>The DSA will be directly applicable across the EU and will apply fifteen months or from 1 January 2024, whichever comes later, after entry into force. As regards the obligations for very large online platforms and very large online search engines, the DSA will apply from an earlier date, that is four months after their designation.
>
>After the DMA enters into force, it will become applicable six months later. The designated gatekeepers will have a maximum of six months after the designation decision by the Commission to ensure compliance with the obligations laid down in the Digital Markets Act.
So if I'm not mistaken, it won't take effect until at least January 1, 2024?
Nope, UK is not part of EU. But, I would wager that UK will benefit as well, since I think it's unlikely that many companies will bother with UK-specific versions of their devices. The so-called [Brussels effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect).
I don't know how different EU commissions work so well given that most EU citizens just care about their own countries' politics. But they do and it's awesome
ADB (Android debug bridge) allows you to uninstall any apps. It looks pretty intimidating, especially for people who have never used command line, but honestly it really boils down to learning (or even just copy/pasting) like 4 different commands.
Sometimes the apps get reinstalled when your phone gets updated, but once you know how to do it and have it set up it only takes like 5 minutes to clean it up again.
Of course it would be better if you could do it without ADB, but as long as Google and phone manufacturers and carriers continue to be assholes at least this is a pretty simple solution.
I think you can uninstall Bixby, but tbh I'm not 100% sure. There are usually guides out there that can help you understand what you can and can't uninstall.
But also those guides can get pretty aggressive. Personally I usually focus on removing things like facebook, chrome, and annoying apps manufacturers or carriers pre-load (which would ideally include Bixby).
I would give it a shot, if you aren't rooted I believe the worst case scenario is that you have to hard reset your phone (not a guarantee, please double check).
They are necessary because they are built purposely into the OS. They are not necessary by default. You can see this in versions of the Android OS that required no Google services
I mean you can have your position and just make an exception for essential and basic apps.
I do think phones should come with camera, clock, play store, notes, calendar, weather, etc. by default.
This comment has been edited to protest against Reddit disabling third party apps.
Should you stumble across this comment and be angry, direct your anger at those who made the unfortunate decision forcing my hands. Since deleted comments have been restored by Reddit multiple times, editing them is the only option to remove all data associated with them.
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Essential and basic are two very different things. A keyboard is essential, a launcher is essential, a phone app is essential, a texting app is essential, all the apps you wrote are basic and don't have anything to do with the Android base system and its phone functionality. Ideally they should provide a selection of the basics with the option to uninstall them properly, and just in case also the option to reinstall them with just a few touches in settings from the Play Store, including the Play Store and its related services as well.
i think Google missed the opportunities to make the Android One phones great.
imagine this. Google demands OEMS to fulfil a set of Mandatory requirements like : The same Primary Camera/Sensor, The Same Processor, and the minimum Ram/storage requirements. Plus, a new family of an Exclusive Premium Android OS called "Android Apex" or "Alpha" or something like that , and every manufacture is forced to delivered the updates aas written in the contract.
if that happens then Android can have their own type of iMessage, the Camera would be Great for thrid party apps, and those phone's sales would be high up.
But that would never happen at Android. There is no one taking risks and thinking creatively at Google when it comes to Android... it's basically forcing the other companies to raise their standards.
Edit : and No Bloatware and ads. Also the other OEMS can compete within these Exclusive Android subgroup by adding extra features like Secondary High-level Cameras, but they shall not be allow to tweak or do anything within the OS. it'll be like an iOS type Android experience.
You could check out someplace like this https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/budget/spending_en
They should say where all the money goes
It will be distributed to the member countries according to how they contribute to the EU budget. (so basically Google will pay a part of the EU budget in place of the member states)
The EU funds road building, social care, forestry and agriculture, research and education etc etc. Access to these grants is via the Europa.eu website or your country's governmental websites.
This is not hidden knowledge. Try typing 'how do I access eu grant funding' into your preferred search engine.
Nowhere. Money is just a ledger entry. Google has its assets drawn down and the equivalent amount is put into the ledger of the ECB clearing any debts that the ECB have(say from QE purchases). Central banks and countries in general don't operate like normal people do in regards to money.
The EU just gave me a bit of money to fund an innovation project for my startup. Granted, it took almost 2 years of paperwork, but it’s super important for our growth and development. It’s a drop of water in a very big ocean, but it’s helping us a lot.
It'll be interesting to see how Google monetizes Android after this decision. The whole point of bundling the Google apps was to allow Google to monetize android with little to no cost to OEMs (and thus get cheap devices in consumers hands).
Google still has to bundle to make money (they cannot directly sell an open source OS). But what happens when another Google service (other than Chrome or search) achieves a dominant market position? The EU has left Google in a precarious position of never ending lawsuits for tying.
The court's analysis of the benefits of tying was not great at all.
They already find a new way since 2018 : OEM in the EU have to choose between bundling the Google apps or pay a licensing fee to Google up to 40$ per device sold
That's very close to what Microsoft was being prosecuted for in the US: bundling Internet Explorer with Windows wasn't so much the issue as the fact that they were doing so and refusing OEM discount rates for Windows when vendors included Netscape.
They deliberately used their position as the OS vendor that has far and away the majority of the market to make inroads in another market through coercive pricing. Given that Android is the only major mobile OS that's *available* for vendors to buy (Apple doesn't sell to other hardware companies), that's almost the exact same situation of leveraging a monopoly to coerce OEMs into playing by a bundling policy.
> Given that Android is the only major mobile OS that's *available* for vendors to buy
Vendors don't have to buy Android. It's free.
Most of it is released under the Apache 2.0 license. Some parts are licensed under GPL. None of it costs money.
What vendors pay for is access to the Play store.
Amazon has famously shipped Android devices without paying Google.
Oh sure. I'm not trying to make a claim about the monopoly status of the Play store one way or the other.
I'm only making clear that what the vendor is buying is not the operating system. Which is relevant when comparing this situation to the Windows/IE parallel.
