The beauty of it is that in their exemption request, Apple claimed they have plans to introduce an intermediary system for other AIs within 18 months. So they can no longer claim that it's impossible for security reasons.
Moreover this claim stinks.
Apple have enough legal experience with the EU and technically competence to have baked EU AI, privacy and anti-monopoly compliance into their product from the start.
In fact any U.S. company could base their products on EU legislation, since it provides wide safeguards for consumer privacy.
Apple deliberately chose not to and are now being deliberately obtuse and misleading.
Anyone would think they didn’t have lawyers.
Either they are incompetent or it’s a deliberate choice to play this card. I don’t think it’s incompetence.