Money (and Amazon, Walmart, etc. purchases) are real-world goods, not in-app enhancements.
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WordPress for iOS Was Blocked From Updating Unless it Agreed to Add In-App Purchases for .Com Plans [Updated]
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Money (and Amazon, Walmart, etc. purchases) are real-world goods, not in-app enhancements.
Way before Apple started dabbling in mobile phones, I sold apps for the Palm Treo (ARM touchscreen!) smartphones through the PalmGear and Handango mobile app stores.
Microsoft had an App Store as well for Window's Mobile phones. So did Blackberry and Brew.
Those app stores also took 30% or more, Handango raised their rates, IIRC.
PalmGear went bankrupt and stiffed a lot of devs their 70%.
FYI you never own the SW you buy , its been this way for ages , Apple dont allow porn apps for example , you might think "hey my device I want to do what i want" , is this OK for them to not allow it ?
Do you feel its a "gun to their heads" when Apple force developers to NOT track you ? and force them to provide you with a non tracking "sign up with Apple" ?
Developers are not the good guys , dont bundle them up with the consumer side , they are 2 different entities that has 2 VERY different motivations.
I assume the person saying this is running a company that is growing its customer base faster than Apple.
Correct.
And my point was... Apple taking 30 cents from a $1 app once is fine.
But I don't see why Apple should take 30% of a $45/mo Wordpress subscription, for instance, month after month.
Apple is taking a lot of revenue from the developer... revenue they need to actually run their business.
That's what's happening to the Floatplane video subscription service. They can't afford to give the creators their percentage and give Apple 30% too.
Sure... if you subscribe long enough the fee drops to 15%... but aren't all new subscribers subject to the 30% fee?
They will never be able to sustain their business.
IIRC Windows Marketplace and Blackberry World came out after the App Store?
Good to know about Palm's stores. That was before my time.
While it's true that a WordPress site that's poorly set up or maintained can be a scary animal and a poor internet citizen, if done properly, WordPress lowers the bar for a lot of people that don't know how to create websites from scratch. It has gotten better over the years, so that's worth something.
I just installed the WordPress app on my XR and it's a high-caliber app, not some web-wrapped hack job that many apps are.
There's no rule saying Wordpress couldn't charge 30% more in app vs the web to make up for the costs.
Then don't offer IAP and instead offer it via web only. Or make it 30% more expensive IAP.
I already explained in my post that the first year is 30%.
The make it 30% more expensive in app. After a while, users will find that IAP are typically more expensive and learn to always sign up via web.
is this “riding coat-tails to get some sympathy“ for something they knew they should have dine but didn’t..? yes,it’s not great that apple let it slide up until now, but given the amazon leniency thing, i have to image they would be shoring up every little thing they have been overlooking/ignoring so no other devs can cry foul play.
Apple: "That's a really nice App you have there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it."
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That's a crappy workaround... but yeah I think that'd work.
I know there are rules about linking to your website or even telling people they could subscribe elsewhere. So it'd be up to the developer to get the word out on their own.
Luckily for WordPress, whatever can be done with its iOS app, can be done better through their native web interface and Apple has no control over it whatsoever. 🖐
Nah, their app is not as good as their web-based control panel, so they could have pulled out of the App Store without many people even noticing. I use WordPress regularly and used to have the app installed too, but stopped using the later ages ago.
Coming soon: Safari update to block non-compliant App store partners. You read it here first!
Apple dictated to them what features they need to provide in their app, and you think they did that because they were... what exactly??? You don’t think they are trying to profit off of WordPress for this? If not then why bother? They are so clearly trying to take advantage of WordPress’ user base it’s not even slightly opaque.
Nah, despite all their gloss & PR stunts, Apple are well aware of their worldwide OS market share. They just managed to hypnotise WP to play along, the other free app makers on the market may not be so forthcoming. 😋
Very very true developers across the globe makes the ecosystem thriving as much as users paying for the Apps.
These potential exodus could set the trend in favour of a third (& a fourth as well)alternative than Apple budging to the developers demands. For developers their hard work and skills will be utilised in another platform that embraces them with different T&C, now that developers know their worth in an ecosystem CO developed by them with the owners. Apple shareholders recently bought the stocks at $400 plus won’t like Apple to cut its margin even a penny!
Consumers across the globe barring very very few select markets more than happy to embrace competitive ecosystem or mobile OS platforms
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More like "when the policies change all the time in Apple's favor with no prior warning". Forcing them to add IAP's with a 30% cut to water Apple's beak can't be in the interest of consumers. WordPress doesn't have IAPs and doesn't want them.
Floatplane is your example? Of course the video service started by Linus (Tech Tips) doesn’t want to pay Apple their earned 30%. This is the same group that profited from making videos about how Apple wouldn’t send parts for a brand new $7000 machine they admitted they broke while trying to disassemble.
They started the floatplane service so they didn’t have to split ad revenue with Google when they made new videos. They are doing very well on YouTube alone, but they wanted a bigger say in how revenue sharing worked so the created their own platform to compete with YouTube. Nothing wrong with that, but it means they should have been very familiar with how companies charge for their services.
They should have known better than to waste time building an app if they couldn’t afford the payouts. So why should I have sympathy for Floatplane again?
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No, Apple’s rules forbid this. Developers must offer the same prices on purchases via IAP that they do via web.
Ohhh, more and more keeps coming up. Thanks to Epic, more devs dare to raise their voices, and Apples facade is slowly falling apart, good to see...
Would you have subscribed if the app didn't exist ? In the case of Wordpress - perhaps
In most cases though, a developer gains a new subscription customer they otherwise may not have, and Apple gets their finders fee.
If you feel guilty about it I guess you could unsubscribe via app and set up a subscription on the developers respective sites instead.
Actually there is precisely that rule
Reactions:eulslix and Shirasaki
Do you work for Linus? Luke is that you?! Tell Linus I ❤ his kitties! Get them on screen more. Just be honest tho and say “we didn’t account for paying Apple so our app can’t afford being on iOS”.
Do you work for Linus? Luke is that you?! Tell Linus I ❤ his kitties! Get them on screen more. Just be honest tho and say “we didn’t account for paying Apple so our app can’t afford being on iOS”.