To play devil’s advocate a little bit, being required to make every new API publicly available right away can be a real pain in the rear for the first several iterations of these APIs, for both first and third parties.

A common pattern in Apple platforms has been for APIs to be private initially, then made public 2-4 major versions after introduction, once the bulk of the design churn is over with and it can remain relatively stable. Essentially, they focus on making it functional and shaped correctly and then make it public once they’re satisfied. They don’t do this with every API obviously, but have with several.

I think the DMA would be stronger if it had a “beta clause” that allowed that form of development for some stretch of time (a couple of years maybe) after public release before requirements kick in. This way companies don’t have to try to juggle making the APIs functional vs. fit for public consumption.

They'd have to iterate in public for sure.

Now, Apple shipping an API has never been a guarantee they'll keep it compatible for any specific length of time, they've kept some APIs half broken without much afterthought as well. Versioning APIs wouldn't be some incredible techbical burden either.

At the size and position of Apple they sure can do it.

The requirement for making APIs immediately public only applies to connected devices under specific circumstances, which I would expect are a little more solidified at launch on account of how much integration work has to happen between different groups at Apple. AFAICT other APIs can remain private indefinitely unless they are subject to an interoperability request. Assuming the request is valid, Apple has 9-21 months to plan and implement any necessary changes to make the API public, where the time range is based on a self-assessment of the technical complexity of the request.

(See pages 87-88): https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...

> A common pattern in Apple platforms has been for APIs to be private initially, then made public 2-4 major versions after introduction, once the bulk of the design churn is over with and it can remain relatively stable.

I think DMA is what it is partly because Apple has stopped doing that for signifiant chunks of functionality, and started removing features available to third-party developers. See "Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones" https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...