Who is EU trying to help here? Not the users anyway. It used to be fairly safe to give an iPhone to an elderly person. With the new stores it will be bigger opportunities to scammers. Not a good idea. I hope there will be a way to turn off the possibility to b uy from another AppStore.
I’ll be interested to see how this works in practice.
I assume it won’t be possible to just click a link to an app-installer from a web page or mail message. I assume you’ll need to install an app-store ('scuze me, “marketplace”) app from Apple’s app store, which will in turn be able to install apps from its servers.
So hopefully this won’t end up being any less secure than pre-existing loopholes, like installing configuration profiles to grant access to a corporate app server, which have been abused by people trying to evade Apple’s app store.
And I would like to think that parental controls (or something similar) will let you restrict the ability to install third-party marketplace apps, just like they can be used to limit installation of other apps.
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From what I’ve read, each store will have to have their own special app. The user will have to install that app and agree to terms after seeing Apple’s dire warnings about less security, Apple not taking responsibility, the alternate marketplace handling refunds, etc. Apps cannot be installed without this agreement and the user can revoke permission at any time, disabling any of those apps already downloaded and installed.
Apple will have the ability to “turn off” any store that doesn’t behave and I believe that will disable all the apps from that store (for sure it will stop any updates).
Also, the user can only have one version of an app installed at a time, so if a user had say, Facebook from the App Store, they’d have to delete it in order to install a version of Facebook from an alternate marketplace. Apparently this helps prevent app data loss from having two versions of the same app installed.
Another thing I like is that the app’s description for side loaded apps will be hard-coded into the app before it is digitally signed by Apple, so it can’t be modified without another review. That way even if a sleazy alternate marketplace tries to give a different description of an app, the user will see the real (accurate) description when they click on it. This should prevent a store from promoting an app as one thing and then it does something else. Very clever.
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Another interesting point Gruber makes, is that even Epic won’t be able to offer its own solely-Epic game store.
Firstly, because their dev ac was cancelled by Apple due to the Fortnite fiasco (so they’d seemingly have to use their other Unreal Engine dev ac in order to do so, i.e. as “The Unreal Store”, presumably). But mainly because any store has to offer products within its product category(s) –eg. games– from any developer; presumably meaning they’d have to sell non-Epic games too?
On a separate point, any dev that goes for the new business terms option cannot go back to the current business terms. That effectively makes it all a huge gamble for almost all devs to make. There’s no trial and error: you’re either all in on the current business terms or completely out of it…forever.
I’m pretty sure this is going to the topic of much more discussion.
I cannot imagine the EU is just going to be ok with this. They have no interest in allowing Apple to make the new alternate system unnecessarily unattractive in order to push people towards maintaining the status quo. The EU wants to see the status quo be the unattractive alternative. If Apple stipulated that devs wanting to run their own competing app store, would have to accept Apple filling their letterbox with poop every morning, the EU would most certainly immediately crack down on that provision. I see them doing the same here because with the conditions the way Apple has set them up (cost prohibitive, no option to switch between systems later, etc.), it’s highly unlikely anybody — much less the large houses with some political weight to throw around — will be choosing the new system over the old and for the EU that would constitute failure. Quite public too so can’t have that.
OTOH it’s also quite obvious to me, Apple won’t just forgo business in the EU. So I suppose it will come down to Apple trying to buy/lobby their way to weak regulation (or at least regulation with built-in loopholes) vs. the European Commission trying to impose its views on what healthy competition looks like via legislation. And to increase the stakes, Apple certainly knows very well the rest of the world is watching. Whatever they end up giving the EU, others could ask for the same (just consider the global effect GDPR had, or long before, CA state clean air regulation on the entire US auto market) right away. Apple might well be willing to exit the Eritrea market, but Canada? Or Japan? Korea? This is bound to be exciting and I’d say the fight has only just begun.
Epic will using the new Apple structure in the EU to bring Fortnite back to iOS. From their year in review (courtesy Gruber):
Update on Epic’s return to iOS in Europe: Developer account secured!
We’ve received our Apple Developer Account and will start developing the Epic Games Store on iOS soon thanks to the new Digital Markets Act. We plan to launch in 2024. Epic Games Sweden AB will operate the mobile Epic Games Store and Fortnite in Europe, with the Store team leading development.
