Google Pulls Fortnite From Play Store, But Game Remains Available Through Other Android Sources [Update: Epic Games Sues Google]

[Abazigal]

Really? You've heard from developers directly and they say they want to give Apple ZERO? Doubtful. Maybe an alternative avenue for distributing their apps where they can control their costs. From a business standpoint, doesn't that seem fair?

You've probably heard no discussion about "reasonable amount" because it's none of your business. Why should you know?

Won’t an alternative store (replete with its own alternative payment methods) essentially lower Apple’s cut to zero?

To me, it’s a logical end point. People were fine with 30% many years ago, and today they are complaining of it being too high. Lower it to 20% and they may be happy for a short while but I am sure it will only be a matter of time before they start complaining again.

Lower it to 5% and you will probably still have people arguing that Apple could probably afford to run the App Store at a loss by absorbing all costs due to how much money the iphone makes.

The reason why we haven’t heard much discussion about this is because what passes for “reasonable” is going to vary from user to user. I would say that for the developer, anything higher than 0% is unreasonable, because any money that goes into Apple’s pockets is by definition money that isn’t going into their own bank account.

Who gets to decide what is fair even? Would the courts even have the expertise needed to decide what a fair cut entails?

 

[alien3dx]

Won’t an alternative store (replete with its own alternative payment methods) essentially lower Apple’s cut to zero?

To me, it’s a logical end point. People were fine with 30% many years ago, and today they are complaining of it being too high. Lower it to 20% and they may be happy for a short while but I am sure it will only be a matter of time before they start complaining again.

Lower it to 5% and you will probably still have people arguing that Apple could probably afford to run the App Store at a loss by absorbing all costs due to how much money the iphone makes.

The reason why we haven’t heard much discussion about this is because what passes for “reasonable” is going to vary from user to user. I would say that for the developer, anything higher than 0% is unreasonable, because any money that goes into Apple’s pockets is by definition money that isn’t going into their own bank account.

Who gets to decide what is fair even? Would the courts even have the expertise needed to decide what a fair cut entails?

first-year 30% second year and continue 15%. Already reasonable.

Not reasonable - you need to pay 100 dollars but your apps not finish and cannot do beta test among colig. Put is unverified. You may check many people paid it but never upload a program.

- b2b app needs to give access to apple. The client won't like it.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I have no problem on this because they are supportive and quick. Compare to google they ban first if something wrong and has to change according to their request and make new namespace project.

Not saying it's a problem. Saying $100/year doesn't even cover what Apple has to pay out of their own pocket to review your apps.

My site using google maps instead of apple maps. Apple still lacks of information compare to another vendor.

Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, basically all the top apps (except ones by Google) use Apple Maps. *You* might not use it, but Apple Maps certainly serves most of the popular apps (we're talking hundreds of millions map requests every day) in which they pay $0 to use.

Only using firebase for crash event on iOS/Android apps. Before using fabric.

Ok great.

We send apk so client can sideload.

Assuming you can connect to clients in China. Cloud services like AWS, Dropbox, Google Cloud are blocked behind the great China firewall. You need a special AWS China account to serve your APK via S3. What about push notifications for Chinese customers? Can't use Firebase.

And what about your ipa? 0 Problems. Submit once and go.

For optimal like me, I have iMac and iPod touch and other so basically you shouldn't calculate cost like that. If you dare to calculate should how return on investment (ROI) .

What are you trying to say? I'm calculating what is needed to develop for iOS. Your grammar is making it hard to understand your point.

Google always win for their services and provide sdk. Apple err aa..

Wrong. I develop for both platforms. Have you seen this years SDKs on both platforms? Android barely had anything new.

 

[alien3dx]

Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, basically all the top apps (except ones by Google) use Apple Maps. *You* might not use it, but Apple Maps certainly serves most apps (we're talking hundreds of millions map requests every day) in which they pay $0 to use.

