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　　When Phil Schiller stepped down as Apple's head of global marketing two years ago, the Apple chief appeared to be planning to retire and recuperate, according to reports. That's enough to get a glimpse of his new title: Apple Fellow.

　　However, according to people familiar with the matter, Schiller is still actively involved in Apple's work since then, and will still work overtime. The App Store, which he now oversees serves as the software hub for Apple devices, now attracts the scrutiny of antitrust regulators in the U.S. and around the world, and Schiller has naturally returned to the spotlight. Schiller was a key witness last year when Epic Games launched an antitrust lawsuit against the App Store for misconduct.

　　The U.S. Judiciary Committee's investigation into Apple is widely expected to enter litigation in the coming months. If so, Schiller will also play a leading role in this protracted legal battle.

　　Such a lawsuit would provide a clearer picture of exactly how Schiller has run the App Store since 2016. More and more app developers believe that Apple is using its dominant market position to seek financial advantage, using the App Store to suppress competitors and squeeze developers' profits. Since Schiller took over the App Store in 2016, sales of the business have maintained an annual growth rate of about 30 percent, reaching $85 billion last year, according to data firm Sensor Tower.

　　Focus on user experience over profitability?

　　Yet while it's hard for Apple to deny the App Store's lucrative profits, those who have worked with Schiller say he's traditionally made decisions by ignoring monetization concerns, taking into account factors such as advertising, privacy and content. Make decisions that are best for the user.

　　"Schiller's approach to the App Store may not be the best, but in the long run it may be right," said Horace Dediu, founder of market analysis firm Asymco. The App Store is cautious, treating it as a brand, and it feels that way. They don’t want to ruin that image.”

　　For example, although games now account for 60% of total App Store sales, Schiller remains cautious when promoting video games. One of several changes he made since taking over was to stop showing such games on the App Store's home screen, people familiar with the matter said, because he feared the move could make some users uncomfortable. Bully: Anniversary Edition is affected by this policy. In this popular game, elite prep high school students attack their classmates with slingshots, baseball bats and firecrackers.

　　Under Eddy Cue, the former head of the App Store, Apple promised Bully developer Rockstar Games that it would heavily promote the game through the App Store during the 2016 holiday season. As a result, Rockstar employees rushed to work and completed the game within the time specified by Apple. However, on the eve of the game's release, Schiller took over the App Store. Although Schiller is a gamer himself and even has a racing simulator at home, Apple reps told Rockstar they would no longer promote the game as promised. The matter irked Rockstar executives, people familiar with the matter said.

　　In this regard, Rockstar did not comment.

　　Schiller's supporters say he has made many similar decisions since then, all about balancing developer interests, user experience and Apple's reputation -- three aspects that sometimes conflict with each other.

　　The 62-year-old Schiller, who was full of energy, joined Apple as early as 1987, and although he left for a few years later, returned to Apple in 1997. Under the leadership of the late Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, Apple formed its own values, and Schiller is clearly one of its most staunch defenders. Protecting the interests of users is an important part of this value — people familiar with the matter said that Schiller firmly believes that as long as this philosophy is adhered to, it can attract users, gradually turn them into loyal fans, and the benefits will naturally rise.

　　An Apple spokesman said the company's App Store is a safe and secure application download platform worthy of users' trust, and developers can also tap huge business opportunities from it. The spokesperson said that the App Store has always been Apple's economic growth engine, promoting competition and innovation, and working closely with developers of all sizes with different business models.

　　How did the app empire rise?

　　When Apple released the first-generation iPhone in early 2007, Jobs was at first less sympathetic to the idea of building an ecosystem of apps for the device. He believes Apple should have a firm grip on the iPhone itself and not want to deal with app-induced virality and other misconduct.

　　But Jobs' attitude quickly changed, thanks to Schiller. After persuading him and other executives, Jobs finally agreed to launch the App Store in 2008 as a means of boosting iPhone sales. Cue used the iTunes Music Store to help Apple successfully break into digital music sales, so it was natural for him to be the head of the App Store business, while Schiller handled developer relations and led Apple's app review. Team - This team is responsible for reviewing apps in detail before they are released, making sure they meet Apple's requirements.

　　Over the next few years, some developers began to complain publicly about Apple's opaque review process when their apps were rejected by Apple. Others accuse Apple of not consistently enforcing its own rules, and are even worried about the delay in releasing apps on the App Store because of direct competition with Apple's own business.

　　In early 2016, Schiller succeeded Cue at the helm of the App Store. That way, Cue can focus on developing subscription businesses, including Apple Music, which Apple launched just a year ago, according to people familiar with the matter.

　　Schiller's style of managing the App Store is more detailed than Cue's, people familiar with the matter said. Cue would delegate much of the work to his subordinates, and Schiller would often personally review images and copies of apps on the App Store. He encourages debate among colleagues and ensures that all voices are fully heard. Whenever he has an idea, he sends emails, texts, and even calls directly, making it feel like he never rests, people familiar with the matter said.

　　The differences in how Cue and Schiller work are far more than that.

　　In 2015, App Store employees proposed a revision to Cue, asking editors to be hired to write stories about the app or its developers, with the goal of encouraging users to visit the App Store every day and discover new apps, rather than treating the App Store as just peddling software. of vending machines. Cue did not take the advice, people familiar with the matter said, arguing that the App Store was already doing so well that it was not worth the investment.

　　But people familiar with the matter said that Schiller approved the revision proposal on his first day in office. He believes the App Store has lost much of the spontaneity and fun associated with discovering new apps. He believes that the editorial team can restore these features.

