iPhone gets torrent apps without jailbreak, but there’s a catch

The alternative iPhone store in the European Union has announced the arrival of some of the first apps developed by third parties. They are controversial because they include clients for downloading torrents.

AltStore PAL announced the launch of four applications in a Threads post this Wednesday (24): customers iTorrent This qBittorrentproximity based dating platform Leave Contacts and the long-awaited emulator of older versions of operating systems UTM SE — which was blocked in Apple’s latest release experiment but was also added to the traditional App Store.

Normally Apple does not allow torrent clients to be used on the App Store for them”can often be used to violate third party copyrights“. But these rules don’t apply to platforms that Apple doesn’t control, like AltStore, which has more freedom to provide tools without requiring the device to be unlocked.

Flexibility is related to legislation

Apple has always been against opening up space for third-party app stores, as is allowed on Android devices, but the company was forced to relax that rule following the passage of the Digital Markets Act (originally known as DMA).

Due to laws that have reduced the company’s control over its own ecosystem, the company has begun allowing the use of third-party app stores, as well as allowing the installation of apps from outside of its store. The measure went into effect in April of this year.

The set of standards only applies to the European Union, meaning users outside of those regions do not have access to alternative stores and cannot download apps based on their Apple ID region.

The company recently started allowing downloads of emulators from the App Store for devices like the iPhone and iPad that have nothing to do with DMA. The idea is to offer an alternative to retro gaming, but it requires compliance with “applicable laws” and doesn’t mention the existence of downloadable ROMs.