Apple pulls iPhone torrent app from AltStore PAL in Europe

When it comes to your personal data, Apple loves (correctly) to say "all of our user's data is encrypted, we can't access it even if we wanted to, so we cannot respond to this government request for data"

When it comes to application distribution, all of Apple's courage immediately disappears. They could say "We don't sign or control apps distributed through third party app stores, that's out of our hands, so we cannot respond to this government request". But, they chose not to. It was a choice, and Tim Cook chose an ugly, dishonorable, cowardly path.

Some more context from the linked github issue[0], the app was removed because of European sanctions against Russia, it seems that the app developer who now lives in Malta, has a Russian background.

What is interesting is that it's Apple enforcing these sanctions, rather than AltStore.

The amount of control that Apple exercises over these alternative app stores, really does seem to be against the spirit of the DMA.

[0]: https://github.com/XITRIX/iTorrent/issues/401#issuecomment-3...

If Apple can decide what you can publish on alternative stores, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having alternative stores?

I’ve never managed to get this torrent client working myself. I paid money for Altstore, but I’ve only ever found some emulator. I think I just don’t understand how it works.

Just now: I open Altstore, see an ad for the Epic Games Store, I tap it, the install button at the top sends you in a loop back to the same page, nothing happens. Oh, there’s another button (lower on the "page"): Install on iPhone or iPad, I tap that, then another button, Install. I tap it. New screen: Open the Epic Games Store on your home screen. Except that there is no Epic Games Store anywhere on my device.

And that’s basically all my experiences with Altstore.

The idea is really nice, indeed, which is why I paid for it immediately (just 1-2 euros or so I believe) but I never got anything out of it, ah well.

Not to play devil's advocate here and also IANAL but:

If (as as it is) Apple is still controlling apps via notarizarion/digitally signing apps of and recognizing developers, and if the app is developed for something that would land Apple in legal trouble (e.g. it makes it easy to freely and illegally download music and Apple also has legal contracts with record labels as they have Apple Music, and not only legal but it also affects Apple's own music revenue too) as the app has passed explicit notarization of Apple (in other words: Apple "knowlingly" allowed them and greenlighted them by notarizing the app), wouldn't it cause legal trouble for Apple?

For that, it's the logical behavior for a company like Apple to stop allowing the app.

Again, I'm not supporting it, but I can imagine where it's coming from and that makes sense from a business perspective as torrenting on mobile has almost no legal use cases. We all know you have not installed it to download your favorite Linux distro to your iPhone.

This is a fine example of "chit bhi meri, pat bhi meri" which in Hindi translates to "heads I win, tails I win".

Apple did not remove it, it revoked notarization. The title is misleading.

Google can and will do exactly the same thing for Android.

[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45040064

Violate sanctions or violate DMA?

What do

This headline is misleading as it seems the issue is with the way countries are sanctioning Russian developers (assuming based off the Russian name) as opposed to being related to torrents.

Is there no way to torrent on iOS? If so that is utterly pathetic.