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Apple vs the Law

(formularsumo.co.uk)
378 points tempodox | 6 comments | 11 Jul 25 06:49 UTC | HN request time: 1.069s | source | bottom
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EMIRELADERO ◴[11 Jul 25 07:51 UTC] No.44529425[source]▶
The greatest gem is found in the footnote, IMO

> "They managed to convince the courts that iPadOS is a separate operating system to iOS (it's not), which delayed iPadOS being designated as a gatekeeper for almost a year. They are currently challenging all of the rest: the iOS, Safari, and App Store designations, and successfully managed to avoid iMessage being designated at all. They have taken the DMA law to court for an apparently ambiguous comma in article 5(4) - the payment one, and for somehow infringing on human rights law in article 6(7) - the interoperability one."

Looking at the actual filing[1], Apple says:

> "First plea in law, alleging that Article 6(7) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 is inconsistent with the requirements of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the principle of proportionality, and that Article 2(b) of the European Commission Decision of 5 September 2023 is unlawful insofar as it imposes the obligations under Article 6(7) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 on Apple in relation to iOS."

For context, here are the full contents of Article 6(7):

"The gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services."

[1] https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsession...

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Cthulhu_ ◴[11 Jul 25 08:15 UTC] No.44529557[source]▶
Big companies like that have a vested interest in paying their legal team A Lot Of Money to find stupid details like this and to argue the toss over them because a ruling can cost them billions. If arguing over a comma means they don't have to, or that it pushes the point where they have to pay forwards, it's worth the expense to them.
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amelius ◴[11 Jul 25 08:49 UTC] No.44529797[source]▶
It also costs them my trust, though.
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Zopieux ◴[11 Jul 25 09:09 UTC] No.44529942[source]▶
This happens in the confines of legal (EU, California, ...) institutions and courts with the occasional boring news reporting the average consumer doesn't read, like this article.

It's clearly a win for Apple.

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alt227 ◴[11 Jul 25 09:19 UTC] No.44530036[source]▶
More people are getting annoyed with Apple over these issues, and they are bleeding into the mainstream media more frequently. I have a few die hard Apple friends (Non-professionals) that have recently got so frustrated with being pushed into corners that they have given up the fruity ecosystem altogether.

In no way am I suggesting that Apple are on the way out, but they have definitely started to turn the same corner that IBM and Microsoft have in the past. They are becoming seen as 'big business' instead of 'challenging underdog'.

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1. mschuster91 ◴[11 Jul 25 10:28 UTC] No.44530536[source]▶
As long as MS keeps making Windows worse and worse each release (and no one willing to develop decent ARM SoCs) and Android smartphone manufacturers keep releasing utter dogshit, Apple will have customers. They already market themselves as the privacy-friendly, "just works" alternative - and that's legitimately hard to fight.

Apple isn't in the position it is just because they make factually good hardware or because of their business practices - they are where they are because the competition constantly shoots itself with a sawn off shotgun.

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2. alt227 ◴[11 Jul 25 11:43 UTC] No.44531015[source]▶
IMO Apple have started to do the same. Their software is consistently getting buggier with worse user experiences, along with their reputation.

Tech savy windows users that are trying out Apple are finding that it very much doesnt 'Just Work' anymore, and that sentiment is starting to creep out more and more.

Take a look at Linuses recent evaluation of macOS by using only a Mac for a solid 2 months. His conclusion is that it is no better or worse than windows, and definitely doesnt 'Just Work'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOgRmw1atFU

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3. fsflover ◴[11 Jul 25 12:56 UTC] No.44531596[source]▶
> Their software is consistently getting buggier with worse user experiences, along with their reputation.

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075

4. thewebguyd ◴[11 Jul 25 16:19 UTC] No.44533990[source]▶
> Tech savy windows users that are trying out Apple are finding that it very much doesnt 'Just Work' anymore, and that sentiment is starting to creep out more and more.

Even with all the faults and degrading quality, it's still above any of proprietary alternatives, particularly Windows. I'm running the Tahoe developer beta, and in comparison to my Arm surface laptop 7, it's still light years better. I have no problems with Bluetooth, which is an endless struggle on Windows. I don't deal with windows update failures, windows installer service crashing and requiring a PC restart to install an MSI (happens constantly on the Arm devices), I don't have copilot being shoved down my throat, I'm not nagged to start an Office trial, or redirect my folders to OneDrive, or have ads in my app menu, etc.

Even Apple at its lowest is still a better experience than the alternatives because the alternatives just suck worse, and have chosen the path of data harvesting and monetizing the hell out of its user base over anything else.

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5. alt227 ◴[11 Jul 25 17:34 UTC] No.44534928{3}[source]▶
> Even Apple at its lowest is still a better experience than the alternatives because the alternatives just suck worse

Thats your subjective opinion based on what you do on a computer and how you like it to work. Thats absolutely fine, just dont state the like its a fact. The only real fact you can say is they both have pros and cons, and its up to each user to decide what their personal preference is.

6. const_cast ◴[11 Jul 25 21:58 UTC] No.44537183[source]▶
To be fair to us, Linus is wildly incompetent when it comes to operating systems and software as a whole.

His metric for "just works", like many users, is "works like Windows". Such a metric is inherently flawed because any piece of software will always come up second-best to Windows.

When he did his Linux experiment stuff, he approached everything with a Windows context. And, when things didn't work the same, he didn't sit back and say "hmm, is this new way of doing things better, or worse?". No, he immediately rejected it because it's not like Windows.

And look, I get it, it takes on the order of decades to learn an operating system inside and out. I still find Windows GUIs I've never seen before in my life. But the way he approaches software reviews is incredibly frustrating. He takes the most closed-minded mentality and then acts surprised when it doesn't work.