How will Apple help IT manage third-party app stores?

At this year’s Worldwide Developer Confernce (WWDC), Apple may well confirm a dramatic change to how it handles app purchasing on iPhones by permitting users to download apps from third-party stores, a move that could have both positive and negative repercussions for enterprise users.

The walled garden creaks open slightly

The news in brief: Apple has been facing tough regulatory scrutiny for some time, with governments seeming to conclude that maintaining an App Store-only distribution model has become anti-competitive.

To settle this, Bloomberg claims Apple will introduce app sideloading in iOS 17, bringing the company into compliance with regulators and laws including the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. “Apple is working to overhaul the software to open up the iPhone to sideloading to comply with new European regulations by next year,” wrote Bloomberg.

The upshot of this is that iPhone users will be given the opportunity to install apps sourced from sources other than the App Store for the first time.

Who gets rich?

This could be a benefit to some enterprise users, who might find it easier to manage and distribute apps made for internal use. Some businesses could benefit from being able to offer software directly to iPhone users, though it’s unclear the extent to which users will want to abandon the relative safety of Apple’s curated stores.

Developers may also be able to engage in more extensive software beta testing than under the current TestFlight system.

While a great deal of the reporting concerning Apple’s App Store commission focuses on the 30% surcharge the most successful developers pay, it’s doubtful smaller makers will get much out of the move, given they generally pay a 15% fee to Apple.

For most smaller developers, the cost and hassle of ensuring security protection, payments processing, and customer returns through a truly independent store front will negate any additional revenue. That means the most likely outcome of Apple’s move will be a market of competing third-party stores struggling to make cents on the dime, and Apple’s own store at which customers will continue to enjoy a highly secure, curated experience.

To what extent will smaller app stores be able to commit the time and resources it takes to ensure a highly secure app economy? And if they fail, what will they have to lose?

Big questions for IT

And that’s the big question around Apple’s move — one that will keep IT up at night. To what extent will opening up to third-party storefronts dent the company’s security models?

Not only this, but also:

• Will Apple have a system to maintain security on managed devices?
• Will Apple make the ability to download apps from independent stores an opt-in feature?
• Will it be possible to manage fleets of devices so that they cannot use external stores?

I very much hope that Apple will create an API developers of device management software can use to allow IT to disable access to third-party app stores, or at least to limit such access to only those that have passed security policy review.

Why would IT want to do this? Apple has pretty much already given us this answer when it tried to explain the risks of downloading software from third-party sources. It should be clear — because evidence from platforms that permit it shows — that uncurated software can and does become a conduit for malware, bugs, and privacy erosion.

It is also likely that some developers could attempt to force consumers to use third-party stores with software exclusives, which may further weaken Apple’s prized platform security.

Living in the sandbox

With this in mind, enterprises likely hope Apple puts some form of sandboxing in place around apps acquired from outside the company’s walled garden. And it seems certain that in the event those apps aren’t sandboxed they’ll want — and possibly insist — that they get the capacity to disable third-party app installs on managed devices to help secure endpoints used to access critical enterprise infrastructure.

We’ll wait and see how Apple intends to manage this transition, but while regulators may have been sold on the fantasy that what every iPhone user really dreams of is the ability to visit third-party stores to download the latest ad-tracking solution in games form, not every Apple user really wants this.

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