Chinese Mobile News
On January 26, it was reported by Mobile China that Apple announced the opening of sideloading apps in Europe in March. Third-party iOS app store AltStore expressed excitement about this development. They posted on their official X platform account, “Finally, sideloading is coming to EU member states!” AltStore announced that they have initiated the process of “legalizing” their application. This means that friends in Europe will be able to download Delta and other AltStore applications in a legitimate manner for the first time. They concluded with “See you in March!”
In addition, on the same day, Apple released the first beta version of iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 to developers, revealing a series of changes that will impact users in the European Union in order to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). To comply with the DMA, Apple has made several significant changes to the operation of the App Store and applications in the European Economic Area. These changes are included in iOS 17.4, but are limited to countries/regions within the European Economic Area.
Apple is working to implement these changes for users updating to iOS 17.4 before the March 6 deadline. Apple’s new EU terms have sparked controversy, including core technology fees for applications. Some developers are concerned that this could lead to the bankruptcy of free value-added applications due to high fees. Apple does not charge for the first one million annual installations on each iOS account, but developers will begin to be charged beyond this limit. For large applications like Spotify, these fees could be excessively high.
Epic Games plans to introduce the Epic Games Store to iPhone and iPad, following Apple’s new alternative app store policy in the European Union. This will include popular games like “Fortnite,” allowing users to directly install and play on iPhones and iPads without the need for cloud gaming services. Over the past few years, due to legal disputes with Apple, “Fortnite” has been prohibited from being listed on the iOS App Store.
Furthermore, Apple has announced that it will allow streaming gaming applications to be listed on the App Store globally. This means that cloud gaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce NOW will be provided as independent iPhone and iPad applications, whereas previously they could only be accessed through the web.