I'm not sure , Facebook using Here maps not apple maps.

Assuming you can connect to clients in China. Cloud services like AWS, Dropbox, Google Cloud are blocked behind the great China firewall. You need a special AWS China account to serve your APK via S3.

And what about your ipa?

Within the apple store. AWS is blocked in some parts of the area China even I try Amazon Hong Kong.

What are you trying to say? I'm calculating what is needed to develop for iOS.

Sometimes when some small company would ask things like this.

How much cost of hardware?

I would say like you, you need MacBook 1.5K USD, an iPhone 7,8,9 which either have iOS 12,13, An actual iPad minimum iPad mini 2019.

How much cost of the software ?

Maybe around 500 USD to 1000 USD.

How much time will deliver?
Most of them are idiotic and want a system, apps can be delivered in around 1 or 2 weeks. We need to follow procedure and mostly either you follow or not will be range 1 to 3 months or more.

How much staff minimum required?
3 person one team - Designer, Tester, Coder.

So as a conclusion what I'm trying to say.
You cannot calculate cost base on hardware but you need to prepare paperwork return on investment (ROI) or tender requirement, or anything whatever can calculate all the cost. Sorry, I'm not indie one-man show developer.

Wrong. I develop for both platforms. Have you seen this years SDKs on both platforms? Android barely had anything new.

If you code both worlds, you should already know both are dam scary. SWIFTUI only ios 13 above and still a lot of people using old android phone marshmallow, nougat. So if you want to code more features mean it will be stuck to android 8 and above.

The only good is for apple platform is USER ALWAYS UPDATE to Latest Operating System, so I don't have to think those stupid yellow warning message from XCODE.

 

[0388631]

I don't support any of the parties involved, but the 30% rate is a bit overkill since Apple is merely hosting a file and processing a payment on the company's behalf. Justifying why Google or Apple need to collect fees with each transaction to support their stores is hilarious. Apple made a profit of about $106B last year. I'm sure they can afford a 15% cut on certain apps. I don't even know what Google is doing with their cut as their store is still a pain in the ass to navigate, and I say that as an Android fan and user.

Fortnite is about to end like “Flappy Bird”

May want to look up who owns Fortnite.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I'm not sure , Facebook using Here maps not apple maps.

I just checked. Facebook is using Apple Maps in iOS.

Within the apple store. AWS is blocked in some parts of the area China even I try Amazon Hong Kong.

Apple Store is not blocked in China. You submit your app to the App Store, you can release in China. Apple uses a different provider than AWS in China.

Sometimes when some small company would ask things like this.

How much cost of hardware?

I would say like you, you need MacBook 1.5K USD, an iPhone 7,8,9 which either have iOS 12,13, An actual iPad minimum iPad mini 2019.

How much cost of the software ?

Maybe around 500 USD to 1000 USD.

How much time will deliver?
Most of them are idiotic and want a system, apps can be delivered in around 1 or 2 weeks. We need to follow procedure and mostly either you follow or not will be range 1 to 3 months or more.

How much staff minimum required?
3 person one team - Designer, Tester, Coder.

So as a conclusion what I'm trying to say.
You cannot calculate cost base on hardware but you need to prepare paperwork return on investment (ROI) or tender requirement, or anything whatever can calculate all the cost. Sorry, I'm not indie one-man show developer.

I was providing a counter-arugment to PsykX's argument where he said "And usually they also buy products such as iPhones and iPads to test their products." which does not factor in staff/time. You're arguing about something else.

A Mac mini and iPod Touch is all that's needed to test for an iOS app which doesn't support the PsykX's idea that Apple doesn't deserve 30%.

If you code both worlds, you should already know both are dam scary. SWIFTUI only ios 13 above and still a lot of people using old android phone marshmallow, nougat. So if you want to code more features mean it will be stuck to android 8 and above.

The only good is for apple platform is USER ALWAYS UPDATE to Latest Operating System, so I don't have to think those stupid yellow warning message from XCODE.

