App Store: Apple fights back against London's regulatory plans

Britain wants to force Apple to adopt similar openings to those already in place in the EU. Apple has now formally objected, calling it a highly intrusive interference in its business. The deadline for responses expired yesterday.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has been working for months on rules very similar to the European Digital Markets Act – and in doing so, it is targeting a company that is already familiar with the consequences of this legislation in the EU market. At the end of the consultation period, Apple submitted a formal objection rejecting the proposals in unusually strong terms. The core of the dispute lies not in the opening up of the market itself, but in the money: the question is what Apple will be allowed to charge a commission for in the future.

What Apple accuses the authority of

The submission states that the authority's proposals would not only regulate Apple's prices, but also determine for which products and services the company is even allowed to charge a commission. Apple considers this combination excessive: it exceeds the mandate to promote competition and amounts to an impermissible regulation of service prices.

Apple cites economic figures as a counter-argument. The App Store is projected to have facilitated a trading volume of over $60 billion in the UK by 2025. Apple argues that there is no evidence the proposed changes would lead to lower prices for consumers. The regulatory authority has not yet commented on the submission.

What the proposals specifically address

At the end of June, the authority launched two parallel investigations. The first concerns so-called steering: developers should be allowed to direct their customers to external purchasing options from within the app, for example via links or buttons to their own websites. Apple currently prohibits this in the UK. This consultation ran until July 28, 2026.

The second measure targets the iPhone's NFC interface, which enables contactless payments. It aims to open this interface to providers who want to compete with Apple Wallet. The deadline for this was July 21. Both measures are based on Apple's classification as a company with strategic market status, which occurred in October 2025 and encompasses iOS, iPadOS, the App Store, and Safari. Violations of future regulations can be penalized with fines of up to ten percent of global revenue.

At the start of the consultation, the responsible director of the agency made it clear that fees were fundamentally legitimate – but they had to be justified by a robust, evidence-based process that took both costs and value into account. This is precisely the point of contention for Apple's objection.

What a look at the EU market shows

Anyone who has followed developments in Europe will recognize the pattern. There, too, the opening up of the market was never the real point of contention – alternative distribution channels and access to the NFC interface have been a reality in the EU for two years. The dispute has been, and continues to be, about the fee structures that Apple introduced in parallel, and the question of whether they effectively negate the opening up of the market.

The most notable difference between the two approaches is that the London authority focused on the issue of fees from the outset, rather than addressing it later as Brussels did. The Commission had to enforce its requirements retrospectively with fines because the original regulations left the commercial aspect open. Apple's sharp reaction suggests that the company considers precisely this sequence of events to be the bigger problem.

Moreover, the UK is not an isolated case. Apple prepared for its opening in Brazil earlier this year following the same pattern – regulatory pressure is increasingly being spread across multiple markets simultaneously.

What this means for users in German-speaking countries

The British proceedings will not have any direct impact here initially. Germany and Austria already have the Digital Markets Act in place, and alternative app stores and NFC access for third-party providers are already available there. Should the British regulations be implemented, the UK would simply follow suit.

The situation is different in Switzerland: it is neither a member of the EU nor the EEA, and the Digital Markets Act does not apply there. Swiss users are therefore limited to the traditional app store without alternative distribution channels – and would also not be affected by British regulations. Switzerland currently has no such regulatory initiative.

Things get interesting where Apple implements these concessions technically. Because regional variations in the operating system are expensive to maintain, each additional regulated market creates more pressure to roll out solutions more broadly, rather than building them individually.

How the proceedings will continue

The authority is currently evaluating the submitted comments and intends to decide this year whether to actually impose the requirements. A published timetable for the individual steps is not yet available.

Until then, nothing will change for British users. The proposals are drafts, not binding rules – and Apple's input makes it clear that the company will fiercely defend any step towards regulated commissions. (Image: Shutterstock / IR Stone)