110 Macworld • February 2022OPINION
Apple has been stubborn about its App Store policies, but
a few small changes have happened.that Apple isn’t willing
to make changes
when it needs to.
Innovation is, after
all, another one
of the company’s
hallmarks, and sitting
on one’s laurels in the
technology market
is rarely a path to
success. It’s just
that sometimes that
change doesn’t from
people inside the
company but from
external forces.
Lately, the company’s made a
number of surprising backtracks
against previous policies, and while
they might not always be done out of
the goodness of its heart – as much
as a corporation can be said to have
one – it does prove that Apple can
learn and perhaps improve...even if it
sometimes has to be dragged, kicking
and screaming.LINKS IN A CHAIN
The App Store has been a source
of a lot of frustration, especially for
developers, but also to a lesser extent
for consumers. While the recent
Apple versus Epic ruling mainly came
up in Cupertino’s favour – and theone provision that Apple did lose is
far from a done deal – the company
has already made at least some
concessions to App Store operation
after an investigation from the Japan
Fair Trade Commission.
As a result of that investigation,
Apple agreed that it would allow
‘reader apps’ (those that require
subscriptions to view content) to
include a link to their website –
something that had previously been
against App Store rules. Moreover,
that change won’t be limited to Japan
but will roll out globally this year.
While it’s not the most
magnanimous of decisions (it’s
‘an in-app link’, singular, and we