So why didn't Netflix lower prices when they stopped allowing subs via IAP? Fact is they kept the 30% and raised prices numerous times since.
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Apple Letting 'Reader' Apps Offer Links for Account Sign Ups Outside of the App Store to Close Japan Investigation
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So why didn't Netflix lower prices when they stopped allowing subs via IAP? Fact is they kept the 30% and raised prices numerous times since.
Your biometrics have been in your phone for a long time, and it’s physically impossible to access them. All your credit cards, transit cards, and lots of other stuff is already on your phone. What harm is having another form of id on there? It’s not like you can have it stolen.
I think if EU and China also join the game in concrete ways, it will be over for Apple’s reign.
Lol. If by “humanity” you mean “giant subscription providers,” then yes.
Netflix may not have passed on the cost to users, but your argument makes no sense either way. Why would they lower the price when their millions of non-iOS users were already paying the higher price as well? Developers either eat the cost up, or pass it on to the users who will probably complain (especially since they're not allowed by Apple to mention why it costs more). So obviously it's a lose-lose situation for them.
The problem is, if they were forbidden from discontinue in-app purchase support, eventually they would have most likely resorted to either passing on the fee to the end user, or hiking prices for everyone (which they already do occasionally). I'm not saying I sympathize with big companies with Netflix refusing to eat up the cost, but I also don't sympathize with Apple setting an arbitrary 30% fee, because in the end it will certainly end up hurting users who can't afford an extra 30% (especially in countries like Hungary where the VAT is already 27%, now that's almost 60% on top of the original price). They try to justify it by saying they're doing work to keep the App Store safe, and yet we continue to see tons of extremely obvious scam apps pass App Review.
Funny how the price of my subscriptions never dropped by 15% year on year despite the cost reduction to the developer.
And Apple still gets to decide what qualifies as a ‘reader’ app? Will these apps be able to provide a price or just a link to sign up? Will Apple stop links in Safari from re-directing to the app (if installed on your device)?
Apple will end up having to allow alternate in-app payment options. That’s where this will end up. They way they could do it is to say Apple’s IAP has to be included as an option and the customers choose which one they want to use. Apple could also require that any in-app purchase that is a subscription, regardless of payment method used, offer an easy way to cancel. Apple should do this before government legislation forces them to. Or if not this at least start with dropping the 30% to 15% across the board.
Apple will end up having to allow alternate in-app payment options. That’s where this will end up. They way they could do it is to say Apple’s IAP has to be included as an option and the customers choose which one they want to use. Apple could also require that any in-app purchase that is a subscription, regardless of payment method used, offer an easy way to cancel. Apple should do this before government legislation forces them to. Or if not this at least start with dropping the 30% to 15% across the board.
Didn’t Spotify charge 30% more when they did offer IAP? I remember using Spotify at the time and I specifically signed up outside the app because I didn’t want to pay 30% more.Exactly.
Your Netflix subscription price or Spotify subscription price isn't going to drop because of this news.
And speaking of Spotify... will this put a stop to their EU investigations?
Spotify's main complaint was that they couldn't send people from the app to their website to have people purchase their subscriptions there, right?
This seems to solve that.
Now Spotify can focus on why they continue to lose billions of dollars every quarter because music streaming is a horrible business to be in.
They won't be able to blame Apple anymore...
Apple could mandate easy cancellation procedures when using non-Apple IAP. I don’t think cancellation really has anything to do with who the payment provider is. I signed up for Hulu on their website and was able to cancel quite easily on their website. What Apple doesn’t want to give up is the easy money they make from IAP inside games, or people paying to remove ads.
Also, if Apple concedes or is forced to allow 3rd party IAP I’m sure it will be alongside Apple’s IAP not in place of it. At least for non-reader apps. So everyone who is concerned about security, privacy, managing payments/subscriptions can continue to use Apple’s IAP and those who aren’t have another option. And those of us who use the Kindle app might actually be able to buy books inside the app using our Amazon account instead of having to go to the browser to buy the book. That certainly has nothing to do with privacy or security since non-digital goods can already be purchased inside Amazon apps and they don’t require using Apple’s IAP.
Yes they used to.
Then in 2015 Spotify started urging their customers to not use App Store Subscriptions. And eventually they stopped offering that ability altogether.
At least now they can provide a link to their website!
Spotify urges iPhone customers to stop paying through Apple’s App Store
The Apple Music rival sends out an anti-iTunes PSA
www.theverge.com
Yes, that is a critical point for me.To be fair... Apple's 30% wasn't just for payment processing...
I apologize for being clueless, how does this "go the developer's website to pay philosophy" impact which version of the app that I download?
If I "GET" the app from the App Store, I know that the version of the app that I am getting has at least been somewhat vetted by Apple.
If I use a reader app to be redirected to a developer's site, after I pay do I then download an unvetted copy of the app directly from the developer?
Download an unvetted copy of the app from an unknown developer? No thanks. The App Store vetting is not perfect but, so far for my family and me, it has kept our devices running securely. That gives me some peace of mind, but more importantly, it saves "Dad's Tech Support" a ton of time.
I think providing a link out to a website is a reasonable compromise. If third party payments are ever allowed within apps I don't see pricing being reduced so I'm not sure how any of this is a win for consumers. This has always been 100% about developers.
Using Netflix for example... they are now allowed to have a link from the app to their website for you to create an account and enter your credit card information with them.
