Far from the tree… Apple’s US App Store will allow outside payments, letting developers link out to non-Apple payment platforms. It’s a historic win for developers and the result of a years-long courtroom battle royale against “Fortnite” maker Epic Games. Quick refresher: in 2020 “Fortnite” got booted from Apple’s and Google’s app stores after it directed players to its own discounted payment system to skirt the “app tax” (a 15-to-30% fee that app-store owners skim off purchases). In April, 9 of 10 of Epic’s claims were decided in Apple’s favor.
One big caveat: The ruling said Apple can’t bar developers from steering users to off-app purchasing pages. Apple tried to appeal to SCOTUS but…
The Supreme Court refused to consider the appeal, so yesterday Apple updated its App Store policies to show developers how they can link to outside payments.
The “app tax” ain’t dead… Even for payments made on non-Apple platforms, the iPhone maker will try to take a cut. App developers will still owe Apple a 27% slice (or a 12% cut if they’re part of Apple’s small-biz program). On top of that, developers may have to pay fees to third-party payment processors like Shopify and PayPal. Epic’s CEO said that could raise developers’ costs (and added that Epic would contest “Apple’s bad-faith compliance plan” in court).
The gated garden is opening… By allowing payments outside its airtight ecosystem, Apple is potentially putting billions of $$ in app revenue on the line. It’s not the only one: Google lost its courtroom battle against Epic last month and could be forced to change its Play Store rules. Pressure’s only building: European antitrust regulators have two cases teed up against Apple.