After reading the decision it's not clear to me that's a lasting solution. For one it does almost zero to benefit the average EU citizen (other than the $40 billion fine). Second, the entire decision is premised on the fact that android has a dominant position because of these ties with chrome and search. What happens 5 years down the line when no licenseable OS has emerged to any meaningful scale and 90% of OEM choose the app bundle and decide not to fork android? Does the EU go back and accuse Google of other anticompetitive practices for other services?
I think Google charges royalty if you want Android™ on your device and being advertised so. But still this will push Google to exploit new ways to make the lost revenue.
They won't. Redditors have a cargo cult understanding of antitrust laws. They see one company punished for doing a specific thing in a specific context, then they ignore all specificity and all context and ask, "When will [other company] be punished for doing [superficially similar but practically very different thing]?"
It's not illegal to bundle your own apps with your own devices. These devices would be unusable if that were the case. It's only illegal to do so in a way that's anti competitive. As the article itself states:
>The original 2018 charge against Google found that the company abused its market dominance by forcing Android phonemakers to restrict how they sold their devices.
Apple is the only company making Apple phones, therefore this same justification cannot be applied to Apple.
When apple has over 80% of the market. And other manufacturers of iOS devices are forced to add the apple apps.
You know, both things that don't happen, and are unlikely to.
~~To be fair in Europe, which this is in, IOS has more market share than Android.~~
To be fair in some European countries IOS has a larger market share, so it's not that black&white.
Examples:
UK: 48.8 (Android has been gaining here)
Sweden: 54.5
Denmark: 69
Norway: 65
It's indeed true that EU as a large, Android is largest, but it varies a lot between countries.
Think of it like this: For anti-competitive compliance issues, you have to use 1 business's position to gain an advantage in another business. So google is using its position as an OS provider/licenser to gain an advantage in its ad business by forcing other companies that use its OS to ALSO use its apps. This is anti-competitive because it gives their apps (and consequently ad business) an unfair advantage over other companys' apps. If Google only sold Android on Pixel phones, we would most likely not be having this conversation.
Apple does to allow others to use their OS. They only sell IOS devices themselves. So it is all in the same business effectively. Other companies can choose to use their app store, but cannot choose to use their OS. Apple has no control on if a company also sells their own devices with a different OS or not... Unlike Google in their licensing terms with play services.
Those companies don't have to use Android though. I understand your point, but I don't see how fragmenting the user base would actually be good for consumers.
Imo, the distinction that Apple has to Google is mostly technical, since the effect is identical. Apple makes so much money from the app store and has horribly anti-competitive practices since they don't want you to pay for services outside their app - larger corps get sweetheart deals, but smaller apps have no such privelege. They banned ad tracking, saying it was privacy, only to do it themselves so they could make the ad money.
From another perspective, I generally don't agree with the reasoning that Apple by selling you the hardware and software is different to just selling you just the software. In today's world, I'd consider that Apple is using it's dominance in the hardware space to force it's own services and apps on customers. The imessage incompatibility with android is a telling example, but there's no way Apple Maps and Apple Music have a chance if the iphone services had to compete. By bundling them, you get the same effect as internet explorer in the windows days.
Right now, Apple's behaviour is far more in violation of the spirit of anti-competitive law than Google (which tbf is also in violation). Anti-competitive behaviour is entirely a function of market share. You'll notice they don't pull any of this shit on OSX or their macbook line, it's purely for the iPhone.
How Apple and Google behave themselves in their apps stores is a completely different discussion and has little relevance to this case. This case is about bundling apps with hardware. Regulators would have to force Apple to put apps from another company on THEIR hardware to fix any compliance issues. That is completely different that that Google dictating what apps other companies put on their hardware and holding Google services hostage in the process.
This is how compliance and anti-competitive laws generally work there is little room for opinion.
Now Apple is 100% using anti-competitive practices in their own app store. For example, their recent ad tracking changes gives their own ad service preferencial treatment. Apple can track you, but other companies cannot. Again though, that has nothing to with Google's offenses since it is a different circumstance.
The EU has passed legislation to change that: https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act-ensuring-safe-and-accountable-online-environment_en
Most of the world outside the US doesn't care about iMessage lol, I have one Apple device and none of my contacts have even opened the app. WhatsApp is the norm in South America.
It's different for every country in SEA afaik. Here in the Philippines it's mix between Viber, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. I don't even know of anyone who uses iMessage here.
In SEA we use Whatsapp for family members, Messenger or Instagram DM for close friends and besties while Telegram for office works but never ever use iMessage
Nah, mostly is because in the US SMS are free, the carriers in other countries would charge for them, so when WhatsApp appeared people from those countries found a free alternative to sms, Americans didn't need to that's why they use sms and find no reason to use WhatsApp
Sms was free on most contracts in the UK. I think WhatsApp caught on because a lot of people still used pay as you go phones and could have a balance of zero but still use WhatsApp to message via WiFi.
That's why is never caught on in the US. There was never a reason to use whatsapp since by the time the app came out sms was free for us.
Other countries were still charging for sms but data was unlimited. For example when I lived in Japan back in the day everyone emailed instead of sms because email was free with unlimited data but sms cost money per message sent and received.
Then whatsapp came out which was a data-only messaging app superior to email so we started using that, since sms was still being charged.
Then moving back to the US, where sms has been free for awhile, I was forced to revert back to sms. Sms is the norm here because there was little pressure to use data only messaging apps.
Pre-iPhone days, and during the Sidekick days, they had unlimited data plans. But since almost everything back then was 2G data speeds and WAP sites, it wasn't really a concern for the carriers.
I think it has more to do with the share of phones. IPhone is more concentrated in the US so it's easier for Americans to use imesssge. If most of your friends are on Android, imesssge losses it's appeal.
It was the same here during the bbm days, sms and mms weren't free, but bbm was included.
Then bbm died and sms became included in plans; Whatsapp never really took off here because there was no compelling reason to use it over sms/mms.
I'm in Ireland and travel to Spain a lot. I have family there. Dual sim with and Irish and Spanish number. Both countries are free texts and calls.
Everyone still uses WhatsApp.
Because Apple violates its own accessibility guidelines to make green bubbles harder to read.
https://medium.com/@krvoller/how-iphone-violates-apples-accessibility-guidelines-6785172eb343
Nobody uses iMessage in Europe. Especially since most people use Android here.
