Apple makes Microsoft look like an angel. Using this argument, Microsoft could claim they could have made hundreds of billions if they got a cut out of every Windows app sale. Oh, and that those companies wouldn't exist if it weren't for Windows.
Because it uses these deep integration APIs, we're only allowed to distribute the application using the macOS App Store (whose rejections, appeals, and eventual acceptance made for quite the stressful saga over the last week and a half)
Imagine having to get certified by the Linux Foundation, under distribution clause, to access native Linux kernel APIs. But that's what the developer of Wiregaurd has to do to gain access to native macOS integration.
[1] https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2019-February/00...
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windows-driver-docs/blob/HE...
Yeah, unfortunately it seems like we're still in the state where UNIX/Linux can't popularize anything, especially themselves, unless they're repackaged by someone else :(
Which is absolutely true of Microsoft as well. The sheer productivity boon that Office has added to businesses around the world is unmatched by practically any other piece of software ever written. Most of the businesses would still exist, but they wouldn't be the same business. Excel, Powerpoint, and Word are ridiculously important software.
But users can pay how they wish, if Spotify didn't mind the 30%/15% cut. Spotify simply can't direct users to use their website to use an alternative payment system. I think that is a very reasonable policy for an app store, as it protects its users from poorly implemented financial info handling and scams.
I agree that Apple's article is more hostile than it needed to be, but it is only in response to an unreasonable attack by Spotify on Apple's IAP policies.
Regarding the walled-garden App Store policies of Apple, it's not friendly to enthusiasts and some developers, but it is good for most Apple consumers, and helps less tech-savvy users trust Apple's App Store.
Android has freer permissions on installing apps, because that is necessary for vendor adoption. However, it is unclear if this is still ultimately a better decision for consumers on aggregate.
Give me a break. It doesn’t take 15-30% to implement a secure payment system. This is proven by Apple itself: Apple Pay charges very little for secure payments for physical goods.
Also Apple doesn't just support the secure payment system, they also handle distributing the money and providing customer support to the end user and the developer. That isn't free either.
If you don't like the Apple model, there are alternatives.
Apple's argument (which seems compelling if we judge it on the result) is that their model is the best solution for customers and developers.
What alternatives? Without allowing developers to create 3rd-party payment systems, all payments must be routed through Apple.
>Apple's argument (which seems compelling if we judge it on the result) is that their model is the best solution for customers and developers.
Apple's model does not seem to be compelling for developers/content creators. Developers need to pay a large (for some) amount of money and give Apple a large cut of their profits.
It's also unclear why Apple's model is best for consumers. While it seems good because it protects consumers from scams on third party sites, for reputable companies like Spotify or Netflix, there doesn't seem to be a risk, except for increased prices to the end user because companies need to compensate for losing a third of their earnings.
No they cant, that is a violation of Apples Policies and would result in the App being removed, Amazon tried that with ebooks years ago. You can not redirect a user for payment inside the app, to a payment system outside the app.
>Regarding the walled-garden App Store policies of Apple, it's not friendly to enthusiasts and some developers, but it is good for most Apple consumers, and helps less tech-savvy users trust Apple's App Store.
It is not an either or option. I think Google has struck a good balence, Their App store is pretty locked down today, but if you know the "hidden" menu and what steps to take you can easily unlock the device and install alternate stores and apps.
There is zero security reason why Apple could not supply this type of hidden unlock for people, it is pure monetary control that they desire
And, just coincidentally, that 'protection' is very lucrative for Apple.
I would be much more supportive of efforts to push Apple to allow third party payment systems of the practices I mentioned above weren’t so common.
As things stand, Apple has mixed priorities. They want to enable developers where those developers add uniquely to the platform, but they want to outcompete developers where they cannibalise sales from Apple's own products.
This dual remit doesn't help consumers. If Apple's music offering had to pay the 30% tax "for real", they might have to charge $13 too, and that might make the iPhone an expensive platform for music-listeners, and they might be incentivised to cut their margins to compete with other platforms. We could all agree, "Sure it's expensive, but it's their turf and they can run it badly (to their own detriment) if they want."
Not sure where you draw the line between first-party app and OS functionality though. I imagine in some cases it'd be less clear than here.
This is a bit of a ridiculous claim. From another perspective, an iPhone is just another way to access your favorite apps and content. Taken to more of an extreme, imagine Comcast or T-Mobile claiming that they provide users to Spotify... Apple is easily just a middle man here but they make themselves sound like the entity that owns the users and plugs them into apps. It's not like people buy iPhones just because they're shiny pieces of aluminum and glass, and using apps is secondary to that.
"Our platform enables your app" is true in both cases. But so is "our app brings people to your platform." The power imbalance is that it's easier to build a competing app than a competing app store or ISP.
How is this is a hypothetical claim? It is blatantly obvious. Spotify's early days were entirely dependent on the mobile marketplace. Even now, desktop use constitutes a tiny fraction of their total users.
It's not a hypothetical claim at all, really.
> 30% / 15% is a very steep price / revenue loss
Source? Because 30% / 15% is a common middleman commision for most platforms.
> Google provides a similar App store service
This is ridiculously far from the truth. Google's Play Store isn't curated in the least. Malware regularly pops up, the review process is effectively nonexistent, and the quality of apps on the Play Store is thus far below what one can get from the App Store.
