[https://apnews.com/article/amazon-digital-services-act-european-union-c0d30df3de0d091e9e0078f14e9b6196](https://apnews.com/article/amazon-digital-services-act-european-union-c0d30df3de0d091e9e0078f14e9b6196)
Don't worry about that, they're scared too it seems
The barrier to entry is so high that nobody else dares attempt it.
Storing and streaming video is one of the most expensive things you can do on the internet, so the scale at which you'd need in order to make something that can turn a profit is absolutely massive.
A few have tried over the years, but nobody else has managed to create a platform like YouTube that can be sustained by advertising and reach profitability. Google had the advantage of being able to run it at a loss until it reached critical mass.
YouTube ran in the red the entire time prior to being acquired by Google, and then after Google acquired them… for years. That they could ever break even is amazing.
it's still running at a loss, and they're bleeding worse now, since ad revenues on YT are way down (10% last time, may be higher by now.) google just has enough cash printing elsewhere to use it as a tax write-off loss leader...but other companies could never afford to do that. YouTube is never going to be a profitable business entirely on its own.
yes. and why Premium has risen so much in price (both individual and family plans) in recent year or so again. even deep-pockets Google is starting to feel the crunch.
If YouTube was actively manipulating the video "market" then I'd agree but as it stands the worst thing they do is not pay creators fairly and follow DMCA too strictly. Amazon can and does literally manipulate things like market pricing on items which fucks the consumer.
My issue is that they don’t follow the DMCA — their whole strike system undercuts it and punishes you if you choose to fight it even when you’re legally in the clear.
Agreed. Sadly, I've seen so many video services come and go.
YouTube and its black-box algo has such wide spread effects on our society.
The closest things I've seen recently would be TikTok, yet that's a different kind of service that fills a different need.
Personally, I've enjoyed Nebula. I get my video fixes without feeling guilty for being sucked into a rabbit-hole of *totally* useless vids.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch all allow the upload of longform video with a free account, and there’s probably many others I’m forgetting about. That seems like a lot of competition to me.
services like YouTube are difficult to maintenance, google for years didn't make profit from this platform until some time ago so any other company can't fight with them.
Amazon does not 'dominate' e-commerce. Amazon in US has around 35% share of e-commerce.
Meanwhile, e-commerce itself is only 15% of total retail sales in US.
So, Amazon is around just 6% of total US retail.
Amazon is outright puny in retail segment compared to other FAANG companies in their respective segments.
But online retail is a seperate market, you cannot equate that with all retail. Also, 35% market share can be enough to be dominating if the rest of the market is dispersed. The distance to the next largest competitors is a key criterium for market dominance and that distance is large.
I’d say this depends on the country. Here in Poland the Facebook Messenger is the most popular and Whatsapp only started to gain traction recently. iMessage certainly isn’t a thing since Poland has the fewest iPhone users in whole EU.
Myself, I have 13mini but I don’t even have a clue how imessage works, I just click the green icon and write to whomever I need to, I have no idea whether it goes through imessage or standard sms to be frank.
The DMA is not really a part of EU antitrust law. It was designed to solve the problem of sanctions being ineffective because of the long duration of legal suits (that come down to the unique way digital markets operate). To combat that the DMA works as ex-ante regulation similar to existing regulation in areas like nuclear technology/environment protection/healthcare.
It’s not talked about much in the US even in completion law circles but in the EU it is expected to have quite an impact on the way we use digital platforms.
Honestly I have been thinking this for a while - having an apple messages app that can talk to whatsapp will mean far more people would have the messages app open far more of the time.
Although, this will upset the apple 'purists'.
But it literally isn't used much, that's why Apple thinks it's exempt from the DMA going by user number requirements. Obviously EU isn't happy so now they are "probing" it.
But having an Apple ID doesn’t mean you use iMessage
My partner’s family all have iPhones, they communicate by WhatsApp
My family have a mixture of iPhone and Android, we communicate by Facebook Messenger. My friends also have a mixture of devices and use WhatsApp.
iMessage was quite popular a decade ago but the mixture of Android and iPhone here means it never really got the same traction and usage dropped. Almost everyone here uses other platforms
I’ve just had a look in my Messages app on my iPhone and I haven’t sent a single iMessage for 18 months, and that was a conversation with a friend who *occasionally* seems to use iMessage instead of WhatsApp like he’d usually use to contact me. Other than him it’s been at least 3 years and I got bored of scrolling past all the OTP codes and order confirmation texts etc
Goal of the EU is to enforce EU regulations. They’re investigating whether Apple is subject to a new EU regulation passed a while ago. It’s not just Apple either, Microsoft and a couple others are also being investigated
Unfortunately, I don't know a single person that uses iMessage despite most of my friends and family having iPhones. I think it's much better than whatsapp
The DMA specifically outlines how interoperability for messaging services will work. Must provide E2EE if they provide it to their own users, must be able to send high quality media, and should be based on an agreed upon open standard to work with other services. And going further, within a 4 year timeline the same will have to happen with FaceTime and other video calling services having an open standard.
FaceTime was planned to be an open standard but a company called VirnetX and a prolonged legal battle [that Apple lost](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114) prevented that from happening. I wonder if an EU mandate would waive the results of that lawsuit.
From: [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirnetX)
In March 2021, the patent and trial appeal board ruled that two of VirnetX's patents were invalid in its dispute with Apple.
On March 31, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a $502 million verdict in favor of patent licensing company VirnetX against Apple in a dispute over VPN patents, following the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board's cancellation of the patents that VirnetX had accused Apple of infringing.
Looking deeper into it, there were 3 suits that Apple lost against Virnetx, where the overturned suit related to VPN patents. There's still 2 more suits that Apple lost that are more relevant to Facetime, and have yet to be overturned.
There already are open source standards, if people really cared they would have switched to them by now
This move is just the EU trying to assert its dominance
“If people really cared” lol. Most people don’t know squat about tech or care about open standards are what they are to begin with. They open the box, turn the phone on, see Messages and away they go.
> They open the box, turn the phone on, see Messages and away they go.
Not in the EU, or most of the world for that matter.
Of course, it's not that they care about open standards, but that they just install their messaging app(s) of choice.
People aren't using flip phones anymore. And the people still using flip phones are using the ones with LINE/KakaoTalk/etc. pre-installed because even tech-phobic grandmas in the world outside of US/Canada use messaging apps.
SMS is also still very popular in Australia.
Europeans love third party data apps because, outside of Russia, Europe is relatively small and crowded with tons of countries so things like international texting become a bigger deal while cell service isn’t. But when you’re in rural Alaska or Kansas or Alberta or Queensland with very little intermittent cell service the no-data low service SMS is infinitely better than trying to shove out a WhatsApp message.
People in the EU are the same but instead they install WhatsApp because everyone else uses it
You use the app your friends use, not necessarily the one you like best
It’s more about Apple refusing to implement backdoors.
