[HN Gopher] Apple-Developer Relations
___________________________________________________________________
Apple-Developer Relations
Author : tosh
Score : 270 points
Date : 2021-06-03 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marco.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (marco.org)
| mdoms wrote:
| If Apple believes they are offering so much value to developers
| then they should open their devices to other stores. Surely no
| one would choose a competing store when Apple offers such a great
| deal to them.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| So I've seen some thoughts of web apps here and a consistent
| grumbling about app stores (and some pro app store comments,
| though fewer). With the further encroachment of Webassembly into
| rich applications over the internet, do you think the mobile
| browsers will resist putting WA functionality into their codebase
| to stop losing market share? Or is their monopolistic(?) behavior
| going to be plied only on those who want an Icon launcher?
| post_break wrote:
| I used to love browsing the app store looking for cool apps. Now
| I can't even trust searching for the app by name because
| sometimes a completely different app shows up, and then there is
| the case of appstore ads. It's a joke.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| It's a bit unfair to state that you are the _only_ option when
| it comes to ios apps, to then push ads on your captive
| customers and provide them with a lower quality of service.
| iPhone is a premium product, ads have always seemed to me to be
| a symbol of tacky seediness, a cheap alternative for the
| masses. It 's not in line with Apples image. At least it
| shouldn't be.
| swiley wrote:
| The iPhone is certainly expensive, but it's a bit to abusive
| to its users to be called "premium."
|
| Maybe if it had a self hosting dev environment like macs do
| but certainly not the way it is now.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Not adding ads to a platform was the whole basis of "A
| million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion
| dollars is cool."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5fJmkv02is&t=93s
| cmckn wrote:
| This is another way to extract money from developers -- you
| have to purchase the search ad for _your own app_ in order to
| show up first when someone searches for the exact name of your
| app. Not only does this cost feel a bit silly, it can also be
| substantial. From the blog 's author, Marco Arment, who
| develops Overcast:
| https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1392089383864393728/p...
|
| CPT (cost for a single tap): $2.18
|
| CPA (cost for a single download): $53.43
| tshaddox wrote:
| Would _fewer_ restrictions on publishing apps that pretend to
| be other apps somehow improve the situation?
| tobr wrote:
| Trust is supposed to be one of the things the AppStore
| provides, which is used as an argument against third-party
| stores. But since Apple is failing so miserably in this
| regard it's not a good argument.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I agree that Apple is nowhere near restrictive enough
| with what makes it into the App Store, which is an
| argument that they ought to be more restrictive.
| username90 wrote:
| Which is an argument for why they should either be
| regulated or be forced to introduce competition since
| otherwise there is no incentive for them to fix these
| issues.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It would be better than outright lying to their customers
| by saying that they are protecting them, yes.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm not in favor of them lying to their customers by
| saying that they are protecting them, but I'm in favor of
| them resolving the discrepancy by protecting their
| customers rather than by retracting their claim.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's hard to call it a "discrepancy" when imposter apps
| are the standard, not the exception.
| tshaddox wrote:
| That's what "discrepancy" means.
| yingbo wrote:
| Totally agree. I'm using your phone, your app store and
| download APP which leads me paying 30% to you, and you show me
| Ads for more money?!
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's because Apple introduced their own targeted ads, which
| you don't need to opt-in to (since there is no opt-out). See
| more below:
|
| https://searchads.apple.com/advanced/
| judge2020 wrote:
| At least the App Store ads are completely contextual.
| wilde wrote:
| Not for long. The search page by default shows one non-
| contextual app above their ranked list of apps you might
| like.
| actuator wrote:
| Also, these ads along with ones in News and Stocks are
| targeted ads based on a user targeting profile from your
| data. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27261273
| selsta wrote:
| Personalized ads can be disabled in Settings -> Privacy
| -> Apple ads.
| hu3 wrote:
| So Apple pushes others to be Opt-in meanwhile they are
| Opt-out?
| selsta wrote:
| The Apple ad setting is about personalized ads, not
| tracking.
|
| > App Tracking Transparency allows you to choose whether
| an app can track your activity across other companies'
| apps and websites for the purposes of advertising or
| sharing with data brokers.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212025
|
| Apple does not track you across other companies' apps and
| websites so I don't see how this is related. Facebook can
| still do personalized ads even if you click on "ask app
| not to track".
| JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
| I recently released an app with one word purposely misspelt
| (the first word has a z at the end instead of an s). Even if
| you type in the full app name it still appears as the 5th
| search result.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| I think the core sentiment here is being lost.
|
| This isn't so much a call to action against Apple's fees.
|
| It's pointing out something that I've felt building over the last
| couple of years out of Apple, which is an attitude of hubris,
| contempt, and a "taking for granted" of Apple's developers.
|
| The WWDC spiel of how much they value us has become trite and
| transparent.
|
| They do produce some really nice tools and APIs. I can't knock
| what they provide developers.
|
| But often times the attitude beneath the veneer is a precursor of
| things to come, and it's becoming noticeable that Apple's culture
| seems to care less about its developers now than before.
|
| You might say "sure, but so what? Developers are part of the
| means to an end of selling stuff", and you're not wrong.
|
| But one of the things I loved about Apple circa 2009 was their
| respect for their user. It was palpable and magical, even.
|
| Then, learning Cocoa and Interface Builder coming from Eclipse
| and Java, that same respect seemed to permeate their dev
| environment as well.
|
| That seems lost. Following some of their tech leads on Twitter
| exposes some rather vitriolic feelings towards people in general.
|
| Customers, be they users or devs, deserve respect. Apple used to
| be great at giving that respect. I fear it's slipping away
| culturally, and is worth calling out.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Mac developers have been bitching about Apple for 30+ years.
| There are _lots_ of valid criticisms. At the same time I find
| the "Apple takes us for granted" complaints a little hollow.
|
| I think a lot of developers discount the platform and think
| it's all their apps that bring in iOS uses. This was more true
| in the 90s on the Mac. The platform Apple provided was good but
| it was the third party software that really _made_ the platform
| what it was.
|
| There's a handful on Windows applications I remember today.
| It's only because I used them all the time. On the other hand
| there's a ton of Mac apps I remember candidly even though I
| used them far less frequently.
|
| The iOS platform of 2021 is _not_ the Mac platform of 1995 or
| even 2001. Apple moves more iOS devices in a quarter than they
| moved Macs for the entirety of the 90s. Third party apps a an
| important part of the iOS platform but they 're not the primary
| driver of device sales.
| josephg wrote:
| > They do produce some really nice tools and APIs. I can't
| knock what they provide developers.
|
| I wish that were true. But Xcode today feels like a bloated,
| buggy mess. It crashes regularly, and sometimes it lags so
| badly writing swift code that it drops keystrokes. It feels
| like permanently beta software, where the team never has time
| to fix the bugs in the last version before they're rushing the
| next version out the door.
|
| Working in javascript and rust sets the bar for tooling and
| documentation much higher than Apple seems currently able to
| reach.
| hobs wrote:
| afaict Apple has never had respect for the developer, the user
| sometimes, maybe, but often they would make choices for you
| because it was The Apple Way, and any other way was left to
| languish.
|
| Sometimes The Apple Way was awesome, sometimes, meh.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| It's a two-way street.
|
| Despite selling less than 20% [1] of smartphones across the
| world, its App Store accounts for over 64% [2] of app revenue.
| Apple _and its developers_ somehow built an App Store that people
| are willing to spend more money on.
|
| If it's purely thanks to developers, why isn't there more revenue
| on Google's Play Store?
|
| [1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-
| share...
|
| [2] https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-
| downloads-q1-20...
| tobr wrote:
| iPhones are more expensive on average, hence used by people who
| spend more money on average.
| npunt wrote:
| The simple answer is people with more disposable income buy
| iPhones. Smart of Apple to position themselves this way in the
| market and build a product good enough to sustain that
| position, but I don't think that invalidates Marco's argument.
| actuator wrote:
| This feels like such a disingenuous argument. Most of the
| countries where Android sells well are countries with way lower
| purchasing power and this would even reflect in sales of all
| software, not just Android one. Also, Android phones in China
| are not necessarily using Play Store.
|
| Most of the sales of Android phones are at a lower price
| bracket which might indicate the purchasing power of customers,
| so they would naturally have less purchasing power than ones on
| iOS. People with more purchasing power would spend more on even
| apps and this reflects in the App Store revenue.
