Yes, they go around that because they are considered a “three-party scheme”

https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/48519/why-are-a...

High fees are what Apple uses to offer such “great benefits” with their existing card. If they want to expand to Europe, the only cards enabling that would be Amex, or Diners (which is even less accepted I think).

Diners is accepted everywhere Discover is. It's smaller than AmEx, probably, but it's all over Korea, for example.