The EU's Policy Changes: A New Era for Apple and its Developers

One of the significant changes coming to Europe is that developers will no longer have to use webkit as a backend to start their web browsers. This means that applications like Chrome, Opera, and Brave will be able to use their own form of web browsing and develop their own code and platform for their default web browsers. In contrast, Apple's iOS devices run on top of the proprietary software, giving Apple more control over what can be done.

The European Union's policy change is a significant shift in power dynamics between Apple and its competitors. Historically, Apple has had a tight grip on the iPhone ecosystem, with many developers opting to use webkit as their backend due to its familiarity and widespread adoption. However, this new policy change will allow developers to break free from this constraint, giving them more flexibility and control over their applications.

As of now, only in the EU will these applications be able to use their own form of web browsing. This means that developers on non-EU devices will still have to rely on webkit as a backend for their web browsers. However, once this policy change takes effect in March, the landscape will look very different.

The implications of this change are significant. With the ability to develop their own code and platform, developers will no longer be tied to the constraints of webkit. This opens up new possibilities for innovation and competition. For instance, Chrome and Opera will now have more control over how they build their applications, allowing them to create a better user experience.

The EU's policy change is also expected to open up Apple's NFC and tap-to-pay infrastructure to developers on the continent. Until now, only Apple Pay has been available on iPhones in Europe, with users relying on the native Wallet app to make contactless payments. However, with this new policy change, banks and fintech companies will be able to develop their own competing services.

This means that iPhone users in Europe will soon have a range of alternatives to Apple Pay. For instance, users of Chase or American Express may now be able to tap-to-pay directly from the banking apps themselves, eliminating the need for the Wallet app. This is a significant development, as it opens up new opportunities for competition and innovation.

However, some experts have expressed concerns about the potential risks associated with this policy change. For instance, Apple has stated that they will have a strict process in place to ensure security standards are maintained, but there is always a risk of errors or vulnerabilities slipping through.

For the most part, however, the EU's policy change is seen as a net positive. By giving developers more control over their applications and allowing them to develop their own platforms, the EU is promoting competition and innovation. This, in turn, will benefit consumers who will have access to a wider range of apps and services.

The transition period will likely be significant, with developers needing to restructure their pricing and business models to accommodate the new policy change. However, once this process is complete, it is expected that the end result will be a better experience for iPhone users in Europe.

One thing is certain: the EU's policy change has sent shockwaves through the tech industry, and Apple's competitors are scrambling to adapt. As the landscape continues to evolve, one thing is clear: the future of mobile app development and the iPhone ecosystem will never be the same again.

In conclusion, the EU's policy changes are a significant development that will have far-reaching implications for Apple and its developers. By giving developers more control over their applications and allowing them to develop their own platforms, the EU is promoting competition and innovation. As we wait to see how this plays out in practice, one thing is clear: the future of mobile technology is looking bright.

