[adarsh_thampy]

Apple's strategy is simple.

They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions.

This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy.

That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.

[yalogin]

Arm-twisting? You are conflating two issues here. Every company wants to retain users and their business. That is how every company operates. You should judge a company on what they offer as an incentive to keep them. Privacy as a service on their platform is a great thing. Compare that to what other companies offer as incentives.

[smt88]

> Every company wants to retain users and their business.

I think GP's point is that Apple is doing this using lock-in, rather than having the best possible products.

If there were multiple app stores for iOS users, you could argue that Apple is behaving just like every other business. But they're not. They're stifling competition to lock their customers in.

[manmal]

Indeed, but which of the big tech companies does not use lock-in as a tool? Android Play Services, Google Photos, Amazon Prime, Facebook platform, any streaming service (library is „lost“ if you stop paying)..

[smt88]

I think you misunderstand what I meant by lock-in. Everything you just mentioned is not a lock-in for users. You can use your Android phone with non-Google operating systems without hacking your phone. The same is not true of iOS.

If you buy an iPhone, which is a big investment for most people, then you must either use Apple's App Store or jailbreak.

[manmal]

> You can use your Android phone with non-Google operating systems without hacking your phone.

I‘m not sure that’s true for every Android phone.

[MBCook]

Purely as a user, I don’t want to deal with 5 competing app stores. That sounds like a mess.

I think there is a reason there is basically one App Store on each platform (outside desktops).

[smt88]

You don't have to deal with 5 stores. If you like Apple, use Apple's.

The difference is in whether other people who dislike/distrust Apple have another option, and right now they don't.

[kgwxd]

As a user, I don't want to deal with any app stores.

[damnyou]

One person's incentives are another's abusive vendor lock-in.

Each time you use the sign in with Apple button, it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Apple products.

Each time your friends add you to an iMessage group chat (instead of, say, a WhatsApp one) it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Apple products.

Each time you buy an Apple home speaker or Apple TV or whatever else it becomes harder to switch away from Apple products.

Google's stuff works better if you're all in but works fine piecemeal. Apple's stuff works fine all in but doesn't work at all piecemeal.

Tech folks should be up in arms about all this, but all you see on this wretched forum are rationalizations involving "business models" and "paying customers".

You want to see a software maker actually care about people's privacy? See Mozilla. Oh but you can't set Firefox as your default browser on your $1200 iPhone, sorry.

[orky56]

At their size & scale, these tech behemoths want to be your platform and be in between everything. So the question becomes, everything else being equal among them which would you choose and why? Privacy is a good enough reason for me and I'm sure others as well.

Since the beginning, Apple wants to justify its premium by it just works which has allowed novice users to use their Macs and then iPhones and other products. With privacy, it's another one of those "it just works" plus "you don't have to worry about it".

If Apple can tie security to its already high brand equity, it will be and continue to be in a good place in today's fear mongering world. It's always better to sell a pain killer than a vitamin and security is top of mind for consumers now more than ever. If nothing else their advertising campaigns are pushing that education onto consumers.

[pwinnski]

Each time you use the sign in with Google button, it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Google services.

Each time your friends add you to a Facebook Messenger group chat (instead of, say, an iMessage one) it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Facebook.

Each time you buy an Amazon Echo or Google Home or Chromecast or whatever else it becomes harder to switch away from Amazon/Google products.

At least iMessage is based primarily on phone number, so you can turn off iMessage and keep your contacts. Deleting your Facebook account or trying to change Gmail addresses means losing it all. Lock-in is only lock-in if you let it be. Personally, I worry more about Google than Apple, but your mileage may vary.

[irq-1]

> They want to retain control over their customers;

Comcast also wants to retain control over their customers -- they want to sell customers internet access, while also selling ISPs and websites access to the customers. This strategy doesn't make the customer better off. If Apple treats their captive customers better than Comcast it's not due to any strategy of being a "middle man".

[bsder]

> They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions.

The cynical part of me sees this as an "Oh Shit!" reaction to businesses starting to circumvent the App Store.

If Apple can make everybody on a iPhone dependent upon their single-sign-on, they can threaten businesses with access to it later.

[thatoneuser]

Why do you say "privacy" as though it's not really that? It is privacy and privacy is immensely valuable these days.

And what do you think Google and Microsoft and Facebook don't also try to control their customers? They do just as much but they also violate privacy.

[threeseed]

You can release a free app and sell subscriptions through real world means e.g. advertising, PR.

You control the customers and you pay Apple nothing. So this idea that Apple is forcing developers to do anything is nonsense.

