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A 30-year-old Apple executive who runs its App Store deleted his Twitter account over the weekend.
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Elon Musk had complained about App Store fees being “too high” on Twitter a few days earlier.
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Twitter risks being kicked out of Apple’s App Store if Musk rejects the rules, a former Twitter executive has claimed.
A high-level Apple executive managing the App Store deleted his heavily followed Twitter account over the weekend.
Phil Schiller, a current Apple member and former chief marketing officer for more than 30 years, had more than 200,000 followers on his Twitter account which he started in 2008, before deleting it. The account now has a message for visitors saying: “This account does not exist”.
The deletion of Schiller’s account came just after Musk commented on App Store fees being too high. In a Nov. 19 tweet, Musk said, “App Store fees are obviously too high due to the iOS/Android duopoly. It’s a hidden tax of 30% on the internet.”
Musk is referring to the 15-30% fees Apple and Google charge companies like Twitter for in-app purchases.
Twitter, Schiller and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Schiller’s departure from the platform, made outside of normal working hours.
Musk previously complained about App Store fees in May, once again calling the fees a “hidden tax”, adding that the fees were “literally 10 times higher than they should be”.
Musk plans to launch his Twitter Blue subscription service in a bid to boost revenue for the company. When author Stephen King complained about the cost of Twitter Blue, Musk responded in a tweet: “We have to pay the bills one way or another! Twitter can’t rely entirely on advertisers. What how about $8?”
App Store fees would decrease revenue generated by Twitter Blue, hence Musk’s complaints.
Former Twitter security chief Yoel Roth wrote in The New York Times that “failure to follow Apple’s and Google’s guidelines would be catastrophic, risking Twitter’s expulsion from their app stores.” , highlighting the tech giants’ stranglehold on the internet.
Despite Schiller’s departure from the platform, Apple CEO Tim Cook is still active on the platformjust like Apple’s corporate accounts.
Read the original article on Business Insider
