Apple Faces First Italian DMA Probe on iCloud Interoperability

[MacRumors]

Italy's competition regulator said on Tuesday it had launched an investigation into Apple over its compliance with interoperability obligations as set out in the European Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Under the DMA, Apple must ensure that third-party providers of consumer cloud services can interoperate effectively and free of charge with Apple's iOS and iPadOS software platforms. The rules also mandate equal access to Apple's iCloud service.

The Italian Competition Authority said in a statement on its website that it had proof that other providers of consumer cloud services "may not be placed on an equal footing as Apple's iCloud," as they did not appear to have access to the same software features available to Apple's own service.

Specifically, the authority said that Apple does not allow alternative cloud storage services to use features in iOS and iPadOS that enable users to perform a full backup of their device's data.

The probe is the first of its kind opened by the Italian watchdog under the ⁠DMA, which allows national regulators to conduct preliminary investigations.

The authority said its findings will be shared with the European Commission "to support it in its role as sole DMA enforcer." Companies violating DMA rules can face fines up to 10% of worldwide annual revenue.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Faces First Italian DMA Probe on iCloud Interoperability

 

[contacos]

I wouldn't mind this and obviously a business decision to get users subscribed AND locker in the Apple ecosystem. On Android you can even do a local back up on a USB thumb drive or NAS

 

[Samplasion]

I'd love to be able to back up my devices on a NAS or external server. This is a good thing.

 

[johannnn]

So tired of this. Can't Apple just get an opportunity to innovate? I really dislike that 99% of their time must go to pleas the 1% of users that care about NAS and SD cards and USB sticks in 2026.

 

[ersan191]

I don't disagree. I have 5TB of free OneDrive storage available but I'm stuck paying Apple $3/month to have backups and photos using native iOS since the 5GB they give you for free is basically nothing.

I'd even stick with iCloud Drive if it supported versioning and had a decent Linux client, but it doesn't.

 

[tobiastimpe]

Interesting. A question would be how such a backup would be signed/encrypted. Giving the user a key seems like a bad choice as this would allow users to read/write a lot of system data.

 

[Mainyehc]

Does anyone here seriously believe that what the Italian regulators are aiming for is a completely open, well-documented system that will allow you to set up your own Linux server and integrate it with Apple apps, instead of some protectionist bs? 🙄 🤦‍♂️

 

[singularity0993]

Interesting. A question would be how such a backup would be signed/encrypted. Giving the user a key seems like a bad choice as this would allow users to read/write a lot of system data.

Apple provides a way to backup your iOS device to your computer via USB connection. You choose the key, and yes, you can read and modify some less protected part of system data.

 

[Madmic23]

Interesting. A question would be how such a backup would be signed/encrypted. Giving the user a key seems like a bad choice as this would allow users to read/write a lot of system data.

I would imagine it would be the same as an iCloud backup, with your phone doing the encryption and the backup service would just be a place to store the data. No reason why this couldn't work and be just as secure as iCloud.

This is what Apple says about encrypted data:

About end-to-end encrypted data
End-to-end encrypted data can be decrypted only on your trusted devices where you’re signed in to your Apple Account. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data — not even Apple — and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud. If you lose access to your account, only you can recover this data, using your device passcode or password, recovery contact, or recovery key.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651

 

[robvalentine]

So tired of this. Can't Apple just get an opportunity to innovate? I really dislike that 99% of their time must go to pleas the 1% of users that care about NAS and SD cards and USB sticks in 2026.

Locking out Google drive, or local NASes, or thumb drives is not innovation. If iCloud could back up my Android, I can ditch google drive, alas I can't. I have an iPhone 17 pro max, and an Androids, and I use the Android as it's easier to use with everything non-apple, which is an own goal IMO.

 

[Hajj.david]

So tired of this. Can't Apple just get an opportunity to innovate? I really dislike that 99% of their time must go to pleas the 1% of users that care about NAS and SD cards and USB sticks in 2026.

If Apple had iCloud on Android and Linux, I would throw my hands up and say sure. But Apple doesn't meaning you are forced to have multiple cloud providers and you can't even use your own solutions.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

The EU politicians are doing their attention seeking grandstanding again. Time for the Trump Administration to start similar strong arming EU companies doing business in the US. You know it’s coming.

 

[Madmic23]

So tired of this. Can't Apple just get an opportunity to innovate? I really dislike that 99% of their time must go to pleas the 1% of users that care about NAS and SD cards and USB sticks in 2026.

You know what would be super innovative? Giving users choice to use different services. iCloud storage isn't some magic place, it's just data storage off your phone. Why can't a user backup to DropBox? Or Google Drive? or OneDrive? There are a lot of people who are paying Apple because they don't have any other option.

Would it be innovative if Apple were to stop you from watching Netflix on your iPhone and forced you to only watch content from Apple TV? Or would that be anti-competitive?

 

[surferfb]

I use the Android as it's easier to use with everything non-apple, which is an own goal IMO.

