Apple (developer, details, Hacker News, TechCrunch, The Verge, 9To5Mac):

These changes resolve Apple’s disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution. They also reduce complexity by moving every developer that distributes apps in the EU to a single set of business terms.

[…]

The Core Technology Fee, a per-install fee for developers that achieve extraordinary scale, will be replaced by the Core Technology Commission, a simple 5 percent commission on digital transactions in apps distributed outside the App Store. The new terms also eliminate the initial acquisition fee and store services fee.

[…]

Under the updated terms, developers can now offer Apple In-App Purchase alongside alternative payment options, which had not previously been permitted in the EU.

[…]

Apple is also expanding who is eligible to operate an alternative app marketplace or distribute apps via the web in the EU.

[…]

Apple will continue to require every alternatively distributed app to go through Notarization[…]

Juli Clover:

Apple will charge a 26% fee for apps distributed through the App Store that use in-app purchase.

[…]

Apps in the App Store that use in-app alternative payment processing will pay 20%.

[…]

Apps that link to a website purchase option will pay 15%.

Apps using Web Distribution or App Marketplaces would pay the 5% CTC (and report transactions). I like that the new terms are simpler and that the fees are slightly lower, but it seems like the EU got tricked or surrendered here.

EMIRELADERO:

This is bonkers, I can’t believe the EU Commission agreed to it. The main issue that the DMA was about still remains: Apple retains ultimate control over app developers’ dealings with users.

The status quo that the EU should have pushed for, and which Article 6(7) of the DMA requires, is one where a developer can distribute iOS apps to users without ever entering into any contractual relationship with Apple.

mjorgers:

All in all, still extremely anti-consumer. If I can download and run arbitrary code on my Mac--even if I have to jump through scary warnings--why should I not be able to do so on my phone? Why would one computing platform be different from the other?

Ben Lovejoy:

However, while Apple hopes it will be allowed to charge these lower commissions, it has admitted in a new regulatory filing that it may not be allowed to charge any commission at all on purchases made through third-party app stores and other external platforms.

Tim Hardwick:

The commission Apple earns from the App Store is shrinking in markets where it has been forced to relax its grip on in-app purchases, based on new analytics data.

Previously:

• Apple Proposes 15% External Purchase Fee
• EU App Store Tiers and Core Technology Commission
• iOS Notarization’s Human Review

Update (2026-08-20): M.G. Siegler:

Notably, this isn’t a proposal, it’s the announcement of actual changes that Apple will implement (starting October 1) after “close collaboration” with the EC. And lest we think Apple is overplaying that last aspect, that group gave a statement to Bloomberg backing up the assertion[…]

[…]

This feels like mainly a way to keep the all-important big gaming fees – which make up most of in-app payments, and as such, most App Store fees – mostly intact.

[…]

It sure looks like Apple knew this EU deal was coming down the pike and that the bloc agreeing to their terms would bolster the case that these are “fair”. The US judge still gets to decide that, and Epic has already pushed back as Apple seeks to negotiate directly. One big reason for pushing? Epic wants to ensure any changes Apple tries to negotiate be put in place for all developers.

Juli Clover:

The European Commission has since confirmed that it approves of Apple’s changes to its App Store policies, giving a statement to the Irish Independent[…]

Richard Speed:

Epic Games, a longstanding critic of Apple’s App Store practices, called the scheme “junk fees,” adding that the plan did “nothing to open up the mobile app ecosystem to competition, as required by Digital Markets Act.”

“The law makes it clear that Apple must allow developers to offer link outs to the web for purchases ‘free of charge’ and has to allow ‘effective use’ of competing stores,” the company wrote.

Rui Carmo:

This changes effectively nothing I care about and continues to be completely laughable.

Kyle Howells:

Apple still in complete control over what is allowed in any iOS app.

Fabian Pimminger:

It’s so weird to me that the regulation that is explicitly against gatekeepers still allows Apple to be the gatekeeper.

Thomas Clement:

I hope this isn’t the end of DMA. Apple taking a cut of out-of-store apps revenue makes as much sense as app developers taking a cut of iPhone revenue.

[…]

And also I still want to live in a world where anyone can write a program and run it on the devices they own and send it to friends, without having to pay $100/year of developer account and do the whole notarization thing (which considering the amount of scam in the app store we know is pretty useless in terms of security). Not everybody is a professional programmer, some people are just doing programming as a hobby, some are also young people that don’t even own a credit card yet.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

I have refused to sign any of Apple’s EU DMA agreements thus far, because I think they are illegal, and they have been optional.

