App Store Developers Form a 'Union' Ahead of WWDC Calling for Free App Trials, Better Rates

[charlituna]

It's only be up for 3 hours. Might want to give it some time for devs to sign up before mocking the count.

the site is really weird but if I'm reading it correctly they have 488 apps (which may or may not actually mean app developers) and 432 non developers (who aren't affected by any of this whole 'Apple is taking our livelihood') stuff

and it looks like they aren't even going to talk about the percent issue until next year. so we'll see how well this union works out.

honestly at this point they should probably be focused on the percent and cleaning up the system for how apps are reviewed plus how copycats and app spamming are dealt with before or at the same time as free trials
[doublepost=1526949613][/doublepost]

...no. I'm sorry, if you're going to ask a big company to commit, setting an unreasonable timeframe is one sure way of making it not happen.

Apple legally cannot change contracts everyone signed on its own and do it in time for July, that's less than two months.

go read it off their site. they are asking Apple to commit by this july that they will add trials by july 2019

as for the contracts thing, it's in the rules that they can basically change the rules whenever they want and however they want. so yeah if they wanted to do it by this july they could.

 

[fairuz]

Trials are long, long overdue and would benefit everyone.

Seriously, it would boost sales. I'm sure people are afraid to buy expensive apps without trying them first. They kinda do this with free versions, but that doesn't work well for many apps.
[doublepost=1526972137][/doublepost]

Good for them. Apple doesn’t deserve a 30% cut of their revenue for basically doing nothing.

Why is 30% unfair? Apple deserves whatever they can get for providing the platform and dev tools, and the devs deserve whatever they can get for making their apps. If they think enough of them agree and want their voices heard, a union is a good way. Just hope they don't form exclusive deals.
[doublepost=1526972385][/doublepost]

The main problem is App Discovery, & that can ONLY be fixed if AAPL lets Devs sell their apps OUTSIDE of the App Store.

If that we're to happen, then, I believe, a cottage industry would very-likely immediately be created to assist such Devs promote & sell their apps via their own websites.

I have NO problem with using AAPL for the financial transaction part of it under that scenario.

You can already have links to an app on the App Store on your site. What's the problem here?

 

[recoil80]

I'm lucky enough to be an iOS developer working for enterprise stuff, so my income isn't dependent on the app store. If I was an indie developer I'd advocate for free trials, and I'd like them as a customer as well.
In app purchases can be a good compromise, you can install the free version and use it as much as you like then you pay to unlock certain features. But what if you want to test one of this feature in the first place? A trial version of the app would be the solution, you can try all the functionalities at once for a very limited amount of time then you decide whether it is worth to buy the app or not. They control the app store, allowing an app to run for a particular amount of time before asking the user to buy or delete it shouldn't be too hard for Apple

 

[MVMNT]

Remember cover-mount CDs? The Appstore pretty much killed those.

I found some the other day and lamented the ability and choice users had to "try before they buy"

 

[BoulderAdonis]

Really ?
40% huh....
So apple sells, let's say Best Buy an iPhone for $700 so that they can charge the customer $1000 and take a $300 profit thanks to Apple.

https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/gross_profit_margin

Microsoft’s Gross Profit Margin is 60-70%.

It still amazes me how much people complain about Apple’s prices. Or, don’t understand how wholesale / retail works.