Two separate levers determine how meaningful this is: distribution friction and runtime parity.
Distribution friction = install prompts, default store, ability to deep-link to a store listing, auto-updates, and payment flows.
Runtime parity = access to the same OS APIs/entitlements (push, background tasks, NFC, etc.) without extra fees.
If Apple keeps scary interstitials, disables auto-updates for non–App Store apps, or taxes critical entitlements, you get malicious compliance. If regulators require neutral prompts, update parity, and ban API tolls, alternative stores become viable—even if only for niches (thin-margin games, enterprise, open-source).
The metric to watch isn’t “are alt stores allowed,” but how many taps from web → install → update. If that gets close to App Store levels, behavior will follow. If not, it’s the EU story all over again.
The next decade looks like tech vs. governments everywhere. From the article, it seems Apple won’t roll this out worldwide unless forced.
As a user I like Apple’s App Store for security personally, but I wonder how multiple app stores turn out in other regions. I see the EU already allows alternative app marketplaces — has anyone used one and can share their experience?
Apple complied but maliciously in the EU making it very difficult and very expensive to offer apps on alt stores. They also made sure to add scary warnings so one can never offer a normal onboarding flow.
> Apple’s App Store for security
The App Store doesn’t do anything to protect you in that sense. It’s easy to circumvent and these days it’s cheaper to just buy an iOS exploit than go through the trouble of making a shady app.
> The App Store doesn't do anything to product you in that sense. It's easy to circumvent...
Interesting, their marketing has customers believe otherwise, so I wouldn't have thought that as a complete noob in cybersecurity.
I've submitted an app to the iOS App Store in the past, and the process is tedious and doesn't seem superficial (unlike the Play Store process, which was completely autonomous at the time), so that's another reason why I wouldn't have thought it.
> It’s easy to circumvent and these days it’s cheaper to just buy an iOS exploit than go through the trouble of making a shady app.
But why is that easier? And is it inevitably so or a result of the fact that the boundaries of the one place to install apps from is aggressively policed?
Apple is a hardware company with proprietary CPUs and such. They have such a moat that if they open sourced their entire OS stack today nobody would be able to do anything with it except by buying their hardware.
But the issue with the app stores is the app fees. Those must be lucrative enough to want to keep that gate for themselves.
Services are super high margin (twice that of hardware), growing quickly year over year, and now make up a big fraction of Apple's overall revenue. Sadly, I think, the days of Apple having the incentives and motivations associated with being primarily a hardware company are well past us—we're at the stage where hardware and OS product decisions reflect a need to drive services revenue, rather than simply making something great that people want to buy.
Services are the second largest revenue steam for Apple, after the iPhone. All other hardware they make is way further down. There's a relevant discussion at [0].
They have such a moat that if they open sourced their entire OS stack today nobody would be able to do anything with it except by buying their hardware.
That doesn't make much sense, XNU and the layers above it are very portable, they went PowerPC -> x86 -> x86_64 -> ARM64 after all. They also supported multiple different GPUs in the Intel era.
If the entire OS stack was open sourced today, we would have forks running on standard Intel/AMD CPUs in a week. They wouldn't have the same optimized power management, etc. But I think it would have a good chance of wiping out desktop Linux within a brief period.
If the entire stack would be open sourced there would be ports, but would there be a market for macOS devices without the optimized power management and device integration Apple offers now?
I'm still hoping some other integrated software/hardware company will stand up and offer the same attention to detail as Apple did. Instead of that everybody's actively enshittifying their own products and complaining Apple is earning so much...
Are there any regions in which they’re not allowed to enforce notarization? Since that effectively preserves their gatekeeper status. Even a lot of the App Store guidelines still apply to notarization.
I think they prefer to have Apple accountable for everything that happens on Apple devices too.
You can't pressure Apple into removing an app when they have to give up the only option to enforce that.
Is Apple really going to keep playing this game of gatekeeping until legislation forces them not to? I really don't understand how you could remain so stubborn as a company that a system of complex rules across regions is preferable to just making it open and getting with the times.
