WordPressiOS Locked by App Store | Hacker News Reader

WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

twitter.com

438 pointsconstantinum339 comments

Tweet thread - it looks like Apple is requiring in-app purchases to sign-up for wordpress.com accounts, despite it being an open-source app for any WordPress site:

> Heads up on why @WordPressiOS updates have been absent... we were locked by App Store. To be able to ship updates and bug fixes again we had to commit to support in-app purchases for .com plans. I know why this is problematic, open to suggestions. Allow others IAP? New name?

> New name: The app has always done a ton of work to support WordPresses hosted anywhere, using the XML-RPC API included in core WP since WP 2.6 was released in 2008. That's why we called it "WordPress" and not "http://WordPress.com" or "Jetpack."

> I am a big believer in the sanctity of licenses. (Open source relies on licenses and copyright.) We agreed to this license when we signed up for (and stayed in) the app store, so going to follow and abide by the rules. Not looking to skirt it, hence doing what they asked us to.

Alternate stories (though none are really that great):

MacRumors article that gives a (very) small background on this: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/21/wordpress-ios-app-apple...

The Verge, with slightly more context: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/21/21396316/apple-wordpress-...

EDIT: Apple stated in the past that app updates would _not_ be held up over guideline disputes.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-reveals-new-dev...

"Second, for apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. Developers will instead be able to address the issue in their next submission. "

This is really sad. On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store, on the other hand, they shouldn't be allowed to force apps to do this sort of thing. This will only drive domain prices higher on iOS in order to compensate (in the case of Automattic). If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware. Course I'm sure Apple wouldn't like this at all either.

> On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store

Apple makes a cut: they charge developers a not insignificant yearly fee of 99 USD per seat, they sell iOS devices and services at great profit, they happily earn 15-30% from in-app purchases and subscriptions wherever developers choose to use those features, they earn 30% on any apps that choose to be paid, and they reserve the right to set a minimum price if free apps inconvenience them. (But free apps very much do not inconvenience them, ever, and this idea that they do and Apple of all companies is doing all this from the goodness of their hearts is a disease).

The only reason Apple needs more of a cut here is because their shareholders would probably sue them if they stopped.

The 99 USD fee is not per seat

Even if it was, that’s definitely not significant. Each engineer is probably paid more per day than that.

(I’m not a fan of the flat 30% charge, but developer program fees are not a challenge for any group with a revenue stream if any kind.)

Yeah, I meant per developer. Wires crossed. But it certainly doesn't matter what each engineer is paid.

Apple has 20 million registered developers.

[Edit: And let's say a third of them pay that fee, which is admittedly probably a stretch. The finer details are not my point here other than to say here's a bunch of money that comes in no matter what]

I don't care what those developers are making: that's serious income right there. If Apple think they are entitled to more, that's their problem, but don't act like they're making any kind of sacrifice here, and for fuck's sake people need to stop trying to convince themselves that Apple are their friends.

It’s not $99 per developer, either.

https://developer.apple.com/support/purchase-activation/

20 million * $99 certainly is real money.

For a popular income generating app, the $99 will make an insignificant impact on the marginal cost. But the vast vast majority of apps are not in that category, and the $99 does have an impact.

Also, the enterprise accounts are $299 and I imagine other than the overhead of the initial on-boarding checks, these generally have pretty low overheads as the enterprise signed apps go through no review process.

It limits the types of apps found in iOS.

And it limits spam.

The latest figure is now 23 million developers.

I often wonder how they count those developers numbers if it was not paid Apple Developer programme.

It still seems like you’re confused about what’s being paid here.

There is no per seat / per developer / per engineer fee. "A developer" in this context means an individual person, not an entire organisation.

An organisation pays $99/yr to publish on the App Store. That covers all their developers, whether they have one or a hundred.

In addition to that, you don’t have to pay anything to be a registered developer. It’s free to register as a developer. You pay the fee to publish on the App Store.

Apple having "20 million registered developers" doesn’t translate into the vast sum of money you seem to think it does. The income comes from the number of organisations publishing on the App Store, which is surely far lower than 20 million considering there’s an order of magnitude fewer apps in the App Store than that and publishers can publish many more than a single app with their account.

A third of $2 billion is serious revenue for a company that made $260 billion and that is worth over two trillion. The $99 is not per developer, it’s per business.

It’s not about Apple being anyone’s friends. It’s about being logical.

> Each engineer is probably paid more per day than that.

Except for parts of the world where that's closer to a week or months worth of pay...

It looks like you may be out of touch with the global market

There are substantial portions of the world where median income per household is 10000USD or less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

Do people who live there own an iphone or a macbook? If not, how are they developing for those devices?

They often take a bank loan to buy a Mac + iPhone for the whole office, and devs take turns working on it and programming on it. The Apple Account would be for one person ("the company").

That's where hackintoshes come in. Technically development doesn't require a physical device too. Of course, UX is likely to be kinda poor when working in simulator only. But that's how it goes.

And software developers make few times the median in such places.

Source: am developer in a country you describe

In those parts developers ain't paid local salaries..

And those parts of the world aren’t buying $400 iPhones (which are more expensive in developing countries) plus Macs. They are developing for Android.

We're also all very quick to forget not only do they profit off the developer license tiers, but also the selling of hardware. The cheapest brand new Mac you can get is a Mac Mini, used to be $100 cheaper, that alone is per developer so the true costs are much higher.

>I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen...

I've heard from other iOS devs in a similar bind that Apple forbids you from doing anything to recover the 30% cut they take.

You either just have to eat it, or make your prices 30% higher everywhere.

This is not true. Both Spotify, when they were in the App Store, and NYT have higher prices in the App Store than outside.

Apple enforce the rules capriciously, and change them on a whim.

Almost certainly, they allow Spotify and the NYT because iOS customers and potential customers would object too much if they were removed from the store.

A well as the 30% tax making all apps worse in quality by removing money from development, the unpredictableness and unfairness destroys many businesses before they even start.

So even though I pointed to two well known cases where that isn’t true, you’re getting your information from where exactly?

Yes and the 30% cut is moving money from poor Epic’s pockets so they can’t sell virtual coins for dance moves. Most money on the App Store comes from whales playing pay to win games like Candy Crush.

You have no proof - not in the rules that are published or anywhere else.

You can simply go to the App Store and go to NYT website to show that you are wrong.

You're right, I don't have tangible evidence of specifically disallowing charging different amounts on different platforms.

It's possible I've conflated that with not being able to call out the charge difference (e.g. by using the words "Apple Tax" on the payment page), and not being able to link to other payment methods (e.g. on web), which massively devalue any benefit from charging more.

I agree that Epic are in it to line already rich pockets, and extra money wouldn't improve their service. There are lots of smaller developers where an extra ~42% revenue would make a huge difference, and charging more doesn't work as the customer is price sensitive.

Is there a retailer that allows a company to label the wholesale vs retail price? Is there a retailer that allows a company to sell a product in their store and tell them that they can get it cheaper somewhere else?

Can a game retailer sell something at GameStop while advertising they can get at a lower price online in GameStop?

Where exactly are these indy developers? The time of most indy developers making it big on mobile left the train a decade ago. They have been drowned out by the makers of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans.

We already saw the race to the bottom after mobile became popular. Do you really think the bottom just wouldn’t get lower?

I remember back in 2008, when the mobile gold rush started and indy developers of popular apps were publishing how much they were making. I was making more working in corporate America writing field service apps for ruggedized Windows CE devices

The rule was 11.13 of the Apple App Store Review Guidelines:

11.13 Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions.

The same-price rule was revoked in 2011 after legal challenges from newspapers & magazines. It was replaced with a rule that doesn't allow linking to any websites within the app.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/09/apple-reverses-course-o...

As of 2020, rule 3.1.3(a) also does not allow you to recommend in any public business communications using payment methods other than Apple:

"you agree not to directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods are not designed to discourage use of in-app purchase."

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

So we are talking about something that has happened since 2011.

Let’s do a thought experiment. Try selling something in a Best Buy and asking them will they allow you to publicize in Best Buy that you can get a lower price if you buy from their website. How do you think that will work out?

Perfectly fine. This is why the MSRP - Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price - or RRP, Recommended Retail Price, is common practice. The manufacturer publishes the suggested price on the box itself, so if a store tries overpricing by 30%, you know just by looking at the box that you're paying more than you should and should shop elsewhere.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/manufacturers-suggested...

Well, the App Store shows manufacturer suggested price. A manufacturer still doesn’t get to advertise the wholesale price nor do they get to advertise that you can get it cheaper somewhere else.

I fail to see how the MSRP is relevant.

The question was quite simple. Can I sell an item in Best Buy or GameStop and advertise in their store that a customer can get it cheaper online?

The App store advertises the app store price.

Your entire line of reasoning seems ridiculous to me, but even granting most of your premise, the wholesale price would be the price companies sell their software at with bulk discounts (purchasing 100+ seats instead of 1). What ancestors are referring to are the single unit sales price set by a company absent outside pricing interference by Apple, which is absolutely the MSRP equivalent.

What ridiculous premise? Can I go into any retail store and mark my product with the wholesale price and advertise the “tax” the retailer charged for letting me sell it in the store?

Words Mean Things.

A “tax” is a government imposed fee.

A wholesale price is the price that a manufacturer sells a product to a retailer. Every retailer has a markup from the price that they get a product from a consumer. Do you think retailers don’t make a profit from the goods they sell in their store?

When did the MSRP not include a margin for the reseller? Why would a retailer sell a product without any margin?

You realize that everything you buy from a store has “pricing interference” from the retailer don’t you?

I'm just going to go ahead and assume your posts on this are intentionally obtuse. If not, try considering how the situations might be differentiated and why that might make your chosen analogues of wholesale vs retail might be flawed.

Have fun with all your posts on this story.

Let’s keep it simple. Does any store allow goods to be sold without a markup for them to make a profit? When I walk into Walmart, how many of the items have a price labeled from the factory? Has any retailer of digital goods ever sold at cost? Does Epic charge a markup for their digital goods or do they sell at cost? Can I buy virtual goods for use in Fortnite and avoid the “Epic tax”?

No one said there is no markup. MSRP is explicitly not "at cost" or even wholesale. That is the actual point. MSRP is constant at all retailers though.

You really think that all retailers sell the same goods at the same price? Have you ever looked at the price of snacks at a movie theatre and compared the price anywhere else? Heck even at the grocery store a 20 ounce soda sold on the aisle is cheaper than the same soda sold at the checkout line refrigerated.

Are cars all sold at the same price everywhere? TVs? Computers?

Spotify, Netflix etc. are in a special category called "reader apps".

You’re conflating separate issues.

