Apple's proposed App Store and iOS changes seek to retain as much control over iOS as possible while staying within the letter of the EU's DMA
Daring FireballJohn Gruber
Context & Ripple Effects
This is an early test of how Apple would answer the EU’s Digital Markets Act without abandoning the control model at the center of iOS distribution. The immediate coverage divided between a view that Apple had navigated the law effectively and criticism that its new EU distribution terms did not provide fair, reasonable commissions.
The dispute did not end with the initial proposal: Meta and Microsoft later urged EU regulators to reject Apple’s approach as insufficient. That makes the story less about a one-time policy update than about whether formal compliance produces genuinely contestable access to iOS.
First-order effects
Apple must alter App Store and iOS rules for the EU while preserving as much of its existing oversight and commercial control as the DMA permits.
EU developers and prospective distribution partners must evaluate the proposed terms to determine whether the new routes meaningfully improve their ability to reach iOS users.
Second-order effects
The proposal invites enforcement scrutiny and gives large platform rivals and developer advocates a concrete framework to challenge, rather than merely criticize, Apple’s DMA compliance.
If the terms make alternatives costly or operationally constrained, competing app-distribution and payment options may struggle to gain traction despite being formally available.
Third-order effects
DMA enforcement is likely to shift from requiring nominal choices to judging the economic and practical conditions attached to those choices, including fees, rules, and access to users.
This is part of a broader contest over whether platform regulation can make gatekeepers contestable without eliminating the security, review, and governance systems they use to control access.
The trend: European platform regulation is moving from opening formal access channels to testing whether gatekeepers’ surrounding commercial terms leave those channels viable.
This is the short version: 5,000 words. A whole column's-worth of footnotes alone (873 words). Good thing I have a nice keyboard. https://daringfireball.net/...
A lot of people on this (and other) web sites are: * working at companies that either compete with Apple or *think* they compete with Apple * super-fluent in technology and believe that everything that computes should a general purpose computer They're not normal people.
Read this entire piece, wow, this had to be a pain to write, John. I don't understand a lot of how this will all play out but the final paragraph is indeed delicious irony. — Craig submitted iPulse for iOS to the App Store yesterday and we honestly have NO IDEA if it will pass…
The one thing that the EU may *really* get as a result of Apple's new DMA rules is native iPhone porn apps, requiring at least one iPhone porn app store. I'm not kidding you! This is real, though obviously not the victory for the EU and its citizens that @Andreas_Schwab and his..…
Apple's response to the DMA by charging a €0.50 per install fee to “protect users” from 3rd party app stores is as self serving as its app tracking transparency changes for “privacy”. The key difference is that there isn't a convenient villain like Facebook for 3rd party stores
Very concerning [Reply to Daniel Ek Jan 27 tweet:...While Apple has behaved badly for years, what they did yesterday represents a new low, even for them...]
Building Under Regulation // An in-depth essay on the EU Digital Markets Act focusing on Apple and compliance, supported by some history I experienced being regulated. Once reading there was a “browser ballot” I admit I was triggered into writing lots.
DMA is not pro-consumer It's anti big business Those tend to coincide sometimes, which makes it an easy sell for the general public, but do actually read the DMA, it's quite interesting
If Apple's stranglehold on app distribution is so terrible for everyone, what is preventing a new entrant from building a new phone with an open store and dominating the market?