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Locking the new Siri out of the EU market is strange

Apple introduced Siri AI this week for iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Not in the EU, though, where the company blames the Digital Markets Act.1

The odd part is that EU users will get the same assistant on macOS the very same week. Apple’s objection isn’t that Siri itself is dangerous; it’s that on the iPhone, complying with the DMA would mean opening up that same deep access to rival assistants.

Apple claims the Commission’s reading would force it to give “any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, as well as the ability to act autonomously without a user’s ongoing visibility and control.”1 But those obligations attach strictly to Apple’s designated gatekeeper platforms, the iPhone and iPad, not the Mac. The assistant is identical across both. What changes between them isn’t the underlying risk; it’s simply whether the law applies.

We’ve seen this pattern before, too. Apple announced an identical EU “delay” for Apple Intelligence in 2024,2 then shipped it to European iPhones the following spring.

In this instance, Apple is leaning hard on a worst-case reading of the law. What Article 6(7) actually requires is this:

The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant […] as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper.3

Apple’s worry isn’t baseless. The new Siri is genuinely deep: it can read what’s on your screen, draw on an index of your messages, emails and photos, and take actions across your apps.4 Hand that same reach to a careless or malicious assistant, and the damage would be real. Because Article 6(7) explicitly names virtual assistants, Apple’s legal obligation here isn’t imaginary.

But none of that access happens silently. Siri only reaches your screen or your messages because iOS’s permission model lets you grant it, and a rival assistant would sit behind those exact same prompts. Article 6(7) equalises the access a rival can ask for; it doesn’t strip away your consent. You decide what any assistant, Apple’s or anyone else’s, is allowed to touch. “Nearly unlimited access” is Apple’s phrase, not the Commission’s, and the very same article lets Apple take “strictly necessary and proportionate measures” to protect the integrity of the system.3

This is also already a solved problem. On the Mac, a third-party app can already read your screen or drive other apps, but only once you grant it explicit permission, the exact same machinery that gates the camera, your location and your contacts. Apple is plainly capable of shipping this safely. “We can’t” is really just “we’d rather not.”

What makes the choice stranger is the sheer size of the market being fenced off. Apple’s “Europe” segment accounts for about 27% of its revenue, though that label also lumps in India, the Middle East and Africa, which skews the comparison. What matters here isn’t population; it’s buying power.

The iPhone is a premium product, and its share climbs alongside disposable income: over half the market in the UK, a third or more in Germany and France, and single digits in India,5 whose population dwarfs all of them. The real money in that segment sits in wealthy Europe, and the EU is the bulk of it.

That is an immense amount of revenue to fence off. Apple’s legal caution is real enough; the rules are fresh and the boundaries untested. But consent answers the safety half of the dilemma, and the financial threat doesn’t bite the way Apple implies. DMA fines are capped at 10% of worldwide turnover,6 around $45bn in theory, but the penalties actually handed down have been far smaller: €500m last year, for separate App Store breaches. Locking the EU out just to keep Siri in the default slot for a year is a strange trade.

The EU’s aim is a fairer playing field and some protection for the people standing on it, which is a fairly noble thing to want. A company that takes a 30% cut of App Store purchases, limits what you can do with the €1,000-plus device you own, and would sooner pull its own flagship assistant than let a rival near it is exactly the kind of target that legislation was built for. If every Apple device can only ever truly use Apple’s services, what kind of consumer choice is that?

Footnotes

  1. Apple Newsroom, Due to DMA, Siri AI delayed in EU for iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, 2026. Link ↩ ↩2

  2. Reuters, Apple to delay launch of AI-powered features in Europe, blames EU tech rules, 2024. Link ↩

  3. Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 (Digital Markets Act), Article 6(7). The same provision lets a gatekeeper take “strictly necessary and proportionate measures” to protect the integrity of its operating system or virtual assistant, provided they are duly justified. Link ↩ ↩2

  4. Apple Newsroom, Apple introduces Siri AI, a profoundly more capable and personal assistant, 2026. Describes onscreen awareness, personal context across messages, emails and photos, and systemwide app actions. Link ↩

  5. StatCounter Global Stats, Mobile & Tablet Vendor Market Share, May 2026. Apple’s share of devices in use runs at about 53% in the UK, 45% in Germany and 35% in France, but in single digits in India, behind every major Android vendor. Link ↩

  6. Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 (Digital Markets Act), Article 30(1): fines of up to 10% of total worldwide annual turnover, rising to 20% for repeat breaches. Link ↩