So one browser is bad on Windows 8 RT but not on iOS?

Bildquelle: Wikipedia

So Apple can do it with iOS but Microsoft can’t with Windows RT, despite the fact that the iPad and iPhone are selling tens of millions of units per quarter and there is yet to ship a single Windows RT device?

The market does not need Microsoft hindered in this way.

– John Gruber, asking the EU if they have their collective heads up their asses when it comes to browser choice on iOS vs. Windows RT

The answer is simple. As long as iPads are not considered „computers“, the EU won’t regulate them.

On top of that the other „problem“ is that iOS doesn’t have a monopoly. And it isn’t even close. If we consider tablets to take up 20% of the PC-Market, and iPads 80% of those 20%, then iPads (iOS) only hold 16% of the whole PC market.

Microsoft on the other hand hold 90% of the 80% of the rest of the market – meaning they install their OS on 72% of the market’s computers.

Thirdly, Windows RT isn’t a clear cut „tablet OS“ because it also comes in a „Pro“ flavor, meaning in its „Pro“ variety it will be installed on machines that will cost and have the parts that currently make up „regular“ PCs/Notebooks.

It’s not really that hard to understand why the European Commission has a hard time distinguishing between a new device with a non-monopoly share of the PC market and a new iteration of a desktop OS that many critics consider to be not really made for touch based input (see the Office 2013 preview postings all over the net).

And even if so – it seems kind of schizophrenic when on the one hand you want the EU to regulate Apple into offering a browser/mail app choice and on the other hand you think that Apple sitting in fancy restaurant back rooms with 90% of the publishers of eBooks is something that should NOT be regulated.

Either regulate them all or don’t regulate them, but don’t pick-and-choose.