It's clear that Apple has given Hulu special access to the App Store subscription API


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Apple and Epic Games have been in a legal battle over antitrust law since August 2020, but from the email released during this trial, Apple has responded to the streaming service 'Hulu' with the App Store subscription API. It was revealed that they had special permission to access. Apple says it 'treats all apps fairly,' but it seems that some developers have been given special permissions.

Apple made it harder to change Hulu subscriptions because of a tweet --The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22423410/apple-hulu-subscription-in-app-purchase-tweet

Apple Provided Special App Store API Access to Hulu and Other Developers --MacRumors
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/06/apple-hulu-special-api-access/

App Store VP testifies in Epic trial as emails reveal special API access for Hulu and other devs --9to5Mac
https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/06/app-store-vp-testifies-in-epic-trial-as-emails-reveal-special-api-access-for-hulu-and-other-devs/

An email exchanged between Apple's Vice President of App Store Matt Fischer and Program Management Director Cindy Lin was published as court material, which made Hulu a subscription API for the App Store. He was one of the app developers who could access it. ' Apple has allowed Hulu access to support subscription upgrades and downgrades since around 2015, before incorporating this API natively into the App Store.



However, it turns out that Hulu used this API to provide users with a way to automatically cancel subscriptions subscribed to from the App Store, leading to Hulu's own billing system. As a result of Apple's awareness of this and addressing the issue, Hulu lost its auto-cancel feature around 2018.

In addition, Apple officials including Mr. Fisher have not been aware of this problem for a long time, and Mr. Fisher noticed the tweet of the application developer unrelated to Apple, so the problem became apparent.




When asked, 'Does Apple give some developers special access?' Fischer answered 'no,' but 'before offering some features, a few. Sometimes you want to test in a group of people. '

It has been revealed that Apple had previously set a special contract with Amazon to cut the App Store fee by half. Some evidence has denied Apple's CEO Tim Cook's claim that 'Apple treats all apps equally.'

It turns out that Apple had made a 'secret agreement to halve the fee' only with Amazon-GIGAZINE



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