> In this case, it's apple doing the untoward thing, by artificially limiting users' devices, seemingly only for anticompetitive reasons.
Not really. They are complying by not offering features that would be considered anti-competitive. It’s not untoward, it’s just following their interpretation of the law. We obviously don’t know the discussions between Apple and the EC, but in public it’s American nerds who are complaining that the EU is bad.
The iOS feature is not anti-competitive, it is apple's choice to artificially restrict the feature if you use non-apple earbuds which is anti-competitive.
It is my understanding that this is what apple has chosen to do in areas where this iOS feature is available. Is that not the case?