[lovemenot]

Apple has clearly made very significant investment in creating a LLM small and efficient enough to do inference locally on an iPhone. This is excellent work and should be applauded.

For the EU, the issue is that Apple intends to recoup this investment through premium-pricing a different product in another category - one that has many low-cost competitors.

Wouldn't this best be resolved by productising the Apple LLM? Earphone API becomes open, as required by EU. However, use of the Apple LLM would be controlled by license. Earbud competitors could either license Apple's LLM, perhaps on a FRAND basis, or they could install their own LLM on an iOS device. Apple may bundle its LLM but must allow users to uninstall Apple's LLM, to free up space for alternatives.

In short, this isn't and shouldn't be about access to IOS for earbuds. EU is right in this. It's about monetising access to the Apple LLM, for which Apple deserves a revenue stream.

[burnerthrow008]

> Wouldn't this best be resolved by productising the Apple LLM? Earphone API becomes open, as required by EU. However, use of the Apple LLM would be controlled by license. Earbud competitors could either license Apple's LLM, perhaps on a FRAND basis, or they could install their own LLM on an iOS device. Apple may bundle its LLM but must allow users to uninstall Apple's LLM, to free up space for alternatives.

They already tried that with the "Core Technology" fee, and the EU smacked them for it. So doing what you propose is probably a non-starter.

[lovemenot]

I didn't know this. Then I agree with you.

[1oooqooq]

maybe the top car brands can only accept gas from one overpriced gas station, and open the car gas DRM as a license to other stations for a fee.

i know some people like to jump at solving technical problems, but sometimes yall need to chill and read the problem twice to be sure the problem is technical to begin with.

[lovemenot]

Gasoline is the very definition of a commodity. For now, at least, LLM is very from that.

As far as I know, Apple is unique in delivering inference on such a tiny device. For this they deserve a reward. The question is how. Like the EU, I don't believe Apple-only premium-priced locked-down earbuds is the right way.

[kergonath]

> For the EU, the issue is that Apple intends to recoup this investment through premium-pricing a different product in another category - one that has many low-cost competitors.

Let’s be serious for a moment. They sell iPhones with enough margin to recoup that investment.