You've likely caught the news about the recent court ruling affecting Apple's App Store policies.
TL;DR: Apple can no longer stop you from directing users to your own web-based payment systems, nor can they take commissions from sales that occur there.
While this may seem like a simple policy adjustment, it could fundamentally change the customer journey and the monetization strategy for thousands of apps.
For years, dealing with Apple's in-app purchase system often meant giving up a large slice of your revenue and losing control over the customer journey. Even when alternative payment links were permitted under specific API terms after earlier rulings, they came with a steep 27% fee and forced users through annoying re-logins. This kind of experience rarely did much for user trust or conversion rates. Some companies chose to opt out altogether, pointing customers to their browsers to complete subscription purchases.
But things are changing. You now have a clearer path to guide users from your app to your chosen payment pages on the web. This allows you to design a checkout experience you control, one that's optimized for your users, all while cutting out commission fees by using your own payment processors.
The Web's Growing Role in Your iOS Strategy
This ruling makes the web a more attractive partner for your mobile business. Using web views or embedded browsers inside your native iOS app is looking much smarter – not just for payments but for managing complex account settings, delivering features, or any area where the web offers faster development and easier maintenance.
However, there's a common hurdle when you start blending web content into a native app: the user experience suffers. Imagine your user logged in and moving smoothly through your native app. They tap to buy something or update their subscription, and suddenly, they're on a web page (even an embedded one) asking them to log in all over again. It adds friction and can lead to users giving up.
We've seen many development teams try to patch this problem by building custom solutions to carry session information from the native app to the web view. While the intent is good, these DIY methods are often created without fully addressing the security risks. Passing authentication details in URLs can happen, unintentionally putting your users and your business at risk from attacks like session hijacking. Beyond the security concerns, building and maintaining these custom fixes takes up developer time that could be better spent on your core product.
Introducing Auth0® Native to Web SSO
This is where a strong identity strategy becomes essential. If you want to effectively use the web within your iOS app – for payments, extra features, or anything else – you need a reliable and more secure way to connect your native app's login state with your embedded web content.
The Auth0 Native to Web Single Sign-On is designed for this specific challenge. N2W SSO helps you embed web applications within your native apps with less hassle, making sure your users log in once in the native app and stay authenticated when they move to an embedded web view. No more disruptive login prompts, just a consistent user experience.
Here’s the basic idea of how Auth0 N2W SSO works:
Your native application authenticates users using standard Auth0 authentication flows. As part of the process, it requests a refresh token — a common best practice for mobile apps that need long-lived sessions. Most modern apps already use refresh tokens and store them in a more secure manner using tools like CredentialsManager or platform-specific keychains. (Learn how in our native quickstarts)
Auth0 Native to Web SSO builds on this foundation by enabling a more secure way to transfer the user's authenticated state from your native app into a web experience — such as a WKWebView, Chrome Custom Tab, or SFSafariViewController.
Here’s how it works:
- The native app starts with a valid
refresh_token. - When it needs to display a web page (e.g., for payments or account settings), it exchanges the refresh token for a short-lived, single-use
session_transfer_token. - That token is securely passed to the web app — either as a cookie or as a query parameter.
- The web app uses the token to seamlessly authenticate the user via Auth0 without prompting for credentials again.
This token is short-lived (60 seconds by default), for one-time use, and can be bound to the device or IP address to prevent misuse. App Attestation and DPoP support for refresh tokens are on the way to provide even finer control over token usage.
“Security doesn't have to mean complexity. Auth0 Native to Web SSO provides out-of-the-box security, saving developer time while keeping user data safe.”
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Why This Matters
Transferring authentication between platforms is traditionally hard and risky — especially in mobile apps, where teams often try to build fragile workarounds. Auth0 Native to Web SSO removes the need for custom session-handling logic while offering:
- Out-of-the-box security, including device binding, token rotation, and attestation.
- Minimal developer effort — your team just integrates the SDK and makes a call to Auth0.
- Improved user experience with no login prompts when jumping between native and web.
- Flexible support for real-world mobile use cases, like payments, subscription management, user profiles, and account settings.
If you're planning to embed web content in your app — whether it's for a Stripe checkout, account center, or upsell page — Auth0 Native to Web SSO provides an identity layer with security features that keeps things seamless for your users and safe for your business.
Wanna try to use Native to Web SSO in your Android or iOS application, check our Use Case Implementation.
Drive consistent user experiences and leave consumers happy
Apple's recent ruling is an opportunity to rethink how your native apps and web experiences can work together, particularly for payments and embedded content. If you're planning to use web views more extensively, a seamless and secure user experience is critical.
Auth0 Native to Web SSO is currently in Limited Early Access and progressing toward General Availability. It already supports integration with our Android and iOS native SDKs, as well as infrastructure tooling like the Auth0 Deploy CLI and Terraform provider. While dashboard configuration is still in development, the feature is stable and ready for use in production environments.
This feature offers the identity foundation you need to take advantage of the new flexibility from Apple's policy changes. It helps you provide a modern, uninterrupted user journey while maintaining strong security, letting your teams focus on building products.
This blog post does not necessarily represent Okta's position, strategies, or opinions.