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Apple Debuts App Store Subscriptions
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Odd, I didn't realize Buick had a grocery store.
(Your analogy fails in multiple ways.)
Made sense to me. His car was the transport method for another vendors product.
I'm not understanding that (actually, not being a d!ck) please elaborate on what parts.
Maybe I misread it, but it seems to apply to subscriptions and I don't think the Amazon store is a subscription.
Netflix is a subscription. I'm talking about that. So is Hulu+. Or Sky in the UK. Netflix would be allowed to use in-app subscriptions according to the developer terms, so I can't see how they could possibly not be a "subscription" in terms of the requirement to offer an Apple equivalent. Unless Apple is going to have two different defintions of the word "subscription" in it's own agreement...
Though the Kindle store also contains subscription material too, for instance for newspaper subs.
Phazer
Odd, I didn't realize Buick had a grocery store.
(Your analogy fails in multiple ways.)
But what if Buick owned a grocery store, but you decided to get your groceries from someone else. You still transported them in your Buick. Is Buick still entitled to a cut?
The EU lawsuit is about inconsistent pricing. That is, if Apple in collusion with record labels would have 'fixed' the price at $5 (incredible high) per song, the EU would not have hounded them. The problem was that they charged different prices.
In this case, if they were to charge 60% (consistently) instead of 30% for billing, would it be illegal?
P.
And 82% can be considered as dominant under certain circumstances. But you are correct, it is predicted to fall and in such situations, or more generally when things are still changing fast, competition authorities wait for things to settle down. The point being made here is not that Apple is already clearly in contradiction with the law but that they are a borderline case. It is not like a rating has already been downgraded but the company has been set on a watch list.
Is this practice legal in the USA ?
I own a store and I will stock your items to sell for you, but I want a 30% cut of the sale price.
But I'm telling you, if you find another store that only want 20% of the sale price, then you can't let them sell your item at a lower overall price to the public than my store does.
Mind you, if you want to sell it for more to them, so my store offers the lower price then that's ok.
I own a store and I will stock your items to sell for you, but I want a 30% cut of the sale price.
But I'm telling you, if you find another store that only want 20% of the sale price, then you can't let them sell your item at a lower overall price to the public than my store does.
Mind you, if you want to sell it for more to them, so my store offers the lower price then that's ok.
I would think Buick would be. That's an interesting point..
Edit: But Buick is forcing the other grocery store to have the same prices. This is the rub.
Yep. I'm pretty sure that's what Apple will enforce. You can try to parse Apple's announcement like it is some sort of binding legal contract, but it's not. Their clear intent is that if you have an app on the iPhone you have to offer content on the same terms as on other platforms, except you have to cut Apple in for 30%. You can look for loopholes all you want, but Apple isn't bound by their announcement, and they can and will close loopholes as fast as people think they've found them.
As others have pointed out, Amazon does the same thing. I think it is fair for consumers to have a choice of in app versus web signup subscriptions and I think it is fair to charge 30% when Amazon also charges the same.
Apple provides, the platform, store presence (free advertising) for these apps as well as handling the billing costs.
Consider the costs of paying people to cold call homes for subscriptions to newspapers and magazines and think about how low of an uptake ratio that must be for that method. I hate receiving cold calls and it disincentives me to any newspaper or magazine calling me at home for a subscription.
Considering all of the various snail mail and online advertising these publishers spend money on, I would think that they should be happy to give up 30% in exchange for a higher chance at a subscription purchase. Nobody ever calls me offering digital subscription so I would have to stumble upon them by accident on the web. With a free app with in app subscriptions, I don't have to do any work and I can just click a button and enter my password.
Apple provides, the platform, store presence (free advertising) for these apps as well as handling the billing costs.
Consider the costs of paying people to cold call homes for subscriptions to newspapers and magazines and think about how low of an uptake ratio that must be for that method. I hate receiving cold calls and it disincentives me to any newspaper or magazine calling me at home for a subscription.
Considering all of the various snail mail and online advertising these publishers spend money on, I would think that they should be happy to give up 30% in exchange for a higher chance at a subscription purchase. Nobody ever calls me offering digital subscription so I would have to stumble upon them by accident on the web. With a free app with in app subscriptions, I don't have to do any work and I can just click a button and enter my password.
But is this already the case? Does Angry Birds cost the same on iOS as on Android?
Not to my knowledge (there is at least an ad-supported version of Angry Birds on Android that costs less).
They have spelled it out for subscriptions now but will they enforce it for everything?
Angry Birds is free and rooted people can use Ad Block
Even the ad supported version of Angry Birds the ads do not get in the way.
If VISA or MASTERCard opened up their own shopping mall, have those merchants setup stores in that mall, and charge zero rent? Yes.
Even better, use the Amazon app - the plain old Amazon app to buy stuff from Amazon! Last time I checked their app still works just fine. You don't need to go to Safari at all.
I think manu chao may be trying to say there's a real slippery slope here regarding what Apple feels like it has a right to monetize. Would at some point in the future Apple want a 30% cut of ad revenue from a free app? Apple in fact tried to do this by banning 3rd party advertisers like Admob, but was warned by FCC not to do so.Angry Birds is free and rooted people can use Ad Block
Even the ad supported version of Angry Birds the ads do not get in the way.
