02/24/2025
Apple, the EU, and the threat of sideloaded applications
A huge shift has just happened in the mobile security landscape: Apple’s release of iOS 17.04 in March 2024 has allowed users to sideload apps and use third party app stores. This has largely been done in an effort to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA was introduced by the European Commission in order to help mitigate the domination of silicon valley giants – which the DMA calls “gatekeepers” – over digital markets.
Specifically, the DMA states that gatekeepers, “shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper.”
On one hand, this provides a level of flexibility for apple users which will likely be welcomed. On the other hand, it introduces new risks for those users, their devices and the organisations and individuals to which they are connected.
Apple has noted before that they were opposed to this possibility in the past. It has even gone so far as to file a legal challenge in European courts. In 2021, Tim Cook, current CEO of Apple noted that such a move would “destroy the security of the iPhone and a lot of the privacy initiatives that we’ve built into the App store.” Whatever their misgivings, that capability was included in iOS 17.04 as a result of the EU’s Digital Markets Act. However, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a point.
