Apple cites bevy of scared users to back up its case against the EU DMA

Tim Cook

Ahead of the March 7, 2024 deadline and the facility for third-party app stores in the EU that will come with iOS 17.4, Apple has published a whitepaper detailing its compliance with the law, and its objections to it. As part of that, the whitepaper includes the text of 16 emails sent to Tim Cook by concerned users within the European Union.

"I am feeling increasingly more concerned and scared about my digital privacy and online safety in the EU," says one. "As an EU citizen and Apple user I always believed to have had the perfect balance between regulatory protection (like GDPR) and Apple safety features (like App Tracking Transparency and App Store)."

"I really hope that you will offer me as an EU Client the option to not use any sideloaders," says another. "I want to rely on the proven App Store and not some nonsense..."

"Please stop doing this," says yet another, who says they are "very satisfied with iOS because it is not like Android." This writer appears to believe the new rules are Apple's choice, and so concludes: "Please do not enable sideloading... we want iOS to be like the old one, with strict rules and extremely high security."

"I actually believe that the security of the iPhone and iPad and all other devices will be massively jeopardized if this update is installed," says one more. "I'm really scared of it and I think it makes the iPhone a little bit less secure as it is."

Apple's has continuously protested that rival app stores, or sideloading, presents a security risk to iPhone users. Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, has said that "sideloading is a cybercriminal's best friend."