{"id":7408,"date":"2021-08-27T06:50:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T06:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1365319"},"modified":"2021-08-27T06:50:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T06:50:09","slug":"apples-app-store-policy-changes-are-hardly-a-win-for-ios-developers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=7408","title":{"rendered":"Apple\u2019s App Store policy changes are hardly a win for iOS developers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/plugged?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F08%2Flaurenz-heymann-VkfhJLz5SMQ-unsplash-e1629089926979.jpg&amp;signature=5c9233ea39e9ad5f309200357ba47f8c\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span>who release apps on the company\u2019s app stores for Mac and iOS<\/span>, Apple has agreed to let them communicate to customers about offers and alternative payment methods via email.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed settlement, which also promised a $100 million fund for small developers, is now in court for final approval. As a part of this, Apple announced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/newsroom\/2021\/08\/apple-us-developers-agree-to-app-store-updates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">some other steps<\/a> such as agreeing to publish a transparency report for the App Store review process.<\/p>\n<p>The most noticeable change is <span>letting developers inform their users<\/span> that they can pay for digital goods or subscriptions through alternative methods \u2014 <span>but only through email, and not via notifications or in-app promos<\/span>. This at least gives a chance for developers and customers to <span>avoid Apple\u2018s hefty commission on app purchases and subscriptions, which works out to 30% for most developers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But this might not be straightforward. As <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/flightyapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">FlightyApp<\/a> CEO Ryan Jones highlighted on Twitter, developers will need to ask for customers\u2018 emails and make <span>them opt-in to receive offers via email. And the customer would only know that they have payment method options if they open that promotional email. That\u2019s a lot of hoops to jump through.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"12.271084337349\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">6. Apps can:<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 ask for a user\u2019s email<br \/>\u2013 and if they check a box to receive offers<br \/>\u2013 then app can email an offer, but not show it in the app<\/p>\n<p>\ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f \u2026 as an exercise, imagine if that WASN\u2019T allowed: you are not allowed to email offers to customers. Ha <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4ZBsURu9Eb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/4ZBsURu9Eb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ryan Jones (@rjonesy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rjonesy\/status\/1431086380893999104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">August 27, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For years, Apple has banned apps from communicating with customers to indicate that they can pay for subscriptions through an alternative method and not pay 30% commission to it. So this is just a minor win for developers, but they\u2019re still not allowed to directly display options of purchases in the app.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.2648401826484\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Apple PR has been doing confusing announcements recently lol You still can\u2019t link to other payment methods in-app, only email customers about them. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BEWzecQ1gn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/BEWzecQ1gn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_inside\/status\/1431049281843220482?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">August 27, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Despite a lot of backlash from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/11\/18\/21573109\/epic-tim-sweeney-apple-app-store-fee-cut-reduction-criticize\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">developers and companies<\/a>, Apple hasn\u2019t reduced its 30% fees collected from in-app purchases. Last year, it slashed the commission to 15% for developers earning less than $1 million annual revenue. Today, the firm said it will keep this structure intact for at least three years.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, Google Play Store also charges a 30% commission from developers, but on Android, the app developers can use alternative app stores to distribute their apps<\/p>\n<p>All this can change if authorities can legally force Apple (and Google) to give up their dominance over commissions. Earlier this week, a parliamentary committee in South Korea <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/south-korea-apple-google-app-commission\">voted for such an amendment in the law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You can read the full text of Apple\u2019s announcement <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/newsroom\/2021\/08\/apple-us-developers-agree-to-app-store-updates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><i>Did you know we have a newsletter all about consumer tech? It\u2019s called Plugged In \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/hello.thenextweb.com\/plugged\">and you can subscribe to it right here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/apple-app-store-communication-email-analysis\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>who release apps on the company\u2019s app stores for Mac and iOS, Apple has agreed to let them communicate to customers about offers and alternative payment methods via email. The proposed settlement,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}