iOS Kindle app now has a ‘get book’ button after changes to App Store rules | Hacker News Reader

iOS Kindle app now has a ‘get book’ button after changes to App Store rules

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189 pointsdiversion183 comments

Smart that developers are quickly updating their apps while Apple is still appealing the decision. Once users get used to the added purchase options and cheaper pricing there's no going back, regardless of what the final ruling is.

those users will stick with their Apple products and lose the ability to "get the book" (so to speak). So yes, there is going back.

> lose the ability

What, why? They can complete the purchase flow in a browser instead of the app. What is lost?

They mean that if apple wins the appeal, the in-app new purchase flow will be removed but users will likely not leave the apple ecosystem

Bút now, they know the web offer cheaper. And likely search before give Apple 30% on other apps

This also, long term, could kill the 30% commission. Why, as a developer, would you be stupid enough to launch your app as a paid product on the App Store?

Your discoverability is massively impaired, we already knew that. You also give Apple 30% of your cash.

Free app + external web purchase = maximum discoverability at 0% tax.

When things get more advanced, that web purchase link will be an authenticated URL - meaning one click to open the web browser already logged in. Register a protocol handler, remember their card information (or, ironically, use Apple Pay), and one tap in the app, a flash of the web browser, and they’re back in the app with purchase complete.

Apple needs to address this at WWDC. In the US and EU, there are zero, heck, negative advantages of selling on the App Store. All pain, all fees, no benefit of any kind. That’s a big deal.

The likely outcome is that Apple will reduce the 30% to something at least marginally competitive with alternative payment systems.

The entire “store” model needs to go away. Phones are computers now, just let people download and install whatever they want or need.

Apple will never do this voluntarily.

> Phones are computers now

No one but irrelevant nerds think this. And the market has demonstrated this time and time again.

Most people think of phones as being console-like entertainment devices. And aren't interested in scams, malware, virus checkers etc that are needed in a free for all model.

Malware and virus protection apps are already among the most installed across both Android and iOS.

At least here in Australia. Neither are in the top 50 for either Android or iOS.

And on iOS there are no virus protection apps, period.

Here in Australia, Samsung Device Care is in the top 50. [0] In fact, its more often installed than Netflix.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samsung.an...

> And on iOS there are no virus protection apps, period.

iOS has Avast, Avira, Lookout, etc. There are many, many virus protection apps on iOS.

.. are any of those for iOS non-fradulent?

I don't believe this can be done whilst maintaining a strong sandbox.

What's in these apps that a decent web browser can't do?

In a lot of cases nothing but native experience still reigns supreme.

Many companies would never use Apple's IAP regardless of the cost because companies want a direct relationship with their user for things like refunds and trials and other stuff.

My immediate interpretation of "direct relationship" is one part "we want your email to send you marketing spam" and one part "we want to add as much friction as possible to cancellations".

If Apple and their payments system offers as much value as they think then the market will make the determination, now that that's possible.

a) It's 15% for most developers.

b) Buying a product through IAP is one click. Versus having to go to a signup page, provide details, enter credit card details, wait for credit card verification flows etc. The drop off in conversions during this can be often greater than 15%.

c) Apple's centralised subscription management has been extremely useful and consumer friendly. Versus having to now deal with NY Times style scam tactics for every subscription again.

Now calculate the drop off every time someone saw the prompt: “Please confirm your Apple ID password.”

I’m sure it’s substantial over the years. As for point C, I really don’t care, every monopoly has had at least some advantages. We could make this even better by giving Visa a monopoly and having them build a web portal.

You can turn that prompt off if it bothers you.

C is my biggest reason I'm not looking forward to these changes.

I love having a single dashboard for all my subscriptions and having an easy way to cancel them.

b) Apple Pay on Stripe seems a pretty low friction experience for web purchases. My app has a "buy" button that pops up a Safari window with an Apple Pay button the user clicks. Sure, it's an extra click but I doubt it's a slam dunk that the extra click is going to consistently cut conversions by 15% (or 30% for big outfits.)

B is also one click, considering Stripe and others already offer Apple Pay as a payment option.

For C, customers can choose to continue using Apple's subscription management if they think it's worth the 30% premium that Apple charges. Or Apple could reduce the price to something more reasonable (Stripe Billing offers a similar feature set and costs 0.7%).

That sounds like an awful user experience. There's no way I'm ever buying a mobile app that requires me to go enter my credit card into a website to pay for it. Cross-platform services can justify this sort of thing (because you're buying a subscription to the service across all platforms), but doing it for what otherwise would be a paid app purchase is incredibly user-hostile.

I think you’re in the minority there - users enter their information constantly for physical items. Nobody raises an eyebrow, let alone calls it hostile.