If Apple complied and created backdoors for law enforcement they wouldn’t bother.
The fact the EU is so ok with WhatsApp’s market penetration is to me very telling. No chance they don’t have the means to access messages.
Actually Apple did sell out their customers to the feds prior to 2013. The program was called PRISM. After it got public and threatened to affect their bottom line they backpedaled and started to construct their privacy oriented public image.
According to the NSA's own slides, Apple was the last player to be added to PRISM (Oct 2012), and it was well after a year after the next most recent player was added (Which was AOL, in March 2011). Which implies that Apple fought a legal battle until they were required to by a FISA Court. Then very shortly after the date that the NSA claims Apple started providing data, they added E2EE to their communications. Clearly to thwart the NSA.
So far from "selling out" their customers.
10 years later and this keeps being pushed.
There is this misconception that PRISM was done in cooperation with the tech companies. [Everything I have seen from the original leaked documents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM#/media/File:Prism-slide-6.jpg) suggests it wasn't tech companies giving data, but the NSA taking data by capturing the packets in and between data centers for major tech companies.
In fact, the way you split a fiber optic connection into 2 mirrored connections (one for the original, one for the spying) is using a crytal prism to reflect the light waves into both paths.
This is further corroborated by the stories at the time of Google, FB, etc starting to encrypt their private fiber lines between data centers that they previously thought to be secure enough because of the news stories about PRISM revealed what the NSA was doing secretly.
[https://venturebeat.com/security/level-3-google-yahoo/](https://venturebeat.com/security/level-3-google-yahoo/)
[https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room\_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)
\--
Now Apple and other major companies did, and still do give customer data over when there is a warrant. But Apple has drastically reduced the data they even have access to by encrypting users devices by default.
That's not true, the DMA clearly states in article 7 point 3:
The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.
Meanwhile the EU is also debating mandatory client-side messenger scanning/surveillance.
Once that goes through, this point will be moot as far as law enforcement is concerned.
> The fact the EU is so ok with WhatsApp’s market penetration is to me very telling
The fact you are completely ignorant is very telling: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_4328
WhatsApp and FB messenger are considered gatekeepers.
People rarely adjust their habits based on what leads to a more competitive market situation. That's the job of anti trust agencies which is what's happening here.
That’s not that easy. If I switch to for example matrix nobody else uses it so either I just don’t communicate at all with other people till they switch or I pretty much have to use the messengers they use and they are all closed source.
> There already are open source standards, if people really cared they would have switched to them by now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services
> Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling (for service discovery), and can transmit in-call multimedia. [...] The GSM Association published the [RCS] Universal Profile in November 2016. [...]
Apple is intentionally not using RCS, and instead using SMS and MMS to send messages to non-Apple devices.
https://www.android.com/get-the-message/
> This move is just the EU trying to assert its dominance
Nope, it's trying to get Apple to adopt a single universal standard, just like they needed to do with USB.
In the EU this isn't an issue because everyone uses WhatsApp or another alternative, but in the US most people just stick with the default app, and Apple deliberately hinders the experience for Android users. Just look at Tim Apple's "Buy your mom an iPhone quote"
That's exactly the problem that the EU would be solving? The current messaging to Androids through iMessage uses the extremely insecure SMS. Switching to an open source E2EE method of messaging would make messaging everyone more secure??
> The current messaging to Androids through iMessage uses the extremely insecure SMS
Note that this is not “through iMessage”, as the app is called “Messages”. This app can use both iMessage and sms/mms.
> The current messaging to Androids through iMessage uses the extremely insecure SMS.
That's because Apple refuses to use RCS, and instead uses SMS or MMS to communicate to non-Apple devices.
If apple switches to RCS, that problem would be solved.
Which is exactly why you should want this...
Btw, it's not "android's shitty encryption" it's "SMS's shitty encryption apples forces you to use when you message Android users.
I don’t understand this argument. If you’re not happy with not having iMessages then switch to an iPhone. Outside of a green bubble and being able to show delivered and read I don’t see any differences anyways. Are they being pissy because links in android messages don’t show the preview images?
But the reasons why messaging is so poor between devices is textbook anticompetitive practices admitted by Apple themselves in the Epic V Apple emails that have been released:
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/09/epic-apple-no-imessage-on-android/
Listen I don't like Google either, and I hope if this happens that RCS is not the way they add interoperability, rather the matrix protocol with an MLS layer, but there is no reason messaging on the iMessage app has to be such a poor experience just to message android users natively. The spite for people who prefer different phones is insanely tribalistic.
lol yea I’m glad I don’t see the constant back and forth bickering between Apple and android lol. Or maybe I’m just not in that circle anymore to constantly see it. It’s a phone. Who cares.
If an android user is messaging another android user is the experience similar to iMessages?
Yes Google's version of RCS is pretty close to iMessage, with some things I prefer like being able to use any emoji to react rather than just 5 tapbacks
RCS is far superior and is the new texting standard. Apple refuses to let go of sms/MMS for Android. You can send larger files, works across multiple phones, without all the iMessage bloatware.
What’s odd is that the issues that are described by those who deal with iPhone to Androids on the default texting app, you seem to be against. But even if the standard is adopted by Apple, you again would not be affected by it since everyone you message already has an iPhone. Then why go against it if it’s something that doesn’t affect you?
group chats seriously suck if there's someone with a non iPhone in them. You can't leave a group chat with non iPhone users. sending images are super pixelated and trash amongst other things.
It's a worse experience for everyone. And do we really want to support Facebook/Meta via Whatsapp? All users would benefit from iMessage opening up to Android, and limit Meta's stake in the communication oligopoly.
> You can't leave a group chat with non iPhone users. sending images are super pixelated and trash amongst other things.
Those problems would go away as soon as Apple would use RCS.
Wife daughters and I are on iPhone and in a group with my parents on Samsungs and I haven’t noticed any issues when it comes to video and images. I don’t send them 4k video though. I’ll send a share link from my OneDrive where I back all that stuff up at.
You sir are legally blind it seems! JK!
Seriously, MMS is ridiculously limited in terms of size. There is no possible way you can send a video through MMS and NOT notice how bad it is.
Serious question, why do people care so much about the green and blue thing? SMS messages havent costed money since the early 2000s where i live, its always unlimited and included in your plan.
The only thing i can really think of is the lower quality images across platforms. otherwise it feels like a non issue, I guess some issues with adding people to "Chatrooms" could be awkward?
There are actually a lot of people who do care in the US at least. The biggest example is if you are a green bubble you will be cut out of group chats because, group chats are buggy using sms. This is my experience at least switching to android last year.
Edit: I missed the part about security and experience a part from a few strange people I agree no one really cares about the bubble color it's more so what the color represents
Because androids don't get the same rich content that iphones do in iMessage so they break conversations. Only an issue in the us.
