Apple to Allow Outside App Stores in Overhaul Spurred by EU Laws {DMA, DSA}

[darknessblade]

Summary

Apple is planning to allow for alternate app stores on iPhones and iPads ahead of European legislation that will require the company to support sideloading.

 

Quotes

Quote

The change would allow customers to download apps without needing to use the App Store, which would mean developers would not need to pay Apple's 15 to 30 percent fees, but to start with, Apple is only planning to implement sideloading support in Europe.

If other countries introduce similar legislation, alternate app stores could expand beyond the European Union. The United States, for example, is considering legislation that would require Apple to allow sideloading. Apple has claimed that sideloading will "undermine the privacy and security protections" that iPhone users rely on, leaving people vulnerable to malware, scams, data tracking, and other issues.

 

The European Union's Digital Markets Act that went into effect on November 1 requires "gatekeeper" companies to open up their services and platforms to other companies and developers. The DMA will have a major impact on Apple's platforms, and it could result in Apple making major changes to the ‌App Store‌, Messages, FaceTime, Siri, and more. Apple has until March 6, 2024 to comply with the EU's rules.

 

My thoughts

This is nothing but good news, Finally people can choose which appstore they are using on apple devices, and are not forced to stay in apples walled garden, 

This could also pave the way to 3rd party payment methods, as none of the payments will go trough the Apple appstore. meaning devs will benefit as well, since they are no longer obligated to give apple a 30% cut of sales of IAPP's that are made when the app is downloaded trough a alternative appstore.

 

Sources

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-apple-allow-users-to-install-third-party-app-stores-sideload-in-europe

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/13/apple-europe-alternate-app-store-support/

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/12/13/apple-preparing-for-third-party-app-stores-by-2024

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11534589/Apple-allow-alternative-app-stores-iPhones-iPads.html

 

 

 

 

[Holmes108]

A great thing for customers, to be sure, and a great feature to have. I still don't think I support it being legislated. Apple should have the right to restrict their own product how they like. 

 

What's the defining line? Why am I not entitled to sideload onto my smart TV? Is it just because those are free apps and Samsung isn't directly profiting from the apps? (assuming they aren't). 

 

Or (and obviously this would never happen, but) what if they decided to just end 3rd parties from creating apps at all? Only 1st party apple apps now. Would that be allowed? 

 

It's all a little odd to me. 

[saltycaramel]

I hope this will be done in a way that will still protect my mom from “click this, allow that, follow this” scams. Problem is the likes of Tim Sweeney would publicly shame Apple if the language of the warnings is too scary and if there are too many hoops to jump thru.

[Commodus]

This is good news, so long as Apple finds a way to minimize the Wild West that sometimes defines Android. I've long thought that Apple could allow sideloading by requiring a developer signature like you can use for Mac apps. App turns out to be malware or illegal? Apple can shut it down at the drop of a hat. We'd just want to be sure that Apple has a genuine laissez-faire approach where it only revokes access when necessary.

 

One safe prediction: the Anything But Apple camp will still find a way to complain after this. Not to say that Apple doesn't have other significant problems, but I'm convinced some folks would paint Apple as evil incarnate even if it open-sourced iOS and sold $200 iPhones that were made in US factories by workers sipping peppermint lattes. That is, it's less about any wrongdoing than cheerleading for one side to "win."

[Arika]

About damn time.

[saltycaramel]

One way I could rationalise this is that the people of the mid 2020s will be on average more familiar with smartphones than the people of the late 00s. And hence slightly less vulnerable to scams.

 

Whereas I do not ascribe to the “on macOS/Windows sideloading has been available forever and that was not a problem” theory. 1) it was a problem and 2) those platforms never had 6B (literally almost every living adult) daily users like smartphones have. 

[saltycaramel]

 

Imagine if over the course of this decade the iPhone becomes “the Windows of smartphones” (meaning the overwhelmingly “default” platform) thanks to the merits of the hardware/polish/ecosystem and to this newfound level of customisability that’s in the works. 

