WordPress Founder Claims Apple Cut Off Updates To His Free App Because It Wants 30 Percent

WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg is accusing Apple of cutting off the ability to update its iOS app — until or unless he adds in-app purchases so Apple can extract its 30 percent cut of the money. The Verge reports: Here’s the thing: the WordPress app on iOS doesn’t sell anything. I just checked, and so did Stratechery’s Ben Thompson. The app simply lets you make a website for free. There isn’t even an option to buy a unique dot-com or even dot-blog domain name from the iPhone and iPad app — it simply assigns you a free WordPress domain name and 3GB of space. Is Apple seriously asking for WordPress owner Automattic to share a cut of all its domain name revenue? How would it even know which customers used the app? Or was this all a mistake? Apple, Automattic, and Mullenweg didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment. As the article points out, all of this is happening in the shadow of Epic Games’ gigantic fight against Apple, one that Apple responded to this very afternoon.