Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC) has warned the UK that it risks turning into "another Brussels" if its competition watchdog gets its way.
Last month, the Competition and Markets Authority said it intends to take action to break the control held over the mobile app market by Apple and Google, after it said both tech giants have "strategic market status" under the Digital Markets Act, and so measures to spur competition are needed.
Apple calls this “bad for users, bad for developers” – or in other words, bad for Apple.
The company says European Union rules already forced it to delay new features for Europeans and now it warns that British iPhone users could also suffer the indignity of waiting a few months for emoji updates if regulators insist on letting developers steer payments away from the App Store.
The CMA thinks otherwise.
It says its plan is not the same as the EU’s Digital Markets Act and is instead about giving UK developers "interoperability" to poke around Apple’s walled garden without paying the toll.
Apple is likely to feel that Donald Trump has got its back, with the US President having recently also waded in to the general dispute, saying that countries that don’t "show respect" to Big Tech should "consider the consequences".