 1y ago

Please do? I mean, all this public grandstanding between sides is exhausting: - apple says its walled garden is the best for consumers so they should have a spine and push back - the EU has been pushing their Brussels effect around because it's also good for consumers so they should just stiffen their spine and stop dragging courts cases and media attention for years. Not only that: all the EU complains on how Apple has not paid their fair share of taxes by using European tax loopholes. They should just keep their spine stiff and impose a massive penalty on Apple non-compliance! In the end it's a win-win isn't it? Europe gets a chance to come up with local players to fill in the market for a walled garden device and apple keeps their reputation with consumers

pastapliiats 1y ago

Unlikely to happen, but I would rather have European regulations than american products

dariosalvi78 1y ago

what Apple (and most US companies) do not understand is that the DMA is made to protect EU companies first and foremost. The EU is doing what US should have done decades ago: fight monopolies. Giving up part of Apple's market is the intended purposes. If Apples leave the continent entirely (spoiler: they won't) it's all gained for other companies. These are empty threats that are honestly pathetic given the power and the history that company has.

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