Today, we will follow Apple’s team’s response in the working group regarding compliance with the Digital Markets Act.
I will update this post to summarize the most critical issues regarding iOS changes and my colleagues’ intervention.
Already in the first block (article 6.3 on service selection), it has become clear to all parties that Apple does not comply nor intends to comply with its obligations in the short term.

The uninstallation of Safari as a browser is postponed until the end of the year, and any other selection of Apple’s own services other than the browser until the following year.
Not a single reference to app stores. The choice of browser or any other product is nullified if the source of such applications is not independent. Today, operating an independent store from the Apple Store or even sideloading an application independently without Apple’s intervention and control is impossible.
Why, after the deadline, do we not have an application store selection screen or real app sideloading on iOS?.
The summary of Apple’s position on all the issues raised is the same:
"We have been doing it this way for 16 years (integrating our own services and setting them as default), and we cannot make the transition in such a short time."
Ignoring the deadlines we have given and that we are in a compliance phase.
In the following section, we will delve deeper into this topic.


Having heard their stance, Apple’s summary for this entire segment remains the same. It is tremendously dangerous to allow any competition in distribution, and therefore, we will continue with app notarization, rendering any alternative irrelevant.
All in the name of protecting the user, conveniently overlooking, as usual, that Mac or any other OS allows this without a significant impact on security. Nothing new here.
There are so many inconsistencies that addressing all these questions in one morning is impossible. Some questions from colleagues will remain unanswered.




For some reason, the Apple team mentions that before the Apple Store, users would install applications from CD-ROMs, and this was a problem that only they have solved 🤷♂️.
Among jokes, Apple resolves none of the essential issues. This format of grouping questions without any answer will not work :(.




At this point, Apple’s strategy to impose any measures far from the spirit of the DMA (Digital Markets Act) becomes clear:
- Only they claim the authority to decide what is safe and legitimate. Moreover, they extend this responsibility to every level, whether it’s the operating system, their store, their content policy teams, notarization processes on Apple’s side, etc.
- Apple applies this exclusive power also to privacy. They are the only ones who respect it and can ensure it’s respected, stripping developers or any competitor of this capability.
- Finally, they combine these attributions with the threat to regulators of the catastrophe that operating in any other manner would entail, blaming the very law that aims to protect users and developers.
All of this is sprinkled with the complexity of doing anything differently in a system that has operated this way for 16 years.
Interoperability. This is another major issue that the DMA addresses and Apple has not implemented a single effective measure to address it. The intervention of their team has been limited to urging us to look forward to their future versions when they study each potential problem related to interoperability case by case.
We still do not understand what they have been doing all this time and why the established deadlines have been ignored. Not even other proposed changes in charges and fees (CTF) to authors and stores meet the explicit requirements for interoperability mentioned in the law, such as the fact that interoperability must be provided for free.
Web applications follow the same script, considering any support beyond their webkit a titanic effort, believing that web rendering is extremely dangerous if not directly controlled by them, plus the usual threats about user privacy if regulation forces them to compete.
On the other hand, browser developers are pretty upset with each malicious compliance by Apple related to interoperability. These ideas are that they must maintain different applications for Europe and the rest of the world or separate IOS features for phones and tablets to dodge obligations.
They even go further. The fact that we cannot choose other core services or browser engines prevents us from improving the security of our services, assuming that Apple is not the only one that can provide these tools in the best way.
Apple, of course, does not share this view.
They argue that this simply forces them to be something they are not, an open system. Moreover, due to the effort and investment it would require, they do not plan to comply (this is verbatim). So little room is left for agreement other than waiting for Europe’s sanctions regarding interoperability.
After this session, I think this «dialogue» is tremendously unproductive. The chosen format of grouping questions does not help maintain a conversation or respond to Apple’s fallacious arguments. I understand that all of this is a necessary step in terms of evidence of the lack of interest in complying with European law. Still, the dialogue is disheartening at this stage of the process.
Uptodown will be present on Thursday in this same exercise dedicated to Alphabet. Time for Google to be held accountable.




