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> Core Technology Fee — iOS apps distributed from the App Store and/or an alternative app marketplace will pay €0.50 for each first annual install per year over

> Core Technology Fee — iOS apps distributed from the App Store and/or an alternative app marketplace will pay €0.50 for each first annual install per year over a 1 million threshold. Can't imagine that flying with the EU... The regulator will argue that the technology in the phone has already been paid for by the buyer of the hardware (which came with a license for iOS)

suslik 3y ago
That is why this should’ve never been about sideloading apps, but mandating a right to have root access.
Cort3z 3y ago
How are they doing to be able to track this? If there is an alternative App Store, I would assume they don’t share their download numbers with Apple. Is Apple going to track all apps running in iPhones?
- Slartie 3y ago
  They already do, and surely they continue to do so in the future, regardless of where the app came from. So finding out these numbers should be simple from a technical standpoint.
insane_dreamer 3y ago
> The regulator will argue that the technology in the phone has already been paid for by the buyer of the hardware (which came with a license for iOS) The user paid for the technology in the phone, but the dev didn't pay for use of Apple's IP to build their own product which they are offering to users. I don't see regulators being able to challenge this (nor is it particularly unfair).
mil22 3y ago
They may not like it, but the question is: is it actually illegal under the new DMA regulations as they are currently written? The DMA is 66 pages of legalese, otherwise I would have read it to find out: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022R1925 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
- asimovfan 3y ago
  If they don't like it they can make another regulation.
- superice 3y ago
  I don't think the DMA factors into it too much. In the Netherlands, AirBnB got fined for billing service costs both to renters and landlords. I think the legal term was 'serving two lords' or something along those lines. Dutch law (and I suspect European law) prohibits billing intermediary fees to both sides. I'm very much being an armchair lawyer, but you can probably make a very similar case here: the user has already paid for the Core TechnologyTM as part of the phone, therefore you can't bill app creators for the same thing. (Disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, armchair or otherwise)
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    That was due to a specific statute on intermediary fees in tenancy laws. It doesn’t silly to this situation. Disclaimer: was an attorney, now just of the armchair variety when I’m not buy as a code monkey, NL was where I went to law school
    - superice 3y ago
      A quick google search seemed to indicate it was a general e-commerce related law, which is why I brought it up, but happy to take your word over mine.
      - turquoisevar 3y ago
        Actually, you might be right and I might be wrong. It’s been a few years since I’ve left the low lands and a bit longer since I stopped practicing law, so who knows what has happened in the meantime. I mainly jumped on it because I know of a rental specific statute, having used it a few times, so just assumed that’s what you were talking about. I haven’t looked into it further so it might just as well be that I was too confident in thinking that’s what you were talking about.
danielrhodes 3y ago
Yeah it's a total double dip, similar to ISPs trying to extort internet companies for access to their own customers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pantalaimon 3y ago
How can they even charge for installs on an alternative app marketplace? Would the iPhones have to track those and report them back to Apple?
- blashyrk 3y ago
  The same way they can take a percentage of any completely external purchase "initiated" via an iOS app. It's literal racketeering and the courts are ok with that.
- layer8 3y ago
  Those apps still have to be notarized by Apple, and the notarization will be checked upon installation. Presumably this will require an online check. So yes, Apple will track those.
- urbandw311er 3y ago
  I had the same thought. I imagine that Apple will have a very strict templated way to install and run an alternate App Store, you’ll have to use certain API calls to register the apps installed so that they show up on the Home Screen etc. So the reporting side of this should be reasonably easy. I wonder if the alternate App Stores will have to be installed via the official App store?! That’s the way I would do it. Gives Apple a way to shut them down if they try to circumvent the reporting piece to bypass the 0.50 fees.
  - pests 3y ago
    I doubt the alt-stores will be doing any installing of their own. They probably get a higher level API and get to say "install this package at this url" and iOS will handle the usual verification checks, permissions, actual installation, Home Screen and App lists, etc.
    - chinathrow 3y ago
      GaaS - Gatekeeping as a Service for and by gatekeepers.
derefr 3y ago
What? Hardware-platform SDKs generally cost tons of money. Visual Studio Professional Enterprise — essentially (if you think about it) the SDK for the Windows platform — costs $250 per month per seat! (And that's cheap, compared to the SDK costs for proprietary platforms that people don't usually consider "computers." How much do you think Blackberry charges for a QNX SDK? There's a reason that maybe five companies in the whole world ever bothered to develop car infotainment "partner apps", before Apple CarPlay and Android Auto came along to make the platform moot.) These SDK fees pay for "the platform" — but specifically, in IP terms, they give you a license to use the source code and libraries that come with the SDK, a license to redistribute the outputs of the compilers that come with the SDK — and so forth. PC and smartphone platform vendors stopped charging so much for SDKs (or at least their non-enterprise-level SDKs) right around when they introduced App Stores. Because they changed the model, to one where the license you got with the SDK, said that your IP license to the stuff in the SDK, is paid for through royalties, by the revenue you make from publishing your app on their App Store. And that's a perfectly valid arrangement. If you breach the contract, by not giving Apple royalties, then you don't have IP rights to redistribute the derivative works from their SDK any more!
