Apple lost its EU fight: the App Store and iPhone stay 'gatekeepers'
An EU court dismissed all three of Apple's challenges on July 8, 2026, locking in the rules that force it to allow rival app stores, cheaper outside payment links, and iOS interoperability.
An EU court told Apple its App Store rules stick: rival app stores, outside payment links, and iOS interoperability.
On July 8, 2026, the EU General Court in Luxembourg dismissed all three of Apple's legal challenges and confirmed that both the App Store and iOS are 'gatekeepers' under the Digital Markets Act. In plain terms: the rules Apple spent two years fighting are now locked in. It must let rival app stores onto the iPhone, let developers point users to cheaper payment options outside the App Store, and open up iOS features so other companies' hardware and software can plug in.
What the court actually decided
The Digital Markets Act is the EU's 2023 law aimed at a handful of large tech 'gatekeepers,' companies big enough that other businesses have no realistic choice but to go through them. Being designated a gatekeeper is what triggers the obligations. Apple argued the designation was wrong. The court, sitting as a five-judge chamber, disagreed on every count.
One of Apple's arguments was that its five separate app stores, on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch, should not be lumped together as one regulated service. The court rejected that, ruling that "irrespective of the devices in question, those stores have the same purpose": connecting developers with users. A separate set of Apple's actions concerning iMessage was thrown out as inadmissible.
What Apple now has to allow
Three obligations matter most for anyone who ships software. First, alternative app marketplaces: Apple must let competing app stores exist on iOS, breaking the App Store's status as the only front door. Second, steering: developers can tell users about, and link them to, cheaper ways to pay outside Apple's system, instead of being forced through Apple's in-app purchase and its commission. Third, interoperability: Apple has to give rivals access to iOS hardware and software features it historically kept for itself.
It is not over, but Apple's options are narrow
Apple can still appeal, but only to the Court of Justice of the EU, the bloc's highest court, and only on points of law. It does not get a fresh review of the facts. Separately, Apple is still fighting a 500 million euro fine, the first ever issued under the DMA, levied in April 2025 for restricting exactly the kind of steering the App Store rules now require. That appeal is pending. So the saga continues, but the core designation, the thing that switches all these obligations on, is now upheld by a court.
Why a build studio cares
We ship products for clients, and a lot of product economics quietly assume Apple's rules as fixed constants: the 15 to 30 percent commission, in-app purchase as the only checkout, the App Store as the only way onto an iPhone. In the EU, those constants are now variables. A client selling subscriptions can legally point EU users to a cheaper web checkout. A product that would never survive Apple's review can reach iPhones through an alternative marketplace. Interoperability access can make an integration possible that Apple used to simply block.
The honest caveat: this is EU-only, the compliance mechanics are still messy, and Apple has a track record of implementing these mandates in the most grudging way the letter of the law allows. We are not telling clients to rip out Apple's payment flow tomorrow. We are telling them the ground rules for distributing and charging inside an app are no longer the same everywhere, and that is worth designing around deliberately rather than assuming the old defaults still hold.
Next step: read 9to5Mac's report for the developer-facing detail and Euronews' coverage for the legal specifics. If you are building an app or a subscription product that touches EU users and want to think through what these rules open up, write to us at hello@gattyworks.com.