And the EU is quite literally saying that in the DMA. If you make products only few EU citizens want, you’re free to make them into a tightly knit well operating system. If you make ANYTHING that actually gets market traction, (likely based on the fact that users like that those products work very well with other products made by that same company) and you end up being successful at creating something many EU citizens want, then you have to stop doing the thing that your customers liked. 🙂
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Xiaomi's Rumored 'iOS Bridge' to Bring Better Apple Device Connectivity
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That is factually incorrect. The DMA doesn't penalize success; it regulates "Gatekeepers" who control a core platform gateway (like iOS). The EU Commission explicitly states the goal is to ensure "contestability" and "fairness", meaning third parties must be able to offer solutions that are "equally effective" to Apple's, not that Apple must degrade its own. If you make products only few EU citizens want, you’re free to make them into a tightly knit well operating system.
This isn't just about "making products people want," it's about leveraging a monopoly to block competition. The US Department of Justice sued Microsoft in 1998 for the exact same behavior, Microsoft using their OS dominance to monopolize the browser market.
The EU documents show that developers have been asking for interoperability with iOS notifications since 2014 and P2P Wi-Fi since 2016. Apple ignored them not because third-party products were "unwanted," but because Apple refused to document the protocols for third-party use. You can't claim superior market traction when you've physically locked the turnstile to the market
This is a strawman.
Has your iPhone stopped "working very well" with your Apple Watch since the DMA passed? No.
Has iMessage stopped working for you since the introduction of RCS? No.
Has the App store stop working since 3rd party stores were allowed? No
The DMA creates a floor, not a ceiling. For example, regarding "Magic Pairing" (the instant popup connection for AirPods), the EU simply mandates that Apple allow third-party devices to use that same seamless discovery protocol. It does not tell Apple to remove it from AirPods.
Regarding Wi-Fi, the mandate is that Apple must ensure third-party solutions are "equally effective" to Apple's own solution in terms of bandwidth, latency, and stability. It literally forbids Apple from making the user experience worse. The only thing Apple has to "stop doing" is artificially crippling competitors to make their own products look better by comparison.
Not if such interoperability is a security/privacy compromise in disguise. People rarely know, let alone appreciate, the significant amount of security considerations that Apple took when developing continuity features between its devices. If curious, just give the Security Guide a read. How many users know that Handoff is protected using iMessage's security model and key exchange mechanism, which is then encapsulated with BLE encryption? How many users know that iPhone Cellular Call Relay - which Xiaomi looks like is trying to break in here - is enabled by end-to-end encrypted APNs notifications, similar to how apps receive their push notifications, and that end-to-end encryption also uses iMessage's security model?
Yes, interoperability is good; but if that means giving up these security measures - which many competitors have proved they don't care by not bothering to develop them in the first place - I'd rather don't have interoperability.
So security is not part of the mandate. And that is a big problem; and sadly not many users will notice because security mechanisms is very poorly understood in the public in the first place. Sometimes it's not simply "Apple need to give xxx access to third parties", but that the "third-party" have to adopt something as secure as Apple's solution. And Apple have no way to force other companies to adhere to higher security standards.
Take unlocking iPhone with Apple Watch as an example. The process is well documented in Apple's Platform Security Guide. Thanks to clever implementation of keybags, key exchange, BLE, and Apple Watch's Security Enclave, watchOS is never made aware of iPhone's actual passcode during the entire unlocking process. This way, even if a hacker was able to compromise your Apple Watch, they still can't learn your iPhone passcode. Now, what happens if DMA jumps out and say that Apple must allow third-party watches to unlock iPhones as well? Heck, most third-party watches don't even have a Security Enclave in the first place; let alone forcing them to adopt the same security processes as Apple Watch does, replay attack prevention, proximity measurements, address randomization, etc etc. That would be a huge man-made security loophole. Giving my iPhone passcode to a third party watch? No thank you.
So the only logical thing Apple would do in such a scenario, as much as they won't be happily doing this, is cancelling the whole Unlock iPhone with Apple Watch feature in the EU. The same thing already happened when DMA forced iPhones to dump the entirety of its memorized Wi-Fi SSIDs and passwords to third-party watches. And EU citizens can thank their own government for losing such a feature; or cluelessly blaming Apple for being "anti-competitive".
WarmWinterHat
Suspended
Bold choice of words there. Care to quote where they that, quite literally?