Controversy #1: some apps are allowed to be in the store and not have in app subscriptions but aren’t allowed to say how you subscribe - Netflix and Spotify come under the “reader apps” exemption and Hey didn’t.

Controversy #2: Epic isn’t allowed to have in app purchases that bypass the App Store.

Non Controversy #1: there is no rule against having different prices in an outside of the store. This has nothing to do with “reader apps”.

All of the loss of fake internet points doesn’t make a provable fact incorrect.

Go to App Store and look at NYT price. Then go to the website, the price is different.

I know you can have different prices. The problem is that the WordPress app was for all WP blogs, including self-hosted. Apple blocked them unless they add an IAP for .com services, but that's not really required.

Spotify can stay in the AppStore, presumably without having to offer an IAP, whereas apparently WordPress cannot, including for self-hosted blogs?

That's what I am getting at here.

Yes and apple would never bend/change/or randomly enforce rules on some devs and not others.... no no no....

Apple is as pure and holy as the driven snow, they are most ethical company in existence.. They do not really care about money at all, they are just looking out for their users...

So you don’t have any evidence that Apple has banned an app or forced them to sell everywhere at a single price?

You would actually need to raise your original price 43% to cover Apple's 30%. And yeah I agree, I am surprised more Apps don't take this approach. But perhaps it is discouraged somehow.

>But perhaps it is discouraged somehow.

I think it's primarily "discouraged" by, just, you know the market and basic economics. Think such a statement through: if a business could simply increase pricing 43% without losing anything, they'd just do it. Like, everywhere. There'd be no reason to leave tons of money on the table on any platform at all. But of course in reality raising prices at some point tends to depress sales more than what is gained from the rise, so maximizing revenue means finding the sweet spot of $/unit * unit# = total revenue. And buyers only react to the price they are charged, not the developer's margin. So presumably in general developers have already optimized their pricing, which means there is only limited room to increase it before it's not worth it. Obviously it's somewhat more complex than pricing 101, in reality user populations are not fully randomized samples of the general population. iOS users overall may be somewhat less price sensitive for example, many apps are not completely elastic or substitutable goods, and users who've bought into a given platform face barriers to leaving it. So there is some room for some devs to raise prices a bit, and of course they can't sell at a loss.

But most can't simply raise prices by nearly half without losing customers to competitors, or for that matter losing customers to their own free offerings (which themselves they deem necessary).

pretty sure you have to offer the same price as on your website if you offer IAP. it’s one more of the developer unfriendly move of the developer program, alongside that you cannot even hint that you can purchase or subscribe somewhere else.

I think Apple only restricts how you can tell people about lower prices, but I forget the details. Pretty sure you can't include in-app information or links about/to lower-cost options, and maybe you arent allowd to advertise that the iOS IAP price is higher elsewhere, either.

This hasn't been true for a long time. It was true, but changed years ago.

You can offer purchases elsewhere at a cheaper price, you just can't push people toward that within the app, or even link directly to a website for it.

> If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware

If you don't know that, it is not allowed to sell for more in iOS than in your site, and the app will get banned for attempting that, forget about displaying 30% apple tax to the users explicitly.

Edit: Heard from somewhere, likely not fully correct.

Twitch charges $5.99 for a subscription to a streamer in their app but $5 on their website. Are they breaking this rule too? How are they getting away with it?

Well, Apple doesn't actually allow you to sell an app for $5. You can only choose $4.99 or $5.99.

I'm sure they're really hurting for that cent, you think?

Not at all. Just explaining why there’d be a price difference. Apple has a good reason for not allowing weird prices like $3.61 but also excludes prices like $5. They also used to require that subscriptions outside the App Store match In-App Purchase prices, but dropped that requirement.

Pricing $5.99 in-app and $5 outside is a good strategy. It’s a nudge to get users to buy outside the app and save 15%, but if not they’re effectively splitting the Apple tax.

Your second paragraph explains why you think there would be a price difference. That you can only choose 4.99 or 5.99 seems unrelated to your actual theory, and it doesn't make sense on its own.

Are the subscriptions portable between the web and mobile apps? Or only valid one place or the other?

It's account-based, a sub on one transfers transparently.

kind of? They have a special category for mobile subscriptions, and the sub system on mobile uses a token system. So while they all do the same thing, they are actually very diverse in how they are operated. A sub on a phone still gives you the benefits on any platform though, but it will continue to use the payment gateway for the life of the subscription

It's not visible for the iOS user that they pay more without explicitly looking it up. And the difference is small.

Just add a transparent reporting about how your prices came to be and they will not let you do so.

Unless you’re YouTube

Media streaming services "only" pay a 15% fee on IAP

How much are credit card fees? Chargebacks? Fraud? Server costs to host your app and updates? The shopping cart/private infrastructure? You actually get some value from those percentages, but few people actually run the numbers.

~3% or less.

~3% plus some fixed transaction fee.

So for low dollar amount charges, like a $1.00 app purchase, the transaction fee can be > 30% (e.g. 2.9% + $0.30 on Stripe).

So selling an App for a dollar using stripe, you get $0.67. With the App Store, you get $0.70.

And for that stripe fee you still have to have your own store, download infrastructure, and website to sell it on. A website that you also have to build, maintain, and market. And you have to deal with chargebacks and customer support during the buying process.

Right, but that stops there

At 1.2$ you already earn more then the Apple Store.

    $ 1.0 Apple: 0.7 Stripe: 0.671
    $ 1.1 Apple: 0.77 Stripe: 0.7681
    $ 1.2 Apple: 0.84 Stripe: 0.8652

So just make it 1.49 and you are good (you'll earn a full 10% more than with Apple)

Anyway even at 0.99 price tag (I think Apple doesn't allow 1$) it only 4.5% less, on a million unit sold the difference would be about 31,710 dollars (693,000 VS 661,290).

2.9% is the highest you'll pay to accept cards unless you're in a high risk category. And even cheaper with volume

Fraud happens with any payment provider including Apple.

You don't have to pay extra for shopping cart infrastructure if you use Stripe or similar

That's stripe rate. You will pay higher elsewhere.

There are others with similar prices. Adyen: https://www.adyen.com/pricing and Braintree: https://www.braintreepayments.com/se/braintree-pricing for example.

Only if you choose a provider that charges above market rate :)

IIRC, PayPal has offered 2.9% for over a decade

Where do you host your shopping cart? Your download server? “Using Stripe” doesn’t build your system. Stripe isn’t a standalone product. You have to have a developer to run and maintain your system. You have to pay server costs as well. And customer support costs dealing with payments and download and install issues.

And with fraud on Apple, you are never affected directly. For example, a chargeback on Stripe costs you $20, unless you win. If you are doing any sort of volume, that is not only expensive, but time consuming — you have to defend your case. You never touch any of that with Apple. At the very least, you need a developer to both build and “run” your store and all of its associated infrastructure.

Every app can do this. They just can't say that it is cheaper on the website.

Microsoft seem to get away with it:

Forza Street on iOS - 125 Gold: £4.99, 255 Gold: £9.99

Forza Street on Windows 10 - 125 Gold: £3.99, 255 Gold: £7.99

Both connect to the same account.

I think YetAnotherNick means the actual words "30% Apple Tax" on the screen.

I don't see how that's possible from his comment:

> If you don't know that, it is not allowed to sell for more in iOS than in your site, and the app will get banned for attempting that

He seems to believe that Apple explicitly bans apps from charging more for iOS subscriptions / IAPs than they do elsewhere (e.g. purchasing the subscription on their website), but I can find no evidence to support this, and a lot of evidence to the contrary.

They do so implicit, then moment is visible to the user that they can buy thinking cheaper elsewhere Apple will cause trouble.

I.e. you are not allowed to be transparent with pricing.

This is literally not true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239143

No it is, you are allowed to sell for more but you are not allowed to be transparent about it.

> If you don't know that, it is not allowed to sell for more in iOS than in your site, and the app will get banned for attempting that

I don't think this is true, although you've said it so emphatically that a lot of people are going to believe it without any supporting evidence! Can you help us out with some?

App store guidelines: Nothing about the need for uniform app pricing across platforms.[1]

App price: Examples of apps with higher prices on iOS than elsewhere.[2]

Subscription: Spotify and others charged more to offset Apple's 30% cut ($12.99 instead of $9.99 to subscribe in-app) for years.[3]

IAP: Epic charged more for IAPs on iOS than elsewhere.[4]

[1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#pay...

[2] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8031795

[3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spotify-apple-app-store-16463...

[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/FortNiteBR/comments/85d3uc/the_app_...

regarding 1:

>You must not directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase.

Which essentially can counteract the uniformity, depending on how insane the reviewer is. Paying more for IAP is obviously discouraging.

More that you should not communicate that your out-of-app purchasing is cheaper, either in-app or out-of-app.

This has nothing to do with a company's ability to price differently on other platforms or their website, and there is significant evidence that shows apps allowed onto the app store with more expensive purchase price, subscription price, and IAP price.

But it is. Take Spotify. You can't pay for that in the app. If they could charge more, they would. But they aren't allowed, so they discontinued IAP alltogether.

Spotify did charge more, for years, in iOS. Epic charged more for their coins in iOS than elsewhere, too. Can you point to a specific policy change or news article which supports your argument? You're saying "could" and "would" but the actual evidence is that they did.

And now they don't anymore.

Already linked it: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines

I linked this and have read it. Where exactly does it preclude apps from charging differential pricing on subscriptions?

>must not discourage use of in-app purchase.

You seem to be doing real contortions to try to make this fit your argument, but it doesn't.

Here's another easy disproof: YouTube Premium costs £11.99 on the YouTube website, and £15.99 IAP on the iOS app store right now.

The section you quote is entirely related to communication within the app. It is Apple saying that there is no option to either directly or indirectly push users towards your own payment methods with text or calls to action in your app.

Your argument seems to be that Apple would consider Spotify pricing at $12.99 within the app as somehow "indirectly" pushing users towards other payment options elsewhere when they have $9.99 on their website. Is that right?

Don't you think that offering no means to subscribe in-app -- which means all new users have to seek out the subscription option on Spotify's website -- is a more aggressive way of pushing users out of the app than offering a $12.99 subscription in-app and a $9.99 option on the website?

But in any case: Spotify for years did charge $12.99 in its app and $9.99 on the web. There are multiple[1] instances[2] of[3] users[4] being confused by this and complaining on Spotify's community support pages.

