These selfish idiots will force Apple to change focus and it will effect the quality we get as product owners.
Changing the focus away from services revenue and towards better user experiences sounds good to me.
What the fuck? You do know that the revenue from the appstore gets reinvested into the business and product development, right? Apple's stuff has only gotten better, MUCH better, the last few years. Not sure what planet you're on.
“Re-invested” => mostly into luxury, loss-making Netflix-like operations, real estate and buying successful devs out of the market.
"They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it." Yea but we knew that before we even started developing our apps, right? It sucks but we agreed that Apple was king of the App Store. The right thing to do is to talk to your congresscritter about it and see if they can get Apple to change the rules because they are not going to do it on their own.
I suspect it’s not as clear cut as everyone likes to paint it.
Apple isn’t an evil mafioso, Proton aren’t entitled cry babies.
I don’t want a free for all, I like being sure I’m only going to pay for what I think I’m paying for, I can get refunds, I’m clear on what subscriptions I have and can easily stop them ( and my credit card details aren’t being stolen) . I also understand that it is difficult to survive as a small business and a 30% cut may make or break it. Maybe a middle way might be allowing some competition among a few approved payment processors and rules about what services they must provide Transparency / Refunds / Subscription Cancelation. This might force Apple to compete on %, customer communications ??
"They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes," Yen added.
That's right, they are. And that's exactly the way it should be.
These people want use Apple's servers, bandwidth, security, and who knows what other resources to distribute their product, but want to cut Apple out when it comes to actually charging for their product.
Using that logic, I should be able to walk into Walmart, set up a space to distribute my product, and not give Walmart a cut. I'll go try that right now! See you when I'm filthy rich!
The same as there are rules and requirements to sell your products at Target or any other department store, in any grocery store or anywhere else for that matter, so, too, does Apple have rules. One of those rules is that you have to have in app purchases so Apple can collect their cut. Kind of like buying a box of cereal at the grocery store for $4.99 that Kellogg's sold for $2.99 ... the store needs to get its cut. If you don't like the rules, leave ... stop being such a fecking crybaby.
Or, maybe you whinebutt developers / users would be happy if there wasn't a curated app store for Apple products so any underhanded developer could steal your tech, reverse engineer your app, release it with a different name and pollute your product.
Stop being stupid ... Apple is nowhere near a monopoly in computers, phones or apps. And the comparison to the mafia is utter stupidity ... the "protection" racket didn't provide much protection and you had limbs broken if you didn't pay up. In direct contrast, Apple's app store is a curated and walled ecosystem with real protections (that are not infallible) and you only have to pay a percentage of what you sell.
Lastly, just because you "got away" with something for two years, doesn't mean it was going to last forever ...
I’m embarrassed to be associated with these entitled crybabies. If you don’t like the way Apple runs its exclusive platform, leave.
That is, er, not the law. The law requires that marketplaces have clear rules that are evenly enforced as opposed to vague rules that are arbitrarily enforced, and particularly rules that are vague for the express purpose of favoring some entities - such as yourself - over others during enforcement. So while your sentiments are legitimate, they are in fact very illegal.
Uh no. Companies are generally free to set their own terms and conditions and do business with whomever they want.
These selfish idiots will force Apple to change focus and it will effect the quality we get as product owners.
Changing the focus away from services revenue and towards better user experiences sounds good to me.
What the fuck? You do know that the revenue from the appstore gets reinvested into the business and product development, right? Apple's stuff has only gotten better, MUCH better, the last few years. Not sure what planet you're on.
Any evidence that all revenue from the app store is allocated to product development, or have you pulled that factoid out of your ass? Apple makes huge profits every year that are not put into product development but instead go to share buybacks, or servicing debt, or just gets stuck in long term securities.
The app store approach to in app purchases has not got much, much better. It's basically the same since it was released, but Apple has no competition of any note.
And why don't you name me some "better user experiences" than iOS? For a shitload of people, that is the pinnacle of user experience. Would love to have a list so we can understand what your comparison is.