Also, problem solved, just use Apple Pay on the checkout page. Ironic, but royalty free, and one-click to enable in Stripe.

I’d do it for 30% off

> Why, as a developer, would you be stupid enough to launch your app as a paid product on the App Store?

Higher conversion rate.

That's been highly questionable for a while.

Anecdotal I know but my app converts from free trials at 4x iOS vs Android. Has done so for years and years. Same app, same price, same audience (North American boaters). Similar free trial numbers too.

Niche app that sells at a higher price than your average app. Ie my users have disposable income but the Android users don’t like to pay for higher priced apps like iOS users will.

Oh, that's been true for quite a while. iOS is way more lucrative in the US versus Android.

I'm thinking more about web versus AppStore. AppStore discovery just sucks.

Why would a developer lower their prices? Most people are not aware that Apple takes a cut of all sales. Further, the app developers have already set their prices to maximize revenue. Also, in instances like Amazon, they have already set a cross-platform price that I suspect they won’t want to touch.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t expect many discounts here.

It was mostly never about lower prices. Apps like Kindle and Fortnite just didn't allow in-app purchasing at all and now they will.

The market ultimately determines the discount, not the company. In a competitive market, some of the gains from Apple’s change will accrue to the consumer, and some will accrue to the developer. What % goes to whom depends on demand elasticity.

Even if a particular list price doesn’t change, I’d expect more frequent and deeper sales.

In a less competitive market for a good or service (due to lack of antitrust enforcement) there should still be discounts, in proportion to the residual competitiveness. E.g. the mobile game market is very competitive, so I’d expect more discounts vs. the video entertainment market where there has been a lot of aggregation.

What you're seeing is companies that can - and many actually do this - offer you different pricing between in app purchasing and their website are now offering you a link to their website where you can sign up for the cheaper price. One notable example of this in practice is Spotify, where its cheaper to sign up on the web than via the app.

I've also heard Netflix has suspended all in app subscriptions and is only going to link to their website for sign ups. I'm unsure if that will translate into savings, but I suspect you're going to see more of this behavior as well.

The 30% / 15% tax is very real and companies that don't have to pay that will be better positioned in the long run, so I imagine even if the price is the same, they'll be able to pocket more revenue doing this as well

I suspect this won't affect games much, except for the exceedingly big ones like Fortnite, but I treat that as a whole separate sector at this point.

> Why would a developer lower their prices

Plenty of them already do. Google's services (YouTube Premium and others), for example, are $5/mo more expensive if you purchase them via Apple IAP. Spotify memberships are 30% more expensive on Apple. There are countless other examples. They just weren't allowed to advertise the cheaper option on iOS until now.

Yeah, tariffs won't increase the price...

Is anyone confident that Apple will win on appeal?

By the effort developers putting into payment-flows I would say they aren't, but depending on the volume it could be purely for short-term gain.

Courts don't care about the amount of effort developers are spending to take advantage of the window before an appeal has been ruled on.

I think the implication that is being made here is that the other companies have examined their odds, and determined that the odds are good enough that they would dedicate the resources.

Which, presumably, means their legal teams examine the case and think that the appeal won't succeed.

Though there is always the possibility that it was relatively inexpensive to implement, and the increased sales in the meanwhile during the legal battle will outweigh the cost of changing it.

It would be way smarter if the prices were discounted of something like 20% when brought through the app… if apple wins the appeal they (aws and others) can now blame apple and shift the public perception of apple

Apple will change the rules back in seconds if the court decision is stayed. Literally billions are at stake here.

They might, but they'll have lost the "it's for consumer's good" battle through and through.

4 years ago some people were still swallowing the security or privacy argument, and users didn't understand what they were missing. This time any of these facades will be broken to death.

I buy the security and privacy argument. I don’t want to deal with anyone other than Apple for refunds, cancellations, etc. I don’t trust anyone else to make these things easy.

Then you can happily tell Apple to fix it. Apple already has a system for this called Apple Pay, and it’s royalty free on top of regular credit card networks.

If it’s about security and privacy only, demand the ability to check out in an app using Apple’s own payment platform. Watch Apple squirm.

As for the subscription convenience, I know how to make this even better. Let’s give Visa and Stripe a monopoly on all transactions, and then have them build a unified subscription portal. Awesomeness!

I don’t understand your points. If I buy things through the App store on iOS I know if there is a problem I can get relief very easily. I can easily cancel subscriptions without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. I prefer to keep things this way. You apparently don’t. As such we disagree.

I feel you to a large disagree. That said Apple’s IAP has multiple issues

https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com/post/...

I don’t know anything about the issue from a developer perspective. I just know that as a consumer I like how Apple handles things.

Really? Most of those sound like positives to me (the consumer)

I am not shedding any tears over developers not being able to nag me about why I’m cancelling, for example.

