> The mechanisms used by Hey and xCloud would clearly be used by less trustworthy companies for nefarious purposes.

Sorry but no.

What mechanism was “Hey” using that could possibly be abused by a malicious app or malicious app author?

If “Hey” advertised themselves as B2B without any self-service option then Apple, by their own words, would have let the app on the store. Being B2C or having self-service (even if the self-service is outside of the app!) means Apple requires you to have a sign-up form in the app - and if you take punters’ money then that means you need to use IAP and so give Apple their 30% rent. The outrage isn’t over this requirement itself, but because Apple arbitrarily carved-out undocumented exceptions for Netflix, Amazon Kindle, and other “reader” apps even though they’re B2C and self-service - which we can tell is because Apple would get into a worse spat and lose public opinion if they tried to pull Netflix or Amazon’s apps for the same reason.

They aren’t undocumented carve outs. Anyone can produce a reader app.

Anyone can make a B2C reader app, but those reader-apps must have built-in self-service sign-up, including accepting payment through Apple. There is no way around that unless you offer a free tier and never prompt your users to upgrade or tell them that they can upgrade through their web-browser. Logically this extends to free-trials-without-payment-details because when the free trial ends what are you supposed to display in the app?

Netflix, Kindle and others are exempted from the self-service sign-up requirement because Apple knows they can’t win a PR fight against them. Spotify has self-service sign-up in the app, but that’s because they’ve always had a free tier, where’s there’s no free/gratis membership tier for Netflix or Kindle.

If you try it yourself right now Apple will require you to have a self-service signup flow in your app, which is only viable if you have a free tier - otherwise you’ll have to pay the 30% rent or let your iOS users use your service for free indefinitely because you can’t put up a “your free trial has ended” message.

If the app review process is supposed to ban objectionable content then why is Netflix allowed? What stops Netflix from putting bestiality porn on their service (and thus onto iDevices) any more than Microsoft putting objectionable games on xCloud? Simply, because Apple knows that iPhones are commercially unviable without Netflix.

Don’t accept the bullshit Apple offers for the App Store. It has always been about the benjamins, and to over a trillion dollars of success.

AppStore guideline is too arbitrary for Apple.

It’s not just about objectionable content - it’s also about fraud.

Apps can be used for fraud in ways that video cannot.

So Safari is top attack surface, why don't they ban Safari?

Because people know the difference between websites and apps.

Are there actually differences between websites and apps?

It's just some code you got off the internet and run on your phone

Two differences seem relevant here. Apps are reviewed by Apple, and are only able to use certain payment mechanisms.

You’re giving the same answers that Apple Marketing would.

Do you think it isn’t true? You seem to be just deflecting.

I do not think it's true that Apple's decision to ban Microsoft's xCloud is to protect their customers from games that are actually trying to defraud players. If this is deflecting then I guess call me the Great Deflector.

Do you think it’s true that users can tell the difference between Apps and Websites?

That’s the question you replied to without answering before.

Yes, I think they can tell the difference, but I don’t think that they’re somehow in an unguarded / safer frame of mind in apps, especially with how iOS will immediately transfer you to native apps. It’s an extraordinary claim by Apple that would need extraordinary evidence before I believed it.

It’s a ordinary claim, completely supported by the often quoted point that people are much more willing to spend money on iOS than Android or the web.