I have seen this view lot from apple users. And I really feel sad that no body gives the enough credit to dev community because of whom you're getting these apps in first place, not from Apple directly (And I am sure, if they do, heck they will charge you like hell).
Please understand it is mutual platform for apple/google, devs and consumers. Now days, Apple and consumers has not much to lose as they have enough apps but dev's life is becoming difficult day by day - apple/google account charges, huge margin-cut over in-app-payments, rejection without any proper reason, no immediate support, bad apis and documentation. I am happy I quit professional mobile app making for good.
> I pay Apple to uphold this bar by any means necessary.
I wish you could pay devs instead of Apple to held this bar high.
There are thousands and thousands of apps to sift through. It’s good that iOS helps filter out the shit where devs can’t be bothered to do basic user friendly things like providing screenshots, etc.
My point is app developers rightly care about their total income, not about the per-capita income from a tiny slice of the userbase.
* In the United States of America
Many American app makers hit a ceiling when they try to expand internationally and they discover that for the rest of the world, Android is both dominant, and more profitable.
Let’s be honest, the majority of the apps charge in-app for every fart. At the dawn of the app stores you could find a ton of free apps and games from hobbyists, but now it’s all about squeezing money. And the guy in the article didn’t have to publish the app in the first place, could have uploaded the app to the phone directly through the dev tools.
Apple/Google take 30 % of that fart, so you guess what they get at end.
> At the dawn of the app stores you could find a ton of free apps and games from hobbyists, it’s all about squeezing money.
Well apple charge you $100 per year to upload app, are you kidding ? Plus they don't let you have another store. Everything should must go thr' their wall, so no chance to avoid charge.
> And the guy in the article didn’t have to publish the app in the first place, could have uploaded the app to the phone directly through the dev tools.
How many phones he can upload it honestly ?
Anyway, the point I am tring to say is, Apple/Google are not valuing dev community as they used to and devs are taken granted for. They should care devs as they care for consumers PR as it is mutual platform
IIRC Apple charged you 100$ as early as in 2013, that's when I bought a subscription myself for the first time. But the app landscape was much different back then and it didn't stop hobby developers from publishing.
But, part of writing things for myself is wanting to share them with friends should they ask. And that requires either a $100 fee, or walking each friend through the process of requesting a developer license in order to run an unpublished app. The fee is a pittance for anybody doing large development, but was far more than college-me wanted to spend on an entrance fee to a language.
I mean, it's about making money, App Store is not a public good. If developers feel there's a better opportunity they can pursue other platform, but it seems like Google and Apple succeed at making the money-making developers happy. What else should matter to a public company?
Typically 15% now.
Only because of the (still ongoing) anti-trust lawsuit against them.
Many years ago, I got excited when I got a Nokia phone which supported Java ME. Finally, here was my chance to put some useful stuff on _MY_ phone I thought. Then I learned what I needed to get a single copy of something on a single phone (after signing up for the dev program). I don't remember the details, but, clearly, the point was you needed to be a part of an international conglomerate if you wanted to be able to ship awful clones of 80s 8-bit games.
The messed up nightmare "mobile computing" was going to devolve into became apparent to me then. Nothing one can do about it. You either use the stuff everyone else is using or your are "out". Still, I had expected to be able to attach a cable and copy a blob from _MY_ computer to _MY_ phone.
I know this is about app stores. Well, in this case, I expect to be able to put a blob somewhere and point people to it for them to install if they so choose.
And, no, web pages that try to act like apps don't really count.
Honestly, if I find an app that I'd like to pay for, I do a quick google search to find their web app. If they have one, I pay for it there and use it on my phone.
If it's a game I actually enjoy, I might make a single in-app purchase for what I think the game is worth, usually around $5-10.
Presumably you're speaking from the Apple side of things, because the Play Store is a fragmented wasteland of low-effort/sometimes-malicious shovelware that barely functions.
To me that means that the hoops Google makes one jump through for app publishing are accomplishing next to nothing with regards to app quality.
