esummers

wozwoz said:

Wow - this so Pro they might sell 100 of them. Cheese grater design is boring. After the criticism of the R2D2 Mac Pro for not being pro enough (when Apple didn't even offer upgrade options over 5 years!), they have gone to the other extreme and produced a machine that only a tiny proportion of Pro users will want, or be able to justify. Apple have lurched far too far to the other extreme. 
Same goes for the monitor:  they should be providing a suite of monitors in different sizes for different users - not some ridiculously over-specced $6000 32 inch monitor with a an optional $1000 stand.

They will sell a lot of these.  Particularly with pent up demand.

rogifan_new said:

DMBdreamin said:

rogifan_new said:

OK but I can use Safari to buy a Kindle book and read it on my iOS device. Just like I can use Safari to sign up with Spotify and there Apple gets nothing. Your analogy to Barnes and Noble doesn’t make sense to me.  The App Store isn’t a book store. But again it goes back to my point that Apple deciding certain digital goods are deserving of a commission but other things are not is quite arbitrary. And so yeah, what happens when/if Project Titan becomes an Apple ride-sharing service with its own autonomous electric vehicles...do Uber and Lyft all of a sudden get charged a commission or do they get a free ride (no pun intended) because they didn’t exist when Apple created the rules around App Store commissions?

The difference is Safari goes to the open web - a non controlled entity and the App Store is something Apple built and maintains so they are 2 different platforms. Apple had a cost to invent and build the App Store, its backend infrastructure that supports how that store functions. It also has a cost to maintain it, employ people to monitor it and keep it the way it wants it to be (just like a barns & Nobel or any other brick and mortar store).  Safari is an application to view the web, while yes they may look similar the two are completely different, Apple just needs developers to build Safari and then it lives on your device. And guess what Apple only takes a 30% cut of the sale on their AppStore if the app itself is an up front sale, they give the developer the option of pricing it for free and getting ad revenue instead of an upfront cost. Not only that they allow 3rd parties to sell subscriptions outside their AppStore but if you sell them within they want a cut because those developers are using their infrastructure and their eco-system and oh yea their customer base. If the AppStore didn't exist would these companies have half as many eyes looking at their wares? 

OK but in theory every app could be “free” and either use an ad-based model or have you sign up/pay for things via the web to circumvent Apple’s commission/fee. Amazon, Netflix and Spotify are doing it. So if this is all about what it costs to maintain/support the App Store then why does Apple allow any free apps or allow apps that would be charged a commission to be “reader” apps? Of course it’s a rhetorical question. If Apple said to Amazon your Kindle app can’t be in the store unless users can purchase books inside the app and we get 30% of those purchases Amazon would choose not to have an app in the store and customers would be unhappy because they couldn’t read Kindle books on their iOS device. Also I’d love to see how Apple breaks down, say a $1000 iPhone in terms of BOM, R&D, software, etc. I assume when I buy an iOS device part of the cost of the device goes to support software and services. Would that not include the App Store? Sure Apple is providing developers this great platform but iOS and iPhone/iPad would be nothing without great 3rd party apps. I think it’s to Apple’s benefit to make the App Store a place where 3rd parties want to develop and it’s financially worthwhile to do so.

From a business perspective, I think there should be more than just financial worthiness to consider.  Anytime there is a commission structure that is uneven, there may be an incentive to cater an app to the commission structure instead of what is necessary to make the best possible app.  If you hurt the platform by encouraging apps that are not as good as they could be, you eventually hurt profitability.  I feel like Apple may have not found the right balance with reader-apps.  I think that ideally reader-only apps tied to a single marketplace shouldn't exist.  However, these types of apps are dominated by large players.  It could be that they are thinking about this imbalance, but have not been able to get the other players to agree on a better solution.  I left my opinion of a better solution is in another comment, but ultimately it may not be doable.

