> ... the App Store takes parts of our job that we're already extremely good at like customer support, quick updates, easy refunds and makes them all more stressful and difficult, in exchange for giving Apple 30% of our revenue.
via https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1412850761231392773/
(update: formatting)
If you want to enter nearly any mobile-related markets, you have no other choice but to have rent extracted from your business by either Apple or Google. Those two companies have stifled innovation in the mobile app market for over a decade now, and they expect you to pay tribute.
Chances are the users will have moved on before the users of the app have.
An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket.
Ask not what Apple can do for you -- ask what you can do for Apple.
They cut you a cheque for 10mil each year, maybe you are the one that should be sending them a fruit basket at christmas.
This is like failing restaurants who can't hire people putting up signs saying 'giving away stimulus checks every 2 weeks apply inside'.
They aren't cutting him a check, they are installing themselves as a middle man between him and his money. Apple did none of the work, but take almost half the money.
Remove the app store, it's all spam and ads anyways and search is damn near impossible.
I'd say they should be paying him since his apps bring in so many customers, and he has to do all the legwork.
If people stop making iOS apps, thr machine stops.
There are a shit ton more developers than there are platforms to develop on.
Desktop applications and operating systems don't have to put up with manual review and tax. (Can you imagine how horrific that world would be?) Mobile shouldn't either. They serve the same purpose.
In addition, there's one more unspoken burden Apple places on everyone: you have to write a native app for iOS. There should be a standard for devices. The differences are trivial.
I'm glad the EU, Korea, and Japan are standing up to this and launching antitrust cases.
Just over 10 years ago pretty much only way to install latest apps on your "internet communicator" phone was to go to xda-developers, browse the forum and download some random files and trust they won't brick your Windows Mobile device.
Mobile operators controlled the market and software on the phones everywhere.
Apple came in, kicked everyone in the butt and changed the whole mobile and app development industry in every country, worldwide, forever.
Mobile operators can no longer dictate phone's software or hardware.
Apple enforced quality, design (UIKit), added manual reviews, mobiles and software became easy and accessible to consumers. They also gave developers a marketplace with instant access to millions (now over a billion) of users with a connected credit card, making a simple purchase just a tap away.
They also took away any issues of selling software worldwide. If you sell your app in Germany or South Korea, you don't need to worry which VAT to charge or when to file your local German tax reports.
And so many more things, from insane APIs, app discoverability and to all the billions they spent on software and hardware R&D to make apps even better.
And now you're telling they do nothing except bullying and extortion.
Seriously, it's so unbelievable that people forget what the world was just a few years ago, and suddenly feel so entitled that it's their basic human right to have access to a 1+ billion people marketplace to distribute their software.
If you would tell anyone 15 years ago that they would be able to sell software on a digital shelf where 1 billion people can find and purchase it in under 30 seconds, they wouldn't believe you.
But today, you're saying what Apple made possible after making a huge bet and changing everyones lives, are suddenly bullies and extortionist...
Part of how we got apps on phones was by Apple bullying corps in the names of users. I remember how Apple leveraged their desirability to get AT&T to do all kinds of things they previously blocked outright.
They were bullies, and they're still bullies. It's just that we really needed a bully back then to change the telecoms. I'm not convinced they're using their power to make things better for the user anymore. What Epic is doing to Apple feels very similar to what Apple did to AT&T.
Also bad experience often comes after, not at the point of service.
From not being able to get a refund to bad actor abusing the system/personal data/credit card information.
Yes there are financial incentives for Apple to control the App Store, but we also know Apple was always notoriously picky and laser focused on customer experience even before the App Store.
That’s what they do for decades. Vertical integration. Hardware + software fitting like a glove.
That’s how they’ve beaten the music player industry, the phone industry and the tablet industry. And built huge ecosystems around these devices.
By making sure customers have the best experience possible.
Not only they want to keep the marketplace revenue they’ve tirelessly built, but they want to stay the leader in customer satisfaction and I honestly believe they want to keep customers safe and happy.
I don’t really see much customer or Apple benefit for them to give away control over software distribution on their platform.
Pretty much all discussions and Epic’s court case is not about customers, it’s about giving less to Apple and keeping more to themselves. That’s it.
Customers don’t know and don’t care if developers take 70% home or 85% home.
That’s how any physical or digital distribution channels work, from Walmart to PlayStation store.
You don't see it because it's not allowed to be seen. All those things which can't produce with a 30% margin to give away to Apple don't get to exist. All those things that want to use something Apple doesn't allow are not allowed to exist. All those apps which are denied in review for obscure reasons don't get to exist.
> Pretty much all discussions and Epic’s court case is not about customers, it’s about giving less to Apple and keeping more to themselves. That’s it.
