Did Apple make concessions? Will they no longer charge the "Apple tax"? You're thinking too much.

In response to the EU antitrust case, on Thursday morning, December 25th, Apple announced that it will allow EU users to download apps through third-party platforms and adjust the commission rate. This reform will take effect in March and only affect Apple users in Europe.

But did Apple really make concessions? Will they no longer charge the "Apple tax"? It's not that simple.

On one hand, under the new fee structure, although Apple has significantly reduced the commission from 30% to 17%-10% for the App Store, they will introduce two additional fixed fees based on the number of app installations.

First, for software with more than 1 million installations, a fee of 0.50 euros per new user will be charged for subsequent installations, regardless of whether it is installed through Apple or a third-party. Analysts believe that charging based on the number of app installations will bring significant costs to large developers like TikTok.

Second, Apple requires third-party app stores to pay 0.5 euros for each customer's first download within 12 months, even if the number of downloads has not reached the one million threshold.

This means that even before reaching one million users, these companies need to pay for each new user. Analysts believe that this may impose a significant financial burden on app stores that are just starting out or have a small user base, and undermine the motivation for third-party stores to launch their own app stores on the iPhone.

In addition, Apple also offers additional incentives. If developers use other payment methods in app sales, they can receive an additional 3% commission reduction. Although this sounds like an attractive offer, experienced iPhone app developer David Barnard believes that this incentive may not have a significant impact on most developers, as users find other payment systems less convenient and less trustworthy, and they prefer to use Apple's payment system for transactions.

Analysts believe that even if Apple allows third-party app stores, there is still doubt about whether there is a real demand for these stores in the market. For example, Google's Android system has long allowed third-party app stores, but stores including Amazon and Samsung have not achieved significant success.