Apple Pays $100 Million to Settle Developer Lawsuit and Agrees to Multiple App Store Changes

[ddtmm]

Schiller: "We would like to thank the developers who worked with us to reach these agreements in support of the goals of the App Store and to the benefit of all of our users."

Schiller’s gotta go. He makes it sound like he was always on the developers side and is happy they finally made some headway. Which they didn’t. Apple’s exec crew are getting too old to keep in touch and are just riding out their final years. Sad.

 

[Michael Scrip]

If they are handling it, they are doing it on their own website. They may use a third party payment processor, or do it themselves. There will be no uniformity.

Just like today, where you can sometimes buy subscriptions to services on their own websites and also through the App Store.

But how does the app's website notify Apple of what you just purchased?

For instance... I pay $9.99 a year for Overcast Premium. It removes the ads and gives me a few more options in the app. Right now everything is handed within the App Store. I make a payment... and the app is unlocked.

But in the future Overcast could popup a webview to "overcast.fm" and I'd enter my credit card info directly on Marco's website inside the app. I understand that concept so far.

But how will the Overcast app on my phone know that I am a premium subscriber to remove the ads?

I'm guessing these websites will have to send info back to Apple to let the app know that I paid?

Services that already let people signup on a website (Netflix, Spotify, etc) will be the most excited about this. They'll finally be allowed to popup a webview inside the app. So that'll be great for them.

These questions I'm raising are mostly about IAP and unlocking/upgrading.

 

[DoubleJ2119]

Deleted.

 

[Seoras]

Small Developer Assistance Fund
. Apple will pay $100 million into a fund to assist U.S. developers who use paid downloads or in-app purchases and earn less than a million dollars each year—with a minimum payment of $250 for every class member who submits a valid claim

😭 There was me all ready to party this weekend at the prospect of a $10,000+ payout.
Any UK lawyers out there want to replicate this? 🤩

 

[cmaier]

But how does the app's website notify Apple of what you just purchased?

For instance... I pay $9.99 a year for Overcast Premium. It removes the ads and gives me a few more options in the app. Right now everything is handed within the App Store. I make a payment... and the app is unlocked.

But in the future Overcast could popup a webview to "overcast.fm" and I'd enter my credit card info directly on Marco's website inside the app. I understand that concept so far.

But how will the Overcast app on my phone know that I am a premium subscriber to remove the ads?

I'm guessing these websites will have to send info back to Apple to let the app know that I paid?

Services that already let people signup on a website (Netflix, Spotify, etc) will be the most excited about this. They'll finally be allowed to popup a webview inside the app. So that'll be great for them.

These questions I'm raising are mostly about IAP and unlocking/upgrading.

No, this is for subscriptions. You have an account with the developer. You use that account to buy whatever on their website. And you log into that account in the app.

I

 

[c5z]

Not every developer deserves to get rich. I made a ton of money selling apps on the App Store, and am thankful to Apple for giving me the opportunity - without their app distribution, ecosystem, sdks, etc., I wouldn’t have made a dime.

this is what developers forget about. You have a platform of millions of users - a good percentage that actually buy apps, the tools to develop said apps and lots of materials to reference, a billing system you don’t have to setup to accept credit cards, etc…. 30% is cheap!!!

I sell stuff on Amazon and barely make a profit after being robbed of huge seller fees.

 

[Michael Scrip]

No, this is for subscriptions. You have an account with the developer. You use that account to buy whatever on their website. And you log into that account in the app.

Oh ok.

So 3rd-party payments cannot be used for IAP such as VBucks or Gems or whatever? It's only for subscription services?

Man... this was all a lot easier when Apple and the App Store just handled everything.

 

[ksec]

This is just wrong. How can they let this happen? Apple should stand ground, or Pull out of the US market! /s

Well to be fair to Macrumors comments out of all the ridiculous things they said, US was the only market they never said Apple should pulled out.

 

[cmaier]

Oh ok.

So 3rd-party payments cannot be used for IAP such as VBucks or Gems or whatever? It's only for subscription services?

Man... this was all a lot easier when Apple and the App Store just handled everything.

You can buy that stuff, but you have to then have the same account info in the app and the website. So you buy a vbuck, and now you have it in your account, and it’s available in the app because you are logged into the account.

Where it doesn’t work is for the sorts of consumables that are immediate (as opposed to fake currencies, subscription content, etc.)

