It’s not a win. Apple is still requiring apps to undergo app review and even more exorbitant fees than distributing through the App Store. Apple is doing their best to comply to the letter but not the spirit of the EU ruling.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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It will be fixed. It's gov. So baby steps. The EU is working hard and it's going to be a while before we get everything we want.
Sure but hundreds of millions of dollars will go into compliance enforcement and litigation against Apple, which is taxpayer money. Apple should be fined Apple money right now for their bad-faith efforts to meet the requirements. They’ve already run the numbers, and they know making third party apps jump through all sorts of hoops, pay exorbitant fees, and fight the system tooth and nail is still cheaper than just complying in good faith.
App downloads through websites don't need to go through app review. The developers have some requirements that restrict it to profit-making developers though, see my other comment.
It’s a less stringent review process than the App Store, but apps distributed outside of it will have to be “notarized”: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/25/alternative-app-store-notarization-process/.
Ah. Your comment sounded like it was way more than just checking if it works, though.
I disagree - it's definitely a win.
There's still more work to be done (you shouldn't need to first deploy an app with a million downloads on the Apple App Store in order to deploy outside of it for example...) but I expect the EU will force them to change that rule.
It will be interesting to see where they land on the Core Technology Fee. At face value it seems pretty clearly anti-competitive to make developers pay more if you don't use an Apple service. But at the same time, the government can't force Apple to give things away for free.
I expect a middle ground will be reached with much lower prices and hopefully a per-app price (e.g. pay once to have your app go through an anti-malware scanning service) rather than a per-user price. Or even better, in my opinion, is to make users pay a fee to have their device scanned for malware by Apple. A cost that could be built into the price of the hardware.
To use this feature, developers will have to opt into the new App Store business terms, which means they will pay the Core Technology Fee of €0.50 for each first annual install over one million in the past 12 months.
Wait.. So if you develop an open source app and don't charge for it, and 11 million new users install it, you have to pay apple $500,000? (10,000,000 * $0.50) Wtf?
Non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and governments are exempt from the fee. The full policy is here: https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/
If you don’t plan to charge for it, you can also just publish through the existing App Store infrastructure, where there is no fee.
(I’m not being an apologist. There are so, so many shitty things about Apple’s implementation here, but this isn’t one. I believe the EU should blast Apple as hard as legally possible for the rest of their implementation which is intentionally terrible.)
"Non-profit organizations" that sounds like the minority of developers. Most projects are from single developers that just throw their project on github et al. and release it from there.
“Non-profit organizations” that sounds like the minority of developers
True but if you're a for-profit developer, you can probably afford 50 cents per customer. Facebook, for example, has a "free" app that earned $134 billion last year. I'm not defending Apple, I think the Core Technology Fee is anti-competitive and I hope the EU tells them it's illegal - but 50c is pocket change for nearly any for-profit app developer.
Small apps with less than a million users don't pay any fee either.
A million users is a big open source project and I think you'll find most of them already are non-profits. Or they're part of a larger non-profit that runs a bunch of projects such as the Apache Foundation, which provides funding and resources to almost 300 open source projects and could easily grow that number by a significant margin if there was much need for it. This potentially creates that need.
The main thing I have a problem with is the requirement to be an established "good standing" developer in order to deploy on the web. Apple's definition of "good standing" is clearly anti-competitive... I expect the EU told Apple they can deny distribution rights to developers who can't be trusted, but based on recent history (e.g. Epic) it's pretty clear that Apple and the EU don't agree on who can be trusted. They are surely going to have to change that rule.
I do think Apple can charge a fee to use their service. The EU is not banning fees and they never will. A government can't force a company to give things away for free. What I personally hope to see is the EU telling Apple that all fees must be optional. That way if Apple wants to make money, they need to offer something people are willing to pay for. If I was CEO of Apple, I would make the "Core Technology Fee" built into the price of an iPhone and make customers pay it.
That used to be Apple's business model by the way — and it worked. It wasn't as profitable as "give nearly everything away for free but force everyone to use this overpriced service", but Apple was still very profitable under the old model. And both customers and developers were happy with how it worked back then.
What's your logic here for this not being terrible?
That's not what they said.
There are so, so many shitty things about Apple’s implementation here, but this isn’t one. I believe the EU should blast Apple as hard as legally possible for the rest of their implementation which is intentionally terrible.)
Ah, I thought you meant something else. I'm pretty sure their logic is that apps that don't make a profit would be probably exempt, though as others said, devs aren't necessarily NGOs.
Ahh, Gotcha. I've never owned an apple product, so I don't know how their walled garden works for app developers.
This is new territory and it's changing every week.
Historically, the way it worked is Apple gives almost everything away for free except for a $99 per year fee developers have to pay. But developers who have certain business models (especially game developers) have to pay Apple a huge percentage of their income.
I've been an Apple developer since the 90's - if you go even further back in Apple's history... Apple didn't have a walled garden approach. They simply charged money for all their software and that was very successful. Not as successful as the walled garden but still healthy profits.
Euros* which are worth more than dollars. That said, such a dev probably wouldn't meet the other requirements to distribute anyway, so they'll probably use the existing unofficial sideloading.
Euros* which are worth more than dollars
1 Euro is currently 1.09 US Dollars. So technically "more" but realistically they're about equal.
Well, in this case of 1 000 000 downloads, that would make a 50 000 dollar difference. Not really something 'little'.
Don't look at the original article's comments. So much walled garden shills in there.
There are a handful of different eligibility requirements that developers must meet to be able to distribute apps via their website:
- Be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program as an organization incorporated, domiciled, and or registered in the EU (or have a subsidiary legal entity incorporated, domiciled, and or registered in the EU that’s listed in App Store Connect). The location associated with your legal entity is listed in your Apple Developer account.
- Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
- Agree to, among other things,
- Only offer apps from your developer account.
- Be responsive to communications from Apple regarding your apps distributed through Web Distribution, particularly regarding any fraudulent, malicious, or illegal behavior, or anything else that Apple believes impacts the safety, security, or privacy of users.
- Publish transparent data collection policies and offer users control over how their data is collected and used.
- Follow applicable laws of the jurisdictions where you operate (for example, the Digital Services Act, the General Data Protection Regulation, and consumer protection laws).
- Be responsible for handling governmental and other requests to take down listings of apps.
The "good standing" rule is the most problematic one - but I don't see it lasting.
Keep in mind just last week Apple described Epic Games as "verifiably untrustworthy"... only to immediately backflip and decide to trust Epic. I can see the same thing happening here.
Two continuous years and a million existing customers is way too high a bar. It's literally impossible for any new developer to meet that criteria unless they first spend years deploying apps inside Apple's walled garden and the entire point of the DMA is to get rid of that wall.
So not really a win at all, since they would still be in control of what you're able to download and where you're able to download it.
I just hope a developer has a sketchy domain like notavirus.zip
Lol, definitelyavirus.zip
I know it won't happen but sometimes I amuse myself by imagining America having its own Euromaiden revolution just so corporations will stop making their products worse so they'll be more profitable
Fucking finally!
I mean, I’m still going to get almost everything from the App Store, but it’s nice to have the option for the few niche things.
Don’t laugh too early.. It is as flawed as App-Marketplaces