The solution for Apple seem quite simple. If a developer want to have an app in the Apple App Store where there are advertising and links in the app that allows for any IAP payments outside of Apple iTunes, then Apple will charge those developers $1 per app downloaded per month, with a deal for $10 per app per year. (or something to that nature). It will be up to the developers if they want to charge their customers for downloading the app. So a developer can weigh in on whether to have a free app where Apple will get a commission or paid for each downloaded app and hope the users makes enough IAP to bring the cost of having such an app, below what they would had paid in commission.
This way the developers that are happy with the arrangement of having a free app and paying Apple a commission to handle IAP payments (along with refunds and updates) can still do so. And those that don't want to pay Apple a commission on IAP can do so by paying Apple upfront for having an app in the Apple App store from which they are profiting from using Apple IP.
Isn't Apple already doing something like this in the EU, with downloads from third party app stores?
Verbatim quote from the court:
For the reasons set forth herein, the Court FINDS Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing. Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated...
Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.
Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.
To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive. Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app.
Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.
Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements.
Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.
In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.
In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly.
The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.
This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.
The TLDR version?
"This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order."
You don't have to shout. It doesn't make your statement any more correct.
Who said that this has to happen immediately? Apple could implement the changes by the end of next year but meanwhile comply with the injunction immediately in the next week.
Are you saying that the courts can dictate how Apple can run their business? We are not the EU. The courts can only dictate Apple what they can't do when running their business. Apple is not a public utility. Apple can make changes to their business model in order to adapt to external changes, as they see fit, so long a those change do not violate any existing laws or court orders. The revenue from their commission pays for the 90% of free apps in the Apple App Store. As revenue from their commission decreases due to the changes made to comply with this ruling, Apple is allow to change their business model. The courts can not force Apple to operate their app store at a loss or dictate how much profit they are allow to have. In order for that to happen, the courts have to prove that Apple is a monopoly (under US anti-trust laws) and is abusing that monopoly. We don't go by the BS "gatekeeper" label.
But I have to ask this. If the courts find that a 30% commission is considered "supra-competitive operating margins", then what is it when Epic Games charges $10 (20 Fortnite Bucks) for a "cool" virtual outfit that cost no more to make and let the player have, than the virtual outfits the players gets to use for free. That margin got to be over 2X more than Apple 30% commission. And Epic have no competition with their Fortnite Store.
If this case involved Google instead of Apple, then I can see Google not being able to or having a much harder time, making such changes. Why? Because the courts determined that Google is a monopoly and that Google is abusing that monopoly.
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