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That's a mind blowing figure.

The MR forum folks that claims Apple has no "vision" since Steve Jobs passing should remember he was strongly against the App Store.

though the App Store launched under Jobs...... so he approved it....he may have been against it, though come around....many people change their minds

How does support your point of Cook having a vision???
 
The App Store provides a lot. Keep in mind that for us developers, 30% is nothing compared to the 40-50% that a normal reseller takes..

Your comparing Apple to oranges. Digital vs brick and mortar store. I'm not sure why people continue to make this comparison.

Digital Store overheads are far cheaper than a physical store. Brick and Mortar stores need to take more of the selling price to cover their costs. Digital Stores do not.
 
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The App Store provides a lot. Keep in mind that for us developers, 30% is nothing compared to the 40-50% that a normal reseller takes.

The App Store provides a place to be seen. It means small developers who would never be found normally, now have the chance to be seen by an audience of millions. They build a market place and that has HUGE value.

Imagine you're trying to sell you hot sauce. How will your product be found? Getting your product into a big grocery chain like Costco means that millions could see and purchase it. That's what Apple is providing everyone with the App Store. Without that, these developers would just be selling it on their little websites which few would find due to their limited marketing abilities to rank well in search engines and be found.

Developers could choose to instead develop for Android and not pay those fees but Apple has created an ecosystem where people are cool with paying for good apps. Apple users spend on average 4x more than Android users. They're much more willing to pay for an app and that's hugely attractive to anyone looking to sell an app.

They also provide an easy way to update apps, advertise them, monitor sales, and many other tools that small developers wouldn't normally have access to.

Complain all you like about the 30% cut that Apple takes but the truth is that few developers are complaining. We get far more from the deal than the small fee we pay.
I agree, given the platform apple offers, a 30% cut is actually very reasonable.
 
And that is probably the typical experience for the vast majority of app developers. Doesn't it feel good to not even make enough to cover the annual fee?
I still think it was a good investment, as it was a learning experience.
I think my main problem is not the app, but marketing it. I need to promote the app properly, and I'm not good at that.
 
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Your comparing Apple to oranges. Digital vs brick and mortar store. I'm not sure why people continue to make this comparison.

Digital Store overheads are far cheaper than a physical store. Brick and Mortar stores need to take more of the selling price to cover their costs. Digital Stores do not.

And yet developers are cool with this. The many other HUGE benefits I cited are the reason people choose to develop for iOS. No one is putting a gun to their heads and making them write and release apps for Apple.
 
So apple made 30B just by using the Developers' IP. Good.

How did Apple use developers IP and not get sued for infringement? If you are objecting to Apple getting a 30% cut of sales, without the apps store it would be much harder for small and medium sized devs to prosper. Apple provides customers with peace of mind what they are putting on there phones is not a trojan and that promotes buying from devs who otherwise might get overlooked. Apple also provides server space and maintaining of that space. Google, I believe gets the same 70/30 split for non-subscription apps.

But perhaps you are not familiar with retail and the margins retailers require from wholesalers. So lets say an entrepreneur has a $20 retail product it wants to get into big box stores. They have to sell or consign it to the wholesaler for $5 IF they will take it. The wholesaler then sells or consigns it to the retailer for $10. The wholesaler and retailer are getting far more than a 30% take. Of course it's more expensive dealing with hard goods too. But that's how retail works in a nut shell. 70/30 isn't a terrible deal, especially for a poorly capitalized dev launching his or her first app.
 
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How about showing a distribution graph so we can see how those mind blowing profits are spread around. I'm guess a few big winners and mostly losers. Apple should charge less commission, title should be Apple robbing developers blind. At this point Apple is a money press and they can afford not to be so damn greedy.
 
The walled garden is paid by the devices which includes the OS cost.

How come and Apple/MS/Google can have 30% of MY revenue just to ALLOW me to provide an app for a specific platform?

And no Apple did not pay 30B to amazon to have your app in the store.

Because they create the OS and device on which you build your app. Without them, you can't make your app. They even give you the development environment (Xcode) and language (Swift) for free. This isn't difficult to understand - their systems, their rules. They're taking a cut to facilitate the fact that millions of users around the world can find, download and run your app at any time. You don't need the infrastructure to do any of that and that's why they take a cut.
 
Did they tell how much apple made from developers...

I'm sure as usual Apple will include in the keynote not only a mention of this, but either the picture of a check and/or the impression that Apple has "given" this money to developers. Yes they provide the store, bandwidth, etc, but developers deserve a little more of the credit for the actual development and innovation to earn that money than Apple usually gives them.
 
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Let's not forget they set up the entire end-to-end infrastructure to create and distribute the apps, all the way from designing and releasing the applications used to program them - and even making their own programming language to boot - hosting said apps on their servers, designing the operating system used to run the apps, and last but not least designing and producing the actual hardware devices that run them.

Let's not forget that little part.
You would think that after all that they could make the basic searchability for those apps work in their own store. Everyone still uses Google to find apps in Apple's own app store. That is an embarrassment that Apple has claimed to address years ago.
 
