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Discussion (563 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I can see why Apple might want to request an 18 month exemption, there's clearly extra work required to comply with EU regulations. But on the other hand it also feels like a straightforward play for consumer sympathy: let them get used to using it every day for 18 months, then pressure the EU to let it continue or you rip the feature away and anger users (who you then point to the EU as the problem)
It's not as if Apple doesn't have the money to dedicate a team to matching the EU's requirements on a deadline. They just choose not to.
Exactly, that's actually why I LIKE this decision so much. I'm not on Apple's side, but I REALLY like the idea that a company just says, "Fine, we'll comply by not even offering this product." It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and it FORCED Apple to evaluate the pros and cons.
I want more companies to not get exemptions and thus not offer law-breaking products. I LIKE that the government is saying, "fix it or don't bring it here" and Apple just has to live with it. I like that Apple also is refusing to just bend over to the EU. We need more of these types of conflicts so we can work out good regulations, and not just always bend over and take it from whatever party won.
While I like a lot of Euro regulations, some of the privacy ones go too far with the whole "we're going to enforce this on the whole world" crap. I like California's method of "to sell it here you have to have this but we're not going to sue you for selling a noncompliant product elsewhere."
I think the worst is hugely impactful laws for which exceptions are constantly carved out so nobody can truly evaluate whether the law/reg is a good one or not.
It's been a while since I left Europe, and I'm rusty on that particular layer of civics. Do EU voters actually have a say in this kind of regulation? Or is it all decided on the executive side which is only accountable to member states and not to individual citizens?
If it werent for the EU, the companies would get away with all sorts of shit.
Is as if people forget companies are evil by nature and will fuck you any chance they get.
This OP article doesn't really go into it, but they did actually propose a solution to the divide, they just needed more time to develop it. The Reuters article is reporting on one person's response to the proceedings, which involve more details than this particular article covers.
For instance:
> To address those concerns, Apple designed a system called Trusted System Agent, an intermediary that would let competing virtual assistants safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI on EU devices. Apple also proposed launching Siri AI in Europe while rolling out the Trusted System Agent gradually over 18 months. The European Commission rejected both proposals, and according to Apple, did not agree to any alternative.
https://thenextweb.com/news/apple-siri-ai-eu-dma-delay-ios-2...
Care to explain? EU is also a jurisdiction, so why would EU law be legal in other areas than EU?
Imagine there is a law in your jurisdiction saying if you hire a person there are rules A, B, C which are a bit inconvenient to you, the employer. What if you incorporate in a different jurisdiction where the salaries are higher but there are no rules B and C, but there are rules B and D. Then this incorporated entity offers to hire people in your jurisdiction, but not offer the higher salaries of the other one.
Which rules should apply? The answer, as usual, is -- "it depends".
If the law makes sense, that I cannot judge in this case.
As a citizen, I find it both fascinating and disturbing that this is even a thing. Of course companies have to follow the law. Why is this even a thing? If the product fills a real need and the externalities are acceptable, that will be a demonstration that the law needs an update.
The idea that there is such a thing as "law-breaking products" when consumers ACTIVELY CHOOSE TO SPEND THEIR MONEY ON THEM is insane to me. This is authoritarian nonsense.
It is not the state's place to tell people what they should or should not be allowed to buy.
You will always find people willing to spend money on anything. The whole point of politics is that we have to draw a line between what people want to do and the effect that it can have on other people. To put it simply, if your freedom affects mine, then someone needs to decide how far you can go and how much I have to accept.
We commonly accept that scams are bad, even though someone might participate willingly, just because it is much more likely that someone is taken advantage of in a way that most people find immoral, for example. Even in bastions of free speech such as the US. That someone somewhere knowingly gave money to someone else is neither here nor there.
The most extreme example could be the legislation on weapons. A less extreme example could be legislation on food additives or PFAS.
Those numbers make withholding "risky" products a no-brainer strategy. Also, those numbers put a hard limit of how much Apple will want reevaluate their general strategy of tightly integrated first-party software.
> The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a 1998 United States copyright law
The DMCA is a law in the United States, it's not related in any way to Apple's decision to not roll out Siri in the EU.
Edit: 26% of their net sales comes from Europe for Q1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2026-q1/FY26_Q1_Consol...
Sure, there's a messaging component to this. However, any company that isn't trying to just skirt the law will aim to do this sort of thing correctly, and it's an enormous effort.
I know it’s not quite as simple as that but I do think it shows Apple are more interested in blaming the EU than reducing the potential issues ahead of time.
This slows down deploying the system globally. Particularly if the target is moving, it may make sense to build lightly so one can pivot, and then build in the compliance stuff after you know you have a winning configuration.
The EU has its laws. Apple has its strategy. The only thing I fault anyone on is the public bickering.
I suppose if you think these rules are reasonable, you’d be happy to not have this functionality. The rest of the world will be happy to not allow third parties access to our data.
As a small developer, the cost to support something like this would be so overwhelming I wouldn’t consider supporting the EU officially.
