European consumers purchasing an Appel iPhone will no longer face difficulties when needing repair services for their iPhone purchased in a Member State other than their country of residence. Appel's announcement to relax restrictions both to these services and for the development tools for iPhone apps, has driven the Commission to announce its intention to close investigations over Apple for those cases.

In Spring 2010, the Commission launched two parallel preliminary investigations into Apple's business practices relating to the iPhone:

• One focused on the "country of purchase" rule, whereby repairs service is only available in the country where the iPhone was bought, which made the exercise of warranty rights difficult for consumers who had purchased an iPhone in another EU/EEA country than their home country. The Commission had concerns that this rule could amount to territorial restrictions aimed at dissuading European consumers from buying iPhones outside their country of residence and so leading to a partitioning of the market.
• The other investigation concerned Apple's decision of April 2010 to restrict the terms and conditions of its licence agreement with independent developers of applications or 'apps' for its iPhone operating system. It focussed on the rationale underlying Apple's requirement to use only Apple's native programming tools and approved languages when writing iPhone apps, to the detriment of third-party layers, which could have ultimately resulted in shutting out competition from devices running platforms other than Apple's.

As announced by the company, Apple is no longer enforcing the "country of purchase" rule within the EU/EEA and has appointed independent Authorised Service Providers to offer cross-border iPhone warranty services in those Member States where Apple does not directly take charge of repairs. Earlier on this month, Apple also announced having removed restrictions previously introduced on the development tools used to create iPhone apps, restoring the use of third-party layers and so giving developers more flexibility.

The Commission remains committed to ensuring that EU antitrust rules are respected so that European consumers can choose between different alternatives and benefit from technical developments and innovation in the Single Market.