It’s not the consumers, for the most part, that are assessed the 30%, IAP fee.
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Apple Ready to 'Welcome Fortnite Back Onto iOS' if Epic Removes Direct Purchase After Losing Restraining Order Ruling
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Lol. Now that's some Apple-quality spin right there! Would government taking over your business (again, lol!) be anything like Apple telling you what kind of apps you can and can't develop today? Extorting a 30% commission? Forcing successful apps to subsidize unsuccessful ones? Playing favorites by pulling rules out of their you-know-what to justify charging Epic a 30% commission on V-Buck sales while Amazon and Uber and others pay nothing?
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Even more ridiculous is some people arguing that 30% is "fair" just because some big corporation told them so. But this is exactly Apple's customer today. They want the big corporation to nanny and mommy them and protect them and they defend said corporation's "rules" as if they were gospel. So, a government "bureaucrat" shouldn't decide what is fair, but a greedy corporation should? Got it. That makes perfect sense. Government bad! Corporation good!
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If you want to fight Apple on App Store terms games seems like a poor case. There are more options for the user to get the game, e.g. Consoles and game related stores. The 30% cut also seems universally applied in this domain.
Fortnite cannot really claim that Apple is limiting innovation and denying access to HW or OS features. It seems to be all about the profit.
I believe there is enough legal precedent that you cannot have a monopoly on your own product. So I do not see how Fortnite can win this.
Fortnite cannot really claim that Apple is limiting innovation and denying access to HW or OS features. It seems to be all about the profit.
I believe there is enough legal precedent that you cannot have a monopoly on your own product. So I do not see how Fortnite can win this.
There’s a different between parties agreeing to contractual arrangements in a free market, and parties being told what to do under the color of law by a government.
The iPhone took off when the App Store launched. But that also coincided with major iPhone hardware improvements, so was it the App Store that made the iPhone? Or the iPhone that made the App Store? I suppose one could find evidence to support either position. Either way, however, platforms need apps as much as the apps need a reliable platform.
Those of us who have been Apple customers for decades know this all too well. Had a few key third party apps existed for the Mac back in the late 80s or early 90s, things might have been very different for Apple. The lack of apps, and especially certain apps, condemned the Mac to being a niche platform. You might still use the iPhone if the App Store disappeared, but would you still use the iPhone if the App Store didn't disappear, but the apps you use, enjoy, and rely upon did? Probably not.
True, but the Apple market is not a free market. There's no negotiation --- unless you're a big fish like Amazon. If you want access to the platform you have no choice but to agree to every term Apple sets. Maybe one day they'll ask for your first born and I'm sure there will be a long line of MacRumors fanboys ready to defend that move too. The bottom line is, even if you accept the 30% commission, the rules aren't fair. Why should Apple make 30% from Epic's sale of V-Bucks but not take 30% of the Uber ride that was scheduled using Uber's iOS app? Other than "because I said so", can you think of a good reason? I sure can't.
I haven’t said 30% is fair and reasonable. I’ve said it’s an awesome deal, or a great deal. But then again I worked for a software developer that sold shrink wrapped software back in the 80s and 90s, so I’m quite familiar with commercial software development and how things worked pre-App Store.
We had to pay around 40-50% of the retail price to a wholesale distributor to get our product into retail.
But that was just the beginning. Getting into the store is only the first step. Then you have to create awareness, to get people into the store to buy the product. So marketing: advertising, promotions, discounts; shelf placement fees, advertising circular or catalog placement fees; trade shows; free copies to industry analysts, influencers and reviewers; and lots more. Plenty of other expenses too, including developer tools and credit card processing fees.
A lot of these costs are bundled now with the App Store. iOS is a popular platform for developers to target, and most seem to be fine with the costs until the numbers get too big. Then greed takes over and out of nowhere—after eight years—Epic suddenly decides the agreement is too rich.
I like the way you conveniently and purposely missed out my point on “If Epic think it is too high”. The whole point is they want to have access to Apple customer base and platform for free or at a cheaper rate. In that case, the best way is to create your own and understand how difficult it is to do so. Apple has every rights to determine how much to charge in their own software and if someone think it is unfair they can always go Android (oh wait that is 30% as well) or create their own platform..
Doubt you can understand all this by how you are responding though.
