The Court of Justice of the European Union rejected Apple’s attempt to challenge the decision subjecting it to Digital Markets Act obligations. Rules requiring gatekeepers to provide effective, free interoperability with hardware and software features available to their own products therefore remain in force.

Why this is larger than one company’s dispute with a regulator

Apple argued that the obligations were disproportionate and interfered with its property rights. The Court rejected its challenge to the gatekeeper designation. The App Store remains a core platform service, while iOS remains covered by interoperability requirements.

The FSFE participated because the effects go beyond commercial competitors. Its analysis says access to system features could affect more than 200 Free Software projects, including alternative app stores, browser engines, accessibility tools, communications protocols, and applications that need to work with Apple hardware.

The Dimitrium view: owning a device should mean something

If a user buys a device but the manufacturer permanently decides which software may communicate with its essential features, ownership remains incomplete. Interoperability does not require every product to be identical; it lets independent developers build something different without needing privileged partnership status.

The judgment will not open the ecosystem automatically. Its value depends on enforcement, useful technical documentation, and whether developer requests produce working solutions. Still, the legal foundation is clearer: interoperability is a gatekeeper obligation, not a marketing gesture.

Source: FSFE — How Apple’s attack on interoperability failed