Thanks to new EU legislation, Apple will soon allow third-party app stores on the iPhone and iPad.
Apple finally lets you do it
The change won’t happen tomorrow, but thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which goes into effect next year, Apple’s software engineers are hard at work preparing for compliance. That effort includes adding support for “sideloading,” or installing apps from sources other than the official Apple App Store. This follows USB-C, which the EU has forced on phone makers as the standard charging port and which Apple is expected to add to the iPhone 15 this fall. Finally.
"Some critics have pointed out that sideloading has been available on the Mac for years without any major security issues, calling into question Apple's rationale for disallowing it on iOS. Others have emphasized the benefits of being able to install apps from anywhere, which could foster competition and innovation in the app marketplace," software engineer Drew Romero told Lifewire via email.
Until now, Apple has portrayed sideloading as dangerous. At Web Summit 2021, Apple's chief software engineer Craig Federighi called it a "gold rush for the malware industry."
