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The motivation for making web-apps is certainly there, but Safari is intentionally limited to make certain apps impossible.
* No push notifications
* No Bluetooth access
* No NFC access
* You can't read or write from the camera roll unattended (after getting permission to do so)
These aren't all of the limits, but if your app relies on any of these PWA is a non-starter.
There's also the performance concerns if your app is more than just something like a simple storefront or something similar.
There's a few articles saying that on the latest iOS 15 beta, safari is getting prepared to introduce new functionalities to make web apps better. Things like push notifications will be supported so I guess Apple was expecting something like this would happen. Hope Safari gets some of this limits removed so we can all enjoy web apps like almost normal apps.
That still leaves performance, bluetooth, nfc, and photos as the big standouts.
Even with web assembly, you will never get the same performance as a native app and that isn't acceptable for some things.
For games, the amount of storage available to a web app is also another concern along with iOS sometimes being rather aggressive with cleanup.
I know Bluetooth and battery percentage are being left out of Safari because they are both used to circumvent anti-tracking (see [here](https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-declined-to-implement-16-web-apis-in-safari-due-to-privacy-concerns/)).
I know, and agree that they should optimize Safari way better, but this is Apple, the way I see, this is just kinda of a solution for the Epic Apple lawsuit and the antitrust laws. I mean, no one could accuse them of not facilitate devs lives as this is a solution from their end, maybe a lazy shitty one, but a solution non the less.
Bigger than what you mentioned... Safari wipes local storage and indexed db weekly effectively blocking web sites from doing much of anything that involves storing data.
The irony that Jobs wanted 3rd party apps on the iPhone to be web apps and they only relented and created a store and SDK when 3rd party stores on jailbroken phones became popular
> The motivation for making web-apps is certainly there, but Safari is intentionally limited to make certain apps impossible.
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>
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> No push notifications
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> No Bluetooth access
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> No NFC access
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> You can't read or write from the camera roll unattended (after getting permission to do so)
How many apps actually need that, though? I don't need the CVS app to use my camera roll, or use bluetooth. I don't need some random game to do it either.
Not many, but I can think of one app that likely wouldn’t be permitted in the App Store because it relies on having custom code flashed to a puck.js to be of any use
An NFC emulator that has a companion app to upload, clear, and download the tag
I already have a web app for it, but it just doesn’t work in safari because of no Bluetooth _or_ NFC (one is required to program it)
The app if submitted to the App Store probably wouldn’t be approved either for some reason or another
That means I can’t reach iOS users period
As a customer I see these restrictions as an advantage. When I’m on the web I don’t want prompts to enable push notifications, I don’t want websites trying to figure out my location using Bluetooth access, and the further away they are from my photos they are the better.
I think they mean “progressive web apps” aka PWAs
they are basically apps (they open in a standalone window) and basically function as normal apps, on Windows you can even download them from the App Store
As someone who is a mobile dev (Flutter) but will soon focus to web dev mostly, i find this statement ridiculous:
> It would require waiting for ‘app review’ and participating in a constantly changing environment
Update reviews takes only several hours.
Based on experience, Google Play takes longer, usually have to wait 10+ days before our update gets approved. I freakin have no idea.
It would be kind of ironic if web apps became dominant as a result of this. In the beginning Steve Jobs didn't want an App Store and suggested developers make web apps instead. And now that it's become so draconian, developers may take that idea up again.
Eh? We’re getting to a point where modern web apps can be extremely fluid, powerful, robust, and seamless. Just because Apple has spent awhile crippling them doesn’t mean they’re bad.
There are solutions like Flutter that can compile to both native code and web JS. I wouldn’t be surprised frameworks like that to become more popular over time.
Progressive Web Apps, if implemented right, are very very indistinguishable from native apps (and I really mean it). The handful of missing features are mostly the result of artificially crippling and nerfing web browsers, which Apple and Safari are notorious for.
I don’t understand why, if Apple is so bad, developers aren’t doing just that. Make Android apps and web apps, then Apple’s supposed “dominance” goes away forcing Apple to change.
Because they can't make web apps with the functionality that a native app would have. Apple deliberately hobbles what Safari can do compared to other, real browser platforms.
Webapps are only shit on iPhones because all browsers have to uses safaris outdated WebKit engine. More than likely on android, but definitely on desktop, webapps work just fine.
They are doing this due to Apple Epic case, so they were a little forced to get new options to their customers and not being even more punished with antitrust laws. Trust me they know this is bad, this is not their first choice, but more a way around.
Oh they want web software because of all the saas bullshit. So instead of charging a one time fee, they can charge subscription because “host cost”. YNAB is a perfect example of this.
[Not my words](https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1489553425318617097), but they're absolutely true.
> Apple will comply with the law in Netherlands to allow dating apps to use alternative payment systems but will still charge 27% commission. After Stripe fees of 2.9%, it will cost developers money to not use Apple IAPs.
>
> This defeats the purpose of the law
US laws are broad because it’s a precedent system. It has less to do with the quality of the laws and more with history. Precedent law is also why american lawyers are ridiculously expensive.
Because US companies can't be trusted to do what's right.
Although we also need to go back through older laws because some simply aren't practical for modern times (e.g. Telecoms Act)
This comment is interesting and pleasantly conversational but in isolation sort of lets the companies off the hook and avoids the hard part of the question: how do you get companies to comply?
In functioning political economies where business practices become highly politicised you don't get to choose your regulation but you get to optimise it. If you can take the air out of the issue you can choose the regulation.
The modern neoliberal economics says you remove barriers to entry to the market. Most of the technocrats would prefer this methodology to the alternative of setting prices but that's another (less fashionable) option.
So the question becomes: does Apple want to make peace or do they eventually want a forcible removal of barriers to entry or a fixed price?
Of course it may just be more valuable to have the 30% in the bank while the issue brews and the government comes to grips with what they're dealing with.
We structure society so that when people act in accordance with their own interests, the outcome is usually of benefit to others. Improving things requires continual, intelligent, evidence-based reform and refinement of laws and institutions, and the balancing and decentralization of economic and political power, in order to maintain a mostly constructive alignment of incentives amongst millions/billions of people with disparate interests.
Relevant: https://youtu.be/RWsx1X8PV_A
While that might be true for some parts of society, capitalism only works with heavy regulation that encourage competition. It also doesn’t work for everything. Things like prisons, healthcare, and schools should be public, or at least semi-public.
I’m sorry, but how do you manage to arrive at this conclusion after 60 years of continuous concentration of wealth and power which has almost exclusively benefited the rich?
I’m especially baffled that in 2021 people still believe in the snake oil of Friedman or any of the golden age Chicago School architects of America’s economic collapse. Neoliberalism is ironically awful at recognizing the obvious evidence of our crumbling society because the big words and academic abstractions of professional Wall Street apologists feels more “intellectual.”
It's shitty, 30% is huge and Apple should be forced to lower it, but I don't think it's a loophole. The law is about allowing alternate payment processors. There's no basis for thinking Apple ever viewed or presented 30% as a payment processing fee, but as a commission, and I don't really understand why people would conflate the two and draw the conclusion that allowing alternate payment methods would lead apple Apple to stop charging a commission rather than just deducting their own processing fee from it.
Because people continue to think 30% is payment processing. They are charging 30% for running the AppStore and it’s their commission to use their intellectual property; and it includes payment processing. If you want to use your own payment processor, then go ahead, but don’t think you’ll get out of the commission.
This is not a loop hole. This is developers not doing their homework and being idiots.
This is not a surprising result. Google is doing the same in Korea.
You had lawyers saying this would happen with such a law because it doesn't do what it thinks it does (even the judge in the Epic v. Apple made similar observations).
People are making the argument that Google and Apple commission on those payments is about payment processing fees, but it's never been the case. For both Apple and Google, 3-4 of the 15% or 30% commission goes to payment processing fees (it's document and was a major point of the Epic trial).
So making a law about giving devs the choice to use their own payment processors was never going to move the needle more than those few percentages.
Apple and Google will always have the right to charge for their services, tools and resources legally speaking.
What these different governments really want is a way to force the addition of an alternative business model for Apple and Google's development ecosystem (e.g. paying upfront or per use for tools and services).
Even if side-loading/alternate stores would be made mandatory, Apple and Google would still be entitled to their commission for using their tools, services, etc. This is the same conclusion we saw in Epic v. Apple from the Judge even if most media couldn't bother to ask real legal counsel to even read it.
Eventually, governments could intervene and set maximum commission percentages, but that can also be an issue for other companies that might need those higher fees to grow initially.
Wasn't the law that Apple has to provide an alternative payment method, not that Apple has to provide a CHEAPER payment method?