 

That reality is already shaping up in the US. I doubt all those teens and young adults will switch to Android when they grow up.

 

Apple is preemptively defending their platform against antitrust probes.

[wanderingfool2]

Quote

Apple is considering implementing security requirements such as verification, a process that it could charge a fee for in lieu of collecting money from app sales

I will believe it when I see it, and when it's decided whether or not there will be fees involved and what type of fee.  I am all for them charging a fee to the store developers, but I'd be also worried that they might decide to charge based on revenue or charge an amount that makes it unrealistic (which could defeat the point)

[Commodus]

31 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

 

Imagine if over the course of this decade the iPhone becomes “the Windows of smartphones” (meaning the overwhelmingly “default” platform) thanks to the merits of the hardware/polish/ecosystem and to this newfound level of customisability that’s in the works. 

 

That reality is already shaping up in the US. I doubt all those teens and young adults will switch to Android when they grow up.

 

Apple is preemptively defending their platform against antitrust probes.

Eh, that's stretching things too far.

 

Android is likely to continue dominating because it's not tied to any one vendor's hardware, and serves audiences Apple simply doesn't care about. Think true budget phones (i.e. under $300) and devices heavily optimized for certain features or even countries. An iPhone SE might seem cheap in North America or Europe, but it's completely out of range for someone in India for whom $429 might represent more than their monthly income.

 

If this helps Apple, it'll do so by overcoming objections from some customers (not the Android diehards) and ensuring that more apps are built first or exclusively for Apple devices. But I see that as a minor gain, not a sea change. Many developers already write first for iOS, and the apps that need to break free of the App Store are rarely so important that they skew a customer's phone buying decision (Fortnite might be an exception).

 

And I wouldn't call this a preemptive defense at all — the EU alone is already pushing Apple to open up. Apple is doing the right thing, but not really by choice.

[LAwLz]

This sounds fantastic but I'll be cautiously optimistic. 

The news sounds like it could leave some room for Apple to still (in my opinion) mess things up. If they implement this well then the likelihood of me buying an iPhone just went through the roof. 

 

The news about opening up some APIs is also wonderful. I think it's kind of crazy that Apple were allowed to block other apps from doing things like contactless payments. Microsoft got slammed for hiding APIs in the 90s and 00, and that was arguably less bad than what Apple has been doing. 

 

Oh and it sounds like Apple also confirmed that the next iPhone will have USB-C as well. About damn time. 

[TetraSky]

Remains to be seen how they will actually implement this. Even if it says it would allow the installation of apps without the Appstore, I wouldn't put it past Apple to still require apps to go through the appstore to be installed at all. Apple has plenty of ways to do this while giving the middle finger to the EU.

 

[Kisai]

This is probably not going to be the thing people think it is. Expect Apple to demand a 25% cut of the store revenue, or apps installed via the third party store will not have access to iOS API's like the Cameras, since anything that can violate your privacy needs to be scrutinized.

 

[SeriousDad69]

Wondering which EU country I should set my iPhone to lol

[justpoet]

The big questions will take time to answer.  Things like:

1) How does a dev prevent pirating (or will only free apps take advantage in the first place, since the store is that gateway)?

2) Since this will dramatically lower the barrier of entry for maliciously crafted (or hacked and fake) apps, how will that be handled?  This has often been one of Apple's arguments as to why this shouldn't happen.

3) Will people generally care, or will all the 3rd party stores die since all the free apps just want to keep their place with Apple on their store with free hosting, rather than having to pony up for hosting servers and bandwidth and global access?

4) How involved (or not) will Apple be with security from these third party stores or side loaded apps?

5) Will side loading without a 3rd party store be as simple as installing a package is today, or will it require XCode and hoops, to make sure anybody doing it is technical enough to also understand the security risks and have the chance to look at the code they're installing?

