Developers say Apple is denying or delaying notarization of iOS apps, including emulators, for alternative app stores in EU, possibly in violation of DMA rules
https://litchie.com/... #retrogaming @eduo@mastodon.social : @atpfm I noticed you discussed UTM being rejected not only from the App Store but from all “marketplaces” (which theoretically was not supposed to happen). — Now iDOS has been rejected with the same reasoning, but the added insult is that iDOS can only emulate really old DOS and, especially, that it has been in the App Store *twice* before. … Craig Grannell / @craiggrannell@mastodon.social : This also makes me increasingly think that the only reason Apple opened this up was the screw with AltStore. Delta was the headline act. But now people have some emulators, they'll stop moaning. Although I do now wonder 1) what happens to MAME for iOS, 2) what happens to FBA … Stephen Darlington / @sdarlington@mas.to : @jsnell Is this Apple buying time or do they genuinely think they'll get away with it? And if they're just buying time... what for? More apps that people want to buy and use on Apple platforms feels like a good thing! @jsnell@zeppelin.flights : Apple has apparently imported its arbitrary App Store approval ethos to iOS Notarization, using it as a way to approve or reject out-of-store apps. If the EC is okay with this, the DMA is just a charade. — https://zeppelin.flights/... X: @netopiaeu : This is a similar approach to that which Google took towards publishers on the Google Adsense network: - Goog forced publishers to hand over data, bending the spirit and aim of GDPR. What Apple is doing is a similar “interpretation.” @mysk_co : What a huge mess! Now the alternative marketplace app itself crashes on launch because MarketplaceKit/iOS cannot renew its license. The current situation: some apps are running, some apps are crashing, and some are grayed out and can't be opened, deleted or re-installed. How [video] @mysk_co : @Techmeme @jsnell And when Apple approves the apps, they start crashing all of a sudden: Andru Edwards / @andruedwards : Apple refused to notarize UTM emulator app for global & EU third-party stores, which looks to directly contradict the DMA's rules. This is gonna get interesting. https://sixcolors.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : If you're in the EU and support the rights of users to install apps from sources of their choosing, please help Mysk investigate and comment in their thread below: Ian Brown / @1br0wn : We should probably thank #Apple for so aggressively trying to find all the possible ways it can circumvent the #DMA, in such an obvious manner @EU_Competition feels compelled to take enforcement action almost immediately ✊🏻 rather than have cosy “dialogues” with €tn-firms first Simonetta Vezzoso / @wavesblog : “ If Apple can still reject or approve apps as it sees fit, what's the point of the DMA in the first place?” - it can't.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s DMA response paired alternative-store support with a per-install Core Technology Fee, a structure that critics had already cast as an onerous form of DMA compliance. The reported notarization problems matter because Apple’s approval layer remains necessary even when distribution moves outside the App Store.
The complaints also sit uneasily beside Apple’s earlier decision to permit game emulators globally. They test whether an alternative store can offer meaningfully different catalog access if the platform owner can still reject an app before that store reaches users.
First-order effects
- Developers behind UTM, iDOS and affected marketplace apps face delayed or denied EU distribution, while users may encounter apps that crash, are unavailable, or cannot be reinstalled when marketplace licensing fails.
- Apple’s notarization process becomes the immediate point of dispute: alternative stores may be permitted in principle, but their catalogs depend on Apple clearing individual apps.
Second-order effects
- Alternative-store operators and developers have less certainty in launch planning and catalog commitments, weakening their ability to differentiate from the App Store—especially for categories Apple has recently allowed there.
- The reports give EU authorities a concrete operational question alongside scrutiny of Apple’s rules and fees: whether notarization is being applied as a safety review or as a constraint on third-party distribution.
Third-order effects
- If recurring approval bottlenecks prevent viable alternative stores, DMA compliance may shift from opening a formal channel to proving that the channel is practically usable; that would make enforcement focus more on process and outcomes than on policy announcements.
- The episode illustrates contestable gatekeeping: regulation can reduce a platform’s distribution exclusivity without removing its leverage over the technical and review systems that determine whether competitors can operate.
The trend: EU mobile-platform regulation is moving from requiring alternative distribution on paper toward testing whether gatekeepers’ remaining control points allow that distribution to compete in practice.