Apple’s “In-App Purchase” system charges developers when users pay to unlock features inside apps. The transaction uses Apple’s payment network, and Cupertino takes a 30% cut of the proceeds for companies booking less than $1 million in such sales annually. Companies making $1 million or more pay Apple 15%. Currently, Tesla is skirting the In-App Purchase requirement with Apple blessing, it appears.
Musk famously described the fee as a “30% tax on the Internet.” At one of his companies, though, he’s not paying it. Tesla is dodging Apple’s In-App Purchase rules with one of its features, “View Live Camera.” Inexplicably, Apple seems to be allowing Tesla to get away with it.
Tesla offers drivers a tier of premium features called “Connectivity Packages” that costs $9.99 a month. The package unlocks a number of functions and perks including a satellite view map in the car’s console, a web browser for your car’s dashboard, and several others. Normally, this feature falls under an exception to Apple’s policy. Apple only makes developers use the In-App Purchase system for features that users “consume” within an app on the iPhone itself, but the company doesn’t charge for features used on other hardware. For example, you use Tesla’s web browser in your car, so the company can use any payment system it wants to unlock the feature. But the View Live Camera connectivity feature only works in conjunction with the Tesla app. Per Apple’s policies, Tesla would need to offer the iPhone’s In-App Purchase tool for payments. In reality, though, you can only pay with a credit card, per Gizmodo’s tests.
That means Tesla is dodging Apple’s App Store tax, skipping out on what likely adds up to millions of dollars that Apple could be collecting as years go by. For some reason, Apple seems fine with this.
MacDailyNews Take: After some public sniping by Musk towards Apple, mainly via Twitter, Apple CEO Tim Cook invited Musk to a meeting at Apple Park in November 2022. Following the meeting, Musk ceased his criticisms of Apple’s App Store fees and even began praising the company, so it seems multiple issues from Apple advertising on Twitter to App Store fees were resolved during that meeting:
Good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 30, 2022
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Methinks MDN answered the why in this article “Apple’s AirPlay may arrive in Tesla EVs this year”. Apple AirPlay in Teslas in exchange for waived AppStore fees.