Does Facebook pay Apple 30% of revenue derived from ads made within its iOS app? | Hacker News Reader

Does Facebook pay Apple 30% of revenue derived from ads made within its iOS app?

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697 pointsspenvo321 comments

I submitted with a hesitant title because I'd genuinely love to know, and I'm surprised there isn't more concrete info on this that's readily available. My strong suspicion is that they don't, and 9to5mac editor has chimed in on twitter saying: "Definitely feels muddy, but think Apple is probably considering FB ads as part of the 'outside goods and services' category. Guideline 3.1.5a makes apps use direct payment for those".

If that explanation is true ^, then it's pretty rich, because Apple recently aimed to get 30% of virtual experiences offered through Airbnb. How would those not be considered "outside goods and services" when they involve people outside the app providing goods and services? [0] Others are saying Apple doesn't see it as an "in app purchase"; however, I can click "Place Order" for an ad in the iOS app... I'd call that an in-app purchase! Can all companies let you buy digital stuff within the app with non-Apple payments or in a bill-you-later manner? Just ads?

Almost certainly there have been behind-closed-doors discussions on this, as the line has been arbitrarily drawn (either way) to include/exclude this massive company from the 30% tax. Indies don't have the same clarity on the rules; for example, Marco Arment's app Overcast sells ads, but doesn't complete transactions in the app because he was worried he'd need to give up 30%. Like with Apple's quiet program that let Amazon and a couple other token companies get a separate deal on content-app rules [1]: how can small companies on the store know when to press Apple on some rules and not on others (without retaining lawyers)?

It's just baffling because Facebook has recently whipped up quite a stir [2] around Apple requiring 30% of creator revenue, yet none of the articles mention this point about Facebook ads getting/not-getting a 30% tax for (probably the better part of) the past decade ... their bread and butter!

Furthermore, Facebook is whining about Apple making IDFA tracking opt-in on iOS, yet this company has benefited HUGELY from the fact Apple didn't do that from the start AND somehow decided not to charge 30% on its ad buys on mobile.

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/technology/apple-app-stor...

[1] - https://stratechery.com/2020/apple-amazon-and-common-enemies...

[2]- https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=798&tbm=nws&ei=RR...

A virtual experience happens entirely in the Airbnb app right?

Eh, I guess? It involves people essentially performing for each other in their own physical spaces. It's not a purely digital good like ads though.

On the other hand, you can buy a Facebook ad in its iOS Ads Manager app that only targets iOS devices, right?

All of this is to say Apple has arbitrarily picked winner and loser categories of digital app businesses. Meanwhile it sticks to the line that the store is an even playing field. I'd love it if it were!

I think you just solved a conundrum I was having thinking about this very question -- a video class that you watch in an app is in a sense a purely in-app digital good, and Apple appears to have recently been getting super-aggressive about interpreting it that way. But "not a purely digital good" is a great delineation, and one that Apple should probably be making.

(I'm not arguing that Apple's 30% cut requirement for even purely digital goods is appropriate; I think Ben Thompson's recent suggestion of a difference between goods with marginal costs vs. zero-marginal costs goods would be a better starting point, if there were a way to express it simply. Of course, a better suggestion might just be for Apple to allow developers to integrate their own in-app purchase systems for goods and services that aren't explicitly tied to the Apple ecosystem and use non-Apple infrastructure for delivery -- not just video classes but Netflix subscriptions, Kindle books, and so on.)

Is it really arbitrary, though? The decisions all seem to have reasons, mainly "what is best for Apple's bottom line"

It's also not surprising that companies the size of Facebook, and others, have negotiated terms with Apple that smaller organisation will find difficult to match.

Perhaps what the smaller organisations and some developers need is to fund a lawyery folk to advocate / negotiate collectively on their behalf?

Edit: improved grammar by removing a typo and changing a word or two.

The lawyers aren't the reason those negotiations are successful.

Billions of users are the reason those negotiations are successful. Apple will be in a pickle if you can't get Facebook on an iPhone. Apple doesn't give two figs if someone can't get some shitty startup's app on an iPhone.

The ugly truth Apple doesn't want aired out in the open is that if not for apps like Twitter and Facebook, its own platform (iOS) is suddenly alot less appealing.

This in addition to the question of, what is 30% of all revenue FB makes via ad purchases in its iOS app? I don't think this number is published but easy to think it is in the billions (what is annual FB ad revenue? $60 billion something like that? How much of that is ad agencies (or ad buyers) managing ads via the iOS app?)

If Apple were to attempt to tax that... they'd suddenly give Facebook a several-billion-dollar reason to push the market to create a third mobile device platform and have it overtake iOS.

Well, if the FB app wasn't allowed on iOS any more, wouldn't FB do its level best to create a web experience (via iOS Safari) that's "good enough" instead?

Apple owns the mobile-web Safari experience and penalises PWAs for exactly this reason.

It's not about not allowing the FB app, it'd be about forcing those purchases to incur the 30% fee; no way FB would give up that much money.

Facebook has a native browser app. I think that is a pretty damn big economic difference as otherwise they wouldn't bother with a native app. That would be bad for the apple Brand to give Android an exclusive like that.

And? It's not illegal for a company to calibrate its business model to improve the bottom line. On the contrary in many cases they are legally forced to. Obviously while respecting other laws.

And they claimed otherwise.

I did several and they were all through Zoom. The transaction was only through the Airbnb website.

I just solved it: If Facebook Ads (which are obviously bought for an in—app experience for others), I will now introduce a different pricing model to my app: you pay for a subscription of another person. And another person pays for yours. This way, the IAP clearly doesn’t result in your own app experience and hence, should be exempt from the 30% cut.

Or how about let users buy gift card or apps local currency(trading app). Which could then be used for anything within the app or can be transferred. That way it's no longer a purchase of digital good buy exchange of currency

> That way it's no longer a purchase of digital good buy exchange of currency

Just be really careful, there’s tons of FinCen and KYC/AML laws that might cover what you’re doing if you go this route.

I would think in that setup you'd have to have it such that you subscribing for another person would not guarantee that another person would subscribe for you. In other words, some people subscribing for others would not receive a subscription themselves, and some people _not_ subscribing for others would still receive a subscription paid for by some other user(s). Basically, you'd pay for a subscription and the benefits would go to some random user that is not you.

Games should ask users to chip in to their Facebook marketing budgets. Cost offset is revenue earned!

You've asked this around different places, and it's been answered. Those ads are not digital purchases made by users. They're ads. Please edit your posts and point out that this has been answered now and you understand that ads are not the same thing. But of course, if you want to keep bashing Apple and muddy the waters, continue on.

Also, Facebook is going to find their ads are less effective in the next release of iOS, as they won't be able to track people as easily.

> Please edit your posts and point out that this has been answered now and you understand that ads are not the same thing.

This sentence might very well be based on good intentions and a passion for discourse clarity.

It also feels extremely paternalistic and condescending to tell someone to edit in ones own viewpoint as their own and even demand a faux acknowledgement of personal progression. Almost like in a play that depicts a medieval trial.

I know it probably wasn't meant that way and we're certainly all frustrated by the repetitive parts of the conversation, but the on-topic sentences would've been great on their own.

Owners of the Big Soviet Encyclopedia received replacement pages and were instructed to update their copies with scissors and glue to remove the article about Beria after he fell from power. Gives me the same vibes.

I can digitally purchase an ad. I am a user. I don't have to own a business to buy an ad. So... ads and digital purchases made by users are one and the same, as far as I'm concerned

(Also, I haven't "asked this around several times", and I won't edit my posts, you goofball!)

How? I was never offered to purchase an ad as user.

Create a Facebook page and download the Ads Manager app

Like creating a Netflix account on Netflix.com and adding my payment credentials there (or Spotify), and then consuming it on the iPhone w/o apple getting any cut?

Using that analogy, it would be like if Netflix let you sign up in its app (purchase the subscription without leaving the app). (The FB ads manager app let's you "place" ad orders on iOS.) Instead, Netflix doesn't let you make that sign up transaction in-app. In fact, it doesn't even link out to a web site where you can, because Apple limits Netflix's speech in that regard.

Ok, got it. So it’s like purchasing physical items in the amazon app? Which makes sense to me since ads don’t improve the in-app experience for me as a user. They don’t make standard app ==> better app. Ads are “consumed” by many other people, on many devices, aren’t they?

Same for Wordpress, right? If I'm purchasing a hosting platform for my website, that doesn't make the Wordpress app any better, and it doesn't change the content I have inside the app -- it's purely a downstream change that affects my business, the same as if I bought an ad on Facebook.

So shouldn't Wordpress be able to offer hosting transactions in-app without paying 30%?

I don’t know the app, but from your description I’d follow the same reasoning, yes.

Of course selling ads in the app improves the in-app experience, otherwise Facebook wouldn't sell them in the app! Surely some folks prefer to place their add orders on their phone instead of sitting down at their desktop.

The experience is not different than before. You can buy ads or not. They don’t sell the “AI ad manager pro” in the app which manages everything for you. The software remains the same after the purchase.

How are ads "not the same thing"?!? The idea is that Apple takes 30% of whatever you sell via an app available in the App Store. Some sell games, Facebook sells ads. It is actually their core business.

Likely, the real reason why Facebook won't have to pay the 30%, is that it is too big a customer to lose. Facebook is too important for Apple as a customer to have in the App Store. So Apple and Facebook made a deal, which is what you can do if you are big enough...

The fact that a new iOS will reduce the tracking of users by Facebook is not even remotely touching the topic we're discussing here. If Apple has a rule that it can take 30% of every sale made via an app from the App Store, this should be applied to every sale. Everything else smells like Trumpism, where you pay less taxes the richer you are...

‘If Apple has a rule that it can take 30% of every sale made via an app from the App Store, this should be applied to every sale.’

So should Amazon pay 30% to Apple on every sale made via their iOS app? I assume you mean every digital sale.

