02. March 2024 · Categories: Apple, Politics

Apple has now confirmed that they will continue supporting Progressive Web Apps in the EU, iOS will serve them using Webkit. Over at gamesfray, Florian Müller explains why he believes this to be illegal. I believe this interpretation is wrong, that Apple overreacted, and that PWA never fell under the interoperability clauses of the Digital Markets Act. The important parts are

  • article 5, part 7:

    The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or business users to use, to offer, or to interoperate with, an identification service, a web browser engine or a payment service, or technical services that support the provision of payment services, such as payment systems for in-app purchases, of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by the business users using that gatekeeper’s core platform services.

  • article 6, part 7:

    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.

PWAs are in my opinion not covered. In 5(7), only business users using the core platform service (iOS) get the right to chose their web browser engine. This means iOS apps, not web pages1. And 6(7) only demands that you get access to the same features that Apple uses, it does not include the right to replace the underlying implementation. So it only means that rival web browsers will be able to install PWAs, not replace the underlying browser engine for PWAs. The Safari App does not run PWAs, this is done by iOS with the help of Webkit, this is thus not an ability rival web browsers could demand access to.


  1. Were we to regard the browser as a core platform service, then a literal reading could require the browsers to allow web sites to select an engine of their choice. This is technically absurd, and legally dubious, as this is obviously aimed at forced bundling, as clearly laid out in note 43. And I doubt the DMA wants to force end users to tolerate crypto mining engines destroying their batteries.