Apple Highlights App Store's Role in Discovery, Privacy, and Safety: 'More Than Just a Storefront'

[matrix07]

lack of choice is bad for the consumer

Bad? Funny that’s the one lack of choice is the one most popular. How does that compute?

Your slogan is uselsss. iOS App Store, on both iPhone and iPad, is WAY ahead of something that gives you choices like Android in term of number of apps, and quality of apps. Goes out of your cave sometimes.

 

[Blowback]

Apple has overhauled its About the App Store and Developing for the App Store web pages to focus on several key areas, including discovery, privacy and security, trust and safety, hardware and software, and downloading with confidence.

The new pages highlight a range of relevant statistics and emphasize the importance of trust and security on the App Store.



Apple boasts that every week over 100,000 apps or updates are submitted and reviewed by an App Review team, which now consists of over 500 experts from around the world. 10,000 accepted apps use Apple's HealthKit, CareKit, and ResearchKit health technologies.

Interestingly, Apple also states that in 2019, the App Review team rejected over 150,000 apps for violating the company's privacy guidelines. This year, the company has removed over 60 million user reviews believed to be spam. Apple says that it has rejected over one million app submissions over an unspecified time period for illegal, unsafe, harmful, or objectionable content. Over two million apps have been removed because they were devoid of needed updates.



The new developers' page says that 92 percent of iPhones issued in the last four years run iOS 13 and almost 90 percent of apps are reviewed within 24 hours. The page also declares that Apple has paid out over $155 billion to developers since 2008, and over 500 million people visit the App Store each week. 85 percent of apps are reportedly free, and these developers pay nothing to Apple. Over 50% of app downloads come from outside the developer's home country.

Apple notes that a 2019 study found the App Store facilitated over $519 billion in commerce globally, and it supports over 2.1 million U.S. jobs across all 50 states, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy.

Article Link: Apple Highlights App Store's Role in Discovery, Privacy, and Safety: 'More Than Just a Storefront'

Won't see any of this highlighted on CNBC or the other media....who usually grab ANYTHING negative with the Apple heading. Disclaimer : Not a fanboy of ANY company or corporation. Just know media bs when I see or hear it.....

 

[4jasontv]

Yeah developers trying to make a living while also making Apple’s device is more attractive are selfish. 🙄

Would you own an iPhone if it had nothing but first party Apple apps on it?

You mean like the first one that was such huge game changer it sold millions of devices? Of course! The carrier stranglehold killed mobile - not because the apps sucked but because the phones were terrible. The iPhone didn't need apps to become huge, it was already a phenomenon before apps were available.

 

[ksec]

I have never "discovered" anything within App Store. I certainly used to browser through it. But these days Apps discovery doesn't happen inside the store. And I dont know anyone who look at the store either.

When there is no discovery, there is no passing foot traffic, to use a term from Retail. Which means App Store is more like a warehouse. A regulated, curated, efficient warehouse where it is the only place you can buy anything if you live in the "Apple" State.

The problem here is Apple is rent seeking like they are operating in New York 5th Avenue with sky high rent while they are actually not.

I am not too sure what we will end up with. Augment from both side, Epic and Apple dont make much sense and are only there to protect their interest. Government intervening will opens the can of worms. It doesn't seems like anyone could gain anything from this.

I also think had they not been such a dick with their approval process things may not have been so ugly.

 

[chrono1081]

Why hasn't MacRumors ran an article on the Coalition for App Fairness, yet? Here's that page:

Home - Coalition for App Fairness

App developers deserve a level playing field The Coalition for App Fairness is an independent nonprofit organization founded by industry-leading companies to advocate for freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem. Contact Us our vision Lear

appfairness.org

Developer here, that page is full of lies. That "coalition" is nonsense and many other developers have pointed out how incorrect its claims are.

 

[foodtraveler]

I always tell people to stop downloading chrome extensions, because they have no vetting that I can determine. The majority of the time, they claim to do one thing while taking over your browser settings for adware purposes. I am thankful that Apple vets their App Store rather than saying "good luck" to their users.

 

[involuntarheely]

So, I buy an app for $10. The developer gets $7.00 (70%) and Apple keeps $4.30 (based on your basic math). I now see how Apple is worth two trillion dollars. They are literally creating money.

no, ArtOfWarfare said 43% of what the developer gets. you buy $10, the developer gets $7, apple gets $3, which is 43% of what the developer gets.
Apple gets 30% of what the buyer pays. 43% instead is the proportion of the money Apple gets as a share of what the developer gets.

in a "race" of who gets to the finish line first, the developer gets first, but Apple gets 43% there. for doing what exactly, that is ArtOfWarfare's question.

