The fact that Apple is scrubbing text communications and discussing certain sensitive things with developers only over the phone is supremely shady. Deleting old communications is a classic tactic employed by organizations that anticipate lawsuits and associated discovery. It's amazing that they've formulated a comprehensive set of internal business practices directed at sustaining this racket.
In Canada the law states that one person in the conversation must agree to the recording which means if you want to record yourself it is perfectly legal and no need to tell the other person you are recording. So if they did this to a Canadian developer they could record them without asking or letting Apple know.
As a trillion dollar company with hundreds of billions in the bank we can expect more from them. And if the legal system has perverse incentives that should be fixed through reform, not apathy.
I don't think that any reform of the legal system can get rid of people whose business model is litigation. You can't get rid of legal trolls without denying justice to actual victims of corporate wrongdoing.
Also, I would be extremely suspicious of any reform of the legal system coming from megacorps.
This is not to say the system cannot be improved, it's just wicked hard and you cannot blame any single actor for not doing that.
Pointing out that this happens specifically when companies maximizes for prioritizes profit instead of the benefit of their product (which was what allowed them to gain such traction).
It does feel prevalent in large corporations though.
I can confirm the only phone call I got from Apple was to explain why they can't accept my app.
It was a small display test app / game which apparently is not allowed as the users might start thinking they have a defective product (and perhaps ask for a refund / replacement).
In this case it is because you need that rejection email in writing to go file a claim with your credit card and trigger your purchase protection. As soon as Apple (or whoever) thinks you will take this route, they are happy to limit their losses and replace it before you can file a claim that could result in chargeback.
Would credit card extended warranties and protection result in a charge back? I thought the credit card companies paid these out as benefits, and usually reserved for cards with annual fees.
There's two routes you could go down - file a warranty claim on a higher-end card that provides extended warranties.
Cards usually also allow you to request a chargeback against defective goods for which a merchant refuses to make you whole. In this case you could probably call up Amex or whatever and say "I bought a laptop that is defective within the warranty period and apple refuses to RMA it, here's the proof..." and they'd do it no questions asked.
I've done both of these things with Amex and Chase and it's usually a painless process for each. With the chargeback route, however, it's common for companies to retaliate by closing your accounts or otherwise refusing you service until you reverse the chargeback. If you actually tried to chargeback the macbook I wouldn't be surprised if you found yourself with a "your iCloud account will be closed in 30 days" email. When I charged back a local CSA for refusing to cancel my subscription without an onerous phone tree despite multiple emails I received a voicemail saying, very politely, "Your account is now closed but you will be banned from ever opening a new account with us in the future."
Community Supported Agriculture. Farm shares, basically. Pay a fixed amount/week for a weekly allotment of whatever is seasonally being harvested by a local farm. Usually at better prices than local grocery stores and you support local farmers and ag.
It sounded more like return/warranty protection - this merchant isn't honoring my return/warranty vs extended warranty protection which is slightly different.
Developers really should stage a revolt on both Google and Apple's mobile phone ecosystems. They have ruined computing for users (locked down systems with no ability to tinker) and make it impossible to have any viable business on their platforms, since they have total control over you, can shut you down at any time without recourse, and retroactively change terms. It is part of a larger trend of evolving business world where small players are doomed.
This is not 100% correct for Google. Realistically yes I agree. But you can at least install a 3rd Party app store on Android, as I have done with F-droid. Also I believe Amazon has an App store too. The percentage of people who do that is very small I realize.
Now Apple does not offer anyway that I have heard of for people to offer an alternative app store.
While you CAN sideload an app on Android, it would still be crippled on modern versions of Android, because it would not be able to receive push notifications. Coupled with the fact that recent versions of Android aggressively offload background apps from memory, many types of applications function with great difficulty.
This CAN be overcome by a special app that keeps connection with an alternative push notification server, but it would still be prone to offloading and would have to run a persistent notification.
The proper solution would be unlocking notification services on Android devices and allowing to chose alternative push notifications providers. This can also be applied to iOS.
Killing apps in the background and offloading them from memory is a godsend for a Android ecosystem. It is literally so much harder to make anything battery optimized since you have get information about almost everything to make it right: need radio? beware that it is in active state and only then send data. Want do background processing? Wait until user will charge it's phone. Making apps battery efficient is insanely hard task and it is solvable by just offloading everything to an OS.
I have built several push services for my previous projects it always sooo hard to implement right. iOS for example, uses 25+ different parameters to optimize push delivery depending on your app usage, on how you are using your phone and so on.
Good luck to build this as "third party" and keep everything private.
It is a godsend only up to a point when you can't run an app in the background even if you badly need to. The computers (and Android devices are computers) should not be putting their users into straight jackets so they won't hurt themselves. Users should have an option to do what they want. The system's job is to inform that what they are doing is using battery. If a user is OK with it, the system SHOULD NOT interfere.
Using such information is so hard that almost impossible. I could spend a year tailoring battery performance for a messenger and still get random guy who have some exotic phone with some strange behaviour.
There are really almost no need to run app in the background or at least constantly send data without a reason (mostly just tracking).
UPD: When deciding how to build something i have one small trick: first ask question about who can make better decision about something?
For example? Who is more capable to make decision about battery usage, about tweaking core performance, etc? It is obviously kernel or silicone itself. App will never have required information to build perfect performant app for every device. This just means that you have to build a kernel by yourself and even more: common kernel for every phone.
> Using such information is so hard that almost impossible.
Aren't battery stats not enough for you? If your app uses too much battery, you can stop using it. Or you prefer some other people to make this decision for you?
The thing is, though, that Firebase push notifications are deeply integrated with mobile networks. They get special treatment to ensure energy-efficient operation, at the cost of more idle connections hanging in the network infrastructure. Yes, with IPv6 that should/could become much less relevant, but then you loose the traffic-flood-DoS protections you get from CG-NAT.
Oh come on. Push notifications is just a modified XMPP connection that exists in the background. Actually, both FCM and APNS use XMPP to transport notification to devices.
The only 'special treatment' that happens is on Google/Apple servers which determine the priority of some of notifications.
How do I know? We're very involved with the XMPP protocol. The irony is that it is insanely hard to maintain an XMPP connection to a client on both Android / iOS, despite devices under both these OSs being an always connected XMPP clients.
Well, in your sibling I have linked a paper that talks about the negative effects of un-coordinated persistent TCP connections on the network's stability. I read a god chunk of it, and it seems to explain quite well why these push services get special treatment. Hint: it's connected to them running a keep-alive delay in the "hours" range for the mobile radio link, without imposing that on the cloud server.
There is integration. I don't know what it is these days but it used to be mostly carriers adjusting TCP timeouts on their NAT boxes.
The issue is that a long lived TCP connection consumes some valuable RAM and a port number on a valuable IP address. It costs carriers something for push notifications to work, so, they tend to aggressively close long lived TCP connections that aren't going to recognised push datacenters.
For that to work you need business relationships with the carriers of course, stable IP addresses, and enough users of your push service for it to be worthwhile.
IPv6 would fix it by eliminating IP scarcity and CGNAT, but most mobile networks aren't provisioning handsets with IPv6 addresses.
Whether FCM uses these technologies, I don't know. I lack the hardware to easily inspect the mobile radio traffic on the necessary level (the best would be a DIY stingray based on one or two OsmocomBB-capable GSM phones, maybe combined with a Faraday cage to place one of them into, together with the smartphone.
I don't see the anti-competitive part there. There are good reasons around consolidating resident daemons and only using a single TCP connection with a special keep-alive configuration.
And from experience, it's perfectly possible to not use FCM, at the cost of a persistent notification that alerts the user about this, so they can get rid of abusive apps.
Maybe not exactly anti-competitive (but maybe): It requires you to have hundreds of megabytes of Google blobs with root permissions on your device, which some people don't like.
If course this pales in contrast to Apples actions.
I think you can but you still have to link to Google play services, which is not possible for open source apps in f-droid since they need to be able to run on de-googled android which lacks Google services.
Aren't microg supposed to get installed first on the device? Which mean if the user doesn't have it, then your app won't run? Or can you embed the FCM support into the app itself so it doesn't depend on google play service or microg availability?
> it would still be crippled on modern versions of Android, because it would not be able to receive push notifications
My understanding is that this is not an effect of side loading, but an app not using Google Cloud Messaging, which is not available when play services are not installed.
Anyone can distribute their Andrioid app using their desired way. Even via web site. Exmple: https://signal.org/android/apk/
Sending push messages to Android phone using Firebase Cloud Messaging(FCM, formerly GCM) requires "Google Play Services" installed on that Android device. Google Play Services is not depends on Google Play Store and is not requires that applications using Play Services should installed by Play Store.
The single biggest market does not use anything else. The Google play store does just not exist in China, instead there are multiple different 3rd party app stores. There is a study here which is a couple of years old about such stores. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.07780.pdf
To hop on this train: people like you and I love customizing our devices and tailoring our experiences to exactly what we'd like, and that's completely fine. To a lot of people, though, their mobile device is just a tool—a tool that they can use to do other things. In that usecase, the phone needs to work as simply and reliably as possible, and by reducing the amount of things that can go wrong (live wallpapers draining the phone's battery and sketchy application launchers come to mind) the more approachable that system is.
My take is this: computers (especially phones) are like cars: some people love to tinker with them and take on a project car that they tweak to their liking, but most people need a reliable and inexpensive car that can get them to and from the grocery store.
Now some people never open the hood of their car. And for those who do, a lot of car manufacturers have just the answer -- they have a second hood under the first hood (it's plastic and only has holes for maybe the wiper fluid).
but apple is bolting the hood shut. and welding it.