Because digital goods can physical services or physical goods. That’s apples business model. Epic made oodles of money by being in the App Store and then got greedy. Hope Apple prevails. (And parenthetically the app store had to change with the times. And yes, it’s apples App Store. We’ll see where this goes)
It is my experience - of course others may have a different experience, but I know a lot of other developers that have the same experience and opinion. Nearly everyone tells you stories of some new Apple feature that broke, then you wrote a workaround and in the next version the workaround broke - and the story continued ...
The price suggestion of you shows me that you have no idea at all - don‘t you think we tested everything and found out that $2.99 was the sweet spot for our business app? And we didn‘t collect userdata to sell it or implemented advertising.
Surely the answer is very simple, offer the in app purchase at 30% higher cost and recoup the Apple tax but also state if you log into your account on a web browser the cost is 30% cheaper. Rich people can pay more to not have the hassle and people less well off can benefit from a 1min distraction.
Do you think Target or Walmart or even any other large business will be will to allow any Jack or Jill to come inside their store and sell their own crap not sharing any of thier profits?
If any clothing store only put 30% markup on the cost of their clothes they are selling they would never make it.
App developers are nothing more than suppliers to a store and what the store choses to make their markup is entirely up to them. You don’t like their terms find someone else who would be willing to sell your crap.
This is such an awful analogy.
iPhone is the Walmart. There is plenty of choice. You can get a Samsung, Sony, Nokia, Google.. whatever is out there. If you don’t want apples App Store you get one of those phones.
Would you go to apple’s retail store and complain they don’t have a little Samsung shop inside? No, because you went to an Apple store.
It depends.
If you're an indie developer and don't have to manage payments, 30% can be a good deal. IAP is really convenient and customers trust Apple, while is not sure they'd give money directly to you.
When you're a huge company, like Netflix, 30% is just too much, but even 15% isn't sustainable.
Before being regulated by the EU or be forced to change policies by a judge, Apple could do a couple of things:
1) allow apps to take the user to their website (open Safari, not a webview inside the app so it is clear that you're not dealing with Apple) in order to pay. It's ok if they get their cut when using IAP, but users should be able to know they can pay for the same service in a different way.
2) reduce their cut based on the amount of transactions. For example: 30% up to 1,000, 20% up to 10,000 and so on, so big companies with millions of subscribers get to pay a very low fee and although they can still offer discounts if you pay directly on their sites they aren't so damaged by IAP.
Right now, a company like Netflix doesn't offer IAP, so Apple gets 0 (I guess they still have IAP for old customers but I don't think there are many of them). If they asked for 1 o 2% maybe Netflix would be willing to turn on IAP again, Apple would get something and customers would have a better user experience.
This whole argument is pretty redundant as Epic aren’t trying to fight this case on Apple’s cut being too high.
They want their own store completely. They want to cut Apple out of their business whilst still using their platform.
According to your previous post, you tested $2.99 and $3.99. I’m not a mind reader, but you’re welcome in any case!
But do they really?
They couldn’t possibly be so stupid to think Apple would allow any/every random developer to pay 0% instead of 30%.
Epic themselves wouldn’t allow others on their own platform for 0%, why would Apple?
Apple should introduce gatekeeper for iOS. Personally I'd keep gatekept, but if people want to install other applications, then they should have the opportunity, as long as they are aware of the risks.
I didn’t say that Android had to run on iOS. I said “use Android” implying an Android phone.
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Epic just wrote that to make it seem genuine. May I also quote what he wrote?
“We would like to offer consumers the following features:
1) Competing payment processing options other than Apple payments, without Apple’s fees, in Fortnite other Epic Games software distributed through the iOS App Store;
2) A competing Epic Games Store app available through the iOS App Store and through direct installation that has equal access to underlying operating system features for software installation and update asthe iOS App Store itself has, including the ability to install and update software as seamlessly as the iOS App Store experience. Epic is requesting that Apple agree in principle to permit Epic to roll out these options for the benefit of all iOS customers.“
Epic doesn’t care if anyone else gets what they wanted or not. They want it for themselves and thought Apple would cut a special deal with them. Having a competing app store available in the App Store? It’s because they know no one will want to side load the app so they want it via the App Store, which is absurd.
What about the consumers? They don't get a vote? But according to Epic, they already did vote in that they preferred the Google Play store over an alternative forcing Epic to return to the Google store. Epic's claim seems to make the case that there is some value to the App stores so maybe those running them are entitled to some compensation?
Because <mobile network provider name> wasn't smart enough to build a digital marketplace that incentivizes developers to their platform?