The fever dreams here of getting the US Congress to break up / force to open / regulate one of its darlings is surreal.
Not only is it politically and legally highly dubious (listen to the judge in the Epic case , she can barely contain her contempt for Epic’s line of argument), it will cause far more problems than it solves.
Solution 3, the most common solution available and that has a 100% track record: the market changes. People build new things, people buy different things. They don’t necessarily stop buying iPhones, but it becomes less important.
Case in point, Microsoft retains a PC monopoly with Windows. People still buy PCs. But no one really cares that much.
The smartphone App Store market is barely a decade old and we are ready to treat it like a utility to be enshrined for 50 years. It took decades to regulate electrical generation vs distribution. It also didn’t really “open things up”, it just enshrined the existing players as the standards.
The only pipe dream here is that the government will somehow force Apple to run other people’s App Store software on their devices, and remove any curation ability. Considering that curation and integration is what Customers actually want, I don’t see how any government enacts this in the consumer interests. It’s only in the interests of other vendors.
At best it would be an independent App Store approval process regulated by the government.
It absolutely is regulation. The vast majority of computers dating back to the 1960s didn’t allow you to install anything you wanted on them (if you wanted support!). My network switches (outside of merchant silicon) don’t allow it. The game consoles don’t allow it. My in-car computer doesn’t allow it.
The Personal Computer with its tinkerer and hobbyists roots is the exception. I think tinkering is great. But I also think it’s legitimate for a user to trust their device can’t be tinkered with.
The restrictions of the iPhone are a feature. Getting rid of them is getting rid of one of the main drivers for its success. I think forcing Apple to allow jailbreaks without blocks is legit, as it allows for tinkering. But that’s not generally what people have in mind: they want the full Apple experience except Apple can’t set the rules anymore, but retain all the responsibilities for support.
Let’s also be clear - if I was a software developer, I can download and install my own software on my iPhone - without jailbreak! - today, without the App Store, and without Apple review, using ad hoc distribution. So personal software install and tinkering has never never been the issue.
This is about ISVs that want to force apple to lower their security restrictions so their 3rd party stores can curate and sell whatever they want, and Apple still has to support everyone.
This is not going to happen by the EU or US governmentS. At best they might regulate the App store process. But governments won’t cross customers and customers will en masse object to a Wild West experience like the PC.
I do appreciate computers that don’t have restrictions, but I don’t want or need that in my phone. If you do, then go ahead and buy one that acts that way. The happy iPhone users will continue to live in their walled garden.
It has been 30 years, but there are FCC technical rules for consumer radio's. There are specific rules for channel requirements. Includes the ability to receive on all defined channels in the alloted band.
The comment about banning single channel radio's was from an old ham radio book. If you think about it an old school AM radio that works on a single channel can be made really cheaply. I think you only need one tube and a couple of components.
If you look online you don't see anything about technical requirements. But you do notice that historically the FCC has had a serious bug up it's butt about making sure no one could buy up all the stations in an area. So you can imagine what the old FCC thought about radio stations selling radio's that can't pick up their competitors stations.
