And Apple is now saying "That's fine, we'll instead adhere to the law by having our product do less. Don't buy it if you don't like the reduced featureset."
Someone at Apple did math on this and it's not worth their time to make this feature interoperable just for the EU market. That's because of this law. They wouldn't have even considered it without the law.
Which is fine as well if that's really the case (which I don't think it is, Europe apparently makes up ~1/3 of Apple's total Airpods revenue).
If they refrain from distorting the market in their favor (and instead "retreat and rally up the userbase") the DMA seems to work surprisingly well so far...
The procedures with the EU are quite interesting here, Apple was exchanging extensively for more than a year on how to reach compliance, then the decision [0] was made.
There are also separate procedures for the specification of compliance and investigating (non)compliance.
This gives Apple little room to argue on violation of the DMA later-on, because they were actively involved in defining the criteria beforehand.
So it's possible that they currently just need to find a mode to achieve launch-parity for EU on such features, and they're not there yet.
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...
Saying that the DMA is working well by reducing the features available to users with no apparent upside is a tough sell.
Quite a few upsides.
There are a few clear precedents where Apple held a feature back in the EU, then shipped later and/or exposed a path others could plug into:
Apple Intelligence: Announced as “not at launch” in the EU in 2024, then rolled out to EU users with iOS 18.4 in spring 2025 (most features). One carve-out remains: Live Translation with AirPods
NFC access for third-party wallets (HCE): After an EU antitrust case, Apple committed to open iPhone NFC (“tap-to-pay”) via Host Card Emulation, let users set a default non-Apple wallet, support Field Detect/Double-click flows, etc., so a genuine “build a platform others can plug into.” The Commission made these commitments legally binding for 10 years.
With iOS 17.4 Apple created EU-only entitlements for non-WebKit engines (e.g., full Chromium/Gecko), so browser makers can ship their own engines on iPhone/iPad in the EU.
Home-screen web apps (PWAs) reversal: Apple initially said PWAs would go away in the EU for 17.4, then reversed and kept them—implemented on WebKit with the usual security model.
Alternative app distribution (marketplaces + web distribution): In response to the DMA, Apple shipped EU-only APIs/entitlements for third-party app marketplaces and later web distribution (direct from developer sites) with notarization, installation, backup/restore hooks, etc.
Tap to Pay on iPhone (SoftPOS): Apple’s merchant “no extra hardware” payments feature expanded across EU countries and is designed for platforms like Adyen/Stripe/Mollie to integrate via SDKs
The fact is adapting a service to provide and support a generic API for the long term that others can hook into is extra work, compared to a private API tailored to their own hardware and that they can change whenever they like. It may be they could provide this as an open service in future.
On the other hand, what is to prevent another ear bud manufacturer writing an iPhone app their ear buds connects to that provides translation? Is this really a hardware feature in the phone? If it’s just software at the phone end, as long as other manufacturers have the feature access to implement this themselves, surely that’s their problem? Why should apple offer translation software as a service to other companies for free? I can see the argument for hardware but not software that others could implement themselves on iPhones.
None of those are new features out since the DMA.
The only one clearly DMA related with EU specific unlocks are:
* app store
* browser engines
The DMA could have been just an app store regulation. It seems to have had its intended effect there. Very very unproven outside of it. At best you've shown no harm other than delay in some areas.
I'm assuming NFC lawsuits are separate from the DMA but could be mistaken. But in any event NFC payments already existed and aren't a new feature apple decided to release under the DMA.
This is a play of Apple here, trying to spin the narrative in its favor.
The upside for the user is to have a larger variety of devices to choose from, each with similar interoperability with his Apple device.
The upside for the market is that all vendors are technically able to compete on the same terms. Apple is not allowed to operate a market, invite others to compete but also participate as a player with preferential treatment.
This is already decided for the existing features of Airpods, Apple Watch, etc. Apple is trying to rally its userbase against the EU by withholding new features now, in hopes that they can secure their skewed playing-field
> The upside for the user is to have a larger variety of devices to choose from, each with similar interoperability with his Apple device.
