[HN Gopher] The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now...
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The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can
support AirDrop
Author : cyclecount
Score : 140 points
Date : 2025-11-26 21:25 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| k310 wrote:
| I'll be happy when Airdrop works reliably on Apple equipment.
|
| It can't reliably work between two adjacent rooms in my home
| without arm-waving.
|
| A hundred or thousand mile trip through iCloud works tons better.
| MBCook wrote:
| So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor
| of... a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to
| replace their proprietary thing.
|
| Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Apple was forced to upstream the standard because the writing
| was on the wall so may as well preempt it.
|
| It'd also a benefit for Apple, since once upstreamed it shares
| the maintenance burden across all participants.
| usrnm wrote:
| Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they
| still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones.
| There is no contradiction here
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies
| responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no
| longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely
| that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same
| schedule even if the EU didn't intercede.
|
| To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and
| computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else
| -- and had moved their iPad Pros and Air to USB-C, building
| out the accessory set supporting the same, years before the
| EU decree. Pretty convenient when they get to blame the EU
| for their smartphones making the utterly inevitable move.
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| It's conceivably politically incorrect to use this
| reference, but Apple was begging the EU not to throw them
| into that briar patch.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections --
| basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved
| on. Their resistance was laughably superficial
|
| Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy
| company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are
| a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an
| Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and
| for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C,
| which they were already almost completely done doing.
| gambiting wrote:
| >> which they were already almost completely done doing
|
| Honest question - why did they stick with lighting on
| iphones for so long, given that usb-c has been ubiquitus
| on phones for years before that point. I mean we can sit
| here and say "duh apple was going to do it anyway" but
| like.....why didn't they? Why did samsung have usb-c
| phones long before apple?
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Apple's resistance was presumably user inertia. Users had
| billions of cables and accessories for lightning, and
| Apple saw during a prior transition that people get
| really pissed off about this sort of change.
|
| And let's be real about Samsung et al -- before USB-C,
| they were using the utter dogshit micro USB connector
| (funfact -- this terrible connector became prevalent
| because the EU made a voluntary commitment with
| manufacturers to adopt it). micro-USB is a horrible
| connector from a user-experience and reliability
| perspective. USB-C was a massive, massive upgrade for
| those users.
|
| In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional,
| reliable connector. Even today to most Apple users the
| switch from lightning to USB-C was just a sideways move.
| frizlab wrote:
| Absolutely. It is excessively obvious and I don't
| understand how not much more of a common take that is.
| icehawk wrote:
| People spent a whole decade complaining about the iPod dock
| -> Lightning change.
|
| I'd wait to blame the EU also.
| ricw wrote:
| Apple probably wouldn't have changed to usbc for their
| phones. Lightning was a mobile phone / other development,
| whilst usbc and its contributions came from their Mac
| department.
|
| They did not like each others standards. I know Apple
| engineers working on the phone who dislike the change even
| up to this day...
| ebbi wrote:
| Did they give reasons for why they don't like the change?
| giantrobot wrote:
| USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device
| plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The
| female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile
| center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which
| makes it more robust and easier to clean.
| KK7NIL wrote:
| > USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device
| plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime.
|
| USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you
| have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for
| more cycles than that?
|
| > The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively
| fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite
| which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
|
| This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well
| argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of
| exposed and so is more durable.
|
| Unless you have some empirical evidence on this I don't
| see a strong argument for better durability from either
| connector.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| "I know Apple engineers working on the phone"
|
| Groan. Come on. Cite one. A single "Apple engineer" to
| support this ridiculous claim of insider knowledge. What
| year do you think it is?
|
| You understand that the SoC and I/O blocks are largely
| shared between the Mac and the iPad / iPhone now, right?
| This invention of some big bifurcation is not reality
| based. The A14 SoC (which became the foundation for the
| Mac's M1) had I/O hardware to support USB-C all the ways
| back to the iPhone 12. Which makes sense as this chipset
| was used in iPads that came with USB-C.
|
| Pretty weird for hardware that is largely the same to
| "not like each others standards".
| CharlesW wrote:
| The EU: Sacrificing constituents' privacy rights with one hand,
| while courageously fighting for the sacred right to AirDrop
| with the other.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Don't worry, the United States is always eager to prove that
| you can neglect _both_ consumer rights and user privacy at
| the same time.
| CharlesW wrote:
| This wasn't a "meanwhile, the U.S. is good" post. Let's
| hope this massive AirDrop "win" eases the sting of the
| rights that the EU is eroding.
| bigyabai wrote:
| I don't think it was an _anything_ post. You are an Apple
| customer upset at the status quo, which is
| understandable, but your post is not.
|
| If "think of the children" feels like manufactured
| consent for the erosion of rights, spending money
| supporting Tim "Client Side Scanning" Cook isn't going to
| yield some moral reprisal from Apple. Emotionally
| manipulating you into accepting conditional surveillance
| is part of Apple's security model. They're the "good
| guys" and they don't need to prove it.