Until years later we have fewer people interested in learning how computers work, because the only devices they ever owned were locked down walled gardens.
Maybe these people don't even know what they're missing, because they've never even seen it?
Those of us who understand the implications now would benefit ourselves and many others by helping more people find that spark, that need, want to tinker.
While most useres don't want to "tinker" themselves, limiting the ability to do so can limit the experience of all users. Because a too strict app review does limit the range of apps available for a system, and that has the potential to affect all users.
Is the alternative really better? Look at Windows, which had no restrictions on apps that you could install. It was a security nightmare and became a cesspool of malware. You just had to trick people into opening a .exe and you could compromise the machine. Most consumers are dumb and it should not be possible to trick them into installing arbitrary binaries.
>Is the alternative really better? Look at Windows, which had no restrictions on apps that you could install.
I can do the same thing on linux yet my computer's not a cesspool of malware.
>Most consumers are dumb and it should not be possible to trick them into installing arbitrary binaries.
No, most users are uneducated and don't care and expect computers to be safe the way other things are. This doesn't make them dumb, this doesn't mean they need to be treated like children. This means the information needs to be communicated to them more effectively'
Most users are adults capable of dealing with the myriad of dangerous things life brings. This is because most things come with adequate instructions and warnings.
Operating systems follow two extremes, they give no fucks and let you do what you want with minimal instruction or they lock you up and tell you what to do. Both of these are inadequate for average people and don't reflect the way most things worked, up until relatively recently when businesses decided people needed to be treated like children.
Computers are heavily integrated with daily life. Treating users like a bunch of kids that need safety padding is insulting and ridiculous. If there's a failing at the general public in understanding these concepts, it's a failing both in education and honestly, a collective elitism that places people who know technology above regular people, reflected both among regular people in the tech community and large tech companies that results in either them being taken advantage of or manipulated, or again being treated as invalids incable of looking after themselves.
> Most users are adults capable of dealing with the myriad of dangerous things life brings.
While I'd like to believe that, injury and death statistics from things like road accidents, smoking, alcohol, etc.; the number of machines owned in botnets; and the overall response to COVID-19 is not convincing evidence of this.
Yet the general population also wakes up every day, exists on a rock hurtling through space at ridiculous speeds, exist for years on end doing all kinds of things. They wake up and do things you or I are incapable of.
You can look at all the dumb shit humanity does and scorn it all you want then stop and think about the fact that, you me and everyone else is here with all the things around us. This shit didn't come from nowhere. Humanity, for all it's faults and weaknesses did this and you exist because of this.
The average person, as much as that implies, is capable of some pretty impressive things and to dismiss them is pretty arrogant and I bet if you took a look at your life you've done some pretty dumb shit...and if not I salute you, you are truly above all others.
> Operating systems follow two extremes, they give no fucks and let you do what you want with minimal instruction or they lock you up and tell you what to do
Android actually does it decently well. Apps are pretty well sandboxed with quite clear interfaces and side loading can be enabled in the settings (even as a side loading fan I think it's a bit easy, considering the consequences).
And yet, it is still the most popular desktop OS, and desktop PCs with more open OSes have capabilities that even iPads with keyboard docks can't touch. Plus, there are about a million things you could do to improve the security of an OS that don't require a gatekeeper. Windows specifically has many problems but that shouldn't condemn the entire concept of a computer that the user actually has control over.
> And yet, it is still the most popular desktop OS
"most popular" in the sense of "most widely installed and tolerated", perhaps, but definitely not "most popular because people actively chose it where there are other viable options" because, for many people, there is no viable alternative (e.g. gamers).
> for many people, there is no viable alternative (e.g. gamers).
There's an increasing feeling that Linux is getting there for gamers too. There are already mainstream narratives [0] that Linux may be better for gaming than Windows!
My 18 year old step-son does not care about OSS, or Linux. Yesterday his just received a new laptop. He said, "well, I'm going to install Linux on it, you know, for games". By which he means minecraft, which ran much better on Linux than on the native windows 10 his last laptop came with. Higher fps, more terrain loaded....yadayada ...... I shot soda out my nose.
That seems a false dichotomy, macOS had an app store for many years while still allowing you to install random apps.
An average consumer might get most of their apps from the vetted store while still able to install transmission or VLC directly.
The problem with windows was that there where no properly implemented permission systems and there were a ton of bugs that malware could exploit, the situation seems to have improved significantly from Windows 98.
You are describing a lack of sandboxing, not an open platform.
We are talking on the web right now. Your browser executes arbitrary code. Should we ask someone to approve every single website before it can be accessed?
The problem is, the App Store conflates security review with "curating". The question, whether "Hey" offers in-app purchases or not is not a security question, the app was rejected because Apple requires in-app purchases (from which they take 30%).
Easier to coordinate a deployment for, and affects all users, not just installing one. It would also allow you to control the messaging users see when they open your app and it only loads the walk out day screen.
Why not just display the message and then allow users to use the app.
Punishing the users of an app for the behaviour of the store, while attention grabbing and potentially impactful, seems a bit like chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
I have >10 apps for external clients currently in the App Store that are exactly like Hey (not email clients though), focussed on business+consumer clients, with a login and you have to order outside the store to be able to login. We even reference to that in some of the apps. You can't do anything in the app until you pay for a subscription on the repspective site. The most recent one got approved 2 months ago, and some apps are >2 years old and have received regular updates.
The difference may be that they do not have the revenue Basecamp has.
In the past when an app got refused, we resubmitted without changes and got approved. It's a shitshow.
The justification seems to be that "without a login it's useless" - could you get around that by having a demo mode that lets you use the app with a dummy account?
I think this is just recent enforcement, and Hey is a bit too late. I've seen some speculation that other non-billion dollar apps will be getting similiar rejections soon.
I know YouTube premium just charges a 30% up charge if you sign up via IAP in iOS.
I’m not sure if this is in violation of the rules or not.
It is convenient as a user to be able to manage subscriptions via iOS which makes it easy to track and cancel, but 30% seems way too high for this?
Forcing IAP while taking a 30% cut seems like rent seeking when [edit: you control the only place users can get apps on your platform]. Extra problematic in the Spotify case where you compete directly and undercut them.
I’d prefer a forced IAP requirement where Apple didn’t take a cut (or they just charged some up front fee or something).
(Meta: McTossOut, your comments are dead - I’m not sure why)
30% is really a huge cut. It’s almost half of what the developer makes. Apple absolutely does not provide half as much in value as the app’s developer. They can only charge that because people literally have no alternative but to pay the piper or get out of the business entirely. There is no free market at work here.
That's including a publisher, retailer, physical distribution and the platform royalty (the platform is sorta like apple in this comparison) though. So a very different situation than IAP's in the app store.
A more telling comparison would be a download-only game that was self-published by the developer since app store apps don't usually have separate publishers, physical distribution or retailers.
Although I agree that the lack of open alternatives for app distribution in the game console world is pretty similar.
I think, you never tried to publish your book. Or being a publisher and trying to sell your book in a bookstore. In my country bookstores works with 43-47% cut.
About the value apple provide, try to create your own software distribution channel, and check how much is it costs.
> try to create your own software distribution channel, and check how much is it costs
Yet Apple don't charge a distribution channel cost if your app is free-at-download. How does that make sense? The backend costs to them are the same. In fact they're likely to be higher for free apps due to the many magnitudes more downloads versus subscription apps.
Apple want to have it both ways: the thriving ecosystem of free apps that promotes the platform AND their cut of subscription apps. Legislation that said that all app publishers should pay a flat fee per download would seem the fairest way forward.
Are they the same? They have to run and maintain payment and subscription services, and I'm sure there's additional overhead dealing with payment problems/chargebacks/etc.
I think it's fair TBH. If Apple thinks it's okay asking for (rather enforcing) a 30% cut to offer the user the convenience of paying via IAP rather than enter a credit card number, then it should be okay to charge the user 30% extra for that convenience as well.
> it's okay asking for ... a 30% cut to offer the user the convenience of paying via IAP rather than enter a credit card number
I do agree with you that it is ok (and arguably "fair") for Apple to charge a 30% fee for the convenience of IAPs. However, the real debate here is that some developers don't want IAPs, so should Apple be allowed to force them to add them?
Like the current HEY example, the developers aren't even taking money in the app, or allowing sign-ups in the app. You must be an already existing customer to use the app. But Apple is strong-arming them to add this functionality and to use these APIs that Apple gets a cut through. Should Apple be allowed to force them to add an feature to sign up and pay in the app (a function that was never planned or intended by the developers) just so that Apple can get their cut.
In OP's post he was strong-armed the same way. He had no need for any IAPs at all. He didn't even let users sign up in the app. In fact, the title of his app included the phrase "Existing users only". Yet Apple forced him to add functionality to enable IAP in the app to sign up new users, when his app is literally titled and designed around existing users and not new users. I would argue that this triggers the Anti-trust alarm bells.
Sure if you want to take advantage of the convenience that IAP provides, then let Apple charge whatever they want. If the amount is too high then developers would stop using it because it wouldn't match the value that Apple provides by their convenience. But what if I don't need in-app-purchases. Should developers be forced to add them when the app isn't even designed to use/need them? What if a developer doesn't need the convenience of IAPs and wants to take a credit card themselves? Shouldn't they be allowed to? The only argument that Apple makes in this fight is "We own the platform that ~50% of American smartphones, and if you want to participate in that market then you need to share the wealth you generate". Again, it sounds an awful lot like a monopoly.
