Taking advantage of its monopoly position, Apple is squeezing third-party developers

The only way to download third-party apps to an iPhone is through the Apple App Store. Apple, meanwhile, holds exclusive rights to the App Store, where billions of iOS users download apps and games every day for their iPhones and iPads.

Developers who want to get their apps on the Apple App Store will have to follow certain instructions. And because these guidelines were created by Apple, they can change them at any time for their own benefit. Recently a group of small companies, including Tile and Basecamp, have appealed to Congress’ Antitrust Commission on Apple’s proprietary tactics.

Here are their complaints about abusing Apple’s monopoly position:

1. Huge charge of up to 30% of sales:

Every time someone buys an app or a game on the App Store, Apple charges a lofty 30% fee. This applies to both in-app purchases and subscription fees. Since there is no other app store for iOS users, developers are forced to pay this hefty fee. According to recent rumors, Apple will lower fees for major developers like Amazon.

2. Stricter regulations in the App Store:

That’s not to mention the harsh rules set by Apple. For example, you are not allowed to tell users to go to your website to make a payment.

For example, if Spotify sells a subscription through the App Store, it will only receive $ 6.99 after paying $ 3 for Apple. Therefore, Spotify was forced to increase its service price to $ 12.99 per month when users pay through the Apple App Store (while users pay via the Spotify website only pay $ 9.99 per month).

Even so, Spotify is not allowed to tell this user during registration. If they do, Apple will remove Spotify from the App Store. To make matters worse, Apple doesn’t allow developers to raise prices when paying through the App Store.

Moreover, every time Apple upgrades new technology, it also forces every 3rd party developer to use it. If the developer does not approve, Apple will remove the application from the App Store.

3. Compete with third-party applications themselves

Because Apple has all the data on which apps and services are appealing to users on the App Store as well as the revenue it generates, Apple may suddenly jump into the market and crush competitors. third party development. Here is a series of examples of this:

– Tile is a well-known company for helping users find lost items through trackers (trackers) via Bluetooth. Despite selling Tile devices in its retail stores, Apple is developing products that compete with Tile, based on the Find My app pre-installed on iPhones around the globe. Later, Tile products were also removed from Apple retail stores around the globe. In the iOS 13 update, even though Apple allowed users to turn off the Tile app’s navigation, users couldn’t do so with Apple’s Find My app.

– Spotify is the leading music app on the App Store for years. But things suddenly changed when Apple launched its own Apple Music service. Apple Music is now pre-installed on all iPhones and is always ranked top on the App Store. In addition, Apple regularly promotes its own apps and services in search results on the App Store.

4. Restrict third-party application access to important APIs:

To provide a better user experience than third-party apps, Apple will restrict apps from accessing specific APIs and hardware.

IPhone 11 chip U1

For example, in 2018, Apple introduced the Screen Time app to help users control device usage time and allow parents to monitor and manage their children’s mobile usage. A few months later, Apple began removing similarly similar third-party apps on the App Store only by claiming that the apps violated their rules without further explaining.

Another example is the Apple-designed U1 chip to use ultra-wide band technology to identify the surrounding space. This chip allows the iPhone 11 to know the exact location compared to devices using the surrounding U1 chip. While Apple uses this U1 chip for many of its own services, third-party applications do not have access to it.

These are just the best examples of how app developers can list various ways for Apple to abuse its monopoly position. Hopefully the US government will take action soon to allow third-party apps to compete more effectively with Apple.

Refer to MSuserpower