DMBdreamin said:

rogifan_new said:

OK but I can use Safari to buy a Kindle book and read it on my iOS device. Just like I can use Safari to sign up with Spotify and there Apple gets nothing. Your analogy to Barnes and Noble doesn’t make sense to me.  The App Store isn’t a book store. But again it goes back to my point that Apple deciding certain digital goods are deserving of a commission but other things are not is quite arbitrary. And so yeah, what happens when/if Project Titan becomes an Apple ride-sharing service with its own autonomous electric vehicles...do Uber and Lyft all of a sudden get charged a commission or do they get a free ride (no pun intended) because they didn’t exist when Apple created the rules around App Store commissions?

The difference is Safari goes to the open web - a non controlled entity and the App Store is something Apple built and maintains so they are 2 different platforms. Apple had a cost to invent and build the App Store, its backend infrastructure that supports how that store functions. It also has a cost to maintain it, employ people to monitor it and keep it the way it wants it to be (just like a barns & Nobel or any other brick and mortar store).  Safari is an application to view the web, while yes they may look similar the two are completely different, Apple just needs developers to build Safari and then it lives on your device. And guess what Apple only takes a 30% cut of the sale on their AppStore if the app itself is an up front sale, they give the developer the option of pricing it for free and getting ad revenue instead of an upfront cost. Not only that they allow 3rd parties to sell subscriptions outside their AppStore but if you sell them within they want a cut because those developers are using their infrastructure and their eco-system and oh yea their customer base. If the AppStore didn't exist would these companies have half as many eyes looking at their wares? 

I agree from a legal perspective.  However, I think that encouraging developers to write apps that are less user-friendly because they are taking advantage of a more favorable commission structure isn't a good thing.  Certainly Apple should win this court case, but I hope they do look at how the commission structure hurts usability.  I elaborate more in my other post.

I like how the AppStore is set up in general.  I think opening the AppStore to competition would be worse overall.  The fact that iOS is not the Wild West is a big part of what attracts users to the platform.  I don't believe it is a monopoly since there are other major platforms.  However, I think there is an issue with the AppStore commission structure incentivizing developers to create software with usability issues in some cases.

My major complaint is the "Reader" category mentioned on the page.  It is a poor user experience to require leaving an app to add content to the app.  This is a category of apps that really shouldn't exist.   My personal opinion is that Apple should give up on commission for certain categories of digital content that are cross-platform such as books/audiobooks, movies, music, comic books, or other content that could potentially be consumed in another app or aggregation app.  Other types of app-specific digital content typically don't suffer from this issue and allow in-app purchase.  Physical goods don't receive a commission and this type of content feels closer to a physical good than an app feature.  There could be a requirement to share content with an aggregator app (Books app, TV app, etc.) and/or other third party apps through an SDK similar to how cloud storage apps integrate with Files.  Some sort of extension for DRM/viewing would probably also necessary if aggregation were a requirement.   It is great that the AppStore has areas with no commission, however that also encourages poor app design to get around paying the commission.  Subscriptions have a similar issue, but working with subscriptions is less frequent.  It would be nice to see some sort of a change in commissions to encourage more user friendly behavior.  I don't know if the economics are sustainable or suitable to encouraging good developer behavior, but maybe just a signup commission for certain types of content along with a requirement that they need to open the content to aggregation apps.  Basically, I think content that is suitable for aggregation is the digital content that should be exempted from the normal commission structure.  I love Apple as company that puts design and usability first, but this is an area where I think it falters.  Commission structure shouldn't encourage poor app design.  However, this may be a moot point since "Reader" apps are mostly dominated by large players.  If you can't get them to agree on a better system then we are stuck with what we have.

Unrelated to AppStore commissions– I wish Apple would crack down on developers that release apps that take too long to launch.  Slow launch times seem to be becoming more common over the last year or so.  It would be nice to at least see a slow launch warning on the App Store.  Developers that take the time to optimize their apps to launch extremely fast can have a fast launch badge of honor on their store page.  I feel like these metrics could be obtained automatically during app submission testing.  I think this problem is caused by a combination of requiring a large cloud sync at app start, lack of incremental loads, poor caching behavior, and the rise of poorly written hybrid apps.

Regardless if if this is real, moving back toward color in the source list makes sense with Marzipan since iOS uses color.