How the EU’s DMA is changing Big Tech: all of the news and updates

There’s been little for Europeans to celebrate since the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) forced Apple to allow third-party marketplaces for iPhone apps. While the launch of AltStore PAL has potential, Apple’s loosening of App Store restrictions to allow emulators took away the marketplace’s main selling point. But now, there’s another alternative app store launching that could really shake up the entire sector: MacPaw’s Setapp Mobile. 

Setapp Mobile enters an invite-only beta today, and we’ve spent the past week giving it a good going over. The verdict? Setapp Mobile’s subscription-based approach opens up an exciting new way of using an iPhone, one where you can play with a range of apps without being stung by reduced features, ads, nags to upgrade, or spending money on something you may not even use. Well, if you live in the EU, of course.

Over the past couple of months, Spotify has been submitting update after update to Apple, changing the interface of its music streaming service to display pricing information in-app for users in the European Union. For users, this is barely worth noticing. But for Spotify, each submission has been yet another skirmish in its yearslong legal struggle with Apple in the EU. And right now, Spotify is the closest it’s ever been to getting Apple to finally cave. 

In March, the European Commission ruled against Apple in an antitrust action over App Store restrictions on music streaming services. In 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint against Apple, claiming that the App Store’s cut of subscription fees — which can be up to 30 percent — stifled innovation and harmed consumer choice. The Commission ultimately agreed with Spotify on its anti-steering complaints and hit Apple with a €1.84 billion (about $2 billion) fine. It also determined that the company’s anti-steering rules are illegal and ordered Apple to allow music streaming services to “freely communicate with” their users “within their apps about available subscription options,” including linking to external subscription options.

Apple is exempting more developers from the Core Technology Fee (CTF) it introduced in the European Union. In an update on Thursday, Apple announced that developers of free apps without monetization won’t have to pay the new fee.

To qualify, Apple says free apps must not have “revenue of any kind,” including money made from physical or digital goods, as well as advertising. “This condition is intended to give students, hobbyists, and other non-commercial developers an opportunity to create a popular app without paying the CTF,” Apple writes in the update.

Following an almost eight-month investigation into whether Apple’s iPadOS holds enough market power to warrant stricter regulation, the European Commission has now designated the iPad operating system as a Gatekeeper service under its flagship Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules.

“The Commission concluded that iPadOS constitutes an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and that Apple enjoys an entrenched and durable position with respect to iPadOS,” reads a statement published by the Commission on Monday. “Apple now has six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations as applied to iPadOS.”

After we recently tested it in beta, the third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL is now live in the European Union thanks to Apple’s compliance with the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The store requires a €1.50 (plus tax) annual subscription to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF) for installing the app marketplace itself.

Installing AltStore PAL requires clicking through a lot of Apple’s clumsily implemented scare sheets that double and triple check your desire to install apps from outside Apple’s App Store. But with persistence and enough clicks it eventually installs.

Almost a month after Apple’s begrudging capitulation to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), only one third-party iOS app store is currently live in Europe. It’s the B2B-focused Mobivention marketplace that allows companies to distribute their own apps internally. While that’s fine and all, things won’t stay this way for long — and it’s what’s coming soon that’ll really pique the interest of Verge readers.

Both the Epic Games Store and MacPaw’s Setapp have been announced, but it’s AltStore that’s likely to hit EU users’ phones first. This new app marketplace from developer Riley Testut is a version of AltStore, an App Store alternative that launched in 2019 that doesn’t require users to jailbreak their devices. The primary drive for its creation was Delta, a Nintendo emulator that Testut and his business partner Shane Gill are now bringing to the iPhone through their European app marketplace. 

The European Commission is opening five non-compliance investigations into how Apple, Google, and Meta are complying with its new Digital Markets Act antitrust rules, the regulator announced today. “We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies do not fully comply with the DMA,” the EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. “We will now investigate the companies’ compliance with the DMA, to ensure open and contestable digital markets in Europe.”

In particular, the Commission plans to investigate Google and Apple’s anti-steering rules in their app stores and whether Google is guilty of self-preferencing its own services within its search engine. Apple’s browser choice screen for iOS is also being investigated as well as Meta’s “pay or consent model” for ad targeting. In a press conference, the Commission said it plans to conclude the investigations within the next 12 months.