What do you guys think about this new policy change? Was it a good idea for the EU to force Apple's hand on this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. If you want to watch some more iOS and Mac OS videos, click on these links right here.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell all right everyone iOS 17.4 beta 1 has released to all developers to test out to try out and see exactly what changes Apple made now there were some tangible differences that we're going to go over but there was also a big change in terms of policies and how Apple runs their app store that's going to be very significant for both people globally as well as people specifically in the EU because the EU kind of forced Apple's hand to kind of change up some of their policies when it comes to their App Store and how they distribute the App Store and their applications and then some so in this video we're going to talk about all the things that are happening both globally as well as everything that's changing in the EU and what it means moving forward for all of us iPhone users so without further Ado let's look at the actual differences first and then jump on to the rest of the video so now let's get into the actual tangible changes that we noticed first off we have six new emojis that are accessible at 17.4 and those include the shake your head up and down shake your head side to side a broken chain a lime a phoenix bird as well as a brown mushroom so those like I mentioned are readily available you can access them with 17.4 the next change that we saw actually has to do with stolen device protection which was a feature that came out with 17.4 and what this new feature inside of this actually does is adds another layer of protection allowing you to turn this feature always on no matter if you're in an actual familiar location or not to add that additional delay if somebody is trying to change your Apple ID password or anything in between so that is a great new safety measure that Apple continues to add and evolve the third thing we notice is that Apple gave Siri the ability to now recite in different languages so if you go into your settings go into Siri go into add languages you can now see that Apple allows you to add a bunch of different languages from Swedish to Arabic and everything in between so if you want Siri to recite maybe messages to you in a different language it can now do that and then lastly if you go into your podcast app and open up with your favorite podcast on the bottom leand corner there will be a transcription button it works very similarly to how lyrics work inside of the Apple music app it basically follows along with highlighting every word and every sentence along in the actual transcription to coincide with the actual voice that's happening in the podcast itself which makes it a lot more accessible to more people but these are the actual tangible differences now let's talk about all the new policy changes that Apple's making because they are a huge deal so now we saw the actual tangible differences that you can go in and play with today like the Emojis the stolen device protection that was kind of modified a little bit as well as the ability for Siri to now dictate in different languages to you now let's talk about all the changes and policies that were made to iOS 17.4 and how this is going to affect people moving forward so first I want to talk about what happened globally so this is going to take into effect for all iPhone users and all iPhone developers no matter where you are in the world so firstly Apple's going to allow the ability for streaming applications on the gaming side to be available through their App Store so as of right now there wasn't any real way to get things like Xbox game pass or steam or anything like that kind of ported over the iPhone the only way to get a real game onto the actual iPhone itself is to go through the App Store and go through individual games so what this means is that now developers from Microsoft on the Xbox side even on the Sony side as well as like I mentioned in Steam and any other Marketplace that allows for game streaming will now now be able to be put into the actual app store and then people can download it and then play all of their games and stream them directly to their I device whether it is an iPhone an iPad a Mac whatever the case may be now app store rules still have to be followed when it comes to this new Marketplace that's being created but now game developers and Marketplace developers actually have an idea and a guidance as to how to actually get this stuff onto the app store because Apple has opened this up to everybody on iOS 17.4 beta 1 so this is going to be great because now we'll be able to have Xbox game pass we'll be able to download all of our games in Steam and be able to play them and stream them whatever the case may be so I think this is a great new addition that's going to open up a lot of possibilities from a gaming perspective obviously we're going to have a bunch of videos moving forward of how what this looks like how it's going to work as well as demoing a bunch of new games that can be streamed directly to your iPhone so I'm very excited for that and as I mentioned this is a global change so anybody with an iPhone and the ability to get the iOS 17.4 newer will not be able to download all these new game marketplaces from the app store and then play a bunch of different games inside of that app itself which is great to see so now that we got the game streaming out of the way in that Global change the rest of the policies and changes that I'm going to be talking about only apply to the EU because the Apple was forced to make these changes in the EU due to the new digital marketing act so one of the biggest headlining changes that's going to happen and take into effect in March is that Apple