As far as I can tell this basically means that all apps must be approved by Apple to follow their “platform policies for security and privacy” even if publishing on a third party app store. They will also disable updating apps from third party app stores if you stay outside the EU for too long (even if you are a citizen of an EU country, with an Apple account set to the EU region).
The idea that preventing app updates is in line with their claims of protecting security is utterly absurd. “Never attibute to malice what can be explained with stupidity,” but Apple isn’t stupid.
Sure, but it would be illogical to think that a company with seemingly unlimited resources would get fined, and then introduce new that didn’t exactly comply with what was required… I mean, I would think they are working with the EU to ensure it is within a millimeter of what they are allowed. It seems you just don’t like it.
I think it’s a safe bet they had their legal teams sifting through the whole DMA to find a way to comply while making it as obnoxious as possible to the user, the third party providers, and everyone else pretty much.
Though it’s also pretty evident that this is bad faith compliance and not in the spirit of the DMA, so the EU legislators will hopefully slap them with another fine.
Apple will put up with fines if it judges that if they manage to avoid the fine, the financial benefit will outweigh the fine.
If there’s a 50% chance that I stand to make $100m, and a 50% chance to be fined $20m, it makes sense (if I’m unethical, like corporations are) to take that gamble. Even more so if I think I can use lawyers to shift the chances in my favor.
If you’re to make $100m, and there’s a 99% chance to be fined $100m… it still makes sense to risk it, worst case scenario you end up as you were.
The beauty of EU’s laws, is that the fines are set as a % of “global revenue”, not just of revenue in the EU, nor in terms of profits, so large multinational corporations stand to lose way more than what they are likely to gain by not complying.