iOS 17.4 introduced a feature for downloading applications not from the App Store for EU countries. But how do you know if you can use it?
Apple only allows apps to be installed from approved stores. The company calls them App Marketplaces.
The operating system itself will determine whether you can download applications from other stores, bypassing the App Store. There are several factors for this:
• Apple ID billing address
• User’s current location (Apple only checks the country, not the exact location for privacy reasons)
• Current region set in iOS settings
• Device class (iPhone, iPad, etc.)
The system also additionally checks whether the device comes from China. Why this is so is unknown.
In the Settings -> General -> About this device menu, there is now also a line that will show the country of origin of your iPhone or iPad.
The list of countries where the ability to download apps from other stores is enabled comes from Apple’s server, which means the company can update it at any time. Currently it includes: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal , Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
If more countries end up adopting antitrust laws similar to the DMA, Apple could implement the same changes in those regions without having to release another iOS update.
Finally, the MDM API has arrived. It has basic controls for downloading, installing and even updating applications from external sources. It can also check whether an app is compatible with a specific device or version of iOS, something the App Store already does.
The iOS 17.4 beta adds a “MarketplaceKitBridge” component to this API so that both APIs can share what is needed to download apps outside of the App Store. (9to5)
Boot Camp Assistant has long been the companion of Mac users who needed to dual-boot their MacBook Pros and other Mac devices with Windows. It offers a way to run Windows on Mac so they can enjoy the best of Mac apps as well as traditional Windows apps. Another major feature of Boot Camp is to create Windows 10 bootable USB from ISO image.
Boot Camp Assistant has been around for a long time but, lately, it is becoming increasingly unreliable. It doesn’t always work the way it should and it tends to throw out some very basic errors when trying to dual-boot Windows on Mac. Let’s look at some of the common and more recent issues with Boot Camp and then look at a great alternative to create bootable media for Windows on Mac.
Boot Camp Issues and Errors
One of the most common problems in Boot Camp is that it hasn’t worked with many of the latest versions of Windows 10. There are issues with file systems, partitioning, and even with the source ISO file. Below is an example of disk space error when using Boot Camp app on a MacBook Pro.
There are also known problems with media not being recognized or corrupt media not being identified as such. At times, if Time Machine has automatic backups enabled, it causes partitioning errors.
A new problem with Boot Camp is that it is not supported on the latest MacBooks with the M1 chip. The Intel version still supports it but Microsoft has made it clear that Windows 10 on ARM is only available for OEMs, and Apple doesn’t qualify as an OEM as far as Microsoft is concerned. Unfortunately, that’s where it stands for the moment.
Thankfully, you can still use the virtualization route to run Windows on a Mac laptop running on M1 chip. For this, you will need to use Parallels or a similar VM solution, but you will also need a utility to create bootable Windows media that can be loaded to the virtual machine on your Mac. The next section showcases a versatile tool you can use for this purpose.
UUByte ISO Editor for Mac – The Best Boot Camp Alternative
This flexible tool gives you everything you need to manage ISO files on the macOS platform, including the ability to create bootable Windows 10 USB drives. You can also create disk images from files and folders, extract from ISO, and edit ISO files to recreate them with new content. Despite having a robust feature-set, it’s very inexpensive. As such, it is an essential tool to install on your Mac if you want to create bootable ISO media for Windows 10 or any other version.
The process is very straightforward and will only take a few minutes. First, head over to UUByte.com . Then download and install Mac version of UUByte ISO editor on your Mac computer. Separately, download the ISO file for the preferred version of Windows 10 from the official Microsoft website. Insert a blank USB drive (it will be automatically formatted so backup any data in case it’s not blank) and launch the UUByte app. You are now ready to create the bootable USB installer for Windows 10.
Inside the ISO editor, select the Burn option and then choose your ISO file and the USB drive in the corresponding sections. You don’t need to worry about the file system because it will default to the correct type after detecting your ISO file. Simply click Burn and wait for your installer to be created.
Once you’ve created the Windows 10 USB installer drive, you can use it as the source to install Windows 10 on another PC or Mac.
Conclusion
Boot Camp Assistant will still work on new Intel-based MacBook computers, but as we saw, it’s not as reliable as it used to be. The advantage is that it will get the right Windows drivers required for Windows 10 to run on Mac, but that’s about the only advantage. Using a more robust tool like UUByte ISO Editor for Mac gives you the freedom to customize your ISO if you need to. Additionally, it’s a lightweight program that doesn’t hog up system resources when running any of its processes. It’s also very simple to use, which is great if you don’t have much experience working with ISO files on a Mac. With Boot Camp Assistant, you could take an hour to make a bootable USB. But with UUByte ISO Editor, it is only a matter of minutes!
The new M1 chip is a fantastic leap forward by Apple, and users have testified to its superiority over Intel hardware in terms of both speed and performance. However, a lot of users tend to buy Macs so they can run both Windows and macOS on the same computer and still get the same benefits of Mac hardware, such as retina display and so on. Unfortunately, these users will either have to opt for the Intel version or use virtualization to run Windows on Mac. Either way, UUByte ISO Editor offers a comprehensive solution to all your ISO needs on Mac as well as Windows.
