> What’s more, Mullenwag told us that he had previously offered to strip other mentions of the paid plans out of the app (even workarounds like when a user views a preview of their own WordPress webpage and then navigates to WordPress.com), only to have those suggestions rejected by Apple.
Having to remove those kinds of work-arounds is part of what bugs me about apples control over the app store.
That said, there is no comparison: forcing a developer to add features to an app is nothing like enforcing the TOS the developer agreed with and is trying to subvert.
And the non-malicious explanation for that is simple. The majority of the million apps in the app store are small fry to them, and they can't scale support to that level in any empathetic rational manner.
My wishlist for legislation is:
1/ Apple has to allow side loading of apps (make it an advanced developer setting, with plenty of warnings and periodic reminders, that's fine).
2/ Apple cannot force usage of Apple pay and apple sign in.
3/ Apple cannot force developers to hide any options or even information about alternative mechanisms to pay for content, or sign up to a service.
I am conflicted about Sign In with Apple. It’s heavy handed, but I clearly benefit by not having to trust Google or Facebook for this. There should be a standard with several providers, like FIDO, but somehow I don’t see this happening as long as Facebook and Google are utterly dominant.
I completely agree with your third point.
We've seen dozens of situations like this over the years and often we find out that Apple and the developers were discussing behind the scenes way before it was public.