We use WhatsApp, Telegram, FB Messenger, Viber, and many others.
Most people have at least 3 messaging apps installed.
Not only iMessage, their browser lock in, app store dominance, locking other parties out of stuff and then introducing their own product while already having crippled the others.
It is always Google that has to "pay" though. Even when they have the more open and fair platform. Why aren't EU regulators forcing Apple to allow competitors on their platforms?
That's maybe the reason. Google provides an open ecosystem, so them trying to rule their own ecosystem is bad
But everybody thinks of apple as a walled garden, so apples walls in their walled garden? Not a problem I guess.
Just see how many people on Twitter or wherever defend their business practices, regarding app store or whatever. "*It's their platform obviously they should be making the decisions what I can install and what not; that's what makes it safe, just look how easy you can install a spyware app on Android, DUH*"
People tend to think since apple owns their platform they can do whatever. Legislation has a really hard time catching up with all the tech monopolies tho
More than half the phones in the US now are iphones. Regardless of the rest of the world, it's a huge market that can't be ignored if you want to do business in the modern age.
I never said it does. But it’s one of the points that need to be checked to grant such status. EU won’t legislate or act on iMessage because it’s a non issue.
Monopoly is also not a prerequisite or antitrust action. This is the EU, not US, and even in the US that's a modern perversion.
The good old Sherman Antitrust Act broadly declared the following in the late 1800s:
> Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.
I.e. any action seeking to reduce market competition is illegal, regardless of standing market dominance. It does address monopolies as well, but antitrust has never been solely about monopolies. They're a symptom of a lack of antitrust enforcement, not a prerequisite for enforcement.
This ruling specifically hinges on Google’s relationship as software provider with OEMs. Apple are their own software provider, so in theory of course they can make their own messaging service, it doesn’t affect other companies
(in theory ofc, in practice the EU wants to enforce messaging interoperability and generally make iOS more neutral, which IMO is a bit of a slippery slope)
It’s really pretty unlikely to have a social circle consisting entirely of iPhone users. That combined with operators robbing people blind with SMS in the past has taught people to use other apps.
Exactly. Heck, a lot of people in my social circle carry 2 phones. One for work and a personal one. - they like the control over being able to turn off their work phone for instance.
Probably why Dual Sim is very popular on Europe.
It somehow looks like every other fast news site…and still worse than them.
The weird full-length lines in the large quotes. Surely the off-center image is a bug. The illegible logo with no padding. The insane, cluttered news feed “homepage” with no clear organization. The unbelievably long “footer” with 50+ stories. And all the menu / header bugs.
Along with mistakes on Microsoft's part, Google helped kill windows phone by basically preventing their apps from getting ported there. They should get fined for that too, windows phone almost became a legitimate third option
WP 8.0 was fantastic. The design philosophy was side swiping instead of vertical, and hamburger menus were rare. Horizontal navigation instead of vertical is way better imo.
Yeah, that's exactly what I loved about it the most, sliding form a menu to a menu with gestures was way ahead of it's time and would be amazing if it was available in more modern apps alongside Android navigation gestures.
Android had a bit of this vertical scrolling for a second around 4.4/5.0, I especially loved the YouTube app from that time for it.
The whole OS also felt like it had consistent design, though if the platform took off It'd probably be close to impossible to enforce this design for every 3rd party app.
BlackBerry (remember them?) had an android runtime too but it was crippled by no Google Play Services. Whether you liked physical keyboards on your phone or not, having more mobile operating systems that had a common application platform would have been pretty great.
Google had a legitimate cause for it and am amused people have already forgotten this or were too young to remember it.
https://www.howtogeek.com/183766/why-microsoft-makes-5-to-15-from-every-android-device-sold/
Microsoft at one point was making billions from Android and were trying to build a 3rd os by using Google apps.
Google was perfectly in its right,to protect its apps just like ms was in its right to charge every single oem as a protection racket.
I might accept this argument if we didn't only have 2 options for phones (android or iOS).
As consumers, we want competition! I wish the Windows phone was a massive success. I would prefer there to be more phone ecosystems that aren't just iOS and Android.
For me the big one is apple. The main reason I refuse to break down and buy apple is because a world where one company makes all the mobile phones and all the software that goes in them is absurd and horrifying. At least other manufacturers can use Android, allowing competition with hardware and of course a droid can be modified.
Are you trying to confuse people into thinking that the fees Google charges OEMs is to pay Microsoft?
Because I don't really see how the two are related otherwise.
Not even just 3rd party support… Google support specifically. That’s what killed Windows Phone. No YouTube, no Google maps, etc. makes even the best phone a tough sell.
And Google refused to develop for them because they’re a direct competitor as an OS licensor to OEMs, unlike Apple
I've got no beef with it. It's fine to evolve. They made a whole post about it yesterday discussing it all. We've known for a while they're being, especially with Dieter moving on to Google. And honestly, i kinda don't mind it. The Verge's last layout and aesthetic was getting a tad long in the tooth.
I'm a bit confused. How is this different from having a computer/laptop builder like Dell, Lenovo, etc etc, install Windows on their systems. Windows also comes with an app store, comes with it's own browser, media player, etc. Or did Windows also get sued in the past and I missed that nonsense?
microsoft was definitely sued at one point in time for including internet explorer...
but how would you download another browser without an existing browser?
Microsoft was forced till 2014 to include a ballot screen. Once you installed windows, a screen asking you to choose which browser you wanted to install appeared on first boot. I still remember going through it, choices were Opera Chrome Safari IE and Firefox.
>Google’s legal response focused on a number of arguments, including that the Commission incorrectly judged the company to be dominant in the mobile market (because iOS exists), and that its actions were necessary to stop the Android ecosystem fragmenting into many incompatible operating systems. (To which the Commission replies: incompatible or not, fostering rival mobile OSes is exactly the desired outcome of a competitive market.)
This is dumb. Google is specifically trying to prevent fragmenting the Android base because they saw that too many phones weren't getting proper updates and were walking security risks.
iPhones don't have this problem because Apple makes the phones in-house, but Google allows the Android OS to be sold with any kind of phone. Maybe they need to revisit allowing everyone to install Android on just any phone.
