iPhone “Openness” Under the DMA: Why EU App Stores Struggle

The iPhone is “open” in Europe now. The market is still waiting.

Apple’s EU-only changes for the Digital Markets Act (DMA) were supposed to kick off a new era: alternative app marketplaces, more payment options, and a real way around the App Store’s single-lane distribution. And technically, that world exists today—Apple has added support for alternative marketplaces and “Web Distribution” (direct downloads) for apps in the EU.

But the more interesting story in early 2026 is that availability isn’t the same as viability. A headline example: Setapp Mobile—one of the more credible early alternative marketplaces—has announced it will shut down on February 16, 2026, explicitly blaming Apple’s complex and evolving terms.

So the debate has shifted from “Can Apple be forced to open iOS?” to “What does ‘open’ even mean if the economics and mechanics make competitors give up?”

What’s changing—and why it matters

Under the DMA, Apple had to introduce new distribution options in the EU: third-party app marketplaces and direct-from-website installation, along with related APIs, notarization, and authorization flows.

For engineers, IT, and product teams, this matters for three practical reasons:

• Procurement and deployment: If iOS distribution can diversify, enterprise and vertical software could move faster (less App Review friction, more tailored licensing, private catalogs).
• Payments and margins: Developers want optional payment rails—not necessarily to “avoid Apple,” but to run pricing experiments and bundle subscriptions across platforms.
• Security posture and trust: Any expansion of distribution paths changes threat models for end users and for organizations that manage iOS fleets.

In other words: DMA compliance isn’t just a policy fight. It’s a software supply chain change.

The real argument: four competing views of “openness”

There are (at least) four coherent positions here, and most people in the debate rotate between them depending on whether they’re speaking as a user, developer, regulator, or platform operator.

1) Regulators: “Choice requires more than a checkbox”

This view says Apple’s compliance can’t be evaluated purely on whether the APIs exist. If the process is so complex—or the fees so punishing—that only a token competitor survives, then users don’t get meaningful choice.

The Setapp Mobile shutdown is fuel for this argument: if a reputable subscription app brand can’t make the numbers work, what’s left besides niche stores and gray-market distribution?

2) Apple: “More distribution paths = more risk; guardrails are the point”

Apple’s stated position is that DMA-required changes introduce new risk: more avenues for malware, fraud, scams, and harmful content, plus reduced ability to intervene when things go wrong. In that framing, notarization and marketplace authorization aren’t “obstruction,” they’re the minimum necessary controls to keep iOS from turning into a mess of sideloaded ransomware and subscription traps.

For technical readers: you can disagree with Apple’s incentives while still acknowledging the engineering reality that every additional install channel expands the attack surface and complicates incident response.

3) Developers: “If the alternative path costs nearly as much, it’s not an alternative”

Developers and marketplace operators generally want two things at once:

• a distribution path that’s operationally sane (updates, entitlements, customer support expectations)
• economics that actually justify the overhead of running (or joining) a marketplace

The Setapp Mobile letter (as summarized by heise) points directly at sustainability problems under Apple’s terms.

The underlying concern: even if you can ship outside the App Store, you may still be living in Apple’s world—permissions, rules, audits, user-friction, and platform-defined cost structures. That can be fine; it’s just not the competitive reset people imagined.

4) Users/IT: “I want the App Store most of the time—until I don’t”

A lot of end users like the default App Store experience. The pressure for alternative distribution often comes from edge cases:

• an app category Apple rejects or restricts
• a business model Apple dislikes
• enterprise apps that don’t fit App Store norms
• power users who want nonstandard tooling

In org settings, IT/security teams may be even more conservative than Apple: they may ban third-party marketplaces to reduce risk, especially if MDM controls and audit logs aren’t as mature as what they already rely on.

So “more choice” can exist while adoption remains low—because trust and habit are powerful.

What’s genuinely new right now

A few things make this moment different from last year’s abstract DMA arguments:

• We have real-market outcomes, not just compliance documentation—e.g., at least one notable alternative marketplace is exiting.
• Apple’s position is now expressed as a product system, not just PR: notarization, marketplace authorization, disclosure flows, and EU-only scoping are built into the developer story.
• The debate is becoming measurable: number of viable stores, app catalog breadth, update reliability, support burden, fraud rates, and actual user uptake.

Risks and limitations (for everyone involved)

Security regressions are plausible, even with guardrails. Apple explicitly argues the DMA creates new avenues for malware and scams. Even if you think Apple is overstating it, the general pattern in software supply chains is clear: more channels, more complexity, more room for abuse.

User experience fragmentation is real. If payments, subscriptions, refunds, and account recovery vary per marketplace, support costs go up and trust goes down. This is exactly the kind of slow-burn friction that kills “alternative stores” even when they’re technically sound.

Economics can collapse before the ecosystem matures. Marketplaces need scale. If Apple’s terms (or the perception of them) make operators cautious, you can end up in a dead zone: not enough investment because there aren’t enough users; not enough users because there isn’t enough investment.

Geofencing creates product weirdness. EU-only behavior means engineers either ship region-specific logic or avoid the feature entirely. That’s not just policy overhead; it’s QA overhead and support overhead.

What to watch next

If you want early signals that iPhone distribution in the EU is becoming “real” (or not), watch these near-term milestones:

• Do credible, consumer-facing marketplaces survive past 2026 H1? The Setapp Mobile closure date (February 16, 2026) is an immediate marker.
• Do big developers commit? One or two mainstream names joining an alternative marketplace would matter more than dozens of tiny utilities.
• Do enterprises adopt third-party catalogs? If MDM vendors and large orgs start treating alternative distribution as normal, that’s a structural shift.
• Does Apple revise the terms again? Apple’s EU guidance frames the changes as risk-laden and evolving. If the European Commission pushes back, or if marketplace attrition continues, expect iteration—either simplification or further tightening.

Takeaway

Europe now has a technically workable path to iPhone app distribution beyond the App Store—but early evidence suggests the hard part isn’t enabling sideloading; it’s making an alternative ecosystem economically and operationally durable. The next chapter won’t be won in court filings or keynote slides. It’ll be won (or lost) in boring details: fees, update flows, customer support, security incidents, and whether users ever develop a reason to leave the default.Apple Has Weeks to Comply with EU Rules Forcing iPhone CompatibilityiPhone open only on paper: First app marketplace in EU closesUpdate on apps distributed in the European Union – Apple Developer