Want to bypass that cut? Build a web app and make it play well on mobile. If you want to run it on Android and iOS devices, then I don't really see how anyone can say "Apple and Google are taking too much of my cut".
Disagree with it sure, but don't act as if they're some thugs stealing from companies.
Want to bypass that cut? Build a web app and make it play well on mobile.
I can understand the argument that they should accept the 30% cut to be listed in and downloadable from the App Store. However, an iOS device is also the property of its owner and the owner should be allowed (morally) to install software outside the app store. Even if that comes with potential security problems. Android already permits this.
A world where you can only install software accepted by a gatekeeper is a world that is similar to one where you can only read books that are accepted by a gatekeeper.
This is supportable by well known technologies. The user could opt-in to various app-signature blacklists and whitelists. App stores and hardware vendors could publish their official app blacklists and whitelists, and even require their use for warranty purposes. On the other hand, the user could also opt-out.
It would be users demanding this, not devs, if the cost were more like a sales tax instead of VAT (added after instead of before total).
So if these larger companies want to bypass that sales funnel, and they can afford to do so, it's not a huge deal. They're still providing value to the platform in making iOS a better experience. The 30% cut is something along the lines of "Hey, we spend a lot of time maintaining this market place so that users will trust the download button, and we're giving you this opportunity to benefit from that by paying us a cut so you too can benefit from being found organically via our curated market place."
From the standpoint of a fledgling app company, I'd rather pay them to maintain that sales funnel for me. Whereas a Netflix / Amazon already has the brand strength to where they don't need it, so the 30% is very expensive for them (because they can generate plenty of sales on their own, and aren't reliant on organic searches for users to discover their product).
On Google Play, the market is very different and since it's not curated, there is so much more fluff to sift through for users, and it makes it much harder for a brand to gain notoriety through Google Play alone -- hence why so many new app products start on iOS and then grow into Android. The sales funnel created by any non-curated market place will never be as strong as a curated one (assuming the curation is carried out in the interest of promoting welfare of the customers/users on the platform, their privacy, safety, satisfaction, etc.).
The owner has the choice between iOS and Android. Why should Apple change their policies (and lose revenue) if the majority of users appear to be sufficiently happy with those restrictions (otherwise they wouldn't buy iOS devices)?
The inability to do this is a feature. I don’t want my phone to run random garbage like Android does. The curated app store is the main reason I keep buying iPhones.
In the real word, it isn't immoral to sell devices that don't run non-trusted binaries. If Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai could speak to every user and tell them "the reason our platform's default behavior is to not run non-trusted apps is because we don't want your device to get viruses or perform non-trusted functionality", and you told those users that it's "immoral for these companies to make those decisions for you", nine times out of ten those users would choose to have all developers go through Apple and Google instead.
30% of a recurring monthly subscription (like netflix) is bonkers.
There's some added value. I wouldn't have a Netflix subscription without an iPad, since I don't own a TV.
Not really, the fee's much of big tech often puts on people are draconian, and they are able to continue doing so because of the monopolies they hold. 30% is huge. Just try running a business when you loose 30% strait off the top line.
> "Want to bypass that cut?"
break the monopolies.
The cuts big tech muscle on their constituents actually hurts them in the long run. Facebook's cuts are so deep, its nearly impossible to run a sustainable business and ultimately limits the apps and services people are providing through facebook to their users.
I'd argue the same for mobile.
Brick and mortar retail does just that. Even online retail, once you factor in the costs of maintaining a secure payment system, managing fulfillment, customer service, etc. it winds up adding up to a lot.
Like every retail business ever?
People here seem to have forgotten what it was like to sell something back before Apple's App Store. 30% was considered insane in just how small it was.
What's your take on taxes?
Most business owners lose a lot more than 30% straight off the top from governments with no way to opt out (other than not to work at all which isn't really feasible in most countries if you want to enjoy your life).
Apple and Google have raked in tens of billions from their app stores, which has long since surpassed the cost of building them. If the market had fair competition, we would have many other viable app stores, not unlike the way we have so many apps. This is why EU antitrust is starting to scrutinize Google for forcing its app store to be bundled with Android.