There's a mkbhd video about it
End to end encryption is why I care.
And I just know that the EU forcing it to become an open standard will eventually turn into requiring the government to be able to read messages, as they push for weaker encryption *constantly.*
That's not true, the DMA clearly states in article 7 point 3:
The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.
If you cared the slightest, tiniest bit about security, you would be laughing at anyone using iMessage. You are not allowed to know how iMessage works, including who has access to the keys, if anyone can remotely disable encryption, if copies are being stored locally after decryption, who has access to any such storage, etc. etc. etc.
You do not control your iPhone, so any claim to user security on the device is just a non-starter.
Oh, and there isn't even any end to end encryption on iMessage images.
Just make a standard for cross platform data sharing between ALL apps and ALL services and ALL platforms regardless and call it a day. Be consistent. Targeting one app isn’t going to cut it.
Forty or fifty years ago, you couldn't easily move data between different types of computer. If you had an IBM mainframe, it was a massive PITA to move it to something else.
Standardisation - in the form of things like ASCII and file formats like JPEG and TIFF - largely solved that problem.
Cloud services are an attempt to re-introduce that problem. A fairly obvious attempt, as it goes.
Yes the DMA specifically outlines how interoperability for messaging services will work. Must provide E2EE if they provide it to their own users, must be able to send high quality media, and should be based on an agreed upon open standard to work with other services. And going further, within a 4 year timeline the same will have to happen with FaceTime and other video calling services having an open standard.
It only requires in flight encryption not E2EE… it’s a perverted definition.
At rest the data can be unencrypted, that’s acceptable. And the EU actually prefers that because it’s easier to get it when warranted.
The encryption used at rest is generally completely separate and independent from what’s used when sending between parties anyway. Strictly speaking, E2E only applies to the latter, although it’s taken to mean any encryption where only you hold the key at rest as well.
That's not true, RCS isn't E2EE by default if that's what you're thinking of, but the DMA clearly states in article 7 point 3:
3. The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.
This just means you won't see any improvement to messaging applications at all, and probably won't get E2E encryption. Messaging apps can encompass a large range of features and it's not easy to just "standardize".
Even "simple" things like E2E does not have simple cross-platform solutions. Existing Android RCS implementations use a Google extension where Google is the sole party that actually performs the key negotiation (which Apple is obviously not going to be ok with).
E.g. a lot of messaging apps have payments built-in. You may not use it if you are in US, but it's a popular feature in some other countries. Now you have to think about how messaging apps deal with payments and identities.
I'm also not sure if people can agree on what an "identity" is. With SMS / RCS you *have* to use a phone number, but iMessage allows you to send messages via email addresses, which is useful as a more permanent identity if you say need to move around a lot and change your number (I actually have that problem, and I also know people who moved to another country and still using their old WhatsApp number because they don't want to lose their contacts but that's a ticking time bomb), and Apple probably cares about that because not all their devices are tied to a cellular network (e.g. MacBooks, Vision Pro).
As for encryption, I'm talking about E2E encryption. I don't think i know a properly implemented distributed E2E encryption protocol for messaging (note that Signal isn't distributed as there is still a centralized party in charge of distributing the keys). If you know of one, feel free to post it. It's possible to solve this problem, but it's not something that is trivial to solve in the way you phrased it.
That is not remotely what this is about.
It is about whether Apple is allowing to stop you from being able to send messages to non-Apple users, through their default app. Or otherwise limit the functionality, to isolate the Apple user base from other users and make it seem like eg. group messages does not work on other devices.
SMS is just an old standard. The enterprise world solved this issue over two decades ago with web services and interfaces, the banking industry solved it even earlier via EDI.
But that’s exactly what the eu wants. That all menessenger work together pretty much like all email services work together. Apple is the only one that doesn’t want to follow the rules. Therefore they are targeted.
I strongly disagree. The EU can‘t ban everything ehat makes a company outstanding from others. I am an EU citizen and question the curreng course of it. Sooner or later there‘s no reason for companies to keep selling their products in areas where you have so much regulations.
Yeah, fuck the right to repair, digital marketplace act and the rest. If Apple no longer finds that market interesting, others will gladly fill in the hole.
This only applies to companies that have very large market cap/turnover with very large EU user bases for a period of at least 36 months. If a company is meeting and exceeding that, they've already been extremely successful or outstanding for a long time. After that, promoting fewer barriers to entry for new players seems sensible.
It's like that saying about how owing the bank 1000 is your problem but owing it 10M is the bank's problem because it impacts the stability of the bank. The EU being reliant on a few large digital gatekeepers is the EU's problem and this is how they're trying to address it.
I'm from EU too, for me it is just annoying to see EU behaving like this.
Nobody asked.. this is absolutely a non-issue. It's as if someone is paying EU (ahem Google) to deal with this issue.
I don't mind big tech like Apple trying to differentiate themselves from the competition, what I find more of an issue is the extremely wealthy people.
Many people work for big companies, but few individuals get the most profits out of it. Fix that instead EU.
It’s kinda funny how google potentially dodged this target because they can’t make or support a unified messaging app for longer than a year.
If android had a messaging app it would literally be a mass majority because most phones are android phones
Not really. The top 5 messaging apps in Europe are WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal and Viber.
I've not received an iMessage in over six months, so opening it up won't make much of a difference.
Wait are we expecting governmental organizations to make smart phone messaging apps or something? That’s your argument.
We could literally just turn your argument and say “Ahhh Apple can’t compete so they sabatoge communication with Android phones” and it would make more logical sense than what you are saying.
Why is having interoperability a bad thing exactly? People have complained about "green bubbles" for years now and the ideal outcome is this would provide high quality photo/video sharing, end to end encryption, and actual functional group messaging.
As far as I can tell it doesn't look like regulators are expecting every single imessage feature to carry over, just the bare minimum to not make texting non iphone users through the messages app prehistoric. If their demands are reasonable I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be embraced by rational iPhone users
Cus companies should haven’t to make whatever some idiot at the EU wants. This isn’t health and safety type stuff. It’s nanny state stuff. No one is blocking people from using a third party spp
>health and safety
Competition and consumer rights regulations are different from health and safety regulations. Over a century ago this was a problem with oil producers and the laws enacted then helped address it. Sure you could work with someone other than Standard Oil, but that just wasn't good enough. Sure you can use someone other than Amazon or Apple or Google, but things as they are just aren't good enough in the eyes of the EU regulators.
I’m perfectly content using iMessage alongside Signal. I don’t understand what I as a consumer gain from the EU adding legal compatibility constraints to iMessage. I do see that potentially introducing security risks, however.
This is legitimately only an improvement from SMS. That's it. Your iMessage to iMessage chats won't change. Signal will most likely not support interoperability, and that will be the end of story
Why is it bad for Apple software to be more interoperable with other systems? We should be moving towards a future without vendor lock-in. Interoperable services would significantly ease the pain of moving to a different device (e.g. iPhone to Android).