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  > Visual Studio Professional Enterprise Professional and Enterprise are two distinct editions. Professional is $45/user/month, and it's a capable IDE even if Enterprise has some extra features.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > Visual Studio Professional Enterprise — essentially (if you think about it) the SDK for the Windows platform — costs $250 per month per seat! Or you can use GCC and compile “Hello world” for windows, no Microsoft IP involved? What am I missing
  - derefr 3y ago
    GCC — or even something like Mono — doesn't come with the headers et al for the GUI parts of Windows. And those headers are protected IP, even if you re-derive them from scratch — just ask Google about the JDK! Certainly, you can compile Hello World with GCC — or maybe even a POSIX network server — to run under WSL. And maybe redistribute the resulting hello_world.exe to other WSL users. But what happens when you want to compile that same program to run "on Windows" directly, to be redistributable to people who don't have WSL installed? Well, even if you're using GCC, you'll probably end up linking your program against the Visual C Runtime. (Because otherwise you'll need to ship — or statically link — glibc.dll. Which is a bit ridiculous.) And the Visual C Runtime is... part of Visual Studio! A part that's freely redistributable, yes... for those developers with a valid Visual Studio license. Otherwise, Microsoft can sue you for packaging MSVCRT.DLL with your app. And as your app gets more complex, that just keeps being truer. While Microsoft Store apps can just list their package deps and get the store to install them, if you're a standalone Windows UI app, you might have to redistribute, say... DirectX. Or SQL Server Embedded. Or even — and this is a very clever trap on Microsoft's part that many FOSS devs don't notice — some "sample library code" from MSDN. All of which are offered under that same redistribution licensing clause. --- Note that there are high-level "app platforms" that attempt to work around all this — mostly by not having you compile anything to target the Windows native ABI at all — but rather, just providing a higher-level platform abstraction, that you write code against, where that code ships with the executable but not within the executable (so as to keep the executable's Microsoft-stamped code signature intact.) This is how Electron's Windows support works, for example. Also, most game engines, e.g. Unity, Love2d, RenPy, etc. I believe that there are also a few "app platforms" that go another route, trying to avoid the Windows runtime altogether — using funky low-level static-compiled languages to directly address the NT syscall ABI, and then building up from there to doing multimedia and networking. I think Haxe is like this? But while Haxe has some level of windows-and-menus UI toolkit (http://haxeui.org/ http://haxeui.org/), it's not one that supports OS accessibility APIs (e.g. screen-reader support), or DPI scalability, or high-contrast mode. (In other words, it's just not suitable for writing B2B software where your users are under a bunch of business requirements on what the software they give their employees to use, needs to be able to offer them.) Also, you're not getting integration with OS file-picker dialogs, or multi-format drag-and-drop / copy-and-paste, or embedding of arbitrary graphical COM components within the view, or — especially — being embedded as a graphical COM component within some other app. (This last one is pretty important for boring line-of-business apps like tax-filing software; you want your app to be able to render its document filetype to the viewport when documents of that type are opened in a browser!) In short: for making anything that you charge for... you're still gonna just pay Microsoft for Visual Studio.
crowcroft 3y ago
I’m paying how much to buy a phone from Apple, and then they also want to get paid every time I install something whether they’re involved or not? It’s none of their business what I want to do.
- a_wild_dandan 3y ago
  It's such brazen, inexcusable rent-seeking. Apple wants to insert themselves into everyone's personal business and demand a cut, like some mob boss. "That's a nice app you got there. Be a shame if something were to...happen to it." Charge developers at-cost for hosting/distribution. Want more compensation for producing the hardware/platform? Here's my $1,000 receipt. Now go away.
  - Swenrekcah 3y ago
    I have some subscriptions that are managed through the subscription portal which is a convenient place to keep track of them. I can cancel renewals and the plan keeps working for the agreed upon period, except subscriptions from Apple. There it explicitly says that if I cancel renewal for a trial period, my access is immediately cut. Seems a bit dishonest from our protector and guardian.
    - dev_tty01 3y ago
      Hmm, I haven't seen this. But I am curious, how is that dishonest? It sounds like it is explicitly stated, so you know what will happen. What Apple subscriptions? Logic Pro? Are you talking about a free trial or a paid trial? Also, if it is paid and you cancel and they terminate usage, do you end up seeing a refund for the balance of the time? With third-party devs, they have already sent the money along to the dev so they would have to pull back money to terminate immediately and refund the prorated balance of the subscription cost to the user. That would be hard on devs.
      - Swenrekcah 3y ago
        It was an apple arcade trial. A free trial, otherwise it would be more than dishonest. But the dishonesty comes from allowing users to take risk-free advantage of free trials from third parties (which is good for consumers and business in general), but subjecting the same users to potentially unwanted renewals when it comes to an Apple product. Rules for thee, not for me, says Apple to devs and users.
matt3210 3y ago
They know people will opt out because when Unity tried it everyone lost their mind