But the Netflix app itself is still downloaded from the App Store like always. It's the same vetted app. Don't worry.
Basically... Apple had these "anti-steering" rules that said a developer couldn't direct a customer away from the App Store to buy a subscription cheaper than on the store.
But now developers can. That's the big change here.
Netflix, in particular, has already stopped offering App Store subscriptions. Users must go to the Netflix website to sign up.
And now it's a little bit easier since the Netflix app can have a link to their website.
Why? All you need is Plex or Infuse Pro. Pirating happens on the server side, which the users need to set up.
I don’t know about games.
I think if the Apple tax is 5%, no one would be pissed off.
Most Americans don’t read books, let alone difficult books.While we're running around changing the world... can someone sue Amazon to let other online stores sell Kindle books?
I find it anti-competitive that Amazon is the only company who can sell content for the #1 Ebook device in the world.
As an American... I agree.
I just think it's funny how no one has challenged how Amazon is allowed to have the only store for Kindle books.
AND our congresspeople HATE Amazon too. I'm not sure how that slipped by them.
I am by far not the brightest crayon in the box, but can I start a class action lawsuit and sue the likes of Amazon, eBay and any other 3rd party seller sites that I sell on? I think the amount of money they charge me per sale ( also known as a sellers fee, plus a monthly selling fee in some cases ) is egregious ( 15-20% of the total sale ).
I have a website ( just like these developers ) that I sell from, but Amazon, eBay and others prohibit me from advertising my website via text or active link in my listings when i signed up and accepted their terms of agreement. I'm upset and I'd like to direct all my customers to my website so that they can buy directly from me.
Frankly, I am sick and tired of paying these seller fees. I want to use all the resources that these 3rd party seller sites have developed, reach their millions and millions of customers that shop on their site each day, but I just want the customers to purchase directly from me and cut Amazon, eBay and the rest out of the equation.
........Am I doing it right?
I have a website ( just like these developers ) that I sell from, but Amazon, eBay and others prohibit me from advertising my website via text or active link in my listings when i signed up and accepted their terms of agreement. I'm upset and I'd like to direct all my customers to my website so that they can buy directly from me.
Frankly, I am sick and tired of paying these seller fees. I want to use all the resources that these 3rd party seller sites have developed, reach their millions and millions of customers that shop on their site each day, but I just want the customers to purchase directly from me and cut Amazon, eBay and the rest out of the equation.
........Am I doing it right?
If you have a website that you sell products from... why do you need Amazon, eBay, and other 3rd-party sellers?
You're the seller.
Ah... you want visibility from the billions of people who visit those giant e-commerce websites.
THAT'S why those sites take a cut.
I hear what you're saying, though. Developers are using Apple's or Google's infrastructure, resources, APIs and SDKs, payment processing, update mechanisms, etc. And thus Apple and Google charge a fee.
If it was possible to sell iOS apps from your website... and handle all of the transactions yourself... then I bet a lot of developers would do it.
But most developers can't. Only the biggest corporations who have subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, etc) can take advantage of these new "linking" rules.
Every other app developer must continue to use Apple's system to sell apps and IAPs. For now.
We'll see if there are any other changes coming soon.
Except we don’t know that. Netflix, HBO and other services were actually cheaper direct than through IAP for a years when they offered both. Part of that was to lure people away from IAP…. and it certainly wasn’t the case for every developer…. but it was cheaper in some cases.
As for the fact their prices have gone up over the years…. We’ll you can’t say their IAP prices wouldn’t of grown just as much if they still offered it. I’m not saying if the entire market shifted and everything had to be purchased direct we’d get things cheaper…. I’m pretty sure the only reason we could ever get a deal is apples 30% cut is so high that you could actually split the difference by cutting apple out of the equation and both make more money while charging less to consumers.
I mean…. That’s kind of flipping the bird to Apple…. But that’s kind of how they set thing up with the crazy 30% fee they’ve been gobbling down for years.
And before you (or really anyone reading this) mentions server cost/subsidization…. you know how much money the App Store makes?
$72.3 billion in revenue last year.
Guess how much revenue apple made from selling macs last year?
~$9 billions
iPads?
$7.8 billion
And just in case you still are thinking “but that’s revenue, what about profits”? Well….
That stuff is a little more obfuscated as they generally want to present the highest numbers to make investors happy…. well I’ll put it this way: when Netflix was paying Apple a 30% fee to cover the cost of users downloading a 100mb app once a month…. Somehow Netflix was able to make a profit off the 70% they had leftover despite streaming about 100x-1000x more data.
“See” it again.
That’s because there are many store fronts for books and Amazon is not the only eInk hardware reader seller. I don’t remember the alternatives but the big one is owned by Japan’s SoftBank also owns Overdrive, which owns the majorly market share for library digital lending on the planet.As an American... I agree.
I just think it's funny how no one has challenged how Amazon is allowed to have the only store for Kindle books.
AND our congresspeople HATE Amazon too. I'm not sure how that slipped by them.
I own a Kindle Oasis 3, and I love it.
I also really likes the feel of leather-bounded books, so, for books that are collectable, I buy premium hard copies.
Amazon is really close with the defence and intelligence industry. So, that may play a role here.
That’s not going to pay for the support, electric, hosting, bandwidth, wages, software development or the payment processing all of which is included in that percentage