Maybe the phrasing is unfortunate, but if compliance to the law requires a “redoing”, launching in that market was never a priority in the first place. That’s a completely legitimate choice, but usually companies whining about regulations are making a financial decision rather than an ethical one.
At what cost? This is Apple’s second bite at AI. Giannandrea fucked up the first time. I’m honestly with Cupertino on not over complicating it the second time around. If they found the right mix of features and architecture, great, then work to port it to high-bar jurisdictions.
So it becomes a purely business decision: Do we risk a 10% global revenue penalty to release this globally, do we release this everywhere the DMA does not apply, or do we simply not build it? And make no mistake, even if Apple moved heaven and earth to try to comply with DMA they are STILL RISKING the full 10% penalty if the EU decides against them.
Does this put them stupidly behind schedule? Yes, and bummer for them, but I highly doubt that a company as politically savvy, legally savvy, and wealthy as Apple would do this "by mistake".
So Google chose to be evil, now they have to rip all the evil out and redo it from scratch. Can't say I have any sympathy. Should have done the right thing from the start.
Laws vary from country to country, state to state, and they vary tremendously. Laws are also changing all the time. There's literally no way to predict what rules will be in place at any given time.
Also, adding code to meet some government regulation takes time and effort that (form the company's perspective) could be better spent building a product and making money. No one would "choose" to implement some random compliance rule unless they're forced to.
Yes, but also its much cheaper to build it in at the very start.
When we built pervert glasses research platform, if we'd just ignored the data privacy laws we could have built it much quicker. But, the only reason it took extra time is because
1) we had no idea what we were doing and
2) the lawyers had even less idea, so we had to do a bunch of reading and make a best guess.
Turns out the guesses were right, but it was painful getting the lawyers to understand.
What if I tell you that there's a surprisingly simple, straightforward and above all very cheap solution: don't implement privacy-invading or anti-competitive features in the first place ;)
As a European I'm conflicted because I think this particular set of privacy laws are overreaching bordering on stupid; but "exemptions" for one of the richest corporations on earth would be beyond absurd and infinitely worse.
Then you should have done it right the first time.
Especially in the case of apple or Google. Look at the app store situation. It is very straightforward to do the work for the whole thing to be open to any competitor. But it is hard to try to design and implement a solution to try to not break any regulations but still manage to keep users captive the maximum without having competitor entering our walled garden.
Let's call it how it is: Android phones allow every competitor to run their chatbot in place of Gemini. Want Perplexity instead of Gemini? You can have it. Samsung launches with Perplexity as of late.
Apple? As always, went into "ay mate, too integrated, can't give the same APIs to competitors" lame excuse.
Weird to say it but the only assistant with any guarantee for privacy by design is Siri at the moment.
https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/googl...
Or never. Like the majority of Pixel 10 on device AI features (image editing, magic cue).
And yet Apple had no major issues complying to the draconical demands of the CCP to sell and operate there. Weird.
Also, it's not like Apple can't afford the manpower for this. They're not a hole in the wall mon & pop shop.
For example, with Copilot, you get a contractual pinky promise that they cannot access your data.
Can engineers really not access ? Can the police really not access ?
It's like AirTag for example. Apple cannot access it because it's scientifically "impossible" by design, but if they sign-in to your account, well it's over.
Once Apple fills the right audit / certification / paperwork they will be able to enable that feature. It could also be a negotiation lever.
Isn’t this less about privacy than competition?
At the same time, this potentially opens up the entire worldwide market (imagine EU iPhones being imported into US to use with OpenAI or Claude Cowork), and they probably made the estimation that keeping EU out is still better value (70% of the market all to themselves) than fair competition in the 100% of the market (I guess they estimate they might get less than 70% in that case).
Or they are hoping that EU customers will want Siri AI enough to campaign for a change, but I'd find that highly unlikely.
That's not the case. it's merely software (exactly like my iPhone 16 lacking the promised AI features claimed at WWDC24).
Anyway as I'm now within the EU with phone I bought before moving to the EU, regional features (or restrictions) depends on the logged in account and device regional settings. Except physical considerations (eSIM design, actual radio transceivers). The hardware is the same thank god.
If Siri wants to be seen as anything it should first support every EU language and they can work from there.
The issue I have with that approach is that I don’t agree with that approach to governance. I believe it’s incumbent on the regulator to define what is acceptable vs. disallowed in unambiguous terms.
The only difference that I can see here is that the standards layer hasn't solidified yet.
I don’t think it makes sense to create an accountability framework for a company that requires the cooperation of the market, because I think companies should be in a position to either comply or be held accountable on their own merits
This is true of most things that involve legal. Laws are not code, in basically any jurisdiction they are subject to interpretation, and just because you've dotted your Is and crossed your Ts, doesn't mean an enterprising enforcement agency won't still come after you
"They really don't try to fuck you over if you engage with them in good faith?"
"Yes, really."
