“I’m stumped. Trying to figure out how to avoid a major loss of goodwill and credibility is difficult for Apple at this point.”
Apple’s intentions to comply with Dutch payment competition regulations have been dubbed “a fraud” by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
Fortnite’s outspoken CEO tweeted Friday after it was revealed that Apple planned to charge developers who utilise external payment methods 27 percent commission rather than the normal 30 percent. He made the following statement:
You can read Apple’s bad-faith compliance with the Dutch payment competition judgement in this excellent summation of the situation.
Apple is well aware of the hypocrisy of their behaviour. Everyone is aware of their deception. Apple is well aware that their acts are pretended. Apple, on the other hand, continues to perpetrate the fraud.
“I don’t know why Apple is doing this,” Sweeney said. “It’s hard to comprehend what Apple is trying to achieve here, and how they hope to avoid a major loss of credibility and goodwill.”
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Those tweets Sweeney was referring to are a series from Marco Arment explaining Apple’s intentions to allow developers to choose between in-app purchases or alternative payments.
In addition to the requirement that developers offering the alternative payment option do so through a separate app available only in the Netherlands and unable to support IAPs, Arment pointed out that the rules are also quite strict, as developers must warn users that their payments are being handled by Apple and will be required to invoice Apple each month with a complete record of digital sales so that Apple can charge the correct amount of commission.
According to one well-known Apple developer, the action “says everything about Tim Cook’s Apple and what it thinks of developers,” the ambitions of the company are “simply disgusting.” According to another developer, at Apple’s predicted March 8 event, when the firm may announce a new iPhone SE with 5G and a new iPad Air, they will remove their apps from the App Store for 48 hours.