Apple working with EU on how to make sideloading safe

Apple had been expected to introduce new tools to enable sideloading apps from outside of the App Store with iOS 17. It announced nothing on this at WWDC. It’s still possible, hinted Apple VP Software Engineering, Craig Federighi.

All eyes on Apple at WWDC

The Apple VP dropped the tip toward the end of a lengthy but interesting interview with Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. Also appearing during the show were Apple’s SVP Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, and AR/VR team head, Mike Rockwell. All three were cheerfully chaperoned throughout by SVP Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak.

The interview is worth watching in its own right. At times it manages to stray a little outside Apple’s Overton Window of to share deep insights  regarding the company’s WWDC news. If this interests you, watch it.

Here’ a link to the show:

Sideloading for the few

A quick refresh.

Towards the end of last year, speculation spread that Apple would introduce support for sideloading apps in Europe within iOS 17. It must in order to be compliant with EU regulation that requires platforms to permit this.

Nothing was said at WWDC, but near the end of the interview, Federighi shared a little. He said that when it comes to sideloading, the company wants to be sure that whatever it does is “the right thing”.  He also said Apple is “working with the EU” on “what safe compliance would look like.”

The phrase, “safe compliance” is doing a lot of work here. It strongly hints the company will seek a practical compromise that both protects customers who want to continue life within the Apple garden, while enabling those who don’t to sideload apps – but not at the risk of platform security.

What is safe sideloading?

However, a glance through the developer sessions at WWDC 2023 delivers not a hint of such plans, which will likely require Apple as a trusted intermediary for any external app purchase, enabling some form of sandboxing of user data to protect its platforms. We shall see, maybe, what Apple (and the EU), managed to come up with.

What will be the impact of any such change? It’s hard to predict, but it is worth noting Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring characterizes the impact of such changes as “More bark than bite.”

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