Why don't all these software wizards write their own OS and put it on their own devices? Then they can sell software any way they choose. Or maybe they should just pay the damn 30% and earn a decent living off the billion or so users out there.
Because they are software wizards and not hardware wizards. They don't have their own devices.
I’m embarrassed to be associated with these entitled crybabies. If you don’t like the way Apple runs its exclusive platform, leave.
That is, er, not the law. The law requires that marketplaces have clear rules that are evenly enforced as opposed to vague rules that are arbitrarily enforced, and particularly rules that are vague for the express purpose of favoring some entities - such as yourself - over others during enforcement. So while your sentiments are legitimate, they are in fact very illegal.
Uh no. Companies are generally free to set their own terms and conditions and do business with whomever they want.
"The answer is not clear cut. It depends on a number of factors, including whether the business's reasons are political, moral or discriminatory according to lawyers... With specific federal law and state laws that vary to certain degrees, it also depends on where the incident happened."
Now do I believe that passage applies to Apple? Nope.
...but this one might: "A firm's refusal to deal with any other person or company is lawful so long as the refusal is not the product of an anticompetitive agreement with other firms or part of a predatory or exclusionary strategy..."
He was getting one star reviews because he is trying to avoid paying 30%.
As I was talking about a video streaming app (like Netflix but regional and more niche), it was within their rights as a 'reader' app to avoid paying it.
Still, the reviews did not say that 'you don't offer in-app purchases' they said 'I can't find where to sign up'! This is in order to abide by the store rules. And this is hostile to the end-user, the Apple device user. If you can't see that, sorry.
This is such a misinformed thread filled with poor analogies like App Store <|> Target <|> Walmart, and dissing companies like ProtonMail, which you have not heard about before, because "Amurica" I guess?
Is this how far your thinking can go?
I can't see any in-app purchases in the Gmail app, which you know, serves the G-Suite paid accounts as well!
Can't wait for the new Borat movie later this month.
"They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes," Yen added.
That's right, they are. And that's exactly the way it should be.
These people want use Apple's servers, bandwidth, security, and who knows what other resources to distribute their product, but want to cut Apple out when it comes to actually charging for their product.
Using that logic, I should be able to walk into Walmart, set up a space to distribute my product, and not give Walmart a cut. I'll go try that right now! See you when I'm filthy rich!
Whinging freeloaders.
Horseshit. No one is saying there shouldn't be rules, just that the rules should be fair, sensible, understandable, equally applied, and should have a method for appealing when there might be good reason for changing the rules to accomodate the different ways that apps are evolving.
I don't know how anyone defends this behaviour from Apple as to the benefit of anyone but Apple. And if that's the case then they're just like any other shitty big company. I thought Apple aspired to be better than that. The "best products" and all that.
I've been a subscriber to ProtonMail since before they had an app. I like my Mac and my iPhone, but screw Apple and their rent seeking; if there's an option to pay outside of IAP then I'll be taking it at this point. I was thinking about subscribing to Apple One, but to hell with that.
Apple is better than that. Go buy knockoff devices and be happy that way.
Not even attempting to address the issue. You might be happy with suffering a susbstandard user experience for the sake of filling Apple's coffers, but I'm not.
Well you could also support the struggling startup Google who stands on moral high ground!
"They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes," Yen added.
That's right, they are. And that's exactly the way it should be.
These people want use Apple's servers, bandwidth, security, and who knows what other resources to distribute their product, but want to cut Apple out when it comes to actually charging for their product.
Using that logic, I should be able to walk into Walmart, set up a space to distribute my product, and not give Walmart a cut. I'll go try that right now! See you when I'm filthy rich!
Whinging freeloaders.
Horseshit. No one is saying there shouldn't be rules, just that the rules should be fair, sensible, understandable, equally applied, and should have a method for appealing when there might be good reason for changing the rules to accomodate the different ways that apps are evolving.
Yes, certainly. So this dev wants to use Apple's platform and resources to host and advertise their product, but when the time comes to actually profit from their product by charging their customers, they want to cut Apple out. That doesn't seem fair at all to me, and it's perfectly understandable and reasonable to me that Apple wants compensation for that. They have two mechanisms for that, either direct purchase of the app, or in app purchases from within the app itself, both of which have a cut for Apple. Going to a website cuts Apple out from the profit side, and leaves them holding the bag for all the costs associated with hosting, advertising and serving the app to users.