Same goes for all the shenanigans mentioned about variable pricing for different users.

I think a lot of devs are out of touch with what customers want: transparent pricing, easy cancellation, not worrying about the store running off with my credit card. How the costs are split up between Apple and the devs is jury not something anyone cares about.

It would be great if the market could figure out this.

They have, on the Mac.

The market figures it wrong in lots of instances. Like cancelling cable subscriptions or gym membership. The market, in your parlance, did decide this by Apple being the most profitable phone maker. People could buy other phones and didn’t. I guess that version of the market figuring it out you don’t like.

> The market, in your parlance, did decide this by Apple being the most profitable phone maker.

I don't recall that defense saving Microsoft back in the day.

My point is, saying “let the market decide” is a stupid response. One can always pick a starting point and say, “but the market did decide”.

No one is forcing you to move away from IAP and subscriptions. Just ignore the link that takes you to the web. And be ready to pay a 30% premium for your convenience, because that is what Apple has priced it at.

Obviously. I was merely demonstrating that some people like buying through the App store.

You’re making the assumption the developer continues to support IAP

But you already didn't have the security of Apple's payment processing when you were buying Kindle books.

(Admittedly, I'm now waiting for the stories of users being surprised when they paid their FartTorchPRO app subscription via paypal.ru and finding their credit card details all over the darkweb.)

That Apple ecosystem only isolation is something you had to wish for in the first place, so for you, technically nothing changes.

For instance up until now you probably refused to register to Netflix or any other system that manages payments and subscription outside of Apple, and you can keep doing so.

Same way you probably didn't register PayPal integration that would have shifted part of the cancellation/refunds to PayPal. You of course didn't integrate PayPay either.

Basically you can keep being Apple only, as you always did. From the discovery documents, Apple didn't seem to give a damn about these and only discussed revenue regarding their policies, but you're free to see what you want in Apple's behavior.

Yes. I don’t think Apple is a saint. I think it understands that forcing consumer friendly practices for its customers makes sense especially if they get paid to do so.

Making people pay more on Apple devices for the same service is customer friendly?

Apparently I believe so since it provides me with an experience I’m willing to pay a premium for.

Have you tried cancelling your audible subscription? Compare that with the experience cancelling a subscription with Apple and you quickly realize the experience is more consumer friendly. You look at it from a price perspective while others look at it from a value perspective.

I go to Settings, I go to my Apple account, I go to subscriptions, and I press 1 button to cancel the subscription and 1 button to confirm that's what I want to do and the end date. Unless I know I want the subscription effectively forever, I subscribe through apple so I can do this.

Try canceling prime. Then try canceling any Apple platform subscription.

That's also something that's the fault of US lawmakers. In the EU cancelling a service must be as easy and through the same channels as signing up. Hence it's illegal to require that customers mail a hand-posted registered letter only on the second Tuesday of the month. Unless that's also the only way to sign up.

Transferring you to a "customer loyalty specialist" when cancelling is also illegal if you refuse.

Don't worship Apple because they're a bit more "consumer friendly" (while cashing in 30% for the privilege!!) when you could have everything be customer friendly for free just by electing honest politicians.

Fair point, and I don’t worship them. Reality is US governance philosophy is that the market will mostly self-regulate. Apple’s behavior is best aligned with my interest.

If i were an app developer, maker of Skinner box games, or selling virtual products, i would feel differently. But I’m not, and allowing Amazon to extract more margin in exchange for cheapening my experience does nothing to benefit me.

So Apple is bad because US lawmakers aren’t forcing other companies to follow their practices.

No they're bad because of the 30%. But almost all American companies are bad, really. It's just a inevitability in unrestricted capitalism. That's why we need the EU to put legal constraints on them. Apple isn't the bad Apple in the bunch but they're not great either.

Cancelling Amazon Prime took about 15 seconds. Do Apple users have the attention span of a toddler?

They may have changed but it used to be quite confusing how to cancel Prime. Once you cancel and try to buy something on Amazon they present a variety of dark patterns to get you to sign up again.

> I don’t want to deal with anyone other than Apple for refunds, cancellations, etc. I don’t trust anyone else to make these things easy.

Amazon has an incredibly generous return policy. This is a strange argument to make for the Kindle app.

Try cancelling Prime. Then try buying something from Amazon without them trying to trick you into a Prime membership. Amazon sucks. Also its return policies over the years have gotten quite obtuse for physical goods in my experience.

I have canceled Prime. It was a straightforward process. Orders go the way they usually do. There is a call to get Prime, but it's not like it's occupying a place where something else would normally be if you had Prime.

