MacPaw, a Ukraine-based Mac and iOS app developer, today announced that it is releasing an alternative mobile app store, Setapp, in accordance with the EU's new Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations. The company has been testing the app store in closed beta with a select group of users for several months. MacPaw is now making Setapp Mobile available to all users to try out in open beta.
The store has over 50 productivity, finance, video, photo, and creativity apps from MacPaw's own products and other developers, including CleanMyPhone, ClearVPN, Riveo video editor, Awesome Habits tracker, Time Master, BusyCal, Free your music, MonAI, Elk currency converter, Ochi focus manager, Bookshelf: Reading Tacker, AdLock, and more.
While SetApp Mobile is technically a marketplace, users can get all of the apps through a $9.99/month subscription with a seven-day trial period. Users must be using an Apple ID associated with an EU member state and running iOS 17.4 or later on their devices.
MacPaw was one of the first companies to accept Apple's controversial DMA agreement to distribute apps through mediums other than the App Store, and has chosen to release this early version as an open beta because the company is still figuring out its business model and user experience.
Image credit: MacPaw
“We see room for improvement in terms of user experience, number of applications and categories offered. We saw a demand for an alternative app store, so we decided to launch it and adjust our business model based on user feedback,” Yaroslav Stepanenko, MacPaw's marketing director, told TechCrunch over the phone.
“You also need to balance the number of applications with the number of users. You can't have a few apps and a lot of users, and vice versa.”
Stepanenko added that the store won't have hundreds of apps to avoid hindering discovery for participating developers.
MacPaw primarily offers apps for Macs through several subscription levels, and users can download iOS apps for those services, but with the Setapp mobile marketplace the company believes it can reach millions of iPhone users in the EU.
“We have a very good track record in app distribution in the desktop space, now we need to replicate that experience and apply it to the iOS space in the EU,” Stepanenko said.
The most controversial aspect of Apple's implementation of the DMA is the Core Technology Fee (CTF): developers who distribute apps through alternative app marketplaces will have to pay €0.50 for each install in the first year after hitting the 1 million install cap. Regulators are already looking into Apple's terms and conditions to see if they comply with the DMA.
MacPaw said it did not predict whether the company would have to pay these fees to distribute its apps in various ways.
Besides MacPaw, other stores are trying to enter the EU market: Aptoide, a long-standing Android third-party store, launched its games store in June, as well as AltStore PAL, which offers the game emulator Delta and other Patreon-backed apps.
While there may be some initial interest among users who are eager to try out these new stores and different services, the main challenge for these third-party app stores is to market themselves to different categories of users and convince them to stay with them in the long term.