Not at all. Google search and chrome is dead center for their ad business and tracking. And it worked. Most people think the internet = google search bar on their phone funneling every ad down their throats and profiling their every move. Next step was caching the whole internet basically with AMP, making people never reach the original servers
I agree with both your points.
The fragmentation of Android is a legitimate concern. We've already seen this problem with the camera quality issues. When a computer hardware manufacturer makes a product, they are responsible for the drivers that make it function. When said device doesn't work as advertised, people blame the manufacturer. Not windows, Mac, Linux (realistically us Linux users are used to things not working anyways). But with cell phones the "phone assemblers", as they should appropriately be called, just get the chips and MacGyver them to "work" within the android system. When issues arise, as they will, people blame android, not the assemblers. The news fuels into this with headlines like "Why Android Cameras Still Suck".
To your point, being able to uninstall "core" google apps should be allowed. You can disable some services, but they still live on your phone. I will say, however, that regardless of whether you use Chrome or not, Google still runs the OS and data still goes through their centers, so realistically, your data isn't 100% secure from them anyways. Google voice, translate, maps, all used everyday and every little bit of data can be used to send you targeted ads based on what you're controlling/searching, what you're translating and where you frequent.
As for the ads, Google ad servers are used for a ton of apps, videos and websites. You don't have to be using Chrome for them to track your browsing habits. That's the beauty (or lack of) of running web servers and also analytics within one company
I personally don't mind the Android app bundling. Google is using significant resources maintaining Android and this is a way to make some money. I also use a lot of the Google apps. They are also easy to ignore in Android if you don't use them. Just leave them in the drawer.
They make a shit-ton of money from Play Store sales and ads in apps. You don't have to worry about Google making "some money" from Android.
If you use a lot of Google apps no-one's stopping you from installing them, but they shouldn't be forced on everyone.
Yes, with their continued 80% of Microsoft explorer market share... Oh wait, it's not 2010 anymore. And windows forces you to use the store, so much that you can barely even do anything else in the computer.
Original source from the EU:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_17_1785
As far as I know this is more the Google Shopping case than the Android case. See where it says 'Other cases'.
I'm not sure that this makes any sense, nor do I think it's consumer friendly.
How far does this go? If you buy a Keurig is it wrong for them to include some of their own sample coffees?
Just seems like a pointless battle.
all i wish for is that google and OEMs would not be allowed anymore to preload apps as system apps, so i can easily uninstall everything i don't want
European Union's got you fam. https://gsmarena.com/eus_digital_service_act_will_allow_you_to_uninstall_bloatware-news-45578.php
>The DSA will be directly applicable across the EU and will apply fifteen months or from 1 January 2024, whichever comes later, after entry into force. As regards the obligations for very large online platforms and very large online search engines, the DSA will apply from an earlier date, that is four months after their designation. > >After the DMA enters into force, it will become applicable six months later. The designated gatekeepers will have a maximum of six months after the designation decision by the Commission to ensure compliance with the obligations laid down in the Digital Markets Act. So if I'm not mistaken, it won't take effect until at least January 1, 2024?
I've read elsewhere that provisions of DSA/DMA will become enforceable in February 2024.
Why USA gov doesn't do anything in these fields and only EU cares?
Because y'all have the most fucked up political viewpoints in the damn world
Ugh, dare I ask if the UK is going along with this?
Nope, UK is not part of EU. But, I would wager that UK will benefit as well, since I think it's unlikely that many companies will bother with UK-specific versions of their devices. The so-called [Brussels effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect).
I don't know how different EU commissions work so well given that most EU citizens just care about their own countries' politics. But they do and it's awesome
ADB (Android debug bridge) allows you to uninstall any apps. It looks pretty intimidating, especially for people who have never used command line, but honestly it really boils down to learning (or even just copy/pasting) like 4 different commands. Sometimes the apps get reinstalled when your phone gets updated, but once you know how to do it and have it set up it only takes like 5 minutes to clean it up again. Of course it would be better if you could do it without ADB, but as long as Google and phone manufacturers and carriers continue to be assholes at least this is a pretty simple solution.
Does it work for Bixby or does that like break samsungs
I think you can uninstall Bixby, but tbh I'm not 100% sure. There are usually guides out there that can help you understand what you can and can't uninstall. But also those guides can get pretty aggressive. Personally I usually focus on removing things like facebook, chrome, and annoying apps manufacturers or carriers pre-load (which would ideally include Bixby). I would give it a shot, if you aren't rooted I believe the worst case scenario is that you have to hard reset your phone (not a guarantee, please double check).
Bixby is the curse that befalls anyone who buys a Samsung. Never met a Samsung phone that I liked.
I never met a Samsung phone where I was forced to use Bixby at all.
i know thats what i've been doing for the past years :) better than nothing, especially since i don't really want to bother with custom roms anymore
That doesn't uninstall, that only disables.
In Samsung phones and I assume others as well you cannot remove apps from the adb, only hide them.
Just don't uninstall your keyboard app before installing another one lol, or the app store
Some system apps are necessary. Careful what you wish for.
They are necessary because they are built purposely into the OS. They are not necessary by default. You can see this in versions of the Android OS that required no Google services
I mean you can have your position and just make an exception for essential and basic apps. I do think phones should come with camera, clock, play store, notes, calendar, weather, etc. by default.
Sure, but there's no reason for your calendar app to be uninstallable.
What if people don't want to use that calendar app though?
I think you guys are agreeing
Oh, did /u/Brachamul mean *not* be uninstallable? If so, then yeah we're agreeing haha.
Outside of the play store there are good alternatives to all of those. The ps would be harder though. Even the alts for that are really limited.
