A federal judge created a path for app makers like Spotify and Patreon to avoid paying Apple hefty commissions. Is this a win for consumers? It’s complicated.
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What the Changes in Apple’s App Store Mean for iPhone Users
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How iPhone Apps Are Changing After a Recent App Store Ruling
In recent days, iPhone apps have been changing. The Kindle app now lets people buy books directly from its site. Spotify is offering users free trials. And Patreon, a subscription service, is letting people pay creators more money.
The changes are an early look at how a recent court ruling could transform the shopping experience on an iPhone. Last week, a federal judge ordered Apple to start allowing apps to offer promotions and collect payments directly from users. The decision makes it possible for apps to offer people new conveniences, like buying books directly from their website. The ruling also lets apps bypass a 30 percent commission that Apple collects on every app sale, which could lead to lower prices for consumers.
For more than a decade, Apple required that apps use its payment system for purchases and collected commission on the sales.
Now, all of that is open to change. Here’s what could be different in the future and why.
What did the judge rule?
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who began working on this case after Epic Games sued Apple in 2020, ruled that Apple could no longer take commissions from sales that link out from the app. She also restricted the company from writing rules that would prevent developers from creating buttons or links allowing people to pay apps directly for their goods and services, and said it could not create messages — known as warning screens — that discourage users from leaving the App Store.
Amazon asked to update its Kindle app to allow people to buy books.Credit…Kindle How will iPhone apps change?
For years, Kindle has not sold books on its app to avoid Apple’s 30 percent commission. Now, it has added a “Get Book” button that directs users to its website to buy books. Similarly, Apple prevented Spotify from offering free trials to new customers, but now Spotify has a button on its app for a three-month trial.
Other apps could begin offering links for buying directly from stores online, which would allow the business to avoid having to pay Apple’s 30 percent commission. Without having to pay those fees, apps could offer users lower prices, reducing a $10 monthly subscription to $7.
What will this cost Apple?
Apple makes $11 billion a year from app sales in the United States, according to estimates by Morgan Stanley. It won’t lose all of that, but the bank estimates that $2 billion of that is now at risk.
How much Apple loses will come down to how willing people are to change their behavior. The decade-old process for buying software and services on apps is not only familiar but also quick. People trust Apple with their credit card information. And the company makes it easy for people to cancel their subscriptions — keeping them all in one place. Many people may be reluctant to leave the App Store to make their purchases, and apps may prefer to maintain the current system.
What does this mean for the rest of the world?
Now that Apple is required to allow apps to collect payment directly, without paying the company a commission, in the United States, other countries are going to press for similar concessions. Regulators in Europe, Japan and South Korea, which have been asking Apple to loosen its grip on the App Store, would not want their own citizens or developers to have to pay more than Americans did.
Could Apple roll back the changes?
Apple said it planned to appeal the ruling, but it would be challenging for the company to have the decision overturned. In 2021, the judge wrote a less prescriptive ruling. Apple skirted the rule by introducing a 27 percent commission for app sales. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with the judge’s initial ruling from 2021 and is unlikely to change its position, said Mark A. Lemley, a professor of antitrust and technology law at Stanford. “They should take their licks and let it be,” he said.
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Build the Perfect Watchface for Your iPhone Home Screen With Tinker
The app makes it easy to create a face. You can use your own images to design the hands, background, centerpiece, and more to make it unique. Even if you don’t have any images in mind, you can select from a wide variety of pre-made options in the library.
In just a few minutes, I was able to create a beautiful timepiece for my home screen.
As a fun plus, all of the widgets you create with the app can also be used in the iPhone StandBy mode.
Tinker is a free download now on the App Store for the iPhone.
There is an optional, one-time in-app purchase of $4.99. That will allow you to create unlimited watchfaces instead of the maximum of two with the free version.
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Resident Evil 3 Lands on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac
Here’s the official description of the game, which was originally released on consoles in 2020:
A series of strange disappearances have been occurring in the American Midwest within a place called Racoon City. A specialist squad of the police force known as S.T.A.R.S. has been investigating the case, and have determined that the pharmaceutical company Umbrella and their biological weapon, the T-Virus, are behind the incidents—though they’ve lost several members in the process. Jill Valentine and the other surviving S.T.A.R.S. members try to make this truth known, but find that the police department itself is under Umbrella’s sway and their reports are rejected out of hand.
However, soon reports of a grisly “cannibal virus” begin to surface, and vicious dogs begin roaming the streets. With the viral plague spreading through the town and to her very doorstep, Jill is determined to survive.
However, unbeknownst to Jill, an extremely powerful pursuer has already been dispatched to eliminate her.
While you can play the game on the touchscreen, Capcom recommends you use a controller.
Resident Evil 3 is a free download now on the App Store. You can play a limited part of the game.
To unlock the entire game, you’ll need to make an in-app purchase. Until April 16, that’s just $9.99. You can also make a $1.99 in-app purchase to unlock all in-game rewards.
You’ll need an iPhone 15 Pro or later to play on iPhone. On the iPad, you’ll need a tablet with an M1 chip or later, or the current-generation iPad mini. For a Mac, you’ll need an M1 chip or later.
One purchase will unlock the game on all three platforms. You can also start playing on one device and pick up right where you left off on another.
Finally, the game will take up 31GB of space on your device.
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How Do the iPhone 16E and Google Pixel 9A Compare to More Expensive Models?
