Agreed, considering that Apple makes no $$ off selling iPhones, they have no choice but to extort the devs into paying. /s
If Microsoft tried this, I can only imagine the level of self righteous indignation in this forum.
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ProtonMail Compares Apple to Mafia, Says App Was Forced Into In-App Purchases in 2018
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If Microsoft tried this, I can only imagine the level of self righteous indignation in this forum.
I agree with you if that was the premise. As I understood it, ProtonMail had no purchase options at all, yet Apple was forcing them to have an in-app purchase. That's wrong IMO.
Yes, I'm familiar with FRAND agreements and the fair use exception. Parties are bound by FRAND terms because they make contractual commitments to be so bound. Their IP is essential to implement industry standards because they asked (or agreed) to have it incorporated into industry standards and in doing so agreed to abide by FRAND terms. The importance of their IP is often largely the result of their having agreed to those terms. The importance of Apple's IP, as relevant here, isn't the result of it having agreed to FRAND terms.
As for the fair use exception, do you think these developers have plausible fair use arguments for the use of Apple's IP in the ways they use it? I'd be interested to hear such arguments. In some limited circumstances, there may plausible (developers') fair use arguments. But generally speaking the fair use exception wouldn't apply to developers' use of Apple's IP.
I would agree that, in the iOS / iOS app distribution context, Apple's ability to dictate the terms under which it will allow others to use its IP will likely be curtailed to some degree. The question, for me, is to what degree. But I don't think that should happen. I think Apple's terms are, to the extent I'm aware of them, pretty reasonable under the circumstances.
Apple set the 30% rule when it was a $300B company. No one complained. 30% stayed the same for about 10 years and has only decreased with the 15% after 1 year rule. Now that they're a $2T company, all of the sudden Yen wants more money? Yeah, what's laughable is your comment.
When you demand more money because another company is wealthy, that's essentially the definition of greed.
App reviewers get paid $30/hr. My last app review took about an hour for them to finish. Averaging 2 submissions per month, that's about 24 submissions a year. That's $720/year for app reviews alone.
Let's calculate hosting too. Say you have a freemium 1GB game being hosted by Apple. App Store gets about 500 million visitors a week. Let's say 0.05% of that downloads the 1GB app, or 250k downloads. That's 250TB served or judging by Amazon's AWS calculator, $5k for that week. Who knows how many more downloads will happen for the rest of the year.
Reviews and hosting alone cost that developer at least $5.7k/year. If Apple charged developers $5.7k/year for the developer program, you'd be singing the same stupid song about how Apple is greedy.
And then you're missing a bunch of other services that Apple provides developers for free.
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Finally someone got it! It's against the rules to reference paid subs on an external site inside of the app.
Because being on the App Store is a tremendous growth opportunity and has been proven to make a whole lot of money for a whole lot of developers?
"My taxes are way too high here, we should start a revolution!"
"Or you could move..."
"But this is where the best roads and schools are!"
Sadly, this is a common thing in this forum, too many apologists. And according to them, it is always the state, the big corporation, the employer, etc, doing everything right, while the citizen, the user, the customer, the employee are always wrong.
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I KNOW! The Mafia used to keep whole neighbourhoods safe, with huge overhead and expenses. Any businesses paying the mafia were safe and able to make money. Complaining is so ungrateful /s
My opinion, which is no doubt going to be highly unpopular:
1) Apple should shut down the App Store and simply let an unsupervised, unprotected 3rd party app marketplace develop. Kind of like the Mac was before the Mac App Store launched. I say this primarily because that way it would avoid anti-trust scrutiny.
2) Some users will then buy iPhones and iPads and fill them up with junk, and have a poor user experience. No news there. Mac users who choose to use Google’s Chrome browser and absolutely annihilate their own laptop‘s battery life know what that’s like already. But hey, if making sure that Google can track your every move is so important to you that you’re willing to sacrifice your battery, you can always carry a charger with you. Some Starbucks have wall outlets for you.
3) Other users, like myself, will stick primarily to Apple‘s own apps (which are excellent for mainstream users) and only ever download third-party stuff to their iOS devices when absolutely necessary and when the vendor is absolutely trust-worthy. Just like most of us have done on the Mac since forever. I am a happy customer of a few 3rd party Mac developers (Ulysses, Literature&Latte, Bookends, and a few others) and I don’t mind shopping via their own websites.
