I can't quite wrap my head around why people think that it is a good thing for Apple to be regulated into "opening up" (i.e. as opposed to being a "walled garden" platform).
If I were an entrepreneur, and say that I wanted to fork a Unix-like OS so that I could make a cross-device OS for consumer hardware that I, too, make---shouldn't I have the right to program my OS to seamlessly integrate only with the apps and the hardware that I want it to seamlessly integrate with (i.e., mine), because my suite of apps and hardware is exactly the kind of platform that I want to offer? Isn't it regulatory overreach when lawmakers are dictating how an OS should be designed and how a company should differentiate its product from the rest of the market?
Communication infrastructure is comparable to interstate networks, utilities, etc. If one is serving an appreciable percent of humanity expect to have your work, at least in part, and development avenues, decided for you by the governments representing the people you serve.
I believe there is a philosophical misunderstanding here. Your users do not exist to serve your whims. Your projects continued existence is not a right and is subject to the will of the people as decided by their representative governments. If that bothers you, perhaps you’re part of the problem? Collaboration is how humanity has survived so long and you’re seemingly arguing against that for your own fights of fancy without an iota of respect for the overwhelming population of people effected by your whims.
I struggle to wrap my head around how accomplished professionals can be so cavalier when speaking about civilization scale problems. I’m not sure if it’s hubris, mental illness, immaturity, or what. Regardless, it is revolting behavior to witness.
There's is a near infinite number of competitors to iMessage. There's Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, Viber, Kik, Skype, Whatever Google Makes that they'll kill in six months, WeChat, Snapchat, Lime, Telegram... and I'm sure a bunch of others I've never heard of but other people live and die by. Not mention SMS and MMS.
As a result, I don't understand why people are so mad at iMessage that they need it crippled. You're not forced to use it. Apple doesn't block other messaging applications.
Plus, this law in question is a great foot in the door. Wait until they start lowering the monetary valuation of companies to slowly encompass all major messaging apps. At which point they'll have leveraged themselves right into a position of ending E2EE forever.
I know this thread is from the EU- but I'm giving the US perspective here just FYI.
>There's is a near infinite number of competitors to iMessage
50% of phones in the US are apple phones. Nearly everyone is exclusively using iMessage (and doesn't even realize that it's proprietary while trying to mix in SMS). Hardly anyone uses anything like whatsapp here. Good luck getting any somewhat older person to use multiple messaging apps. So to say there are an infinite number of competitors is completely disengenious.
>As a result, I don't understand why people are so mad at iMessage that they need it crippled. You're not forced to use it. Apple doesn't block other messaging applications
First, apple is not perfect with SMS integration. I was on android for many years. My mom (an apple fanatic) would constantly complain that her messages wouldn't go through, or my messages wouldn't come in. Apple has some SMS issues that, while rare, are either intentional to some degree or they refuse to fix. It got to the point that my mom literally wanted me to move to an iphone simply so I could message her properly.
THIS IS WHAT APPLE WANTS. You are absolutely a fool if you don't acknowledge that.
They have half the market share and create a walled garden to the point where people feel they must move to their platform simply to properly communicate with people.
That being said, I did move to iphone recently. Not just for this- I was sick of android because I want a phone that just works. However, even I felt compelled to just make the switch since everyone I know does use an iphone and iMessage will make it easier for me to communicate with everyone. It was definitely a large factor, even though I hate myself for doing it.
Apple is not innocent at all here- it's an objective fact that they have half the market share and specifically do not open up their messaging platform in order to get more people to switch over. It's a flagrant abuse of their power.
How is your entire comment not a mere assumption that the issue is within iMessage itself and not other logically possible factors, such as your carrier, your reception, or your mother using her phone incorrectly? Also, allowing alternative messaging apps to be installed in your OS is exactly the opposite of “flagrant abuse”.
>How is your entire comment not a mere assumption that the issue is within iMessage itself and not other logically possible factors, such as your carrier, your reception, or your mother using her phone incorrectly?
Because it's not an isolated incident. I've heard many people complain about the exact same thing online over the years. Just google it and you will see. Is it rare? Sure. But it's also not uncommon.
You point to "logically possible factors", but I never experienced ANY issues with SMS to SMS on android where a problem would be invisible. With SMS <> iMessage, the problem would be invisible: looks sent from one side, but the other has zero indication of an issue.
And Apple is under no incentive to 'fix' this or guarantee it never happens because they have a blatant interest in everyone using iMessage by getting iphones.
Is this slightly conspiracy theory talk? I agree it borders that. But I also think it's 100% realistic.
>Also, allowing alternative messaging apps to be installed in your OS is exactly the opposite of “flagrant abuse”.
Apple SPECIFICALLY does not open up iMessage to non-Apple platforms because they want you to buy their phones- something they share a duopoly with. That is the very DEFINITION of market abuse.
