They're saying Spotify doesn't contribute because it provides a free app that provides no cut to the app store, which would fund its further development. Moreover, most users don't make in-app purchases, which would also help fund store development. Rather, Spotify's revenue comes predominantly from ads, which does not help fund the app store.
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Apple Says Spotify Seeks to Keep All Benefits of App Store Without Making Any Contributions to Marketplace
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They're saying Spotify doesn't contribute because it provides a free app that provides no cut to the app store, which would fund its further development. Moreover, most users don't make in-app purchases, which would also help fund store development. Rather, Spotify's revenue comes predominantly from ads, which does not help fund the app store.
Is it just me or is Spotify in essence saying its users are not smart enough to set up a premium account using a browser, or other device? As far as I know, if you have a Spotify account, you can use it with the Spotify app, and if you didn't upgrade to premium via the App Store, then there is no fee due. I know I set up a free account on my Mac and can use it without problem on my iPhone. I haven't heard of premium accounts being blocked, in fact I have a few friends who use Spotify premium on their iPhones and they didn't even own an iPhone when they signed up to Spotify.
As to the 30% first year charge and 15% on-going fees, isn't that up to the market to decide? I am not an expert as to what the fees should be, but I did read google charges a like percentage in google play. ("The industry standard for how much income app stores take is 30%"...https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/s...ges-and-payouts-what-developers-need-to-know/)
As far as Airplay 2, I have no idea what Spotify is alleging here. I only use the free account (and seldom at that as I actually prefer Apple Music), but I can play music and select the speaker to play through Airplay 2 devices like my HomePod, and I can direct it to bluetooth speakers, etc. I can select devices available and see my Samsung TV. Maybe I'm not seeing their point.
As to the 30% first year charge and 15% on-going fees, isn't that up to the market to decide? I am not an expert as to what the fees should be, but I did read google charges a like percentage in google play. ("The industry standard for how much income app stores take is 30%"...https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/s...ges-and-payouts-what-developers-need-to-know/)
As far as Airplay 2, I have no idea what Spotify is alleging here. I only use the free account (and seldom at that as I actually prefer Apple Music), but I can play music and select the speaker to play through Airplay 2 devices like my HomePod, and I can direct it to bluetooth speakers, etc. I can select devices available and see my Samsung TV. Maybe I'm not seeing their point.
Fantastical doesn't need to pay royalties to musicians.
Tesco also doesn't force those brands to give them 30% of the money they make, in perpetuity, from customers who first tried that product from Tesco.
I'm with Spotify on this one. What would all the Apple apologists say if Microsoft starting charging 30% for every program ran on Windows 10?
This is part of the issue that they are arguing. It's unfair. It should not make a difference whether someone provides digital or physical, ultimately neither requires any effort on Apples part.
Uber makes millions off iOS customers hailing rides, yet only pays the $99 a year hosting fee to be in the store.
Apples arguments that the App Store gives them customers, therefore they take their cut is a flat out lie as hundreds of other Apps access the same customers to sell physical goods yet pay the $99 only.
Apple gets zero from sales of the Spotify app. And Spotify is absolutely free to sell music directly to end users, as you suggest, without paying a penny to Apple.
Except that developers are forbidden from leading users to payment methods outside the App Store. They got in trouble for sending emails to users to explain how to get premium, why would Apple be any more lenient with audio ads?
If you use a business model that doesn’t work, that’s not apple’s fault. And Spotify can do all the sales through their website. As long as they don’t take their money through Apple, they are fine. That’s what Netflix does.
"Catastrophically Broken"? Isn't it the most successfully developer platform, probably in the history of developer platforms? It sounds like your complaints are more about how to market particular apps in a crowded playing field and get adequate exposure. Haven't developers earned something like $130 billion from the App Store? That sounds pretty successful to me. Maybe you could write an article about how "good apps" get overlooked in a crowded field and it is hard to get adequate product differentiation and exposure. That would indeed be interesting
As far as my job is concerned, Apple gets $99 a year and that’s it. As far as me as an independent developer, 70% of something is more than 100# if nothing because I wouldn’t be able to sell my app at all.
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You can also mix this. Allow people buying through the AppStore or through your website. Make money both ways.
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Who says Apple treats its own apps differently? They can probably show that if you buy $100 worth of music, they pay the musicians and make profits from the $70.
You seem to think that building, maintaining, and operating all of those server farms where the app store is hosted is free.
Go sign up for an AWS account, build a web app, and have it hosted. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars a month just for this alone.
Infrastructure is expensive on the web. Apple isn’t hosting your apps on a $9.99 GoDaddy server.
You can buy Spotify gift cards in retail outlets, which are popular among those without credit cards. Retailers don't put those cards in the highly valuable impulse purchase area out of the goodness of their hearts, they put them there to get a cut of the sale.
This is the cost of using someone else's space to sell your product.
This is the cost of using someone else's space to sell your product.
I don’t see Microsoft complaining about Apple taking a cut from Office 365 subscriptions. I also don’t see Microsoft charging more through Apple then what they charge directly at their site to make up the difference.
Apple made 14 billion dollars off the app store alone in 2018. They're hardly doing poorly out of it.
A single slice. After that initial transaction my relationship with the retailer ends and Spotify takes over. The retailer doesn't then demand 30% in perpetuity because I initially bought the card from them.
It’s not 30% in perpetuity. Did you miss the part where it drops to 15% after the first year?
Yeah it’s not free but it’s cheap for a company like Apple. The store can literally be a big S3 Bucket with Cloudfront in front. At previous companies I work for, we spend several thousands of dollars per month, but that was bucketed under expected operating costs
You should consider your options when building a “web app”. If you don’t know what service tiers to get, then yeah it’s easy to rack up costs.
As a developer, you get to read the App Store terms and conditions, which are the same for everyone , including Uber, Spotify and Netflix.
You are _not_ allowed to sell physical products with payment through Apple. That covers Uber, Amazon selling CDs, or eBay. Any non- physical goods sold through the app go through the AppStore and you get 70% (85% for subscriptions after the first year). Anything sold through your own website or by other means, you keep everything. That’s what Netflix does.
An S3 bucket is just that. A bucket. It’s a place to store files. You’re not running a node backend on a bucket.
So that’s all fine if all you want to do is give someone a url to download from, but you’re not going to run a store from it.
Not to mention that S3 doesn’t allow for incremental changes. So if you need to change one line of code to say, add a feature, the entire app has to be sent back up.
Very well. Tesco doesn't then force those brands to give them 30% of the money they make, in the first year, or for every 12 months following a gap, then 15% every year after, in perpetuity, from customers who first tried that product from Tesco.
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The physical distinction is fairly arbitrary, no? What makes Uber that much more special that Apple doesn't deserve their 30% cut for providing Uber with that customer?