Apple’s Thoughts on the DMA
The DMA requires Apple to make certain features work on non-Apple products and apps before we can share them with our users. Unfortunately, that requires a lot of engineering work, and it’s caused us to delay some new features in the EU:
- 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.
- iPhone Mirroring lets our users see and interact with their iPhone from their Mac, so they can seamlessly check their notifications, or drag and drop photos between devices. Our teams still have not found a secure way to bring this feature to non-Apple devices without putting all the data on a user’s iPhone at risk. And as a result, we have not been able to bring the feature to the EU.
- We’ve also had to delay useful features like Visited Places and Preferred Routes on Maps, which store location data on device so it’s only accessible to the user. So far, our teams haven’t found a way to share these capabilities with other developers without exposing our users’ locations — something we are not willing to do.
We’ve suggested changes to these features that would protect our users’ data, but so far, the European Commission has rejected our proposals.
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The DMA also isn’t helping European markets. Instead of competing by innovating, already successful companies are twisting the law to suit their own agendas — to collect more data from EU citizens, or to get Apple’s technology for free.
Some of Apple’s specific complaints above don’t make much sense to me. For example, with the Live Translation feature, are they against both using Live Translation with third-party earbuds and using third-party translation apps with AirPods? They seem to be saying that it’s not acceptable for a third-party app to have access to the same audio that Apple does, even if it’s kept on-device. And they don’t want third-parties using (potentially superior) online translation services, either. They don’t want any option besides AirPods with their model, even if the user approves of the privacy implications.
For iPhone Mirroring and Maps, they seem to be setting an impossible standard that they themselves don’t really meet. If your starting assumption is that it’s OK for Apple’s code to access the data, but not OK for anyone else’s to, obviously there’s never going to be a way for this to work. But I don’t think that’s what people are actually asking for. They know that, if they had iPhone Mirroring on Windows, the pixels from the iPhone screen would appear on non-Apple hardware. That is, in fact, the point. They’re already using third-party earbuds for their sensitive phone calls, even though in theory they could be nefariously sending the audio to other Bluetooth devices.
I find the way Apple is communicating this really frustrating. It reads like either a bad faith smokescreen or that something got lost in the translation between engineering and marketing. I would have a lot more respect if they just said that DMA compliance is too slow or too expensive or that they don’t believe in interoperability. Instead, we get this nonsense where we’re supposed to believe that their teams are actively working on a way to share data without actually sharing data, but they haven’t quite cracked it yet.
Apple’s claim of “the same standard we provide in the rest of the world” rings somewhat hollow, given that it often adjusts its technology and services to comply with local laws. The company has made significant concessions to operate in China, doesn’t offer FaceTime in the United Arab Emirates, and removes apps from the still-functional Russian App Store at the Russian government’s request. Apple likely pushed back in less public ways in those countries, but in the EU, this public statement appears aimed at rallying its users and influencing the regulatory conversation.
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Ultimately, we’re witnessing a clash between two immense power structures—the European Union, a democratic federation of 27 countries representing 450 million people and the world’s third-largest economy—and Apple, one of the world’s most influential and valuable companies, with a market capitalization of about $3.7 trillion and roughly $100 billion in net income over the past 12 months.
Apple has called for the European Commission to repeal a swathe of technology legislation, warning that unless it is amended the company could stop shipping some products and services to the 27-country bloc.
William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele:
“Apple has simply contested every little bit of the DMA [Digital Markets Act] since its entry into application,” said Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier in a statement seen by Politico. “This undermines the company’s narrative of wanting to be fully cooperative with the Commission.”
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Significantly, Regnier also says that Apple has refused the European Commission’s attempts to have positive talks about complying with the DMA. That is the exact opposite of Apple’s claim that its proposals have been ignored.
“Despite our concerns with the DMA, teams across Apple are spending thousands of hours to bring new features to the European Union while meeting the law’s requirements. But it’s become clear that we can’t solve every problem the DMA creates,” the company said.
A European Commission spokesperson said it was normal that companies sometimes “need more time to make their products compliant” and that the commission was helping companies to do so.