4) Apple loses a few $$, but also avoids a lot of bad publicity and constant arm-wresting with devs of various kinds, some of whom have legitimate reasons to complain and some of whom clearly do not. People who like “open” and “freedom” are happy. And people who want to stick to Apple’s ecosystem can. More importantly, faux freedom-fighters who claim that the App Store is discriminatory are silenced.
5) With this move, the era of foolproof computing would end. The genius bar will fill up with customers who download dodgy third-party software and end up with data stolen, scams of various kinds, or simply poor performance. Nothing will “just work” anymore. Or maybe it will. It has, after all, with the Mac — you can download any app and the sky hasn’t fallen. So what’s the problem?
Just my two pence/cents.
1) Apple should shut down the App Store and simply let an unsupervised, unprotected 3rd party app marketplace develop. Kind of like the Mac was before the Mac App Store launched. I say this primarily because that way it would avoid anti-trust scrutiny.
2) Some users will then buy iPhones and iPads and fill them up with junk, and have a poor user experience. No news there. Mac users who choose to use Google’s Chrome browser and absolutely annihilate their own laptop‘s battery life know what that’s like already. But hey, if making sure that Google can track your every move is so important to you that you’re willing to sacrifice your battery, you can always carry a charger with you. Some Starbucks have wall outlets for you.
3) Other users, like myself, will stick primarily to Apple‘s own apps (which are excellent for mainstream users) and only ever download third-party stuff to their iOS devices when absolutely necessary and when the vendor is absolutely trust-worthy. Just like most of us have done on the Mac since forever. I am a happy customer of a few 3rd party Mac developers (Ulysses, Literature&Latte, Bookends, and a few others) and I don’t mind shopping via their own websites.
4) Apple loses a few $$, but also avoids a lot of bad publicity and constant arm-wresting with devs of various kinds, some of whom have legitimate reasons to complain and some of whom clearly do not. People who like “open” and “freedom” are happy. And people who want to stick to Apple’s ecosystem can. More importantly, faux freedom-fighters who claim that the App Store is discriminatory are silenced.
5) With this move, the era of foolproof computing would end. The genius bar will fill up with customers who download dodgy third-party software and end up with data stolen, scams of various kinds, or simply poor performance. Nothing will “just work” anymore. Or maybe it will. It has, after all, with the Mac — you can download any app and the sky hasn’t fallen. So what’s the problem?
Just my two pence/cents.
ProtonMail is a bit different though, it is security and privacy focused.
To be fair, only some citizens, users, customers and employees are wrong. Particularly wrong are citizens, users, customers or employees who make that statement in a thread about a dispute between two corporations and employers.
That's not quite how I read it. I thought it meant that because Proton were offering paid subs through their website, but not Apple, Apple told them they had to offer it via Apple as well. Apple didn't force them to offer IAP where there were none previously.
Or did I get this wrong???
My read was that because Proton were advertising their paid subs offered through their website in the app they're selling through the AppStore, Apple enforced their rule that they must also offer it as an IAP.
If you think $99/year covers the cost of all those items, you're not very knowledgable about real-world costs.
Indy devs are making iOS compatible apps, not using apples IP. When someone makes ford mustang compatible tires, they aren't using fords IP.
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Uh ... of course. Why would anyone expect anything else?
The hypocrisy is astounding on Apple's part. They don't hold all developers to the same standard. Yen is absolutely correct that apps that gain traction are suddenly met with increased interest from Apple, often resulting in the experiences he reported. Your point is an example of the end of the spectrum that Apple deals with: companies too big or that have resources to fight Apple will get better treatment. In short, Apple doesn't apply the App Store rules equally to all app developers.
It's the other way around son. It's the Apple that needed all these things in order for its OS to survive and thrive. It's also a reason why Apple is making all that money as sole third party app distributor.
Just like every other news articles discussing similar issues, iSheep will defend Apple like no tomorrow and developers are evil because they “want a free ride of some sort”. If developers are all evil, why download any third party apps at all?
Also, it seems that companies in USA can operate above the law. Idk how.
Also, it seems that companies in USA can operate above the law. Idk how.