To publish an app on the App Store, developersIndividuals or organizations. create a developer account on developer.apple.com, agree to the terms, use various tools, and submit the app to Apple.
After due approvals by the Apple team, the app becomes available on the App Store.
Apple charges a 15% – 30% commission for apps that use its in-app payment system.
Epic Games is an American video game developer, whose account was terminated by Apple in August 2020.
So, Epic can’t submit new apps/updates to the App Store and consumers can’t make purchases inside Epic’s Fortnite video game (one of the most popular in the world) via Apple’s payment system.
This happened after Epic added an option for Fortnite players to pay Epic directly for in-game upgrades, so Epic could avoid paying 30% commission to Apple.
Apple, which is a vital source of revenue & users to most app developers, saw this as a violation of the App Store policies.
Since Jan 2012, Epic mobile games have been downloaded 159 million times on Apple devices, generating about $1.2 billion with $360 million (30% cut) going to Apple.
App Store has been at the center of controversy, ever since Spotify made its grievances public in 2016 and encouraged its users to pay their subscription fees through Spotify’s own website.
Since then, various companies have complained that tight policies and high commissions by Apple choke innovation and make the apps expensive for consumers.
This Epic-App Store battle is being considered crucial as it comes at a time when the demands for breaking up the big 4 (Apple, Amazon, Google & Facebook) are already mounting.
Also, the coming together of companies such as Epic, Spotify & Basecamp to form a Coalition for App Fairness is also being seen to have a lasting impact on how all app stores function.
The key demands of the coalition include:
Reduction of App Store commission
Permitting competing app stores (choices over & above the App Store)
Stopping Apple from giving preference to its own apps.
Stopping Apple from using the developer’s data to create competing products/services.