“It’s been more than a year since the Digital Markets Act was implemented. Over that time, it’s become clear that the DMA is leading to a worse experience for Apple users in the EU. It’s exposing them to new risks, and disrupting the simple, seamless way their Apple products work together. And as new technologies come out, our European users’ Apple products will only fall further behind,” the company wrote.
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“Nothing in the DMA requires companies to lower their privacy standards, or their security standards. It is just about giving our users more choice, opening up the European market and allowing companies to compete on an equal footing,” Regnier added.
Previously:
- AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users
- Apple Appeals EU Digital Markets Act Interoperability Rules
- DMA Compliance: Watch and Headphone Interoperability
- Apple’s DMA Compliance Criticized
- Apple Settles Siri Spying Lawsuit
- Meta’s iOS Interoperability Requests
- App Store Search Queries Appear to Violate Data Minimization Practices
- EU iOS Envy
- Apple Intelligence Privacy Dark Patterns
- Apple Found in Breach of DMA
- No Apple Intelligence or iPhone Mirroring in EU at Launch
- Keeping Your Data From Apple Is Harder Than Expected
- DMA Compliance: Interoperability Requests
- Lawsuits Over Apple Analytics Switch
- EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C
- Apple’s Threat Analysis of Sideloading
Update (2025-09-26): Emma Roth:
Apple could soon improve the interoperability between iPhones and third-party smartwatches. The latest iOS 26.1 beta hints at a new “notification forwarding” feature that could surface iPhone notifications on a non-Apple device or accessory, as spotted by Macworld.
Yes, you heard it here: Apple says that the iPhone are essentially identical to Android.
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Threading the needle of “things Apple really should be doing to improve interoperability and competition” and “things that might have unforeseen consequences that actually fly in the face of the EU’s intentions” is a tricky proposition, and the mechanisms in place to challenge the rulings are, admittedly, restrictive.
I did not account for a cynical option: Apple is launching with these languages as leverage.
The way I read Apple’s press release is as a fundamental disagreement between the role each party believes it should play, particularly when it comes to user privacy. Apple seems to believe it is its responsibility to implement technical controls to fulfill its definition of privacy and, if that impacts competition and compatibility, too bad. E.U. regulators seem to believe it has policy protections for user privacy, and that users should get to decide how their private data is shared.
I’m starting to suspect Apple’s PR is a signal that they’re going to deliberately defy the DMA and hope for cover and pressure from the US President.
I think Apple structured this piece exactly right, by emphasizing first that the most direct effect of the DMA is that EU users are getting great features late — or never. And that list of features is only going to grow over time.
Apple says that the DMA “is not living up to those promises [of competition and choice]. In fact, it’s having some of the opposite effects[…]” but that’s ignoring its own role in the story. Instead of choosing to comply in a way that benefits its customers, Apple is focused on trying to make the DMA look bad. This reminds me of the Microsoft antitrust case, where Judge Jackson asked Microsoft to produce a version of Windows 95 that did not have Internet Explorer preinstalled. Microsoft chose to interpret this as a directive to remove all the shared libraries that IE used and concluded that compliance meant offering an OS couldn’t boot.
If Apple were to just switch the iPhone’s OS from iOS to Android, these DMA conflicts would all go away. Apple’s not going to do that, of course, but to me it’s a crystalizing way of looking at it.
Google actually made a similar argument on the same day, saying that the DMA is forcing them to put Android users at risk.
How in the world would that increase competition? iOS’s unique and exclusive features — which, yes, in many cases, are exclusive to the Apple device ecosystem — are competition.
This really is the crux of the dispute. Does a duopoly constitute competition? Imagine a culinary world where you can only choose between a Big Mac and a Whopper, and you’re not even allowed to go to both drive-throughs to combine the flame-grilled patty with the crispy fries.
I hope the EU forces Apple to allow users to install other operating systems on iPads and iPhones. Let people unlock the bootloader if they want to. Like sure keep it locked by default but let people unlock it if they want to. Old iDevices don’t have to be e-waste.
