Apple has filed a formal appeal with the EU General Court in Luxembourg over the European Commission’s requirement to open up its devices for use by third-parties, saying the rules are unreasonable and would harm user privacy.

The filing came after the Commission in March provided specific instructions to the company over how it should comply with the interoperability requirements of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

The iPhone maker had until 30 May to appeal the Commission’s requirements, which are designed to allow third-party devices such as headphones and smart watches to operate as well on Apple smartphones and tablets as the company’s own devices.

Interoperability rules

The requirements also force Apple to share user data with third-party device makers, including notification content and stored Wi-Fi networks.

Currently non-Apple smart watches, for instance, cannot display notifications in the same way as Apple smart watches can.

Eric Migicovsky, the creator of a retro Pebble smart watch that relaunched in March noted at the time that Apple iOS restrictions mean the watches can’t support features such as sending SMS or iMessage texts or acting on notifications.

He said he supports EU efforts to open up iOS to third-party developers under the Digital Markets Act.

Apple said the Commission’s requirements would force it to “hand data-hungry companies sensitive information”.

It said the requirements would threaten its ability to design products that work seamlessly together, while creating a process that is “unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation”.

Third-party access

The Commission also gave the company a detailed process and timeline for responding to interoperability requests.

The DMA rules were designed to lessen the power of large tech companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon and Facebook by forcing them to allow more interoperability, amongst other measures.

Apple and Meta were the first companies to receive DMA fines in April.

Meta, Google, Garmin and Spotify are amongst the companies that have requested user data, Apple said.

Last December Apple criticised a data access request from Meta.

The appeal process is likely to take years, but the firm will be obliged to comply with the Commission’s directives until it is completed.