I still think their new terms are illegal — they don’t meet the minimum requirements of the DMA, and will not be approved by stakeholders — but they are no longer optional, so the choice now becomes accept the updated developer agreement or stop being a developer.

Update (2026-08-21): John Gruber:

This is a near-total victory for Apple.

[…]

Thanks to the DMA’s sprawling scope, complexity, and overreach, Apple came out of this conceding only 4 percent of the App Store’s 30 percent commission, and no reduction at all to the 15 percent for subscriptions after the first year.

Update (2026-08-24): Jesper:

The CTC is preferable to the CTF in much the same way that a fire burning down your kitchen is preferable to a fire burning down your entire house.

[…]

The Digital Markets Act was introduced to ensure that sideloading would be an available alternative, to essentially force open platforms that have been closed. Debates about the wisdom of this notwithstanding, in the biggest case, and up until recent developments in Android app marketplace governance also only case, it has failed to deliver the promises that were the entire point of the law.

Update (2026-08-25): John Gruber (Mastodon):

I’m sure some of you think I’m all wet in my argument that the point of the DMA was merely to impose ongoing bureaucratic complexity. But my view jibes with the reality of how it’s worked out.

In other words, maybe we who had high hopes were the ones who got tricked, not the EU Commission.

Update (2026-08-28): John Gruber:

I don’t recall seeing POSIWID before, but I love the concept. A friend sent this to me, with the quip that I forgot to include a link to it in my “What Is the Point of the DMA?” piece this week. Indeed, it encapsulates my arguments about the DMA specifically and the European Commission generally. The purpose of the DMA is what it does, not what you imagine it is intended to do.

I admit to being primed by seeing Jeff Johnson’s post, but I’m certain that my mind would anyway have immediately gone to our favorite scam promoting toll booth, the place that “gives people around the world a safe and trusted place to discover apps that meet [Apple’s] high standards for privacy, security, and content.”

Also consider which apps have to pay the toll and which ones show their own ads for free.

Juli Clover (AppleInsider):

Apple has again failed to earn a stay for fee calculations in its ongoing legal fight with Epic Games. Apple's case will be heard by the Supreme Court in the term that begins in October, and Apple asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to pause proceedings until then, but the court said no [PDF].

Juli Clover:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan today granted Apple a one-day stay in its legal fight with Epic Games, giving Apple more time to outline the fees it wants to charge developers for linking out to purchase options on the web.

M.G. Siegler:

Apple tried to freeze the entire thing while they appealed to the Supreme Court – and the Supreme Court denied the freeze. But they didn’t deny hearing the case – yet. That’s why they’re pausing the proceedings for now (after Judge Gonzalez Rogers denied the same request), while they weigh Apple’s appeal. But before they do that, they’re basically likely to decide today – again, it was just a 24-hour delay – whether they should grant a longer stay. Presumably if the court thinks they’re unlikely to hear Apple’s appeal, they may not grant that longer stay. Or if they think Apple filing their number won’t harm their business, they’ll let it proceed. But Apple will argue that if the longer stay isn’t granted, it will cause major harm to their business because again, it will effectively end the App Store cut as we know it.

Juli Clover (Engadget, The Verge):

Apple today submitted a court-ordered proposal outlining the commission it believes is reasonable to collect from U.S. apps that link to purchase options outside of the App Store.

Apple is asking for half of its commission on standard apps, so apps that would pay 30 percent for an in-app purchase would pay 15 percent when linking to a web purchase option. Small Business Program participants that would normally pay 15 percent would pay 5 percent.

[…]

The appeals court suggested the commission could be limited to the direct costs of facilitating link-outs, and under that approach, the fee would be zero. Apple says a zero commission would not reflect the value that it provides developers, and its suggested commission gives it fair compensation for the App Store platform.

[…]

The district court will now evaluate Apple’s fee proposal and hear a response from Epic Games , and Apple will need to implement the fee the court sets.

Apple:

Unlike cost-only based commissions, Apple’s revenue-based commissions incentivize continued investment. Apple charges developers a $99 annual fee for the Apple Developer Program. May 17, 2021 Trial Tr. at 2762:21–2763:13. This modest fee—designed to prevent fraud and expressly not intended to compensate Apple for the use of its IP-protected tools, technologies, and services (id.)—allows developers to build apps using Apple’s offerings and deliver experiences to iOS and iPadOS users worldwide.

