The Digital Markets Act (DMA) officially entered into force in the EU last month. This means that Big Tech must start complying with this new regulation that intends to encourage competition on these companies’ core platforms.
In Apple’s case, one of the biggest results of the DMA was allowing “alternative markets,” basically competitors to the App Store, on the iPhone.
What’s coming for iPhone users in the EU
As The Verge points out, there’s currently only one alternative third-party marketplace on iOS that EU users can currently download — a business marketplace for corporations to distribute their own internal apps called Mobivention.
However, much more is on the way.
Epic Games, the company behind the super popular game Battle Royale Fortniteit already is shared his plans soon to launch their own alternative marketplace on the iPhone.
In addition, Epic Games announced that they will use this distribution model to obtain Fortnite back to iOS for EU users. The game disappeared from Apple’s App Store almost four years after Fortnite the developer and the iPhone maker have publicly fallen out over App Store fees and revenue-sharing models.
Apple has already lifted the Epic Games ban, will allow Fortnite on the iPhone in the EU
SetApp by MacPaw is too arrival on iPhone in the EU. Mac users may be familiar with SetApp, a sort of Netflix app for Mac. The subscription service charges $9.99 per month and allows users to download and use any of the more than 200 third-party Mac applications that are part of the program as long as they subscribe. SetApp plans to bring a similar iOS subscription service to the iPhone through its alternative marketplace.
However, as both TechCrunch and The Verge Note, the so-called alternative market AltStore will likely be the first to reach the iPhone.
AltStore leads the way
AltStore, by developer Riley Testuto, has been around as an “alternative market” for years before the concept officially existed. Testut found a workaround that allowed iPhone users anywhere in the world to sideload AltStore, essentially installing it directly on their device via a PC or Mac. Testut found a creative way to make its public App Store alternative work on the iPhone without being distributed through Apple’s official App Store, similar to how companies install and use internal company apps on employees’ iOS devices.
AltStore comes preloaded with apps like Delta, Testuto’s Nintendo emulator, and a perfect example of apps that Apple would probably never approve for distribution on the App Store.
Testuto’s AltStore is currently undergoing Apple’s alternative market review process and will be ready to launch as soon as Apple approves AltStore.
Once approved by Apple, AltStore will be available for “official” download in the EU. The alternative market will have two apps ready to go at launch: the aforementioned Delta game emulator, which will be available for free, and a clipboard manager called Clip.
Testut will require users to pay a small fee for Clip, and it appears that this app will be used to test a very new and unique mobile app subscription model. According to Testut, users will pay for the Clip through a donation of $1 or more through the creators’ monetization platform Patreon.
Patreon allows creators to set up subscription models so that their followers can pay a monthly monetary fee for exclusive content. According to Testut, AltStore will have Patreon directly integrated into it as a payment platform for paid apps. If all goes well, Testut plans to allow other developers to distribute their own apps on the AltStore and monetize them using Patreon’s pledge model
One thing is holding back more alternative markets
Since the DMA has been in effect for about a month now, it may seem surprising that we have yet to see a flood of alternative markets opening up on the iPhone for EU users.
However, there’s a good reason we haven’t seen it yet.
While announcing the alternative markets, Apple also introduced a new “Core technology fee” for developers who want to distribute through these competitors in the App Store. Instead of paying Apple 15 to 30 percent of app revenue as they would in the App Store, developers will now pay €0.50 for each first annual install of their app over 1 million This includes free apps, which means that a developer who creates a wildly popular free app can owe Apple money for those downloads — a cost that never existed before in Apple’s official app store — must comply with Apple’s new terms that include this fee.
The EU already is exploring Apple for these new terms and fees to see if they do indeed violate the DMA.
So we’re definitely going to see a number of alternative iPhone markets in the EU soon. But based on the results of that EU investigation, we’ll have to wait and see how many actually turn up.