Also a lot of companies make apps so they can get more tracking info. That value doesn't come from the Apple Store.
It's things like games that really get an advantage from being native and in the store. And that's largely a red queen's race, they need to stay on top and they'll pay out the nose to be the easiest install. Paying lots of money in a zero-sum situation doesn't mean they're getting much value in a more zoomed-out sense.
Not everything needs to be an app.
I strongly disagree with that. The store is not the reason apps are good for lots of things. You can assign a lot of value to phone and OS, but Apple does not try to take a cut based on making the phone and OS because it would be hard to defend. The store pales in comparison.
If the CEOs could sign a petition that had a sure chance of antitrust action against Apple's fees, every single one of them would be itching to sign.
Mob boss behavior.
Wondering about that, too - I always use the website on my ipad since a browser allows me to enlarge the font size when reading novels on Patreon (a feature that the app does not offer).
* Users have been indoctrinated by years of marketing (e.g. the "there's an app for that" ads).
* Safari hides the "add to home screen button" deep within the share menu, and home screen real estate is incredibly valuable. Native apps have the advantage of Smart Banners [1].
* For several years Webkit didn't support notifications, and as much as I hate annoying notifications, it's undoubtably useful from a business perspective to be able to ping users and remind them to use your application. Even after allowing notifications in Webkit, they made sure to introduce Live Activities which are exclusive to native apps.
Apple & Google Pay is my guess. Which I don't use, just because it's rent seeking and leads to this.
I use the websites. Don't want to install bloody apps which request every permission available. My browser has most of those set to denied. Don't even ask for permission, outright deny.
What makes a normal CC better?
One doesn't need a phone or battery to use it, just a bank account and the plastic. Google and Apple now want to become Visa. Yes, their system is more secure.
If not, what’s the difference between it and an app?
Apple Pay is a percentage paid by the bank, not the merchant.
In-app purchase is for an app being used to buy digital goods and services consumed in-app. The agreement for publishing apps says that you will give Apple a cut, and upfront purchase price and in-app purchases are how they collect it.
You can’t use in-app purchases to say order dinner to be delivered.
It would start slowly, with a minor value-add (e.g., making it easier to put/use CC info in the secure enclave, or whatever incremental step they choose), and an announcement that in exchange for "easing payments and making them more secure", Apple will be charging X% of transactions with their system.
On iOS, In-app-purchases (IAP) are used inside an app to purchase content. Because it's on Apple's device using Apple's SDK and APIs and hardware, Apple takes a 30% cut of the fee, so you charge $10, Apple takes $3 and gives you $7. Inside of the app, it uses Apple Pay, but because it's in the app, Apple takes 30%.
And it should be noted most Patreon users find their way there via YouTube, which itself automatically opens links to Safari, where Patreon can be subscribed to easily.
Assuming the average user accesses Pateron by clicking a link, there's really no reason for a dedicated Patreon app to exist. Apple Pay works just fine on websites, without demanding the App Store fee.
AppStore is horrendously bad for discoverabilty. It's overrun with scammy ads, fake reviews and fake apps.
because apple gimps their web browser capabilities & performance to incentivize developers to enter the walled garden
I can understand that developers would like to use certain feature, or that they'd make the job easier, but they are not required. Patreon isn't cutting edge web development, you could make it work on an IE8 if you cared enough. There it absolutely no features currently lacking in Safari that would prevent Patreon in moving to website only.
0. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
* An easy way to "install" the app. People want an icon on their home screen.
* To work offline and have a decent amount of storage for images and such.
* To start in a reasonable amount of time, even if the network is flaky.
And a bunch more of requirements. But just these three are hard to accomplish as a PWA. It should be possible, sure, but you'll be investing a lot of development time in what eventually amounts to an inferior experience when compared with a native app.
So, platform developers have to take iOS support very seriously or miss a lot of profit.
It’s not like Patreon would be unusable on iOS without an app.
Forms are pretty darn important to 99.9% of web apps, this felt like active sabotage.
