At the moment, the State Duma of the Russian Federation is undergoing its second reading of a bill that prohibits platform owners from restricting the installation of RuStore on devices.
According to the law, when selling and using gadgets there should be no restrictions on access to Russian applications and the “unified application store.” This obviously means RuStore. There should also be no restrictions on installing applications from third-party sources.
Recently, State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin said that Apple is interested in the appearance of RuStore on its gadgets:
I would like to separately emphasize that there can be no talk of any ban on the sale of iPhones in Russia. I do not rule out that a separate provision will provide for certain penalties for discrimination against application developers and their users, but I consider any prohibitions excessive. Moreover, according to my information, Apple itself is interested in the appearance of RuStore on its gadgets.
— Anton Gorelkin
How likely is it Is this a development from a technical and legal point of view? And what might this look like for Russian Apple users in the end? We will try to answer these two questions based on the information available.
In the article we further consider the simplest and least labor-intensive options for the development of events for everyone, including Apple.
Under what conditions did Apple allow third-party stores in Europe?
Third party store AltStore Pal for iOS.
At the moment, the conditions for creating a third-party application store for iPhone in the European Union are as follows:
Any App Store app developer in good standing for two or more consecutive years with an app that is installed more than 1 million times annually on iPhones in the European Union can create an app store.
Initially, to create a store, Apple required developers to have €1 million in their account.(but this requirement has now been removed.)
– Apple has eased the conditions for creating third-party app stores after complaints from developers, iPhones.ru
Apps that are hosted in these “alternative” stores cannot be simultaneously available on the App Store in the same region where the store is available. That is, developers who decide to distribute programs and games in this way do not have the right to publish the same application in the App Store. And users Apple account region must download such an application and update it exclusively from an “alternative” store.
We will not consider the remaining conditions and features of the process within the framework of the article, since they do not matter in the context.
If we try the above on the potential of the emergence of a RuStore store for Russian iPhone users, then We don’t see any technical limitations. RuStore is managed by the company VKand VK has at least one application with “a good reputation for two or more years in a row,” not to mention the 1 million installations bar. Everyone knows him.
What a RuStore “preinstallation” might look like on an iPhone
During the initial setup of iPhone, iPad and Mac, this window is seen by all users of Apple equipment with Russian Apple accounts from April 2021.
First, Apple must allow the installation of third-party stores for Russian Apple Accounts. You can make such a change and affect all devices in the country by unilaterally changing the settings on the side of the company’s servers and the terms of use of Apple services. Whether the company will take this step, taking into account the global situation, is a question beyond our competence, but for the sake of theory, we will now answer in the affirmative and move on.
If you follow the path of least resistance, then the easiest way to “pre-install” RuStore would be to use an already existing mechanism in iOS. All iPhone, iPad and Mac owners in Russia have been personally familiar with it since April 1, 2021:
This is what pre-installation of Russian applications on iPhone looks like
Having fulfilled the norm of the 2021 bill on the mandatory pre-installation of Russian software on smartphones, Apple added a mandatory window with a list of Russian applications at the initial setup stage of all its operating systems. It is shown to all users without exception with Russian Apple accounts (formerly Apple ID).
Option to install the RuStore store in the list of Russian applications will allow Apple to simultaneously comply with both past and future laws. Whether the installation of RuStore will be mandatory in this case, or whether it will be left as an option requiring the motivated consent of the user is an open and secondary question.
An example of a third-party store installation window in iOS.
A slightly more labor-intensive, but also suitable option seems to be a separate window at the initial setup stagealmost identical to the one currently shown to users in the European Union. In this case, the iPhone will separately offer to install RuStore, and then separately offer to install Russian applications from the App Store.
The least likely option, taking into account Apple’s position, is that RuStore will be truly pre-installed on the iPhone, that is, it will become built into iOS “out of the box.” Obviously, the company will never install it on every iPhone in the world. At least two of the largest sales markets for all of the company’s equipment will oppose this: the USA and Europe.
Pre-installing RuStore exclusively on iPhones sold in Russia is now also problematic. Firstly, sales of Apple equipment in Russia have officially “stopped”, and their gadgets are imported through parallel imports (other countries) or in a “gray” way. It is not clear how the company will separate at the production stage the iPhone, where it is necessary to “upload” the version of iOS with RuStore, from iPhones, where it is not.
Secondly, there is no practice of pre-installing on the iPhone “from the factory” those applications, much less stores, that were not developed by Apple itself. Unlike Android smartphone manufacturers, Apple purposefully rejects this approach and does not profess it in any country, including China, for which Cupertino has always made significant concessions. It would be strange if the company suddenly took such a step exclusively for the Russian market.
As a result we have two realistic options RuStore “presets” for Russian iPhone users and one of the realms of science fiction.
It is important to note that along with RuStore, Russian users will have the opportunity to install other application stores – that is, the ability to install these applications from sources outside the App Store.
Should we wait for RuStore to appear on iPhone?
Just wait? Not sure. But hope and try to bring this moment closer? It is possible, and even necessary. And not only because of RuStore specifically.
After all, if RuStore appears among Russian iPhone users, we will also have access to the ability to install applications from any stores and sources in general. Yes, having two app stores instead of one to update different apps is not very convenient. But no one in the European Union is complaining about this yet. And we shouldn’t either: Android owners in Russia do exactly the same thing with the same RuStore and clearly don’t suffer.
Events in recent years, as well as the ongoing pressure from authorities in other countries on Apple, have demonstrated to even the most dedicated iPhone fans the benefit and importance of being able to install applications from third-party sources. Just look at the rise of emulators this year or the return of Epic Games to iOS. From the user’s perspective, independent and free choice of software sources is always a plus, not a minus.
Despite many years of unequivocal rejection of the idea by Apple, there is not a single confirmation of its negative impact on the company’s financial flows. Third-party stores are already operating in Europe; the American company did not collapse because of this. And those who installed these stores did not escape from the App Store. So there are all the prerequisites for a positive development of the situation.
We’ll keep an eye on it, keep you posted and hope for the best. Regardless of what happens in the future, the ability to conveniently install applications from any third-party source, including RuStore, is very good for all of us.
Source: www.iphones.ru
