Apple blocked WordPress app updates due to lack of in-app purchases

WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg said he could no longer release updates to the iOS app unless Apple received a portion of the proceeds from paid WordPress packages. However, those packages are not sold through the iOS app at all.

Mullenweg informed users on Friday via Twitter. Apple informs The Verge that the blockage has to do with the fact that the WordPress app is part of a multiplatform service, as described in the App Store guidelines chapter 3.1.3. Apparently it is not allowed to offer paid packages on a completely different part of that platform, in this case WordPress.com, without being mentioned in the iOS app. In that app you can only purchase free packages.

However, it is possible to end up, for example, via the apps support documentation, on the page where the paid packages are offered. If a paid package is purchased in this way, Apple earns nothing. That was possibly what Apple had a problem with. The developer has offered to block these pages in browser within the app, but that was not enough for Apple.

The case has already been closed. Mullenweg says that WordPress will also include paid packages in the future to offer via the iOS app and that Apple can therefore receive its share of 30 percent of the turnover.

Apple’s App Store policies have been in the spotlight lately. Epic Games is fighting a prominent battle with Apple for it iaprate, one in which Apple recently announced that Epic was looking for a complete exemption from the ‘Apple tax’. Facebook has also been critical of the policy, and major news outlets are eager to know what conditions they must meet to pay 15 percent instead of the usual 30 percent, a deal that Internet giant Amazon, for example, has reached with Apple.