For a week now, Apple has been receiving a bunch of complaints from developers, they say, everyone is tired of paying a 30 percent commission for payment within the application. Even Pavel Durov did not stand aside and urges developers to refuse to publish applications in the App Store.
How did it all start?
More than a year ago, Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission and accused the Cupertinians of violating the rules of fair competition: developers are required to pay a commission of 30% for all in-app purchases and subscriptions that are made on Apple devices, which means that the developer either receives less money or should artificially overestimate the price tag on iOS.
And not to say that Apple is very worried – the conditions are only getting worse. For example, if the developers offer to subscribe not through Apple, but on their website – deletion from the store.
Of course, Apple does not suffer from a 30% commission, which is why its own services are significantly cheaper than those of competitors, and even advertising for “free months” constantly pops up, and other developers cannot send such notifications.
Have you not responded to your complaint for over a year?
Yes, the European Commission has just started to understand. The company is also accused of another antitrust case – Apple Pay and the NFC module in the iPhone is controlled only by the company, and banks cannot add payment via NFC to their own applications.
Well, Basecamp added the buzz with the Hey email service, which is available on a subscription basis for $ 99 a year. But here everything is much more interesting: Apple threatened to remove the client from the App Store if the developers did not add the ability to subscribe via an iOS device.
Pavel Durov spoke about this “threat”:
Apple and Google impose an insane 30% tax on all digital goods sold on every smartphone in the world. The result is that users pay higher prices, startups and entire industries collapse or never emerge. Regulators have been turning a blind eye to this for 10 years.
The solution to end Apple’s abuse of monopoly power is simple: allow apps to be installed directly or through alternative app stores, not just the Apple-controlled App Store.
One of the reasons I’ve been using Android for the past few years is the ability to independently install apps from any source. The growth of open ecosystems (Android, Windows, macOS) shows that people are smart and prefer freedom of choice.
Head of Telegram
Many developers have spoken out in support, as well as asking Apple to renegotiate the terms for publishing apps and subscribing without a 30 percent fee.
Apple’s answer
Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president of global communications, in a letter to TechCrunch said that the company would not change the rules due to complaints, and the Hey email application was published by mistake:
You download the app and it doesn’t work – that’s not what we want to see in the store. This is why Apple requires in-app payments to offer the same functionality as elsewhere.
Apple Vice President of Global Communications
Why was Hey published by mistake? It’s simple: to use the application, register in it and subscribe, you had to use the official website, that is, the user was redirected somewhere. Apple has exceptions when this can be done – if it’s a “reading app”. This category includes services for reading e-books, listening to music and watching video content, so you can pay for a subscription to conditional Netflix on the official website and everything will work on a smartphone. The mail application is not suitable for this category, which is why Apple is asking to add a payment.
Phil Schiller suggested adding a free version of the program or the ability to pay within the application on iOS devices to the Hey developers, otherwise the application will simply be removed from the App Store. The vice president of global communications also stressed that all published Basecamp apps did not use internal payments, meaning Apple did not receive any royalties.
We are waiting for the results of the European Commission’s investigation. What are your bets? What do you think about developer complaints?