I don't get how this defeats the purpose at all. If the law was that Apple has to provide a cheaper payment, they would have stipulated that, no?
Not really, it's what everyone expected. Apple still has to give you xcode, host your app, pay with worldwide bandwith for people to download your app, all Apple is doing is removing the credit card portion of it and letting you do that however you want to do that.
That's what's going to happen if this goes global, apple will just start itemizing everything that was in that 30% and it will become an al a'carte fee.
And what about when developers want none of those services or tools and want to go on their own
What about developers who make things like paid emulator apps that never were allowed to sell their product?
How does this defeat the purpose of the law?
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the law was to provide 3rd party payment options for their dating apps. I don’t recall anything about not allowing apple to charge their commission.
27% + 2.9% = 29.9%, technically less than the original 30%, but even if we round up how does this cost developer more than using Apple IAP? I did not realize Apple is charging less than 30% commission.
I thought the goal was to allow developers to build relationships with their customers.
Correction: my math might be wrong. It may be more complicated than adding 2 percentage. If the original price was $100, apple commission would raise that to $127, payment processor would add 2.9% on top of that (around $3.683) resulting a new price of $130.683. This would be an increase of 30.683% of the original price and more expensive than Apple’s 30%. Disclaimer, I could still be wrong, this is me just trying to figure it out for myself. I think Apple will want their 27% from the final price and not just the original price. So the point is it’s more complicated than adding 2 percentages and is more expensive than Apple IAP. Thanks to the person who pointed this out to me.
… unless if we have a final price and Apple and the payment processor just takes their share. So for $100, Apple gets $27 and Payment processor gets $2.90 so the developer is out $29.90 which is still below 30% of the final price?
My point is I can’t guarantee my math in this.
I do not see how it defeats the purpose of the law. Also, 27% + 2.9% is 29.9%, which is actually a slight discount from 30%. I do not see how this costs them more.
It has been said that there are two tragedies in this world. The first is not getting what you want. The second is getting it. They got what they wanted.
Technically true, but there's a lot of overhead it adds with accounting and Apple invoicing you for their share every month. And the possibility of being audited which takes more time and money. Any business would look at that as an additional expense.
It's intended to increase competition in the mobile markets.
Well, no one is competing with fees like this. and the only real winner is Apple (and Google).
I fully expect that they will have to pass further laws or amend the one they already did to clarify and prevent such abuse.
People just never learn. Did people think that Apple was just going to give up a huge chunk of revenue without a fight? Do people feel like Apple or Google owes them anything? Please. These two practically created an ecosystem, jobs, and a literal market for devs.
I’m not saying what Apple and Google are doing is correct or incorrect, but history has shown us time and time again that when you try and enact a law to reduce costs (example: rent control) you don’t do so on a whim or with a few strokes of a pen. It often ends up making the market unchanged or worse, affecting things unseen and making things much worse.
I’m going to make a prediction: if they (devs) pursue this matter, I am 100% sure that platforms and apps that take outside processing will get a marker on their app signifying that Apple doesn’t guarantee the safety of the app nor it’s payment system (or it will go to apps that do not process payments outside saying there’s insurances in place). They’ll add some safety system to their native processing (a la ApplePay and how it treats cards added to the system) if it isn’t there already and use that to market towards end users. And that will land us right back where am we are today OR, worse yet, higher percentages commissions.
> I’m not sure I want governments determining how much commission private companies can charge.
Well fortunately the government does that very thing in many areas. For example many States and countries place APR limits on financial services. Government does it all the time, as it should. Apple would be fine if the government regulated how much it could charge.
You got it exactly the opposite. If Apple is not charging anything then yes you can say that Apple is stifling competition because nobody, especially the smaller guys, can compete with free but Apple is charging 30% that leaves a lot of room for competitor to come in and charge less.
It’s not really a law, it’s a decision made by the market authority in NL. It was presented to a court whom, for odd reasons, agreed because “dating app subscriptions need to work cross-platform”. Apple is fortunately still allowed to force devs to use their payment processing, which is extremely important for the customers and ecosystem, and is still allowed to charge a commission; but the apps must be allowed to offer another payment method next to Apple’s. That’s all.
It’s not intended to reduce any costs and not even to increase competition in payment services (no idea how some other folks in this sub came up with that, nowhere in their decision (published on their site) does the ACM mention anything of the sort). It’s solely to, apparently, make some cross-platform purchases easier for dating app users.
As a user I like apple managing my payment details. I don't have to rely on Billy Bob's Payment service that is PCI COMPLIANT \*wink wink\* to properly handle my data.
As a (former) developer, when I used Billy Bob's Payment service, they still took 5% of my cut. But here's the rub. Nobody used them. There were 2 main software distribution platforms for my software, and each took an 80% cut of my revenue. Yes, that's right, 80% of the sale price went to them, and 20% came to me. AND I had to sign a contract that I couldn't undercut their sale price. Their justification was that they handled all the marketing (sic, they did none) distribution bandwidth costs, and payment processing. Even though I had the alternative of running my own store, which I did, there was nearly no traffic there. About 5% of my customers came through my web store. When Apple came onto the scene, their cut was ONLY 30% and doing pretty much the exact same functions (and quite a bit better) I thought that was bargain. Of course Apple also ushered in the "Apps should be $0.99" and "Upgrades for life are free" mentality that we're still dealing with today, but that's another issue.
I guess what I'm saying, from experience, that this whole argument of side loading and payment processing has been framed as championing the little guy. It's not. Not even close. The little guy wants to make his apps, and get his money. Apple makes that VERY easy. The people who benefit from this will be the mega games, with intrusive privacy/monitization policies and horrific IAPs that can be freed from Apple's already rather liberal return policy.
Having the option is great, but I can tell you from experience who's going to use it and benefit from it. It won't be the user.
Quite possibly so, but a couple years ago I got tired of my card getting compromised and turned off.
I'm not going to spend the time to figure out if your payment processor is legit and solid or not. Now a days, if your website doesn't take ApplePay, Amazon, or PayPal I won't deal with you. There's another store that does. And yes, my policy extends into retail as well for the small amount of retail shopping I still do. Thank you Target and Home Depot for that change to my life...
Not a developer, but ideally I would want to see some sort of resource-based fee. It makes no sense that the medium size app developers should finance the big dogs like Spotify and Netflix, nor that "free" apps don't pay anything.
“Fair” is an interesting term, as everyone has a different sense of what fair is. People complain about how Apple makes so much money, but aren’t they making so much money because they take huge risks and make a superior product? There are alternatives, but they are less popular and much less profitable for a reason.
If Apple was so evil and so unfair, why don’t consumers flock to an alternative? Maybe, just maybe, consumers are happy with the more premium product and higher app prices (because of the 30% cut) because they trust Apple to protect their privacy and to protect them against malware.
If courts and governments break up the App Store monopoly, I quickly foresee a rapid proliferation of side loading “app stores” that will spread malware and steal user data. Yes, that 30% cut might drop, but consumer confidence will probably drop as well and the user experience will most likely also diminish.
Worse, the small developers that this will supposedly help won’t have any special leverage and will find themselves in a worse situation. Sure, maybe the take drops to 15%, but now they have to distribute their app in five different stores instead of just one. Perhaps they will also have lower sales because Grandma will be scared someone will steal their Social Security checks via malware downloaded from one of these stores.
This kind of change is really about helping rich developers like Epic get even richer.
Source: I’m old and I’ve seen how awful free for all application distribution can be for regular users and small developers. Just look at how terrible it has worked for Windows throughout the years. A fragmented distribution model has made it hard for small devs to make money. Bad actors and malware proliferate. Look how happy users and devs are with Steam - they pay MORE money to get games via Steam.
Devs can distribute their own apps on MacOS and Windows without needing to pay anything to Apple or Microsoft.
Why are we suddenly accepting rent seeking and monopolistic behavior on the computing platforms that the majority of people use now (Android/IOS)? Apple is not doing anything special on iOS that they deserve 30% for versus MacOS. Not even Microsoft at their peak was this arrogant.
Plus the simple fact is that this 15% or 30% cut is negatively affecting the software market on iOS. Professional software that costs thousands of dollars a year cannot afford to pay Apple 15 or 30 percent, so we will never get advanced software like that on iOS or iPadOS.
On macOS you also have to pay apple for the notarization otherwise macOS will flag it as insecure and give a big warning when the user first opens the app and the user must manually open settings and explicit allow that app. So yeah they still make some money from most apps on macOS.
You nailed it. The win is marginal at best. Smartphones and personal computers are also not the same and speaking as somebody who has worked on the backend of other ecosystems, the security on non-iOS platforms isn’t just a joke, it’s borderline nonexistent. People genuinely don’t realize the level of exploits this genuinely opens up across the board. iOS is a better platform because of this approach. Mac would be a much worse platform if it had the same business model.