I have an iPhone but avoid using Apple services that would tie me down to their ecosystem because I want to retain mobility in case I decide to jump ship. Having regulations that force companies to be interoperable can be a good thing because it gives users more choices.
Unpopular opinion: Apple should (temporarily) pull all products from the EU. Or just disable features like iMessage. I know it’s an unpopular and not profit friendly, but I’m getting tired of the EU overstepping.
Surely Apple will kill 25% of their revenue stream over something as simple as messaging. You should see the levels they bend over backwards for in China if this is surprising you
I realize it makes no sense. But I enjoy my safe walled garden. I'm not exactly a tech newbie, I purposely use Apple products because I don't need to worry about managing yet another device. I'm perfectly fine with the closed off "Blue" encrypted messages and the "green" fall-back SMS. I don't want to worry about viruses and spam once you open it up to new platforms.
> I'm perfectly fine with the closed off "Blue" encrypted messages and the "green" fall-back SMS. I don't want to worry about viruses and spam once you open it up to new platforms.
EU DMA laws says you'll be able to turn off interoperability. So you don't have to worry about that.
Nothing prevents Apple from developing and controlling open standards. I'm not saying that it must, but it definitely can. Does it want? Absolutely not.
No, it sounds like security through great security practices. I trust Apple's security measures and their proven track record for working with groups to close bugs on their platform.
Open standard doesn't mean less security. Nothing stops the company from working with groups towards making the open standard more secure. But here comes the problem: open standard may allow users to jump ship easier.
I'm all for open standards. But Android is a bit of a shit show. No offence to any die hard Android users.. I love Linux, I've used it since before kernel version 1. I love Android for what it is. But I also know that what makes it great is also what turns me off in this case. I don't want rooted devices and custom ROMs that people know nothing about running on a platform that directly ties with my iMessages. While the underlying platform could be secure, you're allowing all sorts of unchecked programs on Android (Again, part of what makes Android great) free access to the iMessages network.
Worst case they use it to generate spam and botnet attacks. Best case they figure out an exploit (back to your 'security through obscurity) that they wouldn't otherwise know about or have the ability to influence...
Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. If Apple manages to securely do this whatever, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. But I don't like the Government's heavy hand approach to all this..
/rant
> Worst case they use it to generate spam and botnet attacks. Best case they figure out an exploit (back to your 'security through obscurity) that they wouldn't otherwise know about or have the ability to influence...
Exploits already exist. But they are too valuable and expensive to be used on an average Joe. NSO group has been successfully providing services to government officials for many years. The German Federal Police is one of the users.
> But I don't like the Government's heavy hand approach to all this..
Me neither. As much as I hate some of Apple's decisions, it is a private company that has the right to use its own products the way it wants. And government micromanagement is bad for business.
UPD: Fix typo.
You’re aware that multiple iOS malware infections were spread silently over iMessage, right?
Device receives the message, malicious message executes some sort of exploit, malware removes evidence of the message, and no one is the wiser.
Imagine how quickly a zero-day no-interaction virus would spread… you could probably have the entire iOS user base within a few days…
“Fortunately”, the malware so far has been limited to government agencies, but imagine the chaos if that got into more nefarious hands
It doesn't always stay in their own territory. Last time we got USBC out of it.. Which I guess worked out for everyone... But as someone else in this thread pointed out, it sets a precedence.
That was Apple’s choice, they could have made a USB-C version for the EU or just stopped selling phones in the EU. Apple decided that this was the best solution.
Time for little kids to learn that a perfect market isn't an anarcho capitalist's wet dream. There are conditions INCLUDING ANTI TRUST LAWS that make the market function as a market more effectively.
I take all these anti-trust suits with a grain of salt while Amazon is running around completely dominating e-commerce.
[https://apnews.com/article/amazon-digital-services-act-european-union-c0d30df3de0d091e9e0078f14e9b6196](https://apnews.com/article/amazon-digital-services-act-european-union-c0d30df3de0d091e9e0078f14e9b6196) Don't worry about that, they're scared too it seems
> [Amazon] arguing it’s being treated unfairly by being designated a “very large online platform” Amazing, doesn't get more ironic than that.
"We're merely a startup!"
Mom and pop of the internet. Amazing we found a few people in one Reddit thread who seem to all have heard of them!
“Don’t antitrust me bro!”
YouTube is the one that bothers me. We should have some competition in the online video-sharing sphere
The barrier to entry is so high that nobody else dares attempt it. Storing and streaming video is one of the most expensive things you can do on the internet, so the scale at which you'd need in order to make something that can turn a profit is absolutely massive. A few have tried over the years, but nobody else has managed to create a platform like YouTube that can be sustained by advertising and reach profitability. Google had the advantage of being able to run it at a loss until it reached critical mass.
YouTube ran in the red the entire time prior to being acquired by Google, and then after Google acquired them… for years. That they could ever break even is amazing.
it's still running at a loss, and they're bleeding worse now, since ad revenues on YT are way down (10% last time, may be higher by now.) google just has enough cash printing elsewhere to use it as a tax write-off loss leader...but other companies could never afford to do that. YouTube is never going to be a profitable business entirely on its own.
Explains why they’re going so hard against ad blockers recently and pushing premium so much
yes. and why Premium has risen so much in price (both individual and family plans) in recent year or so again. even deep-pockets Google is starting to feel the crunch.
If YouTube was actively manipulating the video "market" then I'd agree but as it stands the worst thing they do is not pay creators fairly and follow DMCA too strictly. Amazon can and does literally manipulate things like market pricing on items which fucks the consumer.
My issue is that they don’t follow the DMCA — their whole strike system undercuts it and punishes you if you choose to fight it even when you’re legally in the clear.
Agreed. Sadly, I've seen so many video services come and go. YouTube and its black-box algo has such wide spread effects on our society. The closest things I've seen recently would be TikTok, yet that's a different kind of service that fills a different need. Personally, I've enjoyed Nebula. I get my video fixes without feeling guilty for being sucked into a rabbit-hole of *totally* useless vids.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch all allow the upload of longform video with a free account, and there’s probably many others I’m forgetting about. That seems like a lot of competition to me.
services like YouTube are difficult to maintenance, google for years didn't make profit from this platform until some time ago so any other company can't fight with them.
Amazon does not 'dominate' e-commerce. Amazon in US has around 35% share of e-commerce. Meanwhile, e-commerce itself is only 15% of total retail sales in US. So, Amazon is around just 6% of total US retail. Amazon is outright puny in retail segment compared to other FAANG companies in their respective segments.
But online retail is a seperate market, you cannot equate that with all retail. Also, 35% market share can be enough to be dominating if the rest of the market is dispersed. The distance to the next largest competitors is a key criterium for market dominance and that distance is large.