I've considered an iPhone due to the recent Google announcement w.r.t. code signing but it's still too walled off for me. They need to open up access to third party stores and third party browser engines.
EDIT: yes I understand that we live in a capitalist system that is maximizing profit. My argument is that long term they're going to lose this battle seeing as the EU and Japan have already forced them to play ball. There are two options: remain stagnant and collect app store rent as long as possible or learn to be competitive in this new environment.
> Is Apple really going to keep playing this game of gatekeeping until legislation forces them not to?
By this point it seems pretty clear that they will, at least while Tim Cook is in charge. Other higher ups, specifically Phil Schiller, knew this was a bad idea but were overruled.
Yeah, the fragmentation that is caused by Apple's behaviour is insane.
You can set a different email client globally, but a different default Messages or Maps app? That only works in some regions. In-App payments? You can now basically do whatever you want in the US, in the EU you can opt-in into a different regime, in other regions it's staying the same but who knows for how long.
By fighting this everywhere they're basically losing control over the outcomes and will end up with lot's of different regulations everywhere. Instead of doing the sensible thing and opening up their platform before they're being forced to do so.
> Is Apple really going to keep playing this game of gatekeeping until legislation forces them not to?
Is Apple going to kill the golden goose unless it is literally forced to? Of course not.
Apple, together with Google, get a cut of 15% to 30% of all mobile app revenue. They have the entire market captured. They will only give that up when they're forced to.
Even if alternative app stores are opened up, there are enough limitations that severely impede the device for me as is. You can't use a VPN and at the same time do service discovery on your local network, for instance. For some services, anyway.
I mean, sure, but it's most likely a myopic analysis trying to keep earnings looking good for next quarter. My personal feeling is that, after seeing the winds shifting, you would figure out how to operate in an open garden and start pivoting now rather than resisting it at every corner.
Only in a quarter to quarter sense. I’ll never give them another cent. I’ve watched large numbers of people go from fans to haters in the last five years especially. I also think at just a fundamental technical level their moat is quickly disappearing.
For app stores specifically, I don't think people would get apps from other App Stores. Alternative App Stores have been possible on Android, some manufacturers even include their own store (Samsung), but only a tiny subset of users installs apps from another app store or from outside the app store.
For me personally, it is mostly an escape hatch for developers and users. It will keep Apple honest, because if they really mess up the platform, people have the possibility to go elsewhere.
I think the bigger risk for Apple is allowing other payment options within apps that are distributed through the App Store (which I believe is now allowed in the EU among other places)? I think the app store is very sticky, but a lot of people would pick another payment option if is ~30% cheaper.
Because doing so would have generated goodwill, which would have lead to a stronger brand and more money in the long term. Instead, they shot themselves in the foot and put themselves in a situation where the launch of a new product (Vision Pro) was an embarrassing and utter failure with lacklustre support from third-parties.
Doubt they would have been considered “goodwill”. Investors would complain they are doing their fiscal responsibilities. Customers and companies would complain they didn’t do it soon enough and still didn’t do enough. And if people started having issues with their phones because of side loading they would not blame themselves they would blame Apple for allowing them to do so and potentially hurting the brand. Vision Pro as a test of hardware capabilities seems to be going as one would expect at the current price points. Once they release their first consumer focused glasses as an accessible price point, that will be the real test of the product category.
It is a shame that people want to believe that companies are or will be good. Or that they should even be given "human" expectations. Companies are not people and should not be afforded being treated as such. A companies function, especially if it is a publically-traded company is to continuously provide greater return for investors, so say the majority of prospectus. What we the people, regardless of country, need to start doing is holding the company heads to account, perhaps if the threat of execution (is China right here?) could "make" the company/people good? Something needs to be done before everything we have and "are" as a human will be, is a subscription to life.
> It is a shame that people want to believe that companies are or will be good. Or that they should even be given "human" expectations.
That’s not the argument at all. I don’t understand the point of your response, it has nothing to do with the points made in my comment. I’m not defending Apple, I’m doing the opposite.
