Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Again Changes EU App Store Rules and Fees to Comply With DMA
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Do you see iPhone mirroring in EU? 🤣
Do you enjoy filling your credit card details in 50 different web services?
Do you like not remembering which subscriptions you signed up for instead of having it all in one place?
You always had the choice of buying Vbucks outside the App Store for lower cost, so the benefit of DMA is hardly there.
Last edited:
Microsoft had a monopoly in the desktop OS market, so no they wouldn’t have been within their rights to do so. Apple has less than 30% in the EU. If Apple had 90% market share, much of what the DMA forces Apple to do would be justified. But Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in mobile platforms.
Come on! No one is forced to develop for Apple.
Do you know people who are buying consoles to run non-commercial apps? We can talk that having no way to develop free apps for consoles is bad too, but it is not that vital usecase in comparison to phones, that are used everyday for basic tasks and work, unlike consoles, they have different advertisement of feature sets. Are you still going to troll with this narrative of "iOS is like a console OS", ignoring actual iOS competitor in the room?
Did you read Nintendo Developer Portal? I have doubts that you're developing games now...
Last edited:
Imagine the only flavour of Heinz ketchup you like (or maybe even must have for doing your work properly for some edge case compatibility or accessibility reasons) has been available only at Target for 16 years because Target said that no other store was allowed to sell it. Then, when some lawmakers force Target to allow other stores to sell it, Target says Heinz has to pay Target a commission on every bottle bought from those other stores.
Millions would love VLC on Nintendo Switch so kids can watch their fav media while on a plane and play games.
Agree to disagree. And it seems like an arbitrary distinction that one device isn't useful to you, therefore the principle suddenly doesn't apply. Odd. What you see isn't useful to you is useful to others.
Literally have an email from Nintendo after sending in my application:
Do you want to take back what you said?
Imagine desiring this kind of severe authoritarianism. Sad.
Imagine desiring to use the authoritarian government to make companies do the things you wish.
Not sure the authoritarian comment is needed.
Governments make all the rules for what companies do anyhow.
That's kinda how this all works.
This hasn’t worked EVER. I tried teaching my grandma back in Windows XP days. I am STILL trying to teach her and clean her computer monthly with Windows 11.
And it's totally irrelevant that it's a joke -- that's on Apple.
They don't offer a compelling solution with MAS and thus devs and customers often ignore it completely.
Thankfully the Mac is an open computing platform and yet still safe, secure and private, to degrees that are at the discretion of the users themselves.
You answered a question I asked someone who claimed that the owner of the operating system should have 100% control over everything about that operating system. Let me rephrase the question for you since you're saying that the operating system's market share should play a factor in all that: Would Apple be within their rights (not in the legal sense but in terms of what you consider fair) if they activated a switch they had secretly put in every Mac operating system version that would block each 3rd-party application from running unless its developer paid Apple one million dollars? Then you couldn't run those Mac apps you had bought and whose developer refused to pay Apple's extortion fee.
Just like nobody is forced to run their business in a city controlled by a mafia. There are plenty of cities they could run their business in. That doesn't change the fact that Apple is operating in a similar fashion to a mafia.
Last edited:
These type of threads are always a hoot: “I’m happy to be constrained by Apple and the EU shouldn’t be allowed to change that” to “Just buy an Android”
At the end of the day EU law is written by people appointed by democratically elected leaders and voted into the statute books by directly elected representatives. If the public feel strongly about this, and they don’t seem to, they can change things.
At the end of the day EU law is written by people appointed by democratically elected leaders and voted into the statute books by directly elected representatives. If the public feel strongly about this, and they don’t seem to, they can change things.
These topics get infiltrated with a lot of non EU folks also...particularly on the Pro Apple side.
We Americans don't hide our "YAY UNRESTRAINED BUSINESS MOAR MONEY NUMBER GO UP YES YES YES!" vibes very well - lol
(I'm American myself, but I'm personally very pleased to see the EU trying to do something -- anything -- to tip the balance a bit away from the $$UPRR MEGGA CORP)
Americans are the innovators when it comes to techno-feudalism, why wouldn't we cheer on the home team? /s
Okay, i was actually thinking more about stationary consoles of current era. Switch can be an okay phone replacement just like PSP was, i was always arguing that it should have actual browser and more open store and a basic file system / multimedia features to be a more versatile. VLC is a good example too.
I just got impression that you are trying to use consoles case as an example why iOS should stay more closed and it's better for consumers. If you're just saying that Apple has power to keep things closed, this is true, but i think we're getting closer to a moment when a sideloading will be available on iOS, since they're pushed into this with governments and competition with a more open platform.
Maybe we'll get consoles at this state too sometime and i would like it, it's just more complicated how to sideload there open apps safely and without piracy hacks. But I guess this technical problem stands for iOS too?
I guess i can guess that this is your email and take my words back that you're not a gamedev, gool luck with this hard work and messing with consoles from me! As an little indiedev in a free time i can feel how hard and annoying all of this can be. I hope since i found that quote on dev portal, you should not pay for other things to nintendo except devkit hardware. Sorry for being harsh!
