Apple could drop features like AirDrop in the EU

Apple was hit with a €500 million fine by the European Commission (EC) back in April over breaches to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Cupertino has since appealed the decision. John Gruber from Daring Fireball shared Apple’s full official statement, which could signal a potential turning point for Apple users in the EU.

At Apple, we design our technology to work seamlessly together, so it can deliver the unique experience our users love and expect from our products. The EU’s interoperability requirements threaten that foundation, while creating a process that is unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation.

These requirements will also hand data-hungry companies sensitive information, which poses massive privacy and security risks to our EU users. Companies have already requested our users’ most sensitive data — from the content of their notifications, to a full history of every stored WiFi network on their device — giving them the ability to access personal information that even Apple doesn’t see.

In the end, these deeply flawed rules that only target Apple — and no other company — will severely limit our ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe, leading to an inferior user experience for our European customers. We are appealing these decisions on their behalf, and in order to preserve the high-quality experience our European customers expect.

The last paragraph in particular is the one with the most significance for Apple users in the EU. The fact that Apple may “severely limit its ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe” which would lead to “an inferior user experience for our European customers” could be interpreted in several ways.

For one, Apple could simply comply with the EC’s interoperability requirements, which include granting full access to iOS notifications, background execution privileges and system feature access to third-party competitors. Apple would also have to allow AirDrop to be replaced as the default wireless file sharing utility on Apple devices. This approach would naturally raise privacy concerns as third parties would be granted system-level privileges, which goes against Apple’s ethos.

According to Jon Gruber, a more realistic scenario would see Apple dropping AirDrop support for its users in the EU. He also goes on to mention that Apple could stop offering its Apple Watch and AirPods in EU markets due to the EU’s interoperability demands. This situation seems less likely as wearables are a big profit maker for Cupertino. As it stands, we’ll just have to wait and see how this legal battle unfolds.

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