Can PC be emulated as a console? For Apple, the answer is no, and this principled stance has important consequences for the company’s software ecosystem.
After years of fighting to avoid opening its ecosystem to alternative application stores, Apple finally gave in a few weeks ago, under pressure from the European Union. Since then, many competitors to the App Store have flourished in Europe, but Apple exercises very strict control over these software catalogs too, as this recent case proves.
The developers of the UTM emulator were in fact refused to market their application on iPhone. Well known to hackers, UTM is a virtualization system allowing you to run Windows or Linux system images on an iPhone or iPad. Until then, the software was distributed via more or less dubious sideloading systems, but with the opening of iOS to emulators and third-party stores, the development team tried to go through more “official” channels.
Apple keeps control of iOS
Unfortunately, as noted in a tweet spotted by 9to5Mac and published on June 9 by UTM, the application has not been validated by Apple and will not arrive on the App Store or third-party application stores. First of all, the reason given by Apple is that “the PC is not a console» and therefore UTM has no place in the new “Emulation” category of the App Store.
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Stranger however, this refusal from Apple also prevents UTM from arriving on third-party application stores like Aptoide or SetApp. According to Apple’s rules for software distribution, an application does not have the right to “download, install or execute code that introduces or modifies features or functionality of the application, including other applications“. For UTM, which can be used to install old PC games on a virtual environment, it’s no problem.
Mostly cosmetic changes
The firm’s refusal to put its validation seal on UTM therefore prevents the application from arriving on official distribution channels, even those precisely supposed to be more “open” than those of Apple. The same rules and the same control apply more or less to applications coming from the App Store or those coming from third-party stores, largely reducing the interest in this openness promised by Apple.
The affair is not exactly a surprise, Apple has never hidden its desire to control the distribution of all software developed for iOS and iPadOS. However, the UTM affair proves that the arrival of third-party stores on iPhone is indeed only a cosmetic change and that Apple continues to impose its law and its principles on its platform, in addition to complicating life of those who would like to look beyond the App Store.
Not sure that this pleases Brussels which has precisely ratified the DMA to ensure a “equitable, reasonable and non-discriminatory access» to the competition. A few weeks ago, Margrethe Vestager (European Competition Commissioner) already regretted that “Apple’s compliance model does not seem to meet the objectives” of text. To see if this affair could bring grist to the mill of the Commission, which seems ready to slap Apple on the knuckles if necessary. Remember that in the event of non-compliance with the law, Brussels can impose a fine of up to 10% of Apple’s global turnover.
