Yep. I observed the entire trial other than a day or so, and I believe I predicted on here that this is how the judge would rule. I’m sure Apple‘s attorneys knew it as well.
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Epic Games vs. Apple Judgment Allows App Store Developers to Link to Alternative Payment Methods
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Yep. I observed the entire trial other than a day or so, and I believe I predicted on here that this is how the judge would rule. I’m sure Apple‘s attorneys knew it as well.
I think I understand it enough to have retired early, but just know physics rather well and not finance. I despise plunges due to court rulings since I'm no longer in a position to buy when it happens. Semi-old retired guy.
You are also looking at two trading days before an iPhone announcement where the predictions are already in there will be less demand than the previous model. People are placing their final bets on the announcement. A ~3% knock on the stock price is not chump change, but it‘s also not a sign of weak investor confidence. It‘s just as you say it is, “noise.”
Apple could certainly build an outside payment API to log transactions and contractually require developers to use it and terminate their app in the store if they don’t pay.
? The judge only directed that they allow alternate payment methods and allow linking to the developers website. Apple can still have a clause in their contract that:
1) If you use an alternate payment method, you must also list Apple’s IAP
2) The prices must be the same.
iOS users will overwhelmingly choose the Apple IAP to avoid friction and giving up their CC details to third parties. Those that *really* want to stick it to Apple are free to choose the developers payment methods.
Edit: On reading the judgement, it appears that developers who choose to use their own payment methods will still have to pay Apple their commission….likely through an API that calculates it and bills them monthly.
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Do you not get that Apple does not have to allow Epic back on the App Store? In fact, Apple is now free to kick off the Unreal Engine and every other subsidiary due to their breach of contract.
In addition to this, Apple’s IAP will work seamlessly from in app whereas other payment methods will direct a user to a website which will create friction. Finally, there is nothing to stop Apple making a term in their conditions that if you offer alternate payments that you must also offer Apple’s IAP AND for the same price.
Edit: On reading the judgement, it appears that developers who choose to use their own payment methods will still have to pay Apple their commission….likely through an API that calculates it and bills them monthly.
Make no mistake, this is not a win for Epic.
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This decision is made by a district court judge, which is a trial court and the lowest court at the federal level. Apple will file an appeal to the circuit court, the appeals court. Generally, the district court's decision is stayed (or paused) until the appeals court resolves the matter.
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Except that it is Epic that has said it will appeal, whereas Apple has not indicated that it wants to (yet).
That wouldn’t be worth Apple’s time and effort. Why would they bother with operating a platform at a loss? Even $399 for every app wouldn’t be enough to cover operating expenses.
My company pays FAR more than that per month for hosting on AWS.
You don't understand this logic. You pay Microsoft for all of your transaction on a Windows PC? No? Curious to why is that? Hmmmm.
Whatever ends up happening with the payment options for developers and their apps, there is a 0% chance I will ever purchase an app or in app purchase from outside the App Store.
The stock market has said nothing to contradict his statement since Epic is privately held, and has no publicly traded stock.
So correct me if I am wrong - if developers go outside the App Store, they may well still have to pay Apple their 30% processing fee, on top of the extra processing fees incurred from using said service?
It doesn’t sound like Apple has lost anything substantial here. More work all around for everyone, but Apple still gets its cut at the end of the day.
It doesn’t sound like Apple has lost anything substantial here. More work all around for everyone, but Apple still gets its cut at the end of the day.
It’s not at all clear Apple couldn’t do that. But I suspect they won’t do that. I predict they’ll reduce their IAP % to 15% across-the-board, and also take a cut of third-party IAP sales, but a smaller percentage (3% or something). I also predict they will provide sdks that allow developers to supply the cost, description, explanatory text, etc., so that regardless of how you buy your IAP you have a similar interface, and will also provide mandatory sdks for unsubscribing, parental controls, etc.
In light of the bulk of most store revenue coming from games, my personal suggestion is to simply drop the 30% cut altogether for everything but games.
Continue to tax freemium games at 30% because screw Epic.
Exactly.
And all that said... I don't think there's much of anything here that will greatly affect consumers.
I thought they cared about us!
Cool, so Apple just need to allow developers to publish, in app directions to other methods of payment or subscription? And because Apples App Store is not a monopoly they don’t need to change the fee structure. This seems like the best outcome for Apple.
Then revoke Unreal Engine’s dev license, buy Unity integrate it into Xcode, and enable Xcode to cross compile to Android.
We’ll see, but I don’t think it will go this way. Part of reason Apple takes the cut they do, I assume, is the frictionless system they developed that makes it easy and secure to buy extra stuff in apps.
Developers might be able to have a link to their website to transact this, but the experience won’t be the same and would probably result in less sales. More friction will mean less impulse sales.
This order demands Apple must accept other ways of payment for in-app purchase, but it doesn’t ban Apple from side loading a conditional term in their new guidelines, that dev must implement iAP alongside the external payment link.
In that case, many end users will still choose iAP over external payment method, because it means that you need to register another account and give your credit card. External payment method would be attractive only when it gives a huge discount, which may even result decrease in revenue for the 3rd party dev, if their business scale is not large enough. So the dev can’t get over Apple Tax any time soon.
Basically Apple have always had this business model since the beginning, such as Evernote, Netflix, and other cross-platform services. So this is really a non-issue for Apple.
And I’d say Apple would make a good use of this verdict to force Netflix to add back iAP in their apps. And that number is not the same order of magnitude.
What Epic really wanted is a 3rd party store, which is crushed by the verdict. And in fact this would be a bad move in business for companies like Epic, that give away their games for free and make profits from selling loot boxes. Because when users buy virtual items directly from their server, they’re obliged to make use’s save file cross platform.
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