App developers have to pay for Apple’s and Google’s R&D and devices? Do consumers not pay for this when they buy their devices.
>but also created the APIs, the tools, the infrastructure, and attracted the (hundreds of millions of) users.
These were created for their consumers and not for developers. You think features are added to their devices to please developers? Why do developers have to pay for these things?
>The 30% cut they ask of developers is more than reasonable.
More than reasonable? Do a little experiment. Run a business and have 30% of your revenue taken from you.
I suspect most of the executives making these decisions not only don't even know such a thing is possible, but probably don't even understand wha the difference is.
The vast VAST majority of apps in the iOS App Store would be better served by just being websites. If those services would just focus on making decent sites for the mobile web instead of expecting all mobile visitors to download a separate app they would be much better.
The only thing that would make web apps better is ways to take advantage of the identity management and authorization stuff you can do by installing through the App Store. If Apple could just create a way to do that the mobile web would be 1000x better.
At least Epic Games is practicing what they preach. UE4 is free to use, and here's their royalty breakdown:
> UE4 is free to use, with a 5% royalty on gross product revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter from commercial products.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/epic-ups-unreal-marke...
This is monopolistic behaviour. I write an app, can't install on someone's device without paying apple? Want 30% fine but it's my device, I should be able to put whatever I want in there. Let's face it, the best price is when people complain but pay. This is just extracting more money, plain and simple.
Or, they could have their app store with their 30% cut, and allow other app stores to be available. Google does this, it solves 99% of the problems available, and seems to be an OK balance.
Apple totally disallows this, has a draconian policy, and does everything in their power to make sideloading borderline impossible - oh, and prevents sales of anything through apps, which makes things like the Kindle app useless.
By your logic, your ISP ran all the lines, runs the service, services your modem, and should be allowed to determine exactly what websites you can and can not visit, and if it wants to charge you $50/month to go to Netflix.com then it can.
2) They have a monopoly. Rules are different for monopolies.
Do you believe this with regards to laptops? Laptops masquerading as tablets? Tablets? If not, why? And if it was the case with laptops, i.e. near 100% of users are on only two OS's both (and especially one) of which effectively force native apps through their channel for discovery, would you change your stance or accept that as a reasonable development/computing model for native development?
I follow you up until the 30% cut. Users are already paying for the hardware and software. Why is Apple taking a continual cut for value produced by other parties? If anything, they should be paying the writers of the software for selling their phones. Without the apps on the store, they're just a browser and a phone stuck together.
App Store takes a cut to use the App Store? Fine. But a reasonable cut simply for that convenience would be more like 10%.
Wonder if we’ll ever see a government crack down on tech company monopolies again (or any monopoly).
But back in the naughties Apple's 70/30 split was considered reasonable in contrast to what was available. In the dark ages when flash games were aggregated on sites such as Newgrounds that could demand more than 80% of any revenue.
In that kind of situation the highway robbery of 30% sure looks like a bargain. But it's still highway robbery.
When you're a platform vendor, what's reasonable is something you work out collaboratively with the people who use your platform. They will frequently have different ideas of what's reasonable than you do. You can disagree, but if you simply refuse to negotiate the users will eventually get fed up and go somewhere else. To succeed as a platform vendor you need users, so it's in your interest to be flexible enough to find a modus vivendi that both you and your users feel is reasonable -- or at least, close enough to reasonable for everyone to live with.
If only we could prove this. Ie, is Apple honestly selling $1,200 phones for a loss such that they need to recoup money from the App Store to turn a profit? If they didn't take the %30 cut, would they still be profitable?
I'm not proving a point, simply asking questions I'm curious about. Would be neat if we knew these answers.
So, a 30% cut of every purchase made using a Visa card is more than reasonable."
That was because Microsoft made money from selling Windows. With Android, Google gives it away free and has to extract money by either monetizing user data, or taking a cut from application developers.
Not judging them here, just saying.
I'm the customer when I buy the phone, but then I'm the product when I buy software. This double-aligns the incentives and is the reason why it's such a terrible (non-existent) experience trying to buy digital media on an iPhone.
