
Apple forcing app developers to implement auto-billing after free trial - benologist
https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/hj57fv/apple_forcing_app_developers_to_implement/
======
kemayo
Apple's approach isn't as bad as this title makes it sound.

Mostly because they're aggressive communicators about subscription billing --
they send emails well in advance of any subscription renewal, telling you when
you'll be billed, how much for, and giving you a link to cancel the
subscription. Makes me feel this isn't them hoping you'll just forget and be
billed.

In fact, I'd suspect this is _intended_ as a user-friendly feature. It means
you had to be presented with the cost up-front before you began the trial,
avoiding letting shadier developers do a bait and switch when the trial
expires and the user needs to sign up again. (Not saying there aren't other
ways this could be done, but...)

~~~
grawprog
So, forcing me to supply payment information for a free trial, then forcing
the developer to make my free trial an auto subscription unless I opt-out is
supposed to be user friendly?

In what way is assuming you can take my money unless I say otherwise just
because I used a free trial supposed to be user-friendly?

I'm so unbelievabley tired of these anti-consumer practices being labelled as
'user friendly' or 'working as intended'. They are not user friendly and sure
they're working as intended, to extract money from you. At least tell it like
it is, an accountant realized they made more money this way and told the
marketers to sell that shit.

There is zero benefit to me as a user by making me opt out of paying a company
money.

~~~
pbreit
Correct. Apple is providing a consistent customer experience for enrolling,
free trialing, auto-billing and canceling.

~~~
black_puppydog
* consistently user hostile

~~~
thoraway1010
Except it is very user friendly.

Try to cancel your newspaper subscription - you have to call in and jump
through hoops.

Try to cancel your cable or internet, you didn't realize the rate you got was
a "promo" rate that required a two year contract?

I guarantee that if apple used the approaches others use, subscription revenue
would be a LOT higher.

They send you an email saying, here's what will be renewing soon, click here
to cancel. I end up canceling about 80% of what would auto renew.

And I hate the developers who are not upfront with the subscription price. If
there is a free trial, what does it cost after. Even NY Times did this
($1/month in big print - fine print said something like $54/month after 1
month or maybe it was just in a link burried etc).

~~~
prophesi
Wouldn't it be even better if companies couldn't have those nefarious business
practices because they don't have the ability to auto-renew your subscriptions
in the first place?

~~~
csunbird
Couldn't does not mean they will not, even if it is illegal.

A lot of shady companies thinks customers will not chase after 5 dollars a
month and even if they are right %50 of time, they make a pretty penny.

~~~
freeone3000
Compliance is pretty good here in Quebec - nearly no one offers a free trial,
and those that do don't auto-renew.

~~~
grandmczeb
Isn't MindGeek one of the Montreal "tech giants"? Their entire business model
is free trials and hoping people don't cancel on auto-renew.

~~~
freeone3000
But not in Montreal! They only do it where it's legal! Laws absolutely work.

------
rideontime
Worked on an app that tried the same thing - new users were immediately
granted a free month of the "premium" membership on our own backend. The exec
who came up with the idea literally called it the "drug dealer" approach -
"the first hit is free" \- and the user couldn't see the pricing until their
trial expired and they tried to enable one of those premium features again, at
which point they'd see the subscription purchase screen.

That functionality was live for a few versions before we got an App Store
reviewer who noticed and rejected us for it. At the time I couldn't find a
specific guideline that disallowed the practice, but anyone who's spent a few
years releasing iOS apps knows that's not necessary for a rejection.

The guidelines now include these lines, mentioned by the OP's rejection:

> Auto-renewing subscription apps may offer a free trial period to customers
> by providing the relevant information set forth in App Store Connect.

> Apps that attempt to scam users will be removed from the App Store. This
> includes apps that attempt to trick users into purchasing a subscription
> under false pretenses or engage in bait-and-switch and scam practices will
> be removed from the App Store and you may be removed from the Apple
> Developer Program. Learn more about Subscription Free Trials.

Our approach did alert the user that they were on a free trial, but the
pricing wasn't related in that alert, nor were the premium features easily
identifiable during the trial. I think "bait-and-switch" would be a fair
appraisal.

~~~
radley
Bait and switch would only apply if the app claimed to be "free" instead of
"free trial", or if the "trial" part was obfuscated.

------
bluesign
To be honest this rule is for a reason. Onboarding people without price, then
telling them about price certainly will increase your retention, but not the
best case from consumer side.

From twitter they say:

“ We've experimented with auto-charging trials in the past and they lead to
(1) fewer users trying the product (2) a huge number of refund requests by
users who forget to cancel and (3) complete disbelief from those users when we
explain that Apple won't allow us to issue refunds.”