　　In 2017, the revision was officially launched. The new App Store includes three new tabs, "Today", "Games" and "App", focusing on different types of applications and developers to users. According to people familiar with the matter, Apple's survey after the revision showed that users generally believed that developers had to pay to get featured in the App Store, but that was not the case. Schiller allows editorial teams to choose which apps and features to promote through these tabs, without pressure on them for business decisions or partnership goals.

　　But the editorial team's way of promoting the app has annoyed the rest of the App Store staff, especially the business management team. The team, which has been led by Apple executive Carson Oliver since 2018, has about 100 employees dedicated to helping developers grow app revenue. If Oliver's team wanted to build momentum for a developer, it had to convince the editorial team to do so.

　　Schiller has clashed with the business management team before. When the App Store was redesigned, some members of the team believed that after users open the App Store, they should be presented with the "Search" tab first, because this is more in line with users' app downloading habits. But people familiar with the matter said that Schiller told them that if this model is adopted, there is no way to make users develop the habit of reading the "Today" tab every day through the revision, and there is no way for them to learn about new apps every day. . Schiller's view ultimately prevailed.

　　Oliver is influential within Apple, and he is responsible for regularly briefing Apple CEO Tim Cook on the operation of the App Store. The reason why Apple will launch a small business program in 2020, which will reduce the commission rate for developers with annual income of less than $1 million from 30% to 15%, is that Oliver has facilitated it with Schiller’s support, people familiar with the matter said. According to documents in Epic v. Apple, Oliver made a similar proposal under Cue, but it was rejected.

　　Some elements of Schiller's revision did not seem to resonate with users. Long texts about developers and apps tend to have low click-through rates and are quickly skipped by most visitors, according to some former employees who worked on Apple's editorial and business teams. For example, internal data shows that in January 2021, less than 4% of App Store visitors will spend at least 2 seconds reading the long text at the top of the "Today" tab.

　　An Apple spokesman said the internal data did not match their own data. But he did not specify the specific situation, but said that such indicators are not the most important criteria for measuring the success of this revision.

　　Huge profits overwhelm the original "rules"?

　　In deciding which apps to promote through the App Store, Schiller struck a compromise with the business management team to avoid certain rules affecting the lucrative software category.

　　For example, the main tab of the App Store initially could not promote first-person shooters such as Fortnite because of their violent elements. The business management team eventually persuaded Schiller to relax the rules, only requiring that App Store promotions not include images of Fortnite with a gun pointed at someone or a screen. Schiller's editorial team also tried to avoid mentioning the core gameplay of "Fortnite" when writing the article, instead focusing on other aspects such as character clothing.

　　According to people familiar with the matter, from the launch of "Fortnite" on the App Store in March 2018 to Apple's removal of the game in August 2020 on the grounds that the game violated the policy, the game contributed a total of 300 million US dollars in commission income to Apple. .

　　When it took down Fortnite, Apple began using the same criteria to promote other first-person shooters like Call of Duty and PUBG on the main tab of the App Store.

　　An Apple spokesman said that because first-person shooters are essentially games, App Store employees are particularly strict with this type of content.

　　At sensitive times, such as mass shootings in the U.S., Schiller's team often abruptly stops promoting first-person shooters, or delays planned promotions for weeks or more, according to people familiar with the matter. Under Cue, the App Store didn't have this rule. The rule also doesn't apply to other products he's in charge of, such as violent movies on the iTunes Store.

　　Meanwhile, Schiller seems less willing to compromise in other areas of gaming. Social gambling games are one of them. Players need to buy virtual currency in such games and then wager on virtual rewards. After Schiller took the helm of the App Store, his editorial team refused to promote the games, fearing they were addictive. The business management team, on the other hand, is very supportive of social gambling, a policy that frustrates them because the category contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the App Store each year.

　　An Apple spokesperson said increasing revenue was never the main goal of the App Store editorial team, but they still brought in billions of dollars in revenue and downloads, both metrics that have risen each year since the revamp.

　　Similar contradictions arose within the App Store when Apple introduced its "App Tracking Transparency" policy in 2020. Transparency in App Tracking is a privacy policy that requires apps like Facebook to obtain permission from users to track users across apps from different developers. Oliver's team told Schiller that his move could lead advertisers to scale back their spending on iOS apps in favor of platforms like Google's Android that can better measure ad effectiveness, costing the App Store billions in the end. dollar income.

　　Schiller told his team he didn't care, people familiar with the matter said. He believes the privacy feature is good for users, and advertisers can eventually adapt to the change.

　　But there are signs that Schiller's thinking has changed when it comes to advertising-related decisions. Advertising has become an increasingly important source of revenue for Apple as it diversifies away from hardware.

　　Now, Apple is preparing to add new advertising spaces in the App Store for developers to buy. Recently, Apple sent a message to developers, inviting them to an online conference and encouraging them to buy ads. This also means that the number of Apple ad slots will be greatly increased.

　　In July of this year, it was reported that Apple would place more ads on the App Store's "Today" tab and app product pages. This comes at a time when Apple's new privacy policy is squeezing ads through Google and Meta's ad networks, while rapidly expanding its own digital advertising business.

　　Schiller, who was initially opposed to Apple's search advertising business, which displays an ad at the top of search results in the App Store, has also disagreed over the years with adding to the "Today" tab and app product pages, according to people familiar with the matter. Ads, worried that this will ruin the user experience.

　　At present, Apple has not announced when these new ads will be officially put into the App Store, but it is foreseeable that Apple will continue to tap the App Store's potential to attract money.