European Union regulators have taken initial steps to investigate Apple’s decision to discontinue support for web apps in the EU, the Financial Times reported.
The European Commission has sent Apple and app developers inquiries to better gauge the impacts of the move.
“We are indeed looking at the compliance packages of all gatekeepers, including Apple,” a European Commission spokesperson told Quartz in a statement. “In that context, we’re in particular looking into the issue of Progressive Web Apps, and can confirm sending the requests for information to Apple and to app developers, who can provide useful information for our assessment.”
Apple announced this month that it will officially drop support for progressive web apps — also called homepage web apps — in the EU in iOS 17.4 starting in March. These web-based apps could previously be installed and launched from an iPhone’s home screen, send push notifications, and store memory separately from a web browser.
More importantly for antitrust regulators, these apps were a way for developers to bypass Apple’s App store and associated fees. Under the new change, these apps will work more like bookmarks.
Apple blames new EU legislation for the change
When reached for comment, Apple sent Quartz a previous statement saying that the changes were made to comply with the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA). The new act is aimed at regulating large platforms it calls “gatekeepers” in online marketplaces — like the App Store — in service of making those marketplaces more competitive for smaller players. In Apple’s case the DMA will require the tech giant to enable full support for third-party browser engines, which the company contests as unrealistic.
In a Q&A with developers, Apple said opening up progressive web app features to third-parties without putting users at risk of security breaches “was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA.”
“We expect this change to affect a small number of users. Still, we regret any impact this change — that was made as part of the work to comply with the DMA — may have on developers of Home Screen web apps and our users,” Apple wrote in its statement.