[stagalooo]

There is a world of difference between shipping a feature, and shipping an api that anyone can use to ship a feature. It is such a normal progression to make an api and dogfood it internally, iterate until you have something you feel comfortable supporting indefinitely, and then expose that api publicly. It is not reasonable, IMO, to require that every feature you ship has an API that is ready for public consumption.

Granted, Apple generally doesn't do that last part unless forced. I think some kind of timeline on the DMA requirements would be more reasonable. e.g. you have two years to make a feature publicly accessible before fines start accruing.

[yread]

> It is such a normal progression to make an api and dogfood it internally, iterate until you have something you feel comfortable supporting indefinitely, and then expose that api publicly

For a hobbyist? Sure! For a company with half the smartphone market and a trillion dollar market cap? EU doesn't mandate that they define a new standard and support it indefinitely.

[hellisothers]

You can see the headlines though “Apple skirts interoperability law by deprecating API after only one year”. Maintaining a public API is a cost usually only taken in because it has a benefit to the company.

[KaiserPro]

> Granted, Apple generally doesn't do that last part unless forced

which is the point here.

If they made a new feature, something AR based, they are totally allowed to build that and keep it relatively private for a few years. What they can't do is when competition appears, actively keep them off their platform. For example if a device manufacturer manages to make an AR device that works well with android, but its impossible with apple and apple have significant market share, then that would be illegal.

The point of this is to stop thiefdoms and to keep innovation. You're allowed to have a competitive advantage, you're not allowed to build a monopoly.

(if we look at defence, budgets are still very high, but the rate of innovation has plummeted compared to other industries. Its only now with the spur of VC cash into non-traditional backgrounds are we seeing innovation again)

[concinds]

> It is not reasonable, IMO, to require that every feature you ship has an API that is ready for public consumption.

It is, if we're talking about features designed to boost sales of your other products while preventing competitors from offering those features.

Look, even if they're able to compete fairly, those competitors might remain inferior options for other reasons. But Apple having to compete will make their products better. All of their best achievements came from fierce competition as the underdog. Apple's current situation is not good for it.

[sroussey]

What if it relies on non-standard changes to Bluetooth and WiFi?

Must they get these passed in the standards committees first?

[shuckles]

The best part is: the EU demands Apple do all the necessary R&D, including an indefinite liability of API maintenance, at no cost to developers.

[TheDong]

Garmin pays apple already for a developer license to have an app to pair garmin watches.... and yet 90% of the features of the apple watch simply cannot be implemented for a garmin watch, no matter how much they pay, because those APIs are private to apple watch.

Yes, apple did the R&D to figure out how to let their watch filter notifications by app, and it must have cost them so much to be able to filter notifications that it has to be locked into their watch. That's not them being intentionally anti-competitive, it's just R&D costs, sure, I'm sure it cost a ton to make that private API.

[rickdeckard]

No, the EU demands that features implemented in the OS to be used by Apple accessories must be made equally available to competing accessory vendors.

This prevents Apple the platform provider and gatekeeper from giving preferential treatment to Apple the Smartwatch/Headphones/Payment/Entertainment provider

[numpad0]

Which is what companies like Intel had done for ATX, USB, Thunderbolt, ... They were never required to, but they've done it, and they made money on it.

What Apple do slightly differently is that they half-ass the standardization, and then chuck it in the trash. Amounts of efforts spent is within the ballpark.

[bigyabai]

Given that Apple already maintains a comprehensive entitlement system[0] they charge EU developers[1] to use, I don't see how that's an issue. Apple's work amounts to swapping out a .plist file, they could be compliant in 10 minutes with an OTA update. If they wanted.

[0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/en...

[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/

[cyberax]

Ah, so Apple is not selling iPhones but it just gives them out for free?