From what I understand: The in-app experience is not changed for me as a user. It doesn’t make my standard app a better app. An ad is consumed by other people on many other devices including browsers on a desktop. So I think it’s very reasonable it’s not handled like an in-app purchase. It’s more like a purchase of a physical item in the amazon app.

Ads are a monetization method. I pay a company by consuming ads in their app. So this is definitely something Apple should charge for: it circumvents normal in-app payments.

So is ordering physical goods with the amazon app. As I outlined: ads don’t improve my in-app experience. They rather ruin other people’s experience somewhere else :-)

Certainly it seems reasonable to me that Apple can have whatever business model they want. They want to charge for A and not B, so be it. They aren't the IRS or something.

I think the above comment was more about Facebook being somewhat hypocritical in complaining recently about the one time they do have to pay, despite the fact that in most of their business they don't.

Thanks, I like this breakdown. It was why it was a big deal last week when Apple was trying to get 30% of WordPress hosting fees and then backed down and apologized.

Where it all falls apart: Apple recently targeted 30% of Airbnb's (and ClassPass') virtual experiences revenue. These experiences do not make the app itself better (others were saying here these are done via Zoom). It's a transaction to set up people performing for others (not a purely digital good) in another app like Zoom. It doesn't really change/improve the Airbnb app. ... But Apple aims to treat it as an in-app-purchase...

Unlike with the Wordpress controversy, Apple has not backed down or apologized to ClassPass/Airbnb, demanding both still comply with the 30% rule by year's end.

> as a user

As a user, are you buying ad placements on other people's news feeds? If so, I'd be very confused why you would continue to spend money on it (via your iPhone) if it doesn't change your experience as a user. I'd expect you to at least see some change, hopefully in the form of funds in your own paycheck.

Is there something special about users that buy ads that means Apple can't get a cut of their purchases, or that we don't consider them Facebook "users"?

This is a great question, and it made me think a lot! So Apple differentiates a few types of purchases: - Goods consumed within the app that enhance the app experience (Game upgrades, new functionality within your camera app) - "Reader" apps (NYT, or Wall St Journal) - Physical Goods and Services (Amazon, Airbnb) - so on and so forth

A full list can be found here (on their helpful, seemingly recent, marketing site): https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/#:~....

And the legalese is here in section 3.1: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#in-...

For a few categories, this is very well-defined. For example, a ride in Uber/Lyft is clearly a good/service consumed outside of the app, a subscription to Netflix is a subscription, and a +1 life in a game is a consumable digital good. However, for other categories it is not as clear; for example, what category does a "Ride Pass" fall under (which lowers the cost of Uber and Lyft rides, but is a monthly, purely-digital subscription)?

Ads as a whole probably gets bucketed into goods and services outside the app (because it doesn't improve your app experience). Beyond that, from a strategic perspective, I suspect Apple isn't trying to get into the b2b game, their ability to control supply there is probably much lower, esp when the developer and the user have a direct connection (through a sales person / customer success rep). However, this raises a really interesting question towards the category of lighter-weight personal ads (i.e. "Promote this post"). I suspect that these are not well regulated and probably not equally enforced. I'd be interested in the comps here: Do Twitter / FB / LinkedIn all use the same purchase method when you promote a post? How about the dating apps when you promote your profile? Are those materially different?

What about purchased in Amazon app particularly Kindle purchases inside Amazon app?

it definitely does for audiobooks, hence you can't buy audiobooks through the app.

As of recently, you can spend credits within the app and purchase audiobooks.

are you sure? It doesn't work for me (UK-based)

With Audible monthly subscription you get credits each month to use to acquire access to audiobooks. You can now spend those credits in the Audible app. This isn’t much different from some games. For Roblox, you can purchase Robux on the website and then use them in the iOS app, though in this instance they offer IAP for Robux in the app as well.

Unless you buy Audiobooks from the iTunes Audiobooks store, of course - and Apple doesn't have to pay a 30% tax to itself for those sales.

How is this not monopoly abuse?

They don't allow Kindle purchases in the Amazon app on iOS, maybe this is why?

See: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G...

You cant buy kindle books via the amazon app for exactly this reason. You can only download a sample. If you open the website in a browser though, you can.

And if I recall correctly, they can't even tell you that it is possible to purchase books outside of the app. Which I find ridiculous.

Apple explicitly disallows telling people how to circumvent in-app purchases. It will get your app taken down.

This a bit silly since there are no in-app purchases to circumvent. It's more of Apple forbidding you to say in app "oh yeah, I'm also selling stuff, not here though". I think such restriction should be illegal clause because of customer or competition laws or sth. They aren't since Apple has them, but should be. Regulators should descend on platform owners and force them to share. Like they are forcing telecoms to sell services in bulk to virtual operators.

As a counterpoint, if Apple relaxed this rule, then app store revenue would plummet. Everyone would make their app free and virtually non-functional, then sell subscriptions via in-app links that direct the purchase to their own fulfillment service. Nobody's entitled to a business model, but I think it's useful to take this devil's advocate view.

Regulators know exactly what Apple is doing here, and have so far declined to take action. That's an explicit decision, not an oversight.

Sure. They but now they can explicitly decide the other way around?

Judges question "Why 30% exactly?" indicates that people no longer think Apple is entitled to that.

ahh it all makes sense now...so that's why I have to go to the web to buy stuff in Fandango/Vudu.

How come these companies don't do something similar for subscriptions? ex: HBO Now (or whatever the fuck it's called these days) could have a subscribe button that takes you out of the app to their site - completely circumventing the in-app subscription purchase. Right?

Apple will ban them if they do that. You're not allowed to link to or even mention alternative payment methods. You can't even point out that the price is 43% higher to cover Apple's cut.

Because apps can’t link to purchase outside the App Store. Let alone link, they can’t even mention they can purchase the content elsewhere either with images, text or any form.

I think this is so silly on Apple side as they try to have a name on raising the bar for user experience. And the worse is that before I realized what was going on I thought it was Amazon fault for some reason, which is even better for Apple as people would normally blame the developers rather than the platform for this design decision.

> Ads as a whole probably gets bucketed into goods and services outside the app (because it doesn't improve your app experience).

Kinda funny because these companies run around claiming ads are good for your user experience (via 1. funding the free experience, 2. platitudes like "connecting you with high quality offers")

Hmm, I hear what you're saying but I think it's slightly different. The key word there is "Your app experience". When you buy ads it might {improve/detract from/however you feel about ads} but it does so to SOMEONE ELSE.

It would be as if I paid money to change your app experience. Yes it is changing an app-experience but it's outside my app experience (curious how Apple thinks about in-app gifts, e.g. Farmville style)

I think in Tinder there is an in-app purchase available that boosts your profile such that more users see your profile. Notably, it does not change your app experience. I am sure Apple takes a 30% cut there.

Isn't that equivalent to an ad that drives more attention to your Facebook page?

Instagram (Facebook) updated their rules in 2016[1] demanding that off platform deals for sponsored content go through them so they get a cut. Sounds like the exact same situation; You aren't allowed to make money via Ads without paying the platform our "fair" cut. News articles suggest Some of this was FTC compliance but Facebook also wanted their cut.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/business/news/branded-content-updat... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135183/ftc-influencer-a...

Nowhere in the linked post does it mention that Facebook explicitly receive "a cut", nor is that how it works (at least on Instagram). Sure, Facebook as an opt-in label for sponsored content that adds extra functionality (and helps with FTC compliance) but most sponsored influencer content on Instagram doesn't use these tools.

This isn't anything resembling what this FB post says, nor is there anything to indicate it is even talking about content that isn't on FB/Instagram itself.

Drat, I wish I could edit; I meant deals negotiated off platform.

My understanding is it's potentially illegal [1] to pay someone to post and not tag it as being an advertisement. Instagram added new transparency guidelines [2] that require sponsored posts to be created inside their platform [3]

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/03/15/lord--taylor...

[2] https://business.instagram.com/blog/tagging-and-insights/

[3] https://adespresso.com/blog/instagram-sponsored-posts/

> My understanding is it's potentially illegal [1] to pay someone to post and not tag it as being an advertisement.

Yes, this is absolutely the FCC guideline. But this has nothing to do with FB asking for revenue for off-site advertising (which they don't do).

So this part of your comment:

> "Instagram (Facebook) updated their rules in 2016[1] demanding that off platform deals for sponsored content go through them so they get a cut."

is completely wrong.

Does apple get 30% of all credit card POS sales processed on an iPad through Square?

Lyft Pass has the 30% fee.

3.1.5(a) Goods and Services Outside of the App: If your app enables people to purchase goods or services that will be consumed outside of the app, you must use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments, such as Apple Pay or traditional credit card entry.

So if I have two apps A and B, and app A only allows you to buy a license to unlock content/features in app B... no commission is due since what I buy in app A is consumed in app B, i.e. outside app A? :D

Nope, you forgot rule 0.0.0(a):

Apple can change the rules at any time for any reason with no notice. We may not provide details of the new rules.

Can someone help me understand: The weight loss app "Noom" [1] asks for your credit card info, in the app itself, when you start using it. They even include a 15 minute countdown timer to pressure you into quickly taking advantage of an "offer". You're charged some small amount of money for a trial, which is automatically converted to a fairly expensive subscription after two weeks.

This is a completely digital service, and they're just ignoring in-app purchases completely. How do they get away with that? Are there exceptions for subscriptions? The app comes across as a scam to me, but it's not exactly an obscure product.

Or maybe they use AB tests or something that hides this from the app review team?

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noom/id634598719

Addendum for reference... I did screenshot the credit card form. This is in the app it self, not on a separate website. [2]

[2] https://imgur.com/a/756LXwQ

Apple's 30% only applies to digital content that further enriches the core app experience. That's my understanding. For instance, Apple does not take 30% of all Amazon purchases through the Amazon iOS app either. Nor do they skim 30% from any retail app.

However, if your app happens to be a game (a "free" game, for instance) and your in-app purchases enhance that game in some way (e.g. unlocking features) then Apple gets a cut of that.

