Mike Peterson
Apple is quietly testing a new App Store feature that allows developers to automatically raise prices on app subscriptions without a user's explicit opt-in.
The new feature was first discovered by App Store users who noticed that Disney+ was simply informing them of a recent price hike, instead of asking for them to agree to it. Developer Max Seelemann first noticed the change in App Store policy.
iOS biz people Subscription price increase as mere NOTICE instead of having to confirm, else subs expires.
— Max Seelemann (@macguru17) March 24, 2022
Is this new behavior for everyone or exclusive to Disney+? pic.twitter.com/zt7c15QcTA
The new price hike alert is positioned as a notification, with a prominent "OK" button to dismiss it. If users want to change their subscription, they would need to tap the smaller "review your subscription" button above it.
It isn't clear if users need to actually press the "OK" button for the new pricing to take effect. Seelemann said he also received an email from Disney+ that essentially told him the price was raising and he was automatically being opted in at the higher rate.
In other words, the new system seems to automatically opt in users to a higher price unless they explicitly opt out.
That's different from how Apple's official development guidelines describe how subscriptions are supposed to work. Under current policy, a notification alerting users to a price hike are supposed to have a prominent "Agree to New Price" button.
Seelemann isn't the only one to notice the updated notifications. Other users also chimed in to say that they've seen similar behavior from other streaming apps.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Apple did not dispute the news. Instead, Apple said that it is currently pilot testing a "new commerce feature we plan to launch very soon."
"The pilot includes developers across various app categories, organization sizes and regions to help test an upcoming enhancement that we believe will be great for both developers and users, and we'll have more details to share in the coming weeks," an Apple spokesperson said.
The pilot test appears to be limited to a select handful of companies like Disney+. According to the report, other developers weren't able to enable the automatic price hikes on their own apps.
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27 Comments
This is obviously in the original terms and conditions that was agreed to when first signing up. Now just like cable and satellite companies they can increase the price every other month with only a notification of the increase.
Wonder if it's related to the high inflation rate or just a gift to big subscription services.
Read the tweets. How is this so confusing for so many of you? Pressing the button clearly isn’t going to do Anything. What on earth do you guys have for breakfast? Some of you are holding you fingers in the air over the button like on any planet in the universe it would matter at all.
If you’re holding out on pressing the button, wake the F up and see a brain doctor. Nearly everyone in that Twitter thread needs help.
And as for the title of the article, this is a test in what way? This is normal behavior. You have a subscription, the vendor is raising the price, here’s the details. What exactly are you expecting Opt-In to look like? You can say “I Decline” and your rates stay the same? That’s absurd. You have an active subscription, the response to a change of terms would be an Opt-Out, and that’s what the notification is doing. You can’t just pay what you feel like paying, and Apple would have no business cancelling your subscription without asking first in order to give you some weird mirage of having an Opt-In.
Honestly.
My life has vastly improved now I no longer look at tweets.
If that isn't illegal, it should be.