I live in the EU and now traveling my family outside the EU. Today I’ve tried updating AltStore but it won’t let me. Even VPNing to my home won’t do it.
So until there will be more incentive to make it globally, the UX is intentionally crippled not only by making the minimal viable but also by region locking.
Imagine pairing headphones working great in EU and then you’re traveling somewhere and it’s broken.
This is the future of the internet. More and more countries have their local laws and international companies need to comply with local laws. This has been the case forever for companies selling products and (physical) services and some digital services restricting music and movie rights in certain countries, but it will expand to more and more services and apps in the future.
"Local laws" is quite the loaded term when your parent commenter's anecdote is about EU which currently encompasses 27 countries.
And when "comply with local laws" means "unbrick bluetooth pairing for third-party devices" then a company in good faith could just, you know, not brick the functionality in the first place. There's no law against products that "just work".
I think the EU believes they have more of an effect on the rest of the world than they actually do. Complying with every law in every jurisdiction that has access to a product sounds like a nightmare that will only stifle innovation.
Mmkay, now do something important. If the EUs fame is forced USB-C adoption, that’s very weak and almost narcissistic since we have to congratulate the EU for minimal effort. Also realize the USB-C standard is chaos and all that did was confuse people about what’s a data cable vs what’s a charging cable vs what is thunderbolt. Chaos is what the EU did there, brag more about it!
Hopefully third-party devices will actually implement what is necessary to take advantage of it. Being limited to the EU market, it’s not clear if it will happen much.
I think you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
Most of the EU corpus of law is based on culturally acceptable actions from their members.
The EU regulations don't strangle, the EU culture is just different.
Innovation for the sake of innovation and the pursuit of money isn't deeply entrenched in European culture.
So yes, innovation based on "go fast and don't care if you break stuff" comes mainly from outside of EU.
Well I'm not blaming the EU itself. It'd be the the same or worse in today's EU countries if they weren't in the EU. Yes it's a cultural thing too, but they made regulations based on it.
I mean, they're not entirely wrong, but it's actually the lack of a capital markets union that causes the issues here.
So in fact, this is a case where the answer is more EU (specifically, a better set of cross-country capital markets). Depressingly, the obvious place to build this is no longer in the EU.
They're wrong in everything but a meaningless "well technically" sense. People spouting "EU regulations strangle business" nonsense are never talking about the lack of capital markets union. Let alone in a thread about "iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA".
> So in fact, this is a case where the answer is more EU (specifically, a better set of cross-country capital markets).
Can you give me a set of non-EU countries with better cross-country capital markets, that are as such now instead the place to build this? Especially for a set size bigger than 3? Serious question, as I've never heard of one and am fairly sure it doesn't exist, though I'd love to be proven wrong.
> Can you give me a set of non-EU countries with better cross-country capital markets, that are as such now instead the place to build this? Especially for a set size bigger than 3? Serious question, as I've never heard of one and am fairly sure it doesn't exist, though I'd love to be proven wrong.
This does not exist, however the EU single market is also pretty unique in terms of how many countries are involved. If you include the EEA and the customs union, it's definitely the largest.
Given that there's an obvious currency union, the capital markets thing is relatively plausible (difficult but not impossible), and I personally think it would be great.
Note that I am biased, as I live in a small EU country and our financial and insurance providers are both expensive and terrible. And obviously the EU tech industry would benefit, which would also help me.
I think the real reason this hasn't happened is hangover from the EZ crisis, as sharing risk for banks across nations was toxic in many countries as a result of the financial and EZ crises. But now seems like a good time to at least start it.
As I said above, the biggest problem here would be where to put it, and the UK's absence from the EU makes the obvious place politically a non-runner (unfortunately).
If it does not exist, it is not a disadvantage compared to anywhere else. In a sense it's an advantage, as despite the barriers, the capital markets of two EU countries (especially if they use the Euro) are still a lot more integrated than if you'd pick two random non-EU countries. The disadvantages of being from a small EU country would apply the exact same way but even worse if you were from a small non-EU country.
