Basecamp founders’ electronic mail service Hey is preventing with Apple once more — this time over the rejection of its new calendar app from the App Retailer. Apple’s reasoning is similar to when Cupertino-based tech giant rejected Hey’s email app 4 years in the past — non-paying customers can’t use the app after downloading it. Plus, new customers can’t enroll by way of Hey’s calendar app.
Final week, Basecamp launched an integrated calendar service with Hey, together with a brand new standalone app for it. On Saturday, Hey’s co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson posted on X that Apple has rejected Hey’s standalone calendar app.
Apple requires apps to permit customers to enroll in the service and presumably pay for the subscription if wanted. If customers pay by way of in-app purchases Apple will get a 30% (or much less in some circumstances) minimize. These guidelines permit some apps equivalent to Netflix, Kindle, and Spotify to let customers create accounts exterior the app.
In 2020, Apple first rejected Hey’s electronic mail app because users couldn’t sign up for the service on the app. So each corporations got here to a compromise the place customers may download and start using Hey with a randomized email ID. To improve, they needed to pay for the service by way of the browser.
In a blog post, Hansson argues that a number of apps like Google Calendar and Netflix are logins gated with individuals paying for the service exterior Apple’s ecosystem. Moreover, he says that Apple makes use of one iCloud ID to offer a subscription to a set of apps. So Hey’s calendar app needs to be allowed on the App Retailer.
“So what’s going to happen? I don’t know, but I do know that we’ll keep fighting. We’re never going to roll over and pay Apple 30% in protection money to be left alone. Last time we found a way, and we will again,” he mentioned.
Apple didn’t instantly touch upon the story.
