Phil Schiller: Apple won't change App Store rules for Hey

      On the morning of June 19, Phil Schiller, Apple's vice president of marketing, told TechCrunch that Apple would not change the App Store rules to accommodate the "Hey" app. The app was unwilling to pay Apple a 30% commission, thus canceling the in-app purchase and registration options.

Hey app can only log in

　　Schiller said there are "a lot of things" that the Hey app's developers can do to make the app work within existing App Store rules, and Apple "would like them to do that."

　　Hey is an email app that costs $99 per year. Subscriptions to the service need to be purchased on the Hey website, not in the mobile app, because Hey's developers don't want to pay Apple's 30% "Apple tax."

　　Currently, the app does not offer in-app purchases or registration options. After opening the app, users will be directly shown the login screen and will be informed that they cannot subscribe to the service in the app. Since Apple does not allow purchase options to be provided in the form of external links, Hey also does not have a website registration link.

　　Schiller believes that this is a very suboptimal experience for users.

　　"You download the app and it doesn't work, and that's not what we want in the App Store," Schiller said. That's why Apple requires apps to offer in-app purchases and to do so in a way that's consistent with purchasing capabilities elsewhere, he said.

　　Apple does have a rule requiring apps that offer subscriptions and purchase options on the web and elsewhere to offer in-app purchases so users can sign up right on their iPhone or iPad, but it makes an exception to this rule for "Reader" apps.

　　For example, Netflix and Spotify can be downloaded from the App Store, and users cannot register in the app and must have an existing account. Hey wants to be like these apps. But Apple believes that the former can display additional content such as music, books and movies, and Hey is not as high-quality as a "reader" app.

　　"We didn't extend these exceptions to all apps," Schiller said. "There was never an exception for email." Schiller believes Apple made a mistake when it approved the original version of the Hey app - rejecting Hey from the Mac App Store while ignoring the iOS version.

　　TechCrunch asked Schiller if he wanted Apple to take a cut of all revenues from businesses that own apps, regardless of whether the app started on iOS, but Schiller said: "(Apple) doesn't do that."

　　Schiller said Hey's developers could choose a number of ways to comply with Apple's rules, such as charging different prices in the app and online, or offering a free version with paid features that could be purchased through the Hey website.

　　Apple also provided TechCrunch with a copy of the letter it sent to the Hey team, which outlined the rules Hey had violated and explained that Apple was happy to provide the team with free distribution of the app as long as it stayed within the rules.

　　"Thank you for becoming an iOS app developer. We understand that Basecamp (Hey's development team) has developed many apps and subsequent version updates for the ‌App Store‌ over the years, and that the ‌App Store‌ has distributed millions of such apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchases - and therefore, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store in the past 8 years. We are happy to continue supporting your app business and provide you with a free solution - as long as you comply with and respect the same App Store Review Guidelines and Terms that all developers must abide by."

　　The Apple tax incident has fermented again. A US congressman said during a program that Apple's App Store charging policy is similar to "highway robbery." However, some people believe that the existence of the "Apple tax" is reasonable, and it is precisely because of its existence that developers can provide applications with consistent experience, thus providing consumers with a good application environment.