UK iPhone Users May Be Left Behind Due to New Tech Law
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Apple is pushing back against another new policy from the UK government, although this one will sound more familiar to anyone who’s been following the App Store controversies that seem to be making their way around the globe.
The UK isn’t officially part of the European Union, so the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that cracked open the App Store last year doesn’t apply in the British Isles. However, that doesn’t mean the UK doesn’t want it to.
The country’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been pushing for Apple and Google to open up their app markets. As the BBC reports, Apple isn’t happy about it (to nobody’s surprise).
As UK government overreach goes, this one isn’t nearly as bad as the Home Office’s brilliant idea to secretly demand Apple provide a backdoor to iCloud data for users worldwide. Apple fought that one hard and even got US lawmakers to back it up. The Home Office has reportedly backed off on that one, but now Apple is facing a slightly more pedestrian threat from another UK agency.
Apple says the CMA is trying to pass “EU-style rules” that will be “bad for users and bad for developers.” For its part, the CMA rejects that claim, suggesting that its competition rules are fundamentally different from those in the EU, and that its “interventions will be good for users and UK app developers.”
[UK competition rules] are designed to help UK businesses, including our thriving app developer economy, innovate and grow while ensuring UK consumers don’t miss out on innovation being introduced in other countries.
Statement from the UK Competition and Markets Authority
Still, the argument feels like a matter of semantics, as the result proposed by the CMA isn’t far off from what’s happening in the EU and several other countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Brazil, to name a few.
For example, the BBC reports that the CMA plans to require Apple and Google to make changes that would include permitting app makers to steer users to payment systems outside of Apple’s own App Store. That’s not only already enshrined in the EU’s DMA; it’s also the subject of an injunction issued against Apple in late 2021 in the Epic Games case. Apple lost that one on appeal, bringing it into force in January 2024, and the courts doubled down on it after censuring Apple for doing everything it could to skirt the rules.
While the US has yet to pass actual legislation, the court injunction is binding unless Apple manages to get it overturned on appeal. Meanwhile, Australia, India, Mexico, and Turkey could soon be joining the UK in passing similar legislation.
Apple Could Leave the UK Behind
Apple has warned UK regulators that enforcing its anti-competition legislation could result in the country being left out of the company’s latest technological innovations, much like what’s happened in the UK.
Issues with the EU’s DMA delayed the release of Apple Intelligence until April 2025, more than six months after it became available in the United States, and four months after other English-speaking countries, such as Canada and Australia. Meanwhile, other iOS 18 features, such as iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing, remain absent even in macOS Tahoe and iOS 26.
The reason behind this is that Apple believes the EU’s rules to force it to open up its protocols would require it to allow iPhone Mirroring and Screen Sharing to be openly available to any other computing device on the market, from Windows and Linux to Android. The easiest way for Apple to avoid being forced to do this is to exclude those features from its devices sold in the EU.
While the UK’s regulations don’t appear to be quite as expansive as the EU’s DMA, Apple suggests they’re close enough to be a problem, stating that they will stifle innovation and negatively impact user privacy. The company points to the dozens of requests it’s received “demanding access to sensitive user data, including sensitive information Apple itself cannot access,” some of which have come from big tech firms (”we’re looking at you, Meta”), and argues that the rules would require Apple to give away its data and intellectual property for free to any firm that demands it.
However, Apple is also trotting out the relatively tired old argument that allowing developers to offer links to alternative payment systems would “open the door to scams and threaten the security of users.”
In response, the CMA told the BBC that “Driving greater competition on mobile platforms need not undermine privacy, security or intellectual property, and as we carefully consider UK-specific steps, we will ensure it does not.”
Apple and Google have been given a few more weeks to formally respond to the new regulations. The CMA is expected to make a final decision in October.
