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...)
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.
Hold up, the point of the trial is so people can try the app for free. Then, after having tried the app, users can choose to pay. Or not.
There is no issue about misleading customers here, because many apps promise features that don't work well or have other problems and the only ways for the user to figure out if an app is worth it is by (a) reading reviews and (b) trying it, and that will result in an informed decision. What's the difference between misleading users about functionality and misleading them about price? In both cases you're wasting your users' time and in both cases they'll ultimately choose not to buy.
What Apple is doing here is moving the purchase decision forward, to the point where the user knows practically nothing about the product. How can you make an informed decision if all you've seen are a couple of screenshots and some vague list of features on the App store page?
I have forgotten to cancel subscriptions from iTunes a few times as I tend to watch my CC statement for forgotten subscriptions, not Apple Free Trial emails. The real issue is that they make it impossible to get a refund once you as a customer have been charged even when the app developer agrees to give you one. Being forced to delegate billing to a robotic corporation that treats your customers like robots is a terrible position to force developers in to.
My 5 cents. Regardless if this is Apple or any developer, subscription service etc., I consider giving my credit card number / paypal for testing any trial software as directly abusive.
Maybe, it is just me but from my perspective this is a try to force buying from me by whatever means possible and doing me is like rejecting me as a potential customer: I will just never do it.
I hate the need of thinking about some money will be taken from me, unless I perform some action - I consider it as a huge violation of my trust as a highly fishy tactic.
Personally, I avoid signing up for things all the time that have auto billing after trials. I try out a ton of services and the overhead of tracking them all on a calendar is just not worth it. A simple pop up could make everybody happy if it was indeed user friendly: “would you like to begin your subscription automatically after the trial?”
Also, in terms of consent and automated systems generally, explicit opt in is really the only way to go. Humans just can’t deal with the mental overhead of the hundreds of “contracts” their “services” require now
> 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.
I don’t think this is correct. I only ever get emails coincident with the renewal letting me know what my credit card was charged. Never in advance.
Risk free trials are a terrible experience. If the customer just wants to demo the app, why should they have to remember to log into their Apple account and cancel the trial?
With saas offerings, I won’t even sign up for a trial if it requires billing information from me.
> 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...)
Doesn't Apple take a cut of app subscription revenue? So could requiring auto-renewal just be a way of increasing profits, while deflecting the negative PR for the subscription dark pattern onto individual app developers?
The emails can definitely be a good thing for reminding someone about billing, but they're not entirely effective. Most people would ignore emails such as these or they would read them and forget the information as something else is more important, or just rarely check their emails (like weekly, fortnightly, etc).
So the default behaviour matters most in this situation, as evidenced by opt-in vs opt-out for things such as organ donation. When it takes action to opt in most people don't do it (even though it's a good thing), and when it's opt out then most people don't take the actions of removing themselves from being an organ donor.
In this case with all the emails that Apple sends having the default behaviour be opt-in would actually still work. People that want to continue using the application should take the necessary steps to subscribe. If not then they either didn't want the subscription, don't use the application, or they didn't read the messages and are relieved that they're not spending money unnecessarily.
Therefore having opt-out be the default for subscriptions means that Apple is doing it explicitly because it makes them more money than the reverse situation. It is actually user hostile but with the thin veneer (typical of T&C or Privacy Policy) that they "told you so".
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.
One other reason is it gives people an opportunity to pay for the product off of the app store platform. Apple wants to be the one to manage your free trials on their platform, otherwise people could implement paywalls to sign up through a site that doesn't give apple 30% of revenue.
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.
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.
> 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.
And yet people still miss it and send us angry emails when they're billed, and we have to tell them to ask Apple for their refund since we don't have the capability to refund them ourselves.
> 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 :)
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.
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.
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."
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...
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.)
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] kemayo|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gizmo|5 years ago|reply
There is no issue about misleading customers here, because many apps promise features that don't work well or have other problems and the only ways for the user to figure out if an app is worth it is by (a) reading reviews and (b) trying it, and that will result in an informed decision. What's the difference between misleading users about functionality and misleading them about price? In both cases you're wasting your users' time and in both cases they'll ultimately choose not to buy.
What Apple is doing here is moving the purchase decision forward, to the point where the user knows practically nothing about the product. How can you make an informed decision if all you've seen are a couple of screenshots and some vague list of features on the App store page?
[+] [-] northerdome|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stiray|5 years ago|reply
Maybe, it is just me but from my perspective this is a try to force buying from me by whatever means possible and doing me is like rejecting me as a potential customer: I will just never do it.
I hate the need of thinking about some money will be taken from me, unless I perform some action - I consider it as a huge violation of my trust as a highly fishy tactic.
[+] [-] radley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gentleman11|5 years ago|reply
Also, in terms of consent and automated systems generally, explicit opt in is really the only way to go. Humans just can’t deal with the mental overhead of the hundreds of “contracts” their “services” require now
[+] [-] itsdrewmiller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfrunyon|5 years ago|reply
Heck, most people don't read their work emails in a timely matter, if my coworkers are anything to go by... ;)
[+] [-] voisin|5 years ago|reply
I don’t think this is correct. I only ever get emails coincident with the renewal letting me know what my credit card was charged. Never in advance.
[+] [-] adrr|5 years ago|reply
With saas offerings, I won’t even sign up for a trial if it requires billing information from me.
[+] [-] ardy42|5 years ago|reply
Doesn't Apple take a cut of app subscription revenue? So could requiring auto-renewal just be a way of increasing profits, while deflecting the negative PR for the subscription dark pattern onto individual app developers?
[+] [-] daemin|5 years ago|reply
So the default behaviour matters most in this situation, as evidenced by opt-in vs opt-out for things such as organ donation. When it takes action to opt in most people don't do it (even though it's a good thing), and when it's opt out then most people don't take the actions of removing themselves from being an organ donor.
In this case with all the emails that Apple sends having the default behaviour be opt-in would actually still work. People that want to continue using the application should take the necessary steps to subscribe. If not then they either didn't want the subscription, don't use the application, or they didn't read the messages and are relieved that they're not spending money unnecessarily.
Therefore having opt-out be the default for subscriptions means that Apple is doing it explicitly because it makes them more money than the reverse situation. It is actually user hostile but with the thin veneer (typical of T&C or Privacy Policy) that they "told you so".
[+] [-] Shalle135|5 years ago|reply
Sure, apple is usually pretty customer oriented if contacted. But this is nothing more than a greed.
[+] [-] rideontime|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xsmasher|5 years ago|reply
I assume that is what apple is avoiding here.
[+] [-] taurath|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluesign|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgovostes|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] rideontime|5 years ago|reply
And yet people still miss it and send us angry emails when they're billed, and we have to tell them to ask Apple for their refund since we don't have the capability to refund them ourselves.
[+] [-] warp|5 years ago|reply
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 :)
[+] [-] codetrotter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hombre_fatal|5 years ago|reply
That would be superior in every way.
[+] [-] gardaani|5 years ago|reply
"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...
[+] [-] saagarjha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blendergeek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbhl|5 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] machello13|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unmole|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkaplowitz|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silviogutierrez|5 years ago|reply
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
[2] Which, incidentally I used and love. And only tried because of the free billing-less trial!
[+] [-] thomasedwards|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jnr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diebeforei485|5 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] subsubzero|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JimDabell|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dave84|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] programAgaib|5 years ago|reply
Right, nothing new here.
[+] [-] BilalBudhani|5 years ago|reply
Apple is not just dictating how customers will pay but when they should be charged which is ridiculous.
[+] [-] threeseed|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonpbecker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] john-shaffer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryandrake|5 years ago|reply