Apple bent over pretty hard to stay in China [1] and they'll do the same for EU.

Because if they don't, the network effects of an entire important continent without Apple's strong presence would be devastating long-term.

[1]:

- "Apple tells suppliers to use 'Taiwan, China' or 'Chinese Taipei' to appease Beijing" https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/05/apple_warns_suppliers...

- "The problem with canceling Jon Stewart: Apple bowed to Chinese government censorship" https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2023/10/26/jon...

- "Apple pulls Taiwanese flag emoji from iPhones in Hong Kong" https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-08/apple-taiw...

They should just comply to be honest because it won't actually change things. Barely anyone in the EU is going to use an alternative app store, nor is anyone but a few select hackers going to sideload apps.

Lots of brands of Android phones come shipped with alternative app stores, but those places are wastelands.

The main issue is that you can't develop an iOS binary without an Apple developer account.

Tim Cook would be deposed if he pulled out of the EU market. There’s no way that shareholders are going to allow Apple to leave that much money on the table, it’s unthinkable.

Total revenue is 30%, not 10%. For App store its only 7% tho.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382175/quarterly-revenue...

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/apple-says-eu-represents-7...

That would be a monumentally stupid decision when they could instead simply comply with the law and continue making slightly fewer billions of revenue. Investors won't let them do that, heads would roll.

Maybe they should. Because that's exactly the kind of attitude that they're enforcing upon their developers.

Instead, they want to have it both ways, "my way or the highway" when it comes to the App Store rules and monetization cut, but on the other hand minimal, extremely cynical "compliance" towards the rules EU has laid out for them.