2024 It will be remembered at Apple as a year full of changes. We don’t know if anyone internally will classify it as catastrophic for the interests and ideas that the company has traditionally had, given that there are already several historical changes that they have had to face in Europe. And now, a few more.
In March the law came into force Digital Markets Act in the old continent, better known as DMA by its initials in English. It is a law that has forced Apple to make radical changes such as allowing alternative application stores to the App Store, giving greater ease of choice of default browser or opening the NFC chip of the iPhone. Well, soon New changes already confirmed will be added by Apple itself through a statement on their developer website.
All the changes that Apple will have to implement in the iPhone
Even though Apple started implementing changes in iOS 17.4 to adapt to the DMA, we soon learned that Europe was not happy. They wanted more and among the demands were elements such as changing the default photos app, something that has never been possible on the iPhone.
Well, soon you will be able to do that and more. In short, these are the Changes that Apple will implement in iOS 18 and which has been officially confirmed in its aforementioned statement:
- App Store: In addition to continuing to allow third-party stores and allowing them to be chosen as default, something that has been happening since March, users will be able to delete the App Store from their iPhone if they wish.
- Photos: Apple’s native app, which has been turned upside down in iOS 18, will no longer be an indispensable pillar on the iPhone if the user so deems it, given that it can also be deleted and any other app chosen as the default, with Google Photos being one of the strongest alternatives here and having been present on iOS for years.
- Phone: Unlike Android, Apple has historically not allowed iOS to have any app that allows you to make phone calls via voice coverage. It does allow calls via the Internet with options such as WhatsApp, Telegram and many others. However, now it will not only allow these types of applications to exist, but it will also allow them to be the default ones and the user to delete that native ‘Phone’ app.
- Default messages: While it’s true that we can currently ask Siri to send messages through apps other than ‘Messages’, there will be an even bigger change that will make it even easier to choose other apps as default for sending and receiving SMS and RCS, a standard that the company will soon adopt. As with ‘Phone’, until now it was not possible to configure other apps, while on Android this has been allowed for years, with Facebook Messenger being one of the messaging apps that already allowed it (others like WhatsApp or Telegram do not). Of course, ‘Messages’ can also be deleted.
To manage all this, Apple will add a default apps space in iOS settings. However, they do not venture to set dates for when these changes will come. It is expected to be in spring 2025, giving developers time until then to adapt their apps if they wish and Apple’s own engineers to also implement everything correctly in the system and avoid problems that may arise, such as deleting the App Store and then not having a way to reinstall it.
It should be noted that These measures will only apply to the European UnionApple is involved in legal battles with countries such as the United States and Japan, who are demanding that it implement identical measures, although for now it has no legal imposition that forces it to do so, as is the case in the old continent.