I think most people are missing the big picture here. All these complaints are happening because of 1 issue, there are no other ways to sell apps for IOS devices other than the official App store. This is what people are talking about when they say "monopoly". This is about the platform itself, there are multiple ways to get android apps and you are not reliant on the Play store to do so. On IOS this is completely the opposite, the debate is not whether these options are "bad" or "good", it's about having the option available.
As for this snippet, which i a lot in various forms
"Yes, certainly. So this dev wants to use Apple's platform and resources to host and advertise their product, but when the time comes to actually profit from their product by charging their customers, they want to cut Apple out. That doesn't seem fair at all to me, and it's perfectly understandable and reasonable to me that Apple wants compensation for that. They have two mechanisms for that, either direct purchase of the app, or in app purchases from within the app itself, both of which have a cut for Apple. Going to a website cuts Apple out from the profit side, and leaves them holding the bag for all the costs associated with hosting, advertising and serving the app to users."
If this dev had other ways to sell to IOS users but made less money then had to come back to the APP store to sell, the statement above would hold water. Right now that dev has no option of going anywhere else, he either hands them the 30% or don't develop for IOS users. That's not a choice that's an ultimatum
Just because one doesn’t like the choices one has does not make it an ultimatum. And just because only one store exits for iOS apps does not make it a monopoly. That would require it to be the only choice available for both the phone purchaser and the app vendor. In both cases the end user and app developer has a choice/options. To believe otherwise would be significantly flawed logic.
For an app developer making an email client, they can choose: 1) Windows 2) Mac 3) Linux 4) iOS 5) Android 6) Web App (Also available to all clients above.)
Obviously a large number of choices. Don’t like paying a commission for your app being offered to millions of users - YOU HAVE A CHOICE of what platform to support. By means of a web app you can circumvent any gain by outside vendors and hit any OS in the process.
Now the crux of the matter is that why does an email client want to have a dedicated app on iOS?? Because that is where end users actually spend money and on far larger proportion than than the next leading competitor.
The issue plain and simple is developer greed wrapped up in a guise of poor me. A 30% commission dropping to 15% after one year is hardly unreasonable. If those rates are breaking the bank, simple business processes mean you aren’t charging enough to cover overhead. And no matter what storefront you are in, there will be overhead.
I’ve owned a business and also worked for a furniture wholesaler. If you think 30% is too much for a retailer to “markup” a product then I suggest not ever buying furniture. That tends to be marked up 100-125% by retailers let alone what the manufacturer/wholesaler marks it up. From my understanding the clothes on your back are likely the same, if not higher.
"They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes," Yen added.
That's right, they are. And that's exactly the way it should be.
These people want use Apple's servers, bandwidth, security, and who knows what other resources to distribute their product, but want to cut Apple out when it comes to actually charging for their product.
Using that logic, I should be able to walk into Walmart, set up a space to distribute my product, and not give Walmart a cut. I'll go try that right now! See you when I'm filthy rich!
Whinging freeloaders.
Horseshit. No one is saying there shouldn't be rules, just that the rules should be fair, sensible, understandable, equally applied, and should have a method for appealing when there might be good reason for changing the rules to accomodate the different ways that apps are evolving.
Yes, certainly. So this dev wants to use Apple's platform and resources to host and advertise their product, but when the time comes to actually profit from their product by charging their customers, they want to cut Apple out. That doesn't seem fair at all to me, and it's perfectly understandable and reasonable to me that Apple wants compensation for that. They have two mechanisms for that, either direct purchase of the app, or in app purchases from within the app itself, both of which have a cut for Apple. Going to a website cuts Apple out from the profit side, and leaves them holding the bag for all the costs associated with hosting, advertising and serving the app to users.
My analogy with space at Walmart is apt.
Hosting and advertising an app costs peanuts. Try again.
