App Store Advanced Commerce API
To further support developers’ evolving business models — such as exceptionally large content catalogs, creator experiences, and subscriptions with optional add-ons — we’re introducing the Advanced Commerce API.
Developers can apply to use the Advanced Commerce API to support eligible App Store business models and more flexibly manage their In-App Purchases within their app.
[…]
Apple’s announcement appears to be part of a broader effort to refine its App Store policies following scrutiny, particularly in the European Union. This particular API appears to be a direct response to challenges faced by apps with unconventional monetization models, such as Patreon, an online platform that enables creators to offer paid memberships to their audiences.
Is this a response to Kindle needing an entry for every book in their catalogue, or a response to apps like Patreon where every creator needs an IAP assigned to them? (either way, it looks like it’ll do little to win over those platforms)
To me it seems like checking a box rather than addressing the fundamental issues.
“If you already have access to the Advanced Commerce API and would like to make updates, like adding product identifiers, new business models, significant price changes, you’ll need to submit your updates to the Advanced Commerce API Access form.”
Why would any large catalog apps sign up for this? This is a trap
Real title: “Apple announce 30% tax on patreon style content”
Apple first announced the Advanced Commerce API at WWDC in June of 2024, but offered no documentation and only a vague description of what it would do. With yesterday’s announcement they have now provided a detailed overview and full documentation.
[…]
There are thousands of creators on X that now offer subscriptions. Each creator sets their own price and X users can subscribe to as many accounts as they want to. Without the Advanced Commerce API, apps like X would need to create products for each creator subscription manually in App Store connect in it’s own subscription group.
[…]
On the web, YouTube TV allows customers to purchase add-ons that enhance functionality and add additional content. Google could now offer that same functionality on the App Store with the core package and ad-ons billed and managed as a single subscription.
He lists a bunch of limitations but overall seems bullish on this change, saying that “it shows Apple’s willingness to evolve the App Store for developers’ needs.”
Previously:
- TikTok In-App Purchases
- Why Disney Stopped Subscriptions on the App Store
- Creator Platforms and the App Store
- Apple Going After Patreon
- Super Follows and IAP
- StoreKit 2
- Amazon Prime Video Now Allows In-App Rentals and Purchases
- comiXology Removes In-App Purchase
- Purchasing From the Kindle App
- Implementing In-App Purchase
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All I want is upgrade pricing for apps. I've asked for it since App Store inception. In every yearly survey. In Feedbacks.
But all we get is more subscription BS and more complicated API around it.
@Hammer Upgrading pricing wouldn't maximize service revenue for Apple. Therefore to Apple it has no value and we'll never see it.
Although if they ever did add it, the safer bet is that they'll find some way to ruin it.
You know, I don't actually enjoy being this cynical or negative. I think this comes from some lingering sourness about how macs, and maybe everything else computer related, have declined over the last fifteen years.
I'm going to go detox and play around on an SE/30.
@Bri right there with you on that sentiment. IT has gone from fun and interesting to just an endless chain of whack-a-mole popups and managing endless accounts of endless entities all trying to spam me and siphon personal information/money.
The sad thing is that Apple did recently directly address upgrade pricing. They made some lame noise about how it's the children who are wrong and we actually don't want upgrade pricing as it turns out. They will never do it for exactly the reason you've stated and they've now said as much.
I tried to find the article, but that too was just a reminder that Google is absolute garbage compared to what it used to be. It was probably linked here but now I'm too depressed to look any further.
