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Apple threatens to stop selling iPhones in the EU
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 1y agoOh no, how will we survive? Everybody knows that these threats are hollow (Apple's stock price would take a gigantic hit) but even if they followed through I'm pretty sure we would hardly notice. If both Apple and Google stopped trading here then that might actually be good and create enough oxygen for local competition to flourish.
- AAAAaccountAAAA 1y agoRealistically, it would be local competition completely under Brussels' thumb.
- troupo 1y agoAh yes, the heavy Brussels thumb of ... checks notes ... "don't track your users, don't hinder competition and let people chose if they want algorithmically generated slop"
- gruez 1y agoDon't forget chat control! We would want pedophiles and criminals to have access to phones, now do we?
- wizzwizz4 1y agoChat Control hasn't happened, and if it does, the court will shut it down. (It's still worth fighting, but it's not something that non-activists need to worry about.)
- AAAAaccountAAAA 1y agoOne can't rely on courts only to protect civil freedoms. If and when totalitarian measures become politically acceptable and desired, the politicians will simply amend the EU treaties and national constitutions to allow mass surveillance, and disband or subvert CoE and other limitations to their power.
- zoul 1y agoOh yes. As opposed to the “kiss the ring or else” market freedoms of the US.
- AAAAaccountAAAA 1y agoSo far, they have implemented only cosmetic measures to address those issues, while seriously considering outrageous things like Chat Control.
- gruez 1y agoEuropeans would "survive", but end up with crappier phones. There's a reason why nobody buys nokia anymore.
- aaa_aaa 1y agoPixel is superior.
- ranger_danger 1y agoBecause it was sold to Microsoft whose only strategy was to kill it off?
- gruez 1y agoAnd why was it sold off? Winners don't tend to get offloaded to other companies.
- ranger_danger 1y agoNot only did Apple and Google divebomb their sales, but Nokia's own hardware was plagued with bugs and comparatively inadequate features, like small displays and slow CPUs. MS would later re-sell Nokia to HMD in 2016, who still release some feature-phones, including ones running an "S30+" OS that has nothing to do with Symbian.
- jacquesm 1y agoI have one of these running KaiOS and it works surprisingly well. It also seems to be immune to battery life degradation (it works just as well as it did when I got it) and in general has been rock solid. I think in the almost six years that I've had it, it has spontaneously rebooted once and other than that it just works. It is simple, has buttons (no touch screen), has an earphone jack and is so solid you can drop it and the chance is larger that you damage the thing it lands on that that you damage the phone. It still looks like new in spite of being in my pocket together with keys and other stuff. I'd buy another in a heartbeat if this one ever dies but I suspect it will just keep on working.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoOr, as Apple and Google may bet, the EU does not have the talent required to make a good smartphone without reliance on China, the US, or other unfavorable parties, which defeat most advantages of supposedly local development. They are calling the EU's bluff, and it's possibly a smart business decision to do so.
- sroussey 1y agoEh, plenty of Chinese companies very used to government regulation that would thrive in the EU and not be bothered by their (relatively lesser) regulations.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoIt's not that China won't thrive in the EU; it's that from the EU's perspective, reliance on China may be even worse. Especially morally, considering China has no problem trading with Russia.
- CafeRacer 1y agoAs if europe has a lot of problems trading with russia. I mean, realistically, most of the loud words are just that.
- pembrook 1y agoI think you would be surprised to learn China has far less regulation than the EU. Part of this is China being a far more dynamic, high risk, Wild West-style capitalist system that’s communist only in very specific areas. The other part being, you don’t really have to write stuff down as much when you can just manipulate subjects of your authoritarian regime at will.
- f33d5173 1y ago> The other part being, you don’t really have to write stuff down as much when you can just manipulate subjects of your authoritarian regime at will. That creates a web of implicit rules that need to be complied with just as much as if they were written down, while having the downside of unclear boundaries and exceptions. An environment with more rules, but with them written in ink and with lawyers that can be consulted to interpret them is preferable.