Apple said App Store downloads have grown over 70 percent in the past 12 months, led by the Gaming and Entertainment categories. Lifestyle apps, as well as Health and Fitness apps, have experienced over 70 percent growth in the past year. The Photo and Video category has also grown nearly 90 percent in that time.
"App Store downloads", does this mean adding up the individual download count for each app? And are app updates counted individually? Or is this in GB?
 
Let's not forget they set up the entire end-to-end infrastructure to create and distribute the apps, all the way from designing and releasing the applications used to program them - and even making their own programming language to boot - hosting said apps on their servers, designing the operating system used to run the apps, and last but not least designing and producing the actual hardware devices that run them.
That's like saying I owe Ford money if I use a Ford truck for my business, beyond the initial purchase.

You're double accounting, for start. Then let's not forget that Apple forces developers to use their app store, it's not like there's a free market out there and anyone can set their own.
 
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Without 3rd party developers, iPhone wouldn't be as compelling buy. Apple needs 3rd party developers as much as 3rd party developers need Apple.

Personally, I'd be insulted if Apple charged for Xcode in its present state!

Because they create the OS and device on which you build your app. Without them, you can't make your app. They even give you the development environment (Xcode) and language (Swift) for free. This isn't difficult to understand - their systems, their rules. They're taking a cut to facilitate the fact that millions of users around the world can find, download and run your app at any time. You don't need the infrastructure to do any of that and that's why they take a cut.
 
Sounds like some some sort of "quinky-dink" just before iOS 11 when 50% of all free apps will be removed due to be abandoned by developers.

I think Apple chose to do this on purpose.. They know WWDC is right around the corner.
 
Well agreed it was a good idea, though the concept of apps on a device was far from a new one, and ironically Jobs was really opposed to the App Store in the first instance. I think the original iPhone only had Safari widgets or something.

There was a lot of internal pressure from inside Apple and external pressure from developers to really open up the iPhone and let people make proper apps for it. It's great that they did it though I doubt they honestly imagined the iPhone selling nearly a million units a day within a decade either. The iPhone is such an unbelievable success story.

I remember having the first iPhone and waiting for the app store to start. You're right they were only web apps which kind of sucked!
 
Did they tell how much apple made from developers...
"Given that Apple takes a 30 percent cut of App Store sales, including in-app purchases, the App Store's all-time revenue has likely passed $100 billion."
~30b?
 
That's a mind blowing figure.

The MR forum folks that claims Apple has no "vision" since Steve Jobs passing should remember he was strongly against the App Store.

I don't agree with this statement. It doesn't make sense, since he was still in charge when the app store first came out. I'm addressing it since many people share the same opinion. In reality, when the iPhone first came out, the app store simply wasn't ready. Jobs rightly wanted to focus on a core set of Apple apps and get things right before opening it up. People don't realize how much effort goes in to the app store infrastructure. You see a catalog of apps, but the real work goes in to setting up all the developer tools and documentation. It's really incredible how much work went in to that before it was even possible to write the first third party app.

Apple wasn't nearly as large then as they are today, so it was just a matter of resources and getting the kinks worked out of app development before opening it up to the masses. I guarantee that Jobs was planning the app store before the iPhone was even released -- there was no other way that much work could get done for it. Even though some people say he was "against" it, it was only 1 year later that third party apps were on the market with extensive support and a developer web site.

It should be pretty obvious that marketing folks will tell you that what they don't have, you don't need. Until it's available, then they tell you that you can't live without it. Jobs was merely stalling for time and using web apps as a stop-gap measure until the developer tools were ready and the initial bugs were worked out of iOS.
 
I made about $5.00 out of the $70 Billon, and didn't get a check yet, because it's a very small amount.
Apple puts some money into my personal account every month. More importantly, they put lots of money into my employer's account every month :)

They also distribute my app worldwide. I wouldn't even have a clue how to sell an app in Australia, and Apple just sends me money from those guys.
 
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That's like saying I owe Ford money if I use a Ford truck for my business, beyond the initial purchase.

You're double accounting, for start. Then let's not forget that Apple forces developers to use their app store, it's not like there's a free market out there and anyone can set their own.

Here is a better comparison. You made your initial purchase from Ford, so you pay them. You owe money (taxes) to the government because they build and maintain the roads that you use. You pay more money for police and EMS who keep the roads safe and keep people from stealing your product. You pay more money to process the credit card payments from your customers. Apple is not like Ford, they are the entire ecosystem: Ford, the roads, the services, security, credit card processing.

Before the app store, developers were paying 60-70% for the privilege of posting apps to the popular marketing sites (remember PalmGear and Handango?), and basically only getting credit card processing. We had to to everything else ourselves and didn't reach nearly as many people.
 
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How about showing a distribution graph so we can see how those mind blowing profits are spread around. I'm guess a few big winners and mostly losers. Apple should charge less commission, title should be Apple robbing developers blind. At this point Apple is a money press and they can afford not to be so damn greedy.

You also need to consider major companies making free apps that serve them in other ways. Which is useful for the companies (closer to their customers), to their customers, and Apple pays for it. For example there's an eBay app, an Uber app, all things where Apple doesn't make a penny.
 
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