Originally published at: Apple Should Align Its Corporate Behavior with Its Stated Values - TidBITS
More so than any other tech giant (Google’s fading “Don’t be evil” slogan notwithstanding), Apple has built its brand over the years around being a good corporate citizen. Apple has long espoused a commitment to user experience, privacy, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility, touting its attention to detail in product design, its sustainability efforts, and its focus on accessibility.
Apple’s version of “Don’t be evil” is “Leaving the world better than we found it.” Tim Cook opened the most recent earnings call with, “We are as dedicated as ever to the innovation and ingenuity that will enrich our customers’ lives and help us leave the world better than we found it.” Apple also promotes this theme among its developers—the Apple Stories page in the company’s Newsroom features stories about “creators, developers, and innovators leaving the world better than they found it.”
App Store Policy Disconnect
The problem lies in the contradiction between Apple’s publicly espoused values and the corporate behavior exposed in the April 2025 ruling from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Epic v. Apple antitrust lawsuit. Although Apple largely prevailed in the original case back in September 2021, the court took exception to Apple’s anti-steering policies (see “Judge Rules for Apple over Epic Games, Strikes Down App Store Anti-Steering Policies,” 13 September 2021).
Under the original App Store policies, developers were required to process all in-app purchases through Apple and pay a 30% fee, with no option to direct users to external payment systems or even mention their existence. (Apple dropped the fee to 15% for small developers who earn less than $1 million per year and for the second and subsequent years of subscriptions; see “Developers v. Apple: Outlining Complaints about the App Store,” 13 August 2020.) In the initial ruling, Gonzalez Rogers issued an injunction requiring Apple to allow linking to external payment systems.
Reluctant Compliance
Apple complied in the most grudging manner possible, instituting significant limitations on how the links were displayed, making developers apply for specific entitlements, and requiring a 27% (12% for small developers) fee anyway. Since credit card fees alone make it impossible to process a payment for less than 3%, there was no financial benefit to sidestepping Apple’s in-app purchase system. Only a handful of developers did—the latest ruling notes that, as of May 2024, just 34 of 136,000 App Store developers applied for the external payment program.
In the most recent injunction, Gonzalez Rogers found Apple to be in willful violation of the 2021 injunction, closing with:
This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases
This time, Apple’s compliance took the form of new App Store rules that allow linking to external payment systems without any entitlements or restrictions. Well-known developers like Spotify, Kindle, and Patreon quickly issued updates featuring such links, and payment processor Stripe provided instructions for iOS developers.
However, Apple also promptly filed an emergency motion for a partial stay pending appeal, so the case will move to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which may or may not agree that Gonzalez Rogers overstepped by forcing Apple to eliminate all fees.
The Costs of Prioritizing Profit over Partnerships
The problem here isn’t just recalcitrant legal compliance. It’s one thing for Apple to exert tight control over the App Store ecosystem in ways that legitimately serve users, such as by detecting and rejecting malicious apps. However, it’s difficult to see how users benefit when Apple charges high fees and restricts how developers can communicate. Those are just a few of the complaints developers have with the App Store, many of whom feel trapped in a system that prioritizes Apple’s profits over collaborative partnership.
That tension is increasingly undermining Apple’s reputation. In the eyes of many developers and a growing number of users, the same company that claims to be a champion of creativity and innovation is behaving more like a Gilded Age robber baron. Those roles aren’t always mutually exclusive—Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt combined monopolistic business practices with genuine social contributions—but with the kind of profits Apple is pulling in, the disconnect between the company’s narrative and its behavior is unnecessary and unhelpful.
To be clear, Apple is not obligated to be generous—it’s a business, not a charity. But by treating developers as resources to be exploited, Apple risks tarnishing its positive contributions to society. More concretely, sales could suffer if Apple’s public reputation becomes that of a sullen bully that has to be forced by the courts to behave reasonably. As the precipitous drop in Tesla sales has shown, consumers can react negatively to corporate behavior even when it’s completely separate from an otherwise desirable product.
A Better Path Forward
Apple’s resistance to adhering to the spirit of the original injunction backfired. Instead of cutting its 30% fee to 27% for those using external payment systems, had Apple dropped it to 10%, developers would have had a real choice between paying more for Apple’s frictionless transactions or paying less and doing more work for a more complex user experience. Epic’s appeal would have had far less of a leg to stand on, and Apple would have faced competitive pressure to encourage further improvements.
Although this most recent injunction is entirely self-inflicted, I don’t think Apple should be forced to allow developers to use external payment systems for free. Apple does provide real value to developers with its development tools, operating system APIs, and the App Store itself, and it’s reasonable for Apple to benefit from creating and maintaining that ecosystem. But not to the tune of 30%, which I’ve always considered ridiculous—over a decade ago, our payment processing fees for Take Control were less than 10% for a full-fledged ecommerce solution. If Apple is lucky, the appeals court will agree and allow a reasonable percentage.
In “Staying the Course After 35 Years of TidBITS” (18 April 2025), I wrote:
I encourage you to align your actions with your values in a way that feels right to you. When the path forward seems unclear, I believe we can best contribute by modeling the behavior we want to see in the world. How we conduct business on an everyday basis matters.
I’m disappointed in Apple’s behavior throughout the Epic case. Rather than come off as truculent and money-grubbing, Apple could have—and still can—extend the culture of excellence and care that’s so evident in its hardware and interface design to the people who make the apps that power its devices.
Much of the appeal of the Apple ecosystem stems from the creative and innovative work of tens of thousands of developers who create apps for audiences that Apple doesn’t even know exist. Apple itself will say just that at WWDC in less than a month. But will it start treating developers as valued partners who are essential to the ecosystem?
Apple is one of the most profitable companies in history. It can afford to be better, and I would argue that any short-term reduction in profit would more than pay off in the long run. If Apple wants to leave the world better than it found it, now is the time to align its behavior toward developers with the rest of the company’s stated values.