No. We have AppStore for the hundreds of thousands of apps that cannot be implemented using web tech. And for hundreds of thousands of apps that people could implement using web tech, but don't want to for various reasons, both big (too many workarounds) to small (abysmal performance for the simplest tasks)
These are not disconnected, though. The web COULD be made to support more of these use cases, but Apple wouldn't be able to collect 30% of the profits. Safari was a laggard for many years while the App Store was being entrenched.
No, it couldn't
> but Apple
Apple has nothing to do with the fact that the web can barely render a page of static text and images without stutter. Almost every single app made with web technologies is a slow bloated abomination barely capable of doing a few primitive things right. And those that aren't have insane amounts of effort poured into them.
If you believe that Apple has something to do with it, why isn't there a flood of amazing smooth native-like apps on Android where none of the real or perceived limitations exist? Why is there a Google Play store with hundreds of thousands of apps?
Note how you addressed nothing I wrote.
Adieu.
Not sure what to address in your post since only your contempt against the web was of especial note. There are more apps in the Android Play Store than the iOS App Store. There are also third party app stores offered by Amazon, Samsung, including OSS ones like F-Droid. So..I am not sure what point you were trying to make, sorry.
But I do think that the situation we are in where any company have to develop an application when the web does it nice enough (and it’s especially true for products such as Patreon) is pretty ridiculous.
Of all the companies around, Patreon is one who could easily avoid this in app fee nonsense just by avoiding having an app in the first place (or at least having an app for subscribers, maybe the app is useful for content creators).
I’d totally prefer a situation where Apple wouldn’t act like dicks but by accepting this situation, Patreon is just legitimizing Apple behavior.
That's the biggest complain of every web app developer but you are saying that Safari is already great for that while excusing Apple's behavior. Wow.
So let me repeat my opinion : yes Safari lacks a lot of features and APIs to be a good application platform. Yes, Apple is a shitty company especially when it comes to app policies. But, in the current state of affairs, Safari is enough for simple applications/websites such as Patreon.
When they are asked to search for a website, they open the app store and search there. If there is no result, they give up.
> Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website.
[0]: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
Though honestly jokes aside, this rule still doesn't make a lot of sense (to me). Webapps are capable enough. What does Uber's app, or the Google app do, that's different from their websites? Heck, even Apple's own notes app is simple enough that I'm fairly sure you could make a webapp out of it. I think tasks.org already has such a webapp/website.
... Thus the conversation in the first place.
At least the spying is efficient, I guess.
[1] https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221
[2] https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-websites-and-apps-coll...
I'd love to know where this idea started, because I'm not convinced it's actually based on any kind of real data. If it is, I don't think it's accurate for the past 5+ years.
Knowledge of the web is probably flat. And apps and smartphones have peaked in the West. Those are my anecdotes to add, since that seems to be what we're doing.
This line of thinking could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy the more it's spread, too.
This 2023 study[0] indicates 48% of people discover apps by browsing through the App Stores, compared to 21% that discover them through Web search engines.
Is this a trend?
This 2015 study[1] indicates 40% of people browse for apps in the App Stores, compared to 25% (“1 in 4”) that discover them through Web search engines.
Does this apply to Patreon?
The CEO of Patreon had this to say:[2]
> iOS is actually now the most used platform for communities on Patreon.
[0]: https://www.semrush.com/blog/app-store-optimization/
[1]: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and...
I posit this segment of the overall population in non-developing countries is flat for the last 5+ years. Apps surged for a decade and caused a lot of handwringing about the web's future, but it's clear the web is here to stay. The new AI craze wouldn't have even gotten off the ground without the web's corpus of recent and relevant data.
The web is just too frictionless. It's old and crufty and for old fuddy duddies (I don't know how Gens Z/Alpha view the web vs. apps, but that's not this conversation -- they know it exists and they're savvy enough to use it when necessary). It's like email. Will it ever be sexy "again"? No. But I think it'll always be there.
Kids don't use email... until they need to for their job or college, etc. Email will never die. The web will follow a similar trajectory.
If the money flees the consumer side of the web (more focus on paid native apps, the death of third-party cookies and possibly the ad ecosystem, etc.), that inches the content back to the 90s/early 00s ideal, which I'm all for. But that might be overly optimistic.