Regardless of its categorization, it also seems like accepting revenue from Facebook ads would be the antithesis of Apple’s stance towards customer privacy.

If they take a cut of purchases but not ads, doesn't that incentivize the ad supported model vs the paid model? And wouldn't creating such a system of incentives also run against Apple's stance towards customer privacy?

Why? This is about buying ads, not ad revenue. For example, you can pay Facebook so that a picture you took shows up in other people's feeds on Instagram as 'Sponsored'. Question is, is Apple getting their 30% cut from the money you pay Facebook for that?

It sounds like Apple is trying to close a loop hole around paying the 30% for app purchase. For example, you could make the app "free" but then unlock with in-app purchase, which would skirt the 30% fee.

I think Apple is absolutely abusive and I would love for that to be stopped, but this doesn't sound malicious to me on the surface.

> For example, you could make the app "free" but then unlock with in-app purchase, which would skirt the 30% fee.

Lots of apps do this, and they are not exempt from the 30% fee. Basically paywalling an existing part of your app is exactly what the 30% from IAP is for.

Goes to show how arbitrary their rules are. And how untruthful their reasoning.

I'm confused what you mean by this. It seems pretty consistent to me.

Edit: This made more sense when I realized the headline was about purchasing ad placement within the app, not viewing ads.

The Bandcamp app does not allow you to purchase music through the app to avoid the apple tax. OPs comment suggests that Amazon does not pay the apple tax when purchasing digital goods (music, videos, books, etc.) through their app. That seems inconsistent.

You are completely unable to purchase digital goods through the Amazon app.

No buying a kindle book, you'll be forced to open a web browser and do it that way. No purchasing movies, or music.

Physical goods that are delivered to your home, all good. Not an issue.

Why do you think this is arbitrary? It makes a lot of sense and is pretty obvious when you look across all apps. This tweet is trying to point out a "gotcha" when there is absolutely nothing inconsistent, unreasonable, or shocking here. Apple doesn't take a cut when you order things on the Amazon app, or when you buy stocks on Robinhood, or when you rent a car on Turo. Apple takes a cut from in-app purchases, but that is a term that Apple defines precisely. It obviously doesn't mean "any purchase in any app."

why can't you build your own browser? Why can't you build your own online game shop?

You can. Feel free to deploy it to your device. You just can't distribute it.

Can you sideload onto an Apple device? Or do you mean that the device you buy isn't actually "your" device?

> Can you sideload onto an Apple device?

Not legally, in most jurisdictions.

The only way to compete with Apple in the browsers space on iOS is to build your own app marketplace/store, since Apple controls distribution through the App Store.

The only way to compete with Apple in the app store space is to build your own OS, since iOS only allows the Apple App Store, not competing ones.

The only way to compete with Apple in the OS space is to build your own hardware (or buy from someone else and distribute), since Apple hardware locks out other operating systems from running.

So the only way to compete with Apple in a space where they've decided you aren't allowed to is to replace their entire platform stack, and compete with them at the platform level.

So to compete with Apple in the browser space you have to compete at the level of Google, where you make hardware, the OS, and the marketplace, and hope people move over wholesale to your hardware and OS just so they can use your browser.

That's why Apple's behavior is anti-competitive. They've put walls to competition in place at every possible level to make it so the amount of money and expertise required to compete at any level is the same to competing at almost all levels.

You explain in detail what it would take to compete with Apple, but you’re trying to make the point that this is impossible to do, when in fact many smartphone manufacturers have done precisely that. Apple has a very small global market share on smartphones and only around 50% in the US.

> when in fact many smartphone manufacturers have done precisely that

Yes, if you're already poised at the lowest part of the platform stack, you can sell hardware that competes with Apple's hardware, but it can't fully compete, because you can't offer a better solution to host iOS on, you can only offer to be part of platform that competes. You cannot compete with Apple hardware directly on just the hardware level.

> Apple has a very small global market share on smartphones and only around 50% in the US.

I'm not making a case that Apple is a monopoly. I'm making a case that their action are anti-competitive (I'm using this term divorced from any specific legal meaning), and thus bad for their users in that respect.

Would allowing other hardware to run iOS be better or worse for users of iOS and the rest of the Apple ecosystem? In some ways better, in some ways worse, but we can't rely on the market to tell us the result of that specific question, because the market is constrained. We can look at each level of the platform stack similarly.

This is usually brought up as a matter of user choice, but I think it's important to distil that to what it means, competition. Choice means there are at least two competing things to choose from, an given that our economic model requires choice (among other things, such as information about choices) to function correctly.

Do I think Apple has a monopoly, as previously defined by law? No. But I think it's important to note that nobody had a monopoly as defined by law before the late 1800's, because that legal definition didn't exist, and was created to deal with harms we saw because of anti-competitive actions. So, I think Apple isn't a monopoly as we currently define it, but I do think their actions are anti-competitive in large and obvious ways, and that we may need to address that in some manner legislatively. That may mean altering the legal definition of monopoly so it matches, or it may just mean putting some select laws in place to hamper specific anti-competitive behavior (for example, a consumer right to be able to run whatever software you want on your hardware would address some small aspect of this).

That said, I've been a bit loose here in verifying some of my terminology about legal points, and IIRC you have experience in that domain, so I'm sure you can correct me on that if you feel it warranted (and I would welcome it, as well of course as any specific problems you think my argument has).

> You explain in detail what it would take to compete with Apple, but you’re trying to make the point that this is impossible to do, when in fact many smartphone manufacturers have done precisely that.

You say "many smartphone manufacturers" but in practice there aren't actually that many smartphone manufacturers. Moreover, there is only really one -- Google -- which has actually done it. All the others license their software stack from Google. Even Microsoft made a serious attempt to do this and failed.

Your claim is that an individual app developer who wants to compete with an Apple app on iOS could feasibly do this?

Yes! I hate that they wield this as a weapon against us developers.

Not legally? What?

Apple explicitly allow for loading your own apps, your opening gambit is a flat out lie.

> Apple explicitly allow for loading your own apps, your opening gambit is a flat out lie.

The context of this discussion distributing software on Apple's platform, not installing your own software. Your own software is not market competition. The comments up-thread specifically cover this, so I don't know why you would think I was stating otherwise in a general sense, rather than working within the context of the discussion.

So, can sideloading be used as a way to distribute software you want to sell? Not legally, based on the restrictions Apple has put in place for sideloading. The closest you could get to my knowledge would be the enterprise program, which is only intended to be used to distribute software to employees.

There's also the point that the hoops required to successfully sideload an app are themselves a fairly large wall to being able to use it even at the level of a single person wanting to install something, even if it wasn't disallowed by different agreements you must make to do so.

I don’t think apps not signed by Apple themselves can mark read/write memory pages as read/execute - that’s needed for any modern JIT-based JavaScript engine to work.

But isn't the "gotcha" part the fact that the ads are displayed in the Facebook/Instragram apps? There isn't a real world transaction taking place like your other examples. It's more akin to being able to buy an ebook in the Kindle app.

That’s purchasing a service (advertisement on other people’a computers and phones) not a digital good / enhancement for your own use.

The ads you buy on the Facebook app aren’t ads that you then get to see in your Facebook feed. You’re paying to have your own products/services advertised to other people.

You’re not wrong - but there’s some ugly edge-cases when a user’s purchase pays for digital goods where Apple’s share may be considered unwarranted or just greedy:

Supposing I have a B2B (not B2C) web-application + SaaS for a hypothetical professional studio photographers’s portfolio app. The app is entirely free (gratis) with self-service signup in the app for a free SaaS service tier - the app itself is only used for uploading photos to the SaaS service (I.e. it’s a utility/companion app).

Now, supposing that users on the free tier can pay a one-off fee (in the iOS app or on the web) to enable the ability to set a custom colour scheme for their portfolio page (which doesn’t affect the appearance of the iOS app at all) - that doesn’t count as a purchase which enhances the app experience - it doesn’t enable/disable or change anything in the app - should that be an IAP with the 30% tax - or an Apple Pay purchase with only ~3% processing fees?

Now, what if instead of selling that digital-only, app-irrelevant good in the app instead users could buy a physical “welcome pack” in the app which consists of a cheap Zazzle tote-bag with the company logo on - and as a bonus to the user enables the same custom-colour-scheme feature as a “thank you” to the user (like how Reddit and GitHub add flair to your account if you’re a paying user). Does (or should) Apple get 30% or 3% of that? If the cost of selling the tote bag is less than Apple’s 30% fee then I’ve found a loophole in IAP vs. AP.

> (like how Reddit and GitHub add flair to your account if you’re a paying user)

That is not a thing at Reddit (I'm a paying user and there is no special flair nor any setting to add one).

I didn't mean the flair that appears next to your username in comment-replies, but you still get the "Reddit Premium" and "Gilding" badges on your profile's Trophy Case section.

On GitHub, you get the purple "PRO" badge next to your username on your profile page and in the profile-tooltips elsewhere on GitHub.

This is the answer, I think.

Though one could argue that more likes/conversions/CTAs improve's a business's app experience

This initially had a wink emoji at the end. I didn't realize HN throws out emojis, and it's absence changes the tone a bit ;-)

Isnt the while shtick of the ad industry that personalized ads enhance your experience ?

Inst Facebook timeline carefully curated based on that ?

No one is "buying personalized ads" as an in-app purchase.

Maybe you’re weird but most people don’t buy ads to be shown specifically to themselves.

This seems to contradict the fact that Netflix needs to pay the 30% tax for subscriptions done from the iOS app, though it seems like core functionality to me.

My guess is that Netflix is grandfathered in under long contract. It’s also a predictable source of income year after year, which is far more valuable than an unpredictable app by a smaller developer. It also definitely enhances the value of iOS more than most apps out there.

Ultimately, large corporations can get side deals because they wield more power and influence than smaller companies.

Netflix stopped offering subscription through the app (last year IIRC) for this reason, though they grandfathered existing iOS-mediated subscriptions for the obvious customer retention reasons.

Also I don’t think you can subscribe to amazon prime via the iOS app — you certainly can’t buy video via the prime video app!