Another example is Kindle and Audible. Apple won't let users buy Kindle or Audible books through the iOS App even though Amazon already has those credit cards associated with its' users' accounts. Kindle could enable one-click purchases (or even force you to type in a credit card every time), but Apple won't let them sell any books at all through the iOS app, citing the same rules as above.
I think the reasoning behind IAPs is not that IAP is provided as a convenience service to developers, but that IAPs represent value to the iOS users.
If you're using iOS and searching through the app store and then download an app, being able to sign up and pay via the app is useful to you. If you download an app and it doesn't do anything, and you can't sign up or pay via the app then that's a bad experience.
The problem with this argument is it's a lot weaker when Apple also forces you to pay a massive tax when enabling this. I think the argument would be a lot stronger if they forced IAP compatibility, but didn't take a cut and just charged a reasonable up front fee to list on the app store.
I'd argue even an up front fee is unnecessary though. I'm happy with Apple curating the app store to prevent spam and low quality applications, I'm happy with them forcing standards like IAP, but I'm not happy with them controlling the store and then rent seeking.
Apple should make money from making and selling incredible products. That's why people love them.
They do charge an upfront fee, it’s $100 per year for a developer to be allowed to publish an app, regardless of if the app is free or paid or uses IAP.
Right because the alternative has worked real well - letting any random app on the store. I specifically don’t download any random crap on my computer but I do on my iOS devices. You can’t even trust known companies like DropBox and Zoom. They have both done shady things on the Mac.
I’m sure you also think that physical good stores should bare all of the cost and allow companies to sell things for free without a markup...
Well we can talk theory or we can hobby history. How well has the open ecosystem on computers worked for the average consumer? Viruses, malware, ransomware, adware dozens of toolbars on their browser, programs randomly uploading their contacts, etc.
I know plenty of people who won’t download random apps on their computer but will on their mobile devices. Because they have had bad experiences before.
> it should be okay to charge the user 30% extra for that convenience as well
Maybe, but that's a pointless stance. The practical consequence is that a product is likely priced to maximize (num units sold x profit per unit), and the higher price (143% of what was planned), will lead to a (probably steep) drop in the size of the target audience. FWIW, on a macro level economists worry about analogous problems for a ~1% percent increase in sales tax, so Apple's 30% cut is definitely a huge negative impact.
BTW, this is a great example of an ultimatum game that Apple is playing with developers. It is possible that developers collectively taking the (short-term) "irrational" step of pushing Apple's margin on to users (and being very vocal and explicit about this as a "penalty") might catalyze the users to pressurize Apple about the margins.
That's not what is abusive. It's fine to charge that markup, it's not fine to force all transactions (even ones that should have been off-platform), to have that markup.
Sure, but I don't see any major downsides in having to add IAP and getting the same subscription fees from people who use it as everyone else. I'd say giving users more options is always good.
One major downside is that once you implement IAP in a cross platform proudct, you then have a different class of subscriptions occurring and being managed outside your platform. Subscriptions which have to conform to Apple's policies around renewal and cancellation. This introduces business, backend and accounting considerations.
I actually don't agree with DHH here, just pointing out the difference. I think Apple has every right to expect a cut of developer revenue given how much they invest in the iOS platform.
The iOS platform would not be viable without developers.
I think Apple has every right to expect developers to pay to be part of their platform, which they already charge for through an annual fee. Expecting a "cut" of every developer's "revenue", even when the product is a cross platform software product, seems extreme.
> Would you be okay if Apple charged more for developer fees? A per app fee? A per app update fee?
Yes, I would be fine with any of those scenarios.
A $1,000 fee to add your app to the app store would be more preferable to me than a nebulous rule about taking 30% of my gross revenue and having Apple dictate to me what my overall business model needs to look like.
> Can I pay a one time fee to get a product stocked at any retailer?
To compare what is going on here with a traditional retail environment is really an apples and oranges comparison. If Apple wants to take my app, price it and sell it at markup, be my guest.
What they are doing is more like if Best Buy forced Nest to give it 30% of every Nest cloud subscription on Nest devices bought in Best Buy retail outlets. Or if Best Buy forced Apple to give it 30% of iCloud subscription fees for MacBooks sold from within Best Buy retail outlets, only after Apple implemented "Best Buy Payments" into it's MacOS software to ensure those fees were collected.
The 30% cut is a 43% markup. Price your app accordingly. You can even price your subscriptions differently depending on where they subscribe.
Apple tried exactly that - to let booksellers set their own prices and they just mark them up. That’s what the publishers wanted instead of Amazon’s pricing ebooks as a loss leader - devaluing the paperbacks and hardbacks. It was shot down by the justice department.
I had no idea YouTube had a higher price through IAP until I saw it pointed out today. The price in the app always seemed too expensive so when I noticed the lower price available through the web today I actually signed up.
Worth noting that YouTube appears to be violating Apple's guidelines (3.2.2) by forcing users to pay for functionality that is part of the built-in capabilities of the operating system. (Background play mode)
My point is that it may be a violation to allow background playback of video on iOS; my point was not respondent to whether or not other apps may also may be in similar violation by allowing background playback of video, whether or not they’re free or paid.
To your point, there are alternate YouTube players which allow background video playback besides the website and iOS app on iOS, but you have to sideload them. There may be others which do not require sideloading, but none that I’m aware of. I’m not sure but it’s likely against some kind of TOS to use them, but interoperability exemptions for accessibility may apply.
It is not a violation to allow background play of video. No guideline prohibits it. The Plex app allows background play, for example. Apple also provides documentation to developers on how to enable this functionality in their apps. (1)
If it were against policy to enable play of video in the background, then it seems that would be an even more egregious violation by YouTube, as not only do they have the functionality in the app, but they charge users money to access it.
Thanks for following up on this. It’s good to have this clarity into the guidelines and that other apps implement this functionality in different ways.
You wouldn't have been getting $100 if you charged $100 without IAP though, because some of that is going to go to your card processing chain; you'd mostly probably get more than $91 on a $100 charge though.
That depends a lot on how you get paid. Those high CC fees don't exist in Europe, at least not with Visa and MasterCard. There you also have the option to use direct debit, which is much more common for a User than a CC (CCs aren't nearly as wide-spread), with (typically) <50ct fees per transaction.
I will say this: I am very, very glad my New York Times subscription was through Apple's IAP - because I could end the subscription easily. Had I paid NYT directly, I would have had to be on the phone with them.
This doesn't justify 30%. I actually think it's fine for Apple to take a cut. Just not 30%.
It's a nice part of the modern ecosystems, but I'm not sure the slight convenience of centralizing my subscription options would save me that much.
If the fee is for Apple to curate the ecosystem and verify apps are safe, this looks an awful lot like they're using it to drive up revenue instead.
There's evidence too that these practices are done hastily too, when you use IAP, but the app expects you to create a secondary account as well.
Sliding scale microtransaction growing pains, I suppose. Things were nicer when apps were inexpensive commodities. People aren't able to run business analysis like this and it makes the market opaque which is good... for Apple.
Is it the dominate platform? It's certainly a very popular one, but dominate makes me think of Windows Vs Mac in the 90s. 90%+ market share type stuff.
Android, while not managed by a single manufacturer, is a unified platform and competitor to iOS.
When Tim Cooke went on about services I didn’t realise he meant stealing 30% of other people’s. Seems insane to me this racketeering is legal, I actually think people should be jailed for behaviour like this...
Is there even a legal term for this sort of captive market scenario? Antitrust laws seem close in spirit, but people decades ago apparently couldn't have anticipated the sort of vendor lock-in that has become commonplace in the smartphone space.
It's like you had two paper mills that dominated the market, and they wanted to claim a percentage of every novel, newspaper, etc. printed on the paper they produced. Oh, and you can't use that paper you bought to write erotica or other things the company disapproves of.
It's hard because most analogies fall apart when you look at the users having already paid hundreds of dollars just for the hardware up front.
You could compare it to Costco, where you have to pay just to get into the store, where Costco sells their own labels side-by-side with the competition. The big difference is Costco doesn't force you to pay with costco credit cards at the cash register.
I think it's pretty much a textbook case for the antitrust laws. Now the only missing parts is the political will for Congress and US government to move forward.
Unfortunately since the MS antitrust trial, they've missed opportunity after opportunity to prevent monopolies or oligopoly of Big Tech companies so they might pass here as well.
Because ripping people off by rent seeking is common it’s okay? It’s not okay to steal other people’s work when them building things for it means you sell more iPhones. Apple have this stuff completely backwards, stop there from being an App Store at all and see how many iPhones are sold.
How would you write the rules to get what you want? It’s a complex question.
I used to always buy Mancini roasted red peppers for salads and sandwiches. My grocer did a strategic sourcing exercise and now carries a house brand and some other brand. Should they be compelled to carry Mancini?
WalMart requires that vendors be able to fill orders on tight timescales. If you can’t, your out. Is that ok?
Costco requires that I pay them to shop there. Is that ok?
My wife owned a mall kiosk, and part of rent was a cut of the gross. Is that ok?
Is that a bad thing? If I’m using an alternative to a the App Store, I definitely don’t then want an app to be able to run arbitrary code from a server.
But we have an alternate universe where users can install outside of the official store yet hardly anyone takes advantage of it.
> Is that a bad thing? If I?m using an alternative to a the App Store, I definitely don?t then want an app to be able to run arbitrary code from a server.
If you like updating manually, don't give the store you use permission to do it manually. Why are you running software you don't trust anyway!
> But we have an alternate universe where users can install outside of the official store yet hardly anyone takes advantage of it.
Do they force you to use their in app subscriptions in the way Apple is? Can I still use my own subscriptions servcie - in fact I know the Answer because Spotify and Hey were not complaining about the Google Play Store.
