Apples Phil Schiller shunned plan to squeeze more money from App Store prior to exit: report

Longtime Apple executive Phil Schiller reportedly stepped away from running the App Store partly because he wanted no involvement with a push by the tech giant’s new leadership to squeeze more money from the lucrative platform.Schiller, 66, a veteran of both the Steve Jobs and Tim Cook eras, remained in charge of the App Store and Apple’s splashy product-launch events after stepping down as the company’s marketing chief and becoming an Apple Fellow in 2020.But new Apple CEO John Ternus and services boss Eddy Cue are looking for ways to wring greater profits and more repeat revenue from the App Store, Bloomberg reported over the weekend.Schiller, by contrast, believed that pushing the App Store harder for profits would only inflame tensions with developers and governments, according to Bloomberg.The disagreement never erupted into an internal clash, but Schiller reportedly shunned the strategy.The Bloomberg report sheds new light on Schiller’s decision to relinquish oversight of the App Store, a business estimated to generate more than $30 billion a year that has faced mounting pressure from regulators and developers.Schiller’s latest concerns echoed objections he privately raised over Apple’s efforts to collect commissions on outside purchases during its long-running legal battle with “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.In 2023, he opposed Apple’s plan to slap a 27% commission on purchases made on developers’ websites after users followed links from their apps, according to court records.Schiller said internally that he had “many issues with the commission concept” and made clear he was “not on team commission/fee,” according to the records.Apple’s chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, and other finance executives favored charging the commission, while Schiller opposed it and later testified that collecting fees from developers could damage Apple’s relationship with them.CEO Tim Cook ultimately sided with Maestri’s camp.The decision later...