Apple, which is facing antitrust investigations by many governments because of its proprietary app, may provide users with suggestions for third-party apps to quell the doubts of governments.
Yesterday Apple officially released the next generation of macOS 11 Big Sur, and also released the first developer Beta version of iOS 14.3. 9to5mac found in this version of the program code that iOS 14.3 will add a menu that will appear during the new iPhone setup process and provide users with suggestions for third-party apps on the App Store. This program code reads "In order to comply with the regulatory requirements of a specific region, please check the App available for download", showing that this menu is not launched globally, but only available in specific markets.
However, the iOS 14.3 beta can only be downloaded from the "Settings" App, and it depends on whether Apple has deployed it to the developer's area.
As for which regions will have this menu is unknown, but the media inferred that it may first appear in the European Union. Spotify sued the European Union last year against Apple’s App Store for unfair treatment of competitors, such as preferential search and ranking of its own services, Apple Music’s mandatory 30% profit sharing, and prohibiting developers from contacting users. Other complaints include Kaspersky and Rakuten's e-book business Kobo. Judging from the experience of the European Union, which imposed a heavy fine of 4.3 billion euros on Google due to the mandatory loading of its own search engine on Google Android, Apple may also face the same punishment.
Other countries including Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Britain, Australia, and Russia have also announced investigations into Apple. The United States has even conducted monopoly investigations on four giants including Apple this year. In the iOS 14 released in September, Apple has allowed users to change the default values of the browser and email programs on the iPhone to third-party services. For example, the Chrome browser can be the default instead of Safari, or Outlook can replace Apple Mail.