They all will try to gatekeep as much as they can. Google's move made this pretty obvious. They don't need free market and open platform. This is something for some nerdy enthusiasts. Funny that all the new device that are being released lately, like Sidephone or Light Phone; they all do the same thing. And not only they lock you into their OSes, but they even restrict the software that you are allowed to use.
On the other hand if long ago they backed down and lowered fees and allowed more control, aside from the potential security and privacy concerns that could negatively affect the brand, companies would have just then wanted more. As Epic has said they think they should have to pay nothing for all that Apple provides. So not saying all Apple’s choices and timing were right or best, but giving up previously wouldn’t have prevented all of this but rather just lowered the bar and making it easier for companies and countries to make it easier to lower it even further.
> aside from the potential security and privacy concerns
I make apps both as an indie and during my day job. The App Store review doesn’t do anything to protect the privacy or security of iPhone users. Most of the review is focused on ensuring Apple doesn’t get sued and that you as a developer don’t try to advertise something Apple doesn’t like. The whole idea that the App Store is safer is a marketing thing.
While not perfect, they claim to do security checks and verify some privacy choices. So they do something at least.
As a consumer I can see value in Apple forcing itself in an arbiter role for app payments so they can step in when I have a conflict with an app developer.
Everything banned in the US is still offered as soon as you step across a border, every gross visual warning mandated in those countries is not implemented in the US
> They need to open up access to third party stores and third party browser engines.
Here in EU they did allow third party stores and all we got were shovelware sites with subscriptions. It added even more friction an shadiness to acquiring apps.
We need to sop pretending iOS third party stores are anything like what we envisioned them to be. They are not f-droid or anything even half as good. Apple complies with this impotent law because the law changes absolutely nothing for end user.
Hardly. They did everything they could to make it completely pointless. Your apps still need to be blessed by apple and you still need to pay them. It's embarrassing the EU is allowing this sham.
The current system gives Apple a 30% cut of every transaction that happens on iOS. Did you really think they'd voluntarily give that up just to be nice?
There are end user benefits to apples approach too, due to better governance and control over what apps are available. Governments also have incentive to maximize their power and are not benevolent actors in this scheme.
I hate this. If I wanted a race-to-the-bottom malware ecosystem, I’d buy Android.
This helps the tens-of-thousands fart app developers and ultimately hurts quality developers making privacy sensitive apps for well-heeled customers who gladly sign up for fat subscriptions if the value is there.
The people who want to prostrate themselves for tech giant "security" paternalism can still use the first-party app store. The people who don't want to give up freedom for security should have the choice not to do so.
I see someone really gulped down that Apple kool-aid.
Your life is absolutely untouched by having other store options. And privacy is maintained by the granularity of the permissions, the manual review process is generally a joke and it changes like the weather.
Actual security / privacy person here. The iOS ecosystem is much much much worse than people currently think of it as. This is primarily due to adware SDKs and in-app browsers that Apple has done absolutely nothing to address.
Two separate levers determine how meaningful this is: distribution friction and runtime parity. Distribution friction = install prompts, default store, ability to deep-link to a store listing, auto-updates, and payment flows. Runtime parity = access to the same OS APIs/entitlements (push, background tasks, NFC, etc.) without extra fees.
If Apple keeps scary interstitials, disables auto-updates for non–App Store apps, or taxes critical entitlements, you get malicious compliance. If regulators require neutral prompts, update parity, and ban API tolls, alternative stores become viable—even if only for niches (thin-margin games, enterprise, open-source).
The metric to watch isn’t “are alt stores allowed,” but how many taps from web → install → update. If that gets close to App Store levels, behavior will follow. If not, it’s the EU story all over again.
The next decade looks like tech vs. governments everywhere. From the article, it seems Apple won’t roll this out worldwide unless forced.
As a user I like Apple’s App Store for security personally, but I wonder how multiple app stores turn out in other regions. I see the EU already allows alternative app marketplaces — has anyone used one and can share their experience?
