Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Fees for EU Developers

Apple announces new fee structure for apps in the EU that link out to the web for purchases - 9to5Mac

Following the EU ruling in June that said Apple’s App Store anti-steering policies are officially in breach of the Digital…

9to5MacBenjamin Mayo

To quote Bing Crosby, "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative." Apple sure took this advice to heart today with their post in the developer center around changes to the "StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement" – i.e. the rules around external linking within apps. This was in response to the latest threats by the EU that Apple would be fined if they remain in violation of the changes required by the DMA. The changes that Apple highlights all sound great! Far more flexibility when it comes to linking out and messaging within apps! Everyone rejoice!

Wait a minute. What's that? At the bottom. The last bullet point: "Updated business terms for apps with the External Purchase Link Entitlement are being introduced to align with the changes to these capabilities." What could that mean? Humorously and fittingly, there's no link. And the link below to "learn more" about all these changes is broken. I'm not suggesting that's on purpose, but I am suggesting that the devil may just be in the details.

Luckily Benjamin Mayo (linked to up top) and others have those details. I'll be honest, I've read several posts on the new fee structures being proposed by Apple here in exchange for the changes and I still can't quite follow them. They're so obtuse and convoluted that I'm just not sure how anyone could possibly follow them. And they're on top of the other new fee structures Apple has put in place within the EU for developers wishing to operate outside of the App Store.

Basically it feels like Apple is making the changes that the EU clearly is angling for, but doing so in the most pedantic way possible, all but ensuring that the vast majority of developers stay the course in the App Store.

To be clear, this has seemed like Apple's playbook from day one. But it's so comically convoluted now that it's almost farcical. Apple, of course, will note that they're okay with the changes they're offering but have the right to be compensated for their IP and infrastructure usage. And that will be hard to argue with, legally, if nothing else. But you can't help but feel that this is getting so impenetrable that it's almost like Apple is doing it this way on purpose.¹

So now we'll see how the EU will respond to this in the next few days. The answer, of course, would be that they're looking it over and talking to developers, but that it's surprising that Apple is proposing the new fee structure. And then after a few weeks (or months), we'll get a response that they find these changes unacceptable and not in accordance with the DMA. And so Apple will tweak something else, beginning the cycle anew. Around and around we'll go, like the clock Apple seems to be hoping to run out.

Update August 9, 2024: No surprise that Epic and Spotify -- ever Apple's foils -- immediately come out against the proposed new changes...

Spotify and Epic Games call Apple’s revised DMA compliance plan ‘confusing,’ ‘illegal’ and ‘unacceptable’ | TechCrunch

Count Spotify and Epic Games among the Apple critics who are not happy with the iPhone maker’s newly revised compliance plan for the European Union’s

TechCrunchSarah Perez

¹ Narrator: they are.