Ever Trend Zone The UK government today announced that the Competition and Markets Bureau has launched a strategic market situation survey on the mobile ecosystem, particularly the App Store models for the iPhone and Android.
The report says it will assess Apple’s market power and potential exploitative behaviour. This includes options for delivering apps to customers, and terminology app developers must agree to be listed in the App Store in the first place.
In summary, this seems to correspond to various EU enforcement under the UK’s Digital Markets Act.
The UK survey includes an assessment of the amount of competition between Apple and Google’s ecosystem, including barriers to competitor services entering the market. It also assesses whether Apple and Google are abusing the market power of their mobile operating system monopoly, such as choosing apps and alternative browsers preinstalled on their devices. It also evaluates the terms that app developers need to meet to make it available on the App Store.
The deadline for both Apple and Google’s App Store models is October 22, 2025, so you will need to wait until the end of the year for the results of the survey results. Reliefs include fines and business behavior interventions.
In the EU, this forced Apple to add support for third-party app markets, web distribution of apps, browser selection screens and other changes. However, they also introduced alternative business conditions and fee structures simultaneously. This is still unfair to developers such as Epic Games and Spotify protests. Although EU lawsuits are ongoing, we can imagine that Apple is likely to try similar strategies depending on UK competition and market bureaus.