 

Details matter.  At this point, I think basically it will be the Epic store, and that Apple will only allow access to things like contacts/photos/camera/mic from Apple Store (or at least signed) apps, making this become a large "meh" to most people.  A few tech people will rejoice, but nobody else will care or want to look at the confusion of installing another app store and what the implications are.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

This is probably not going to be the thing people think it is. Expect Apple to demand a 25% cut of the store revenue, or apps installed via the third party store will not have access to iOS API's like the Cameras, since anything that can violate your privacy needs to be scrutinized.

 

Or something like sideloaded apps are strictly run in a VM with no access to the host file system and tank battery life. Just enough to discourage it if it's available in the App Store. Can totally see that happening. And to be honest, I never liked the whole argument over which App Store you can use because even on the PC side I'm already sick and tired of having to install 5 different game launcher/stores because each developer/publisher wants their own wall garden. 

 

3 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Remains to be seen how they will actually implement this. Even if it says it would allow the installation of apps without the Appstore, I wouldn't put it past Apple to still require apps to go through the appstore to be installed at all. Apple has plenty of ways to do this while giving the middle finger to the EU.

 

My workplace uses BlackBerry Enterprise for app distribution on Android and iOS. I'm pretty sure on the iOS side, it does work via the Apple App Store albeit you no longer require an Apple ID to install any of your available apps. Now I'm wondering how does that work because that was years before any of this hubbub with Epic happened. 

[WhitetailAni]

6 hours ago, Commodus said:

This is good news, so long as Apple finds a way to minimize the Wild West that sometimes defines Android. I've long thought that Apple could allow sideloading by requiring a developer signature like you can use for Mac apps. App turns out to be malware or illegal? Apple can shut it down at the drop of a hat. We'd just want to be sure that Apple has a genuine laissez-faire approach where it only revokes access when necessary.

This already basically exists. The current state of sideloading:

1. Be jailbroken, or on iOS 14.0-15.5b4, 15.6b1-b5. Use Trollstore to sideload any app you want, it will expire never.

2. Be on any iOS, pay Apple nothing, and get up to three apps on a device, for one week - then you have to resideload. No notifications, widgets, etc. This is how every Apple ID is configured.

3. Be on any iOS, pay Apple $100, and get unlimited apps, signed for a year - then you pay apple another $100. Notifications, widgets, etc. - those entitlements work.

4. Be on any iOS and pay a company such as UDIDRegistrations $15/year per device for the benefits of #3.

 

What I was hoping Apple would do would make every Apple ID have the abilities of a paid dev account, excluding uploading to the app store and all that.

But no, they have to make it all iOS 17 exclusive...

[Ultraforce]

14 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

This already basically exists. The current state of sideloading:

1. Be jailbroken, or on iOS 14.0-15.5b4, 15.6b1-b5. Use Trollstore to sideload any app you want, it will expire never.

2. Be on any iOS, pay Apple nothing, and get up to three apps on a device, for one week - then you have to resideload. No notifications, widgets, etc. This is how every Apple ID is configured.

3. Be on any iOS, pay Apple $100, and get unlimited apps, signed for a year - then you pay apple another $100. Notifications, widgets, etc. - those entitlements work.

4. Be on any iOS and pay a company such as UDIDRegistrations $15/year per device for the benefits of #3.

 

What I was hoping Apple would do would make every Apple ID have the abilities of a paid dev account, excluding uploading to the app store and all that.

But no, they have to make it all iOS 17 exclusive...

I will say I personally would have liked that more then the extra stores, just as someone who was pushed away from trying to see if I could make an iphone app because of the complications for trying to test apps on your own phone.

I'm happy for there to be some competition encouraged but I know I'll probably just stick to the Apple App Store since there's less likely going to be problems other than that maybe if the Flatpak people have an iOS store launched I might install it but even if you don't trust Apple which I don't really I don't see why I'd want to give more big companies access. Though if Infinity Blade is remade I might cave in.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, SeriousDad69 said:

Wondering which EU country I should set my iPhone to lol

i seriously wonder if this works... it definitely should,  but you may need an eu iphone (guess they could definitely region lock the phones if they wanted)

[thechinchinsong]

23 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

i seriously wonder if this works... it definitely should,  but you may need an eu iphone (guess they could definitely region lock the phones if they wanted)

I'm hoping this isn't the case but knowing Apple and how many phone makers work, its probably going to be exclusive to the EU (or anywhere else with similar legislation).