- ranger_danger 1y ago> gigantic hit I don't think so... EU is only 7% of their revenue globally according to their CFO, and DMA can fine them up to 10% of global revenue, so it may actually be cheaper to just leave the market.
- troupo 1y agoTheir execs are not above lying under oath. I hardly believe that a wealthy continent with a population of 450 million is just 7% of their revenue.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoThe simple but unpopular answer is that the EU is no longer a wealthy continent. The EU is finding this out on a daily basis.
- troupo 1y agoWhich is, of course, a bullshit answer.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoActually, it's far closer to the truth than you may think. France? Their debt is killing their country and causing escalating political crises. Germany? Energy costs are killing their competitiveness. Hard to compete with energy costs of $0.44 per kWh on average; before labor costs. Italy? Need I say more? Their economy is notoriously stagnant. The remaining 24 EU countries make up less than 50% of the EU's GDP. Meanwhile, US and EU GDP went from almost 1:1 in 2008, to 1:0.65 and still declining. To give you a sense of how severe Germany's problems are, the US state of Mississippi is almost ready to pass Germany's GDP per capita.
- troupo 1y ago1. So much emotion 2. None of that says that the EU isn't rich 3. None of that proves that the bullshit about revenue Do you know how I know that? Because that "7%" comes from this quote: "Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global App Store revenue." App Store revenue is not all of Apple's revenue. Oh, and those same execs claim they don't even know if App Store makes money or loses it, so how would they know.
- _1tem 1y agoNobody said the EU wouldn’t survive. But EU consumers will be very angry at Brussels.
- jacquesm 1y ago> But EU consumers will be very angry at Brussels. Why would they be angry at Brussels? If Apple decides to pull out of the EU market that's on them. EU citizens will be a lot less angry at Brussels than Apple's shareholders will be.
- _1tem 1y agoEU consumers will travel to other countries or buy through second hand markets, which is what happens in Russia now. Apple will lose little revenue. Apple can easily spin this as a win to shareholders showing how much competitive advantage was preserved by not having to build the EUs interoperability demands. In the end the EU consumer gains nothing from all of this but loses their beloved Apple devices.
- bigyabai 1y ago> In the end the EU consumer gains nothing from all of this but loses their beloved Apple devices. 'Beloved' lol. You can just tell American hands typed this. "What if the Europeans can't consoom anymore? Won't they riot in the street when they have to use SMS over iMessage?"
- jacquesm 1y ago
- beezlewax 1y agoYeh I think we'll survive.
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoHahahahahahahahahaha! Yeah. OK. “Stop. Don’t. Come back.” Hahahahahahaha.
- stavros 1y agoI hope the EU doesn't flinch. I'm on the side of the DMA on this particular issue, and would very much like to see Apple get its bluff called.
- deadbabe 1y agoThe EU has to flinch. Sure the entire HN demographic may not give a shit, but they literally don’t matter. The masses of constituents will be pissed.
- ycombigators 1y ago[dead]
- stavros 1y agoDepends on whether we'll be more pissed about not having an iPhone or about having to give 30% of all purchases to Apple. It'll also take a lot for Apple to be able to spin this as "the EU is banning us from selling iPhones" when it's their decision.
- drexlspivey 1y agoLet me break it to you, Play store also has a 30% tax. So does Steam, Playstation store, Xbox store, Meta quest store, Nintendo, Samsung etc. Why do people only complain about Apple and everybody else gets a pass?
- stavros 1y agoBecause I have the option of using an alternate app store on my Android phone or computer, and I do. Meta, PlayStation, Nintendo, all companies that force me to pay them a cut to install something on my device need to go the way of Apple. I'm not sure why you thought your point was such a checkmate, as if I have a problem with the company itself, rather than the practice.
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- CafeRacer 1y agoMusk talked a lot and now there is an influx of chinese ev's replacing teslas. Iphones will he gone, there will be an influx of meizu or whatever chinese alternatives are. They'll simply loose some market share.