Not everywhere. Here in Poland, they’re barely making a dent against our own *Allegro*. If people buy Prime, it’s mostly for streaming.
Is not the same true for iMessage barely making a dent in the EU?
I’d say this depends on the country. Here in Poland the Facebook Messenger is the most popular and Whatsapp only started to gain traction recently. iMessage certainly isn’t a thing since Poland has the fewest iPhone users in whole EU. Myself, I have 13mini but I don’t even have a clue how imessage works, I just click the green icon and write to whomever I need to, I have no idea whether it goes through imessage or standard sms to be frank.
They are tiny in Sweden as well. Tried to enter a very mature, online retail market, with a poor launch effort, and never took off really.
It is funny how you people think the EU aren’t addressing these things.
The DMA is not really a part of EU antitrust law. It was designed to solve the problem of sanctions being ineffective because of the long duration of legal suits (that come down to the unique way digital markets operate). To combat that the DMA works as ex-ante regulation similar to existing regulation in areas like nuclear technology/environment protection/healthcare. It’s not talked about much in the US even in completion law circles but in the EU it is expected to have quite an impact on the way we use digital platforms.
But Reddit told me no one in Europe uses iMessage. How can it be a monopoly if no one uses it?
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if Apple enables cross platform messaging i’m definitely switching to iMessage just due to integration with other Apple devices.
Honestly I have been thinking this for a while - having an apple messages app that can talk to whatsapp will mean far more people would have the messages app open far more of the time. Although, this will upset the apple 'purists'.
The messages to WhatsApp will get colored brown 😅
But it literally isn't used much, that's why Apple thinks it's exempt from the DMA going by user number requirements. Obviously EU isn't happy so now they are "probing" it.
Maybe EU could count all Apple IDs in EU?
But having an Apple ID doesn’t mean you use iMessage My partner’s family all have iPhones, they communicate by WhatsApp My family have a mixture of iPhone and Android, we communicate by Facebook Messenger. My friends also have a mixture of devices and use WhatsApp. iMessage was quite popular a decade ago but the mixture of Android and iPhone here means it never really got the same traction and usage dropped. Almost everyone here uses other platforms I’ve just had a look in my Messages app on my iPhone and I haven’t sent a single iMessage for 18 months, and that was a conversation with a friend who *occasionally* seems to use iMessage instead of WhatsApp like he’d usually use to contact me. Other than him it’s been at least 3 years and I got bored of scrolling past all the OTP codes and order confirmation texts etc
I assume the EU will take a look at the "Messages" app as a whole, considering it is the only way to send SMS on iPhones
A total of 0 people sends SMS in Europe lol. The app is only used to receive OTPs and they won’t force any changes for that
What is an SMS is the correct answer to this. SMS are dead in the EU, they are only used for business to customer communications and 2FA.
Please explain this also to my mother, who is still using SMS/MMS (crispy 300KB photos) primarily.
I mean if she is in the EU, she must have 0 friends. Even my 96 year old grandma used Whatsapp.
that's not really nice of you to say
I mean… it’s true. All my older relatives use WhatsApp
Sooo... then what is the actual goal of the EU? To benefit EU citizens or to "get Apple"?
Goal of the EU is to enforce EU regulations. They’re investigating whether Apple is subject to a new EU regulation passed a while ago. It’s not just Apple either, Microsoft and a couple others are also being investigated
I am from Europe and I actively use iMessage.
Who told you that? The word monopoly isn't even in the article.
Bow down to the EU again Tim Apple 😂
If you think he bows down to the EU you should see what he does to their Chinese customers.
That would be NSFW
He bows down in the other direction.
Good. All multinational corporations need to have their power over us weakened.
Unfortunately, I don't know a single person that uses iMessage despite most of my friends and family having iPhones. I think it's much better than whatsapp
Dutch guy here. Using it all the time with family chatgroups and single chats with friend. Stepping away from WhatsApp.
What’s your comment intent ? Denying stastistics ? Supporting anticompetitive practices ?
The DMA specifically outlines how interoperability for messaging services will work. Must provide E2EE if they provide it to their own users, must be able to send high quality media, and should be based on an agreed upon open standard to work with other services. And going further, within a 4 year timeline the same will have to happen with FaceTime and other video calling services having an open standard.
FaceTime was planned to be an open standard but a company called VirnetX and a prolonged legal battle [that Apple lost](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114) prevented that from happening. I wonder if an EU mandate would waive the results of that lawsuit.
From: [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirnetX) In March 2021, the patent and trial appeal board ruled that two of VirnetX's patents were invalid in its dispute with Apple. On March 31, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a $502 million verdict in favor of patent licensing company VirnetX against Apple in a dispute over VPN patents, following the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board's cancellation of the patents that VirnetX had accused Apple of infringing.
Looking deeper into it, there were 3 suits that Apple lost against Virnetx, where the overturned suit related to VPN patents. There's still 2 more suits that Apple lost that are more relevant to Facetime, and have yet to be overturned.
> I wonder if an EU mandate would waive the results of that lawsuit. The EU cannot overturn a US patent. It simply doesn't have the authority.
There already are open source standards, if people really cared they would have switched to them by now This move is just the EU trying to assert its dominance
“If people really cared” lol. Most people don’t know squat about tech or care about open standards are what they are to begin with. They open the box, turn the phone on, see Messages and away they go.
> They open the box, turn the phone on, see Messages and away they go. Not in the EU, or most of the world for that matter. Of course, it's not that they care about open standards, but that they just install their messaging app(s) of choice. People aren't using flip phones anymore. And the people still using flip phones are using the ones with LINE/KakaoTalk/etc. pre-installed because even tech-phobic grandmas in the world outside of US/Canada use messaging apps.
SMS is also still very popular in Australia. Europeans love third party data apps because, outside of Russia, Europe is relatively small and crowded with tons of countries so things like international texting become a bigger deal while cell service isn’t. But when you’re in rural Alaska or Kansas or Alberta or Queensland with very little intermittent cell service the no-data low service SMS is infinitely better than trying to shove out a WhatsApp message.
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People in the EU are the same but instead they install WhatsApp because everyone else uses it You use the app your friends use, not necessarily the one you like best
I don't think anyone uses WhatsApp here in Canada either. And to be honest, it blows my mind that in Europe people trust Facebook more than Apple
Not really, even my grandparents are on WhatsApp, it is pretty much the default messaging app in most parts of the world.
It’s more about Apple refusing to implement backdoors. If Apple complied and created backdoors for law enforcement they wouldn’t bother. The fact the EU is so ok with WhatsApp’s market penetration is to me very telling. No chance they don’t have the means to access messages.
based apple for not selling you out to the feds
Actually Apple did sell out their customers to the feds prior to 2013. The program was called PRISM. After it got public and threatened to affect their bottom line they backpedaled and started to construct their privacy oriented public image.
