Posted by sandwichsphinx 10/23/2024
The Photos app has been so deeply integrated into the OS it’s almost difficult to imagine it not being there.
Not that I would mind, I recently switched to Android so I can rsync my .dng files around, thankyouverymuch.
Edit: I was incorrect. Booking.com, based in the EU, was added earlier this year. See below
Not true. Booking.com is also designated as a gatekeeper and is based in the Netherlands. Yeah, they're the only one, but there are only seven designated gatekeepers total.
Though I would note that Booking.com are a subsidiary of an American company, Booking.
Good point, yes. They were sold to Priceline.com in 2005 which has since renamed to Booking Holdings. However, they were founded in the Netherlands, are still based there (unlike their American parent company), and are still a major tech employer there. They’re European enough for this particular discussion.
I'm not surprised though. Whenever companies are "forced" to abide by California's more stringent regulations (such as with cars), I always see Americans bitch and moan about how unfair it is. Instead of trying to improve things, some of you just don't seem to care about anything except the bottomline of some billion dollar corporation.
It's weird and disturbing.
In that vein... https://www.wfae.org/energy-environment/2024-04-12/florida-b...
When the US was making leaps in technological and computing advancements around the 60s, one third of Europe was under the iron curtain and its economic stagnation. The other two thirds had just about finished rebuilding their infrastructure and amenities after World War 2.
The Marshall Plan led to the establishment of very strong trade relationships between the US and Europe, and it was a time of economic boom in the US. The Cold War led to technological advancements in computing, communication, and aerospace, where the US government funded much tech the like ARPANET to stay ahead of the Soviets in all these fields.
You take a stable business environment not disrupted by world wars, a government showering businesses with free hand-me-down technologies, and a huge economic boom fuelled by a whole continent of people suddenly looking to buy your products (some of which are computers), and you get Silicon Valley just a decade later.
When Woz was tinkering on the first Apple computers with Jobs, their peers in East Germany were looking for ways to go around the Berlin Wall. The economic circumstances and business opportunities couldn't have been more different.
Believe it or not, in the 1970s and 80s when Apple and Microsoft were born, Europe didn't have many of the consumer rights protections that it has today. It was largely focused on protecting its people from the USSR. In many European countries, consumer rights came into political focus only in the last 20 or so years.
Today things are different. European Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft all exist and I believe are incorporated in Ireland. These companies do a large portion of their business in Europe. And if you consider today's tech, EU is very competitive with the US. In fintech, Revolut, Klarna and Adyen have similar user numbers as US alternatives. In AI, Google DeepMind is and has always been a UK company, and Graphcore makes NVIDIA's specialised AI chips. In the EV space, you may have heard of Volkswagen, Porsche, Land Rover, etc. In the business environment, SAP dominates ERP worldwide. And in games, you may have heard of Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Arkane, Playground Games, and many other European companies. The list goes on and on.
The argument that Europe didn't form Silicon Valley post WW2 because of its current consumer protection laws is inane. Or that Europe doesn't have the same FANGMAN companies that operate in the US, or that it doesn't have strong tech competitors in the global space on the scale of FANGMAN. There were much larger forces at play than being able/not able to delete the App Store in the formation and development of tech hubs around the world.
Also:
https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2023/imy-issue...
But it’s also a token gesture. Wake me up when I can ACTUALLY sideload apps and it’s possible to use a synchronization service other than iCloud.
I can't understand why people feel the need to throw so much hate in reaction to this kind of announcement.
There isn't even the beginning of a reflection, just pure hate.
It's sad, really.
John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, is viciously anti-EU to the point he’s gone full looney.
A handful of days after Threads launched he called it “the most fun app of the year” or some nonsense, and made fun of people in the EU (this as DMA-related).
A few weeks ago I saw him compare the EU to Trump, only because some EU document had bolded words in a way he felt was haphazard.
Every time I’m faced with one his posts, the replies are now full of the “old man yells at cloud” image.
https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
...maybe too pro-consumer. Also the lack of a Google or Facebook etc is more of a result of it being harder to gain a critical mass of users. A social media company started in Poland would struggle to deal with the cultural and language differences with Holland. A more homogenous society such as the US doesn't have that issue.