Comment by embedding-shape 2 days ago
Do they actually have a choice? Usually with laws and orders from the government, you can't do much than either go with the flow, try to lobby against it afterwards, or straight up refuse and leave the market. Considering Apple's ties to India, I feel like Apple is unlikely to leave, so that really only leaves Apple with the first; comply and complain.
Like any business Apple needs growth to satisfy the shareholders. New growth would come from India and China. Apple didn't leave China and neither it will leave India. India can and will survive without Apple. Though having it in the country would be good for optics.
The moment mobile companies locked down sideloading, ability to uninstall bundled software, etc., they made it impossible to argue techincally against bundled, uninstallable software from the government.
> Apple didn't leave China and neither it will leave India. India can and will survive without Apple
They can both survive without each other. But neither is going to break the arrangement without a lot of pain. They have mutual leverage with each other, and that becomes particularly material when one stops treating India as a monolith.
> India can and will survive without Apple. Though having it in the country would be good for optics
Most people aren't content with merely surviving.
> Most people aren't content with merely surviving.
I think you overestimate the importance of Apple to India. It is just a company. And actually not the biggest employer or most tax paying one either.
Apple is not the only vendor in India and has also not the most sold phone.
> you overestimate the importance of Apple to India. It is just a company
If New Delhi wants to smite Apple it obviously can. That isn’t the question. It’s if Apple can bargain for a better deal. I think the answer is yes.
The starting point would be finding the fault lines between the folks in India arguing for this policy and those who don’t care or are hostile to it.
Apple has built an entire alternative iMessage+iCloud setup in China to comply with government regulation. They also bowed to the UK's demands to disable E2EE backups.
They'll probably try to make the app as non-shitty as they possibly can, and will probably leverage all kinds of geographical restrictions and whatnot to isolate the impact of these changes, but when threatened with a large market share hit, Apple will comply.
Apple need India though. They’re moving a lot of their manufacturing there to derisk from a China.
Also, they gave in to the CCP and always say ‘we obey the laws of the countries in which we operate’.
Apple is, at the end of the day, just a business.
> Apple need India though. They’re moving a lot of their manufacturing there to derisk from a China
That creates obligations both ways. Put another way, Apple is an increasingly-major employer in India.
The real carrot New Delhi has is its growing middle class. The real carrot Apple has is its aspirational branding.
> they gave in to the CCP and always say ‘we obey the laws of the countries in which we operate'
Apple regularly negotiates and occasionally openly fights laws its disagrees with. This would be no different. Cupertino is anything but lazy and nihilistic. Mandated installation opens a door they've fought hard to keep shut because it carries global precedent.
I fear (Apple) will do something that allows the government to do what it wants (with a bit more work) without explicitly installing something.
For example, with the UK encryption debacle, Apple removed Advanced Data Protections (e2e encryption) for iCloud users in the UK. So users' notes, photos, emails are possibly open.
> fear will do something that allows the government to do what it wants (with a bit more work) without explicitly installing something
Why this isn’t being done at the SIM/baseband level is beyond me.
"Leave us alone or we'll cancel our plans and move somewhere else"
> Do they actually have a choice?
Yes. Apple's revenues are half as much as the government of India's [1][2]. That's a resource advantage that gives Cupertino real leverage against New Delhi.
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-reports-fourth-... $102.5bn / quarter
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... $827bn / year