Apple complied but maliciously in the EU making it very difficult and very expensive to offer apps on alt stores. They also made sure to add scary warnings so one can never offer a normal onboarding flow.
> Apple’s App Store for security
The App Store doesn’t do anything to protect you in that sense. It’s easy to circumvent and these days it’s cheaper to just buy an iOS exploit than go through the trouble of making a shady app.
> The App Store doesn't do anything to product you in that sense. It's easy to circumvent...
Interesting, their marketing has customers believe otherwise, so I wouldn't have thought that as a complete noob in cybersecurity.
I've submitted an app to the iOS App Store in the past, and the process is tedious and doesn't seem superficial (unlike the Play Store process, which was completely autonomous at the time), so that's another reason why I wouldn't have thought it.
> It’s easy to circumvent and these days it’s cheaper to just buy an iOS exploit than go through the trouble of making a shady app.
But why is that easier? And is it inevitably so or a result of the fact that the boundaries of the one place to install apps from is aggressively policed?
Apple is a hardware company with proprietary CPUs and such. They have such a moat that if they open sourced their entire OS stack today nobody would be able to do anything with it except by buying their hardware.
But the issue with the app stores is the app fees. Those must be lucrative enough to want to keep that gate for themselves.
Services are super high margin (twice that of hardware), growing quickly year over year, and now make up a big fraction of Apple's overall revenue. Sadly, I think, the days of Apple having the incentives and motivations associated with being primarily a hardware company are well past us—we're at the stage where hardware and OS product decisions reflect a need to drive services revenue, rather than simply making something great that people want to buy.
App Store revenue is essentially infinite margin. Selling gambling games to children is essentially free money for them.
*skimming off the top from gambling games for children.
They don’t even have to put in the effort of making it.
Services are the second largest revenue steam for Apple, after the iPhone. All other hardware they make is way further down. There's a relevant discussion at [0].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45764986
They have such a moat that if they open sourced their entire OS stack today nobody would be able to do anything with it except by buying their hardware.
That doesn't make much sense, XNU and the layers above it are very portable, they went PowerPC -> x86 -> x86_64 -> ARM64 after all. They also supported multiple different GPUs in the Intel era.
If the entire OS stack was open sourced today, we would have forks running on standard Intel/AMD CPUs in a week. They wouldn't have the same optimized power management, etc. But I think it would have a good chance of wiping out desktop Linux within a brief period.
macOS/iOS are part of the moat.
If the entire stack would be open sourced there would be ports, but would there be a market for macOS devices without the optimized power management and device integration Apple offers now?
I'm still hoping some other integrated software/hardware company will stand up and offer the same attention to detail as Apple did. Instead of that everybody's actively enshittifying their own products and complaining Apple is earning so much...
According to the first Google result they had a revenue of 10 billion dollars in app store fees in 2024.
There has to be a catch. Apple would never give in without malicious compliance to the hilt.
Are there any regions in which they’re not allowed to enforce notarization? Since that effectively preserves their gatekeeper status. Even a lot of the App Store guidelines still apply to notarization.
Notarization means they still have a say on which app is allowed to run or not.
This goes against the spirit of the DMA, which was supposed to 'open up' 3rd party stores.
The European Commission does not seem to care atm that Apple is still the gatekeeper.
The European Commission does not seem to care atm that Apple is still the gatekeeper.
I think the European Commission is threading the needle, trying to find a path to uphold the DMA/DSA while not provoking another tariff war.
[delayed]
I think they prefer to have Apple accountable for everything that happens on Apple devices too. You can't pressure Apple into removing an app when they have to give up the only option to enforce that.
Is Apple really going to keep playing this game of gatekeeping until legislation forces them not to? I really don't understand how you could remain so stubborn as a company that a system of complex rules across regions is preferable to just making it open and getting with the times.
I've considered an iPhone due to the recent Google announcement w.r.t. code signing but it's still too walled off for me. They need to open up access to third party stores and third party browser engines.
