Apple has called for the European Commission to repeal a swathe of technology legislation, warning that unless it is amended the company could stop shipping some products and services to the 27-country bloc.

The Silicon Valley company hit out in a submission to the commission’s review of the three-year-old anti-monopoly legislation, which is intended to regulate the gatekeeper power of the largest digital companies including search engines, app providers and messaging services.

It said it had already delayed the launch of features such as live translation through AirPods and mirroring iPhone screens on to laptop because of the act’s demands for interoperability with non-Apple products and services.

“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,” it said. Apple added that Brussels was creating unfair competition as the rules were not applied to Samsung, the largest smartphone provider in the EU.

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[–] 125 points 10 months ago

Do it stop shipping.

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  • [–] 83 points 10 months ago

    obvious bluff is obvious

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  • [–] 53 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    They would never stop selling their products in Europe lol. And if they did, I wouldn’t care, even though I own a few Apple products.

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  • [–] 27 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Yeah, we don't really have systemic/infrastructure dependency on Apple. Compared to Microsoft (which we are dependant upon atm) who can and does extort the EU a bit everywhere it can.

    That's why foss all the things!

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    [–] 45 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Don't threaten me with a good time Apple.

    It's just empty threats though. The EU market is bigger than America (considering population sizes only), there is no way they'd give up on that

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Given android id more popular in Europe than America, you could say apple is behind in market share, so providing less features is not a great business plan.

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  • [–] 40 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    Apple is such a piece of shit company.

    Learn how to compete without behaving anti competitively or quit your fucking jobs. It's not complicated.

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    [–] 26 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Apple wouldn't stop. They need that money too much. Also, Europe is OK with going Huawei if Google and Apple keep up with their shit.

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    [–] 26 points 10 months ago

    Cool, stop shipping the walled garden shit then.

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  • [–] 24 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Am I misreading this or are their arguments all complete nonsense? From what I can see in the article they have:

    1. They have to allow third-party headphones, i.e. the anti-monopoly policy prevents a monopoly.

    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.

    1. Other companies will "twist laws" to prevent competition, i.e. exactly what Apple is trying to do by removing regulation. I don't see any way to interpret this other than an outright lie, anti-monopoly policies encourage competition.

    Apple said that under the DMA, “instead of competing by innovating, already successful companies are twisting the law to suit their own agendas – to collect more data from EU citizens, or to get Apple’s technology for free”.

    1. Porn exists? I don't even know what they're trying to say with this one?

    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.

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    [–] 18 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Apple sold well over $10 billion worth of Iphones in the EU in 2024, but rather than deal with the annoyance of EU regulation they're just going to take their ball and go home.

    They must think EU regulators are imbeciles.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Or they think the people in the EU will do mass protests if they don’t get their product— forcing the regulators hands; maybe because of what happened with tiktok in Nepal— missing the nuance of the political and economic factors there however.

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago

    Oh no! How will I ignore their products now?

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Knowing Apple, they’ll probably find a way to ‘comply’ that feels more like a loophole than a solution....

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    I like my iPhone. It's solid hardware and reasonably capable software. It does everything I need it to do, and gives me really solid control over API access to privacy-centric controls like location and microphone.

    I still wouldn't skip a beat to switch to another phone manufactured by another company (though I regret how much of a duopoly there is). The inconvenience is minor; Apple just needs to give me a shove and I'll switch.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago

    Yeah I'm sure Apple's going to give up on half a billion potential customers. Sure.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago

    I remember when apple used to reverse engineer microsoft software.. :/

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    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.

    I'm not really understanding this. Where is the privacy problem? What is different with airpods that solves this? At the end of the day, are they not just bluetooth headphones? Do they add some extra security layer beyond what bluetooth itself offers?

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    [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    Hey Apple... Fuck you

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    Don’t threaten us with a good time Apple!

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    "If you don't let us misbehave, we're gonna cut off like a good 4th of our market share"

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    They need us (our money). We dont even like them enough to not replace them the second they go away.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    , lol, good riddance.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago*

    Our overlords from Brussels are fucking pussies rn. They want to monitor our messages and verify everything. And they also want to ban privacy coins for some reason.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    Please stop shipping to anywhere.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Be pretty funny if Europe just banned them instead.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    That was always allowed

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    Big tech only cares about money, something that makes them very predictable. Very high fines and banning costs them money, so they will comply to all demands to avoid. Easy as that :)

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    Good idea, safari sucks.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Who cares? The average EU citizen will benefit far more from the regulation. I don't think any of their laws have been bad so far, mostly requiring standard connectors, requiring user access to install what they want without apples permission, and monopolizing software stores in general. This might be a great opportunity to actually get some consumer friendly competition out of Europe for once. Also Samsung already allows third party app stores, has USB C like every other modern device, and allows side loading. It's going to get interesting once Google starts complaining that they can't control users devices after they buy them as well with their upcoming ban on non Google approved software installations.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    We should pay attention as alternatives are dwindling. Google wants Android to be more like iOS, you may not have as much freedom of choice as you think you do.

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  • [+] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)
    [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    Just the evil nature of a megacorp manifesting in monology tenancies.

    Anti-monopoly laws are at most too loose atm, not too strict.

    (Also the threat is just a threat, they've been saying that for a decade now.)

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Apple hardware has never been more boring, one iterative release after another. They rely on software and services to lock users in.

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