Pure Sweat Basketball v. Apple
A developer of mobile sports apps has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Apple, seeking to recover commissions iBiz allegedly collected in violation of a federal injunction intended to allow developers to use alternative payment systems.
The complaint [PDF], filed on May 2 in California Northern District Court by law firm Hagens Berman on behalf of Pure Sweat Basketball, seeks class-action status to represent other affected iOS developers.
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“Had Apple complied with the injunction as issued, Apple’s own studies show that developers would have saved potentially billions in in-app purchase commissions,” the complaint says. “These are ill-gotten gains and Apple should not be permitted to retain them.”
Due to Apple’s anti-steering implementation, only 34 developers of 136,000 took advantage of the external payment link option before the terms were changed last week, and the lawsuit is seeking restitution for all U.S. developers who offered in-app purchases for non-zero prices between January 17, 2024 and when Apple fully complied with the original injunction.
Our app cannot use in app purchases because Apple does not offer metered billing, in addition IAP are limited to $999 whereas some of our clients are paying 3k-5k a month. So by every account IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for our business to use in app purchases. We fought with apple for MONTHS to even allow our app on the app store. Finally they agreed IF and only IF:
- We do not allow users to sign up in app, they have to sign up from our website.
- We DO NOT LINK our website ANYWHERE within the app
- We cannot allow users to manage their license (cancel, change, etc) within the app NOR can we send them a link to show them WHERE to do this.
This forced us to have to call customers or have them call us to resolve super simple things like changing a credit card. Apple’s rules were ridiculous, abusive (imagine taking 30% of 5k!) and to add further insult to injury Apple took FORTY-FIVE days to pay out. Stripe pays in 1-3 business days and takes 3%, and they have a better built in SDK that Apple.
Previously:
- App Review Guidelines Updated for Epic Anti-Steering
- Court Orders Apple to Comply With Anti-Steering Injunction
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Dear lord, that MacRumors forum is a cesspool. Every time I peak in there, I feel like days of my life are getting shaved. I’d say “it’s all paid AI bots”, but a) it has been like that for decades, and b) human stupidity is infinite, just as much as AI slop.
"Apple’s rules were ridiculous, abusive (imagine taking 30% of 5k!)"
Imagine being a company that sells 5k a month of IAP to people.
Maybe I'm being judgemental and it's a perfectly valid way for people to spend their fun money. But I feel like it's worth taking a step back here and looking at the bigger picture. That's casino money.
Apple is running a casino, and wants to skim 30% off the top. Sounds a little different, doesn't it?
I've long though and have heard sadly few people say, the real way to skin this cat is to remove all commissions on everything EXCEPT games. It's the game publishers who really want to fight this, because they want to keep more of the blubber off that whale carcass.
The fights between the game publishers and the music companies are hurting the actual software industry. The two should be treated differently.
@Bart It sounded to me like that developer was selling some kind of professional service, not a game. They don’t need or want to use IAP; they just want to avoid interference like not being able to link to their own site or manage accounts within the app. Kind of like WordPress.
The game point is an interesting one. It’s kind of like how the small business program costs Apple virtually nothing. They try to create the perception that most of the App Store revenue is actually apps, not loot boxes. Google has differentiated for a while.
I wondered after I posted that if I had misunderstood in this case. Selling professional services through an app does seem ridiculous to take a huge cut of, and I thought they had carved out rules around it. But as we've seen those rules are inconsistently applied and subject to change at a moment's notice anyway.
In an case there are companies doing exactly what I described. And this all seems even more ridiculous for things other than games, when so many apps these days are basically just web views anyway, or entirely dependent on a remote server to make the app functional in any way.
