Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

App Store to Be 'Split in Two' Ahead of EU iPhone Sideloading Deadline

t0rqx said:
If you asked me if this is a right move 8 yers ago? I said no, cause I trust Apple protects us from malicious apps or spam ads. Nowadays Apple App Store is on the same, if not worse level of experience, as the Android App Store. Full of crap apps, with bloated malware and ads with subscription fees of 50 dollars per month.
Click to expand...

I no longer trust App store apps, either.....a couple examples (I've never so much as touched crypto, they are just examples).

9to5mac.com

Fake Trezor Bitcoin app reaches the top of iOS App Store search

One of Apple’s key arguments in favor of making the App Store the only way to download apps on iOS...
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com

www.macrumors.com

Apple's App Store Comes Under the Spotlight for How It Handles Fake Crypto Apps

Apple's App Store is now coming under the spotlight for how it handles fake crypto apps that scam investors who think they're investing in...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: makitango, 4ppleJack, klasma and 1 other person
Next thing you know you need the A18 Soc to use sideloading, gotta find new ways to boost those sales.
 
Cook has no spine. I didn't really care for his leadership before, but they were making money and shares were good. But this? Now I'm convinced they need someone else. Of course, shareholders would whine and complain and flip out if anyone but a puppet is running the show, so it'll never happen... but still. Cook should have gone thermonuclear. Instead, he basically said, "Yes ma'am... anything else?" and that was that.
 
  • Angry
Reactions: G5isAlive
SanderEvers said:
Until developers of important apps start removing their apps from the App Store. Like, for example, Meta with Whatsapp (which is the most use messaging software in the EU).
Click to expand...

If competition drives that to happen, then it happens. If I had an app I created in a store and that store was first in line for 30% off the top, I'd want to try to get a bigger bite of that 30% for me too. If there was no choice for years, I may be angry enough at that sole retailer arrangement to pull my app and try to sell it direct to users... exactly as is the case for many Mac apps vs. also being sold in the Mac App Store and cutting Apple in for a big slice right off the top.

If, on the other hand, the retailer seemed to be fairer to me over all these years and/or offered more value to cut them in for the first 30% of the price I charge, maybe I decide the 30% off the top is worth it and keep it in that store.

In historical terms, when one store owns all sales of anything in an area, pricing tends to be exploitive. When competition is introduced in the area, better deals for consumers can motivate the original store to either get competitive with the market or lose share of that business. Conceptually here, more competition for offerings from other stores will result in Apple getting more competitive in their own store. Else, consumers will buy the very same app for less from other sources. Competition is fundamental to what makes capitalism work, particularly in what makes it work FOR consumers. Where there is no competition, consumers get taken advantage of.

IMO: EU consumers will benefit by normalized capitalism at work. The rest of us can keep dealing with a single store in which the storekeeper is free to do just about whatever they want and we have to just accept it because there is no competitive alternatives. We can try to spin this a thousand ways as being better for the rest of us but nothing in history has ever shown that that kind of 100% control ever works well for buyers... only that lone seller.

Cue up some Tennessee Earnie Ford and then dig into what he means by "company store" if you don't already know...


Why does he owe his soul to them in spite of producing a "bless my soul," impressive 16 tons every day?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Angry
Reactions: DanTheMan827, Sophisticatednut, strongy and 3 others
Robert.Walter said:
This will compromise iPhone security.

Some apps will not submit to the App Store in order to drive all sales to their outside store to increase profits.

Others apps will stay outside to avoid Apple review process. Bugs and deliberate surveillance will run rampant.

Fake apps will proliferate outside with no oversight.

Welcome to your diminished privacy and acct security world.

Big mistake EU. Big.
Click to expand...
Sure. Now remind us, where are all those apps that force you to go outside of the Google Play store on Android?

Oh right, there aren’t any. :rolleyes:
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: DanTheMan827 and 5232152
why does everyone think this is going to make your phone more insecure? It will still be sandboxed, no access to the system and I suppose it even needs to be compiled by Xcode since iOS simply doesn’t support something like „apks“. You’d just buy it somewhere else. I doubt they’d leave the AppStore anyway, especially since it’s only one market.

What I can see happening though is modded versions of AppStore apps with IAP unlocked
 
  • Like
Reactions: makitango, arkitect, pacificblue and 2 others
alexe said:
I guess too many people drank the Apple Kool-Aid.
Click to expand...
EU has soured on Apple: Ohhh....yeaahhhh.

IMG_5845.jpeg
 
  • Disagree
  • Haha
Reactions: Luap and Student of Life
What's the point, I wonder? Everything is either subscription based or an IAP fest. To the point I don't even try to look for any mobile app or game, because I assume they'll try to scam me.

Pretty sure the likes of Epic and Blizzard will instantly take their titles out of the main app store and try to scam users independently. But I suppose their players are rich enough to afford free apps :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: strongy and Philip_S
icanhazmac said:
When this eventually leads to alternate stores the likes of Epic, Steam, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta will open their own and begin to pull their apps off the Apple store and pay other devs for exclusive distribution rights via those alt stores. Simple concept really. No one has done it yet because they would have only had the Android side. Once they can offer a store for "all" mobile apps they will.