Sure, Amazon & Netflix could pay the 30% cut and make it seamless for me, but this is similar to a trade tariff. Ultimately the cost will be paid by the users of the phones since companies have to charge those users more to make the same profit.
This is "fair" from a "welcome to capitalism" stance, but it's outright counter to usual mantra of "we make money when people buy devices."
(s/Apple/Google/ if you want)
It came down to the fact we required an email address and password for IAP so you could bring your subscription to the web or other platforms. While everyone else in the category did this, they decided that policy was going to change and we were just going to be the first people to deal with it. Since having an email-based account was core to the architecture and the UX, I went through a week of refactor hell to make emails/passwords optional to meet our launch date.
Since other apps still get to do this, it's clear the policy change message was BS. I've suspected a lot has had to do with Apple's ambitions in the streaming space and their desire to be in a position to offer bundling and other over the top services. They're already trying to control the UX with the TV app and are offering companies better rev share rates to do the integration work.
It seems like Netflix is daring Apple to pull them from the store. If that's what's happening then I applaud them. I understand that Apple may think they're protecting the consumer by creating a walled garden, but as a developer whose livelihood is tied to their decisions, I'm tired of being jerked around.
To be fair, that’s not the only reason the TV app was created. Most notably:
– Users want a single place to keep track of all the shows they’re following across all services. Streaming services weren’t coming up with a cooperative solution for this, so Apple did it instead.
– Plainly put, a large chunk (if not most) streaming service apps suck. The TV app adds value by letting users skip the choppy, inconsistent, badly organized, lowest-bidder browsing UIs so many streaming service apps have and get straight to watching this week’s episode.
I like the TV app and wish it did more. I wouldn’t be bothered if I never had to open a service-specific app again. All I need is a clean, frustration free way to browse the libraries of the services I subscribe to.
But most apple users don't care to have very limited capabilities as long as the core value is here and it's streamlined in the apple experience. Hell, they used a phone without copy/paste for a long time and it didn't bother them.
Isn't that the problem Trakt [0] solves?
Imho, we've got to solve that "single place" problem, because it creates a winner-takes-all situation. Not just with apps, but also taxi-cabs, food-delivery, etc. Perhaps a government should step in and say that you can have a "single place" but only if you don't abuse your power.
For some reason, though, we don't tolerate Seattle City Light choosing to arbitrarily not supply electricity to another company, or Cupertino's water utility charging extortive rates to Apple, just because the latter has deep pockets.
In addition to having to pay money to develop on their platform, the return I get is questionable.
The straw was that they're forcing me to republish old programs, just to force them through their new compliance tunnels.
Frankly, I'm sick of their hoops and their walled-garden. I'm ok with forcing users to the browser now. Amazon does it for digital sales.
The point of republishing old programs is to make sure they are running against the latest SDK. This is an important aspect for the ecosystem. It forces apps to work properly on the latest OS as well as support technologies like App Thinning.
It's not just to mess you around for compliance reasons.
Are you sure that’s the only reason? I can do in app purchases with Udemy that required an account to be used everywhere.
I also know that Hulu, Pluralsight, Netflix, and Evernote all work this way.
> Since other apps still get to do this, it's clear the policy change message was BS.
I am a developer of a dozen very popular apps and I couldn't disagree more with your position.
Developers having a wonderful experience or sustained livelihood isn't the goal here. It's to make sure consumers are protected and cared for. As Tim Cook would put it that's their North Star.
Not that the current administration is going to be performing any anti-trust litigation anyway.
Let me get this straight. A for-profit company providing a marketplace that has allowed you to sustain a livelihood as a developer is now be considered as "jerking you around". This is truly fascinating.
A company wielding their quasi-monopoly power to change the rules of the game at the last minute on a whim is precisely what I'd call being "jerked around".
As a consumer, I’d love to buy a phone, not a content distribution straight jacket.
I well remember the state of Windows during Win 98 and XP where most had no idea what they were downloading, and it seemed every machine had malware, hidden pop ups and 37 IE toolbars. I was constantly asked to clean up friend's machines from the damage done by Kazaa and its associated garbage or some other drive-by crap.
If a restrictive app store is the cost of avoiding that and gaining some minimum enforced standards, safety and confidence to avoid crapware, I've actually come to think it a price well worth paying.