Even after Apple was hit with a $2 billion fine in the European Union over years-old complaints from Spotify about its App Store rules, Spotify says Apple is stonewalling updates issued in compliance with that very ruling. In an email to the European Commission obtained by The Verge, Spotify writes that Apple has “neither acknowledged nor responded to Spotify’s submission” to bring subscription pricing information into the app, preventing it from updating the app at all for its users, even to put out fixes for bugs or add other features.

On March 5th, Spotify submitted an update to Apple that puts links to Spotify’s website, along with pricing information for different subscription options, directly in the EU version of its app, without using Apple’s payment system. Spotify made the change in response to a ruling issued the day before by the European Commission, which said Apple’s anti-steering rules are “illegal” and ordered Apple to start allowing developers to include information about “alternative and cheaper music subscription services.”

Epic Games will be able to open its iOS app store in the European Union after all. The game publisher had its developer license revoked by Apple earlier this week, but Epic Games now says that Apple has reversed its decision following an inquiry from the European Commission.

In an update on its website, Epic Games says Apple has “committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account.” The company is now “moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.”

Apple won’t let your iPhone update software installed by third-party app stores if you leave the European Union for more than 30 days. In an update to its support page on Thursday, Apple says you can continue using apps from alternative marketplaces while traveling for long periods — but you’ll need to come back to the EU to get the latest version.

Shortly after the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) went into effect on Wednesday, users noticed an Apple support page stating users would “lose access to some features” when leaving the EU “for short-term travel.” But now, Apple has made this policy more specific by carving out a 30-day grace period, which could be inconvenient for frequent travelers.

Apple’s plans to comply with the European Union’s new rules governing big tech have already gotten off to an interesting start, and not just because Apple pulled Epic Games’ developer license. Apple made last-minute tweaks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) compliance plan to add flexibility, but they’ve met mixed reactions among developers.

Developers considering Apple’s post-DMA fee structure, which comes with a new “Core Technology Fee,” can now try them out and then switch back to the original terms — instead of, as originally announced, making the change a one-way trip. In an update posted on Tuesday, Apple says it created the “one-time option” to revert to Apple’s standard agreement in case of “unexpected business changes” or if developers just change their minds. But there’s a caveat: developers can only switch back if they didn’t put their apps on an alternative app store or use alternative payment options.

Apple is preparing to allow EU-based iPhone users to uninstall its first-party Safari browser by the end of 2024 and is working on a more “user-friendly” way of transferring data “from an iPhone to a non-Apple phone” by fall 2025. That’s according to a new compliance document published by the company, which outlines all the ways it’s complying with the European Union’s new Digital Markets Act that comes into force this week.

Other user-facing initiatives detailed in Apple’s document include a “browser switching solution” to transfer data between browsers on the same device, which it plans to make available by late 2024 or early 2025. It’ll also be possible to change the default navigation app on iOS by March 2025 in the EU.

Apple announced two new MacBook Air models this week, with spec upgrades across the board — and a bunch of confusing ideas about how your laptop can be great at AI. We’ll see how all of that shakes out in our review, but there’s little question that the Air will still be one of the best laptops you can buy. But these new models, and the final death of the wedge design, raise some questions. Questions like: what does the “Air” even mean anymore? And: was Apple right to try to kill the MacBook Air altogether a bunch of years ago?

On this episode of The Vergecast (which is a day early because we’re all about to head to SXSW — come hang with us!), we decide the new Airs don’t warrant too much discussion before proceeding to talk about them for a surprisingly long time. Then, we talk about the upcoming iPad news we’re expecting soon, along with what’s coming from Microsoft’s Surface team in a couple of weeks.

Now that the EU’s new rules for digital “gatekeepers” are live, Meta is ready to tell everyone how WhatsApp and Messenger will offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE) while complying with the Digital Markets Act’s (DMA) third-party chat requirements.

The DMA requires that Meta “must be ready to enable interoperability with other services within three months of receiving a request,” but according to the blog post, actually turning it on for public use could take longer than that. The requirements also only mandate support for one-on-one chats and sharing files like images, videos, or voice messages “in year one” of the new regulation before they expand over time to include group chats and calls.