Digital company
Apple warns of other app stores on the iPhone
Apple is fighting against third-party app stores on the iPhone. Photo: Matthias Schrader / AP / dpa
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As part of major digital market reforms in the EU, there should also be more competition on digital platforms. On the iPhone, this would mean the possibility of downloading apps from sources other than Apple itself.
In view of the plans for new EU rules, Apple is tightening the warnings of risks from opening the iPhone to app stores from other providers.
Users would be exposed to more dangerous apps, and Apple would be less able to protect them from them, argued the group in a 30-page paper published on Wednesday.
Apps can only be installed on the iPhone from the Group’s in-house platform. Apple points out that with it, all apps and updates on its platform are examined by software and human auditors in order to filter out malicious applications. In addition, developers would have to adhere to Apple guidelines on data protection. With so-called sideloading, in which apps are loaded onto the iPhone from sources other than the official store, these safety precautions are no longer applicable, warns Apple.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is currently being developed in the EU, plans to prescribe the opening of platforms for competing providers in order to strengthen competition. For digital articles and services that are sold via Apple’s platform, a fee of 15 or 30 percent is due to the group. On devices with the Google Android system, there is a similar commission to Google for sales via the Group’s Play Store – but other app stores are also allowed on the platform. Apple opposed the EU plans as early as June.
“Sideloading via direct downloads or other app stores would undermine Apple’s protection mechanisms for security and privacy,” warned the iPhone company in its new paper. That is not in the interest of the user. Apple speaks, among other things, of fake apps that disguised themselves as popular applications and manipulated updates of the operating system. The group specifically refers to dangerous Android apps that are in circulation and try, for example, to obtain login information and other data. Online criminals would have more incentives to attack the iPhone if they were opened, it said.
Apple critics point out that programs from all possible sources can be loaded onto the Group’s Mac computers. Apple counters that the situation is different with smartphones because they contain much more private information. US bills for more competition in the tech industry are also targeting the business model. In the USA, however, Apple recently achieved success in defending its app system on the iPhone. A judge rejected the request by the game company Epic Games to open the platform to other app stores.