For the users supporting Epic and wanting to pay Epic for what they've done, it's about using your own phone as you please. Apple wants to get paid 30% to not veto apps.
To be clear, 'beating' industries in modern capitalism means that you've fully monopolized them without arousing the suspicion of the public. So that much I will concede to you. However, the rest of this genuinely reads like a handful of strawmen. Apple's vertical integration is what they're selling, and people are (rightfully) calling them out for charging so much for what is obviously a zero-margin utility. On top of that, they are already the largest, most powerful private corporate in modern history, by a country mile. What good does society stand to gain by giving away our 30% to a company that has it all?
Apple has an internal problem, a cultural one that started when Woz was shunned. Wozniak was everything great about Apple, he showed that they could deliver both a premium product and every hacker's dream in the same product. He did this before the iPod took off and started printing money, so there's no excuse for MacOS to have outdated coreutils today. That disparity between old Apple's meticulous care and new Apple's complete disregard for anything but profit and customer retention is what brought them into this mess, and it's what's going to kill them in the end.
So by your logic being an excellent negotiator and to make a historic business deal to take industry out of the stone age and make both companies financially successful is bullying?
What’s up with with comments here today? Am I missing /s?
Nonsense, I had a Palm Pre with webOS in 2009 and at that time it had an official App Catalog and you could add third-party repositories to it. PreWare[1] was amazing, and made the Pre one of the best phones I've ever had.
Before that I had a Nokia N900 with Maemo/Meego. It had an app store based on apt, and you could add third-party repositories to it, as well.
> Mobile operators controlled the market and software on the phones everywhere.
They certainly didn't on the Pre, Pre 2 or N900. I had more freedom to install software on my phone in 2010 than I do now with a modern iPhone or iPad.
> If you would tell anyone 15 years ago that they would be able to sell software on a digital shelf where 1 billion people can find and purchase it in under 30 seconds, they wouldn't believe you.
Steam's store existed in 2005.
Also not great examples.
One of the main reasons webOS and Symbian died (including Windows Phone by the way) is because they barely had any apps and developers didn’t want to build for those platforms.
Because either the developer APIs were bad, the hardware was slow or there weren’t many people around on those platforms.
Microsoft tried to incentivise developers, but it didn’t work.
And consumers didn’t want to stick around those platforms.
So it shown us that:
- people want to stick on platforms with active developers
- developers want to develop for platforms with great APIs, hardware and great distribution
RIM, Nokia and Palm tried, burned billions, but the market (via consumers and developers) has spoken, and made Apple right - people care about experience, whether they are people that consume or build the software.
It’s no easy feat for new entrants (Google & Apple) to dethrone existing mammoths.
But they’ve done it and turned others into history and a business lesson about innovation and changing the status quo.
They had a single rule for developers - we’ll charge you fee for our work (R&D, APIs, software, hardware, distribution, handling payments and taxes worldwide).
Developers voluntarily agreed and chosen Apple (then Google) instead of what RIM, Nokia and Palm offered.
In the end I feel it was the right decision, everyone won.
Now, after history’s been made and unsuccessful platform and models died out, developers (companies) decided to change their mind: "Hey, remember how we agreed to your rules and changed the world together? Well, we want to go back to the days of no distribution and marketplace fees, but still have access to the best hardware and billion people on your platforms. We don't care that it's normal for other marketplaces to charge 30-50% fees (Walmart/PlayStation), you're a monopoly!" (even though we know Apple is not a monopoly, and developers played a huge part in demise of the 3rd player in the market - Microsoft) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was the burning memo that destroyed all trusth from third parties.
The transition to Qt/PIPS was the third of its kind, so most just decided "I am out of here".
I used my Symbian Belle device until that stoped being an option.
Bell [0] brought the home telephone to tens of millions of people. They made it affordable and reliable. They laid millions of miles of wires, provided tens of thousands of high paying jobs, and made life measurably safer.
They improved the quality of life for everyone. The improvement is practically immeasurable.
Despite what they did, they (and their descendants) went on to become the very villains you deride in your post. Imagine that!
The Bell companies introduced world-changing technology and were richly rewarded. Then they morphed into abusive monopolists. Funny how we've come full circle.
I had an LG Chocolate in 2006 and you could get new apps on your device in a few ways, but primarily through LG's own "app store" which was just an app pre-installed on the phone. At the time it wasn't much different than what we have now really, just much less polished. In the end, it still comes down to the phone manufacturers (and carriers) deciding what apps you can or cannot easily install on your phone.
Selection wasn't great back then, but mobile devices were very limited and the demand wasn't there either.
