Apple's approach to opening up the iPhone is causing nothing but problems

The response to the Digital Markets Act isn't working well for consumers, developers, the EU, or Apple.

- JASON SNELL

If Apple had its way, it would never open the App Store to competition, never offer web downloads of apps, never allow app developers to link to outside websites, and probably never reduce its cut of all App Store purchases from the original 30 percent tariff. For the last 15 years, Apple has had its way.

That's all changed now by the force of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), along with the results of a few legal matters in Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. This is a new era, where Apple can't just have its way-instead, it has to abide by regulations specifically targeted at its own preferred business practices.

The company's reaction to this era has been occasionally combative and passive-aggressive. Some have called it "malicious compliance" (fave.co/44mu9zj), a label that I don't think quite encompasses Apple's approach. As events this week have shown us, Apple's approach to responding to regulation is incremental and iterative-kind of like its approach to designing and updating its products.

The question is, what's going to be the cost of Apple taking this approach?

I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE

If you weren't sure before, Apple's statement about the DMA (fave.co/44ori91) made it perfectly clear that Apple is at a party it doesn't want to attend, dressed in an outfit its mom told it to wear. But rather than pull itself out of the rich European market, Apple is modifying its business model to comply with the new rules down to the letter.

By which I mean, it's going to comply with the letter of the rules, not necessarily the spirit. Many of Apple's choices suggest that the goal is to comply with the words on the page, but in a way that makes taking advantage of them as unpalatable as possible. The plan is to satisfy the law-but nobody else.