The fact that Google are so laissez faire about the Android app store, and let so much crap in, just further highlights the potential benefits that Google aren't fully providing.
The fact that you are here typing this reply right now is entirely because of the state of Windows during 98 and XP. It's a balance between security and freedom. You are arguing for the benefit of security while ignoring the effect that freedom has had on the last 30 years of computing.
I agree that Android is worse, but that doesn't make Apple's store "Good".
iOS, on the other hand, restricts its apps heavily - they are sandboxed, can't access other apps' files (no ransomware) and need explicit user permission to meddle with their private data.
Now, yes, exploits exist, but look at macOS - Apple still controls developer certificates and can pull the plug on misbehaving developers. An alternative to the app store wouldn't be nearly as devastating as win32.
You raise an interesting point about Android malware. Does it stem from the fact that Android apps can access the filesystem?
I still prefer that personally than the crippled smartphones.
There were viruses? Yes. 37 IE toolbars? Of course! But consider for a moment what we have today instead: Instead of the simple and (comparatively) mostly harmless viruses we now have ransomware. Instead of kazaa installing spyware we have the OS itself trying to phone home. Instead of having a virus to delete random files, you now have one of the Big 4 delete stuff from your device without asking you.
You say we had crapware we had to avoid back then, I see that today we install the crapware ourselves and consider it a treat. Back then when you bought a piece of software you owned it. You didn't have micro transactions and DLCs and all these "innovations" that drive "engagement". You didn't have to have data connection to sync something with bluetooth.
Sure there were also some crappy things, but things are not all that better today. We just got used to it.
I love that I buy an iPhone and Apple doesn't allow any non-trusted binaries to run on my phone, enforces strict style guidelines (the average app just looks better on my iPhone than Android IMO), has one place where all possible apps are, maintains a distribution channels that allows all my apps to be updated easily, and builds hardware and software that is designed to work together.
I love my iPhone because Apple is such sticklers about apps, design, and creating a consistently nice user experience. The average user doesn't care about how "open" Android is. They just want something that works.
Even if you didn't want to go the walled garden approach, who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open?
I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people that you happen to like yourself.
Supporting obligatory 30% tax on any developer work makes my blood boil. If Apple model wins it will be a disaster for innovation and salaries. I will never buy or recommended Apple products for this reason. It's worth it to me a stand even if user experience is temporarily better.
> who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open?
Google was fined on antitrust grounds. I don't see which direction to leap to make that sentence relevant to them being fined.
From the EU’s competition commissioner
> Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In this way it has cemented the dominance of its search engine. Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits. It’s illegal under EU antitrust rules. @Google now has to stop it
Post-Gingerbread, Google has put the vast majority of their development into the Google Play APIs, which are not open and are only available to partners. This means that use of things like chromecast (for instance) are restricted to apps distributed through the Play store, and handsets running partner builds of Android.
I'm tired of signing up for subscriptions and going through a series of dark patterns on a zillion websites to figure out how to manage and cancel my subscriptions. The worst is when there's one click to subscribe and they make you phone in to an annoying retention specialist to cancel.
As a developer I hate it :/
+1 = I will never build (or invest into) business that is built on a single platform controlled by someone else.
That all falls apart if you're an over-thinker, penny-wise, or a skeptic, though. By virtue of having some tech-savvy, you are automatically sort-of excluded from the target marketing for most platform/app/marketplace stacks. You want to pick and chose to try and gain efficiency or cost-savings or whatever.
If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey to play your favourite game just disable this security setting" to millions of them seems risky.
If you were more profit motivated, you might argue the problem is allowing externally installed software. Granted they foolishly obtained too large of a market share to have any say in that anymore.
If you care about users though, yes, the cost barriers for devs are a problem no matter who puts them up. Ideally the cost is in the phone purchase, not the continued use.
It's not a system wide setting, it's an app-specific setting (that is, it's for the app you wish to be able to install other apps.)
Setting it to “allow” for the default browser and leaving it that way is something of an issue, though.
There's a bigger difference on iOS, if a similar setting was even available, because Apple curates much more strongly than Google.