 

[timborama]

App store search sucks. You can search for a literal app title, and the app store gives you something else. Apple shows you only what Apple wants you to see. Completely useless.

 

[Appleman3546]

That's great that they do these things, but Apple fails to mention two things: (1) how much profit Apple makes off the App Store and (2) that these factor's aren't enough to compete if Apple allowed (or was forced to allow) competing app stores because the developers would flee for a more developer friendly app store

 

[topdrawer]

"85 percent of apps are reportedly free, and these developers pay nothing to Apple."

i can do this without paying apple 100/year?

 

[TheWatchfulOne]

Would you own an iPhone if it had nothing but first party Apple apps on it?

Yes. I wanted one as soon as it was introduced. And that was before there was an App Store.

 

[doobydoooby]

Bad? Funny that’s the one lack of choice is the one most popular. How does that compute?

Your slogan is uselsss. iOS App Store, on both iPhone and iPad, is WAY ahead of something that gives you choices like Android in term of number of apps, and quality of apps. Goes out of your cave sometimes.

I’m not saying it isn’t good, I’m saying it’s increasingly powerful and the more powerful it gets the more we suffer. Just because it’s way ahead of something else, why should that change the fact that we need to keep our wits about us? Monopolies are bad. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All I’m saying therefore is open up the walled garden. Or keep the walled garden but give people an alternative.

 

[CarlJ]

Yes, its much more than a storefront: Its the only storefront. Its a monopoly, and for monopolies to be permitted to exist in the free world there needs to be a very strong social case for it (e.g. train lines that just wouldn't be built where the payback period is too long for the private sector, or high speed internet infrastructure installation in a sparsely populated area).

But it’s not a monopoly in any meaningful sense of the word, unless you’re also insisting that McDonalds has a monopoly on sales of food inside their restaurants. Are you also campaigning to see McDonalds (and every other major restaurant chain) broken up? They set the prices, they effectively dictate what percentage of the final price their suppliers get, they can refuse to buy from any supplier for any reason they choose.

Apple might have a monopoly if Android didn’t exist and Apple was 90+% of the smartphone market, but, surprise, Apple isn’t even the majority of the smartphone market - far from it.

It’s fairly clear to anyone who takes the time to look, what the deal is with the Apple iPhone ecosystem, before one purchases an iPhone. If you expected something different and failed to do the research on an item you were spending many hundreds of dollars to buy, that’s on you.

Train lines get exclusive access to public lands to lay down train tracks. That’s a monopoly. Please explain, in detail, how Apple has been granted exclusive access to a limited public resource, in such a way that nobody else can build their own phone ecosystem if they want to. What limited public resource has Apple used up? Please cite the government ruling where that public resource was granted exclusively to them. Along the way, you’ll have to explain how Google built the Android phone ecosystem, which was built after Apple’s iPhone ecosystem, and is far larger than Apple’s iPhone ecosystem, but it somehow magically doesn’t count. We’re waiting.

I get that you want everyone to have free access into the system that Apple built. But wanting something doesn’t make the opposite of that thing illegal, no matter how much you want it. Maybe you should start off by demanding that McDonalds let you set up your lemonade stands inside their restaurants for free.

 

[CarlJ]

in a "race" of who gets to the finish line first, the developer gets first, but Apple gets 43% there. for doing what exactly, that is ArtOfWarfare's question.

For inventing the race, for popularizing the race, for providing all the gear, for building the racetrack after buying the land on which it sits, for getting a huge number of people to pay money to come sit in the stands to watch the race, for building, staffing, and provisioning the concession stands... shall I go on?

Saying, “but I ran in the race so I should get 95% of the race revenue” seems like it’s leaving a few things out, doesn’t it?

 

[TheWatchfulOne]

Apple might have a monopoly if Android didn’t exist

That’s a big might. If Android didn’t exist we might still have Palm, BlacKberry, and maybe WindowsPhone to choose from? (I wish Microsoft hadn’t given up so easily. A game with 3 or 4 players is much more interesting than a game with 2 players.)