If Microsoft had some Windows-only messaging platform, most people on this site would be all up in arms about it.
> Apple SPECIFICALLY does not open up iMessage to non-Apple platforms because they want you to buy their phones- something they share a duopoly with. That is the very DEFINITION of market abuse.
I don't think that's the definition of market abuse at all. Apple created a device and bundled a free "good enough" messaging service with it. If you want to use something else, there's nothing stopping you beyond inertia. Apple clearly isn't going out of it's way to hinder adoption of alternative messaging services.
You misunderstand—it’s not a mystery that scale attracts regulation. The mystery is in why people think that OS engineers should have no freedom to make design choices. Where, even, is the disrespect in being a mere option amongst many? It’s not like Apple is forcing people to buy into their ecosystem.
And to your point about comms infrastructure—how does interoperability across messaging apps even look like, and does the idea even make sense? It’s not specified within the article.
> The mystery is in why people think that OS engineers should have no freedom to make design choices.
Are you employed or vested in this industry? This rhetoric is disingenuous and can be seen as bad faith argumentation. We are, rather explicitly, not talking about mere design decisions. We’re actually discussing the functionality of one of the largest messaging providers in the world with one the largest valuations in the world. You should keep the facts of the topic in mind and not detour into baseless hypotheticals that are antithetical to TFA.
> Where, even, is the disrespect in being a mere option amongst many?
We’re not talking about a guy in his garage. When a company, as large as apple, provides a service they enter a social contract to provide a reasonable quality of service for all users. Apple is willfully and repeatedly violating this contract. Hence, they are being held to account by the governments comprised of their users and enacting the will of said governments constituents.
>It’s not like Apple is forcing people to buy into their ecosystem.
By deliberately differentiating between customers and non customers in the quality of service experienced by their customers and those non customers their customers communicate with they are exerting market force. TFA is about the EU responding to this force with force.
> how does interoperability across messaging apps even look like, and does the idea even make sense?
This is likely the purview of an organization like ISO. If this is such an alien idea to you, perhaps you should expound on your perspective because at first blush it seems to me that you don’t understand the history of how modern communications were developed and implemented.
No, we're not talking about messaging apps in my comment tree. We're explicitly (without your dishonest "rather") talking about the design of OSes in consumer-facing hardware, and whether or not a messaging app comes with that is moot. Discussing hypothetical OSes matters, and always when it comes to regulation, because you don't want to recklessly regulate new entrants out of the market. Or do you just hate critical thinking?
Feel free to provide better data, but Apple's platforms do not even have majority market share in the EU---not enough to backup anything that you said of entering an unspoken social contract when a company reaches a certain undefined scale: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe/
You should know that the Messages app works with SMS so you have to specify where the difference in quality of service is when an Android device can't receive an iMessage.
So, again, what exactly is the interoperability issue? Is it that iMessage chats can't be read from Telegram, and that WhatsApp chats can't be sent to a user's Signal account? Or you just can't think of a specific use case because underneath all that snark, you really know nothing about how software is made?
If you are starting to corner the market and are able to use your leverage to block competitors in a way that threatens to undermine their business, then the EU (and to an extend the USA) will regulate you.
I can flip your question around and ask "should you have the right to play dirty?". Which is what Apple has been doing, there's exactly zero good reason to not license out access to the protocol.
I don't own Apple, I am a consumer. If this leads to me not having to install 5 different chat clients, I am grateful. It was the exact same with all the proprietary charging plugs for smartphones.
> there's exactly zero good reason to not license out access to the protocol.
There's at least three good reasons:
* Keeping the protocol private is a competitive advantage
* Licensing a protocol and managing those licensees is not free
* A shared protocol dramatically decreases Apple's ability to innovate on top of that protocol
I would argue that it'd be worth while to ignore these issues if Apple was hampering competition in the messaging space, but I just don't see it. I can easily use any messaging app I want on my phone, the only thing stopping me is that iMessage is good enough.
Wait, there must be more to it. If this is open to the competition to build on, what exactly is the EU forcing Apple to open up?
I'm too lazy to research why exactly Microsoft can't use this API to interface with iMessage and instead opting for a half-baked bluetooth solution, but there must be some hurdle.
They aren't banning a company from seamlessly integrating their apps with the OS. They are essentially banning companies from preventing the seamless integration of 3rd party apps into the OS. Additionally, this law only applies to major companies.
If I were an entrepreneur, and say that I wanted to fork a Unix-like OS so that I could make a cross-device OS for consumer hardware that I, too, make---shouldn't I have the right to program my OS to seamlessly integrate only with the apps and the hardware that I want it to seamlessly integrate with (i.e., mine), because my suite of apps and hardware is exactly the kind of platform that I want to offer? Isn't it regulatory overreach when lawmakers are dictating how an OS should be designed and how a company should differentiate its product from the rest of the market?