The EU Is Now Setting Its Sights on the Apple Pencil
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The European Commission (EC) continues to scrutinize Apple’s hardware and software ecosystem, looking for ways in which it believes the iPhone and iPad still haven’t opened enough to embrace third-party apps and accessories.
Earlier this year, the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) forced Apple to open up the iPhone, and eventually the iPad, to third-party app marketplaces, browsers, and digital wallets. Now, it’s investigating whether the iPad’s interoperability with styluses and headphones meets the requirements of the DMA.
The EC announced earlier today that the DMA already requires third-party devices “to effectively access iPadOS features” but that it will now “carefully assess whether the measures adopted for iPadOS” comply, based on the input of “interested stakeholders.”
Apple must, among others, allow users to set the default web browser of their choice on iPadOS, allow alternative app stores on its operating system, and allow accessory devices, like headphones and smart pens, to effectively access iPadOS features.European Commission
As with many aspects of the DMA, it’s unclear what “effectively access” means. The EC typically feels that any advantage Apple gives to its own accessories violates the DMA, which could complicate things.
For example, as a touchscreen device, the iPad already works with a wide variety of passive styluses, and a few companies have even created Bluetooth styluses with additional capabilities. However, none of these compare to what the Apple Pencil can do, with support for features like Apple Pencil Hover, various OS-level gestures, and magnetic charging. A ruling by the EC could ultimately force Apple to create new software APIs that allow third-party accessory makers to create styluses that do everything the Apple Pencil can.
The situation with headphones is a bit murkier. Bluetooth is an open standard, and any set of Bluetooth headphones can be paired with an iPad to provide a standard listening experience. Still, AirPods deliver additional features like Spatial Audio with Dynamic Head Tracking, automatic pairing, and seamless switching between devices. Apple has extended some of these capabilities to its Beats headphones, but that brand is still a division within Apple and wouldn’t meet the EU’s idea of a third-party accessory. If anything, it would be seen as proof that Apple can make the same features available to any other headphone manufacturer.
While the DMA initially applied only to the iPhone, the EC later determined that the iPad was also a “gatekeeper’ under the new rules, oddly “despite not meeting the quantitative thresholds laid down in the DMA” (in the EC’s words). This was because the Commission felt that it was “an important gateway for business users,” so it applied the threshold to the number of business users rather than the overall number of iPad users the EU.
As the EC stated in today’s announcement, the DMA has applied to both software and hardware from the start. Apple has addressed nearly all of the software issues in iPadOS 17.4 and later updates, opening up the iPad to third-party app marketplaces, allowing third-party browser engines (not just browser front-ends for Safari’s Webkit), and allowing third-party NFC payment and digital wallet apps worldwide as of iOS 18.1.
The EC will also assess those measures, but it looks as though Apple has made a valiant effort to address most of them. Hardware accessory compatibility will be trickier, and we won’t know what the EC thinks of that until it finishes its investigation and releases the results sometime next year.
