Brazilian Court Gives Apple 90 Days to Allow Sideloading on iOS

Filipe Espósito, reporting last week for 9to5Mac:

As reported by Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico (via O Globo), a federal judge in Brazil ruled on Wednesday that Apple will have to open up the iOS ecosystem to third-party apps in Brazil just like the company did in the EU. The judge considers that the “limitations” imposed by the company on developers could jeopardize the entry of new competitors in the segment. [...]

But now Judge Pablo Zuniga has ordered that Apple will have to implement the required changes in Brazil within the next three months. The judge states that, despite Apple’s claims, the company “has already complied with similar obligations in other countries, without demonstrating a significant impact or irreparable damage to its business model.”

Presumably Apple will just roll out in Brazil the same compliance rules, policies, and APIs that they started offering last year in the EU. But will Brazilian users get access to EU third-party app marketplaces, and vice-versa? Or will Apple try to segregate these app marketplaces region-by-region, such that Brazilian users will only get access to Brazilian third-party app marketplaces, and EU users will remain limited only to EU third-party app marketplaces?

I asked Riley Testut, the founder of AltStore PAL, if he knew the answers to those questions. His answer, via iMessage:

We haven’t heard anything from Apple (unsurprisingly), but I think it’ll be somewhere in the middle. It’s likely Apple will add some requirements for existing marketplaces to launch in Brazil like they did with EU (e.g. requiring us to have a subsidiary in Brazil) so we’ll all need to get approval again. But assuming marketplaces meet all requirements, I think users in both places will eventually be able use e.g. AltStore PAL and Epic Games Store.

“In the middle” sounds about right from Apple’s perspective too. They’re not going to make this as easy as possible, but I don’t expect them to make it obstinately spiteful either.

★ Wednesday, 12 March 2025