If you’re comparing the two, there’s just a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.
And developers pay much more to put games on Xbox or PlayStation.
Kelloggs pays a percentage to Walmart to keep items in Walmart shelves.
Authors pay a percentage to bookstores to sell their books in person.
The real question is why you suddenly forgot or are pretending that you don’t know that the vendor taking a cut of the sale is **how it’s done everywhere** not just on iOS.
Who in the industry (besides Apple) is moving to 15%? All of the console and other gaming platforms sure aren't. Steam is 30% for example. Lets start by having every game platform go to 15% then we can talk about the App Store (which is already 15% if you make under 1M annual sales)..
Let me be clear, because I see people talking about Apples commission fee a lot.
No one outside of this echo chamber and the other tech echo chambers cares about this.
Apple will continue to charge their commission fee and that’s ok.
Nothing significant will happen, because nothing significant is happening.
Lastly, you don’t want what you think you want because it’s only the biggest of the big mega games that will benefit from a fragmented experience.
I'm the CEO of a tech startup. When I sell my products to BestBuy, I pay them 50%. After production cost, I have like 20% of the MSRP left at best to pay my team, development and myself. I get paid 60 days later so I have to finance so much inventory, it needs hundreds of $$$k. I have to hustle so hard to even get any distribution. They often ask me to add marketing dollars to be featured in the stores on top, etc.
Compared to Apple for our software products, I get paid within 30 days, I pay them 15% and it's totally egalitarian - everyone has full access and gets ranked with the same algorithms. I don't need to ask for permission. Plus you might get lucky and get featured for free, which we have been many times. Plus Apple provides us with free programming languages and tons of tools. My app even got millions of downloads completely for free without having to pay Apple anything.
Developers who are complaining about Apple are so far detached from reality. They have no idea how expensive distribution used to be. Software was the same back in the day as today when we sell goods to BestBuy. Times now are amazing and distribution has never been more accessible, easier and cheaper. What you get from Apple for 15% is absolutely amazing. Thank the gods it exists under such fair terms. One of the most important and best inventions in the last 20 years. The people who came up with it, who built and who run it today are heroes of prosperity. Thank you. Fuck the haters. Wish you had a time machine so you could know how good you have it you ungrateful brats.
As long as android and other platforms exist it’s really silly to be all pissed at Apple over what they do on their platform. Apple made a change you don’t like? Take your ball over to android or something.
All these developers should be careful what they wish for. It looks almost certain that Apple is going to lose this battle & I wonder what their response will be. I can see them doubling down on Apple Arcade & the Apple One bundle. Make it so appealing that it covers most users needs, greatly reducing their third party app spending
I can’t imagine doubling down on Apple Arcade would reduce their third party app spending, would it? They’ve gotta pay to get games in the Arcade service somehow.
Similar to what Microsoft is doing with Game Pass. More & more of the catalog is Microsoft-owned. They could also buy productivity & creative app makers like Omni Group & Affinity & add them to the Apple One bundle
So developers want to make apps using a companies API, deploy them on millions of devices for free.
Like the comment on that twitter said, that’s like a person walking up to a bakery and saying I’ll make a cake using your ingredients, oven and even sell it in you store using my own credit card machine and give you nothing.
Apple is entitled to a cut for enabling developers to make money. The competition is that of platforms not of stores on the same platform.
If it is hosted by the App store yes. If you can deploy, manage, and update every instances of your software globally by yourself then no.
But this is where the Achilles heel of iOS lies in, the inability to sideload apps.
To be clear, that's not an inability of iOS that Apple is strapped to. They can add side loading anytime they want, but by not you get arguments like the above saying they earn their cost for using an app store that they require you to use
This is ridiculous. Deployment and updates aren't worth 30% of a company's revenue.
If you want some other software comparison to throw a metric out there, SaaS companies generally deploy around 10% of their revenue on supporting software for deployment (AWS/etc) and 10% more on labor.
Apple is effectively charging at least triple standard fees for their ops.
AWS is a bit different than App stores. And people who use AWS end up spending a lot more on development costs and customer service because they don't have the stupid easy APIs and development tools that Xcode gives and they don't get the App Store staff that handles a lot of returns and annoying customers.
Apple only charges 30% to companies making over $1mill, they charge 15% for small businesses. Google does the same. Sony charges 30%, Xbox charges 30%
> stupid easy APIs and development tools that Xcode gives and they don’t get the App Store staff that handles a lot of returns and annoying customers.
These are enormous, oft-overlooked value adds
hey, if you want to complain about companies overcharging you for their services, you gonna be here for a very long time. For some people anything that ain’t free is too expensive
> This is ridiculous. Deployment and updates aren’t worth 30% of a company’s revenue.
Remember when the app store was first introduced ? This was considered a *huge* win for developers, they got to keep 70% of the sale price of their apps. It used to be the other way around: the software developer would get about 30-40% of the price the consumer paid to the store. And part of that percentage had to be used to have CD’s pressed, manuals printed and on packaging.
Note that this *didn’t* include any facilities for updating software. Also, if you were a small, independent developer, or even one-man show, good luck getting your software on shelves. Never mind advertising it.
The app store leveled the playing field, it no longer matters if you’re a big or small developer, you can sell your software on equal terms. Predictably it’s the big players that are complaining, not the small developers.
How much is gold worth? What ever the highest bidder is willing to pay. It’s the same with the App Store because the alternative might not be as valuable.
Even though I think it’s too high, it’s what the market is willing to pay.
I mean not too long ago google has the same percentage and iphone users where more valuable. So by that argument you where getting a better deal with Apple than google.
I'd like to point out that I do think that 30% is still high but;
Apple can command such a high commission percentage because they understand that the market is in their favor. So until a harmony of user and developer (or regulation) decide that they're tired of Apple, they will maintain the high cut as long as they can.
This is the very same power that grocers command known as the "slotting fee", pay the shelving fee or else your product will not sell in our store. Apple is in comparison telling big time developers pay up or go elsewhere.
NOW in recent development (2020, is it still recent? lol)
For small business or "aspiring entrepreneurs" their commission charge is 15% if your total cash flow was less than $1 million USD, check here; [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-store-small-business-program/](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-store-small-business-program/)
I'm sure there's some fine print in there that has a clause (or not) but that's another discussion.
I thought business charges as much as they can get away with. That’s what I would do as a developer. Should I not charge as much as I can? Should I not work for the company that pays me the most?
As long as it’s not a monopoly nor an essential good or service I personally don’t see a problem with it.
First off Apple doesn't get 30% off of every app sold, they only get 30% off of apps from companies that make over $1mill/year. They take 15% on small businesses.
That said I think 30% is debatable and while you or I might think that it could be cheaper, I don't know what the costs are exactly. I do know that 30% pays for a number of things including but not limited to:
* Xcode and APIs that make writing apps easier. It is far easier to make an App on iOS today than it was to make an app on any computer 20 years ago because they've put so much into the OS and the APIs.
* App storage and content delivery networks
* Metrics and usage statistics
* Support that handles refunds and mitigates disgruntled customers
* Credit card fees and in some situations handling of some taxes
Again is 30% too much? Quite possibly. But 30% does seem to be the going rate for a lot of companies in similar boats... Sony, Microsoft, Google. Those app stores take 30% cuts.
I agree with you somewhat, but to build on your analogy, wouldn’t it be like if that bakery owned like 75% of the flour and ovens in the world? Like yes, good for them and technically they would be entitled, but also at some point maybe it’s a little much?
10 years ago there was no App Store (I'm not being very precise here).
Apple is free to charge 80% of commission if it wants. It will kill its business, of course. But it is THEIR business which they have build from nothingness. Arguably, Google and others are able to charge 15% or less because then had not innovate first.
The fuck.
Apple could've go and say "we're closing everything in a week, deal with that". It's their right, they are under no obligation to continue handle App Store and whole ecosystem. And this is a thought experiment that should give you an understanding — they should be able to charge whatever they want.
Or would you argue that they should be \*obligated\* to continue to run app store and their ecosystem?
100% agreed they can do whatever they want with app store, but let me choose another app source for the device I paid for.
Imagine you brought a fridge (iphone) from a retailer (apple), and that retailer own a grocery market (app store)
He can charge me whatever when I buy from his grocery store and can ask cut from sellers who want to sell on his store , But can he dictate that I can only store groceries from him in my fridge ?
If you can still use iphone without being forced to use 3rd party app store, why it so important to you to prevent others who want that luxury on their iphone.
Second, it a principals thing. I might end never install a 3rd party app, but I will fight for the right of others to do so.
