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Mark Gurman reports that Ternus and Eddy Cue want to raise App Store margins, and that Phil Schiller, who once floated cutting Apple's take to 20 percent, wanted no part of it. That is one anonymous account, and it points one way.
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The person who pays for a change in Apple's cut is a developer, not anyone in Cupertino. They are working out whether next year's subscription tier still clears costs, and the number they need is the one Mark Gurman's column does not supply. Gurman reports that Ternus and services chief Eddy Cue want to raise App Store margins and find more recurring revenue from the platform [4]. The reporting names an intent without a fee schedule or a date attached to it [11].
The one documentary number in the story runs the other way. In 2011 Schiller emailed Cue and Steve Jobs asking whether, once App Store profit passed $1 billion a year, Apple could ratchet the split from 70/30 down to 75/25 or even 80/20 [8]. Taken to 80/20, that is a third off Apple's commission and about 14.3 percent more net revenue for the developer on identical gross billings [9]. That was the size of move a senior Apple executive was willing to put in writing, and he called it controversial himself [8].
The 2011 threshold and today's figure are not the same unit: $1 billion in annual profit then, an estimated $30 billion a year that the App Store generates now [2][12]. If that $30 billion is Apple's own share at an effective take of roughly 30 percent, gross developer billings sit near $100 billion, which puts each percentage point of effective take at about $1 billion a year [10]. A margin plan does not have to touch the headline split to matter at that scale. Gurman's phrasing, squeezing additional recurring revenue from the platform, does not require a rate change at all [4].
Then there is evidence quality. Schiller ran both the App Store and Apple Events, a job Gurman describes as nowhere near semiretirement [1], and the retirement part is not fiction: he is 66 and wanted some semblance of one [3]. What lifts this above a succession note is Gurman's unnamed sourcing that Schiller believed higher margins would only further irk developers and governments, and wanted no part of it, with no internal blowup [5]. John Gruber, who reprinted the passage at Daring Fireball on 6 September 2026, added no confirmation of his own, only that he hopes it is not true and that it would make a bad situation worse [7]. The material amounts to one reporter's account of intent, plus the exit of the executive who argued the other side, with no announced change, no rate, and nothing on developer retention or churn.
So the planning question is what your business does if Apple raises the take. Two axes, drawn on your own numbers: how much of your revenue is billed through Apple, and how much repricing headroom you have before renewals start dropping. High billing share with no headroom is the quadrant that needs a break-even take rate written down, along with the notice period you are assuming you will get. High share with headroom means a price change and one bad quarter. Low billing share is noise either way, whatever your deck says about platform risk. The useful artefact is a sentence in a document: at X percent, this product stops working, and here is what we do at X minus two.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
Mark Gurman, in his weekend Power On column at Bloomberg, wrote that Schiller ran the App Store and Apple Events, calling it a busy, all-encompassing gig and nowhere near a semiretirement.
Gurman wrote that Schiller is 66 and clearly wanted some semblance of retirement, so he can focus on philanthropy and spend more time with family.
Gurman wrote that Apple's app marketplace is loved by many consumers but often criticized by developers and subjected to increasingly onerous regulations.
John Gruber, publishing the quoted passage at Daring Fireball on Sunday 6 September 2026, wrote that he hopes it is not true, because it would be awful, "making a bad situation worse," and pretty much the exact opposite of what Apple ought to do.
In a 2011 email to Eddy Cue and Steve Jobs, Schiller asked whether, once the App Store was making over $1 billion a year in profit, Apple could think about a model that ratcheted down from 70/30 to 75/25 or even 80/20 while maintaining a $1 billion a year run rate; he wrote "I know that is controversial" and offered it as food for thought.
The quoted reporting states the intent to raise margins and pursue recurring revenue but names no specific fee, rate change, product, or timetable, and no announced Apple decision.
Publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
1 article · September 6, 2026
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Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
Verbatim, but single-threaded
Two elements here can be checked against the page itself: the 2011 email, reproduced in full, and the absence of any named fee, rate or date, but the parts doing the actual work cannot be checked the same way. The $30 billion is Gurman's estimate with no basis given, and the claim that Ternus and Cue want higher margins comes from people he does not name, reaching us secondhand through Gruber's excerpt. Apple appears nowhere, on the record or otherwise.
Nothing has moved yet
There is no term change, price change, developer notice or filing to measure. The reporting describes what two executives are said to want, and wanting is not an event.
Slightly ahead of its sourcing
The framing is careful where it counts. Gurman marks his own sourcing with 'I'm told', Gruber presents the passage as something he hopes is false, and our headline says 'said to want'. What pushes this modestly high is that one unnamed characterization of executive intent supports the whole story, and an unexplained estimate is doing the work of establishing why it matters.
Preferences declared at both ends
The publisher states his position in the same breath as the report: Gruber wants this to be untrue and says raising App Store margins is the opposite of what Apple should do, which at least puts his priors in view. Less visible are the motives underneath. The substance is an unnamed account of why a 66-year-old executive left a job, a genre in which whoever is talking has a reason to frame the exit one way, and Apple offers nothing to weigh against it.
Low outside the arithmetic
Quoting rather than paraphrasing removes transmission risk: we can see exactly what Gurman wrote and exactly what Schiller wrote in 2011. What is missing is any second account of the intent claim, any company comment, and any detail that would date it. The split arithmetic is the one part that holds regardless of how the sourcing shakes out, and it stands alone in that regard.