right tidings for Apple : the European Commission ( viaBloomberg ) has reason out a five - month investigating into iMessage , together with Microsoft ’s Bing , Edge , and Microsoft Advertising , and concluded that the four do not qualify as hall porter services under the Digital Markets Act ( DMA ) . This have in mind they will not face potentially disastrous regulatory sanctions .

“ The Commission will stay to supervise the evolution on the market with regard to these services , should any strong change arise . The decision do not affect in any path the designation of Apple and Microsoft as gatekeepers on 5 September 2023 as affect their other core chopine services . ”

Apple and Microsoft , predictably , have both issued instruction welcoming the decision .

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Among other authority there had been a possibility , until today ’s ruling , that Apple would be forced tomake iMessage interoperablewith other message chopine under the term of the DMA . This would be a huge blow , since iMessage ’s “ blue - bubble FOMO ” has been call a powerful selling peak for the iPhone in the U.S. ( Outside the U.S. , the prevalence of other messaging service like WeChat and WhatsApp make this less of an issue . ) Apple ostensibly does n’t want iMessage to flirt nicely with Android , since a sub - par experience in radical chats , a sensation of being in some direction a second - grade digital citizen , is a unvarying incentive to interchange to iOS .

heed you , this may be something of a disputable point since Apple has already ‘ voluntarily’–by which I signify ‘ incredibly reluctantly’–agreed tosupport the RCS standardlater in 2024 . RCS works on Android , and this should ensure a honest overall cross - platform experience ( although thegreen - house of cards dramawill apparently continue ) .

In other words , Apple has evade looming regulative interference by pre - emptively doing the affair it was threatened with , albeit in the most advantageous agency it can . And thus the conclusion of the investigation may have terminate up being irrelevant , in the felicitous sense that the mere existence of the political willingness to inquire already had the desired effect . And in the oddment this should begood for everyone .