You can’t in good faith try to convince anyone that cancelling Prime is as easy as canceling a subscription on iOS. After cancelling prime whenever you order something dark patterns are used to try to get you to sign up. One such patten is that orders default to charging for shipping with a message stating that if you sign up for Prime shipping is free. This is even if your order qualifies for free shipping. Another is that when you checkout you get taken to a page that offers you Prime at a reduced rate for a week or two. You have to decline before checking out.

You are not engaged in a good faith discussion. Peddle this nonsense to someone else.

They didn't say it was easier. But I would say my experience _cancelling_ isn't worth a 30% price increase for all my services.

I think you mean a 43% price increase?

I thought the standard fee was 30% for in-app purchases?

If 30% of the price paid is taken by Apple, that means their commission is 43% of the revenue received by the vendor, the hypothetical price you would otherwise pay. A 30% decrease and a 43% increase are the same size; a 30% decrease is much larger than a 30% increase.

Observe: 0.7 * 1.3 = 0.91.

https://i.imgur.com/MBWOc6W.png

Oh of course. Well the "ease of cancelling" REALLY isn't worth the cost.

And haha to the Dilbert.

> I have canceled Prime. It was a straightforward process.

If you had cancelled Prime any time before mid-2023, you would not say this. Because if you had, you'd know Amazon Prime requires four successive cancellation screens where they change the position of the correct button to press each time. (And then a button which if you press immediately resubscribes you.)

Amazon itself referred to its cancellation process as Project Illiad: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-sues-amazon-...

but what if i dont want to give apple that control?

i could buy different hardware, but apple is abusing their monopolist markets on order to buyout the good chips and prevent other hardware manufacturers from having access to equivalent tech.

if theyre gonna buy up all of a TSMC process, i should be able to run android on an iPhone

Is there a benefit to running Android on an iPhone that would make it preferable to running it on an Android phone you buy at the same price point? Not suggesting you shouldn’t have the right to do it if you want to do it, but what would be the advantage?

> if theyre gonna buy up all of a TSMC process

Presumably a high end SoC.

Is that really worth paying ~25% more for everything, though?

Sure, but customers aren't going to be defending their decision after that like they always do.

Apple is a status brand, customers will still defend their decisions even if they found out that Tim Cook is a real life Sith lord or something of that magnitude.

No brand lasts forever. Even on HN, a couple years ago every comment even vaguely anti-Apple tax would be immediately downvoted. When the Epic lawsuit was first filed Tim Sweeney was public enemy #1 over here. Now people are warming up to the idea that Apple might be harming consumers and developers with their app store rules.

This is a misconception. For most Apple users it isn’t about status, it’s just the brand they use because they like the products and the way they work together. That doesn’t mean they don’t wish they were better in many ways (including this one).

It can be both. Like the whole green bubble vs blue bubble thing in iMessage. More people than you might think look at Apple as the status brand but that doesn't mean they don't also enjoy how well everything works together.

An iPhone isn't a status symbol anymore, if it ever was. I see 12 year olds with them because they still work long after the phone's previous owner grabbed the shiny new one.

Maybe having the newest model the week it comes out confers some status amongst those who can tell the difference. Everyone else just slaps a case on it and no one knows what generation you have.

I hear that argument often (although less than in the past) and always shake my head. In phones, Apple, Samsung, Google are analogous to Coke and Pepsi. Premium product, but achievable luxury. Apple is not Chanel.

Price sensitive folks go to MVNOs with off brand or lower spec devices - the equivalent to Dr Thunder at WalMart.

Apple is dominant in the US because they got their ass kicked in the services space by Google and learned their lesson. iCloud is an incredible platform today.

There’s really two androids. “Fancy Android” with Samsung Galaxy and Nexus - nice phones whose users seek them out. “Dumb Android” with customers steered by price or phone guys getting spiffed. The users don’t know or care about the device and have low value. The reality is, as with soda, the cheap product is marginally cheaper, but less pleasant and usually a poor value.

People in this thread are defending their right to be made to be paid 30% more and forbidden from being told how they can avoid this. It's bananas. Or astroturf.

> It's bananas. Or astroturf.

Hi, it's me, a Banana. I promise I'm a real life human being though and not being paid by anyone relevant to this.

The way Apple has set this up is generally preferentially friendly to consumers over developers. Since I'm a consumer in this situation, not a developer, that benefits me.

The developers put up with it because that's the only way to access Apple's customer base. Presumably if we remove that requirement and allow them to do less consumer-friendly things that are more profitable they will choose to do so. Since I'm a consumer in this situation, not a developer, that does not benefit me.

So yes, even if I had to pay Apple's fee, I see an extra $2-4/mo as a rounding error on some service for a $1500 device and don't mind paying it to have the 800 pound gorilla going to bat for me. I have never have to deal with confusing or misleading subscriptions, length unsubscribe processes full of dark patterns, "oops we forgot", terrible customer support, or anything else.