will now have the ability to allow for alternative app marketplaces so now we'll be able to see things like maybe the Google Play Store as well as an Amazon Play Store or maybe even a Samsung App Store that can now be sideloaded onto your iPhone itself that can be maybe directly downloaded from Samsung's website or Google's website or anything in between so and the reason this was put in place is because of the anti-competitive laws that were put into place and people saying that apple had a monopoly on the App Store and the distribution of applications so Apple had to buy by the EU rules and the digital marketing act which again like I mentioned will take into effect in March and then on top of this apple is going to allow you to change your default app store so let's say you know you still have your iPhone but you want maybe the Amazon app store to be your default app store you will now be able to change that with iOS 17.4 moving forward so so that's going to open up a lot of new avenues but apple is stating that they will still have a stringent approval process like they're still going to have eyes and ears even though it's outside of their app store it's got to abide by all the rules and of course apple is still taking a nice little cut of anything that kind of comes in and out of those app stores as well and then to kind of segue into what those commission structures look like as of right now the way the commission structure is set up in the app store is that Apple takes 30% of pretty much any Revenue that's generated by any application so that could be the price of the application itself any inapp purchases and anything in between but now with this new digital Market act that completely changes and it'll give these developers and these companies a little bit better of an advant when it comes to that commission structure so as it stands right now we not going from that 30% commission structure to 17% when it comes to purchasing the app itself and then they will add an additional 3% for any inapp purchases so let's say you're able to download something like fortnite all over again and you want to purchase the next pack or whatever the case may be or the next skin then Apple's going to take a 20% cut because it is 17% for the app itself and then a 3% in that purchase fee so again it's still better than 30% but still Apple's going to be getting their cut no matter what and they're still going to be getting paid and then for small businesses we are now at 10% as opposed to 15% but then that 3% inapp purchase still applies so if you're a smaller developer 133% is the total that you would have to pay Apple for in app purchases and then there's a brand new fee that Apple's calling the core technology fee and basically what this core technology fee States is that for every app downloaded within a 12-month period for the first time that app developer has to pay .5 every single 12 months for every time the app is downloaded so I don't know it depends on how developers kind of taking this into account maybe they'll push this expense over to the actual user itself and charge an additional 50 Cent for it or they'll just abide by the rule and have to pay that as a fee for just you know running their business at the end of the day but that is a new fee that Apple's implementing because Apple feels like they still should have some say still be able to make some money off of the actual application themselves because at the end of the day they created iOS they created the App Store they created the iPhone so they have the distribution platform that all these other companies do not there's also a new change when it comes to Safari and web browsing in general so as of right now by default Safari will be the web browser for every iPhone and you can even go into your settings right now even without 17.4 and change your default browser but now in the EU every single time you open Safari for the first time so if you get a brand new iPhone you update it you open up Safari it is going to ask you which browser you want your default browser to be it's not going to ask you hey do you want Safari to be your default browser it's going to ask you which one of these browsers you want your default browser to be because again EU wants to be able to diversify exactly what's going on and they don't want to allow Apple to monopolize the web browsing and then also a bigger change especially for developers is that even with applications like Chrome and Opera and brave they still have to use the fundamental webc to build that web browser over which again gives Apple a lot of control as to what can be done and what can't be done versus if you get it something on Mac OS the Chrome actual interface isn't webkit right it's whatever proprietary software they have so now moving forward with 17.4 again only in the EU these applications will be able to use their own form of web browsing and develop their own code and develop their own platform for their default web browsers they no longer have to use webkit as a backend to actually start the web browser because for instance Chrome and Opera and brave they're all built on webkit on iOS and iPad OS versus on Mac OS they kind of own their own platform and foundation and then the final big change that we're seeing is that apple is opening up their NFC and tap to pay infrastructure to pretty much anybody in the EU so as of right now the only way to Apple pay and to pay with your iPhone is to use again Apple pay and use Apple's digital wallet so that means that developers in banking Industries and in fintech can now create a competitor to the Apple wallet as well as a competitor to Apple pay because now they can use the actual NFC chip inside of the iPhone as a piece of Hardware to then add on to their app so let's say you bank with Chase or with American Express you can actually tap to pay