Sensor Tower: iOS Users Spent $41.5 Billion on Apps in First Half of 2021, Up 22% Year-on-Year

[MacBH928]

It's pretty amazing how Apple and others have created marketplaces where developers can sell their products for almost no upfront costs beyond developing the app; and still keep 70% of the sales price. If the same model existed today as did in the 80's I'd bet 90% or more of the apps on the app store would not exist because developers could not afford the upfront costs of marketing, distribution, production, etc. for a hoped for enough sales to cover them and make a living off of their 30% cut of retail.

eh...not exactly. The world is different because human innovation not Apple. You no longer have to build the product and ship it world wide to make a sale, ecommerce had ended that. All Apple is doing is build a fence and say pay me 30% of whatever you sell inside this fence.

The developers will probably make more money if they just install a shopping cart in their website that will collect maybe, idk , 2.5% of sales?! If you are arguing about "a place where all apps exist" anyone can do that, its not like super genius thing. Catalogues are an old idea. I remember an app called Bodega that did this, Steam for PC games, GOG, PSN Store, iTunes for music, there is even an open source app store called F-Droid which you pay 0% (I think) for any sales/service.

I think even before that there was a place to download apps on "dumber" phones like palm pilot.

 

[jlc1978]

Software development not just boxes lol . Either volume sales in app store(online) or offline is still a cost. Waiting time for a approval in apple store is a cost, changing upon request is still a cost.

Either offline or online volume sales still need marketing and distribution. And i said it before again , apps may required additional item like iot .

And many of those costs were incurred under the older distribution method, such as finding and waiting for a distributer to take your product; all for a smaller cut. Apple significantly reduced the upfront costs of reaching a large market as well as significantly increased what a developer got on each sale. They also cut down loses due to piracy as well.

eh...not exactly. The world is different because human innovation not Apple. You no longer have to build the product and ship it world wide to make a sale, ecommerce had ended that. All Apple is doing is build a fence and say pay me 30% of whatever you sell inside this fence.

Apple created a huge, lucrative market that developers could access for a lot less than if they tried to reach that market themselves.

The developers will probably make more money if they just install a shopping cart in their website that will collect maybe, idk , 2.5% of sales?! If you are arguing about "a place where all apps exist" anyone can do that, its not like super genius thing. Catalogues are an old idea. I remember an app called Bodega that did this, Steam for PC games, GOG, PSN Store, iTunes for music, there is even an open source app store called F-Droid which you pay 0% (I think) for any sales/service.

If so, why do many Mac developers sell on the app store if they could make more money going it alone? Hint: It's not about a catalogue, but access to a ready market at a very low cost.

I think even before that there was a place to download apps on "dumber" phones like palm pilot.

Palm had an app store, and apparently also charged 30%. Most of my Palm apps were bought in store. I do miss Graffiti, though.

 

[alien3dx]

And many of those costs were incurred under the older distribution method, such as finding and waiting for a distributer to take your product; all for a smaller cut. Apple significantly reduced the upfront costs of reaching a large market as well as significantly increased what a developer got on each sale. They also cut down loses due to piracy as well.

If so, why do many Mac developers sell on the app store if they could make more money going it alone? Hint: It's not about a catalogue, but access to a ready market at a very low

Piracy reduce a lot because or subscription by some provider like spotify,netflix ,adobe , microsoft and other .

Maybe you confuse a bit software sales on offline just like brick and mortar item. We mostly do customize apps/software compare to volume sales . Volume sales is high risk high gain. Customize low risk high gain.

Apps Store / Google store 80 % for advertised / demo only for me and mostly for indie developer . Only big boys can brag their sales . Since apple vs epic fiasco, apple reduce the tax to 15 percent to encourage developer as retalion to epic complain .

 

[alien3dx]

eh...not exactly. The world is different because human innovation not Apple. You no longer have to build the product and ship it world wide to make a sale, ecommerce had ended that. All Apple is doing is build a fence and say pay me 30% of whatever you sell inside this fence.

The developers will probably make more money if they just install a shopping cart in their website that will collect maybe, idk , 2.5% of sales?! If you are arguing about "a place where all apps exist" anyone can do that, its not like super genius thing. Catalogues are an old idea. I remember an app called Bodega that did this, Steam for PC games, GOG, PSN Store, iTunes for music, there is even an open source app store called F-Droid which you pay 0% (I think) for any sales/service.

I think even before that there was a place to download apps on "dumber" phones like palm pilot.

physical item not charged in apple store or google play store and only for normal fee 2 till 4 percent depend on provider . Some developer like netflix only make subscription available on website only. If you provide direct link payment digital item to website pretty much will be ban .

 

[bn-7bc]

So I think we agree. We are using different language to express our thoughts. 👍

The only clarification is that I knew a mac was needed….thought that was obvious and hence i didn’t explicitly state it.

No you don't need a mac ( wel nit a oersonal one anyway) you can rent one at anazon for the app bundleling and signing, the rest of the coding can be done on windows

 

[alien3dx]

No you don't need a mac ( wel nit a oersonal one anyway) you can rent one at anazon for the app bundleling and signing, the rest of the coding can be done on windows

Do remember, this mostly people whom do non native development like flutter / react native / typescript only. Allready mention you can rent via macincloud, mac mini cloud or anything related.