I'll echo this: 30% is terrible, till you consider the alternatives. Before the app store it was 3 month lead times via a broker to hopefully get in front of a carrier rep who would usually go "meh" and send you packing. If they liked it, they'd take (if you were lucky) 50% with holds of up to 3 months on payouts.
Can't say I'm a huge fan of the 30% haircut, but I get to push my product directly to millions of people in a week and get paid monthly? What a time to be alive.
Before switching to a smartphone I used a J2ME Twitter client on my Sony Ericsson. You paid through PayPal and downloaded and installed a JAR file manually. It wasn't very convenient, but at least direct sales were an option. It was similar on the Palm and Symbian side of things.
Apple not allowing side-loading seems like the main issue.
> 30% is terrible, till you consider the alternatives
Only in the Apple iOS land. If I don't like Google Play's revenue cut, I can list my app on any of a dozen or so alternative stores (Amazon, F-Droid etc) and all Android Users can install my app. Same story on Windows, Linux and even Mac devices.
Yes. You’ll get a whole bunch of scary warning messages from the operating system warning you not to do it, but to my knowledge all android phones allow you to. It’s possible that some corporate management software might prevent this, not sure. Also there are more and more android APIs which are baked into Google Play Services, which is another can of worms entirely. Still, Android is significantly more open to sideloading than iOS.
That works very well for services where the app is not the main product... Like Hey.com. They do their own market and don't need the "visibility" of the app store.
They would be pretty happy if they could have a link on their site to download the iOS apps, for their customers.
If Apple still wants to review every app that can be installed, they could propose an option to be in the App Store but unlisted - then the fees goes down to 2 or 3%, just like a credit card fee. But they won't, because they can get away with shaking businesses 30% so they'll keep doing it until someone forces them to stop.
> If you are shocked that companies take a fee for distribution then wait until you see how things work in the real world.
That is not a good analogy. Supermarkets, retailers etc charge a fee from the vendor because that is their primary source of income ("bread and butter", if you may). In the OP's case, the "supermarket" is an iPhone device which the user has already paid a premium price for.
Depends on how you define "allowed". EA was "allowed" to charge extra money for unlocking key Star Wars characters even after you paid in full for Battlefront II. So, the idea is less about what is "allowed", but rather where the line is drawn between justified commercial profit and monopolistic/bad behavior*
> Grocery stores also have slotting fees.
Again, the whole point I'm trying to make here is that comparison to grocery stores just doesn't work (because of reasons mentioned in the first comment)
* English is not my first language so I'm having trouble finding the perfect word.
> You don't have a choice to distribute iPhone software.
Just broaden the market to software in general or even just software for mobile phones and tablets. Then you have a choice again. iOS's market share is below 50% even in the US, and much lower globally.
(I have both iOS and Android devices, and I specifically like that Android's Firefox allows add-ons like uBlock Origin. Apples doesn't allow those.)
Agree with the app store being better than anything that preceded it. That said, it's not 2008 anymore and Apple should adapt.
What happens in reality is developers either capitulate and / or sneakily separately contact their users and get them to pay through another payment processor.
I don’t get why either case 30% or 50% is right? It’s actually having the best app ecosystem that sells more phones, imagine for a second there was no App Store, how many iPhones would be sold.
I'm talking about an open platform that would make it painless for users to pay for any "app" made by any provider... it could be either a website that aggregates all web apps or a native open-app-store...
Am I alone in thinking this isn’t Apple being as bad as others are making them out to be?
I’ll explain ...
Apple deeply cares about two things, (1) user experience and (2) user privacy.
Today, Hey iOS when downloaded IS NOT FUNCTIONAL if you didn’t know to already sign up for the service on their website. That’s a horrible experience and no one likes it. Especially Apple.
On Trust/Privacy, Apple is safe guarding users CardOnFile data with all of their advanced security features that they have worked directly with the major card networks that no small developers (or even frankly medium or large developer) could compete with. This benefits the consumer by reducing fraud, and not having your credit card data sitting in some developers data unencrypted. Apple also helps auto update cardonfile data when the card expires so that the developers don’t lose revenue just because of expired cards.
As for the 30% fee, why shouldn’t they get a cut? If the App Store was a physical brick and mortar store Like BestBuy, I guarantee you then BestBuy wants to make margin on products they allow in their store. (A) it’s a distribution channel to a consumer you as a developer don’t have, (B) there’s hard costs to putting your product in the App Store “shelf” and (C) Apple is providing all of the easy and secure payment processing on behalf of thr developer.
Note: I’m not trying to be combative. I’m just playing devils advocate and pointing out this topic is way more complex than others are making it out to be.
> Today, Hey iOS when downloaded IS NOT FUNCTIONAL if you didn’t know to already sign up for the service on their website.
The only reason for this is that Apple explicitly disallows apps from linking to or even mentioning subscription options that do not go through Apple's payment ecosystem and pay Apple's tax. Blaming the ensuing bad user experience on app developers is a case of "why are you hitting yourself?"
> As for the 30% fee, why shouldn’t they get a cut?
That 30% is, ultimately, coming from our pockets. Apple wants it because it prefers our money in their pockets. We, as the consumers, should fight back and demand it be lowered because we prefer our money in our own pockets. I don't understand why I should advocate that Apple should make apps more expensive and should take more of my money.
>But don’t they do this because they can Protect the consumers card data better than anyone.
Compared to what? If there is a fraudulent charge on your credit card, issue a chargeback. If I had two options: 1) Once every couple of years I may get a credit card's details stolen and I have to spend perhaps an hour on the phone with the bank to get thing sorted out, 2) the credit card issuer gives me a card with some futuristic technology that makes fraud literally impossible; so I don't have to spend that one hour every couple of years sorting out a fraudulent transaction; however, the credit card adds a 30% surcharge to every transaction—I would choose option 1, no questions. Wouldn't you?
Most consumers have no idea they are paying this 30%. I wish there was a law forcing the amount of Apple tax to be disclosed on a separate line in any purchase price and receipt, like it is the case with sales taxes. If people know, many would be outraged that the company they have paid over $1000 for a device is also nickel-and-diming them for using the device.
Sure. That's fair, if the user believes the 30% is worth the extra safety that Apple provides, they should be able to pay that. But why the restriction that developers cannot even hint that less expensive options are available through other means?
It's definitely not preferable, but if 37Signals adds an in-app purchase and charges $130 instead of $99, would Apple approve the App? Maybe as a protest they should charge $200 in-App :P
Again, just playing devils advocate and using the brick and mortar store example.
If I sold my widget online direct to consumer for $99 and got to pocket all of that.
Why wouldn’t I assume that if I tried to sell my widget inside of the brick and mortar store for the same $99, that they wouldn’t want to make margin on selling my widget for me - which would reduce my take home profit
The meat of the issue here is that you cannot sell your widget directly online to consumers. Apple does not allow that. You have to always sell through the Apple store and always pay that margin whether you want to or not.
To use the brick and mortar store analogy, would you be happy if you were forced to sell only through Walmart (and thus paying their margin) and not directly to customers, even when you are completely capable of doing it?
For your analogy to hold, we should be able to run a PWA in the same sandbox as iOS apps with the same access to hardware as a native iOS app.
Why doesn’t iOS Safari have these capabilities? Why can’t we download apps and sideload them in the same type of sandbox that App Store sourced apps do?
There’s already an interoperability exemption for jailbreaking. I hope that this precedent is reinforced and expanded through lawsuits and legislation if Apple won’t implement first-party sideloading support willingly.
It’s a matter of equal access to technology and accessibility of tools. To own a thing is to be able to adapt it and make it work the way you need, as well as the way you want. The first sale doctrine applies to software too. Clickwrap EULAs are not always legally binding, and you cannot arbitrate away certain unalienable rights. If I own a thing, I can modify or disassemble it, as well as sell it or otherwise transfer it. These concepts need to be enforced more specifically for digital assets such as apps and mobile operating systems.
It already is a web app that you can use of safari on iOS without problems. But native apps provide a lot of benefits like push notifications, offline data storage and support, home screen icon, etc, especially for a mail app.
I don't get this controversy at all. If Apple requires a 30% cut of in-app purchases, raise in-app prices 30% and provide a link to a 30% "discount" version through your website.
Is that also against an Apple rule? If so I can somewhat understand.
EDIT: You can upcharge IAP purchases, but you can't advertise the cheaper alternative. That's wildly anti-consumer on Apple's part, surely the EU can't be happy about that kind of situation?
Yes, I find it hard to believe that YouTube charging 30% or 40% more for a YouTube Premium subscription through iOS and not telling the customer that they are paying a vastly inflated price because Apple insists on getting a cut is protecting or advocating for consumers in any way, shape or form.
I didn’t know that they allow different prices. A few days ago someone replied to my comment on HN and told me that it’s not allowed. If indeed it’s allowed, I think it’s more reasonable for Apple to require app makers to offer the IAP signup option.
The analogy with brick and mortar stores doesn't really work, because in the case of iOS Apple owns and controls the only store.
You could argue people could choose Android, but that's not quite the same thing since the user has to completely change operating systems and hardware to do it.
I'm not sure there is a good non-digital analogy.
If Apple cared about the user experience they could still require in app sign up and IAP, but not take a rent-seeking cut.
They could make money by inventing and selling really great products (which is why people like them in the first place).
Why can’t Hey offer a mobile web version of their app?
Again, just playing devils advocate. But Hey can in fact make their product accessible to iOS user via Safari. And Hey wouldn’t need to give Apple any money for that.
Safari will even let user save a web app directly to your home screen.
