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Facebook may be home to international conspiracy theories, Amazon ruining main streets everywhere, and Google is slowly tightening its grip on the entire web, but it is Apple that is fast becoming the most underdog. of the big tech companies.
Even his attempts to make new allies are starting to come back to bite.
The company’s rigid control over the iPhone App Store, long a source of friction for developers large and small, became a battlefield over the summer, when Apple began tightening policies that required developers to pay. to the company a part of the trade in the store.
That led to a noisy public showdown with the $ 99 a year (£ 74) email app Hey, which was blocked on the App Store for its refusal to allow subscribers to sign up for the app (thus preventing the 30% cut that Apple would have demanded otherwise).
“We thought we knew all the written and unwritten rules,” David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of Hey’s developer Basecamp, told The Guardian. “But then we, with all this knowledge… can be victims of their capricious policies. If you get kicked out of the App Store, it’s like you don’t exist. “
Just as that showdown thawed, with Hey agreeing to create features for non-subscription users, another louder conflict began, with Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite. That fight, still ongoing, resulted in Epic introducing its own payment processing into Fortnite, breaking Apple’s rules in the process. Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store; Epic sued, alleging monopoly abuse.
But even when Apple tries to make friends, the company has plunged into new conflicts. In April, Amazon made a surprising announcement: Amazon Prime customers would be able to buy streaming movies and TV shows on iOS using their on-file credit card.
At first glance, the move appeared to be the exact same change that would later lead to Epic being unceremoniously kicked out of the store, but it was actually a nice deal, Apple revealed: “premium” video apps could use their own. payment systems. , in exchange for supporting the company’s troubled Apple TV hardware.
Now others want the same treatment. Digital Content Next, a trade organization representing some of the largest news organizations in the U.S., including the New York Times and the Washington Post, has written to Apple asking the company to offer the same freedom to its own. members.
“Nearly all DCN members offer apps on the Apple App Store and … many offer subscription access to a wide variety of content,” wrote Jason Kint, the organization’s chief executive officer. “Apple’s single market terms have a major impact on the ability to continue to invest in high-quality, reliable news and entertainment, particularly in competition with other larger firms.
“I ask that you clearly define the conditions that Amazon met for your agreement, so that DCN member companies that meet those conditions can be offered the same agreement,” Kint’s letter concluded.
The push to offer special offers to individual developers may allow larger companies to thrive on the App Store, but it risks undermining Apple’s favorite defense of its model: that it underpins the widespread success of the “app economy.” .
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In June, citing a study commissioned by the company and conducted by the Analysis Group, Apple stated: “The App Store ecosystem supported $ 519 billion in global sales and sales in 2019 alone.
“Direct payments made to developers from Apple are only a fraction of the vast total when calculating sales from other sources, such as physical goods and services,” the company said. “Because Apple only receives a commission on invoices associated with digital goods and services, more than 85% of the total $ 519 billion accrues solely to third-party developers and companies of all sizes.”
But keeping less than 15% of a defined market, indeed, like all money spent on or near an iPhone, is still enough to worry analysts. “I hope the company at least considers the possibility that this is not the 1990s, that they are not going to shut down and that being perceived as an asset to developers and not a tax opens up the possibility of growing the pie. , not just taking your share, ”writes influential analyst Ben Thompson, founder of Stratechery.
“If that is the result of this summer of turbulence in the App Store, it will be a victory for everyone: developers, Apple and users who want security and innovation.”
