If Apple inexplicably chooses to sell iDevices so cheaply that they can't afford to pay the people who build the software for it, that's their mistake. The EU isn't forcing them to do that, neither are app developers. They've had years to remedy any pricing mistakes they made in the past and price their hardware appropriately.
They also pull in billions of dollars every year from their 30% cut on gambling/gacha games, and do almost nothing to earn that (those games have to provide their own updater/CDN because the Apple/Google ones aren't good enough, and those games don't meaningfully rely on Apple/Google for things like quality assurance or marketing.) Apple will be fine even if their Europe-specific cut is halved.
Claiming they're going to suffer or be unable to pay employees is simply not supported by any evidence.
There's a difference between the one-time upfront cost of purchasing a device, and the recurring cost of supporting it with software updates (which is, in the most recent case, sometimes mandated). It's not a "pricing mistake".
You can bake that into the list price of the device based on how long you offer warranty coverage and/or updates. Every device vendor is already doing this unless they're completely clueless.
Yes it is a pricing mistake. If I only use the built-in apps, Apple will earn nothing from my app usage, but they still have to provide security updates. And that should be the end of it.
They also pull in billions of dollars every year from their 30% cut on gambling/gacha games, and do almost nothing to earn that (those games have to provide their own updater/CDN because the Apple/Google ones aren't good enough, and those games don't meaningfully rely on Apple/Google for things like quality assurance or marketing.) Apple will be fine even if their Europe-specific cut is halved.
Claiming they're going to suffer or be unable to pay employees is simply not supported by any evidence.