Ironically, this functionality existed BEFORE the Apple store even existed.
EDIT: why the downvotes? I’m just trying to facilitate a friendly two-sided point of view on this topic. See my NOTE in my original parent post. I’m just trying to point out this is a way more complex topic than most realize.
> Why can’t Hey offer a mobile web version of their app?
No. Apple has crippled the Progress Web Apps on iOS safari.
No email client is useful without push notifications.
All other browser on iOS (including Chrome and Firefox) are wrappers around Safari, because Apple restricts other browser engines i.e: Chromium, Firefox.
Look at how many requests for new features/API's are there on the WebKit forms. Apple choses to ignore them because if Apple were to really support PWA's properly, this situation wouldn't have happened.
Apple also randomly clears storage for website added to homescreen and there is a limit of only 50mb. Apps like Gmail cache data on the scale of 600mb to several GB.
But push notification absolutely kills your battery.
Back to point number 1, user experience. It’s not a good user experience if your iPhone lasts only 2 hours because push notifications kill your battery.
* If an app frequently wakes your display with notifications, you can turn off push notifications for the app in Settings > Notifications. Tap the app and set Allow Notifications to Off.
> No email client is useful without them.
I've had an iPhone for 10 years now and I've never had push notifications on for the 5 email accounts on there. Mind you, my battery isn't fine because the phone gets used a lot and that's what kills batteries quick.
>I've had an iPhone for 10 years now and I've never had push notifications on for the 5 email accounts on there. Mind you, my battery isn't fine because the phone gets used a lot and that's what kills batteries quick.
You are a unique/minority case. The vast majority of the population that uses emails prefers notification for important mails.
> No they don't. Push notifications are managed by a push service like Firebase messaging or Apple Push Notification Service (APNS). Do you even know what you're talking about?
I’ll just leave you this post on battery drain from push notifications.
Push notifications don't really affect battery that much to be noticeable, and even if they did that's only one of many reasons why native apps are better.
The simple answer is because mobile web apps suck.
As a user I want a native app. Hey (or any dev really) should be able to write software for a platform without having to pay tax, maybe they pay for app store distribution or review or submission or something (developer account?), but they shouldn't have to do profit sharing.
I understand the value of having a curated store, I understand the value of locking down the OS. If you're going to do that though - you shouldn't be able to tap all profits going through it.
Imagine if macOS only ran applications from the macOS app store and took a cut of everything. Imagine if they forced Safari only on macOS and took a cut of applications there too. It's not a perfect analogy because most apps on desktop are web apps and not native and the history is more of an open system, but there's something wrong with this kind of rent-seeking. It's counter to their brand, it's hostile, and I'd argue it's likely to make them focus on the wrong things.
That just says that SCOTUS agreed it met the standards to go forward as a case, not that it is actually anti-competitive, right? That'll be decided by a lower court in the actual case, no?
I think the problem is the way they lock in their users by holding their personal data hostage in heir ecosystem. Your music in itunes. Your already-paid apps in the appstore that won't transfer to android. Your ridiculously expensive phone. Your ridiculously expensive headphones that inexplicably won't work on android phone. They own their users. And then they own the store. So then, they own the app developers. It's bullshit. You don't get to own everyone all the time in all those market places just because you sit on a mountain of money. Screw apple.
In my experience, Windows owned me. I spent far more time (and money) dealing with malware and low quality hardware running windows than I ever have with the Apple devices I have used. The amortized cost of an Apple device is far lower than equivalent Windows (or Androids), if you include time and stress and probably money too since my family uses iPhones and iPads and MacBook Airs for 5+ years.
My jaw is on the floor. How did you get so much malware and such poor hardware?
I love my iphone 7 and my macbook air from 2013--no doubt, they are very good. But I could throw my windows pc in the garbage and rebuy it a couple of times over for the cost of comparable hardware from apple, and I'm just not having the problems you are describing. This is like 6 year old computer that was about $1,300 in parts. It's like, just some asus motherboard with mismatched ram and a video card.... and it works fine. My mom has a 10 year old windows computer that just keeps on spreadsheeting and e-mailing for her... just fine. I just don't understand.
I've also had apple hardware that has issues. The notion that it is issue free is just not true.
> My jaw is on the floor. How did you get so much malware and such poor hardware?
Because I have relatives that click on every link they come across. News websites, especially foreign language are full of links to malware.
Solution is to give them a $400 iPad Mini, $900 MacBook Air, and now there’s even a $400 iPhone SE. There is no comparable laptop to a $900 MacBook Air in fit and finish. iPhones and iPads also last many more years than Android counterparts. I can’t even count on androids to get timely updates (I know, I tried out Nexus and Nexus 4 or whatever back in the day.). I’m still using an iPhone 6S Plus, and there are iPhone 5S and 6 floating around for the elders to use also.
There is no alternative to an iPad. And it’s not expensive, and lasts years and years. And Windows machines are designed to have poor hardware. The consumer level HP/Dell/Lenovo is designed to sell at such low prices that they have to pre install malware that you then have to spend time to get rid of after buying it. I’m not interested in that.
I feel like these people just need to remove local admin from their parents' accounts, setup automatic updates (no countdown warning) on Windows LTSC and have Malwarebytes Premium installed. Check in once a quarter.
Or get them a Chromebook and teach them the basics of Sheets and Docs. Check in when the laptop dies, shit you could have a backup one to swap out to and still spend probably 50% of what you would on the Windows PC, 20% on the Macbook.
> Or get them a Chromebook and teach them the basics of Sheets and Docs. Check in when the laptop dies, shit you could have a backup one to swap out to and still spend probably 50% of what you would on the Windows PC, 20% on the Macbook.
And then how do they FaceTime people from a Chromebook? With one of the 20 video chat apps that Google releases every year? I’m not interested in teaching them what’s new and what’s not. I have 80 year olds who don’t know English setup on FaceTime since iPad minis came out 7 years ago or whatever, and they know the ins and out of iOS. They’ve never had to be taught about a new app.
I originally did try Android tablets, and google couldn’t get their shit together with Hangouts video or Google video chat or whatever other ones, and I wasn’t going to waste my time being their Beta tester.
I also have better alternatives than figuring out what Windows LTSC is, where to buy it, and installing software. I can just get a MacBook Air for just as cheap, and tell my relatives to go to the Apple store when they have a problem. I installed a content blocker, and don’t even have to check in every quarter.
Way back in the 70s somebody was pissed off at Bill Gates for calling hobbyists pirates and told him if he wanted to get paid for software, he should be more creative, maybe sell it along with hardware.
At least since then, everyone has been pursuing that line of thought. Just some at times are particularly successful.
iTunes music that you buy has been DRM free for over a decade. Apple Music is available for Android.
There are relatively few apps by revenue that people pay for. Most revenue comes from in app payments from free to play games and subscriptions that are cross platform.
AirPods are Bluetooth headphones that work like any other headphones on Android.
Even movies you buy on iTunes can be transferred between iTunes, Google Play Movies, Amazon prime movies, etc. through Movies Anywhere. Only certain studios participate but that’s not Apple’s fault.
The bill for this has been coming since Apple figured out they could upsell everyone to backup their iPhones and add a new line to their revenue statement for Wall Street - back then we talked a lot about Apple becoming a _services_ company like Google, having values like shipping iteratively with scheduled stable releases with feature flags to enable/disable landmines in the field.
Today, "services" means Apple has a button at the top of the Settings app...for Apple TV Plus, meanwhile macOS is so neglected you cant drag files into folders anymore and iOS has had historically unstable releases 2 of the last 3 years.
All that to say, it takes a while for chickens to come home to roost, and we _just_ started taking steps in that direction. Direct action like this is unlikely, but its the beginning of 1000 people making 1000000 small decisions that will amplify accountability.
3) That's not what their head of software though when they used iOS 12 to catch up on debt from a bad iOS 11 [1], and iOS 13 was panned as the buggiest release of all by The Verge. [2] Apple released updates every week or two for _3 months straight_ to try and patch it up. [3]
Your tone indicates you don't actually want an answer to this, but, iOS 2-6 went well, iOS 8/9/10 good/very good/good.
4) Mindless cheerleading of dollars has led to the crossroads Apple is at.
Versions of this have happened to me multiple times over the years. They never budge. The developer always gets screwed. I will never build on the App Store again.
> One way that Hey could have gone, Schiller says, is to offer a free or paid version of the app with basic email reading features on the App Store then separately offered an upgraded email service that worked with the Hey app on iOS on its own website. Schiller gives one more example: an RSS app that reads any feed, but also reads an upgraded feed that could be charged for on a separate site. In both cases, the apps would have functionality when downloaded on the store.
Comments by Apple executive, Phil Schiller[1].
Is this not an agreeable solution?
It's a separate debate that Apple may be charging exorbitant fees for App Store distribution when there is no competition and one that needs to be addressed, but I think this is a decent workaround, Apple is saying you can put stuff on the App Store and if it has a free version with functionality then we don't charge you for it. Otherwise, we do.
No, it's not. Let's ignore Apple's behavior on other platforms, and look at a whole class of apps this excludes. If I have an app for a college that requires a student to have paid tuition before using then I am in the same boat as Hey if I don't have some way to allow them to pay tuition over the app. That's just nuts. Apps that enhance services that are already being delivered by other means should be allowed without Apple trying to get a cut. Frankly, the only reason these apps are even going through the App Store because direct downloads are disallowed. Apple's workaround doesn't benefit anyone but Apple.
But they aren't getting an actual experience. They are getting some crapfest the company has put together to satisfy some idea Apple had about how they should run their business. The app is a distraction and won't really be anything more than that since the company's priority is the actual paid service. It lessens the platform and creates a bunch of advertising-ware as opposed to function apps.