The intent matters, not the letter of the law. No loopholes, no bad faith interpretation. Just do what the law wants from you, if you make a mistake in good faith, you'll be given leeway to fix it.
> When interpreting EU law, the CJEU pays particular attention to the aim and purpose of EU law (teleological interpretation), rather than focusing exclusively on the wording of the provisions (linguistic interpretation). This is explained by numerous factors, in particular the open-ended and policy-oriented rules of the EU Treaties, as well as by EU legal multilingualism. Under the latter principle, all EU law is equally authentic in all language versions. Hence, the Court cannot rely on the wording of a single version, as a national court can, in order to give an interpretation of the legal provision under consideration. Therefore, in order to decode the meaning of a legal rule, the Court analyses it especially in the light of its purpose (teleological interpretation) as well as its context (systemic interpretation).
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/5993...
The endless cookie banners would beg to differ.
But Apple's position here is actually really wild: Apple claims to protect user privacy all the time. But they can't offer a product in a major jurisdiction that has actually meaningful privacy laws? Didn't they consider that while designing the product?
This is quite the contradiction.
Complying with complex privacy laws is surprisingly orthogonal to making a product with good privacy.
In another regulatory area (not privacy, but something more historically regulated) we ran into strange situations where complying with the letter of the law would require us to walk back things that we had done in a better way. The laws are not simple and they're not written by engineers or even people who understand what future product needs look like.
Maybe it's more because the privacy is largely marketing and helps with continuously shutting out competitors under the guise of privacy?
If they really cared about privacy, they would end-to-end encrypt iCloud backups [1] by default and not just when ADP is enabled, which only a small subset of users do. In fact, many technical people I know don't even realize that iCloud backups are not end-to-end encrypted. At any rate, this large hole opens a lot of data (including iMesssage) open to Apple, law enforcement, etc.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
[1] And iCloud Drive, and photos, and notes, and voice memos, and wallet passes, and contacts, and reminders, and...
If regulators suck at understanding tech, they are making poorly thought out laws for corporations just as much as they are for you.
Tax laws are also quite easy, tax lawyers are only needed if you want to NOT pay what the country you're operating in is owed.
Here's their argument in their own words: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-de...
The DMA isn't a privacy law. In this case, the DMA would appear to require Apple to open up all user data to any AI agent. That removes the ability to provide privacy protections.
You can argue Apple should do that, but you can't in the same breathe argue for privacy.
EU wants Apple to open 'Siri AI', with access to a personal context, open to other model/AI providers.
Apple says "We can't do this in a privacy preserving way".
You can definitely question what their true motivations are, but it seems pretty plausible that there is a moral case for this system to not be opened up to other providers who may do a worse job at privacy than Apple (especially when you are Apple and you trust yourself).
I think there is a place in these sorts of ecosystems for privileged players. If you buy an iPhone you implicitly must trust Apple to some degree.
Not sure this is the case. My understanding is what the EU wants is that users can use Siri AI or a third party AI service from, say, Anthropic or OpenAI, at the same level of capabilities, just as you can switch default browsers. It's not about the underlying LLM (that would be the huge privacy concern), it's about the product built on top. Of course how a third party AI gets its data from the device would need to be approved by the user and that third party AI provider would have to justify what it's doing with that personal data to the EU watchdogs, just as Apple would need to do.
Lemma 2: you are obliged by other regulation to offer equal access to user data to third parties, so others can build equivalent functionality (DMA).
Lemma 3: malicious third parties will absolutely try to abuse the access and trick the user into sharing their data by all means possible. You will be held responsible in court of public opinion at minimum and legally at maximum if/when a malicious third party abuses said access.
This is a hard, possibly technically unsolvable problem no matter how much money you might have, because the root issue is not technical, it's the fact that you legally have to give third parties access and no way to control what they do with it - and as others have mentioned in the threads, it's exacerbated by the fact that the regulation doesn't say "this is okay and this is not", it is vague and judges things "by outcome", so you may spend all the time in the world implementing a solution you think will work, and then get hit by fines/lawsuits because the implementation is judged as not sufficient after the fact.
According to GDPR, the app developer is the "data controller" and thus ultimately responsible. Only in the case where Apple knowingly participated in unlawful behavior is it likely to be held accountable, and even then, in addition to the app developer. Obviously, if we are not talking about leaks from the actual App Store system (eg. Apple account logins and user data).
So while it sounds plausible, the legal framework is exactly not what you describe here — Apple can claim to want better protection for customers by not allowing third party apps, but EU rejects that (it can similarly extend to app store itself) and pushes for competitive landscape with DMA instead.
The DMA and the GDPR are laws that at their core make each other more difficult. the stated outcome of the DMA - allowing any vendor/user full access to your device - is not easily supported when solving for privacy.
The requirements are not onerous, it is the basic preemption of monopolist behavior.
Qualifying "random apps" is something that is a true challenge, but that holds regardless of the API being offered — the problem is that Apple saves some programming API only for themselves, instead of introducing acceptable & objective market terms to be met (if deemed unsafe, they could require companies to demonstrate compliance with things like CRA to get access to these APIs).
