No. That was Apple's proposal and the regulators said it wasn't good enough.
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Apple Would Rather Pay Up to €50 Million in Fines Than Address 'Gatekeeper' App Store Behavior, Says EU Chief
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This is my feeling. A very real scenario is that Apple’s outside legal counsel in the Netherlands does not feel that the regulator has a good case. All regulatory environments have systems in place to handle disagreements and appeals. Most posters here feel that just because the ACM has declared something, the matter is settled. But it is just round 1 of the long game to decide the correct legal position.
I have slowly swung on apples constant milking of my bank account without really offering anything that truly excited me in years with their (battery/camera) upgrades, or new notch, or adoption of usbC.
But either way, I really don't get why a company has to change the thing that they built and developed and grew to such a high standard.
But either way, I really don't get why a company has to change the thing that they built and developed and grew to such a high standard.
The only reason a DEVELOPER would want to have multiple versions, is to make more money. The only reason a CUSTOMER would need to choose, is if they have some moral feeling towards it or could save money. The rub here, is that Apple is still charging 27%, meaning that main draw of an alternate payment system (saving money) is moot. The overhead of maintaining multiple versions of a program can be mitigated with developer practices, making the burden again moot.
Why would you (as a CUSTOMER) choose one payment method over the other? I know that unless the cost savings were significant, I would choose Apple, as I trust the way they handle payments.
Rich S.
Seems like there’s an opening here for an enterprising consortium of member states to band together and create an innovation zone specifically for the creation of a Europhone reference platform. Heavily subsidize is so that EU citizens buy fewer iPhones (I mean, the actual market for iPhones in the EU is incredibly tiny, but anyway), and they can direct it and it’s store just like any other government run entity.
It’s either that or continue this quest to firm up the prominence of the Google and Apple as the only solutions EVER possible in the EU.
But you've hit on the problem. They would actually need to band together. The EU is more like the US was under the Articles of Confederation than an actual union. Alas, our own civil war has given confederacy a bad name, but that's essentially what the EU is. They can't even get everyone on the Euro who is obligated to join.
If Apple has to charge a fee per transaction it should be the lowest viable amount possible, a maintenance fee. Lower than 3rd parties. This would remove the stench of monopolistic behaviour. 30% per transaction is ridiculous.
In the US, Apple is required to allow 3rd party payment systems. This was part of the ruling in the Epic trial last summer. Apple was given 90 days to comply. But they filed a motion for an extension and it was granted. It’s unknown when the ruling will actually take effect, if ever.
Not really!
Say Match.com has to rewrite and compile to add this provision only for the Dutch market. They have to do the work anyway and had to resubmit. If they did a halfway decent job with organizing the codebase they pump off two versions easily.
Having two versions that have two different frameworks for 1 provision enables Apple to quickly review each app much faster, reduced bad actors trying to skirt the rules and make audits clearer as to view sales from two different SKU’s.
You may think this is Apple trying to make it hard but really this makes a process much easier for 1 small country where this 1 provision is law.
And really, this is developers complaining that they should handle processing fees to keep more money it their pockets. Now you want Apple to spend a ton more money making it a reality without the developer doing any additional work?
No, it goes before the number.
See page 48: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/styleguide_english_dgt_en.pdf
I think Apple's dual binary approach would be for developers that want to use 3rd-party processing in the Netherlands, but also operate in other countries. So dutch customers would use 3rd-party processing and, let's say, a French user would only have Apple process the transaction.The only reason a DEVELOPER would want to have multiple versions, is to make more money. The only reason a CUSTOMER would need to choose, is if they have some moral feeling towards it or could save money. The rub here, is that Apple is still charging 27%, meaning that main draw of an alternate payment system (saving money) is moot. The overhead of maintaining multiple versions of a program can be mitigated with developer practices, making the burden again moot.
Why would you (as a CUSTOMER) choose one payment method over the other? I know that unless the cost savings were significant, I would choose Apple, as I trust the way they handle payments.
Rich S.
The point is that Dutch customers wouldn't have a choice. They would use the processing party that the developer chooses. One or the other, not both.
Why does Apple have to spend a ton of money to just not reject apps that allow other payment methods? They could start doing that literally right now if they wanted to.
Haven't read the ruling, but if Apple puts out a proposal that complies with the request, then it should be up to the Dutch entity to identify why they reject it and propose a counter. Otherwise, Apple will just keep dropping that percentage until they approve? Why don't they just come out and say what they want the percentage to be and let Apple decide if they want to continue to operate an App Store in the Netherlands?
Not even close.
Next they will tell Apple they must allow third party OS to boot the iPhone…
That's the best for both sides. Dutch government ban Apple sales. And Apple makes a complete exit from the Dutch market, period. A complete divorce, as they obviously cannot come to terms.
Apple does not allow it to be done easily. The process to submit a new build is excruciating and it can take half a day to submit a build. And it's not something you do once, it might be something you do weekly.
This is not the only country where there are local laws that apply to apps. The App Store distributes to 175 countries and half a day's work for each would be aweful. In all of the other cases where app behaviour varies by country, Apple has never required a separate binary that I know of.
No this is developers complaining that Apple is illegally restricting the type of business app developers can operate. The court has agreed that Apple is acting illegally and ordered Apple to remove the restrictions.
So far, Apple hasn't removed the restrictions. In fact, they added new restrictions that didn't exist previously (applying for special permission, submitting separate builds, exhausting record keeping, separate payments, etc).
Apple is playing with fire here. EU regulators are watching this and just itching to hit with Apple where it hurts. Vestagar in particular has an agenda. If Apple isn’t careful they’ll pass some garbage punitive law that will screw over consumers for the sake of “fairness”.
Thank you for a measured view on the subject and identifying where you don't have all the information. It sure beats the "Apple is big and therefore bad" comments that are so surface level and emotional.
I honestly don't know what is correct or appropriate in this case, but I am always skeptical when there are regulations that include language like "reasonable" ("set reasonable conditions for the use of its services"), as if there is some all knowing central planner that has ALL of the information to determine what should be consider "reasonable". For most instances, I'd prefer to leave that to the market.
Except the law we are talking about only applies to corporations with dominant market power. Not too many poor people getting targeted for prosecution under that one.
There is a legitimate business reason. Apple doesn't want to distribute a app with third-party payment code outside the country where it is required.
Conversely, there is no reason for the ACM to force Apple to distribute the third-party payment code outside their jurisdiction.
Is it a significant burden to compile an app and upload it twice? I'd say no. Developers do it all the time.
Neither of those things is difficult. A developer of a dating app in the Netherlands would just need to compile and upload an additional app to the Dutch store. Customers wouldn't have to do anything different.
To be honest that would be an easy way out for Apple. If they stopped sales Apple would look like the bad guy but if the government did it Apple would be fine. The loss of cells would be insignificant and it would be headache that went away. Customers would be aggravated trying to figure out what to do now that their government won’t allow them to buy an iPhone.
Really? That’s your response? “Blind sheep”…must be the opposite of “blind critics”.
Not in this instance, imo.
Hopefully Apple has a "plan" behind the scenes here.
(we've seen some note made of new side loading code in beta iOS versions)
They are too shrewd to think that endlessly violating the intent of the lawmakers and just "paying fines" will be a long term fix, especially when an EU country is involved.
(we've seen some note made of new side loading code in beta iOS versions)
They are too shrewd to think that endlessly violating the intent of the lawmakers and just "paying fines" will be a long term fix, especially when an EU country is involved.