A. A small detail in the Digital Markets Act could trigger another surprising move on iOS in the EU. European Commission competition chief Margrethe Vestager said she may soon request Apple to allow the Photos app to be removed from the iPhone. One of the details Cupertinos didn’t do in response to the law but this would mean a truly significant change in the way iOS works. Does Apple have to make this change?

Photos on iOS can be deleted in the EU

Let’s remember some of what the Digital Markets Law says:

Gatekeepers need to allow easy uninstallation of applications and easy changing of default settings. They should also display a selection screen. In accordance with paragraph 3 of Article 6 of the Digital Markets Law.

The European Commission’s comments were made public last week, and the person who identified this fact was journalist John Gruber. According to Vestager, Apple’s model against the Digital Markets Act does not meet targets and they failed to ensure that other applications could be installed instead; Photos will be one of them.

iOS 17 Photos app has different functions to organize our content

According to Gruber, iOS needs to be reconfigured to support other photo apps by default. Let’s remember that this is not just a photo app. Being able to view photos on our iPhone really comes down to the interface level and each app has different filters it can access to view a few photos or an entire photo library.

What decision will Apple make?

Only Apple really knows how complicated it is to do what the EU demands of it.. While it is true that it can achieve this with other types of applications, it is very important to mention the Photos application. Cupertinos can justify this by defending their users’ privacy..

Allowing any other photo app to access the information would be pure abuseMost importantly, the operating system itself asks us what we want to allow every time an application requests relevant information.

Pets in iPadOS 17 Photos app

John Gruber and other journalists commenting on the case note: These demands of the EU may lead Apple to make a harsh decision to withdraw from the EU market.. This means Cupertinos could be fined up to 10% of their global income and 7% sales in this region. An Internal Market commissioner ruled out this possibility, stating: A huge market with 450 million customersIn addition tech giants (like Apple) They have the resources to face these penalties.

We will see what Apple’s official statement will be in the coming days.We’re about to complete the first month with iOS 17.4, and this is just a small example of what an alternative store can be.