ARTICLE 19 together with a group of public interest technologists, civil society and scholars, issued a statement in response to the European Commission’s ‘final measures’ decision on Apple interoperability DMA.100204 – Article 6(7).
On 19th March 2025, the European Commission (“the Commission”) published two sets of specification decisions regarding Apple’s compliance with the Art. 6(7) of the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) on interoperability of software and hardware. This statement concerns a single decision on final measures for the process of requesting interoperability with Apple’s iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The Commission’s final decision follows a public consultation on proposed measures in December 2024 to which the undersigned organisations and individuals submitted a joint submission proposing improvements.
As a general comment, we acknowledge and have weighed, what we regard as the positives and negatives aspects of the final decision. While we commend the DMA enforcement team at the Commission for their ongoing enforcement efforts and the brisk turnaround in delivering these comprehensive measures to improve Apple’s request-based approach to comply with Art. 6(7), we are concerned that the final measures represent an overall weaker compliance solution in comparison with the former proposal from December 2024.
What happened to “interoperability by design”?
Although the final decision still requires that Apple provide information regarding the interoperability solutions available to all access-seekers (Paragraph 27), the removal of all references to “interoperability by design” and obligations requiring the sharing of high-level lists of frameworks, libraries, and daemons significantly weakens efforts to open up access to Apple’s software and hardware features as stipulated by Art. 6(7).
A welcome emphasis in increased reporting and transparency obligations
We strongly support the enhanced reporting obligations, specifically the requirement for independent annual audits regarding the “reference query” (Paragraph 2) and the “technical reference” (Paragraph 9). The maintenance of public KPIs (Paragraph 51) will increase the transparency by enabling stakeholders to evaluate the process. Lastly, we celebrate the removal of the clause that permits Apple to impose non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) on access-seekers (former Paragraph 20 (B)(d)).
Extended deadlines for the interoperability solutions
We are happy to see clarity around the implementation phase of the interoperability solution and how releases should be made (Paragraph 40) but equally, we are disappointed that deadlines for implementation of interoperability requests have been extended; Apple will have up to 18 months to provide interoperability based on requests involving “serious efforts” (Paragraph 39(c)).
Handling of rejections – Dispute resolution mechanisms
As regards the dispute resolution mechanisms for when a request is rejected, the basis for granting a further 30 days for the Interoperability Request Review Board (IRRB) to issue a ‘reasoned written decision’ is unclear and in our view, unnecessary (Paragraph 21), and especially so given that the IRRB will be comprised solely of members from Apple. We would have strongly preferred for such a decision to be reviewed by an external party significantly earlier in the process.
Engagement with civil society
We appreciate the Commission’s engagement with civil society, non-profit stakeholders and independent developers in bilateral dialogues. We regret several of our recommendations were not included in the final decision of March 19th, 2025, and would nevertheless urge the Commission to continue to engage with us and to learn from projects that are providing alternative solutions to gatekeepers’ services.
We look forward to continuing to work closely with the European Commission and monitoring how Apple implements the new rules.
Signatories
- ARTICLE 19
- European Digital Rights (EDRi)
- Free Software Foundation Europe
- Data Rights
- Megan Kirkwood (independent researcher)
- Ian Brown (independent researcher)