No they don’t. They automate API checks and little else. They launch it once, and that’s all. They do ZERO checking for network activity or spyware. Just look at all the apps now being exposed for reading the clipboard.
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Apple-Commissioned Study Finds App Store Fees in Line With Those at Other Digital Marketplaces
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Yes the further you get from “like” businesses the less relevant the comparisons are. But I think those number serve another purpose. There are business providing way less value (at least in Apple’s eyes, and I tend to agree) that are taking cuts of 25-30%. So while not a perfect comparison they are there for a reason
Uhm? That's not my experience, but maybe we are dealing with different apps. Do you have any actual statistics or you are basing your statement on anecdotal experience?
A quick google shows a somewhat old article claiming that "Direct sales are notably less expensive, typically in the 8% to 15% range" but not providing any source for those figures.
Apple‘s fee levels are arguable but they need to standardize a fee schedule that includes some volume discounts to keep the most popular apps and services from seeking to bypass App Store payment channel. Apple does provide a lot of value with little or no incremental cost incurred for popular apps and services: developing and maintaining XCode, Swift and objective C languages, libraries, APIs/framework; developing, maintaining, hosting, and operating the App Store, ratings, analytics, app security and guideline reviews; payment processing and accounting; iCloud storage and hosting for app data Entitlements, and high availability network infrastructure and services for notifications and iMessage, etc. An$ Apple doesn’t seem to generate as much if any revenue from user data like Google does.
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No, I am not saying they are fake. But neither am I saying that they can be trusted. An independent study would be more believable. I just don't have faith in studies put out by a non-neutral party. Too much opportunity for bias to be a factor.
Sure it adds friction, but it's the same business model. And Netflix should be acquiring customers through their own channels anyways. If Netflix acquires a user through the App Store, Apple deserves a cut. Why should Netflix get 100% from a user discovering Netflix through the App Store front page? Apple built the device, built the App Store, built the developer APIs, built the OS, built the platform, built the services, built the CDNs, and Netflix gets 100% minus the $99/year for a developer fee? Nope. That's absolutely not fair. Yet, that's what is happening to day with some friction. If it weren't for the current Netflix subscribers grandfathered into IAP, Apple would be losing money hosting Netflix today and that would be okay by Apple.
Clipboard reading was not being shown in previous versions of iOS and thus, apps that are abusing it are showing up now, because they are using it without users being pasting etc. It was not possible to ban in a review without good cause.
Facebook was banned after review to play silent audio in the background (which they did to allow Fb running in the background).
The app store review checks if unallowed system calls are used and if require one you can get an exception. The testing is much more substantial than you may think as we had to supply a device for Apple to check our products with and the connection. They log into their account and do some testing. Of course there is no way to go through every issue on their list, but I have been hit by reviewers that found an issue I have gotten by with numerous times. We are all humans after all.
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What part of these numbers are wrong? It's not opinions these numbers are facts. I knew all about the Console stores and steam but was not aware that Google Play has 15% sub fee. Also Epic Store is only this low because they need to catch up to Steam.
Let's address these one by one.
- Apple built the device. Apple already profits handsomely on hardware sales with a margin of about 25–30%; there’s no reason whatsoever why developers should be expected to help pay for others’ iPhones.
- Apple built the App Store. Sure. What if a developer doesn’t want to use the App Store? Developers have found success (and even great success!) outside app marketplaces for many, many years on computers. Plus, ask any developer who’s never had the fortune to be featured by Apple — which is the overwhelming majority of developers — and they can tell you just how many users they get organically from the App Store without spending heavily on marketing on their own and/or getting good press coverage. Hint: It isn’t much.
- Apple built the developer APIs. What do you think Apple’s own software is built on at a fundamental level, rainbows and unicorns? No. Their apps depend heavily on the system frameworks that Apple built for themselves first; it costs nothing for them to open up the work they already did.
- Apple built the OS. When you buy an iOS device, are you buying the hardware only? No. You’re also buying a license to use iOS, so from an accounting perspective Apple’s already earning revenue on iOS. Where else do you think that money comes from? (In fact, this is the reason why Apple used to charge for then-iPhone OS updates on the iPod touch!) You’re just saying that they’re trying to double-dip, I take it?
- Apple built the platform. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this that isn’t covered in whole or in part by the others.
- Apple built the services. See above. If you’re maybe referring to payment processing, there’s no reason why a developer shouldn’t be able to choose to take on liability for any issues with that themselves or, more likely in most cases, just use another established payment processor like Stripe or PayPal, both of which run transactions at the far more reasonable 2.9% + 30¢. (Compared to Apple’s pricing, developers would save money on everything but $0.99 purchases.)
