And no, I don't mean the kind of apple you put in broccoli salad, I mean the one that makes iPhones. You may or may not have known this about me, but I have an iPhone and I'm not ashamed of it. I think iPhones are very nice phones and I like them. They are not superior in every regard, but they work very well for the few things I do with my phone and they are designed to be beautiful, which appeals to me. If you have a different phone, that's cool. In fact, if you want to convince me to switch to a different kind of phone, now's your chance, because I'll seriously consider it after some recent news.
Apple recently announced some new features for their operating system, the most striking of which are based on artificial intelligence (which Apple wants to call Apple Intelligence, because of course they do). This move has been criticized by some over data privacy concerns, but Apple seems to have taken good precautions in that regard, as a lot of the computation happens on the device, more happens on Apple's servers using encryption and if they need to make calls to OpenAI infrastructure, users will have to explicitly accept it. That all sounds fine to me. Others have praised the step, even calling it a new aera for Apple, which has traditionally been far behind on the AI front. Needless to say, there's been a lot of fuss about it.
The recent announcement that made me more angry at Apple than I've ever been is that these features will not be available on the European market at first for legal reasons. When I first heard this, I thought it would have something to do with the new EU artificial intelligence act. A law like this is unprecedented anywhere on the world, so it's only fair that Apple wants to ensure compliance before they release a product like. After all, this law is very reasonable in my opinion. If there's anything in there that prevents Apple from releasing their AI features, they might not be as unproblematic as I previously thought.
But no, the artificial intelligence act has nothing to do with it. In fact, it seems like "Apple Intelligence" has been designed with this law in mind, as you would expect from a company the size of Apple. The reason Apple claims they cannot roll out their features in the EU is the Digital Services Act (DSA). It's a law meant to ensure fair competition by requiring platform providers to allow competitors access to their platform. It's meant to prohibit these monopolies that platform providers, such as Apple and their app store, are building for themselves. As you might imagine, Apple, who takes 30% of all money spent in the app store, does not like that very much.
For this reason, Apple now wants to make people angry at the DSA for not being able to play with the cool new AI toys they have built. If you buy their iPhones, you should also eat their broccoli salad ... I mean ... buy apps in their app store. If you want to buy from the competition, you don't get any AI meatballs. And you know the most perverse thing about this? The new AI features are only announced for their most expensive iPhone. This is not going to effect many people at all. It's mainly going to effect rich people. That's why there's probably not going to be that much outrage about it. Apple doesn't really want a lot of outrage, because that would get in the way of Europes elites lobbying against the DSA. Rich people tend to hold a lot of political power. It's a democracy, yes, but only if people care about what's going on. And who cares about rich people being angry about not getting their new toy? They picked the perfect timing as well. Right after the EU general election, attention has shifted away from the European parliament towards the European soccer cup.
That's what makes me so angry. It's a brilliant move. I'm afraid it might work, but I sure hope it doesn't. If only people were aware what Apple is doing. I really wish Europe's elites were like: "No. Screw you, Apple. We value our free markets higher than your stupid AI garbage." But I know this is probably a pipe dream.
I love my iPhone, but I love Europe a lot more. I wish it were the same for other people. What apple is doing is a direct attack against European values. It's a foreign actor trying to influence legislature. It's the result of an American company thinking they can turn everywhere into the USA. I've about had it with that. I wish we could stick it to them. I wish this would majorly backfire for them. But this is only possible if people become aware of what's happening. If we could create the outrage that Apple doesn't want to have.
It's moments like these where I'm really sad that so few people read my blog. I can't really do anything, apart from blogging about it. But if you are reading this *please* make others aware of it. I don't care if you refer them here or if you just pretend it's your own ideas. I don't need attention. I don't need exposure. But the things I write about sometimes do.
