9to5Mac: Apple Will Allow Dating Apps in the Netherlands to Use Alternative Payment Systems, But Developers Must Maintain a Separate App Binary

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

In order to comply with a ruling from The Netherlands authorities, late on Friday Apple announced that it would allow developers of dating apps to offer alternative payments systems other than Apple’s In-App Purchase system, thereby circumventing Apple’s traditional 15-30% IAP cut. However, Apple will still charge a commission on these purchases regardless (details yet to be disclosed).

However, implementing this will not be straightforward. Developers will need to create and maintain a completely separate app binary which includes special entitlements, and is only made available in the Netherlands App Store. [...]

Maintaining a wholly separate app binary for one region is not convenient. This obstacle is one way Apple will discourage developers from going down this route; they can avoid all of the inconvenience by continuing to offer Apple In-App Purchase only. Depending on the commission rate Apple sets, it may not be worth it for a third-party developer to offer alternative payment systems at all.

The piecemeal regulations popping up around the world are so odd. Only dating apps and only in the Netherlands. Again, alternate payment processing in-app is not the answer, if Google and Apple are still going to take their cut of each transaction. Just send users to the web to process payments outside the app, and stipulate that apps must be allowed to link to their websites.

★ Saturday, 15 January 2022