(Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. is withholding a raft of new technologies from hundreds of millions of consumers in the European Union, citing concerns posed by the bloc’s regulatory attempts to rein in Big Tech.
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The company announced Friday it would block the release of Apple Intelligence, iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing from users in the EU this year, because the Digital Markets Act allegedly forces it to downgrade the security of its products and services.
“We 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,” Apple said in a statement.
The EU’s DMA forces Big Tech platforms to abide by a long list of dos and don’ts. Tech services are prohibited from favoring their own over those of rivals. They’re barred from combining personal data across their different services, blocked from using data they collect from third-party merchants to compete against them, and have to allow users to download apps from rivals platforms.
“Gatekeepers are welcome to offer their services in Europe, provided that they comply with our rules aimed at ensuring fair competition,” the European Commission said in response to Apple’s plans.
Apple Intelligence was the recent highlight of the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference presentation, which also included updates to the iPhone maker’s operating systems. The technology will help summarize text, create original images and retrieve the most relevant data when users need it. The push also includes a revamped version of Siri, its once-pioneering digital assistant.
Apple’s decision to halt the roll out of its new features in the EU will mean consumers in all 27 of the bloc’s nations, including the likes of France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, won’t have access to the company’s ambitious new turn to artificial intelligence technologies for now. The software is due to launch elsewhere this fall, and will only work on a subset of Apple’s devices and just in American English.
The other features not coming they say are iPhone mirroring and SharePlay Screensharing.
The iPhone mirroring lets you use your device virtually on your Mac display and have full control over it. SharePlay Screensharing lets you screenshare from an iPad or iPhone to another and control the other device remotely for technical support.
Apple executives have already locked horns with the EU over its latest attempt to rein in the market abuses of Big Tech. Along with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. the company is under investigation for allegedly ignoring the other central plank to to EU tech regulation, Digital Markets Act.
As part of that probe, Apple is set to receive a formal warning from EU regulators as early as Monday over how it allegedly blocks apps from steering users to cheaper subscription deals on the web — a practice for which it already received a €1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) fine from Brussels regulators earlier this year, under traditional antitrust law.
(Updates with background throughout)
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