That is the dream of the dma. It has not been proven to be the reality.
The reality could very well be that EU users just don’t get features. Apple doesn’t have to play ball.
And that’s fine. If they don’t want to follow the rules they can’t release the thingy.
The upside is that the market for headphones is more competitive because apple cannot use its control over the iphone to muscle competitors in the headphone market.
The goal is to make consumers better off, not just to have a competitive market. There's a lot of ways to make markets more competitive that don't result in better value for consumers, and I'd argue that this is one of them.
In the short term, specifically because of Apple's malicious compliance. In the long term, a more competitive market results in better off consumers.
But no, the goal is not to make consumers better off, but citizens and nations better off. And their interests do not stop at $PRODUCT. Namely, they probably don't want a slow slide into serfdom to foreign corporations that abused their market power.
> Which is fine as well if that's really the case (which I don't think it is, Europe apparently makes up ~1/3 of Apple's total Airpods revenue).
So your belief is that, if DMA didn't exist, Apple still would not ship this feature in the EU?
I don't know how you reached that conclusion, sorry.
It's fine if Apple decided to refrain from its anti-competitive behavior in the headphone market because it's not economically viable to have this feature as a generic OS feature.
They know best and are free to do that.
I find your views alien and strange (and vaguely upsetting, because they negatively impact the entire world)
There are huge hosts of software and hardware that work better because of an ecosystem of interoperable components. That’s not anticompetitive, it’s the benefit of good design with compounding returns.
As the manufacturing process and software becomes less complicated, there is a natural trend towards budget competitors (see: SaaS in 2025) that can replicate functionality they know has a market.
The idea that making it unappealing to make an integrated product is good for consumers — or anticompetitive — seems so wrong that it’s farcical. There are definitely cases where verticalization can harm consumers, but this opens the space for good competition. Perplexity wouldn’t exist if Google actually cared about search customers. Internet Explorer didn’t have to be regulated out of existence — by virtue of sucking, there is opportunity.
Apple is free to do as many interoperable components or integrated products as they please. The DMA doesn't define ANY such restriction.
What they CAN'T do is maintain an environment where their products cannot be met with fair competition by other players, by intentionally giving advantages in the ecosystem only to their own brands.
Apple might not dominate the market for fitness trackers above 150USD today if they wouldn't have prevented others to achieve the same interoperability with their iOS ecosystem.
Apples featureset for wellness tracking was not competitive, neither in function nor in price. Fitbit and Garmin were better in doing that task, but they were not able to display message notifications, apps, etc. because the required interfaces in iOS were only available to Apple's Watch.
Maybe Apple would have beaten them in 2nd Gen, maybe competitors would have followed with equally tight iOS-interoperability in 2nd Gen.
Maybe Apple Watch would nonetheless be the leading Smartwatch in the market today. Or maybe it would be e.g. the Moto360 (google it) just due to Apple's "virtue of sucking" and insistence of doing rectangular watches.
We don't know, because none of the other players are able to compete on fair terms with Apple in this segment until today. And today Apple has such a leap-start that it's questionable whether this can still be rectified.
> Someone at Apple did math on this and it's not worth their time to make this feature interoperable just for the EU market. That's because of this law
Let's not pretend like Apple isn't doing everything it can to turn its EU users against their government by complying with the DMA in the most obtuse, disruptive, and useless ways possible. They're risking fines and further punishments betting that they can ultimately subvert the democratic process that put in place laws that would require more developer and user freedom. To Apple, the threat of users owning their computers is an existential one.
If the consumers in EU don’t like the legal and predictable effects of the DMA in this case, how is Apple subverting the democratic process? If the act isn’t having the intended effect, then either voters will change their minds or it will need to be reformed. But this sounds like a successful outcome of the law insofar as preventing anticompetitive behavior.
Subverting democracy, to me, would involve things like dark money campaigns and lobbying.
> If the consumers in EU don’t like the legal and predictable effects of the DMA in this case, how is Apple subverting the democratic process
The issue is that Apple isn't following the law. It's breaking it and then miming to its customers that its actions are on account of the law. That misrepresentation is meant to convince citizens of the EU that DMA is a bad law with consequences they don't support so that they pressure their representatives to get it removed.
