Apple Cops iOS 17.4 Sideloading Feature: It Won’t Work If You Leave the EU

Apple's iOS 17.4 is live, and the new version of iOS brings the sideloading feature, where Apple allows users to download apps outside of the App Store.

It should be noted that this feature is only available in the European Union and will be disabled when users leave the EU.

Apple said that the Apple ID and location must be set to the following countries/regions to use the sideloading feature:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Officials note that users must be in the EU for the device to work, and the device will detect the user's geolocation, with Apple saying that "servers don't grab the user's exact location."

If a user leaves the EU for a short period of time, the sideloading feature will still work, but after a certain period of time, the system will disable sideloading if it detects that the user is no longer geographically located in the EU.

When sideloading is disabled, users will not be able to update their apps in third-party app stores.