The CEO of Apple Tim Cook has spoken against the proposed technology regulations that will make the iPhone owner able to install applications from outside the App Store, because the Cupertino company comes in adding pressure around the vice grip on the software. The proposed law, known as DMA, will force companies with large platforms – such as Apple, Amazon, and Google – to open more for European customers.
The digital market law was proposed earlier this year, by the European Union. Along with digital service laws, it will bring legal force to burden the company with an outsized and dominated user base in their sectors. Think of Apple, iOS, iPhone, and Google Android.
While Android users can rule out the application to their phones and tablets, Apple has long prevented the activity on the iPhone and iPad. The old argument is that the decision is based on security, and that one default protection for iOS and iPad ios users is that they can be sure that Apple has prepared the formal app store content. But that approach has several significant side effects.
For the developer, he left Apple as the gatekeeper to a new functionality. It also forces them to pay for what is called “Apple Tax” on purchases and subscriptions in the application, which is a Cupertino company levy in return for work results in the App Store infrastructure and, it argues, to provide a user base to sell for. We have seen Epic Games take Apple to court on that in the US.
In Europe, meanwhile, the regulator is currently investigating Apple for potential antitrust behavior, after Spotify filed complaints.
Speaking through video calls as part of the Vivatech conference in France, Tim Cook pushed back to the proposed DMA. “I see the technology regulations that are being discussed, I think there is a good part,” he conceded, the CNBC report. “And I think there are parts that are not for the best interests of users.”
Sideloading is his main concern. “If you take an example where I don’t think it’s in the best interest, that current DMA language is being discussed, it will impose sideloading on the iPhone,” Cook highlighted. “And this will be an alternative way to get an application to the iPhone, as we see it, it will destroy the security of the iPhone.”
Far from being the dominant platform, the chef argues, the market share of the iPhone in France is currently 23 percent. He also points to a greater tendency to malware on Android devices, where sideloading is possible from the beginning.