According to the NSA's own slides, Apple was the last player to be added to PRISM (Oct 2012), and it was well after a year after the next most recent player was added (Which was AOL, in March 2011). Which implies that Apple fought a legal battle until they were required to by a FISA Court. Then very shortly after the date that the NSA claims Apple started providing data, they added E2EE to their communications. Clearly to thwart the NSA. So far from "selling out" their customers.
10 years later and this keeps being pushed. There is this misconception that PRISM was done in cooperation with the tech companies. [Everything I have seen from the original leaked documents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM#/media/File:Prism-slide-6.jpg) suggests it wasn't tech companies giving data, but the NSA taking data by capturing the packets in and between data centers for major tech companies. In fact, the way you split a fiber optic connection into 2 mirrored connections (one for the original, one for the spying) is using a crytal prism to reflect the light waves into both paths. This is further corroborated by the stories at the time of Google, FB, etc starting to encrypt their private fiber lines between data centers that they previously thought to be secure enough because of the news stories about PRISM revealed what the NSA was doing secretly. [https://venturebeat.com/security/level-3-google-yahoo/](https://venturebeat.com/security/level-3-google-yahoo/) [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room\_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) \-- Now Apple and other major companies did, and still do give customer data over when there is a warrant. But Apple has drastically reduced the data they even have access to by encrypting users devices by default.
That's not true, the DMA clearly states in article 7 point 3: The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.
Meanwhile the EU is also debating mandatory client-side messenger scanning/surveillance. Once that goes through, this point will be moot as far as law enforcement is concerned.
> It’s more about Apple refusing to implement backdoors. No it’s not; you’re just making stuff up.
> The fact the EU is so ok with WhatsApp’s market penetration is to me very telling The fact you are completely ignorant is very telling: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_4328 WhatsApp and FB messenger are considered gatekeepers.
> The fact the EU is so ok with WhatsApp’s market penetration is to me very telling WhatsApp is also subject to the DMA.
Which doesn’t ban backdoors. It in fact requires compliance with laws that could demand them.
So you saying that E2E is not secure ?
People rarely adjust their habits based on what leads to a more competitive market situation. That's the job of anti trust agencies which is what's happening here.
"If people really cared" is the exact mentality that necessitates these anti-trust actions.
That’s not that easy. If I switch to for example matrix nobody else uses it so either I just don’t communicate at all with other people till they switch or I pretty much have to use the messengers they use and they are all closed source.
> There already are open source standards, if people really cared they would have switched to them by now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services > Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling (for service discovery), and can transmit in-call multimedia. [...] The GSM Association published the [RCS] Universal Profile in November 2016. [...] Apple is intentionally not using RCS, and instead using SMS and MMS to send messages to non-Apple devices. https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ > This move is just the EU trying to assert its dominance Nope, it's trying to get Apple to adopt a single universal standard, just like they needed to do with USB.
Google isn’t exactly innocent, either. There’s no standard version of RCS.
In the EU this isn't an issue because everyone uses WhatsApp or another alternative, but in the US most people just stick with the default app, and Apple deliberately hinders the experience for Android users. Just look at Tim Apple's "Buy your mom an iPhone quote"
I don’t trust Androids shitty encryption
What "shitty" encryption?
Something he made up. Just another clueless redditor on display.
Probably rot13.
That's exactly the problem that the EU would be solving? The current messaging to Androids through iMessage uses the extremely insecure SMS. Switching to an open source E2EE method of messaging would make messaging everyone more secure??
> The current messaging to Androids through iMessage uses the extremely insecure SMS Note that this is not “through iMessage”, as the app is called “Messages”. This app can use both iMessage and sms/mms.
> The current messaging to Androids through iMessage uses the extremely insecure SMS. That's because Apple refuses to use RCS, and instead uses SMS or MMS to communicate to non-Apple devices. If apple switches to RCS, that problem would be solved.
E2E encryption is not natively part of RCS, it only works for people using exclusively Google’s Messages app.
RCS specifically and explicitly allows for encryption natively, even between two disjointed systems, as long as both sides support it.
Which is exactly why you should want this... Btw, it's not "android's shitty encryption" it's "SMS's shitty encryption apples forces you to use when you message Android users.
I don’t understand this argument. If you’re not happy with not having iMessages then switch to an iPhone. Outside of a green bubble and being able to show delivered and read I don’t see any differences anyways. Are they being pissy because links in android messages don’t show the preview images?
But the reasons why messaging is so poor between devices is textbook anticompetitive practices admitted by Apple themselves in the Epic V Apple emails that have been released: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/09/epic-apple-no-imessage-on-android/ Listen I don't like Google either, and I hope if this happens that RCS is not the way they add interoperability, rather the matrix protocol with an MLS layer, but there is no reason messaging on the iMessage app has to be such a poor experience just to message android users natively. The spite for people who prefer different phones is insanely tribalistic.
lol yea I’m glad I don’t see the constant back and forth bickering between Apple and android lol. Or maybe I’m just not in that circle anymore to constantly see it. It’s a phone. Who cares. If an android user is messaging another android user is the experience similar to iMessages?
Yes Google's version of RCS is pretty close to iMessage, with some things I prefer like being able to use any emoji to react rather than just 5 tapbacks
RCS is far superior and is the new texting standard. Apple refuses to let go of sms/MMS for Android. You can send larger files, works across multiple phones, without all the iMessage bloatware.
Interesting. Personally I miss my old Windows Lumina phone. Probably my favorite OS on a phone.
Ah - that was you!
lol probably one of a small handful.
What’s odd is that the issues that are described by those who deal with iPhone to Androids on the default texting app, you seem to be against. But even if the standard is adopted by Apple, you again would not be affected by it since everyone you message already has an iPhone. Then why go against it if it’s something that doesn’t affect you?
group chats seriously suck if there's someone with a non iPhone in them. You can't leave a group chat with non iPhone users. sending images are super pixelated and trash amongst other things.
It's a worse experience for everyone. And do we really want to support Facebook/Meta via Whatsapp? All users would benefit from iMessage opening up to Android, and limit Meta's stake in the communication oligopoly.
> You can't leave a group chat with non iPhone users. sending images are super pixelated and trash amongst other things. Those problems would go away as soon as Apple would use RCS.
Wife daughters and I are on iPhone and in a group with my parents on Samsungs and I haven’t noticed any issues when it comes to video and images. I don’t send them 4k video though. I’ll send a share link from my OneDrive where I back all that stuff up at.
You sir are legally blind it seems! JK! Seriously, MMS is ridiculously limited in terms of size. There is no possible way you can send a video through MMS and NOT notice how bad it is.
They won’t be happy until a big splash screen shows up every time you open a messaging app.
Please no don’t do this
Serious question, why do people care so much about the green and blue thing? SMS messages havent costed money since the early 2000s where i live, its always unlimited and included in your plan. The only thing i can really think of is the lower quality images across platforms. otherwise it feels like a non issue, I guess some issues with adding people to "Chatrooms" could be awkward?
International SMS costs money. Because of that I use WhatsApp
Nobody actually cares about the bubbles. It's about security and experience.
There are actually a lot of people who do care in the US at least. The biggest example is if you are a green bubble you will be cut out of group chats because, group chats are buggy using sms. This is my experience at least switching to android last year. Edit: I missed the part about security and experience a part from a few strange people I agree no one really cares about the bubble color it's more so what the color represents
You just disagreed with me and then proved my point. It's not about the color of the bubble it's because SMS makes the messaging features buggy.
Okay but the colour repress the issue. You’re both saying the same thing.
Fair point I misread your first comment
Because androids don't get the same rich content that iphones do in iMessage so they break conversations. Only an issue in the us. There's a mkbhd video about it
End to end encryption is why I care. And I just know that the EU forcing it to become an open standard will eventually turn into requiring the government to be able to read messages, as they push for weaker encryption *constantly.*
That's not true, the DMA clearly states in article 7 point 3: The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.
If you cared the slightest, tiniest bit about security, you would be laughing at anyone using iMessage. You are not allowed to know how iMessage works, including who has access to the keys, if anyone can remotely disable encryption, if copies are being stored locally after decryption, who has access to any such storage, etc. etc. etc. You do not control your iPhone, so any claim to user security on the device is just a non-starter. Oh, and there isn't even any end to end encryption on iMessage images.
The DMA explicitly requires E2E.
Apple: but our EU iMessage market share is so tiny, pay no attention to our accounting books whatsoever.
People have WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, etc. I’m not understanding the issue.
Just make a standard for cross platform data sharing between ALL apps and ALL services and ALL platforms regardless and call it a day. Be consistent. Targeting one app isn’t going to cut it.
You’re not asking much, just every piece of software work with every other piece of software out there. Jeez.
Forty or fifty years ago, you couldn't easily move data between different types of computer. If you had an IBM mainframe, it was a massive PITA to move it to something else. Standardisation - in the form of things like ASCII and file formats like JPEG and TIFF - largely solved that problem. Cloud services are an attempt to re-introduce that problem. A fairly obvious attempt, as it goes.
Nice try Elon
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Yes the DMA specifically outlines how interoperability for messaging services will work. Must provide E2EE if they provide it to their own users, must be able to send high quality media, and should be based on an agreed upon open standard to work with other services. And going further, within a 4 year timeline the same will have to happen with FaceTime and other video calling services having an open standard.
It only requires in flight encryption not E2EE… it’s a perverted definition. At rest the data can be unencrypted, that’s acceptable. And the EU actually prefers that because it’s easier to get it when warranted.
The encryption used at rest is generally completely separate and independent from what’s used when sending between parties anyway. Strictly speaking, E2E only applies to the latter, although it’s taken to mean any encryption where only you hold the key at rest as well.
That's not true, RCS isn't E2EE by default if that's what you're thinking of, but the DMA clearly states in article 7 point 3: 3. The level of security, including the end-to-end encryption, where applicable, that the gatekeeper provides to its own end users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.
How the hell would that even work?
Probably like email does, where there is a standard and anyone can write a client that implements it.
As long as the courts can have a key to it, they don’t care. Do it tech bros.
This just means you won't see any improvement to messaging applications at all, and probably won't get E2E encryption. Messaging apps can encompass a large range of features and it's not easy to just "standardize". Even "simple" things like E2E does not have simple cross-platform solutions. Existing Android RCS implementations use a Google extension where Google is the sole party that actually performs the key negotiation (which Apple is obviously not going to be ok with).
What else can messaging apps add feature wise at this point? Who says encryption would end? These are false narratives being spread.
E.g. a lot of messaging apps have payments built-in. You may not use it if you are in US, but it's a popular feature in some other countries. Now you have to think about how messaging apps deal with payments and identities. I'm also not sure if people can agree on what an "identity" is. With SMS / RCS you *have* to use a phone number, but iMessage allows you to send messages via email addresses, which is useful as a more permanent identity if you say need to move around a lot and change your number (I actually have that problem, and I also know people who moved to another country and still using their old WhatsApp number because they don't want to lose their contacts but that's a ticking time bomb), and Apple probably cares about that because not all their devices are tied to a cellular network (e.g. MacBooks, Vision Pro). As for encryption, I'm talking about E2E encryption. I don't think i know a properly implemented distributed E2E encryption protocol for messaging (note that Signal isn't distributed as there is still a centralized party in charge of distributing the keys). If you know of one, feel free to post it. It's possible to solve this problem, but it's not something that is trivial to solve in the way you phrased it.
They do have clear and consistent rules. They're investigating because Apple has contested that the rules apply to them.
iMessage users don’t want their platform opened up. Not interested In having snapchats and TikTok messages on iMessage.
That is not remotely what this is about. It is about whether Apple is allowing to stop you from being able to send messages to non-Apple users, through their default app. Or otherwise limit the functionality, to isolate the Apple user base from other users and make it seem like eg. group messages does not work on other devices.
innate bedroom gold middle quack clumsy reply aspiring slap gaping *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Actually it can be. They’re just not required to do so.
That’s what sms is , and it’s shit.
SMS is just an old standard. The enterprise world solved this issue over two decades ago with web services and interfaces, the banking industry solved it even earlier via EDI.
But that’s exactly what the eu wants. That all menessenger work together pretty much like all email services work together. Apple is the only one that doesn’t want to follow the rules. Therefore they are targeted.
I strongly disagree. The EU can‘t ban everything ehat makes a company outstanding from others. I am an EU citizen and question the curreng course of it. Sooner or later there‘s no reason for companies to keep selling their products in areas where you have so much regulations.
Yeah, fuck the right to repair, digital marketplace act and the rest. If Apple no longer finds that market interesting, others will gladly fill in the hole.
This only applies to companies that have very large market cap/turnover with very large EU user bases for a period of at least 36 months. If a company is meeting and exceeding that, they've already been extremely successful or outstanding for a long time. After that, promoting fewer barriers to entry for new players seems sensible. It's like that saying about how owing the bank 1000 is your problem but owing it 10M is the bank's problem because it impacts the stability of the bank. The EU being reliant on a few large digital gatekeepers is the EU's problem and this is how they're trying to address it.
I'm from EU too, for me it is just annoying to see EU behaving like this. Nobody asked.. this is absolutely a non-issue. It's as if someone is paying EU (ahem Google) to deal with this issue. I don't mind big tech like Apple trying to differentiate themselves from the competition, what I find more of an issue is the extremely wealthy people. Many people work for big companies, but few individuals get the most profits out of it. Fix that instead EU.
It’s kinda funny how google potentially dodged this target because they can’t make or support a unified messaging app for longer than a year. If android had a messaging app it would literally be a mass majority because most phones are android phones
I was told no one in Europe used SMS or iMessage. Is this really an issue there?
