I'll bite. The Romans, err I mean Apple have done nothing, except at least these:
* Maintains a user database including authentication, plus all the support costs (lost password support is very high)
* Payment handling (you dismiss it, but no one does it for free) including keeping up with tax authorities and legal systems in much of the world
* Almost unlimited (re)downloads for users to a reasonable number of devices. Bandwidth is cheap but not free.
* Backup and restore for application data. (You may not use it, but that functionality is available to apps without extra fees.)
* A curated walled garden including a review process. I'm sure your app is fine, but Apple keeping the dregs out and avoiding the place turning into a cesspool means users can be more confident about the apps and that halo effect helps all apps in the store.
* Mechanisms to extend your app such as IAP, and an advertising solution etc
* Access to a large user base, with reasonably fair rules that everyone has play by
* They make all the above work together
The case can be made that the benefits used vary by app, but in aggregate it isn't an unreasonable amount for them to charge. It is worth noting that competitors haven't done anything substantially different.
Maybe I can make my point more clear by saying what I expect from Apple: Let me publish an app and don't tell me how to run my business. I want to put up an app in store that uses external payments. Apple doesn't want this. Well, kind of, sort of. The App Store Guidelines section 11 are pretty clear on what Apple expects:
Don't charge people outside of the App Store, because we want a share of that pie. And if you do, we ain't gonna like it. We might approve your app, we might not. We might change our mind, too. Depends on how explicit you're selling your stuff.
And for a long time, it was simply not possible to offer apps that are paid for outside the App Store. And now, it's still very vague. You have to offer an app that also works without requiring a paid account.
Anyways, thanks for the input. I take this discussion to reconsider my position and think of a way how I can make this work. I must admit that Apple changed the rules over the recent months a bit. It's maybe a bit more flexible now.
It also isn't a bad idea from an incentives point of view. Apple make more money if their developers make more money. And the benefits accrue just over double to the developer than they do to Apple. Similarly developers being less successful also hurts Apple. At least the 30% cut means Apple have to keep earning it.
Remember that as a developer you can walk away, and support other platforms instead. You can avoid stores completely and do everything yourself. With rare exceptions, you are very unlikely to do as well.
I think this is exactly the point that gives me the bad feeling: If Apple really provided "the best service", people would buy their services from them and the price would be dictated by demand and competition (ironically, just like the price of apps in the App Store, which tends to go down over time).
But this is not how it works. People aren't free to choose which services they want to buy from Apple and whether they want to buy from Apple at all (if they want to be in the iOS playground). Apple forces their services on everybody. There is only a single package: Take it or leave it.
> Remember that as a developer you can walk away, and support other platforms instead.
Theoretically it's true, but ultimately, the customer decides. Although I put a lot of effort into a very nice mobile-first web design, which will hopefully render the app unnecessary in the long run. Together with the "always online" trend and increasingly better mobile internet connections, this might work out.
Thanks for your thoughts, I appreciate them. I don't want to sound as if I'm only arguing my position here. I'll think about the stuff you said.
There is another way to look at Apple's cut, even when you as a developer consider it unfair. For the end users it establishes a certain amount of credibility. Apple places certain hoops developers have to go through as well as taking some money. An end user is going to find a solution that can do all that far more credible than one that can't.
It is different now, but a few decades ago one of the functions of advertising was credibility. If a product was advertised, it meant there was an aura of success about it (the money to advertise has to come from somewhere and someone has to stand behind it) and that success was sufficiently great to spend some of the revenue on ads. The bigger the ad spend, the more credible/success there is perceived to be. Everyone will be a lot more skeptical about something that can't even afford to advertise, or does so "cheaply".
The same thing is happening with university education. Someone attending one, spending real money and persevering is more credible than someone taking a few online courses, even though the actual education they could get is similar.
Circling back to Apple, the app store is already saturated, and I suspect Apple will be more than happy to raise the bar some more. The most credible apps are what they and the users will want. Imagine they added a section for folks like you "these apps use none of our services and we take no cut from them". That section would smell like failure, not success.
I can download an .apk directly from a developer if Google doesn't want to host it on the app store. I've done this, for example, with the Betfair app.
That's a pretty huge difference.
Also, like he said, don't complain, just deal with it. Saying they do nothing for you isn't entirely true, or you wouldn't have an app on the App Store.
I'm not complaining, but stating that I'm not happy with how things go. The only reason why it's "acceptable" to give Apple 30% is because they're the only game in town. If I gave another third party 30%, they surely had to bring a bit more to the table than what Apple is offering me (in my specific situation with a niche app).
If everybody shuts up, nothing will ever change – although expressing dissatisfaction probably won't change much either I guess.
It gives you access to its customers. That's not a bad deal for many.
This is a really insightful post, but at the same time, I don't even want to bother with all the Do's and Don'ts. See, I don't develop games. I have a total niche app product and Apple does exactly zero things for me and still wants 30%. I even drive the people to the app store through my website. Exposure? No. Payment handling? Could do this myself. New users? Not really.
Luckily, my web app makes 10x more money than the stupid app.