In the past few weeks, Apple IncIts App Store rules have been adjusted several times to allow more companies to get lower commission rates, which means that many developers will no longer have to pay Apple Inc up to 30 per cent of the app store commission to resolve the class action lawsuit brought by US developers against Apple Inc.
While these concessions look like Apple Inc's shift in policy towards App Store, judging from the history of App Store, they are clearly a continuation of the 2008 strategy.
Apple Inc made some minor changes to its "guidelines", a 13000-word document that specifies what iPhone applications can and cannot do, while defending its core interest that Apple Inc has the right to decide which software can run on iPhone and set financial terms for these developers.
Apple Inc has not changed his policy of withdrawing 30 per cent from app built-in game purchases, which is App Store's largest revenue category. According to data disclosed by Apple Inc, Apple Inc App Store's total sales in 2020 were $64 billion or more.
But judging from the history of App Store, Apple Inc is likely to continue to promote private negotiations and public lobbying for smaller, non-structural reforms to App Store to resolve some complaints, but will not change its absolute control over iPhone software.
There has been controversy from the very beginning.
Apple Inc's app store has faced controversy since its launch in 2008. A year later, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) refused to approve Alphabet Inc-CL C for the company.The Voice application conducts an investigation.
Now, countries and developers around the world are exerting more regulatory pressure, leading to more rule changes. Some of Apple Inc's recent concessions are due to the settlement of a developer class action case in the US and an agreement with Japan's Fair Trade Commission (Fair Trade Commission), while Apple Inc is implementing these changes around the world.
Apple Inc executives said it was a meaningful change that addressed the main concerns of software makers.
Some of Apple Inc's opponents, even those who have petitioned for change, say they have not done enough, accusing Apple Inc of appeasing critics with an one-off paradigm change.
"our goal is to restore fair competition once and for all, not through innocuous changes," Daniel Daniel Ek, chief executive of Spotify, responded to Apple Inc's change in the rules of links in the app on the social platform last week.