I'm happy for this to be a choice, but I'm worried it _won't_ be a choice--developers will switch off on to other payment providers and abandon Apple's subscriptions/payments. I'd be fully behind this if it were a requirement that you had to _also_ offer subscription through Apple, even at some sort of premium.

There was a period where the Android Kindle app stopped allowing you to make purchases. (You'd have to visit Amazon instead.) But they've resumed.

I'm curious about what happened.

Google and Amazon had some kind of cold war about them both wanting to control the living room or something. A few years ago they both decided to play nice.

Strangely I still can't buy kindle books from the Amazon app on Android, it still says I have to visit the Website.

I assume Google copied Apple's policy about taking a cut of every IAP.

I can definitely buy kindle books through the Android Kindle app. My best guesses are:

- you haven't updated the app in a long time - you're somewhere outside the United States

Is either of those true?

The consumers are...not sharp.

They will blame the app developers for raising prices.

You’re right there won’t be any going back. You’re wrong about who is being smart about it.

If Apple wins appeal, they’ll happily and quickly reinstate the fees. It’ll be the app developers who then get stuck paying the fees because, as you mentioned, their users will be used to it and there’s no going back.

The incredible thing is that under the anti-steering rules, removing the button and providing any explanation would result in the app being banned from the store.

The extent to which "it's our platform so you don't have any rights" has been applied is ridiculous.

"If Apple wins the appeal"

Might as well ask if unicorns are real. Apple only wins the appeal if they bribe the judges. The only reason they've gotten away with it for so long is the U.S. DOJ was unwilling to enforce antitrust laws after the Microsoft debacle.

> developers are quickly updating their apps

This means a lot! It reveals how long developers were waiting for this day to come.

Amazon have already removed the link once so why not again. Originally in the kindle app there was a link to get books, which opened safari, which they later removed.

Apple is generally on the side of customers, but this is a clear example of how anti-customer-friendly their policy was. As a customer, I had to jump through hoops to buy a book on their premium platform.

> Apple is generally on the side of customers,

I'm not convinced;

Planned obsolescence, repair issues, phone-home privacy issues, vendor lock-in, etc

Apple is certainly innovative which helps consumers, but that's about it. The rest is bare minimum for the price point.

Apple maps, "Intelligence", siri, etc all run on device because Apple is in the market of selling devices. As many as they can. Whereas google is in the market of selling you to advertisers.

It's literally a major difference in their fundamental business models.

Apple does both. Under Tim Cook, services have become nearly as profitable as hardware, and the price of making services compared to hardware is comically low. That's why we have AppleTV and Apple News and Apple Arcade, for all they're worth as a motley crew of subscriptions.

There was also a conflict of interest, considering Apple has their own bookstore.

I guess this is a side-effect where, as things stood, developers were incentivized to just forgo IAP and force users to jump through hoops to find how to give them money; and that in turn wasn’t customer friendly. But in general I much prefer IAP to whatever payment system the developer uses. It makes it so easy to do things like change or cancel any payments I have.

In general I think centralized stores are customer friendly but anti developer. As a less controversial example, see how many gamers will wait months or years for a game to leave the Epic game store and go on Steam.

Centralized stores are only superficially consumer friendly. The store owner is too well positioned to rent seek, and they will inevitably do so -- as Apple in fact is.

Steam doesn't impose anti-competitive measures on games, though.

I've never had to buy a service plan for any of my PC laptops.

OTOH, every Apple owner I know has an AppleCare plan. And has had to use it. Multiple times. For nearly every device they own. And this is a sample population of over a thousand over more than a decade.

Yes, Apple service is great. I couldn't tell you what Dell Service is like, or Lenovo, or HP, because I've never had to use them. PC laptops and Android phones...just work.

And given that Androids are more popular in the parts of the world where reliability is essential, it's pretty clear that most of the world agrees that Apples are the inferior device.

Good luck trying to paint the picture that AppleCare is a waste of money. I've owned hundreds of Apple products since AppleCare became a thing. I've "had to use it" once, and that one use replaced a $4500 product for $0. The ROI on AppleCare always works out.

If you've had AppleCare since it became a thing, you've basically paid the same price for AppleCare over that time as it would have cost to replace the $4500 product on its own.

Android devices and PC laptops don't need service plans. But as you've demonstrated, Apple products do. Even the $4500 ones.

Add that external payment button and watch my app magically disappear from search results.

Sure, they changed the rules on paper, but who's policing their algorithm? Nobody. They can tank my keywords overnight and call it "normal fluctuation."

FAANG will be fine, but indies? Gentle reminder that ASO funnels have no customer support. Might just suddenly "stop working."

Anyone else afraid to pull the trigger on this?

Amazing!

Now if Amazon could also fix the incredibly frustrating, long-standing bug of their iOS app where tapping the screen anywhere does not turn pages, but instead toggles through "page numbers" -> "time left in chapter" -> "time left in book" etc., I'd be happy with it.

Anywhere?

I've never seen that bug. Now, if you tap it near the bottom on the left-hand side, it toggles through that, by design (just as it does on the Kindle tablets)...

Anywhere for me, but only about 1 out of 10 taps or so.

Drives me crazy, and I only swipe to turn pages at this point, which prevents it, but is somewhat uncomfortable.

If Apple eventually wins their appeal think among how hard it will be to put the genie back in the bottle.

Gonna be a looot of apps refusing to update.

I suppose they can just take them down.

They can, and then they’ll have to face their customers directly with it being exactly clear (even to “normies” who don’t follow obscure tech news like this) exactly whose greedy fingers are taking things away from them.

Up till now, situations like Kindle were just weird quirks to most people and most people wouldn’t have been able to tell you why you can’t do this very normal-seeming thing on iOS. If/when Apple takes it away, it’ll be obvious to everyone what’s going on.

There are plenty of no longer supported apps on people's phones.

No one is blaming Apple for it.

I think it'd be a bit different if Kindle, Spotify, Netflix and co. all suddenly stopped working/got worse.

And if Apple yoinks them out, then why should the developer respect the "no disparagement" or "no telling your customers about payment/alternatives"? Which to me was always the ultimate expression of Apple absolutely knowing they are being greedy. Not just "You can't tell your customers you can pay less elsewhere", but "You can't even tell your customers about our involvement in your pricing decisions".

Apple will happily have you audit and pay them 30% on those external sales

If this significantly cannibalizes Apple’s App Store revenue I would actually expect that they come up with a different way to monetize (maybe based on installs or number of users).

They could also implement that independent of the injunction, which applies to steering rules.

If Apple penalized apps for having many users that would be cataclysmic to their platform, though I image they'd work out sweetheart deals with Facebook etc.

One way or the other this is a seismic event for Apple. They did this to themselves though.

It could be like a platform subscription fee, but the app developer pays instead of the user.

The justification would be something like, "a more equitable and transparent system that aligns costs with platform usage and developer access to the user base, while also potentially fostering a more diverse and competitive app ecosystem" (generated)

I left Apple years ago, right on the battery-gate scandal. Since I'm in Android since, I imagine that if Google Play Store would introduce a fee to "a more equitable..." I would do all my 'shopping' to Aurora, APKPure, and others.

> They could also implement that independent of the injunction, which applies to steering rules.

They actually can't, not with the latest ruling that unlocked this Kindle change. Apple annoyed the judge enough with their shenanigans that she shut this down, too. The ruling reads (emphasis mine): "Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users *nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases*."

They can just charge you per install or update over some threshold. Which wouldn’t be a commission on off-app purchases.

It cannot be overstated just how furious the judge is with Apple. I cannot imagine the judge will tolerate anything that undermines the spirit of the ruling.

Yeah, this is already in territory where he's pushing criminal prosecution referrals for Apple executives. It's well into "protect your own hide, personally, by making sure you comply with the ruling" for people making the decisions at Apple.

I'm surprised they haven't simply forced tiered pricing for their developer program.

You still need that to get on the platform. They could charge based on the relative size of the business. Why not charge Netflix 50K? They won't give up the platform and the consumer - even for Netflix - likely wouldn't enjoy going to the web browser exclusively.

Perhaps that pushes more PWA's but really, I doubt the big corps would balk at this.

Their scale would need to be exceedingly reasonable to keep the smaller shops from rioting though.

Here's a thought: Apple should NOT be able to "monetize" third-party apps. At all. They have no right to the work of other people.

Apple wants to mandate a review? That's fine. Charge developers for the reviewers' time with a reasonable profit margin, and Apple _already_ charges $100 a year for access to the AppStore.

I thought that the terms of the entitlement to be able to link to an external purchase point was that you still needed to offer IAP under Apple’s terms. Did I misunderstand that?

Except for 'reader apps' (those that sell digital content, basically) which Amazon is. Plus, Apple's rules are applied unevenly; Amazon is a giant WebView on Apple TV but it's disallowed for everybody else.

As far as I understand, what "reader apps" were allowed to do was to display content purchased elsewhere in the first place, which is orthogonal to being/not being allowed to link to external purchases, no?

These are the changes that Apple was forced to make, specifically referencing 3.1.3 (Other Purchase Methods) and 3.1.3(a) (“Reader” Apps):

> 3.1.3: The prohibition on encouraging users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase does not apply on the United States storefront.

