They want the EU to solve an issue they caused themselves by abstaining from complying with the law? How convenient. If there ever was a valid reason to designate Apple a gatekeeper, this kind of behavior is it.
It's a double edged sword. The problem is that there's a lot of bad actors out there. You know why Apple doesn't let companies get access to the raw camera data on the Vision? Because Meta is salivating at getting inside people's homes and being able to get even more data.
Some of us are able to navigate the minefield through a lot of hard won experience acquired over years if not decades. I lived through the J2ME era with compromised JARs, premium rate scams, carriers monopolizing things, and all the bullshit that came along with it. The App Store, for all its MANY faults basically solved all that for normal people in one fell swoop.
A lot of people aren't going to realize what they might be giving up until it's too late. Apple is at least trying to mitigate this by keeping as much processing as possible on device and trying to secure those devices as best they can. For a lot of people who aren't technically inclined this is a godsend. DMA somewhat counteracts that because it forces Apple to give up some of the control that is keeping these bad actors at bay.
The problem is also that Apple uses security (which I agree is a good feature of Apple platforms) to give itself an exceptional position, making it hard to compete. For instance, it is nearly impossible to make a smartwatch with deep integration with iOS. This hugely benefits Apple’s own Apple Watch.
With Google also quickly restricting Android, we have to ask if this is the future we want, where only Apple, Google and Samsung products work well with their devices.
Apple is a bad actor too. They advocate for privacy but it's placing themselves as the trusted party. It doesn't mean they are and even if they are it doesn't mean they won't stop at some point when it suits investor interests.
It's not a double edged sword. That is pure nonsense. Apple only needs to let OTHERS provide the protection service and we're done. Also, it is not the essence of the DMA.
2. Accept every scary permission prompt Apple throws at you
3. ???
4. Meta now has your home scanned.
This is how I see Apple’s argument. I wonder why they let the Browser exist then. It opens you up to so many more dangers, they should’ve let you only visit “apple.com” and maybe a few trusted partners.
Having privacy should be a user choice. I am firmly in the Apple ecosystem and in the EU. Apple could engineer it such that interoperability means giving up privacy. User can choose. Apple could show in the App Store/settings exactly which data is leaked. Apple is using privacy as a tactic.
I expected and predicted exactly the behavior that Apple is showing right now.
Currently it's impossible to differentiate real issues of the DMA from Apple being in active resistance.
They themselves are not a trustworthy source on this because it endangers their power and income.
Personally I still support the act and urge the EU to stay it's course. Once Apple returns to sanity and compliance we can talk about reasonable improvements where required. Right now they apparently still think they can bully themselves out of any obligation and this must not succeed.
Users will live without mirroring and AI translation for a little bit.
Keep in mind that Apple's choices to postpone features for the EU as a punishment for the DMA aren't always related to the actual contents of the law, and reek more of trying to find any excuse to block a flagship feature if compliance would take any effort whatsoever.
Take for instance iPhone Mirroring; on paper it's not a technology affected by the DMA at all (in fact, I can literally use my Android phone and adb/scrcpy to cast my phone screen and audio to desktop right now, screen casting isn't some super sacred tech), but Apple has claimed it does for the DMA. Their argument for claiming this is pretty floppy (the way I understand this is that Apple wants to use their own proprietary protocol and doesn't want to provide the protocol specs/cross-platform ways to use that protocol, which is what the DMA asks of them since they're that big of a player - Apple publicly says it'd compromise security, but it should be noted that Apple trots out security as the reason for almost every consumer hostile thing they've ever done in recent memory), but making a big show out of how the EU is evil helps them more, rather than the reality just being wilful noncompliance.
Apple has been bad faith on the DMAs contents from day one, and basically all of their complaints come from that bad faith attempt to comply with it. Junk fees like the CTF/CTC, requiring one million dollars in the bank for app stores and still trying to gatekeep non-app store apps, withholding random features because making them compliant takes a bit of effort: they are all examples of Apple thinking that if they're just obstinate enough about non-compliance with the DMA, that the CJEU or the EC will make the law magically go away by giving them an inch. That may work in the US, but so far it's not exactly been doing wonders in the EU, which tends to just get more pissed off.