Here is an example of how Apple would save a publisher. 70/30 looks like a lot better deal than 60/40. Thanks for you firsthand knowledge.
And this is part of why this might be so scary. The slippery slope might extend very far. (Imagine it extending to the desktop app store, too).
We've yet to see where Apple will draw the line, but don't be surprised if they go farther than what would make many of us comfortable.
Poor example. A mall is just a property landlord. They will lease the space even if you don't want to sell any product within your leased space. It is the Macy's within the mall, or the Sears, that is taking a large chunk of your purchase price for an item they sell. They could sell zero product in their store, and they still pay rent for the property. They are the "store" or vendor, not the Mall. The argument is that the purchaser, like my parents, would not have existed were it not for Apple's physical access to buy a book. My folks have no interest in a Kindle, they wanted an iPad. They would be buying their books from B&N still if not for the iPad, and not from Amazon. Amazon still gets revenue if my folks buy from the Kindle App (normally they buy from iBooks),
But if you want to use a mall analogy, in your example of a mall, the mall indirectly gets a cut of profits through their rent, so that a store can benefit from the selling power of the mall. Yet, currently, Google has no expense to sell in the "Apple Mall", which provides over 40 million iOS shoppers. So the 30% cut can equally be viewed as "rent" for Google to use the "Apple Mall" then as an access point to move millions of books that they would not have sold otherwise.
Where Apple is providing significant services, I have no objection to them claiming an appropriate fee.
If I'm a developer taking advantage of Apples' advertising, hosting, distribution, and payment services, 30% doesn't sound all that unreasonable.
But if I market, host, deliver, and transaction content outside of Apple, then Apple deserves nothing. And requiring me to offer said content inside the app for the same price I charge outside the app and claiming 30% for doing nothing but processing the transaction is ridiculous.
I don't like Apple's content business model so I don't purchase content through iTunes or iBook if I have a choice. Apples market interference has already caused a rise in Kindle pricing. If they further interfere with my content subscription just because I happen to be using one of their devices to consume it, I'll find another device.
Hopefully apps like Kindle and Zinio will be pulled rather than submitting to Apples extortion and we'll see what that does for iDevice sales (not to mention the consumer law suits).
Shame on you Apple.
If I'm a developer taking advantage of Apples' advertising, hosting, distribution, and payment services, 30% doesn't sound all that unreasonable.
But if I market, host, deliver, and transaction content outside of Apple, then Apple deserves nothing. And requiring me to offer said content inside the app for the same price I charge outside the app and claiming 30% for doing nothing but processing the transaction is ridiculous.
I don't like Apple's content business model so I don't purchase content through iTunes or iBook if I have a choice. Apples market interference has already caused a rise in Kindle pricing. If they further interfere with my content subscription just because I happen to be using one of their devices to consume it, I'll find another device.
Hopefully apps like Kindle and Zinio will be pulled rather than submitting to Apples extortion and we'll see what that does for iDevice sales (not to mention the consumer law suits).
Shame on you Apple.
Why do people keep saying that? With the Kindle app, Amazon has deals with the book publisher which allow them to sell their ebooks. Approximately 70% of the money from each book goes back to the publisher and Amazon makes about 30%. If the book is sold in the kindle iPad app (under the new rules), Apple will be taking 30% (for doing nothing other than providing the platform) which essentially means Amazon is either breaking even or losing money on the sale. Of course most people using the iPad app will use the in app purchases since it is easier which really screws Amazon. I don't see Amazon going for that. I could see this ending one of several ways... a couple of which would be pretty bad for consumers.
1) There is enough backlash from the content providers that Apple backs down or works out a more reasonable deal.
2) Content providers are forced to raise prices to compensate for Apple's cut.
3) Content providers start to pull their iOS apps because it will be too difficult to turn a profit.
I love my iPad, but if apps like Kindle, Netflix, Hulu, etc. start getting pulled for this reason, I will be getting an Android tablet.
The press release talks mostly about subscriptions.. are we sure this applies to purchases like ebooks as well? How is purchasing an ebook through the iPad any different than purchasing a TV or any other product through the Amazon Windowshop app?
If that's what you're getting at then I guess I just disagree about the way they're intending to apply "subscription". I don't think a magazine subscription is the same thing as a netflix subscription and, in my interpretation, this only applies to subscriptions for magazines (or things like The Daily). A single product that is renewed (monthly, weekly, etc) as opposed to something like Netflix that I see more like a membership than a subscription.
Of course, they DO charge me 25% interest. And they do have some fees set up with merchants, which is why small businesses often have a $10 minimum charge.
If we were to compare it to brick-and-mortars, the App Store really is more like a retail store, marketing agency, and FedEx all wrapped into one. They sell the product, display the product, store the product, connect the product with consumers, and deliver the product (and subsequent updates). That's much more than a simple middleman.
Any dev who can afford the $100 entry fee has the potential to become a millionaire with the right app. That's not bad.
What about the rumored Apple TV set?
If and when this white knight is released, will you be willing to add 30% to your Comcast subscription? I think Apple deserves it because "they have developed such a great platform that brings customers to content providers".
If and when this white knight is released, will you be willing to add 30% to your Comcast subscription? I think Apple deserves it because "they have developed such a great platform that brings customers to content providers".