In the past few days, Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Market Competition, noted that Apple might make a big change to the iPhone: the ability to remove the Photos app.
Photos app on iPhone.
That would be remarkable, and it would build on the game-changing updates Apple had to make to iPhones in the European Union. And while the changes are currently EU-specific, it’s clear that multiple governments, including the White House, are watching closely which aspects of the Digital Markets Act they want to emulate.
In comments last week, spotted by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, Verstager referred to the DMA’s “goal to open up closed ecosystems to enable competition at all levels.” She said: “Apple… has failed to disable the installation of several apps (one of which would be Photos) and prevents end users from changing their default status (for example Cloud), as required by the DMA.”
This is dynamite, suggesting that Apple’s non-removable apps should be.
As Gruber says, there aren’t many apps that users can’t uninstall: “Settings, Camera, Photos, App Store, Phone, Messages and Safari.”
Gruber continues: “Vestager makes it clear in his remarks what was not clear in the EC’s announcement of the investigation: they have a problem with the photos. If they fulfill the requirement that photos cannot be installed at all (rather than just hidden from the home screen, as it is now), it would represent another way in which the European Commission stands as the designer of how operating systems should work. “
It’s as if Verstager sees Photos only as an application. As Gruber says, it’s “a system-level interface for captured photos. This is integrated throughout the iOS system, with per-app permission prompts to grant different levels of access to your photos. Vestager says that in order to be DMA compliant, Apple must allow third-party apps to serve as system-level image libraries and camera footage. That’s a huge request, and I honestly don’t even know how such a request could be reconciled with system-wide photo access permissions. This is product design, not mere regulation.”
Gruber goes on to suggest that since Apple could be in line for huge fines from the EU, there could be a point where it would be more profitable to leave Europe. I think that it is unlikely and that it would cost the European economy dearly, which the EU would recognize.
Even so, it’s a strange position Apple has suddenly found itself in. My guess is that this new demand will be quietly dismissed rather than threaten the way the iPhone works. We’ll see.