26. January 2024 · Categories: Apple, Politics

Apple has now published their proposal to comply with the Digital Markets Act. Apple now allows you to avoid the App Store while charging €0.50 annually for all app installs above a million. This is in clear violation of Article 6, §7 of the DMA, which says:

The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.

The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that interoperability does not compromise the integrity of the operating system, virtual assistant, hardware or software features provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper.

It is important to understand that the App Store is separate from iOS, according to the DMA. Which means that Apple has to provide third parties access to iOS on the same terms as it uses for the App Store and its other built in apps. It cannot charge developers for that access, but it could charge users. Maybe 0.50€ per app per year, with the first 20 free. But then it would need to count the built in apps against that, and removing a built in app would free a slot for an external app, so that users can substitute Google Maps for Apple Maps. And they need to charge the same fee independently of where the app came from, App Store apps would incur the same costs as apps from other sources. This is clearly undesirable for Apple, to create an incentive to throw out built in apps to save money, and to no longer sample apps from the App Store. It also economically advantages large cooperations, and incentives them to create a single mega app, in order to save on the fees. This is not good from a policy point of view.