I don't see how this is a decent or agreeable workaround. Hey is a paid email service that comes with an @hey.com email address. Either they have to start giving those addresses out for free (a significant change in Hey's business model), or they need to support connecting to an IMAP provider in the app (presumably they don't currently support this, so it would be a significant amount of extra engineering to support non-paying users). Perhaps if they could just throw in a calculator or something as the free version.
I'd go even further: "unrelated third party web services that just happen to supply an app for the phone."
I'm pretty sure people independently buy Netflix to use, without even considering their phone. They have a laptop or a set top box or whatever. But because people might want to use it on their phone, Apple thinks they deserve 1/3 of Netflix's revenue?
So, in order to provide a (paid) advertising & tracking-free email service, they also have to provide a generic email app for advertising & tracking-based email services like Google?
One aspect that bugs me about the situation that I've not seen mentioned is this disingenuous language Apple employs repeatedly in justifying its right to a percentage take on the basis of the services it's providing in distribution etc. Eg they even describe how Basecamp's been providing apps for free for years on their platform in the email to DHH, with overtones of Basecamp being freeloaders, and they've only been getting by by Apple's forebearance.
Yet that argument completely underplays that it's a two-way street - Apple gets enormous value from the aggregate weight of the collective of developers who make native apps for iOS, adding collective value to iOS products. But you never see Apple concede this. I'd even posit that even if all the apps on the App Store were free (at least free from an Apple tax), it would still be worthwhile for Apple to run it, in terms of sustaining the value of the ecosystem for iPhone buyers.
I think the other thing that sticks out is the prohibition for developer to charge different price in and out of the app store (seems to be somewhat relaxed, for example expressVPN, or maybe the trick is to not offer the exact same bundle?) and the related prohibition to mention the price difference when subscribing outside the app store.
If apple was so confident in the value of the app store they would let the consumer make the choice instead of preventing even a hint of competition.
e.g.:
Tap here to subscribe right now for $X (monitor your subscription in the app store app).
Subscribe on our site for $(.7*X) by entering your credit card information.
Then let apple adjust the numbers until they have the same amount of signups as before, that would let the customer decide on the value of the "Apple Convenience Tax" instead of preventing information disclosure.
Fairly telling that these corporations that are themselves tax dodging any way they can and then some on a global scale are so draconian against people trying to dodge their taxe regime.
I have a consumer app that tried to go they Hey route (no signup, no reference to website, no IAPs), but was rejected immediately (2017), despite many other apps that do exactly that. I had to implement IAPs to have it approved.
Hmm I wonder if the SomethingAwful reader app is liable to be hit by this. Since it requires a login which you do have to pay for, but the app is actually done by a 3rd paty.
I personally don't have a problem with 30% (sure I with it was more like 15% :) - this is their store, they are not forcing you to buy a phone or laptop. If you do then you agree to the rules.
My main problem is that they apply their rules to everyone in a different way, just like Google.
And they don't even hide it and have written in their TOS that if your app is deleted for a violation, and another app is not it is ok and they decide if to enforce tos or not.
If they remove my app for violation - no problem. I can even do their job and send them links to apps that have the same violation, so they can remove them too. Nope, only my app.
I totally get the "their store, their rules" take, but it doesn't hold up in this case. Unlike most retail, there is no other store to go to. Sure, I could buy an Android phone, but the policy isn't much different there. The fact of the matter is that Apple & Google own the mobile ecosystem.
It is one thing to claim that the your marketplace is doing developers a service by distributing and putting their apps in front of their massive audience. Fine - collect 30% for downloads/subscriptions that come that way. Unfortunately, there is effectively no other way to consume software on these devices. Keep your 30% of downloads/subscriptions that originate from your marketplace, but let me opt-out of your marketplace and still get my product to my customers without your help.
This reply (a version of "if you don't like it, write your own") is the most heinous and disingenuous reply out of the space of possible replies. The sum of time and work required to do that is completely unrealistic: Apple is not creating the ecosystem but rather it is the developers creating the ecosystem for Apple, while Apple is just playing arbitrary gatekeeper and tax-collector as the entity with the monopoly on making the rules. The "value" Apple is adding is essentially negligible if you consider in your calculus that Apple is actively stamping out competition to its platform and further fortifying its monopoly and doing little else. Developers do not choose to stay on the Apple platform anymore than essentially any American can choose from whom they buy their water or electric utility service (privatized utility monopolies are a whole other discussion, but apropos because Apple and Google, through their own extreme anti-competitive actions and policies, have forced people to use their platforms, effectively creating something that walks and quacks just like a public utility monopoly). You could conceivably haul the water yourself from the nearest river, or whatever (I will mention solar panels because where I live, in fact you cannot install solar panels without one of the limited number of permits from the local electric monopoly -- sound familiar?). Developers can choose which of the two monopolies will write the rules for their app -- rules which are almost exclusively about taking a cut and killing competition. But this is not a choice, and saying it's a choice is a kind of absurd baiting tactic. It has been clear for some time that Apple and Google are operating monopolies and staying the ire of the Justice Department through some sort of regulatory capture. I'm sure there are late-90s Microsoft employees that can't believe what they're seeing.
Yeah I came here to post the same. I don't actually think the App Store policies are the problem per se, but rather the fact that you can submit your app and really not know what the result is going to be. Maybe there are edge cases where you know going in that it may require subjective approval, but for a run of the mill commercial / personal app you should be able to easily check if you're compliant and get a very fast approval.
Treating each developer and app case by case is just bad faith.
Retailers do not have margins of 0.5% to 4.5%. They might have net margins around that amount, but their gross margins are generally closer to 30-40% depending on the industry. Clothing retails have insane gross margins. Grocery stores have terrible ones.
Well, 30% isn’t their margin. It’s their gross revenue. Calculating the margin would require knowing their hosting / development costs for the App Store ecosystem.
I think placement in the App Store should be considered not in terms of credit card fees but more like placement on the shelves of a supermarket.
I don’t know the economics of supermarkets but I do know it’s not just cost+. Sellers have to buy display space, participate in promotions, etc etc - all on top of the cost of the actual goods.
I’m too lazy to look it up but I wouldn’t be surprised if the gross margin in the App Store is in the same region as for non essential supermarket goods.
Given the state of the App Store, that placement is the equivalent of a needle on that grocery shelf.
So now on top of the 30% you give Apple, you also have to buy ads in that same store for it to be more visible to users (assuming a competitor hasn’t outbid you).
And that 30% you’re already paying? It doesn’t replace your marketing requirements one bit, so that “placement” by Apple doesn’t justify that fee.
No I think you misunderstand. I’m not saying the 30% is Ok, nothing like that. I’m just saying that if you want to understand why it’s 30%, perhaps looking at other storefronts is better than just comparing it to the raw card fees.
A quick google suggests I’m right [0] - Coles is a large Australian supermarket chain that makes gross profit of 24.4%, which after card and infrastructure is probably about Apple’s GP on the App Store.
So sure, 30% is a lot, and I personally think it should be less, but it seems very much in line with other storefronts.
My point is that, regardless of their cut, the "exposure" the App Store supposedly brings is likely practically nil, unless you're lucky enough to get 'featured' by them. So it's not like you end up being able to save costs by getting rid of your marketing department because "hey, you're on the App Store!".
Additionally, you're not allowed to sell the same software at a different, higher, cost to make up for Apple's cut, so you effectively and up losing even more revenue, since you need to keep your own existing marketings costs, maybe even have to pay into Apple's ads on top of your 30% to market there as well for actual exposure, since you essentially end up as a needle in a haystack, because the App Store is full of cheap crappy apps that Apple is pushing developers to create to fill up their store, because "courage". (edit: I read from other comments that differing costs seem to be allowed now - "Hallelujah, it's a fucking miracle!")
Additionally you don't have any option of providing the download yourself-they force you to use their "service", and hence "pay" for said service, instead of being able to control that cost yourself. Because "courage".
And besides, I don't see how comparing fee structures between completely different industries as justification for Apple's cut is a valid argument in this case ("they do it too" or "they're even more" means the other guys are just as bad or worse - it's shouldn't be a pissing match of "who's worse?").
I keep saying this, I’m not trying to validate it, I’m trying to understand it. And anyway, almost all of your points also apply to supermarkets. You think app stores and supermarkets are somehow different kinds of markets but they are not. Economically, apps and food are both commodities, and App Store and supermarkets exist to concentrate the audience in order to generate profit, not for their suppliers.
Australian supermarkets are renowned for screwing their suppliers, for example. It’s probably no coincidence that their gross margins are similar too.
Maybe you can come up with another established market that deals in huge volumes of undifferentiated goods in a single market? Large DIY stores come to mind. Apart from scale, why do you think the economics of the App Store are appreciably different from these other marketplaces?
Anyway - I seem to be jettisoning all of my karma trying to explain how we can frame the problem in order to understand it, because understanding something is the only way to change it. But nobody seems to understand my points let along agree with them, so I’ll stop now.
I can see why people may think I’m defending Apple, but I’m not. I made my point badly but I’m trying to say that the way to explain the 30% is not in terms of the low cost of cards etc but in terms of the norms of other retail businesses.
30% is a high number relative to credit card fees, but a quick google (see my previous comment) suggests it would result in a GP in line with supermarkets. I think it’s a good comparison because supermarkets provide retail shelf space and access to consumers for a very large number of barely differentiated goods...
Think of the 30% as a retail mark-up rather than fee. If you were to sell cookies at a supermarket you can expect that the supermarket would add 50%. It’s the same in the App Store except that you’re supposed to add the 30% yourself.
