Add every single traditional bank to the list. If you don't have an existing contract with a bank you can download their app but you won't get past the login screen.

They have a specific section in the rules for "Reader" apps like Netflix and Spotify. It's not unclear, it's been there since 2018.

How is "reading my email from the hey server" different from "reading a video from the netflix server"?

Neither app functions without a separate, non apple subscription. The main criticism of Hey, from apples perspective, is that the app doesnt just work when you download it, but the same applies to netflix.

I personally think Hey could get around it by adding some other kind of feature to the app, like a way to read their blog. When it opens on IOS you have a "sign in" or "continue with the free version" and the free version aggregates basecamp marketing copies, as long as that free version isnt just a webview, but some enhanced native experience.

Can they also advertise the cost of their service, through the applepay experience, as "x+30% apple tax"?

With how much of their app is server side (nearly all of it, minus the translation from HTML to native,) I wonder how much they can get away with, without updating the client.

The other interesting thing about this dynamic is, Apple shipped Leopard with Ruby on Rails, which Basecamp created. So in the past, Apple took Basecamp's open source code to make OSX more valuable, but now when Basecamp wants to benefits its users, at no real cost to Apple, Apple says "not without paying us our cut." Maybe not morally wrong, but at least stinks of bad karma.

>How is "reading my email from the hey server" different from "reading a video from the netflix server"?

Because Netflix is the dominant one in the relationship, an iPad without Netflix is a broken iPad to the sort of people who buy iPads.

and email service without an iOS app is a broken email service so Apple intends to take advantage of that.

Read the full statement that Apple gave to Hey and the media [1]. If Hey made their email client a standard works with any email account then it'd be fine without in-app purchases. The specific Hey service could be purchased outside the App Store if they want to avoid giving Apple a cut.

[1] https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/1273719726196187136

I don't think Hey wants to be an email client that works with other providers. They should make their free feature something else entirely.

I do not understand how they don't qualify as a reader app

How about Gmail or Yahoo! Mail?

Is there anything none free about either?

You can buy a subscription to remove ads in the latter and add storage in the former.

The Gmail app is not exclusive to the Gmail email service. You can use it to access other email services. Google Photo and Google Drive which are tied to only Google services offer in-app purchase of additional storage.

Yahoo mail has a 99 cent in app purchase according to the page in the App Store.

It seems that most of the above either offer some features for free or offer in-app purchases:

* Spotify offers free tier

* Kindle doesn't require buying books, technically you can use it to read documents that you send to your free account

* Netflix and Youtube allow to subscribe and pay via app-store

I'm not sure about the rest, but it seems that even Netflix and Amazon follow the rules.

Netflix doesn’t allow in app purchases anymore.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/25097

iTunes billing for Netflix is not available to new or rejoining Netflix customers.

If you are attempting to create an account on an iOS mobile device, you can sign up on Netflix.com using a mobile browser and will be prompted to provide an alternate method of payment.

Neither does Youtube Live.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/13/21136730/youtube-tv-endin...

This is yet another sure sign that the playing field is not level, and that big companies are treated differently

But that's true of literally any business - e.g. if I go to Warner and ask them to license some music for my game, I'm going to get ignored. If EA want to license music for a game, they'll be getting lavish dinners and a selection of fine wines along with a menu of the new bands Warner want to pimp.

Again, the rules are clear, readers are a specific exemption. I would say that Microsoft Office stands out in tht list as the only thing delivery functionality not content - but I don't know the details of that app.

What about Fastmail? (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/fastmail-email-calendar/id9313...)

I would say that example breaks the rules, I don't know how popular it is - we need to be realistic about how often an App store with millions of apps is going to miss something.

Well yeah, people & companies with a lot of money get a different set of rules. That's the same in the app store as it is in real life.

I'd be much more interested in seeing in change in real life before some silly app store.

Maybe it's the number of users. If the iPhone was the phone you can't watch Netflix with (or any similar service), maybe a lot of people would buy an Android device.

These are all exempted app categories. Email is not:

> “You download the app and it doesn’t work, that’s not what we want on the store,” says Schiller. This, he says, is why Apple requires in-app purchases to offer the same purchasing functionality as they would have elsewhere.

To be clear, this is against the App Store rules for most apps. The exceptions here are apps that are viewed as ‘readers’ that only display external content of certain types like music, books and movies — and apps that only offer bulk pricing options that are paid for by institutions or corporations rather than the end user.

Schiller is clear on our call that Hey does not fit these rules.

“We didn’t extend these exceptions to all software,” he notes about the ‘reader’ type apps — examples of which include Netflix. “Email is not and has never been an exception included in this rule.”