suslik 3y ago

That is why this should’ve never been about sideloading apps, but mandating a right to have root access.

Cort3z 3y ago

How are they doing to be able to track this? If there is an alternative App Store, I would assume they don’t share their download numbers with Apple. Is Apple going to track all apps running in iPhones?

Slartie 3y ago
They already do, and surely they continue to do so in the future, regardless of where the app came from. So finding out these numbers should be simple from a technical standpoint.

insane_dreamer 3y ago

> The regulator will argue that the technology in the phone has already been paid for by the buyer of the hardware (which came with a license for iOS) The user paid for the technology in the phone, but the dev didn't pay for use of Apple's IP to build their own product which they are offering to users. I don't see regulators being able to challenge this (nor is it particularly unfair).

mil22 3y ago

They may not like it, but the question is: is it actually illegal under the new DMA regulations as they are currently written? The DMA is 66 pages of legalese, otherwise I would have read it to find out: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022R1925 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

asimovfan 3y ago
If they don't like it they can make another regulation.
superice 3y ago
I don't think the DMA factors into it too much. In the Netherlands, AirBnB got fined for billing service costs both to renters and landlords. I think the legal term was 'serving two lords' or something along those lines. Dutch law (and I suspect European law) prohibits billing intermediary fees to both sides. I'm very much being an armchair lawyer, but you can probably make a very similar case here: the user has already paid for the Core TechnologyTM as part of the phone, therefore you can't bill app creators for the same thing. (Disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, armchair or otherwise)
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  That was due to a specific statute on intermediary fees in tenancy laws. It doesn’t silly to this situation. Disclaimer: was an attorney, now just of the armchair variety when I’m not buy as a code monkey, NL was where I went to law school
  - superice 3y ago
    A quick google search seemed to indicate it was a general e-commerce related law, which is why I brought it up, but happy to take your word over mine.
    - turquoisevar 3y ago
      Actually, you might be right and I might be wrong. It’s been a few years since I’ve left the low lands and a bit longer since I stopped practicing law, so who knows what has happened in the meantime. I mainly jumped on it because I know of a rental specific statute, having used it a few times, so just assumed that’s what you were talking about. I haven’t looked into it further so it might just as well be that I was too confident in thinking that’s what you were talking about.

