Apple is about to open its European App Store to app sideloading from non-Apple sources — a laboratory experiment that will be sanitized and unavailable outside the EU, at least for now.
Effectively, Apple’s new European customer experience will become experimental data for a new era of “openness.”
The experiment begins
Along with customers, the experiment will be closely watched by Apple, its competitors, and regulators. They must monitor what happens, as what transpires will certainly inform regulations as they are applied outside Europe – where others want to emulate the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
