By Jason Snell for Macworld

March 13, 2024 8:39 AM PT

Apple’s approach to EU regulations means the drama won’t end soon

If Apple had its way, it would never open the App Store to competition, never offer sideloading of apps, never allow app developers to link to outside websites, and probably never reduce its cut of all App Store purchases from the original 30 percent tariff. For the last 15 years, Apple has had its way.

That’s all changed, now, by the force of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), along with the results of a few legal matters in Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. This is a new era, where Apple can’t just have its way—instead, it has to abide by regulations specifically targeted at its own preferred business practices.

The company’s reaction to this era has been occasionally combative and passive aggressive. Some have called it “malicious compliance,” a label that I don’t think quite encompasses Apple’s approach. As events this week have shown us, Apple’s approach to responding to regulation is is incremental and iterative—kind of like its approach to designing and updating products.

The question is, what’s going to be the cost of Apple taking this approach?

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