You CAN buy video using the Amazon Prime Video app, it is in the category where Apple gets a 15% cut of the sale.

The funny thing is that switching to non-Apple payment is hard (I get that that's Apple) and the support staff of Netflix was really helpful in making me switch.

It's actually really annoying, implementation-wise. Apple subscriptions are read-only for third parties, which creates some annoying hurdles where you have to warp your data model to accommodate the fact that someone could have two subscriptions to the same thing at the same time, which normally you wouldn't want to allow them to do.

That’s because Amazon purchases are of real world products that don’t have zero marginal cost to copy.

Maybe a case can be made for adspace having a real cost too?

Is there a reason why app developers don't just make customers buy DLC and loot boxes from outside the app store? E.g. if a customer wants to buy a skin in Fortnite they just can't do it on the app store they need to go through the web UI.

I think apple forces them to do the transaction through apple

I believe Apple's rules prohibit even mentioning external digital stores to bypass IAP (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).

correct.

Suppose a large group of "helpful" players started advertising/spamming via ingame chat the fact that you can buy VBucks on the official website for cheaper than in game. Totally unaffiliated and not paid for by Epic, of course.

Is Epic obligated to censor them because of Apple's rules?

I wonder if the apple tax would apply to buying a physical code that is mailed to you.

The dividing line is digital versus non-digital content. That's why you can order physical goods from Amazon's app, but not digital content. It's not about enriching the core app experience; if it were, you could buy a video from the Amazon app, which doesn't enrich the core app experience of that app (you watch videos in the Prime Video app, which is separate).

So are Instagram ads not 'digital content'?

Does FB let you buy Instagram ads from in the app?

Yes.

It's not "in-app" content.

It's a blurry line since the content isn't consumed in the app, but you can buy digital codes for games (such as Nintendo Switch games) in the Amazon app.

What about Kindle eBooks that you read on iOS?

Can't purchase in-app.

In that case you’re purchasing something that enhances the prime video app. Just because you split the app into two parts - a viewing app and a purchasing app - doesn’t mean the criteria shouldn’t apply.

I'm curious, are e-books charged 30% cut? What if you buy a book, but it also comes with a free ebook? There's just so many edge cases and weird exceptions. I really don't see how this models of theirs can scale.

I think you could sell ebooks if you were willing to part with 30% of the revenue. Physical books that come with ebook access, or DVD/Blu-Ray that comes with digital access are treated as physical purchases, I believe.

My guess would be that the rule is that there's no Apple cut if you're selling a physical thing and there's a digital attachment. But Apple probably reserves the right to disregard sham physical transactions, where the physical item is de minimis in value compared to the digital item.

You can actually purchase digital content in the Prime Video app now (with your Amazon payment info). Hard to know exactly what Apple/Amazon's deal is on that. You used to have to go to the browser to purchase movies/shows.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203294/amazon-prime-vide...

> The dividing line is digital versus non-digital content

Content that’s consumed on the device to be more precise.

You can sell domains and hosting etc. using alternative payment methods. For example I use namecheap’s App to buy domains and I would use CC to do so.

The real line is that Apple claims what they can. If Apple tried to claim 30% off furniture no one would shop for furniture on the phone. If they tried to claim 30% from ride sharing, people would get pissed off enough to switch to Android.

So why not ads then? Well Apple doesn't have insight into the ad spending, and they are not a middle man to the cash transfer. They could try to force themselves into that position, say "if you want to have ads in your app, you have to use our SDK for that". But if they tried such a stunt, then Google and Facebook, would become very powerful very motivated enemies.

I can deposit into my pokerstars account, to upgrade my app experience to play with real money; I’m assuming Apple are not taking a cut as this would make the iOS app unprofitable for pokerstars.

Interestingly they also allow you to deposit with Apple Pay (along with many other payment processors, which the user can choose).

What about Kindle e-books?

You can't buy Kindle books through the Kindle app.

Amazon doesn't sell them via their app to avoid the app-store-tax. Instead they'll redirect you to their website in safari.

You can borrow KindleUnlimited titles, provided you've purchased that subscription outside of the app. Same thing with Audible, you can use existing credits within the app, but can't purchase more.

One example that complicates things is the Floatplane [1] application, where each channel costs a certain fee per month. The app doesn't do anything other than play videos from the subscribed videos. Because they wouldn't increase their price 30% to reflect the additional Apple fees, every single feature that even mentions the presence of a website that you can pay for a subscription at (including help pages!) have so far had to be removed [2].

The "core app experience" of Floatplane is "you get to watch videos in high quality" and "you get to chat during live streams". Their app is an amalgamation of Patreon and the Youtube video player, both of which are on the App Store already.

I don't know why buying video access would be so different from making ads show up. Both are purely digital services. There's probably some vague notion of "consumption" that determines if the fee is mandatory or not, but the rules are as vague as they are arbitrary when you get down to that level.

It's clear that the actual rule is "we can make a deal if you're big enough". Apps like Uber have gotten warnings for pulling stunts that smaller developers would get their dev account banned for. Adding 30% on top of Facebook would kill the feature on iOS and subsequently kill iPhone presence among marketeers.

[1]: https://www.floatplane.com/ [2]: https://youtu.be/Rs4hTm6B9QQ?t=368

Isn't there an exception for "reader" and streaming aps?

I don't think so? I believe Netflix removed the option to sign up from iOS, so I don't think there's an exemption from the fees there.

There is an exemption for another rule - only streaming apps are allowed to offer no functionality until you pay outside the app.

If you install the Netflix app, you'll be hit with a login screen and no way to proceed until you go online, create an account, and pay.

However, if you were to make a game that had the same UI, it would be refused access to the store - apps must have some level of functionality without requiring a purchase outside the app, except if they are in the 'reader' category.

I wonder how they would interpret something like Geforce Now on an ios then?

There's a reason none of the game streaming services are currently on iOS: https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/25/app-store-game-streaming-rule... & https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21356274/microsoft-xcloud-...

The policy as is exists to allow Apple Arcade to fit the rules, and basically nobody else.

Apple doesn't allow Game Streaming apps on their platform for some odd reason so things like GeForce Now, xCloud, Stadia, are all barred because...no real reason that's not hypocritical.

In another anti-competitive move, Apple has banned all game streaming service (with the phony-sounding reason of 'we have to review all the games' when they don't review movies from streaming apps) while they prep their own game streaming service.

Haha that's truly brazen. One hopes a court of law will have an opportunity to consider this maneuver...

> with the phony-sounding reason of 'we have to review all the games' when they don't review movies from streaming apps

How many headlines have you seen about parents getting a huge credit card bill from their kids going wild in a video streaming app?

The games market is predatory enough on iOS with reviews without being able to push down whatever unreviewed pay-to-win, lootbox, "hit the lever!" garbage people like Epic, EA, and Ubisoft churn out. I shudder to think what it'd be like with the floodgates opened.

As always, we can look to android to see how it would go. An the answer is nothing happens, the game streaming services work fine. Apple is purely trying to avoid losing profit on out of store transactions.

These restrictions are very selectively enforced. I’ve complained about a couple of apps that won’t work until given access to contacts (despite earlier versions allowing it, AND contacts not being essential), and Apple’s response was “we’ll look into it”

You’re not buying an ad for yourself to view. You’re making a purchase to a service that just happens to show ads to others.

In contrast from what you’re describing floatplane purchases are for subscriptions that will show up directly in the app.

Or, you can look at this post on Daring Fireball about how "premium streaming" apps are allowed to bypass this IAP restriction: https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/amazon_apple_prime_video

Quote:

"Apple has an established program for premium subscription video entertainment providers to offer a variety of customer benefits — including integration with the Apple TV app, AirPlay 2 support, tvOS apps, universal search, Siri support and, where applicable, single or zero sign-on. On qualifying premium video entertainment apps such as Prime Video, Altice One and Canal+, customers have the option to buy or rent movies and TV shows using the payment method tied to their existing video subscription."

That doesn't clarify anything. What's a "premium" streaming app? Why doesn't (or didn't) Spotify, who publicly opposes the 30% cut, qualify?

No official source qualifies and the article you linked just guesses based on screenshots. It also tells you that Apple does take the 30% cut if you trick the user into not realizing there's an Apple tax.

The video I linked (I know, it's long) discusses limitations as decreed by Apple itself. There's another video on that channel with even more in-depth information from Apple. There's no offer to make a deal and become a "premium service". I'm sure these guys would love to get their app available on more platforms, providing more value than they already can with just smartphone apps.

Premium = Too large to be bullied by Apple

Or you know, the other pillar of anti-competitive business practices, if Apple still needs their goodwill in some other vertical of theirs.

Like selling their physical products on Amazon. Amazon famously would not allow the Apple TV to be sold on their site until after this deal was made.

I can't speak for or stand up for Apple here. I'm just posting examples of how/when Apple doesn't take their standard cut.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203630/apple-amazon-prim...

"The requirement: those platforms must be able to integrate core Apple services, apps, and features — including AirPlay 2, universal search and Siri support, and single or zero sign-on, among others."

"It is only for individual purchases, and not for subscriptions."

Spotify is a subscription service.

To be honest I don't understand the rationale here - the criteria seem somewhat arbitrary - but I don't think Apple is being inconsistent in applying the criteria.

It’s not an “Apple Tax.” Developers get something of value for that percentage.

I get stuff of value for my state and federal taxes, too. They're mandatory and there's significant punishment for non-payment - hard to argue they're not taxes.

Sure, but in the context of Amazon's negotiations with Apple, "Premium Streaming Apps" is a narrowly targeted category that's designed to include Amazon and not a ton of other products.

Why does this bypass exist for Premium Streaming Apps, but not exist for Game Streaming? What's the fundamental difference between streaming video and streaming a game, or purchasing an Ebook?

Apple's 'we apply the rules to everyone' defense is a bit like a store-owner saying, "I'm not playing favorites, I'm giving a special discount to anyone with green eyes, a buzzcut, and a striped t-shirt. It just so happens that my friend Tim fits that description."

