That is simply just nonsense.

They had 1,5 years from the time of being identified as gatekeepers to work on this.

The DMA was voted on by the EU parliament and then the council in july 2022, Apple was identified as a gatekeeper in september 2022, the law became legally implemented in november 2022, with gatekeepers required to comply with it by march 6th 2024.

I do not buy for a second that the richest tech company on the planet, that owns, designs and manufactures the whole tech stack their product uses was unable to respond in due time to the legally required changes and so 'just had to go this route due to time constraints'.