Apple will hold back the release of Apple Intelligence, iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing in the European Union out of concern about regulations in the Digital Markets Act (DMA), according to various press reports.
Apple Intelligence is Appleâs artificial intelligence upgrade. An Apple spokesman âdescribed Apple Intelligence as a collection of âhighly capableâ large language and âdiffusion models,â as well as an âon-device semantic indexâ that worked across apps to identify data and feed it to models,â according to CNBC.Â
It affected the Siri voice assistant and other functions.
The EU Expects Big Tech To Behave Itself
iPhone mirroring allows users to see and control their iPhones from their Macs.Â
SharePlay Screen Sharing allows FaceTime users to take control of othersâ devices during the conversation. Fred Sainz, Apple senior director of corporate communications, told The Verge in a statement:
âWe are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security.â
Apple is one of the six corporations the EU has identified as âgatekeepersâ with particularly powerful positions in their markets.Â
The gatekeeper corporations besides Apple are Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft. The six operate 22 âcore platform services,â EU lawmakers say.Â
Gatekeepers are subject to the rules of the Digital Markets Act, which took effect in May 2023.
The EU Is A Huge Market
The rules imposed on the gatekeepers cover interactions with third parties, usersâ control over their data and the data they generate and businessesâ rights to verify advertising hosting on their platforms, among other things.
Violations of those rules could lead to penalties of up to 10% of the companyâs total worldwide annual turnover, or up to 20% in the case of repeated offenses, as well as additional remedies.Â
Apple is already the subject of a probe of its business practices in the EU. The EU has 27 member states and a population of 448.4 million.