Streaming video and streaming games are pretty obviously different things.

You can say ‘they are fundamentally the same’ in the sense that bits are traveling in both ways across the network.

But everyone does in fact make a distinction between games and movies. That’s why we have two different words for them.

It’s true that one day, the distinction between interactive movies - e.g. Bandernatch, and real-time interactive games may go away.

That day is not here yet.

It’s also true that if Apple won’t sell us what we want, we’ll buy it from someone else.

But there's no consumer-facing or technical difference between a games streaming platform and a video streaming platform that would make it logical for one to be treated fundamentally different than the other in terms of pricing, right?

It's very obvious that the reason why Apple chose the largely meaningless difference between a video and a game to make this category is because they were negotiating with Amazon, and that was a convenient distinction to build a category around.

To extend from your argument, everyone also in fact makes a distinction between striped shirts vs solid shirts, and buzzcuts vs crewcuts, and green eyes vs blue eyes. Everyone would agree that those are different things.

So does that mean giving a discount to my friend Tim is totally fine, and I'm not carving out special exceptions that are designed to target him specifically?

> But there's no consumer-facing or technical difference between a games streaming platform and a video streaming platform

A games streaming platform is interactive whereas a video streaming platform isn't (unless you want to split hairs and call "picking something to watch" interactive.) That's both a consumer-facing and technical difference. Whether it's enough to treat them fundamentally differently, I have no idea (but I'm sure lawyers will have plenty.)

Where does Black Mirror: Bandersnatch sit on that scale? It’s clearly interactive.

The difference between colors of shirt is quite obviously not analogous to the level of difference between a game and a movie.

It’s hard to believe you don’t see this. Do you really not?

If your argument is that all apps are just like different colors of a shirt, then if movies are no different from games, movies are also no different from programming languages, or telemedicine apps.

If your argument is that Apple shouldn’t be allowed to make rules based on distinctions between what apps do, that is a reasonable position to argue on its own merits.

Claiming there is no distinction between what classes of app do, is not reasonable.

Your argument about making an exception for your friend Tim doesn’t apply here.

If Apple were to make an exception and allow just one game streaming service, then I’d agree it was a valid analogy, but they don’t.

And yes, there are huge consumer facing and technical differences between game streaming and video streaming services.

The biggest one is that a game streaming service can stream any kind of app, and bypass app review and apple’s payment services.

We might want people to be able to do that, but that’s a different matter.

The technical difference is very obvious, and it’s exactly what Apple has said - they don’t want apps bypassing app review.

> Do you really not?

Honestly, no, I genuinely don't. I do think the shirt colors are analogous.

The technical differences you and others are talking about are not differences that affect Apple in any way. It's not harder on Apple's infrastructure for someone to stream a game instead of a movie, it doesn't take Apple any extra engineering effort or development time. The technical differences people are talking about are mostly outside the iPhone and its core APIs. They don't affect Apple or users in way that's relevant to Apple's policies.

Likewise with the user-facing distinctions -- I don't think the distinctions that you're talking about are something that users care about, and I don't think there's a strong argument to be made that Apple is thinking about users when it makes those distinctions. I don't see how users benefit from games and Ebooks being treated differently than movies. From a user perspective, this is all just 'content'.

> If Apple were to make an exception and allow just one game streaming service, then I’d agree it was a valid analogy, but they don’t.

Oh, no. Anyone with a striped shirt, buzzcut, and blue eyes can get a discount. There are likely multiple people who fit that description, it's not just Tim.

But I don't want to get hung up on that analogy if you think that's too direct or contrived. Another analogy I'd point towards is VPNs and video streaming in regards to net neutrality. In fact, ISPs actually had a much stronger argument for treating video bits differently from other bits on the network, since services like Netflix did genuinely consume more bandwidth than services in other categories. However, we all (mostly) still recognized that the differences between streaming a video and streaming any other kinds of data weren't relevant to ISPs.

I think the distinctions people are raising between video and game streaming are the same -- they're not relevant to an app distribution platform. I don't think the Bandersnatch comparison is splitting hairs, I think it's a reasonable comparison to make. I don't think that bypassing app review is relevant to consumers for a streaming platform, since bypassing app review within a streaming platform introduces no security or privacy risks for the end user. The business-facing reason apps can't bypass app review and payment services is because Apple is providing a service that needs to be payed for -- but streaming apps fundamentally do not take advantage of any of those services. It makes about as much commercial sense to charge them as it makes to charge for transactions made inside a web browser.

I especially don't see a difference between a games streaming platform and a virtual desktop, another distinction that Apple seems to think is worthy of entirely separate rules. Consumers do not care about whether a virtual computer immediately boots into a game or whether it forces them to click on an icon first.

Even from a purely practical perspective, I don't think there's strong evidence that games streaming would break Apple's entire revenue model. There's a tangible, consumer-facing benefit to apps working offline that some app-makers will want to take advantage of. Streaming games is not an existential threat to the app store, at least certainly not a larger existential threat than web browsers are.

Finally, I don't think it's possible to separate the theoretical differences between games/videos/ebooks/virtual desktops from the context in which Apple chose to split along those categories. Apple didn't come up with those categories and then afterwards check to see what the market looked like. Sure there are theoretical reasons (weak as they are) that Apple could have chosen to build its policies around esoteric "what is a game" arguments, but the simplest explanation for why Apple chose to put so much weight on those distinctions is because it allowed them to bend to large players on the market who they could not ignore, while still restricting and gouging smaller players and upstarts who could not challenge them.

Thanks for articulating your position in more detail.

The way I read your argument is that you actually do think the distinctions are real, buy they shouldn’t be used by Apple to control the marketplace.

I think that’s a reasonable position and one worth exploring.

I actually agree with you that the distinctions are in place to allow Apple to retain control of the marketplace.

I just don’t think it makes sense to pretend they aren’t meaningful distinctions. Not do I think we can assume the reason is mainly about gouging. If you want to make a case for that - by all means, but it’s not a given.

I don’t agree that steaming games are no more of a threat to Apple than the web.

For one thing, the web as a platform is slow to evolve because of interoperability issues.

These would not be present with steaming Apps.

If you don’t think Games are a distinct category then you must concede that streaming games means streaming apps of all kinds.

Yes - offline is an issue still, but it’s becoming less of one over time.

Streaming Apps don’t need to be an existential threat to Apple or have access to local data in order to be harmful.

They can bypass age restrictions, phish, be scams, collect credit card numbers, do social engineering, promote hate etc.

More importantly - your argument seems to be that Apple shouldn’t be able to discriminate based on what apps do.

If that is the case, then you’re not arguing for a narrow carve out for steaming games since you’ve already denied they are a category that Apple should be using.

You real argument is against Apple being able to control what goes on the store or on their platform.

I think that’s a valid argument, however I think it can’t meaningfully be just about Apple. If we are going to say Apple shouldn’t have this control, then nobody should be allowed it.

And then of course we have to articulate how we’d deal with all the security, malware and trust issues in such a world.

> If you don’t think Games are a distinct category then you must concede that streaming games means streaming apps of all kinds.

Well, but this is the rub: Apple does allow virtual desktop streaming on the app store. Streaming an app is allowed, as long as the user clicks on an icon on a virtual desktop. Can we think of a consumer-relevant difference between streaming a game and booting up a game by clicking on an icon on a virtual desktop? Is it relevant enough that one of those two things should be banned?

The only difference that seems credible to me is that the distinction allows Apple to directly target Google Stadia and Microsoft.

> They can bypass age restrictions, phish, be scams, collect credit card numbers, do social engineering, promote hate etc.

But is this a distinction that it's reasonable to think that Apple actually cares about? You can buy illicit ebooks on an Apple platform as long as Apple gets a 30% cut from the purchase screen. Apple isn't filtering the content of 3rd-party digital purchases.

And if the distinction that we're drawing is, "we need to make sure that we're blocking hate speech", make a policy that streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Video, and Google Stadia can't make hate speech available. Given what we know about Apple's current policies, is a ban on games the type of thing you would expect from an app store worried about hate speech, or would you expect something direct that actually targeted the real problem?

> your argument seems to be that Apple shouldn’t be able to discriminate based on what apps do.

I don't think I'm claiming anything quite that broad. I'm arguing that if discrimination exists only to target a specific market, and if the company involved is one half of a duopoly, then we should consider antitrust implications.

There are technical reasons to restrict what apps can do: for example, limitations around the platform and hardware. There are also consumer-facing reasons to restrict what apps can do, to block malware, spyware, and security risks. There are even moral reasons to restrict what apps can do, to block hate speech, or to make safe spaces for younger users.

The distinction between a game and movie for an entirely off-device experience doesn't fit any of those reasons. There's no moral reason to treat games differently than movies; if you were worried about morals you'd create a general policy against hate speech that applied to all 3rd-party content. There's no technical reason; the engineering resources to support both use-cases are exactly the same. And there's no consumer-facing reason; remote applications are all sandboxed from the user's phone.

The only reason to choose that specific distinction -- games vs videos vs ebooks vs applications -- is because of what companies are involved in each market. We can theoretically imagine a world where Apple might make a distinction there for non-malicious reasons, but the most logical, obvious explanation for those rules is that Apple isn't interested in blocking hate speech or phishing scams, it's interested in blocking markets. We know what it looks like when Apple gets interested in blocking hate speech or phishing scams or improving privacy, and generally it looks different than this.

To go back to the original analogy, I can come up with some tortured reasons why maybe consumers really care about the color of people's shirts (fashion is a giant industry after all), and I can say I want to create a shopping experience where everyone is dressed well and that maybe a solid red shirt might have bad words written on it, and obviously I can filter on clothing in general because I'm allowed to say that my customers can't be naked. These are all theoretically possible explanations for my policy, it's just that they're obviously lies. It's obvious that if I cared about people showing up naked, I'd target that specifically. It's obvious that in this scenario I'm coming up with the policy first, and then trying to justify it afterwards as if it's a neutral decision.