Digital regulation is not a serious blocker, as any EU founder can tell you. Per above, neither are cross-country capital markets a disadvantage of the EU compared to the non-EU world. Then what is the disadvantage? Do Japanese startups have it any better? Korean? Kenyan? Serbian? Mexican? Taiwanese? Malaysian? Singaporean? Do those startups benefit from "less regulations" or from cross-country capital markets? Of course they don't, yet I've never seen a single person in my life mention those countries' regulations or lack of cross-country capital markets. Because they don't have an advantage in those areas, showing that the EU indeed doesn't actually cause any disadvantages in them.
> Because they don't have an advantage in those areas, showing that the EU indeed doesn't actually cause any disadvantages in them.
Lots to unpack here.
So the issue is size of capital markets (for startup and IPO purposes). 27 small markets are much, much less liquid than one large one (like China or the US). Therefore, it's easier for European founders to raise US capital, which often leads to them incorporating or floating in the US. Like, Flutter (which is an Irish company) is on the US markets for exactly this reason, as are a bunch of other large Irish companies.
It would be better for the EU if these companies incorporated in the EU, for which one large capital market would work better.
And it's not that EU companies are disadvantaged vs Singaporean companies, it's that they are disadvantaged relative to US companies.
> are still a lot more integrated than if you'd pick two random non-EU countries.
I guess my point is that they're not integrated enough.
Right, I'm not talking about capital markets, just regulations. Overall tech doesn't thrive in the EU. Their attitude probably predates EU founding too. And I'm not just saying that because of this relatively small AirPods situation (where I actually agree with EU).
Tech "not thriving" in the EU - by what standards, what does this mean? - has zero to do with EU regulations, or we'd see tech thrive much more in Japan, Korea, Kenya, Serbia, Mexico, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, all those non-EU countries with supposedly less regulations and as such more thriving tech. Before you point to the chip companies that some of those countries have, those already existed 30+ years ago and aren't an example of tech "thriving" due to less regulations, it would be like pointing at ASML and Airbus to prove that in the EU it is thriving.
And yet if you want applications to work on your phone, many times you'll need approval from either Apple or Google. Google can effectively ban manufacturers (like they did with Huawei) from using "Android" by blacklisting them from Play Services. Apple owns the entire ecosystem and prevents third-party from having access to the same feature set.
Something tells me that the thing about Google not allowing custom Andriod operating systems to install apps is not quite true. I don't know about this specific topic yet, but I bet that if I look into it, I'll find out that there's nuance here that isn't been correctly portrayed by your comment.
Look up Play Integrity, it's the remote attestation framework Google uses to ensure apps only run on Google-blessed hardware and software. Apps that use it verify that both hardware and software are unmodified and blessed by Google before apps are allowed to run. Banking apps use it, the fucking McDonald's app uses it, public transit pass apps use it, etc.
If you want to use your phone like normal people do in 2025, and not relegate yourself to being a second-class citizen when it comes to simple things like paying for stuff, riding the subway, etc, your phone is either an iPhone or something that plays nicely with Play Services.
And that's just the remote attestation side. Many apps rely on Play Services themselves, and without access to them, will not work. Google gates access to Play Services through contracts, it is not open source or part of Android.
You need to allow Play the play store and it's services and those will wall you in. Many times discussed here: many banking, gov, health apps around the world are banning anything not blessed by Google or Apple and installing on a non blessed system will not allow you to use them. My bank allows a modern and supported android or ios phone or a Windows laptop with a biometric card reader. Pretty much locked in and all banks are following.
I do! I've been an Android stalwart since I first got a smartphone over a decade ago.
Problem is, every year Android announces some new stupid-ass restriction or anti-feature that significantly degrades the capability of application software on the OS in the name of security. In other words, Google keeps trying to turn my Android into a shittier iPhone. It's gotten so bad that they recently floated the idea of mandatory notarization, and only marginally backed down after shittons of pushback.
Every time the EU passes a law intended to stop obviously monopolistic shit like this from happening, a certain brand of Ayn Randroid Apple fan comes out of the woodwork to decry the EU "forcing Apple to give away its technology for free". Which is absolutely bullshit, on two counts. First off, Apple sold its technology to us when we bought the phone. That's the whole deal with Apple: the OS is a bundle with the hardware. Ergo, them going to app developers and asking for a cut is double billing. Second off, and more importantly, the only reason why you even need the EU DMA is because Apple won't let you ship an app that is capable of doing what their own first-party daemons do.
