After being practically forced by the request of regulators, Apple has finally given in, and will allow the option of payments through third-party platforms. But all this with some restrictions.
Everyone knows that Apple, the Californian company in charge of possibly the best-known product in the world, the iPhone, has been quite closed and controlling in terms of its platforms and ecosystem.
It should be remembered that several years ago, a legal dispute was opened between Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, and Apple, because the former saw Apple’s percentage of profit through its payment system as abusive.
Every time we want to make a transaction in any application or game, it goes through Apple’s own system, with which they control all expenses and therefore, They take a percentage, 30%, for each payment made.
Although Apple is against opening its operating systems, it is true that if it wants to be able to generate profits in certain countries, it will have to abide by the legal regulations that are imposed on them, as was the case with dating in Holland, where they were forced to allow payment by third partiesalthough they threatened to raise subscription prices to counteract.
It has been discovered, that in the latest beta of iOS, 15.5 Beta 1, it is included full support for using in-app purchases on third-party platformssomething quite unexpected and interesting.
The opening to payment on third-party platforms carries with it a risk, and it is the possible lack of control of our payments or subscriptions of those applications that we use.
While by managing all payments using the Apple system we can see all those subscriptions and purchases from the same place, the fact of being able to make these payments on an external platform would imply having to contact the developer in case of possible cancellations or problems.
Therefore, if a user removes an app that offers the possibility of external purchases, iOS will display an alert with the following message:
“External purchases of [nombre de la aplicación] they can continue to exist. You can’t manage or cancel any third-party purchases through the App Store. For more information, contact the developer.”
Based on code analysis from iOS 15.5 Beta 1, Apple intends to add another alert that will notify users when they open an app that offers external purchases for the first time. This notice may not appear in all applications.
According to the guidelines of the Apple Store, payment through third-party platforms it is only available (for now) for applications cataloged as “Reader Apps”which integrate those that offer digital content, such as magazines, books, songs or videos.
The condition that Apple sets for this type of application is that if they want to integrate payments on external platforms, they will automatically not be able to use the payment platform of the company with the bitten apple, for which they will not be able to offer both systems at the same time. Equally, each request will need to be manually approved by Apple.
The release date of iOS 15.5 is not yet known, which we assume will take between a month and a month and a half, because the WWDC will be held in June, where we will be able to discover the next version for the iPhone, iOS 16.
Obviously and after what was mentioned above, this would not allow in any way, at least temporarily, the return of Fortnite to Apple devices. While it is interesting that there is support for this type of payment, it will have to be the Californian company that studies whether expand the range of applications that can make use of it.
We will see the evolution of this news over the months, and we will see if even during the next Apple presentation they drop a relaxation of the restrictions or not. We’ll be alert.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism