iPhones in India still have exactly one app store

Apple turned on alternative app stores for iPhones in the EU in March 2024, in Japan in December 2025 and in Brazil in June 2026. An iPhone in India still installs apps from one store, which is what every iPhone sold here has done.

None of those three openings was a product decision. Each one was ordered.

What got the other three opened

The EU got alternative marketplaces with iOS 17.4, and Apple said at the time that the program applied to EU users only. Japan’s arrived with iOS 26.2, to comply with its Mobile Software Competition Act. Brazil’s arrived with iOS 26.5 on June 18, under an agreement with its competition regulator, CADE. Apple settled that dispute in December, three years after it opened. That is a law in two places and a settlement in the third.

Apple builds the option country by country, and each time it came after an order. So the missing piece in India looks like an order, not engineering.

What India has instead

One open case. The Competition Commission of India opened its inquiry in 2021, and its investigators concluded in 2024 that Apple abused its position by forcing developers onto its in-app payment system. That is a payments case. I found no reporting that the CCI is asking for alternative stores, so a win for the regulator most likely means payment choice and a fine, not a second store. That is my read, not a finding.

It has not reached a decision either. In April the CCI recorded that Apple had not provided the financial data it asked for. Apple challenged India’s penalty law in the Delhi High Court, which let the CCI continue but barred a final order before July 15. As of mid-September, no order had appeared since. I found nothing newer in October. The number being fought over is the fine: up to $38 billion if it is calculated on global turnover. Apple has also told the CCI, as a mitigating factor, that it exported iPhones worth $51 billion from India over five years.

No law is waiting behind the case. The Digital Competition Bill, India’s draft EU-style rulebook, remains in abeyance and has not been introduced for debate.

Android went the other way. The CCI’s 2022 Google order said sideloading should not be restricted, but the appeals tribunal later let Google keep some curbs. Google says Android has always supported installing from outside Play, with a warning. That is why an Android phone here can do it and an iPhone cannot.

Apple’s argument, and where it stops

Apple’s own announcements for Japan and Brazil say the new options bring more malware, fraud and scams, and that its Notarization check is less thorough than App Review. Its 2021 paper said Android had 15 to 47 times more malware than the iPhone. Critics pointed out that Google’s own figure for Android devices with a harmful app was about 0.075 percent in one quarter.

The security trade-off is real, and plenty of people are better off in a closed store. But Apple makes the same argument in every country. In the three where a law or a settlement said otherwise, it shipped the option anyway, with warnings attached.

Open is not free

Under Apple’s terms for Japan and Brazil, the App Store commission is 10 percent for most developers and 21 percent for the rest. Apple’s own payments cost 5 percent more. A purchase made on a website the app links to costs 15 percent, or 10 for most developers. An app distributed outside the store pays 5 percent. Apple says developers selling digital goods will pay the same or less than before.

For comparison, the CCI cited a commission of up to 30 percent when it opened the India case. I could not confirm Apple’s current rate for every developer here.

That is the known issue. The only open case is about payments. A court is still deciding how any fine would be calculated. Nothing I found on the record would put a second store on an iPhone here.