[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2812853?hl=en
Sorry, but if Apple's policies are applied consistently (I know they often aren't), this won't fly.
I have an app with a basic email/password sign-in screen (the app represents a small part of a larger web-based SaaS product). Apple has rejected my app for including anything in the app that even remotely hints to the service existing outside of the App Store. This includes a "Sign Up" button linked to the web signup, a "Learn More" button that links to the website, or even a "Support" button that has navigation that can lead to a signup or pricing page. After a long chat with someone from the App Store review team, I learned that you can't link to any page of a site that contains other links that can indirectly lead to a signup or pricing information. It's a pretty harsh policy.
So my app was finally approved, but without any links to support documentation on my site. Congratulations, Apple - you win :)
As a suggestion regarding your situation... obviously its more work but you could always open the support pages in a webView that blocks the purchase urls via [1].
1. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiwebviewdel...
Activist investor style.
And you’d need a $100 billion fund to even get noticed. Even Warren Buffet isn’t calling the shots at Apple.
You’d have much better success by spending a fraction of the money to hire goons to kidnap Apple’s executives driving home from work and “convince” them to change corporate policy that way.
For the majority of apps, the App Store doesn't provide discovery. It provides a nearly frictionless delivery and purchase interface. That's worth something, but not 30% off the top. That's worth a premium on top of processing fees, like X cents per transaction and Y% of the transaction, where Y < 6, I think.
Edit: I should say, I don't think there's any way this is going to happen. It would take an anti-trust action to make any difference, but that's not likely to happen.
> Section 3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services:
> Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired elsewhere, including consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those items are also available as in-app purchases within the app. You must not directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase.
To me, it sounds like Netflix is, "directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase." I'm not saying they should or shouldn't break the rules, I'm just saying that they are.
Netflix is potentially more popular than iPhone as a brand.
I could be wrong but it would be amazing to see it play out.
Edit: actually, it was Google, not Apple. Google Play's brand isn't as strong as the App Store, but Amazon still caved to Google, which only underscores my point. https://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/amazon-...
But there was a case back in 2011 where Amazon removed the Kindle Store from their iOS app at Apple's request: https://www.cultofmac.com/105966/amazon-caves-to-apple-remov...
That said, these benefits have an expiration date. I don't think the app store cut has been a ripoff for its entire history, but if the temperature of the room has shifted toward hostility, it might be that they've spent the goodwill they earned with their innovation and now it's time for a more sustainable long term arrangement.
We can find middle ground between "Apple did nothing for me" and "Apple deserves 30% of software sales for eternity"
Of course, there is no way they would use that negotiated the percentage for the rest of us.
I think it would take an anti-trust action of some sort to cause a dent here, but I'm not holding my breath.
Well, it's not like iPhone users can't simply buy Androids. I have mostly iOS household with a few Androids sitting around - mostly unpowered and gathering dust (kids use them mainly to watch Netflix on road trips).
I think Netflix has a strong position to negotiate with Apple over this.
All of a sudden a few days Apple decides we have to implement in-app payments. I explained them that this is an enterprise product for an arcane industry and that our customers require quotations/invoices raised to their procurement department and would not pay several hundred to several thousand dollars through the app. They insist we have to implement in-app payments despite not helping our customers nor our business. We don't have automated billing at all, not even on our desktop product. The requested change means months of development for no value (at this point).
No way to appeal. We can currently not update our app and if we don't implement in-app payments in an unspecified time our current version will be pulled too.
Thanks, Apple.
You can't provide your app at no cost on the App Store. You can't provide your app for a cost on the App Store, if you don't include in-app payments.
Or is it the case that you want to allow your customers to make nominal purchases through the app, and Apple say these must be processed through in-app payments?
Yes!!
Customers will not be bypassing the app store, they're bypassing the in-app payment infrastructure. But Apple want to allow only in-app payments.
$11.99 if you sign up on web - https://www.youtube.com/premium
$15.99 if you sign up through in-app - https://itunes.apple.com/app/youtube/id544007664 (Click on In-App Purchases under Information to see the price)
The goal is, obviously, making you giving up your grandfathering. It doesn't surprise me.