I guess it scales better that way. In any case, I suspect the 30% has very little to do with Apples costs, and much more to do with retail profit norms.
What’s happening with Hey is that they’re setting up a little card table out in the supermarket car park, and trying to sell their stuff. I can’t imagine any supermarket letting that happen for long.
The difference is if you are a store, your customers can easily walk next door and buy something else. You cannot do that on iOS. Your analogy is flawed. Edit: not to mention, in your analogy, Apple is the mall.
From a consumer perspective, software prices in real terms have gone down dramatically since those days. Apple brought unprecedented scale and discovery to a software marketplace, and consumers have benefitted.
There's also no choice with Best Buy. If you walk into a Best Buy, you pay Best Buy prices.
If you don't want to pay iOS prices, you go to Android. If you don't want to go to Android, you can go try and find a Firefox OS phone, or a Ubuntu one.
The problem isn't that choice doesn't exist. The problem is that equivalent choices don't exist.
Bestbuy doesn't charge you hundreds of dollars to buy the store before you walk in.
Consumers don't own Bestbuy, Bestbuy owns Bestbuy, so it's okay for Bestbuy to control the shelf space in their own stores.
It is not okay for Bestbuy to exclusively own the app shelfspace on your own phone. Just as it is not okay for Bestbuy to exclusively charge a premium to it's competition when you, the user, are signing up for services with the competition on your own phone.
Does Costco sell things at a markup? They are famous for having net income equal to the amount of membership fees they collect, so they must be selling products at however much it costs to obtain the products and operate the stores.
You aren't buying the Costco store when you enter, just as you aren't paying a membership fee to use someone else's phone as your own.
Members don't own Costco, Costco owns Costco, so Costco can dictate it's own shelfspace. You would not expect Costco to exclusively dictate what apps you can and cannot buy on your own phone or charge a premium to Costco competition.
They're using their near monopoly in one area (app store) to make competitor apps worse and extract income from them.
For example kindle is not allowed to sell books (unlike ibooks), hey is not allowed to sell subscriptions, yet other apps are.
Classic abusive monopolistic behaviour, the enforcement is completely inconsistent and the fees high enough to put competitors out of business.
Apple are not buying products then selling them at a markup, they're forcing their users and suppliers to transact at the company store at a high markup then raking in a huge profit because they own the platform. Your analogy makes no sense.
They aren't just Apple users. They are people that paid good money for a device that is capable of running code. The person who bought the phone should naturally have the right to run whatever code they want to authorize on that device, regardless of where the code came from.
Your Walmart analogy is broken. I think it's more like this:
A band that I like released a CD. I buy a CD from one of their live shows. I should have the right to play the CD on my CD player without having to pay 30% of ALL CD sales to the maker of the CD player.
I don't mind paying a 30% cut to a store which made it more convenient for me to buy the CD, but I shouldn't HAVE to go to that ONE CD store to buy my CD's.
No, it's like walmart demanding that suppliers of a house alarm which has an associated subscription (e.g. alert response service) also give them a cut of that subscription, or else.
I can't be too open, but I work with a firm that makes IoT products, sold at retail, and as part of the contract a retailer was granted a percentage stake in the attached subscription service since otherwise the margins weren't sufficient for them.
There's no reason that should be illegal. A contract is a contract is a contract.
I disagree that any contract is valid - sometimes they're illegal because they abuse the near monopoly power of the retailer to force suppliers into contracts to their detriment - the choice is either accept the draconian terms or go out of business. Very much like Apple's message to hey - nice app you've got there, shame if something were to happen to it.
This is why we have (or had) antitrust laws - not every contract is legal and left alone capitalism tends towards abusive monopolies.
Because Apple sells computers (iPhones ARE computers) and somehow still thinks it owns them after sale, regulating what people that purchased them are allowed to run.
There would be zero issues if we could install and run any app we want, bypassing AppStore, like we can on Mac/Windows/Linux PCs
A lot of businesses publish apps on the App Store because it is the only option Apple gives consumers to install their app.
You are most likely not going to be discovered just by being on a Store but rather through your online presence.
In a free world you could own your app distribution logistics with the cloud provider you already have to use for your app, website or for other part of your business. You can do it on Windows it didn't kill Microsoft business at all
The issue is not Apple making a profit on its store. Selling phones is unrelated to owning a store, they have one good for them but why is it mandatory to access such a huge share of the mobile market ?
What value is given to businesses and developers, and what undue avantages over competition Apple gets by tying both together ?
Now let's admit you do want to be on their store. Now you want to take payments, your bank has tech to take payments, Stripe has tech to take payments, PayPal does to etc. Apple want to compete with those with their In App Purchase tech fine but there has to be choice. The cut is 30% because they forbid competition in payments. They forbid even mentioning to customers they can have a better deal outside.
If Apple thinks being on the App Store is such a privilege it should either :
- Make businesses & developers pay for being on it and let them chose their payment provider
- Keep on bundling phones with a store where their payment tech is mandatory but let customers install apps that are not from the App Store
They can fight it as hard as they want the EU regulators will make them do that choice anyway because the anti trust case against them is even sounder than the Microsoft one with Internet Explorer
Have you ever sold anything at wholesale to a retailer? A 30% cut is not remotely unheard of. Different products obviously have vastly different margins, but 30% isn't outside of reason, depending on the industry.
But absolutely, the mobile market is a duopoly. Consumers and developers, who used to have a wider ranger of choices, opted to primarily pick one of two experiences, over and over again, until those were the only viable experiences.
The problem with this analogy is that in many cases the "app" is only part of the service, or a way to access the service.
Lets say I sell a service where you can mine a bitcoin. It costs me $2000 in electricity for every bitcoin I mine. I sell the service for $2200. I offer an app, to access this service. Apple wants 30% of the whole amount, not 30% of the value-add that app brings.
Consumers didn't purchase the store. They purchased a phone, with a Store on it. On that same phone, there's another Store where Apple has zero control.
But consumers prefer the store Apple controls because the products they can get out of that store work better, due to the efforts Apple puts into the Store to make that so.
Developers want to sell in that store because they know users prefer products from that store, due to the efforts of Apple.
People would really like if Apple made it such that products from either store could do exactly the same things, but Apple is under no obligation to do that.
The phone is the store in your analogy. You own it.
It is yours, yet you do not expect the previous owner to still forceably control the shelf space of your own store. Or exclusively take from your cash register.
Oh no it's spot on. You own your phone, so you own the hardware that houses the store, yet the previous owner is still getting exclusivity inside the property you just purchased.
And forceably taking a cut from their competition as you try to transact with their competition.
The phone is useless without the store and the store is nothing without the phone. They are inextricably linked. Which is, of course, the whole problem right there.
They also ask for a cut from the monthly subscription fee.
A better analogy would be to buy an inkjet printer from Best Buy with the condition that you can buy the cartridges only from Best Buy in the future as well.
The discussions about "Hey" show, the question of the App Store is a complex problem. And I think it is a complex problem, because Apple made the rules far too simple to work, as reality is complex. And because of actions driven by putting the revenue over customer service. Customer in this context means both the customers using the app store and the developers selling on the app store.
The App Store rules cover many aspects, which should not be mixed in my eyes.
First: security. Reviewing apps for security is a great feature. Having a place to get reviewed apps is gread for the end customer. But many rules, like the ones about in-app purchases, have little or nothing to do with security.
About curation: yes, it is a great feature, if an App Store is curated and the quality of apps is ensured. And yes, offering in-app purchases is great for the customer, as it is safe and anonymous. Yet, Apple does little to curate all the freemium games, which are pretty trivial apps which allow you to spend enourmeous amounts of money on a game. Spending in excess of $100 for a silly simple game should be considered as profiteering if not outright fraudulent. But this seems to be ok in the App Store as long as you pay your 30%...
Besides that Apple obviously often does a bad job when curating the App Store, there are many examples, like "Hey", that show, that the overly simplistic App Store rules far too often just don't fit all business models. Therefore, there should be more differentiation in the level of services offered by Apple to the developers and the developers be able to choose the service model with its associated costs, which fits them best.
I think Hey profits a lot from being in the App Store, even from offering in-App purchases, as this is very customer-friendly, both from a convenience and security point. And of course, Apple is entitled to get a share of the profit Hey makes from being on the App store. But currently Apple doesn't charge on the profit, but on the gross revenue, which is difficult for a lot companies. And this in a world, where to do business basically means, that you have to offer an app.
As an example, but it is not as far fetched as it may sound, consider Tesla. Tesla is a company, which sells their product via the web. They also offer an App, which is basically required to use their product - for example arranging service appointments is done via apps. Also for operating the car, the app is extremely useful. Should Apple now require Tesla to offer in-app purchases to the customers? Yes, it would be extremely convenient to be able to buy your car in the app, as it is done on the web otherwise. But obviously, Tesla couldn't afford the 30% share of the car price. Does this give Apple the right to ban the Tesla app from the App Store with all consequences? If you think about it, this case isn't so much more far-fetched than the case of Hey.
I think that you should always talk about average users. There is no point in talking about technical users that make up a small slice of the market pie.
I’m an Apple customer. I’ve an iPhone but I’m still horrified from needing to buy a developer account (which is like 99$) to install (my) apps on my iPhone (only). It would be probably possible for Apple to enable checks for personal apps, executing apps that are signed with the same iCloud account or something like that (doing all the checks on the device, no servers involved).
Never mind that macOS is a hot mess for (some) developers, right now. So, yeah, I have some issues with Apple too.
