• Home
  • Apps
  • Apps News
  • Apple Blocked Updates to Free Wordpress App Until It Added In App Purchases: Matt Mullenweg

Apple Blocked Updates to Free Wordpress App Until It Added In-App Purchases: Matt Mullenweg

Wordpress app itself doesn’t sell anything; however, it has support pages pointing to paid plans.

Apple Blocked Updates to Free Wordpress App Until It Added In-App Purchases: Matt Mullenweg

Wordpress for iOS received its first update in almost a month on August 21

Highlights
  • Apple had blocked updates to Wordpress for iOS app
  • The iPhone maker wanted the app to include in-app purchases
  • Apple’s demand has caused furore in the community
Advertisement

Wordpress for iOS finally received a new update yesterday (August 21) after a period of almost a month. Turns out, the Automattic team that runs the app as well as popular Wordpress.com blogging service was blocked by Apple from pushing new app updates as it was not offering an in-app purchase option for Wordpress.com's paid plans and domain purchases, the company's founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg has revealed. The presence of in-app purchases in the Wordpress app would allow Apple to take up to 30 percent cut of all revenue that the app generates using the in-app purchases.

“Heads up on why @WordPressiOS updates have been absent... we were locked by App Store,” Mullenweg wrote on Twitter. “To be able to ship updates and bug fixes again we had to commit to support in-app purchases for .com plans.”

At the time of publishing, the Automattic team had already relented and conveyed to Apple that it would add in-app purchases in the Wordpress.com within 30 days. This surrender led to the resumption of app updates for Wordpress for iOS app.

What is Wordpress (and Wordpress app)?

Wordpress is a free and open-source content management system that is developed by the Wordpress Foundation. The foundation is a charitable organisation that runs mostly on donations. It offers free-to-use CMS software that is massively popular and used by over 60 percent of websites around the world that employ any known CMS.

wordpress app store Wordpress

Wordpress app can be downloaded for free from Apple App Store

 

Wordpress Foundation was co-founded by Matt Mullenweg who is also the founder and CEO of Automattic, which is a for-profit entity that runs Wordpress.com. Wordpress.com is like Blogger or Medium. It doesn't provide a software to self-host websites but allows users to create blogs and websites on its own platform. As a base, Wordpress.com also uses the Wordpress CMS but feature-set is limited and restrictive.

Coming to the Wordpress app, as mentioned, it is provided and maintained by the Automattic, and is free to use and open source. It not only works as the official app for Wordpress.com websites but can also be used by people using Wordpress CMS on their own servers.

Still, any impact on the functionality of the official Wordpress app has major consequences for webmasters around the world. Thus, Apple blocking important updates to this app is a major deal.

What was Wordpress doing wrong, at least in Apple's eyes?

While the Wordpress app itself doesn't sell anything and is free-to-use for anyone, it has support pages that send users wanting to purchase one of paid Wordpress.com plans or domains to a webpage on its website using webview (an internal browser). This was reportedly the bone of contention and why Apple wasn't allowing the Automattic team to push app updates until Wordpress app brings this whole plan purchase process within the app using the in-app purchase mechanism.

According to Mullenweg, the Automattic team told Apple that they could block the support pages that talked about the paid plans in the iOS app; however, Apple rejected the offer.

With no other option apart from publishing another app that included in-app purchases and fixing the current one of get rid of any and every paid plan mention, the Automattic team will now be adding in-app purchases in the Wordpress app.

Mullenweg's revelations on Twitter about Apple's arm twisting have caused an uproar at a time when Apple is already dealing with the Fortnite makers on both legal and PR fronts for removing the hugely popular game from its App Store for adding another payment mode for in-app purchases that would have left the Cupertino, California-based giant without any cut.

Fortnite developers aren't the only ones with an issue with revenue share taken by Apple or the so-called Apple tax. Spotify has time and again pushed back. Regulators are also looking into Apple and whether there are any antitrust issues with the App Store.


Which are the best truly wireless earphones under Rs. 10,000? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.
Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Redmi Note 8 Pro Starts Receiving MIUI 12 Update in India
Google Pixel 5 Tipped to Feature 90Hz OLED Display, 8GB RAM
Share on Facebook Gadgets360 Twitter Share Tweet Snapchat Share Reddit Comment google-newsGoogle News
 
 

Advertisement

Follow Us

Advertisement

© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Trending Products »
Latest Tech News »