- pembrook 1y agoYes, would be wonderful to get Europe fully on Chinese hardware and away from those evil Californians. I can’t see any potential issues with that, China and Russia are great friends of Europe!
- general1465 1y agoOr they could buy some emerging European brands, which would have more breathing space as not everyone will want to exchange US Big Brother for Chinese Big Brother. https://versus.com/en/news/the-rise-of-european-phone-brands https://versus.com/en/news/the-rise-of-european-phone-brands
- CafeRacer 1y ago[flagged]
- pmontra 1y agoSamsung and Chinese phone makers will happily sell their phones to former Apple customers. Are Macs next in the line?
- NorwegianDude 1y agoYeah yeah. Nobody believes what Americans say, be that Trump, Elon or Apple. They're all full of shit, and they rarely do what they say. The average junkie is a more reliable source on what Apple will do than Apple itself.
- exabrial 1y agoDo it. It would be the beginning of the end which needs to come. The only market they would have monopoly left would be USA, due to the lock-in of iMessage and encouragement of kids to bully others who can't afford expensive iPhones.
- _1tem 1y agoIt would be the beginning of the end of the EU’s regulatory power.
- general1465 1y ago1. Apple has like 30% of the market in EU, it will disappear and nobody will notice. Nokia used to have 50% market share, in Europe, they are gone. 2. People will blame Apple, same like people blamed unstable drivers causing BSOD on Windows on Microsoft.
- _1tem 1y agoThe unstable driver issue exactly why Apple should not make devices interoperable as the EU demands. If they comply with the EU demand and then the device performance is bad due to crappy third party integrations, consumers will blame Apple. If consumers can buy Apple devices everywhere except the EU they will blame the EU not Apple.
- general1465 1y agoFew die hards will maybe buy it abroad, most of them will just buy something from a competitor. Anyway you could make exactly same argument for installation of 3rd party applications into the phone.
- _1tem 1y agoFew die hards? We have an actual case study: Russia. Apple does not sell in Russia anymore but market share has increased. Here’s a comparison of iOS share in Russia (mobile OS) between August 2025 vs August 2023, using StatCounter data: • August 2025: iOS ~ 31.97 % • August 2023: iOS ~ 27 % (approximately) — StatCounter’s historical data shows iOS had around 26-28 % share in Russia in mid-2023 So between August 2023 and August 2025, iOS’s share in Russia appears to have increased by about 4–6 percentage points (from ~27% → ~32%).
- fxtentacle 1y agoThat threat is as hollow as it gets. Public companies will happily can the entire management team if they cause as little as a 5% dip in stock price. Apples EU revenue is larger than China and Japan combined. Voluntarily forfeiting that is like the modern management equivalent of ritual self-sacrifice: afterwards, they would have so much unsold stock on their hands that it’s going to tank prices worldwide.
- krona 1y ago> Apples EU revenue is larger than China and Japan combined. I think you've confused 'Europe' in Apple's reporting (which actually includes all of the middle east) for the EU (which notably excludes the UK, Norway, Russia, etc.) Apple doesn't report it's EU revenue (and there's confusion about numbers reported on an analyst call in 2024.)
- juliusceasar 1y agoI beg Apple to do it. Spare us the money for overpriced phones they sell. It will actually help the EU companies to fill in the gap.
- Y-bar 1y agoDo it. Pansies. I’m calling your bluff. Signed from my iPhone, with an iPad on the table next to me, and a Mac Studio and Apple TV at home.
- general1465 1y agoExactly. Even limiting of features is extremely damaging to Apple's brand as they are stunting their own phones and making competitors looks much better in comparation.
- 1970-01-01 1y agoSounds like Apple are out of touch with how this game works. Apple, the EU took away your lightning port. They are not afraid to take the entire device away. Playing chicken with your best selling devices cannot end well for you.
