I suspect they won't because the DMA pretty explicitly doesn't.
If this is an issue we want to address, then we need software/ip licensing in general to be changed.
There are other phones to chose from also. This is where the rub is. Apple has already successfully argued in the US that the phone and the software and app store are a single entity. Breaking them apart does not make sense.
Instead of paying 5% for the Unreal engine, I only want to pay 2% when I use someone Unity's networking stack. And, if Unreal isn't happy about that, I will petition the government to force them. It may sound odd or absurd, but it's still just a ip/software licensing agreement.
BTW, any PS game sold digital or physical owes Sony a licensing fee (~15% last I saw). So even if Sony is forced to allow other digital stores on the PS, they will likely still demand a licensing fee for each game sold. Where the game comes from is irrelevant, except with physical sales falling under right of first sale doctrine.
Why do certain people always always fall back on this lame response that's not even applicable.
> It may sound odd or absurd
It's indeed absurd. Unity and Unreal Engine are not gatekeepers in any sense of the word. They do not control any market, they simply sell software and services to developers. Game engines are dime a dozen and games switch between different engines surprisingly often.
This regulation addresses business dealings between Apple and developers working with their platform. Developers have a completely free choice of using Unity or Unreal Engine, it doesn't make a lick of difference to anyone except developers and artists working on the game.
Developers do not have a choice of which platform their customers are using, the developer can't "choose Android" because they need to reach users on iOS which makes up half of their customer base.
Not just in the app market, but in any market - hardware products, physical businesses, government services. All of those need to play by Apple's rules if they want to survive. This is what makes Apple the gatekeeper, they have the power to affect technological development of the entire world.
If Apple decided that apps couldn't use NFC, this could potentially hold back modernization of the entire European public transit system. If Apple blocked apps from using certain bluetooth features, this would sink their competitors in the accessories & IoT market.
It's not acceptable for one corporation to essentially hold the world hostage, hence this regulation.
Developers can certainly choose Android to develop features that Apple prevents them from doing.
If Apple was really holding back progress, it wouldn’t take long for consumers to start choosing the superior Android platform.
The DMA calls this out, explicitly:
> Gatekeepers have a significant impact on the internal market, providing gateways for a large number of business users to reach end users everywhere in the Union and on different markets. The adverse impact of unfair practices on the internal market and the particularly weak contestability of core platform services, including the negative societal and economic implications of such unfair practices, have led national legislators and sectoral regulators to act.
As for:
> Developers can certainly choose Android to develop features that Apple prevents them from doing.
You can't release something like a public transit app only on Android and you know it.