After Apple confirmed yesterday that it was cracking down on web apps for customers in the EU due to its compliance with EU regulation, the Digital Marketing Act (DMA), Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney suggests in a post on X there’s another reason behind Apple’s decision: iPhone web apps don’t make money for Apple. Sweeney, whose company sued Apple over antitrust concerns related to App Store fees, is obviously a biased source on the subject, but it raises a question that’s on everyone’s mind. Did Apple crack iPhone web apps because it was trying to protect customers from security risks posed by third-party browser engines, as it claims, or was the decision more about eliminating a potential threat to Apple’s business?
Would Apple really go so far as to degrade the consumer experience on the iPhone to protect its revenue, in other words?
The iPhone maker on Thursday released an update to it webpage detailing the DMA-related changes in the EU to address the issue, after it was discovered that iPhone web apps — also known as progressive web apps, or PWAs — no longer worked in recent beta versions of iOS in the EU. Initially, there was concern that the issues were just a beta bug, but Apple soon abandoned this theory.
On her website, Apple explains that to comply with DMA, it is forced to support web browser engines other than WebKit — the browser engine used by Safari. iOS Home screen web apps rely on WebKit and its security architecture to protect users from online threats. This includes isolating storage and enforcing “system prompts to access features that affect privacy,” Apple said.
Without this isolation and enforcement, malicious web apps could read data from other apps and gain access to a user’s camera, microphone or location with the user’s consent, the company noted. Since Apple is forced to allow alternative browser engines through DMA requirements, the company chose not to put users at risk and instead degraded the iOS web app experience for users in the EU. Now, web apps they will work as site bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and a dedicated window.
While Sweeney undoubtedly has a bone to pick with Apple, there may be some truth to his claims. As part of Apple’s explanation for why it stopped support for web apps in the EU, the company admits that there is a technical solution to the problem of security issues — but it simply chose not to implement it.
Apple wrote (emphasis ours):
Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web applications using alternative browser engines it would require the construction of an entirely new architectural integration which does not currently exist on iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other requirements of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps.
In short, Apple says it knows how to fix the problem, but because it’s burdened with DMA compliance — which it noted required “more than 600 new APIs and a wide range of developer tools” — it decided to skip fixing it. this.
While it may be no small feat to build an “entirely new integration architecture,” it’s also not as if Apple was surprised by DMA. regulation which has been in the works for years. He had time to prepare for this. To further deflect any blame here, Apple suggests that people won’t mind that it broke Home screen web apps, given their “low user adoption.”
But Apple’s own moves contradict that explanation. If anything, Apple has been working to make PWAs more useful over the years, adding characteristics which allowed web apps to function more like native apps and be easily distributed outside of the App Store. Meanwhile, user adoption is growing, not shrinking. Analysts estimate that the PWA market it would reach $10.44 billion by 2027with a compound annual growth rate of 31.9%.
It’s entirely possible that alternative browser engines will make PWAs even more useful, as Sweeney argues, which would pose a threat to Apple’s App Store business, given that web apps are now almost as functional as native apps.
Apple had been asked to comment on its decision regarding PWAs, but only posted an explanation on the DMA website in response.