If you want rental for a month okay but if a year better buy mac mini arm and pretty cheap these day.

 

[One2Grift]

They are saying just the App Store did 41.5 Billion in Apple revenue for the latest Trailing 2 quarters? Hmmmm…

PREVIOUS Trailing 2 Quarters *Services Revenue = 33Billion
CURRENT Trailing 2 Quarters App Store ONLY Revenue = 41.5Billion (per this story).

*Services revenue line item likely includes the App Store, Music, AC+, Enterprise maintenance contracts, iCloud, news, arcade, ATV+ and likely other items. Apple does not report results by these individual categories. This story and others have to be guesstimates.

Services Ballpark Breakdown:
-Non App Store Services Revenue ballpark = 10B per two quarters.
-App Store Services Revenue = 41.5B
Services Total = 51.5B (current trailing two quarters)

Jan-March quarter, Apple reported 17.6B Services Revenue.
That leaves April - June quarter Services Revenue of 33.9B? (51.5 - 17.6). Almost a 100% jump in Services revenue?

My math or someone’s math is off because almost a 100% QtoQ jump in Services revenue? GTFO, no. (Otherwise I recommend — it’s not advice to purchase stock — everyone, right! now! consider investing in Apple. But the stock would already be surging, after hours, with this story being out there for a while now).


(The story uses YoY, bad imho. YoY includes a pandemic major skew, plus App Store has grown each and every quarter virtually without fail. It’s fair comp isnt YoY, it’s each and every previous quarter — until its revenue follows ups and downs with specific quarters etc).

 

[One2Grift]

mostly android is cheapskate but for gaming department , android much cheaper. Buy in android but play in iOS .hehee

I don’t think it’s a cheapskate thing per se.
yes, there’s A LOT more Droids out there. So one could extrapolate that Google should be doing 400 to 500% to what iOS does. But the consumer choice of the two platforms speaks to this partly imho. Apple has a significant number of iOS buyers that are buying into or come without warning into the Apple eco. Android is a much more popular option (imho) for those that just want a solid smartphone. Also, Androids have significantly less expensive models. These buyers aren’t cheapskates as much as they have tight budgets to begin with.

No one should cry for Google on this. Those numbers and that growth track must have the execs doing cartwheels all over Mountain View(as Apple execs are in Cupertino). Google very VERY much wants to increase non advertising revenue. Apple was a smartphone company just several years ago (in terms of revenue it was 80+% of revenue). They’ve pushed it down to below 60% at one point(Services, wearables, Mac sales increase lately). Relying too much on one revenue category gets Wall Street eventually nervous. Google relies heavily on advertising revenue (Google is an advertising company, the worlds biggest). They want that ad money but they want it to one day to be under 50% of revenue (they’re not even close to that right now but it’s trending right).

 

[jlc1978]

Piracy reduce a lot because or subscription by some provider like spotify,netflix ,adobe , microsoft and other .

I was not referring to media piracy, but app piracy. Subscriptions reduce some piracy but that's mainly mainstream popular apps. In the days of easy jailbreaking, bootleg copies of iPhone apps were readily available, forcing some developers to try to find ways to limit this. The app store basically ended that once jailbreaking became very difficult.

Like it or not, Apple's walled garden has greatly reduced the costs of piracy for developers, basically eliminating bit copiers, key generators, loading bootleg copies, etc.

Maybe you confuse a bit software sales on offline just like brick and mortar item. We mostly do customize apps/software compare to volume sales . Volume sales is high risk high gain. Customize low risk high gain.

The app store is about reaching a broad audience and volume; and Apple has reduced the risk for a lot of smaller developers to the point they can afford to bring an app to market and if it becomes popular make a decent profit.

Custom apps are a whole different ball game, with a very different sales model. I do some of that, and the cost structure, sales cycle and ultimate margins are different. Still, unless you have a very specific niche, there is the very real risk someone will do it for less; and if the niche is lucrative enough larger players may move in and have a much better sales pipeline than you.

Apps Store / Google store 80 % for advertised / demo only for me and mostly for indie developer . Only big boys can brag their sales . Since apple vs epic fiasco, apple reduce the tax to 15 percent to encourage developer as retalion to epic complain .

Not sure of your point. 70% or 85% is a whole letter better than the old 30% or so developers might see if their product sold; and that 70 or 85 percent comes with lower a COGS and SGA expense.

 

[jlc1978]

Wait until China forces Apple to give up its monopoly. Tim Apples reckoning is near.

What's the upside for them? Apple is only what, 20% of the market per recent sales numbers? Hardly a monopoly.

IMHO, the real reason not to is Apple's walled garden makes it easier for the government to control what can and can't be loaded on a phone. Forcing Apple to open up the iPhone would mean people potentially finding ways around government restrictions, something the CCP doesn't want to allow to happen.

