Faced with pressure from the European Commission, which is citing a record fine of $40 billion, Apple is threatening not to integrate its new AI functions into its products in Europe. A showdown with a poker flavor.
Among the new features announced during the last WWDC 2024 opening conference (the Apple developers conference, read our article), three functions particularly struck people’s minds. There is of course the range of Artificial Intelligence tools, brought together under the Apple Intelligence banner, the Apple firm having thus succeeded in reappropriating the acronym AI in English. With iOS 18 on the iPhone and macOS 15 Sequoia on the Mac, you can also display the screen of your iPhone on your Mac with one click and even interact with the smartphone via your computer’s mouse. A very practical way to access applications from your Mac that do not exist for macOS, even if the iPhone is in the next room. Finally, note the possibility with iPadOS 18 to remotely control the screen of another iPad to help a user without being seated next to them. Interesting, no? Except we might not be able to take advantage of it. We ? European users.
Indeed, the Cupertino company made the following statement on a daily basis Financial Timesin its edition of June 21: “En due to regulatory uncertainties caused by the Digital Markets Act [plus souvent désignée par son acronyme anglais DMA pour Digital Markets Act], we don’t think we can offer three of these features [celles citées ci-dessus] among our users in the European Union this year“In other words, Apple criticizes Europe for having put in place too vague a regulation which does not allow it to offer new functions to its users for fear of then being fined by the European Commission.
Apple and Europe: no fine, otherwise…
It must be said that Apple is already potentially on the verge of being imposed a fine decided by the same European Commission and which could go up to 10% of its annual global turnover, which could correspond to some 40 billion of dollars. Even for Apple, this remains salty.
The reason ? A potential response that is unsuitable for the requirements of the DMA. THE Digital Markets Act in fact obliges tech companies considered as “access controllers” (gatekeepers in English) to open up to competition, one of the well-known leitmotifs of the European Union. THE gatekeepersthese are therefore all the big tech companies, often called GAFAM, therefore Google, Amazon, Facebook (today Meta) and Microsoft.
In the case of Apple, it was therefore the DMA which forced it to authorize alternative marketplaces, otherwise application stores competing with its own App Store (read our article). But it seems that the rules put in place by Apple for this purpose, which some do not hesitate to describe as a “gas factory”, are considered insufficient by the European Commission. So much so that Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, appears to be paving the way for an imminent fine by declaring that Apple has a number of problems “tvery serious” regarding European rules.
The Commission opened an investigation last March into possible infringements by Apple, particularly around the famous Core Technology Fee, this tax imposed on all or almost all application developers, even if they distribute their creations outside the Apple App Store, and which the commission could well consider as disproportionate. From there to thinking that Apple is trying to exert pressure by threatening not to offer certain news to Europeans, there is only one step.
Apple and Europe: the DMA is not that vague
It cannot be denied that European laws and regulations are far from easy to read. The DMA for example is a dense document of over 66 pages. That said, Apple has enough lawyers to read it in detail and they surely could not have missed paragraph 3 of article 8 which states in particular that “ A gatekeeper may request the Commission to initiate a process to determine whether the measures that that gatekeeper intends to implement or has implemented to comply with Articles 6 and 7 effectively achieve the objective of the relevant obligation in the specific situation of the access controller “. In other words, Apple just needs to ask the Commission if the planned new functions remain within the guidelines defined by the regulations. However, this would require Apple to reveal part of its plans in advance, which the firm refuses to do, even to a very small panel.
Apple and Europe: what will be left for European users?
Does Apple’s statement really risk depriving us of some of the new functions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15? Nothing is less certain in reality. Let us first note that the quote from Financial Times to end by ” This year ». Which means that Apple obviously isn’t sure of anything. And how could it be otherwise since it would certainly be very difficult, even for a company of the size and technical level of Apple, to manage two versions so different from each other of its operating system.
And let’s also remember that during the presentation of the new AI functions, Apple indicated that they would initially only work in English, on devices set to the North American region. So, in any case, Apple Intelligence functions are essentially reserved for Americans. And even they will not be able to benefit from it right away because many functions presented during WWDC will not be available until the end of next year, or even next year, without further details.
In other words, we Europeans have no reason to rush to immediately buy an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, the only two iPhone models that will be capable of running these famous AI functions. As for other new functions, including those targeted by Apple’s defensive threat, they may be delayed. But, in context, their total disappearance from devices sold in Europe remains very unlikely.