Earlier this week, Apple told Basecamp, the company that makes the brand new email app called Hey, that it cannot distribute its app on the iPhone unless it makes it possible for users to sign up via Apple’s own prescribed methods — which gives Apple a 30 percent cut. Apple told Basecamp that by avoiding giving an option in its iOS app to sign up and support in-app purchases, it was violating Apple’s App Store policy, 3.1.1, which says: If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, etc. Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase.

Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge: The key thing to know is that the text of this policy is not actually the policy. Or rather, as with any law, the text is only one of the things you need to understand. You also need to know how it is enforced and how the enforcers interpret that text. It should not surprise you to know that Apple’s interpretation of its text often seems capricious at best and at worst seems like it’s motivated by self-dealing. And the enforcement consequently often seems unfair.

The rule states that if you want to sell digital goods, you have to use Apple’s payment system. Except that’s not how 3.1.1 has been interpreted to date. It has been interpreted as allowing people to access services they paid for elsewhere on their iOS devices, but not allowing those apps to try to get around the Apple payment rules when people sign up on those devices. That’s convoluted, but that interpretation is what keeps Netflix from having an account sign-up in its app. It’s the policy that has enraged Spotify and keeps you from buying Kindle books on your iPhone without jumping through a million weird Safari hoops. That was already a very bad rule, if you ask me. Now, with this email app, Apple is apparently changing its interpretation to be more strict.

David Pierce, in an update to his news report about Hey-Apple debacle: Apple told me that its actual mistake was approving the app in the first place, when it didn’t conform to its guidelines. Apple allows these kinds of client apps — where you can’t sign up, only sign in — for business services but not consumer products. That’s why Basecamp, which companies typically pay for, is allowed on the App Store when Hey, which users pay for, isn’t. One other distinction: Apple allows “Reader” apps — things like Netflix and Kindle and Dropbox, where you’re using the app to access existing subscriptions — as long as they don’t offer a way to sign up. But …read more

Source:: Slashdot