Apparently, the EU Digital Markets Law It continues to bother Apple, since everything that comes out related to it is bad for them, and reduces the functions that their products have, because for this organization, they can violate the user's privacy.
The last case that we can observe, and that will arrive in iOS 26.2is the limitation that we will see in terms of sharing the Wi-Fi keys from your iPhone to the Apple Watch, something that, currently, was done automatically, and that if you went out for a run with your watch, for example, and stopped at the trusted coffee shop, you would have a network, and now you don't.
In the version iOS 26.2 (and its watch equivalent, watchOS 26.2), Apple has decided to remove a feature in the European Union: stop automatically sharing the Apple Watch's Wi-Fi network history from the iPhone when pairing the devices for the first time.
Currently, when you set up a new Apple Watch with your iPhone, it copies your iPhone's history of known Wi-Fi networks so the watch can connect without you having to manually enter the password.
But in the EU, starting with this version, it will no longer work like this: the new watch will not receive all that history from the iPhone. Instead, Wi-Fi networks will only be shared when iPhone and Apple Watch are together, and only after iPhone first connects to that network.
That is to say: if you have only the watch and not the iPhone with you, or if the network is new and your iPhone is not with the watch when connecting, you will have to connect the network manually on the watch.
Why this change? The reason is compliance with the European Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations. This law requires interoperability between devices from different manufacturers: if Apple continued to allow this historical synchronization only between its own devices, it would be privileging its ecosystem over third parties.
In short: outside the EU everything remains the same, inside the EU, with iOS 26.2/watchOS 26.2, Apple Watch no longer automatically receives iPhone's full Wi-Fi network history when pairedonly new or known networks will be shared as long as both devices are together.
If you are in Europe and use iPhone + Apple Watch, just keep in mind that you may have to manually connect a network on the watch, and that this is a legal compliance measure, not a technical failure, even if you have been doing this with your iPhone for a long time, if it has no battery, or you don't have it with you, the Apple Watch will need you to enter the network password again.
And you, do you think it is a necessary change, or just more nonsense from the EU? It is true that, once connected, it will no longer ask for it, and that if we carry the iPhone it will be done without problems, but it is an extra and tedious way that forces us to do things that, previously, were simpler, and that did not endanger anyone's privacy. Leave us a comment with your opinion.