directly from those applications you no longer have to double tap your hold button to then open up the wallet and initiate Apple pay you can just go to their version of Apple pay inside the actual application itself and then tap to pay whatever Merchant accepts you know contactless payment in general so that is a big change coming again Apple wallet is still something that I'm probably going to use over anything else unless for some reason these banking apps get better at UI and ux over Apple which I highly doubt but again now that opens it up and again opens up the competition so Apple doesn't look like they have a monopoly on all things iPhone and all things iOS which which again goes back to the Chicken and the Egg in my opinion but those are all the major changes again for the most part right now nothing too much is going to change especially here in the US but once this actually hits in March in the EU there will be some nice differences that are going to be changing you're going to start seeing iPhones with different marketplaces iPhones that are going to be able to stream actual games from XBox game pass and things like that so overall I think it's a net positive it's going to be a little bit of a transitionary period for applications for them to restructure their pricing and restructure how they build applications but at the end of the day maybe come summer or fall everything's going to kind of go back into place and things are just going to be better overall for the consumer and for the customer because in my opinion the more competition the better the products both on the software and the hardware side are going to be so that was just about do it for this video everybody like you saw there was a bunch of policy changes this was mostly for developers on the back end so they understand what is going on but at the end of the day all iPhone users and iPad users will be actually affected by this in a positive way in my opinion so leave some comments down below do you think it was a good idea for the EU to force Apple's hand on this they already forced Apple's hand earlier last year with the USBC Port which I thought was a huge net positive in my opinion but how does that affect people on the softw side is it something that we want is more marketpl is a better thing apple is stating that they're going to have a nice strange of process to make sure from a security standpoint things are still up and up but again things might be able to slip through so for the most part unless for some reason there's a big advantage to me using some other Marketplace or some other app store I'm probably going to stick with the regular app store and see exactly what's going on over there but I will be testing out everything else in in between but that's going to do this video If you guys made it to the end leave a little dolphin in the comments down below so I know you made it to the end and if you guys want to watch some more iOS Mac OS Vision OS watch OS iPad OS videos click on what these right here and until next time I'm Fernando and I'm out of here everybody peacewell all right everyone iOS 17.4 beta 1 has released to all developers to test out to try out and see exactly what changes Apple made now there were some tangible differences that we're going to go over but there was also a big change in terms of policies and how Apple runs their app store that's going to be very significant for both people globally as well as people specifically in the EU because the EU kind of forced Apple's hand to kind of change up some of their policies when it comes to their App Store and how they distribute the App Store and their applications and then some so in this video we're going to talk about all the things that are happening both globally as well as everything that's changing in the EU and what it means moving forward for all of us iPhone users so without further Ado let's look at the actual differences first and then jump on to the rest of the video so now let's get into the actual tangible changes that we noticed first off we have six new emojis that are accessible at 17.4 and those include the shake your head up and down shake your head side to side a broken chain a lime a phoenix bird as well as a brown mushroom so those like I mentioned are readily available you can access them with 17.4 the next change that we saw actually has to do with stolen device protection which was a feature that came out with 17.4 and what this new feature inside of this actually does is adds another layer of protection allowing you to turn this feature always on no matter if you're in an actual familiar location or not to add that additional delay if somebody is trying to change your Apple ID password or anything in between so that is a great new safety measure that Apple continues to add and evolve the third thing we notice is that Apple gave Siri the ability to now recite in different languages so if you go into your settings go into Siri go into add languages you can now see that Apple allows you to add a bunch of different languages from Swedish to Arabic and everything in between so if you want Siri to recite maybe messages to you in a different language it can now do that and then lastly if you go into your podcast app and open up with your favorite podcast on the bottom leand corner there will be a transcription button it works very similarly to how lyrics work inside of the Apple music app it basically follows along with highlighting every word and every sentence along in the actual transcription to coincide with the actual voice that's happening in the podcast itself which makes it a lot more accessible to more people but these are the actual tangible differences now let's talk about all the new policy changes that Apple's making because they are a huge deal so now we saw the actual tangible differences that you can go in and play