This assumes facts not in evidence. The change is being forced by EU law, but it would take more effort to geo-fence it than to make the change globally. Not to mention the fact that it would be effort in the direction of a PR loss.
No, the more Apple way to spin this is as a positive for everyone. As if they had the idea the entire time and just now figured out how to make it work.
Like Apple One, Apple News, the Emergency SOS feature, the Apple card stuff, Apple Pay it Later, ECG on the watch, heart rate notifications, Siri defaulting to a male voice, etc that’s only available in the US/UK/some other countries.
And that’s not even getting into all the changes they’ve made to the Chinese version of iOS to appease the Chinese government.
It's been previously reported, you missed the evidence you say doesn't exist (you frame your ignorance as knowledge of absence)
>Apple is only planning to implement sideloading support in Europe.
See also the language about this being the start of a rollout of sideloading in other reports - ie EU only. This will be driven by courts, Apple hasn't and won't be charitable. Apple spins every incremental change as a positive win to cover PR instead of admitting partial defeat.
Btw Apple already today restricts loads of services and content based on region, you should look into that if you think that's a challenge for them
Many Android devices have the concept of carrier-specific configuration files (CSCs) which are baked into the ROM, and phones sold in the region come baked with the variant with only the specific CSCs in question. A similar implementation could be followed by Apple, where they have a separate image for the EU.
Phones of major vendors sold in EU still contain carrier info for the region even if they're sold unlocked.
Outside of US and China, Samsung for example ships so-called "Multi-CSC" variants of their devices which permanently apply the region and country of your device on first power-on with a SIM-card.
The required information for that is not pulled from the network but is already preloaded in the ROM of the device, a network connection can be used to get an updated version of these profiles though