The annual developer fee is nominal. Apple relies on percentage-based commissions to recoup and profit from its investments. See id. ¶¶ 87–93. Apple is incentivized to invest in IP- protected tools, technologies, and services that generate revenue for developers (and benefit users).

[…]

Dr. Carlton explains that “reduc[ing] Apple’s incentive to invest and provide the technology and services that benefit users and developers” would harm users and developers, as well as Apple.

I like the part where Apple’s expert argues that its normal commission rates are so high that it would still be profitable for developers to pay the proposed linking commissions on top of what they would pay to Stripe or Paddle. In other words, paying Apple for “IP” almost twice what it admits the other companies charge for “full-service, turnkey payment processing.”

Jeff Johnson:

If the point [of the $99] is just to prevent fraud, why do we need to keep paying $99 yearly FOREVER? Is 10 years not enough to prove I’m not a fraud?!?

If the fee doesn’t help pay for Apple IP, then it’s even more blatantly unfair that a minority of apps have to pay for ALL apps to access Apple IP. Free apps, no matter how big or how much $ they make via ads, get access to Apple IP from OUR REVENUE CUT, and not even their $99 counts.

Matt Garber:

That’s what that enormous hardware margin from customers is already supposed to be paying for — Apple IP! In the early 00’s, I gladly paid the “Apple tax” (PowerBook G4) to get access to the Mac OS X software/ecosystem, including all the Unix and dev tools. I’m not sure why anyone thinks that double-dipping is fine on all the non-Mac platforms, App Store or not.

Jeff Johnson (2):

Schiller’s [previous] testimony about the previous program is extremely misleading, because the new program began in 2008 at the same time as the App Store, so there was no previous iOS developer program, and Mac Developer ID did not begin until 2012, so Apple Developer Program membership was not actually required to distribute Mac apps!

Jeff Johnson:

Fourth, it appears that Steve Jobs was wrong: the $99 fee didn’t prevent developers from flooding the App Store with a lot of junk.

I want to quote another remarkable passage from Schiller’s testimony, again with questions from Apple’s own lawyer.

Q. And Mr. Jobs says, “And also just to make it a little clearer, we don’t intend to make money off the App Store. I mean, we don’t make a lot of money off iTunes, and the split with the music companies is about the same, so in the case of the iTunes Music Store, we give all the money to the content owners, and we are basically giving all the money to the developers here. And if that 30 percent of it pays for running the store, well, that will be great, but we just want to create a very efficient channel for these developers to reach every single iPhone user.” Is that a statement that Mr. Jobs made back in March 2008?

A. He did.

[…]

I won’t quote the following passage in which Schiller testifies about his internal email suggesting that Apple limit itself to $1 billion per year in profit from the App Store, hand-waving away the suggestion as merely “spurring conversation.” Of course the email also seems to contradict Schiller’s (absurd) testimony that Apple does not specifically calculate profit from the App Store, only company-wide profit. Apple’s public financial statements also appear to contradict Schiller’s claims.

Previously:

• TabControl Scam and the App Review Queue
• Apple Asks Supreme Court to Review Epic Ruling
• External Purchase Fee Stay Reversed
• Lower App Store Fees in China
• Lower Google Play Store Fees and Registered App Stores
• Apple Granted Stay Over External Purchase Fee
• “Reasonably Necessary” External Purchase Fee
• Testimony on External Purchase Fee and Scare Screens
• App Store External Purchase Fee: 27%

Update (2026-08-20): Marcus Mendes:

On the same day, Apple submitted another motion, asking Judge Gonzalez Rogers to order the parties to attend a settlement conference.

[…]

Epic has now responded to Apple’s motion, stating that although the company “has been, and remains today, willing to entertain any direct approach from Apple with a serious settlement proposal that would introduce competition and benefit all developers,” it “does not believe the prospects of such settlement would be meaningfully advanced through referral to a settlement conference at this juncture.”

Update (2026-09-03): Marcus Mendes:

In addition to the proposal itself, Apple submitted supporting expert reports, alongside a request to seal portions of those filings containing financial data, link-out adoption estimates, developer survey results, and other information Apple considers commercially sensitive.

Epic has now filed an opposition to Apple’s request, arguing “Apple again seeks to conceal information from the public and unnecessarily hamper proceedings.”