Brazil Becomes the Latest Region Mandating More Competitive iPhone and iPad App Distribution ⇥ apple.com

Apple announced this week it would be implementing its “alternative app marketplaces” and “alternative app payments” schemes to residents of Brazil after a settlement with the country’s antitrust authority. Michael Tsai has a good roundup of the history of this settlement and reactions from developers.

The people living in places where Apple’s standard App Store policies have been found non-compliant has now reached one-third of the world’s population. That is a poor measurement, of course, and half that is thanks to the mildly adjusted commission in China. But it has all happened recently, and it goes to show the number of influential markets taking this seriously. Even in the U.S., developers are allowed to link to an external purchasing option, effectively its sole concession of the lawsuit filed by Epic Games. Which raises the question: what are Canadian regulators waiting for? Apple is clearly not going to correct its policies without governments stepping in.

I think these policies are similar to those implemented in Japan — Apple even recycled the press release, swapping only the local details. But because these policies are all being revised piecemeal and region-by-region, and because Apple has a whole bunch of separate fees and commissions related to third-party distribution, I am trying to put together a comparison to better understand how this plays out in the real world.