Apple Relents on Default Apps in the EU
Juli Clover
On the surface, this doesn't seem all that interesting. Apple already allowed EU users to change the default web browser away from Safari, now they're doing that for basically every one of Apple's default apps (and allowing those apps to be deleted from devices). Nice options, sure, but it also feels a bit like low-hanging fruit stuff to keep stringing the EU along and prolonging any rulings about compliance with the DMA.
(I will say that of these, the ability to change the default messaging app may be the biggest deal, depending on how it's implemented. WhatsApp increasingly seems to rule Europe, so might this oddly be a big win for... Meta? And indirectly Google, which might worry a lot less about "green bubbles" if iMessage is eroded...)
Some will find that take too cynical, and maybe. I don't want to trivialize all the iOS-level tweaks that need to be made to accommodate such changes – and again, just for iPhone and iPad users in the EU, these changes are not coming to the US. At least not yet...
And that leads me to my other quick take: what if this move is also a signal being sent to the US Justice Department that if the remedies in the Google antitrust case include an end to Google being the default search engine on iPhones, Apple, which is also under investigation by the body, has potential pre-remedies they could do? Such as, you know, allowing users to change the defaults for all of their pre-installed apps. I'm not saying Apple wants to do this in the US, but I'm suggesting they might use it as a dangling carrot for the DOJ is they want to drop (or shrink) that pesky investigation...
The DOJ case against Apple doesn't seem particularly strong for a whole host of reasons, but the Google ruling just set an interesting framework, if not exactly a precedent for these types of cases. What else might Apple be willing to change to avoid being charged?... The devil is always in the defaults...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler