WordPress for iOS Was Blocked From Updating Unless it Agreed to Add In-App Purchases for .Com Plans [Updated]

[I7guy]

But they're not allowed to update their apps to fix bugs unless being told to add in-app purchase when their app is free. How is that not bullied? The iSheep is strong in you.

You’re reply is as one-sided as the OP you replied to. The issue seemingly is when the ios help screens redirect users to the website for payment options. Thus bypassing IAP. Whether one thinks it fair or not, these are the rules.

 

[I7guy]

You fall for that? It's reported every year how apps sneak in and steal customers data all the time.

It’s not binary. Yes, there are incidents and when apple is aware of them, they take action. But many, including myself, believe the ios App Store has more quality apps then the google play store. But that doesnt mean a dishonest developer can’t resell your PII without stating it in the privacy policy.

 

[Brandon916]

No that’s not even close. A better analogy would be if you wanted to offer nutrition coaching through the gym, they would get a cut, but if you continued to offer nutrition services outside the gym, they would get no cut

That was the same thing. Apple wouldn't allow them to update the app to fix the bug unless they added in-app, even when their app was already free. Isn't that disgusting of Apple to force it? As a customer, I went from using a free app to an app that can cost me money. Why would I want this?

 

[Brandon916]

Nothing changes for any of WordPresses existing customers, and no one is forced to sign up in app. They are also free to charge higher prices to offset the 30% if people still want to use IAPs.

Are you expecting tons of people with big Wordpress sites to suddenly cancel though WP and start paying though their phones just because?

I totally think Apple overstepped in this case, but there is no damage. We also know nothing about how they actually got here other than a few random public statements. Either way tho I find it highly improbable that Apple did this to try and profit off WP. The number of users who will actually sign up via IAP are negligible and almost none will be using any of the larger more spendy plans.

Yeah Apple overstepped. How is it beneficially for consumers to have in-app feature vs just being free? How is not allowing an app to update to fix a bug unless they are force to add a feature they don't want to add? So slimy of Apple.

 

[I7guy]

That was the same thing. Apple wouldn't allow them to update the app to fix the bug unless they added in-app, even when their app was already free. Isn't that disgusting of Apple to force it? As a customer, I went from using a free app to an app that can cost me money. Why would I want this?

If the developer did the app right and followed the rules, you still would be using a free app. The app developer couldn’t redirect the customer to another website to sign-up for another product. If you wanted to purchase nutritional coaching, it would have to be IAP. Or the app should offer a free-trial. Either way the app developer did it wrong.

 

[portland_bill]

Appalling company is appalling company

 

[Abazigal]

The interesting thing for me will be to see where the breaking point is for the bulk of their customers. The ecosystem has made it more difficult to include Apple products and services in a multi-platform configuration.

For those of us who already have a diversified setup, it'll be much easier to slip out more as things get tighter. But for anyone who isn't currently multi-platform, they may find themselves having to take drastic steps to disentangle from Appleland.

That could result is a precipitous drop in customers, rather than the more traditional decay and reduction over time.

If anything, I foresee more people immersing themselves deeper into the Apple ecosystem.

Above Avalon: Apple's Ecosystem Growth Is Accelerating

The two most recent Above Avalon articles took a look at how and why Apple’s ecosystem is giving the company a major advantage against the competition. Apple Is Pulling Away From the Competition The Secret to Apple’s Ecosystem With Apple reporting 3Q20 earnings two weeks ago , there i

www.aboveavalon.com

Apple has close to a billion iphone users, and many of them own just one apple device - the phone. Rather than switching away, this represents a huge untapped pool of users to market additional products, accessories and services.

 

[eulslix]

What gun, mate? Don't develop for Apple if you don't like the terms and conditions. Build your own OS, your own devices, your own ecosystem, take all the risks of failing on every possible level. You genuinely have that option.

You do realize that this is impossible in our economy and is pretty much the whole problem here. There will never be a competitor with a less restrictive policy since any start up will either be bought off by any of the 2 dominant forces the moment it even becomes the slightest possibility of a competitive threat, or it will be pumped with such ridiculous amounts of venture capital that it’s investors will pretty much expect the start up to grow into exactly the same type of anti competitive giant.

At the same time phones are no option anymore. You can NOT run a business without a smartphone anymore, your clients expect you to be able to take remote video calls, collaborate and so forth. Putting all of this power into a duopoly is just irresponsible. These companies can do whatever they want with their customers, as long as they’re aligned with each other. It’s pretty much like privatized train systems, except that people can take alternate modes of transportation, and therefore the self balancing effect of a free market kicks in.

Not so much in the phone industry. It has been a great ride, and we have to be extremely grateful for what Apple and Google contributed to our society. These companies should reap the benefits of their hard work, but it’s also slowly time to put more public regulations into play, since the market lacks the diversity necessary for self regulation. On top of that the gigantic costs of entering this market will make it impossible to change anything about this situation (unless a disruptive technology turns up). So yeah...

 

[4jasontv]

I will never understand why so many people defend faceless corporations over consumers.

I’m confused. Who is the faceless one?Most people know who the face of Apple is. Who runs Word Press? That’s a faceless company.

Or do you mean all companies are faceless? In which case we shouldn’t support any of them.

 

[5105973]

[
The app that’s on the App Store is for the

The ecosystem is far from drying up.

Epic screwed it’s customers, not Apple. It’s a burden epic will bear, although both Apple and epic probably look bad equally.

Apple is doing this, IMO, as a show of force to enforce the App Store regulations on IAP. Obviously they have consulted with attorneys, as this seems like a bold move given Mr. Cook just testified.

Epic is gross. But impacted customers may or may not see that they, not Apple, are to blame. That’s a different issue from what’s going on here, though. Also, I did not say the ecosystem is drying up anytime soon. That IS an understandable misinterpretation of what I am saying, and I regret I couldn’t provide more clarity than I did. But it’s not precisely what I’m getting at.

Someone said Macrumors shouldn’t be reporting on these incidents and I said as a consumer I was interested in seeing these reports, because if there is a trend that is startling, I want to see it. A trend can take a long time to materialize into a definite end result and can be reversed or mitigated along the way. But at a point it can reach critical mass. At the present time it’s hard to imagine it would, but there were many trends ignored at the time that brought down thriving businesses models like Blackberry had.

As a customer, I want to see where this is going as I don’t want apps that I rely on to suddenly be in the same boat as the Wordpress app. What’s going on with Wordpress isn’t something its users would have seen coming based on the Fortnite news. One does not naturally flow from the other. Epic blatantly broke TOS it agreed to. Wordpress has an app it is now forbidden to update because Apple wants to impose change on a situation it seemingly had no problem with before. The business Apple wants to push into an IAP arguably has nothing to do with the app in the App Store, unless you’ve got aggressive lawyers pushing to make a big stretch for it.

I don’t care about these businesses any more than they care about me. But I do care what my overall customer experience will be, going forward, as Apple fights to assert its right to IAP’s in all the different ways and means at their disposal. Sometimes they will clearly be right. Sometimes it’s an ugly shade of grey. It’s the consumers getting caught in the crossfire so far.

Edit: I just saw the update to the article that Apple is allowing updates to the app while they work things out with Wordpress. That is a more consumer friendly act on Apple’s part. I hope going forward they keep impact on consumers a high priority as they pursue whatever measures they feel are necessary to assert the control over IAP’s they feel entitled to.

 

[farewelwilliams]

What gun, mate? Don't develop for Apple if you don't like the terms and conditions. Build your own OS, your own devices, your own ecosystem, take all the risks of failing on every possible level. You genuinely have that option.

I think you missed the sarcasm there. I'm pointing out how ridiculous it is to say someone forced a developer to sign up.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Yes and it will be important. Next Arm Mac won ‘t allow cloud gaming?This seems the route. No windows because no bootcamp ,then no Stadia or Geforce now and Shadow because of Apple Arcade ?
Too greedy , better Apple beackpedal on this !

0 truth to that as Rosetta 2 allows for non-app store intel-based apps to be run.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Actually there is precisely that rule

Actually no. Apple dropped that rule in 2011. https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/09/apple-reverses-course-on-in-app-subscriptions/

 

[farewelwilliams]

No, Apple’s rules forbid this. Developers must offer the same prices on purchases via IAP that they do via web.

100% wrong. Apple dropped that rule in 2011 and Apple confirmed it with news outlets. It also says Apple removed a rule saying external subscriptions must be offered as IAP.

Apple Reverses Course On In-App Subscriptions [Apple Confirms]

Apple has quietly changed its guidelines on the pricing of In-App Subscriptions on the App Store. There are no longer any requirements that a...

www.macrumors.com

Content providers may offer In-App subscriptions at whatever price they wish and they are not required to offer an in-app subscription simply because they sell a subscription outside the App Store as well.

 

[MacBH928]

I am on the side Apple to take a 30% cut on sales, but honestly, 30% on subscription is not fair if content is not served from Apple. For example, the Netflix app is just just a window that downloads media from Netflix servers. We also have Amazon Prime, why should Apple get 30% off Apple Prime?

With subscription based Apps like Photoshop is more understandable since the GB's of updates and hosting will be on Apple's side of things and Adobe won't host anything.

 

[kuwxman]

But they don’t... they want a 30% cut for the first year and 15% after that (or to start for video streaming services) for new subscriptions created by their users through their devices.

Apple doesn’t take a cut of my Netflix subscription nor my Spotify sub.

Seeing this thread is at 10 pages, I'm sure others have long quoted you by now, but...the debate really is over In App Purchases where the 30% fee applies to ALL purchases regardless how many years the app or service has been available.

Apple also does, in fact, take a cut from Netflix and Spotify subscriptions if the subscription was made via those two respective apps. The only way Apple wouldn't be taking a cut is if you started your subscription outside of the Netflix and/or Spotify apps.

 

[atomic.flip]

This sort of approach (Apple’s approach) is beyond anti-competitive. This behavior is basically extortion. Like protection money paid to mobsters.

Yelp tried this a few years ago. Forcing companies to pay for advertising or they would block and manipulate reviews for the business. Yelp ended up losing that lawsuit and changed their practices accordingly.

I don’t believe Apple has made this decision at the top in such a direct way. But I do believe someone in middle management / ops has taken direction from the top and gone too extreme. It’s one thing to encourage and it’s another to extort. And this is blatantly that.

 

[Mal Blackadder]

The reason iOS is secure is because Apple is the gate keeper. They review every app to make sure there are no viruses or any funny stuff going on. If something slips by they can kill that app and ban the developer if need be. Once you open it up to other stores that is all gone. If someone creates a vulnerability that affects the OS and puts it in a store that doesn't care about reviewing (which none will), this virus could spread to devices that never even bought from that store. Apple would have no control to get that app out of the system.

Having multiple stores, and trust me if you allow this, means their will be a lot of stores. As a user, instead of looking at one store to buy something, I now have to look into 3 thousand of them. Hopefully those stores also come up with a mechanism of updating those apps. Now instead of hitting update all my apps, I have to go into each store to update things making it a fragmented mess. Its one thing to do this on a computer where generally people have a few programs to use and manage, it's another thing to control all this on a phone with hundreds of apps.

I can understand why developers want to keep a few extra percentage points for themselves, but I can't understand why end users want to acquire these problems. Again, this is all available on Android so if its important to you, get an android device. Heck, you can even have both devices at the same time if you want. You can get android devices fairly cheap if you want to see how the multiple store experience is not a fun one.

Well Apple is always saying how secure Macs are even though people do not have to use the Apple app store to install software onto their machines, why would IOS devices suddenly becaome so insecure if people could install software direct from the maker and avoid paying apple tax on the product?

 

[Mal Blackadder]

MacOS is not secure. There are many viruses and Trojans out on the platform that Apple can't do anything about. Google it, if you don't believe me.

According to Apple marketing MacOS is secure.

 

[I7guy]

[
The app that’s on the App Store is for the

Epic is gross. But impacted customers may or may not see that they, not Apple, are to blame. That’s a different issue from what’s going on here, though. Also, I did not say the ecosystem is drying up anytime soon. That IS an understandable misinterpretation of what I am saying, and I regret I couldn’t provide more clarity than I did. But it’s not precisely what I’m getting at.