[HenrySalayne]

8 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

I hope this will be done in a way that will still protect my mom from “click this, allow that, follow this” scams.

Educate your parents, FFS!

If this is a problem, they should never gotten an electronic device or access to the internet in the first place. There are 5,000,000,000 different scam methods around and adding one to 5,000,000,001 doesn't make any difference.

But hey, it's a pseudo argument because there are no real arguments against alternative ways to download software... 

[saltycaramel]

11 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Educate your parents, FFS!

If this is a problem, they should never gotten an electronic device or access to the internet in the first place. There are 5,000,000,000 different scam methods around and adding one to 5,000,000,001 doesn't make any difference.

But hey, it's a pseudo argument because there are no real arguments against alternative ways to download software... 

 

The nerd bubble’s take on any security balancing act: “it’s the user’s fault, just educate the users”.

[saltycaramel]

7 hours ago, Commodus said:

Eh, that's stretching things too far.

 

Android is likely to continue dominating because it's not tied to any one vendor's hardware, and serves audiences Apple simply doesn't care about.

 

By “dominating” you mean having more than 50% of the installed base? Because that’s not true any longer already in the US. 

If it happened in the US it could happen in other first world countries…

[HenrySalayne]

3 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

The nerd bubble’s take on any security balancing act: “it’s the user’s fault, just educate the users”.

The users fault? No! Your fault! If you give you parents an iPhone to not educate them about risks, your take on security is just horrific and you should feel bad about it.

Good security begins with educating the users. If alternative ways of downloading software on iOS impairs your security strategy, you failed long before that. This is a big nothing burger of "additional hazards" for your parents.

[saltycaramel]

12 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

The users fault? No! Your fault! If you give you parents an iPhone to not educate them about risks, your take on security is just horrific and you should feel bad about it.

Good security begins with educating the users. If alternative ways of downloading software on iOS impairs your security strategy, you failed long before that. This is a big nothing burger of "additional hazards" for your parents.

I “give” my parents an iPhone?

 

I “give” my parents dishwashers and ovens?

 

Or maybe they’re supposed to be able to walk-in-retail buy them on their own?

 

But go ahead and believe six freaking billion smartphone users were all extensively briefed and trained in advance by their resident family nerd, sure. 

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, justpoet said:

The big questions will take time to answer.  Things like:

1) How does a dev prevent pirating (or will only free apps take advantage in the first place, since the store is that gateway)?

The same way they prevent it on android.  Whatever that looks like and however effective it is.

7 hours ago, justpoet said:

2) Since this will dramatically lower the barrier of entry for maliciously crafted (or hacked and fake) apps, how will that be handled?  This has often been one of Apple's arguments as to why this shouldn't happen.

Been shown that there are no more malicious apps on androids that use alternative sources than there are on IOS.

 

7 hours ago, justpoet said:

3) Will people generally care, or will all the 3rd party stores die since all the free apps just want to keep their place with Apple on their store with free hosting, rather than having to pony up for hosting servers and bandwidth and global access?

Who knows,  but it's not the goal so likely wasn't even considered.  The goal is options for everyone, not guaranteed success.

 

7 hours ago, justpoet said:

4) How involved (or not) will Apple be with security from these third party stores or side loaded apps?

I would assume not at all, 3rd party stores will have to arrange their own security.   Apple should still be doing all the usual IOS security updates and patching known security holes regardless were they originate

7 hours ago, justpoet said:

5) Will side loading without a 3rd party store be as simple as installing a package is today, or will it require XCode and hoops, to make sure anybody doing it is technical enough to also understand the security risks and have the chance to look at the code they're installing?

I hope its as easy as it used to be with windows mobile/ce. It would literally reduce my opposition to buying another apple product to how they deal with right to repair.