Citing EU regulations, Apple postpones AI functionality in Europe

Apple argues that regulations governing competition that mandate interoperability with competing goods would jeopardise security and privacy

Because EU competition rules require products and services to be compatible with those of competitors, Apple has decided to postpone the debut of three new AI features in Europe. These functionalities won’t be available in Europe until 2025, despite being introduced in the US this autumn.

Due to legal difficulties resulting from the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), the business said on Friday that three features—Phone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing improvements, and Apple Intelligence—will not be rolled out to EU users this year.

Apple contended—a point that EU officials have refuted—that EU legislation would compel it to jeopardise the security of its products.

“Specifically, we are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products, risking user privacy and data security,” Apple wrote in a message.

The European Commission reportedly told Bloomberg that as long as Apple conformed with local rules, it would be accepted in the EU.

The business unveiled Apple Intelligence, a collection of artificial intelligence tools that combines ChatGPT and Siri to perform web searches and produce text or images, during its yearly developer conference earlier this month.

These assistive tools will also be able to search through a phone’s emails, texts, and images to retrieve specific information based on user suggestions when the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system is released later this year.

The business declared that devices with the M1 chip or later models of the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad, and Mac will be able to utilise the functionalities. Users can watch and interact with the screen of their phone on Mac computers thanks to iPhone Mirroring on MacOS Sequoia.

“We are dedicated to working with the European Commission to find a solution that would allow us to provide these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety,” stated Apple.

Apple underlined how serious it is about protecting user privacy with its latest AI features. This commitment was reaffirmed in early June by CEO Tim Cook, who said that the features would “be based on your personal context, such as your routine, relationships, communications, and more.”