For iPhone users, the experience of installing apps has been mostly seamless for over a decade: You look up an app and tap a button to download it.
The not-so-seamless part has involved buying some things.
Paying for subscriptions and virtual goods, like weapons inside games, can usually be done instantly by scanning your face and letting Apple handle the transaction. But app makers have long been required to pay Apple steep commissions of up to 30 percent per sale, leading brands including Netflix and Amazon to require iPhone users to log in to their websites to pay them.
Because of Apple’s recent fallout with a federal judge, the App Store is starting to change. The judge ordered Apple to start allowing some apps to collect payments from users without paying a cut. And app developers are now free to include graphics or buttons to direct you to their own sites to buy things like subscriptions, books, music and podcasts through them directly.
Some companies are already taking advantage of the policy change. Amazon’s Kindle app added a button for buying e-books. Patreon, which sells subscriptions to content including videos and podcasts from creators, started posting lower prices. And Spotify is now offering free trials through its app.
But aside from those high-profile examples, what is going to happen to the App Store? Will everything, from streaming subscriptions to extra lives in a game, become cheaper, and buying things become easier? I interviewed mobile app developers big and small, and the consensus was: It’s complicated.
Though costs of some virtual goods might appear to dip, app prices in general will probably remain the same.
“The developers will keep the excess profits,” said Eric Seufert, the author of Mobile Dev Memo, a publication covering mobile apps. “We won’t see them get cheaper.”
Here’s what happened and how changes in Apple’s App Store could affect you.
What happened?
Since 2020, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has overseen a lawsuit filed by Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, accusing Apple of monopolistic practices for requiring app developers to sell their wares through the company’s payment system. In her original ruling in 2021, the judge ordered Apple to allow apps to provide users with external links to pay developers directly.
But Apple designed a new method to collect a 27 percent commission when app sales were made through external links, which discouraged the overwhelming majority of app developers from trying it. In her new ruling last month, Judge Rogers forbade Apple to collect any commissions through app sales made via external links.
Apple, which declined to comment, has since filed a request to pause the judge’s recent order indefinitely so that it can appeal, which may temporarily discourage developers from adding their own purchase links.
What has changed?
Some big brands have already leaped at the opportunity to link to their own sites to collect payments. Amazon’s Kindle app, for example, now shows a “Get book” button, which directs the user to Amazon’s webpage for the e-book to complete the purchase. Before, there was only an “Add to list” button, which let people add a book to their shopping list so they could open a browser and log in to Amazon.com to buy it.
In some cases, prices may appear to be cheaper. Patreon, for instance, updated its iPhone app so it now shows prices for content subscriptions when they are bought through its own site. At the bottom of the app, it shows, in small text, the option to pay through Apple, which adds an inflated price to cover the cost of the commission.
Patreon said in a statement that using Patreon’s checkout method meant “lower prices for fans and more dollars going back into creators’ businesses.”
Spotify said Apple’s changes would lead to lower pricing and flexibility for customers, while Amazon said it regularly improved its apps to make them more convenient to use.
Does this mean everything will get cheaper?
Not necessarily. App developers can avoid some of Apple’s commissions, but that doesn’t mean the savings will always be passed on to you.
Mr. Seufert noted, for instance, that years ago, Apple and Google somewhat reduced the commissions they charged to subscription-based apps. In the first year of a subscription, the apps had to share a 30 percent commission with Apple, but in the second year, the fee dropped to 15 percent. Despite this change, the prices of many streaming services rose significantly in the last few years.
Smaller apps may have little motivation to change. Apps earning less than $1 million a year are on the hook to pay Apple a smaller commission of 15 percent per sale. Integrating their own payment services would incur extra costs, so they will probably continue to use Apple’s system and their prices will remain firm, said David Barnard of RevenueCat, a company that helps brands embed subscriptions into their apps.
More realistically, consumers can expect the prices they see in the App Store to be more consistent with prices elsewhere.
In the example of Patreon, for instance, users of the iPhone app are now seeing the prices they would have normally paid if they went straight to the source. So while the pricing shown in the app is now more transparent, it is not technically cheaper.
Will buying apps become easier?
Sometimes, but not always.
On the one hand, it’s a win for iPhone users to be able to do things like buy e-books through a button inside Amazon’s Kindle app rather than go to Amazon.com.
But things might be less convenient when dealing with lesser-known brands.
There are consumer-friendly benefits to buying apps, subscriptions and virtual goods through Apple, Mr. Barnard said. Perks include emailed receipts and reminders that subscription renewals are coming up, he said. And when you run into issues, you deal with Apple’s customer service, which can be lenient about issuing refunds.
“As a consumer, I want to pay for anything I possibly can in the App Store,” Mr. Barnard said. “I know where to cancel it, I can check my bill in one place. I feel like I have so much control.”
If you make purchases through links outside the App Store, you may lose some of those perks. Lots of subscription services, including Netflix and Hulu, do not email you a reminder that a bill is coming up, which makes it easy to forget to cancel.
So what should I do?
It comes down to what you care about. If a brand you like and trust is offering to let you pay for its app or subscription through an external link, then paying it directly is the best way to support it. But if it’s a brand you are unsure about, you might want to continue paying through Apple.
Brian X. Chen is the lead consumer technology writer for The Times. He reviews products and writes Tech Fix, a column about the social implications of the tech we use.
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