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"science and technology innovation board daily" september 3 (reporter zhang yangyang)the dispute between wechat and apple has fermented again. in the past two days, there have been rumors that wechat may not support iphone 16, and once the iphone is upgraded to ios18.2, wechat will not be available. the reporter of "science and technology innovation board daily" learned from an informed source that the news is untrue.

at the same time, in response to the above rumors, apple china's technical consultant also stated that third-party comments about whether ios systems or apple devices can still use wechat, including whether wechat can continue to be listed and downloaded in the apple app store, need to be communicated and discussed between apple and tencent to determine the subsequent situation.

although the rumor about wechat and apple’s “choose one of two” has been debunked, the game of interests between the two can no longer be ignored.

the source of this rumor can be traced back to the previous "apple tax" on wechat mini games. at the second quarter earnings conference, tencent publicly admitted for the first time that it was negotiating with apple on the issue of revenue sharing for wechat mini games.

the news was revealed by james mitchell, tencent's chief strategy officer, who said tencent is considering providing in-app transaction services through apple's ios payment system, and if the agreement is negotiated, apple will receive a certain percentage of the revenue.

earlier, there were reports in the market that apple had increased pressure on chinese technology giants such as tencent and bytedance, asking them to stop the practice of allowing in-app creators to circumvent apple's 30% commission.

in the current ios ecosystem, the in-app purchase revenue generated by small games, including wechat and tiktok, is not connected to apple's own payment channels like when downloading game applications from the app store. the current fast-growing small game market in china is something apple cannot ignore.

apple hopes to "plug" the payment loopholes in small games to prevent developers from directing users to external payment systems.

as the world's major software distribution platform, apple implements a policy of charging a 30% commission on all in-app transactions on its app store. although this regulation has always been criticized by industry ecosystem partners, apple has always maintained a tough stance due to its strong ecosystem.

it is worth noting that apple is facing similar battles with other companies or regions around the world regarding the apple tax. for example, music streaming service spotify and game company epic games have both had legal disputes with apple. in addition, the european union also issued a huge fine of 1.84 billion euros to apple in march this year due to its dominant position in the music streaming application market, forcing apple to adjust its "apple tax" in some regions.

later, apple made a series of adjustments in the eu, reducing the apple tax from the original 30% and 15% (small and medium-sized developers with annual revenue of us$1 million) to 17% and 10% respectively.