This app developer is calling out Apple’s ‘bullying’ tactics, here’s why

Basecamp‘s founder is again involved in a tiff with Apple – this time for rejecting their calendar app, Hey Calendar, from the App Store. But why? Apple says it is because non-paying users cannot do anything upon opening the app. And new users can’t sign up through the app. Well, this is not the first time the folks at Hey would have heard this, as four years ago, back in 2020, when Apple rejected Hey’s email app, it had the same reason.And David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder of Hey and Basecamp, is not happy with what he calls Apple’s “bullying” tactics.
On Saturday, Hey’s co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson announced that Apple had rejected the standalone calendar app of Hey. “Apple just called to let us know they’re rejecting the HEY Calendar app from the App Store (in its current form). Same bullying tactics as last time: Push delicate rejections to a call with a first-name-only person who’ll softly inform you it’s your wallet or your kneecaps,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Hansson, in a blog post, stated that Apple took 19 days to review their submission, causing them to miss their planned January 2nd launch date. Apple rejected Hey’s stand-alone free companion app stating that it “doesn’t do anything”.
Hey apps’, either the calendar app or the email one, provide users with access to a paid service through a free, standalone app. This is similar to how apps such as Netflix and Spotify function, where the app is a reader app that accesses off-device content.

So, new users cannot sign up for Hey Calendar directly through the app. Basecamp, the company behind Hey, requires users to sign up via a browser. But Apple’s App Store rules mandate that most paid services must offer users the option to pay and sign up through the app, for which Apple receives a commission of up to 30%.
Although there are some exceptions, such as reader apps like Spotify and Kindle, the rule has many grey areas. Earlier in 2020, Apple “carved out HEY in App Store Review Guidelines,” when it rejected the email app over payment methods. Apple suggested offering a free option, which Hey did, with a twist: users who signed up via the iOS app got a free, temporary email address that worked for 14 days. Hey email users can only pay for an account through the browser. Apple changed their rules, but Hey’s calendar app wasn’t included in the exception.
Hansson and Hey plans to fight Apple’s decision. But we’re not giving up, and we’re not rolling over. He wrote, “Apple will never get 30% of our revenues. Someone has to occasionally stand up to this in order for things to change. And change they must. Free markets depend on monopolies being kept in check.”