danielrhodes 3y ago

Yeah it's a total double dip, similar to ISPs trying to extort internet companies for access to their own customers.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pantalaimon 3y ago

How can they even charge for installs on an alternative app marketplace? Would the iPhones have to track those and report them back to Apple?

blashyrk 3y ago
The same way they can take a percentage of any completely external purchase "initiated" via an iOS app. It's literal racketeering and the courts are ok with that.
layer8 3y ago
Those apps still have to be notarized by Apple, and the notarization will be checked upon installation. Presumably this will require an online check. So yes, Apple will track those.
urbandw311er 3y ago
I had the same thought. I imagine that Apple will have a very strict templated way to install and run an alternate App Store, you’ll have to use certain API calls to register the apps installed so that they show up on the Home Screen etc. So the reporting side of this should be reasonably easy. I wonder if the alternate App Stores will have to be installed via the official App store?! That’s the way I would do it. Gives Apple a way to shut them down if they try to circumvent the reporting piece to bypass the 0.50 fees.
- pests 3y ago
  I doubt the alt-stores will be doing any installing of their own. They probably get a higher level API and get to say "install this package at this url" and iOS will handle the usual verification checks, permissions, actual installation, Home Screen and App lists, etc.
  - chinathrow 3y ago
    GaaS - Gatekeeping as a Service for and by gatekeepers.

derefr 3y ago

What? Hardware-platform SDKs generally cost tons of money. Visual Studio Professional Enterprise — essentially (if you think about it) the SDK for the Windows platform — costs $250 per month per seat! (And that's cheap, compared to the SDK costs for proprietary platforms that people don't usually consider "computers." How much do you think Blackberry charges for a QNX SDK? There's a reason that maybe five companies in the whole world ever bothered to develop car infotainment "partner apps", before Apple CarPlay and Android Auto came along to make the platform moot.) These SDK fees pay for "the platform" — but specifically, in IP terms, they give you a license to use the source code and libraries that come with the SDK, a license to redistribute the outputs of the compilers that come with the SDK — and so forth. PC and smartphone platform vendors stopped charging so much for SDKs (or at least their non-enterprise-level SDKs) right around when they introduced App Stores. Because they changed the model, to one where the license you got with the SDK, said that your IP license to the stuff in the SDK, is paid for through royalties, by the revenue you make from publishing your app on their App Store. And that's a perfectly valid arrangement. If you breach the contract, by not giving Apple royalties, then you don't have IP rights to redistribute the derivative works from their SDK any more!