We've already moved our minimum app requirement to iOS 13 as the install base is 70%. Also Fortnite requires iOS 13 too.

Yes, Android is fragmented because manufacturers only support 1-2 years (except for Google which they do for 3 years). This supports my stance that Apple should be rewarded 30% cut for spending the resources in keeping the install base on the latest version by supporting devices for 5+ years.

 

[alien3dx]

I was providing a counter-arugment to PsykX's argument where he said "And usually they also buy products such as iPhones and iPads to test their products." which does not factor in staff/time. You're arguing about something else.

A Mac mini and iPod Touch is all that's needed to test for an iOS app which doesn't support the PsykX's idea that Apple doesn't deserve 30%.

Okay understood. For me, totally diff. Just paid them lol, even my customer complain about why the fee so high. Sometimes a client wants quick buck but for my latest client, their apps are published and payment via website not from in apps itself. Apple rejected the "top-up/scratch card" method while google allowed.

 

[AppliedMicro]

People were fine with 30% many years ago, and today they are complaining of it being too high

Years ago, the App Store was largely about one-time transactions, not subscriptions.

Who gets to decide what is fair even?

No problem. Let's look at what they providing: Payment processing for a third-party subscription service. We do have empirical data on that. 5% or 10% maximum should be reasonable.

 

[frenchcamp49er]

CC charges are very negligible in any online transactions, 24 X 7 just App Store, whereas the App developer has to provide SLA to their customers which is way different than hosting a static App in an App Store not worrying about fulfilling obligations. All the back end App Specific infrastructure are hosted by the developers (WhatsApp server stores WhatsApp data, not Apple unless you choose a paid iCloud services of Apple). App data in App Store vs Customers data in servers are way too different.

Marketing promotion of Apps for developer’s potential customers without giving opportunity for developers to promote the way they want and mining the data of their customers etc...

Very valid points, developers have to move out of the platform that charges percentages of the revenue, restrictions that do not allow them to develop their business on their own reasonable terms.

Mobile phones have become part of everyone's life and we need more OS choices to compete iOS & Android.

Developers community must work towards this and moving out of dictatorial and ransom platforms even if that hurts them.

When large pool of developers take such actions it affects the ecosystem and OS just like it affects developers.

Even governments don’t tax this much for the kind of services they provide.

But no one is forcing anyone to make iOS apps.

 

[Bandaman]

But no one is forcing anyone to make iOS apps.

The "nobody is forcing" argument is getting quite old.

 

[Ramchi]

Won’t an alternative store (replete with its own alternative payment methods) essentially lower Apple’s cut to zero?

To me, it’s a logical end point. People were fine with 30% many years ago, and today they are complaining of it being too high. Lower it to 20% and they may be happy for a short while but I am sure it will only be a matter of time before they start complaining again.

Lower it to 5% and you will probably still have people arguing that Apple could probably afford to run the App Store at a loss by absorbing all costs due to how much money the iphone makes.

The reason why we haven’t heard much discussion about this is because what passes for “reasonable” is going to vary from user to user. I would say that for the developer, anything higher than 0% is unreasonable, because any money that goes into Apple’s pockets is by definition money that isn’t going into their own bank account.

Who gets to decide what is fair even? Would the courts even have the expertise needed to decide what a fair cut entails?

When the App Store was a novel idea when mobile apps were slowly taking its foot, it was ok for developers who never had such opportunity before and most importantly they did not have a choice in terms of deploying Apps in iOS. In all fairness they probably agreed to Steve Jobs in promoting a new mobile OS pushing the Apple as the front runner.

Now Apple has benefitted more than the developers in establishing the ecosystem with billions of devices.

