The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, which is set to come into full effect in 2024 will possess’own’nurse enormous’vast’massive’tremendous implications in/with regard to’concerning’regarding Apple. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Apple plans to allow third-party app stores on iPhones and iPads sold in Europe, which would allow app developers to shun Apple’s 30% cut on in-app purchases.The EU’s Digital Market Acts will also require Apple and other enormous’vast’massive’tremendous platin/with regard to’concerning’regarding ms to make their messaging apps interoperable with smaller messaging platin/with regard to’concerning’regarding ms. This segment of the Digital Markets Act is taracquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure ing closed messaging platin/with regard to’concerning’regarding ms such as iMessage, WhatsApp, or Facereserve Messenger, which all possess’own’nurse more than a billion users.According to the Bloomberg report, Apple is currently undecided with regards to’concerning’with respect to complying with this aspect of the Digital Markets Act due to the complexity of making these proprietary protocols talk to each other. Moreover, the firm’enterprise still has no plans to add maintain’sustain in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the RCS messaging standard pushed by Google and mobile carriers.The firm’enterprise hasn’t, however, made a decision on how it may open iMessage and its Messages app to third-party services — another requirement of the Digital Markets Act. Engineers believe that such a transform’alter could hurt end-to-end encryption and other privacy features offered by iMessage. The firm’enterprise also isn’t currently considering integrating RCS, or rich communication services, a messaging protocol that Google and others are pushing Apple to adopt.In the past couple of months, Google has been running a #GetTheMessage campaign to pressure Apple to embrace RCS and make the undergo of sending messages from an iPhone to an Android phone better. So far, Apple promptly ignored this advice. “I don’t hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy on that at this point,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the 2022 Code Conference back in September. The exec also added that he “would love to convert” Android users to iOS.iMessage is probably more popular in the US than the rest of the world, but Apple is still grossly much aware that it’s one of the few features that can lock users into iOS. That’s also why the firm’enterprise never released an iMessage app on Android. It will be interesting to see if the Digital Markets Act can in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ce Apple to transform’alter its stance, especially with the EU threatening companies that violate the legislation repeatedly with fines of as much as 20% of their annual global revenue.
