Apple announces App Store changes in the EU
82 comments
·June 26, 2025fxtentacle
kshacker
I guess it is a battle between EU bureaucrats vs American Daddies :)
// I know it is tongue in cheek, but that is what this may end up being, especially if Apple is able to move non-trivial amounts of manufacturing to US.
What is non-trivial? IMO if China, India and USA become 3 tiers with each tier being half of the previous tier, that would somehow be justifiable as "hey we are almost there, we can do it any time, but let's have the hatchet ready but keep the cheap devices for now"
saubeidl
I will take to the streets and start rioting if necessary, should EU leadership bend to US pressure on this.
It is our sovereign right to make laws that determine the rules of our society. Americans can either abide by them or get out of our market.
hatradiowigwam
Us Americans have approximately zero to do with your rules or society. The idea of thinking Apple (or Microsoft, or Google) represents "Americans" is absurd. We don't vote for them to exist, we have no mechanism to stop their existence or oppose them in any way. We're as happy about EU forcing them to change as anyone else - our own attempts all failed. Jail break providers(for instance) were persecuted with legal process, gag orders, and seizure of their assets. Repairing iPhones as a side business? They put a stop to us doing that also.
I'm all in agreement with your emotional sentiment, but please understand "Americans" do /not/ like the same things you do not like. Our country just takes away our ability to do anything about it. Land of the free and whatnot...
edit: typo
bigyabai
Except you can't do it at any time. America tried this logic with the motor vehicle (and offshored it), then the semiconductor (and offshored it), and now we're seeing it for pretty much every other manufactured commodity America is known for. What do we make, anymore?
There's a simple explanation for why this happened: America really believes in free market competition. Even when we're getting reamed by global competitors in cost and quality, someone always presupposes that this manufacturing capacity can come back. But that's not how it works; products are worth what people will pay for them, and if the trade value goes down then the gross domestic product will follow.
It's a blatant vulnerability of democratic capitalism. I'd like for you to be right, but I live in America. I don't know if anything on my desk was made in America; I don't even know if my desk itself was made domestically anymore. America isn't a rung on the manufacturing ladder, you could remove us entirely and only stand to increase your margins.
frizlab
As someone in the EU I’m very unhappy that I have to pretend being in the US to actually be able to access all macOS/iOS can do. I know I’ll be downvoted to oblivion but I loathe these laws.
gjsman-1000
> Soon, history might repeat with US consumers pretending to be in the EU to free their hardware
Very unlikely. Phones have to identify the country they are operating in for wireless emission regulations, whether it be from SIM cards, GPS, sale region, account region, etc. They have been doing this for a very long time.
dlachausse
As an independent developer, I wish the EU would reverse their decision to make me either doxx myself or not have paid apps in the EU App Store. Thankfully, right now my only app is free so I can get away with saying that I'm not a trader.
I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and form an LLC with a rented address and phone number once I get ready to release a paid app, which unfortunately just increases my costs even more for what is most likely to remain just a small side hustle.
I still don't see a good reason why independent developers like me should have to publish their personal address and phone number on the App Store. I'm not willing to put my family in danger like that.
tfourb
>I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and form an LLC with a rented address and phone number once I get ready to release a paid app, which unfortunately just increases my costs even more for what is most likely to remain just a small side hustle.
This is actually still not a valid solution. You'll have to provide an address where you can be physically reached, even if you publish your app as an LLC (at least under German law). A "rented" address won't fulfill that criteria. If you run your LLC out of your personal home, you'll need to publish your personal address (again, under German law, it may be different in other EU countries).
This does make sense in principle, as it allows your customers to actually track you down in case they feel the need to sue you.
You might get away with listing the address of a co-working space, if you are actually physically present at that address during normal business hours.
You might also get away with listing your legal name and the address of your lawyer. But your lawyer would need to agree with this and you'd have to have an arrangement in place that they will represent you in any and all future cases, which might be difficult. This doesn't seem to be a settled question in german jurisprudence.
Also, you could just chance it. Not listing an address will simply result in potential exposure to a cease and desist letter, which (under German law) only results in limited financial liability. I am not a lawyer, so please get a professional to check, but if you are really serious about not exposing your personal address, it might be simpler and cheaper to run the low risk of a cease and desist instead of making a big fuss about an alternative address.
lapcat
German law is basically irrelevant unless you're in Germany. All that matters is what Apple makes App Store developers do, and Apple doesn't give a crap as long as you have some address and some phone number that Apple can verify.
