Apple is a little looser in the app store – economy


Apple has announced that it has reached an agreement with representatives in a class action lawsuit against its Appstore rules. Several small app developers had accused the company of exploiting its monopoly and exploiting developers. For example, they demanded that software manufacturers should contact their own customers directly and advise them to pay for purchases directly from the company. Because if people take out a subscription in the app store instead, Apple collects a 30 percent commission. Accordingly, less flows to the developer companies. But so far, Apple has forbidden developers to communicate about payment options. Anyone who violates this can be kicked out of the app store.

Now Apple is softening this position – if only a little. In the future, software manufacturers should be allowed to refer to alternative payment options in e-mails, for example. In order for this to work, customers must have entered their e-mail in an app beforehand and consented to the manufacturer being contacted. Such notices should continue to be prohibited in the apps themselves. So in practice little has changed.

Other points of the announcement are also less accommodating on closer inspection. For example, the rule that developer studios with appstore sales of less than one million dollars per year only have to pay Apple a commission of 15 percent instead of 30 percent. Because Apple had announced this months ago, now only the minimum term has been specified: The halving of the commission should now apply for at least three years.

For developers, this theoretically creates planning security. The Swiss developer Oliver Reichenstein earns his living with a popular writing app. What Apple is now selling as a success does not change anything for him in practice. In fact, it makes him queasy when he thinks about whether the commission will go up again in three years, he says.

There is another point that makes observers shake their heads. According to the company’s own statements, the search function in the app store should also be based on “objective criteria” such as download numbers and ratings for at least another three years. That too reads ominously on closer inspection: Is there a threat of the Amazonization of the app store in 2024, where the top search results are paid ads?

It gets even wilder when Apple announces that the company wants to allow developers to object to a rejection of their apps that is perceived as unfair – because they can already do so.

What is actually new, however, is a fund that Apple wants to set up. Smaller developers who have not made more than a million dollars in any year since 2015 can apply to Apple for some kind of social assistance of 250 to 30,000 dollars. However, this offer is only valid for US developers. The US court has yet to approve the settlement between Apple and the developers of the class action lawsuit.

The Coalition for App Fairness, an association of developer studios, called the agreement window dressing. Apple’s offer does nothing “to address the structural problems in the app ecosystem from which small and large developers suffer”. Epic Games can also be found among the members of the coalition. The manufacturer of the game “Fortnite” had sued Apple in a separate proceeding because of unfair Appstore conditions. A verdict is expected soon in this process as well.

.



Source link