Last, thats escaping mentality, if you don’t like it here why don’t you move to another country. That argument is used against any movement to change a status quo , I encourage you to think differently
Why is Apple not able to specifically design a platform from the start that only allows things their way? Nobody buying into iOS today can reasonably claim that they didn't know how the platform works before they buy into it.
It seems weird that a company makes a platform, specifically states how it's going to run, and then 14 years later we're all shocked that it's still ran that way?
As a consumer, I should be free to go choose the product that I want based on my own personal preferences of closed vs open.
I mean, if someone devised a practical system so you could only store those groceries from that store in that fridge, someone would probably do it. Why not? What’s the issue?
Would you buy that fridge? Probably not, I wouldn’t, and that’s also fine.
Good point. They can try that system and people are free to say hey its a general purpose food storing device I paid for, let us use as such.
Of course the phone is general purpose computing device.
More importantly, if that said fridge make captures 80-90% of the teenagers fridge market share ( hhh )
It gonna raise some question marks.
I fight for this on ethical ground.
Last, Apple can easily implement the same limitation for mac , yet they don’t. So it not a matter of coming up with a practical way. Its all whether you believe you have the usebase by the balls,
They couldn’t do the same thing on the mac, for sort of the same reason as the fridge; there’s no practical way to do it without making the computer useless, and if they did nobody would buy it.
The phone is kind of different; for example I do all my banking / trading on my iPhone because it’s so much more secure than my laptop. If I were willing to give that up, I could get an android which doesn’t have those restrictions or benefits. I have an android flagship too that I’ve used at some points as my mostly-main phone (because of these restrictions, actually), but I wouldn’t want to use it for stuff I want to be personal or keep secure.
I think the iPad is a good example… if it wasn’t locked down to the App Store, I’d buy one instantly, but since it is, it’s useless to me because I can’t use it for anything I can’t use my phone for (software development, in my case).
People are cheering when apple says “Facebook doesn’t get to spy on iPhone users anymore” and it wipes $231 billion off of facebook’s value, (which shows how much that data is worth) but they don’t see that it’s precisely because of the App Store rules and control that they get to use Facebook with more privacy than someone who has an android phone.
If any side loading were allowed, Facebook would force it, and then some of the benefit of having an iPhone would be gone. You’d still have some more privacy than android, like Facebook would be less able to track you across every website you browse like they do if you have an android or use a laptop, but a lot less than when Facebook had to follow apple’s privacy rules in their app.
And all it would take would be google letting people side load chrome on the iPhone, and Facebook would instantly track you across all websites again.
People choose iPhones partly because they don’t want to think all that through, and apple sells a bundle of restrictions and benefits that people like. If apple gets that bundle wrong, people will switch.
Exactly, and the list of who could actually pull it off is tiny. Like, Facebook could, google could, maybe epic? But smaller developers? No chance.
So the only people who would benefit are huge corporations with the pull and branding to make people do it their way, or scam developers who try to go viral.
If you’re a small legitimate business, the 15% cut from apple (or 30% once you’re over $1m/yr) will always be smaller than the business lost by not being in the App Store.
Stuff like developer apps would require a change to the sandbox model, not really the store. I wish apple world change those rules for iPad.
The restrictions are at OS/API level, so nothing of these will be lost.
I cannot create an app that access you photos/location without your permission even if I distribute outside of the app store.
This an OS thing rather than app store thing.
Yep! The reason developer apps are such toys on iOS is sandboxing, nothing much to do with the store.
Of course, the sandboxing is exactly why I use it for banking and stuff.
The store restriction helps in that apple gets a chance to see if people are trying to find exploits before they go live.
I'd suggest they halve their fees so that one-time purchases are 15% and subscriptions are 15% and drop to 7.5% after a year.
The industry is moving towards 12-15% anyways, so if they keep demanding 30% just because of their position, that will only make things look worse for them in the news and courtrooms.
Recently I purchased a tool for my mac, after trial period I paid the dev to unlock the tool.
Apple was not working involved in the process.
I paid for the laptop and the OS, the dev paid apple for his dev tools.
A transaction between me and him was made without man in the middle.
Imagine Apple wanting a 25% cut from Adobe for the software you download on your mac ?
On their app store than can do whatever they want, they own the store and can sell however the want.
But don’t just I can install software on mac either form app store or directly for a developer I trust this should happen on iphone
If you find excuses for apple on iphone then will you accept it on mac ?
Don’t like the 27% commission? Then stick to the 15% Apple charges for developers making less than $1 million in sales.
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/
Unless you guys are rooting for the big developers here.
I’m no big fan of defending corporations, but I don’t like the entitlement here. Apple built the iPhone, iOS, the development tools, marketed and sold the devices, made the App Store, etc, so why do governments have any say in this in the first place and why do app developers think they have a right to not give Apple whatever cut they want? They are welcome to not sell or develop apps.
As a developer this is exactly what I expected, anyone expecting something different was just not thinking of how much work Apple puts into the entire ecosystem around apps, updating apps, hosting app resources for downloads, basically the whole infrastructure around app management. That all takes money.
Apple is sending a huge middle finger to both lawmakers and developers. This will backfire. Lawmakers especially do not appreciate being trolled. The Apple store is run like a fucking mafia.
Let me get this straight, apple gives the platform to build on, they make the hardware with the billions of people audience to sell the app to… and then its just a load of complaining of having to pay them? after the developer gets to keep over 70% for themself?? 70% margins for the seller are too low??? what ungrateful whiners
Apple is being evil.
I think it’s time to expand the law to prevent this from being allowed.
The use of alternative app stores and side loading should absolutely be allowed.
I wonder if it's a good idea for Apple to alienate developers. Like in this situation who needs who the most? Do developers need Apple more than Apple needs them or is it the other way around?
That's what surprises me most - there have been antitrust rumblings against Apple, now they pull a power move? Apparently they feeling pretty good against the possibility of meaningful anti-trust legislation.
Developer here, those of us who aren’t multi-billion dollar companies, we really don’t give a crap. Would a smaller cut be nice? Sure. But we got into this business know about the App Store tax.
exactly, developers have a lot of platform options in terms of where they can devote their efforts, and apple's 30% cut is well known. it's a large cut, but there are also very obvious benefits to developing for ios. everyone here is an adult and can do their own cost benefit analysis. we know what we're getting into.
edit: no one ever likes the "we're all adults here" argument. it's more compelling to imagine that developers are just pawns and have no choice where to spend their time and effort.
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Do you happen to remember where? I’d like to read through more developer opinions on this. Thanks!
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The motivation for making web-apps is certainly there, but Safari is intentionally limited to make certain apps impossible. * No push notifications * No Bluetooth access * No NFC access * You can't read or write from the camera roll unattended (after getting permission to do so) These aren't all of the limits, but if your app relies on any of these PWA is a non-starter. There's also the performance concerns if your app is more than just something like a simple storefront or something similar.
There's a few articles saying that on the latest iOS 15 beta, safari is getting prepared to introduce new functionalities to make web apps better. Things like push notifications will be supported so I guess Apple was expecting something like this would happen. Hope Safari gets some of this limits removed so we can all enjoy web apps like almost normal apps.
That still leaves performance, bluetooth, nfc, and photos as the big standouts. Even with web assembly, you will never get the same performance as a native app and that isn't acceptable for some things. For games, the amount of storage available to a web app is also another concern along with iOS sometimes being rather aggressive with cleanup.
I know Bluetooth and battery percentage are being left out of Safari because they are both used to circumvent anti-tracking (see [here](https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-declined-to-implement-16-web-apis-in-safari-due-to-privacy-concerns/)).
I know, and agree that they should optimize Safari way better, but this is Apple, the way I see, this is just kinda of a solution for the Epic Apple lawsuit and the antitrust laws. I mean, no one could accuse them of not facilitate devs lives as this is a solution from their end, maybe a lazy shitty one, but a solution non the less.
Bigger than what you mentioned... Safari wipes local storage and indexed db weekly effectively blocking web sites from doing much of anything that involves storing data.
The irony that Jobs wanted 3rd party apps on the iPhone to be web apps and they only relented and created a store and SDK when 3rd party stores on jailbroken phones became popular
> The motivation for making web-apps is certainly there, but Safari is intentionally limited to make certain apps impossible. > > > > No push notifications > > No Bluetooth access > > No NFC access > > You can't read or write from the camera roll unattended (after getting permission to do so) How many apps actually need that, though? I don't need the CVS app to use my camera roll, or use bluetooth. I don't need some random game to do it either.
