[1123581321]

Apple told the European Commission it would roll out the new terms in January 2026. This letter is saying that the uncertainty leading up to January 2026 is causing damage and not in concordance with the European Commission finding in August 2025. Do I understand that right?

Did the European Commission agree to the January 2026 deadline or not? Have they been working internally behind the scenes with Apple or are they as in the dark as these developers? What is the legal mechanism to push disclosure a month earlier and why is the letter only being published now?

These are sincere questions of mine, in case it's not clear.

[Y-bar]

The commission might have agreed with the timeline. It is unclear. But on the other hand this is not just about the relationship between Apple and the EC. Their understanding might actually have meant that the damage to users and other developers remained as is claimed here so the commission now has to listen to the injured party and adjust their posture.

Think of it this way: I am blocking part of your driveway for some reasons, and after a while me and the city inspector agree that I will remedy the situation next year. Would you accept that, or would you tell the inspector that your driveway is still not useable and that I should be quicker?

[enragedcacti]

I think the confusion stems from The Register mixing up two different sets of DMA cases against Apple. The March and August EU actions are regarding hardware and software interoperability under DMA Article 6(7). For these cases, the August specification decision has a number of different deadlines specified, and I don't think any of these have passed yet.

The April 2025 non-compliance decision the app devs reference is regarding the DMA anti-steering provisions (Article 5(4)). This decision was that Apple failed to meet their compliance obligations that were specified way back in June 2024, that they would be subject to a fine, and that they would have 60 days to comply before being subject to periodic fines [1].

The Coalition for App Fairness is saying that they don't believe Apple's App Store anti-steering remediation is compliant or timely and that the EU needs to take further action.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...