Apple rejects criticism over its compliance with new EU market rules

Firms that fail to comply with the Digital Market Act risk investigations that can lead to fines of as much as 10% of their global annual turnover

Apple recently introduced a raft of new changes to the iPhone to ensure it is complying with new legislation enacted by the European Union. 

Apple has rejected criticism that it is not fully complying with the EU Digital Market Act (DMA) which forced the company to open up parts of its iPhone operating system within the bloc.

At a hearing organised by the European Commission, Apple told developers, business users, and tech rivals that they are complying with the law in a “way that was consistent with our values”.

The company recently announced a series of changes to its iPhone operating systems to comply with the DMA which included allowing developers to distribute their apps to EU users outside of the Apple App Store.

Its changes had been criticised by a number of its rivals, including Spotify and Microsoft, since they were first announced.

Speaking at the hearing, Apple’s lawyer Kyle Andeer said the company focused on the “user perspective” when implementing these changes.

“We'll be tracking very carefully what's the impact of all of these different changes on the user experience that we've delivered to our customers for 15, 16 years through the iPhone,” he said.

The DMA sets out a list of obligations and prohibitions for which large tech companies had until March 7 to abide by. Companies that fail to comply with the DMA risk investigations that can lead to fines of as much as 10% of their global annual turnover.

Facebook and Instagram parent company, Meta, is due to present its compliance efforts on Tuesday with other tech companies such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft due to present later in the week.

All this comes as Bloomberg reports that Apple is in talks to build Google's Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone, citing people familiar with the situation.

The negotiations are about licensing Gemini for some new features coming to the iPhone software this year adding that the terms or branding of an AI agreement or how it would be implemented have not been decided.

It is unlikely that any deal would be announced until June, when Apple plans to hold its annual conference of developers, and the iPhone-maker also recently held talks with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI about using its model, according to the report.

A potential deal between the firms could help Google expand the use of its AI services to more than two billion active Apple devices, boosting the search giant's efforts to catch up with Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

Reuters