with today like the Emojis the stolen device protection that was kind of modified a little bit as well as the ability for Siri to now dictate in different languages to you now let's talk about all the changes and policies that were made to iOS 17.4 and how this is going to affect people moving forward so first I want to talk about what happened globally so this is going to take into effect for all iPhone users and all iPhone developers no matter where you are in the world so firstly Apple's going to allow the ability for streaming applications on the gaming side to be available through their App Store so as of right now there wasn't any real way to get things like Xbox game pass or steam or anything like that kind of ported over the iPhone the only way to get a real game onto the actual iPhone itself is to go through the App Store and go through individual games so what this means is that now developers from Microsoft on the Xbox side even on the Sony side as well as like I mentioned in Steam and any other Marketplace that allows for game streaming will now now be able to be put into the actual app store and then people can download it and then play all of their games and stream them directly to their I device whether it is an iPhone an iPad a Mac whatever the case may be now app store rules still have to be followed when it comes to this new Marketplace that's being created but now game developers and Marketplace developers actually have an idea and a guidance as to how to actually get this stuff onto the app store because Apple has opened this up to everybody on iOS 17.4 beta 1 so this is going to be great because now we'll be able to have Xbox game pass we'll be able to download all of our games in Steam and be able to play them and stream them whatever the case may be so I think this is a great new addition that's going to open up a lot of possibilities from a gaming perspective obviously we're going to have a bunch of videos moving forward of how what this looks like how it's going to work as well as demoing a bunch of new games that can be streamed directly to your iPhone so I'm very excited for that and as I mentioned this is a global change so anybody with an iPhone and the ability to get the iOS 17.4 newer will not be able to download all these new game marketplaces from the app store and then play a bunch of different games inside of that app itself which is great to see so now that we got the game streaming out of the way in that Global change the rest of the policies and changes that I'm going to be talking about only apply to the EU because the Apple was forced to make these changes in the EU due to the new digital marketing act so one of the biggest headlining changes that's going to happen and take into effect in March is that Apple will now have the ability to allow for alternative app marketplaces so now we'll be able to see things like maybe the Google Play Store as well as an Amazon Play Store or maybe even a Samsung App Store that can now be sideloaded onto your iPhone itself that can be maybe directly downloaded from Samsung's website or Google's website or anything in between so and the reason this was put in place is because of the anti-competitive laws that were put into place and people saying that apple had a monopoly on the App Store and the distribution of applications so Apple had to buy by the EU rules and the digital marketing act which again like I mentioned will take into effect in March and then on top of this apple is going to allow you to change your default app store so let's say you know you still have your iPhone but you want maybe the Amazon app store to be your default app store you will now be able to change that with iOS 17.4 moving forward so so that's going to open up a lot of new avenues but apple is stating that they will still have a stringent approval process like they're still going to have eyes and ears even though it's outside of their app store it's got to abide by all the rules and of course apple is still taking a nice little cut of anything that kind of comes in and out of those app stores as well and then to kind of segue into what those commission structures look like as of right now the way the commission structure is set up in the app store is that Apple takes 30% of pretty much any Revenue that's generated by any application so that could be the price of the application itself any inapp purchases and anything in between but now with this new digital Market act that completely changes and it'll give these developers and these companies a little bit better of an advant when it comes to that commission structure so as it stands right now we not going from that 30% commission structure to 17% when it comes to purchasing the app itself and then they will add an additional 3% for any inapp purchases so let's say you're able to download something like fortnite all over again and you want to purchase the next pack or whatever the case may be or the next skin then Apple's going to take a 20% cut because it is 17% for the app itself and then a 3% in that purchase fee so again it's still better than 30% but still Apple's going to be getting their cut no matter what and they're still going to be getting paid and then for small businesses we are now at 10% as opposed to 15% but then that 3% inapp purchase still applies so if you're a smaller developer 133% is the total that you would have to pay Apple for in app purchases and then there's a brand new fee that Apple's calling the core technology fee and basically what this core technology fee States is that for every app downloaded within a 12-month period for the first time that app developer has to pay .5 every single 12 months for every time the app is downloaded so I don't know it depends on how developers kind of taking this into account maybe they'll push this expense over to the actual user