IT Home News on March 6, with Apple iOS 174 With the official release, iPhone users in the EU can already use third-party app stores other than the App Store. However, Apple has warned that there will be a "grace period" for these third-party app store features when EU users travel outside the EU, after which some features will not be available.
IT Home noted that according to the support documents released by Apple, users can still continue to access third-party app stores during the "grace period" if they only leave the EU for a short period of time. However, if you leave for too long, you will lose some features, such as not being able to install new third-party app stores. In addition, third-party app store apps that are already installed will still work, but they won't be able to be updated through the store. At the moment, Apple has not announced the specific length of the "grace period".
Apple allows EU users to access third-party app stores in order to comply with the provisions of the European Union's Digital Markets Act. The bill will enter into force in all 27 member states of the European Union on March 7. This means that, for the first time, users in the EU will be able to apply from app stores** other than the App Store.
On iOS 174 Due to privacy, security, and potential risk concerns, users in the EU may set their preferred third-party app store as the default app store on their device. In addition, parents can also decide whether to allow their children to install apps from third-party app stores on their devices through Screen Time settings.
To access a third-party app store, the user's Apple ID country or region must be set to one of the European Union member states, and the user must be physically located in the European Union. Apple said that a device's eligibility for access to a third-party app store is determined through on-device processing, and only eligibility metrics will be sent to Apple. To protect user privacy, Apple does not collect location information about devices.
The first third-party app store for EU users will go live this week. German IT services provider Mobivention will launch its Mobivention App Store for enterprise users on Thursday, MacPaw has also announced that it will launch its third-party app store in April, and Epic Games plans to launch its own app store.
It's important to note that these changes only apply to the European Union, and they don't apply to iPadOS.