Apple Announces New In-App Purchase API

[chrono1081]

But isn't this because selling upgrades isn't possible? I think selling upgrades would also make the AppStore more fun, as every major release would be an easy milestone to promote. SaaS is just so incredibly boring.

Upgrades are a different topic. Upgrades are if your app introduces new functionality or a new and improved version of the app itself. New functionality or not APIs still cost a developer a lot of money because it's data being accessed* that companies charge for. Most apps have some kind of functionality where they access data like this or have some kind of hosting they pay for. If everyone bought the app when it first came out and never bought it since but still used it the developer would go into debt rather fast.

*Just to give an idea how expensive this stuff is I had a coworker who had a popular but free personal app that used Googles Places API. He passed one wrong query into the API and because so many people used his app he ended up with a nearly $10k bill. Luckily he fought it and won since Googles documentation was conflicting and the docs he followed said it was free but had his app been using that API in the long run it would have been a massive cost he'd have to account for, hence things like subscriptions.

 

[chrono1081]

The trillion dollar company is the enabler for others to make money for virtually no outlay. If you don’t like the way apple operates, should be a piece of cake to:
- develop, design, manufacture, ship and distribute your own platform
- hire software engineers to architect an appropriate solution, get data center resources to support the workload
- figure out how the aftermarket support
- get developers to join your cause. After all 100% of the developers are fed up with apple taking a cut.
- you of course will host for free or a nominal cost that doesn’t even cover expenses. You’ll get revenue through, hardware and software upgrade sales. Charging for software will be a hit with the user base.

Should be a piece of cake to do with everybody who has ideas about the way apple is mismanaged.

This. The people bitching are obviously NOT developers or if they are, they're very very new to the scene and forget what it was like in the 90s/early 00s before app stores became a thing. The expense to release an app was tremendous and if you didn't have the cash, you found a Publisher (if you were lucky) that usually took nearly 100%. You'd be lucky to get 5% of your sales after the publisher took their share. Getting 70% of your sales when apples App Store was announced was INSANE, and as of the past few years you get 90% of your sales if you fall under 1 million in sales a year!

That's a huge deal for all the stuff you get like hosting, security, payment processing, tax information, the ability to sell in all international markets, a test suite with role assignments, metrics, etc..

 

[turbineseaplane]

The people bitching are obviously NOT developers or if they are, they're very very new to the scene and forget what it was like in the 90s/early 00s before app stores became a thing. The expense to release an app was tremendous and if you didn't have the cash, you found a Publisher (if you were lucky) that usually took nearly 100%.

This is not a good analogy to make

Digital distribution direct to consumers was not yet possible, and/or still in its infancy as a cost effective and practical method.

All of your expense arguments from that time period were about the need to find a publisher and/or distribute physical releases.

That is not the case now whatsoever

 

[chrono1081]

This is not a good analogy to make

Digital distribution direct to consumers was not yet possible, and/or still in its infancy as a cost effective and practical method.

All of your expense arguments from that time period were about the need to find a publisher and/or distribute physical releases.

That is not the case now whatsoever

It absolutely is a good analogy. Direct to consumers absolutely WAS possible back then, you could buy software from any website that offered it and plenty of people did.

I think you're forgetting running an App Store is not remotely free, it's insanely expensive. Apple isn't going to just give all that away for goodwill and neither has any other company yet weirdly only Apple gets crapped on for it. Steam takes a cut, Epic takes a cut, Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo all take a cut, so why is it only Apple gets the heat?

 

[mrochester]

It absolutely is a good analogy. Direct to consumers absolutely WAS possible back then, you could buy software from any website that offered it and plenty of people did.

I think you're forgetting running an App Store is not remotely free, it's insanely expensive. Apple isn't going to just give all that away for goodwill and neither has any other company yet weirdly only Apple gets crapped on for it. Steam takes a cut, Epic takes a cut, Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo all take a cut, so why is it only Apple gets the heat?

Cos it’s fashionable to dunk on Apple.