Dissatisfied with the obligation to share its AirDrop technology with third parties, Apple is half-heartedly threatening to remove the functionality from European iPhones.
The DMA (Digital Markets Act) could deal Apple another blow. The law provides for the interoperability of mobile technologies between different ecosystems. The EU wants Apple to open access to the proximity pairing feature of wireless headphones, currently exclusive to AirPods, and to AirDrop. Reserving these features for its own products is considered anti-competitive by Europe.
Except Apple obviously doesn't see it that way and is prepared to do anything to fight this measure. The company has been in negotiations with the EU for several months to try to remove or modify this part of the digital market regulation. Apparently, it was unsuccessful, as it is now counting on the courts to force the EU to back down.
AirDrop soon to be unavailable in Europe?
In a statement, Apple said that “these deeply flawed rules, which only target Apple – and no other company – will significantly limit our ability to offer innovative products and features in Europe, resulting in a substandard user experience for our European customers.” This sentence can be interpreted as a thinly disguised threat that users stand to lose big in the future, and that the EU risks being left behind technologically.
For programmer and blogger John Gruber, the possibility of AirDrop disappearing from European iPhones is very real. “It seems clear to me that under the current interoperability mandate in the European Commission’s DMA, Apple would be required to make it compatible with third-party devices and PCs. If AirDrop were new, EU users would likely not benefit from it. And if that mandate stands, EU users could lose AirDrop,” he explains.
Apple has appealed this interoperability requirement under the DMA. If it wins its case and this section of the text is removed from the regulation, AirDrop will still not be available on other platforms, but will remain on the manufacturer’s devices. If it loses, it remains difficult to predict whether the threat to remove the feature will be carried out.
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