itself and charge an additional 50 Cent for it or they'll just abide by the rule and have to pay that as a fee for just you know running their business at the end of the day but that is a new fee that Apple's implementing because Apple feels like they still should have some say still be able to make some money off of the actual application themselves because at the end of the day they created iOS they created the App Store they created the iPhone so they have the distribution platform that all these other companies do not there's also a new change when it comes to Safari and web browsing in general so as of right now by default Safari will be the web browser for every iPhone and you can even go into your settings right now even without 17.4 and change your default browser but now in the EU every single time you open Safari for the first time so if you get a brand new iPhone you update it you open up Safari it is going to ask you which browser you want your default browser to be it's not going to ask you hey do you want Safari to be your default browser it's going to ask you which one of these browsers you want your default browser to be because again EU wants to be able to diversify exactly what's going on and they don't want to allow Apple to monopolize the web browsing and then also a bigger change especially for developers is that even with applications like Chrome and Opera and brave they still have to use the fundamental webc to build that web browser over which again gives Apple a lot of control as to what can be done and what can't be done versus if you get it something on Mac OS the Chrome actual interface isn't webkit right it's whatever proprietary software they have so now moving forward with 17.4 again only in the EU these applications will be able to use their own form of web browsing and develop their own code and develop their own platform for their default web browsers they no longer have to use webkit as a backend to actually start the web browser because for instance Chrome and Opera and brave they're all built on webkit on iOS and iPad OS versus on Mac OS they kind of own their own platform and foundation and then the final big change that we're seeing is that apple is opening up their NFC and tap to pay infrastructure to pretty much anybody in the EU so as of right now the only way to Apple pay and to pay with your iPhone is to use again Apple pay and use Apple's digital wallet so that means that developers in banking Industries and in fintech can now create a competitor to the Apple wallet as well as a competitor to Apple pay because now they can use the actual NFC chip inside of the iPhone as a piece of Hardware to then add on to their app so let's say you bank with Chase or with American Express you can actually tap to pay directly from those applications you no longer have to double tap your hold button to then open up the wallet and initiate Apple pay you can just go to their version of Apple pay inside the actual application itself and then tap to pay whatever Merchant accepts you know contactless payment in general so that is a big change coming again Apple wallet is still something that I'm probably going to use over anything else unless for some reason these banking apps get better at UI and ux over Apple which I highly doubt but again now that opens it up and again opens up the competition so Apple doesn't look like they have a monopoly on all things iPhone and all things iOS which which again goes back to the Chicken and the Egg in my opinion but those are all the major changes again for the most part right now nothing too much is going to change especially here in the US but once this actually hits in March in the EU there will be some nice differences that are going to be changing you're going to start seeing iPhones with different marketplaces iPhones that are going to be able to stream actual games from XBox game pass and things like that so overall I think it's a net positive it's going to be a little bit of a transitionary period for applications for them to restructure their pricing and restructure how they build applications but at the end of the day maybe come summer or fall everything's going to kind of go back into place and things are just going to be better overall for the consumer and for the customer because in my opinion the more competition the better the products both on the software and the hardware side are going to be so that was just about do it for this video everybody like you saw there was a bunch of policy changes this was mostly for developers on the back end so they understand what is going on but at the end of the day all iPhone users and iPad users will be actually affected by this in a positive way in my opinion so leave some comments down below do you think it was a good idea for the EU to force Apple's hand on this they already forced Apple's hand earlier last year with the USBC Port which I thought was a huge net positive in my opinion but how does that affect people on the softw side is it something that we want is more marketpl is a better thing apple is stating that they're going to have a nice strange of process to make sure from a security standpoint things are still up and up but again things might be able to slip through so for the most part unless for some reason there's a big advantage to me using some other Marketplace or some other app store I'm probably going to stick with the regular app store and see exactly what's going on over there but I will be testing out everything else in in between but that's going to do this video If you guys made it to the end leave a little dolphin in the comments down below so I know you made it to the end and if you guys want to watch some more iOS Mac OS Vision OS watch OS iPad OS videos click on what these right here and until next time I'm Fernando and I'm out of here everybody peace\n"