So please stop saying the Apple App store will remain as it, it won't.
Click to expand...
This is the logical end goal. Will they achieve it is another question.

For example Meta would love users to only be able to download there products from there app and put all the tracking they want.
 
  • Like
Reactions: strongy and icanhazmac
Student of Life said:
This is the logical end goal. Will they achieve it is another question.

For example Meta would love users to only be able to download there products from there app and put all the tracking they want.
Click to expand...

These external app stores (and apps) will be under the same permission and sandbox rules as any other app on the iPhone.

The iPhone should be the firewall, not the App Store.
 
  • Like
Reactions: makitango, Philip_S, wyrdness and 3 others
Robert.Walter said:
This will compromise iPhone security.

Some apps will not submit to the App Store in order to drive all sales to their outside store to increase profits.

Others apps will stay outside to avoid Apple review process. Bugs and deliberate surveillance will run rampant.

Fake apps will proliferate outside with no oversight.

Welcome to your diminished privacy and acct security world.

Big mistake EU. Big.
Click to expand...
I share some of these concerns as well.
But the good thing about Apple splitting off the EU open App Store is that it might be possible for Apple or hopefully a neutral entity to conduct a somewhat direct comparison study with the App Store in the US and other markets that remains closed (Android and Mac are indirect comparisons), to see over time how much of these concerns actually take place. If everything is the same, great. If the experience for iPhone users in the EU get appreciably worse, then hopefully the data can be gathered and used as evidence in time to guard against other governments forcing Apple to open the App Store in other markets. Hopefully the data will be transparent and somebody will be keeping tabs on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lightman_73 and jdb8167
iLoveDeveloping said:
100%! This is a huge mistake. It’s kind of disgusting that the EU can demand things of American companies. Apple shouldn’t have to change their phone or operating system for another region.
Click to expand...
So you find it disgusting too that the US can demand things of European companies that operate in the US?

By the way, strictly speaking they aren’t asking this of a US company, they are probably asking it of Apple Operations Europe Ltd, a European company.
 
  • Like
Reactions: makitango, 4ppleJack, arkitect and 3 others
This change is… welcome? Happy to be able to install apps not in the AppStore, but I hope that it won’t be as easy as just clicking a link. If they do, that’ll turn into a real security nightmare, real quick. Instead, if we install other apps I guess we should get MANY pop-ups, confirmation prompts and warnings before being able to run them so that an app won’t get installed and run on its own just by clicking on a link accidentally.
 
Sorinut said:
Good on the EU for standing up for consumers over companies/profits! 👏🏻 We (US) have completely succumbed to corporate control and profit over absolutely everything else.
Click to expand...
Mate..this is more attempts at capitalism not of fairness. They want to demolish the sandbox model because with it they’re limited in access. But to open a hole in it, they may be able to gain more control like with android.

It’s not the “for the consumers!” Coup you think it is I’m afraid.
 
  • Like
  • Love
  • Disagree
Reactions: lightman_73, strongy, Luap and 3 others
Number 41 said:
I love a government telling me what I can and cannot buy.

I bought an iPhone, in large part, for the security and convenience of all apps coming from a single verifying source.

Now it’s going to become the same Balkanized nonsense that Android is.

Thanks, Europe.
Click to expand...
Ehm, is it better now with a corporation tell you want you can or cannot buy?

I'm not a fan of side-loading and the problems it brings but Apple put themselves and us into this position. They could have allowed 3rd party payments inside App Store, they could have relaxed the control on the apps it included. But they prioritised short term profit instead of putting the consumer first.
 
  • Like
Reactions: arkitect and klasma
MacRumors said:


Apple is preparing to split the App Store "in two" in the coming weeks ahead of European Union requirements that will force Apple to enable app sideloading in the region, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.

iOS-App-Store-General-Feature-Desaturated.jpg

In the latest edition of his "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explained that Apple is gearing up to make changes to the App Store in the EU to comply with the region's impending Digital Markets Act (DMA). Apple is apparently planning to roll out adjustments to comply with the new legal requirements in the coming weeks, including splitting off the App Store in the EU from the rest of the world. The deadline for Apple to comply with the DMA is March 7, so the company has just over seven weeks to enact the changes.

Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook met the European Union's antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, at Apple Park. Vestager reminded Cook of Apple's impending obligation to allow users to install third-party app stores and sideload apps under the DMA. Apple will also be obliged to give developers the ability to promote their offers outside the ‌‌‌App Store‌‌‌ and use third-party payment systems. The DMA is expected to force Apple to make a range of significant changes to the way the App Store, FaceTime, and Siri work in Europe.

Article Link: App Store to Be 'Split in Two' Ahead of EU iPhone Sideloading Deadline
Click to expand...
About time. This is when ios finally becomes good as people will now be making apps GOOD rather than based on Apple politics. Couldn't have come any sooner good job EU
 
  • Angry
  • Like
Reactions: strongy and makitango
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back