From the Parliament of the European Union, they believe that legally users should be able to download apps from other stores.
From European Commission recently approved a new law that will require all smartphones to use a single charger from 2024 with 582 votes in favour, 40 votes against and 37 abstentions.
Now, from the Parliament of the European Union, they want Apple to participate in a market with fairer competition. To do this, they could force the company with the Apple logo to integrate third-party app stores on the operating systems of iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices.
This is a rather complex question, on the one hand it is true that Apple should allow its users to choose other alternatives when downloading legal applications. But on the other hand, inserting other app stores might cause big security vulnerabilities on the iPhone and iPad operating system.
Gérard de Graaf confirms the intentions of the European Commission
European Union digital marketing law
Gerard de Graafdirector of the European Union Coordination Unit, recently sat down with Wired to explain the European Commission’s plans for technology.
In addition to forcing companies to use a single charger and a single port – which could probably be a USB-C port – they also want to force Apple to offer its users the possibility of download apps from third party app stores.
In a conference at the Irish Consulate in San Francisco, Gerard de Graaf detailed the European Parliament’s intentions:
“If you have an iPhone, you should be able to download apps not only from the App Store, but also from other app stores or from the Internet.”
On the other hand, he added that “the consequences could be very significant”.
Would it make sense to allow app downloads from third-party app stores?
The regulations implemented by the European Union are aimed at improving the use we give to technology and benefiting consumers. However, as we mentioned earlier, the decision to include more App Stores could lead to great controversy.
As you well know, the ecosystem of Apple products has always been characterized by a closed ecosystem. This allows operating systems to be much more secure, prevent access to untrusted applications by Apple.
If that changed, of course competition would be fairer and more legalwe would forget controversies like that of Spotify and Apple Music, but this could affect the safety of users.
We’ll see if the European Union finally forces Apple and other tech companies to include compatibility with more app stores on their devices. Meanwhile, they also apparently want to make a law for smartphone batteries to last at least 500 charge cycles. What do you think of these topics?