Sounds like the free market is working then.

 

[BC2009]

Wow! This is actually a reasonable EU pushback on DMA grounds! It would make sense to be able to do a full encrypted backup of your phone to *any* cloud storage service. You can already backup your photos to alternate photo services like Google Photos because Google has full access to the photos library (if you provide it). You would just need to make it so the phone maintained the decryption key for the backup protected under the user's authentication on the phone and just give the third-party storage access to only the encrypted backup (to maintain user privacy).

 

[ProbablyDylan]

This would be great. I want to use my own secure storage for my iPhone backups just like I can for my Mac.

 

[IIGS User]

"The authority said its findings will be shared with the European Commission "to support it in its role as sole DMA enforcer." Companies violating DMA rules can face fines up to 10% of worldwide annual revenue."

If I were Apple, I would tell Italy and all of Europe to stick it. What hubris gives them the notion that they have some sort of providence over 10% of a company's worldwide annual revenue? That's preposterous.

I get that many users want to back up their phone their way. You don't HAVE to use iCloud to backup your phone. You can backup an iPhone to a Windows box if you like. So iCloud is just more convenient than backing your phone up to a Mac or a Windows PC. Same way it's more convenient to use the ATM in a store down the street than at my bank. They charge a fee for that. Which I avoid because there are alternatives to paying that fee.

No one is FORCED to use iCloud. It's just more convenient to back your phone up to the "cloud" as a generic term. If you want that convivence you pay for it. If you want to dodge that expense, whip out the USB cable and do your back up.

Nonsense like this is why EU users aren't getting access to the updated version of Siri. Why would any company do business in a jurisdiction that threatens 10% of their worldwide revenue for not complying with their regulations?

So, it's simple math. If I were Apple, no more iCloud in the EU. Keep it up, and pretty soon the version of iOS that is available in Europe will be stripped down to the bone compared to what the rest of the world gets. The money Apple makes off Italy (ITALY, it's not even a HUGE country) on iCloud simply isn't worth the hassle.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

So tired of this. Can't Apple just get an opportunity to innovate? I really dislike that 99% of their time must go to pleas the 1% of users that care about NAS and SD cards and USB sticks in 2026.

If Apple were offering this for free, they could make the case that no market exists and it's just a feature of their platform. But since Apple charges for this as an add-on, the market exists, and Apple stifles it by preventing competitors from being able to access the functionality that their own product can offer.

So few people care about potential competitors because Apple prevents those competitors from being as viable as they should be.

 

[Ctrlos]

It goes both ways. Can’t use iCloud on Android. Where is the DMA at Google?

 

[MilaM]

Looking forward to this change if this allows me to back up my iOS devices to my local NAS.

Knowing how much Apple counts on future iCloud revenue this will be long battle though.

 

[jarman92]

Would it be innovative if Apple were to stop you from watching Netflix on your iPhone and forced you to only watch content from Apple TV? Or would that be anti-competitive?

You know that's not remotely analogous to the actual situation, right?

 

[zarmanto]

... What hubris gives them the notion that they have some sort of providence over 10% of a company's worldwide annual revenue? That's preposterous. ...

I agree with every single word you said -- with one very minor correction:

... No one is FORCED to use iCloud. ... If you want to dodge that expense, whip out the USB cable and do your back up. ...

You actually only have to whip out that USB cable once. After the initial connection and trust has been established, you can configure the software on your computer to backup your iPhone via Wi-Fi.

 

[jarman92]

I'd love to be able to back up my devices on a NAS or external server. This is a good thing.

Neither of which is a "consumer cloud service" provider and therefore has nothing to do with this probe.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Interesting. A question would be how such a backup would be signed/encrypted. Giving the user a key seems like a bad choice as this would allow users to read/write a lot of system data.

The EU is speedrunning the next CrowdStrike event. Having not learned that forcing third parties to have access is sometimes a bad idea, they’re trying their best to engineer another worldwide tech disaster.

 

[uacd]

I don’t even need cloud to start with. There is a cloud, up in the sky. Why would I pay $$ monthly for useless slow storage when I have several T7 SSDs that copy files faster than I am able to finish my cup of tea?

EU DMA is sooo f-ed up and doesn’t even solve real problems of users such as Apple automatically enabling ALL autoupload features in iOS every time you set up a new iPhone. Android doesn’t do it like that and there is a prompt after prompt whether you like to disable it or not. Apple doesn’t even offer “eject” button for flash drives or SSDs, their phones keep photos so deep that you are not even able to copy them on your computer (And I am talking about Mac, not Windows) as folders.

I mean all of that comes under “non-competitive behavior” and they make life of users so unbearable that most fall into iCloud trap just so Apple can earn more money. Pair it up with the fact that Files app appeared in iPhone only in 2017, while Android had it ever since the Stone Age. And Files app is still very limited for real file management tasks, is very slow, laggy and unintuitive