Which is the issue behind the DMA:
One operator leverages leverages his dominance in one market (core platform service, here: the OS) to charge premium prices in another smartwatches. By you call „integration“ - yet what truly amounts to locking out competitors from offering a better product or service to interface with the dominant platform.
Whereas the DMA enables fair competition in the market for smartwatches.
You are missing the point which I have been trying to made, which is that fair competition doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is equally ahead, but that they are all equally behind.
You seem to assume that forcing everybody (including Apple) to compete on a level playing field means that everyone will be able to release their own Apple Watch clones that are able to integrate as closely with the iPhone as the original, resulting in greater variety and possibly lower prices for consumers.
I feel it would instead only result in the opposite. I owned a Pebble Watch prior to the Apple Watch, and it was basically limited to managing calls and receiving notifications. Apple went ahead with the Apple Watch because they saw the opportunity to do something more with the deep level of system-level integration they had access to (and charge handsomely for it). Imagine an alternate reality where Apple never bothered with releasing the Apple Watch because they realised that legislation like the DMA would simply force Apple to make available to competitors all the progress they had made with their R&D, and there would be no ROI in this regard. We would not have the Apple Watch Ultra 2 today, and would still be counting steps and syncing notifications with Fitbit trackers.
What incentive would there be for Apple to keep innovating if they are obligated to now share those innovation with its competitors? Everyone would just sit back, wait for Apple to release a new product category like AirPods or the Apple Watch, then copy it and undercut Apple because they now no longer need to spend on R&D themselves, knowing that it would just work as well anyways.
Or let's use Spotify (the EU's darling poster child) as another example. Maybe it is "cheating" that Siri can only be used to stream music on Apple Music, but if you give me the option between being able to do only this, and not even having said option (because Apple would rather not let you control Spotify in this manner), I fail to see how consumers are better off by not having even one superior alternative, if it locks them in to Apple's platform, and even if it does disadvantage every other alternative. At least I have the option of paying for an integrated experience, unlike with Android or Windows.
Like, would you be happy only when I can't even use Siri to start music playback or dictate messages on a cellular Apple Watch just because you currently can't do likewise with Spotify or WhatsApp? That's what you all basically believe, right? That Apple somehow has to suffer and to lose in order for consumers to win, whereas in reality, I find that our incentives are more closely aligned than most here would care to believe.
"Unfair" is nothing more than a meaningless buzzword used by companies looking for someone to blame for market failures when the problem is (more often than not) found internally with a bad vision, inadequate corporate culture, and lack of understanding as to what makes Apple unique.