Spotify's anti-trust website[5] -- where they note anything and everything Apple has done to put what they feel to be unfair pressure on them regarding pricing and IAP options -- has this to say about the situation:

> So, we give IAP a try. That means we are now charged Apple's 30% tax and sadly have to increase our price for our fans

> Our users will finally be able to buy a Premium subscription directly through our iOS app. But it also means we have to raise our prices to €12.99 a month. And you guys were rightly not very happy about this

They go on to say:

> We opt out of Apple's payment system and the artificially uncompetitive price we had to charge for using it

> Because we turn off IAP, it means you can no longer upgrade to Premium through the App Store

So to be clear: there was no policy change in 2016 when Spotify disabled IAPs. They did it under their own steam.

YouTube and others persist with charging more for IAPs. Epic did it right up until they implemented their own IAP system and got booted off.

There are many, many good reasons to dislike Apple regarding the app store. You are doing gymnastics to invent a totally new one.

If you want to keep discussing this and don't want to look silly, my suggestion is that you offer direct corroboration of your claim. Try looking for a news article about a developer being told they cannot charge more on iOS than they do on their website, or an announcement of a policy change from Apple.

[1] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/12-99-iphone-charg...

[2] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Charged-12-99-not-...

[3] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Why-am-I-charged-1...

[4] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Been-Paying-12-99-...

[5] https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/

>You seem to be doing real contortions to try to make this fit your argument, but it doesn't.

It does.

>Here's another easy disproof: YouTube Premium costs £11.99 on the YouTube website, and £15.99 IAP on the iOS app store right now.

If you are Google, you get a free pass. It's simple. Look at the recent Wordpress desaster or Hey. Apple doesn't allow showing that you can subscribe somewhere else, in no app, unless you are maybe Google.

>The section you quote is entirely related to communication within the app. It is Apple saying that there is no option to either directly or indirectly push users towards your own payment methods with text or calls to action in your app.

This includes links or any other hint that there might be such a thing.

>Your argument seems to be that Apple would consider Spotify pricing at $12.99 within the app as somehow "indirectly" pushing users towards other payment options elsewhere when they have $9.99 on their website. Is that right?

This entirely depends on the insanity of the reviewer. If that person thinks that it's pushing, then it gets denied.

>But in any case: Spotify for years did charge $12.99 in its app and $9.99 on the web. There are multiple[1] instances[2] of[3] users[4] being confused by this and complaining on Spotify's community support pages.

And they get the blame for it, since they can't label that as "Apple tax" or similar. That's why users are confused. Because Apple plays the dictator there. "must not discourage". Also your links show no official response from Spotify on this matter. These are forum posts, from users ("community legend") with no affiliation to Spotify.

>There are many, many good reasons to dislike Apple regarding the app store. You are doing gymnastics to invent a totally new one.

Not really. Apple doesn't want other payment options, they prove it time and time again. They don't like you showing your users that those exist, time and time again. So yes, you need to charge similar prices, or else you get in trouble.

Let me just surface yet another clear piece of evidence of how wrong you are: Phil Schiller literally suggested that HEY should charge different prices on the web and in-app.[1]:

> Schiller says that there are a number of decisions about how to charge customers that Basecamp could have made to make the app acceptable under current rules. He lists several, including charging different prices in the app and on the web, and offering a free version with additional functions.

Oh dear. If I was discussing this with someone who actually demonstrates a capacity to incorporate new evidence into their world view I would expect you to acknowledge this and admit that you're wrong. As it is, I look forward to seeing your gymnastics continue!

In any case, you seem to be losing track of your own argument. Here's your original point:

> [Developers cannot charge more on the web than for IAP because of an excerpt from the guidelines] which essentially can counteract the uniformity, depending on how insane the reviewer is. Paying more for IAP is obviously discouraging.

What you are saying: "Apple's guidelines reserve the right to reject your app if you have differential pricing between IAP and your website, by saying that you cannot "directly or indirectly" drive people out of your app and to another payment source. This is at the whim of the reviewer."

Hopefully so far you think I'm being fair.

It was then pointed out to you that this wording is designed to prevent links and other messaging to indicate that services are cheaper elsewhere. Apple is happy for you to charge more for IAPs, but not to say* you do so.

You then used Spotify to support your argument:

> Take Spotify. You can't pay for that in the app. If they could charge more, they would. But they aren't allowed, so they discontinued IAP alltogether.

Then it was pointed out to you that Spotify discontinued IAP of their own volition, not because Apple told them they could not charge more for IAP. YouTube and other services also charge more for subscriptions on iOS than on the web.

Now that your claim has been demonstrated to be false, you're changing your argument from "Look, if Spotify could do it they would do it" to "Well of COURSE these big companies get a free pass from Apple, it's the little guys getting screwed!"

Funny that two replies ago your argument leaned on Spotify entirely, and now you want them to be ignored ;)

> Look at the recent Wordpress desaster or Hey. Apple doesn't allow showing that you can subscribe somewhere else, in no app, unless you are maybe Google.

Neither HEY nor WordPress was charging more online than in the app store. HEY is actually yet another example of you being totally wrong and contorting yourself. Look at this[2] letter from the CEO of HEY.

Relevant excerpts:

> And some people say “Why not just have a special price in-app that’s 30% more than your usual price? Just pass the Apple tax on to customers?” Because that’s not the point.

> And Phil Schiller’s suggestion[3] that we should raise prices on iOS customers to make up for Apple’s added margin is antitrust gold.

As above, Apple's Senior VP Marketing who is in charge of the app store publicly suggested that HEY should charge more for IAP than on the web. Sigh.

> This includes links or any other hint that there might be such a thing.

Yes. And it doesn't stop anyone from charging differential pricing.

> This entirely depends on the insanity of the reviewer. If that person thinks that it's pushing, then it gets denied.

{Citation Needed.} You have offered nothing to support this view.

> And they get the blame for it, since they can't label that as "Apple tax" or similar. That's why users are confused. Because Apple plays the dictator there. "must not discourage". Also your links show no official response from Spotify on this matter. These are forum posts, from users ("community legend") with no affiliation to Spotify.

Nice moving of the goalposts ;)

Looking forward to the next hilarious instalment :)

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-...

[2] https://hey.com/apple/iap

[3] https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-...

>Funny that two replies ago your argument leaned on Spotify entirely, and now you want them to be ignored ;)

You presented forum posts from random users as if they were from Spotify. ;)

>Neither HEY nor WordPress was charging more online than in the app store. HEY is actually yet another example of you being totally wrong and contorting yourself. Look at this[2] letter from the CEO of HEY.

Wordpress didn't charge anything, it was to control Wordpress instances via their XML-API. Apple just thought "hey they link to some site to which you can buy stuff, lets force them to IAP". This right there is insanity.

>{Citation Needed.} You have offered nothing to support this view.

Your own Spotify link. Spotify getting rejected for app changes. This is insanity.

Also, the whole Epic case. Even if they would have just showed a "pay less here <link>". Insanity.

> You presented forum posts from random users as if they were from Spotify. ;)

You said: if Spotify could charge more, they would.

Spotify said: we did charge more, and then we decided to stop doing it.

Keep backflipping dude!

> Wordpress didn't charge anything, it was to control Wordpress instances via their XML-API. Apple just thought "hey they link to some site to which you can buy stuff, lets force them to IAP". This right there is insanity.

Literally nothing to do with our discussion which is about your bogus assertion that apps are forbidden from differential pricing.

> Your own Spotify link.

Unless you're illiterate (increasingly possible!), my Spotify link indicates that Spotify chose to stop differential pricing.

Classic example of cognitive dissonance: ignoring Phil Schiller, the guy who is literally in charge of the app store, telling you that you are wrong ;)

Oh dear mate.

>Spotify said: we did charge more, and then we decided to stop doing it.

Yes, because they couldn't charge more. People wouldn't accept it, so they blamed Spotify instead of Apple, because they weren't allowed to. Of course they can't do differential pricing if they aren't allowed to show that.

>Literally nothing to do with our discussion which is about your bogus assertion that apps are forbidden from differential pricing.

Well it is. In reverse of course, because Apple thought that they'd lose revenue.

>Classic example of cognitive dissonance: ignoring Phil Schiller, the guy who is literally in charge of the app store, telling you that you are wrong ;)

Also the guy who is responsible for that. Hey, Wordpress, Spotify, Netflix, Microft. They are all "wrong". He is the leader of the insane asylum.

I do not believe this is a requirement. You just may not present any other payment option in app.

OP stated it with total conviction and now appears to have downvoted my reply citing evidence to the contrary. Some folks take their anti-Apple agenda pretty personally!

Nothing in the guidelines about this at all: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#pay...

False. You are just not allowed to say it is cheaper on the website.

I can support that. Along with listing a line item for every tax charged and what those taxes are used for. Perhaps a line item of credit card fees (for non App Store purchases.” Also a line item for salaries of your developers, a line item for the rent charged wherever you are working from. And perhaps a line item for exactly how much the servers and customer support costs.

What’s the markup of a product sold in a brick and mortar shop? It’s a whole lot more than 30%.

This is not correct. You can charge whatever you like. You just aren’t allowed to have line items like “Apple tax” or words blaming Apple for the price.

Kodi call it appstore tax or so? Since Google did the same.

I think that labeling the extra 30% is also against app store rules.

> Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store

They get paid by the phone owner and force themselves to be a middleman.

I work on an app that is forced to use the App Store. It would be far easier for us if we could self-host and users could download the app with a click on our website. The submission process is annoying. A hot fix on iOS can take days just waiting for approval.

> If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware. Course I'm sure Apple wouldn't like this at all either.

They straight up won't allow you to do this.... I've tried before, and got a call from the Apple Reviewer to say that they won't allow anything like this to be published.

Do you have more information about this?

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines

3.1.3b

>your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase

It's vague (probably intentionally) but having a higher price in the app is certainly discouraging compared to the "normal" way.

I wonder if Apple did start requiring the IAP price to be the same as the price everyone else pays - would that definitely be illegal?

I have a B2B app in the app-store which only has a login-screen on the app - so hopefully that won't attract Apple's attention, but if they do I was thinking about making our service-fee an Apple Pay ("real-life") purchase with lower fees where we'd mail the customer a brick with an activation code printed on... tempting...

A normal business would not get away with that as it is an unreasonable request. If apple were to do that then it would only be because of their market power. Hence they’d be (further and more clearly) demonstrating that they are in breach of anti trust laws. So yes, my guess is it would be clearly illegal.

Airbnb and booking.com get away with requirements not to list the same property elsewhere for less money.

Do you have a citation for that? Because that definitely seems unreasonable if AirBnb are taking a cut of that.

I'm pretty sure they used to require uniform pricing. I remember Spotify getting in trouble for having different prices in the app. But that was several years ago.

B2B apps are exempt from the the IAP requirements.

How does Apple define "B2B" though?

It's an important question to SaaS products that want to pivot to B2C or launch a B2C view of a B2B product.

Take Office 365 for example, originally it was B2B for the first few years then Microsoft made it available to everyone. Similarly, would you consider Adobe Creative Cloud a B2B service or B2C?

