European Union puts pressure on Apple to open its tech up to competitors

LONDON — The European Union on Wednesday outlined the steps that Apple must take to open up its iPhone and iPad operating systems to work better with competing technologies. It's the first time it has moved to compel a technology company to comply with the bloc's digital Digital Markets Act — a wide-ranging set of regulations designed to prevent Big Tech "gatekeeper" companies from cornering markets. After the DMA took effect a year ago, the EU's executive Commission moved swiftly to open a raft of investigations into Big Tech companies. Brussels also opened two "specification proceedings" in September to spell out what Apple needs to do under the DMA, which aims to make digital markets "fairer" and "more contestable" by breaking up closed tech ecosystems that lock consumers into a single company's products or services. In its decision, the commission detailed measures that the iPhone maker has to take involving nine connectivity features for its iOS operating system. The measures will give device and app makers better access to iPhone features that work with devices, like notifications. The measures will also allow easier setup, such as pairing with devices, and faster data transfers. The commission also laid out a second set of measures to make the process for software developers requesting access to iPhone features more transparent and effective. Among the changes are better access to technical documentation not yet available to third parties, it said. With its decision, Brussels is "providing regulatory certainty both to Apple and to developers," the European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera said in a press release. "Effective interoperability" for will mean "better choice for consumers in the fast-growing market for innovative connected devices," she said. Apple, however, voiced its unhappiness with result, saying it's bad for the company's products and for European users. "Today's decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple's ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don't have to play by the same rules," the company said in a statement. Apple said it will continue to work with the European Commission to "help them understand our concerns on behalf of our users." The Commission also said Wednesday that Google wasn't doing enough to comply with DMA. Despite making changes, including removing flight listings, Google was still giving preference to its own services in search results, it said. Google is also failing to let app developers steer users to cheaper options outside its Google Play Store app marketplace, the commission said in preliminary findings. Google said the EU findings will require the company to make even more changes to how it displays some search results, "which would make it harder for people to find what they are looking for and reduce traffic to European businesses. This is, quite simply, misguided."