Apple Might End The Era Of Free Apps

Is the inevitable consequence of various court cases that Apple will ban free apps?

Might you have to pay for all apps soon? (Photo by William Hook on Unsplash)

App developers appear to have scored a victory over Apple. Following an investigation by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, Apple has (with what appears to be a great deal of reluctance) agreed to let ‘reader apps’ provide a link so that customers can subscribe on the developer’s own website instead of having to subscribe via Apple. In other words, Apple is deprived of a juicy cut.

The repercussions here are potentially massive. ‘Reader apps’ is a rather misleading term, in that it covers any app that “provides previously purchased content or content subscriptions for digital magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video”.

Think Spotify. Think Netflix. Think Amazon Kindle. Many of these apps simply refused to sell subscriptions via iOS anyway, so Apple isn’t being deprived of much revenue — it wasn’t getting any from many of the big players in the first place. But the ruling could have much wider implications.

Apple is, of course, currently embroiled in another huge legal battle with Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, over ostensibly the same issue. Epic broke Apple’s rules by allowing iOS players to buy Fortnite currency (V-Bucks) directly from Epic, Apple…