The European Commission is going through Apple’s OSes feature by feature, with the help of interested parties and industry collaboration, and deciding where the API lines should be drawn. It’s absolutely fascinating.
And remember, Apple brought all of this on itself through its years of misconduct and inability to follow the law.
Don't miss the 30 pages of proposed specs in the PDFs here (summarized in screenshots here; no alt-text, follow through to original link): https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/dma100203-consultation-proposed-measures-interoperability-between-apples-ios-operating-system-and_en
How granular is this stuff?
"If Apple presents end users of [3rd-party apps] with a choice regarding the level of background execution capabilities or background connection to a connected physical device, it must present the same choice in the same manner, including regarding time, place, and cadence, to end users of Apple’s connected physical devices. Apple may only present end users with a specific choice […] if Apple implements and offers this choice for its own connected physical device.”
“Apple shall implement the measures above in the next major iOS release, and in any case by the end of 2025 at the latest.”
"Apple shall provide a protocol specification that gives third parties all information required to integrate, access, and control the AirDrop protocol within an application or service (including as part of the operating system) running on a third-party connected physical device in order to allow these applications and services to send files to, and receive files from, an iOS device.”
"For future functionalities of or updates to the AirDrop feature, Apple shall make them available to third parties no later than at the time they are made available to any Apple connected physical device.”
"Apple shall make available the possibility for a third-party connected physical device to become an AirPlay receiver, i.e., allowing the iOS device to cast content to a receiving third-party connected physical device, to all interested third parties independently of the product category, for video, audio, and screen mirroring”
Re AirPlay and Chromecast et al
"Centralised availability: Apple shall allow third-party casting providers to centrally provide their casting solution on iOS, e.g., through an extension, such that end users who install the casting solution can access the third-party casting provider in any third-party app that uses standard media playback APIs without the need for the third-party app developer to integrate an SDK in their applications.”
"For the purpose of ensuring that effective interoperability continues in the future, third parties must also have access to any future feature functionalities and updates of the media casting feature insofar and as soon as they are available to Apple’s AirPlay. For example, if Apple updates AirPlay to stream video at higher resolution, or to allow end users to initiate screen mirroring via an AI assistant, these updates should be made available to third parties as well.”
Again 2025 deadline
"Apple shall not impose any restrictions on the type or use case of the software application and connected physical device that can access or makeuse of the features listed in this Document.
Apple shall not undermine effective interoperability with the 11 features set out in this Document by behaviour of a technical nature. In particular, Apple shall actively take all the necessary actions to allow effective interoperability with these features.”
"Apple shall not impose any contractual or commercial restrictions that would be opaque, unfair, unreasonable, or discriminatory towards third parties or otherwise defeat the purpose of enabling effective interoperability. In particular, Apple shall not restrict business users, directly or indirectly, to make use of any interoperability solution in their existing apps via an automatic update.”
EC having to legislate around Apple's poison pills, which is wild. Apple is that untrustworthy
My takeaways from the proposal: the EC is prepared to go into detail on specific features, mandate various avenues of interoperability and APIs required, ensure that Apple can't make them burdensome in implementation or by policy, set a concrete timeframe for the changes to be made (i.e. by next release of iOS), and ensure that Apple can't pull the rug out from under these APIs in the future or self-preference for new or unannounced devices. All the proposals are great, necessary changes
@stroughtonsmith My takeaway is that this is a list of features that, if this proposal is enacted as written (which I believe to be a huge "if”, given the regime changes on both sides of the pond) will no longer be available to EU users at the end of 2025.
@gruber @stroughtonsmith Wouldn't it kill their sales in the EU if they remove all those features?
@jramskov @gruber @stroughtonsmith Suppose their sales go down 15 to 20%. The EU is what — 7% of their global market? That would be maybe a 1% sales hit. 1% is a bummer but the opportunity cost of keeping those features could be considerable.
Put another way, would you dedicate 20% of your engineering staff to save 1% of your sales? Perhaps not.
@bouncing @gruber @stroughtonsmith I could see it becoming more than that. There might be many side effects of such a decision. Companies might stop making apps for Apple's platforms or only spend the minimal amount of effort. Slowly, the user experience of Apple devices would get worse and hurt Apple sales worldwide.
@jramskov @gruber @stroughtonsmith The same is true in reverse though; if there are too many “browser ballot” type user experiences, fewer people will buy iPhones and the ecosystem suffers. I could see an “AirDrop ballet” doing the same.
@bouncing @gruber @stroughtonsmith You imply that these requirements will all make the the products worse. They might just as well make the products better :) For instance, I think the USB-C requirement has made life as an Apple user better.
@jramskov @gruber @stroughtonsmith USB C is definitely an improvement. But the browser ballot is definitely worse.
There are good ideas and bad ideas.
@bouncing @jramskov @stroughtonsmith iPhones was switching to USB-C anyway. Wasn’t thanks to EU legislation. iPad started switching in like 2018.
@gruber @bouncing @stroughtonsmith I’m not convinced Apple would have switched by now - they argued a lot against it. Why would they do that if they were going to switch?
At least that seems strange to me, but I’m not a strategy mastermind
@jramskov @bouncing @stroughtonsmith Apple was very clear in their argument, and they remain opposed to the mandate: it’s about the future, when they might come up with something better than USB-C.
@gruber @bouncing @stroughtonsmith They also argued about all the existing kables that would become waste. I understand they want to control everything, but standards are generally a good thing and makes for a better experience for everyone. if they come up with a great new standard, it should be a new open standard that replaces USB-C for everyone.