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Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

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Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#61

Post by ryandrake »

berkes wrote: post #19
iandanforth wrote: post #11

The comments here read like people with Stockholm syndrome.

There certainly seems a bias for Apple in here. What I really don't understand is why Some Random Hacker feels the need to jump into a thread and defend Apple, one of the wealthiest companies in the world.

Whenever you see a company "forcing" someone to do something, it's almost always an exaggeration. Apple has never forced me to do anything, nor are they forcing developers to do things. Their employees aren't holding a gun to anyone's head. A better description would be "As a condition of developing an app with a free trial, Apple requires developers to implement auto-billing." But, that wording doesn't cause enough drama and outrage, so we have "forcing" instead.

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#63

Post by ryandrake »

m3kw9 wrote: post #35

So you promised a 1 month free trial, and after one month you either disable the app, or not charge and let them continue their free trial. Either is allowed or makes sense.

Does Apple now allow an app to start up but do nothing? Back when I was a developer, that was against the AppStore guidelines.

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#64

Post by wool_gather »

gizmo wrote: post #31
bluesign wrote: post #13

To be honest this rule is for a reason. Onboarding people without price, then telling them about price certainly will increase your retention, but not the best case from consumer side. From twitter they say: “ We've experimented with auto-charging trials in the past and they lead to (1) fewer users trying the product (2) a huge number of refund requests by users who forget to cancel and (3) complete disbelief from th…

If the issue is that app developers are not upfront about pricing then the solution is to tell app developers to be more upfront about pricing.

Apple does indeed have rules they enforce about this. Anecdotally, I see quite a bit of chatter/questions about App Store review rejections due to the wording or lack of billing copy, compared to other reasons.

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#65

Post by Jnr »

thomasedwards wrote: post #8

Meanwhile... I’m fairly certain I’ve read that the EU and both Visa and MasterCard are looking at ways to prevent auto-billing without secondary confirmation.

I thought this was already illegal in EU. I guess there are still some things to be fixed. :)

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#66

Post by ballenf »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #23
igorlp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also access subscriptions via “Settings > AppleID Banner > Subscriptions”

I think this was only added in the latest iOS release. That said, most iOS devices that can run the latest version are running some variant of v13.

Every release since trials were implemented seem to have made cancellations easier and subscription status review more prominent. It's now to the point of almost being annoying in how many different places take you to subscriptions. But great for casual users, so I don't complain (except here).

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#67

Post by jkaplowitz »

Quebec's Consumer Protection Act makes it outright illegal to auto-bill after free trials for non-business individual customers based here, regardless of what legalese those consumers agree to.

How does Apple's policy allow for that? They can't claim they can ignore Quebec law, as they have both an Apple Store and a corporate office in Montreal and already acknowledge another provision of the same Quebec law on their Canadian online store website.

(Quebec has no problem with requiring payment information at the time of sign-up, per se, whether as an anti-fraud measure or to make it easy for the customer to subsequently opt in for paid service.)

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#68

Post by ballenf »

berkes wrote: post #46
hellofunk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because without the voice of reason to help balance things out, there would be a strong misleading conception that everything about being a developer on Apple’s platforms is 100 percent negative, but this is certainly far from the truth. There are pros and cons, I don’t think it’s necessarily better or worse than developing on other platforms. The advantages outweigh the negatives much of the time.

That explains one or two comments countering an attack on Apple with arguments. I see those too. But it does not explain all the anecdotal (I've never had o cancel. For me X is not an issue. I don't know anyone ever coplaining about Y) arguments. Or personal attacks. And so on. It really reeks like a tribal war. The scorched smell of flamewars.

It might just be that a lot of devs here make their entire living on App Store subscriptions. The numbers Apple trumpets mean that there are thousands upon thousands of devs in this position and probably more than a few of them are HN posters.

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#69

Post by burlesona »

_jal wrote: post #40
iandanforth wrote: post #11

The comments here read like people with Stockholm syndrome.

Subscriptions mean I purchase far less software. This is an empirical observation - my personal software spending is down something like 80% over the last couple years, and it is due to the friction of subscriptions. The main thing is I do not like assigning myself future decisions, especially about money, and I don't like ongoing financial obligations. I'm not saying this is strictly rational; I'm sure there are tim…

I think the tricky part is how many applications these days are relatively “dumb” clients that rely on a back-end server at least for data storage and potentially even for compute. You can’t really offer something like that as a one-time purchase because the backend requires continuous operation and maintenance for the software to work.

These days a lot of consumers don’t want to deal with file management or having to think about their data, so it’s increasingly the case that “the app magically works via the cloud” is table stakes.

I agree, though, I don’t like it and I buy less software as a result. This especially frustrates me with things like the Adobe creative suite and Creative tools in that category. I used to keep a fairly robust collection of image editors, sound editors, etc. but so many of those things have gone subscription that I just don’t bother anymore.

Re: Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial

#70

Post by saurik »

kemayo wrote: post #9

Apple's approach isn't as bad as this title makes it sound. Mostly because they're aggressive communicators about subscription billing -- they send emails well in advance of any subscription renewal, telling you when you'll be billed, how much for, and giving you a link to cancel the subscription. Makes me feel this isn't them hoping you'll just forget and be billed. In fact, I'd suspect this is intended as a user-fr…

I guess that works if you actually check your email :/. (edit: People are downvoting this heavily, but this is 2020 so I would expect stuff like "your free trial is ending" to come in the form of organized push notifications from the App Store. I even like email, but have essentially been trained to not bother with it as no one else is using it either... we are even now exclusively on messaging apps at work ;P.)
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