Wait what? We always knew Apple would be affected, though I think the holding back of features is also partially out of spite and to weaponize users against the EU.
I am super happy with the DMA (and DSA) and have been an Apple user since 2007. Monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies should be regulated by law. The law is above Apple. Apple should deal with it and stop whining like a spoiled child.
For me the most egregious thing is when China asks to jump, Apple asks how high. When a democracies ask, they fight it tooth and nail and go full malicious compliance.
tl;dr: yes, it's a shame we are missing out on some features, but protecting the rules established by democracies is more important than a bunch of features.
That is not going to work one bit. It's not that EU citizens love or even trust the EU government very far, but the pro-competitive legislation is something that pretty much everyone agrees with.
I think they don't realize how many users they can potentially lose.
And they are very arrogant but those who will switch are often advisors for other people precisely because they are tech oriented. Since people who don't know much about tech always buy stuff they can get support from their entourage, it can have a snowball effect much bigger than anyone can anticipate.
I know for a fact that I converted A LOT of people to Macs back in the early 2000s. Like the number of friends from high-school who switched to Macs because I could teach them and help them choose is in the double-digits. And those also influence others, teaching what they learned in turn.
Of course, it is never the sole reason to choose a particular device/brand but it is a very significant reason for many "normie".
I am not sure if they should be broken up. It's more that once you are a gatekeeper (which Google and Apple are in mobile), then you get regulated like one. Similar to how in many European countries insurance companies, electricity companies, public transport companies, etc. are regulated because they are .*polies. You can do business, make a profit, but citizens and other companies should be protected against the enormous power you wield.
They are scared that Meta and other popular apps might just abandon the AppStore altogether or offer significant advantage for side loaders. This is the problem with having too tight of a control, Apple is always living in fear of losing control.
I read the EU's DMA documents (and their responses to Apple) and what stuck out was that every time Apple brought up "privacy concerns" for any interoperability proposal, the EU response was basically: "that's invalid, protecting privacy is up to the law, not Apple".
Apple has their own greedy reasons for locking down their platforms, but the EU hasn't curbstomped Facebook and never will. So there's no question the median users's privacy will be worse, because apps will get deep OS access gated by permission prompts that they'll click through without reading (due to permission fatigue). The EU is captured by corporate interests, you're naive if you think "Apple loses we win". It'll be "Apple loses, other big corps win" as always.
Giving Meta/others access to most people's notifications (revealing everything about you), Wi-Fi networks (locations), iPhone Mirroring (unlocking and browsing an iPhone remotely), Continuity Camera (turning on your camera remotely), App Intents (basically making their apps an OS-within-the-OS). That's all stuff Meta has already requested from Apple under the DMA's interoperability requests procedure. Stuff Apple only does on-device, others will be able to grab and send to the cloud with little transparency to most people who don't understand this stuff.
> the EU hasn't curbstomped Facebook and never will
The EU fined Meta 200 millions euros for failure to respect the DMA regarding their data collection policy.
That's on top of the 1.2 billion euros fine Meta received in May for failure to respect GDPR.
"DMA something something markets"... What a dead brains in Apple... DMA is not for Apple selling sealed things but for others using it, including "internals". When they catch up that no monopoly is better even for them ? And security. And markets. And childrens.
They want the EU to solve an issue they caused themselves by abstaining from complying with the law? How convenient. If there ever was a valid reason to designate Apple a gatekeeper, this kind of behavior is it.
It's a double edged sword. The problem is that there's a lot of bad actors out there. You know why Apple doesn't let companies get access to the raw camera data on the Vision? Because Meta is salivating at getting inside people's homes and being able to get even more data.
Some of us are able to navigate the minefield through a lot of hard won experience acquired over years if not decades. I lived through the J2ME era with compromised JARs, premium rate scams, carriers monopolizing things, and all the bullshit that came along with it. The App Store, for all its MANY faults basically solved all that for normal people in one fell swoop.
A lot of people aren't going to realize what they might be giving up until it's too late. Apple is at least trying to mitigate this by keeping as much processing as possible on device and trying to secure those devices as best they can. For a lot of people who aren't technically inclined this is a godsend. DMA somewhat counteracts that because it forces Apple to give up some of the control that is keeping these bad actors at bay.