- Apple built the CDNs. First, that’s not entirely true because the App Store runs in no small part on AWS. But also, the only party who decided not to bill free apps’ developers for the costs incurred upon Apple by their free app is, you guessed it, Apple. If free apps are such a burden on Apple, Apple can absolutely fix that by offsetting the costs associated with hosting free apps. What’s unfair is expecting paid/IAP developers to subsidize Apple’s own poor business model decisions.
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If i buy a nintendo console, or PS console i have to use their stores to get more content. It's exactly the same. You don't have to buy the console or phone
Yes, but this is only half the picture. It ignores that there are other ways to distribute your app and/or collect payment on other platforms. These fees are the same but optional on other platforms. On the App Store they are not (outside of compnaies that are big enough to strongarm Apple into a deal/exception).
Wrong. Apple provides many free services to developers that are critical to their apps as well as their users. One example: maps. Google Maps is EXTREMELY expensive to developers (and is one of Google's main revenue streams). Apple provides Apple Maps for free. Developers like Yelp switching to Apple Maps save them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year alone.
Then they should switch to Android.
Multiple App stores mean
- Confusing UX for the user
- Third party stores running multiple services on background to keep apps updated, equating to lower performance and lower battery on device
- Users won't trust apps on iPhone in general anymore as they can't keep up with how third party handles app reviews (if any)
- Less "foot traffic" to the App Store for developers that prefer the App Store, which means less sales for them
I've never been fortunate enough to be featured on front page, but I do quite well for my personal apps.
BTW, majority of apps stick with Google Play despite the ability of third party stores (with the exception of China since Google doesn't really exist there). So what you're asking for already isn't popular on the worlds #1 smartphone platform.
100% WRONG. I worked at Apple. There are MANY teams dedicated to developer frameworks. One example: they have a Maps team, and then there's a MapKit team. Maps team handles the core maps service while MapKit handles developer side of Maps. You think it's as simple as making a private function public? Nope. Not even close.
You have absolutely no idea on how much work it takes to make iOS APIs available to developers.
No. Read my previous replies to other people. I've already mentioned a $399 iPhone SE pays for 4-5 years of new user OS features. A $399 device sale covers OS updates which covers some of the developer APIs, but it isn't going to make up the several hundred million dollars of investments into the App Store and developers. Could easily link you to my post.
You're not thinking from the user perspective. If I made my users login to PayPal every time they want to do an IAP purchase, it would scare many users away from ever attempting an in app purchase. Just yesterday I downloaded Tastetea app and it asked me to type in my credit card number to order a drink from them. I deleted the app immediately after and just went to Starbucks. If this was a general experience by most apps, it would put users on alert before they even tap the "checkout" button which would lower the total amount of money spent inside an app in general.
The fact that Apple made it incredibly easy and made this process consistent across the platform plays a huge role in driving more revenue to developers and Apple. Would you want 100% of a small pie or 70% of a much bigger pie? You failed to take this into account.
Spinning up an EC2 server or enabling Cloudfront on AWS isn't what I call building a CDN. You do know that there's more to that right?
Example: The great China firewall prevents general AWS servers from connecting to users in China. So Apple needs to set up their servers within China which Apple chose GCBD (AWS China exists which has no correlation to servers in general AWS, but Apple chose GCBD). So what about people visiting China that need access to their iCloud data? You can't access servers outside of China if you're inside China. And China forced Apple to store iCloud data from Chinese customers within GCBD's servers. But you're an USA customer that doesn't have data stored in GCBD servers (to prevent the Chinese government from snooping in on your data), they're stored on servers outside of China that you can't connect to! What do you do then? Apple has to deal with this and made it transparent to users while it's up to Android users to figure this out when they need access to Google services. That's just one of many issues with dealing with CDNs around the world. Again, it's not as simple as just launching servers on AWS.
If Apple charged free app developers extra for hosting free apps, there would be far less free apps on the App Store. That would be a stupid move since free apps drive a lot of device sales. Lack of free apps would drive down the App Store "foot traffic"
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Defining a monopoly narrowly makes pretty much anything a monopoly. FedEx has a monopoly on deliveries using FedEx planes, Maytag has a monopoly on sales of washers with the Maytag branding, Best Buy has a monopoly on Insignia cables. It’s absurd to consider. However, it IS feasible that FedEx could have a monopoly on the more generic industry term “deliveries”, Maytag having a monopoly on “washing machines” and Best Buy having a monopoly on “ethernet cables”. Apple, in this case, is in the ”smartphone” industry and is a minority player in that market.
That is not an example of an abuse of a monopoly, that is an example of a developer that did not perform the due diligence to ensure that their idea was feasible AND able to be implemented. If they find out that Apple won’t accept their application AFTER spending the money developing the app, then they didn’t hire the right folks when they started their business.
