From Grubes

UPDATE: There are exceptions to the $99 developer fee, for nonprofit organizations in five countries:

You can request to have the 99 USD annual membership fee waived if you’re a nonprofit organization, accredited educational institution, or government entity that will distribute only free apps on the App Store and is based in an eligible country. Apple will review your request and contact you to let you know whether your request is approved.

Eligible countries: Brazil, China, Japan, United Kingdom, United States.

It’d be interesting to know how many of these waivers have been granted.

I've done some app work for a non-profit, and it's the only reason I have a dev account. Looks like I need to start the ball rolling on this, though I'm guessing it'll take long enough I'll still shell out $99 later this month for the upcoming year.

Macrumors:

Facebook's executive team, including Mark Zuckerberg, used the data of Facebook users as leverage over partner companies, according to leaked emails, webchats, presentations, spreadsheets, and more obtained by NBC News.

More than 4,000 pages of leaked documents from 2011 to 2015 provide insight into how Facebook was taking advantage of user data while publicly promising to protect user privacy before and after its 2015 move to end broad access to user data.

I'm shocked.

Grubes again

On a recent Monday night, a dozen marketing companies, research firms and other personal data guzzlers got reports from my iPhone. At 11:43 p.m., a company called Amplitude learned my phone number, email and exact location. At 3:58 a.m., another called Appboy got a digital fingerprint of my phone. At 6:25 a.m., a tracker called Demdex received a way to identify my phone and sent back a list of other trackers to pair up with.

And all night long, there was some startling behavior by a household name: Yelp. It was receiving a message that included my IP address — once every five minutes.

This is all going on via Background App Refresh. You can see which apps have this permission on your iOS device in Settings: General: Background App Refresh (it’s the 8th item in General in iOS 12).

Note to self: Turn off Yelp background refresh. Actually, turn it off for everything that doesn't have a clear reason to have it.

Sign-in with Apple sounds wonderful. It’s interesting to compare it to the original goals of Microsoft Passport.

MacRumors

When Apple has to make a difficult decision regarding an app in the App Store, its fate is determined in a meeting of a group called the Executive Review Board or ERB, led by Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller.

...

The Executive Review Board meets once per week and discusses controversial apps or iPhone apps that might be infringing on App Store guidelines, and it has the final word on whether an app can stay on the store or if it's going to be removed.

Nothing really to say here. It’s a bizarre process that you can’t ever get right.

Macrumors again

Apple has filed a response to Spotify's anticompetitive complaint about the App Store in Europe, noting that Spotify pays Apple a 15 percent commission for only about 0.5 percent of its paying subscribers, according to CNET.

That figure equates to around 680,000 users who subscribed to Spotify through its iOS app, via Apple's in-app purchase system, between 2014 and 2016. This is because Apple only collects a 30 percent commission for the first year of a subscription, at which point the fee drops to 15 percent.

Huh? So what’s the percentage for subscribers paying 30%? What percentage of Spotify subscribers are still on recurring iOS subscriptions?

A quick google says the subscription option for premium was taken out no earlier than mid–2016. Why should this number be higher? What was its height?

What absolutely crap numbers from Apple that have very little to do with Spotify’s current position.

Also interesting: The people who posted in that thread that without an in-iOS option, they couldn’t have access. Do parents have an option for “all you can eat in-app payments” or something this kids can access?

Macrumors

While the current Mac Pro has been manufactured in Texas since it was released in 2013, The Wall Street Journal reports that the new Mac Pro unveiled earlier this month will be assembled by Quanta Computer in China.

It’s a shame Apple can’t find a way to eat enough profit to manufacture at least some Mac Pros, an item starting at $7k, in the US.

Labels: apple, apple fail, business, facebook, spotify