By they are also not showing any pricing in the beginning. If they would show
try for 15 days free then it is X usd / month. It would be more honest.

~~~
gizmo
If the issue is that app developers are not upfront about pricing then the
solution is to tell app developers to be more upfront about pricing.

~~~
wool_gather
Apple does indeed have rules they enforce about this. Anecdotally, I see quite
a bit of chatter/questions about App Store review rejections due to the
wording or lack of billing copy, compared to other reasons.

------
rgovostes
Is it really that they are forcing them to implement auto-billing, or that
they are forcing the trial to go through standard App Store mechanisms?

Is it anti-consumer to make all subscriptions behave the same? Suppose half of
apps managed their own trial period and half of them used auto-renewing App
Store trials.

Also worth noting it is really, really trivial to cancel an app subscription
from within your Settings, and to see much of the trial period is remaining.

~~~
warp
> Also worth noting it is really, really trivial to cancel an app subscription
> from within your Settings, and to see much of the trial period is remaining.

I think for most people it's pretty hard to find.

It's not actually in Settings. You have to open the App Store, click your
face, and that screen has a "Subscriptions >" menu item. I don't
subscribe/purchase that much stuff on iOS, so it always takes me a while to
find it.

EDIT: thanks for the reply, TIL it's _also_ in Settings :)

~~~
igorlp
You can also access subscriptions via “Settings > AppleID Banner >
Subscriptions”

~~~
ascagnel_
I think this was only added in the latest iOS release. That said, most iOS
devices that can run the latest version are running some variant of v13.

~~~
ballenf
Every release since trials were implemented seem to have made cancellations
easier and subscription status review more prominent. It's now to the point of
almost being annoying in how many different places take you to subscriptions.
But great for casual users, so I don't complain (except here).

------
codetrotter
I support Apple all the way on this one. Having all trials work the same way
is a huge plus in my book as an iOS device user. It’s not about whether this
one developer would do totally free trial or not, it’s about complete
confidence for the user that all apps work the same wrt trials.

~~~
hombre_fatal
If that's all you wanted, then Apple could have defaulted to a customer-
friendly option across the board like requiring a 2nd opt-in to transition
into the recurring billing at the end of the trial.

That would be superior in every way.

~~~
occamrazor
Maybe in some ways, but not in every way. Apple’s approach presents the
subscription conditions in a standardized way at the beginning of the trial
period and not at the end, i.e. before the user invests time in the app.

------
gardaani
Apple has introduced an appeal process for these kind of rejections. They
could challenge the guideline.

 _" Additionally, two changes are coming to the app review process and will be
implemented this summer. First, developers will not only be able to appeal
decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store
Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline
itself."_

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-reveals-new-
dev...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-reveals-new-developer-
technologies-to-foster-the-next-generation-of-apps/)

~~~
saagarjha
I’m curious when that is going to roll out; at WWDC it didn’t seem to look
like anyone knew how it worked. Probably because it was a new change?

------
blendergeek
Here is the original Twitter thread that is screenshotted in that Reddit post:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/downdogapp/status/127804886274623...](https://mobile.twitter.com/downdogapp/status/1278048862746234883)

------
cbhl
One of the things I really like about the iOS subscription billing ecosystem
is that there is one centralized place to see all my subscriptions.

I hate that it's hidden behind four clicks in "Settings", but, once you find
it, it's very nice to be able to have one place to go "oh yeah I should
unsubscribe from that crossword app I haven't opened in three months". By
comparison, for other sites, I have to go find my username/password in a login
manager...

~~~
unmole
Isn't it exactly the same with Google/Android?

~~~
Kique
Open the Play Store app and there's a Subscriptions page on the sidebar.

------
jkaplowitz
Quebec's Consumer Protection Act makes it outright illegal to auto-bill after
free trials for non-business individual customers based here, regardless of
what legalese those consumers agree to.

How does Apple's policy allow for that? They can't claim they can ignore
Quebec law, as they have both an Apple Store and a corporate office in
Montreal and already acknowledge another provision of the same Quebec law on
their Canadian online store website.

(Quebec has no problem with requiring payment information at the time of sign-
up, per se, whether as an anti-fraud measure or to make it easy for the
customer to subsequently opt in for paid service.)