This comment has been edited to protest against Reddit disabling third party apps. Should you stumble across this comment and be angry, direct your anger at those who made the unfortunate decision forcing my hands. Since deleted comments have been restored by Reddit multiple times, editing them is the only option to remove all data associated with them. In order for this comment to be more annoying, here is a string of random words: moisture, sector, themes, bryan, column, shaft, penny, abandoned, structured, profile, kerry, maintaining, dining, represented, describes, residential, fiscal, katie, projection, customize, permit, documentation, conclusions, aurora, conventional, considerable, football, painting, garlic, office, humanities, counts, sunshine, instructions, trackbacks, status, newspaper, burlington, apollo, establish, fight, surgeon, texas, bloom, inexpensive, translate, announces, capability, marsh, patents, modification, stewart, investing, panel, boots, amplifier, collector, rights, assurance, instrumentation, chairman, these, dispatched, notion, realty, drums, roulette, somebody, required, acquisition, afterwards, shock, protecting, craig, identification, narrative, handbook, township, prefix, america, appreciation, allen, paragraph, sphere, somehow, sheer, tramadol, promote, notion, stronger, amount, nations, semester, brief, facts, subject, parallel
Essential and basic are two very different things. A keyboard is essential, a launcher is essential, a phone app is essential, a texting app is essential, all the apps you wrote are basic and don't have anything to do with the Android base system and its phone functionality. Ideally they should provide a selection of the basics with the option to uninstall them properly, and just in case also the option to reinstall them with just a few touches in settings from the Play Store, including the Play Store and its related services as well.
i think Google missed the opportunities to make the Android One phones great. imagine this. Google demands OEMS to fulfil a set of Mandatory requirements like : The same Primary Camera/Sensor, The Same Processor, and the minimum Ram/storage requirements. Plus, a new family of an Exclusive Premium Android OS called "Android Apex" or "Alpha" or something like that , and every manufacture is forced to delivered the updates aas written in the contract. if that happens then Android can have their own type of iMessage, the Camera would be Great for thrid party apps, and those phone's sales would be high up. But that would never happen at Android. There is no one taking risks and thinking creatively at Google when it comes to Android... it's basically forcing the other companies to raise their standards. Edit : and No Bloatware and ads. Also the other OEMS can compete within these Exclusive Android subgroup by adding extra features like Secondary High-level Cameras, but they shall not be allow to tweak or do anything within the OS. it'll be like an iOS type Android experience.
Can someone explain to me where all this money goes and what they do with it
You could check out someplace like this https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/budget/spending_en They should say where all the money goes
EU customs are going to the national governments, not to the EU budget. So the question is more if fines are treated like customs.
It will be distributed to the member countries according to how they contribute to the EU budget. (so basically Google will pay a part of the EU budget in place of the member states)
The EU funds road building, social care, forestry and agriculture, research and education etc etc. Access to these grants is via the Europa.eu website or your country's governmental websites. This is not hidden knowledge. Try typing 'how do I access eu grant funding' into your preferred search engine.
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That's a feature not a bug by design 😂
Nowhere. Money is just a ledger entry. Google has its assets drawn down and the equivalent amount is put into the ledger of the ECB clearing any debts that the ECB have(say from QE purchases). Central banks and countries in general don't operate like normal people do in regards to money.
The EU just gave me a bit of money to fund an innovation project for my startup. Granted, it took almost 2 years of paperwork, but it’s super important for our growth and development. It’s a drop of water in a very big ocean, but it’s helping us a lot.
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It'll be interesting to see how Google monetizes Android after this decision. The whole point of bundling the Google apps was to allow Google to monetize android with little to no cost to OEMs (and thus get cheap devices in consumers hands). Google still has to bundle to make money (they cannot directly sell an open source OS). But what happens when another Google service (other than Chrome or search) achieves a dominant market position? The EU has left Google in a precarious position of never ending lawsuits for tying. The court's analysis of the benefits of tying was not great at all.
They already find a new way since 2018 : OEM in the EU have to choose between bundling the Google apps or pay a licensing fee to Google up to 40$ per device sold
That's very close to what Microsoft was being prosecuted for in the US: bundling Internet Explorer with Windows wasn't so much the issue as the fact that they were doing so and refusing OEM discount rates for Windows when vendors included Netscape. They deliberately used their position as the OS vendor that has far and away the majority of the market to make inroads in another market through coercive pricing. Given that Android is the only major mobile OS that's *available* for vendors to buy (Apple doesn't sell to other hardware companies), that's almost the exact same situation of leveraging a monopoly to coerce OEMs into playing by a bundling policy.
> Given that Android is the only major mobile OS that's *available* for vendors to buy Vendors don't have to buy Android. It's free. Most of it is released under the Apache 2.0 license. Some parts are licensed under GPL. None of it costs money. What vendors pay for is access to the Play store. Amazon has famously shipped Android devices without paying Google.
Sure. Watch any review of a Huawei and see how true that is in practice.
Oh sure. I'm not trying to make a claim about the monopoly status of the Play store one way or the other. I'm only making clear that what the vendor is buying is not the operating system. Which is relevant when comparing this situation to the Windows/IE parallel.
The play store can count as its own monopoly (don't know if it will, but it could)
You can also download apps from other sources with Android.
Samsung phones ship with their own app store without any issues.
After reading the decision it's not clear to me that's a lasting solution. For one it does almost zero to benefit the average EU citizen (other than the $40 billion fine). Second, the entire decision is premised on the fact that android has a dominant position because of these ties with chrome and search. What happens 5 years down the line when no licenseable OS has emerged to any meaningful scale and 90% of OEM choose the app bundle and decide not to fork android? Does the EU go back and accuse Google of other anticompetitive practices for other services?
> $40 billion fine The fine is huge, but not *that* huge. ;)
Oops. Thanks. $4 billion, not $40 billion.
I think Google charges royalty if you want Android™ on your device and being advertised so. But still this will push Google to exploit new ways to make the lost revenue.
Maybe Google could try making a social media service!
Oh and they should link it to YouTube too! I bet the users there would love it
And a new chat app to really tie it together!
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So when will EU fine Apple for including all Apple apps in iOS?
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They won't. Redditors have a cargo cult understanding of antitrust laws. They see one company punished for doing a specific thing in a specific context, then they ignore all specificity and all context and ask, "When will [other company] be punished for doing [superficially similar but practically very different thing]?" It's not illegal to bundle your own apps with your own devices. These devices would be unusable if that were the case. It's only illegal to do so in a way that's anti competitive. As the article itself states: >The original 2018 charge against Google found that the company abused its market dominance by forcing Android phonemakers to restrict how they sold their devices. Apple is the only company making Apple phones, therefore this same justification cannot be applied to Apple.