| concinds wrote:
| The national governments are to blame, not the EU.
| lysace wrote:
| The headline is 100% correct.
| joejohnson wrote:
| I wonder if it's related to Apple's change from AWDL to Wi-Fi
| Aware, but AirDrop seems much more reliable on iOS 26. I can send
| to multiple people at once and they often all succeed, but most
| importantly, if one transfer fails or is cancelled, I can retry
| and it works. In older versions of iOS, a failed transfer seemed
| to block all future attempts until the phone was restarted.
| fragmede wrote:
| the weird one for me is that if I hit share, and then hit the
| airdrop target, it doesn't work, but if go into airdrop and
| then select the same target, then works. Apple, fix your shit,
| yo.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| Have you tried the NFC-bumping the tops of the iPhones together
| yet? So far I've had superb success rate on iOS18.
| star-glider wrote:
| I'm libertarian, but I have to say watching the EU torment Apple
| has been delightful and one of the stronger arguments for
| muscular regulatory action.
|
| The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple
| basically nothing---maybe a few million/year of profit, which for
| a company that's worth $3 trillion is nothing, and it made my and
| many other people's lives quite a bit more convenient.
|
| Same with this Airdrop thing, and same with RCS (although there's
| some reporting that RCS had more to do with China than the EU).
|
| Eventually, someone is going to break open iMessage, and poor
| Apple will actually have to compete again for customers. Maybe
| they'll innovate something more interesting than Airpods Ultra
| Mega Pro Max or a thinner phone.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| You're a libertarian but regulatory intervention made
| everything about the market better and a better world for
| everyone involved with a relatively small change that was being
| stubbornly refused by a company for a small marginal benefit to
| themselves?
| CharlesW wrote:
| We call them "LINO"s.
| firefax wrote:
| Left libertarianism is compatible with such views.
|
| Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a
| preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a
| "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| Or... You know... We also like watching one giant
| corporation that benefits from distinctly authoritarian
| policies get wrecked by another authoritarian entity to the
| benefit of better competition in the market.
|
| But apparently unless you're a suckup to the authoritarian
| entity that you like is now a LINO.
| star-glider wrote:
| Bingo.
| star-glider wrote:
| Sure, because I think that, _ultimately_ excessive regulation
| stifles innovation. I mean, heck, the EU is looking to
| effectively dismantle GDPR because they 're worried that it's
| going to cause them to miss out on the AI boom.
|
| My point was just that Apple is such an outrageously bad
| actor (and the USB-C and Airdrop rules so beneficial) that
| these rules were getting even a very pro-market person like
| me to at least be open to the idea of regulating some of
| these out-of-control giants.
| GenerWork wrote:
| Your last paragraph doesn't really make you come off as a
| libertarian at all. If Apple is truly a bad actor, then the
| libertarian response isn't to have the EU force them to use
| USB-C on iPhones, it's for people to move away from iPhones
| to other choices, which means Androids.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| Apple made major contributions to USB-C and adopted it a decade
| ago in their MacBooks. They were committed to lightning for 10
| years starting in 2012-ish, so usb-c was likely inevitable in
| iOS devices.
|
| However I would preferred a backwards compatibility lightning
| 2.0 upgrade. Cleaning a usb-c port is a huge pain and they are
| more prone to pocket lint clogging than lightning.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Plastic dental picks work great for cleaning USB-C ports.
| ebbi wrote:
| While I really like the convenience of not having multiple
| different cables to charge my devices when travelling, I
| agree with you on cleaning the usb-c port. In that respect,
| the lightning design was a lot more elegant and made more
| sense for a pocketable device.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The usb C to hdmi adapter is 100x less reliable than the
| lightning to hdmi adapter (having talked to many that used
| both).
|
| Not sure why that is, but something to ponder.
| eastbound wrote:
| So what is it? Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple
| employees? It looks like the German model where unions co-manage
| the companies.
|
| On the paper it looks great, but the problem is the EU is not
| necessarily representing its citizens. It's great for my Apple
| products, but I'm also paying for an entire lavish class of
| superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by
| lobbies.
| lxgr wrote:
| > the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its
| citizens.
|
| Yes, EU citizens probably absolutely love not being able to
| conveniently share files between Android and iOS.
|
| > I'm also paying for an entire lavish class of superior
| citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
|
| What lobbies, in this particular case? Google? Samsung?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Will this help or hinder the CCP's strong arming of Apple to
| hinder airdrop?
| thinkindie wrote:
| > If I had to guess why neither of Google's Quick Share posts
| mentions Wi-Fi interoperability standards or the DMA, it may be
| because Google has been complaining about various aspects of the
| law and its enforcement since before it was even passed
|
| This is telling a lot about US companies complaining about EU
| laws.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
| IshKebab wrote:
| The DMA also forces them to have interoperable end-to-end
| encrypted group video call support in like 5 years or something
| insane. No idea how that's supposed to happen!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
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