There are costs to reviewing every app. I don't think it's fair for you to say 30% is unfair unless you (a) compare the costs to other middlemen, and (b) figure out how expensive the review process and other infrastructure is.
In general, all you really seem to be doing is promoting freeloading off the App Store. Utilize the benefits it provides, but have users pay for your service via a side-channel so you don't have to contribute back to the ecosystem.
Spotify's earliest days were before smartphones. I had Spotify on my computers before they'd even released an iPhone app.
Spotify launched on Desktop after the App Store launched.
Your link seems to say the opposite.
It is impossible to stop the subscription. No thank you, I will trust my payments with Apple.. Esp. subscriptions.
Is that worth 30%/15%? I don't know. The fact that 15% exists shows that Apple is thinking about the pricing and adjusting. Apple just doesn't do anything quickly.
Is anyone else bugged by the "Let's be clear/To be clear" prefix that gets thrown around a lot these days? It seems unnecessary. If you're being clear then that will be self-evident. It seems like a way to preemptively trick the reader in to taking whatever follows as correct and authoritative.
https://www.politico.com/story/2009/08/obamas-catch-phrase-l...
Everyone wants to move to the subscription service model and Apple has developed rules accordingly.
Consumers pay the same price. Artists earn more. Who cares how Apple shuffles fictional numbers in their internal accounting?
1 I have an app or service say X and I sell it for 5$ and this is the lowest price I can afford
2 Apple wants a 30% cut, so I will have to make my app 7$ .
all is fine so far, the problem is at step 3
3 Apple clones my app names it iX(my original app was named X), makes it 5$ (or bundles it with some gift cars or other deals if you give them more money).
4 Apple's iX gets access to private APIs, is cheaper(or free) since is subsidized, Apple also forces me not to remove from my X app any links to my webpages if I sell things there
Now, please, consider THE USER, what does the user get:
- the user gets less options if my app X is killed or I remove it from the store
- the user pays more if I raise the prices
- the user does not see m,y sale pages because I can't show it in the app
- the X app that some(a big number of ) users consider it better can't access native features like iX can
So, get 30% or whatever you want but compete fair.
Meanwhile Apple is not attempting to undercut Spotify in the retail space. And they are paying artists substantially more than Spotify for the music so they're clearly not attempting to run a more profitable business.
The user looses when there is not enough competition, like you get stuck with a worse browser (but in this case this may be a deliberate thing to protect the app store)
again, tell me about what the benefit is for the user/consumer not what about x, the market shares, the laws in US, free market ....
$3 in Apple's bag for no work or effort at all
This is the same sort of rhetoric that calls dropbox a weekend project.
There's credit card costs etc associated with that as well. Doubt it's $3/user per month though and the distribution costs are minimal (only downloads of app updates) compared to the streaming costs (which could be multiple GBs every month).
Spotify: $ to build the app, $ to maintain the music label relationships, $ to manage paying royalties, $ to manage server infra, $ for bandwidth, $ to Apple for the "privilege" of being listed on the App Store and using Apple's payments system (which they have no choice over).
Both companies have the exact same base costs to operate their service. But Apple gets to charge for subscriptions through the app for free, whereas Spotify does not. That's literally the only difference cost-wise, and IMO Spotify is correct to consider that anti-competitive. Whether or not Apple would make more or less money shuttering Apple Music and transferring all their customers to Spotify is completely irrelevant.
And no, I don't consider "creating and maintaining an iOS payments system" to be a part of Apple's costs here. That would exist even if Apple Music did not, and the marginal cost of having Apple Music use that system is virtually nil, certainly not 30% of Spotify's subscription fee.
Some apps pay for that effort with a cut of the app's retail price. Spotify pays for it with the tiny fraction of their users which (a) pay for it at all and (b) pay for it through their iOS device.
No reason to have users pay twice, when they buy their device and when they try to use services on the device they already have.
The cost for the store platform is paid by the developers when they sell the app.
We don't see the internal accounting but it's quite likely they do. Internal revenue distribution is standard practice in almost all enterprises.
This is both true and generally irrelevant for business, except for the particular matter of taxation.
Firstly, that competitor product has technical advantages as it can access APIs that Spotify cannot (SiriKit, background audio on earlier versions of WatchOS).
Secondly, that competitor product is at a financial advantage because of the 30% fee.
It's not the fee itself that's the issue. It's that Apple is (arguably) using it's control of the platform to compete unfairly against Spotify.
Which you mandate Spotify uses. This isn't an enumerable benefit to Spotify, it is the lock-in mechanism that makes the Apple Tax work.
I think that's a very hypothetical claim.
> Let’s be clear about what that means. Apple connects Spotify to our users. We provide the platform by which users download and update their app. We share critical software development tools to support Spotify’s app building. And we built a secure payment system — no small undertaking — which allows users to have faith in in-app transactions. Spotify is asking to keep all those benefits while also retaining 100 percent of the revenue.
I think we should be clear that Apple built the app-store ecosystem to improve its iPhone adoption and lock-in. And Spotify isn't asking to keep 100% of the revenue. Spotify is asking for a choice of letting users pay how they wish.
The problem really is Apple wants to milk its App store ecosystem now that its popular and 30% / 15% is a very steep price / revenue loss for any significant player in that eco-system. And FWIW, Google provides a similar App store service, while also allowing users to what they choose with their phones (i.e., install side-loaded Apps).