With all the talk about tariffs driving up costs, the word “cheaper” should bring comfort to just about anyone. That’s why I’m delighted to share that the cheaper smartphone from Google has arrived, a few months after Apple released a somewhat cheaper entry-level iPhone — and that both products are very good.
Google this week released the Pixel 9a, the $500 sibling of its $800 flagship smartphone, the Pixel 9. It competes directly with the $600 iPhone 16e released in February, the cheaper version of Apple’s $800 iPhone 16.
Both of the new phones have the staples that people care most about — great cameras, nice screens, zippy speeds, modern software and long battery life. To cut costs, they omit some fancier extras, like advanced camera features.
Is it a wise idea to save some bucks, or better to spend more on the fancier phones? To find out, I strapped on a fanny pack and carried all four phones with me for the last week to run tests.
The upshot: As is often the case, you get what you pay for. The $800 phones are slightly better in terms of features and performance than the cheaper versions, and the $600 iPhone is faster and has a better camera than the $500 Pixel.
But more important, the cheaper Pixel and iPhone were nearly indistinguishable from their $800 counterparts in several of my tests. In some cases, like battery life, the cheaper phones were even better.
The future of phone prices remains uncertain, but costs will probably go up. On Wednesday, when President Trump announced a pause on most “reciprocal” tariffs, he raised tariffs on China, where many phones are manufactured. So plenty of us may soon be motivated to compromise and consider less expensive alternatives.
Apple declined to comment on whether it would increase prices of its iPhones, but analysts estimate that tariffs could drive up the cost of some iPhone 16 Pro models to anywhere from $1,300 to $2,300. Google said there were no planned changes to the $500 price for the Pixel 9a, but it declined to comment on whether it would amend the price of its $800 Pixel 9.
The cheaper iPhone and Pixel look nearly identical to their more expensive siblings. Here’s a rundown of how they compare:
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The screens on the phones are the same size. (The iPhones measure 6.1 diagonal inches, and the Pixels measure 6.3 diagonal inches). The iPhone 16e’s screen is slightly dimmer than the iPhone 16’s, but the difference is hardly noticeable.
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Both cheaper phones lack some camera features found on the more expensive versions. The Pixel 9a’s camera sensor is smaller than the Pixel 9’s, meaning it will capture less detail and light. The iPhone 16e’s camera has one camera lens instead of two, so it can’t create certain types of special effects, such as “ultrawide” photos with a broader field of view for scenic shots of the Grand Canyon.
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Both less expensive phones are slightly less powerful than their nicer counterparts. All four phones include the same computer processors. But the Pixel 9a has less memory for running multiple apps at the same time, and the iPhone 16e has a slightly weaker graphics processing unit for running games with heavy animation.
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The iPhone 16e lacks the iPhone 16’s MagSafe feature, which uses a magnet to attach accessories such as power chargers and wallets to the back of the phone. The phone can still be charged wirelessly, however, using a slower charging standard called Qi.
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Both phones can take advantage of artificial intelligence. The iPhone 16e can use Apple Intelligence to summarize text, generate images and remove photo bombers from pictures. And the Pixel 9a can run Google’s A.I., including the Gemini chatbot and similar photo editing tools. But both companies are still developing their A.I. software, which remains largely unfinished, so this feature may not be that important to most phone users.
Battery
Long battery life is high on the priority list for people buying a new phone, and the cheaper Pixel 9a and iPhone 16e are the clear winners here. They have larger batteries partly because they have more space for them, since the phones lack some features found in their more-expensive counterparts.
The iPhone 16e and Pixel 9a lasted about a day and a half with general use, including web browsing, photo shooting and video playing, before their batteries were depleted. The iPhone 16 and Pixel 9 both lasted about a day.
Camera Tests
The downsides of buying cheaper phones were most pronounced in their cameras.
I took my corgi, Max, to a park to take photos of him in various lighting conditions, including bright daylight, in the shade and in partly shaded areas. In general, photos taken with both the Pixel 9a and Pixel 9 looked consistently clear, with accurate colors.
But the Pixel 9a’s weaknesses were visible in more challenging lighting conditions, such as when Max sat on a shaded path with sunlight filtering through the trees. The Pixel 9a struggled to distinguish the light from the shade, and Max looked blown out by the sun. (The Pixel 9 did fine in this situation.)
When I tested the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16 cameras, they excelled in all these tests, and the results were nearly indistinguishable.
Both iPhones outperformed the Pixel phones in shooting videos. Videos recorded of Max strolling through the park were clearer and smoother on the iPhones; the Pixel phones’ videos looked choppier.
So the main downside of the cheaper iPhone camera is simply what it can’t do. Because the iPhone 16e lacks a second lens, I wasn’t able to take an ultrawide shot of Max running in a field of grass.
Speed
The more expensive phones slightly outperformed the cheaper phones in terms of speed.
According to the speed-testing app Geekbench, the Pixel 9a is about 4 percent slower than the Pixel 9, and the iPhone 16e is 3 percent slower than the iPhone 16.
In real-world use of the phones, most people probably won’t notice a difference. When I put the phones side by side and launched different apps and games, their performance felt about the same to me.
What This Means for You
If you care mostly about having a smartphone with long battery life and a good camera, you’d be happy with either the iPhone 16e or Pixel 9a. But if you care a lot about any of the premium features missing from the cheaper phones, such as taking more detailed, better-looking photos or using Apple’s MagSafe to charge your iPhone, then spending more is still a fine idea.
Just get ready to think of a smartphone as a longer-term investment, similar to a car, since prices are likely to go up soon.
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