The EU says Apple won't have to make iMessage work with other messaging services

Blue Bubbles is safe from hackers for now. After investigation with European Union officials Which – along with Microsoft and Microsoft Advertising – do not have a sufficiently dominant position in their respective markets to be subject to more stringent regulation under the Digital Markets Act. If iMessage is subject to DMA rules, Apple will need to make it interoperable with other messaging services.

All three products and iMessage meet the quantitative limits of regulation under the DMA. Apple and Microsoft easily clear the law while each of the four platform services in question has at least 45 million monthly active users in the EU and north of 10,000 annual active business users in the bloc.

However, the companies said iMessage, Bing and others do not qualify as gatekeeper services. In Apple's case, it claimed that iMessage's “small size compared to other messaging services” and other factors meant it had to evade DMA rules. Although Google and mobile companies designated iMessage as a gatekeeper service, the bloc ultimately sided with Apple. However, the EU's executive arm noted that it “will continue to monitor market developments in relation to these services, in the event of any fundamental changes.”

While the EU won't force iMessage to play nicely with other messaging services, Apple has opened the door to interoperability. The company should support this year, which means messaging between iMessage and Android should be more secure and feature-rich. However, RCS texts will remain within green bubbles, instead of the blue color of iMessage messages.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft did not completely avoid the clutches of the DMA before the rules went into effect on March 7. Some of its other products are subject to the law, including Windows and LinkedIn by Microsoft and iOS, the App Store and Safari in Apple's case. Meta, Google, Amazon, and TikTok parent ByteDance will also need . Notably, the European Union has designated Meta's Messenger and WhatsApp as gatekeeper services, meaning they will need to… .

Apple recently explained how it will do this, including third-party payment options, though competitors have called for the company to implement DMA rules. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to add “new junk fees on downloads and new Apple taxes on payments that don't process.”