USB C is all well and good, but…
How will Europe compete with AI if consumers don't even have access to the features of the biggest operating systems? That's what people are now asking themselves on social media after Apple has chosen to stop the rollout of not only new functions such as iPhone mirroring in macOS, but the entire "Apple Intelligence" AI platform in the EU. Norway should not be affected, but we reserve the right that this may change as this is news under development.
After all, these are the features that were meant to sell new iPhones, because only the iPhone 15 Pro and better support them. Apple, for its part, defends itself by saying that limiting Apple Intelligence only to the iPhone 15 Pro is not a sales gimmick for the reason that the AI system will also work on Macs and iPads with the M1 chip that was launched way back in November 2020. Perhaps, maybe not, but that question is a little on the side of the bigger picture about AI in the EU and Europe. It's about more than Apple.
Because now that Apple has chosen to stop the launch of more or less everything they announced at WWDC in the EU region this year, where coloring the home screen is the exception, it is difficult to see how this can continue in the EU's favor. Also, will EU citizens accept that they pay more for Apple products than Americans, and get much less functionality?
We don't know the details, but this is bad regardless
For one thing, consumers do not get access to functions, something that Windows users in the EU and Norway in relation to Copilot have been painfully aware of for a long time, but with such strict rules for AI, Europe is in danger of being technologically left behind if they not changing strategy. You probably remember our story about a little trick that was possible for a long time to pick up Copilot in the EU and Norway - well, now it doesn't matter anyway because Microsoft has chosen to make the Copilot app nothing more than a lousy PWA app that can no longer control Windows settings. It may therefore be that there are more companies than Apple that are nervous about EU fines...
The big question is, does Apple actually have to wait with the rollout of Apple AI and the other big features, or is it just a political ploy to get their customers in Europe to react to the EU? It's a possible theory, but I don't see it as very effective from Apple's point of view. I think this is more of a strategy to force the EU, at least in the long term, to change the DMA legislation to make it easier to launch AI platforms and features. I can't imagine anything other than Microsoft agreeing.
The fact that Microsoft has also had to wait with its AI functions in the EU indicates that there is something in the DMA legislation that is going to limit development, and therefore inhibit competition, for euro companies, and limit consumers and therefore private companies, its opportunity to innovate on a par with the US and China.
It seems to me that the EU has created a cobweb that they themselves and the consumers cannot now get out of without major changes to the current large-scale regulations that have just been launched, because even though it is nice to mandate USB C, this will impair the technological lead Europe would have had without such a law, and it is dangerous for everything from consumers to the world economy in perhaps the biggest revolution since the internet.