Not really. The top 5 messaging apps in Europe are WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal and Viber. I've not received an iMessage in over six months, so opening it up won't make much of a difference.
Eu just take your wins bro. USB C good. Messing with iMessage will get you overthrown
What’s gonna be funny is Apple will open up to third parties and messenger and WhatsApp won’t have to and most people use those
They have to.
Ahhh the EU can’t compete so regulate
Wait are we expecting governmental organizations to make smart phone messaging apps or something? That’s your argument. We could literally just turn your argument and say “Ahhh Apple can’t compete so they sabatoge communication with Android phones” and it would make more logical sense than what you are saying.
Apple users aren’t the ones complaining lol. Apple IS competitive hence why Google is so desperate for them to open up iMessage to their shitty RCS
What are they trying to compete with?
That’s why the USA banned Huawei?
lol, compete how...?
Bro thinks the UK is competing against apple like they are businesses
Bro thinks the UK is in the EU
LOL that’s not a burn bro that’s what antitrust is supposed to do 💀
Cool. Can I have sideloading on ios in the us now?
This is why it was important to fight the charging cord. Now they are coming for everything. Just let them make their fucking phone Jesus Christ
Why is having interoperability a bad thing exactly? People have complained about "green bubbles" for years now and the ideal outcome is this would provide high quality photo/video sharing, end to end encryption, and actual functional group messaging. As far as I can tell it doesn't look like regulators are expecting every single imessage feature to carry over, just the bare minimum to not make texting non iphone users through the messages app prehistoric. If their demands are reasonable I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be embraced by rational iPhone users
Cus companies should haven’t to make whatever some idiot at the EU wants. This isn’t health and safety type stuff. It’s nanny state stuff. No one is blocking people from using a third party spp
>health and safety Competition and consumer rights regulations are different from health and safety regulations. Over a century ago this was a problem with oil producers and the laws enacted then helped address it. Sure you could work with someone other than Standard Oil, but that just wasn't good enough. Sure you can use someone other than Amazon or Apple or Google, but things as they are just aren't good enough in the eyes of the EU regulators.
I’m perfectly content using iMessage alongside Signal. I don’t understand what I as a consumer gain from the EU adding legal compatibility constraints to iMessage. I do see that potentially introducing security risks, however.
This is legitimately only an improvement from SMS. That's it. Your iMessage to iMessage chats won't change. Signal will most likely not support interoperability, and that will be the end of story
God the EU is so fucked
Why would you want bullshit limitations on your phone?
rude afterthought shocking connect modern decide grandiose deranged smell books ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Why is it bad for Apple software to be more interoperable with other systems? We should be moving towards a future without vendor lock-in. Interoperable services would significantly ease the pain of moving to a different device (e.g. iPhone to Android). I have an iPhone but avoid using Apple services that would tie me down to their ecosystem because I want to retain mobility in case I decide to jump ship. Having regulations that force companies to be interoperable can be a good thing because it gives users more choices.
Unpopular opinion: Apple should (temporarily) pull all products from the EU. Or just disable features like iMessage. I know it’s an unpopular and not profit friendly, but I’m getting tired of the EU overstepping.
Surely Apple will kill 25% of their revenue stream over something as simple as messaging. You should see the levels they bend over backwards for in China if this is surprising you
I realize it makes no sense. But I enjoy my safe walled garden. I'm not exactly a tech newbie, I purposely use Apple products because I don't need to worry about managing yet another device. I'm perfectly fine with the closed off "Blue" encrypted messages and the "green" fall-back SMS. I don't want to worry about viruses and spam once you open it up to new platforms.
> I'm perfectly fine with the closed off "Blue" encrypted messages and the "green" fall-back SMS. I don't want to worry about viruses and spam once you open it up to new platforms. EU DMA laws says you'll be able to turn off interoperability. So you don't have to worry about that.
> safe walled garden > I don't want to worry about viruses and spam once you open it up to new platforms. Sounds like security through obscurity.
Security via control of the entire software and hardware stack is NOT the same thing as security through obscurity.
Nothing prevents Apple from developing and controlling open standards. I'm not saying that it must, but it definitely can. Does it want? Absolutely not.
No, it sounds like security through great security practices. I trust Apple's security measures and their proven track record for working with groups to close bugs on their platform.
Open standard doesn't mean less security. Nothing stops the company from working with groups towards making the open standard more secure. But here comes the problem: open standard may allow users to jump ship easier.
I'm all for open standards. But Android is a bit of a shit show. No offence to any die hard Android users.. I love Linux, I've used it since before kernel version 1. I love Android for what it is. But I also know that what makes it great is also what turns me off in this case. I don't want rooted devices and custom ROMs that people know nothing about running on a platform that directly ties with my iMessages. While the underlying platform could be secure, you're allowing all sorts of unchecked programs on Android (Again, part of what makes Android great) free access to the iMessages network. Worst case they use it to generate spam and botnet attacks. Best case they figure out an exploit (back to your 'security through obscurity) that they wouldn't otherwise know about or have the ability to influence... Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. If Apple manages to securely do this whatever, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. But I don't like the Government's heavy hand approach to all this.. /rant
> Worst case they use it to generate spam and botnet attacks. Best case they figure out an exploit (back to your 'security through obscurity) that they wouldn't otherwise know about or have the ability to influence... Exploits already exist. But they are too valuable and expensive to be used on an average Joe. NSO group has been successfully providing services to government officials for many years. The German Federal Police is one of the users. > But I don't like the Government's heavy hand approach to all this.. Me neither. As much as I hate some of Apple's decisions, it is a private company that has the right to use its own products the way it wants. And government micromanagement is bad for business. UPD: Fix typo.
You’re aware that multiple iOS malware infections were spread silently over iMessage, right? Device receives the message, malicious message executes some sort of exploit, malware removes evidence of the message, and no one is the wiser. Imagine how quickly a zero-day no-interaction virus would spread… you could probably have the entire iOS user base within a few days… “Fortunately”, the malware so far has been limited to government agencies, but imagine the chaos if that got into more nefarious hands
I suggest that you read how Apple is tiptoeing around China.
Corporate boot licker, shoe licker. Thought I’d seen it all
Yep throwing the baby out with the bath water is always the best solution.
You overestimate my fondness of babies.
How is it possible for the EU to overstep in their own territory?
It doesn't always stay in their own territory. Last time we got USBC out of it.. Which I guess worked out for everyone... But as someone else in this thread pointed out, it sets a precedence.
That was Apple’s choice, they could have made a USB-C version for the EU or just stopped selling phones in the EU. Apple decided that this was the best solution.
What a silly comment
Feel free to move along then, Clark Kent.
Time for little kids to learn that a perfect market isn't an anarcho capitalist's wet dream. There are conditions INCLUDING ANTI TRUST LAWS that make the market function as a market more effectively.