Apple Will Allow Users To Delete Its Most Valuable App, The App Store

Apple will allow iPhone and iPad owners to delete one of its most prized and valuable properties, the iOS App Store, by the end of this year. The change will make Apple compliant with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act and create more competition in the mobile ecosystem, and it will only be possible inside the EU.

Other apps that Apple will allow users to delete include Messages, Photos, Camera, and Safari.

Currently those apps are not deletable from an iPhone or iPad.

“By the end of this year, we’ll make changes to the browser choice screen, default apps, and app deletion for iOS and iPadOS for users in the EU,” Apple announced quietly in a developer update. “These updates come from our ongoing and continuing dialogue with the European Commission about compliance with the Digital Market Act’s requirements in these areas.”

Allowing users to delete the official App Store is a huge step. The App Store is how Apple manages which apps appear on iPhone and iPad via its app submission guidelines, and apps that are downloaded via the App Store generally need to use Apple’s provided payment services for in-app purchases, resulting in significant high-margin revenue for Apple. A third-party app store reduces Apple’s hold on customers, revenue, and their entire phone or tablet experience, as well as opening up new privacy and security concerns.

In addition to the App Store choice, Apple will create a new browser choice screen for people in the EU.

That also has huge financial ramifications: Google pays Apple $18-20 billion per year to be the default search engine on Apple’s mobile devices.

Soon, Europeans will be able to make a choice between 12 different browsers.

The well-known Chrome browser from Google is in the list, along with Apple’s own Safari, but so are lesser-known apps like Opera, Edge from Microsoft, You from SuSea, Firefox from Mozilla, DuckDuckGo from the privacy-focused web search company, Brave, and “Browser” from Maple Media Apps. Browsers with more than 5,000 installs across all the EU App Store storefronts last year are eligible to appear on the screen.

The biggest news, however, is Apple enabling deletion of the App Store. Currently, it’s the only really viable way to get new applications on to an iPhone or iPad.

There are some emerging App Store challengers at various stages of development and use including, but none approach the official App Store’s capability or breath of apps as yet:

• Aptoide
• AltStore
• Mobivention
• BuildStore
• TrollStore
• AppValley

The challenge is that way Apple has set up third-party app stores under its Digital Markets Act compliance strategy is that developers who opt out of the traditional Apple App Store have to pay a Core Technology Fee for the privilege of running on iOS, which could easily cost apps hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Every download of AltStore and Mobivention costs their developers 50 euro cents — a fee that could quickly become unsustainable,” says the Verge’s Callum Booth.

The reality is that the way Apple has set up its compliance program makes profitable business via a third-party app store almost impossible, which the EU is looking into.

In addition to their choice of app stores, Europeans will get choices on other apps as well.

“In future software updates, users will get new default settings for dialing phone numbers, sending messages, translating text, navigation, managing passwords, keyboards, and call spam filters,” Apple says.