UPDATED 18:46 EDT / JUNE 21 2024

APPS

Apple delays release of Apple Intelligence, two other new features in the EU

Apple Inc. today disclosed that Apple Intelligence, a recently introduced suite of artificial intelligence features, won’t become available in the European Union this year.

The disclosure comes about two weeks after the iPhone maker announced the AI capabilities at its WWDC developer event. Apple Intelligence debuted alongside several other new features, including two remote device access tools called iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing. Those features won’t become available in the EU either before 2025, Apple said.

The company attributed to the delay to the Digital Services Act, or DSA, a piece of regulation that EU lawmakers passed in 2022. The law introduced a set of new regulatory requirements for large tech firms that the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, classifies as gatekeepers. Apple was designated as a gatekeeper last year along with five other companies.

“We are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security,” an Apple spokesperson told The Verge.

The DSA includes provisions that require gatekeeper companies to make some of their services interoperable with competing products. Those provisions place a particular emphasis on messaging apps. Under the DSA, messaging apps that deemed to be dominant must provide interoperability with competing services if those services’ developers request the feature.

The European Commission said in a statement responding to Apple’s decision that “the EU is an attractive market of 450 million potential users, and has always been open for business for any company that wants to provide services in the European internal market. Gatekeepers are welcome to offer their services in Europe, provided that they comply with our rules aimed at ensuring fair competition.”

Apple Intelligence, the feature suite at the center of Apple’s decision, will become available on iPhones, iPads and Macs. It provides a set of AI-powered text generation capabilities dubbed Word Tools. The suite also includes features that use neural networks to edit images, create custom emojis and perform other tasks.

Apple Intelligence can carry out many of those tasks on-device. That removes the need to send users’ data to the cloud for processing, which improves cybersecurity. In cases where an AI feature does need to send information to the cloud, Apple promises to delete the data once the user’s request has been fulfilled.

The two other capabilities affected by the software launch delay disclosed today are known as iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing. The former feature enables consumers to manage their iPhones from a Mac. SharePlay Screen Sharing allows a user to log into another Apple customer’s device for troubleshooting purposes. 

Image: Unsplash

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