Media reported about Apple's ban for the Russian Federation to develop corporate applications

The US corporation Apple has restricted the access of Russian developers to tools for creating corporate business applications. This was reported by RBC on February 24.

It is reported that the Russians faced restrictions on February 12. In particular, the existence of such a ban confirmed the head of iOS-development in the company red_mad_robot Alexander Tuzovsky. He said that before that the organization sent letters to companies using Enterprise certificates about the termination of their certificates in the middle of this month. With the help of Enterprise developers signed their applications and could further distribute them.

However, after February 12, it became impossible to use this technology, and all associated with it given were removed, said the head of Touch Instinct Dmitry Kostin.

"After the start of the special military operation, Apple and many other foreign companies suspended their activities or completely withdrew from the Russian market. In particular, Apple earlier, in March 2022, stopped supporting Russian cards of the payment systems Mastercard and Visa, and then "Mir" in the Apple Pay service, removed applications of sub-sanctioned banks and companies from the App Store", - recalled in RBC.

The Enterprise program was most popular in large companies, for which it was important to distribute corporate applications among employees without releasing them in the official digital store Apple AppStore. Solutions based on these certificates were used in many products, such as corporate chatbots, accounting systems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and internal business tools. The technology has also been used to solve logistics issues.

"Apple's blocking and deletion of developer accounts has had a serious impact on the mobile app market. Companies are forced to rethink their strategies, look for workarounds and invest in alternative platforms. Many switched to PWA (Progressive Web Apps, a technology that visually and functionally transforms the site into an application) and adaptation of web services for mobile devices, but such solutions have a number of limitations and can not fully replace native mobile applications," - the edition quotes the words of the technical director of KODE Nikolai Nikolenko.

It is noted that there are currently no alternatives to Enterprise with the same functionality on the market. Nevertheless, an anonymous interlocutor from a Russian IT company told RBC that now as an alternative to the technology closed to Russians may become "direct installation of programs on the device of employees."

Paywall: about 15% of Russian apps may disappear from Google Play

What is the reason and what alternative paths are available to domestic developers

On February 5, a Moscow court brought Apple Distribution International LTD to administrative responsibility and fined it 3.6 million rubles. This is due to ignoring by the owner of the site or other information resource of the obligation to remove information or Internet page, if the removal is provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation. In July 2022 it was reported that the service recognized Apple violated antimonopoly legislation. The company imposed on Russian iOS app developers the need to use its payment tool. According to the FAS, the App Store rules prohibited iOS app developers from informing customers inside the app about the possibility of paying for purchases outside the App Store, as well as using alternative payment methods.