Tencent and Apple Make Peace over Tipping in WeChat

It's time for more tipping with Tencent—again. Apple and Tencent have reached a deal over tipping on WeChat, a super-popular social media app that allows users to send each other monetary donations, or tips, for content they enjoy.

To put it another way, WeChat's tipping feature is like attaching a bank account to a "Like" button. You don't have to tip anything on WeChat if you don't want to, but the feature allows some content authors to make a not-so-insignificant amount of money for popular content they create.

We don't know the specifics of Apple and Tencent's arrangement, but WeChat creator Allen Zhang said that the deal will now allow Tencent to reintroduce WeChat's tipping feature that the company had previously removed in April of last year.

"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," reads a transcript of Zhang's comments at a developers' conference Monday, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Tencent removed the feature due to a disagreement with Apple over what a "tip" actually is. To Tencent, a tip is a simple monetary transaction—from a viewer to a content creator—that WeChat helps facilitate, one where the entire donated amount goes to the content creator. To Apple, a "tip" was an in-app purchase, subject to the company's customary 30-percent cut.

Apple initially said it would allow tipping in a June 2017 update of its App Store Review Guidelines, but only if users transferred "in-app purchase currencies," implying that Apple would retain its 30-percent cut for in-app purchases when users bought chunks of currency for tipping. The company updated its App Store Review Guidelines in September to specifically address the issue of tipping:

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"Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase."

Zhang indicated that Tencent will adjust WeChat's tipping functionality so that donations are paid directly to individual content creators—presumably removing Tencent from the equation entirely and meeting Apple's guidelines for free tipping.

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