2023-07-12 16:00:00
Would Elon Musk have found the parade to escape the 30% commission from the App Store? Nothing is less certain. In any case, the Tesla application for iPhone offers a means of payment external to the App Store, which Apple hates. The start of a new trial?
As a lengthy, never-ending lawsuit drags on between Apple and Epic Games over the hefty 15%-30% commission charged on all App Store purchases and subscriptions, it seems like not everyone is not housed in the same boat on the side of Cupertino. If Fortnite was immediately ousted from the App Store after Tim Cook and others discovered that Epic was evading the commission, it is a completely different matter with Tesla.
Elon Musk, the car brand’s founder, and Tim Cook will never go on vacation together. Musk has repeatedly made strong remarks and criticisms of the App Store’s pricing policy. “The App Store is like having a 30% tax on the internet. This is definitely not normal”then split the boss of Twitter in a tweet in May 2022. “It’s literally 10 times higher than it should be.”
Elon Musk even allowed himself to take sides with Epic Games in the lawsuit between the studio and Apple, evoking that it was “of a global tax on the Internet”and that Apple had created a “walled garden” by imposing to go through the App Store to download apps on iPhone or iPad.
It is therefore not surprising that Elon Musk looked for a loophole in this commission and found it. Or in any case, it is rather Apple which does not seem to have yet put its finger on this “flaw”. In its Tesla application for iPhone, the company offers to subscribe to the Premium Connection costing €9.99 per month. This allows you to unlock several new functions, such as Sentinel mode, video and music streaming, the Karaoke function or even real-time traffic.
A function that should cost Tesla dearly
So far, nothing out of the ordinary, since all these features are only available on the Tesla’s dashboard, which may escape the famous commission. All? Not really. As revealed Gizmodo, the “Live Camera View” feature goes through the iPhone screen. Since the application goes through the iPhone for this function, Tesla is forced to go through the “app store tax”.
Currently, only payment by credit card is possible, while the company must offer payment via Apple ID. Nothing indicates on the App Store page of the Tesla application that there are in-app purchases, since they “do not exist” in the eyes of Apple.
Since Tesla exceeds $1 million in profit to qualify for the 15% commission, Elon Musk’s company would have to comply with the 30% taken back on every App Store transaction. It is impossible to know for the time being whether Apple is aware of the situation and whether measures will be taken or whether this is a “normal” situation. Netflix and Spotify could indeed escape the measure by referring to their website, but Tesla does not even do so.
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