I'm going to be honest. Every time I read people like you saying "you can just buy an Android if you want that", I get the same vibes as I do when I see, say, old boomers showing up at town hall meetings to oppose the building of the IBX[0]. You're just App NIMBYs, carrying water for a tech industry trying to turn every computer into the tech equivalent of a car-dependent suburb with restrictive zoning laws.
Now if only the EU could pass a law saying Apple needs to ship an Android app that provides all the missing functionality of AirPods on that platform. At the very least, I should be able to update the firmware on them.
[0] Inter-Borough eXpress - A proposed circumferential NYC subway line connecting Brooklyn and Queens.
I was a diehard Android user as the memory of Apple locking down things like the filesystem among other things really sowed some bad blood for me. But these days it really seems like they're kind of converging and Apple's privacy features are quite appealing...
> Every time the EU passes a law intended to stop obviously monopolistic shit like this from happening, a certain brand of Ayn Randroid Apple fan comes out of the woodwork
These companies spend billions in dollars on PR agencies and lobbying. They spend the most on lobbying the EU out of everyone. The likelihood that zero of that goes towards writing such comments in places like HN is minuscule. And then there's the legions of actual Googlers and Applers here and elsewhere who
have drunk the koolaid.
If you're alleging that I replied to an Apple-affiliated troll farm employee, the possibility is there. But Apple is particularly unique in that it has a certain brand of customer that stuck it out during the days where System 7 was being absolutely clowned on by Windows 95 and NT. These hardcore Apple customers treat the company as if they are members of a persecuted minority religion. In other words, Apple doesn't need a troll farm, they have their fans to do it.
(Which, ironically, was also the strategy of Epic's entire Fortnite stunt...)
I am alleging that specifically because it's always the same old dumb anti-EU narrative that they're pushing. If it was something else, then sure. Those hardcore customers you're talking about have existed similarly for other tech brands like Microsoft or Sony - or even more laughably, Intel or Nvidia - they're just less active in these spaces, and even they can't really excuse Windows 11 and its idiocy.
Maybe because they are the only organisation able to act against the massive (foreign, if it is anything tech related for a European) corporate entities nowadays.
Agreed, but with many privacy and freedom laws I would agree. I don't think they take it nearly far enough; If I buy hardware, it is mine, and they should open up the means to put whatever on it I want. No one has the balls for that I guess but I would want them to enforce that.
Let me know when Apple dictates what kind of transactions it's acceptable for me to engage in and which ones aren't - a decision that Apple has absolutely no say in, but the EU and other governing bodies regularly engage in.
That’s a rather silly view to take. We have a phenomenon called “the first mover advantage” for a reason.
Plenty of other markets and businesses operate just fine while operating in an environment that makes protecting individual innovation functionally impossible. Just look at any related to fast fashion (not that I think the fast fashion market is a healthy phenomenon) or any commodities market. Or for that matter, most of the software industry.
The incentive for creating features should be to remain relevant and competitive. It shouldn’t be to build moats and war chests.
I don't understand. Robust markets don't have large margins. Why would a regulator even want markets with enormous margin? That's usually market failure.
Most people also complain about how pharmaceuticals are greedy corporations that seek to exploit monopoly status for profits above human health. Hardly a good example of a well functioning market.
Are you trying suggest that Apple’s margins are so small that they need state protection? Or that Apple can’t compete if they’re not able to tightly lock down every aspect of their ecosystem?
Apple giving themselves an advantage in the markets for headphones and watches, because they have a dominant position in the market for phones is a textbook case of monopoly abuse.
They've done extra work to cripple competing devices. It's obnoxious.
That depends on the interpretation of a market, which is why laws like the DMA establish a market based on its size. In the iOS market, apple have a monopoly.
EDIT: Downvotes for what? That’s literally what the DMA is for. If you don’t like it, take it up with your representatives - it’s nothing to do with me.