Spotify didn’t get “into trouble” for doing this. They did that for years.

They took Apple to court. There’s a huge battle over it. It’s been quite troublesome!

I think it would be illegal in Australia.

Credit card networks have charges, and they used to tell businesses “you’re not allowed to pass this fee on to your customers”. I don’t know if they try to maintain this rule elsewhere, but this was confirmed to be illegal at some point in Australia (I dunno, maybe 10–15 years ago? I can’t immediately find a reference to the decision), so some businesses will say things like “1.5% surcharge for using Visa/Mastercard” (per https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/prices-surcharges-receipts..., the surcharge isn’t supposed to exceed the merchant’s actual costs; in practice I suspect it regularly does on small businesses, so that they can state a simple percentage rather than calculate more precise figures that vary by payment type).

If Apple tried to tell an Australian business “you may not pass the 30% fee on to your users”, I expect that business could appeal to… I don’t actually know who it would be, maybe the ACCC?

Cost of doing business and price you would want to charge and what customers are willing to pay - all these would be different for different sales channels, different geographies, different feature bundles etc. And it is perfectly logical and reasonable to charge different rates on that basis. It would be very surprising and most likely run afoul of anti-competitive laws in most countries if any particular channel/marketplace operator demanded its participants to keep price parity with all other channels in general. They could do that or even demand exclusivity for a limited period in exchange for other special considerations (like special promotions etc). But in general, quite unlikely.

There is a difference between you can’t advertise a higher price than you can’t have a higher price. There are plenty of existence proofs that companies have been having different prices for years.

I’m sure Best Buy wouldn’t want you to advertise in Best Buy that you can find the product cheaper on Amazon.

I've seen some VPN apps do this. Not by explicitly telling the user that they'll be paying more, but it was rather blatant.

Twitch does this blatantly. I think they’re able to skirt the rules because of being an Amazon company.

A subscription on the web is 4.99 and the same subscription via the official twitch iOS app is 5.99.

Any discount is enticing, but I wonder how many really go through the effort of -

1. Searching, Opening the web page in Safari.

2. Signing-in.

3. Updating personal details.

4. Updating credit card details.

5. Making the payment.

Instead of clicking a button to save $1?

P.S. I would.

I believe a lot of people would, because of the psychology of "it's not just $1, it's 16%, what if I save 16% on everything, I would be rich", the feeling of "sticking it to the man (Apple)" and "I don't want to be an idiot that pays too much".

Most people are not rational about money, me included.

To be fair I would pay more on the Apple/Google store if I knew that a) I wouldn't need to give my CC details to a random company b) cancelling would be hassle-free

I had a very bad experience trying to cancel nytimes subscription. That's when I realized the usefulness of App Store being the intermediary/guardian.

I would not, as it will cost be time and money down the road in case the company doesn’t have a proper way to deal with cancellations

> in case the company doesn’t have a proper way to deal with cancellations

This is where a credit card becomes useful, any credit card company worth its salt will seize charges to you immediately. I wouldn't even ever use a debit card online, it's far too risky.

This is a monthly subscription to a Twitch streamer. Assuming you re-subscribe (which seems to be the whole point of Twitch) you are paying an extra $12 over the year, which is 2 months of subscriptions and change compared to the website.

That seems significant for even the most lazy person.

This is not “skirting the rules”. There is nothing in the rules that says you aren’t allowed to charge a higher price on the App Store. Spotify did this for years and the NYT does this now.

Don’t forget to add Sales Tax Credit Card fees

Do you also feel that every product sold in a physical store should display the margin between wholesale and retail?

Oh, but they also require you to sell thinks for the same price!

It at least they do for some goods.

reference?

My bad, I was wrong about that.

Through they do have a rule that anything which discourages buying in Apple is forbidden.

And what that means is very open for interpretation.

What we know is that normally you get in trouble if you are transparent about your pricing.

Edit: Fixed phone autocorrect moving up words.

"here Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax"

Well! Let's be clear, you mean "Apple Ireland" gets that cash?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_state_aid_case_agai...

Put that way it's really a 42% Apple tax.

It is an Apple App Store VAT actually. Way higher than VAT rates around the world (the world average is ~20%).

VAT: value-added tax

That makes it sound like you're not already paying VAT.

That is the point, though. They make you pay VAT twice: once to the state, once to them.

Counter argument: what would you think of vendors who list products on eBay or Amazon to only drive customers to their own website via the descriptions to avoid listing fees and commissions?

eBay and Amazon are not the only places one call sell things on. AppStore is the only way to reach millions of people.

> On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store

Absolutely, but imho it shouldn't be a percentage, but a flat fee. It's not like Apple does more work for more expensive apps.

This is not just about money to Apple. If it was just about money, then Apple would've accommodated Epic somehow - they generated 100s of millions in revenue per year.

This is about control of the platform and Apple is fighting to set and enforce the rules on their platform as they see fit - just like how Wordpress controls how you can distribute changes to their code (to enforce the GPL).

Idea: run ads telling ios users that buying in-app is much more expensive than buying in the website. Tell users that apple is scamming them with in app purchases. If this becomes vox populi, it will be a pr nightmare for apple. We would need some kind of consumer's association or foundation to run it in order to protect funders identities.

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple.

But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great.

I can install apps I build myself very easily without Google's input at all, although I don't even need to build apps since their PWA's can do almost anything I'd want.

I highly recommend people who are sick of this Apple crap, to try a Google Pixel. I haven't even needed to sign up for a Google account since using it (although I have to use an alternative app store).

I've already moved three family members over and after a few days they basically don't notice a different.

Between moving to my Pixel and a Purism laptop I'm pretty much free from Apple, apart from my work laptop, which isn't my choice.

1. Disclaimer! I am very privacy, open-source, freedom orientated so if you don't mind a bunch of binary blobs that track you maybe Samsung would work for you.

Unpopular opinion that I hold: The walled garden is exactly why I love Apple's iPhone. iPhone keeps the rifraff away, third-party sniffers at check, they've recently added clipboard notification if some app tries to paste random stuff from my clipboard (given that we use it so much for 1Password and other password managers).

I absolutely do not trust any third party - there are some insane apps like LinkedIn that tries to sell your privacy at every corner.

That said, Apple should allow Jailbreaking to aficionados who want to mess around with it. But, there should be significant impedance to that - your average joe working as a bartender doesn't have a clue of how to keep his iPhone secure. Apple should make it explicitly clear - hey! ALL BETS ARE OFF WHEN YOU JAILBREAK OUR DEVICE. CLICK AGREE.

Me too, I've chosen Apple devices, mostly because I like Apple's Continuity features and their walled-garden mindset. In particular, I really wish Apple would push Apple Pay and Sign-In with Apple more: I already trust Apple with all sorts of private data (Face ID, iCloud Keychain, etc.), I don't want to also have to evaluate PayPal/Google/FB/whoever as an alternative sign-in or payment vendor.

I am thinking of getting a Mac and iPad too now.

Apple's whole game is to make profit from hardware and their services, not ads.

Even if Apple charged - $50/month privacy fee to keep things secure, I am fine with it.

I'd pay twice as much for an iPhone - at $2000 even - something that keeps everything about my life secure - I have no problems paying for it.

You are the perfect rare customer. You will pay crazy amounts higher than market rates in order to get a safe feeling.

You would probably pay a $500.00 a month privacy fee.

Dangerous stuff still gets in the app store [1]. The correct solution to the problem of dangerous apps, is sandboxing and elevated permissions with user consent. We've solved this in the web browser, let's solve it for apps.

1. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-app-store-malware-click-fr...

Unpopular only on HN.

Most of the world agrees with you which is why they keep buying iPhones as soon as they can afford them

I doubt that's the "why they keep buying iPhones" when other factors include wealth signalling, social fit-in and SMS bubble color fashion.

If they had a problem with the walled garden they wouldn't buy it. Say "walled garden" to the average iPhone owner and they'll say "So? That's a good thing".

The average iphone owner (and average android owner) would ask why you are asking them about their backyard.

People don't understand what's at stake, just ask around. People buy iPhones because they're "nice" and because their best friend has got one and he/she's showing off how expensive it was.

> I am very privacy, open-source, freedom orientated

I like to think I am as well. How do you balance this when moving from Apple to Android, where Apple (seems) to be much more privacy-focused and basically at zero for open-source/freedom, where Android is basically the reverse? I think there are ways to make it better (custom ROM, alternative app stores), but you give up a lot of functionality (Play Store, Google Pay, etc.), and I'm not sure you can entirely eliminate all concerns.

I like the freedom of Android, so as long as I understand what I'm giving up privacy-wise I don't mind the trade-off. I have at least tried to make it a little harder for Google, using DuckDuckGo, but I'm guessing it only makes a dent with the other massive amounts of data they can still glean from the various services running on the phone, Gmail, Maps, etc.

Not OP but, I'm on a Pixel for the "bloat" free Android experience. I don't install any apps, I do all webservices through Firefox, DDG and have uBO enabled. I'm only moderately privacy concerned and I fell like this is an ok balance. Seems like every app on either platform comes with some problematic BS.

I use my phone the same way, no apps and run GrapheneOS - no problems.

What brand/model?

Most likely pixel as those are the only ones with official support for graphene.

You can use stock Android without a Google account. You can avoid the Google Play Store, disable most google default provided apps, and sideload apps of your choosing. You can use a browser (such as Firefox) that the phone vendor has no control over. You can even install an alternate app store. This sounds like what the parent is doing, and it's the best mainstream experience for anybody looking for a privacy and security oriented mobile device (while still actually having control of their own device).

With a Pixel phone, you can go further, unlock the bootloader and install a third party OS that does not even include Google services installed at all.

Of course, on the other hand, you could sign up for every google service, load all their apps, and consent to all their tracking, in which case you give away everything. Google makes it very easy to do this.

But either way, it's at least your choice. Unlike Apple, which thinks it certainly knows best what code should be allowed on your computer and how it should be placed there.

Doesn't GPS on android use Google Play Services for location? In many apps, I'm asked to turn on Google's location services if I have them off. Would that not automatically send data to Google, even if you aren't logged in?

That's because those apps use google play location services, not because GPS on android in itself requires it. If you download apps from FDroid most won't use or require google play location services.

Yes.

But depending on how far you're willing to go to get around it, there's a solution: MicroG [0].

It's basically an open-source Google Play Services implementation and it supports a number of different location providers like Apple and Mozilla.

There are a bunch of ways to install it but the easiest is probably their LineageOS ROM [1].

[0]: https://microg.org/

[1]: https://lineage.microg.org/

You can eliminate all Google concerns by installing a Free ROM (eg LineageOS) with F-Droid instead of GApps.