The other is that app developers have a symbiotic, probably synergistic relationship with the phone makers. Apps are a huge part of the draw of a good platform.
My take is that until we decide that a given platform is a monopoly, we let the platforms fight for a larger market share by attracting high quality apps using this "tax" as leverage (better dev experience, larger market share, superior hardware are other tactics). Microsoft tried (and failed) to improve their platform by offering developers a larger share of the take away and hoping they'd improve the ecosystem.
My hope is the market gets more competitive so that app makers get a larger share of the profit.
Isn't the nominal size of a slice of cake more important than it's percentage relative to the overall cake?
Sure, it would be great if developers got a larger chunk of a large market. But what if they got a smaller chunk of a much bigger market? 70 % of a hundred million is a lot more than a hundred percent of 500 bucks. Worrying about percentages can sometimes just be about jealousy/ego.
While locking their devices and users to that experience, or forcing those users to make large-scale security compromises just to avoid it.
> My take is that until we decide that a given platform is a monopoly
They seem like they are. Is there another app store that iPhone users can use? Android users? Does the operating system on these phones let you easily change your "app store" preference?
> we let the platforms fight for a larger market share by attracting high quality apps using this "tax" as leverage
How does that benefit consumers? Is it impossible to achieve these same benefits in any other way than the somewhat draconian system we have now?
> Microsoft tried (and failed) to improve their platform by offering developers a larger share of the take away and hoping they'd improve the ecosystem.
Microsoft had more problems with their platform than just the price. There's already a workable distribution channel for third-party software on their systems. Their "app store" really didn't add any benefit to people already familiar with their software. Plus, they never really sold a volume of phones that puts them close to Apple or Google so their Monopoly position in this regard was severely hampered.
> My hope is the market gets more competitive so that app makers get a larger share of the profit.
How is that going to happen when you only have one app distribution mechanism to choose from per platform?
Companies are not forced to change their hardware to run a competitors binaries really. There's choice in platforms which means iOS or Android phones in this case. If this were true every game console was a monopoly.
If a user discovers the Netflix app, signs up, they are essentially discovering Netflix through the App store.
If a user discovers Netflix elsewhere, they can be pointed to download the app for extended utility.
In the latter case, it doesn't violate Apple's 30% revenue cut policy. But if they want to target people who discover Netflix from the App store platform, then they would have to pay.
Also, does anyone actually discover Netflix through the App Store? Or do they know about Netflix, go to sign up, and the first device they sign up on happens to be running iOS?
Now, you have to give the cut and do marketing. It's usurious, and we need to stick to other channels.
Is the problem that new users who sign up via the iOS app have to make an in-app payment for their subscription, thus triggering the 30% cut?
I assume this also means Apple will reject any app that submits payment through the Netflix iOS app directly to Netflix, bypassing the normal iOS payments process.
Why doesn't Netflix just not allow you to sign up via the app, forcing everyone to use a web browser (either on mobile or on desktop)?
It seems like other app developers could do the same thing, allowing the app to sign in to your web account to view content. For example, the Remember The Milk todo list service. I believe I pay on the website, but they have a companion iOS app that allows me to sign in.
Apple can request in some cases that there is a way to use your application without any account, or that you provide a signup form inside the app. There are exceptions, but I assume you have to justify them to Apple aside from "I don't want to pay your fees".
Basically, the rules are a bit more complex I think and they cover a number of potential loopholes.
Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and a few others have been doing it this way for a while, so I'm surprised this is news.
I also care when the 30% applies solely by proxy through me. That is to say, since Apple doesn't allow you to differentiate pricing on the Store (IOW, charge 30% more on the App Store), the developer is forced to have me be a lower-value customer than if I used the product through another means. That means that in the developer's eyes, I am necessarily a less important customer, the same way someone that pays for the basic account is lower priority than someone that pays for the Pro account. This is not true of all the other costs you mentioned, rent and salary aren't dynamically changing customer to customer. By placing a 30% fee on the App Store, Apple is obscuring my importance to the developer.
