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Apple to appeal the new EU antitrust list for app stores
(www.gizchina.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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It’s funny how people assume that alternative app stores would mean they can get around paying their cut.
As was established in Epic v. Apple, it’s not a payment processing fee, it’s an IP fee:
This applies to sideloaded apps, alternative app stores, external payment processing, etc. The fee is to be payed for using the platform, its tools, and technologies, and having access to the user base generated by Apple via their hardware. That’s what you’re paying a 30% cut for.
If sideloading is allowed, how would they enforce that?
Sideloading does not mean that you’re not subject to a ToS or that you will get full access to system frameworks.
This would potentially still require you to have an Apple developer membership to properly codesign binaries (like on macOS) if you distribute binaries and thus Apple could ask for financial audits to determine your income made with iOS customers.
This was explicitly mentioned in the court ruling: If a payment provider outside of Apple is used, Apple is entitled to such an audit to determine the size of the fee.
That’s not an enforceable policy though. If you allow any form of sideloading, people will get around that quickly. Jailbreaking is already possible, sideloading will make it easy.