~~~
Marsymars
I don't know about the App Store in particular, but the approach of most
companies in Quebec is to simply not have free trials. (e.g. and to have the
fist 13 months of service cost the same as the first 12 months of service in
other locales.)

~~~
jkaplowitz
What companies based in Quebec do the "add an extra month to the first
subscription cycle" approach? I haven't experienced that from any local
company. I've only seen foreign companies use that as an attempt to hand-wave
past Quebec public policy here without having to program anything different,
by simply rephrasing the fine print.

For example, even though Amazon's systems have plenty of information that my
ISP and my main shipping and billing addresses are in Quebec, Amazon markets
30-day Prime free trials to me and then notes in the fine print that Quebec
residents get a 13-month first yearly cycle or 2-month first monthly cycle
instead. But they also don't charge Quebec consumers for the 13-month or
2-month subscription until the end of the first month, and they don't charge
us at all if we cancel during the first month. Smells just like a rebranded
free trial with auto-billing.

I'm not convinced Quebec courts would uphold that as legitimately different
from a free trial with auto-billing if challenged. The law isn't in place just
to force a change in language, it's to force a change in billing or pricing
behaviour. This isn't that. Do you know if the compliance of this approach has
already been ruled on?

Additionally, the same law covers cancellation penalties and Amazon is
noncompliant. Even after the free trial, Amazon is not supposed to charge a
cancellation penalty more than the lesser of C$50 or 10% of the pro-rata
remainder contract amount.

So, with the annual plan here still costing C$79/year, cancelling right after
the first charge should cost Quebec residents at most C$7.90, possibly less
since part of the first charge is officially allocated by the fine print to
the initial month for Quebec residents. In practice Amazon keeps 100% of the
cost in this scenario.

Article from 2015 discussing this:

[https://ricochet.media/en/519/amazons-quebec-users-could-
fac...](https://ricochet.media/en/519/amazons-quebec-users-could-face-
surprise-bills)

~~~
Marsymars
Sorry, can't answer your questions - I don't live in Quebec, so my exposure is
purely from reading the fine print notes for Quebec and seeing how they
differ.

They may very well not actually be compliant with the laws. I'm a bit
surprised that Amazon hasn't even bothered to adjust the billing for their
13-month cycle, that can't be the case for _every_ company offering 13-month
first yearly cycles, can it?

Most recently I was looking at credit cards (HSBC, is particular) - it seems
they can't waive the fist year's annual fee in Quebec, so they instead offer
Quebec customers an additional welcome bonus of points equivalent to the
annual fee.

------
silviogutierrez
Happened to my app[1] in the last couple of weeks. No big new features, it was
just blocked for a minor update.

So now, I lose control over the process and can't even refund the customer if
they forget. And people won't try the app.

People who try my app end up liking it, but needing to provide payment up
front is a deal breaker for most.

Moreover, technically it requires quite a bit of rework, as you need a user +
IAP record together. And testing IAP is a huge PITA.

I'm slightly encouraged to see this happen to a major app[2], to see if Apple
responds or rethink this. It's terrible.

[1] [https://www.joyapp.com](https://www.joyapp.com)

[2] Which, incidentally I used and love. And only tried because of the free
billing-less trial!

------
thomasedwards
Meanwhile... I’m fairly certain I’ve read that the EU and both Visa and
MasterCard are looking at ways to prevent auto-billing without secondary
confirmation.

~~~
Jnr
I thought this was already illegal in EU. I guess there are still some things
to be fixed. :)

------
diebeforei485
I find their "weekly subscriptions" to be shady at best.

There was a good discussion of App Store billing practices and how they're
abused in this podcast episode:
[https://www.relay.fm/radar/176](https://www.relay.fm/radar/176)

------
subsubzero
My experience was rather different. I purchased a constellation app (full
price no subscription) and after owning it for a year the developer decided to
go to a subscription model. I was never told about this until I noticed a
monthly charge from apple. Super slimy behavior, I was pretty frustrated. I
sent a request to have my charge refunded which apple obliged. In general I
really dislike this type of auto-charging and it seems like it preys on
customers who are not watching their statements very closely. But Apple is not
incentivized as they get a cut of this money.

~~~
JimDabell
That sounds extremely unlikely – apps don’t have the ability to do that.

The only way an app can charge an in-app subscription is by asking iOS to
prompt the user. This shows a system-controlled prompt telling you the price
and that it is a recurring subscription. The prompt only allows you to
purchase if you authenticate via Touch ID / Face ID / password, or if you have
recently authenticated and have enabled the setting that skips this.
Additionally, the App Store rules require that the screen that triggers the
subscription _also_ includes details on the subscription. Apple can and do
reject submissions to the App Store if apps don’t comply with this.