I'm not saying that this is what most people are going to do, and I'm certainly not trying to openwash Android-as-marketed-by-Google. Just pointing out the path exists if you'd like to go down it. It helps to have an extra device, to be less tempted to compromise [with] your main one.

I did this some years ago. The problem nowadays is that I don’t have much time to fiddle with my phone OS. My second issue is that Google systematically designed Play services so that Google free devices are basically neutered. You’ll miss out on a lot of features.

You can use Aurora store. Fiddling with OS is only required for obscure phones, if you have a mainstream high-end phone with a large dev community you'll probably never run into a problem.

Don't you think security through obscurity is widely rejected nowadays? The biggest problem I find with Apple's model of privacy and security is that there's a single point of failure: Apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

Apple is only beholden to Wallstreet. Not privacy, not developers, not customers.

Apple has Wall Street by the bulls, if you'll pardon the pun.

Its cash and profitability relative to the market give it a ton of negotiating power with investors who might see things differently when it comes to business decisions.

Apple makes money by focusing on its customers and brand. Investors have learned to let it do that.

Worth noting that Google now allows you to request that it not store any web, app, or location data from any of its services, including Android.

https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols

You can configure it to delete after a certain period of time (eg 3 mo) or to never store it. You can also view and delete specific bits of data.

Of course, I am sure there are loopholes and bugs that result in some information remaining on Google services, but for privacy conscious users who rely on some Google services, it's worth experimenting with and spreading.

yeah Samsung bloat is annoying. you can still enable usb debugging and disable a good deal of it, but it's still there on a read only partition.

I'm curious what your views are on the Play store services, and binary blobs needed for 4g/5g chips and what not. I believe Lineage is an attempt at "un-googling" Android and there's f-droid for APK's. Have you gone that route at all?

I would argue that with the Samsung bloat, a bunch of it adds value and you can safely ignore the rest of it. There are probably only a couple of minor features that are actively annoying. Overall, I'm happy with my Galaxy.

Android is also kinda a walled garden. At least in this context play store terms is not more developer friendly than app store in ios. While installing APKs is more easier than codesigning custom apps for iphone, I think it could be used in rare cases.

> At least in this context play store terms is not more developer friendly than app store in ios.

I'm not aware of any instances where google forced a developer to monetize an app.

Indeed, unlike apple, google is fine with you using a 3rd party payment provider (i.e. not paying the 30% cut) if the product purchased can be used outside the app (which is clearly the case for a domain name.)

>> Payment is for digital content that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g. songs that can be played on other music players). [0]

[0] https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

> Android is also kinda a walled garden

You can send an .apk to any android user and they will be able to install it. That's the opposite of a walled garden.

> At least in this context play store terms is not more developer friendly than app store in ios.

You don't have to pay Google $100 every year.

Your app is published within 30 mins.

You can deploy pretty much any app that runs on Android (other browsers, other stores, etc).

You can sell stuff on your app or even put a button to your website to buy stuff.

Etc.

Thank you. I don't understand the enlightened centrists on this issue. I can see the merits of the Apple approach and the criticisms of the Android one. But to say that Android is just as bad... Nah

The play store is getting worse and worse. It will eventually end up being just a bad.

Meanwhile every iteration of Android is getting more locked down because of "security". No more external cameras etc..

The future look bleak until we get a true open source alternative running on open hardware.

Absolutely. Unfortunately at the moment it's a case of choose the best of a terrible bunch. I have really high hopes some good will come out of Purism's Librem 5 and the PinePhone.

I would be willing to buy these to attempt to kickstart this market. But maybe I'm confused, these seem only to be ROMs that are installed on existing hardware? This can't be right.

Where can I go to buy these? I typed "buy PinePhone" and got a wikipedia page with supported hardware made by other companies.

1st Result - https://store.pine64.org/product-category/pinephone/ [Out of Stock]

Librem5 - https://shop.puri.sm/

Thank you, I really appreciate that!

God. I just stopped opening the play store. Everything is ads and autoplaying videos.

I added the update shortcut to homescreen to go straight to updates

Sadly the App Store also has ads and no way to deep link to updates.

It’s possible, just not obvious. Create a Shortcut with the “Open URL” action and point it to “itms-apps://apps.apple.com/updates”

You can then add the shortcut to your home screen, run it from the shortcuts widget, via search, etc.

Where does one find more of these secret URLs?

Federico Viticci at MacStories is the author to search for on all things Shortcuts. I found that one here: https://www.macstories.net/ios/shortcuts-corner-apple-frames...

He also has a list of links for the Settings app here: https://www.macstories.net/ios/a-comprehensive-guide-to-all-...

Thank you :)

I was underselling it a bit with “not obvious.” It’s more like “requires secret magics.“

I have never seen an add or a video on Google Play except a line of "Suggested for you" apps which I guess are paid for? The only videos are after clicking an app and then they have never ever started playing automatically. Must be either a regional thing, a custom per phone brand or something like it. Neither my OnePlus or Google phones have it.

> I have never seen an add or a video on Google Play except a line of "Suggested for you" apps which I guess are paid for?

Yes, those are absolutely ads, they're explicitly labelled as such. And they're not very subtle, there's another double-tall row of them every other page when scrolling through the Play Store. There are also ads for other apps on every app page, and ads for search results. The search result ads are egregious - e.g. if I search for a major bank app, the first several results are for competing banks, they're barely differentiated from the legitimate results, and they're explicitly not what I'm looking for. I feel like I'm at an awful bazaar where I know what I want but slimy merchants keep yelling at me and getting in my way to shove their junk in my face.

I'd pay $10/m just to get rid of ads on the Play Store and Google Maps.

> The only videos are after clicking an app and then they have never ever started playing automatically.

There's a Play Store setting for controlling autoplay of videos.

> Neither my OnePlus or Google phones have it.

Play Store is a Google App, phone manufacturer has no impact.

When you open the GPlay Store, 50% of the screen is ads. When you open an app listing, the bottom is filled with ads for competitors.

This is not my experience but

1. I use the store only for free apps

2. I use Blockada which blocks ads even inside apps https://blokada.org/ Download it from F-Droid, not from the Play Store. Google doesn't allow the full functionality version on its store.

I already use adaway. Have a rooted android

Use Aurora store. Use an adblock.

I use both. Adblock doesnt stop play store ads. HTTPS.

Play store is needed for buying apps. Can't do that from aurora store without a risk of your Googz Account getting banned.

What kind of play store ads? I have AdAway and don't get any ads. It needs root though.

You could buy apps from a desktop browser and just configure the account details in Aurora for the paid apps? I haven't heard of anyone getting banned.

I too use Adaway with custom lists. However you can't block playstore ads via DNS blocking/Hosts method. Because you need to install your own certificates to read HTTPS traffic on android (which is what AdGuard does, very risky)

The aurora dev's account gets frequently banned. Look into is telegram group.

> The future look bleak until we get a true open source alternative running on open hardware.

Maybe a fork like LineageOS will take over eventually. An open hardware device is really needed though.

> No more external cameras etc..

Woah; this would affect me, but I can't find any reference for it... can I convince you to expand a bit?

The camera picker is going to be removed from Android 11. When an intent for image/video capture is launched from another app, the pre-installed camera app will be opened regardless of what the default camera app is. The default camera app is still used for gestures (e.g. double-clicking the power button), and apps with built-in camera functionality are unaffected.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/08/20/android-11-camera-a...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/20/21376391/google-android-1...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24205479

While this is a regression for user choice, it is still better than iOS/iPadOS, which always defaults to Apple's Camera app and never had a camera picker in the first place.

Ok, thanks; I thought you were saying that external-to-the-device USB cameras would no longer be supported (which I am now thinking is not the case).

The best part about the play store is that you aren't in any way required to use it. Also, all pixels come with unlockable bootloaders so you could as well root your phone or use a custom ROM if that's your thing.

Unfortunately going from iOS to Android is out of the frying pan into the fire. Android is much worse from a privacy point of view. You can easily see this by just spying on network traffic and DNS requests from the device. It's constantly telling everyone about you.

Your choice in mobile is walled castle or forest full of thieves.

I suppose there are open source phones around but I don't personally find them that useful yet. The main things I want to do with a mobile device is interact with services like Uber, Lyft, Netflix, etc., and get directions. I suppose directions exist via OpenStreetMap but can you reserve an Uber on a Linux phone?

> can you reserve an Uber on a Linux phone?

Yes. https://m.uber.com

I will choose a forest of thieves long before a knell to a tyrant king

With android you're kneeling in a forest

Android has a tyrant: Google. The tyrant is just allied with the thieves.

> so if you don't mind a bunch of binary blobs that track you maybe Samsung would work for you

I've got some bad news for you about Google Services

> I haven't even needed to sign up for a Google account since using it (although I have to use an alternative app store).

This means you can't use any Google apps like Maps, Photos, etc, right? What Google alternatives do you use?

Yup. I try to use as little Google as possible. Maps does work without an account, and is preinstalled, so I can use it if I want. But I try to use duckduckgo maps as much as possible.

Photos works just fine without an account too.

There are many other maps apps, such as HereWeGo for HERE maps, and MAPS.ME for OpenStreetMaps. Both work well and have very good coverage, OSM generally a lot better than Google at least in Europe.

Downsides are that they don't contain such a wealth of place info as Google Maps does, and surely do some tracking too (from which you should be able to opt out thanks to GDPR).

This is a funny way to be privacy oriented and have a phone that when you press home button a little bit longer than usual make an screenshot of your screen and upload it to google. Thanks, but no.

Just so you know, your Pixel also has a bunch of binary blobs that track you.

Google Play services track nearly everything on the device with system level access.

I switched to an iPhone a few years ago to get further from Google, but the crap with the App Store is getting so out of hand now. My next device will probably be a Pine Phone.

If you really want to, atleast on a pixel phone you could unlock your bootloader and put 3rd part open source OS like Graphene OS, Lineage OS or Heck even an AOSP rom

That’s what I did before my iPhone. Most apps that work with self-hosted services kinda suck. The AOSP mail and calendar apps haven’t been refreshed in years since Google changed the default to Gmail and Google Calendar. On iOS I get a nice email client and calendar that is integrated complete with on device AI that finds events in my inbox and adds them to the calendar so I don’t forget.

There’s a bunch of neat little things like that you get on Android if you use Google, but you can get on iOS with any server backend.

I hope Apple opens up a bit because there really needs to be serious competition in this space.

> My next device will probably be a Pine Phone.

As a long time iPhone user I'm on the same boat. I do hope there will be a somewhat beta level Pine Phone soon. I'm already thinking should I get my old Nokia n900 from the storage box and start using that. Not comfortable with Androids and the latest Apple actions are making me feel a bit unsure on the direction they are taking.

