What you need to know
The FTC is taking aim at Apple and Google in a settlement with a mobile gaming platform.
Democratic Commissioners called Apple one of the gatekeeping giants of the mobile gaming industry.
As reported by CNBC, a settlement between the FTC and mobile gaming platform Tapjoy also took aim at Apple and its control over the App Store. Democratic Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter lambasted Tapjoy for amplifying false offers by its business partners, who baited gamers with big rewards only to cheat them when it was time to pay up. It appears that Tapjoy amplified false offers by its business partners, who baited gamers with big rewards only to cheat them when it was time to pay up, they wrote. Tapjoy did little to clean up the mess, even when hundreds of thousands of gamers filed complaints. This also harmed developers of mobile games, who were cheated of advertising revenue they were entitled to.
Global App Spending Passed $100 Billion in 2020 (infographic)
January 8, 2021
Faced with antitrust allegations and the wrath of (some) app makers, Apple extended an olive branch to its developer community in November by introducing the App Store Small Business Program, which reduces the company’s app store commission from 30 to 15 percent for developers earning less than $1 million a year.
Ever since the App Store was launched in 2008, Apple has taken a 30-percent cut on app sales, in-app purchases of digital content and subscriptions made via iOS apps (the latter dropping to 15 percent after the first year), which has lately drawn the attention of competition watchdogs, especially in cases where Apple competes with third-party app makers (e.g. Apple Music vs. Spotify).
Apple sees record-breaking $1.8 billion spending on Holiday period on App Store Updated Jan 07, 2021 | 13:07 IST
Apple witnessed spending worth a record-breaking $1.8 billion on digital goods and services on the App Store during the Holiday period, the iPhone maker has announced. Representative image
Key Highlights
App Store customers spending $1.8 billion on digital goods and services over the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driven largely by spending on games
Apple Music had a record year as people spent more time discovering and engaging with music globally
Apple witnessed spending worth a record-breaking $1.8 billion on digital goods and services on the App Store during the Holiday period, the iPhone maker has announced. Customers entered into 2021 by setting a new single-day spending record of over $540 million on New Year’s Day on the Apple App Store.
Apple
Apple has started taking smaller commissions from some of its App Store Small Business Program participants, according to
AppleInsider. The tech giant introduced the program in November, offering developers that earn less than $1 million a year a way to cut App Store fees in half. Instead of paying a 30 percent commission rate, participants will only have to pay 15 percent for sales and in-app purchases. The tech giant began accepting enrollees in early December, and the program was supposed to kick off on January 1st, 2021. It sounds like Apple may have decided to get things started early, though, at least for some developers.