> 3.1.3(a): The External Link Account entitlement is not required for apps on the United States storefront to include buttons, external links, or other calls to action.

The bit about the (formerly required in the US) entitlement is:

> Reader app developers may apply for the External Link Account Entitlement to provide an informational link in their app to a web site the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to create or manage an account.

They required you use a trackingless, generic URL that was unvarying per user, so you probably didn't run into it super often. Offhand, the Kobo app did use it.

No, there are no conditions on linking out except that Apple can choose to show an alert along the lines of "You are leaving the app to open a webpage in Safari"

Did you miss the recent court ruling that said Apple is not allowed to restrict developers from linking to external payments systems at all?

update: thanks for the clarifications!

Unfortunately the article does not answer what the button does, which is quite relevant.

Does it send the user to the amazon website (which would be allowed under the new rule)? Or does it complete the purchase inside the app using the credit card Amazon has on file for the user without paying Apple anything (which would be quite the affront towards Apple)?

You missed it; the article does answer this.

> By selecting ‘Get Book’ within the Kindle for iOS app, customers can now complete their purchase through their mobile web browser.

It does indeed open your web browser and send you to the book's page on the Kindle store. Just checked. (Kindle for iPhone v7.31.3)

Wow, really? That's frustrating.

I'd have expected it to actually make the purchase using my card on file with my Amazon account, just like the physical Kindle does.

That one Apple is still allowed to collect fees on (which I'd love to see the provided justification for!).

Per the article: "Apple can no longer collect a 27 percent commission on purchases made outside of apps or restrict how developers can direct users to alternate payment options"

This now allows folks to direct users to alternate methods. Before this the Kindle app would just say something along the lines of "you can't get a book here, please use the website".

I really don’t have a dog in this fight between monopolists, but I’ll admit I’ll be happy to have the button.

I hope can buy audiobooks from the iOS audible app soon.

Now that’s an interesting comment. I’ve been buying Audible books on the iOS app as long as I can remember (both in dollars and using credits). I had to double-check to see if I was crazy or misremembering.

Perhaps it’s because I have a membership that they’re allowed to bypass the Apple store somehow? I never thought about it until just now.

Let's be clear: Amazon isn't doing this out of the goodness of their heart or to "provide customers the most convenient experience possible." They're grudgingly complying with a court order while Apple appeals. That spokesperson's PR spin is laughable.

The fact that it took LEGAL ACTION to get basic functionality that existed on Kindle e-readers from day one speaks volumes about how these tech giants operate. They'll happily degrade user experience to avoid paying each other's extortionate fees while pretending it's about "ecosystem integrity" or some other corporate doublespeak.

And let's not forget Apple's brilliant solution to the court ruling - a slightly smaller 27% tax instead of 30%! How generous! This whole situation perfectly illustrates the duopoly stranglehold that's been choking app developers for years.

The most telling part? Amazon "probably isn't going to change its mind about avoiding Apple's 30 percent cut." So even with the court ruling, we're still stuck with a half-measure solution because two trillion-dollar companies can't figure out how to play nice without extracting maximum profit at users' expense.

Wake me up when either of these companies actually puts user experience ahead of their bottom line.

Why are you both sidesing this? It's Apple who has been given a court order and Apple who have refused to come to a reasonable compromise with Amazon.

Do you mean Apple isn’t doing this out of the goodness of their heart?

App Store revenue was a significant source of income for Apple. Money that paid for development of iPhone and iOS. I don’t know what sort of idiotic thinking it takes to imagine that they won’t need to find another way to recapture that money. It will probably come in the form of higher costs for development licenses, or hardware. For example, absolutely nothing stops them from charging you for using the SDK. No one said it had to be free.

Everyone screaming about how happy they are about this seem to be ignoring the fact that Apple is not a charity

> Money that paid for development of iPhone and iOS.

iOS has gotten progressively worse every year since 2012. It may not be the worst idea to turn off the tap.

How is it worse? It’s better now for me than years ago.

Off the top of my head:

- Substantially poorer performance

- Keyboard is less accurate

- YouTube videos can’t be played on the lock screen without some tricks

- Apple Maps (it is basically at parity now, however).

- Translate feature doesn’t have a copy button

- The storage bug

- No option for manual cache clearing

- SMB protocol doesn’t work with Windows and doesn’t display error messages

- File transfers are substantially more complicated than they used to be because they want you to pay for iCloud (the workaround here is installing VLC which gives you a drag-and-drop folder you can use through iTunes)

- Multitasking (apps should shut down after some time spent idle, instead they have to be manually closed)

I haven’t used the most recent versions of iOS so I don’t know if some of these have been addressed.