So if a company creates a widget and sells that widget, thereby creating a market, they are automatically a monopoly? how is anything invented without creating a monopoly?
Also why is it an iOS market and not a mobile phone market? if we compare features of devices then there’s not a lot of difference between modern phones, so segregating them by what OS they run seems odd.
I would agree in general, but in this specific case it’s still an advantage for the iOS platform in general. It just removes a buying incentive for the AirPods.
The general problem is that there must be a line.
Vendors don’t create lock-ins because they are malicious, they create it because it makes them money.
Now, if we limit these lock-ins, it will reduce their ability to make money and yes, it will impact some features - short term.
But looking at it long terms, vendor lock-ins are actually a reason to stop innovating: your customers are locked in anyway.
So, overall, I would say this is good for innovation in general.
I actually have a problem with this. I want AirPods to be undeniably the best experience for me because I am fully locked into the Apple ecosystem, and I know many folks have complaints against that. I find it to be rather pleasurable to use compared to all the other alternatives out there. So if I have to start sacrificing my experience in favor of universal support, that really sucks.
But this isn't sacrificing your experience, you're free to keep using your Apple AirPods with the quality and reliability you'd expect from Apple. This just means other brands can create products with similar features to AirPods, and if they're not as good or reliable, well that's why you're paying Apple for theirs.
It removes incentives to differentiate a platform because the EU will just come in and make every company exactly the same by forcing others to allow other companies access to their R&D budgets. Why bother? It’s easier to just avoid the EU market
The best code is no code. Every line of extra code added, and every extra platform supported is potential for more bugs, which has the potential to affect my user experience.
I'm not seeing an incentive structure for them to change being the only source of good workflows for their users - it's their whole thing "It just works" - regardless of if it's true in practice or not.
If you want the "it just works" experience, you can still buy the Apple products though, that's not changing. You just also have the option to not do so.
which other company spends as much investing in UX? there is not a single other company on the planet with as polished of a user experience as apple, so who would develop a better workflow?
They did their initial AirPod implementation in a pretty insecure manner because it was securely locked to their hardware and they could trust themselves to not be malicious. If they have to build a feature, plus all the security around it, plus documentation, etc… it makes it much harder to bring to market. They may opt to skip it in favor of something else.
the long term innovation outlooks are still better, so you benefit long term as well.
It’s just less obvious / measurable that immediate benefits.
And also, short term, isn’t it that other EarPods are getting better, rather than AirPods getting worse?
Medium term, I don’t think that Apple will stop innovating on AirPods just because of the EU market and this one feature not being exclusive to AirPods anymore. But it’s a possibility, I agree.
Laws that mandate interoperability between devices are a net win for individual consumers and the market as a whole. They simplify people's lives, make society more efficient, prevent opportunities for blatant rent seeking and ultimately foster market productivity.
A government mandating standards in electricity transmission or gasoline composition may disincentivize the development of features that make some people's devices incompatible with charging at certain locations or cars that can only use gas from certain gas stations but that is the opposite of a bad thing.
We live in a much better world because people in the past decided that all telephones should be able to make calls to each other and that people don't really have to think about messing up putting fuel in their car because the size of the nozzles at pumps are standardized.
There are absolutely more opportunities for governments to make small but objectively measurable improvements in society with well placed regulations on interoperability.
Isn't Apple currently disincentivized to make features because they don't even allow competing smartwatches to access a basic feature set on iPhone?
You're basically saying Apple would be disincentivized to innovate on the Apple Watch because Apple would need to release the underlying APIs that make those work with the phone to competing solutions. But the status quo is that competing solutions that are already better than the Apple Watch straight up aren't allowed on the platform, and the Apple Watch generally costs more than its competitors.
You are unintentionally saying that if Apple had to allow third parties to use their private APIs, that the Apple Watch would have to cost less and/or innovate more in order to convince us all to buy it instead of buying a watch from Samsung or Google.
What you are describing is a more competitive and open market where consumers benefit from lower prices and more of an incentive to innovate and justify high prices.
I would also dispute the notion that merely releasing these APIs would somehow give away all your secret sauce. Competitors still have to build the experience on top of that.