Apple doesn't even police the "trader" self-declaration. I've seen several (scam) developers in the App Store who are clearly traders but have declared that they're not traders in the EU. Apple's compliance here is mostly perfunctory.
Aloisius
The company can be reached at a rented address. That's the whole point of them. There is an agent at the address that can receive things like legal correspondence.
It appears Germany appears has similar services where you can get a virtual business addresses at business centers.
mjr00
> I still don't see a good reason why independent developers like me should have to publish their personal address and phone number on the App Store [for paid apps].
Because if someone purchases an app and there's a dispute with the product, they need a business address and/or phone number to contact and resolve the problem. It seems like a very good reason to me.
null
dlachausse
Why can’t they contact me by email to resolve the problem instead?
lapcat
Where are you located? You can likely use Google Voice and a post office box rather than your home info.
loxs
Can you elaborate? If you sell the app via a limited company do you have to doxx yourself personally?
tfourb
At least under German law, if you offer services or products for purchase, you need to provide an address where you can be physically reached. For self-employed entrepreneurs the only address that will fulfill that criterium is your private domicile.
reassess_blind
Probably fine to use a random BS address, until your app takes off enough to justify the LLC? Do they actually mail you anything?
rcarmo
Still waiting for the ability to compile and deploy my own apps on the hardware I own without having to re-sign and reload every week or so. If you don't intend to distribute an app, I don't see why you should be unduly penalized for it.
mslansn
Because you can do this to install pirated apps, which is something they are trying to avoid.
rcarmo
That is if you re-sign IPA files. If you locked a build to an Apple ID or set of devices and limited my deployments to the devices I own that would not be a problem--it is the periodic re-signing that I care about.
At least make it last a year, the current limits are completely stupid.
pimeys
That would finally make using these lifesaving apps much easier, if you don't want to use Android.
wtallis
Turning your iPhone into an unregulated DIY medical device really does not seem like the kind of use case that any serious business would be swayed by. What you're asking for would be pretty terrifying for the lawyers. You shouldn't expect any company to deliberately make accommodations for that use case; rather, you should expect them to at most add more disclaimers of liability for what you do with your phone.
msgodel
God forbid we give consumers access to tools from a place like Lowe's (also a large public company btw [1].) Think of all the dangerous things people could build with them!!!!
This is so unbelievably retarded.
bowsamic
I constantly complain about this, but they’ll never let you do it, because our hobby apps have no ads
rekoil
Developers who opt for tier one will get access to a limited set of mandatory App Store services, including:
* App distribution and delivery
* Trust and safety features
* App management
[...]
Developers who opt for tier two will get access to all services provided by the App Store today.
saubeidl
There's is absolutely 0% chance this will fly. Apple is begging for a fine at this point, with their bad-faith malicious interpretations of the law.
itake
I think this is how Android Play store currently works? If you deploy your app via another means, you get to DIY your own push infrastructure. I remember Square had to do this for their POS units that run Android, but weren't managed by the play store.
veeti
No, Firebase Cloud Messaging is a separate service from Play Store. As long as the device has Google Mobile Services installed the app can be installed from anywhere and doesn't need to be uploaded to Play Store.
rekoil
Which would be fair game except to my knowledge there’s no API in iOS that enables the use of anything other than APNS for notifications. I could be mistaken though!
jcdentonn
[dead]
gjsman-1000
You're certain the EU didn't just approve this plan?
saubeidl
Our leaders are sometimes spineless, so I unfortunately can't be certain.
I am however pretty certain that said spinelessness wouldn't fly with the European public.
jcdentonn
[dead]
msgodel
Apple's complaint will likely be that it's a "technical limitation" because they run the only iOS notification gateway.
Never mind that Mozilla manages to run one for Firefox completely free to users and devs despite being a comically mismanaged nonprofit and if it were really a problem for them they could allow users to enter the domain name for an alternative one.
This issue right here is actually why there have been so few usable open source federated chat apps on the iPhone: the client maintainers must also maintain infrastructure for notifications and are not allowed to delegate this to people hosting their own infrastructure. This is actually the core complaint many people have with how Apple runs their app store and it's very visibly made the internet less usable for everyone.
lapcat
Here are the new tiers: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference...
The document says manual updates are included but not automatic updates (which is just a setting in the App Store that I personally disable).
Whether there will be update notifications is unclear. Is that what you meant by "app notification delivery", or something else?