EDIT: yes I understand that we live in a capitalist system that is maximizing profit. My argument is that long term they're going to lose this battle seeing as the EU and Japan have already forced them to play ball. There are two options: remain stagnant and collect app store rent as long as possible or learn to be competitive in this new environment.
> Is Apple really going to keep playing this game of gatekeeping until legislation forces them not to?
By this point it seems pretty clear that they will, at least while Tim Cook is in charge. Other higher ups, specifically Phil Schiller, knew this was a bad idea but were overruled.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-co...
Yeah, the fragmentation that is caused by Apple's behaviour is insane.
You can set a different email client globally, but a different default Messages or Maps app? That only works in some regions. In-App payments? You can now basically do whatever you want in the US, in the EU you can opt-in into a different regime, in other regions it's staying the same but who knows for how long.
By fighting this everywhere they're basically losing control over the outcomes and will end up with lot's of different regulations everywhere. Instead of doing the sensible thing and opening up their platform before they're being forced to do so.
> Is Apple really going to keep playing this game of gatekeeping until legislation forces them not to?
Is Apple going to kill the golden goose unless it is literally forced to? Of course not.
Apple, together with Google, get a cut of 15% to 30% of all mobile app revenue. They have the entire market captured. They will only give that up when they're forced to.
Even if alternative app stores are opened up, there are enough limitations that severely impede the device for me as is. You can't use a VPN and at the same time do service discovery on your local network, for instance. For some services, anyway.
Presumably they did a cost/benefit analysis and think it is more profitable this way?
I mean, sure, but it's most likely a myopic analysis trying to keep earnings looking good for next quarter. My personal feeling is that, after seeing the winds shifting, you would figure out how to operate in an open garden and start pivoting now rather than resisting it at every corner.
Only in a quarter to quarter sense. I’ll never give them another cent. I’ve watched large numbers of people go from fans to haters in the last five years especially. I also think at just a fundamental technical level their moat is quickly disappearing.
Apple makes over $10B from App Store commissions in the US alone, why would they reduce their profits unless forced to do so?
For app stores specifically, I don't think people would get apps from other App Stores. Alternative App Stores have been possible on Android, some manufacturers even include their own store (Samsung), but only a tiny subset of users installs apps from another app store or from outside the app store.
For me personally, it is mostly an escape hatch for developers and users. It will keep Apple honest, because if they really mess up the platform, people have the possibility to go elsewhere.
I think the bigger risk for Apple is allowing other payment options within apps that are distributed through the App Store (which I believe is now allowed in the EU among other places)? I think the app store is very sticky, but a lot of people would pick another payment option if is ~30% cheaper.
Because doing so would have generated goodwill, which would have lead to a stronger brand and more money in the long term. Instead, they shot themselves in the foot and put themselves in a situation where the launch of a new product (Vision Pro) was an embarrassing and utter failure with lacklustre support from third-parties.
Doubt they would have been considered “goodwill”. Investors would complain they are doing their fiscal responsibilities. Customers and companies would complain they didn’t do it soon enough and still didn’t do enough. And if people started having issues with their phones because of side loading they would not blame themselves they would blame Apple for allowing them to do so and potentially hurting the brand. Vision Pro as a test of hardware capabilities seems to be going as one would expect at the current price points. Once they release their first consumer focused glasses as an accessible price point, that will be the real test of the product category.
It is a shame that people want to believe that companies are or will be good. Or that they should even be given "human" expectations. Companies are not people and should not be afforded being treated as such. A companies function, especially if it is a publically-traded company is to continuously provide greater return for investors, so say the majority of prospectus. What we the people, regardless of country, need to start doing is holding the company heads to account, perhaps if the threat of execution (is China right here?) could "make" the company/people good? Something needs to be done before everything we have and "are" as a human will be, is a subscription to life.
> It is a shame that people want to believe that companies are or will be good. Or that they should even be given "human" expectations.
That’s not the argument at all. I don’t understand the point of your response, it has nothing to do with the points made in my comment. I’m not defending Apple, I’m doing the opposite.
You don't need goodwill when you have captured the market.
