It feels bizarre to an American perspective. How is a company supposed to follow rules that are open to interpretation? Or does the EU think it can legislate outcomes (even if they're uneconomic) ?

You have to demonstrate that you're willing to follow the law. It's not like you'll get a gigantic fine as soon as the new law is implemented, assuming you actually make an effort to be compliant.

In this case, Apple is dragging their feet screaming trying to do their best not to comply with the intent.

What's going to happen next, they'll get a notice of nonconformity where they're asked to fix their behaviour. If they don't show good intent, they'll get hit with a fine. If they fix it and adhere to the laws here, then we'll all end up better - well, maybe the poor shareholders won't survive this hit...

If you're a company operating in the EU, just a little bit of willingness to adhere to the laws goes a very long way.

The "reasonable person" tool is really useful here, and not at all unheard of in the US of A.

I know what the EU wants from Apple. You probably know what the EU wants from Apple. Apple should know what the EU wants from Apple.

That's the law. Not some linguistic technicalities in some document somewhere.

The EU literally had meetings with the affected companies to explain things.

Apple just appears to be hard of hearing, perhaps purposely.