There simply isn’t an API that lets apps set up an in-app subscription without
going through the system-controlled prompt. There isn’t an API that lets apps
"convert" a one-off payment to a recurring payment. Apps have no access to set
up payments themselves, everything has to go through Apple-controlled, user-
visible prompts. If somebody is being charged unexpectedly for a subscription,
there’s something else happening, e.g. a partner who knows your password set
it up, or you just forgot.

As far as Apple’s motives are concerned, they put a lot of effort into
enforcing the rules around in-app purchases, reject a lot of apps on that
basis, and err on the side of caution. I’v seen a lot of incorrect and overly
strict rejections for apps that follow the rules. If Apple were in any way
keen on accidental subscriptions, this would not be the case. They go out of
their way in the opposite direction.

------
Y_Y
At this point Apple is like Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad. It's
absurdly wealthy, but doesn't seem to have any purpose left apart from
shoveling out more meth or iPhones to get more useless cash.

------
dave84
This has been a rule from day one as far as I can remember. Nothing new here.

~~~
programAgaib
So Apple has always been anti consumer and anti developer.

Right, nothing new here.

~~~
thoraway1010
Uh - you realize they charge a PREMIUM and have some of the highest margins
because they are FAR FAR more trusted than most android and other phone mfgs?
You realize samsung is pumping ads directly to your handset - and these other
folks never update their old devices.

So interesting to read the HN folks trashing apple relative to their
competitors even though they are almost certainly a leader on almost every
trust based metric that matters to the average user.

------
BilalBudhani
I think comments saying "Apple is doing this to provide a better experience"
completely misses the point. If I'm creating an app (like a business) I should
be incharge of deciding when I would like to charge my customers because I
understand my target audience better than Apple at least.

Apple is not just dictating how customers will pay but when they should be
charged which is ridiculous.

~~~
threeseed
As a consumer what you want is not important to me.

What's important to me above all is a consistent billing experience.

And no you don't understand consumers better than Apple since I spent
thousands on the phone and a few dollars on your app.

------
TYPE_FASTER
I would love it if subscription services would give me a heads up a day or two
before the trial period ends, with a link to cancel.

------
exabrial
I'm very happy to see anti-trust regulation coming down the pipe for FAANG
companies for precisely like this

------
jasonpbecker
Most apps I use that have free trials implement it as a one time, in app
purchase for $0. This doesn't have the subscription implication or the auto-
charge, and has been entirely acceptable under the rules.

------
m3kw9
So you promised a 1 month free trial, and after one month you either disable
the app, or not charge and let them continue their free trial. Either is
allowed or makes sense.

~~~
john-shaffer
The developers can't choose to not charge or to cancel a subscription. The
user must cancel. The devs cannot refund a subscription that a user forgot to
cancel.

------
qwerty456127
Trialware is broken by design anyway. While auto-billing is plain fraud (and
is outlawed in some countries like Germany AFAIK), letting people to use a
product for free during a single month is pointless - 90% times I install a
trial version, forget about it, come back some months later when I have time
just to find out I'm not allowed to try it any more because the trial has
expired as a month since the installation has passed.

------
soco
I believe such a business decision should belong to the subscription SELLER,
as it's their business in line.

------
numbers
I don’t see why this is even a complaint... Apple sends users notifications
before the trial ends and you can easily just cancel.

I guess apps I’ve used already have this auto-billing implemented because I
don’t think I’ve confirmed my subscription after the free trial ended and
billing began.

~~~
mariopt
How about using a trial and not having to worry about forgetting to cancel?

~~~
jquery
Nah, I don’t want an app nagging me to subscribe after I’ve already
subscribed. That’s not a very “Apple” experience, goes against their
philosophy of simple, clean design. Make it easy to cancel (which they’ve
done). Perfect.

------
dnissley
I think I can give Apple the benefit of the doubt on this one -- it kind of
seems like they just didn't even think of this particular use case (not auto
billing at the end of a trial period), since almost all companies would prefer
to auto bill at the end of a trial.

That said, they should definitely allow this, especially if (as claimed in the
twitter thread[1]) they don't allow apps to refund accidental subscriptions.

