Apple Loosens Its Wallet Grip: External Payments, NFTs, and a Crypto Circus! 🪙🍏

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In an event as rare as a white rhinoceros successfully downloading a weather app, Apple has updated its U.S. App Store guidelines. No longer will developers be confined to Cupertino’s 30% tollbooth—apps can direct users to external payment portals, sending shivers down the spines of accountants and possibly causing at least one executive to drop their iPhone in surprise. 🚀

Apple Lets Crypto in Through the Backdoor, Trips Over External Links, Everyone Cheers (Sort Of)

//developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/”>rules (effective May 2, 2025, unless time loops back on itself, which with Apple updates isn’t outside the realm of probability) allow app makers to send their customers out the App Store front gates, pockets jangling, free from Apple-levied “taxation without representation.” As a bonus, the infamous “scare screens”—which previously suggested that using anything other than Apple Pay may result in financial ruin, heartbreak, and possibly the end of civilization—are also heading to the recycling bin.

The crypto crowd is now delighted, or at least as delighted as a group of people who got their virtual coins in 2011 can be before their coffee kicks in. With no Apple-tithe, services from NFTs to DeFi can keep 15–30% more of your money to buy digital yachts, feed their favorite AI, or just convert to yet more crypto. Stripe and other non-fruit-named payment processors are invited to the party too, provided they promise not to eat all the canapés.

Social media did what it does best: reacted in ALL CAPS. “Mobile crypto just got unleashed,” a brave soul cheered, probably before checking how their NFT actually renders on iOS. Yet not everyone is ordering celebratory avocado toast. Pessimists, or as they prefer to be called, “realists,” noted that the changes only apply to the U.S. App Store. Sorry, international crypto enthusiasts: your revolution has been delayed, please remain calm. Also, don’t try launching ICO apps or crypto mining tools—Apple still says no, and their ban enforcement is only slightly friendlier than Vogon poetry.

This move is being hailed as “aligned with global antitrust trends,” which, in the language of galactic bureaucracy, means they’re doing it because the lawyers told them to. Meanwhile, Apple maintains its signature stance of disagreeing with rulings while appealing them, which is the legal equivalent of hitting “Remind Me Tomorrow” every day for eternity.

The upshot: crypto devs in the U.S. can now have a little freedom (emphasis on “little”) as a treat. The rest of the world will have to wait (possibly until after penguins fly), user trust with wild-west payments is an open question, and if anyone stumbles across a universal solution, please report it directly to the Council of Intergalactic Developers. Or just tweet about it. Whatever’s faster. 🚀🍏💸

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2025-05-04 00:27