As many have come to see, Apple lost its lawsuit against Epic Games in which a court ruled that Apple cannot stop developers from using payments options outside of the Apple App Store. In other words, the court said that developers can use any type of payment option they'd like when accepting payments inside of their app that is published on the Apple App Store.
For more information on this ruling, check out our previous blog on the topic!
You can also listen to our podcast on this topic!
While this is a ground breaking case, the main thing we are focused on here at Atsap, is how this affects developers - and mostly our clients.
At a high level, this is a huge win for developers (assuming that Apple does not appeal the ruling and it sticks). For years, developers were forced to use Apples In-App Purchase system when developing apps that offer subscriptions.
For example, if you have ever created a Netflix account on an iOS device, you would have noticed that you have to pay that subscription through Apple's In-App Purchase system. In fact, some companies, like Netflix have opted to not let users create subscription based accounts via iOS devices. The reason being, they do not what to give Apple that 30% cut when being forced to use their In-App Purchase system
We don't blame them!
So what exactly is the biggest benefit? Our clients and developers now have more freedom to accept payments in their apps, which in turn can also increase their profit margins. This is a huge benefit for developers. In seems like the only developer that would not want this, is well of course, Apple.
However, this does not mean that we would suggest that all developers and clients not use Apple's In-App Purchase system. There still are some cons to using a custom payment platform within your app.
The biggest pro to using Apple's In-App Purchasing system is the ease of use. What I mean by this, is that developers do not have to worry about collecting sales taxes or how to handle refunds. This is all handled for developers by Apple. Apple takes care of a lot of the business operational side of things for In-App purchases that developers might not realize they need to handle when first developing their app. So we would suggest that if you are one of our clients, that when you are first starting off with your app, if it is a small operation you are running - use Apple's In-App Purchase system.
If you have a more large scale operation and you have the resources to handle refunds, taxes etc on your own, then use another payment option of your choosing!
Every situation is different and it is important to weigh the pros and cons of your specific situation. However, one thing is for certain, it is nice to have the option to choose a solution that best fits your needs. Which before this lawsuit, was not always the case.
Viva La Free Market!!
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