After a gruesome year of trying to transition from HTML-5 to iOS native platforms, the gambling game developers have been given some relief after Apple announced it was extending its deadline to March 3rd, 2020.

The demand for changing from HMTL-5 to iOS native platforms was made in June 2019. Some may think that this is more than enough time to transition to a new platform for developers but consider the hundreds of released games they already have available on the App Store. 10 months was simply not enough transition even half of the games, thus exposing them to the purge that Apple was promising.

Naturally, Apple didn’t extend the deadline out of pity to the developers, but rather because of current developments in the United States, as online gambling continues to grow in popularity for the population.

Losing so many users to Android because of a lack of gambling apps would definitely be disadvantageous for them.

Why was the demand made?

Apple has a long-lasting policy of user protection and catering. In their view, controlling the rate at which these gambling apps were being produced, or the rate they were being promoted would be quite hard if users had alternative methods of accessing them through a mobile browser.

As a matter of fact, that was also a key reason why HMTL-5 was being used as the primary tool to make these games, so that players would access it through the original platform eventually, thus increasing their overall traction.

However, things quickly got out of hand when developers and operators started offering various promotions and betting bonuses that would increase the users’ chances of winning in the game or would simply allow them to have more funds to bet with. It was a bit hard for Apple to keep everything under control, but the users themselves were benefiting immeasurably.

What will happen after the deadline?

It’s guaranteed that once March 3 comes around, Apple will not be extending it anymore. Thus, every app that hadn’t been updated to an iOS-friendly platform will be subsequently removed from the AppStore and thus lose access to millions of iOS users all over the world.

It’s no small feat for the developers still. The time left compared to the number of apps still comes across as not enough.