- 24/7 worldwide availability, instant payment/download
- Easy re-install after deletion, you still own the app even if deleted
- Region restriction
- Separate app pricing by region
- Revenues paid to developer from multiple region currencies without conversion fees
- Tax calculation and collection
- Customer refunds
- User rankings and reviews
- App store advertising in category listings
- Video previews of the app in operation
- Packaging of media content allowing developers the ability to load game levels as the user needs them rather than all at once
- App sales statsIt’s not universal. I’ve lost access to several apps that I had paid for—and that’s not even getting into iOS 11 incompatibility.
Different outcome when you haven't flashed gapps though. Haha.
Only in this case Google and Apple are the 'bad guys' (the infrastructure providers, eg the ISP).
While the so called 'Over-the-top' application/service providers (eg Netflix, Spotify, Epic games, etc) and their users are the victims ?
I can see a small difference, where the ISPs did not have anything analogous to 'advertisement' benefit to their 'Over-the-top' application/service providers.
But surely, the advertising help the stores provide -- is not worth continuous 30% (or even 15%) take ?
But Apple (and Google, IMHO to a lesser extent) are starting to use their gatekeeper positions for their own advantage. And these markets are getting so huge and the potential damage to other companies so large that they're just inviting government action, probably by the EU first but I can also see the US getting to the point of taking antitrust action.
It's clear Apple has streaming and original content ambitions. They also have iTunes of course. If they're not careful they're going to trigger intervention when they arbitrarily start applying rules to Hulu and Amazon Prime Video that don't apply to others.
There are already some pretty silly contortions for these policies. Take Amazon. You can purchase items through the iOS app... except for anything digital like, say, Kindle books. But you can buy Kindle books elsewhere and then load them on the iOS Kindle app using your email and password. As others have noted, other companies haven't gotten these exceptions.
This is also why I think it's a huge mistake for Apple to get into the original content game. Their other businesses are so huge that original content will never be able to compete on a revenue basis. Yet they risk their own platform by favouring their own content. Government action could be ruinous for them. When Apple competes on their own platform against third parties it undermines faith in that platform and (IMHO) its long term health (even viability).
I don't know what the alternative is though. It's not letting anyone install anything as much as tech-savvy purists may think so. That's actually not what consumers want or need. Is it allowing competition in App stores? Maybe. There isn't just one domain registrar and just one root-level CA.
What disgusts me is that if I decline to use their platform, I can’t even tell users that there is a subscription available through another channel.
If Apple didn’t restrict our speech it would be an easier pill to swallow.
Heck, for a year or so it almost would have been lying to claim to be paying developers (plural) when a single developer like Supercell was raking in so much.
Let’s be honest: there’s a giant check from people blowing money on games that they shouldn’t (gems, etc. to fuel addictions), and a large check for a very short list of apps constantly in the top 10 due to app store positive feedback loops. The remaining $4.52 of all payments to anyone is split 145,622 ways to the 98.9% of developers trying to survive.
And let’s not forget, Apple’s store platform feels like it was once one person’s side project and is now 5% of a different person’s time. It doesn’t feel like they’ve cut any checks to make this a good marketplace.
I don’t see a shortage of well-paid app developers nor multibillion dollar single-app startups.
It’s like Wal-mart taking a cut of my cable bill because they sold me the TV. The overreach of Apple is preposterous.
If you want to be independent, be serious about it, make it easy to find the latest apk on netflix.com/apk, instead of apkmirror. Make it easy for users who pay to enjoy your service the way they want to. Seems to me like Netflix themselves are the ones pushing Play and App store official routes on official, completely locked-in devices.
I was on a app diet when I still had my first gen Moto G (with 8 GB of memory) and I found that almost everything I used apps for before had websites that were as functional as the app (or even more functional in the case of Facebook), minus all the obligatory tracking (if you choose so).
[1] https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-commission-versus-...
What Netflix trying to achieve can be perfectly done by ordinary web browser. I don't know about their "app" but I bet it's just a wrapper of web browser.
The whole app ecosystem is crap. It must be abolished ASAP.
They apps seems like a thin wrapper around a web app, couldn't they just have people use the web app? If you add a link to the home screen, it's almost identical.
Not idea, but better than losing 30% of your revenue...
Then if we don't want to deal with their bullshit we can just have an iphone shipped from the EU and enjoy a device we actually own.