On compensation
I see a certain similarity between Hey, Spotify, Restocks. They all are (paid) apps trying to take advantage of Apple user base, without compensating Apple for it.
Meanwhile, Apple is expected to keep paying for the App Store servers, its curation team and its app approval team.
Obviously smartphones are getting better hence (average) users will buy a new phone less often and Apple is expected to keep supporting old devices for 5/6 years and it has to pay the engineers who work on the OSes and the APIs, and the non-engineers that keep the show running.
You could argue that Android and Google are better.
But Android is not Google’s main business, ads are. Google has built (mostly free) services that generate data about its users, which is then used a bait for advertisers.
No one cares if you’re using F-droid instead of the Play Store, Google is still getting its checks from you and your org using Gmail, Analytics, AdSense, YouTube, etc...
On side loading
Side loading apps (for the average user) is risky and it’s mostly done for three reasons IMO:
- cracking apps
- accessing apps that are not allowed on the Play Store
- escape Google
I don’t really have much to say about side loading. I’m too biased against it, so maybe someone else could convince me that it’s a good thing.
Conclusion
What would happen if Apple allowed apps to use external payment options (like Stripe)?
Well, the obvious, no one would use IAP because there would be much cheaper services that are not compensating Apple.
Apple is far from perfect:
- the App Store approval process is a mess
- the communication process is broken (removing old message exchanges, come on...)
- they really don’t seem to care about indie developers
However, although Apple needs developers to keep running the show, without no Apple there is no iOS, no App Store. It’s a tricky problem to solve.
They could force IAP on iOS because it's better for users (track subscription, cancel) - without forcing profit sharing/rent seeking.
They could charge some reasonable fee for initially distributing the app or for a dev account (which they already do).
Taking a cut of all profits on the platform whether you compete directly (spotify vs. apple music) or not, is greedy. It's also lazy, you're taking money without providing equivalent value.
I'd argue companies that focus on doing this kind of thing end up fat, lazy, and hated. (Steve Ballmer's Microsoft).
All of your points are valid. I'd say this is purely about the relative price.
Apple charging 30% for access to an almost fully automated system is anticompetitive. Apple charging 1% to cover technical costs is fair and reasonable.
They would have to start by not demoting submissions with comment threads that explore this issue. This submission from 6 hours ago with 124 upvotes and 212 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23568095) is not showing up in the first 120 items on Hacker News and I have no idea why. I've posted in a few places asking @dang to explain and I'm just getting downvoted. Extremely troubling.
EDIT: I just got up to submission 270 and still don't see it. That submission has almost certainly been hidden somehow to prevent further discovery.
EDIT 2: I highly suspect Apple is somehow putting pressure on HN to do this. The way these submissions are being 'controlled' is really disturbing. And it would make perfect sense for Apple to try and control discussion on HN. We basically destroyed TripleByte in just the past month. Anything scandalous affecting developers can turn into a company-melting shitstorm via HN.
Since none of the six responses to this comment so far have the correct explanation, here you go: HN's ranking algorithm automatically heavily penalizes posts with high comment to upvote ratios, to stop presumed "flame wars". This system is imperfect and often removes interesting discussions, but they keep it in place anyways as it usually is flame warring that is suppressed. This system kicks into high gear and then progressively penalizes further as comment totals exceed upvote totals (or thereabouts).
> I highly suspect Apple is somehow putting pressure on HN to do this.
On the internet, "highly suspect" is a synonym for "entirely imagine". That is not happening. Nothing remotely resembling it is happening. Nothing remotely resembling anything like it has, to my knowledge, ever happened.
People imagine whatever they want about these things and rush to post breathlessly about them, but the truth is boring. laser's explanation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570990) is correct.
Since your speculation was obviously refuted by the very submission you posted it to, I think we could have been spared this offtopicness. I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570530 now.
Posts getting demoted can and will happen "automatically" if users flag the post when they see it on the main page. It's not uncommon for people to flag stuff they dislike and there are plenty of Apple fans on HN. It's not a conspiracy, it's just user moderation in action. This happens frequently with news and current events if people don't want to see discussion of it.
The other half of that coin is HN choosing to restore posts that have been flagged unnecessarily. That doesn't seem to be happening. It may not be a conspiracy but it's definitely still a problem.
Exactly YC and HackerNews are intentionally suppressing the news. Or maybe their "algorithm", but when developers are frustrated, they should atleast rank these stories fairly.
This site is heavily moderated (read: manipulated) by its owners/mods, and I expect censorship for anything that might threaten their business relationships or cause controversy they don't want.
It's more restrictive than reddit today, let alone reddit when it blew up. I'm not sure to what extent the narratives here are organic or not.
You can say moderated, manipulated, curated, censored - people just choose between these words depending on how they feel. None of this is secret, or new. HN has always been a curated site. I've posted about all this countless times and answered countless emails. No one has any trouble getting their questions answered if they actually want a real answer.
We don't moderate HN with specific business interests in mind because that would make it less valuable. HN's value to YC is simply in being as good/interesting as possible, because that's what keeps the community happy. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
That's the main point, but really, you'd have to reach deep into the pool of imagination to fish out any specific business interest in moderating this story in the first place. What a bizarre discussion.
I'm sorry but I don't think it is helpful to make claims like this without presenting evidence, otherwise it's just an assumption, which is fodder for unfounded conspiracy theories, which again is not really constructive.
It reminds me of a saying: "people criticize what they don't understand"
I understand it, I just dont think there's a purpose in arguing control of a platform they own. This site is heavily manipulated, the moderation is heavy, and censorship (things disappearing) make it hard to present evidence, just like the post in question 'disappeared' until it suddenly appeared.
It only changes how you should perceive the site, it doesn't change anything else. Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'.
This is a great place to talk about computer stuff, but I don't believe any narratives here are organic by default.
> Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'.
Now I'm starting to get a little irritated. I know this is the internet, but do you really think it's ok to accuse people of outright corruption based on literally nothing? Would you like to be smeared in that way? Not only do we take great pains never to do anything of that nature, it is literally the first principle of HN moderation to do the opposite: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
What you're alleging would be both wrong and dumb. The good faith of the HN community is the only asset that YC has in HN. If that goes, the whole thing collapses. Why would we risk that? Taking the greatest care with it that we can is our #1 responsibility. Personally I wouldn't want this job if I had to do it any other way.
Another commenter in this thread made insinuations of this nature while mentioning the Triplebyte controversy from a couple weeks ago, apparently without noticing that it's a perfect counterexample to all of this.
any censorship systems in place to protect the company could easily circumvent that setting. I understand that there is user moderation, but I also understand that doesn't mean anything about top down censorship.
It's like if an university released an app for it's student body, they were forced to allow anybody to sign up to the university with Apple pay. And give Apple 30% of the tuition.
… that does not follow. Apple's definitions aren't based on whether a good is free. It's based on whether the service is delivered without real-world interaction by the user.
Tuition at a brick-and-mortar college? No cut.
On-demand video service with tutorials? They get a cut.
I’m zeroing in on the “real” here. Email is an indispensable service, just like paying tuition. The idea that “it’s on the internet so it doesn’t count” is... farcical coming from the biggest tech company (or one of the largest browser vendors, whichever seems more relevant) ever.
I'm ready for the downvotes but I don't think the App Store cut is crazy. They do reduce to 15% if you have long-running subscriptions with your user. Credit cards charge 3% to start. Apple handles distribution, updates, etc. Taking 15% at the end of the day isn't terrible. And hey, they made the super shiny beloved iOS platform too in the first place, not to mention the SDK that makes the apps even possible to build!
DHH is just trying to ride cancel culture to get enough people to tweet / complain towards Apple in hopes that they cave.
Unpopular opinion, but if you want to make a game for the PS4, you need to play by Sony's rules or find another platform. Or if you want to write an app that runs on Toyota's head units, you need to play by Toyota's rules, no matter how frustrating they are. Same goes for building an iOS app. You're writing something for an appliance, not for a general purpose computer. I used to be an iOS developer, and that was kind of the faustian bargain we all made: Play by their (sometimes objectionable, sometimes unevenly enforced) rules or GTFO.
iOS devices are empirically not general purpose computers, since their manufacturer deliberately specifies applications’ allowed and disallowed purposes.
> shouldn’t
I’m simply describing how things are and not making judgments about how they should be. Apple treats iPhones as appliances that have allowed and disallowed purposes, and rules of the road for app distribution. Every iOS developer who makes a living on the platform knows this is the deal. Going on your blog and acting all surprised that this is the case shows that you either don’t have much experience working with the platform or didn’t do your due diligence before getting into the business.
I guess I'm using a different definition of "general purpose computer" - IMO, it's defined not so much by the device design, but rather what people do with it. It's possible to do almost everything you can do with a normal computer on an iOS device, and for many people, it's their primary or only computing device, which I think makes it sufficiently "general purpose".
(There's also the other definition of "general purpose", which is that you can install your own OS on it and have full control over what software you run. I think Apple should allow that too, but that's sort of a different issue).
You sure Apple has no role in making the things you are buying. They do design and build the phones, SDKs, Developer Tools etc that makes these apps even any good.
I used to build apps for Blackberry and Palm devices and I can assure you that their contribution should not be understated.
I will say the subscription stuff is nice because if I want to cancel something I don’t have to play games, make a tedious phone call (with “exit interview/sales pitch”) or go around in circles on support pages that promise to tell you how to cancel and then lead to a page that doesn’t exist, or actually cancel and have them “forget”, or have them cancel immediately but not give me a prorated refund, or any other shenanigans companies have pulled.
I just click a button and it’s done. The service continues through the date I’m paid up until and then is properly canceled.
