“Unable to connect to iPhone. iPhone mirroring is not available in your country or region. » This is the error message that appears on macOS Sequoia beta 2 when trying to use this new feature. Apple had warned: in the same way as Apple Intelligence and the SharePlay improvements, iPhone Mirroring will not be available to European users this year because of (its use of) the DMA.
But it didn’t take us long to figure out how to enable this feature on a European Mac anyway. Change the region in System Settings to a country outside the EU? Missed. Log in to the Mac App Store with a non-EU Apple account? Bingo!
As we had already noticed during the adventures around PWAs on iOS at the beginning of the year, connecting to the App Store with a non-EU account unlocks the European restrictions put in place within the framework of the DMA. Apple nevertheless claims to base itself on several criteria to determine if one of its devices is located in the European Union, but this advanced detection perhaps only concerns authorizations, such as the installation of alternative stores, and not prohibitions.
In any case, we just had to log in with a foreign account (American in this case) on the Mac App Store for iPhone Mirroring to become accessible on one of our Macs.
We insist on the fact that a simple connection to the Mac App Store with a non-EU account was enough to break the lock. On this same Mac, the Apple account connected in System Settings (for iCloud, Photos, Find My, etc.) is a French account. Word to the wise, creating a US App Store account does not require much effort.
That a simple change of account in the App Store unlocks iPhone Mirroring on macOS Sequoia makes Apple’s geographic blocking all the more incomprehensible. What “regulatory uncertainty” Can Apple’s lawyers really challenge the DMA for a function that duplicates the iPhone screen on the Mac?
While waiting to have an answer to this question, if we have one one day, you have at your disposal a solution to experiment without further delay with one of Sequoia’s flagship new features – but it is not said that this tip works indefinitely. In any case, Apple does not intend to officially launch this feature in the EU until next year.
