Their commission is for their intellectual property (SDK, patents, etc). Payment processing was just another service internalized in their commission to facilitate collecting it.
To bypass their commission you'd have to make a web app and not a native iOS app, which is something developers have been able to do since the beginning of the iPhone.
With sideloading there's nothing preventing a developer to write a native app, and provide an in-app input for entering credit card number and handle payments without Apple involved at all.
Definitely less convenient and more risky for sure, but technically no problem at all.
It's not that the apps wouldn't use iOS APIs, it's that the developers wouldn't use Apple tools to develop them.
Presumably every iOS developer has an iDevice to test and debug on. The right to use the iOS APIs on-device is inherent in having legal and physical posession of it.
You still can’t get anything to run without Apple’s signature. And there is no way to get that without a dev account which requires agreeing to their terms.
I agree fully about the user side. I wonder if that’s true about the developer story. I can see a couple of ways that could go depending on how various terms are defined.
I’m willing to bet Apple will go with the most charitable (to them) interpretation they think might hold water and try to defend it in court.
I think the law's Article 13 is worthy of quoting:
> 3. The gatekeeper shall ensure that the obligations of Articles 5, 6 and 7 are fully and effectively complied with.
> 4. The gatekeeper shall not engage in any behaviour that undermines effective compliance with the obligations of Articles 5, 6 and 7 regardless of whether that behaviour is of a contractual, commercial or technical nature, or of any other nature, or consists in the use of behavioural techniques or interface design.
> 6. The gatekeeper shall not degrade the conditions or quality of any of the core platform services provided to business users or end users who avail themselves of the rights or choices laid down in Articles 5, 6 and 7, or make the exercise of those rights or choices unduly difficult, including by offering choices to the end-user in a non-neutral manner, or by subverting end users’ or business users' autonomy, decision-making, or free choice via the structure, design, function or manner of operation of a user interface or a part thereof.
> 7. Where the gatekeeper circumvents or attempts to circumvent any of the obligations in Article 5, 6, or 7 in a manner described in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of this Article, the Commission may open proceedings pursuant to Article 20 and adopt an implementing act referred to in Article 8(2) in order to specify the measures that the gatekeeper is to implement.
To bypass their commission you'd have to make a web app and not a native iOS app, which is something developers have been able to do since the beginning of the iPhone.