The game is completely changed now with developers worked hard ignoring other platforms and invested on iOS and made it as the most vibrant App Store ecosystem without Apple getting involved in any of their development processes or innovations or struggles or risks, developers also becoming responsible and accountable in serving their hundreds, thousands and millions of customers unlike it started. Costs associated for this doesn’t come from anywhere while Apple cutting 30% every time looks like a horror story, especially those who are bigger ones, technically superior, have creative resources and excellent development skills after parting 30% to Apple another 35% to government left with very little! Just like Apple has obligations to side step taxation for its investors, developers also review their business from time totime.

If Facebook, WhatsApp, MS Office, WeChat, Games, Media Houses, Productivity tools, Creative editing tools pull their Apps,Mobile phones become duds in that platform. Especially the Social Media apps, I am sure both can try for few months.

 

[Ramchi]

But no one is forcing anyone to make iOS apps.

Ironically true but in the world of billions of mobile phones, where most or many of the things getting integrated with only two OS sharing 99% of the customers, the word choice itself has no meaning when both playing the same game. They sometimes call it as cartels.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Developers already pay $100/year for their developer licence. They also need to buy a Mac to develop in Xcode. And usually they also buy products such as iPhones and iPads to test their products. That 30% is added on top of that.


And THAT is the problem. It's called monopoly.

If tomorrow, Apple decides the new price is 90% instead of 30%, we'll all have to swallow the pill or up the price for the customers, so we can still get as much revenue. The other solution is to implement direct payment solutions, which will make Apple automatically pull or reject our app.

Luckily, on the Mac, on Windows and even on Android, there are still alternatives to App Stores, which enables us to lose just a few cents per transaction as opposed to a whopping 30%.

30% is standard.

 

[pacalis]

Just for clarification - fortnite is not freemium in the way many other games are.

Other than being required to pay $$$ to dress up like a Christmas tree or Deadpool (which offers no tactical benefit) you can play the game in the richest way possible, and win the game just as easily if you don’t pay money or if you do. It’s just a “hats” business model. It may have been an accident even that it worked out that way, but i think it’s a fun game and haven’t paid a dime.

I think freemium is exactly the right term for fortnite's business model. It is not "pay to win," which is a bad thing.

Also, if Fortnite were to succeed in their arguments, Apple would be compensated for Fortnite being in their stores. At the same time, they would take fees from smaller developers whose apps are not freemium. In what universe would that be a fair thing?

 

[pacalis]

So here's one... What happens if I buy a skin on iOS Fortnite and then EPIC doesn't support Fortnite on iOS.

Do I have an right to a reasonable expectation of continuing to use that skin on iOSand then, when I can't, a right to a refund of that skin?

 

[PsykX]

Considering an app reviewer gets paid $30/hr + benefits, $100 pays for 3 hours of app/update submissions. How many updates does a developer submit to the store per year? Likely more than 3.




How much does it cost an app developer to use Google Maps for high volume usage? Thousands per month.
How much does it cost an app developer to use Apple Maps for equivalent high volume usage? Free.

(Keep in mind, Apple makes $0 from Yelp, but Yelp saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by using Apple Maps in their apps)

How about Google's Firebase? Thousands per month again.
How about Apple CloudKit? Up to 2 petabytes of storage for free.

How about distributing Android apps to China? Extra 1-2 weeks of dev time to implement against Baidu's policies and SDK.
How about distributing iOS apps to China? No extra work

How much is a Mac mini and iPod Touch? $1k.


Not even factoring in the hundreds of millions of dollars Apple reinvests back into developer programs. Compare Google's yearly SDK updates vs Apple's SDK. Apple's SDK wins by far.

Wait - let me be clear here - I do think Apple has the right to keep a cut for each in-app purchase and app purchase completed. It's the % that I find ridiculous in 2020. It made total sense in 2009, and I think the audience even applauded when the price was revealed. But how much makes sense? That is the question.