 

[Dionte]

I rarely buy apps anymore so idk what they do with that store. One of my favorite apps that I bought was removed from the App Store, I bought new devices and could no longer download it. I also no longer have a backup as their is no way to save ios apps on my Mac since they got rid of iTunes. Not paying for apps that I dont have some kind of backup for thats not in that raggedy spyware cloud.

 

[Michael Scrip]

You can buy that stuff, but you have to then have the same account info in the app and the website. So you buy a vbuck, and now you have it in your account, and it’s available in the app because you are logged into the account.

Where it doesn’t work is for the sorts of consumables that are immediate (as opposed to fake currencies, subscription content, etc.)

So sticking with my Overcast example:

Right now Apple gets 15% of my $9.99 yearly Overcast Premium subscription price since it's handled through the App Store (or 30% if Marco makes a million dollars a year, I don't know if he does)

But if Marco allows people to sign up and pay on his website directly... and then I log into the Overcast app using that account to signify that I'm a Premium user... isn't that cutting Apple completely out of the process?

I guess I'm confused as to what's an IAP and what's a subscription... since my Overcast example sounds like it's both an IAP and a subscription.

As for VBucks... isn't this exactly what Epic wants? To let people create an EpicGames.com account and purchase VBuck directly on their website... then you use your EpicGames login inside Fortnite... so your VBucks are available to use inside the game?

Did Apple just solve Epic's problem too?

 

[farewelwilliams]

It's the phone owner who needs to agree to install and app or an alternative app store. It should not have anything to do with Apple.

Playstations only allow Playstation games to be played on the system. Sony approves every single game made for Playstation, even the ones sold in brick and mortar stores.

Same with Xbox

Same with Nintendo

Same with Oculus Quest

Same with Samsung Family Hub Refrigerators

Same with Roku

Same with Tesla cars

 

[JGIGS]

Flawed analogy. The lawn (the phone) does not belong to Apple. It belongs to a phone owner. It's the phone owner who needs to agree to install and app or an alternative app store. It should not have anything to do with Apple.

This sums it up perfectly. I feel like anyone down voting this comment is drinking too much Apple juice.

Nobody’s saying Apple device owners can’t stick with just downloading their apps from the Apple App Store and paying extra for the app or signing up for subscriptions paying extra for the Apple % it charges the developer to subscribe in that manner. But not allowing people to install non apple app stores or at least paying for the app or subscribing for it any other way is anti competitive.

It’s not just Apple, Google shouldn’t be allowed to do this and all those other gaming devices shouldn’t be able to do it. We the end users pay for our devices and they aren’t cheap. All these device makers shouldn’t be allowed to have App Store monopolies. End users should have a choice. Apple can have warnings pop ups but it should be our decision if we trust a third party app/App Store. If we mess up our devices it’s on us.

A better analogy is if you bought a car and the maker only allows you to buy gas through them. Even though it’s the exact same gas everyone else can buy from gas stations and they have all the different brands of gas sold everywhere else but they tack on an extra 30% because the car they sold you will only allow gas from their specific hose.

 

[Wildkraut]

View attachment 1823888

Source: https://www.apple.com/app-store/developing-for-the-app-store/

And kept and made much more!

 

[ksec]

Schiller: "We would like to thank the developers who worked with us to reach these agreements in support of the goals of the App Store and to the benefit of all of our users."

Schiller’s gotta go. He makes it sound like he was always on the developers side and is happy they finally made some headway. Which they didn’t. Apple’s exec crew are getting too old to keep in touch and are just riding out their final years. Sad.

He is on developer's side. He was the first one to mention Apple should cut its 70/30 split down to 15. Or possibly even a cap for large business over certain revenue. But it was blocked by Eddy Cue, the guy that brought you Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple News.....

 

[cmaier]

So sticking with my Overcast example:

Right now Apple gets 15% of my $9.99 yearly Overcast Premium subscription price since it's handled through the App Store (or 30% if Marco makes a million dollars a year, I don't know if he does)

But if Marco allows people to sign up and pay on his website directly... and then I log into the Overcast app using that account to signify that I'm a Premium user... isn't that cutting Apple completely out of the process?

I guess I'm confused as to what's an IAP and what's a subscription... since my Overcast example sounds like it's both an IAP and a subscription.