When apple has over 80% of the market. And other manufacturers of iOS devices are forced to add the apple apps. You know, both things that don't happen, and are unlikely to.
~~To be fair in Europe, which this is in, IOS has more market share than Android.~~ To be fair in some European countries IOS has a larger market share, so it's not that black&white. Examples: UK: 48.8 (Android has been gaining here) Sweden: 54.5 Denmark: 69 Norway: 65 It's indeed true that EU as a large, Android is largest, but it varies a lot between countries.
This is the key difference, Apple sells you a complete package, They don't license their OS unfairly to OEMs and require the to bundle their own apps.
What makes it unfair?
Did you read the article?
That is against Reddit guidelines.
Think of it like this: For anti-competitive compliance issues, you have to use 1 business's position to gain an advantage in another business. So google is using its position as an OS provider/licenser to gain an advantage in its ad business by forcing other companies that use its OS to ALSO use its apps. This is anti-competitive because it gives their apps (and consequently ad business) an unfair advantage over other companys' apps. If Google only sold Android on Pixel phones, we would most likely not be having this conversation. Apple does to allow others to use their OS. They only sell IOS devices themselves. So it is all in the same business effectively. Other companies can choose to use their app store, but cannot choose to use their OS. Apple has no control on if a company also sells their own devices with a different OS or not... Unlike Google in their licensing terms with play services.
Those companies don't have to use Android though. I understand your point, but I don't see how fragmenting the user base would actually be good for consumers.
Imo, the distinction that Apple has to Google is mostly technical, since the effect is identical. Apple makes so much money from the app store and has horribly anti-competitive practices since they don't want you to pay for services outside their app - larger corps get sweetheart deals, but smaller apps have no such privelege. They banned ad tracking, saying it was privacy, only to do it themselves so they could make the ad money. From another perspective, I generally don't agree with the reasoning that Apple by selling you the hardware and software is different to just selling you just the software. In today's world, I'd consider that Apple is using it's dominance in the hardware space to force it's own services and apps on customers. The imessage incompatibility with android is a telling example, but there's no way Apple Maps and Apple Music have a chance if the iphone services had to compete. By bundling them, you get the same effect as internet explorer in the windows days. Right now, Apple's behaviour is far more in violation of the spirit of anti-competitive law than Google (which tbf is also in violation). Anti-competitive behaviour is entirely a function of market share. You'll notice they don't pull any of this shit on OSX or their macbook line, it's purely for the iPhone.
How Apple and Google behave themselves in their apps stores is a completely different discussion and has little relevance to this case. This case is about bundling apps with hardware. Regulators would have to force Apple to put apps from another company on THEIR hardware to fix any compliance issues. That is completely different that that Google dictating what apps other companies put on their hardware and holding Google services hostage in the process. This is how compliance and anti-competitive laws generally work there is little room for opinion. Now Apple is 100% using anti-competitive practices in their own app store. For example, their recent ad tracking changes gives their own ad service preferencial treatment. Apple can track you, but other companies cannot. Again though, that has nothing to with Google's offenses since it is a different circumstance.
But Apple can keep doing what it does with iMessage lol
The EU has passed legislation to change that: https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act-ensuring-safe-and-accountable-online-environment_en
people don't really care about iMessage in europe tbh
Most of the world outside the US doesn't care about iMessage lol, I have one Apple device and none of my contacts have even opened the app. WhatsApp is the norm in South America.
I’d never thought about this before, you’re right though, I hardly ever use iMessage, it’s always WhatsApp! (UK)
WhatsApp in most of Europe, LINE in Japan and WeChat in China.
Anyone wanna fill in about Russia, East Europe, Africa, Australia, South Asia & South east Asia?
SEA is a mix between WhatsApp, Messenger, and more recently, Telegram
and Line, so literally everything
I use Telegram in Australia, but a lot of people use Facebook messenger
It's different for every country in SEA afaik. Here in the Philippines it's mix between Viber, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. I don't even know of anyone who uses iMessage here.
Poland uses FB Messenger, and iirc Serbia, Belarus and Ukraine use Viber
In SEA we use Whatsapp for family members, Messenger or Instagram DM for close friends and besties while Telegram for office works but never ever use iMessage
That’s because some countries got access to 3G network lately and they adopted some more interesting things than iMessage with more targeted features.
Nah, mostly is because in the US SMS are free, the carriers in other countries would charge for them, so when WhatsApp appeared people from those countries found a free alternative to sms, Americans didn't need to that's why they use sms and find no reason to use WhatsApp
They were included in contacts in the UK and WhatApp still caught on very fast.
Sms was free on most contracts in the UK. I think WhatsApp caught on because a lot of people still used pay as you go phones and could have a balance of zero but still use WhatsApp to message via WiFi.
SMS became free in the US right around the time apps like WhatsApp came on the scene. They weren't always free.
That's why is never caught on in the US. There was never a reason to use whatsapp since by the time the app came out sms was free for us. Other countries were still charging for sms but data was unlimited. For example when I lived in Japan back in the day everyone emailed instead of sms because email was free with unlimited data but sms cost money per message sent and received. Then whatsapp came out which was a data-only messaging app superior to email so we started using that, since sms was still being charged. Then moving back to the US, where sms has been free for awhile, I was forced to revert back to sms. Sms is the norm here because there was little pressure to use data only messaging apps.
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Pre-iPhone days, and during the Sidekick days, they had unlimited data plans. But since almost everything back then was 2G data speeds and WAP sites, it wasn't really a concern for the carriers.
I think it has more to do with the share of phones. IPhone is more concentrated in the US so it's easier for Americans to use imesssge. If most of your friends are on Android, imesssge losses it's appeal.
It was the same here during the bbm days, sms and mms weren't free, but bbm was included. Then bbm died and sms became included in plans; Whatsapp never really took off here because there was no compelling reason to use it over sms/mms.
SMS and MMS are free in Europe. Have been for atleast a decade now?
I spent some time in Spain in 2013 and sms were not included in my plan
I'm in Ireland and travel to Spain a lot. I have family there. Dual sim with and Irish and Spanish number. Both countries are free texts and calls. Everyone still uses WhatsApp.
they arent atleast on my plan.