 

[alien3dx]

I was not referring to media piracy, but app piracy. Subscriptions reduce some piracy but that's mainly mainstream popular apps. In the days of easy jailbreaking, bootleg copies of iPhone apps were readily available, forcing some developers to try to find ways to limit this. The app store basically ended that once jailbreaking became very difficult.

Like it or not, Apple's walled garden has greatly reduced the costs of piracy for developers, basically eliminating bit copiers, key generators, loading bootleg copies, etc.



The app store is about reaching a broad audience and volume; and Apple has reduced the risk for a lot of smaller developers to the point they can afford to bring an app to market and if it becomes popular make a decent profit.

Custom apps are a whole different ball game, with a very different sales model. I do some of that, and the cost structure, sales cycle and ultimate margins are different. Still, unless you have a very specific niche, there is the very real risk someone will do it for less; and if the niche is lucrative enough larger players may move in and have a much better sales pipeline than you.



Not sure of your point. 70% or 85% is a whole letter better than the old 30% or so developers might see if their product sold; and that 70 or 85 percent comes with lower a COGS and SGA expense.

My point just 1 only

You making an apps within thousand and thousand of apps in the store in the whole world. 0 % or 15% or 50% mean nothing at all . Apple don't obligate to market your software . - VOLUME SALES

 

[jlc1978]

My point just 1 only

You making an apps within thousand and thousand of apps in the store in the whole world. 0 % or 15% or 50% mean nothing at all . Apple don't obligate to market your software . - VOLUME SALES

You make no sense. I never said Apple was obligated to market anyone's app.

 

[E.Lizardo]

It's pretty amazing how Apple and others have created marketplaces where developers can sell their products for almost no upfront costs beyond developing the app; and still keep 70% of the sales price. If the same model existed today as did in the 80's I'd bet 90% or more of the apps on the app store would not exist because developers could not afford the upfront costs of marketing, distribution, production, etc. for a hoped for enough sales to cover them and make a living off of their 30% cut of retail.

The interesting thing to me isApple will host and distribute a free app for zero return. Find me a brick and mortar store that does that.

 

[pasamio]

Wait until China forces Apple to give up its monopoly. Tim Apples reckoning is near.

China frequently tells Apple to remove apps it doesn't want available in their geography from the relevant App Stores, including in Hong Kong. China benefits from Apple devices being limited because it means that it is hard to dissidents to sideload apps that could reduce the security of the Chinese people. Not sure you noticed but they're big on central gatekeeping over there, Apple's model suits them just fine.

 

[alien3dx]

The interesting thing to me isApple will host and distribute a free app for zero return. Find me a brick and mortar store that does that.

a bit wrong .Distribution required 99 dollar per annum . If you want to distribute in private manner 299 per annum for enterprise license.

If you don't paid the next year , your apps will be /still be in apple store but you cannot updated it unless you paid 99 dollar again.

 

[Philip_S]

Considering Androids global marketshare. It shows the average Android user is a total cheapskate compared to the average iOS/iPad OS user.

The figures are rather misleading as they include IAPs when mediated by the App Store, which happens on iOS but not for the big moneymakers on Android.

Apple users probably do spend more on apps, even if you only count app purchase fees and IAPs which unlock features, because Apple users tend to have more money, but not by as much as this report suggests.

 

[I7guy]

a bit wrong .Distribution required 99 dollar per annum . If you want to distribute in private manner 299 per annum for enterprise license.

If you don't paid the next year , your apps will be /still be in apple store but you cannot updated it unless you paid 99 dollar again.

No it's not wrong. The dev fee allows the ability to upload zero or more apps. Apple doesn't care (in the strictest sense they is no coercision to the dev to charge any fee at all) what the price of your app is or what the IAP is if any.

Just like a yearly motor vehicle registration you must renew your dev license yearly.

 

[alien3dx]

No it's not wrong. The dev fee allows the ability to upload zero or more apps. Apple doesn't care (in the strictest sense they is no coercision to the dev to charge any fee at all) what the price of your app is or what the IAP is if any.

Just like a yearly motor vehicle registration you must renew your dev license yearly.

read dear ,i mention before the same thing . Google 25 dollar foerver , apple - 99 dollar per year , if wanted own distribution google = 0 ,apple - 299

there is few cases some want to distribute via link using test flight .ehm 2 facebo**

 

[I7guy]

read dear ,i mention before the same thing . Google 25 dollar foerver , apple - 99 dollar per year , if wanted own distribution google = 0 ,apple - 299

there is few cases some want to distribute via link using test flight .ehm 2 facebo**

It's not distribution it's uploading and testing.

 

[alien3dx]

It's not distribution it's uploading and testing.

testflight give two option

1. via url link distribution and got limit device .
** since my colig also another country , we using this for testing purpose

2. via device registered distribution
** only used it for testing for custom client request

Both need to install testflight application and if new update existed then it will update automatically.

Apple has revoked Facebook's enterprise developer certificates after sideload violations [u] | AppleInsider

Apple has stopped Facebook from being able to use its internal apps by revoking its enterprise developer certificates, in response to reports the social network ignored guidelines relating to user privacy by distributing apps outside the app store, and paid users to install the spyware.

appleinsider.com