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United Kingdom Apple

Apple Says UK Regulator's Remedy Options on Mobile Browsers Will Hit Innovation (reuters.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Apple has told Britain's competition regulator that some of the remedy options proposed by the watchdog to address concerns in the mobile browser market would impact the iPhone maker's incentive to innovate. From a report: The responses from Apple and Google to the regulator's investigation in the supply of mobile browsers and browser engines and the distribution of cloud gaming services through app stores on mobile devices in the country were published on the government website on Wednesday.

Apple Says UK Regulator's Remedy Options on Mobile Browsers Will Hit Innovation More | Reply

Apple Says UK Regulator's Remedy Options on Mobile Browsers Will Hit Innovation

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  • Whining about underinvestment and free riding. Reminder that Apple killed off Windows Phone, Blackberry, PalmOS and plenty of other mobile phone competitors, with Android only existing due to another three trillion dollar company, meanwhile Firefox is slowly being choked out. Firefox did have a mobile OS at one point, and a company called KaiOS tried to revive it but failed. The browser is more than just the "kernel" of the web, it's the APIs and infrastructure as well. We need as many engines as possible o

    • Android only existing due to another three trillion dollar company,

      Heh. Android thrived because unlike the other competitors they leaned hard into copying Apple where it counted. Originally Android was almost another Blackberry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gonoff ( 88518 )

        Heh. Android thrived because unlike the other competitors they leaned hard into copying Apple where it counted

        Sometimes they copied Apple before they had the idea.!

        The only innovators at Apple were its legal team and it hasn't changed. Sorry.

        • Sometimes they copied Apple before they had the idea.!

          Feel free to look up Android's history some day.

          • Why not try looking up Apple's? They stole the rows of icons launcher and the design of the phone both from the same phone!

              • So?

                So the things you think were copied from Apple were copied by Apple. Unless you have some specifics, that is, instead of vagueposting in hopes that bullshit will stick.

                • So the things you think were copied from Apple were copied by Apple.

                  Heh. Again, so? The popularity of the iPhone changed Android. Is that really such a painful thing to read?

                  • I think both apple and Google are shitty, so no, it's not hurting me at all.

                    The point is, in what way did iOS push Android? Because from what I can tell it's more the other way around.

                    • It's two-way. Apple steals from Android, Android steals from Apple. Sometimes Apple steals from Android who stole from someone else, and sometimes Android steals from Apple even though they themselves got it from somewhere else.

                      As for who did it more: Again, Android was originally going to resemble a Blackberry. At one point they thought people wanted physical buttons, the market said otherwise. Something similar happened with the iPad and... well.. heh if you wanna look up copy-catting in both direc

      • You mean they did the same thing as Apple when they bought Fingerworks and adapted multitouch to work on an iPhone? Or when Apple bought Sri and merged Siri into iOS?

        Companies buy things and adapt them to integrate with newer technologies. Most of the innovation of the iPhone came from capacitive touchscreens, a technology that Apple did not invent. The difference between Apple and the other companies is that they went all-in on development of a keyboardless phone before capacitive touchscreens were m

        • But Apple fans love to act as if no one would have thought to implement multitouch or on-screen keyboards if Apple hadn't done it despite the fact that those exact features were touted by the producers of capacitive touchscreens throughout their research and development.

          Funny, I've never actually heard Apple fans actually say that. It is disappointing how many people foaming at the mouth to have this debate don't understand the nuanced definitions of 'invented', 'innovated', and 'popularized'.

          • I never said that Apple fans say that. I said they act like that, because they insist that everyone copied the iPhone despite the fact that multitouch, keyboardless phones were an inevitability thanks to the availability of capacitive touchscreens. Apple was just the first to market with a polished product.

    • Firefox did have a mobile OS at one point,

      They should maintain better focus. FF still has viable browsers. Stick to browsers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )

      Reminder that Apple killed off Windows Phone

      Microsoft killed off Windows Phone due to their own stupidity. Cell phone stores and salesmen were getting paid on a per-phone basis to sell Andriod phones. They weren't getting paid to sell Windows Phone. Guess which one the sales rep is going to push.

      • No they weren't. In the beginning, Microsoft even paid all of Nokia's advertising costs, and AT&T were giving them prominent placement in their stores basically for free. Windows phonies were later getting pissed because after a while, stores stopped displaying them outright (literally walking into the stores and harassing the employees over it) and they blamed it on apple and google. Except they had nothing to do with that. The reason most phone stores (in at&t's case, non-corporate stores) stopped

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbialac ( 320955 )
          What return rate there was was caused by people seeing a great platform and nerds telling them, "Oh, you can't have XYZ on your phone." Generally, those returners didn't need these apps. They weren't things they would even use in the first place. I use a WP start screen clone on Andriod and I almost never use most of the applications on the main screen. Still, you're not focusing on the fact that the salespeople weren't getting paid. They're the ones pushing the platform to the end user.

    • When I was growing up I remember being surprised that the parents of my childhood friend didn't spend a few bucks a month on the "call waiting" feature for their landline. The dad had made millions in a Microsoft buyout, so they could surely afford it. My parents pointed out "people who stay millionaires pay attention to the small stuff, too".

      Along those lines, I don't see what Apple's market cap has to do with how happy they should be to do development for free.

    • Whining about underinvestment and free riding. Reminder that Apple killed off Windows Phone, Blackberry, PalmOS and plenty of other mobile phone competitors, with Android only existing due to another three trillion dollar company, meanwhile Firefox is slowly being choked out

      How dare Apple kill off all these companies just by making better products.!Time for Eurocrats to ipull more regulations and fines out of their butts.

  • Apple has told Britain's competition regulator that some of the remedy options proposed by the watchdog to address concerns in the mobile browser market would impact the iPhone maker's incentive to innovate.

    You mean the guys with the most outdated mobile browser?

  • Yes, it will. But you know what? This is _beneficial_ here. And you know what else? Regulators get active when you have screwed it up. Repeatedly.

  • What is Apple's "incentive to innovate"? And what innovation has it resulted in?

    Clearly, if Apple's incentive is to sell more iPhones the claim is not true.

  • I still use a browser in the same way as internet explorer 4. No I am mistaken. I use tabs and the search bar. That wasn't there in the late nineties. Damn now I am going to miss all that innovation. Oh wait, Apple...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      apparently this is about tracking user behavior via the browser, data that they use to provide features for the user by other components of the os, i guess mostly ia-hype related stuff. what the brits say is that those features must be allowed to be provided by competing third parties too, which implies third party access to those data apis, which isn't in apple's interest but surely not because it discourages innovation. they just spent billions on a flop of an overstyled vr headset rebranded spatial-compu

    • No need to be so polite. They've hijacked the word "innovation" to mean whatever they come up with. So for instance, more pixels on your screen or camera sensor is not innovation... that's merely stepwise engineering refinement. Sadly, "the average person", and that includes most techies, accept that whatever hairball Apple coughs up is somehow "innovative".

      Shoving "AI" onto an iphone and raising the price is just marketing.
  • It's odd how the quasi-monopolies always argue that measures to increase competition will stifle innovation. As I understand conventional capitalist theory, it's competition that stimulates innovation. But what do I know?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      Not to mention that the UK isn't the only market which Apple sells to, so they won't exactly be lacking incentive.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        if they have to open/disclose their data collection for the uk the cat is out of the bag. sure they could enforce strict zoned licensing but that would be a hell of a nda to manage and everyone else would follow up with that demand anyway.

        maybe they just aren't ready for the world to know what they collect, and would rather scrap the whole thing. that would fit well with the "they won't let us innovate" story.

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