Allison Johnson for The Verge:
Whining about stuff is a treasured American pastime, so allow me to indulge: the iPhone is more fun in Europe now, and it’s not fair.
They’re getting all kinds of stuff because they have cool regulators, not like, regular regulators. Third-party app stores, the ability for browsers to run their own engines, Fortnite, and now the ability to replace lots of default apps? I want it, too! Imagine if Chrome on iOS wasn’t just a rinky dink little Safari emulator! Imagine downloading a new dialer app with a soundboard of fart sounds and setting it as your default! Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t seem interested in sharing these possibilities with everyone.
After all, the EU isn’t left behind, but gets the better version. Apple may need to reconsider.
Let’s see how this goes in the long run.
Other new features come later to EU (or not at all?).
Yes, Apple tries to bully the EU, but it will lose again.
Well, Europe has always been a second-class market at Apple. Look at all the features that they provide(d) only later or potentially never: E.g. Apple Card, News+, maps enhancements, better weather forecast.
And they are still bringing many those to the EU later, because the market is important enough. For e.g. Africa or South America it is even worse.
That they are now spinning this as “because of EU regulations” is understandable but I find that hard to believe. Unless they introduce in Switzerland or similar markets the very same functions they hold back in the EU, “because DMA” will seem like a cheap excuse to use it as an argument in political negotiations.
It can’t bully to hard. I believe most people don’t really care about the AI features (yet) since it only affects iPhone users 15 and up.
But if they bully harder and with important features it will most likely have an effect on market share. Which isn’t all that great compared to the US anyway. And market share = money = share price = happy or unhappy shareholders.
I expect them to be careful about that since it is the single most important thing in the apple universe. (As it is in any other traded company as well)