In Europe, the intent of a law also matters for its interpretation by courts, not just the letter.
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Apple's EU Core Technology Fee Could Bankrupt Freemium App Developers
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Now that I’m thinking about it, what would Apple think if google suddenly starts to charge Apple the same rate as apple’s CTF to Apple Music app? Would Apple happily pay $20 million per month or fight google to the bitter end to not pay it?
A quick google search shows Apple Music hit 40m total downloads in Q1 2019, so I just use that number as a hypothetical.
A quick google search shows Apple Music hit 40m total downloads in Q1 2019, so I just use that number as a hypothetical.
Well, it sounds like there’s going to be pain for devs until there’s either clarification or legal remedies via the courts.
Hopefully there’s something done in iOS 18.
But if you only use these dozens of built-in apps and don't subscribe to any additional services, Apple doesn't earn anything from your app usage. By your logic, that shouldn't be free.
Apple won’t pay a cent for their Blood Oxygen sensor in the Watch. I think you have your answer.
Come on. Your signature full of apple products going back decades say otherwise lol. As annoying as Apple can get, it's still better than the alternatives - just not as much the "old" days. Non Pixel androids have so much bloatware and garbage that gets force installed. You're also at the mercy of the manufacturer for timely (or lack of) security updates.
Well said. The App Store is a platform that incurs significant investment and operating expenses beyond Xcode and apis for storage and application servers, data centers, network infrastructure, security and administrative systems and more to handle millions of apps with billions of downloads. The costs of operating a platform at that scale is probably in the billions of dollars.
…Apples entire thing has always been that their hardware sales pay for the software, for decades. Are you new here?
The Windows phone (remember it?) failed due to insufficient third-party app support, despite having excellent usability. The Mac would also fail if nobody would develop apps for it.
Maximo’s CEO has stated repeatedly for months that he doesn’t even talk to Apple and hasn’t in a very long time. You have no idea whether royalty payments were ever offered as a solution, by either side.
The “application store” would be free, and that would t be up to Apple. But using Apple‘s tools to build the app, does not have to be free. An artist can make their art free, but adobe does not have to provide their software for free, just be the artist chooses to do so.
While not likely done at that meeting I’m sure Apple ran this by them or at least by DMA experts to make sure this wouldn’t be an issue with the DMA’s current rules. They aren’t going to announce something that they will have to do a 180 on the next day. If they have to make any changes it will be if/when changes are made to the DMA.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the meeting was so short because it was just them confirming that Apple was good to go with their proposed plan.
Hmmm .. so I should be able to bring my famous apple pies to my local grocery store, put them on a shelf, offer them for free and not expect the grocery store to charge me for shelf space? 🤔
iPhone broke 10% market share before the iPhone had an AppStore. So that logic doesn’t work. Without iPhone developers wouldn’t have an AppStore, and the Apps also help Apple, but those also exist on Android. So Apple makes tools, a market, a way to easily get payments, in multiple countries all over the world, and in return, 30%. Most App developers are very ok with this arrangement. The only ones that aren’t, are the huge companies that have grown big enough to to do that on their own. They can now do that in the EU, and just pay 45k a month for the tools to do so. That’s not much for those kind of sales numbers.
To get away from paying Apple $99.
Except Apple didn't do that, did they? They took the parts of the app store that no one liked, and forced them upon everyone else.
Apple is, again, the only platform that forces a developer to pay a reoccurring fee for the privilege of running an app on their platform.
If they had unlimited shelf space, your local grocery store wouldn't care. The more options they have, the more they can sell.
It’s not 45k a month, it depends on user count and install count. It could be far higher or lower depending on install count.
In 2008 android hasn’t event properly launched yet… no one really had apps.
I am also willing to concede that my 10% number is kind of arbitrary.
The problem I have is that Apple clearly doesn’t just use the 30% cut to find iOS but it goes into the same big pit that funds everything they do.
The commission also very likely subsidizes Apple TV+ and apples other services that are likely losing money. Which would be anticompetitive.
This just makes it incredible risky to publish a freemium app on a third-party app store — you risk losing half a million or more. I don’t see how that will be able to stand in court.
The other case I personally find more interesting are completely free apps, like open-source or hobbyist apps, which also have an interest of not being subject to Apple's App Store content restrictions. If they become popular, they likewise suddenly risk having to pay half a million to Apple.
That’s true. But for some reason Apple doesn't want to put a price on Xcode. Instead they want money proportional to the success of an app, which is totally unrelated and not thanks to anything Apple did. One might call this rent-seeking.
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Hosting data isn’t free. We’re not even a large company and our cloud bill is in the 10’s of thousands of dollars a month.
Apple owns some data centers, but uses Akamai for the majority of its services. That isn’t free.
I think indie devs that never had to factor this in are going to find the upstart costs insurmountable. Meaning they either make a deal to hitch a ride with the Big players, or only the Big players can do this. Either way the only reason this made it into law was because Big players had a pissing match. None of this is for small “mom and pop” equivalent software companies, but certain aspects will benefit them as a result. 🤷♂️
Then I hope more regions will follow EU suite to demand alternative App Store. Maybe one day Apple will be forced to crawl back to US where it belongs.