Seaten your belts, lot of legalize will be below.
I find these kind of problems to be within politics, not tech. The Google/apple monopoly does so far as I know that there is NO even EU age verification app for desktop & tablet linux. May be even for desktop windows there is no such app, that can be seen as something funny. So this is not just about banks or delivery apps.
A legal solution
I think these laws are necessary to break Google and Apple mobile duopoly and boost innovation and improve EU tech sovereignty:
Apps and website parity
1. Make mandatory the apps and websites features parity. “Semantic and functional equivalence”. App and website may look visually different, but identical functionality should be provided at both environment.
This would solve the problem when some functionality provided only via mobile app but absent at bank website at all or provided in some limited manner. For example the bank I use does not provide travel insurance purchase feature at website, without any meaningful reason.
Forbid platform features fencing
2. Forbid providing some functionality of app only on some OS or platform but not provide it on other without any technical reason (like, if some app provides functionality on iOS but not providing on android). This is continuation of 1 actually, but not at web-mobile axis, but across mobile platforms.
How to enforce this
Bind 1 and 2 into bank license requirements. If you are bank and you can’t provide 1 and 2 of above after transitional period, your license would be revoked.
If you are municipal entity, state body or government entity/body, and you created or plan to create some public good (such as public transit payment/schedule app) or “public evil” (mandatory to use without obvious benifit) app (such as EU age check app), you should follow 1 and 2 same way as for banks.
these 1 and 2 can be applied to the private apps with at least 100 000 EU users as well (largest delivery apps, taxi riding apps, and social media apps, other apps).
Solve the drivers issue
3. Make mandatory to provide for every electronic component sold in EU separately, as part of repair kit or as part of whole device, information and software necessary for drivers development. Components are parts such as CPU, temporary or persistent memory, camera, proximity sensor, camping light, fingerprint scanner, or what ever component is. This would require to provide public access to all information (documentation, presentations, audiovisual and interactive learning materials, pin layouts or what it else can be) and software (such as emulators, drivers test kits, libraries and other software) necessary for drivers development. Repair kits and whole devices should provide list of actual links (no broken links like 404, 500, 403, 401 or other such responses) to such information for all parts the device consists of or included into the repair kit.
Without such law there will never be good drivers for e. g. linux kernel modules, for all devices existing today. For example, my smartphone has camping light I never seen before on other phones. It will likely require a dedicated driver for linux.
How this could be done?
Well, it would means to do one of the most boring things to do – get involved into politics. Vote on all elections for party which most likely would promote such law. Push this law into such party agenda from bottom to top. This means getting involved into as many elections as possible, from primaries to parliamentary elections, and in day to day party life like primaries, rountables, polls and internal events of the party you want bring such laws.
The push for EU tech sovereignty may be useful for this.
