Apple sells huge amounts of ads, I believe it's the fastest growing part of the business right now. Estimates are $5 billion in advertising revenue in 2021, with one projection of $20 billion annually within 3 years. In addition to this, Google pays them $15 billion to be the default search engine and sell ads.

https://www.ft.com/content/074b881f-a931-4986-888e-2ac53e286...

That was just the best answer he had to questions about third-party apps until they had the infra in place for it.

Apple will never tell you ahead of time about changes like that. So, while I wouldn't exactly call it lying, you'll get answers like the above.

Most of the money Apple gets from the App Store is from pay to win games - north of 80%. It came out in the Epic Trial.

Apple doesn’t really care if your banking app is a website or an app. They don’t make money either way.

Most apps on the App Store that could be a web app don’t charge users.

Not only that, the data for those apps are on a remote server that is accessible via any other platform. Even when an app uses the standard file picker, you can choose any installed cloud storage device to save and load files - ie iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive etc.

But the money they make on ads in the App Store has to pale in comparison to how much they get from Google

Now there must be more but $99 * 20 million is not nothing in annual revenue which is mostly profit.

If you have a company with 100 iOS developers, you only need to pay for one account that has permission to submit an app.

If you are exclusively a Mac developer, you don’t have to pay anything unless you are submitting to the Mac App Store.

A “registered developer” is not necessarily a “paying developer”, you can register as a developer to get documentation etc.

If you are working for a company creating an app, not all developers need to pay to publish an app. Also Mac developers don’t pay to distribute an app.

What the heck is a nothingburger?

It's not a paid app, just part of the walled garden experience.

Based upon their actions I don't believe that Apple cares about the web beyond the bare minimum they have to to provide a tolerable browser experience for their users until everything happens via Apps.

That's even more true for publicly traded companies

They're being paid handsomely, by Google:

> In 2020, The New York Times reported that Apple receives an estimated $8-12 billion per year in exchange for making Google the default search on its devices. According to one analyst, Google's payment to Apple in 2021 to maintain this status quo may have reached up to $15 billion.

1. https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/05/google-pays-apple-stay-...

Apple sells ads on search indirectly via Google. (Google pays Apple to be the default search engine.)

Google’s payment to Apple is bigger than the revenue Apple makes from the Apple Watch.

There is sadly not a version or equivalent on macOS, but Christian has confirmed it is in-development.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/amplosion-redirect-amp-links/i...

P.S. Pairs well with PiPifier to bypass YouTube not allowing picture-in-picture or playing in the background without a subscription, and a good ad blocker.