Do you never install software on your desktop computer?
100% - just like Apple making such a grandiose show of "privacy". "Privacy" for Apple eventually led to Apple specific and Apple-only allowed ads in first party apps and now Siri connecting to Google servers.
I don't think you can call the process unrelated to the mother or the baby, they're both pretty important throughout the whole thing.
The one legacy in Apple that Steve Jobs left behind is their distaste for taking risks that lose them money (ChatGPT was going to be their AI core... but then they had Altman ousted, so they backed away and partnered with Google instead), and spending money. I think they're still the only company with a kitchen in the valley that still makes employees pay for their own lunch, and the reason is the most BS reason that Steve Jobs pulled out of his rear end. It's so the employees appreciate the lunch, really?
I’m not saying I believe that’s the real reason here. But it is broadly true. Ask any company that offers a free tier where most of the complaints and problematic customers come from.
People can also appreciate things they get for free though. I'd appreciate a free lunch, most places I've worked at, actually nowhere I've ever worked, EVER has given me a free lunch. Now if its a difference of paying for a quality lunch at a reasonable price, and not paying for lunch but its mediocre, then yeah, seems like a no-brainer.
I wouldn't be surprised if Steve Jobs implemented was a way to get them back into the green.
Also, TIL:
> Jobs, who notoriously took a salary of only $1 a year, used to "scam" Apple out of free lunches by scanning his badge alongside colleagues and insisting on paying for everyone, knowing the charges would just default back to Apple.
And you’re saying that consumers would be incorrect in thinking that?
This can lead to absolute insanity as companies try to satisfy both privacy and market conditions. It's not simple. How many years did google waste with Sandbox?
That's disingenuous. It's not about money, it's literally about engineering velocity. The amount of planning and engineering required for an entire interoperability layer that also ensures security and privacy is absolutely going to be something like a year-long engineering effort minimum. You can't speed that up by adding more money.
So it's either try to get an exemption to deliver this feature to Europeans while that work gets done, or wait 12-18 months for the work to be done -- work that isn't required to launch in the rest of the world.
Apple just wants consumers to be happy and be able to use their features. But the EU is requiring a ton of additional interop engineering, so consumers will just have to keep waiting and get features 1 or 2 years after the rest of the world, or never.
You cannot accept the concept of consequences. You are entitled to Siri AI? I highly doubt it.
You sound like a totalitarian: a state can come up with any law and everyone has to comply.
I think you should be reminded of the fact that you can go your own way with something state sponsored like the EU Chip Act, AI, Cloud. Let’s add “Siri” to the list.
I love the fact, that EU is getting a lesson, even though people obviously don’t get it.
seems a bit simplistic.
This is the bit that's likely hard, because generally keeping safety and privacy guarantees as data flows through the system is extremely hard, and Apple would not be able to guarantee it for other products without large review investment.
But ultimately, they probably just do not want to do it until Siri AI gets a decent marketshare first, so competing agents would have to both build new solutions for the platform once open, but also deal with an incumbent dominant player already on people's phones.
What's not fine, is to blame the EU for the missing feature. It's damaging their brand and damaging their reputation. Just think about if Porsche would make a press release and calling the US tariffs "un-American". Wouldn't be perceived well either.
Fancois Normal installing a 3rd party AI service which turns out to have zero security and actively just harvesting private data.
Tell me which company in your opinion would be in the LOUD headlines, Apple or the random 3rd party?
Sure, 3rd party will get some shit. But if Apple neither protected me on their App Store _or_ on the app stores that they extort, what the fuck is their racket for? As long as Apple keeps this behaviour, they deserve to have their cornflakes pissed in.
Tesla is a good example. Elon Musk became political and anti-EU, which resulted in an irreparable damage of the Tesla brand in Europe. Not for everyone, but a big group of people would never again consider buying a Tesla. As a result Tesla lost market share in Europe.
Apple seems to be on the same path now.
Like this? https://www.thestreet.com/automotive/bmw-ceo-has-blunt-new-m...
The DMA is also threatening Apple's high profit margins. That's the whole point of the DMA.
If I was more cynical I would suggest that this is being used as an end-run around encryption, since the encryption doesn't have backdoors for the government but this gives you access to all the same data.
When this backdoor is inevitably exploited in some very public fashion, it won't be the EU regulators that required the backdoor to exist who will be blamed.
The way Apple Health exchanges data with 3rd-party trackers (Fitbit, Garmin, etc.) is very well built and a good model of how other components in iOS could allow data exchange with very granular permissions.
Apple touts the "Private Cloud Compute". If they found a way to share your personal context to process on their cloud in a private and anonymized way, there is no reason the same process couldn't be used to handoff data to a 3rd party AI provider.
One of the issues here is that there are many people with strong opinions that don't understand the thing they have strong opinions about. Which is the normal state of human affairs.
