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Apple bows to Brussels over App Store in latest EU concession

Tech giant seeks to comply with European Union law with approval for iPhone apps to be downloaded from developers’ websites

Apple will allow iPhone apps to be downloaded directly from their developers’ websites for the first time, a major concession to European regulators. Photograph; Justin lane/EPA

Javier Espinoza and Tim Bradshaw
Tue Mar 12 2024 - 17:25

Apple will allow iPhone apps to be downloaded directly from their developers’ websites for the first time, a major concession to European regulators that marks the third time this year the big tech group has been forced to change its plan to comply with landmark European Union rules.

The move to allow so-called sideloading in Europe, which will come into effect later this spring, comes after pressure from developers to be able to distribute their software outside the App Store and threatens a core component of Apple’s $85 billion-a-year global services business.

As part of the latest changes announced on Tuesday, developers launching their own marketplace will be able solely to offer their own apps on an alternative app store and will be able to offer promotions directly to their customers in whatever way they want. Both changes are effective immediately for customers in Europe.

For the first time since it launched the iPhone and its App Store more than 15 years ago, Apple finds itself in the unusual position of being forced by government officials to make sweeping changes to its technical platform and business practices, sometimes within a matter of days.

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The latest amendments to Apple’s plan to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which came into effect this month, come on the heels of two previous U-turns by the iPhone maker.

The company on March 1st backtracked on plans to cut off access to apps that bypass its App Store, which it had said it needed to do to comply with the new digital rules. It later granted Epic Games access to its App Store, after Brussels said it was probing Apple over its move to ban the game developer’s account.

Apple has long resisted calls for sideloading of apps – which offer the same functionality as those sold through the App Store – on the grounds of the security risks they pose to its tightly controlled iPhones and iPads. It said on Tuesday that to mitigate such risks, developers offering apps from their own websites would still need to be authorised by Apple.

Developers must also pay a core technology fee of €0.50 per install after the first million downloads each year for sideloaded apps. The fee has been a focus of criticism among developers who say Apple’s new terms for the EU do not go far enough in opening up one of the world’s most popular computing platforms.

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Apple warned that it would not be able to offer customers support for issues ranging from refunds to fraud or privacy abuses for apps distributed outside its store.

Apple’s changes come as big tech groups caught by the EU’s Digital Markets Act have been keen to show how they are complying with the rules.

The act outlines rules aimed at opening markets to allow European start-ups to flourish and to give consumers more choice.

But regulators are concerned some of these companies, which include Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, are failing to comply or are introducing changes that will leave markets and consumers worse off.

EU officials are studying the first compliance reports of these companies to determine which will be the first to be subjected to infringement proceedings to force full compliance, people with knowledge of the matter said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024

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