To flip your earlier incredulity back at you: do you really, honestly believe that if Amazon, Hulu, and other streaming services weren't essential apps for iOS, that Apple would still be looking at them right now and saying, "clearly video purchases should be treated differently than ebook purchases."? We can intuit something of Apple's motivation here.

We clearly disagree that there is no consumer facing reason to distinguish streaming game stores from movie stores.

The clothing store analogy is not relevant in this argument, because it assumes there are no technical differences, but that isn’t actually something we agree on. I.e. it’s a case of affirming the consequent.

It doesn’t explain anything - it just hides the point of disagreement by talking about clothes instead of software, which in fact work very differently.

Streaming games can clearly do things that other interactive malware can do, and that includes fraud, phishing, collecting credit card information, promoting hate, funding terrorism, and any number of other things.

Movies can’t do things like phishing or collecting credit card numbers etc.

They can of course promote hate, and Apple has removed streaming video services when they have done so.

So there is a difference.

As for claiming Apple is lying - well you clearly want to make that case, but it’s not at all obvious to me that they are lying about anything.

Nobody is pretending Apple doesn’t want to block competitors from establishing their own storefronts.

Apple is quite clear that they are banning streaming video because they want to retain control of what goes in the store.

I also think they are quite clear that they don’t want anything that does an end run around their control, and their collection of in app payments.

Nobody is lying about that.

As for you ‘flipping’ incredulity round on me - is there something I’ve said that you don’t think I believe?

Everything Apple does with the store rules involves enabling classes of apps they think will be essential to their users while preserving their control of the storefront.

Streaming game stores would be competition with the App Store itself, and allow it to be bypassed.

Streaming video services obviously don’t allow the App Store to be bypassed.

There’s nothing secret or hidden about this.

As for ‘duopoly’ - as I say, if you want to make the case that they shouldn’t be allowed to block competing storefronts based on a legal theory that they are too powerful to be permitted to do that, fine.

But that’s not what this discussion has been about. You are claiming streaming games and streaming videos are the same for the purposes of this argument.

They are obviously not and I’ve articulated the reasons.

If you want to continue to disagree on that point, be my guest.

> Apple's 'we apply the rules to everyone' defense is a bit like a store-owner saying, "I'm not playing favorites, I'm giving a special discount to anyone with green eyes, a buzzcut, and a striped t-shirt. It just so happens that my friend Tim fits that description."

The thing that's really interesting here is that their whole shtick now is privacy, which implies paying for things rather than funding them with advertising. But then they're taking 30% of the things you pay for and not 30% of the advertising, which pushes developers toward funding from advertising. So who is supposed to be the favorite?

The value of that advertising itself will go down if your activity within a game does not contribute to a global user profile that can be used for targeting.

You're presumably talking about the advertising ID. The question I have for that is, how are they claiming credit for making it opt in when they were the ones who made it opt out to begin with? Who ever thought that was a good idea?

Why does it even exist?

I'm confused by one thing, are the guys in the [2] video publishers in the Floatplane app or the creators of the app itself?

The guy on the left (Linus Sebastian) is the CEO of both Floatplane (the app) and Linus Media Group (known on the internet from their Linus Tech Tips tech enthusiast videos). The guy on the right is the Floatplane team lead.

Linus Media Group made an alternative to Youtube to not put all of their eggs in one basket, that's what eventually became Floatplane. There's more creators on there, basically all in the tech Youtube space, but they do extensively use their own streaming platform of course.

Technically and legally no since Flotplane doesn't make videos. Floatplane 'rents' office space from Linus Tech Tips, so many employees were previously at LTT and thus they work closely together, but they're different companies and LTT is just a creator on the app.

Speaking of Floatplane, can anyone get it to show up in results on DuckDuckGo? I can’t, and that includes directly searching for “floatplane.com”. It’s as if it has been blacklisted.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3A+%22floatplane.com%22&t=h_&...

That shows they've indexed three results from the domain. Maybe they rejected ddg trawlers?

Yes, I only get secondary results like their status page with no links to site itself.

This should apply for a ebook purchased through the app (Audible). Following this logic Amazon should pay Apple 30%?

I believe the Kindle app does not allow purchase and don't explain how to purchase new books in the app. It only shows free or kindle unlimited books that you do not own.

In that case, hypothetically what about a separate app that only sells game currency, like vbucks?

> Apple's 30% only applies to digital content that further enriches the core app experience.

Seems to me FB ads fit the definition. FB core product isn’t a consumer social network, it’s a targeted ad platform, and their actual customers are advertisers that serve ads on the platform.

Clearly ad buying/managing enriches the core app experience for FB’s advertisers.

Just more favoritism and unequal treatment between the tech giants.

No, it doesn’t. We just built a merchant app for the App Store where merchants of our platform should be able to handle and process orders made on our website from customers.

Apple refused to approve the app unless we added a storefront to our app and used in-app purchases. But that’s not something we consider a core feature of the app.

Seems they are trying to add these restrictions to smaller new apps and not mess with already established markets. Apple is quite literally toxic to innovation by these practices.

That doesn't sound right. My app redirects to my website store and Apple never had a problem with that, even after I specifically removed IAP.

If there's one thing that's constant, it's that Apple is somewhat arbitrary when it comes to "enforcing" their TOS on the small guys.

Yeah we got away with this for 3 years too and in our most recent updates have been forced to add IAP. As another poster mentioned they've been cracking down tighter and tighter even on small apps.

Do you sell physical products?

Our product has a real-world component yes but the payment part had more to do with the online subscription (which gave you access to the real world component).

Covid killed our product though so for us I'm relieved I don't have to deal with Apple's shit anymore to get the app deployed.

Still have to deal with it for other clients though :/

You sound like the right sort of person to ask: what do you make of PWAs as an alternative to proper apps on the AppStore?

I've seen various demos and showcases, some of them with pretty impressive UIs, but I've never encountered PWAs outside of exploring them as a novelty.

Not the person you're asking, but I've seen it suggested that Apple is slow to implement PWA features into Safari, perhaps precisely for this reason.

Would love to be corrected on this btw.

We're switching our app from Xamarin to be a PWA (by slowly making our web-app's HTML+JS work as a PWA) - primarily so we don't need to deal with disparate codebases - but avoiding Apple's App Store police is part of the benefit. We were never at risk of breaking Apple's policies because we're B2B, but being to publish updates immediately without having to wait 24-48+ hours for App Store review (and having to explain our app to the reviewer and create a test account for them) is a huge benefit.

We made the change after reassessing the PWA landscape and seeing that iOS 13 and Android's level of support for PWA features makes it worthwhile. Apple is dragging its feet with PWAs - but the way our app works means we don't need any of the missing functionality (like Web Push) and iOS's weird PWA app lifecycle suits our application fine as it isn't intended to be used offline for more than a few hours anyway.

The current deal breakers on iOS are missing push messaging and background operation. So in almost every use case, the user will have to be actively using your PWA for it to provide value. Those two missing features just cripple the experience and apple knows that.

For Facebook’s customers (advertisers), advertising is the core app experience.

what if you were to separate the two? Epic creates a token "store" which allows you to apply to various games. This would be like the amazon case =). Same thing could be said if you could buy said tokens in the amazon store

To answer this, think of why does Facebook allow users to purchase ads from within the app? Does it make for a better experience to be able to buy an add from your couch, or while traveling? Isn't the Facebook experienced for these users improved by offering for sale goods within the app itself?

I think there is a very good case to be made that the in-app experience is improved by allowing these purchases in-app, and the in-app experience and value would be significantly reduced if Facebook did not allow marketers to buy ads using their iPhone or iPad.

Psh, screw Apple. They made us remove the .com from anything that said domain.com because it would help users recognize that we have a site that allows purchasing.

We complied of course. :(

If anything, I hope this changes. Why shouldn't you be able to tell your customers about your website in an app that you built? Even if you want to say hey go to www.myapp.com and buy there, so what?

I really don't understand comments like this.

No retail store that sells your product allows you to put a giant sticker on it that says "buy this product from us instead and get a 30% discount".

You're intentionally trying to benefit from the store's distribution channel at the same trying to screw them out of the money they need to finance it.

I just saw some Quip toothbrushes at Target recently. The box clearly has a starburst advertising $5 brush heads online, while Target sells them for $10.

Many developers would love to not "intentionally benefit" from Apple's distribution channel. The issue is Apple forces them to use the App Store for distribution.

This isn't talking about the store. No you probably shouldn't be allowed to say "Go here to buy this app for cheaper" in your App Store description. But inside your app, you most certainly should.

Physical goods are not the same as digital goods, but even if you do want to go with your analogy, brands will often times include coupons and refill offers and other promotional material with items they sell and push the consumer to buy directly from them and retail stores still carry their products.

Maybe within the store you’re right. This is more about a city allowing only one store to operate. People are complaining (well, companies, not people as much) about not being able to put a giant sticker in the city to go to the other store - because city allows only one store to operate!

Users can download a "reader app" (arbitrary definition), but users can't find out how to sign up for them?

This UX is bad for customers.

You can do it on Android.

If you buy a printer at a retail store there is nothing stopping the manufacturer from having a flyer in the box advertising a cheaper place to buy replacement cartridges.

Apple is like Walmart taking a 30% cut off Xbox live subscription fees after a customer buys an Xbox from them.

Unless the store has a policy against it, which would be perfectly legal and pretty normal.

Even accepting this terrible analogy, the sticker in this case is NOT a giant sticker on the box but rather a leaflet inside the box that the user has paid for.

I'm staring at my brand new Keurig coffee maker that has the website URL right on the top of the box in prominent lettering. Almost everything you buy has a URL on it or in it. Booklets, warranty cards, QR codes, and on and on.

So, reality disagrees with you.

Apple's policies on this seem pretty messed up. I watched a video today where an app developer had to rip out user generated content (comments section) which seems crazy to me! Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QzHu-sjdB8

Have you thought about just putting 30% fee on your users? For example google when you subscribe to youtube premium in the iphone app just charges you a straight 17 USD with no info or note saying that it is 12 USD through the website. (which I'm sure they were made to do as well)

It was a consideration to raise prices. We believe it does violate their terms as well. Also it's illegal in some countries.