It looks like Apple is framing this as a privacy issue as a marketing tactic so that consumers will blame the EU when Apple COULD implement it without endangering privacy.
You want Apple to anonymize a users data, then hand that users data to a third party who knows who the user is? I don't think PCC is doing what you think it's doing.
Well then explain me this: There are absolutely no restriction on MacOS where I can give Claude free access to everything. If you are a Mac and iPhone user that essentially gives it access to the exact same data. Why is the data only protect worthy when accessed on the phone directly?
Apple has been working for a while to secure MacOS but it’s hard without breaking compatibility with old processes.
In exchange, it also less secure, less user friendly, and less popular.
This is the rhetoric used against right to repair. "What if enemies get access to our citizens' data if we allow anyone but us to repair your car?"
And guess what ? Because you're allowed to choose something else than Siri, it doesn't mean you have to. You can still use Siri if you think it's better for your privacy.
The new Siri has much deeper access to personal data and absolutely can not be trusted being siphoned off to a 3rd party server.
Apple thinks users should not be able to make the decision about who can access their data. It is not more complicated that that.
There is a 100% chance this would be used maliciously immediately. Meta would pressure users to install their meta AI agent, which would then go and read the users DMs, and create profiles on all the users who don’t even use Facebook by reading their data from everyone they talk to who did.
Personally I'd much prefer no siri access to app data than allowing evil companies like Meta/TikTok/Etc this level of access.
No. Only if you would consider the Linux/macos/windows filesystem API a backdoor too. On your desktop any app with sufficient permissions can read all your data. Would you call that a backdoor?
Is Apple incapable of designing a permissions system that allows a user to grant access to email and messages to an app of their choice?
We already download apps and grant them permissions to subsections of personal data on our devices.
I don’t believe Apple is incapable of designing a system that respects a user’s choices and granted permissions.
It gives us European some opportunities. I have a side project at work that was heavily threatened by Siri’s new features. Now I feel more relaxed as Siri isn’t coming there anytime soon.
But overall I doubt we will replace Apple.
Handing full access to the data on a user's device over to a company with the scruples of somebody like Facebook is a privacy nightmare, not "opening their platform a tiny bit".
Apple is not abiding, because they want to use time to really ensure they have the best assistant, before they allow competitors to build assistants for iPhone that can replace Siri (in the EU only probably)
It seems things start to get rolling in a way that they haven't since the start of the Google/Apple duopoly.
From Apple's strategy board point of view, no.
Apple's services revenue is showing a strong growth and it is entirely dependent on keeping the ecosystem closed so that it can take its commission and sell its services.
Once things get moving they would prefer still having control on the on the US market rather than making slightly more money(if any. No one wants this AI stuff as you can tell by the strong sales Apple keeps having despite or thanks to not having AI integrated) when the EU market is still open to them.
We've had endless opportunities to compete during Apple's entire 50 year existence.
As someone living in Europe I feel ashamed to read you openly admitting this. This sentiment would feel at home in the USSR.
Instead of trying to create things the world finds useful by building something better/cheaper/more innovative, we're choosing protectionism so we can screw our customers with inferior products they're forced to buy...and relax.
I think we've done enough relaxing in Europe.
We were the birthplace of the industrial revolution...the technologies of which went on to bring the entire world out of poverty last century.
Do we seriously have nothing valuable to contribute to the world during the entirety of the digital revolution? If not, I think our decline and collapsing social welfare systems are deserved.
Just for that case a new category of business classification was invented: the gatekeepers, and coincidentally almost all of those gatekeepers are American companies. Unlike antitrust regulation and other EU regulation that wan't based on clearly observed harm to the consumers, as otherwise that would have been covered by existing laws. It was solely designed to prevent businesses to have a potential ability to do something anti-consumer.
It is in fact an antitrust law. It basically argues (correctly in my opinion) that Apple and other companies have created new markets inside of their products. And in those markets they exert total control, including charging developers extortionate fees, forcing them to use their subpar and expensive payment systems or restricting what users can run on the devices they own & a lot of paid money for.
The beauty of it is that in their exemption request, Apple claimed they have plans to introduce an intermediary system for other AIs within 18 months. So they can no longer claim that it's impossible for security reasons.
Moreover this claim stinks.
Apple have enough legal experience with the EU and technically competence to have baked EU AI, privacy and anti-monopoly compliance into their product from the start.
In fact any U.S. company could base their products on EU legislation, since it provides wide safeguards for consumer privacy.
Apple deliberately chose not to and are now being deliberately obtuse and misleading.
Anyone would think they didn’t have lawyers.
Either they are incompetent or it’s a deliberate choice to play this card. I don’t think it’s incompetence.
This reads more like a tabloid headline than the first sentence of a Reuters article.
>“The decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters in Brussels, saying there was nothing in the Digital Markets Act to stop the company from introducing new products in the EU.
>“Apple was simply unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet essential EU privacy and security standards,” Regnier said.
Obviously he's going to champion the EU's position, but his framing is internally inconsistent.
