Apple and Google Face Enforced Changes Over UK Smartphone Dominance (theguardian.com)
(Wednesday October 22, 2025 @05:20PM (msmash)
from the global-pushback dept.)
- Reference: 0179851792
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/10/22/181246/apple-and-google-face-enforced-changes-over-uk-smartphone-dominance
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/22/apple-google-face-enforced-changes-uk-mobile-phone-dominance-uk-competition-watchdog-stricter-oversight
Google and Apple face enforced changes to how they operate their mobile phone platforms, after the UK's competition watchdog ruled the companies require tougher regulatory oversight. From a report:
> The Competition and Markets Authority has conferred "strategic market status" (SMS) on the tech firms after investigating their mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers. It means Apple and Google will be [1]subjected to tailormade guidelines to regulate their behaviour in the mobile market.
>
> The CMA said the two companies have "substantial, entrenched" market power, with UK mobile phone owners using either Google or Apple's platforms and unlikely to switch between them. The regulator flagged the importance of their platforms to the UK economy and said they could be a bottleneck for businesses.
>
> [...] Changes under consideration by the CMA include allowing users to be "steered" out of app stores to make purchases elsewhere, like on a company's own website. App developers have long taken issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. The CMA also wants both companies to ensure users have a "genuine choice" over the services they use on their devices, like digital wallets on Apple.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/22/apple-google-face-enforced-changes-uk-mobile-phone-dominance-uk-competition-watchdog-stricter-oversight
> The Competition and Markets Authority has conferred "strategic market status" (SMS) on the tech firms after investigating their mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers. It means Apple and Google will be [1]subjected to tailormade guidelines to regulate their behaviour in the mobile market.
>
> The CMA said the two companies have "substantial, entrenched" market power, with UK mobile phone owners using either Google or Apple's platforms and unlikely to switch between them. The regulator flagged the importance of their platforms to the UK economy and said they could be a bottleneck for businesses.
>
> [...] Changes under consideration by the CMA include allowing users to be "steered" out of app stores to make purchases elsewhere, like on a company's own website. App developers have long taken issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. The CMA also wants both companies to ensure users have a "genuine choice" over the services they use on their devices, like digital wallets on Apple.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/22/apple-google-face-enforced-changes-uk-mobile-phone-dominance-uk-competition-watchdog-stricter-oversight
Ban (Score:1)
by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )
The UK should just create its own national phone operating system and ban all alternatives for ten years, making their possession by UK nationals a felony.
That's about the only way to even come close to accomplishing its stated goals.
Otherwise, the vast majority of people are simply going to use what they want to use, no matter how hard the UK govt wishes otherwise.
Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:2)
I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)
I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform? I know so many pe
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform?
I think what they're getting at is each (Apple, Google) will attempt to "lock in" their users to make it as difficult/expensive as possible for users to easily (casually?) move to whichever platform they'd want to choose.
Re: (Score:2)
But it is a choice. You can publish on Apple AppStore, GooglePlay (or whatever it’s called) or make your own AnonymousCowardStore. Good luck!
Re: (Score:2)
> make your own AnonymousCowardStore
Please describe, in details, exactly how developers are to accomplish this. Or are you just some UK-bashing american that's trolling? Yeah it's gotta be the latter.
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:2)
And you've made your own non-anonymous coward comment. You're afraid to not be a cuck for corporations.
Re: (Score:2)
> I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)
> I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform?
So if the sovereign nation of the UK start their own UK grown Smartphones and Operating system for them? Ha the rules of competition become so vague that two main choices with a few outliers become a monopoly? Why doesn't the UK and the EU just take state control, and get it over with - they won't stop until them.
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:1)
No monopoly is required for them to violate the law.
That's true even in the US, not that we enforce antitrust law here.
Re: (Score:1)
The nice thing is that the vast majority of consumers don't give a fuck about "the market" and just want a device that is usable to them, and they actually have that now.
It's not as if some new mystery phone manufacturer is going to create some fabulous new OS and phones to go with it, at a significantly discounted price to what is already available, or with some brand new unheard of features not currently available, if only were it not for Apple and Google stopping it.
We don't need 59 brands of ketchup to