After all, it seems that way iOS 17 could be the main protagonist of the next WWDC 2023, even in the hypothetical case that the presentation of the long-awaited Apple mixed reality browser is confirmed, if it is finally presented at the said event. And no, I’m not saying that because of the low expectations that the device seems to have generated among some employees and former employees of the company, as well as some analysts (although that counts, of course). No, I say this because the new version of the iPhone operating system is supposed to surprise us.

There’s not a lot of mystery to it, because you already know what I’m talking about, because I mentioned it in the title, and that iOS 17 could enable side-loading apps, a breakthrough that comes from Mark Gurman in his popular weekly Power On newsletter. Of course, this does not give us absolute certainty that his forecast will come true, as he has made mistakes in his procedures on other occasions, but he is generally quite accurate, so we can give him a fair amount of confidence. .

As you already know, sideloading or sideloading is all about allowing apps to load and install without using the device’s app store for this purpose. This feature has always been present in Android, where you can download a binary file from any source and install it in the operating system, but on the contrary, Apple has never allowed this type of operation, just as it does not allow third-party stores on iOS as well, so the only way to bypass these limitations, is jailbreak.

It is known that the European legal framework sooner or later forces Apple to allow third-party stores and third-party payment methods on iOSand this movement will surely be replicated in other geographical areas until it spreads to much of the world. So we can understand that this iOS 17 surprise is directly related to Apple’s plans to adapt with a certain time interval to the mentioned regulation, and thus avoid the need to accept the economic sanctions that he already had to face last year in the Netherlands.

However, It is surprising that this is being talked about earlier lateral load what about alternative stores. Apple has always justified disallowing third-party stores on security grounds, but the truth is that it’s potentially more dangerous to allow app loading from any source than to limit them to stores that have been verified by Apple as iOS 17. This is undoubtedly the point that perplexes Gurman the most prediction, but after all we’re talking about Apple, so anything is possible.