[IMTDb]

We are a B2B SAAS company offering analytics and marketing data. We wanted to offer our customer the ability to have a free app to interact with our service on their phone. We wanted our customers to subscribe on the web but not using in-app subscriptions.

We are unable to release this app on the AppStore until we change our whole payment/subscription/billing stack to support Apple subscription system and agree to give them 30% / 15% of our revenues on those users (this is more than we pay for AWS, comparatively).

Keep in mind that a good chunk of of revenues comes from custom plans, so I don't even know how that would work with Apple system.

So much for not forcing developers to do anything.

[johncolanduoni]

Are you sure that you’re interpreting the guidelines correctly? Lots of apps serve content related to subscriptions/digital purchases that are signed up for on the web (Netflix, Prime Video, etc.). Or are you trying to use the app as an acquisition channel?

[IMTDb]

It does not matter how we interpret the guidelines. The fact is that our app has been developed and tested, but was rejected by the app store reviewer citing this reason.

We believe we fall under the exception of "business databases" which are exempted from this restriction, but the reviewer does not believe so. Guess who won.

We are not trying to use the app as an acquisition channel, we don't believe our customers would discover our service through an app store search. We want to make it more easy for our current customers to view their data on a mobile device, the app is pretty simple, coded in react native and also available on the play store.

[graeme]

What was their specific rejection reason? Generally the rule is you can offer a service paid for elsewhere if you don't link to it and don't tell people you can pay elsewhere.

I have apps on my phone that accept payment only on the web.

[neurostimulant]

Can you release the app using enterprise distribution? While not ideal, this will at least allow your customers to use your app instead of getting nothing.

[nvrspyx]

Enterprise distribution is meant just for internal use of the company using it and distributing to customers via that method is exactly why Facebook and Google had their Apple enterprise services disabled a few months ago (although I’m sure they resolved their issues with Apple to get them enabled again)

[dewey]

> We wanted our customers to subscribe on the web but not using in-app subscriptions.

But you can, and that's what a lot of companies including Netflix do?

[IMTDb]

Netflix offers subscription through the app as well. If you offer those and do not advertise your other channels, you are allowed to publish. The important part here is that you have to offer the same subscriptions at the same price between your web version and your in-app version.

But this would require a significant amount of work on our side to support both web and mobile subscription. We do not expect to get any new business straight from the mobile app, we just want to offer an additional free service to our existing and future customers.

It would take us at least 2 to 3 man-month to rework our billing stack so that Apple has a chance to get 30% on some subscription. Which they won't since we really doubt B2B customers will subscribe to $2k+ yearly contracts using in-apps purchases. So it's really spending all that time/effort so that the Apple reviewer feels OK can safely check the little box on his list next to "in-app policy" :-(

[Jagat]

>> The important part here is that you have to offer the same subscriptions at the same price between your web version and your in-app version.

I don't think that's true. Youtube premium costs $16/mo when you subscribe using their iOS app, but $12-13 when you subscribe on the web.

[graeme]

Netflix removed in app subscriptions. It is still on the app store. Fairly sure your company is wrong about this, or the reviewer made a mistake.

[evanriley]

> The important part here is that you have to offer the same subscriptions at the same price between your web version and your in-app version.

That can't be true, SoundCloud offers differing prices between their Go+ on their website and app store. $9.99 and $12.99. They even tell you if you sign-up through their website instead of the app store you get a "discount".

[scarface74]

Well seeing that their are plenty of examples of apps that do this, I find it hard to believe.

I worked at a SAAS company that allowed the app to be on the App Store but you had to have a contract with us to use it.

[aaronharnly]

I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken about this. Apple can be sticklers about ensuring that if you offer a way to sign up for the service in the app, you must support App Store subscriptions, but there are a lot of SaaS companies with free apps for subscribers. You just can’t offer a path to signing up from the app if you don’t want to pay apple.

[Talyen42]

This is not true. Using apple's in-app billing system is optional. You can always keep your billing entirely out of your free app.

[kevin_b_er]

You just can't link to your own website or have any flow that could lead to a billing system that isn't apples. "always" is a farce to that end.

[IMTDb]

Not anymore, they updated their policy recently

[pwinnski]

You absolutely, 100% can handle billing completely outside of Apple's infrastructure and have your app be a "Reader app," to use Apple's term for such apps. Apple just posted a document[0] that lists Amazon Kindle, Netflix, Audible, and Spotify as examples of this.

You seem very confident about your understanding of things, but you seem to have misidentified the exact cause of your rejection.

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

[IMTDb]

Here is the response we got :

--- START ---

Hello XXX team,

We are writing to let you know the results of your appeal for your app, XXX.

