iOS 26.3 brings AirPods-like pairing to third-party devices in EU under DMA
macrumors.com184 points by Tomte 16 hours ago
184 points by Tomte 16 hours ago
Third-party accessories like smart watches will be able to receive notifications from the iPhone
This seems incorrect, or at least misleading. I have always (since I switched to iPhone in 2020) been receive notifications on my Garmin Fenix watch. In fact, the only problem I have with notifications is that I have no ability to blacklist apps from notifying on my watch, and its all or nothing. This is a huge downgrade from Android, and I wish whomever is responsible could fix that.. That's probably my biggest annoyance with my iphone.
It’s fascinating the kind of cool features we can have when products are made to be useful, with their target user in mind. Go EU!
This is like giving credit to the toddler who cried for macaroni rather than the mom who made it for him. lol
Or it disincentivizes creating those features, if you must give it to your competitors.
That’s a rather silly view to take. We have a phenomenon called “the first mover advantage” for a reason.
Plenty of other markets and businesses operate just fine while operating in an environment that makes protecting individual innovation functionally impossible. Just look at any related to fast fashion (not that I think the fast fashion market is a healthy phenomenon) or any commodities market. Or for that matter, most of the software industry.
The incentive for creating features should be to remain relevant and competitive. It shouldn’t be to build moats and war chests.
"plenty of other markets" have way smaller margins and are not nearly as robust an industry as software.
I would agree in general, but in this specific case it’s still an advantage for the iOS platform in general. It just removes a buying incentive for the AirPods.
The general problem is that there must be a line.
Vendors don’t create lock-ins because they are malicious, they create it because it makes them money.
Now, if we limit these lock-ins, it will reduce their ability to make money and yes, it will impact some features - short term.
But looking at it long terms, vendor lock-ins are actually a reason to stop innovating: your customers are locked in anyway.
So, overall, I would say this is good for innovation in general.
I actually have a problem with this. I want AirPods to be undeniably the best experience for me because I am fully locked into the Apple ecosystem, and I know many folks have complaints against that. I find it to be rather pleasurable to use compared to all the other alternatives out there. So if I have to start sacrificing my experience in favor of universal support, that really sucks.
But this isn't sacrificing your experience, you're free to keep using your Apple AirPods with the quality and reliability you'd expect from Apple. This just means other brands can create products with similar features to AirPods, and if they're not as good or reliable, well that's why you're paying Apple for theirs.
Is there anything that makes you believe they'll sacrifice quality to have universal support?
the long term innovation outlooks are still better, so you benefit long term as well.
It’s just less obvious / measurable that immediate benefits.
And also, short term, isn’t it that other EarPods are getting better, rather than AirPods getting worse?
Medium term, I don’t think that Apple will stop innovating on AirPods just because of the EU market and this one feature not being exclusive to AirPods anymore. But it’s a possibility, I agree.
Your tortured argument tests credulity and is pretty much opposite of how actual markets work.
In this case, stopping Apple from degrading competitor products means they can compete on a level playing field and Apple will need to create better products to maintain a lead. Their ability to degrade competitor products has nothing to do with the features or quality of their headphones but rather that they control a closed platform. Thus the EU's action in maintaining fair competition.
Bro, market is there to benefit consumer first, not to make money for shareholders.
isn't this comment ironic though, given that the EU didn't create iOS or Android despite having an early advantage in the 2000s (Symbian was pretty popular for a hot minute)? given the number of now huge startups founded by people who left the EUs as adults my assessment is that the EU is doing it (software industry) wrong - at least by revenue generated and size and size of industry
Last time I checked the European Union was a political construct and not a phone manufacturer.
Recently bought an apple watch for my mom and got it set up with her iphone. Almost instantly she notices that she cant accept WhatsApp calls on her watch, and after looking into it I found out that it was another one of those apple things where they assume youre obviously using facetime so that functionality isnt available for any other app. For context, in europe Whatsapp is the dominating messaging app and alot of people use it for calling as well as messaging. The apple watch is, as far as I can tell, a simple Bluetooth wearable with a speaker and a microphone, so the only reason its like this is that apple has a concept of how the device is "supposed" to be used and only lets you use it that way. After that experience I fully support all the regulations the EU is putting on apple to open up.