 

[Scipster]

So, I buy an app for $10. The developer gets $7.00 (70%) and Apple keeps $4.30 (based on your basic math). I now see how Apple is worth two trillion dollars. They are literally creating money.

No, that's not right. You're starting with original sale price ($10), but @ArtOfWarfare is starting with the amount developers received ($7). So your math will look different, but the outcome is the same. See here:

ArtOfWarfare's math: 7 * (0.3/0.7) = 3

Your math (corrected): 10 * 0.3 = 3

In other words, @ArtOfWarfare's math is right and your math would be right, but you need to multiple the original sale price by 0.3, not 0.43. Only use 0.43 when multiplying the amount developers receive.

In actuality, the cut Apple takes may be slightly less as they only charge 15% on recurring subscriptions post the first year.

 

[TheWatchfulOne]

For inventing the race, for popularizing the race, for providing all the gear, for building the racetrack after buying the land on which it sits, for getting a huge number of people to pay money to come sit in the stands to watch the race, for building, staffing, and provisioning the concession stands... shall I go on?

This.

As a developer I just want to run in the race and see if I can win some prize money. I don’t want mess around with any of that other stuff. I don’t want to build a website that I would have to maintain so users can download my apps. I certainly don’t want to build any kind of system for facilitating financial transactions with people’s bank accounts. I don’t want to manage the issuing of refunds when users decide they don’t like my product. I don’t want to mess with encryption and security to keep financial transactions safe and to prevent unauthorized downloads. I just want to write my apps and upload them to an existing App Store which just what Apple facilitates. If they keep 30% that’s fine, I knew that before I signed up. If they collect an annual $99 fee, that’s fine I knew that before I signed up. (BTW, that one $99 fee, I believe, now covers uploads to the App Store and Mac App Store. They used to charge a separate $99 fee for each.)

Regarding the idea of multiple app stores to choose from:

As a developer I want my apps to be available everywhere they can possibly be made available. However I don’t want to have multiple accounts at different app stores that I would have to manage. I don’t want to have to go ten different places to upload a new app. I don’t want to go ten different places to upload an app update. I don’t want to go ten different places to update my banking info if it changes. I don’t want to go to ten different places to sign contracts when the terms change. I wonder what kind fee, if any, each store charge? Sounds like making my apps available in every place possible could become very expensive.

As a user I don’t want to search through ten different app stores to find what I’m looking for. Any smart developer will place their apps in every store possible. Which means those ten app stores could end up having mostly the same apps to choose from.

For the sake of simplicity and profitability, let’s just have the one App Store that Apple provides.

 

[ss2cire]

Basic math. It's embarrassing you can't do it.

The amount Apple paid out (the number they like to tout) is 70%. The amount Apple collected is 30%. 0.3 / 0.7 = 0.43

$155B is how much they paid out. So that means they kept $66B for themselves. The total amount they charged consumers (minus taxes) was $221B... that's what 100% would be.

Apple kept $66B for themselves, for services provided. What were those grand services? They removed 60M fraudulent reviews and rejected 150K apps. $66B / 60M = $1100 per removed review. $66B / 150K = $440K per rejected app.

I'm actually lowballing here, because I ignored the fact that Apple collects developer fees of $100-300 per year per developer.

did you learn math from common core? apple took 30%.... 30% of 155B (155B x 0.3) is 46.5B
apple doesn't charge for rejected apps... they simply get rejected =|
i had an app once that had an apple log in the screenshot for the app store... it got rejected because that's not allowed, i didnt get charged 440k for that... i fixed the issue and it was accepted and posted. i went on to earn around $40 over 2 years (only sold for $0.99) and i didnt really maintain it.

point is, 30% is 30%...

 

[Dremmel]

App store search sucks. You can search for a literal app title, and the app store gives you something else. Apple shows you only what Apple wants you to see. Completely useless.

Agreed. App discovery gets worse which each IOS release. If I were Apple then I would keep quiet about App discovery. There are so many great things about the app store, but that isn't one of them.

 

[Apple-Privacy-Watch]

It baffles me that Apple sings "Privacy" yet every time you purchase an app or in-app purchase, your email address gets sent to the developer!!! yes devs, it's there if you know where to look, and yes you read that correctly.

YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS GETS SENT TO THE APP DEVELOPER WHEN YOU PURCHASE AN APP OR MAKE AN IN-APP PURCHASE!!!