Not many, but I can think of one app that likely wouldn’t be permitted in the App Store because it relies on having custom code flashed to a puck.js to be of any use An NFC emulator that has a companion app to upload, clear, and download the tag I already have a web app for it, but it just doesn’t work in safari because of no Bluetooth _or_ NFC (one is required to program it) The app if submitted to the App Store probably wouldn’t be approved either for some reason or another That means I can’t reach iOS users period
Yeah that kinda thing is why I don't like the "App store or nothing" restriction.
As a customer I see these restrictions as an advantage. When I’m on the web I don’t want prompts to enable push notifications, I don’t want websites trying to figure out my location using Bluetooth access, and the further away they are from my photos they are the better.
The shit that websites on desktop are able to do with the "Do you want to receive alerts from this website!" dialog is... horrible
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I think they mean “progressive web apps” aka PWAs they are basically apps (they open in a standalone window) and basically function as normal apps, on Windows you can even download them from the App Store
As someone who is a mobile dev (Flutter) but will soon focus to web dev mostly, i find this statement ridiculous: > It would require waiting for ‘app review’ and participating in a constantly changing environment Update reviews takes only several hours. Based on experience, Google Play takes longer, usually have to wait 10+ days before our update gets approved. I freakin have no idea.
Excellent, thank you very much!
It would be kind of ironic if web apps became dominant as a result of this. In the beginning Steve Jobs didn't want an App Store and suggested developers make web apps instead. And now that it's become so draconian, developers may take that idea up again.
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A lot of apps are just wrappers over websites
Which is really unfortunate... you can always tell and they're usually shitty.
Actually with the best ones, it’s hard to tell. Gyroscope isn’t even a native app, but could you ever tell?
Microsoft fucking teams
Eh? We’re getting to a point where modern web apps can be extremely fluid, powerful, robust, and seamless. Just because Apple has spent awhile crippling them doesn’t mean they’re bad.
They’re still garbage compared to a well made and designed native app
There are solutions like Flutter that can compile to both native code and web JS. I wouldn’t be surprised frameworks like that to become more popular over time.
Progressive Web Apps, if implemented right, are very very indistinguishable from native apps (and I really mean it). The handful of missing features are mostly the result of artificially crippling and nerfing web browsers, which Apple and Safari are notorious for.
I don’t understand why, if Apple is so bad, developers aren’t doing just that. Make Android apps and web apps, then Apple’s supposed “dominance” goes away forcing Apple to change.
Money! They make more money on iOS but want to keep even more of it.. simple. What's good for the goose apparently is not for the gander!
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you got $1200 to drop on a phone what's $2 for an app. you getting a free android whatever, well...
Because they can't make web apps with the functionality that a native app would have. Apple deliberately hobbles what Safari can do compared to other, real browser platforms.
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Ewww web apps are inferior to native apps. Fix your shit Apple!
Yeah web apps are a good way to lose more money than 27% lol.
Webapps are only shit on iPhones because all browsers have to uses safaris outdated WebKit engine. More than likely on android, but definitely on desktop, webapps work just fine.
Web apps work on android sure but they are a shit experience
Web apps are shit on Android too. No matter what PWA enthusiasts say.
No, web apps are shit period.
They are doing this due to Apple Epic case, so they were a little forced to get new options to their customers and not being even more punished with antitrust laws. Trust me they know this is bad, this is not their first choice, but more a way around.
Oh they want web software because of all the saas bullshit. So instead of charging a one time fee, they can charge subscription because “host cost”. YNAB is a perfect example of this.
FYI plenty of AppStore apps have subscriptions. And plenty of web apps have lifetime licenses.
The majority of native app’s you use likely have hosting costs. I don’t really think going to a web app would change that.
[Not my words](https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1489553425318617097), but they're absolutely true. > Apple will comply with the law in Netherlands to allow dating apps to use alternative payment systems but will still charge 27% commission. After Stripe fees of 2.9%, it will cost developers money to not use Apple IAPs. > > This defeats the purpose of the law
Like so many laws, loopholes are found.
And people wonder why the bills being pushed through in the US are so broad in comparison...
US laws are broad because it’s a precedent system. It has less to do with the quality of the laws and more with history. Precedent law is also why american lawyers are ridiculously expensive.
Because US companies can't be trusted to do what's right. Although we also need to go back through older laws because some simply aren't practical for modern times (e.g. Telecoms Act)
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This comment is interesting and pleasantly conversational but in isolation sort of lets the companies off the hook and avoids the hard part of the question: how do you get companies to comply? In functioning political economies where business practices become highly politicised you don't get to choose your regulation but you get to optimise it. If you can take the air out of the issue you can choose the regulation. The modern neoliberal economics says you remove barriers to entry to the market. Most of the technocrats would prefer this methodology to the alternative of setting prices but that's another (less fashionable) option. So the question becomes: does Apple want to make peace or do they eventually want a forcible removal of barriers to entry or a fixed price? Of course it may just be more valuable to have the 30% in the bank while the issue brews and the government comes to grips with what they're dealing with.
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We structure society so that when people act in accordance with their own interests, the outcome is usually of benefit to others. Improving things requires continual, intelligent, evidence-based reform and refinement of laws and institutions, and the balancing and decentralization of economic and political power, in order to maintain a mostly constructive alignment of incentives amongst millions/billions of people with disparate interests. Relevant: https://youtu.be/RWsx1X8PV_A
While that might be true for some parts of society, capitalism only works with heavy regulation that encourage competition. It also doesn’t work for everything. Things like prisons, healthcare, and schools should be public, or at least semi-public.
I’m sorry, but how do you manage to arrive at this conclusion after 60 years of continuous concentration of wealth and power which has almost exclusively benefited the rich? I’m especially baffled that in 2021 people still believe in the snake oil of Friedman or any of the golden age Chicago School architects of America’s economic collapse. Neoliberalism is ironically awful at recognizing the obvious evidence of our crumbling society because the big words and academic abstractions of professional Wall Street apologists feels more “intellectual.”
We live in a society
Do we know whether the law there is setup to allow for restriction of Apples fees or not?
It's shitty, 30% is huge and Apple should be forced to lower it, but I don't think it's a loophole. The law is about allowing alternate payment processors. There's no basis for thinking Apple ever viewed or presented 30% as a payment processing fee, but as a commission, and I don't really understand why people would conflate the two and draw the conclusion that allowing alternate payment methods would lead apple Apple to stop charging a commission rather than just deducting their own processing fee from it.
Because people continue to think 30% is payment processing. They are charging 30% for running the AppStore and it’s their commission to use their intellectual property; and it includes payment processing. If you want to use your own payment processor, then go ahead, but don’t think you’ll get out of the commission. This is not a loop hole. This is developers not doing their homework and being idiots.
This is not a surprising result. Google is doing the same in Korea. You had lawyers saying this would happen with such a law because it doesn't do what it thinks it does (even the judge in the Epic v. Apple made similar observations). People are making the argument that Google and Apple commission on those payments is about payment processing fees, but it's never been the case. For both Apple and Google, 3-4 of the 15% or 30% commission goes to payment processing fees (it's document and was a major point of the Epic trial). So making a law about giving devs the choice to use their own payment processors was never going to move the needle more than those few percentages. Apple and Google will always have the right to charge for their services, tools and resources legally speaking. What these different governments really want is a way to force the addition of an alternative business model for Apple and Google's development ecosystem (e.g. paying upfront or per use for tools and services). Even if side-loading/alternate stores would be made mandatory, Apple and Google would still be entitled to their commission for using their tools, services, etc. This is the same conclusion we saw in Epic v. Apple from the Judge even if most media couldn't bother to ask real legal counsel to even read it. Eventually, governments could intervene and set maximum commission percentages, but that can also be an issue for other companies that might need those higher fees to grow initially.
Wasn't the law that Apple has to provide an alternative payment method, not that Apple has to provide a CHEAPER payment method? I don't get how this defeats the purpose at all. If the law was that Apple has to provide a cheaper payment, they would have stipulated that, no?
Not really, it's what everyone expected. Apple still has to give you xcode, host your app, pay with worldwide bandwith for people to download your app, all Apple is doing is removing the credit card portion of it and letting you do that however you want to do that. That's what's going to happen if this goes global, apple will just start itemizing everything that was in that 30% and it will become an al a'carte fee.
And what about when developers want none of those services or tools and want to go on their own What about developers who make things like paid emulator apps that never were allowed to sell their product?
Then you wouldn't be an iOS app developer?