You can accept calls on the watch from Telegram.
So this sounds like a “whatsapp didn’t want to do it” more than a “Apple disallowed it”
Seems like you’d just need to set WhatsApp as the default calling app on iOS and make sure to install WhatsApp on the watch too. The ability to set another app as the default for calls has been around since early this year. Doesn’t this work?
Huh, with CallKit’s existence I would have assumed any app using CallKit would work on Watch…
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Third-party app calls don't go to the Watch. It's so annoying, I have to tell people to call me using regular phone calls or FaceTime instead of using Signal or WhatsApp because I always miss the latter ones.
I was genuinely sure it’s not a problem, as I personally know quite a few people who do that. But I think they use either FaceTime or regular cellular. That’s sure weird a simple call does work in iPhone 4S (imagine a price for it in 2026), but doesn’t on modern Apple Watch Ultra, which is quite expensive.
Are we learning the wrong lessons? Integrated always works better than modular components. Here, Apple is being asked to enable their versions of software for third party devices, which do not have the same hardware assumptions as Apple did. (Apple will not release the exact hardware spec for airpods anyway). This means the newer version will be designed modularly, with some tradeoffs to enable the "same" kind of access to third party. Then there is a caveat that it there is even a bit of experience change from 1st party to third party access, it will be complained about and investigated. so, the way fwd is designing with third party in mind, and that almost always leads to bloat and substandard experience for end user.
Probably better would have been just simpler access, even if not the integrated experience like. But that would lead to complains from third party manufacturers.
The lesson being learned is that Apple could’ve avoided all this trouble if they had used or produced standards for the connection between their components. The whole concept of a gatekeeper was created in response to Apple-likes being difficult and simply hostile to interop opportunities even though they’re defacto the phone company and there is no way around them.
So if the solution is not optimal, that circles back to Apple who are responsible for coming up with a solution that works. Then choosing to prioritise platform lock-in is a business strategy, leaving regulation the only recourse.
A company making an integrated experience would inevitably provide a better experience/performance than a company asked to build for 100s of devices with different spec. That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
My contention is this: expecting a third party provider to be able to provide the same experience as the first party is an impractical goal. Even pushing companies towards that means a lot of second order effects where everyone ends up like Intel or Windows for that matter. We already have android on that level.
You can have a reasonable requirement where Apple should not be able to block other companies from providing similar services based on an iphone. But clearly the directive here is that Apple's competing products should not be better based on better integration, which can only go in one direction. Apple degrades its own products to comply. Yes, competition wins, but consumers lose. In this case specifically - consumers who would want to choose Apple, better experiences would not be able to simply because Apple cannot ensure the level of software/hardware alignment as it works today if the same software is written with modular hardware in mind.
> A company making an integrated experience would inevitably provide a better experience/performance than a company asked to build for 100s of devices with different spec. That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
I disagree, this is not a given. Usually the opposite is true.
Meaning, properly designed APIs and protocols for public use are more robust than one-off private protocols. Because there are expectations.
Apple could be malicious and make the API stupid, but if they were genuine then they wouldn't. They would make a good API, which is much more likely, I think, when the API is public versus some secret private API.
> You can have a reasonable requirement where Apple should not be able to block other companies from providing similar services based on an iphone.
This is what the requirement is. The EU isn’t demanding that Apple provide the same experience for 3rd Party and 1st Party products. It only requires that Apple allow 3rd Parties access to the same capabilities as 1st Party products, so 3rd Parties could build 1st Party quality experiences.
Nobody is asking Apple to degrade their own products. They’re just demanding that Apple don’t artificially degrade other people’s products.
> That Apple did not want to open it up is a separate discussion.
This is the only point of discussion here. Because all the EU requires is that Apple open up their internal protocols so others can implement them.
