The CEO of Telegram accuses Apple of doing everything possible to delay, through the App Store’s evaluation system, the deployment of an update of all importance for the messaging application.
« Revolutionize the way people express themselves in messengers“, this is the big ambition carried by the next major update of the encrypted messaging application Telegramone of the last real free communication channels in Russia, despite practices that are less secure than one might think.
This week, Pavel Durov, CEO of the platform, however accuses Apple to obstruct the deployment of this crucial update for Telegram, by deliberately dragging out its evaluation process, which is mandatory for applications distributed on the App Store. According to Pavel Durov, the update would be blocked for two weeks, without Apple providing a specific reason for this delay, nor the slightest feedback. An unfair practice for the CEO of Telegram, who joins a growing number of market players outraged by Apple’s policy regarding the App Store.
Apple and Telegram already have a liability
« If Telegram, one of the ten most popular apps in the world, receives this treatment, one can only imagine the difficulties faced by small app developers.“, has in particular commented this August 10 Pavel Durov on Telegram. « It’s not just demoralizing: it leads to direct financial losses for hundreds of thousands of mobile apps worldwide. ».
The interested party also attacks, like so many others, the 30% commission charged by Apple on purchases made on the App Store and within the applications distributed from its market. A “tax” according to Pavel Durov, which is added according to him “to the damage already inflicted by Apple on the industry ». « Regulators in the EU and beyond are slowly starting to pay attention to these abusive practices“, However, welcomes the person concerned, while being indignant that the damage caused to publishers and application developers is, according to him, irreparable in many cases.
As pointed out Apple Insider, this is not the first time that Telegram has criticized Apple for hampering its business through the App Store and its evaluation process. In 2018, Apple had indeed already delayed updates to the service, but at the time this decision had a political dimension: Russia had indeed asked Apple to remove Telegram from its application market. It was then a retaliation from Russian regulators, following Telegram refused to add backdoors to its platform that would have allowed authorities to access users’ messages.
Described as “Kafkaesque” by other application publishers, the evaluation system in force on the App Store is regularly singled out in the industry, as well as the 30% commission imposed by Apple. A double point of tension which had nevertheless led the firm to review its rules (in particular authorizing developers to challenge some of its directives) and to lower the percentage of its commission by 15% for applications generating less than 1 million dollars from income year round.
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