Last week, with the release of iOS 17.4, Apple has taken a key step in its adaptation to the Digital Markets Act European Union, a new legal framework that, in relation to Cupertino, significantly changes the rules of the game for the group formed by iOS, the App Store and Safari, i.e. for the three basic elements of the iPhone ecosystem, which until now formed what technology identified as a fenced garden, i.e. convenient and a beautiful environment strictly protected from external threats.

This adaptation was not an easy processand the restrictions imposed on the possibility to “enter the garden” upset a large number of developers and service providers who planned to take advantage of the new measures introduced by the EU to guarantee free competition. This is on top of some hard-to-justify decisions the company has had to backtrack on, such as its announcement in February to withdraw support for WPA, something it had to reverse earlier this month after it emerged the EC was preparing an investigation or blocking and subsequent the withdrawal of Epic Games’ developer account caused Apple’s DMA policy to be called into question.

They seem to be quite aware of this and that in Cupertino The European Union seems unwilling to be lax when it comes to protecting competition, something we could confirm just a few days ago, with a historic sanction imposed on the company for the conflict it has had with Spotify for several years. And while the European Union isn’t Apple’s main market, it has enough clout to consider taking steps to calm the waters.

In this sense, and as we can read on its specific website for developers, Apple will make it possible to download apps to iOS directly from developers’ websites. Of course, and this is very important, we are not talking about anyone who wants to upload a binary to their website and it can be downloaded and installed from an iPhone. In order to offer apps in this new way, developers will first have to accept the terms set by Apple, which are the ones we already know and which the industry has not yet liked. Only the adoption of these standards will provide access to a specific API for this purpose, which will also enable the integration of these applications with system functions, which will mean that they will be included in the functions of backup copies, recovery of user applications and more. In other words, they will be integrated in a similar way to downloads from the App Store.

With this move, developers will be able to do without the App Store, yes, but also without third-party stores yet to come that aim to compete with each other to attract developers to fill their digital shelves. In other words, Apple aims at the same time a measure that should be positively received by developers, regulators and usersand it also makes things a little more difficult for those who are thinking of trying to compete with the App Store today.