The App Review Board evaluated your app and determined that the original rejection feedback is valid. Your app does not comply with:

Guideline 3.1.1 - Business - Payments - In-App Purchase

We continue to find that your app offers a subscription with a mechanism other than the in-app purchase API.

While we understand that the app reads data, it does not fall into any of the categories listed in guideline 3.1.3 for reader apps:

3.1.3(a) “Reader” Apps: Apps may allow a user to access previously purchased content or content subscriptions (specifically: magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video, access to professional databases, VoIP, cloud storage, and approved services such as classroom management apps), provided that you agree not to directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods are not designed to discourage use of in-app purchase

We hope you will consider making the necessary changes to be in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines and will resubmit your revised binary.

Best regards, XXX App Review Board

--- END ---

So unless you are in one of those listed categories, it does not work. Don't know why we can't be considered to be a professional database tho.

[jdietrich]

Spotify have lodged a complaint against Apple with the European Competition Commission over precisely this issue.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/13/spotify-files-a-complaint-...

[ubersync]

This is totally incorrect. If you have an app on Apple store and sell subscripttions through your website, or other means, Apple forces you to sell the same subscriptions through their store.

[rahoulb]

I use Spotify, FreeAgent, Toggl, Zoom, Pipedrive, Asana and Trello (plus Basecamp previously) on my iOS devices - and pay for all of those through the respective websites without any option to pay in the App Store.

(Edit: I know Spotify used to have an option for it but they dropped that and I never used it anyway)

[dmitriid]

It doesn’t force you, but if you don’t, you can’t even tell people how to subscribe. See Spotify, Kindle.

[threeseed]

You can tell people how to subscribe outside the app.

But you just can't use Apple's own platform against them.

[ClassyJacket]

You can't link, at least, to an external website to buy

https://www.pcworld.com/article/229880/Apple_Backs_Off_In_Ap...

[Jagat]

You can't even tell that such a thing exists. E.g., Audible only gives you an option to add to the wish list, and is mum about how to buy a book.

[hesarenu]

So in a way apple is forcing them.

[arien]

Hm... The Amazon Prime app doesn't allow purchases in the app, you've got to purchase through Amazon and then you can watch them just fine.

[1-6]

Apple's strategy is simple because they had no strategy. They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online.

In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.

[satyenr]

> They're pretty far behind with software

Examples? They are a platform vendor and have done no worse than other companies when it comes to their platform. Sure macOS has stagnated somewhat, but so have nearly all desktop platforms. Windows 10 started gaining momentum only when Microsoft realized that they had no scope in mobile space and had to save the last fort they had left. And to be honest, I do not consider Windows 10 to be massively superior to macOS. There is a reason they are building a Frankenstein's Monster by grafting a Linux kernel on top of Windows.

And iOS, despite its problem, can't be considered as worse than Android -- the later has its own problems.

At this point, OS platforms are as good as they are going to get. Barring a paradigm shift in computing, all we are going to see are incremental improvements. And IMO, that is not a bad thing. I, for one, do not want to see an interface redesign every other year.

> no real cloud offering besides iCloud.

That is like saying Google and Microsoft have no cloud offering besides Google Drive and OneDrive respectively. Or are you talking about GCP/Azure? If so, how is that relevant? Apple, unlike the other two, remains a consumer focused company with limited investment into enterprise.

> In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.

What does that even mean?

> They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online.

Are you suggesting iCloud is not online?

[mcaruso]

> They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud.

Uh, what? iCloud is the umbrella term for all their cloud services. So they offer "no real cloud offering" besides all their cloud offerings?

[zepto]

Exactly what software do you think they are behind on?

[smartbit]

> That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.

I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law.

[geocar]

> I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law.

I think not. From the horses mouth[1]:

Since the directive on unfair commercial practices (2005/29/EC) is in place, the misleading and comparative advertising directive has been applied only to business-to-business (B2B) relations concerning misleading advertising.

[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/unfair-com...

[smartbit]

Your note seems not relevant to what misleading is. Please elaborate.

[geocar]

It's not relevant to my point, which is just about what the regulator is likely to do: That's been answered.

For what "misleading is", see Article 2 (b) and especially Article 3 of Directive 2006/114/EC.

[smartbit]

In this verdict [0] of 18-02-2019 the Dutch Advertising Board came to the verdict Misleading "is de uiting misleidend en daardoor oneerlijk in de zin van artikel 7 NRC.". Are you stating that the Misleading verdict can not been given in EU countries in B2C advertisements?

[0] https://www.reclamecode.nl/uitspraken/resultaten/huishouden-...

[geocar]

> Are you stating that the Misleading verdict can not [be] given in EU countries in B2C advertisements?

No.