The support of abusive monopolistic practices around here is something else though. Temporarily-embarrassed-tech-billionaire syndrome is the only explanation.
which abusive practices are you referring to?
If I don't want tight vertical integration, I could easily buy any number of Android devices.
EU regulators want to compromise vertical integration, which means depriving consumers of a legitimate choice many of them make.
No. Apple somehow convinced people that: "our products work great with each other" *must* somehow involve: "we won't let competing brands work well with our products". Slick marketing!
The EU's warning involves the iPhone's interoperability with other watches and headphones when it comes to "notifications, device pairing and connectivity" (quoting Euronews). For example, you can reply to texts from an Apple Watch, not a Garmin (it works fine on Android). That's an arbitrary software restriction.
You build good alternatives for each of those.
Ask Microsoft, who tried developing Windows Mobile after the market was taken over by iOS and Android. Or who still tries competing with Chrome without much success, despite it being pushed on Windows as the default, with annoying settings and ads included. Nevermind that they gave up developing their own engine because they couldn't keep up.
Android is at nearly 70% OS market share: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe/
[I say this as a keen iOS user]
With regard to the idea that Apple should stop selling iOS devices in the EU: https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/eu_share_of_apples_revenu...
But pushing Apple to make iOS available on other phone hardware is a massive undertaking. iOS is developed for a very constrained hardware set. When you move away from that and the optimizations thereof, what's left? It's a major distraction, you'll either get a much worse experience on other hardware, or the general polish and performance of iOS takes a nose dive. I don't see why Apple would spend the money to support this the way it would need to be supported rather than leave.
Wait where are you getting this from?
> While the announcement is a step shy of being a formal investigation, the EU aims to compel Apple to re-engineer its services to allow rival companies to access the iPhone’s operating system. One of the aims of the DMA is to ensure that other developers can gain access to key iPhone features, such as its Siri voice commands and its payments chip.
It sounds more like pushing Apple to open some APIs and allow for some more integrations, which seems much more reasonable than your interpretation.
We're already likely to see hold-back with Apple Intelligence.
But will it be enough for citizens to pressure lawmakers?
Due to the process of law-making in the EU it's very hard for citizens to exert their will on lawmakers.
In the EU, law can only originate from the Commission, which operates behind closed doors, and comprises entirely of unelected bureaucrats (often unpopular former member-state politicians). The Commission then pushes its edicts, repeatedly if necessary, through a "Parliament" of careerist politicians until they approve it.
Here in the UK we tried, and failed, to help the EU to reform its democratic structures and burdens.
Our only remaining option was to leave this political project, and since then, we proved that the sky does not fall within a country that leaves the EU. We have secured a number of trade deals with countries outside the EU, including Japan and Australia, we have seen increased foreign direct investment, sustained low unemployment compared to many EU nations and a stabilising currency.