More rubbish again. The EU does not "penalise success".
What happens is that when companies get a significant market share (or in the case of phones they are part of a duopoly ... android any iOS, no real difference) they start abuse their dominance, and that's when the EU steps in. Quite rightly in my opinion.
Phones are a commodity and all the companies are screwing us. Interoperability should be a given.
That is incorrect. The Commission’s decision explicitly addresses security and integrity multiple times.
For instance, in the section regarding Wi-Fi interoperability, the Commission notes that the chosen standard (Wi-Fi Aware) was selected partly because it has "built-in pairing, security, and privacy protections". The document further states that both gatekeepers and third parties are "subject to legal requirements regarding security and privacy".
Apple is also explicitly permitted to enforce security measures on third parties. The decision states: "Apple is allowed to require that third-party developers encrypt the iOS notification before relaying it to the connected physical device". This directly contradicts your claim that Apple has "no way to force other companies to adhere to higher security standards."
This is a misunderstanding of how interoperability works. The DMA mandates "effective interoperability", not "insecure data dumping." If Apple's unlocking feature relies on a secure cryptographic exchange like you described, the mandate requires Apple to make that protocol available, not to send your passcode in plain text. Third parties would need to implement the same secure handshake. If a third-party watch lacks the necessary secure hardware (like a Secure Enclave equivalent) to perform the cryptographic handshake securely, Apple would likely be within its rights to restrict that specific feature, provided the requirement is applied fairly and isn't just a pretext to block competition
Nobody is asking you @Skyuser to do anything. Stay within Apple's ecosystem. I on the other hand should be able to choose for myself what watch i want to use and it should not be artificially hindered by Apple.
The "Apple will just cancel it" argument ignores the core purpose of the regulation. The DMA is designed to ensure contestability, not to degrade the user experience. Apple maliciously removing features to avoid compliance is exactly that.
WarmWinterHat
Suspended
Matter only matters (ha) to smart home devices, which I don't care anything about. I want better 3rd party watch integration, ability to change, or disable, cloud providers on the phone (including what cloud it backs up to), etc.
Or any nation with a substantial empirical influence both past or present. That attitude runs deep culturally and subsides slower than a turtle on ketamine.
Deine Mudda
macrumors member
Well I doubt that contradicts my argument. The word “encryption” can mean anything; even WeChat, that Chinese super-app where your every move is directly made available to the government and the police, is also technically “encrypted”. The catch is that it’s not end-to-end encryption.
Simply adopting some kind of “encryption” doesn’t necessarily mean adhering to a higher security standard. That’s just baseline security standard.
“Likely”. So what happens if Apple is denied this right?
Also, who gets to decide whether it’s an “anticompetitive pretext”? Government officials who don’t know the difference between classic Bluetooth, competing companies who are eager to do negative PR on Apple’s security designs, or the general public who sometimes confuse RAM with hard disk? And if a decision is made, how to prove it is made fairly and have been given adequate security considerations?
Great to see this. File transfer between devices is much needed and will be very useful.
Better prove that before declaring Apple’s move “malicious compliance”. History is filled with examples where the effect of regulations is exactly the opposite of their stated “core purpose”. If you banned all knives on the market for the “core purpose” of preventing murder, you cannot blame restaurants of “malicious compliance” when they close down.
Back to the main topic. How is allowing third-party accessories to arbitrarily read all my WiFi SSIDs, MAC addresses, and passwords not a security risk, given this is a must if DMA was to be satisfied?
(For people who need some background, with these data and some publicly available databases, one can reconstruct a map of your physical location history for as long as you’ve used your phone.)
And if you do admit it’s a security loophole, how do you suggest Apple resolve it, without pulling the feature, while also satisfying DMA?
WeChat is brilliant, you're just repeating anti-Chinese mantras. Do you honestly think WhatsApp, Messages and all the rest don't track you? Really?
The Game 161
macrumors Nehalem
amazing how much apple is a market leader when brands are making their products work well with other apple products.
I’m not saying just tracking users; I’m saying even your private messages are actively monitored if you’re on WeChat. WeChat as a surveillance vehicle is well documented, and even many Chinese netizens themselves know that their chats are monitored. They just don’t have a choice.
Last time I checked, WhatsApp use end-to-end encryption by default. Fun fact: it is also banned by the Chinese government.
