back to article Europe forces Apple to give its citizens some choice over iOS browser engine, app store

Apple has given up its fight against being designated a gatekeeper under Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA), meaning the iMaker will give people in the European Union greater choice over their browser engines and application store on iOS. The American mega-giant today announced several significant changes to its mobile …

  1. Catkin Silver badge
    Trollface

    I'm sure the UK will roll out similar legislation

    And I'm sure Apple will just laugh and threaten to stop selling iPhones to the sick man of Europe

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm sure the UK will roll out similar legislation

      "Brexit spoiled my life! Waaaah! Waaaah!"

      1. Jason Hindle Silver badge

        Re: I'm sure the UK will roll out similar legislation

        "Brexit spoiled my life! Waaaah! Waaaah!"

        It complicated my life while delivering not a single trace of any benefit to anyone who isn't a hedge fund manager/disaster capitalist/parasite. Get thee behind me!

        1. Justthefacts Silver badge

          Re: I'm sure the UK will roll out similar legislation

          “delivering not a single trace of any benefit to anyone who isn't a hedge fund manager/disaster capitalist/parasite”

          Plus of course the million+ sole traders, trading below the U.K. VAT threshold of £ 85k. Because if we were still in the EU, they would have been hit by the EU VAT harmonisation in 2022, forcing them to suddenly pay an additional 20% tax.

          The woman who set up a cleaning business for 15 hours a week, around her school-age children. The handyman who does the necessary for the elderly in their local area. The market trader in your local town who just does weekends. Most countries in the EU have always had very low VAT thresholds, but we haven’t. It would have been catastrophic sea change for a huge swathe of our population at the low end. It’s not that you don’t care about the little people, it’s that they are literally totally invisible to you.

          95% of people don’t even know there *was* a massive hurricane in the EU VAT system that narrowly missed them. Because the people who would have been crippled aren’t educated enough to read European tax news, while the people who do wouldn’t recognise their own cleaner on the street. Like all Remainers, the only thing you even notice is the loudly trumpeted interests of the Volkswagens and Airbus of this world.

          1. Jason Hindle Silver badge

            Re: I'm sure the UK will roll out similar legislation

            Googled that. Concluded you were talking out of your bottom. Oh, and your empty rhetoric is incomplete. You left out towns, drivers and “hard working families”.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why the concern?

    Surely Apple users like the walled garden and love the high margins Apple make. Regulators should let them enjoy all of that.

  4. Rich 2 Silver badge

    Oh dear

    The EU are really not going to like this.....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEbxpOE13s

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge

    "developers must provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit [...] of €1,000,000"

    Developers must also dance naked around the Arc de Triomphe at rush hour, run a triathlon, and count the number of angels dancing on a pinhead.

    1. Dinanziame Silver badge

      Re: "developers must provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit [...] of €1,000,000"

      Well, marketplace developers. That's hardly going to be a problem for serious companies wishing to develop an alternative to the app store.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: "developers must provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit [...] of €1,000,000"

        Thank goodness Tim Apple is protecting the iOS platform from being sullied with the likes of F-Droid.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple the gatekeeper

    So Apple claims its not a gatekeeper, relents allowing independent app stores while at the same time erecting another gate in front of your new freedom, one that only it can control. How very fruitful for their profits. I don't think the new regulations state erecting new barriers is the aim of the act.

  7. Groo The Wanderer

    Americans and Canadians need not apply; bend over for Apple & co. the way you have for the past umpteen years and try not to scream...

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      It's all worth it for the blue chat bubbles, apparently.

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