Just because one doesn’t like the choices one has does not make it an ultimatum. And just because only one store exits for iOS apps does not make it a monopoly. That would require it to be the only choice available for both the phone purchaser and the app vendor. In both cases the end user and app developer has a choice/options. To believe otherwise would be significantly flawed logic.
For an app developer making an email client, they can choose: 1) Windows 2) Mac 3) Linux 4) iOS 5) Android 6) Web App (Also available to all clients above.)
Obviously a large number of choices. Don’t like paying a commission for your app being offered to millions of users - YOU HAVE A CHOICE of what platform to support. By means of a web app you can circumvent any gain by outside vendors and hit any OS in the process.
Now the crux of the matter is that why does an email client want to have a dedicated app on iOS?? Because that is where end users actually spend money and on far larger proportion than than the next leading competitor.
The issue plain and simple is developer greed wrapped up in a guise of poor me. A 30% commission dropping to 15% after one year is hardly unreasonable. If those rates are breaking the bank, simple business processes mean you aren’t charging enough to cover overhead. And no matter what storefront you are in, there will be overhead.
I’ve owned a business and also worked for a furniture wholesaler. If you think 30% is too much for a retailer to “markup” a product then I suggest not ever buying furniture. That tends to be marked up 100-125% by retailers let alone what the manufacturer/wholesaler marks it up. From my understanding the clothes on your back are likely the same, if not higher.
Sorry, your ignoring the point which is that if a developer wants to make an app for IOS they cannot sell it anywhere else. So essentially it is a monopoly as there is no other IOS store to compete against the App store for IOS users. They have one place to reach IOS users and that is the official app store. This is not about platforms, this is about other avenues for developers to reach the IOS audience.
let's put it in another way
If a dev makes a windows app - they can sell it anywhere they want and people can buy it from where ever it's sold. if a dev makes an app for android - they can sell it in the play store or any other android store that's available. If a dev makes a MAC OS app - they can sell it from the APP store or from any other digital store front. IOS - a Dev makes an app - only place they can sell it is on the IOS App Store.
This is more than money, hosting, and etc. MS is more than capable of hosting and advertising the office Suite for IOS and they still have to go through apple.
your argument would work if there were multiple IOS app stores that the developers can use to reach IOS users but they decided to use the official store and then complained about the 30% take. In this case the devs had other avenues to reach IOS users and they choose not to use those avenues.
"They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes," Yen added.
That's right, they are. And that's exactly the way it should be.
These people want use Apple's servers, bandwidth, security, and who knows what other resources to distribute their product, but want to cut Apple out when it comes to actually charging for their product.
Using that logic, I should be able to walk into Walmart, set up a space to distribute my product, and not give Walmart a cut. I'll go try that right now! See you when I'm filthy rich!
Whinging freeloaders.
Horseshit. No one is saying there shouldn't be rules, just that the rules should be fair, sensible, understandable, equally applied, and should have a method for appealing when there might be good reason for changing the rules to accomodate the different ways that apps are evolving.
Yes, certainly. So this dev wants to use Apple's platform and resources to host and advertise their product, but when the time comes to actually profit from their product by charging their customers, they want to cut Apple out. That doesn't seem fair at all to me, and it's perfectly understandable and reasonable to me that Apple wants compensation for that. They have two mechanisms for that, either direct purchase of the app, or in app purchases from within the app itself, both of which have a cut for Apple. Going to a website cuts Apple out from the profit side, and leaves them holding the bag for all the costs associated with hosting, advertising and serving the app to users.
My analogy with space at Walmart is apt.
It really isn't. Walmart floor space costs a lot of money, Walmart don't have a policy where anyone can submit a product for review and reasonably expect that it will end up on the shelves, and Walmart's stores are their only sellable property, there is no ecosystem. Digital store do not compare with retail stores, and clumsy analogies do not help with understanding issues.
Apple is not just acting as a store here, they are the platform owner and the hardware vendor, and they already make money hand over foot from selling iPhones and iPads, for which a significant attraction is the app ecosystem. Apple do not deserve "compenstion" for other people's work that adds value to Apple's product, they're just abusing their App Store position for rent seeking.
