Apple Makes Changes to App Store Rules

Technology is changing at a really rapid pace which means that rules and regulations that have been put in place both by government organizations as well as private entities need to be revised every so often in order to accurately reflect these disparate and often random evolution and changes. This is ringing true for the Apple App store as well. The rules that governed the app store were guidelines that determined what kinds of apps were allowed, but game streaming apps, widgets as well as App Clips, which are essentially apps that have been slimmed down so that they can function on lower end phones, are all fairly new and so needed to be added to the guidelines so that they can be regulated properly.

In app purchases have been defined as well, particularly at what times these purchases will be collected. This is coming in the aftermath of Apple’s legal battle with Epic, the company behind Fortnite. With regulators creating obstacles in a lot of regions due to what they perceive as Apple’s anti-competitive and therefore monopolistic practices, Apple needed to make a lot of changes and this seems to be a step that it is taking to ensure that these changes end up preventing any further regulation from hampering Apple’s progress.

A lot of the guidelines and rules that Apple is adding have been known for quite some time, they are just being added now so that they exist in written form from iOS 14 onwards. Game streaming apps such as Google Stadia as well as Microsoft xCloud are completely new entities, and they will have to submit each game that they are offering individually which means that they will all be judged separately. These apps that provide all kinds of features instead of just one are quite unprecedented, and Apple will need to come up with ways in which they can be regulated effectively.


Photo: DKart via Getty Images

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