- _1tem 1y agoSounds like you are out of touch with consumers. EU consumers would not be happy if they had to travel to another country to buy Apple devices. Apple has far more leverage than the EU in this case. Millions of unhappy EU consumers are a much more powerful motivator than a few billion lost in revenue for a company as rich as Apple. Apple would recoup most of the lost revenue through black market and secondhand sales anyway.
- mettamage 1y agoFuck Apple! My love will turn to hate of they do this. That’s the danger with building something people love, it can flip to hatred. They should wield that responsibility carefully. Sent from an iPhone 15 Pro.
- josho 1y agoThe EU should go even farther. Force hardware vendors to decouple from services. Eg. AirPods work better with iPhones than Bluetooth. Why? Because of software integration. Apple Photos works better than third party photo management apps because of the OS to application integration. The EU should require hardware makers to define compatibility tests and anyone that passes the compatibility test can become a drop in replacement for the vendor’s own apps. This would increase consumer choice, competition, and reduce ecosystem lock-in. All of which will make things better for consumers.
- wtallis 1y agoThe headline currently reads: "Apple threatens to stop selling iPhones in the EU". The blog post cites an article from The Guardian, with the headline "Apple calls for changes to anti-monopoly laws and says it may stop shipping to the EU". In that article, nothing is mentioned about ceasing iPhone sales. It does say: "warning that unless it is amended the company could stop shipping some products and services to the 27-country bloc" and elsewhere: "It did not specify which products could in future be prevented from being distributed in the EU, but said that the Apple Watch, first released a decade ago, might not be released today in the EU" The actual press release from Apple seems to be 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... and if there's anything in there that supports the headline of this HN submission, it's too subtle for me to find. I think this submission is unreasonably sensationalized, with the predictable effect that the comments here are mostly knee-jerk reactions to the (false) headline instead of discussion of the validity or lack thereof of any specific complaints from Apple. What's news to me is apparently the European Commission is required to conduct a review of the DMA every three years, including collecting feedback from the public (both users and businesses). So Apple's complaints aren't coming out of the blue; they're part of that feedback process.
- _1tem 1y agoThe Apple press release does say “potentially be forced to stop shipping our products in the EU”.
- wtallis 1y ago> And according to the European Commission, under the DMA, it’s illegal for us to share these features with Apple users until we bring them to other companies’ products. If we shared them any sooner, we’d be fined and potentially forced to stop shipping our products in the EU. That's still about withholding specific features, not about abandoning entire product lines in the EU. And it's quite the opposite of a threat from Apple to the EU. Hasn't Apple been pretty consistent in choosing to ship with fewer features where necessary rather than not ship at all? Given that, the "If we shared them any sooner" bit only makes sense as an explanation for why Apple's choosing their usual course of action, not as a threat to change course and pull out of the EU market.
- akmarinov 1y ago“Hey, we’ll willingly cut our revenue by 25%” I bet the investors and the stock price would LOVE that
- _1tem 1y agoThis is more than just about revenue. There is massive engineering cost and complexity involved to support the EU’s demands. Interoperability is not easy to build. It slows down worldwide development pace too.
- Y-bar 1y agoI’m not convinced that a rule that essentially says ”some API:s you have for your own devices should be made public” is a massively complex engineering project.
- _1tem 1y agoSounds like you’ve never designed a public vs private API before. The difference is night and day.
- Y-bar 1y agoCoding and documenting different API:s has been a major part of my day job since about 15 years. The only difference of note for those is the amount of available documentation.
- _1tem 1y agoThe entire premise of Apple is building highly tuned private APIs. It’s what makes things like Apple Silicon battery performance and power to watt ratio possible. This kind of super fine tuning is practically impossible over a public API boundary, or at least much more difficult task. Take Live Translation for example. It has very tight latency and performance requirements which would be hard to make work over a public API where you can’t control the other device. Many types of audio applications are literally impossible to build on non-Apple devices due to the latency requirements. There is an entire audio ecosystem that cannot exist on Android due to the realtime performance requirements.
