Apple sticks to it's decision to stop updates of Hey email app on App Store

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

After the company Basecamp said that Apple has refused to publish any Hey email app's future updates for iOS users, Apple reviewed and wrote a letter back to Basecamp. According to it, Apple is sticking to its decision and said that Hey email app has broken some App Store guidelines and should meet those requirements for it to continue providing any further updates to Hey email app, reported by The Verge.

The decision has become controversial among the tech community as Apple faced similar allegations before for taking up to 30% cut on in-app purchases from apps installed from App Store. To avoid this cut, some developers may want to have their own payment method by redirecting the user to their official website where the user can directly pay the developer without the intermediary, App Store.

Basecamp, which published the email app Hey on App Store, wanted to follow the same process and have their users pay them directly, but this resulted in rejection from App Store to publish future updates for Hey app, and Apple also suggested that the app will be removed from App Store if it doesn't meet the three guidelines(3.1.1,3.1.3 (a),3.1.3 (b)) of App Store according to a tweet by Hey app's co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson.

Wow. I'm literally stunned. Apple just doubled down on their rejection of HEY's ability to provide bug fixes and new features, unless we submit to their outrageous demand of 15-30% of our revenue. Even worse: We're told that unless we comply, they'll REMOVE THE APP.

— DHH (@dhh) June 16, 2020

In one of his tweets, he called Apple "Gangsters". Spotify also accused Apple of charging 30% cut from its monthly subscription and in case of otherwise, Apple refused to feature it on the App Store's home page which will reduce the chance of getting new subscribers. Some companies have come in support for the Hey app, those companies include Epic and Match Group.

Chairman of the House antitrust subcommittee, Rep. David Cicilline, has told Verge that "Because of the market power that Apple has, it is charging exorbitant rents, highway robbery, basically bullying people to pay 30 percent or denying access to their market, it’s crushing small developers who simply can’t survive with those kinds of payments. If there were real competition in this marketplace, this wouldn’t happen"

Apple wrote in the letter that "We understand that Basecamp has developed a number of apps and many subsequent versions for the App Store for many years, and that the App Store has distributed millions of these apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchase and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years, we are happy to continue to support you in your app business and offer you the solutions to provide your services for free, so long as you follow and respect the same App Store Review Guidelines and terms that all developers must follow."