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U.S. App Store Ecosystem Facilitated $406 Billion in Sales in 2024, Up From $142 Billion in 2019
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At the same time Apple trying hard to evade taxes with obscure structures in Ireland. No one has to thank Apple for anything, they are far from a charity, rather the opposite, a greedy corp.
Apple provides:
Storage, bandwidth and management
First line marketing,
Complete returns and refunds and resolution.
1000s of APIs and comprehensive Developer Tools like swift
ARKit, HealthKit, CoreML, and other iOS frameworks
Global Distribution
Built-in support for local currencies, taxes, and compliance
Analytics and Insights
Apple Pay, Game Center, Sign In with Apple
Push notifications (via Apple Push Notification service)
1000s of Developer Documents and Sample Code
Developer forums and events
GDPR and privacy compliance frameworks
Currency conversion, taxation, and invoice generation
Revenue collection and disbursement in local currencies
.... oh and 1.5 Billion Potential Customers they wouldn't have had
Epic want access to all that for free.
Apple want access to the roads to ship iPhones to shops and customers, but..
For the hundredth time, it is not free.
If a platform holder wants developers to develop apps for their platform, they have to provide APIs for developers to use. You can charge for access to those SDKs which Apple does.
Let's go line by line. Epic has their own:
Storage, bandwidth and management
First line marketing,
Complete returns and refunds and resolution.
Global Distribution
Built-in support for local currencies, taxes, and compliance
Analytics and Insights
GDPR and privacy compliance frameworks
Currency conversion, taxation, and invoice generation
Revenue collection and disbursement in local currencies
Why shouldn't they be allowed to use what they already have? Seems obtuse to me.
$99 per year is an outstanding bargain for what's offered.
I get it, though. Some feel entitled to wanting free stuff.
Yet there are only (roughly) 1.9 million apps in the App Store. Hmmm... If the above is really true, there are a ton of developers paying the fee but not creating any apps.
We don't know it is, because they monopolised the iOS app market.
I know it's a bargain. If you don't, that's OK with me.
Since they didn't allow other stores for sales of apps (and other digital transactions) on their platform.
Even if it were free, it doesn't (shouldn't) give them the right to leverage the monopoly power obtained from it anticompetitively against a subset of third-party developers.
Maybe you should have a look at the Google Play Store, they can have competition and a one-time fee of only 25$. They may also properly develop without purchasing a Mac (or any other specific device).
Source: https://www.appypie.com/faqs/how-much-does-a-googleapple-developer-account-cost
Its not. They are charging recurring fee for things that is already part of the cost of doing business which is their right. If you want developers to make software for you, you need to provide and SDK and APIs to use.
Apple $99 Annually
Google 1 time fee of $25
Microsoft 1 time fee of $19
Interesting, wasn't aware that enterprises pay 299$/y, I don't see this often taken in consideration.
Because the product is you. Running a marketplace like this isn't cheap and Google isn't doing it out of the kindness of their corporate heart.
Good for google. People who can't be burdened by a $99 yearly fee probably aren't very successful selling apps.
They should develop for the Play Store instead and find happiness.
Unlike the app store, Chrome has competition (I know they have massive market share). Also developing a browser engine is not-cheap, maybe not even comparable with an app store. Oh and Apple is not doing 'it out of the kindness of their corporate heart' either.