Tim Cook Meets EU Antitrust Chief Ahead of iPhone App Sideloading Deadline

Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday met the European Union's antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, at Apple Park amid a series of disputes between the organizations.

margrethe vestager and tim cook
The meeting focused on European competition policy and digital regulation. On X (formerly Twitter), Vestager explained that she stressed Apple's impending obligation to allow users to install third-party app stores and sideload apps under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). They also spoke about ongoing investigations involving Apple, such as a complaint raised by Spotify against Apple Music, but Vestager declined to provide more specific detail of the discussion.

Apple is facing a range of challenges in the EU, such as a $14 billion tax dispute and a potential deal to open up the iPhone's NFC technology to payment services from rival companies. Most strikingly, new EU rules such as the DMA designate major tech companies as "gatekeepers" and compel them to open up their various services and platforms to other companies and developers. The DMA is expected to force Apple to make significant changes to the way the App Store, FaceTime, and Siri work in Europe. For example, Apple will be obliged to give developers the ability to promote their offers outside the ‌‌‌‌App Store‌‌‌‌ and use third-party payment systems.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
m4 macbook air pink

Apple Now Selling Refurbished M4 MacBook Air Models

Friday June 13, 2025 3:34 pm PDT by
Apple today added M4 MacBook Air models to its refurbished store in the United States, making the latest MacBook Air devices available at a discounted price for the first time since they launched earlier this year. Both 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models are available, with Apple offering multiple capacities and configurations. The refurbished devices are discounted by approximately 15...

Top Rated Comments

TJ82 Avatar
19 months ago
Matching haircuts. Good start!
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oofio2461 Avatar
19 months ago
We have a right to do anything with the hardware WE buy. Apple is too over-controlling over the things we can and cant do.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Spanky Deluxe Avatar
19 months ago
I'm unlikely to use side loading on my iPhone but the feature should be there. Call it 'installing' or something new aged like that. The place I *really* want this though is on the iPad.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ashdelacroix Avatar
19 months ago

We have a right to do anything with the hardware WE buy. Apple is too over-controlling over the things we can and cant do.
Whilst I agree with this to a large extent, the problem here is that the EU isn't then merely "on the side of the consumer": it is the victim of billions of euros' worth of lobbying from Google, Microsoft and many others, to help bring down Apple a peg or two.

What we are seeing is not some pro-consumer EU but an EU at the bidding of corporations that want to "open up" Apple devices: open them up to third-party services such that Messages would be forced to integrate with Facebook's WhatsApp platform and Google's RCP Android services. You'll notice this would be to the prime benefit of Facebook and Google rather than to some one-man band with a little messaging service.

Even if Messages is not singled out in this way (I'm hearing conflicting information on whether Apple is a "gatekeeper" for this purpose), then it's still important to see how this is not merely a consumer protection but a boon to other billion-dollar corporations who seek to bring down Apple, its specific culture and its secure, walled garden (a garden I suspect 95% of Apple consumers rather like).
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
19 months ago

I'm unlikely to use side loading on my iPhone but the feature should be there.
I'm OK with that as long as the iPhone owner bears responsibility for any adverse consequences that comes to them personally, or their iPhone, as a result.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WarmWinterHat Avatar
19 months ago

jail cook if he refuses to allow sideloading worldwide.
Under what law, and explain exactly what laws apply worldwide?

Think before you post ridiculous stuff.


while I agree, if only this were true.
You never own software, it’s always a license.
Even windows, Microsoft can technically revoke your access on your PC at any time if they want to.
Then give us access to the bare hardware, without an OS. We can't get that, either, even at the end of a products lifespan/updates.

Microsoft can revoke your access to Windows, not to the computer itself. I can blow away Windows anytime I want and install another licensed copy, Linux, xBSD, whatever.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)