> - YouTube videos can’t be played on the lock screen without some tricks

Waiwaiwait. Hold the phone.

That’s GOOGLE’s decision, not Apple’s. This whole thread is a circle jerk about how Apple doesn’t let developers do what they want. It’s a general purpose computer and all that. This is an example of what happens when Apple doesn’t prevent developers from doing something anti-consumer.

We can ignore that one, then, but my understanding was that the functionality has been disabled twice; first by Apple, and later by YouTube. I could be wrong, though, it's been almost 15 years.

FWIW iOS users could write a workaround if they were allowed to sideload, like Android users did: https://newpipe.net/

> - Translate feature doesn’t have a copy button

Sure it does. It’s labeled “Copy Translation”. It’s the first button under the translation for un-editable text.

> - Multitasking (apps should shut down after some time spent idle, instead they have to be manually closed)

Apps that aren’t working in the background shut down effectively as soon as they lose focus. Don’t let the list of screenshots fool you – those aren’t running. Don’t waste your time swiping them away.

> Sure it does.

I’m talking about the Translate app, not the in-line translator. If your text exceeded a certain length in the Translate app you couldn’t even select it. They might have fixed it in subsequent versions, but I wouldn’t know.

It’s had a copy button forever. It’s allows you to scroll, select, copy.

> - Translate feature doesn’t have a copy button

Just selected text. Pressed translate. It says “copy translation”…

Opened up image. Translated text. Pressed copy translation.

> Keyboard is less accurate

I actually find androids default keyboard less accurate when typing or using the predictive text. I use the swipe to text all the time on iPhone.

> - Multitasking (apps should shut down after some time spent idle, instead they have to be manually closed)

lol no

> - No option for manual cache clearing

Never needed to clear cache?

It sounds like you just don’t like apple to be honest. Finding things to nitpick. I have a pixel phone and iPhone so I can do testing and while I have no issues with the pixel. I much prefer iOS. It just works, feels more consistent, and the phone is faster than the pixel despite it being a iPhone 13. It’s still as fast as when I bought it, while the pixel just feels slow compared to when I bought it a year ago, and it’s mainly used for testing…

> lol no

This is obnoxious and you’re wrong about it.

> It sounds like you just don’t like apple to be honest.

Astute, I don’t.

> It just works

It doesn’t.

> This is obnoxious and you’re wrong about it.

It appears you don’t understand how iOS apps work. Have you ever tried building one?

No, I haven’t. I haven’t tried building a car before, either, I still know that I want it to have a cupholder.

Lol that’s funny knowing in this analogy you want the cup holder in the boot because you don’t know what a cup holder is just that you know you want one.

I know I don’t want to have to close down the apps manually.

Review the site guidelines; you are breaking several of them.

Pointing out you’re wrong because you don’t understand how iOS apps works is against the rules? Ok.

it was an unlawful source of income that they should have never had

they're lucky they're not being made to pay it all back, plus interest

Apple is doing fine. They have crazy profit margins on everything, but especially on hardware upgrades. They're one of the most cash hoarding tech giants and that's still after the stock buybacks. It's fine, they're not going to suddenly run out.

Also this is an article about Kindle adding an option which wasn't there before. Apple wasn't getting the money either way.

The development of the iPhone and iOS is payed-for in the exact same way it is on MacOS. With the outrageous hardware margins Apple commands, profiting hundreds of dollars off each unit sold.

The billions of dollars in cash beg to disagree with you. I don't think they are hurting for money.

Nor am I. But if my boss cuts my salary I’ll still fight back.

“Paid for the development”

This comes off as incredibly bought-in to Apple PR, and if you’re not on their payroll, I don’t understand why you’re carrying water for them so aggressively.

First of all, the incredibly high margin hardware more than “pays for” the development of all the parts that make that hardware useful including iOS. We all know this.

Apple makes a tremendous amount of profit, both gross and net. This will dent their top line and their bottom line a bit. It will not make the iPhone a money-losing platform. “Not making as much pure profit as your near-monopoly status might theoretically allow you to if there were no antitrust laws” does not imply “that money will have to be made up somewhere.” They may end up being only “wildly, amazingly profitable” instead of “wildly, absurdly, amazingly profitable.” They don’t “have to” make up any particular amount of money.

Whether that upsets their shareholders including their mega billionaire CEO, is just the breaks. It is quite fitting for a group of people who enjoyed all those amazing profits from Apple’s monopolistic behavior so far — money that I might point out, isn’t even being required to be paid back.

Apple platforms are already kind of notorious for having the highest price sticker to develop/publish apps for.

You're ignoring the fact that desire doesn't magically translate into money. If the decision holds, and Apple loses this easy pot of gold, they won't be able to replace all of it just because they want to, so it will still be a net win for developers/consumers.

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