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Apple can no longer force developers to use in-app purchasing, judge rules:
A U.S. judge on Friday issued a ruling in "Fortnite" creator Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Apple's App Store, striking down some of Apple's restrictions on how developers can collect payments in apps.
The ruling says that Apple cannot bar developers from providing buttons or links in their apps that direct customers to other ways to pay outside of Apple's own in-app purchase system, which charges developers commissions of up to 30 percent. The ruling also said that Apple cannot ban developers from communicating with customers via contact information that the developers obtained when customers signed up within the app.
The ruling comes after a three-week trial in May before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple shares moved down about 2.5 percent on news of the decision.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday September 14 2021, @08:12AM (10 children)
This means that Apple cannot charge commissions any more period. It will take a while for the libraries/stackoverflow answers to roll out to all the developers, but why let Apple take a cut when you can list an app for free and immediately ask for the real app price when the app is first started, via an external payment processor.
Good news for users, at least for the short term. Apple is going to recoup its lost revenue one way or another, and it's not like those in the walled garden have any alternative.
This recalls the Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp case, where contractors sued Microsoft for being treated worse than full time employees, and as a result contractors are now treated even worse than before. Beware the unintended consequence.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday September 14 2021, @08:19AM (6 children)
Oh, they can. At the application purchase. The judge said nothing about the monopoly of distributing the app (obtaining and installing the application for the customer) and/or the updates for it. Perhaps the "adv revenue" as well, we haven't heard anything in this regards too.
It's only the in-app purchases and extra content that the judge banned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 14 2021, @09:42AM (5 children)
OK, then the app is free to download from the Apple store, and if you want to use this or that gimmick to work, here's an external purchasing option that will mail an unlock code to you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday September 14 2021, @09:57AM (3 children)
Couldn't Apple just institute some kind of listing fee for having the app in the store? None of that dodgy free to download stuff in their walled garden.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 14 2021, @10:35AM (2 children)
Only if they allow sideloading, or else the next antitrust suit is coming.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday September 14 2021, @12:33PM (1 child)
"Sideloading" used to be called "installation" of software. By getting people to call the old activity by a new name, they can shift the public's attitudes and diminish their expectations. Installing software is normal. Apple wants the public to think that it is dodgy or illegal. It's part of their front in the ongoing war against general purpose computing.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 14 2021, @04:45PM
Is that like when you call a new OSHA workplace safety policy that doesn't even require a vaccine a "vaccine mandate" to make it sound scary?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday September 14 2021, @09:58AM
OK, then your development account yearly subscription will carry a price. Plans per size of download, plans per number of downloads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by helel on Tuesday September 14 2021, @01:47PM (1 child)
I think that for allot of smaller developers the trust and convenience for the customer of just paying through the apple store will still be worth the price. If you use the apple store in-app purchase all the customer needs to do is click it, click confirm, and bam, you have their money. If you use an outside service now they're sent over to a website or your application is asking for credit card info directly making the transaction harder and making many customers wary.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:25PM
And on top of that you now have to setup, maintain and pay for a web presence (which has to be up and available when customer wants to pay), and also contract with a payment service provider (or maybe more than one to cover all parts of the world and all customers). Costs of all that are probably only worth it if your in app purchase volumes are significant.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EvilSS on Tuesday September 14 2021, @10:03PM