Wait how does this differ from the appstore?
Search for WhatsApp? First result is an ad for Twitter and WhatsApp is the second result, half hidden (on an iPhone SE). Search for my bank? First result is another bank. Firefox? First result is Chrome. Doctolib (the app for taking covid vaccination appointments in France, and the main doctors appointment service in general)? Another one that's probably more or less a scam. Google Maps? You get an ad for Coyote.
It wouldn't be so bad if the ads didn't look almost exactly like real search results, and if the actual results were not hidden below the bottom of the screen.
The general quality of apps on the Google Play Store might be worse, but this behaviour never happens there. When you look for an app name, you get that app and not one of their competitors that paid more.
I don't think I've ever just gone "App Window Shopping"
Maybe other people do, though. I don't know.
Playing bad games is now part of my life experience, kinda like trying out bad movies.
I didn't install any game on my last two phones. I install only mandated apps (banking, car sharing, etc) and open source apps after I checked that they actually have a repository and they are not abandoned. I'm rather using F-Droid than the Play Store now.
For the discerning app downloader such as yourself, Play Store could have a tier of approval levels for apps. Toy apps and ones for friends like this could be rated lowest tier, and buyer beware.
Imagine if a website had to prove its value and CSS quality before getting a domain name.
> and they have to be this exact resolution
And your comment was:
> screenshots with at least X resolution
The problem isn't that Apple forces you to have a high quality screenshot, they require a handful of very specific pixel dimensions, don't tell you what device that corresponds to, so you have to spend way to much time trying to make screen shots on different devices with the simulator and it's annoying, especially if you don't do it often.
Also, they don't actually check if the screenshot is a real screenshot or of good quality. One time I just gave up and resized the screenshots to the required pixel dimensions and they accepted it.
You can't stop shitty apps by imposing more and more rules anyway.
I won't be surprised if this store actually became more popular than the Primary one.
That is assuming those rules are fair to a degree, not Anti Competitive and they do impose it for the quality and security as they say they do. All of which I will strongly support. But they dont. ScreenShots isn't even the tip of the Iceberg.
Now, please just let me publish an app not using the store. Me and other people like me prefer lower burden and lower quality. We won't mess up your perfect store, you don't even need to know we exist. Just let us enjoy our little world.
Yeah, no thanks.
View the app reviews in another region. The amount of spam is significantly lower (~0%) and it's mostly people complaining.
I pay the electric company to have a store where only approved toasters and microwaves are sold so as to keep quality high!
I pay my car company to ensure that only approved tires, windows, audio, windshield wiper fluid can be used.
This logic is not working.
Apple, and ABC corp, and any other companies can have app stores.
If you want to shop at the 'absurdly high standards store' that's totally fine, but otherwise it's anti-competitive.
There's no reason 'Person A' can't send an app to 'Person B' if they want.
It works on Mac, Windows, Android, Linux and everywhere else.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but where I live there is a tax-funded Safety and Chemicals Agency whose job is to keep dangerous and malicious physical products out of the market. There is no equivalent for software.
The problem is that CERT can only react to problems after they have happened. For physical products, you first have to meet CE standards to even get to the market. You can give the the label to your own product if you want to take the risk, but unlike software there is an official barrier to entry. I'm not sure if it's even possible to develop similar standards for software.
Good. That's why the quality is so high.
Android, Mac, Windows, Linux are reasonably safe platforms, there's zero reason why people can't chose to download the software they want.
Apple's 'it's the security' line is the most obvious giant lie, it's there to protect their control over the platform and that's that.
On top of that, it's completely unnecessary for the point you are trying to make.
"And there are all these stupid requirements. I need at least X screenshots, and they have to be this exact resolution blah blah blah. On top of that, it took so long to get approved. My ADHD brain really suffered waiting for the gratification."
I would hate to browse a store where the products didn't have at least X screenshots with at least X resolution, etc etc. The process for getting into the store shouldn't be easy and the quality bar should be high. I pay Apple to uphold this bar by any means necessary.