1. he claims the DMA doesn’t prevent Apple from launching products in the EU
2. the DMA sets certain requirements which determines whether features can ship in the EU
It's fair to say “the DMA doesn’t ban Siri AI,” but that's not the real issue. The regulation sets conditions, and Apple is arguing those conditions make rollout infeasible. The Commission claims its a compliance problem, not a regulatory block, but the reality is less binary. At a certain point the regulation is self-defeating. What is that point? This is the discussion that the EU lawmakers cannot acknowledge.
They can ship any feature they want, as long as they give users the option to choose alternative implementation of the feature.
"Compliance" isn't a thing without regulation.
Because it's not self-defeating, what would that even be FAANG packing up and abandoning Europe? Worked out splendid for China.
Whereas the EU laws apply to foreign and domestic companies alike, and the goal is consumer protection. The compliance difficulty does not vary between foreign/local.
This is a common sentiment of EU tech regulation proponents. You may want protectionism but that's not really what these laws are about. Why not simply adopt the CCP's policy towards technology?
I don’t know why the EU allowed Apple to intermediate other browser engines with BrowserEngineKit, which is unacceptable, while blocking it here where it is reasonable.
EU has the right to privacy.
Apple also has the right to not conduct business in EU.
If EU doesn’t like it, they can build their own sovereign software.
Oh come on. Apple doesn't want to give up control. That's what this is about. The privacy thing is just to make them look good
Sure - the DMA has nothing to do with privacy though, so that's a straw man. or is it a red herring? I always get those confused.
To follow along that line of thoughts, the requirements they are actually asking for proper DMA compliance would probably go right in that direction tbh.
I, for one, am happy Apple is taking a stance, and, as an European would really much like my government to stop asking ridiculous things that do not profit the consumer.
The DMA mandates that Apple allows for competition, which (if you believe in capitalism) is good for the market overall. It's essential to stop big tech from abusing their market dominance. However Apple would prefer to not allow competition for their digital products on any of their hardware.
Apple wants to implement features that access data locally. It doesn’t want to allow competition for offering those features, but if it did, competitors may use that access to local data to exfiltrate.
So it is about both competition and, as a result of creating competition, privacy.
This allows competition, but also allows privacy for those who want it. See? Simple really, but Apple being Apple dont want to let 3rd parties use its AI APIs and so we have this standoff.
If you want to you could still use Apple or another provider you decide to trust - or even one that does everything locally. The competition would still have to follow GDPR after all.
While I can appreciate the reason for the DMA, people don't have to buy Apple devices, they can buy any type of phone they want and just use the ecosystems provided by these phones.
Apple is free to do what they want. The EU can go and try and build their own iPhone (good luck with that).
Do you really? The only two types of operating systems for phones that you could reasonably use are iOS and Android. So it's either Apple or Google.
Imagine a world, in which you could only consume Apple or Google services on those phones. No more Netflix or Disney+ on iPhones - only Apple TV Plus because the streaming video API is not available to third party apps. I think there are plenty of other examples to demonstrate the point.
A free market doesn't work if you have a duopoly. A free market requires the freedom to choose between different services, which Apple is trying to limit by only allowing Siri AI to access specific OS interfaces.
Not sure why some people on hackernews support more locked down operating system.
They already claim to care about your freedom and privacy. Now they can prove it.
Seriously EU folks need to come to down to earth sometime.
Have some dignity. We all deserve the right to fully own our general compute devices.
> Prior to Apple's update, around 65% of users attempting to install the Epic Games Store on iOS were thwarted by Apple's deceptive design. After the update, the drop-off rate has gone from 65% down to around 25%, and continues on a downward trend as users upgrade to the new version of iOS.
Zero idea if its true tho.
the core technology fee is a big obstacle to alternative app stores.
openclaw is massively popular. there is a lot of diversity in "persona" agents, which are different than coding agents or the agent apple demoed. they're not all the same.
i don't know, i don't think you have any idea what you are talking about.
Does this mean the service will not be available to EU accounts, or will they geoblock access from within the EU altogether?
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...
https://apnews.com/article/apple-iphone-siri-artificial-inte...
Apple must know that they have customers in EU countries..?
It’s not like the feature is fully finished.
If it took another year to get out the door and be compliant, do you think they would’ve wanted to wait? Or do you think they would rather launch now and then provide a compliant version later?
How? How do you safely handover effectively every single bit of data on someone’s phone to any third-party company and preserve privacy?
Sure you can try and demand agreements from the third parties but will the EU see that as a move to limit competition?
Ignoring all other concerns it is a rather thorny problem.
I don’t think the EU would accept, and as a user I certainly wouldn’t accept, having to agree to a pop-up every time I used any feature that used any data on my phone that might go to a third-party AI.
Besides, opening up the API would also allow people to self-host their models and plug in their own servers instead of having to trust the whole private cloud compute project (yes I know, it’s verifiable by experts, but I as an average homelabber certainly can’t).
