According to the app store judgment: Apple changes rules for US developers

According to the judgment of a US court, according to the Apple there is no participation in purchases triggered from apps, the iPhone manufacturer has adapted its app store guidelines. In the freshly updated App Review Guidelines for the American market Various things are now explicitly allowed that were previously prohibited so that Apple always got its commission of up to 30 percent. This includes an end to the “Link Out” ban and the regulation that developers must not explicitly advertise for alternative payment methods.

Judge forces Apple to implement immediate implementation

Apple also made its developers By email and blog entry attentive to the changes that were made “due to a court decision in the United States”. It is about “buttons, external links and other call-to-action elements in apps,” said the company. The judge in the civil procedure, which has been running between Apple and Epic Games for several years, stipulated that the regulations were “immediately” implemented and Apple is severely criticized-as well as the alleged false statement of an Apple manager to the public prosecutor.

In its changed guidelines, Apple writes, among other things, that the prohibition of encouraging users to use a different merchant method as the in-app purchase “does not apply to the US store”. Furthermore, there are no so-called external link account entitlements, i.e. explicit permits by Apple, for said buttons, external links or other call-to-action elements. Apple may no longer ask for money for “off-app purchases”-this was previously 27 percent (minus 3 percent for transaction costs compared to the usual 30 percent).

Epic Games and Spotify react

Epic Games then wants to bring his games like “Fortnite” back into the App Store, and the company also wants to provide developers with new payment methods via its own website – in the form of the “Epic Games Store Webshops”. Incidentally, the publisher also wants a commission, but it falls Only from one million US dollars in sales per year to. Apple itself demands a reduced 15 percent commission until this amount, above 30 percent. Epic Games always wants to see 12 percent, 88 percent go to the developers.

The Musikstreaming Service Spotify has already submitted a new app version that Subscription degrees directly on the web enables. Previously, the company had stopped in-app sales a long time ago so that the Apple commission did not have to pay. Spotify could now show in the app what “what actually costs something” and “buy or change a premium subscription with a link”. Spotify also wants to sell audiobooks directly in the future and offer “other payment systems”.