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Comment by fotta | Hacker News Reader

> permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.

This sounds like the same agreement Apple came to a few weeks ago [0]. They can’t bar developers from linking to external payment methods, but doesn’t require them to allow other forms of in app payment.

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/08/apple-us-developers-a...

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Apple's concession didn't apply to games; only "reader apps".

Apple's concession also limited to one link, whereas this refers to links in the plural, and also metadata (eg app store descriptions).

Ah I didn't know of those stipulations in the original concession.

You're thinking of a different concession they made a few years ago. This one is specifically about developers reaching out to their customers outside of the app, for example via email (which they may have obtained from the app).

"purchasing mechanisms" is what's interesting... it's not just information.

But it doesn't force them to allow other purchasing mechanisms, just that they cannot bar "calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms". My read on that is that Apple is still allowed to force Apple-only IAP, but they cannot bar CTAs to external purchasing mechanisms.

From the text of the injunction:

> [Apple] are hereby permanently restrained [..] from prohibiting developers from including in their apps [..] buttons [,..] that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms [..]

I'm not sure how exactly to interpret that but it seems reasonable to interpret that has being able to put a button in your app that takes someone to a checkout page.

It explicitly prohibits Apple from prohibiting any form of In-App purchasing, not merely links to external payments methods.

I disagree here. My read on it is that Apple is prohibited from prohibiting "calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms", not "purchasing mechanisms" themselves. So Apple can still say App Store IAP is the only allowed form of IAP, but they have to allow CTAs to other mechanisms.

I see nothing that limits those "purchasing mechanisms" to be outside the app.

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