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Your iPhone apps are becoming a living laboratory for a potential new era in technology.
Last week, a federal court judge said that Apple has used illegal, anticompetitive tactics to set artificially high fees for app makers in the United States. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said apps now have the option to skip Apple's fees and strict rules for digital purchases such as streaming video subscriptions and extra moves in the Candy Crush game.
Apple says it disagreed with the ruling. On Monday, the company filed a legal notice that it will appeal. Apple declined to comment further.
With new freedom, it's now up to apps to show you an alternative to Apple's status quo. They have a shot to lower prices you pay and come up with imaginative ideas that they say haven't been possible under Apple's app dictatorship. (Already new: You can buy a Spotify subscription and Kindle e-book from those iPhone apps.)
Or, maybe most apps won't change much, because you like things the way they are.
In the next few weeks and months, you'll have a chance to judge if you prefer the ways that Apple has shaped your technology and the internet economy beyond - or if the company has imposed an unwelcome tax on your budget and shackled app innovation.
• A nuclear bomb to apps as you know them
For instance, if you go to Spotify's iPhone app in the U.S. now and tap the "Get started" button, you won't be able to buy it, because Spotify didn't want to follow Apple's requirement to hand over $3.60 of your $11.99 subscription every month.
Spotify's only alternative was to block you from buying from its app, and on the blocking message, using language Apple mandated, such as "it's not ideal" that you can't get the app.
What changed in those few days was Gonzalez Rogers's order. She gave apps in the U.S. the option to bypass Apple as a middleman when you buy digital goods, and skip Apple's fees.
If those apps want, your purchasing experience is now dictated by Spotify or Tinder, not Apple. It's similar to how Spotify controls your buying experience on its website or Walmart dictates buying in its iPhone app.
Maybe this isn't a revolution. But it's the biggest shake-up - at least on paper - in the 17-year history of Apple's App Store.
In those years, apps have been required to adhere to Apple's meticulous, voluminous rule books.
Some of those rules help you, like mandating that Apple must screen apps for potential scams and ensure there's easy-to-find customer service help. But sometimes Apple's rules serve little useful purpose.
Why does Apple handle the purchasing of a $20 e-book in an iPhone app and demand a $6 fee, but stay out of it when you buy a $20 blender from Walmart's app? Why does Apple take a cut of your Peloton fitness subscription forever because you clicked "buy" once in its iPhone app? If you buy a Disney+ subscription from its iPhone app, why must you contact Apple and not Disney if you have problems?
Multiple governments and app developers have tried for years to force Apple to loosen its requirements to see if that sparked fresh ideas or lower prices. But Apple has delayed, dodged and flouted those attempts - until Gonzalez Rogers set off a nuclear bomb in the App Store.
In 80 pages dripping with words such as "outright lied," "ludicrous," "insubordination," "willfully violated," and "a desire to conceal," Gonzalez Rogers wrote that those Apple requirements existed to maximize the company's profits - not to benefit you. She obliterated chunks of Apple's app rule book.
(Apple's requirements to screen apps for scams and ease of use still remain.)
• New era for apps, or nothing much?
App makers must now put up or shut up.
With the option to skip Apple's fees of up to 30 percent, they need to prove that they'll charge less for streaming video, ChatGPT subscriptions and mobile game downloads, and that more of your tips will go directly to your favorite TikTok creators.
They must make it simple to pay and quit paying, as Apple does as the in-app middleman.
Apps need to prove they have useful ideas that couldn't have existed under Apple's thumb.
For example, a news app might want to sell you a single digital article or a musician might want paid digital fan clubs with special perks, but the math doesn't work after paying Apple's middleman fees. Are those ideas viable now - and would you even like them?
Another possibility is apps won't innovate or cut prices. You might like apps the way they are, or apps might use the break from Apple's fees to pocket more money.
I asked about 30 businesses how they plan to use the new flexibility from the judge's order. Most said nothing. It will take time to cook up new ideas, and they may wait to see if Gonzalez Rogers's order holds up on appeal.
I'm stunned already by early glimmers of change. You can now click to buy an Amazon Kindle e-book from its iPhone app, I believe for the first time in many years. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) You should soon see some lower-priced options in Patreon's iPhone app to pay creative professionals like podcasters.
And Fortnite said it's returning to U.S. iPhones, five years after Apple blacklisted the app for trying to dodge the company as a middleman to digital purchases.
That's a taste of what could be useful from breaking Apple's complete control over apps. I don't know what happens next. In the era of Big Tech's lock on technology, the uncertainty is novel and potentially thrilling.
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