[jltsiren]

Creating competition where it would not otherwise exist is the essential nature of the EU. Originally it was mostly about forcing protectionist member states to accept competition from other member states. But they extended the approach to breaking perceived natural monopolies a long time ago.

The exact rules ultimately don't matter, because the EU is after outcomes. If the current rules don't lead to the desired outcomes, they will keep changing the rules, until they get what they wanted. (Or until their goals change.)

[Terretta]

Destroying competition by removing the consumer choice for vertical integration in service of strong security, privacy, reliability, etc.... is mistaken.

It's competing at the wrong level.

The iPhone is a toaster. Nobody's up in arms about whether the toaster takes other manufacturer's crumb tray. It's a television, and nobody's demanding QLED and OLED be swappable. It's a console. Xbox doesn't play PS5 games. It's fine.

There's no real line between hardware / firmware / software / malware ... For what Apple offers consumers, every layer of whateverware should be trusted.

Drawing imaginary lines based on the embodiment or substrates for logic gates is mistaken.

There are lots of phones. Lot's of different philosophies. Stop taking away consumer right to pick a philosophy and design for an end to end experience. It's fine.

[thewebguyd]

Nothing about allowing others equal access to the OS means that someone can’t still choose Apple’s first party services and products.

It’s not an either/or thing, it’s about preventing so called gatekeepers from anticompetitive behavior via favoring their own accessories and services while simultaneously preventing any others from possibly competing.

There’s no valid reason at all a third party smartwatch shouldn’t be able to integrate to the same level as an Apple Watch. No reason third party Bluetooth earbuds shouldn’t be able use ADWL for automatic device switching, etc.

Want to still use only Apple? Great, nothing says you can’t. But at least it would be user choice and there would be actually competition which would lead to better products for all.

Can’t believe I lived to see the day that people on HN start defending vendor lock in and closed platforms as a good thing. Have all the hackers retired?

[matchbok3]

We already have user choice - it's called buying an iPhone or not. Nobody is forced to buy an iPhone, or a smartphone at all.

The EU is just a disaster with these laws. They can't innovate so they do this.

[Terretta]

> Want to still use only Apple? Great, nothing says you can’t. But at least it would be user choice...

It's already user choice. The problem is too many users like the lineup. And too many who aren't going to use it, don't.