They wouldn't approve the app with any mention of the site at all.

It's all a load of BS. My Ring app tells me I can only buy it on their site. But since we don't have a lot of "power" we are screwed.

IIRC raising prices only on IAP was violation of terms but now it's possible

One solution used by companies like Blizzard for dealing with region-specific rules and taxes is to sell a different product in each region with its own pricing/rewards. Given that Apple and Google already don't want in-app virtual currency to be transferable between platforms (otherwise you could work around the 30% cut), it's not unreasonable to sell different products to different audiences. Who knows whether they'd decide to punish you for that anyway though...

Apple apologists frequently claim the walled garden is meant to keep bad guys out, but this seems a clear cut instance of the garden's wall being used to keep people in.

The Berlin Wall was also marketed by the old DDR government as keeping the bad guys out, when in reality it was to keep their own citizens from fleeing to the west.

“Mr. Cook - tear down this wall!” :-)

Unless you cannot just go buy any phone or tablet you like, this may be considered an insult to all these families who were split by that wall. How on earth do these analogies cross some minds.

Might seem a frivolous analogy, but they are essentially equivalent remarks (made by DDR and Apple) in the real world and the digital world.

Personally not a fan of people who are offended on behalf of "others".

Then you must be not a fan of android users or store abusers who "take care for freedom" of those who are comfortable with apple.

This analogy crossed my mind, because my family was split by that wall. - And people on the locked in side of the wall had a legendary sense of humour[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes

I'd bet there are more Apple apologists than Germans who are offended by this analogy.

No, Mr. Cook, please keep the wall up!

You always have the choice to move to Android/Windows and never see Apple ever again. People enter the garden of their own volition, because it's a garden compared to all the crap out there.

None of this whining is about protecting the people, but rather about grabbing a slice of the billion-user pie, which Apple has historically denied other companies ever since they refused to put AT&T bloatware on the first iPhone.

Can you imagine what that would have been like?

People fucking loved the iPhone -because- Apple kept every other company’s bullshit off it!

And people who love curated platforms will continue to love it.

1 Downvote = 1 Trillion (funny how people advocating for freedom try to bury all dissent)

Classic "the walls are for your protection" gaslighting. Requiring a developer to remove a link to their website has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting users; it's a transparent attempt to pull wool over the eyes of users, to keep them in Apple's system so Apple can take a cut. Citing other supposed good acts from Apple doesn't refute this.

Did I miss anywhere on Apple.com explanation for the users that they are a walled garden? If it’s not there, then I bet most people are not aware while buying and simply buy due to the brand.

> You always have the choice to move to Android/Windows and never see Apple ever again. People enter the garden of their own volition

iMessage has (or at least had) engineered non-interoperability with non-iPhone devices and has a significantly degraded user experience for everyone if anyone has a non-iPhone device in a group chat. There were multiple people who "freely" made the choice to switch to an Android device, only to have their friends drop them from group chats and remake it without them.

> The Berlin Wall was also marketed by the old DDR government as keeping the bad guys out, when in reality it was to keep their own citizens from fleeing to the west.

It worked out pretty well in both directions actually.

It accomplishes both objectives quite well.

The issue is that it mostly makes sense for them to recoup the cost of running the store and also make money from this massive service they run. The issue is that apps come in all shapes and sizes, and with different monetization models, but Apple's way of coming up with a fair cut for everyone just doesn't work or make any sense.

And then they need to keep adding these strange restrictions and rules to try and contort every app so that their rules kinda work, but it's just such a mess.

The solution is to allow sideloading on iOS. If you don't like the app store ToS then you have the option to not use it.

Nobody is prevented from leaving Apple.

There's virtually no chance of running into Apple if you don't own an Apple device and choose not to use any Apple services (iTunes, Music etc.)

Little more than a typical "protection" racket, only dressed up in a modern/tech jacket. Antitrust issue for sure.

Despite many making a reversed-logic assumption: because a company is not legally punished (yet), shows that what they do has to be legal, history on the other hand is littered with examples of powerful entities proving that assumption utter bullshit. Involvement with anything modern regularly being a key factor, in the law only slowly catching up. The USA becoming ever more like a corrupt and tribal banana republic, sure doesn't help either.

Good luck to you all, from across the pond.

Open the App, be directed to the website, get scammed, ask Apple for your money back because an App in the Appstore scammed you. That's the problem Apple is solving. Unless transactions go through Apple they can't act as a guarantee on the App - which is what they have defined their role as.

> Open Safari, get scammed

Get real. Apple's behaviour is profit seeking, not altruistic.

There are stories of apps being pulled because they link their privacy policy page, and from there you can get to the rest of the webpage which may sell things. Or they link to support documentation. But it's all for security...

That seems easy to work around by committing to the name. You're not Company, you're Company.com! The trademark is "Company.com" in a fancy font!

Apple can and will reject your app if you use that as your excuse.

I can only wonder if they would/did do the same for SalesForce, seeing as they market themselves as salesforce.com.

Facebook and Apple negotiate a revenue sharing agreement that covers all sorts of things, like importantly revenue from apps that are installed via Facebook ads. The 30% take-it-or-leave-it deal only applies to the little guys; once you get big you have a custom negotiation.

No, there's no sweetheart deals. The 30% is applied very consistently to alls apps, big or small. YouTube Red, Spotify, Netflix, Epic are examples of large apps that are/were affected by the 30% cut.

Makes you think, why aren't more players trying to get in the phone space just to disrupt that shit. Google did with Android, I think Mozilla and Facebook had a mozillephone and facebookphone at some point as well no?

As funny as it sounds I think Tesla has enough brand recognition and tech chops to pull something like this off.

I also had the hope musk would launch into that market and directly confront apple and google. But even for him, that would be a very very wild bet.

It's hard, look at microsoft/windows phone.

My bet is that the market is now ripe for another mobile platform. The problem is you don't spawn something like out of thin air, and many big names have failed in the past (amazon, intel with tizen, firefox, ubuntu, microsoft, etc..)

Still, now that mobile hardware comes close to being commoditized i think there's hope, maybe from an unexpected place (like the open source community ? one can dream..)

A 3rd platform will likely come from Huawei. They have the resources and the incentives.

Suddenly the fog lifts. Now I understand the fascist shenanigans targeting the manufacturer of my crappy mobile phone. Trump administration does Cook's bidding just as it does Zuck's...

I don’t think Apple has been at all happy with escalating tensions with China.

I don’t think anything coming from china will replace apple and google in the west. The focus is on privacy and openness, and china companies clearly don’t qualify.

I agree, I don't think they'll gain much traction in the west. However, they'll still have access to, and be competitive in, the massive markets of China (of course), south east Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Combined that's over 3.5B+ people.

Trying to compete with the most highly valued company in history and with the company that owns one of the most ubiquitous aspects of people's lives (Google the search engine), what could go wrong?

Because the real market for these systems are users. Users don't care about any of this.

To an extent, users care. Android users use Android because either it's cheaper, it allows side loading or front loading apps the apple bans, or for reasons unrelated to the software experience (tv commercial, carrier forced, etc)

Because users like Apple's policies.

Most us of don't want a recreation of the web where companies try to "optimize" the subscription cancellation experience. Or to have multiple app stores each with exclusive apps being sold at a premium and having to manage payments separately.

Apple's rules do have a lot of real benefits for users and so you have to weigh that up against the interests of developers.

Amazon got a special deal.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-29/apple-con...

Don't all subscription services get 15% after the first year? Is Amazon getting that from the very first year, is that what's different here?

That's correct. It's a very big difference if you think about it. Under the normal arrangement, a customer has to retain for 12 months before the 15% rate kicks in.

Depending on the product, you could be losing a significant portion of your customer base before then. For example Netflix, known for insanely good retention, loses nearly 40% of customers by month 12. [1]

[1] https://secondmeasure.com/datapoints/netflix-disney-plus-app...

It doesn't sound like its only Amazon. According to this article:

"The agreement with Amazon is similar to a program Apple announced earlier this year letting select developers avoid the 30% fee in exchange for integrating with certain features. Amazon is part of that program."

"select developers" could be only amazon

Right, only select partners get the sweetheart deal. Like Amazon and Spotify who build integrations with Apple TV.

This is prima facie distinct from a negotiated deal in that apple created a category for amazon, announced it publicly, and have other minor companies in that category too.

Clearly for amazon, but not the same as any hypothetical negotiated private side deal with facebook.

It's about the money flow. If the money flows from the User to the Developer, Apple wants a cut as a middleman.

The argument is that the store owner brought the customer to the seller, so they should get a cut - and it shouldn't be possible for the seller to avoid that cut by selling direct.

Ads have money flowing from the Advertiser -> Developer. Apple isn't involved in that relationship, and didn't bring the customer (the Advertiser) to the seller.

> The argument is that the store owner brought the customer to the seller

One problem is that Apple does not allow developers to bring customers directly. You always have to go through the Apple Store to install an app on iOS. So, even if you bring your own customers, you have to bring them through the iOS Store.

The "store owner" in this case is Apple.

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant developers.

That may be the argument, but the result is that managing the free apps by companies like Facebook and Google in the App Store are subsidized by taking that 30% from tiny outfits like OmniGroup and Panic, that make paid productivity apps.

Responding to many of the arguments I read around on Twitter: I don’t see how anyone can use the word “fair” to describe this arrangement, no matter how many ways people compare it to a console like Nintendo.

I suspect you didn't read the first line of this tweet:

> Instagram/FB lets users purchase ads in its iOS app

So Apple does bring advertisers to the seller.

I love this question. It’s plausible enough to imagine Apple charging for ads. But the implications are huge. Imagine every hardware platform charging for transactions made on that platform. It would be like landlords getting a flat percentage of your income on top of an annual fee.

It would be more like rent is free if you're unemployed, otherwise x% of your income.

