In terms of feature availability, if the law says they need to make it available to all headsets in the EU, then... that's what they need to do. Waiting for an "ok" to violate the law is not sensible at all. Sure they don't have to allow it worldwide, but they do need to allow it in the EU.

Waiting the way you describe only makes sense if they think the implementation probably follows the law, but they're not sure it will be accepted. We could make that argument for privacy rules, we can't in good faith make that argument for interoperability rules.

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graeme 5 days ago | parent [-]

That's not what the law says. The law says IF they make a feature available in the EU, THEN it must be available to all competitors.

The law does not say you must make all features available in the EU. Generally speaking business regulations don't force companies to offer services. They instead regulate how the service can be offered if offered.

The hidden downside of regulation is a lot of stuff doesn't get built. It's just normally not so visible, but software is distributed worldwide so we can see the effect.

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Dylan16807 5 days ago | parent [-]

> That's not what the law says. The law says IF they make a feature available in the EU, THEN it must be available to all competitors.

You misread me.

"it" in the phrase "they need to make it available to all headsets in the EU" was referring to features they release in the EU.

So yes you're interpreting the law right, and so am I.

> The hidden downside of regulation is a lot of stuff doesn't get built. It's just normally not so visible, but software is distributed worldwide so we can see the effect.

If the deciding factor in whether something gets built is whether they can lock it to another product, it's usually okay for that thing to not be built.

In this case, they obviously did build it. So now it's a matter of figuring out what the hold up is.

If it's because they don't want to, even though it would make them money and make people in the EU happy, then that's pettiness.

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graeme 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, I see what you're saying. The thing is if it is a cut and dry violation it ought to be in principle possible to say so. And there have been features that were delayed and released and which function the same in the EU as elsewhere. So presumably the implementation is legal but plausibly wasn't.

Now there's a difference between building a feature and building interoperability. You have to actually work at it. And if you rush to do so on every feature:

1. You may modify features you didn't need to

2. You open yourself up to other countries demanding specific software changes

The simplest thing is just to make one version for the world, and wait for an ok. Big downsides to either rushing to release as is or rushing to make a change you may not need to make.

	▲	d1sxeyes 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Well the question as to whether it’s a “cut-and-dried” violation depends on information Apple probably isn’t willing to share: is there a specific technical reason this technology can’t be enabled on third party headphones? If there’s a good reason (e.g. the AirPods have a chip in them that does processing on the signal without which it wouldn’t work), then it’s probably fine. If it’s just `if (headphones !== “AirPods)`, then that’s probably not

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jacobjjacob 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

As far as I understand, the act can’t control what Apple decides to do outside of the EU. Whether Apple has products or features available outside that market means nothing because it’s scoped to that jurisdiction.

I think that whether or not they built the thing does not matter.

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johncolanduoni 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don’t know anything about jurisprudence, much less EU jurisprudence. Is there anything that would make the EU demanding that Apple not restrict these features from the EU to avoid allowing competitor products illegitimate in the eyes of the court? The law would still be only directly affecting the requirements for selling their productions under the EU’s jurisdiction. However it would consider facts about their behavior outside of the EU as essential to showing their noncompliance.

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interactivecode 4 days ago | parent [-]

From what I know, the current rules don't say anything about region locking features like apple is doing. The EU regulations might be slow in reaction time but they are not playing around. You can be sure that they will continually close loopholes and avoidance strategies until Apple (and others) aren't a gatekeeper anymore.

The way Apple and others misuse their market position to get away with anything is ridiculous. At a certain size or influence you shouldn't be both a platform for other companies and products and a participant in that platform while giving yourself all sorts of advantages.

Airpods are decent but they have most of their market share due to the massive integration gap from competitors. So shit it's impossible for anyone to compete.

	▲	johncolanduoni 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I’m not sure I’d call this a loophole per se. I don’t think governments should be refusing to let you take your ball and go home if you don’t want to sell things that create more compliance work/risk. I was just curious if this kind of jurisdictional edge case matters. Do the relevant provider-agnostic Bluetooth audio standards (in USB they’d be class devices, not sure on Bluetooth terminology) have equivalent features that Apple is refusing to just implement? I think it’s reasonable to ask Apple to support interoperability standards once the industry settles on them, but it seems weird to incentivize them to create bespoke standards that they control in an effort to reduce their market power.