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Apple will soon let developers in the EU distribute apps directly from their own websites, as the tech giant continues making changes to comply with EU regulation.
Apple has revealed new options for developers who distribute apps in the EU, as a way to provide more flexibility.
The new options will be available later this spring for developers who agree to Apple’s ‘Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU’. The biggest change will be letting developers distribute apps directly from their own websites.
This feature is called web distribution and means Apple will provide access to APIs that will let developers distribute their apps from the web and back-up or restore users’ apps.
Apple also other policy changes for developers as part of its push for flexibility. One of these is alternative app marketplaces, which means marketplaces can offer catalogues of apps “solely from the developer of the marketplace”.
Developers will also be able to choose their own designs for promotions, discounts and other deals when they direct users to complete transactions on an external webpage.
“The Apple-provided design templates, which are optimised for key purchase and promotional use cases, are now optional,” the company said in a blogpost.
Apple changes in the EU
These upcoming changes appear to be the latest in a batch of policy updates that the tech giant has announced to comply with EU regulation, notably the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
These rules aim to prevent tech platforms from having too much dominance in their sectors and blacklist certain practices on core services such as as browsers, social media and messaging.
Apple revealed a proposal in January that would see it adjust various policies to become compliant with the DMA, such as allowing EU users to download apps from competing app stores on iOS. But parts of the proposed changes have been criticised by various companies such as Epic Games, Spotify and the president of Microsoft’s Xbox business.
The public battle between Apple and Epic Games escalated recently, when the game company revealed that Apple terminated an account the company intended to use to develop an app store for iOS. But Apple recently opted to reverse this move after the threat of EU intervention.
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