Apple has updated its App Store policies so that subscriptions can be automatically renewed without your explicit permission, even if the developer has increased the monthly or annual price. Before changing the rule, users will have to manually sign up to renew their subscription if it comes with a price increase; now this is not necessarily the case, although you will still be notified of the price change before it happens. Apple says it is making the change to avoid a situation where users inadvertently lose access to a subscription because they missed a power-on message.
According to Apple’s announcement on Monday night, there are specific conditions that developers will have to follow if they want to offer what the company calls “an increase in the price of the subscription with automatic renewal.” For starters, it can only be so big – Apple rules say that if a developer increases the weekly or monthly subscription price by more than 50 percent and this difference is over $ 5, it does not qualify. For an annual subscription, developers can still increase the price by 50 percent, but they can’t increase it by more than $ 50 USD without requiring inclusion.
A subscription of $ 100 per year can be increased by $ 50 per year without requiring inclusion, but not by $ 51 per year
Here are some examples of what this might look like: let’s say I have a subscription that is $ 60 a year. The developers could raise it to $ 90 ($ 60 plus 50 percent) and it would renew automatically without having to turn on. If I have a monthly subscription that is $ 15, and the developers wanted to raise it to $ 22, in theory I should join – that’s less than a 50 percent increase, but above the $ 5 limit.
However, Apple’s wording leaves things a bit unclear: what if there is an app that costs $ 10 a year and reaches $ 60 a year? Apple’s rules state literally that consent is required if the price increase is:
More than 50% of the current price; and
The price difference exceeds approximately $ 5 (USD) per year for non-annual subscriptions or $ 50 per year for annual subscriptions.
Reading this literally, this means that both conditions must be true in order for inclusion to be required. But the sample scenario seems so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe that Apple intends to do just that. We have sought clarification on this issue and will update it if we receive it.
The price can be raised only once a year without requiring a choice, which should help prevent fraudulent applications from slowly increasing their price by a dollar or two a month. Apple also says that the price increase should be “allowed by local law”, although this is probably a given.
If any of these conditions are not met, you will still have to join the price increase, otherwise your subscription will be canceled. Apple says consumers will be alerted to upcoming automatic renewals with price changes via “email, push notifications and in-app notifications.” It’s worth noting that you could easily turn Apple’s logic on its head: if consumers missed these renewal notifications, wouldn’t they miss these new price changes? But it sounds like they will be relatively in your face.
We’ve seen evidence that this change is coming – last month TechCrunch reported that Apple seems to be testing this change with an increase in the price of Disney Plus. Developer Max Zeleman also released a screenshot in March showing what one of the announcements looked like, though it’s unclear if this is the final design. At the time, Apple confirmed that it was “piloting a new trading feature that we plan to launch very soon,” and said it would provide details. Looks like this day is here.
iOS biz people … The increase in the price of the subscription is just a NOTICE, instead of having to be confirmed, otherwise the subscriptions expire.
Is this new behavior for everyone or exclusively for Disney +? pic.twitter.com/zt7c15QcTA
– Max Zeleman (@ macguru17) March 24, 2022
A screenshot from March shows that there is a link near the “OK” button that reads “to learn more or cancel, review your subscription”. Apple’s statement on Monday said it would “also inform users on how to view, manage and cancel subscriptions if they prefer”, a promise that appears to be fulfilled by the link.
I want to know where every dollar goes, and this change makes it a little harder
From my point of view, Apple definitely compromises between user-friendliness and convenience. There are probably a lot of people who will be happy that they won’t have to go and subscribe again for something just because the price has gone up by a dollar and they’ve missed the sign-up prompt.
Personally, though, I like to know where every dollar goes – and since I almost always choose annual subscriptions, it seems like I’ll have to watch out for apps that could go up quite a bit (this $ 60 subscription wasn’t a hypothetical example). There is an easy solution to this: let consumers choose whether or not they want the auto-renewal price increase instead of deciding for them. In my opinion, this would be just a switch in the App Store settings, which says something like “Always ask for inclusion if the price increases” and its inclusion will make this change never happen.
Apple did not immediately answer The Verge’s question as to whether there were any plans to add such a switch.
Or, if Apple wants to be really user-friendly, it can make sure subscriptions don’t renew automatically by default. As my colleague Sean Hollister pointed out in his article on how Apple can show that it cares about App Store users, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has an appropriate quote (although he was talking about privacy at the time):
Ask them. Ask them every time. Get them to tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of asking them.
With this change in the rules, Apple has gone one step further.
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