Xiaomi's version of Continuity already works well for their phones on Mac, which is nice since the company makes better and better-value phones than does Apple.
You are speculating about "baseline" security, but the EU's proposed measures actually address this directly. The document explicitly states that Apple is allowed to take "strictly necessary, proportionate and duly justified measures to ensure that interoperability does not compromise the integrity of the operating system, hardware and software features".
Apple is responsible for setting the standard of encryption necessary to ensure interoperability and it must be equivalent to the same standard they set for themselves, not more, not less. Proportional.
It's not decided by random public opinion of someone on a forum that's for sure. The Commission has established a strict reporting mechanism for this.
Apple is required to communicate "all the measures that it intends to take" to comply. Specifically regarding security, Apple must "describe in detail every measure it has adopted or plans to adopt to ensure that the integrity of iOS is not compromised, explaining why such measure is strictly necessary and proportionate".
Apple even has to provide a non-confidential version of this report for publication. So, if Apple restricts a feature for security reasons, they have to prove on paper that it's technically necessary and not just an excuse.
Feel free to go download the documents and read. The information for the DMA commissioners is public information, feel free to message them and ask if they know the difference between classic bluetooth.
Removing a feature instead of providing a proportional interoperable solution is malicious compliance otherwise you are stating Apple engineers are too stupid to figure out how to offer effective solutions for 3rd-party devices. This is simply just common sense.
Good thing we're not talking about banning knives but preventing a corporation from using their position of power to control what consumers can and cannot do with their device. Anymore ridiculous analogies you wanna add?
1. NOBODY IS ASKING YOU @Skyuser to do anything. Simply do not use third-party devices with your iPhone, stay within Apple's ecosystem.
2. I'll let Apple explain it to you then since their engineers are not too stupid to figure it out.
Wi-Fi Infrastructure
Share Wi-Fi network credentials securely between devices and connected accessories.iOS 26.2+iPadOS 26.2+
Overview
Companion apps that have paired an accessory with AccessorySetupKit can use the Wi-Fi™️ Infrastructure framework to share networks with their paired accessory over a local Bluetooth 4.2 Secure connection.The Wi-Fi™ Infrastructure framework enables your app to share Wi-Fi network credentials from an iOS device to paired accessories automatically and securely. Use this framework to avoid manually entering network passwords on accessories with limited input capabilities, such as smartwatches, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, or other connected hardware that travels with people across different networks.
The framework provides a secure, encrypted sharing mechanism that respects privacy and choice. People can authorize different levels of sharing, from automatic network sharing to manual approval for each network. All network sharing occurs only when accessories are connected via Bluetooth, ensuring that the credentials a person shares are only shared when devices are physically together.
With the Wi-Fi Infrastructure framework, you can:
- Request authorization to share Wi-Fi networks with paired accessories.
- Automatically share networks when the iOS device joins them.
- Prompt people through your app to share specific networks with their accessories.
- Receive shared network credentials in your app extension.
- Present system-provided network picker interfaces.
- Handle network-sharing failures and retry with alternative networks.
This isn't some "security loophole", Apple already does this for their own devices. Apple devices currently "obtain the Wi-Fi networks saved on the iPhone" to connect without friction. The DMA simply mandates that Apple provide third parties access to this same data "subject to the same user controls and permissions that Apple applies with respect to its own connected physical devices".
If you believe syncing Wi-Fi credentials to a watch is a massive security risk that exposes your location history, then you should be arguing that the Apple Watch is a security risk, because it already uses this exact feature. The DMA doesn't create a new risk; it just demands that the existing functionality be vendor-neutral. If Apple can secure this transfer to an Apple Watch, they can secure it to a Garmin or Pixel Watch using the same encryption and integrity standards that they demand.
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No, that’s exactly what they’re saying.
Other tech companies want to be able to make smart watches or headphones (two big examples) that access Apple’s IP so they gain the same functionality as Apple’s own devices.
When people bring up Microsoft when talking about Apple it proves they know nothing about antitrust laws in the US.
Here’s a hint: Microsoft licenses Windows to OEMs and then tried to leverage that position. Google licenses Android to OEMs and also tried to leverage that position. Both of them have lost in court over this.
Apple doesn’t license iOS to anyone.
This is why, for example, Apple beat Epic on 9 of 10 counts in court (with the 10th count still going through appeals/changes) while Google lost against Epic.