Epic Games Sweden has 3 studios and 60+ employees.
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-games-store-2023-year-in-review
And Apple has opened up a bit more now.
I concede I haven’t really been following this topic but I’m curious on one thing.
Is the suggestion that developers will now be delivering their software at a 30% discount on their websites?
If they are, they’d be earning the same net income as they are through the App store. If they’re not - if the price will be the same as the App store price - why would anyone bother downloading outside of the App store where it may be less secure?
Maybe I’m missing something.
They could reduce the price by 15–20% and increase their income whilst still providing a savings to customers. Or include features that wouldn’t be approved on the App Store. Or have upgrade pricing.
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Brave is reporting new browser installs on iOS in EU increased ~40% after 17.4. They used to see 7-8k installs per day and that the jumped to 11k after the release. Guess there are Europeans that prefer another browser to Safari after all. 
How about a 15% discount?
I’m having trouble keeping up with Apple’s changes with regard to the EU’s DMA, but that’s partly because I’m not really interested in the soap opera of it all.
Agreed. And I live here.
Had to switch off MBW half way through I couldn’t listen to any more of it.
Whilst all this is reasonable, when many apps are very cheap ($10-50) I’m not sure a saving of a couple of bucks is worth the effort for most users. Same thing with upgrade pricing, in fact upgrade pricing seems to be diminishing in favour of subscriptions. Having features not available on the App store is already here - there’s vendors offering different versions for App store vs web.
In the beginning I wasn’t a fan of the App store but the convenience of not having to manage licenses and the ease of upgrading or restoring is worth a couple of dollars to me.
I fully agree - the topic has come to dominate the podcasts I normally listen to (ATP, the Talk Show) and the extreme emotions expressed are very tedious to listen to. I am much more interested in the technical side of Apple’s operations and have very little interest in the business side. Blogs like Gruber’s are obsessed with the latter and lately I don’t bother to read them much for this reason.
I guess I’m in the ‘both’ camp. As a user I’m interested in the technical side and as a shareholder I’m interested in the business side.
There’s things in both areas with which I’ve been unhappy, and some in which I’ve been delighted.
I’ve always had a little trouble with the worry that App Store prices were artificially inflated given that one of the criticisms we made of the App Store early on was that it drove software prices through the floor. Perhaps prices have come back up with freemium models that have relatively high subscription prices, but it seems that the vast majority of iPhone apps (and we’re only talking about iPhone/iPad apps here) are basically free or monetized in other ways.
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I remember the days on the Mac where most software (excluding shareware) cost $35 or $50 or more. I was happy to pay this price for something which provided good functionality. Although I am not very knowledgeable about business economics, I can see how the App Store would drive prices to an unsustainably low amount since many apps are competing with large operations which can afford to sell apps for practically nothing and make a profit. There is also a psychology that when most of the apps cost $5 or $10, a reasonably priced non-subscription app would seem too expensive and would not sell.
I don’t like subscriptions and would prefer the Mac model where apps are more expensive but allow the developer to make a decent living. I don’t know how this will work using the App Store model though.
Frankly, I am not impressed with the quality of iOS or iPad apps compared to Mac apps. That’s another issue.
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The issue with ‘the Mac model’ pricing was the price gouging by developers like Adobe with products like Photoshop. In the 1990s Photoshop was close to $2000 AUD a copy which would translate to close to $5000 today. They invited piracy with their pricing model. When the App store opened and products like Pixelmator, Acorn and Affinity Photo arrived it was a breath of fresh air for users.
I highly doubt Pixelmator et all would have been as successful as they are without the App store. I know 30% is a big chuck of commission but if the model works it works. I also like that it’s not a subscription, I’m happy to pay a full price upgrade because it’s so reasonably priced.
As a result, Photoshop is now a fraction of the cost it was so I’d say the App store has had positive outcomes for most people.
The app store does not allow developers to charge directly for upgrades. The only way for them to earn an income to maintain the product is to force customers to purchase full-priced new versions (with a different name, of course) or to sell subscriptions.
This model has proved successful enough that it is now commonly used for apps sold directly.