<story><title>Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-changes-to-ios-safari-and-the-app-store-in-the-european-union/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>audunw</author><text>Wait what? The nonprofit organisation thing seems very significant. That makes it fairly easy to get around if you’re just developing an app for fun, or for open source organisations to get apps distributed.&lt;p&gt;So what are we left with? Apps where users are the product, like Facebook, and freemium apps where you end up paying to get anything useful done with it anyway. Apps where the parent company is making millions if not billions. Is anybody upset that those guys have to chip in for iOS development?&lt;p&gt;I personally think Apples approach is the lesser of two evils. We don’t pay for OS explicitly anymore. But look at Windows and Android… you end up paying somehow in the end anyway. I’d rather it be through fees on apps than more insidious approaches.&lt;p&gt;And no. Paying for the phone is not a viable way to pay for the OS. That incentives the phone maker to ditch OS updates for old phones. And we know that’s a real issue. As long as we pay through app fees the phone makers are incentivised to keep releasing OS updates for old phones.</text></item><item><author>TillE</author><text>Yeah this is brutal for any truly free app that risks getting popular. The only exceptions are for &amp;quot;Nonprofit organizations, accredited educational institutions, and government entities&amp;quot;, so I guess at least Mozilla will find a way to distribute Firefox.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;core-technology-fee&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;core-technology-fee&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mjburgess</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;fee-calculator-for-apps-in-the-eu&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;fee-calculator-for-apps-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2,000,000 installs acquires a minimum of $45,000 in fees, even if you don&amp;#x27;t make any money&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s up from $0 USD.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>makeitdouble</author><text>I wouldn&amp;#x27;t call that &amp;quot;fairly easy&amp;quot; in most senses of the term.&lt;p&gt;For instance I didn&amp;#x27;t even have an idea of what&amp;#x27;s required in my place to get recognized as non-profit. And it turns out it&amp;#x27;s specific to each region, and I need to go ask for the paperwork in the first place.&lt;p&gt;If the requirement is really a non profit legal status, Apple just raised the bar from &amp;quot;apps that just make no money&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;apps that registered to their local governing bodies that they have a goal of not making money&amp;quot;, and that&amp;#x27;s a huge leap with a crazy high barrier for a random dev (imagine a kid in uni) to push a free app.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-changes-to-ios-safari-and-the-app-store-in-the-european-union/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>audunw</author><text>Wait what? The nonprofit organisation thing seems very significant. That makes it fairly easy to get around if you’re just developing an app for fun, or for open source organisations to get apps distributed.&lt;p&gt;So what are we left with? Apps where users are the product, like Facebook, and freemium apps where you end up paying to get anything useful done with it anyway. Apps where the parent company is making millions if not billions. Is anybody upset that those guys have to chip in for iOS development?&lt;p&gt;I personally think Apples approach is the lesser of two evils. We don’t pay for OS explicitly anymore. But look at Windows and Android… you end up paying somehow in the end anyway. I’d rather it be through fees on apps than more insidious approaches.&lt;p&gt;And no. Paying for the phone is not a viable way to pay for the OS. That incentives the phone maker to ditch OS updates for old phones. And we know that’s a real issue. As long as we pay through app fees the phone makers are incentivised to keep releasing OS updates for old phones.</text></item><item><author>TillE</author><text>Yeah this is brutal for any truly free app that risks getting popular. The only exceptions are for &amp;quot;Nonprofit organizations, accredited educational institutions, and government entities&amp;quot;, so I guess at least Mozilla will find a way to distribute Firefox.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;core-technology-fee&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;core-technology-fee&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mjburgess</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;fee-calculator-for-apps-in-the-eu&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;support&amp;#x2F;fee-calculator-for-apps-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2,000,000 installs acquires a minimum of $45,000 in fees, even if you don&amp;#x27;t make any money&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s up from $0 USD.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rany_</author><text>&amp;gt; Windows and Android… you end up paying somehow in the end anyway&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure why I have to mention this, but you could be paying for something and get screwed over at the same time. The issue isn&amp;#x27;t that Google&amp;#x2F;Microsoft&amp;#x2F;etc NEED to make money this way, but that this is legal to do.&lt;p&gt;Also, Windows isn&amp;#x27;t exactly cheap and I personally couldn&amp;#x27;t fathom paying more than 100 bucks for an OS and still get treated like crap. I&amp;#x27;m sure Android at best only makes 10 bucks from their users with their current model throughout the device&amp;#x27;s entire lifetime.</text></comment>