I do think it's a bad thing and I believe the EU regulators agree.

There are whole classes of applications that are not possible unless low level device data is exposed via APIs.

And since Apple doesn't provide the apps, the apps won't exist until Apple creates them.

Maybe some sort of 1 year lead time would be a reasonable trade off ?

Like let Apple first do the move, flesh out the issues and overall viability and then require them to open the api ?

I don't understand "first do the move"

When you develop a new feature that you have barely tested, is your first step to open a public api ?

I could be wrong but I assume that Apple very rigorously tests any new code added to their devices.

What makes it a "bad thing" if competitors have equal access? May the best implementation win.

Can you share some of these Microsoft Windows and Linux phones that also run the popular apps that you often need to take part in daily life?

The Volla 22 runs Ubuntu Touch, which lets me make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and it even has a browser. Everything I need for my daily life. Your daily life may vary, though.

iOS is a dominant OS with billions of users. In the US it has the majority market share of the smartphone market.

So whether Apple likes it or not, now their OS is a platform and has different responsibilities compared to your hobby OS that you developed to play with, and accidentally you got 10 users.

You can't because the duopoly prevents you to do it, that's why it's called a duopoly.

As has been evident in many spheres of human activity recently, being brazen about conflicts of interest, is often used as a PR shield for those conflicts.

Sometimes transparency and honesty get weaponized. Especially by actors with centralized power.

(Not arguing against transparency, but against misinterpreting it as always being used in good faith.)

Isn’t the EU regulation specifically about this?