Yes, I believe Apple would be within their rights to do that. It's no different than Apple deciding the annual developer fee now is $1 million. It's their platform, the apps don't function without using Apple's intellectual property, and Apple doesn't have anywhere close to a monopoly on the desktop OS. (For sake of argument, I am assuming this would be moving forward - obviously secretly changing the terms after consumers have already purchased the device presents many issues). That's not to say it's a good idea, or I would approve, but they would be within their rights to do so.
Apple's platform is not public infrastructure. It's a privately built and maintained ecosystem that advertises a tight and integrated user experience. Comparing it to a mafia, which relies on illegal coercion and violence, ignores the fact that developers voluntarily choose to build for iOS because of its market, tools, and (most importantly) user base. Unlike the mafia, Apple creates value and operates under legal scrutiny.
The better analogy is a mall. What you're saying is "How dare the fancy mall charge rent for access to the desirable customer base it has attracted. Stores DESERVE access to the mall's customers - I should be able to set up a pop-up store next to the food court and not pay the mall anything."
If you want access to that mall's customers, you need to pay the mall owner for use of their property in the way the mall owner wants to be paid. And yes, in most desirable malls, stores are required to pay a percentage of revenue in addition to rent and utilities. If you don't like the mall's terms, you don't have to open a store there.
No, Apple made the accounting more clear to the EU now. They have spent a lot of time in making the new terms. It’s up to the EU to decide if it’s good enough
Oh yeah. Such a problem having companies control their own products.
I disagree - the popular operating systems collectively are very much like public infrastructure. They are not like a mall, because nobody needs to go to a mall, but everybody must use or live or work in at least some part of the public infrastructure, just like everybody must use some mobile operating system and often a non-mobile one as well. The fact that we're all forced to in some sense "live" in it is why the city analogy works while the mall analogy doesn't.
Apple is like a nice mafia. Apple has managed to "own the city" (or maybe just one small nice neighbourhood in it) not through bribery or coercion but through perfectly legal means, and Apple has actually improved the part of the city it has 100% control over. But everybody in Apple's part of the city still has to pay Apple for the privilege of running their business there, and this is the fundamentally mafia-like behaviour by Apple.
There's no technical reason Apple couldn't allow apps to be installed from developers' websites and still guarantee that those freely downloaded apps would have the same security guarantees as App Store apps. The only reason Apple doesn't want to allow this is because they want their cut, just like a mafia.
Last edited:
I still disagree with your analogy and think mine is significantly more accurate, but I'll accept for purposes of discussion. If you treat iOS like a city, then it’s one Apple built from scratch, and one where they allow people to live or work there if they agree to abide by the city's laws (accept the terms) that are clearly given to both residents and businesses wishing to serve the city's residents before they move to the city or do business there. Many residents, myself included, live in the city BECAUSE of the strict rules that are now being made illegal and think the city is going to be worse for it.
You’re not forced to use iOS; Android is a viable alternative (including open-source forks), and the web remains platform-agnostic. If you don't like Apple's terms, it's as easy as selling your iPhone and using the proceeds to buy an Android. Much easier than moving cities.
If we're going with the city analogy, then Apple isn't like a mafia, it's like a Homeowner's Association. (Think private, gated community if you're not from the US and know what a HOA is. If you live the neighborhood with a HOA, the HOA sets rules about things like "what color you can paint your house, whether or not you'e allowed to build a fence, ban the ability do work on your car in your driveway," etc.)
Apple built and maintains a high-end neighborhood (iOS) with strict rules designed to ensure security, privacy, and aesthetics. Businesses (app developers) who want access to this affluent neighborhood’s residents must follow the HOA’s rules and pay dues (App Store fees). This isn’t coercion. It’s voluntary participation that offers real benefits: a wealthy user base, developer tools, and built-in user trust. You may not like the HOA’s rules or fees. But Apple is not threatening you, and you’re free to open shop elsewhere (like Android, the neighborhood next door without a HOA). Calling it “mafia-like” confuses strict rules that are designed to benefit Apple's end users (yes, even if they may be annoying to the developer) with criminal extortion, and in my opinion, is a ridiculous statement.
The claim that “there’s no technical reason” is just incorrect. Apple’s ability to ensure app security relies on centralized control, app review, entitlement enforcement, and rapid response mechanisms. All would be undermined by sideloading. Even with signed apps, distributing through arbitrary websites introduces risks and is significantly less safe than a single App Store, and there are serious consumer benefits to having all app purchases located in a single place, with one account, common standards. People forget how revolutionary "you can download anything and not have to worry about hosing your phone" was in 2008. Normal users were scared to install apps after the viruses of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Last edited:
Yea, I suspect restructuring on a per d/l plus monthly access fees for any non-fully free apps may be an end game; or a total revenue model like EPIC's.
I suspect if Apple lowered their fees below the costs o other stores they would drive all but the major palyers out of business.
Depending on how it plays out, Apple should also be allowed to not host apps from competitors' stores such as EPIC apps for free; but go to a total revenue model like EPICs so once an app is over $11 million, EPIC starts to pay Apple 12%. Same for Spotify.
How it is financed is largely irrelevant.
It absolutely is the key.
I don't care if Apple charges developers a $500 per download fee and 99% of in-app purchases - as long as I can bypass the app store and download software directly from developers instead of using Apple's store.