According to a report from The Wall Street Journal (via AppleInsider), it seems that Apple and WeChat have come to a “mutual understanding” regarding the in-chat tipping feature. Tencent executive Alan Zhang was quoted as saying, “In the past, companies like Apple might have had a difficult time understanding China-specific features.We now all share a mutual understanding and we’ll soon bring back the “tip” function.”Prior to this, Apple wasn’t too thrilled that various services had turned to third-party companies to facilitate the tipping feature, thus bypassing Apple’s own in-app purchases system. While one could argue that it is for security reasons, another reason is that by bypassing Apple’s own system, they will no longer have to pay Apple the 30% cut from in-app purchases.
Apple was understandably not too happy with this and for a brief moment ordered that such activity be halted. However like we said, it was for a brief moment because about a month later, Apple updated their policies to allow tipping features with in-app purchases. It has been speculated that the deal Apple made with Tencent is probably slightly different from the policy they enacted in the App Store.
Given how big China’s market is, especially with WeChat essentially being the de facto chat app in the country, this deal or “mutual understanding” doesn’t really come as a surprise.