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Comment by pdpi

8 hours ago

The DMA forced Apple to move all of their P2P Wi-Fi stuff from their proprietary AWDL stack to the current Wi-Fi Aware-based implementation. Whatever work Google did to reverse engineer Airdrop was based on the Wi-Fi Aware implementation of Airdrop, rather than the older AWDL. They didn't get the whole stack for free, but it's not nothing either.

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pdpi

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madeofpalk  6 hours ago

Do we have proof this actually happened, or theorising based on EU requirements?

  • pdpi  6 hours ago

    You can read the actual ruling at https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...

    This is the "smoking gun" section:

        5.4.8. Implementation timing
    (245) Apple should provide effective interoperability with the P2P Wi-Fi connection
    feature by implementing the measures for Wi-Fi Aware 4.0 in the next major iOS
    release, i.e. iOS 19, at the latest, and for Wi-Fi Aware 5.0 in the next iOS release at
    the latest nine months following the introduction of the Wi-Fi Aware 5.0
    specification.

    (N.B. The decision calls it "iOS 19" because it predates Apple announcing that "iOS 19" would actually be called iOS 26)

    It is possible, I suppose, that Apple intended all along to release this feature with iOS 26. You'd have to be an Apple insider to know for sure. But the simpler explanation is that they did it because the EU told them to.