Kwpolska 3y ago
> Visual Studio Professional Enterprise Professional and Enterprise are two distinct editions. Professional is $45/user/month, and it's a capable IDE even if Enterprise has some extra features.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Visual Studio Professional Enterprise — essentially (if you think about it) the SDK for the Windows platform — costs $250 per month per seat! Or you can use GCC and compile “Hello world” for windows, no Microsoft IP involved? What am I missing
- derefr 3y ago
  GCC — or even something like Mono — doesn't come with the headers et al for the GUI parts of Windows. And those headers are protected IP, even if you re-derive them from scratch — just ask Google about the JDK! Certainly, you can compile Hello World with GCC — or maybe even a POSIX network server — to run under WSL. And maybe redistribute the resulting hello_world.exe to other WSL users. But what happens when you want to compile that same program to run "on Windows" directly, to be redistributable to people who don't have WSL installed? Well, even if you're using GCC, you'll probably end up linking your program against the Visual C Runtime. (Because otherwise you'll need to ship — or statically link — glibc.dll. Which is a bit ridiculous.) And the Visual C Runtime is... part of Visual Studio! A part that's freely redistributable, yes... for those developers with a valid Visual Studio license. Otherwise, Microsoft can sue you for packaging MSVCRT.DLL with your app. And as your app gets more complex, that just keeps being truer. While Microsoft Store apps can just list their package deps and get the store to install them, if you're a standalone Windows UI app, you might have to redistribute, say... DirectX. Or SQL Server Embedded. Or even — and this is a very clever trap on Microsoft's part that many FOSS devs don't notice — some "sample library code" from MSDN. All of which are offered under that same redistribution licensing clause. --- Note that there are high-level "app platforms" that attempt to work around all this — mostly by not having you compile anything to target the Windows native ABI at all — but rather, just providing a higher-level platform abstraction, that you write code against, where that code ships with the executable but not within the executable (so as to keep the executable's Microsoft-stamped code signature intact.) This is how Electron's Windows support works, for example. Also, most game engines, e.g. Unity, Love2d, RenPy, etc. I believe that there are also a few "app platforms" that go another route, trying to avoid the Windows runtime altogether — using funky low-level static-compiled languages to directly address the NT syscall ABI, and then building up from there to doing multimedia and networking. I think Haxe is like this? But while Haxe has some level of windows-and-menus UI toolkit (http://haxeui.org/ http://haxeui.org/), it's not one that supports OS accessibility APIs (e.g. screen-reader support), or DPI scalability, or high-contrast mode. (In other words, it's just not suitable for writing B2B software where your users are under a bunch of business requirements on what the software they give their employees to use, needs to be able to offer them.) Also, you're not getting integration with OS file-picker dialogs, or multi-format drag-and-drop / copy-and-paste, or embedding of arbitrary graphical COM components within the view, or — especially — being embedded as a graphical COM component within some other app. (This last one is pretty important for boring line-of-business apps like tax-filing software; you want your app to be able to render its document filetype to the viewport when documents of that type are opened in a browser!) In short: for making anything that you charge for... you're still gonna just pay Microsoft for Visual Studio.

crowcroft 3y ago

I’m paying how much to buy a phone from Apple, and then they also want to get paid every time I install something whether they’re involved or not? It’s none of their business what I want to do.

a_wild_dandan 3y ago
It's such brazen, inexcusable rent-seeking. Apple wants to insert themselves into everyone's personal business and demand a cut, like some mob boss. "That's a nice app you got there. Be a shame if something were to...happen to it." Charge developers at-cost for hosting/distribution. Want more compensation for producing the hardware/platform? Here's my $1,000 receipt. Now go away.
- Swenrekcah 3y ago
  I have some subscriptions that are managed through the subscription portal which is a convenient place to keep track of them. I can cancel renewals and the plan keeps working for the agreed upon period, except subscriptions from Apple. There it explicitly says that if I cancel renewal for a trial period, my access is immediately cut. Seems a bit dishonest from our protector and guardian.
  - dev_tty01 3y ago
    Hmm, I haven't seen this. But I am curious, how is that dishonest? It sounds like it is explicitly stated, so you know what will happen. What Apple subscriptions? Logic Pro? Are you talking about a free trial or a paid trial? Also, if it is paid and you cancel and they terminate usage, do you end up seeing a refund for the balance of the time? With third-party devs, they have already sent the money along to the dev so they would have to pull back money to terminate immediately and refund the prorated balance of the subscription cost to the user. That would be hard on devs.
    - Swenrekcah 3y ago
      It was an apple arcade trial. A free trial, otherwise it would be more than dishonest. But the dishonesty comes from allowing users to take risk-free advantage of free trials from third parties (which is good for consumers and business in general), but subjecting the same users to potentially unwanted renewals when it comes to an Apple product. Rules for thee, not for me, says Apple to devs and users.

matt3210 3y ago

They know people will opt out because when Unity tried it everyone lost their mind