Apple executive emails revealed in the Epic Games vs. Apple lawsuit highlight how the company came to its conclusion to take a 30% cut on all App Store transactions in a way that ensured it wasn't "leaving money on the table."
One email thread from 2011, spotted by The Verge, features Apple services chief Eddy Cue discussing the commission that the company should charge providers for content subscriptions accessed via Apple TV (an App Store on the set-top box didn't exist at the time.) Apple execs considered charging a 40% one-time cut, a 30% one-time cut, a 30% ongoing fee, or individualized deals with different providers.
Apple's team eventually decided to require the same 30% fees as it does on the iTunes Store and the App Store. Another email also discusses how Apple should negotiate referrals, where Apple TV apps link out to a provider's website for customers to subscribe directly to the service.
One executive said they wanted to ensure they protected the 30% fee that had long been enshrined in the App Store, but stated they would remain open to other deal structures.
"I don't want to do any deals where we get less than 30%. That is what it is on the app store and we can't be making a different deal here. If that is not possible than I want a one-time bounty but we need to very careful here so this doesn't spillover to the app store," one exec wrote. (The emails are threaded such that it's hard to tell who is replying to whom.)
Overall, the email thread appears to suggest that discussions evolved extemporaneously amongst Apple executives when it came to provider fees during the early development of the Apple TV platform, with maximum profit the main concern.
Amid increasing scrutiny over its App Store practices, Apple in November announced the Small Business Program, which saw App Store fees slashed to just 15% for developers earning under one million dollars per calendar year. The App Store commission remains at 30% for developers making over one million dollars per year.
The program has since received praise from many developers, but some larger developers including Epic Games criticized the move, saying it undermines the App Store's rules. Epic Games is ineligible for the reduced commission since it exceeds the $1 million earnings threshold. Apple said the program will benefit the "vast majority" of App Store developers.
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Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3, the AirPods 4, and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 firmware is 8B21, all up from the prior 8A358 firmware released in October.
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In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 26.2 will be released to all users in December, but it did not provide a specific release date....
Thursday November 13, 2025 6:48 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26 extended pinned conversations in the Messages app to CarPlay, for quick access to your most frequent chats. However, some drivers may prefer the classic view with a list of individual conversations only, and Apple now lets users choose.
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Apple today announced that iPhone users can now create a Digital ID in the Apple Wallet app based on information from their U.S. passport.
To create and present a Digital ID based on a U.S. passport, you need:
An iPhone 11 or later running iOS 26.1 or later, or an Apple Watch Series 6 or later running watchOS 26.1 or later
Face ID or Touch ID and Bluetooth turned on
An Apple Account ...
Tesla is working to add support for Apple CarPlay in its vehicles, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
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Apple today provided developers with the second beta of iOS 26.2, which adds a few new features worth knowing about.
Measure App
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Games App
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CarPlay
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Wednesday November 12, 2025 2:49 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Update: It took a day, but Apple has now corrected its Apple Intelligence device compatibility list to show support for the earliest Apple silicon Macs. The original article follows.
Apple's website is causing some confusion among Mac owners, and for good reason – its device compatibility listing for Apple Intelligence appears to have dropped support for M1 Macs.
The U.S. version...
You should see the markup on tangible products to wholesalers or wholesalers to retailers.
EDIT: For the sake of clarity, the average markup of a wholesaler or manufacturer to a retailer or wholesaler is 20-40%. Apple is charging 30% by acting as a middleman. If you reject Apple's 30%, I suggest you reject every retailer where you purchase any services or goods from.
Forget what the emails actually say. Look at how it's written! That's appalling! It's not properly capitalised! Noteworthy is that "the App Store" isn't even capitalised! And my Mac just automatically capitalised it for me as I wrote it here so there's no excuse for that. And there's even a word missing. "we need to very careful here". "be". Please write full sentences when you're an exec writing emails like this... And "than" is comparative. "Then" is the word you wanted there. God damn
So Apple leadership is figuring out how much to charge for something, and they go with their existing standard fee that’s also in line with the rest of the market. Is there supposed to be some sort of smoking gun here?
Who gets to decide that. Funiture and clothing have 300 and 400 percent markups. Jewelry too. Apple is successful because they generally require a 35% profit margin to release anything and to do a few things very well. They strayed from this while Jobs was in exile and nearly went out of business. Most of their competitors from that era no longer exist.
30 percent is actually much lower if you look at their costs. They manage the support, they eat the 3% credit card processing fees, they host the apps in cloud, they provide free marketing and drive the platform via ads and other methods, they maintain the platform, with constant and consistent updates to APIs and security. They protect companies from piracy that plagues other platforms, and keeps them from being run out of business.
