Twitter Blue costs $11 per month on iOS instead of $8 • The Register

Jean J. Sanders

Comment You would have thought that after Twitter chief Elon Musk and Tim Cook schmoozed a bit at Apple’s headquarters, the two would’ve reached some sort of common ground following that little “misunderstanding” last month.

Instead, Musk continued his quest to make Twitter Blue unpalatable to as many people as possible by saying customers on iOS would have to pay $3 more than anyone else with the subscription service’s relaunch today.

To recap, the SpaceX chief suddenly attacked Apple via his favorite microblogging platform a few weeks ago for pulling advertising on the website and claiming that “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”

He punctuated this by asking: “Do they hate free speech in America?”

A day later, all was forgiven. Thanking Cook for showing him around the Cupertino HQ, Musk swooned: “Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.”

And yet here we are with an $11 monthly bill for Twitter Blue on iOS, the iPhone operating system, some 37.5 percent more than everyone would have to pay.

Although the hike was not explained, we can imagine Twitter is doing what we in the industry call “an Epic Games” insofar as Musk is taking issue with Apple’s 30 percent cut on apps and services purchased through its App Store. Fortnite developer Epic is mired in a legal dispute with both Apple and Google over the same.

Signs that Musk dislikes the arrangement were shown during his rant against the company when he proclaimed: “Did you know Apple puts a secret 30 percent tax on everything you buy through their App Store?”

Far from being a secret, this is what all developers agree to if their software generates more than $1 million a year. A recent concession by Apple brought it down to 15 percent for revenues beneath that sum.

On the other hand, it has long been known that Mac users are richer and cleverer than PC users* so, by extension, we could say iPhone users are richer and cleverer than Android users. Perhaps Musk is adjusting prices for audience, though we’d suggest that the true intellectual giants among us are staying as far away from Twitter as possible, let alone considering it being worth $11 a month. ®

*This is bullshit.

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