It would instantly tank a lot of huge apps/industries. Especially ones with razor thin margins already.

Consider stock trading apps/fees, for one random example at the top of my head.

It doesn't work for both the same reason as the example. Everyone who would be advantaged would leave to the one which doesn't charge fees based on something irrelevant to operation.

It is pretty clear that Apple is supposed to take money for functionality provided by an app. If you get benefit outside of it (like with Uber, physically transporing you), you may have your own processing service. It is also clear that if you can enable some functionality from outside the app, you can't link to non-Apple payment services from within the app nor you can't mention enhancements. If users somehow discover them on your website, it seems to be ok.

However, with some types of apps the lines are more vague. Say, we have an email client, which works over IMAP, and can work with any email account. And suppose we provide free accounts and 1 GB of space for free, and 10 GB for $1. Naturally, when user gets to 80% of his quota, we'll send him an email, which will be displayed within an app and will link to our website suggesting do a non-Apple payment.

Common sense says that this should be allowed, but I'd bet that apple moderators won't allow it.

Can Apple actually stop developers from sending a payment email to end-users? Would that even be legal, especially if the web-client is a cross-platform solution available on PC, mobile, etc?

That would be significant overreach, ripe for legal action, imo.

Bingo bingo bingo. This is a major reason why the App Store’s rules are so insidious. What companies are we just not seeing because of this rule? This rule practically forces B2C software companies to have free ad-supported Apps. Pernicious and economy manipulating.

This is a phenomenal question! I would love if someone could provide a concrete answer.

I also tried to find out more about it, during the last year since I am making a mobile app which would also sell users the ability to buy ads just like Facebook does, and I spent DAYS trying to find any sort of information regarding it.

There was none, no one speaks about it, like it is buried deep down, if you were to apply Apple's arbitary rules then you would expect that Facebook also pays the 30% mafia tax, but somehow I doubt it, since that amount would just be enormous.

I'm honestly excited and curious to follow this thread and see what the results are going to be.

I can't imagine Apple is getting a cut of any FB ad revenue (or not anything meaningful).

To take the thought a bit further though, FB also has an ads manager app [1] which ad buyers can purchase ads through (pretty much no one uses this app to be fair). No payment ever goes through Apple so I can't imagine they get a cut from sales there either.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/business/news/ads-manager-app

Definitely won't happen, but makes me wonder:

If Facebook stopped all their applications (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp) from working on iOS, who would lose more? Will most people start using other social media platforms more, or will they buy Android devices?

Which other social networks?!

They would probably use 2 phones one iOS and one Android for FB apps cause utility of FB apps is just too big.

that makes no sense though, people would most likely migrate to Android. You know why? Because their friends would have the app that they can't use without an Android phone. This pretty much killed Windows phones.

Without FB apps, Google apps and Uber/Lyft, iOS would be a worse graveyard than MacOS store is right now. People would easily move from iMessage to WhatsApp.

Heck, if Google and FB banded up right now to reject iOS out of the blue, iOS would fall into an unclimbable chasm. Of course, that won't happen though.

I think iOS users could always use FB in the browser.

I can't imagine any ad supported business ignoring iOS users. The demographic is too lucrative.

As someone who's marketed consumer apps to iOS users (with in-app purchases) - you speak the truth.

One freemium iOS app I worked on did nearly 5X the revenue compared to its Android counterpart (others were at varied-but-similar multiples). I imagine the ad-supported business would reflect the same - the iOS audience is just too lucrative for advertisers to ignore.

edit to adjust multiple. I went back and looked it up.

I would just stop using Facebook Messenger rather than use it in the browser.

This is the reason why Apple keeps up with Facebook's bullshit. Do you think they would keep my developer account around if I got caught using it to sideload spyware[1]?

Of course not. But Apple can't afford kicking out Facebook or Google. Not even Uber[2].

All of these background deals and exeptions are not unprecedented, really. If I went to Target and wanted them to distribute my craft beer, I'd get worse terms than Heineken has.

[1] - https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/29/facebook-sideloading-vp...

[2] - https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/23/15399438/apple-uber-app-s...

The better question is: Why isn't Apple charging? Because Facebook's users have migrated to mobile over the years. Facebook's users aren't advertisers (per se, most people have a FB account), but surely some of Facebook's ad sales are done via iOS.

Because creating an ad isn't a transaction, for one. It costs nothing to create an ad.

I get billed at the end of the month based on clicks or views, and Apple has nothing to do with that. The ads might not even show on iOS.

It does not get any revenue from Ads. That is the reason why iOS 14 is making it very hard for Apps to make any money outside of the going through the App store (30% cut). This is brilliant from Apple because, it hits 2 birds with 1 stone - Win for consumer from privacy standpoint, Win as a business since it forces a lot of apps to be converted to paid apps, which will flow more $$ to Apple.

From what I understand: The in-app experience is not changed for me as a user. It doesn’t make my standard app a better app. An ad is consumed by other people on many other devices including browsers on a desktop. So I think it’s very reasonable it’s not handled like an in-app purchase. It’s more like a purchase of a physical item in the amazon app.

Everyone clamoring "ads don't improve the in-app experience" are looking at the wrong user. Obviously Apple has no grounds to charge Facebook when a user sees an ad and/or clicks on it. Instead you need to look at the person spending the money, which is the marketer.

Facebook clearly saw an opportunity to improve marketers' experiences in the app by allowing them to make ad buys from within the app. A marketer could certainly log on to their desktop and create an ad buy there, but their experience on the Facebook app is improved by being able to buy ads while on the couch or travelling. Facebook is improving their in-app experience by offering something for sale in the app.

How does that not warrant a 30% cut to Apple?

How does Apple differentiate sales from a browser-app and an app-app?

The differentiation: was the app was acquired through the App Store?

What I mean is, wouldn't any transaction within a browser be "in-app"?

Do you mean if I download Chrome for iOS and use it to purchase a Netflix subscription through their website? I’m quite sure Apple has a general purpose web browser exception for a number of store rules, though I don’t know if that is explicitly documented.

I wonder when Facebook and Google will stop shooting themselves. They are in the same boat as they are web 2.0. If they manage to kill the web Google and Facebook will die.

In some parts of the world Facebook is the internet for many. Facebook strategically made deals with ISPs to remove Facebook from datacaps and give priority access.

In India Facebook even sold Facebook-only internet access through a large mobile provider until the Indian government stopped them for data neutrality reasons and rightfully so. [1]

Look at the Facebook Zero project that is targeting many third-world countries, the disguised as charity to help those countries gain wide-spread internet access. [2]

1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/27/facebook-...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Zero

Apple's app ecosystem was built on privacy erosion. They should pay out reparations to users if they want to keep their own app store.

I'm curious that in all these conversations Miguel de Icaza made an appearance, and even more curious on how it's on the side of apple, it almost seem that he is on the apple payroll!

Not that I have anything wrong with that, but for a long time open source evangelist and currently working for microsoft, it seems notable.

Whenever I recharge my PokerStars account from inside the app, Apple also doesn't take 30%, does it? It would be a massive loss for the gaming company, I'm sure there's a deal worked out in that case too. And I'm pretty sure a non-disclosure agreement is in place in both of these cases.

"Free with advertising" is tenet of Apple's App Store policy, i.e. Royalty Free for everyone:

https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/

Totally unrelated and a bit of trolling but, looking at his constant presence in this Apple Store twitter threads: is Miguel De Icaza trying to get a position at Apple? Back in the Gnome/Mono days he did almost the same with Microsoft and in the end he went there...

A related tangent - ever notice that if you go to make a donation to a fundraiser, the iOS app kicks you out to a web page? It would be a better experience if it was in-app, but I have to wonder if Apple consider that to be an in-app purchase...

Does Apple actually claim that its "rules are [en]forced evenly w/o exception", or is it merely implied by their (carefully crafted) public statements?

The importance isn’t that the rules aren’t enforced evenly / fairly, but that the rules are only enforced against small companies. Enforcing the rules against Facebook and Amazon would be competitive. Enforcing the rules only against companies that are too small to compete with Apple is anti-competitive. We don’t see a suit from Facebook/Amazon, because they are also beneficiaries of Apple’s illegal conduct. I wasn’t convinced until I saw this, but this is strong evidence for Epic’s case.

Of course they don’t.

Ads are distinctly different from direct commerce. Good luck computing 30% of the value of an ad or a product placement.

No, because Facebook is a member of the Tres Commas club. Apple cannot bully them.

Does Amazon pay Apple 30% fo revenue derived from sales made within its iOS app?

I hope this gets widely shared, this is important.

I want to thank Apple for offering me free marketing with its app store. But then I submit an update, and surely they come with some far fetched reasoning requiring me to change my app. The latest one, I had to remove the following question from FAQs :"Does this app work on Android and iOS? Yes". That's it, can't even mention Android. I consider this too much. It would make sense if Apple had developed MY app, but they haven't. I have put into it several man months and now they get to dictate what I can say in the app. We need an apps strike

Bingo! A trillion dollars question :)

No, they do not.

No.

Tencent has famously strongarmed Apple into waving fees, and Apple Pay requirement for them under a threat that they will pull Wechat from the App Store

Add to exhibit B. sounds like the deal of the century.

Lol no

Simple answer: Apple charges 30% of what their users pay in the app store. Facebook makes ad revenue from other unrelated parties. How could Apple even try to tax this?

> How could Apple even try to tax this?

Have their own advertising platform which they take a 30% cut and ban any app that uses a competing platform the same way they do with IAP.

But Apple allows ads from other platforms, so the answer to the question is obviously no.

Does Apple take 30% of all ad revenue from any app?

If not- please bury before this turns into a 900 comment waste of time thread

This is different because it's talking about _purchasing_ side of things; you can purchase Facebook ads via the iOS app and Apple has been fairly consistent about digital purchases on its platform.

They don't take a cut from either Amazon or Etsy purchases. These are also things that you purchase in the app.

You misunderstood, it's not about ads shown, but bought.

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