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He's right. If you know anything about these micro transaction games, you know that so many of these in app purchases are fraudulent either through stolen credit cards or foreign countries. I have played several games where the whales were milking the system through various means and the developers would turn a blind eye to it. While Apple would often be stuck with the eventual fraud chargebacks.
 
Sorry Apple but this business model is gone. I am paying all subs through providers websites, because they are just 30% cheaper. Let go of it. Don't fight your clients
LOL...that's not how it works. They just keep the 30% instead of paying it to Apple.
 
Here's the thing though: Spotify was an early adopter of the App Store and they figured out how to avoid the commission entirely right from the start. The version of Spotify that could be downloaded from the App Store was free and advertising supported. Apple takes no cut from advertising in an app. The subscription version had to be purchased on Spotify's web site. Apple took no cut from that either.

So there was always a workable formula for entirely avoiding Apple's commissions that was available for any app developer to make use of.
 
Because Apple does not allow app distribution outside their app store (except as forced by the EU), and because Apple profits immensely themselves from the app ecosystem for their hardware and service revenue. Without the app ecosystem (imagine for example that Apple had stuck to only allowing PWAs as originally envisioned), less people would buy iPhones and pay for Apple services.

It's better for me as a customer of Apple that there is a shield between developers and me.

I consider developers to be evil until proven otherwise. I don't want any direct contact with them.
Apple having enough power to force everyone to use their store so I don't have to deal with developers is great.
 
What about all the apps on the App Store that are “free”? What are they paying to Apple for infrastructure? What does Meta pay to Apple for infrastructure?

They're not paying anything. Apple should be able to discriminate.
 
If they don't want to host apps, that's fine. Let me download it from the developer's website and install it myself.
By “ YOU”, i was answering the developer who said they were entitled to have their App hosted by Apple while directing all payments to their website.

The consumer of course should be able to buy from wherever they like.
 
Because I paid full price for the phone and app store is one of the features of it. I would never pay as much for a phone if those pesky developers with their little apps weren't there. Besides if I can pay $10 on developers website, or $13 through Apple, then it isn't developer that pays this fee, its me. They get $10 both times.
My question was adressed to the developer who said they were entitled to have their App hosted by Apple while directing all payments to their website , not to the consumer. I didn’t say Apple shouldn’t provide an Appstore to iPhone owners.
 
But why should Apple provide developers the whole AppStore infrastructure for free of they’re all going to direct the payment outside the Store ?

No software store provides their infrastructure for free, why should Apple be the only one ?

Is this an argument for fair pricing? Then why do they demand 30% of revenues? For paid apps through their infrastructure they should ask 0.10$ per app installation and $25 per TB downloaded content. Add some margin if you want, but these are the justifiable prices. When it comes to the payment infrastructure, about 2-3% would be justifiable.

In total, they could have done 5% flat, and nobody would even have had a problem with that. Maybe slightly higher. They should also have offered in-app payments for physical/non-digital goods for around 3% (rides, tickets, hotel bookings, grocery shopping, food delivery etc.) for which you now need a third-party provider . Everybody would have used this service for convenience reasons and improved conversion rate, and it would have generated a ton of money for them forever. But they were greedy and instead came up with fantasy numbers which have rightfully been challenged. And eventually they will end up with absolutely nothing.
 
App Store cut for Apple should be 10% plus whatever credit card fees are baked in. 30% is ridiculous, and I’m not even an App developer.

Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Apple began charging for software updates. “$29 for an iOS 19 upgrade unless you buy the iPhone 17.”
 
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Is this an argument for fair pricing? Then why do they demand 30% of revenues? For paid apps through their infrastructure they should ask 0.10$ per app installation and $25 per TB downloaded content. Add some margin if you want, but these are the justifiable prices. When it comes to the payment infrastructure, about 2-3% would be justifiable.
Maybe because nearly everybody else does ? Google does, Epic Store does, Steam does, Amazon does , etc.. They all demand between 12 to 40% through their store

My real question is , why should Apple be an exception ? Why is it that people expect that Apple should behave like a non-profit organsiation while everyone else should be allowed to charge a cut, INCLUDING Epic store ..
 
Apple would be a very different company.
Likely smaller - perhaps much smaller - but much closer to the Apple I loved.
I don't know about that. I'm old enough to remember when Apple was indeed much much smaller. I also remember being nearly laughed at at a big computer store for asking if they had any Apple-compatible Mp3 players and looked at like I was a member of some silly obscure occult club.

Or when clerks regularly and unsolicitedly recommended that I should get a PC like everyone else when I was clearly there to buy a Mac, adding that they have "knowledge" that Apple is going to be bankrupt by next month ( and you get told that every month for years )

Or when you nearly had to beg peripheric makers to make their product compatible with Apple.

Yeah, I don't miss those days one bit. They weren't as romantic as you think.
 
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This topic is one of the key reasons why Apple fail hard on gaming. They don’t consider third-party developers and tax them way too much.

Apple use gaming as way to to promote new hardware capabilities by doing some collaborations (Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed etc.) but they don’t give a **** about gaming they want you to buy new hardware or collect service revenue via app store cut/Apple Arcade
 
"You know how many committees we have at Apple? Zero. We are organized like a startup." – Steve Jobs.
 
What about all the apps on the App Store that are “free”? What are they paying to Apple for infrastructure? What does Meta pay to Apple for infrastructure?
Apple already decided they were going absorbing those infrastructure costs for free apps. But if the app dev charges, they make money and we make money.

Meta doesn’t pay anything, it’s the way things are.
 
Lol I’ll just play Epic’s brain rot on Switch 2 and let my iPhone battery chill.
 
I don't particularly care what App Store developer fees and commissions Apple charges as long as it is based on what a competitive iOS store/distribution market supports. The problem here is that by Apple restricting/blocking alternative iOS app stores (outside the EU), they are preventing a competitive iOS store/distribution market to exist.

The reality is, especially at this point, the App Store is going to continue to be the dominant store but a little competition and choice for consumers would be good.
 
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Apple should receive a fee for hosting apps on their AppStore but 30% is far too much. Should have been 10% from the start.
Who are you to say what's too much? It's theirs. They can charge what they want. If you don't like it, don't buy from them. Easy enough.
 
By “ YOU”, i was answering the developer who said they were entitled to have their App hosted by Apple while directing all payments to their website.

The consumer of course should be able to buy from wherever they like.

Well for one thing, that is what the court ordered. Apple has to stop anti-steering rules.
 
Maybe because nearly everybody else does ? Google does, Epic Store does, Steam does, Amazon does , etc.. They all demand between 12 to 40% through their store

My real question is , why should Apple be an exception ? Why is it that people expect that Apple should behave like a non-profit organsiation while everyone else should be allowed to charge a cut, INCLUDING Epic store ..
Because none of those other places are the only way to get apps on the devices you trying to use. They are all secondary market places. Apple is the only one in the list that has a captive market.
 
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Because none of those other places are the only way to get apps on the devices you trying to use. They are all secondary market places. Apple is the only one in the list that has a captive market.
Its important to remember, at the time Apple came out with the App Store, the alternative was Windows CE based phones which had no restrictions on where to download your apps. Not that there were a lot of them, but I had two Windows CE-based phones. So there was already a industry and consumer assumption that a device you owned was just like a computer you owned, and that you could do whatever you wanted (within reason for Carrier connectivity of course) with your own device. Somehow Apple has gotten a lot of people to agree to living under this artificial restriction to pad Tim Cook's bank accounts.
 
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