@rustyshelf China govt has teeth and will destroy Apple's production capacity if they push back. This is a direct threat to their business and thus something called "fiduciary responsibility" kicks in and literally requires their leadership to act in the interest of shareholders

The EU has no teeth. They have no way to hurt Apple enough without producing huge backlash. Once again "fiduciary responsibility" dictates that Apple do whatever they can to maximize shareholder profit, which means pushing back when they know they can

It sucks but until the EU figures out a way to really hold Apple's feet to the fire, the law requires this response

@zbrando @rustyshelf I'll believe it when I see it. And I expect the next two headlines to read "Apple closing all retail stores across Europe" and then "Consumers outraged over EU's Apple fiasco, demand accountability".

Because consumers don't care about alternative app stores. They just want their phones and laptops.

Apple has insane cash-on-hand and could easily outlast any such embargo, IMO

@neatchee @zbrando @rustyshelf Do you remember Apple switching their phone models to USB-C, starting with iPhone 15, worldwide?

If you believe that was their own decision, for the sake of their customers, you are wrong. They we forced into doing so, by EU's teeth.

If they did not obey, all their phone would have become illegal to sell in the EU. Maybe you think that was just bluff, but Apple did not, which is all that matters.

@elessar @zbrando @rustyshelf There is a huge difference between enforcing a universal technical standard on everyone and dictating what types of software must be available for a device

(Edited to clarify "types of software", not a particular program/app)

@neatchee How exactly do you get that “allowing alternate software sources” implies “dictating that a given piece of software must be present”?

Do you know that in many countries, the tenant of an apartment is allowed to choose his ISP and that the landlord is not allowed to restrict that choice? Do you really think this these countries are dictating what provider must be chosen? 🤪

@elessar see my edit; I meant to say "types of software" not specific software.

The ISP situation you're talking about isn't the correct comparison. A more appropriate comparison is the (very common) situation where a legislative body requires that a home be serviceable by more than one service provider, and if they're not, then the single service provider must allow another provider to piggyback on their infrastructure.

And in that scenario, yes, I consider that to be dictating what type of connectivity must be available to the consumer

@neatchee Okay, I get it. Well here, the good news is it will not require much code from Apple. The big part of it is the alternate software sources, and they are not for Apple to code.

In fact, they are already available, but they required the user to crack a restriction developed by Apple to prevent that. This operation is called “jailbreaking”.

All they have to do to comply, that it's, with regard to the software source part of the DMA, is to provide an official option to, well, jailbreak. Of course they can do something more specific, more refined or whatever, but basically, this is about removing an anti-feature, not adding a feature.

@neatchee Then you surely know that the fact you cannot use an alternate software source on iOS is not because Apple did not do something, but because they actually did implement a locking mechanism.

They are simply required to provide an option to remove that.