There is no “produced standard” to allow three Bluetooth devices - each headphone and the case - to register as one Bluetooth device or to automatically register a Bluetooth device to all devices using the same cloud account.
Big disagree that integrated always works better than modular writ large, but in any case maybe they could just hire this guy to do it? https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods
Its mostly true when the integrating company cares for the user experience. Which apple clearly does.
The example you shared is the opposite. I am imagining a kernel today written in a manner that airpods would be able to use it to extract the max out of it. Now, it has to support 10 other third party pods, so at the minimum, kernel would be more generalized.
A company that produces a wireless mouse that charges upside down really does not care about user experience.
Three months ago a commenter here on HN claimed to me that this will be bad for Apple users:
> There is simply no good way to make the API public while maintaining the performance and quality expectations that Apple consumers have. If the third party device doesn’t work people will blame Apple even though it’s not their fault.
And, competition probably can’t build for it anyway:
> It’s impossible to build Apple Silicon level of quality in power to watt performance or realtime audio apps over public APIs.
And:
> […] Apple has to sabotage their own devices performance and security to let other people use it. The EU has no business in this.
Well, I look forward to next year when we’ll have the receipts and see!
Apple can't perform well with audio on Apple Silicon, either. In 2025 macos is the only OS with audio cracking appearing with CPU load. Even Linux is better
Yeah, this is a regression since macOS Tahoe. Amazing that it still exists after several patch releases, is audio working not a basic test case for Apple?
I’ve found it to be worst when using Xcode / simulator and having headphones on for music.
sudo killall coreaudiod seems to fix it for a while.
> sudo killall coreaudiod seems to fix it for a while
For me this fixes it for about 30 minutes then I have to do it again… and again… and again…
I wonder why some folks need to do it more than others
I don't think it's CPU-based, but I've always had an issue with my AirPods Max on my iPhone with audio cracking (my AirPods Pro work fine, and the Max works fine with my Mac)
Personally not experienced this. However, continuity camera seems to have gotten more unstable over the past months for me.
It's bad because Apple now has to (OFFICIALLY) support a wider range of devices.
And then there is less incentive for Apple to further improve this interface because any improvements will benefit non-Apple devices (i.e. do the foundational work but everyone else gets the positive exposure)
You mean it will benefit Apple’s customers, who prefer headphones not made by Apple? If only the incentive for Apple to improve their interface was that its paying customers will have a better interface.
I really don't understand people who defend Apple on this. The only reason I can imagine is that they're shareholders who don't use any Apple products, or shareholders who use exclusively Apple products and can't understand what sort of poor scrub might want an accessory not made by them.
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> always ends up catastrophically.
Government intervention like forbidding led-based paints or asbestos in homes? Or government intervention like doing something about the ozone depletion? Government intervention like forbidding roaming fees? Intervention like requiring 3-point seat belts? Like progressive taxation? Like forbidding discrimination based on skin colour? Like air travel safety? Like a max ceiling on credit card fees?
Always?
>Like progressive taxation? Like forbidding discrimination based on skin colour?
Ok, sometimes.
Give an example regulation which has objectively been catastrophic and where there has been no clear attempts at amending or improving it.
Abortion abolition in states that are causing women to die because doctors are afraid to perform them even when it puts the woman’s life in danger not to perform them.
It even put the life of a Republican lawmaker in dander in Florida. Of course she blamed democrats.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/22/kat-cammack-...
Some off-the-cuff examples that come to mind:
- Drastic overregulation of nuclear energy in the US, resulting in fossil-fuel pollution measurable in gigatons over the past several decades accompanied by literally countless illnesses and premature deaths.
- Premature mandates for airbags in cars that resulted in hundreds of needless child deaths because the technology wasn't yet safe enough for universal deployment. A scenario that's playing out right now with misfeatures like automated emergency braking.
- The Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act of 1920), whose effects are too convoluted to go into here.
- Misguided, market-distorting housing policies, ranging across the spectrum from rent control to Proposition 13.
- Many if not most aspects of the War on Drugs, including but not limited to mandatory minimum sentencing and de-facto hardwiring of racial bias into the justice system.