Comments
Yea but we knew that before we even started developing our apps, right? It sucks but we agreed that Apple was king of the App Store. The right thing to do is to talk to your congresscritter about it and see if they can get Apple to change the rules because they are not going to do it on their own.
being sure I’m only going to pay for what I think I’m paying for, I can get refunds, I’m clear on what subscriptions I have and can easily stop them ( and my credit card details aren’t being stolen) . I also understand that it is difficult to survive as a small business and a 30% cut may make or break it. Maybe a middle way might be allowing some competition among a few approved payment processors and rules about what services they must provide Transparency / Refunds / Subscription Cancelation. This might force Apple to compete on %, customer communications ??
These people want use Apple's servers, bandwidth, security, and who knows what other resources to distribute their product, but want to cut Apple out when it comes to actually charging for their product.
Using that logic, I should be able to walk into Walmart, set up a space to distribute my product, and not give Walmart a cut. I'll go try that right now! See you when I'm filthy rich!
Whinging freeloaders.
Uh no. Companies are generally free to set their own terms and conditions and do business with whomever they want.
The app store approach to in app purchases has not got much, much better. It's basically the same since it was released, but Apple has no competition of any note.
https://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Books-on-the-Kindle-App
Take a read of that mess of an iOS process, and then come back here to say Apple's policies are creating a better user experience.
Now do I believe that passage applies to Apple? Nope.
...but this one might:
"A firm's refusal to deal with any other person or company is lawful so long as the refusal is not the product of an anticompetitive agreement with other firms or part of a predatory or exclusionary strategy..."
This is in order to abide by the store rules. And this is hostile to the end-user, the Apple device user. If you can't see that, sorry.
Is this how far your thinking can go?
I can't see any in-app purchases in the Gmail app, which you know, serves the G-Suite paid accounts as well!
Can't wait for the new Borat movie later this month.
My analogy with space at Walmart is apt.
As for this snippet, which i a lot in various forms
"Yes, certainly. So this dev wants to use Apple's platform and resources to host and advertise their product, but when the time comes to actually profit from their product by charging their customers, they want to cut Apple out. That doesn't seem fair at all to me, and it's perfectly understandable and reasonable to me that Apple wants compensation for that. They have two mechanisms for that, either direct purchase of the app, or in app purchases from within the app itself, both of which have a cut for Apple. Going to a website cuts Apple out from the profit side, and leaves them holding the bag for all the costs associated with hosting, advertising and serving the app to users."
If this dev had other ways to sell to IOS users but made less money then had to come back to the APP store to sell, the statement above would hold water. Right now that dev has no option of going anywhere else, he either hands them the 30% or don't develop for IOS users. That's not a choice that's an ultimatum
For an app developer making an email client, they can choose:
1) Windows
2) Mac
3) Linux
4) iOS
5) Android
6) Web App (Also available to all clients above.)
Obviously a large number of choices. Don’t like paying a commission for your app being offered to millions of users - YOU HAVE A CHOICE of what platform to support. By means of a web app you can circumvent any gain by outside vendors and hit any OS in the process.
let's put it in another way
If a dev makes a windows app - they can sell it anywhere they want and people can buy it from where ever it's sold.
if a dev makes an app for android - they can sell it in the play store or any other android store that's available.
If a dev makes a MAC OS app - they can sell it from the APP store or from any other digital store front.
IOS - a Dev makes an app - only place they can sell it is on the IOS App Store.
This is more than money, hosting, and etc. MS is more than capable of hosting and advertising the office Suite for IOS and they still have to go through apple.
your argument would work if there were multiple IOS app stores that the developers can use to reach IOS users but they decided to use the official store and then complained about the 30% take. In this case the devs had other avenues to reach IOS users and they choose not to use those avenues.
Apple is not just acting as a store here, they are the platform owner and the hardware vendor, and they already make money hand over foot from selling iPhones and iPads, for which a significant attraction is the app ecosystem. Apple do not deserve "compenstion" for other people's work that adds value to Apple's product, they're just abusing their App Store position for rent seeking.