The problem is also that Apple uses security (which I agree is a good feature of Apple platforms) to give itself an exceptional position, making it hard to compete. For instance, it is nearly impossible to make a smartwatch with deep integration with iOS. This hugely benefits Apple’s own Apple Watch.
With Google also quickly restricting Android, we have to ask if this is the future we want, where only Apple, Google and Samsung products work well with their devices.
What's the difference between making a great integrated experience and making it hard to compete?
1. Not allowing you to use the APIs Apple is using for deeper integration.
2. Literally in their TOS for App Store not allowing you to compete with Apple products.
Apple is a bad actor too. They advocate for privacy but it's placing themselves as the trusted party. It doesn't mean they are and even if they are it doesn't mean they won't stop at some point when it suits investor interests.
It's not a double edged sword. That is pure nonsense. Apple only needs to let OTHERS provide the protection service and we're done. Also, it is not the essence of the DMA.
How would Meta gain access to my home if i don’t install Meta’s apps on my Vision?
1. Install Meta app on your Vision
2. Accept every scary permission prompt Apple throws at you
3. ???
4. Meta now has your home scanned.
This is how I see Apple’s argument. I wonder why they let the Browser exist then. It opens you up to so many more dangers, they should’ve let you only visit “apple.com” and maybe a few trusted partners.
if they could, they would put enormous restrictions on the browser as well. Chrome's popularity on iOS and MacOS is stopping them.
Having privacy should be a user choice. I am firmly in the Apple ecosystem and in the EU. Apple could engineer it such that interoperability means giving up privacy. User can choose. Apple could show in the App Store/settings exactly which data is leaked. Apple is using privacy as a tactic.
I thought HN was super happy with DMA when it was first announced. People were all convinced that EU sticking it to Facebook/Meta was fun to watch.
I wonder now that Apple is affected, will people reconsider their position?
I expected and predicted exactly the behavior that Apple is showing right now.
Currently it's impossible to differentiate real issues of the DMA from Apple being in active resistance.
They themselves are not a trustworthy source on this because it endangers their power and income.
Personally I still support the act and urge the EU to stay it's course. Once Apple returns to sanity and compliance we can talk about reasonable improvements where required. Right now they apparently still think they can bully themselves out of any obligation and this must not succeed.
Users will live without mirroring and AI translation for a little bit.
Keep in mind that Apple's choices to postpone features for the EU as a punishment for the DMA aren't always related to the actual contents of the law, and reek more of trying to find any excuse to block a flagship feature if compliance would take any effort whatsoever.
Take for instance iPhone Mirroring; on paper it's not a technology affected by the DMA at all (in fact, I can literally use my Android phone and adb/scrcpy to cast my phone screen and audio to desktop right now, screen casting isn't some super sacred tech), but Apple has claimed it does for the DMA. Their argument for claiming this is pretty floppy (the way I understand this is that Apple wants to use their own proprietary protocol and doesn't want to provide the protocol specs/cross-platform ways to use that protocol, which is what the DMA asks of them since they're that big of a player - Apple publicly says it'd compromise security, but it should be noted that Apple trots out security as the reason for almost every consumer hostile thing they've ever done in recent memory), but making a big show out of how the EU is evil helps them more, rather than the reality just being wilful noncompliance.
Apple has been bad faith on the DMAs contents from day one, and basically all of their complaints come from that bad faith attempt to comply with it. Junk fees like the CTF/CTC, requiring one million dollars in the bank for app stores and still trying to gatekeep non-app store apps, withholding random features because making them compliant takes a bit of effort: they are all examples of Apple thinking that if they're just obstinate enough about non-compliance with the DMA, that the CJEU or the EC will make the law magically go away by giving them an inch. That may work in the US, but so far it's not exactly been doing wonders in the EU, which tends to just get more pissed off.
> I thought HN was super happy with DMA when it was first announced.
There is almost never consensus on HN. I would be shocked if that ever occurred.
It's often claimed that HN readers believe this or HN readers believe that, but that this to be an exaggeration. The readership has diverse opinions.
Nope, EU is majority Android market, Apple can play ball or go have fun in US.
