Apple have had a remarkably bad week for developer relations leading in to their most important developer conference WWDC 2020, the annual event where Apple tries to woo developers to develop for it’s platforms.
To start things off, Rakuten, makers of the Kobo e-reader have filed an antitrust complaint in the EU, this joining an existing antitrust complain by Spotify, all around Apple’s anticompetitive App Store behavior. On top of that, US member of Congress and more importantly Chairman of the House anti-trust sub-committee Rep David Cicilline went on record saying:
“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,” said Rep. Cicilline. “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.”
This comment is coming in direct response to very public and very direct comments from @DHH, creator of Ruby on Rails and founder of Basecamp over their app “Hey” being removed from the App Store, with the worst possible wording:
Oof… so basically no IAP, no making App Store money, you’re not welcome here. You can learn more in the video below.