Apple is left with no choice but to bow down to the EU’s stringent regulations as outlined in the Digital Markets Act.
This antitrust legislation is altering the way the company’s App Store works in the region and therefore users in various countries in this part of the world can brace themselves for several shocking changes.
This includes getting rid of the Apple App Store, Safari, and any other built-in iOS apps that they no longer wish to keep.
The news would be a part of the latest iOS 18.2 beta that enables EU users to delete this App Store amongst many other native features. The list is long but can include Music, Notes, Calculator, and Calendar. It’s getting an expansion with the company confirming that more apps are getting added after the beta was rolled out to developers yesterday.
The latest series of changes is designed to be in better compliance with articles from the DMA that force tech giants to simplify the whole ordeal. This way, users can uninstall any apps which they want. We already saw Apple confirm in August this year how this option would soon arrive as a part of any future update on iOS.
In this region, users can download alternative App Marketplaces that go about replacing this App Store. There’s also a button that enables you to restore any app that was deleted in the past so you don’t have to go searching for it again.
There are also several changes arriving for users in other parts of the world. For instance, a new menu will make it simpler to set default apps. Other options to set default for emails, calls, password manager, keyboard, and messages will be available too.
Additionally, iOS 18.2 will include exciting features like Genmoji, ChatGPT, Playground, and Visual Search for all the new iPhone 16 phones.
For the time being, we can confirm that the latest beta is only for phones compatible with Apple Intelligence. Therefore, iPhones 15 Pro or later variants and any M1 iPads and those after them. The update will be available for other phones too. We know how the company did suggest in the past that this would be up for grabs in December this year.
Image: germanium074 / Threads