He was somewhat appeased when I helped him find the Spotify Mac app though. Just going to their website just presented the music interface, with no links to the app download (which isn’t available in the Mac app store I would guess, since the BF hadn’t found it.)
Developers not allowing iPad apps to run on M-Series Mac’s are really hurting themselves with the younger set.
I will say that if you've spent any time trying to develop a web-based app it becomes painfully obvious that Apple is doing the absolute bare minimum to support the browser on iOS. PWAs are barely functional.
That Patreon is even considering keeping the app is proof of this.
Depending on how overt Patreon's app is about ringing the alarm bells (imagine a "JUST MAKE A SHORTCUT and save 30% on everything!!!" popup) would just get them banned too, no doubt. Presumably criticizing Apple is a bannable offense.
No, that Patreon is "even considering" keeping the app is evidence that they get more valuable information about users and their habits from the app than they could from a website.
If the experience in an app is form, graphs, and payments... use the website. It apparently saves that company 30% and, to your point, keeps your computing habits yours.
Facts are simple here: Apps grant easier access your habits and identity as compared to a relatively-sandboxed browser.
Web apps are subpar compared to native apps.
I'm not surprised Apple is in no hurry to further enable lowest-common-denominator shovelware.
Electron is a plague on macOS.
You may not like it but programmer reading news in HN is not common in global scale
plus mobile apps is just value added, same reason you have dekstop app vs webapp
I didn’t know there is an app and I don’t care.
Or just add a clickbait title: "See here to find out if you are eligible to discounted prices!" to a link to the web site.
Of course buyer has to be able to disable the 30% discount on the web site, to make it plausible that the normal prices are the ones on iOS. And all billing lines in the invoice always have to include a 30% discount line on Android and web purchases.
No. You are not allowed to provide customers any details about other payment options. Apple has provisions that basically say, "you must not encourage the user to use a different payment option." And Apple can interpret that quite broadly; telling users that another platform has a discount would be treated as a violation.
> "See here to find out if you are eligible to discounted prices!" to a link to the web site.
This would be a violation of Apple's policies.
I sort of understand why people have a hard time grasping this, and I don't think it's through any fault of their own. It's because it's such an obviously anti-consumer, anti-competitive policy that I think normal people assume "it cannot possibly be the policy that Apple has."
There's almost a defense in audacity: Patreon must be lying about its options because, come on, Apple wouldn't seriously ban links, right? No company would be that bold, right?
The policy is so blatant that people assume there must be something they're misunderstanding about it.
So I don't know what's the case here, but sounds like people who get confused by bubbles of different colors
There is the simple solution taken by companies like Spotify and Netflix.
Have a free app for users, but only accept payments through your own website.
In which case, Apple doesn't get a dime.
If you don't qualify as a "reader" app, what you're suggesting actually isn't allowed - you're _required_ to offer IAP if you provide access to the service in-app
3.1.3(b) - "may allow users to access content [...] provided those items are also available as in-app purchases within the app"
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#oth...
The app I work on is a content app, but they decided it did not qualify as a "reader" app because we had polls alongside the content, which were interactive and therefore excluded us from the definition.
Same with Floatplane, a streaming platform from LTT.
If you actually try to copy Spotify / Amazon you find out very quickly they have exclusive deals and their own account managers. You actually will not get approved for 5-6 months if you try to copy them, and even use their same exact UI and verbiage.
This is the part of the problem with Apple app store.
Free apps that allow users to access paid subscription content aren't required to accept payments for the subscription through the app.
> Offer subscriptions through your own website or app rather than the app stores. This allows you to process payments directly and avoid the 30% fees. However, you'll need to provide your own payment processing and customer support.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-avoid-paying-a-30-co...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzQw3kEbEio
You can say it's easy, but if you try to make your app only take payments off platform you will fight with Apple for months.
Apple will gladly say they aren't preventing you from taking payment off platform and then make your life hell. They are big enough that this isn't some accident, this is 100% on purpose.
