> The interoperability solutions for third parties will have to be equally effective to those available to Apple and must not require more cumbersome system settings or additional user friction. All features on Apple will have to make available to third parties any new functionalities of the listed features once they become available to Apple.
Apple is saying, "We designed our API in a way that requires trusted headphones as part of the privacy model, and DMA would force us to give everyone access to that API."
What goes unstated is that trusted headphones aren't necessary for the feature and a company trying to meaningfully comply with the spirit of the DMA probably would have chosen to implement the API differently.
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/questions-and-answe...
> Live Translation with AirPods uses Apple Intelligence to let Apple users communicate across languages. Bringing a sophisticated feature like this to other devices creates challenges that take time to solve. For example, we designed Live Translation so that our users’ conversations stay private — they’re processed on device and are never accessible to Apple — and our teams are doing additional engineering work to make sure they won’t be exposed to other companies or developers either.
We know it isn't necessary because Apple believes it is possible and are working on it. That's a pretty good indication that Airpods and their associated stack are currently being treated differently for a feature which fundamentally boils down to streaming audio to and from the headphones. It's not even clear how 'securing' live translated audio is any different from 'securing' a FaceTime call in your native language. I think a reasonable reading sans more technical information from Apple is that they give Airpods more data and control over the device than is necessary, and they want us to be mad at the DMA for forcing them to fix it.
I see three possibilities. Either the whole thing is made up entirely by Apple for bad faith reasons. Or some non-technical person with bad faith motivations at Apple suffered from some internal misunderstanding. Or somebody at Apple made some incredibly bad technical decisions.
Basically, there's no way that this isn't a screw up by somebody at Apple in some form. We just can't say which it is without additional information.
Apple said what they said. It wasn't a mistake. It was attempted deception.
But Apple could instead have a sandbox that has no Internet access or other ability to exfiltrate anything, and Apple could make a serious effort to reduce or eliminate side channels that might allow a cooperating malicious app to collect and exfiltrate data from the translation sandbox. Everyone, including users of the first-party system, would win.
Maybe not the way Apple is doing it is my guess. Apple can bypass security concerns for Apple itself since they know they aren't doing anything malicious.
I love Apple and would love better integration with other headsets, but I have a feeling none of us have the full picture.
In the same way, the EU could ask manufacturers of wireless headphones to open up and homologise their proprietary “APIs” with which they communicate with the other earpiece so you can mix&match single earpieces from different manufacturers.
Why shouldn't they share those APIs?
Or whatever other shady company wants to make headphones that sell for dirt-cheap in order to get their private spy devices into people's homes and offices.
I'm personally a bit on the fence about whether I think this is a sufficient concern to justify what Apple's doing, but AIUI this is the gist of their objection.
Apps on the app store are held to a high standard for privacy, security, and content because nothing is more important than maintaining users' trust.
Example: iCloud photos backup can upload a photo to iCloud in the background immediately after it was taken. Competing cloud storage providers cannot do this[1], because Apple withholds the API for that. Of course they're saying this is for "privacy" or for "energy saving" or whatever, but the actual reason is of course to make the user experience with competing services deliberately worse, so that people choose iCloud over something else.
[1] There is some weird tricks with notifications and location triggers that apps like Nextcloud or Immich go through to make this work at least somewhat but those are hacks and it's also not reliable.
Which makes Google Photos so much more impressive because it's heads above iCloud in this regard. No idea how they do that, pure magic.
So, I'm a user who's looking to buy some headphones. Why can't I buy any headphones that offer live translation functionality except Apple's?
I don't think it's beyond the pale to argue that some shady headphone company could throw a cell modem into a set of over-the-ear headphones to exfiltrate audio. I just can't see the business case for it, even considering shadier business cases.
Wait until third parties "require" an app to be installed, and the headphones send audio as data to the app instead of calling itself a microphone, and the app then sends that data to wherever you don't want it to.
Bose, for example, "requires" an app to be installed. For "updates", they tell you. Updates... to headphones...?!
The headphones work without the app, but the app is required for updates (the headphones have onboard software) and also if you want to manage the multipoint connection capability from your phone (which can be more convenient than doing it from the headphones and each device you want to connect to, but is not necessary to use the feature.)
I do not install vendor apps for BT peripherals, and have been through the QC and 700 series of headphones without using their app. Same for Google and Samsung BT earbuds.
Can you install an app and get updates for bugs or changes to equalizer, noise cancellation, or other features (wanted or unwantes)? Yes, but it is not required nor "required", whatever that means.
Is it FUD? It's fear, for sure. Uncertainly maybe. Doubt, not really.
An app that doesn't do that today is an app that could do that after an update tomorrow.
As for firmware... well the fact that something that just processes audio needs a firmware update demonstrates that the company isn't doing proper engineering. Proper engineering processes would be able to resolve just about anything with firmware before it gets released. Yes there "might" be bugs. No, those bugs shouldn't be severe. And regardless of proper engineering, a firmware that doesn't send telemetry back today is a firmware that could send telemetry after an update tomorrow.
So it is FUD? No. It's awareness of what's possible.
Apps get updated all the time, and most of the time the update is fine. That's not untrue. It doesn't change the fact that an app could be updated with new/additional telemetry. That's not untrue, either. Telemetry is nothing less than a data grab of my private information. What do I use, what do I do, where do I do it, blah blah. That's my data and no "business" has a right to it. That's also not untrue no matter what you think.
Headphones, wireless or not, should not "need" firmware updates. That's not untrue. If the device is not fit for use, then make a recall.
Bose has nice products. I've used several generations of QuietComfort headphones. But the fact remains that they offer an app for updates when it shouldn't be needed at all, and they strongly "request" that it's needed.
This sounds bogus right? If all the headphones can do is transmit audio via first party operating system features how is this creating a data privacy issue? How are headphones going to exfiltrate data unless they have their own Wi-Fi connection or application that can serve as a bridge? Just disallow both.