It’s important to note that this isn’t about privacy. It’s about freedom of choice, and the avoidance of lock-in due to monopolistic practices.
Literally anyone could whip up an AI service, get people to use it and just browse the unencrypted logs for data to sell.
Which is the issue Apple is having.
Apple frames this as a privacy issue when it's only a brand/control issue.
Is it possible to do that with absolutely any company that wants to be able to be the AI on your phone? Are most of those companies even capable of handling something like that?
That’s thorny.
If the price for some sort of functioning Siri is my privacy, I’m happy with the current dumb Siri
Apple realized its standard malicious compliance playbook won't fly this time, so now they're trying to sway public opinion by not rolling out this feature in the EU. It won't work. They're just going to lose market share and will have to backtrack when they do. Tech regulation doing its job.
Another example here is Google Chrome - which still allows third party cookies because even thought the privacy regulator wanted them gone, the market regulator required them to architect a solution that was unworkable to not take advantage of their gatekeeper advantages when others didn't have the same rights as them. Google finally said fuck it, and walked away from the privacy features in order to satisfy the anti-trust regulators.
Not shipping this feature in Europe is a common way to deal with satisfying the balkanized regulators there.
Apple does not adhere to EU law. It's their task to either go with the local law, or leave their customers hanging. And I rightfully express my disappointment that they currently do the latter.
Like when the UK banned encryption I wish Apple would have just disabled iMessage entirely there. Show a message saying that due to UK law, they cannot operate an encrypted messaging service there any longer. The backlash would get that law changed pretty quick.
Instead they disabled encryption for the UK, making all of us less secure.
Sometimes a company's incentives are going to be aligned with their users, but a lot of the times they won't and consumer protection regulation is useful.
Sometimes a government will have the good of their citizens in mind, and a lot of the times they will seek money and power just like companies do. Lobbies, fines, overreaching regulation.
The UK (and EU's attempted Chat Control) is some fascist bullshit. But allowing you to own the device you paid for and use it as you please (including letting you install whatever software you choose to) isn't.
He will bomb Paris and London until Europe capitulates.
Two billion in bigly notes should suffice.
Apple themselves have claimed recent EU compliance has led to over 600 new or changed APIs in the OS.
I've spent a fair amount of time with my iPhone in both the EU and the USA, have local cell service registered in both regions. its nothing as simple as a geo-location check anymore. It's a problem that has grown more complex over the decades too, as more and more countries implement their own slightly differing legislation.
>Good! I'm glad I can't have new and improved!
In the US, we basically see this as a shakedown by foreign governments against our successful companies. It really is a matter of "build your own iPhone" you guys. You had Nokia, so don't tell me you can't compete globally. I'm pretty fed up with Google and Apple personally, so please do deliver me a nice EU phone with sd card, removable battery, unlocked sims, usb-c, and all the other nice things your regulators demand.
These concepts are so outdated it's not even funny. Let's say I have several citizenships, live mostly in the EU, but currently stay in Japan, do I get the features or not?
Like app store regional gating and DVD regions, these restrictions are dinosaurs of the past.
Given that our share of global GDP has dropped from 25 to 17 per cent in twenty years, with a steady downward trend, I am not convinced that this principle will hold for much longer, and this case of Siri may be one of the canaries in the coalmine.
If/when we drop to single digits, many vendors won't likely care anymore.
I don't know about every vendor, but Apple probably doesn't want to lose 27% of their sales.
They’re not going to over a single unproven feature.
The one that’s so secret it’s not in any of the treaties that the sovereign nations that comprise the EU signed up for and implemented in line with their own democratic processes
That agency
Meanwhile they struggle to put together a border patrol, but advanced pan European surveillance apparatus that isn’t run by the US. Yeah bro
This privilege system already exists. This is just marketing.
Damn, good luck next time. Maybe use some of the $416 billion 2025 revenue to invest into that project?
If I were apple i'd want to give people enormous amounts to tools to control that access. Specific popups whenever it tries to access data (for the first time) from any given app. OpenAI would like access to all of your text messages, yes/no. I'd also want audit logs etc.
The nightmare is facebook (or the like) releasing an ai model into the current facebook app and forcing people to decide between looking at their grandkids pictures or allowing facebook to read your whole damn life into a database. So perhaps these apps need to be mandated as a connector for Apple Intelligence and nothing more.
I mean if you decide you want to give access to Google to everything on your phone, go for it. So far I trust apple, they haven't let me down yet. Placing these models on hardware is a great trust-building feature.
Apparently their "Verifiable Transparency" claim just means Apple invited unnamed outside security experts and independent researchers to inspect and verify the integrity of (what they claim to be) its Private Cloud Compute code... LOL :)
I'll believe it when I can run the "private cloud compute" on my own hardware that I can firewall in my rack and monitor its network outputs.
This is why the EU is destined to lose and run itself to zero.
Compliance with DMA would have Apple hand over system-wide access to AI features to third parties, which could compromise user privacy and security.
