Apple Will Not Change Its App Store Rules and Decision on the “Hey” Email App

At the beginning of this month, Apple faced with an antitrust investigation that have already begun in Europe due to strict rules in the App Store and Apple Pay. The reason was a 30% commission on sales in apps.

Some developers have concerns about Apple policies. For example, David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO of Basecamp and the new Hey email service, called Apple "gangsters." According to David, Apple demanded to add a subscription to Hey through the App Store. Otherwise, his app would be removed from the App Store.

But Apple has another opinion and believes that changing the rules in the App Store makes no sense. Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, is confident that the company is making reasonable demands on the Hey email app.

Hey does not work correctly on iOS. According to Schiller, Hey is non-functional out of the box, and that is one reason why Apple requires developers to include in-app purchase options.

"You download the app, and it doesn't work, that's not what we want on the store," Phil Schiller said.

The inability to pay or register is a direct violation of the App Store rules. It wouldn't happen if Hansson’s team fulfilled all the conditions at the stage of uploading the app into the store. Also, several Hansson’s apps uploaded to the App Store had no internal payment, so the company did not receive any benefits.

Apple can make exceptions, but only for a particular type of content such as music, books, and movies. Mail services do not fall into this rule. Schiller added that the Hey app was initially accepted to the App Store by mistake.

In conclusion, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing said the user experience in the app could not be excellent and safe unless developers used internal payment and Apple Pay.