Hey, Margrethe Vestager of the EU, you can’t have it both ways with Apple

Well, Margrethe Vestager, vice-president and competition regulator of the European Union, you can’t have it both ways. You want to burden Apple and other tech companies with a litany of rules, then whine if they don’t give you all the latest bells and whistles. 

Now she’s complaining that Apple isn’t bringing its upcoming Apple Intelligence feature to Europe seen enough. Last week Apple said it could exclude European Union (EU) countries from the roll-out of Apple Intelligence features in the fall because of competition rules.

From the Financial Times (a subscription is required to read the article: Apple has warned that it will not roll out the iPhone’s flagship new artificial intelligence features in Europe when they launch elsewhere this year, blaming “uncertainties” stemming from Brussels’ new competition rules […]

Apple said on Friday: “Due to the regulatory uncertainties brought about by the Digital Markets Act, we do not believe that we will be able to roll out three of these [new] features — iPhone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements and Apple Intelligence — to our EU users this year.”

Now, as reported by 9to5Mac, Vestager is crying and has this to say: I find that very interesting that they say we will now deploy AI where we’re not obliged to enable competition. I think that is that is the most sort of stunning open declaration that they know 100% that this is another way of disabling competition where they have a stronghold already.

There’s an old saying she needs to remember: you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.