Apple bows to Brussels over App Store in latest EU concession

Apple will allow iPhone apps to be downloaded directly from their developers’ websites for the first time, a major concession to European regulators that marks the third time this year the big tech group has been forced to change its plan to comply with landmark EU rules. The move to allow so-called sideloading in Europe, which will come into effect later this spring, comes after pressure from developers to be able to distribute their software outside the App Store and threatens a core component of Apple’s $85 billion-a-year global services business. As part of the changes, developers launching their own marketplace will be able solely to offer their own apps on an alternative app store and will be able to offer promotions directly to their customers in whatever way they want. Both changes are effective immediately for customers in Europe. The company on March 1 backtracked on plans to cut off access to apps that bypass its App Store, which it had said it needed to do to comply with the new digital rules. It later granted Epic Games access to its App Store, after Brussels said it was probing Apple over its move to ban the game developer’s account.