Apple vs Trump, Russia, and China: Will sideloading save Apple?

Apple’s App Store dominance is under fire like never before, thanks to its own desire for control of its platform, antitrust regulation at home and abroad and the vagaries of an American leader who has signed executive orders faster than any president in history.

Two things in particular are major challenges:

1) Donald Trump’s recent executive order on TikTok owner ByteDance and WeChat owner Tencent

2) Russia’s new Federal Antimonopoly Service ruling against Apple

Both hit at the heart of one of Apple’s current major competitive advantages: the company’s sole control of the App Store. Each does it in an entirely different way. And Apple can only escape the consequences of these moves by opening up the iPhone to “sideloading” apps.

Or, in other words, smashing the single biggest law of the App Store.