For the longest time, Apple has kept its iOS ecosystem a highly guarded walled garden. Any app that you want to install onto your iPhone, or even the iPad that now runs the iPadOS variant, needs to come from the App Store. But the fruit company may finally be making some keys to open the gates to said garden, following the introduction of European Union regulation. And it looks like the company will finally start doing it with the coming of iOS 17.
Bloomberg mentions in its WWDC report that iOS 17 will be causing quite the stir once the announcement is made. This is because, as the report notes, that “Apple is working to overhaul the software to open up the iPhone to sideloading”. Though as mentioned earlier, this is not something that the company did out of the goodness of its own heart. It’s much the same story as why the company is finally doing USB-C for the iPhones.
That being said, the report was unclear whether iOS 17 itself will be the version of the mobile operating system to actually start allowing the sideloading of apps. It is entirely possible that it will be the first version of the mobile OS with which Apple just starts on making sideloading an official thing, with the actual ability for users to do so coming later down the line.
The Bloomberg report also mentions that Apple will also be making announcements regarding iPadOS 17, macOS 14 and an update to watchOS10 during WWDC. It remains to be seen if sideloading will also be a thing for the OS for the company’s tablets. After all it was relatively recently when it was split from iOS, and despite this, the two are still very similar. On the same note, it’s also not clear if this is something that the iPhone maker will be addressing this during its WWDC presentation.
(Source: Bloomberg)