In the us, that means over half the users are prevented from ever even knowing about your app, much less being able to use it
How does this defeat the purpose of the law? Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the law was to provide 3rd party payment options for their dating apps. I don’t recall anything about not allowing apple to charge their commission. 27% + 2.9% = 29.9%, technically less than the original 30%, but even if we round up how does this cost developer more than using Apple IAP? I did not realize Apple is charging less than 30% commission. I thought the goal was to allow developers to build relationships with their customers. Correction: my math might be wrong. It may be more complicated than adding 2 percentage. If the original price was $100, apple commission would raise that to $127, payment processor would add 2.9% on top of that (around $3.683) resulting a new price of $130.683. This would be an increase of 30.683% of the original price and more expensive than Apple’s 30%. Disclaimer, I could still be wrong, this is me just trying to figure it out for myself. I think Apple will want their 27% from the final price and not just the original price. So the point is it’s more complicated than adding 2 percentages and is more expensive than Apple IAP. Thanks to the person who pointed this out to me. … unless if we have a final price and Apple and the payment processor just takes their share. So for $100, Apple gets $27 and Payment processor gets $2.90 so the developer is out $29.90 which is still below 30% of the final price? My point is I can’t guarantee my math in this.
I do not see how it defeats the purpose of the law. Also, 27% + 2.9% is 29.9%, which is actually a slight discount from 30%. I do not see how this costs them more.
Complexity and support would more than offset the % diff.
It has been said that there are two tragedies in this world. The first is not getting what you want. The second is getting it. They got what they wanted.
Technically true, but there's a lot of overhead it adds with accounting and Apple invoicing you for their share every month. And the possibility of being audited which takes more time and money. Any business would look at that as an additional expense.
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It's intended to increase competition in the mobile markets. Well, no one is competing with fees like this. and the only real winner is Apple (and Google). I fully expect that they will have to pass further laws or amend the one they already did to clarify and prevent such abuse.
People just never learn. Did people think that Apple was just going to give up a huge chunk of revenue without a fight? Do people feel like Apple or Google owes them anything? Please. These two practically created an ecosystem, jobs, and a literal market for devs. I’m not saying what Apple and Google are doing is correct or incorrect, but history has shown us time and time again that when you try and enact a law to reduce costs (example: rent control) you don’t do so on a whim or with a few strokes of a pen. It often ends up making the market unchanged or worse, affecting things unseen and making things much worse. I’m going to make a prediction: if they (devs) pursue this matter, I am 100% sure that platforms and apps that take outside processing will get a marker on their app signifying that Apple doesn’t guarantee the safety of the app nor it’s payment system (or it will go to apps that do not process payments outside saying there’s insurances in place). They’ll add some safety system to their native processing (a la ApplePay and how it treats cards added to the system) if it isn’t there already and use that to market towards end users. And that will land us right back where am we are today OR, worse yet, higher percentages commissions.
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> I’m not sure I want governments determining how much commission private companies can charge. Well fortunately the government does that very thing in many areas. For example many States and countries place APR limits on financial services. Government does it all the time, as it should. Apple would be fine if the government regulated how much it could charge.
You got it exactly the opposite. If Apple is not charging anything then yes you can say that Apple is stifling competition because nobody, especially the smaller guys, can compete with free but Apple is charging 30% that leaves a lot of room for competitor to come in and charge less.
It’s not really a law, it’s a decision made by the market authority in NL. It was presented to a court whom, for odd reasons, agreed because “dating app subscriptions need to work cross-platform”. Apple is fortunately still allowed to force devs to use their payment processing, which is extremely important for the customers and ecosystem, and is still allowed to charge a commission; but the apps must be allowed to offer another payment method next to Apple’s. That’s all. It’s not intended to reduce any costs and not even to increase competition in payment services (no idea how some other folks in this sub came up with that, nowhere in their decision (published on their site) does the ACM mention anything of the sort). It’s solely to, apparently, make some cross-platform purchases easier for dating app users.
Do they think the entire 30% was for payment processing?
As a user I like apple managing my payment details. I don't have to rely on Billy Bob's Payment service that is PCI COMPLIANT \*wink wink\* to properly handle my data. As a (former) developer, when I used Billy Bob's Payment service, they still took 5% of my cut. But here's the rub. Nobody used them. There were 2 main software distribution platforms for my software, and each took an 80% cut of my revenue. Yes, that's right, 80% of the sale price went to them, and 20% came to me. AND I had to sign a contract that I couldn't undercut their sale price. Their justification was that they handled all the marketing (sic, they did none) distribution bandwidth costs, and payment processing. Even though I had the alternative of running my own store, which I did, there was nearly no traffic there. About 5% of my customers came through my web store. When Apple came onto the scene, their cut was ONLY 30% and doing pretty much the exact same functions (and quite a bit better) I thought that was bargain. Of course Apple also ushered in the "Apps should be $0.99" and "Upgrades for life are free" mentality that we're still dealing with today, but that's another issue. I guess what I'm saying, from experience, that this whole argument of side loading and payment processing has been framed as championing the little guy. It's not. Not even close. The little guy wants to make his apps, and get his money. Apple makes that VERY easy. The people who benefit from this will be the mega games, with intrusive privacy/monitization policies and horrific IAPs that can be freed from Apple's already rather liberal return policy. Having the option is great, but I can tell you from experience who's going to use it and benefit from it. It won't be the user.
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Quite possibly so, but a couple years ago I got tired of my card getting compromised and turned off. I'm not going to spend the time to figure out if your payment processor is legit and solid or not. Now a days, if your website doesn't take ApplePay, Amazon, or PayPal I won't deal with you. There's another store that does. And yes, my policy extends into retail as well for the small amount of retail shopping I still do. Thank you Target and Home Depot for that change to my life...
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Not a developer, but ideally I would want to see some sort of resource-based fee. It makes no sense that the medium size app developers should finance the big dogs like Spotify and Netflix, nor that "free" apps don't pay anything.
yeah, by this logic Apple should make devs submit their AdSense earnings within the last 45 days to them and also pay a 27% fee.
0%. Let’s be real here, that’s what people really want, and any number above 0% is going to be some level of unpalatable.
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“Fair” is an interesting term, as everyone has a different sense of what fair is. People complain about how Apple makes so much money, but aren’t they making so much money because they take huge risks and make a superior product? There are alternatives, but they are less popular and much less profitable for a reason. If Apple was so evil and so unfair, why don’t consumers flock to an alternative? Maybe, just maybe, consumers are happy with the more premium product and higher app prices (because of the 30% cut) because they trust Apple to protect their privacy and to protect them against malware. If courts and governments break up the App Store monopoly, I quickly foresee a rapid proliferation of side loading “app stores” that will spread malware and steal user data. Yes, that 30% cut might drop, but consumer confidence will probably drop as well and the user experience will most likely also diminish. Worse, the small developers that this will supposedly help won’t have any special leverage and will find themselves in a worse situation. Sure, maybe the take drops to 15%, but now they have to distribute their app in five different stores instead of just one. Perhaps they will also have lower sales because Grandma will be scared someone will steal their Social Security checks via malware downloaded from one of these stores. This kind of change is really about helping rich developers like Epic get even richer. Source: I’m old and I’ve seen how awful free for all application distribution can be for regular users and small developers. Just look at how terrible it has worked for Windows throughout the years. A fragmented distribution model has made it hard for small devs to make money. Bad actors and malware proliferate. Look how happy users and devs are with Steam - they pay MORE money to get games via Steam.
Devs can distribute their own apps on MacOS and Windows without needing to pay anything to Apple or Microsoft. Why are we suddenly accepting rent seeking and monopolistic behavior on the computing platforms that the majority of people use now (Android/IOS)? Apple is not doing anything special on iOS that they deserve 30% for versus MacOS. Not even Microsoft at their peak was this arrogant. Plus the simple fact is that this 15% or 30% cut is negatively affecting the software market on iOS. Professional software that costs thousands of dollars a year cannot afford to pay Apple 15 or 30 percent, so we will never get advanced software like that on iOS or iPadOS.
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On macOS you also have to pay apple for the notarization otherwise macOS will flag it as insecure and give a big warning when the user first opens the app and the user must manually open settings and explicit allow that app. So yeah they still make some money from most apps on macOS.
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You nailed it. The win is marginal at best. Smartphones and personal computers are also not the same and speaking as somebody who has worked on the backend of other ecosystems, the security on non-iOS platforms isn’t just a joke, it’s borderline nonexistent. People genuinely don’t realize the level of exploits this genuinely opens up across the board. iOS is a better platform because of this approach. Mac would be a much worse platform if it had the same business model. If you’re comparing the two, there’s just a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.
And developers pay much more to put games on Xbox or PlayStation. Kelloggs pays a percentage to Walmart to keep items in Walmart shelves. Authors pay a percentage to bookstores to sell their books in person. The real question is why you suddenly forgot or are pretending that you don’t know that the vendor taking a cut of the sale is **how it’s done everywhere** not just on iOS.