- CloudKit vs Firebase : You make it sound as if Firebase automatically requires money. Firebase is free for I would say 80% of the apps that use it. I just tried them both 2 months ago for my project, and came up to the conclusion CloudKit lacks too many features, is harder to implement, is not as fast as Firebase, has mediocre documentation and small community, and the web console was way inferior to Firebase. And most importantly, Firebase is cross-platform if I ever decide to port my app to another platform someday.

- Apple Maps vs Google Maps : Valid point. They do offer a great mapping service. Some will say it's not on par with Google, I actually think it's very solid, but the again I use it lightly.

 

[farewelwilliams]

It's the % that I find ridiculous in 2020. It made total sense in 2009, and I think the audience even applauded when the price was revealed. But how much makes sense? That is the question.

If you factor in what you think has changed between 2009 and 2020 and factor in how much spending Apple increased since then, I think 30% would still be fair. But I see your point about "how much makes sense?" since no hard details about either side has been stated so we'll agree to disagree there.

- CloudKit vs Firebase : You make it sound as if Firebase automatically requires money. Firebase is free for I would say 80% of the apps that use it.

Talking in context of high volume apps. Sure there's a free tier. I've used it. With respect to this discussion, free apps that use Firebase that don't hit the free tier limits are irrelevant to the point since no cut is being taken. Paid apps that don't hit the free tier limits don't really amount to much when you're talking about reducing the cut from 30% to 15%. Either way, "free tiered" Firebase apps aren't going to benefit substantially from a 30% cut to a 15% cut reduction. In fact, a 15% cut would mean a substantial decrease in investments by Apple in developer programs. So whatever extra 15% cut these "free tiered" app developers keep in their pockets are hit hardest by the smaller investments.

I just tried them both 2 months ago for my project, and came up to the conclusion CloudKit lacks too many features, is harder to implement, is not as fast as Firebase, has mediocre documentation and small community, and the web console was way inferior to Firebase.

Core Data + CloudKit syncing is pretty magical to me, but that's subjective so we can agree to disagree there.

And most importantly, Firebase is cross-platform if I ever decide to port my app to another platform someday.

Sure. That's probably the only reason I'd use Firebase over CloudKit.

However, my app will not function in China if I did use Firebase. So I'd still probably roll my own web service instead.

 

[frenchcamp49er]

Ironically true but in the world of billions of mobile phones, where most or many of the things getting integrated with only two OS sharing 99% of the customers, the word choice itself has no meaning when both playing the same game. They sometimes call it as cartels.

 

[PsykX]

If you factor in what you think has changed between 2009 and 2020 and factor in how much spending Apple increased since then, I think 30% would still be fair. But I see your point about "how much makes sense?" since no hard details about either side has been stated so we'll agree to disagree there.



Talking in context of high volume apps. Sure there's a free tier. I've used it. With respect to this discussion, free apps that use Firebase that don't hit the free tier limits are irrelevant to the point since no cut is being taken. Paid apps that don't hit the free tier limits don't really amount to much when you're talking about reducing the cut from 30% to 15%. Either way, "free tiered" Firebase apps aren't going to benefit substantially from a 30% cut to a 15% cut reduction. In fact, a 15% cut would mean a substantial decrease in investments by Apple in developer programs. So whatever extra 15% cut these "free tiered" app developers keep in their pockets are hit hardest by the smaller investments.



Core Data + CloudKit syncing is pretty magical to me, but that's subjective so we can agree to disagree there.



Sure. That's probably the only reason I'd use Firebase over CloudKit.

However, my app will not function in China if I did use Firebase. So I'd still probably roll my own web service instead.

I didn't know Firebase apps were banned from China. This is indeed a problem that I did not suspect.

As for the rest, even though we agree to disagree on a few things, I agree with you on quite a few things in this latest post.

 

[alien3dx]

I didn't know Firebase apps were banned from China. This is indeed a problem that I did not suspect.

As for the rest, even though we agree to disagree on a few things, I agree with you on quite a few things in this latest post.

china is a mess . Either you need to go there to setup all thing.