The whole LTT saga went on for nearly 2 years, you can watch all of it through their podcast: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=floatplane+appl... AND they had the benefit of having millions of viewer leading to them getting an active account manager... Imagine some random company.
Notifications. Performance. Responsiveness. Bandwidth. Offline access. And a lot of users simply find apps to be more convenient than browser bookmarks. I use the web interface for Patreon, but I can see why some users would want the app.
Why does Apple themselves have apps for things like maps, news, stocks, weather, video chats, etc? These all rely on web services and could theoretically be handled in the browser. I don't think any of these examples even provide users the ability to buy anything. Clearly Apple recognizes a value in some services being available through native mobile apps.
No thanks.
> Performance. Responsiveness. Bandwidth. Offline access.
Isn't Patreon basically a web site where you can pay a subscription to ... something? Why would it need all that? Does the subscriber content get delivered through Patreon?
> Does the subscriber content get delivered through Patreon?
Yes. Many of creators deliver media content through Patreon.
Announcements, updates, Q&As, early access to regular content, bonus behind-the-scenes content, and sometimes exclusive content. It all depends on the creator.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
I assumed it was so they could skirt around the privacy built more consistently into web browsers. Or that they are still stuck in the "There's an app for that" era that I think we have collectively left behind.
Based on the context given in the OP, this conclusion does not follow and is not fair.
1. Patreon is passing the 30% on to customers by default, or allowing creators to pay for it out of their existing income, so Patreon isn’t making any value judgement at all. They are leaving it up to creators and users.
2. Even if they weren’t doing (1), there are other factors in play that don’t make this a fair “experiment”. Most notably that established platforms like Amazon and Spotify _don’t_ find the value here, contradicting your assertion that most companies do.
Note: I didn't think Apple historically allowed (1), which also invalidates the “experiment”, but maybe terms have changed recently.
That’s incorrect. They are phasing out two of their three payment options (per creation and first of month) for all creators in order to have the right to operate an app on iOS. That’s a value judgment - Patreon would rather have an app than continue to make independent business judgments. They could have said “well, people can just use their browser on iOS” and it would have meant far fewer changes to their business. The browser only approach is clearly not preferred.
Clearly, having an app with easy payment infra is worth a lot, just as the person you’re replying to suggested.
The question is why the web never developed effective single sign on payment solutions.
Nothing is answering the question, “would Patreon itself take a 30% hit to margin just to operate natively iOS”? I am pretty dubious.
My point still stands that none of this is fair first principles representation of the value the platform provides. I’m sure the product conversation and user research inside Patreon HQ is much more along the lines of “fuck you Apple you’re making me choose my 10% iOS user base over the 7% of global users that happily use per-creation billing”. Not “oh Apple was right subscriptions are a more consistent payment model for users why didn't we realize that before thanks Apple here’s your 30% rev share for the idea let’s just pass that cost on to our iOS users they won’t mind”. LOL
You say there is extortion pushing them to do this. I don’t dispute this. But Patreon has a clear choice. Exit the extortion game and just be on the web not in the App Store, or stay in the App Store and deface their own business. They chose the latter yet you claim they made no value judgment. They did, they chose the Apple extortion path. It takes two to keep a dysfunctional relationship going.
I’m not suggesting this is good or defending Apples behavior. I’m saying they absolutely made a value judgment and went heavily to the “stay in Apple’s good graces” side. This is not some neutral thing.
Stop making apps when a website will suffice.
Most people pay for things for convenience and perceived value. There is very little convience or perceived value in having to go to a mobile/safari/ios website, log in, and then download a for example 1gig podcast tothen have to find it in my "downloads" and then play via some media player.
Well, there is a simple way to test this... just get rid of the Patreon iOS app and just use a web version. Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based?
I wish fewer companies had apps. I don't need an app for everything. I don't need every hotel I stay at to have their own app, I don't need an app to order food at a restaurant.
So why do companies make them? Because people spend more money when they can just use the in app purchase functionality. It is CLEARLY worth the 30% to most companies, because they keep pumping out single use apps that would be better as a mobile web page.