Apple has announced that some features it recently announced at WWDC wonât be coming to the EU this year because of European regularions. Bloombergâs Samuel Stolton and Mark Gurman report:
Apple Inc. is withholding a raft of new technologies from hundreds of millions of consumers in the European Union, citing concerns posed by the blocâs regulatory attempts to rein in Big Tech.
The company announced Friday it would block the release of Apple Intelligence, iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing from users in the EU this year, because the Digital Markets Act allegedly forces it to downgrade the security of its products and services.
For shipping features, Apple needed to amend them to get them to work in the EU. This is the first shot in a new phase of Appleâs battle with regulators: withholding some highly promoted features from the EU and blaming it on regulations.
Iâm curious if Apple intends to eventually ship the features, amended to work in the EU. This approach also gives Apple the opportunity to induce regulators to declare that Appleâs interpretation of the DMA is incorrect and that announced features arenât restricted and could be shipped.
The European Commission ultimately serves and reports to citizens of the EU, and this is Apple telling Europeans that under the DMA, they will not get some of Appleâs best new features. Instead of the DMA granting Europeans new features like third-party marketplaces, it will reframe the DMA as something that limits what they get. I donât know if thatâll make a difference in perception in the EU, but Appleâs going to give it a try.
