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Switch HTML5 iOS Monetary Apps to Native before March 2020
Apple has given a deadline to developers whose iOS apps handle real cash and uses HTML5 containers or wrappers, to switch to full native deployment.
This further means that, iOS apps developed with HTML5 and intended for monetary services will no longer be approved on the App store, except it is built in Apple’s native iOS code. Current or affected apps now have till March 3rd, 2020 and no longer September 3rd, 2019 to become compliant with the new policies, or risk being ejected from the App Store.
The new policies were first announced on June 3rd which states:
“HTML5 games distributed in apps may not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations, and may not support digital commerce. This functionality is only appropriate for code that’s embedded in the binary and can be reviewed by Apple.”
While this is going to hit charities, it is already having a larger impact on the online gaming industry, as “real money gaming” operators that offer online poker, casino and sports betting are now prohibited from using HTML5 wrappers for their apps deployment.
Using HTML5 for mobile apps development is the easiest and least expensive way to achieve a cross-platform solution. All that is needed after first development is to compile the HTML5 codes in a wrapper for different operating system instead of developing for each OS. HTML5 became more powerful with the addition of modern APIs which include file system management, OS notifications, offline support, geolocation and lots more.
“I would say, 95% of all sportsbook products are wrapped, containerized apps and there are very few exceptions to that,” said Stuart Godfree, MD of software developer firm Mkodo.
“If you look at the live casino products, that’s huge because it’s all real-time video deployed through HTML pages, so they are going to have to significantly change the architecture if they want these products to still go into apps. I would think that is a 9-to-12-month job.”
While Apple wants to curate such apps more carefully with the new policies, Google’s App Store for Android devices, Google Play, does not even permit real money gambling apps. However, Android devices allow for apps to be installed out-of-store through direct download from vendors but Apple devices does not permit out-of-store installations.