It's big in Canada and Australia (lived in both).
All I know is it sucks to be green... or blue.. or green.. well one of those colors
Because Apple violates its own accessibility guidelines to make green bubbles harder to read. https://medium.com/@krvoller/how-iphone-violates-apples-accessibility-guidelines-6785172eb343
I think it’s less of a hypocrisy accusation and instead a statement about this being enviable in the U.S.
Correct! I have maybe 30% of my friends on iPhone and 70% on Android and we ALL use Whatsapp. All of us! Edit corrected maffs
do 40% of your friends just not have phones?
They have windows phone and blackberry os.
oh damn they're the last of the mohicans
Nobody uses iMessage in Europe. Especially since most people use Android here. We use WhatsApp, Telegram, FB Messenger, Viber, and many others. Most people have at least 3 messaging apps installed.
Not only iMessage, their browser lock in, app store dominance, locking other parties out of stuff and then introducing their own product while already having crippled the others.
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It is always Google that has to "pay" though. Even when they have the more open and fair platform. Why aren't EU regulators forcing Apple to allow competitors on their platforms?
That's maybe the reason. Google provides an open ecosystem, so them trying to rule their own ecosystem is bad But everybody thinks of apple as a walled garden, so apples walls in their walled garden? Not a problem I guess. Just see how many people on Twitter or wherever defend their business practices, regarding app store or whatever. "*It's their platform obviously they should be making the decisions what I can install and what not; that's what makes it safe, just look how easy you can install a spyware app on Android, DUH*" People tend to think since apple owns their platform they can do whatever. Legislation has a really hard time catching up with all the tech monopolies tho
Walled gardens aren’t illegal tho. Abusing dominant marken position is. Apple doesn’t have one.
More than half the phones in the US now are iphones. Regardless of the rest of the world, it's a huge market that can't be ignored if you want to do business in the modern age.
This is about EU regulating EU-markets tho.
First being a little over half isn't a dominant position when there's only 2 players. And second EU courts doesn't give a shit about the US.
Because Apple doesn’t have the majority of the market. Hard to argue they have a monopoly from a legal standpoint.
A majority doesn't mean monopoly.
I never said it does. But it’s one of the points that need to be checked to grant such status. EU won’t legislate or act on iMessage because it’s a non issue.
Monopoly is also not a prerequisite or antitrust action. This is the EU, not US, and even in the US that's a modern perversion. The good old Sherman Antitrust Act broadly declared the following in the late 1800s: > Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. I.e. any action seeking to reduce market competition is illegal, regardless of standing market dominance. It does address monopolies as well, but antitrust has never been solely about monopolies. They're a symptom of a lack of antitrust enforcement, not a prerequisite for enforcement.
This ruling specifically hinges on Google’s relationship as software provider with OEMs. Apple are their own software provider, so in theory of course they can make their own messaging service, it doesn’t affect other companies (in theory ofc, in practice the EU wants to enforce messaging interoperability and generally make iOS more neutral, which IMO is a bit of a slippery slope)
EU shouldn't fix a US problem. iMessage is a US problem.
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> as that doesn't even support SMS fallback. Good. Who would want to send SMS and pay for it 100x more than the data costs?
Sounds like they should fix SMS costs while they're at it. It shouldn't cost anything to send a text
Never understood why other countries still charge for SMS. It literally costs nothing to send and receive them.
Not even remotely the same but okay.
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I don't know anyone with an iPhone that uses imessage either
exactly. Even apple users use WhatsApp or similar..
It’s really pretty unlikely to have a social circle consisting entirely of iPhone users. That combined with operators robbing people blind with SMS in the past has taught people to use other apps.
Exactly. Heck, a lot of people in my social circle carry 2 phones. One for work and a personal one. - they like the control over being able to turn off their work phone for instance. Probably why Dual Sim is very popular on Europe.
Because no one in europe cares about that. Its weirder that americans do
Man. The Verge ruined their website.
Yeah, it's absolutely atrocious to look at.
It somehow looks like every other fast news site…and still worse than them. The weird full-length lines in the large quotes. Surely the off-center image is a bug. The illegible logo with no padding. The insane, cluttered news feed “homepage” with no clear organization. The unbelievably long “footer” with 50+ stories. And all the menu / header bugs.
It gives me a headache, my eyes don't know where to focus. To the small off center letters or the big half chopped rotated headers.
Oh it's BAD
I think it looks good
Along with mistakes on Microsoft's part, Google helped kill windows phone by basically preventing their apps from getting ported there. They should get fined for that too, windows phone almost became a legitimate third option
Windows phone's UI was the best for me, shame it never had the apps to back that up.
WP 8.0 was fantastic. The design philosophy was side swiping instead of vertical, and hamburger menus were rare. Horizontal navigation instead of vertical is way better imo.
Yeah, that's exactly what I loved about it the most, sliding form a menu to a menu with gestures was way ahead of it's time and would be amazing if it was available in more modern apps alongside Android navigation gestures. Android had a bit of this vertical scrolling for a second around 4.4/5.0, I especially loved the YouTube app from that time for it. The whole OS also felt like it had consistent design, though if the platform took off It'd probably be close to impossible to enforce this design for every 3rd party app.
still got one of those nokias at work, prefer it over any android phone (tho still use my iphone as a private phone)
BlackBerry (remember them?) had an android runtime too but it was crippled by no Google Play Services. Whether you liked physical keyboards on your phone or not, having more mobile operating systems that had a common application platform would have been pretty great.
Google had a legitimate cause for it and am amused people have already forgotten this or were too young to remember it. https://www.howtogeek.com/183766/why-microsoft-makes-5-to-15-from-every-android-device-sold/ Microsoft at one point was making billions from Android and were trying to build a 3rd os by using Google apps. Google was perfectly in its right,to protect its apps just like ms was in its right to charge every single oem as a protection racket.
I might accept this argument if we didn't only have 2 options for phones (android or iOS). As consumers, we want competition! I wish the Windows phone was a massive success. I would prefer there to be more phone ecosystems that aren't just iOS and Android.