It's Apple making a big show of directly harming consumers as part of a misinformation campaign to get policy that limits their power repealed. To me that reaches the bar for subverting democracy.
It’s not breaking the law in this case as far as I know.
The law requires Apple to provide equal access to the iPhone hardware and software in marketplaces that it competes in.
That can be done in a manner that is either additive, by providing access to third parties (which is potentially a significant expense and liability) or subtractive, by choosing not to engage in the regulated activities at all, in that jurisdiction.
You're right that they're not breaking the law in this specific instance. I was referring to the many instances they've lost or are disputing in court, mainly around browser engines/JIT, their handling of default app screens, third party app distribution, extra fees, and mandatory app bundle signing.
In this case they're merely being obtuse by refusing to provide an API to other device manufacturers. Unless you genuinely believe that the cost/benefit analysis of adding a new feature to their OS dictates that they basically freeze development unless they're able to recoup costs by tying it to their accessories, then you must conclude that they made the live transcription API Apple-only, and therefore not DMA-compatible, only to make EU citizens feel like their laws were depriving them of new features.
An organization interested in good-faith compliance would expose their internal API surface with some vetting process for access by interested parties. Then as the API becomes stable they would open it up more broadly. If accused of being anti-competitive by restricting access they could easily and correctly argue that they were working with potential competitors on that stable and secure API, and that their actions balanced the interests of market competition and security.
Of course, Apple is not interested in good-faith compliance. It's my belief that they should be made an example of so that they and other companies running the math in the future decide that proactive and good-faith compliance with regulations is more cost-effective than attempting to fight them.
Proponents of EU competition law seem to be the most egregious version of “America isn’t the center of the world.” Why should international companies build products to align with regulation that has put the nail in the coffin of European innovation?
The DMA is barely past the toddler stage. I think it’s a bit premature to claim lids on coffins here.
It’s not just the DMA. The EU has been regulating innovation to death for decades.
Typical meme comment with zero substance. The DMA is a competition-promoting regulation which will breed innovation as long as it's properly enforced.
Inventing a substandard product and using your market dominance in one area to ensure that nobody can compete with your substandard product is as far detached from innovation as you can possibly be. One size fits all solution with centrally planned development where one person knows best and competition isn't considered a driver of progress, isn't that a very communism-shaped approach to "innovation"?
I'm not even joking here and it's bizarre that I'm having to promote the good parts of free market capitalism to someone who claims to care about innovation.
They don't have to, Apple is free to leave the market if they really don't think it's worth it.
That reminds me of Zukerberg's bluff saying he's going to leave the EU which lasted exactly one day.
How is it breaking the law?
They risk getting fines for not releasing a feature? The EU is insane
No, they're not risking fines that way. They are free to not bring such features to the EU-market which prevent a level playing ground for competition.
But they were found to have already skewed the market with several Apple-accessory-exclusive iOS-features in the past (Proximity pairing, Watch-integration, etc.) and for those they have to provide interoperability now.
They worked with the EU for a year now on how exactly they should reach compliance, then the ruling was made, ordering them to make such interoperability features also available to other brands than Apple.
Now it seems that they try to rally their userbase against that ruling, in hopes to create a political climate that gets the ruling revoked again...
It's more complicated then this. Apple is a big company with a lot of money - they're absolutely willing to burn millions in the pursuit of principle.
The reality is that, if Apple conforms non-maliciously, they're proving that the law is reasonable and they can do it while remaining profit. Um, that's a huge problem.
They require the plausible deniability of "oh we can't do this, it's too expensive!" Otherwise, other governments (US) might look to implementing similar laws. So, it's a long con. They're burning lots of money, now, with the hope it allows them to continue their anti-competitive behavior for longer. If they're REALLY lucky, they might even stall out the EU and get the EU to backtrack on their laws. That's the golden scenario.
We are anyway an Android market, so they only get to loose by behaving like a child.