Everything is about to change at Apple. The American company is preparing to open the doors to alternative application stores for iPhone as a result of one of the proposals of the European Union that will come into force in the coming months. A measure that would bring their devices closer to the Android ecosystem, where there is greater freedom to install apps.
This means that users will be able to download third-party programs without the need to go to the App Store , that is, they will not be subject to the company’s restrictions or the commission of up to 30% that it imposes for payments. A measure with which Apple does not fully agree, but that it will have to abide by as well as the standardization of the USB-C connector.
Greater freedom for your iPhone
The objective of the European Union with this legislation is to equalize the conditions of external developers and improve the experience of consumers when downloading apps on their iPhone. This change is initially intended for Europe, so it would also affect the models distributed in Spain.
The Digital Markets Law, this is the name of the European law, will come into force in the coming months, although the companies affected will not be obliged to comply with the regulations until the year 2024 . Specifically, the law requires technology companies to allow the installation of third-party applications to allow users to easily change the initial settings. It also requires that messaging services have to work together and that third-party developers have equal access to these services.
From Apple they are not entirely happy with the new legislation, since they have denounced on numerous occasions the “sideloading”, which consists of a process of installing applications external to the App Store. In fact, they argue that a layer of protection is necessary, since “sideloading” could end up introducing unsafe apps to users.
The objective of the American company is that this great change comes from the hand of iOS 17 , but we do not know if it will happen from the day of its launch or it will be a later addition. To protect itself from malicious applications, the iPhone manufacturer would be considering the decision to impose security requirements despite the fact that the software is distributed externally to the official store. So it would not be surprising if Apple found a way to verify these systems. We remember that the entity takes between 15% and 30% of the income from the App Store, so it would not be anything new.
Apple works for a complete system
Aside from all this, the company is also working to open up possibilities for third-party applications, such as more camera technology and NFC . It should be noted that, for the moment, only the Wallet app and the Apple Pay service make use of the NFC chip on the iPhone, so Apple would be facing pressure so that this option does not reach other third-party programs.
They have not yet found a way to extrapolate iMessage to other third-party services, as required by the Digital Markets Law. Apple engineers think this change may hurt end-to-end encryption or other privacy features, so they need to find a way to make it seamless for their iPhones.