The European Commission opened a noncompliance investigation Monday into whether Apple is fully following the rules that went into effect with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. If not, Apple faces potentially heavy fines.
The Mac-maker isn’t being singled out. The EC also opened similar investigations into Alphabet/Google and Meta/Facebook.
EU developers can forgo the App Store entirely and distribute their apps directly to iPhone users from their own websites, Apple said Tuesday. This is a significant reversal from Apple’s original rules, which required devs that wanted to skip the official App Store to place iPhone software in third-party software marketplaces.
In another major change, Apple also will allow EU developers to create app marketplaces that sell only their own software.
Apple just seeded the release candidate of iOS 17.4 to developers. When it goes to the general public — probably next week — it’ll bring in a collection of new emoji to iPhone, and a more secure version of iMessage. For Europeans, the update will be a major one, as it’ll usher in sideloading and other changes.
The release candidate for iPadOS 17.4 also came out Tuesday. However, macOS Sonoma 14.4 is still on beta 5.
iOS developer Riley Testut, the brains behind AltStore (the original alternative App Store), has a great take on Apple’s plans to open up the App Store in the European Union
This is “everything I’ve been wanting for the past few years,” he said after Apple laid out its plans last week. “Even reading the announcement I was tearing up.”
Testut, who lives in Texas, has a vested interest in Apple loosening its grip on the App Store to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. He’s the co-creator of AltStore, a hacky skunkworks project that enables sideloading of iPhone and iPad apps. Now he’s working to transition AltStore into an officially sanctioned app marketplace that complies with Apple’s new rules.
In an exclusive interview with Cult of Mac, Testut talks about the hidden upside for iPhone owners around the world; the downsides of Apple’s strict new framework and fees; and the joys of making AltStore one of the first legit third-party app marketplaces in the EU.
Testut’s take on Apple’s plans for opening up iOS is perhaps the best to date, and well worth a read.
A noted Apple critic used the terms “malicious compliance” and “hot garbage” to describe the elaborate rules the company laid down Thursday for allowing European iPhone users to sideload applications.
Those blasts came from Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, a company that’s locked in a legal battle with Apple over App Store rules. But other devs also cast aspersions on Apple’s framework for setting up App Store rivals. They pointed out that the new system comes with a huge financial obligation, and that it will make free apps almost impossible.
To be clear, though, not all developers are unhappy. Apple’s new rules also drew some compliments.
Apple is bringing sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhone — but with significant restrictions.
Apple gave EU developers guidelines and access to the tools needed for sideloading — installing applications that don’t go through the App Store. But the new rules require these apps to be approved by Apple before they can be installed by iPhone users. And they need to be in alternative marketplaces, not directly available for download.
In other words, sideloading won’t be the free-for-all some people had hoped.
This is part of sweeping changes to iOS, Safari and the App Store required by the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. And Apple’s announcement of these changes in Thursday is loaded with warning about how sideloading brings risks for users.
Although the European Union requires Apple to allow sideloading of iPhone applications, Cupertino reportedly hopes to review apps before they become available for installation from outside the App Store.
Apple also expects developers to voluntarily send a percentage of all revenue generated through sideloaded iOS applications.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s commissioner for competition, met with Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday to discuss the upcoming EU requirement that iPhone users be able to install applications from outside the App Store, aka sideloading.
Vestager also says the two discussed the EU’s investigation into whether Apple Music is anticompetitive.
Apple filed a challenge to an European Union law that requires iPhones to allow third-party software to be installed from outside the App Store.
Unless the appeal goes through, the legislation will go into effect in March 2024.
The good news is that iPhone could finally allow users to install applications directly starting in 2024, according to a reliable source. The bad news is that being able to go without the App Store will only be an option in Europe.
To be clear, sideloading is required by EU law so it’s definitely happening. The timing isn’t clear, though.
After meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook in Brussels Tuesday, European Union head of industry Thierry Breton called on the tech company to open its ecosystem of hardware and software to competitors.
Apple quietly added a helpful new “Apps by Apple” section to its website last week. Cupertino’s new guide breaks down the world of great Apple apps into helpful sections all in one place.
Some people wonder if it’s part of Apple’s response to the European Union’s moves to force sideloading of apps on iPhones.
The CEO of Epic Games teased Fortnite fans that the game will once again be playable on iPhone in 2023.
That would be quite a turnaround, as Apple blocked Epic from the App Store back in 2020 during a lengthy court battle. But new EU regulations likely will allow the game developer to do an end run around the block.
Criminals around the world are surely celebrating news that Apple is being forced by the European Union to enable iPhone to install applications from outside the App Store. The move will allow hackers to release a fresh tidal wave of malware, hoping to slip it onto iOS handsets. iPhone users will be forced to fend off attempts to trick them into installing this malware virtually every day.
And well-known, unscrupulous companies will take advantage of the new security hole, too.
Apple has launched a major project to allow alternative app stores on iPhones and iPads by 2024. The effort is meant to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, which comes fully into force then, and other possible national or regional laws that will make Apple allow sideloading of apps, according to new report Tuesday.
The end result should see Apple allowing people to download third-party software to iPhones and iPads from somewhere other than the App Store for the first time.
The European Parliament passed the landmark Digital Markets Act on Tuesday. The legislation aims to outlaw many common practices of Big Tech companies, especially Apple, Google and Amazon.
For iPhone users, the DMA would force Apple to allow rival app stores and sideloaded applications. And these are only two of many significant changes in the act.
There are still further steps the the EU government must go through before the DMA goes into effect, but that’s expected to happen before the end of 2022.
Apple CEO Tim Cook called privacy a key battle of our time during a speech Tuesday. He extolled Apple’s commitment to protecting its users’ data and condemned regulations that would force Cupertino to accept app sideloading on iPhones.
“We are deeply concerned about regulations that would undermine privacy and security in service of some other aim,” he said, referring to legislation that would force Apple to allow apps for its devices to bypass the App Store.
Cook made the comments during a wide-ranging keynote address at the International Association of Privacy Professionals Global Privacy Summit in Washington, D.C.
Read more about what he said and watch video of his speech below.
Apple issued a letter to U.S. lawmakers Wednesday urging them not to allow the distribution of iPhone and iPad apps outside the App Store. It insists doing so “would allow malware, scams and data-exploitation to proliferate.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet Thursday to consider the Open App Markets Act, a bill that hopes to prohibit companies like Apple from blocking sideloading and alternative app marketplaces.
Apple thinks five pieces of antitrust reform legislation could undermine innovation and competition in tech, as well as creating a “race to the bottom” for security and privacy. Apple laid out its concerns in a letter sent ahead of Wednesday’s meeting of the House Judiciary Committee to discuss the proposed laws.
The letter — sent to chairmen Jerrold Nadler and David Cicilline, and ranking members Jim Jordan and Ken Buck — lays out Apple’s arguments for why the government needs to reconsider the five bills.
Apple’s none too keen on sideloading, the process of allowing apps to be installed on iPhones and iPads from outside of the App Store. While some critics take issue with this as an example of Cupertino’s uncompromising monopolistic tendencies, Apple — unsurprisingly — has a different take.
In an interview with Fast Company, timed to coincide with publication of a white paper on the subject, Apple’s head of user privacy, Erik Neuenschwander, explains the company’s take.
Spoiler alert: It’s all about security.