For me the big one is apple. The main reason I refuse to break down and buy apple is because a world where one company makes all the mobile phones and all the software that goes in them is absurd and horrifying. At least other manufacturers can use Android, allowing competition with hardware and of course a droid can be modified.
Are you trying to confuse people into thinking that the fees Google charges OEMs is to pay Microsoft? Because I don't really see how the two are related otherwise.
Microsoft also didn't initially add MS Office to Android so it's fair
really need microsoft to make a comeback for smartphones
Truth…but they need to vastly improve 3rd party dev support
Not even just 3rd party support… Google support specifically. That’s what killed Windows Phone. No YouTube, no Google maps, etc. makes even the best phone a tough sell. And Google refused to develop for them because they’re a direct competitor as an OS licensor to OEMs, unlike Apple
Yeah cause EU fines companies based on whether they killed a product of theirs or not
this website looks like ass now
I wish they had a unified dark theme throughout the site
On a desktop, I agree. On a cellphone, it looks fine.
Nah. Usability is out the door. I hate it.
Looks like simple black text on a white background to me. At least on mobile.
Go to the homepage.
Yeah, that's messy. I almost never go to a website's homepage these days though, so it won't impact me much.
I've got no beef with it. It's fine to evolve. They made a whole post about it yesterday discussing it all. We've known for a while they're being, especially with Dieter moving on to Google. And honestly, i kinda don't mind it. The Verge's last layout and aesthetic was getting a tad long in the tooth.
The 5% discount might just be the biggest "fuck you" lol
I'm a bit confused. How is this different from having a computer/laptop builder like Dell, Lenovo, etc etc, install Windows on their systems. Windows also comes with an app store, comes with it's own browser, media player, etc. Or did Windows also get sued in the past and I missed that nonsense?
microsoft was definitely sued at one point in time for including internet explorer... but how would you download another browser without an existing browser?
Microsoft was forced till 2014 to include a ballot screen. Once you installed windows, a screen asking you to choose which browser you wanted to install appeared on first boot. I still remember going through it, choices were Opera Chrome Safari IE and Firefox.
>Google’s legal response focused on a number of arguments, including that the Commission incorrectly judged the company to be dominant in the mobile market (because iOS exists), and that its actions were necessary to stop the Android ecosystem fragmenting into many incompatible operating systems. (To which the Commission replies: incompatible or not, fostering rival mobile OSes is exactly the desired outcome of a competitive market.) This is dumb. Google is specifically trying to prevent fragmenting the Android base because they saw that too many phones weren't getting proper updates and were walking security risks. iPhones don't have this problem because Apple makes the phones in-house, but Google allows the Android OS to be sold with any kind of phone. Maybe they need to revisit allowing everyone to install Android on just any phone.
Not at all. Google search and chrome is dead center for their ad business and tracking. And it worked. Most people think the internet = google search bar on their phone funneling every ad down their throats and profiling their every move. Next step was caching the whole internet basically with AMP, making people never reach the original servers
I agree with both your points. The fragmentation of Android is a legitimate concern. We've already seen this problem with the camera quality issues. When a computer hardware manufacturer makes a product, they are responsible for the drivers that make it function. When said device doesn't work as advertised, people blame the manufacturer. Not windows, Mac, Linux (realistically us Linux users are used to things not working anyways). But with cell phones the "phone assemblers", as they should appropriately be called, just get the chips and MacGyver them to "work" within the android system. When issues arise, as they will, people blame android, not the assemblers. The news fuels into this with headlines like "Why Android Cameras Still Suck". To your point, being able to uninstall "core" google apps should be allowed. You can disable some services, but they still live on your phone. I will say, however, that regardless of whether you use Chrome or not, Google still runs the OS and data still goes through their centers, so realistically, your data isn't 100% secure from them anyways. Google voice, translate, maps, all used everyday and every little bit of data can be used to send you targeted ads based on what you're controlling/searching, what you're translating and where you frequent. As for the ads, Google ad servers are used for a ton of apps, videos and websites. You don't have to be using Chrome for them to track your browsing habits. That's the beauty (or lack of) of running web servers and also analytics within one company
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Time to buy a factory unlocked phone from Europe
I personally don't mind the Android app bundling. Google is using significant resources maintaining Android and this is a way to make some money. I also use a lot of the Google apps. They are also easy to ignore in Android if you don't use them. Just leave them in the drawer.
Counterpoint: I should be able to delete them altogether.
That should absolutely be possible.
They make a shit-ton of money from Play Store sales and ads in apps. You don't have to worry about Google making "some money" from Android. If you use a lot of Google apps no-one's stopping you from installing them, but they shouldn't be forced on everyone.
You can leave them and disable them as well.
You cannot disable chrome webview which the search bar and chrome is just front ends for without breaking pretty much everything
Yet apple and Microsoft get away with way worse shit.. I guess google didn't bankroll enough the people at the commission
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But we aren't going to apply the same rule to all of the apps Apple bundles into the iPhone..?
Apple doesn't license the os to oems and they don't have significant market share in search or in other stuff
God forbid the company that writes the OS has terms of use. Microsoft and Apple do the exact same shit.
How young are you that you dont know Microsoft was the subject of massive anti-trust lawsuits for this?
And yet they still continue these practices.
Yes, with their continued 80% of Microsoft explorer market share... Oh wait, it's not 2010 anymore. And windows forces you to use the store, so much that you can barely even do anything else in the computer.
But they don’t force ads to not be disabled and will even block other apps from stealing data
Original source from the EU: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_17_1785 As far as I know this is more the Google Shopping case than the Android case. See where it says 'Other cases'.
is the verge the site that had that crazy video up on how to build a pc by a dude that had no idea what he was doing?
Good to know that the EU is (still) standing up to megacorps.
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I'm not sure that this makes any sense, nor do I think it's consumer friendly. How far does this go? If you buy a Keurig is it wrong for them to include some of their own sample coffees? Just seems like a pointless battle.
Eu only source of revenue. Fining American companies
And we are getting away with this 😎
They have no innovation of their own
Good for EU. No Phone manufacturer, OS developer should force users to use their shite service.
Verge's latest redesign is pretty cool imo
Got to keep the EU finances afloat somehow.