Apple loses EU gatekeeper appeal over App Store and iOS

Apple has failed to overturn the European Union’s gatekeeper designation for the App Store and iOS, leaving one of its most important businesses inside the bloc’s toughest platform rulebook. In a press release from the General Court of the European Union, judges said on 8 July that they had dismissed Apple’s actions against the designation.

The ruling keeps the European Commission’s decision in force for services covered by the Digital Markets Act. The law targets large online platforms that sit between businesses and end users, a definition meant for companies with the scale to set market conditions. Apple had argued the regime reached too far into software distribution and default platform access on its devices, a position the court did not accept.

For Apple, the practical point is blunt. The App Store remains at the centre of how apps are distributed, paid for and updated on iOS, and the EU can keep treating that control as a gatekeeper function. Developers and rival service providers now have a firmer legal footing in Brussels as they press for more open access to Apple’s mobile ecosystem. The decision also makes it harder for Apple to frame the App Store and iOS as services that should sit outside the DMA’s main obligations.

In a statement carried by Reuters, an Apple spokesperson said the company still viewed the law as overreach.

“We firmly believe the DMA’s mandate goes beyond what is lawful and proportionate, threatening to erode decades of privacy and security protections we’ve built and leaving our users vulnerable to new risks.”
Apple spokesperson, via Reuters

Reuters reported that the DMA took effect in May 2023 and can carry fines of up to 10 per cent of a company’s global annual turnover for breaches. The news agency said the Commission’s earlier designation covered Apple’s app stores on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch. That puts much of Apple’s software distribution stack inside the regime, not just one storefront.

Why it matters

The decision does not create a new remedy or force an immediate product change. It does, however, remove one route Apple had used to narrow Brussels’ oversight. Compliance fights over app distribution, sideloading and default-service access are likely to keep moving through the EU system, with Apple arguing that security and privacy costs are being underestimated. Those fights now move from designation to implementation, where the details of fees, warnings and technical access matter.

Australian readers will not see a local rule change from this judgment. The importance is regulatory direction. Europe remains the clearest test of how far governments can push platform operators to open parts of their systems without ordering a break-up, and that debate is watched by policymakers and developers well beyond the EU. It is also relevant to local app makers that sell into Europe or build around Apple’s payment and distribution rules.

Apple lost, the gatekeeper label stands, and the App Store and iOS remain inside the EU’s most muscular Big Tech conduct regime. The harder question now is enforcement: how aggressively Brussels uses those powers, and how much room Apple still has to redesign compliance around its own view of user safety.