I bet Jolla and others would gladly take over.
Ironically Meta, Google and at a greater extend Microsoft seem more eager to comply than Apple.
Wait what? We always knew Apple would be affected, though I think the holding back of features is also partially out of spite and to weaponize users against the EU.
I am super happy with the DMA (and DSA) and have been an Apple user since 2007. Monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies should be regulated by law. The law is above Apple. Apple should deal with it and stop whining like a spoiled child.
For me the most egregious thing is when China asks to jump, Apple asks how high. When a democracies ask, they fight it tooth and nail and go full malicious compliance.
tl;dr: yes, it's a shame we are missing out on some features, but protecting the rules established by democracies is more important than a bunch of features.
>to weaponize users against the EU
That is not going to work one bit. It's not that EU citizens love or even trust the EU government very far, but the pro-competitive legislation is something that pretty much everyone agrees with.
I started moving away from Apple ecosystem since their anti-EU behavior escalated.
I think they don't realize how many users they can potentially lose. And they are very arrogant but those who will switch are often advisors for other people precisely because they are tech oriented. Since people who don't know much about tech always buy stuff they can get support from their entourage, it can have a snowball effect much bigger than anyone can anticipate.
I know for a fact that I converted A LOT of people to Macs back in the early 2000s. Like the number of friends from high-school who switched to Macs because I could teach them and help them choose is in the double-digits. And those also influence others, teaching what they learned in turn.
Of course, it is never the sole reason to choose a particular device/brand but it is a very significant reason for many "normie".
For me Apple was always the number one target of the DMA. If anything I'm annoyed the EU isn't more aggressive with them. They should be broken up.
I am not sure if they should be broken up. It's more that once you are a gatekeeper (which Google and Apple are in mobile), then you get regulated like one. Similar to how in many European countries insurance companies, electricity companies, public transport companies, etc. are regulated because they are .*polies. You can do business, make a profit, but citizens and other companies should be protected against the enormous power you wield.
Here's Apple's PR, which was oddly dropped at 3 AM UTC when most Europeans were asleep: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/the-digital-markets-a...
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368848 (3 comments)
Can we skip to acceptance stage already?
Just do full and unconditional sideload and we'll be good.
90% of the users won't ever use it anyway.
They are scared that Meta and other popular apps might just abandon the AppStore altogether or offer significant advantage for side loaders. This is the problem with having too tight of a control, Apple is always living in fear of losing control.
I read the EU's DMA documents (and their responses to Apple) and what stuck out was that every time Apple brought up "privacy concerns" for any interoperability proposal, the EU response was basically: "that's invalid, protecting privacy is up to the law, not Apple".
Apple has their own greedy reasons for locking down their platforms, but the EU hasn't curbstomped Facebook and never will. So there's no question the median users's privacy will be worse, because apps will get deep OS access gated by permission prompts that they'll click through without reading (due to permission fatigue). The EU is captured by corporate interests, you're naive if you think "Apple loses we win". It'll be "Apple loses, other big corps win" as always.
Giving Meta/others access to most people's notifications (revealing everything about you), Wi-Fi networks (locations), iPhone Mirroring (unlocking and browsing an iPhone remotely), Continuity Camera (turning on your camera remotely), App Intents (basically making their apps an OS-within-the-OS). That's all stuff Meta has already requested from Apple under the DMA's interoperability requests procedure. Stuff Apple only does on-device, others will be able to grab and send to the cloud with little transparency to most people who don't understand this stuff.
> the EU hasn't curbstomped Facebook and never will
The EU fined Meta 200 millions euros for failure to respect the DMA regarding their data collection policy. That's on top of the 1.2 billion euros fine Meta received in May for failure to respect GDPR.
That certainly looks like curbstomping to me.
Apple is always the victim and get singled out in the minds of its fans.
They couldn't even resist adding a "just think of the children" in their argument.
Or blaming it for affecting their intuitive design, right after the iOS 26 regression.
"DMA something something markets"... What a dead brains in Apple... DMA is not for Apple selling sealed things but for others using it, including "internals". When they catch up that no monopoly is better even for them ? And security. And markets. And childrens.
See also:
Apple says it may stop shipping to the EU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45372515