There is a beta level pine phone :) The calls/texts, bluetooth and wifi all work.

If you don’t want to send your data to Google, you can’t use an Android phone period. They don’t need you to sign into the Play Store to track you.

If you're concerned with privacy but still want a phone that mostly works, I recommend installing MicroG [0]. It's an open-source implementation of Google Play Services that gives you support for things like location and push notifications without installing proprietary Google stuff on your device.

The easiest way to install it is their LineageOS build. If one isn't available, NanoDroid [2] provides flashable ZIPs that work with Magisk. If you're not okay with either of those but you can spend a bit of time, you can add it to your own AOSP builds.

If you really really care about security and don't care too much about all the apps in the world working, there's also GrapheneOS for Pixel devices [3]. The cool thing about Pixel devices is that they allow you to add your own verified boot key and re-lock your device with a third-party ROM installed. GrapeheneOS supports this and a variety of other security-focused features like reproducible builds [4].

And final honorable mention goes to RattlesnakeOS [5] which allows you to set up your very own AOSP build system complete with OTAs and ROM signing. It also allows you to add MicroG [6].

[0]: https://microg.org/

[1]: https://lineage.microg.org/

[2]: https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/NanoDroid

[3]: https://grapheneos.org/

[4]: https://grapheneos.org/build#reproducible-builds

[5]: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack

[6]: https://github.com/RattlesnakeOS/microg

From the replies (@mysl_co):

> Hey Matt, When I open the Help Center from the app, I can get guidance about upgrading to one of your paid plans. If I tap on “Plans” as seen the screenshot, the app opens Safari and shows the plans. This is a violation according to App Store Review Guidelines.

> Here is the relevant term that your app violated: 3.1.3(a) Apps may allow a user to access previously purchased content or content subscriptions […] provided that you agree not to directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase

This is amazing to me. They're essentially taxing hyperlinks in your app? The "directly or indirectly target iOS users" wording seems like it would even cover a mere textual mention of a paid product in the app.

The read anti-trust magnifying glass should be on Apple's lack of support for the PWA-related standards. Google's FUGU program is closing the gap quite fast, and Apple (thanks to their ban on other browser engines) knows they can hold back the tide by dragging their feet on development of the standards. Their strategy is so anti-competitive, and so out in the open that I can't see how they've been allowed to get away with it for so long.

My company had our apps flagged because our links to support documentation included our logo, which took you to our homepage, where you could presumably find contact information for our sales department and contact us to purchase. At the time we didn't even have the ability purchase online as our app was only a portal to the enterprise product we were selling which had custom pricing. We ended up removing the support link and just prompted them to email support.

> We ended up removing the support link and just prompted them to email support.

This is of course MUCH better for consumers, obviously.

I don't normally leave this type of comment but honestly Apple's outright aggression towards consumers is right out in the open. They're demonstrating second by second the reason that market-makers cannot dominate.

But then people could ask support to buy your services!

It's not even "content". They're a publishing platform.

Ah this is it right here. I had been very confused as to why Apple made this move. This is at least consistent with their past actions.

But yeah the lack of ability to link to web based payment for subscription plans or even mention it will probably be something that has to go from the app store’s terms. It’s bad for both users and developers. The situation is confusing for users. Not all apps have margins that can support 30%, but this policy makes it non obvious how to even subscribe.

I think if Apple had a flat 15% for subscriptions they’d still get a fair bit of usage, as there are big conversion advantages to using the IAP system. They might even get more revenue by attracting dev’s with reasonable terms, growing the amount of subscription apps using.

This seems much more clear cut to me than Epic’s demands. Epic wants to dismantle the whole phone system as we know it.

It is antithetical for apple to create a for-profit store which allows for all avenues for profit to be skipped.

Apple's take is typically one of a referral/marketing relationship, such as how they charge different rates for acquiring a new customer subscription (30% for the first year) vs maintaining a customer subscription (15% for additional years) or having a customer come in through another subscription channel (0%).

To prevent abuse (from Apple's perspective), they mandate that the in-app subscription and purchasing be available and 'encouraged' (as in, not actively discouraged through referring to any price difference from other channels as a 'tax', or linking to other channels rather than offering in-app options).

A lot of the recent news (such as the Hey email app fiasco) unfortunately come from developers trying to interpolate what is acceptable through other examples in the App Store, rather than reading the terms they have with Apple. IMHO different handling of different apps is actually due to the various business models producing a very 'jaggy' line around in-app purchasing and subscription requirements. For instance, Hey decided rather than supporting in-app subscriptions as an option, they would provide a 'free' service tier - but this does mean their app is restricted from pushing the user to a paid subscription tier, including indirectly via links to the hey.com website.

Developers often look at very popular apps which have the ability to publish with no functionality without an out-of-app account with external purchases and/or subscriptions. However, these apps are actually limited to a few types of products, so called 'reader' apps where presumably the user equates the products with consumption of already purchased/rented physical goods (music, movies, television episodes, books, magazines, etc). Presumably this exemption both came from the popularity of large apps published before in-app purchasing was added to the system, that Apple themselves had spent a lot of time implying their various media stores were for "purchasing" media just like in the physical world, and that limitations that would effectively prohibit the use of systems such as Kindle and Amazon Music would create antitrust issues.

Apple obviously is not willing to voluntarily give up any territory along this line of exemptions, which is why other services (such as email accounts or blog hosting) are not considered part of this "reader" exemption. Also obviously, it is also really unfortunate that this complicates what business models are acceptable when publishing on the App Store.

> I think if Apple had a flat 15% for subscriptions they’d still get a fair bit of usage, as there are big conversion advantages to using the IAP system. They might even get more revenue by attracting dev’s with reasonable terms, growing the amount of subscription apps using.

As a personal aside, the 15% rate is a bit odd in the App Store, as someone loses money on my subscriptions there. My personal App Store account is funded heavily by gift cards bought at 15-20% off, and I strongly suspect based on deals I've seen over the years that merchants have historically gotten a 15% cut on gift cards sold.

I also have been trying to figure out whether this has changed recently, as Apple has consolidated their "App Store" gift card with the retail "Apple Store" gift card - the same gift card can be used for movies, subscriptions, or toward new headphones. Coinciding with this, all of my channels for purchasing gift cards at discounted rates removed their card displays.

This could very well be part of a coordinated effort to reduce the average cost of IAP to be capable of offering a lower rate around in-app purchases. It could also be Apple realizing they are now giving up significant profit on people applying these gift cards toward Apple-run services, like Apple Music or Arcade.

Oh right I forgot about that. People ignore this with the 15%-30%: Apple has done a lot of work to get money into the app store ecosystem. The larger margin allowed them to spread this sort of currency.

They can make a different solution, but it may not be better for the app ecosystem. Those gift cards got a lot of people into buying apps. I personally started when I got a $100 itunes gift card while buying a laptop as a student.

Seems to me that Apple has 15% for subscriptions for apps free with IAP after first year:

> After the first year, the developer earns 85% for all successive years that the user remains a subscriber, and Apple collects a 15% commission.

Source: https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/

I wonder how long people stay subscribed to apps on average? As an example, I'd guess that most people don't stay subscribed to games for much longer than a year, on average. So I'd bet that their effective tax is closer to 30% than 15%.

If this thing upset you, wait until you know that your app can be rejected for including an image of android phone unless it's to illustrate some sort of connectivity between the ios and android app.

They pulled the Dropbox app for this very reason, a few years back. It’s a troubling, but widely known limitation.

I've commented this elsewhere, but Apple encouraging users to only upgrade and purchase subscriptions through Apple's payment systems and hiding in-app alternatives and links to other options isn't just about the 30% fee. It also increases consumer lock-in to the Apple ecosystem.

If the only thing you're using your phone for is calling, browsing, and buying apps, it's not that hard to switch to Android. You lose all of your apps, and that stinks a lot, but if most of your apps are free you might tolerate that. And outside of the apps, you can keep your phone number, export your contacts, etc...

But if suddenly all of your phone subscriptions including newspapers, music services like Spotify, hosts like Wordpress, email services like Hey, and so on -- if all of those are only managed through your phone and can't be canceled or upgraded by the companies themselves then that's another big annoyance to deal with that might keep you from switching just because you want an Android app that isn't available for your phone.

Apple tries very hard to lock users into its ecosystem. That's why there's a credit card now that only works with Apple phones; it's to make sure that if you ever change phones, you now have to deal with canceling a credit card. That's why companies aren't allowed to build their own interoppable solutions around iMessage. It's to make sure that if you change phones, you get social stigma from your friends and have a worse SMS experience with them.

The payments rules are another part of that. Yes, of course Apple wants the 30%, but they also want literally everything you do on your phone to be tied to them. If Apple could create a world where you lost your phone number when you switched phones, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

They want their walled garden to have a one-way door.

Very well said.

> If Apple could create a world where you lost your phone number when you switched phones, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

Face time is a start? They've dragged their feet on WebRTC implementation and spec compliance for a long time.

> it's not that hard to switch to Android.

As long as you don’t care about privacy, updates and having everything you do tied to Google.

If you're worried about tying all of your stuff to a giant amoral company, then your only realistic option right now is a stock Android phone with a de-Googled Lineage OS ROM, using the F-Droid store for software.

The efforts on making decent Linux phones are really important here and worth supporting, but still a long way away from being usable.

A legislative effort to partially debundle hardware from the exclusive control of a single company could be very helpful in mitigating the situation you describe.

Here, I think that we can clap for all the "Apple products" fanboys that have led us to this new world where a lot of people are thinking that it is normal that 2 companies have the arbitrary and dictatorial right to decide what is allowed to run on an user device just because they sold it...

Imagine, a car manufacturer that would remotely block cars for using highways that they don't like or have not paid the "tribute" to them.

Or, the gouvernement of one of the few remaining real democracies that will arbitrary dictate everything that you can or cannot do, based on arbitrary decisions depending of their personal preferences or financial interests.

It's quite amazing how hard Apple is pushing this now with all of the extra regulatory eyes on the subject. I guess they're fairly confident that they're untouchable.

They are betting on the fact that arent a majority in any space. Its the best situation for them, then dont have majority market share but make the most revenue. They see Google being split up and therefore being the only game in town.

I didn't notice when this happened, but apparently iPhone now has over 50% of the US phone market.

interesting neither did I. Globally its still 25% however.

But for the purposes of US antitrust and anti-competetive concerns, why does "global" matter?

Humans are humans, anti-competitive behaviour spreads quickly from country to country. If you get too late preparing for the legal action, the anti-competitive behaviour may well spread without competition enforcement noticing.

