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Apple has changed its stance of allowing internet apps on iPhones and iPads in Europe and will continue to allow users to place them on their home screen after iOS 17. 4 arrives. However, they will want to “build directly on top of most of WebKit and its security architecture,” which will run on select browsers, since it worked until a new law mandated the problem.
After the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) required Apple to open up its mobile devices to alternative navigation engines, the company announced that it would completely remove the ability to install web apps on the home screen. In a Q&A section for developers, under the title “Why EU users don’t have to host Internet applications on screen?”Apple spoke of the “complex security and privacy issues” of non-native internet apps and what it would take to address them. “Given the other needs of the DMA and the Due to the low adoption of Internet applications on the home screen by users, the company “had to remove the capability of Internet applications on the home screen in the EU. “Any internet app installed on a user’s home screen would have simply returned them to their preferred internet browser.
Apple additionally warned about “malicious Internet applications” that, without the isolation built into its WebKit system, can simply read data, borrow permissions from other Internet applications, and install other Internet applications without permission, among other issues.
That reaction led to an investigation by European Commission officials, who asked Apple and app developers about the effect of likely cutting Internet apps off the home screen. This also led to an investigation by the group Open Web Advocacy. Apple has until March 6 to comply with the DMA. Apple’s resolution to block internet apps completely warned that allowing internet apps powered through Safari, but not other browser engines, could simply violate DMA rules. Today, some aspects of this cautious strategy have changed.
In an updated edition of this section’s title, Apple reiterates its concerns about security and privacy and a desire to “create a new integration architecture that doesn’t currently exist on iOS. “But due to requests to continue offering internet apps, “We will continue to offer existing home display capability in the EU,” Apple writes.
Apple has long introduced internet apps (or progressive web apps) that open as a separate app and not in a browser tab. Web apps installed in this way provide greater patience and access to device features, such as notifications, cameras, or log storage. The apps were first touted through Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and CEO, as “everything you need” to write “amazing apps” rather than apps committed to their own SDK. Four months later, an iPhone SDK was announced, with Apple declaring its enthusiastic preference for having “native third-party apps on the iPhone. “
While Apple doesn’t break out App Store profits in its earnings statements, its Services department posted an all-time high of $22. 3 billion in the company’s fourth quarter of 2023, adding to “all-time highs” in the App Store and other offers.
As part of its DMA compliance as a “gatekeeper” of certain systems, Apple will also be required to allow downloads for EU customers or allow iOS apps to be installed from outlets other than its own official app store. This week, more than two dozen corporations signed a letter to the Commission deploring Apple’s implementation of the App Store rules. Developers who wish to use select app retail stores will have to agree to the terms that come with a “central generation payment,” which requires a payment of €0. 50 for each. app, every year, after 1 million downloads. “Few app developers will accept those unfair terms,” the letter states, thus contributing to “Apple’s exploitation of its dominance over app developers. “
In a statement to Ars, Apple said its “approach to the Digital Markets Act is guided through two undeniable goals: to comply with the law and to lessen the unavoidable and greater dangers that the DMA creates for our EU users. “He noted that Apple workers “spent months in verbal exchange with the European Commission” and “created in just over a year more than six hundred new APIs and a wide diversity of development tools. “Still, Apple said, the settings and safeguards in place can’t entirely “eliminate new threats created through the DMA” and the tweaks “will result in a less secure system. “
That’s why, Apple said, it’s restricting third-party browser engines, app stores, and other DMA settings to the European Union. “We are concerned about its effects on the privacy and security of our users’ experience, which remains our North Star. “
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