The App Store rules have just been amended by Apple. They will now allow music streaming payments to be made differently in certain regions of the world.
As we know, the App Store has in recent years been the subject of numerous criticisms from application developers, and in particular due to Apple’s desire to avoid payments outside the application store, within which the American giant takes a commission of up to 30%. Among the biggest critics of this situation was the world leader in music streaming, Spotify. The Swedish company, which has always attacked Apple on this point, will be able to rejoice. She, in fact, partially won her case.
The App Store opens up to alternative payment methods
It’s a slight change in the App Store guidelines that was quickly noticed. Apple has just modified them to add that it was now possible for music streaming applications present on iPadOS and iOS to provide its users with a link redirecting them to a website, in order to make payments there.
A change that might seem trivial at first glance, but which has been requested for a long time by many service providers. Note also that this possibility is not offered everywhere in the world, but remains limited according to the Cupertino company to “ specific regions. »
Europe pressed, and won
In clearer terms: European territories. Indeed, last March, Apple was hit with a huge fine of 1.8 billion euros by the European Commission. Brussels then noted that Apple “imposed restrictions on app developers preventing them from informing iOS users that other, cheaper music subscription services were available outside of the app. »
The sanction decided upon apparently had the desired effect. The European, and therefore French, consumer will now be able to compare the different offers and potentially divergent prices between what is available directly on the App Store, and what is offered on the web. And make your choice accordingly.
Source : Engadget
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