IPhone is expensive, who can spend 1000 euro on a damn phone? Not many even here in Europe. Americans have tons of disposable money, see wealthier and in general like ti consume.

Lol most people don't have the latest iPhone you can get an older one for a couple hundred at walmart (same a mid level android)

Postpaid service is around $1000 per year, so why not get a $1000 phone to go with it?

I’m using a 5GB/month, unlimited calls (EU), unlimited SMS (EU) plan for 8€/month, so 96€/year.

Even buying e.g. a Pixel several years after release at 270€, the phone is definitely the most expensive part.

My iPhone (SE) cost $400. The iPhone 11 is $699. Competitive hardware on the Android side is trending more expensive from brands like Samsung.

Competition for SE is the Pixel A line, $350.

That hardware is hardly competitive.

CPU is slower, camera is better? I don't know why it wouldn't be.

Maybe when the new SE came out?

It bugs me how this is an argument in "app store is not a monopoly". App stores (both Google and Apple) have a huge profit margin which is based on abusing it's position and they are milking the fact that creating competition would cost billions of dollars - this is exactly the situation where a pure market situation ends up being sub-optimal and hurting the consumers.

Consider what would happen if Mastercard and Visa proclaimed that you can no longer accept cash if you want to accept their services ! And then someone would say "but Mastercard is not a monopoly neither is Visa". At one point they even managed to make it illegal to transfer the transaction fees to user visibly as surcharge - but you are still allowed to have a "cash only discount" - Apple and Google are effectively killing this option by preventing third party payment systems and people are saying "they aren't a monopoly".

Fixing this should be pretty straightforward and should apply to all digital app stores :

a) force equal access to these stores (anyone who can legally apply must be able to, irregardless of their relation with store owner, eg. Epic vs Apple, there should be some provisions about what kind of content is not acceptable - but this should be defined on platform basis and enforced consistently, otherwise it should grant you basis for damages suit)

b) force app stores to accept all payment forms in-app (that comply to payment processing standards) - people here claim that app store payment provides them with security, convenience, etc. and I agree - but if I was given the option at a 25% markup (other payment providers aren't free either) I go for other option every time. At 10% over standard payment provider it's a different story - and that's still an insanely profitable spot for them. Point is - consumers decide what benefits them.

c) force app store reviews to follow specific guidelines: time limit on feedback, require explicit feedback of rule violations when you get denied access - to allow appeals through courts if the review process gets abused

Or just make a web app instead.

Credit card companies.... already have those rules. No store can just offer a cheaper cash price. It’s in the agreements.

I've seen many gas stations offer cheaper cash prices.

Here's an article which claims credit card surcharges are disallowed but cash discounts are not. https://www.cardfellow.com/blog/cash-discount-eliminate-proc...

Credit card surcharges have been allowed in many states for a number of years now: https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/surcharging...

They had those rules, but the rules have been outlawed in many places because... they are shitty and anti-consumer

Yes they can, it was ruled anti competitive a long time ago - this is why you can often find cash only discount. The only place CC won is that you usually can't surcharge the price, instead you must call it a discount for cash, etc.

Is cash even cheaper? I don't think a single store here would prefer you to pay in cash and that sentiment has only grown stronger this year.

Depends on the kind of business, arround here it's quite common (cash/debit vs CC)

People have a habit of looking through the wrong end of a telescope when it comes to anti-trust stuff. From a consumer perspective, as someone who already has a phone in-hand and a bunch of vendor lock-in going on, does Apple not have unilateral control over the software market that user has access to?

Saying "Android exists" is kind of like saying "you don't have to deal with Standard Oil or the railroads...you can just use coal instead and haul it by ship." Fat lot of good that does you when you have a bunch of oil-burning machinery you've invested in.

The mobile market is de-facto an oligarchy. Android and iOS control everything really. It would be like only having two national airlines. Sure, there are others, but they only do little routes here and there and if you want to go NYC/LA non-stop among many other routes, you have 'no choice'.

It's a new and developing market, and generally it would be nice to let things play out, but, there probably has to be anti-trust action of some kind.

In particular, it's not quite right to think of them as 'devices' or 'os's' - it's about 'all the other stuff' i.e. mapping, search etc..

It might be more because Epic is forcing their hand. Up to this point, Apple either just nudged smaller players or secretly negotiated deals with larger ones. With Epic shining a light on this, Apple has to more blatantly enforce this across the board. Now, in a legal setting, Epic can't point out how inconsistent Apple is with this policy.

Hey was before the Epic thing and that seemed like the start of the recent events.

I wonder how much of this is Phil Schiller retiring and control of the App store passing onto to someone else?

> Now, in a legal setting, Epic can't point out how inconsistent Apple is with this policy.

Well, except they can point at Amazon, who only pays a 15% cut: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/20/21378156/apple-news-publi...

For what it is worth, Apple _does_ have this arrangement with at least one other company. It is however a partnership deal with extremely specific terms: - The app must be a video subscription app (which can also provide purchases and rentals) - You must support iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS versions of the app - You must integrate into the Apple TV app and into Siri search and playback APIs - You must allow the user to subscribe through Apple, which will result in a 15% cut of the subscription fee (in this case, Apple gets 15% of the cost of Amazon Prime) - Additional purchases made against an apple-backed subscription must be in-app purchases, of which Apple gets a 15% cut (so renting a recent movie or subscribing to Showtime would result in a 15% revenue cut) - (AFAICT) Purchases/subscriptions/rentals against an account with existing billing information are not subject to any Apple revenue share - (AFAICT) Account management such as configuring or troubleshooting payment options for externally subscribed accounts must be outside of the app.

I imagine Amazon suspects that they have enough people who have already purchased prime that the in-app purchase usage won't be a significant revenue drain - and I imagine that Apple has a contract with terms specifically to prevent Amazon "pulling an Epic" should it turn out that their assumption of subscription percentages be wrong.

This is a very good point. If they are not seen to be applying their own rules consistently, it could actually give them legal trouble.

I've been thinking lately that Open Source, much less FOSS, needs to separate itself from corporate entities entirely. I've seen FOSS/OS communities use proprietary technologies like Slack over Mattermost or IRC, GitHub over GitLab or Gitea, and even as deep as prioritizing native apps over PWA architecture that could've achieved the same things.

I doubt Apple's ignorance over the economics of the matter or how it relates to community relations will become apparent to them, but I think this is a beacon in the night to developers everywhere. Money driven companies will never be more than a tool, much less your friends.

Over and over again this is once again made obvious to everyone as some large company abuses their monopoly or shuts down their website, and the people who have been saying adamantly for decades that this had never been OK to begin with sit back and know "y'all still aren't going to stop" :/.

Using open source tooling? Yes that makes sense and should carry some weight for an open source project.

Abandoning real client apps and instead telling everyone to use a webpage has nothing to do with software licensing.

Apple seems to be trying to make it as difficult as possible to distribute an iOS app that doesn't result in money moving into Apple's pocket, even when it makes absolutely no sense to enable that... unless you're Amazon, in which case your otherwise unauthorizedly thin margins are suddenly perfectly acceptable.

They're lucky that Apple hasn't yet realized their app is GPLv2. They're going to end up purged from the app store altogether unless they relicense their codebase, no matter what they end up deciding to do with IAP.

What's the problem with GPLv2 licensed app?

Short version of the usual argument: GPL says you can't add restrictions on what a user can do when you distribute an app. App Store terms of service do add restrictions, so distributing an GPL app through the app store is a license violation.

But in this case it doesn't matter, because Automattic is the owner of the application, not a licensee -- they can relicense the application if they want, and they're implicitly doing so here. It does make the source code effectively unusable by anyone downstream, though.

Do they own GPLv2-licensed commits to their codebase introduced by accepting pull requests from contributors?

They don't ask for CLAs as far as I know, so they don't if they take any contributions.

You may opt out of the usual App Store restrictions for your application.

Oh, did they add that? Interesting, do you happen to have a link with more details handy?

I remember some GPL projects having license exceptions to allow app store usage.

Very top of https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/std...

> Your license to each App is subject to your prior acceptance of either this Licensed Application End User License Agreement (“Standard EULA”), or a custom end user license agreement between you and the Application Provider (“Custom EULA”), if one is provided.

Most of the other things mentioned are “you can’t do this, unless custom EULA say you can”. And the custom EULA can be fairly broad, the only real restrictions on it that I saw was that you can’t pretend like you’re Apple in it.

This is excellent news.

The App Store TOS specifically prohibits you from redistributing any app you download from it. GPLv2 specifically prohibits that, so any distribution of an app under GPLv2 terms is a license violation. GPLv3 would be even worse as you cannot provide Installation Instructions.

However, WordPress/Automattic has copyright ownership, which means GPLv2 terms don't apply. If you get the app from the App Store, then the App Store terms apply, and if you downloaded the source code from GitHub, then you have GPLv2 terms and can compile and install it yourself. However, you cannot legally submit, say, a modified WordPress app with GPLv2 code in it back to the App Store. This gets tricky if WordPress accepts pull requests under GPLv2 terms, though, as they would then be bound by those terms and no longer be able to offer App Store terms. This is why some Free Software projects require CLAs, so they can both have a strict copyleft and still be on app stores that don't allow that to happen.

Funnily enough I'm pretty sure Microsoft realized this problem, and added an explicit waiver of Microsoft Store TOS terms for software distributed under Free Software terms. I haven't actually checked their TOS in a long while, though, so I may be misremembering things.

They openly encourage users to submit contributions in the form of pull requests ^1; they seem to accept pull requests without any special statement of licensing contrary to the GPLv2 repo license ^2; and, they do not openly state in the GitHub repo's Contributor Guidelines any CLA requirement that would permit them to relicense GPLv2 contributions that they merge ^3. (IANYL)

^1 https://apps.wordpress.com/contribute/

^2 https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/blob/devel...

^3 https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/blob/devel...

The point is that Apple doesn't care if there's GPL code, so it doesn't matter if they "realize" as you said in your original comment. If anything, the project contributors could sue Automattic for violating the terms of their contribution.

They could probably sue Apple, too. When someone buys something on the App Store, the store makes a copy and distributes a copy to the purchaser. If that copy is infringing, then the entity that makes and distributes the copy (i.e., Apple) should be liable.

That they received their initial copy from someone else (i.e., Automatic) who told them that they had the rights to make and authorize making and distribution of copies wouldn't protect Apple from suit. It would just mean that in turn Apple would be able to sue Automatic to make them pay any damages and costs Apple incurs over the matter.

IANAL but I don't think Apple is liable in this case. It sounds just like websites not being responsible for user created content. They do have to remove illegal content, and must have means to report and act on it, but you can't e.g. sue hackernews because someone posts a torrent of a Marvel movie.

