One of the first alternative app stores in the EU is shutting down

One of many extra distinguished various app shops that emerged within the EU on account of the area’s Digital Markets Act is shutting down. The shop, Setapp Mobile, from the Ukrainian-based developer MacPaw, first launched in September 2024, providing dozens of apps throughout classes like productiveness, finance, video, photograph, creativity, and extra.

Its mannequin provided customers entry to all of Setapp’s cell apps by way of a $9.99 month-to-month subscription, supplied the consumer’s Apple ID was related to an EU member state.

Now, the corporate says all purposes shall be faraway from Setapp Cell by the top of the sundown date, February 16, 2026. Functions which might be accessible on Setapp Desktop is not going to be affected, the corporate advised TechCrunch.

The information of the shutdown, introduced on Setapp’s support site, was first noticed by MacRumors.

MacPaw acknowledged that “still-evolving and sophisticated enterprise phrases that don’t match Setapp’s present enterprise mannequin” are the explanation for its determination.

The “advanced enterprise phrases” being referenced listed here are Apple’s difficult set of charges for apps working underneath its new business terms in the EU, which embrace a controversial Core Technology Fee that prices builders €0.50 for every first annual set up over a million prior to now 12 months.

The tech big revised its price construction final yr to keep away from additional penalties for noncompliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), however as an alternative of simplifying the charges, it made them more complex.

One results of these fixed modifications is that builders can’t correctly plan the way to develop and monetize their enterprise. It additionally suggests the charges, as they stand, don’t make operating another app retailer within the EU a viable possibility.

In an announcement shared with TechCrunch, Setapp mentioned it discovered its enterprise mannequin was not “viable,” because the industrial circumstances continued to vary. The assertion reads:

“Setapp Cell was a daring, breakthrough challenge that aimed to supply EU iOS customers with entry to various app marketplaces – creating a brand new app ecosystem the place each builders and customers might thrive. We’re happy with what now we have completed with it over the previous two years and nonetheless consider passionately on this imaginative and prescient. Because of still-evolving industrial circumstances, now we have decided that it’s not viable to proceed improvement or help for Setapp Cell inside Setapp’s present enterprise mannequin. Whereas we’re disillusioned to discontinue Setapp Cell and let down our consumer base and developer neighborhood within the EU, we’re wanting ahead to pursuing the event of different improvements.”

There are still other alternative app stores operating in the EU, together with, most notably, the Epic Games Store from the maker of Fortnite, and the open source AltStore.