In the process of denying he asked Tim Cook to be CEO of Apple during an alleged conversation about a Tesla acquisition, Elon Musk has turned his attention to Apple’s App Store, saying Epic Games is right and that Apple holds a “de facto global tax on the Internet.”
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Right after Snapchat went down, it seems that some Apple services are also experiencing issues on Thursday night. Apple just confirmed that the App Store and iTunes Store are not available right now for some users, as shown on the System Status webpage on Apple’s website.
Update (4:43 PM PT): Apple says the outage has now been fixed. You can read the original article below.
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After a lot of back and forth and Apple rejecting Facebook’s standalone iOS app version of its gaming service, the social media platform has followed in the footsteps of Microsoft and launched a web app of its young gaming platform for iPhone and iPad.
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Apple on Tuesday introduced a new feature called “Tax Category” to App Store Connect, which is the platform used by developers for submitting apps to the App Store. With this new option, developers can easily determine taxes for different content or regions.
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Apple on Friday removed the Fakespot app from the iOS App Store. Fakespot, which is a service for filtering and hiding fake product reviews on Amazon, launched its iOS app last month, but now, the app has been taken down following a request from Amazon itself.
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Last year in the US, Apple overhauled its gift cards taking them from two separate products to a single one that works with the App Store/iTunes Store and Apple Stores. Now the new Apple Gift Cards have launched in Canada and Australia.
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A new study has been published that aims to show how popular Apple and Google’s first-party apps are and to specifically make the case that they limit competition as they’re preinstalled. The Verge got an exclusive look at the study that was paid for by one of Apple and Google’s biggest critics. However, Apple says the study was “seriously flawed.”
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In a new interview, Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of worldwide developer relations, and Andreas Wendker, Apple’s vice president of tools and frameworks engineering, talk about the new tools developers have available after WWDC21.
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On September 17, a French court will be hearing a case brought by the finance ministry against Apple, according to a report by Reuters. Similar to what happened with the Epic Games vs. Apple case, the French finance ministry alleges abusive contractual terms imposed by Apple for selling software on the App Store.
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Apple is currently busy trying to extricate itself from an App Store mess. It’s making calls, writing letters, publishing white papers, and conducting interviews, all in an attempt to reverse the antitrust tide.
Some of the moves it is making frankly signal desperation, and it’s astonishing to me that the company missed an opportunity to enjoy a PR dream instead of its current defensive nightmare.
It’s not like Apple couldn’t see this coming – it had internal discussions about the issue a full decade ago …
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Alongside a 16-page essay on why App Store protections are good and sideloading is bad, and lobbying calls to Congress by Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company’s head of user privacy is also arguing its case in a Fast Company interview.
While those in favor of third-party app stores for iOS apps argue that they would offer users and developers alike greater choice, Eric Neuenschwander suggests the exact opposite is true …
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Apple has just published a new user guide that details what life would be like for iOS users if Apple were forced to allow the sideloading of third-party apps. The report, which was published this morning, is called Building a Trusted Ecosystem for Millions of Apps and describes Apple’s view on the importance of having a curated and managed App Store be the only way that iOS devices can download new apps.
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Patreon is a popular platform that allows people to directly subscribe to creators, including in the Patreon for iOS application. Theoretically, this would mean Patreon is subject to paying Apple’s App Store commission and using the company’s In-App Purchase system, but that is apparently not the case.
In a new interview on the Verge’s Decoder podcast, Patreon CEO Jack Conte confirmed that the company does not have a special deal with Apple to avoid the App Store’s 30% cut of in-app purchases…
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German antitrust proceedings against Apple have been initiated by the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office). The main focus is on the App Store, but the competition regulator is also examining the broader impact of the Apple ecosystem, such as pre-installed apps and the treatment of services that compete with Apple (like Spotify).
Apple is the fourth tech giant to come under investigation since a new antitrust law came into effect in January …
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The Amazon Appstore has now joined Google in following Apple’s lead in reducing commissions for smaller developers – but with an interesting twist. The Amazon Appstore is an alternative place for people to download Android apps.
Apple last year announced its Small Business Program, a clever way to reduce antitrust pressure by reducing its cut of app sales to 15% for all but the very largest developers. Google did the same this year, in a rather fairer way, and now Amazon has come up with its own twist …
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Analyst Ben Thompson believes that US antitrust legislation could put the Apple ecosystem at risk unless the company is prepared to compromise on the App Store.
The danger is that legislators may view the various ecosystem components as anti-competitive, but would be less likely to do so without the App Store playing such a central role …
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Update: Despite what this study claims, it does appear that Grindr and Scruff are both available worldwide in the App Store. Apple says that the report contains other inaccuracies as well. Notably, Apple says that none of the 27 apps mentioned in the report in regards to China were removed by Apple. And of the 64 apps monitored, by the survey, just 4 were removed from a particular country because of legal issues.
Something important to consider is that developers control the countries in which their applications are available. Developers oftentimes will preemptively remove an app from certain locations due to legal concerns or to protect their users.
Apple is facing criticism for removing LGBTQ+ applications from the App Store in 152 countries around the world. A new joint study from US-based advocacy group Fight for the Future and China-based GreatFire, which tracks censorship in China, details that Apple’s decisions in these countries “enables government censorship of LGBTQ+ content.”
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House Democrats are reportedly set to announce no fewer than five US antitrust bills, one of which would in part target Apple’s App Store.
The planned legislation is based on recommendations made in the 450-page antitrust report, which found that Apple was among the tech companies to engage in “deeply disturbing” anticompetitive behavior …
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Apple today updated the App Store Guidelines following the iOS 15 announcement earlier in the WWDC 2021 opening keynote. This time, Apple has further tightened the rules against apps with pornographic content, added new terms for misleading marketing, and ensured that digital gift cards can only be sold through the App Store’s in-app purchases system.
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Less than an hour before Apple’s WWDC keynote kicks off, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared some news that the company would be keeping its paid online events free for creators through 2023. Notably, the platform is also going to start showing Apple’s fees as a line item for Facebook creators’ earnings with Zuckerberg using the opportunity to once again criticize the 30% App Store cut.
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The four highest-earning iPhone games each gross more than a million dollars a day, with the leader topping $3M, according to a new analytics report out today …
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Checks run by the Washington Post revealed that App Store scam apps make up almost 2% of the top-grossing apps, despite CEO Tim Cook’s insistence that the app review process is effective at rejecting them.
The paper estimates that the scam apps have cost iPhone owners a total of $48 million …
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The Next app, developed by Sorcererhat, has been updated with version 1.5, which now brings iPad support for the first time. Whether you want to rediscover lost Apple Music songs or create Magic DJs and playlists, now you can on a bigger screen.
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In the summer of 2007, developers were anxious to hear how they fit into the iPhone story. Steve Jobs told developers at WWDC 2007 that Apple had come up with a “sweet solution” for developers to make their own software for iPhone. That solution was web apps in Safari. This didn’t go over very well with developers and users, but it led to some interesting new features getting added to the iPhone before the App Store was ultimately launched the following summer.
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