It's not a bug! Apple is compelled to remove Home Screen web apps from iOS in the EU due to the DMA

It’s not a bug! Apple is compelled to remove Home Screen web apps from iOS in the EU due to the DMA،

What many thought was a bug turned out to be a voluntary decision by Apple, as it will not allow web apps on the iOS home screen in the European Union. On his Developer Support Page (via 9to5Mac), Apple notes that the EU's Digital Market Act (DMA) requires it to allow users to select a browser that does not use Apple's WebKit browser engine for the first time. For this reason, Apple said it had to remove web apps from the home screen.

Apple says that the Home screen web apps on iOS are built on WebKit and that they “align with the privacy and security model of native apps on iOS.” This is important and Apple continues: “This integration means that Home screen web apps are managed to align with the security and privacy model of native apps on iOS, including storage isolation and applying system prompts to access privacy-impacting features on a computer. per site.”

However, without this isolation and enforcement, malicious web applications could read data from other web applications and even use their permissions to access the user's camera and microphone without their consent. Browsers can also install web applications without the user's consent or knowledge.

Apple's new support page explains how iOS will allow the use of alternative browser engines in the EU

Apple adds: “Addressing the complex security and privacy issues associated with web applications using alternative browser engines would require creating an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was impractical to be undertaken given the other requirements of the DMA and the very low user adoption of home screen web applications. And so, to comply with DMA requirements, we had to remove web app functionality from the home screen in the EU.

Apple adds: “EU users will be able to continue to access websites directly from their home screen via bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality. » The tech giant was also forced to remove support for home screen web apps on Safari in the EU as the DMA requires equality for all browsers. Since third-party browsers can't have web apps on the home screen, neither can Safari.

The absence of home screen web apps in the EU was first noticed with the release of iOS 17.4 beta 2. The changes will be applied once to all iOS users in the 27 member states of the EU. iOS 17.4 is released the first week of March.