To comply with the EU legislation, Apple pushes changes to its software, allowing for example side-loading of applicatons in iOS 17.4 and later. But, this change is only applied to iPhones resided in EU.
To comply with another legislation from the same EU, Apple has changed iPhone 15’s charger port to USB-C. But this one, they do on global scale. EVERY iPhone 15 has USB-C, EVERY iPhone from now on will have USB-C port.
Why does it worth the hassle to ship different software in different parts of the world, but not worth it to do the same with hardware?
In: Technology
Let’s say that the old iPhone chargers were better. Apple was making them at a cost, selling them with the phones for a profit. They now have to handle two different chargers, that creates complexity and costs in making the phones and will remove some of the profit on the chargers, because you’ll be able to buy USB-C chargers from other vendors… So basically higher costs, lower profits, they must have run the numbers and figured that the benefits of keeping some proprietary chargers was not profitable enough to justify the split.
On the other hand, when it comes to side loading applications, the cost of having two versions is fairly low, compared to the overall cost of making an OS. The code is made of conditions and exceptions just like this one so it’s not that big of a deal. On the other hand, it allows them to still control where apps are coming from in a big part of their markets, and lose that control in places where they are not allowed to anymore… The cost of the two options is fairly low, and they still profit from the apps coming from their stores.
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