As for VBucks... isn't this exactly what Epic wants? To let people create an EpicGames.com account and purchase VBuck directly on their website... then you use your EpicGames login inside Fortnite... so your VBucks are available to use inside the game?

Did Apple just solve Epic's problem too?

Yes, Apple would be cut out.

And it doesn’t solve epic’s problem because epic wants its own App Store on iPhone where IT gets to charge developers.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Schiller: "We would like to thank the developers who worked with us to reach these agreements in support of the goals of the App Store and to the benefit of all of our users."

Schiller’s gotta go. He makes it sound like he was always on the developers side and is happy they finally made some headway. Which they didn’t. Apple’s exec crew are getting too old to keep in touch and are just riding out their final years. Sad.

What?

Schiller is the reason our apps no longer takes 7 days to review but is now approved in under 24 hours. This was done without raising prices of developer program fee or developer cut.

If you looked at the emails from the Epic trial, you see Schiller completely frustrated at the amount of apps that have obviously faked the reviews.

Schiller is not perfect, but I'm glad he took charge of the App Store.

 

[Wildkraut]

Kind of senseless settlement, the upcoming enforced sideloading, with multiple AppStores, unlocked NFC will override this anyway.

😎

 

[henrikhelmers]

Where do the phone owners install it from , asking for a friend

This could have been The Internet

 

[Michael Scrip]

Yes, Apple would be cut out.

Interesting!

So theoretically developers could set up payment and accounts on their own website just to avoid paying Apple's 15% or 30% fee?

They'll still have to pay 3% to Square, Stripe, PayPal, or whatever... but it's better than 15% or 30% to Apple.

Marco could get a lot more of my $9.99/year Overcast Premium fee if he handles the payment himself and lets me log into the app with my account.

Am I understanding this right?

And it doesn’t solve epic’s problem because epic wants its own App Store on iPhone where IT gets to charge developers.

I see.

But wasn't Epic's main issue that Apple was taking 30% of every VBucks purchase?

Can't Epic now tell people to visit "epicgames.com" and make purchases there? And then log into Fortnite using that same account?

I've never played Fortnite on a mobile device. But I've played it on a PC and, of course, I have an EpicGames account. I think you need an EpicGames account to play any version of Fortnite.

That's what I never really understood about the Epic/VBucks thing. You can buy VBucks giftcards at Walgreens. You don't have to purchase them online.

 

[macduke]

I used to have a paid developer account to get access to the betas early. How much do I get?


Too bad the actual apps I worked on were through my previous employer's account.

 

[4jasontv]

Interesting!

So theoretically developers could set up payment and accounts on their own website just to avoid paying Apple's 15% or 30% fee?

They'll still have to pay 3% to Square, Stripe, PayPal, or whatever... but it's better than 15% or 30% to Apple.

Marco could get a lot more of my $9.99/year Overcast Premium fee if he handles the payment himself and lets me log into the app with my account.

Am I understanding this right?

They also have to deal with the risk that I don't want to pay them directly and will find an alternative app. I don't think developers understand that many of us want to do business with Apple, not them. Apple provides security knowing that if the developer misleads what their app does I can get refunded.

 

[6787872]

I'm struggling to think of a situation where the $99/year Developer Fee is a barrier to entry.

you shouldn't have to pay to make safari extensions. the best extensions are made by people and groups who work in their free time and don't charge.

 

[JGIGS]

If they felt they were getting a raw deal they could just write android apps, choose to be side loaded and pay for their own hosting site, pay for their own promotion, pay for their own payment systems, etc. I'm sure they will do very well...

So it’s ok for Apple to have a monopoly over what apps we can have on our devices? My favorite app developer decides they’re done with the Apple App store and I have to go buy an Android device?

Developers aren’t dumb enough to give up the income and stop developing ios/Mac apps. It’s not like their not making money either. But they have to charge us an extra 15% to 30% to pay Apple.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter at the end of the day because maybe they’d lower their price for awhile in another App Store but then just gradually start increasing the prices and take more margin. Who knows, but right now it’s the end user paying the Apple tax not the developer. It doesn’t seem right all these device brands (not just Apple) have so much control of what and how I install things on my devices. You should at least have a choice. At the end of the day most of us will choose to just use the Apple store anyway.

 

[4jasontv]

you shouldn't have to pay to make safari extensions.

Yes, you should. You should have to pay money to make any software you expect to profit from. The fact that you don't doesn't change that you should.