The ugly side to Apple's embrace of third-party payments | Digital Trends

Apple says it will allow app developers in South Korea to enable third-party payment systems in their apps. In doing so, developers will no longer be forced to pay a 30% cut of their gross app revenue for using the App Store’s own in-app payment system.

The high fees aren’t going anywhere The hangups are seen right off the bat. If developers want to use other payment systems instead of Apple’s, they’ll be subject to a 26% commission for all in-app payments made by users. And that’s before any other processing fees and dues. For context, that’s just a 4% lower rate than the 30% cut Apple charges flagship developers and significantly more than the 15% commission charged for smaller developers.

A region-locked ploy with numerous chores The meager 4% relief that Apple offers is limited to apps solely distributed in South Korea. Plus, it’s not a cakewalk to save that 4% cut of the app revenue. Developers will have to share their monthly revenue with Apple within 15 days of each month’s completion — data that Apple will audit before it takes its reduced 26% cut.

More work for developers Another key aspect is that developers will need to submit a separate binary of their app to get approval for the exemption, which officially goes by the name StoreKit External Purchase Entitlement. This app binary is essentially a clone of the app that will use an external payment system and will be distributed solely in South Korea.

But that’s not all, as the real psychological test begins when an app presents the option of a third-party payment gateway to users. Every app that relies on an external payment service will show a message to users informing them about it. This unavoidable hassle tells users that they are leaving Apple’s secure ecosystem to make a payment and that Apple isn’t responsible for what happens next.

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