App Revenue

Following Apple's lead, Google is now also lowering the levy for app developers who earn less than a million dollars a year through the internet company's software marketplace. Instead of the usual 30 per cent, they are to cede 15 per cent from 1 July, as the company announced on Tuesday. After reaching the million mark, 30 per cent of sales via the Play Store will be due again.

According to the company, this step will halve the charges. However, one should also bear in mind that the majority of sales in the app stores for Android and iOS are made by the most popular programmes. Nothing will change for their developers. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of apps whose creators will benefit from the regulation are likely to generate little or no significant revenue anyway due to a lack of visibility and demand.

Apple will cut the App Store commission by 15 percent for all developers earning less than $1 million in annual sales per year, half of Apple’s standard 30 percent fee.

"The App Store Small Business Program, which will launch on January 1, 2021, comes at an important time as small and independent developers continue working to innovate and thrive during a period of unprecedented global economic challenge," so the company in a statement on their website.

Apple has removed Fortnite from the App Store after Epic Games implemented Thursday its in-app payment system that bypassed Apple’s standard 30% fee. Later Thursday Google also removed the game from the Android Play Store.

Epic Games responded with a series of calculated actions, including an antitrust lawsuit claiming Apple's App Store is a monopoly, a video mocking the iconic "1984" Apple ad, and encouraging fans to use #FreeFortnite on their communications with Apple.

Spotify’s spokesman Adam Grossberg said, "We applaud Epic Games' decision to take a stand against Apple and shed further light on Apple's abuse of its dominant position." 

In a series of tweets, Basecamp CTO David Heinemeier Hansson details the App Store's rejection of a bug fix update of Basecamp's new email service "HEY". According to Heinemeier Hansson, after a bug fix update was rejected, Apple has demanded that the company adds an in-app subscription and that it shares up to 30% of its revenue with Apple to prevent the app from being removed from the App Store. "HEY" is selling its $99 annual subscription on its website and is refusing to comply with the demand, with Heinemeier Hansson writing: "There is no chance in bloody hell that we're going to pay Apple's ransom. I will burn this house down myself, before I let gangsters like that spin it for spoils. This is profoundly, perversely abusive and unfair."