European Commission orders Apple to finally open the gates of its walled garden and level the playing field for third-party developers

The European Commission is stepping up its efforts to balance the scales in big tech with two new interoperability requirements that may force Apple to finally open the gates of its walled garden.

On March 18, the European Commission announced two new decisions regarding its Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is designed to make the tech industry more fair and accessible by challenging big “gatekeeper” companies like Google and Apple.

The latest update focuses on Apple’s interoperability obligation, the requirement for Apple to make it easier to use third-party devices and services with Apple devices. The Commission is calling for Apple to open up access to certain iOS features that would allow third-party devices, like smartwatches and headphones, to work better with iPhones.

The idea is to level the playing field for third-party accessory devices, which are currently at a big disadvantage compared to the Apple Watch or AirPods due to small, but crucial connectivity features.

The Commission also ordered Apple to create a more fair and transparent process for handling interoperability requests, including “improved access to technical documentation on features not yet available to third parties, timely communication and updates, and a more predictable timeline for the review of interoperability requests.” Those requests are crucial for third-party developers who want their devices or services to work well with iPhones and iPads.

These requirements might seem like small changes, but they could be the key to opening the iron gates of Apple’s walled garden.

For instance, the Commission explained in a Q&A that these new interoperability requirements will improve functionality for third-party smartwatches, stating, “iPhone users will have enhanced possibilities to receive push notifications including pictures on their non-Apple smartwatch and reply to these notifications.”

Little things like that can be deciding factors for many people when they’re trying to choose between a third-party device and its Apple counterpart. A non-Apple pair of headphones might sound better or look better, but if they’re more frustrating to connect than a pair of AirPods, many people might just settle for the AirPods.

Situations like this make it difficult for other brands to compete with Apple, regardless of how good their products are compared to Apple’s own, which is exactly what the DMA is intended to address.

Third-party developers have pointed this out, too. Pebble and Core Devices founder Eric Migicovsky shared a blog post ahead of the launch of his two new smartwatches, the Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2, that shed some light on just how deeply Apple restricts third-party smartwatches:

“I want to set expectations accordingly. We will build a good app for iOS, but be prepared⁠—there is no way for us to support all the functionality that Apple Watch has access to. It’s impossible for a 3rd party smartwatch to send text messages, or perform actions on notifications (like dismissing, muting, replying) and many, many other things.”

Migicovsky even went on to state that “Apple systematically makes it nearly impossible for 3rd party wearable developers to build a smartwatch experience comparable to [the] Apple Watch experience.”

That’s exactly what the European Commission is attempting to resolve. While the DMA only applies in the EU, hopefully the changes it forces Apple to make will also open up the iOS ecosystem in other regions eventually.