That is indeed what the US Federal court ruled in Apple v. Epic, and all possible appeals have let that ruling stand.
> as discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.
Indeed, while the Court finds no basis for the specific rate chosen by Apple (i.e., the 30% rate) based on the record, the Court still concludes that Apple is entitled to some compensation for use of its intellectual property.
We'll see.
Fun fact: The EU itself is based on treaties between it's member states.
The ruling is meaningfully weaker than what I'd expect from DMA, but this is natural, the legal case was argued on existing law, DMA is new.
The judge literally ruled that no matter who you use as a payment processor, Apple could still charge a commission for using it's intellectual property.
The same summary of the Apple v. Epic decision I linked to above has a good section on what the anti-steering section of the ruling means and people seem to misunderstand what happened there as well.
> "developers cannot communicate lower prices on other platforms either within iOS or to users obtained from the iOS platform"... "These provisions can be severed without any impact on the integrity of the ecosystem and is tethered to [California] legislative policy."
Notice the references to “other platforms”; those are the web, Android, or, in cases like Fortnite, other consoles. Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ argument is not that Apple has to allow different payment options within an app — as noted in the previous section, that is Apple’s right to control, and even mandate — but rather that Apple can’t stop a developer from telling users that they can go outside the app to another platform to acquire digital content.
https://stratechery.com/2021/the-apple-v-epic-decision/
Apple's move to open up alternate payment processors was not a result of the Apple v. Epic decision. That has more to do with preexisting regulatory rulings in places like the Netherlands and (of course) the DMA.
You can only pay (and create an account) by going to their website, so they have always effectively paid Apple nothing but the yearly $99 developer account fee under the old rules.
However, now they can now tell you where to go to set up a new account on their website next to the login account and password fields of their app.
100% totally disagree. If you are engaging in a sales transactions, both parties should be given the opportunity to approve the sale.
IMO it is easier to see why this is OK if you imagine Apple weren't tying a waiver for this fee to being unable to inform the user about alternate payment platforms. That tie is obviously anti-competitive but is therefore distracting.
If someone gets my app package and puts it up on another App Store I can’t control, I would be getting charged for those installations and have little control over taking it down depending on the government hosting the servers hosting my stolen software.
is like having a cookie wall where pressing accept all is a single click, instead to do reject all you have to uncheck 50 checkboxes one at a time.
apple is doing the same thing by saying it's okay I use app store vs. I want freedom, because for the first choice it's easy, for the second choice they put a big tax in front of you
Which is an extremely clear violation of GDPR
The company that creates a platform gets to decide if their platform is open or closed.
For instance, Microsoft created Windows as an open platform while they created XBox as a closed platform.
Apple created Macintosh as an open platform and created iOS as a closed platform.
Microsoft attempted to close Windows after the fact with Windows RT and Surface RT but consumers rejected that change. The free market decides what consumers find acceptable.
iOS is a platform that favors ease of use and safety over openness.
https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/215-buildi...
Consumers have a choice. Quite a lot of them choose Android.
What's not cool, and what I was excited for DMA to fix, is that Apple says that by transacting with a customer _by any means_ on their platform, you owe them a part of that transaction. This is anathema to a free market. Again, it's fine if they charge you for using their payment platform, or even alternate payments made through some Apple payment UI. What's not fine is forcing anyone who wants to sell you a good or service to have to compete with the smartphone market as a whole to access you as a customer unimpeded. It is especially egregious that Apple prevented you from as much as mentioning that alternative payment methods exist off-platform.
So the biggest issue in my eyes isn't that Apple is charging per install, it's that they're charging to so much as mention that you are able to transact elsewhere, both in the per install cost and in still taking a commission. That is tying and that should be illegal. It is like if a leading browser blocked websites from companies that refused to share their profits, regardless of if that transaction even happened through the browser.