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While we wait to see what, if any, changes Apple will make to the App Store due to increasing pressure from legal cases and government legislation, itā€™s interesting to watch what the other companies are doing.

Microsoft is ready to show its hand, with the updated Microsoft Store for Windows announced this week. Yes, itā€™s not a mobile store, but I think itā€™s still worth examining.

It has some familiar features like editorial ā€œstoriesā€ that highlight different apps every day, but there are also things weā€™ve not seen before.

One feature is a ā€œpop-upā€ store. That could mean lots of things, but in this case, it means a button that you can add to your web page that looks similar to the ā€œAvailable on the App Storeā€ buttons from Apple. However, this button doesnā€™t launch a separate store experience where your potential customer gets taken from your web page, which you control, and onto a store page, which you have less control over. Instead, it just takes care of the distribution part. You still own all marketing, and the store handles the download and installation. Of course, thereā€™s also a store page for people who find your app that way, but itā€™s not mandatory.

Thatā€™s a nice feature, but itā€™s just a warm-up! Next, you can publish a wide variety of apps to the store, and users can install them regardless of whether they use the storeā€™s inbuilt mechanism, or if itā€™s an MSI installer, a plain old exe file, or even a PWA.

Then, the big one. As Microsoft put it, you have ā€œflexibility and choice of commerce platformā€. If youā€™d like Microsoft to take care of payment, they take 15% (or 12% for games). If you donā€™t want them to take care of it, you keep 100% and use whatever payment provider you like.

Thereā€™s still a review process, but I canā€™t pass much judgement on that as I donā€™t know anyone who has gone through it. Here are the policies (with a detailed change history) if youā€™d like to take a look.

There may be conditions Iā€™m not seeing, and of course, itā€™s early days, but this is certainly an interesting move from Microsoft, who have been through anti-trust proceedings before.

Itā€™s worth noting that my hopes for the Apple App Store remain unchanged. I believe that significant changes to app review or allowing alternative payment mechanisms would be a net loss for the platform in terms of the perceived trust and simplicity of the store. But I wanted to report on what Microsoft is doing here. Itā€™s significant.

Dave Verwer  

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Senior Mobile Software Engineer @ Doximity ā€“ Doximity, the medical network used by over 80% of US physicians, is hiring passionate Senior iOS engineers (remote-friendly!). You'll get to be part of an amazing product team and work on an app that is constantly evolving. Use your skills (Swift, MVVM, FRP) to be an integral part of our newly launched telemedicine feature. Apply today! ā€“ Remote within the US

Mobile Full Stack Engineer @ Expensify ā€“ Join our passionate team of top-notch engineers to solve a real-world problem, and help people spend less time managing expenses and more time pursuing their real goals. As we revolutionize the way people manage their expenses, being part of the Expensify team means building the easiest, fastest, and most efficient platform to automate everything expense-related. ā€“ Remote, New York City NY, Portland OR, Ironwood MI, San Francisco CA, London UK, or Melbourne Australia

iOS Engineer @ Redzone Production Systems ā€“ Redzone is growing fast and looking to hire talented iOS Engineers to join our team. We build a communication and collaboration platform that enables frontline workers to resolve day-to-day production issues themselves before they become problems. Fully native iOS & tvOS apps, 100% Swift codebase, and fast adoption of the newest Apple technologies. ā€“ Remote within European or US Eastern time zones

iOS Platform Lead @ SoundCloud ā€“ SoundCloud is the world's leading audio platform. We are now looking for a technical leader to join our team and take ownership for our iOS platform. In your role, you will help, mentor and align a collective group of iOS engineers on the Technical Vision for the platform, building a solid technical infrastructure to support any business initiative for the years to come. ā€“ Berlin

Senior iOS Engineer @ onX ā€“ Are you an iOS developer who loves the outdoors? Join onX! If youā€™re passionate about writing great software, love playing outside, believe in protecting access to public lands, and want to dominate the off-pavement mobile GPS market ā€“ then join our team, where we empower millions of outdoor enthusiasts to explore the unknown! ā€“ Missoula MT or Remote within the US

Senior iOS Engineer, AR and Mapping @ Fantasmo ā€“ Fantasmo is looking for a stellar iOS developer to extend and maintain our AR/VR localization and mapping SDK and associated LiDAR scanning apps. We are a small but growing team of engineers and scientists. We care deeply about best practices, automated testing and deployments, and code quality, and we utilize a modern stack, using Swift and SwiftUI. Help us map the world! ā€“ Remote or Berlin

iOS Developer @ Bontouch ā€“ Bontouch is an award-winning product innovation agency that specializes in iOS and Android development, design, QA and data analytics. We are now looking for an iOS developer in Stockholm and ƅre to help us in our continued mission to deliver world-class apps together with our partners. ā€“ Stockholm and ƅre, Sweden

iOS SDK Architect @ Stream ā€“ Stream is hiring for an iOS SDK Architect to write and maintain our open-source SDKs that are consumed by over a billion end-users. You will work with modern iOS technologies, such as Swift, SwiftUI, and Combine, with a heavy focus on code quality, API design, testing, and CI/CD processes. ā€“ Amsterdam or Remote

 

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Itā€™s been just longer than three months since I launched the iOS Dev Weekly Insiders programme, and itā€™s been a much bigger success than I could have hoped for, with more than 80 of you choosing to join so far. Iā€™ve really enjoyed getting to know people better and catching up with Discord, and hosting the weekly discussion calls are things I look forward to every week. Thank you to everyone who supports this email, either by reading it or through Patreon. Your support is always truly appreciated.

As usual, I also want to give thanks to more insiders by name too. This week, Iā€™d love to thank Luis Abreu, Roman KÅ™Ć­Å¾, Stuart Breckenridge, Rodhan Hickey, and Abizer Nasir!

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And finally...

My first Mac wasn't until the start of the Intel transition in 2006, so I wasn't even aware that there was such a thing as a chime of death! šŸ¤Æ