* this turns out a lot less exiting than people want it to be
* a lot of companies are just going to leave the EU market
I don’t think Apple is going to produce a Fairphone, and combined with the charger meddling and the App Store meddling I expect them to draw a line in the sand sooner or later.
And then we will just all import them from the UK, just like before the iPhone was even sold in mainland Europe.
The EU market is one of the biggest in the world, and the second largest 1st world market after the US. Not even Apple can afford to drop that market, they are beholden to shareholders after all.
Also, comparing this to 2007, when basically no-one had a smartphone, to now where every one and their dog have a smartphone in their pocket doesn't make a lot of sense.
If you consider Europe (not the EU by the way) a market, and China, Japan and the rest of Asia separate markets, yes.
But Apple can definitely afford to drop that market, they make their own rules and everyone that invests in them knows it and has been reaping the rewards for decades. And if everyone imports the phones through the UK it’s not like they are completely dropping it anyway.
They’ve threatened to leave a market before, if conditions are such they can’t work:
There is a zero percent chance Apple shareholders would allow dropping the second most important market, that's just delusional. Apple is a public company, what argument would they bring during the shareholder call? "We don't like that the EU forces us to make batteries replaceable, so we only sell via the UK now" - does that seem like something that would go over well to you?
And in regards to your link: as much as some of the UK would like to believe otherwise, the EU is a significantly more massive market.
No the argument would be: ‘we can’t sell the products we want to make in this market, so we’re not going to.’ This isn’t some kindergarten ego fight, it’s about Apple making the products they make and not being forced into making products that are not Apple.
If Apple shareholder calls worked like you think we would have all these things every know it all pundit has been demanding for a decade. But we don’t. Because shareholders know and trust that generally Apple does know better.
In reality however, Apple complies with a variety of government regulations already, around radio, power consumption, safety, and so on. This new battery regulation is just one more of those, and just like before, Apple will adhere to it. Why? Because Apple and the shareholders like making money a whole lot more than not making money.
* this turns out a lot less exiting than people want it to be
* a lot of companies are just going to leave the EU market
I don’t think Apple is going to produce a Fairphone, and combined with the charger meddling and the App Store meddling I expect them to draw a line in the sand sooner or later.
And then we will just all import them from the UK, just like before the iPhone was even sold in mainland Europe.