If your Apple ID email is your name, well now the developer has your name, your email address and a device token, which was previously anonymous, but can now be paired with said data to be a unique and very personal identifier. 🤦‍♀️

 

[involuntarheely]

This.

As a developer I just want to run in the race and see if I can win some prize money. I don’t want mess around with any of that other stuff. I don’t want to build a website that I would have to maintain so users can download my apps. I certainly don’t want to build any kind of system for facilitating financial transactions with people’s bank accounts. I don’t want to manage the issuing of refunds when users decide they don’t like my product. I don’t want to mess with encryption and security to keep financial transactions safe and to prevent unauthorized downloads. I just want to write my apps and upload them to an existing App Store which just what Apple facilitates. If they keep 30% that’s fine, I knew that before I signed up. If they collect an annual $99 fee, that’s fine I knew that before I signed up. (BTW, that one $99 fee, I believe, now covers uploads to the App Store and Mac App Store. They used to charge a separate $99 fee for each.)

Regarding the idea of multiple app stores to choose from:

As a developer I want my apps to be available everywhere they can possibly be made available. However I don’t want to have multiple accounts at different app stores that I would have to manage. I don’t want to have to go ten different places to upload a new app. I don’t want to go ten different places to upload an app update. I don’t want to go ten different places to update my banking info if it changes. I don’t want to go to ten different places to sign contracts when the terms change. I wonder what kind fee, if any, each store charge? Sounds like making my apps available in every place possible could become very expensive.

As a user I don’t want to search through ten different app stores to find what I’m looking for. Any smart developer will place their apps in every store possible. Which means those ten app stores could end up having mostly the same apps to choose from.

For the sake of simplicity and profitability, let’s just have the one App Store that Apple provides.

you see, a summary of your post is:

"I want this, I want that, I don't want this, I don't want that."

and that's the point. You want those things but that's not necessarily what all developers want. so now some (many?) developers who don't share your same point of view are trying to form a group and collectively use their bargaining power. which - by the way - is what Apple has been doing so far: using their bargaining power which some people believe is an abuse of market dominance.

 

[involuntarheely]

For inventing the race, for popularizing the race, for providing all the gear, for building the racetrack after buying the land on which it sits, for getting a huge number of people to pay money to come sit in the stands to watch the race, for building, staffing, and provisioning the concession stands... shall I go on?

Saying, “but I ran in the race so I should get 95% of the race revenue” seems like it’s leaving a few things out, doesn’t it?

I completely agree that Apple deserves credit for having created this ecosystem. But it's been a while now. How many years can Apple continue to extract a rent from their position? They are currently not inventing any new race anymore, they're certainly not providing all the gear (or do developers NOT have to buy expensive macbooks to use Xcode now?), and are they giving iPhones away for free or are they selling them? so they might have built the racetrack but once they sell it they don't technically own it anymore...

some people need to be reminded that [Apple at the time of release of iPhone] is in no way the same Apple we see today. the market has completely changed, so what was perfectly fine back then may not be fine anymore.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

App Store is the best. Have you seen the other stores from android, microsoft, etc? Haters gonna hate. L

Yep, those other stores suck, I can't get a single one of them to work on my iphone

 

[Apple N Oranges]

Gotta do something I guess to detract from all that negative PR they keep generating for themselves

 

[matrix07]

I’m not saying it isn’t good, I’m saying it’s increasingly powerful and the more powerful it gets the more we suffer. Just because it’s way ahead of something else, why should that change the fact that we need to keep our wits about us? Monopolies are bad. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All I’m saying therefore is open up the walled garden. Or keep the walled garden but give people an alternative.

That’s like saying now the bad guys can’t get in. Too bad. We should open it for them just for openness sake.
Who’s gonna responsible for this *alternative* App Store? Who’s gonna responsible when it brought malware to my mother’s phone who’s not techies enough to know the difference between these stores, and steal her money? Who’s gonna responsible when those apps brick her phone? Apple? Why should they?
Closed system has its place. My condo is closed and I bought it because I like that. I like that it won’t allow outsiders coming in easily. If I like the opposite I wouldn’t buy it. If I like the opposite I wouldn’t buy iPhone. That’s choices.
Mobile phone now is not just a mobile phone anymore. It is your body, your bank, your car, your house. I’d like a closed mobile phone please. You don’t like it, there other options. I heard it’s even more innovative. 🤷
Consumers now have it so good but they’re just too dumb to know it.