Why is Apple supporting Android against the EU?

The European Union wants Google to allow any AI company to use its services, and the company hates the idea. Apple agrees with Google.

Apple doesn’t seem to be being listened to by the European Union when it complains about its own experiences trying to work under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). But since the EU demanded answers to its proposals for Google to open up to rival AI companies, Apple has tried again.

“The DMs (draft measures) raise urgent and serious concerns,” Apple said in a communication to the EU, seen by Reuters.

For example, Apple is expressly concerned about the idea that an AI company could theoretically send emails or order food through Android, without Google or perhaps the user knowing.

“If confirmed, they would create significant risks to user privacy, security, and safety, as well as device integrity and performance,” Apple continued.

Apple no doubt has its own platforms in mind when it now opposes competing companies having full access to Android. But he also points out that the EU has specified AI companies in its proposals, and Apple highlights how poor and error-ridden AI applications are.

“These risks are particularly acute in the context of rapidly evolving AI systems whose capabilities, behaviors, and threat vectors remain unpredictable,” Apple said, “as we regularly see.”

Anyone can submit their opinion to the EU in an open call like this, and anyone who does so is genuinely seeking to protect their own interests. Apple therefore clearly fears that it will also be forced to allow the same rival access in iOS.

However, Apple also has experience with what it has previously described as “hundreds of thousands of engineering hours” to comply with the DMA. And as part of his new submission, he questioned the EU’s technological expertise.

“The EC is redesigning an operating system… it is substituting the judgments made by Google engineers for its own judgment based on less than three months of work,” Apple said. “This is all the more dangerous because the only value that can be discerned from the (draft measures) guiding this work appears to be open and unfettered access.”

Furthermore, in May 2026, the EU concluded that its DMA had had a positive impact, ignoring Apple’s lobbying for its revision.

What happens next

It is unclear when exactly Apple submitted its request to the EU, but it was during the consultation period which ran from April 27, 2026 to May 13, 2026.

The European Commission says it will “carefully evaluate” proposals from Google and what it calls interested parties. He does say that adjustments could be made to the proposed measures due to the observations.

However, it also requires that its final decision “must be adopted within six months” of the initiation of the specification procedure. In this case, that means July 27, 2026.