Apple gives real-world events longer pandemic-prompted App Store fee reprieve

Apple has made another tweak to its rules for in-app purchases. A new update for developers refers to Cupertino's September 2020 decision to temporarily stop taking its 30 per cent cut for online "one-to-few and one-to-many realtime experiences" booked through its App Store. Apple's embargo was due to end on December 31st. …

[IGotOut]

Hey Anti-competive investigators...

... we aren't doing a thing wrong, we've just decided to make the minor changes all on our own... It's just a pure coincidence... its been planned for years... Oh doesn't apply to Epic though.

[DS999]

Re: Hey Anti-competive investigators...

This has nothing to do with the Epic thing, this was a change made due to the pandemic that was extended because the pandemic is ongoing.

[Dan 55]

Re: Hey Anti-competive investigators...

:1,$s/pandemic/court case/g

[johnnyblaze]

Funny that.

Why do you get the feeling that Apple, who are coming under intense scrutiny for the monopolistic practises, app store charges and do-as-we-say, not-as-we-do methods are suddenly softening up a little, probably to try and deflect criticism and the anti-competitive lawsuits about to kick off. Funny that.

[gnasher729]

Apple delays charging for "Virtual group meetings". Since we have a pandemic going on right now, and many of these "virtual group meetings" would normally have been "in person group meetings", it's just right not to charge people at the moment. Sometime next year the people who wanted "in person" group meetings will hold "in person" group meetings and the ones who really want virtual group meetings will pay.

[needmorehare]

Has everyone forgotten that...

Apple has perfectly good PWA support. It isn’t hard to click on ‘Add to Home Screen’ within Safari, which then adds an app icon and a separate context from the main browser. Anything which works as an Electron app can work as a PWA, so there’s no technical need to be in the App Store at all for the vast majority of iOS applications.

People still use Google to find online services, rather than the App Store, so it really isn’t hard to direct people on what to press with a couple of screenshots. PWAs are supported on Android, Windows, macOS and iOS, with Google looking to make them first class citizens in Google Play Store, so I really don’t know what the problem is here for those wanting virtual meetings.