Are iPhone app developers getting paid on time from Apple? Not all of them. On this iPhone developer forum, there are numerous threads from developers who are complaining about delays in payments for January and not being paid the amount of money the developers are in fact due from sales. And we’ve received one complaint directly from an iPhone app developer that Apple is late on its payments for January. Apple’s contract, which is embedded below, says that payment will be made to developers within 45 days of the end of the month. That would have been a week ago.
Developers are expressing a number of gripes with Apple that extend beyond just being paid on time. We also hear (and read) that reaching Apple by phone is a complete nightmare. Emails to Apple go unanswered and customer service reps put developers on hold for 30 minutes to an hour and sometimes hang up on callers after they’ve waited to speak to an agent.
Each month Apple sends iPhone app developers a financial report, detailing their sales for the month but in February, Apple sent out this email:
February iTunes Financial Report Update
Due to system enhancements, your February Financial Report(s) will be delivered later than recent months. You should expect to see your February Report(s) available for download on iTunes Connect within the time frame for delivery as provided for in your contract.
We’ve heard from one developer that he’s yet to have received the February report and its nearly April. To make matters worse, another iPhone developer says that even after receiving the report of how much he should be paid, he was grossly underpaid by Apple, by nearly $10,000.
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From the looks of the complaints on the forum, there are a number of developers who are frustrated with Apple’s customer service and payment system for iPhone developers. We have contacted Apple for a response and will update this post if we hear back. In the meantime, if you are a developer and have had trouble receiving payment or dealing with Apple, please let us know in comments.
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