If Apple was stupid enough to actually document this decision and the ecosystem concerns in written record, I wonder if they'll get dinged by the DMA for gatekeeping (again) over this.
From the US Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple:
>Apple recognizes that driving users to purchase an Apple Watch, rather than a third-party cross-platform smartwatch, helps drive iPhone sales and reinforce the moat around its smartphone monopoly. For example, in a 2019 email the Vice President of Product Marketing for Apple Watch acknowledged that Apple Watch "may help prevent iPhone customers from switching."...Apple also recognizes that making Apple Watch compatible with Android would “remove[an] iPhone differentiator.”[1]
The lawsuit also alleges that Apple degrades APIs to hurt Third Party watch manufactures.
I'm not sure the Apple Watch has enough users, or is considered critical enough, to be covered by the DMA (iMessage, macOS, and iPad OS aren't either, for example).
In any case, this was all long before the DMA went into effect, so it would have to be a regular old antitrust case.
