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Apple End User Licence Agreement

What is Apple End User Licence Agreement?

If you have an app that you are considering putting out into the market through the Apple App Store, you need an Apple end user licence agreement (EULA) or mobile app terms and conditions (which includes an end user licence agreement) so that you can mandate the rules for people when using your app.

Did you know that Apple’s IOS App Store took the lion share of mobile platform spending (65%) ? So it’s the place to be, as Apple’s App Store remains as an indispensable platform for app developers to sell their apps.

An Apple EULA is a legally binding contract signed between and App developer who publish his app on App Store and an app user. This agreement defines terms and conditions about how the user can use the app, whether he/she can copy/resell it, payment for downloading and using of the app and reasons for terminating use of the app.

For example, if you try to download the NBA app on App Store, you will have to agree to the developer’s specific EULA before you can download and use the app.

Do you have to have your own EULA?

Apple does not require you to draft your own EULA. If you don’t include your own EULA, Apple has a default EULA which will apply to the relationship between you and your app’s users.

This default EULA is an element which distinguishes Apple App Store from Android’s Google Play Store because the Google Play Store does not have default EULA.

What are Apple Minimum Terms Requirements?

While you can create your own EULA, Apple still requires your EULA to have certain set of terms. (Minimum terms of Developer’s End User Licence Agreement)

One common way to include these minimum terms is to state in your contract that ‘Apple terms prevail over your customised EULA’ so you comply with those requirements.

These minimum terms include contract clauses such as ‘scope of licence’, ‘maintenance’ and ‘warranty’.

What are the benefits of having your own EULA?

When you hear about the default EULA, you may think that you are saved from the trouble of drafting your own customised EULA. Fair enough. This is however one of those areas in life where its true that you ‘get what you pay for’. In other words the Apple EULA will provide some protection… but only some.

Therefore, drafting your own EULA is advisable because it has the following benefits:

This default agreement is intended for very basic apps on App Store so it may not be suitable for your app if your app is even slightly complicated. For example, the default agreement does not include any rules about payment terms or who owns the user-generated content.

What if you licence a photoshop app to your users and they create photos with their own artistic abilities? In this scenario, this is a user generate content which will be protected by copyright. But who owns that content? Can you as the

App owner use that content to try and promote or market your App?

Considering these possibilities, and this is only the tip of the iceberg, it is a good idea for you to include your own EULA instead of relying on Apple’s over-generic default agreement.

Secondly, the default agreement is designed to protect Apple from any liability and it gives you only a limited degree of protection. Therefore, you will have to draft your own EULA if you want to protect yourself from any liability or warranty claims.

What sort of clauses are included in an Apple EULA?

Authorised Use: The main goal of a EULA is to set out what you can use the app for and also to restrict the use of your app by the user. In practice, the users are usually prohibited from reselling the software, redistributing it, reverse-engineering or decompiling the source code.

Other restrictions may include but not limited to: Prohibition of on using the App for commercial purposes, using the app from a different device such as computer or another smartphone, and a whole lot of others.

Furthermore, you can also include a provision in your EULA to automatically update the app without asking for user consent. You can even separate the types of updates into necessary ones such as security updates and unnecessary ones such as novel features.

Termination of use: In your customised EULA, you can include a provision to suspend the use of app without notice. This can be especially useful when there is suspicion over the hacking of user’s app account or when app user does something inappropriate.

Licence fee: If you plan to charge your users a fee for use of your app, you can determine the payment method and model in this contract clause. Will the payment be fixed-sum or monthly-subscription based? Will there be a trial period after which the user is charged?

Limitation of Liability: You can limit your legal liability completely or to a certain amount for any type of damages or losses.

However, some jurisdictions may not allow the limitation of liability for certain damages such as personal injury. So that is something that needs careful consideration especially if there is a chance you app could cause injury – think

Pokemon GO– people got injured walking around staring at their phone trying to find objects! I know… seriously.

Warranty disclaimer: Imagine that your app provides relationship advice to users and one user sue you for damages by alleging that your app’s faulty advice led to his/her divorce. Even though this may be a bit a random and extreme example, it can happen, so it is always useful to disclaim any warranty related to your app to avoid any potential legal dispute.

Just bear in mind that some jurisdictions may not allow the disclaiming of certain warranties such as implied warranties as to fitness for purpose and merchantability.

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.