All I know is we are buying the same devices designed by the US but keep increasing the list of features we can’t enjoy.
Says it right there: "Apple was simply unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet essential EU privacy and security standards," Regnier said. "Instead of trying to find a suitable compliance solution, Apple simply made a request to the European Commission to be exempted from their interoperability obligations under the DMA - and this for at least 18 months. That's not an option."
Mistral. I’d bet my bottom dollar that the French are the reason the EU is holding firm on its position.
Never underestimate the power of a really, really, really irritated counterparty.
However they are also a 100,000 pound gorilla. If you fight with Apple over $ISSUE, even if they’re right in that case, you get headlines and possibly PR points. Lots of people here are quite happy to be mad at Apple. And other companies take notice that you’re serious.
If you argue with a tiny company from Spain, most of the world doesn’t care and you get no headlines.
Apple is complying with EU law by not releasing a feature that is not compliant with EU law. And the EU appears to be trying to make hay over that fact.
At what level? Improve Siri which is lagging behind, then add llms?
I don't think there's a clear good guy/bad guy here.
This one does not appear to be Apple being a dick, like they have been on the App Store and a number of other things.
* If you allow the user to grant those privileges to third-party applications, they can grant it to applications that abuse it, resulting in security and privacy risks. You might even be blamed for allowing them access (e.g. the famous Cambridge Analytica scandal).
* If you don't allow the user to do that, third-party tools won't be able to serve those needs, which can be considered anti-competitive preferential treatment of your own tools.
Of course, as usual they use their PR machine to blame the EU, whereas they really just want to abuse their platform's position to shut out competitors.
I have been a decades long Apple user, but their anti-competitive behavior, pushing ads into the OS and apps, and their treatment of developers (who made the iPhone big) is just gross.
Apple says hey so we're going to need some time to figure out if we can do that in a way that won't completely fuck over our users.
Very different than the narrative you're pushing
access to all of your messages, photos, what's on your screen, browsing history, etc. Apple says hey so we're going to need some time to figure out if we can do that in a way that won't completely fuck over our users.
The point is that if Apple's model gets all that access, they should give others access to those APIs as well, otherwise they are giving themselves benefits over the competition. A company can do that, but not once they are considered a gatekeeper in the EU. It's up to the user to choose an LLM provider that has good privacy rules (or stick with Apple if there is no other provider). That's fair competition, a user can weigh pricing, privacy, etc. and make their own choice. Now they are stuck with Apple and have to get an iCloud+ subscription to fully use the AI features. The 18 month delay is not to figure this out, it's to entrench themselves as much as possible first.
Following your line of reasoning, if Apple had this behavior in 2010-2015, instant messaging applications outside iMessage wouldn't have the option to ask access to your contacts (privacy), no possibility to share a location in a chat (privacy), no means to show notifications (probably privacy too), etc.
It's surprising how much people are willing to do the bidding of tech oligarchs. Remember, this is the company that has spent years doing malicious compliance around the DMA and DSA, why should they be trusted this time?
Yes. They SHOULD. So how did they do that without throwing away their privacy promise or running afoul of the privacy laws?
They basically make it an existential risk to build your success on anything nicely and neatly tightly vertically integrated. Everything must be dragged down to mediocrity by the unavoidable slippage between mandated abstraction layers and avoidance of features that can’t be easily or safely generalized.
It’s conflicting. Is Apple abusing its role in some cases, such as the App Store, and in need of some reigning in? Sure, but some of this goes too far and essentially requires them to strip their products of a portion of their appeal.
Even more frustrating is that nobody seems to be willing to discuss the issue with any level of nuance. It’s nearly all binary EU good/Apple bad or the reverse.
Who is saying that enforcing companies to open their systems to competition is making them mediocre? Maybe if that's the end result, they should put more time into designing systems that wouldn't become mediocre just by allowing third parties to do things with those said systems? We need to stop defending corporates for abusing their monopolies.
Interoperability is not free. One of the trades it brings is a notably lowered ceiling in terms of tightness and capabilities, and this persists no matter how many man-hours are poured into engineering the systems that enable it.
The Linux desktop is a great example of this at play. While it's technically worked for decades at this point, it's been a constant struggle to make it a high quality, thoroughly polished experience end to end and that's partly thanks to the unavoidable friction and gaps between layers that comes with interoperability and tens of involved parties.
Apple's philosophy is that new APIs need some time to stabilize before they can be baked-in as a commitment to third-party developers.
So new APIs are almost always first-party only. Apple designs the API and becomes the first consumer of it. This experience of dogfooding their own APIs lets them iterate and learn without breaking compatibility with third-party developers consuming the API.
Only after an API has been hardened in this way does it become eligible for third-party consumption, where Apple can promise to document and support those APIs publicly.
It makes sense then, that if the DMA mandates equal access to new APIs for third-parties, then Apple will just disable new first-party APIs in the region until they've gotten their bake-in period elsewhere in the world. Sorry, EU!