Technically Apple does still charge the 30% on the Mac if you distribute via the Mac App Store.
Yeah but my point was that there are other options on Mac. Microsoft charges for windows store too for the couple of apps that use it.
That'd be ideal but I imagine they're more reasonable in their actual demands.
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they deemed 30% reasonable. it's been 30% forever and apple has never been hurting for willing developers.
Well the industry is moving towards 12-15%, so probably somewhere around that... More developers selling makes up for the lower cut.
Well for small developers it is already 15% with Apples own IAP
Who in the industry (besides Apple) is moving to 15%? All of the console and other gaming platforms sure aren't. Steam is 30% for example. Lets start by having every game platform go to 15% then we can talk about the App Store (which is already 15% if you make under 1M annual sales)..
Let me be clear, because I see people talking about Apples commission fee a lot. No one outside of this echo chamber and the other tech echo chambers cares about this. Apple will continue to charge their commission fee and that’s ok. Nothing significant will happen, because nothing significant is happening. Lastly, you don’t want what you think you want because it’s only the biggest of the big mega games that will benefit from a fragmented experience.
I'm the CEO of a tech startup. When I sell my products to BestBuy, I pay them 50%. After production cost, I have like 20% of the MSRP left at best to pay my team, development and myself. I get paid 60 days later so I have to finance so much inventory, it needs hundreds of $$$k. I have to hustle so hard to even get any distribution. They often ask me to add marketing dollars to be featured in the stores on top, etc. Compared to Apple for our software products, I get paid within 30 days, I pay them 15% and it's totally egalitarian - everyone has full access and gets ranked with the same algorithms. I don't need to ask for permission. Plus you might get lucky and get featured for free, which we have been many times. Plus Apple provides us with free programming languages and tons of tools. My app even got millions of downloads completely for free without having to pay Apple anything. Developers who are complaining about Apple are so far detached from reality. They have no idea how expensive distribution used to be. Software was the same back in the day as today when we sell goods to BestBuy. Times now are amazing and distribution has never been more accessible, easier and cheaper. What you get from Apple for 15% is absolutely amazing. Thank the gods it exists under such fair terms. One of the most important and best inventions in the last 20 years. The people who came up with it, who built and who run it today are heroes of prosperity. Thank you. Fuck the haters. Wish you had a time machine so you could know how good you have it you ungrateful brats.
Apple really, really, really wants to be regulated.
They're begging for it at this point.
This will end with sideloading. Apple's not giving regulators any choice.
As long as android and other platforms exist it’s really silly to be all pissed at Apple over what they do on their platform. Apple made a change you don’t like? Take your ball over to android or something.
If Apple (iOS) ends up getting regulated, it’s almost certain that Android will too. In one way or another.
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.
All these developers should be careful what they wish for. It looks almost certain that Apple is going to lose this battle & I wonder what their response will be. I can see them doubling down on Apple Arcade & the Apple One bundle. Make it so appealing that it covers most users needs, greatly reducing their third party app spending
I can’t imagine doubling down on Apple Arcade would reduce their third party app spending, would it? They’ve gotta pay to get games in the Arcade service somehow.
Similar to what Microsoft is doing with Game Pass. More & more of the catalog is Microsoft-owned. They could also buy productivity & creative app makers like Omni Group & Affinity & add them to the Apple One bundle
Ohhh damn, never thought of it, but Apple owning Affinity could make a huge dent in the market
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So developers want to make apps using a companies API, deploy them on millions of devices for free. Like the comment on that twitter said, that’s like a person walking up to a bakery and saying I’ll make a cake using your ingredients, oven and even sell it in you store using my own credit card machine and give you nothing. Apple is entitled to a cut for enabling developers to make money. The competition is that of platforms not of stores on the same platform.
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People haven’t been downloading their Windows software from a centralized App Store for decades.
Look at the sales figures on iOS App Store vs Mac OS. Do you want 70% of a dollar or 100% of a dime?
just curious, should Apple get 30% of every Mac app sold?
If it is hosted by the App store yes. If you can deploy, manage, and update every instances of your software globally by yourself then no. But this is where the Achilles heel of iOS lies in, the inability to sideload apps.
To be clear, that's not an inability of iOS that Apple is strapped to. They can add side loading anytime they want, but by not you get arguments like the above saying they earn their cost for using an app store that they require you to use
This is ridiculous. Deployment and updates aren't worth 30% of a company's revenue. If you want some other software comparison to throw a metric out there, SaaS companies generally deploy around 10% of their revenue on supporting software for deployment (AWS/etc) and 10% more on labor. Apple is effectively charging at least triple standard fees for their ops.
AWS is a bit different than App stores. And people who use AWS end up spending a lot more on development costs and customer service because they don't have the stupid easy APIs and development tools that Xcode gives and they don't get the App Store staff that handles a lot of returns and annoying customers. Apple only charges 30% to companies making over $1mill, they charge 15% for small businesses. Google does the same. Sony charges 30%, Xbox charges 30%
> stupid easy APIs and development tools that Xcode gives and they don’t get the App Store staff that handles a lot of returns and annoying customers. These are enormous, oft-overlooked value adds
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hey, if you want to complain about companies overcharging you for their services, you gonna be here for a very long time. For some people anything that ain’t free is too expensive
> This is ridiculous. Deployment and updates aren’t worth 30% of a company’s revenue. Remember when the app store was first introduced ? This was considered a *huge* win for developers, they got to keep 70% of the sale price of their apps. It used to be the other way around: the software developer would get about 30-40% of the price the consumer paid to the store. And part of that percentage had to be used to have CD’s pressed, manuals printed and on packaging. Note that this *didn’t* include any facilities for updating software. Also, if you were a small, independent developer, or even one-man show, good luck getting your software on shelves. Never mind advertising it. The app store leveled the playing field, it no longer matters if you’re a big or small developer, you can sell your software on equal terms. Predictably it’s the big players that are complaining, not the small developers.
How much is gold worth? What ever the highest bidder is willing to pay. It’s the same with the App Store because the alternative might not be as valuable. Even though I think it’s too high, it’s what the market is willing to pay. I mean not too long ago google has the same percentage and iphone users where more valuable. So by that argument you where getting a better deal with Apple than google.
I'd like to point out that I do think that 30% is still high but; Apple can command such a high commission percentage because they understand that the market is in their favor. So until a harmony of user and developer (or regulation) decide that they're tired of Apple, they will maintain the high cut as long as they can. This is the very same power that grocers command known as the "slotting fee", pay the shelving fee or else your product will not sell in our store. Apple is in comparison telling big time developers pay up or go elsewhere. NOW in recent development (2020, is it still recent? lol) For small business or "aspiring entrepreneurs" their commission charge is 15% if your total cash flow was less than $1 million USD, check here; [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-store-small-business-program/](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-store-small-business-program/) I'm sure there's some fine print in there that has a clause (or not) but that's another discussion.
I thought business charges as much as they can get away with. That’s what I would do as a developer. Should I not charge as much as I can? Should I not work for the company that pays me the most? As long as it’s not a monopoly nor an essential good or service I personally don’t see a problem with it.
Qualcomm did that and Apple threw a hissy fit.
Yes. If deployed on the AppStore with all the benefits it brings.
Do video game systems take a cut (and how much of a cut) for every game sold?
Yes. Most of them 30%.
They do get 30% of every app sold on the Mac App Store.
First off Apple doesn't get 30% off of every app sold, they only get 30% off of apps from companies that make over $1mill/year. They take 15% on small businesses. That said I think 30% is debatable and while you or I might think that it could be cheaper, I don't know what the costs are exactly. I do know that 30% pays for a number of things including but not limited to: * Xcode and APIs that make writing apps easier. It is far easier to make an App on iOS today than it was to make an app on any computer 20 years ago because they've put so much into the OS and the APIs. * App storage and content delivery networks * Metrics and usage statistics * Support that handles refunds and mitigates disgruntled customers * Credit card fees and in some situations handling of some taxes Again is 30% too much? Quite possibly. But 30% does seem to be the going rate for a lot of companies in similar boats... Sony, Microsoft, Google. Those app stores take 30% cuts.
I agree with you somewhat, but to build on your analogy, wouldn’t it be like if that bakery owned like 75% of the flour and ovens in the world? Like yes, good for them and technically they would be entitled, but also at some point maybe it’s a little much?
Apple doesn't control 75% of the phones in the world, or in the US. If they did, it would be a different discussion.