IMO if Apple’s worst, most egregious example of a harmful and dangerous app that’s now available through sideloading is checks notes porn…I think we’re doing OK
the pearl clutching is insane. have they seen the predatory stuff on the app store these days?
Update (2025-09-29): Nick Heer:
Like Apple, Google clearly wants this law to go away. It might say it “remain[s] committed to complying with the DMA” and that it “appreciate[s] the Commission’s consistent openness to regulatory dialogue”, but nobody is fooled. To its credit, Google posted the full response (PDF) it sent the Commission which, though clearly defensive, has less of a public relations sheen than either of the company’s press releases.
Cory Doctorow (2022):
If you think the future of technology is a battle is between Google’s approach and Apple’s, think again. The real fight is between the freedom to decide how technology works for you, and corporate control over technology.
Apple and Google are like the pigs and the men at the end of Animal Farm: supposed bitter enemies who turn out to be indistinguishable from one another. Google also has “privacy” switches in its preference panels that do nothing[…]
The specious defense of Apple’s iOS lockdown has two elements that ultimately come into conflict:
1. Apple has a right to do what it wants with its platform
2. If you don’t like Apple’s lockdown, just switch to Android
But following from 1:
3. Google has a right to do what it wants with its platform
“Vote with your feet” was never a good argument in a duopoly.
It depends too much on the magnanimity of the powerful, for which there is little incentive when there is little competition.
Cory Doctorow (Hacker News, Reddit):
Apple has threatened to stop selling iPhones and other devices in the European Union (home to over 500,000,000 affluent consumers) if the bloc doesn’t rescind the Digital Markets Act[…]
I’ve seen a bunch of articles stating this, but as far as I know Apple has not actually said or even really implied that its devices wouldn’t be available, just that certain features would be delayed or missing.
Apple’s latest PR bullshit about EU and DMA has been met with uniformly negative reaction in my circles. Apple is in a hole, imagewise, and keeps digging deeper.
Here’s what the Apple apologists don’t get. Apple has to comply with EU’s laws if they want to operate there. Apple keeps deflecting and framing the matter as, “But the DMA sucks and it’s hard to comply with”. The matter is, you have to follow the law. You’re not above the law. Technology should not be above the law.
The excuses are ridiculous. “We can’t do these technological changes you require! We’re a trillion-dollar big tech company with unlimited resources but these things are too hard!”
Apple thinks that removing the contested features is complying with the law. I see its statements as mostly as an attempt to change the law, which is entirely reasonable for them to lobby for, even though the strong spin is regrettable. There’s no doubt that the EU is asking Apple to do extra work, but Apple is acting like this is almost to the level of when it was asked to do the impossible—create a “secure golden key”—and I don’t think this is that.
Previously:
Update (2025-10-28): Alex Russell (via Hacker News):
The tech press is failing to grasp the moral stakes of API access. Again and again they flunk at connecting boring questions of who can write and distribute programs for phones to urgent issues of power over publication and control of devices. By declining to join these threads, they allow the unearned and increasingly indefensible power of mobile OS vendors to proliferate.
[…]
Instead of questioning why Apple’s OS is so fundamentally insecure that an App Store is necessary, they accept the ever-false idea that iOS has been relatively secure because of the App Store.
Instead of confronting Apple with the reality that it used the App Store to hand out privacy-invading APIs in undisciplined ways to unscrupulous actors, it congratulates Cupertino on the next episode of our nightly kayfabe. The links between Apple’s monopoly on sensitive APIs and the growth of monopolies in adjacent sectors are rarely, if ever, questioned. Far too often, the tech press accepts the narrative structure of Apple’s marketing, satisfying pangs of journalistic conscience with largely ineffectual discussions about specific features that will not upset the power balance.
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The most important story about smartphones for at least the past decade has been Cupertino’s suppression of the web, because that is a true threat to the App Store, and Apple’s power flows from the monopolies it braids together.
Apple’s services business is expected to hit $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time this year, reports the Financial Times.
Previously:
