Core Technology Fee Exemptions
Today, we’re introducing two additional conditions in which the CTF is not required:
First, no CTF is required if a developer has no revenue whatsoever. This includes creating a free app without monetization that is not related to revenue of any kind (physical, digital, advertising, or otherwise). This condition is intended to give students, hobbyists, and other non-commercial developers an opportunity to create a popular app without paying the CTF.
Second, small developers (less than €10 million in global annual business revenue*) that adopt the alternative business terms receive a 3-year free on-ramp to the CTF to help them create innovative apps and rapidly grow their business. Within this 3-year period, if a small developer that hasn’t previously exceeded one million first annual installs crosses the threshold for the first time, they won’t pay the CTF, even if they continue to exceed one million first annual installs during that time. If a small developer grows to earn global revenue between €10 million and €50 million within the 3-year on-ramp period, they’ll start to pay the CTF after one million first annual installs up to a cap of €1 million per year.
Would be annoying if AltStore PAL no longer qualifies for CTF exemptions because it had sales to cover CTF in the first place 🙃
Previously:
- AltStore PAL
- DMA Compliance Workshop: Notarization and Core Technology Fee
- DMA Compliance: Web Distribution of iOS Apps in EU
- App Marketplaces: AltStore and Epic Games Store
- DMA Compliance: Alternative App Stores But No Sideloading
- App Store Small Business Program With 15% Fee
Update (2024-05-03): Kosta Eleftheriou:
Imagine having to pay Apple money to install an app on your Mac from some website.
Update (2024-05-07): Nick Heer:
Two fundamental issues remain with the Core Technology Fee — namely, that developers still need to pay Apple even if their app is distributed exclusively outside the App Store and in-app payments are handled by a third-party processor, and the fee is an unknown and surprising future charge. One marvels at how the Mac could remain such a successful developer platform for so long without the support of a per-install fee.
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So that physical goods revenue that Apple feel entitled to... Would that include food delivery apps? Amazon? EBay?
Or is it just the scammy sale of plush Roblox characters they're gonna tax?
Oh, good! So Open Source isn't totally hosed, after all. Such a shame that the fine folks at Apple had to be cudgelled into doing this by the EU again, instead of doing it to benefit their paying customers.
I don't know for sure, but I don't think Apple was forced to adjust for open source and/or totally free apps. It felt more like, "yeah, you're right, we'll fix that" rather than "since you're whining, we'll [reluctantly] change that".
I find it weird that a "technology" fee is levied against people selling prodigal goods.
I think apples taxation is weird period. They are trying themselves in knots, trying to come up with half assed alternatives, with kilometers of red tape attached, to insert themselves between companies and their customers
The legal department must be so happy about coming up with all these small print wrinkles. True innovation.
i think it might be time for the community to band together and target other platforms using implementations of Apple’s core frameworks for other platforms (Foundation, AppKit, UIKit, etc.) LLVM can be run on Linux and Windows so if the community puts in some effort it would be a sign of meaningful resistance. You don’t own our codebases mother fuckers. We can run our shit here too and you can take you’re CTF and shove it directly up your ass. GNUStep has done a lot of this work but they have something like 8 devs. Running ObjC on windows is actually very easy right now. An IDE with good code completion could be something devs could use to leverage their work to monetize without being tied to Apple.