Your argument would also mean that HP, Dell, Microsoft and any other OEM or enabler of functionality should be able extract payment after the sale of a device is done. Should every computer program require license payment to the OEM?
I think people should be able to use what they bought as they want and need. The device manufacturer should not be involved post-sale unless the consumer wants it.
If Apple's system were really as good as you claim, it would be a monopoly on it's own merit alongside alternative stores. However, without the opportunity to exercise such a theory, we simply have to assume the worst (or prepare to be proven wrong).
Could you point me to this sandboxed/containerized packaging system for third party applications with capability-based entitlements that existed decades prior?
AFAIK the only widespread Linux system which has this today is Android. Microsoft added one in Windows 8. Both those happened after the App Store.
For future reference, FreeBSD has Capsicum which implements capability-based security.
Not one word is dishonest. Please don't attack me.
Apple was not the first to market with a capacitive touch screen phone. LG Prada and others beat iPhone to announcement and launch. Apple won because of build quality and brand power. They fought so hard that they won 50+% of the American market, when there could have been room for far more players.
Steve Jobs focused on making sure Apple had a monopoly over the software executing on the iPhone processor. Devices that came before it were mostly open. The marketplace was Jobs' idea.
If Jobs had tried this with Mac back in the early 2000s, it would have failed. He got to do it with iPhone because he dominated the market.
It doesn't make it fair or right.
This really depended on your carrier and handset. My iPhone 3G was my first unlocked device, and the first one I could actually build and run software on.
Apple wasn't the first "store", because the carriers tried and failed to operate the same model (curated store of apps from partners, pre-established billing, a big cut for the privilege of working with them, etc).
Apple took off because they had a compelling platform to develop software for, and they were willing to work with orders of magnitude more developers. Apple also was willing to put the store front and center, on the first screen after you set up your phone, and make apps the primary value of the "phone" itself.
> If Jobs had tried this with Mac back in the early 2000s, it would have failed. He got to do it with iPhone because he dominated the market.
If Jobs had tried to do this with the Mac in 2000s, he would be mandating a more closed distribution model and generally more closed operational model, after devices had been in market for 16+ years.
Thats why the Mac has been moving that way as a game of inches over the last decade, while the iPad started there day 1. Just like the iPhone, the platform has only ever had one real supported way for the masses to get software, and the entire security stack is built around it.
Domination would imply that Xbox and Playstation stores (which BTW launched before the iOS App Store) are somehow both dominant, and now Nintendo has emerged into the market also dominant. It is how those platforms were designed. A platform designed like that would likely fade to nothingness just as locked down.
So you make 10's of millions a year off your cut from them. Horrible.
You can. Nothing is stoping you. Just do it.
Nobody would force you not to continue using the Apple Store or maybe an even better store with even better reviews and with an actual quality static analyzer. Apple fans will say that evil apps will go to the bad App Store, then this would be a great news for you and if for some reason a super quality not evil app will not be on the App Store you can then ask yourself why good apps don't want to.
For sure you will get the option to install a numberous number of GPL software.
There is nothing Apple needs to do to 'protect' you: people are buying the app, it's probably doing something well.
Apple is just milking the developer.
"Useful" is a huge stretch. I tried the game "egg, inc" this weekend and one of the mechanics forces you to view adds for other apps, and it's all addiction mechanics with an indecent 'skin' on them.
For example, there is one bejeweled-like game where there is a king who is being tortured, and you must make matches at speed or the spikes are driven into him, or he is forced to pee himself. There is another 'match two' like game where your reward is to take a female character and shave her head so she acts ashamed, and then dress her in streetwalker clothing.
Ultimately, Apple (and Google) have incentivized developers to make terrible games full of ads. Perhaps that is a larger problem that requires a broader, more systemic solution.
Similarly, when I put my user hat on (as opposed to my SWE hat) I appreciate the curation, at least compared to the Wild West of downloading applications off the internet.
But the impact to global productivity is substantial. Less innovation occurs. Less energy to try new things. Money doesn't spread as widely as it should.
For example, take this dumb phone[1]. It is powered by a Mediatek processor whose IP is freely shared. The innovation that resulted is not something better like an iPhone. Instead 1000s of different shells or an additional button here or there.
[0]: https://hackaday.com/tag/mt6260/
[1]:http://bunniefoo.com/fernvale/fernvale-phone-spread.jpg
I guess this scenario might be a bit different since we are talking about software...but i'm not so sure.
To be clear, my assumption are based on what I read about developer houses like this. Sometimes (though it is rare) their accounts are getting closed on App Store and they hit the news.
The app store, review process, and (especially) Apple's demands for 30% of everything make dealing with them easily the worst aspect of my work.
Apple makes several million/year off their cut from me, and I would drop the App Store in a heartbeat if I could.