As an App Store developer myself, I would love to have Tier 1 in the United States, mainly due to no user ratings and reviews. I hate them, and I hate trying to solicit them. As far as I'm concerned, ditching ratings & reviews would be a bonus!
jmole
"No user ratings and reviews" - that just means you rank last in app store search, right?
Apple will do whatever they can to ensure that developers that don't pay will suffer the costs.
scottyah
Ratings and reviews cost money to maintain. Anti-spam, compute, distribution, security concerns, etc. Apple should do whatever they can to ensure that developers who aren't paying don't degrade the service for everyone else.
lapcat
Tier 1 has only exact match search.
That's fine with me. All of my empirical evidence over the years suggests that my customers are coming mostly from the outside, and Apple is not bringing me many customers from inside the App Store.
cyral
This sounds kinda like what they did when they were forced to allow outside payments in the US. It could only be one link, with a big scary warning, and a 27% cut. They "comply" with the ruling by making another alternative deal that nobody would ever take. Fortunately this backfired in the US and they were actually forced to get rid of all the restrictions in May.
jajko
I swear there must be somebody properly petty in higher management of apple to keep coming with these childish moves that harm image of the company as some sort of serious reliable manufacturer.
I guess to each their own
bigyabai
It would make sense to provide an alternative if Apple's priority was the privacy of their users. Unfortunately, we have testimony from American congressmembers that suggests they have ulterior priorities: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
1659447091
That article is a spun version from what appears to be the source article from reuters[0]. Being that they lifted quotes from there and then added a clickbait title by forgetting to add that Google is also compelled by governments to give them the data.
The only "ulterior priorities" I could pick up on was that Apple was most likely following the Government restrictions in a more discerning way than Google by not breaking out the push notifications in their aggregated data for request disclosures. Once it was made public by a Senator, Apple updated their policy and started to break it out to its own section. How long Google did this before Apple is not stated and the DOJ declined to comment on the push notification surveillance or whether it had prevented Apple or Google from talking about it.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments...
bigyabai
I'm not treating this as a relative comparison, it's a criticism specifically of Apple's service architecture. When you prioritize privacy while refusing transparency, you end up in situations like this very often. That would not be the case if Apple held themselves to their advertised standards for the infrastructure they build.
martinald
No automatic updates surely makes tier one a non starter, unless this can be automatically triggered by the app? For regular users it will mean horrendous version fragmentation that will just get worse and worse over the months/years. Or significantly increases churn by forcing users to manually go into the app store to update before accessing the app?
tfourb
Couldn't the developer simply run a version check when the app starts and throw up a popup with the link to the app store to update the app? Sure, it will introduce some friction, but maybe it's worth it for some developers to pay a lower commission, i.e. if they plan to only rarely update their app.
But in the general sense I agree: it would be a much better user experience and contribute to safety if automatic app updates would be included in all tiers.
martinald
Yes that's what I meant in the last sentence of my post. But this is serious friction and will result in churn for a lot of apps, especially on those with poor 4G or low data limits. Normally apps update mostly when the phone is charging, which is much more likely to have wifi. Now if you're out of your house and need an app you'd have to update it there and then.
OptionOfT
There are apps that already do this. They force you to download the new version before using it.
From an API manageability point of view it makes sense.
croisillon
on the other hand i still don't understand why airbnb requires ios 17, although my iphone 7 works fine
lofaszvanitt
Apple is already a big, festering, malignant growth. The EU needs to jump in with both feet to let all that pus out.
mslansn
Or maybe don't buy Apple products if you don't like them. Seems that would work fine and you would save some money too.
lofaszvanitt
I like their products, without all the detours they force on me.
frizlab
Not how it works though.
owebmaster
Should we all also quit the software development market now that a company is gatekeeping 50%+ of the it and don't allow the device owners to install apps they want if Apple does not approve?
scottyah
But they're basically the only large scale consumer computational hardware company driving actual, stable innovation?
simplyinfinity
What have they innovated in the last 10 years?
saubeidl
I'm not an Apple fan by any means. But I think it's fair to say that Apple Silicon and actually useful ARM-powered laptops was a major hardware innovation.
owebmaster
And I hope Brazil joins
IncreasePosts
Maybe they need to come in with a scalpel. I feel like using your feet is just kind of gross for that task.
jcdentonn
[dead]
"The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store. We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal."
Reading that made me very happy. It clearly shows that EU bureaucrats - despite their bad reputation - still have teeth when it comes to reigning in overly greedy US companies. Back in '98, the EU versions of Windows were very desirable, as they were free of bloatware. Soon, history might repeat with US consumers pretending to be in the EU to free their hardware.