Steven Sinofsky: ‘Building Under Regulation’

Steven Sinofsky, back on January 27 (two days after Apple announced the first draft of their DMA compliance plans):

This week Apple detailed the software changes that will appear in an upcoming release of iOS to comply with the European Union Digital Markets Act (DMA). As I read the over 60 pages of the DMA when it was passed (and in drafts before that, little of which changed in the process) my heart sank over the complexity of a regulation so poorly constructed yet so clearly aimed at specific (American) companies and products. As I read through many of the hundreds of pages of Apple documents detailing their compliance implementation my heart sank again. This time was because I so thoroughly could feel the pain and struggle product teams felt in clinging to at best or unwinding at worst the most substantial improvement in computing ever introduced — the promise behind the iPhone since its introduction. The reason the iPhone became so successful was not a fluke. Consumers and customers voted that the value proposition of the product was something they preferred, and they acted by purchasing iPhone and developers responded by building applications for iOS. The regulators have a different view of that promise, so here we are.

Sinofsky warns that his essay is long, and it is. At over 18,000 words, it’s veritably booklet-length. But it’s really worth reading. I read it shortly after Sinofsky published it, and have been meaning to comment upon sections at length, but I might as well just link to it. Sinofsky, having been in charge of Windows when Microsoft went through the same sort of European Commission regulatory wringer Apple is now, is in a unique position to expound upon the dynamic. His focus on Apple’s “brand promise” with the iPhone, and how nearly every aspect of the DMA compliance plan breaks — or at least chips away at — that promise, is spot on.

The whole point of the DMA is the EC asserting that they know better than Apple (and Google) how phones should work.

★ Tuesday, 12 March 2024