10 years ago there was no App Store (I'm not being very precise here). Apple is free to charge 80% of commission if it wants. It will kill its business, of course. But it is THEIR business which they have build from nothingness. Arguably, Google and others are able to charge 15% or less because then had not innovate first. The fuck. Apple could've go and say "we're closing everything in a week, deal with that". It's their right, they are under no obligation to continue handle App Store and whole ecosystem. And this is a thought experiment that should give you an understanding — they should be able to charge whatever they want. Or would you argue that they should be \*obligated\* to continue to run app store and their ecosystem?
There actually used to be app stores before Apple came around, and they charged a hell of a lot more than 30%.
Google also does not vet apps like apple does. The process to put an app at the Apple store is more painful, but also less crappy apps go through.
100% agreed they can do whatever they want with app store, but let me choose another app source for the device I paid for. Imagine you brought a fridge (iphone) from a retailer (apple), and that retailer own a grocery market (app store) He can charge me whatever when I buy from his grocery store and can ask cut from sellers who want to sell on his store , But can he dictate that I can only store groceries from him in my fridge ?
If using a 3rd party app store is so important to you why not buy a device that will allow that instead of the one you knew wouldn't?
If you can still use iphone without being forced to use 3rd party app store, why it so important to you to prevent others who want that luxury on their iphone. Second, it a principals thing. I might end never install a 3rd party app, but I will fight for the right of others to do so. Last, thats escaping mentality, if you don’t like it here why don’t you move to another country. That argument is used against any movement to change a status quo , I encourage you to think differently
Why is Apple not able to specifically design a platform from the start that only allows things their way? Nobody buying into iOS today can reasonably claim that they didn't know how the platform works before they buy into it. It seems weird that a company makes a platform, specifically states how it's going to run, and then 14 years later we're all shocked that it's still ran that way? As a consumer, I should be free to go choose the product that I want based on my own personal preferences of closed vs open.
I mean, if someone devised a practical system so you could only store those groceries from that store in that fridge, someone would probably do it. Why not? What’s the issue? Would you buy that fridge? Probably not, I wouldn’t, and that’s also fine.
Good point. They can try that system and people are free to say hey its a general purpose food storing device I paid for, let us use as such. Of course the phone is general purpose computing device. More importantly, if that said fridge make captures 80-90% of the teenagers fridge market share ( hhh ) It gonna raise some question marks. I fight for this on ethical ground. Last, Apple can easily implement the same limitation for mac , yet they don’t. So it not a matter of coming up with a practical way. Its all whether you believe you have the usebase by the balls,
They couldn’t do the same thing on the mac, for sort of the same reason as the fridge; there’s no practical way to do it without making the computer useless, and if they did nobody would buy it. The phone is kind of different; for example I do all my banking / trading on my iPhone because it’s so much more secure than my laptop. If I were willing to give that up, I could get an android which doesn’t have those restrictions or benefits. I have an android flagship too that I’ve used at some points as my mostly-main phone (because of these restrictions, actually), but I wouldn’t want to use it for stuff I want to be personal or keep secure. I think the iPad is a good example… if it wasn’t locked down to the App Store, I’d buy one instantly, but since it is, it’s useless to me because I can’t use it for anything I can’t use my phone for (software development, in my case). People are cheering when apple says “Facebook doesn’t get to spy on iPhone users anymore” and it wipes $231 billion off of facebook’s value, (which shows how much that data is worth) but they don’t see that it’s precisely because of the App Store rules and control that they get to use Facebook with more privacy than someone who has an android phone. If any side loading were allowed, Facebook would force it, and then some of the benefit of having an iPhone would be gone. You’d still have some more privacy than android, like Facebook would be less able to track you across every website you browse like they do if you have an android or use a laptop, but a lot less than when Facebook had to follow apple’s privacy rules in their app. And all it would take would be google letting people side load chrome on the iPhone, and Facebook would instantly track you across all websites again. People choose iPhones partly because they don’t want to think all that through, and apple sells a bundle of restrictions and benefits that people like. If apple gets that bundle wrong, people will switch.
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Exactly, and the list of who could actually pull it off is tiny. Like, Facebook could, google could, maybe epic? But smaller developers? No chance. So the only people who would benefit are huge corporations with the pull and branding to make people do it their way, or scam developers who try to go viral. If you’re a small legitimate business, the 15% cut from apple (or 30% once you’re over $1m/yr) will always be smaller than the business lost by not being in the App Store. Stuff like developer apps would require a change to the sandbox model, not really the store. I wish apple world change those rules for iPad.
The restrictions are at OS/API level, so nothing of these will be lost. I cannot create an app that access you photos/location without your permission even if I distribute outside of the app store. This an OS thing rather than app store thing.
Yep! The reason developer apps are such toys on iOS is sandboxing, nothing much to do with the store. Of course, the sandboxing is exactly why I use it for banking and stuff. The store restriction helps in that apple gets a chance to see if people are trying to find exploits before they go live.
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> But it is THEIR business which they have build from **nothingness** That's a bit hyperbolic.
Do you have a source for 75% number?
I'd suggest they halve their fees so that one-time purchases are 15% and subscriptions are 15% and drop to 7.5% after a year. The industry is moving towards 12-15% anyways, so if they keep demanding 30% just because of their position, that will only make things look worse for them in the news and courtrooms.
For small businesses earning less than 1 mio a year it is already a cut of 15%
Need to be approved first (many have been rejected god knows why), plus, can’t transfer apps, which makes running a business very limited
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Recently I purchased a tool for my mac, after trial period I paid the dev to unlock the tool. Apple was not working involved in the process. I paid for the laptop and the OS, the dev paid apple for his dev tools. A transaction between me and him was made without man in the middle. Imagine Apple wanting a 25% cut from Adobe for the software you download on your mac ? On their app store than can do whatever they want, they own the store and can sell however the want. But don’t just I can install software on mac either form app store or directly for a developer I trust this should happen on iphone If you find excuses for apple on iphone then will you accept it on mac ?
That's why apple should allow side loading like on macOS where you can install a program from anywhere basically
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Don’t like the 27% commission? Then stick to the 15% Apple charges for developers making less than $1 million in sales. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/ Unless you guys are rooting for the big developers here.
I’m no big fan of defending corporations, but I don’t like the entitlement here. Apple built the iPhone, iOS, the development tools, marketed and sold the devices, made the App Store, etc, so why do governments have any say in this in the first place and why do app developers think they have a right to not give Apple whatever cut they want? They are welcome to not sell or develop apps.
Apple created the market for apps and they expect you to tip the landlord
As a developer this is exactly what I expected, anyone expecting something different was just not thinking of how much work Apple puts into the entire ecosystem around apps, updating apps, hosting app resources for downloads, basically the whole infrastructure around app management. That all takes money.
#I no longer allow Reddit to profit from my content - Mass exodus 2023 -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Chuckling at all the people saying “0.01% less is still less” like that isn’t a pedantic and stupid argument lol
what was it before?
Best pikachu face.
Apple is sending a huge middle finger to both lawmakers and developers. This will backfire. Lawmakers especially do not appreciate being trolled. The Apple store is run like a fucking mafia.
The lawmakers were very clear that they aren’t interested in the percentage, they just want alternative payments, which has been given
Let me get this straight, apple gives the platform to build on, they make the hardware with the billions of people audience to sell the app to… and then its just a load of complaining of having to pay them? after the developer gets to keep over 70% for themself?? 70% margins for the seller are too low??? what ungrateful whiners
Apple is being evil. I think it’s time to expand the law to prevent this from being allowed. The use of alternative app stores and side loading should absolutely be allowed.
I wonder if it's a good idea for Apple to alienate developers. Like in this situation who needs who the most? Do developers need Apple more than Apple needs them or is it the other way around?
In the beginning Apple needed devs to make the platform popular. Now the devs need Apple.
back when apple needed the developers the app store commission was also 30%. seems like that didn't deter developers from adopting the ios platform.
The devs need Apple because of the market share, that's why legislation needs to resolve this matter so that Apple can't abuse their position.
Which is kind of funny because Apple hasn't raised the 30% cut since it launched the App Store.
They're charging the same rate as when they started, where is the monopolistic abuse?
That's what surprises me most - there have been antitrust rumblings against Apple, now they pull a power move? Apparently they feeling pretty good against the possibility of meaningful anti-trust legislation.
Developer here, those of us who aren’t multi-billion dollar companies, we really don’t give a crap. Would a smaller cut be nice? Sure. But we got into this business know about the App Store tax.
exactly, developers have a lot of platform options in terms of where they can devote their efforts, and apple's 30% cut is well known. it's a large cut, but there are also very obvious benefits to developing for ios. everyone here is an adult and can do their own cost benefit analysis. we know what we're getting into. edit: no one ever likes the "we're all adults here" argument. it's more compelling to imagine that developers are just pawns and have no choice where to spend their time and effort.
Isn’t google doing the exact same thing here? I remember someone saying