Rui Carmo
Apple’s revised guidelines following the Epic Games ruling are… not a good look, and I hope the E.U. doubles down on this to force them to do the right thing and change the rules “globally”.
The updated rules allow apps on the U.S. storefront to include external links and calls to action without the previous restrictions (sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.3 give a clear green light). But Apple’s insistence on debating what a button is and going out of their way to hold on to their payment fees (instead of acknowledging that the fees could simply be lowered to a point where sheer convenience would ensure developer adoption of their payment system) feels too miserly to dwell upon.
To me, their arguments for developer fees (especially the $99 tax for being able to permanently install builds on your own devices) have always seemed borderline evil, and given their scale and operating margins there is just no excuse for not being fairer about the whole thing.
After all, developers are the ones giving their store real value, and whatever “value” or costs that Apple incurs by maintaining the storefront (which should be stupefyingly efficient from an engineering perspective by now) and App Review (which is still a mystery box of random outcomes) is likely to be much smaller than, say, cutting their fees in half or even waiving them for small volumes of sales.
But Tim Cook’s Apple runs on tallying nicklels and dimes.