After a judge opened up a way to avoid Apple\u2019s commission on their sales, companies big and small are seeing dollar signs.<\/b>
\nApple has taken to calling its iPhone App Store an \u201c economic miracle,\u201d and it has pointed to developers like Zach Shakked as proof. Mr. Shakked created an iPhone app that helps companies find trending hashtags on social media. Over the past 12 months, his sales have topped $5 million. But one of Mr. Shakked\u2019s largest expenses is paying a cut to the world\u2019s richest company. In his case, Apple took nearly $1.5 million \u2014 its fee for letting him run his app on its devices. Now, Mr. Shakked has hope that he could soon keep at least some of that money. On Friday, a federal judge ordered Apple to allow developers to steer their customers off their iPhone apps to pay for their goods or services, which Apple had banned. That is big news for developers like Mr. Shakked because sales completed outside Apple\u2019s payment systems are not subject to its commission of up to 30 percent. \u201cIt finally feels like the small guys got a win,\u201d Mr. Shakked,25, said. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of justice.\u201d The ruling, in Apple\u2019s yearlong legal fight with Epic Games, the maker of the popular video game Fortnite, set off celebrations among app developers. From one-person start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, they have long complained about paying hefty cuts of their businesses to Apple. The impact of the decision will be most felt by the smallest developers like Mr. Shakked. He said the change could save him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which would allow him to hire more employees. \u201cIt\u2019s a very big deal,\u201d said Denys Zhadanov, a board member at Readdle, which makes five productivity apps for tasks like email that together have been downloaded roughly 175 million times. The change could save his company millions of dollars each year, he said. The court fight has often been framed as a battle between industry heavyweights: Apple, which is worth $2.5 trillion, versus Epic, a far smaller company but still one of the few app makers capable of taking on the Silicon Valley titan. Friday\u2019s verdict is not expected to be a big hit to Apple\u2019s bottom line. In fact, the company declared victory, since Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that Epic had failed to prove that Apple had a monopoly in the mobile gaming market \u2014 which would have had a much more serious consequence. The decision appeared to disappoint Epic. Tim Sweeney, its chief executive, said the ruling wasn\u2019t a \u201cwin for developers or for consumers.\u201d He vowed to continue his company\u2019s fight. There could be a number of barriers to the mandated App Store changes. Apple could ask another judge to temporarily block the order, which is set to take effect in 90 days. And both companies could appeal the ruling, a process that could take several years. Apple could also restrict how developers direct customers off their apps to complete transactions, including by making them list Apple\u2019s payment system as an option and barring them from offering discounts for customers who don\u2019t pay via Apple. Such discounts may be necessary to persuade customers to take the extra steps to open a web browser and enter their credit card information, versus simply tapping a button and paying via Apple. \u201cI\u2019m sure app developers will benefit somewhat, but it\u2019s unclear to me to what extent consumers will actually use this,\u201d said Sumit Sharma, a senior researcher for tech competition at Consumer Reports. Nevertheless, the tide may be starting to turn against Apple\u2019s tight control over its App Store. Regulators in Japan and South Korea have forced Apple to tweak how it manages the store, and regulators and lawmakers around the world are also considering measures to curb the company\u2019s influence. Dan Burkhart, the chief executive of Recurly, a subscription management and billing platform that works with more than 2,000 companies, said many of the app developers he communicates with regularly were buzzing with enthusiasm on Friday afternoon. Larger companies with \u201cestablished momentum and notoriety\u201d are likely to benefit from being able to direct their loyal customers elsewhere, he said. Match Group, the maker of the dating apps Tinder and Hinge, is on track to pay Apple and Google \u2014 which controls a similar app store for phones that run its Android software \u2014 more than $500 million in commissions this year, the company\u2019s single largest expense, said Gary Swidler, Match\u2019s finance chief. The company was already considering ways to use Friday\u2019s ruling to cut down that bill as much as possible, including by charging less for subscriptions that are paid on one of its websites, he said. One analyst estimated that the change could save Match $80 million a year, but Mr. Swidler said there were too many questions to make such a forecast. \u201cDepending on what the take rate would be, it will help us from a bottom-line perspective, and it will allow us to invest more in our business, and will also allow us to pass on the benefits to consumers,\u201d he said. Michael Love, the founder and chief executive of a Chinese dictionary app called Pleco, said the prospect of avoiding a commission \u2014 he pays Apple 15 percent \u2014 was good news. Even better? The possibility that he could interact directly with customers in ways that App Store rules prevented, like sending promotional emails, issuing refunds and looking up old orders. \u201cI\u2019m excited for the possibilities for payments without Apple getting in the way,\u201d he said. Mr. Love,39, said he had not been able to strike many deals with other dictionary publishers because those publishers did not want to pay commissions to both Apple and him and lose out on a lot of money. Now, by avoiding the Apple fees and working directly with publishers, he could potentially transform his business and become a \u201cboutique e-book retailer,\u201d Mr. Love said. That could increase his revenue from about $500,000 a year to $5 million or $10 million, he said. \u201cIt makes it possible for little guys to compete,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n