And Microsoft was lamenting the 30% cut by Apple. I called Smith a hypocrite the other day on this topic and got down voted several times. Nice to see proof in black and white that I wasn’t crazy or Apple biased. Take that down voting members. 
I had no idea Twitch and YT took so much. I assumed it was around 30% as it is pretty standard. Man, all of those people doing donation wars in chat are just lining Amazon's and Google's pockets smh.
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But, I recall getting a check from a class action case where Apple was found doing just that with their ebooks. You can sit and say that other's have options to do as they please, but let's be serious... when you are the juggernaut, you bend the will of your competition.
Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace, PlayStation Store predate Apple's App Store by the better part of a decade and have pretty much the same 30% commission.
What kind of argument is that? What matters is that it pays for running the business and compensates for the privilege of giving you exposure to a vast customer base you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
You know these terms upfront, you either agree to them or figure out another way to make your business work.
A while ago, it was reported that Apple removed an application from the store because it didn't auto-renew the subscription after the trial period. How is that in favour of the customer?
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This is another part of the problem, also one which was an issue with Microsoft and Windows, Apple uses for their applications not the public APIs like the developers have to but their own ones. That means that every application which tries to compete with Apple's own applications is in a disadvantage.
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This is another part of the problem, also one which was an issue with Microsoft and Windows, Apple uses for their applications not the public APIs like the developers have to but their own ones. That means that every application which tries to compete with Apple's own applications is in a disadvantage.
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Ok, call me old. Let's try an analogy, back in the days before smartphones and app stores, let's compare this to physical products.
What the suit is saying, is a vendor, lets call them widgetvendor, selling their widgetproduct should be able to walk into Walmart, and not only demand Walmart carry their widgetproduct, but that they provide the same amount of shelf space as Walmart's house brands, as well as allow them to bring customers into Walmart to purchase the product directly from widgetvendor because they don't want Walmart to take a cut of their sales, AND do it all for free because Walmart doesn't charge themselves a markup on their products, so why should widgetvendor be charged?
And let's get this VERY BIG point across to those that have missed it, or never learned it. Businesses are in business for one reason, TO MAKE MONEY, not to benefit customers, not to effect social change, not to promote diversity, and not to be fair to the competition. That is just the smoke they blow to make you give them more money.
If you want things to change, you do it with your wallet. If enough people stop buying Apple products that it hurts their bottom line, you can bet they will listen. And if a 3rd party app is as influential as Spotify thinks it is, then pull the app completely. Spend some coin convincing your users to tell Apple they are leaving with you. If they lose enough money Apple will listen.
What the suit is saying, is a vendor, lets call them widgetvendor, selling their widgetproduct should be able to walk into Walmart, and not only demand Walmart carry their widgetproduct, but that they provide the same amount of shelf space as Walmart's house brands, as well as allow them to bring customers into Walmart to purchase the product directly from widgetvendor because they don't want Walmart to take a cut of their sales, AND do it all for free because Walmart doesn't charge themselves a markup on their products, so why should widgetvendor be charged?
And let's get this VERY BIG point across to those that have missed it, or never learned it. Businesses are in business for one reason, TO MAKE MONEY, not to benefit customers, not to effect social change, not to promote diversity, and not to be fair to the competition. That is just the smoke they blow to make you give them more money.
If you want things to change, you do it with your wallet. If enough people stop buying Apple products that it hurts their bottom line, you can bet they will listen. And if a 3rd party app is as influential as Spotify thinks it is, then pull the app completely. Spend some coin convincing your users to tell Apple they are leaving with you. If they lose enough money Apple will listen.
The example is being cited often it is always wrong. Also I would argue that if it is the only super market in an area it shouldn't be allowed to priotise their own brands over others.
And that is why we need regulation, because business won't do it. We need regulations to have a free and fair market. This starts with labeling and doesn't end with pricing. So that the market not only benefits companies but consumers. A market w/o regulation is NOT free.
I feel that this is precisely why Apple is justified in having their own music streaming service, so that they will not be held hostage by any one app, no matter how huge. If Spotify pulls their app from Apple, what are the odds that more people will simply opt to switch over the Apple Music so they can continue using their apple devices (the songs are more or less the same anyways), rather than switch to android just so they can continue using said app?
Looks like Apple has learnt much from their earlier drama with Google Maps, and it certainly explains their desire to control as much of their platform and the user experience as possible.
go into any supermarket and you will see the house brand is usually cheaper, and usually in the prime shelf space.
and based on what part of the country you are in, there is usually one supermarket that dominates the area.
and none of that stops you from taking your business elsewhere.
so now we think the legislature has users best interest in mind? a group that sets their own salary, their own benefits, and what Laws apply to them? heck They even give their own bribery a friendly name. Lobbying, which is usually what brings about these hearings, lawsuits, etc.