[1] -
[https://mobile.twitter.com/downdogapp/status/127804886274623...](https://mobile.twitter.com/downdogapp/status/1278048862746234883)

~~~
happytoexplain
>they just didn't even think this particular use case (not auto billing at the
end of a trial period)

I don't think Apple's auto-billing practices are predatory, like many other
companies are, but I'm not sure I can agree that they _didn 't even think_ of
this possibility.

------
zaroth
I think there are valid technical and usability reasons for demanding that all
products within a store all conform to the same billing policies. For Apple,
providing a consistent user experience is absolutely paramount. They want all
apps to act the same and bill the same. If the baseline/standard experience is
sub-optimal, then they would say let us fix or improve the baseline experience
for everyone, not deal with it piecemeal and leave the user guessing how an
app will end up billing them.

In this case I think some users are looking for a double opt-in in the case of
a free trial, or at least a native reminder in the iOS user interface that a
trial is ending and the first subscription charge is about to be run.

For example, if the day before a trial expired, you could receive a push
notification from Apple notifying you that the trial period is about to
expire, and how much you will be billed if you do not cancel before the end of
the day. Alternatively, the push notification could require active user
consent before allowing the trial to convert to a paid subscription.

The first option could be done by Apple with zero required action by
developers, but since it's definitely going to increase the cancellation rate,
probably developers aren't going to be very happy. It is customer-focused
which Apple claims to be, but it's also messy/cluttered to be getting billing
notifications

The problem with the second option is that it opens up a new state in the
state machine, and three new transition functions. Going from trial -> pending
approval is a mid-state which would require some sort of shutting off
functionality in the app or even preventing the app from opening, or reverting
back to the unpaid / non-trial state. Now the user is in a new limbo 'pending
approval' state. Then from there somehow the user has to either approve the
charge or indicate that they do in fact want to cancel, so going from pending
-> unsubscribed or pending -> subscribed are new transitions that would have
to be coded for every app.

The current solution is to simply provide a centralized place to see all your
subscriptions and when they will renew and how much they cost, and making it
single-tap simply to cancel them. I'm not sure a better way they can surface
the Subscriptions UI other than within the App Store settings. That top option
within 'Settings' always seemed misplaced to me, it looks more like a header
than a button, and especially as it is encompassing "Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes
& App Store" it's kind of a jumble. They added it into the App Store app as
well on the top-right profile-picture button which leads to 'Account' and then
'Subscriptions'.

------
aabbcc1241
Apple is a proprietary company. If you don't like their rules, you can vote
with your feet.

------
CodeWriter23
IMO this is a misread of the guidelines by the review associate. Ask for
escalation.

------
iandanforth
The comments here read like people with Stockholm syndrome.

~~~
berkes
There certainly seems a bias for Apple in here.

What I really don't understand is why Some Random Hacker feels the need to
jump into a thread and defend Apple, one of the wealthiest companies in the
world.

~~~
valuearb
Apple is the highest valued company in the world because it leads its industry
in customer satisfaction.

There are things to criticize Apple and the App Store over but trying to
reduce subscription scams by making subscription terms consistent doesn’t seem
like one of them.

Why are you taking the word of a butthurt yogi instead of hearing Apple's side
of the story?

~~~
hundchenkatze
But can you not see that auto-billing without reconfirming that the user
actually wants to continue the subscription is also scammy? Why are you taking
the side of a trillion dollar company that clearly knows how to extract money
from users.

~~~
valuearb
What is Apples reasoning for this requirement?

~~~
berkes
Apple is a company, hence the answer to any question "why does company X do Y"
applies here too: for the bottomline. More Profit, direct or indirect.

------
j45
I wonder how well this works to boost the revenues of app developers that
don't end up making enough income and abandon their app.

------
jgoewert
Switch to Android?

~~~
m3kw9
Into the fire

------
newbie578
Another day, another Apple anti-developer policy.

It is interesting to see how quick the Apple fanboys are to react, and explain
how every move Apple makes is "user-friendly" and incorruptible.

I am just patiently sitting in the corner and hoping Microsoft enters the
market so that developers have more alternatives.

Would love to see developers abandon iOS, and then for people to see how
"user-friendly" Apple is with only Safari and Facebook on iPhone :)

~~~
machello13
The title is extremely misleading here. Apple isn't forcing the developer to
"implement auto-billing", they're forcing them to use the system API for
trials and in-app purchases (a feature of which is auto-billing).

I won't argue auto-billing is user-friendly, but users being able to manage
their subscriptions in a single place, not to mention having the subscriptions
explained with a consistent language, and presented with consistent UI across
every app, is definitely user-friendly.

------
ryukafalz
Is it just me or does this seem like it might be a blow back at Hey? They got
their app into the app store by creating temporary trial accounts[0], but they
still don't bill through Apple or accept signups through the app. This seems
like a way to force them to do so.

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298552/apple-hey-
email-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298552/apple-hey-email-app-
approval-rules-basecamp-launch)

~~~
burlesona
It feels to me more like a publicity grab by the app developer. “Hey” got an
enormous amount of attention and 10 times the number of sign-ups they were
expecting because they picked a fight with Apple and screamed about it really
loud. Not surprising to see more developers try this approach.

