Apple Dev "Updates"🍎

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Happy Wednesday, folks.

For you long time readers, you might remember my article on Swyft Cities:

I actually had the chance to reconnect with and interview CEO Jeral Poskey in an Infobot sit down last week, so in case you want to see some of the clips:

Apple Developer “Updates”

Apple’s long-awaited, EU-mandated developer updates have finally arrived, the result of an antitrust ruling to allow for greater competition of services. They’re specific to the EU market.

Before getting into the specifics of what the “changes” are and what to think about them, just know that Tim Cook is going to need to rest his arms after all of this reaching.

The most anticipated update is allowing third-party app marketplaces.

To ensure the App Store remains competitive, Apple is charging a 20% commission (from 30%) on in-app purchases, though they add a 3% fee to app’s using Apple’s own payment processer.

The winner of most ~creative~ change , Apple is hamstringing competitors in a policy in wrapping paper called the “Core Technology Fee.” It applies to app downloads beyond the 1 million download (except for competing marketplaces which are charged regardless) threshold and charges .5 euros per unique download beyond this threshold, regardless of whether the app is even for-profit.

So maybe don’t download your favorite charity’s app to donate. Apple might charge them.

Apple is also allowing users to choose their default browser when they first use Safari. While possible beforehand, the process was painful and only realistically pursued by tech-savvy users. Perhaps this leads to a few more individuals choosing to browse with a more privacy-conscious browser. 🤷 

If you read this list of “big changes” and thought… this doesn’t seem to be that big, that means Apple’s high-paid lawyers did their job to read the fine print very, very closely.

Arguably the most important of the updates, the core technology fee is a “potential competitor tax,” allowing Apple to virtually cripple any company interested in competing.

Providing users power over browsers might open things up a bit, but realistically, it just makes the battle for search engine supremacy more intense as big tech fights to make their search experience more appealing than the other trillion dollar companies’.

The EU seems to be much more willing to retaliate when big tech bites its thumb at them, so I won’t be surprised to see the wording of the law adjusted several times to close some of these loopholes.

But though they’ve shown they’re willing to, how much incentive really is there for regulators to make things more difficult?

Further enforcement might just inspire Apple to focus its attention elsewhere, such as China. This means slower product rollouts and geography-specific features for Europeans.

Perhaps this is exactly what EU officials want, but can we say the same for its citizens?

In the meantime, though, this announcement is far less exciting than was initially hoped for, and that’s not great news for developers looking to build for iOS (or Vision).

Apple's new EU-mandated updates allow more competition but come with limitations like a "Core Technology Fee," making them less impactful for developers and startups than anticipated. The changes might prompt Apple to shift focus to markets like China, potentially affecting product rollouts in Europe.

Cheers to another day,

Trey