Apple to allow apps to charge subscription charges without permission

iPhone manufacturing giant Apple has introduced an upgrade to its App Store rules. As per the new rules the subscriptions would be auto-renewed without the permission of the user. It will be renewed, even if the monthly or the annual price of the subscription has been increased by the developer. Before the rule was changed, the users had to manually opt in to a subscription if there was a hike. But here after, that will not be the case. However, the user will still be notified about the price hike before it actually happens.

Apple while talking about introducing the new change said that it will help with the situation where the user loses access to a subscription just because they missed an opt-in message. Apple posted a message on May 16, that has mentioned about a few specific conditions that the developers will have to follow if they wish to offer an auto-renewable subscription price hike. Here Apple has also brought some limitations and has specified that if the developer increases the monthly or weekly subscription price by more than 50 percent, to make the difference more than $5, then it does not qualify.

Talking about the annual subscription, the developers can still introduce a hike by 50 percent but will not be able to increase it to more than $50 USD without the opt-in option. The announcement by Apple still makes it unclear as what if there is an app that costs $10 per year but goes up to $60 per year which is more than 50 percent of the current price. As per the company both the situations would mean to have an opt-in. But given the example, it is still not clear as to what exactly Apple intends.

But one thing is sure that Apple intends to cut on the scammy apps. The introduction of the new rule shows it cares for the App Store users.

Photo Credits: How to geek