Apple Overhauls App Store in Europe, in Response to New Digital Law

Since Apple introduced the App Store in 2008, it has tightly controlled the apps and services allowed on iPhones and iPads, giving the company an iron grip on one of the digital economy’s most valuable storefronts. Now Apple is weakening its hold on the store, in one of the most consequential signs to date of how new European regulations are changing consumer technology. To comply with a European Union competition law taking effect on March 7, Apple announced major changes to the App Store and other services for consumers in Europe. Users of iPhones and iPads in the 27-nation bloc will, for the first time, be able to use alternative app stores to download games, productivity tools, and other apps. Banks and shopping services can offer competing payment methods inside their apps. People who buy new iPhones in the future will also see a new menu for downloading alternative browsers to Apple’s Safari, such as Chrome and Firefox. Apple said it would maintain some oversight of new marketplaces and apps working outside its App Store, but warned that the new E.U. policies would give hackers and criminals a new path to distribute malware and defraud customers. The company said it had created a system to monitor all iOS apps, approve alternative app stores and track alternative payment systems. Apple said developers would also be charged a fee of 50 euro cents for every download of their app after it has been downloaded one million times or more within a 12-month period, regardless of whether it was through the App Store or an alternative. This will also apply to free apps, but not apps distributed by government, education and nonprofit organizations. The new rules could dent Apple’s finances.