Microsoft Petitions EU to Reject Apple’s DMA Non-Compliance Compliance

Microsoft admitted that it is making its case to EU regulators that Apple’s DMA compliance is just an attempt to bypass that regulation. Meta has echoed this concern, noting that Apple’s compliance is so “onerous” that few app makers will bother trying to make alternative iOS app stores.

“The initial steps [to comply with the DMA] that Apple has put forward are very prohibitive to us actually creating a meaningful alternative to the one store that’s available on the world’s largest gaming platforms, which are mobile phones,” Microsoft’s Phil Spencer told The Financial Times. “So we will continue to work with regulators to open that up.”

Responding to the complaints, Apple said it had spent “months in conversation with the European Commission” about the DMA, and that the controversial changes it’s delivering were the result of “hundreds of Apple team members who spent tens of thousands of hours.”

“Hogwash,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney retorted on Twitter, adding that “Apple has the best user interface designers in the world. So when Apple releases software with an awful user interface, you know it is premeditated, dictated to the design team by executives, and hated by the good creatives and engineers forced to build it.”

I think both sides have a point here: Apple clearly spent a lot of time working to bypass the spirit of the DMA in a way that appears to vaguely satisfy the demands of that regulation. One is reminded of a similar non-compliance by Microsoft during its U.S. antitrust trial when it demonstrated a version of Windows that didn’t work because it was stripped of Internet Explorer, as the court required.

But this I do agree with.

“Apple needs to completely reset its relationships with regulators and developers on the foundation of enlightened, lawful business practices, as Microsoft did after the DOJ case,” Sweeney added. “They can’t go on like this, not as a self-respecting company that’s honest with itself and the world.”

Apple still faces a March deadline to comply with the DMA. And while it’s unlikely its first effort will pass muster, it’s unclear how much the EU will push back against this work.