They haven’t captured every market (again, Vision Pro), and the ones they have they are losing power in.
Tim Cook must go: he failed at preserving their gatekeeping, and failed at opening it in an honorable manner.
They all will try to gatekeep as much as they can. Google's move made this pretty obvious. They don't need free market and open platform. This is something for some nerdy enthusiasts. Funny that all the new device that are being released lately, like Sidephone or Light Phone; they all do the same thing. And not only they lock you into their OSes, but they even restrict the software that you are allowed to use.
On the other hand if long ago they backed down and lowered fees and allowed more control, aside from the potential security and privacy concerns that could negatively affect the brand, companies would have just then wanted more. As Epic has said they think they should have to pay nothing for all that Apple provides. So not saying all Apple’s choices and timing were right or best, but giving up previously wouldn’t have prevented all of this but rather just lowered the bar and making it easier for companies and countries to make it easier to lower it even further.
> aside from the potential security and privacy concerns
I make apps both as an indie and during my day job. The App Store review doesn’t do anything to protect the privacy or security of iPhone users. Most of the review is focused on ensuring Apple doesn’t get sued and that you as a developer don’t try to advertise something Apple doesn’t like. The whole idea that the App Store is safer is a marketing thing.
Ok, what do you make of this then? https://support.apple.com/en-us/122712
While not perfect, they claim to do security checks and verify some privacy choices. So they do something at least.
As a consumer I can see value in Apple forcing itself in an arbiter role for app payments so they can step in when I have a conflict with an app developer.
> As Epic has said they think they should have to pay nothing for all that Apple provides.
I agree with this assuming what Epic Games wants is to be able to distribute their software themselves without Apple being in the loop
Is Apple really going to leave all that money on the table until obligated? No.
Cigarette companies do this everywhere
And they’re just the most visible
Everything banned in the US is still offered as soon as you step across a border, every gross visual warning mandated in those countries is not implemented in the US
Do you 'really not understand' that they only want to maximize profit?
Not only want, but this is what they must do in interest of shareholders.
> My argument is that long term they're going to lose this battle
Maybe so but they'll make billions of dollars in the meantime.
I wish they'd open up too but I think that people massively underestimate how much money is at stake.
> They need to open up access to third party stores and third party browser engines.
Here in EU they did allow third party stores and all we got were shovelware sites with subscriptions. It added even more friction an shadiness to acquiring apps.
We need to sop pretending iOS third party stores are anything like what we envisioned them to be. They are not f-droid or anything even half as good. Apple complies with this impotent law because the law changes absolutely nothing for end user.
> Here in EU they did allow third party stores
Hardly. They did everything they could to make it completely pointless. Your apps still need to be blessed by apple and you still need to pay them. It's embarrassing the EU is allowing this sham.
Exactly. The law achieved nothing yet its being championed overseas as 'move to the right direction' and 'progress'.
All it did was embolden Google to start locking down as well.
The current system gives Apple a 30% cut of every transaction that happens on iOS. Did you really think they'd voluntarily give that up just to be nice?
There are end user benefits to apples approach too, due to better governance and control over what apps are available. Governments also have incentive to maximize their power and are not benevolent actors in this scheme.
I hate this. If I wanted a race-to-the-bottom malware ecosystem, I’d buy Android.
This helps the tens-of-thousands fart app developers and ultimately hurts quality developers making privacy sensitive apps for well-heeled customers who gladly sign up for fat subscriptions if the value is there.
The people who want to prostrate themselves for tech giant "security" paternalism can still use the first-party app store. The people who don't want to give up freedom for security should have the choice not to do so.
I see someone really gulped down that Apple kool-aid.
Your life is absolutely untouched by having other store options. And privacy is maintained by the granularity of the permissions, the manual review process is generally a joke and it changes like the weather.
Actual security / privacy person here. The iOS ecosystem is much much much worse than people currently think of it as. This is primarily due to adware SDKs and in-app browsers that Apple has done absolutely nothing to address.
And it's still better than Android in that regard...
Helping tens of thousands and developers sounds like a good trade.