👍 Good creative thinking.
It’s true that Apple wouldn’t contend that miner fees break that rule, because they’re not interested in that - they put these rules in place to a) stop grifters putting apps out there that skim altruistic transactions unbeknownst to the gifter and b) to get their cut and fund a marketplace that they created and for which they believe deserves remuneration.
Which leads me to disagree with your point about lawyers. Apple want small indie app developers to succeed on the App Store *without* a team of lawyers, hence a set of rules that, which super confusing, are an attempt to make things clear to non-lawyers.
The solution here is to appeal to their motives and implore them to support — and profit from — Lightning for in-app payments of any type.
They’re won’t ban what they don’t know about or don’t understand.
That’s actually one of the advantages of tiny micropayments like zaps - there’s no visible UX! Can’t do that with larger payments that require explicit user consent.
I think I’ll stop arguing here, as Apple’s language - which is intentionally broad with the ‘associated’ term being key here - is clear to me, and it’s equally clear I’m not convincing you otherwise.
I don’t like it, I hope they change it, but it is the reality. We won’t change their mind by telling them their own rule is saying something else.
Pithy, but not exactly a high quality critique.
Is it possible that the good guys sometimes get a marketing budget?
Apple aren’t objecting to tips. They’re objecting to the zap button underneath each piece of content. And they’ve had a rule that specifies you can’t do that for some time. Their rules are maddeningly complex but this one is right there in plain sight: 
They simply took a closer look at the feature, and found that it clearly violates one of their rules for monetization (which is that tips associated directly with content must use in-app purchase).
This does happen. Most people don’t realize that a number of years back there was a large outcry at the length of app review times. They fixed it, and I’m pretty sure that was partially by not looking as closely at everything an update does.
I don’t think anyone should infer there’s any prejudice towards bitcoin or that there’s going to be any wider look at BTC-oriented apps. Many folks definitely seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions here IMO, from what I’ve seen in the last week.
Thank you sir.
I have the benefit of experience here having worked there. This feedback goes directly to the engineering team responsible to evaluate and prioritize accordingly. I think we can sometimes get ahead of ourselves and assume it’s obvious that Bitcoin and Lightning should be supported. It’s certainly *not* obvious to everyone.
We can’t say both:
- “we’re so early!” and
- “Nooooo Apple should support Lightning zaps, it’s obvious, noooooo”.
The two statements are mutually exclusive.
The solution is time and explaining the rational case for bitcoin, and when speaking to a for-profit company, making it clear why it’s a win-win.
In the meantime, hopefully they’ll listen to feedback like this. I do think if we can convince them that it’s in their interests to support Lightning payments, they’ll do it eventually. 
Looking forward to this one! nostr:note18mtv32dmgzqqtd825rvyh89tw5cc6sq4w85x29kzzlumafk0wdgqfyclqc
gm 🌞🌻 reminder that Apple is still threatening removal of nostr:npub18m76awca3y37hkvuneavuw6pjj4525fw90necxmadrvjg0sdy6qsngq955 app...
Deadline they have given is June 27th, hoping their decision is reversed before then!
I've submitted appeal to common sense over https://developer.apple.com/contact/#!/topic/select
If you have Apple Developer account, consider doing the same 🫂
https://nostr.build/av/d83583cb079befd99b256423d801c44326c421874800bd03578407ed651e529c.mp4
Noble but misplaced effort IMO. They have a clear rule based on content tipping requiring IAP.
When I realized what my donations went towards 🤬😡🤬😡
One way would be to flood Apple with our thoughts on how this should all work (not bitching about it though, keep that in Nostr)
I genuinely suspect some of this is a lack of awareness and giving them a collective nudge could help.
Interesting that Reddit is going against the desires of its users in order to try to monetize the content that those users generate by charging huge sums for API access.
Don’t think this is going to end well for Reddit if they continue down this road.
If I was them I’d be looking at building an LLM (or partnering with another company who can) and monetizing that product.
Nope.
Their ability to integrate top class hardware and software is unmatched. They get criticised for *not* buying enough other companies.
No other company could have built the Reality Pro, for any price. Now their competitors have a leg up, just as Android did when iOS first came out.
I think there might be room to be creative — for example with the positioning of the zap button. There also may be some ways to determine the visibility or positioning of the zap button based on the content in the note.
In other words, If they are ok with two taps to get to the user’s profile to zap, what else might they be ok with?
*potentially* selling digital content. Keep that in mind!
This note is a great example of zaps not being for tipping for content.
But they will have a few examples of what they see from their side. I think the key thing will be to get their help in coming up with a compromise.
Excellent! I hope they have some creative solutions for you and don’t act all cagey.
Yeah, they may not see zaps on notes as much lost revenue, but they take their rules very seriously, unlike Google who have much the same rules published for the Play Store but don’t enforce them.
Apple know that if they do not draw the line very strongly, they’ll rapidly lose any ability to row things back.
It’ll happen eventually however, as long as developers keep pushing the boundaries and publicly fighting back.