All the elements for copyright infringement would be there: (1) Apple made copies and distributed those copies, (2) Apple is not the copyright owner, and (3) Apple does not have a license from the copyright owner.

Apple might not know it is infringing, and indeed might even think it has permission because the developer told it the developer had made sure all the licensing was in order, but the defendant's mental state in a case of direct copyright infringement is not relevant. Copyright infringement does not have a mens rea, at least in the US. "[i]ntention to infringe is not essential under the Act.", Buck v. Jewell-Lasalle Realty Co., 283 U.S. 191, 198 (1931).

The website shield against liability for user created content that is most often used is from section 230 of the CDA. That specifically carves out an exception to the shield for anything relating to intellectual property, so 230 is out.

The DMCA looks like it might work. The people claiming infringement could send a DMCA take down request to Apple, and Apple could take down the content and give them the contact information necessary to sue Automatic, and that should get Apple out of the loop.

But DMCA has limitations, too. If a service provider is infringing themselves, or acts in concert with the people providing the infringing material, then the DMCA safe harbors may not apply. Acting in concert is more than just providing hosting, and I have no idea if Apple does enough more to reach acting in concert. There's some interesting Q&As about DMCA safe harbors at https://assets.fenwick.com/legacy/FenwickDocuments/DMCA-QA.p...

> The App Store TOS specifically prohibits you from redistributing any app you download from it.

Do you have a link that is recent and actually quotes the current EULA for the App Store? I do not think anyone has reviewed this in many years.

> GPLv3 would be even worse as you cannot provide Installation Instructions.

Minor correction: it's "Installation Information", not "Installation Instructions".

Bigger correction: The GPLv3 Installation Information requirement does not apply to programs sold via software stores for use on devices that the user already has. It only applies to the conveyance of:

> object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient

A "User Product" is:

> either (1) a “consumer product”, which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling.

This section of GPLv3 was to address the TiVo situation, where you had hardware that shipped with GPL software and source but required signed binaries so that if you used that source to build updated firmware you could not run it. The GPLv3 authors specifically tied this section to software that you get along with the hardware.

I've never looked into why they decided to limit it like that. Anyone happen to know the reasons?

If they did not limit like that, developers would complain that this licence goes too far. Have you never heard of MongoDB SSPL incident? Do you wish GNU GPL to become an unpreferred software licence like SSPL is?

Does Apple have any objection to having apps built from GPL-licensed source? I thought it’s the GPL license that has objections against running on iOS because of the restrictions of the platform (people who licensed your app cannot deploy it). Also, GPLv3 is stricter in that than GPLv2.

I know it won't happen but I wish that all major companies on the Apple store would collaborate and all at once either release in-house in-app purchases or link to their websites to instruct users to buy stuff. Apple can't remove every app from the app-store as the ensuing shitstorm would have people ditching Apple in waves.

Epic is trying to get this done. But the companies are afraid that could trigger anti-trust cases against them. It’s complicated - but they’re watching and I believe big tech has grown tired of Apple’s power.

Does apple want legal action against themselves? This is just stupid.

The conspiracy theorist in me says maybe they’re trying to make the discussion about about payments and not anticompetitive behavior or the attack on FOSS.

Sounds like Apple's doubling down on their lawsuit stance. If they win, they can broadly charge their 30% rent on all digital purchases, maybe even physical ones in the future.

Dear Apple, your project of making people hate you JUST WORKS

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24210991

Can they (and other developers) join Epic's lawsuit? It would presumably be good for the industry if several players worked together to formulate the legal case against Apple's policies.

The mobile device role is such a weird and mutated one. Closed systems like game consoles only run software the vendor approves and buyers go into it knowing it's a specialized device. Real computers can run any software the user wants and buyers fully expect their PCs to be as powerful and flexible as possible. Mobile devices occupy a weird middle ground where vendors try to give the impression they can do anything a PC can while simultaneously holding an iron grip around the entire software ecosystem.

Wordpress iOS app isn't used for buying domains. It's simply helps manage your website. Apple is going crazy and in a rush to reach the next trillion landmark.

Mobile apps were a mistake. Steve Jobs had it right the first time with his “very sweet solution.”

It was a good 12 year run, but 2020 is the year mobile apps stopped being cool.

It feels like there's a tragedy of the commons situation here -- imagine if Amazon, Spotify, Google, and others unilaterally decided to block Apple. This would surely result in Apple folding

As if Amazon and Google are saints. Even if they colluded to "block" Apple (which would be illegal), millions of people would still continue using Apple.

It's not illegal or collusion to remove their apps and products from Apple phones. I disagree with you - if you couldn't use instagram / fb messenger(s) / tiktok / YouTube, wayyyy less people would buy Apple.

https://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-en...

However, it doesn't look like this is happening anytime soon.

Users could still always use the websites, which is what I do for those apps, especially after all the recent news about iOS 14 catching apps like Instagram and others secretly snooping your camera and clipboard etc.

Mobile team seems doing poor job for the big picture of the apps at Automattic. Ex: Simplenote becomes famous of loss data. Matt should focus on hiring experienced engineers then interview and slack hackers with emojis.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.automattic...

I don‘t believe being more perfect in license enforcement is going to save Apple in their anti-trust struggles but I can believe some lawyers may believe that.

This is a worrying development for my company. We have B2B products (that can be used from the web and mobile) that customers pay for per account, in bulk. I hope they don't start to apply the 30% cut there - our customers would find it impossible to pay 30% more for every user who uses an iPhone. We would have no choice but to stop having an iPhone app in that case.

Ok correct me if I’m wrong, but the rationale is pretty much that since there is a commercial version of Wordpress that this app interacts with, the user should be able to purchase this through Apple’s payment gateway?

If this is correct, wouldn’t the same logic apply to other tools, such as JIRA and Trello and whatnot? Or am I mistaken?

This is all really making me rethink any future purchases of an iPhone. I don’t want to be anywhere near this.

> using the XML-RPC API included in core WP since WP 2.6 was released in 2008.

Wow this is the first time I think I've heard of a real use of XML-RPC

From the authors tweet

“I am a big believer in the sanctity of licenses. (Open source relies on licenses and copyright.) We agreed to this license when we signed up for (and stayed in) the app store, so going to follow and abide by the rules. Not looking to skirt it, hence doing what they asked us to.”

I wonder if someone had made that same argument here who wasn’t the author, would he get downvoted to oblivion?

Why not use the website instead of an App? Other people said Safari is bad, but you aren't trying to play flash games, you are looking at JavaScript at most.

(Not that I'd ever give Apple money, but trying to find solutions to those who made the mistake)

might be false/local info, so redacted

This is straight up false, at least in my jurisdiction. When I buy apps or in app purchases I get charged a separate 13% HST (Ontario sales tax) on top of the listed price.

What is false?

The 30% apple fee does not cover taxes/VAT. Those costs are added on top.

So we have this equation for what the customer sees:

    dev price + apple comm. + VAT

Did you mean:

   dev price + apple VAT + real VAT

no, I mean whatever apple takes as commission, plus whatever apple thinks the regional VAT/cost is.

I wonder if corporations would be more efficient long term if each layer in the hierarchy simply collected 30% tax from the layer below like capitalism, instead of being run like a dictatorship / communism that they currently run as... I mean if 30% ownership of everything via taxes is good for capitalist governments, maybe it’s good for corporations also ?

So the Apple store 30% tax would be more like a 30% VAT on the value created by the app - excluding the value already present in prewritten libraries etc the app builds on.

The problem there is that it's impossible to quantify that. VAT works in-practice in retail sales because the value added is trivial to calculate - but you can't do that with open-source libraries or internal components - or the value created by a platform (e.g. what value does Spotify add on-top of the existing iOS audio and internet capabilities that they're using?)

think franchising (or commission based sales or performance based bonuses) taken to an extreme. I understand there are inefficiencies in implementing. And you may lose the govt. tax free intra organization transactions. Just a not really serious thought.

What should be the price of accessing a billion users?

Does any platform allow anyone to charge its users without going through the platform?

Nevermind charging, does -any- platform allow anyone to interact with its users at all without adhering to the platform's terms and conditions?

Can we post anything we want on HN? How about spamming Patreon or GoFundMe links on forums and servers? Why not?

> Can we post anything we want on HN? How about spamming Patreon or GoFundMe links on forums and servers? Why not?

You are free to put a gofundme link on your profile page on HN. People who make interesting, thought provoking, constructive comments and avoid sophistic arguments and strawmen certainly have their profile page checked by other users who want to follow the commenter on other plateforms.

> What should be the price of accessing a billion users?

The $99 developers licence seems like a pretty fair price for access.

The price should be zero. Then platform can offer a service e.g payment gateway at a price but not prevent other payment gateways.

Google search and other search engin do allow. They are platforms, not purely marketplace, so what.

The problem is not whether it is legitimate for a platform to enforce terms and conditions, the problem is what are those terms and conditions. A physical market place can and probably should have some terms and conditions, such as rules around how to not dispose of trash and sanitary, but a term that force participants to purchase a cleaning service only from the marketplace manager is where it would be crossing a line. That is what is being criticized here. Not the existence of terms and conditions to use the app store, it is the restriction to use any other payment gateway, the restriction from communicating that there is an apple tax of 30% and offer an alternative route to the end customer.

Apple has the right to monetise its platform of course, but with a fair business model, not an abusive business model.

> The price should be zero.

I don’t know if this is what you meant, but this reads as if you’re implying that Apple should host free apps absolutely free. Which makes no economical sense.

No, I'm saying they should build a business model that doesn't abuse participants. They can certainly make money by offering a great payment gateway and other services that developers and/or buyers would prefer to opt for than any alternative. Instead they simply charge for the privilege to be on their platform.

Google Search absolutely charges its customers, who are advertisers. It charges them a lot of money to show their ads to the billions of users.

Yes and we are free to also let other search engines index the sites. I can use any device including Google devices and access Google search or any other search engines and pay producers of content or software. Google doesn't force anyone to use its search, it doesn't make an exclusive deal to be indexed either, despite their dominance.

Not saying Google act like saints with its ad system these days, but I simply cited an example of a Platform that built a business model where nobody is being excluded from the platform because they somehow circumvent payments going to Google (via ads).

We can block the ads, we can ignore the ads, we can use another search engine to access the same content. Power and freedom to the participants.

> Does any platform allow anyone to charge its users without going through the platform?

Microsoft Windows?

The only operating that still costs money and still spams its users with third-party ads.

In any case, you can publish for macOS without paying Apple anything too, you just have to convince your users to bypass Gatekeeper for your app.

Apple also spam users with ads. And yes they devices is far more expensive

Apple does not put ads on any of their operating systems.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/18/18145289/apple-iphone-io...

There are no ads in any Apple OS.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com