Someone said Macrumors shouldn’t be reporting on these incidents and I said as a consumer I was interested in seeing these reports, because if there is a trend that is startling, I want to see it. A trend can take a long time to materialize into a definite end result and can be reversed or mitigated along the way. But at a point it can reach critical mass. At the present time it’s hard to imagine it would, but there were many trends ignored at the time that brought down thriving businesses models like Blackberry had.

As a customer, I want to see where this is going as I don’t want apps that I rely on to suddenly be in the same boat as the Wordpress app. What’s going on with Wordpress isn’t something its users would have seen coming based on the Fortnite news. One does not naturally flow from the other. Epic blatantly broke TOS it agreed to. Wordpress has an app it is now forbidden to update because Apple wants to impose change on a situation it seemingly had no problem with before. The business Apple wants to push into an IAP arguably has nothing to do with the app in the App Store, unless you’ve got aggressive lawyers pushing to make a big stretch for it.

I don’t care about these businesses any more than they care about me. But I do care what my overall customer experience will be, going forward, as Apple fights to assert its right to IAP’s in all the different ways and means at their disposal. Sometimes they will clearly be right. Sometimes it’s an ugly shade of grey. It’s the consumers getting caught in the crossfire so far.

Edit: I just saw the update to the article that Apple is allowing updates to the app while they work things out with Wordpress. That is a more consumer friendly act on Apple’s part. I hope going forward they keep impact on consumers a high priority as they pursue whatever measures they feel are necessary to assert the control over IAP’s they feel entitled to.

Apple does care about the customer experience as evidenced by the update. As far as there being a trend, and if this materializes into some type of exodus from Apple, I don't know.

In my own opinion, these devs want ios as a platform as much as Apple wants them. Both sides can potentially be losers, but I don't see Apple, by virtue of all this hubris allow devs to walk all over them.

 

[5232152]

They probably want that ICANN internet money too.

A new low for Apple

 

[5105973]

Apple does care about the customer experience as evidenced by the update. As far as there being a trend, and if this materializes into some type of exodus from Apple, I don't know.

In my own opinion, these devs want ios as a platform as much as Apple wants them. Both sides can potentially be losers, but I don't see Apple, by virtue of all this hubris allow devs to walk all over them.

I don’t see the Wordpress devs walking all over Apple nor any hubris involved in their case (not saying you’re claiming that, just making a general observation). That looks like it will get resolved since both parties seem open to it. But Epic, yeah they were out of line in my opinion. It will be interesting to see case-by-case how Apple handles IAP disagreements and I hope MacRumors continues to cover the subject. Lol at the very least it’s an interesting insight into how much work their legal department has to keep busy with. Like doubling down on 5 person meal prep company PrePear in Canada as well as the US for dare having a fruit logo. Talk about hubris!

 

[Adamb10]

Apple really is begging to get the attention of the courts, aren't they? Next, they're gonna demand Netflix add in-app purchases too for subscriptions.

 

[rumplestiltskin]

No iPhone; Pixel 3a. No iPad; Amazon Kindle Fire 8 (hacked to run Android Play Store). No Macs; HP Desktop and LG 13z.

Wasn't always this way. I was a Mac user and MUG participant for 34 years. Decided that Apple abandoned my needs so they could monetize everything. Too bad; I would have paid for macOS upgrades but they crippled macOS to drag along iOS.

Sorry, Apple. You're fired.

 

[Aoligei]

No iPhone; Pixel 3a. No iPad; Amazon Kindle Fire 8 (hacked to run Android Play Store). No Macs; HP Desktop and LG 13z.

Wasn't always this way. I was a Mac user and MUG participant for 34 years. Decided that Apple abandoned my needs so they could monetize everything. Too bad; I would have paid for macOS upgrades but they crippled macOS to drag along iOS.

Sorry, Apple. You're fired.

iPhone 11 and iPhone SE (recently purchased) is on the drawer. Replaced by Moto G Power and Haiwei P40.

Haven’t power on iPad Pro for half years.

Recently purchased 2020 MacBook Air is replaced by HP Laptop running Linux.

I am sure I will switch back to all Apple again, probably sooner than I would think, but for now, I am getting out of Apple.

My first Mac was 2006 MacBook