Apple, and more specifically iOS and the App Store, lThey have been in the eye of regulators for quite some time, who are watching with concern the closed ecosystem of Apple’s operating system for their devices. Slowly but steadily, we are seeing how investigations are being opened, sometimes at the request of other companies and on other occasions by the regulators themselves, who are outlining the end of exclusivity and absolute control of what happens in the App Store.
Surely you will remember that, at the time, GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud and Stadia considered bringing their apps to the App Store, so that users could access these services from the iPhone. However, Apple claimed the power to exercise supervision over the titles that would be accessible through the platform. Something that doesn’t seem to make any sense, since these games always run in the cloud, not on the device, so it’s not clear why Cupertino played that card.
As a result, the App Store was closed for apps to access these services, causing the three companies behind them, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Google, to step on the accelerator in the design of the web versions of the services, so that iOS users could access them. Personally, I’ve never gotten it out of my head that making Fortnite playable again on iOS thanks to GeForce NOW and Xbox Cloud had a bit of a payback from both techies.
Be that as it may, according to what we can read in a press release, it seems that the British Authority for Markets and Competition (ACM) wants Apple to open the doors of the App Store to cloud gaming. The regulator is carrying out an investigation on mobile platforms, with Apple and Google in the spotlight, on whether the conditions they impose on their operating systems are acting as a brake on free competition and, consequently, on the evolution of associated technologies.
The research also concerns browsers on both Android and iOS platforms, which according to research carried out by the ACM accounted for 97% of all mobile browsing in the UK in 2021. In this regard, we must remember that for a web browser is accepted in the App Store, Apple forces it to use the Safari engine, thus vetoing developments based on Chromium and other alternatives.