- _1tem 1y agoI don’t think it’s a bluff. This is more than just a revenue calculation, this is about giving up control of how your hardware and software can be built. If the EU can dictate what features should be included in a software release, that has massive engineering implications for an ecosystem as vast as Apple’s. Simple features like Live Translation or iPhone Mirroring become 10x more complex to build when you need to test and support other vendor devices. In fact some features become downright impossible if you require interoperability. I’m with Apple on this one. If a country could dictate to me that I need to make my engineering 10x more complex to support their whims and can’t build certain features, then I would seriously consider quitting that country regardless of revenue. This is about slowing down the pace of development and adding engineering complexity to everything worldwide, not just revenue.
- Gys 1y ago> the EU can dictate what features should be included in a software release This is about Apple excluding features specifically in the EU.
- troupo 1y ago> This is more than just a revenue calculation Everything is a revenue calculation > that has massive engineering implications for an ecosystem as vast as Apple’s. That is Apple's problems. All Eu says is "do not deliberatly hamper competition and don't install artificial barriers to differentiate your products". Apple has had no issues complying with every single request from any government. > Simple features like Live Translation or iPhone Mirroring become 10x more complex to build when you need to test and support other vendor devices. You don't have to test and support them on vendor devices. You either provide an API, or let "vendor devices" implement the same features. This has never been such big of an issue. > In fact some features become downright impossible if you require interoperability. Then those features are either not needed, or it's Apple's own fault (e.g. for preventing others from building the same feature set). It's insane to me that Hacker News, of all places, would argue that walled gardens are good, actually. Ponder this article, for example: "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-... > This is about slowing down the pace of development and adding engineering complexity to everything worldwide The only ones insisting and making it so are Apple. A great example is this: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-default-maps-app-in-eu/ https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-default-ma... Apple lets users in the EU set their default maps and navigation app. But only in the EU. They literally made the whole thing more complex for themselves by restricting this feature just to the EU even though this clearly is a feature that benefits users. It's the exact same thing with the rest of the "impossible features".
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- _1tem 1y agoIf we want to see what the actual impact on Apple’s market share would be if they pulled out of the EU market, consider Russia as a case study. Since Apple pulled out of Russia in 2022, the market share of iOS devices has remained steady and even slightly increased. Russia is comparatively poor, Apple would lose nothing if they pulled out of the EU because consumers would simply travel to other countries to buy. Here’s a comparison of iOS share in Russia (mobile OS) between August 2025 vs August 2021, using StatCounter data: • August 2025: iOS ~ 31.97 % • August 2021: In 2021, the iOS share in Russia was about 27.52 % (for mobile OS) per StatCounter’s data.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45372515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45372515
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago"But let's say Apple does exit the EU. Good." Imagine if the US was to regulate so-called "tech" companies and the surveillance "business model" Would Apple threaten to stop selling computers with their pre-installed, crippled OS If they did, what would be left IMHO FreeBSD (from which Apple took its UNIX userland) would be left NetBSD would be left OpenBSD would be left Linux would be left (maybe) To name a few If these so-called "tech" companies like Apple gave up on surveillance because surveillance was regulated, then we would still have open source volunteer-operated OS projects I suppose some HN commenter might try to argue that these OS projects would disappear without certain "tech companies" that do surveillance as a "business" and that contributions from these so-called "tech" companies are keeping these OS projects going Apple's "threat" is not credible these Silicon Valley companies have lied too many times. No one is going to believe them These companies are hell bent on using the internet to conduct surveillance, they cannot stop AFAIK, those open source OS projects do not try to phone home. Even if they did, the public can remove the surveillance code and re-compile There is no "app store", no corporate restrictions on what software the computer owner can run IMHO the compiler toolchains are nicer than "Xcode"; and there's no "Apple Tax"
- amne 1y agocalled it! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39680538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39680538