|
| There are certainly people who buy Android flagships because
| they prefer the platform/device but this might not be true for
| lower end Android phones. iPhone has an aspirational value in
| many parts of the world.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I hate seeing these downvotes, because you're absolutely
| right. The parent comment is missing that the average price
| of these Android phones is often an order of magnitude less
| than the price of the average iPhone, so it makes sense that
| the phone which costs 10x as much has people willing to spend
| more money. It's not rocket science, and arguably not even
| economics.
| playpause wrote:
| It's not clear how this is relevant to the parent's point.
| Android phones are also available in rich countries.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sure, but we aren't talking about Android phones. We're
| talking about platforms, since that's what Apple wants to
| sell. The barrier to entry for this platform is money, and
| many people cannot afford to use their platform, therefore
| it stands to reason that only people with a modest
| expendable income will buy an iPhone. It then _also_ makes
| sense that those same users will also spend more money on
| the App Store, since they also had the expendable income to
| buy a "premium" product.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> It then also makes sense that those same users will
| also spend more money on the App Store, since they also
| had the expendable income to buy a "premium" product._
|
| Those users will also be more likely to spend on apps and
| accessories in order to justify or supplement the much
| bigger phone purchase. Someone who's got the same amount
| of expendable income but chooses a cheap android for
| frugality is also more likely to be frugal in extraneous
| purchases like apps, especially when free but slightly
| inconvenient alternatives are available. At the end of
| the day, focus on the customers not the app platforms.
| smoldesu wrote:
| So, amid all of this, how would introducing third-party
| app stores on iOS somehow damage this status quo? What is
| the justification for refusing to allow it?
| akiselev wrote:
| I was adding to your comment, not continuing the
| argument.
| axelthegerman wrote:
| on top of that it's a chicken and egg problem too.
| Because purchasing power is higher, developers also
| charge more compared to similar apps on Android
| 015a wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure on this, but I've suspected that this often-
| quoted disparity has something to do with China, and how Apple
| still controls iOS app distribution in China but the Play Store
| has much lower usage. So, you get weird aggregates because the
| total revenue numbers don't include the Chinese specific
| Android app stores (which, by the way, are insane; Huawei takes
| a 50% commission on game sales in their's, and its the biggest
| by far).
|
| All given the size of the Chinese market, their love of mobile
| games, and the massive portion of App Store revenue games
| represent.
|
| That's not to say the App Store isn't more profitable than the
| Play Store, per user, just in the US, but its a closer margin
| here, and I think the massive disparity on a global scale has
| to signal that something else is going on
|
| (in addition to the obvious: Apple doesn't make good cheap
| phones, just not in their DNA, but Android manufacturers do, so
| lower income individuals will bias toward Android phones, and
| these people would spend less in the associated application
| stores)
| asutekku wrote:
| iPhone users are much more willing to buy IAPs outside of
| china too. So it's not just china that brings in the money.
| alexkcd wrote:
| iOS apps are more profitable on a per install basis. So the
| discrepancy cannot be explained by there being multiple
| Android stores. Your hypothesis in brackets is the more
| likely explanation.
|
| Source: I worked on an app with millions of paid subscribers.
| oblio wrote:
| iPhone had first mover advantage and comes from an American
| company.
|
| As a result iPhones have 50% of the smartphone market in
| the US, and Americans have the highest disposable income
| per capita of any large country (>20 million people).
|
| iPhones tend to have much smaller market shares outside of
| the US. In some places they're maybe around 30% but
| generally they're much, much lower.
| ksec wrote:
| Somewhat true. There are 300M iPhone install base in China,
| on an equal bases you can take the 30% of App Store Revenue
| away to compare to Google's Play Store. But generally
| speaking iOS user spend double the amount of money compared
| to Android users.
|
| And to the OP's number, Apple has ~25% market share. Not 20%.
| Those numbers are shipments, not usage. which is for the
| 100th times meaningless in nearly all topics.
| 015a wrote:
| Right, yeah. There's just so many unknowns when it comes to
| "how profitable are App Stores" that any conversation about
| it is seriously pointless. Like, I don't even want to
| guess; I refuse to believe that iOS is more profitable than
| Android, because I'm not even sure if _that 's the right
| question_.
|
| All the data we have on global/domestic smartphone
| shipments, active users, monthly actives, daily actives,
| dollars spent, ruples spent, per app category, minus games,
| fiscal/calendar quarterly, it all comes from these dodgy
| "Global Insights" app consulting firms. You head to Google
| and search "App Store Quarterly Revenue" and you find a
| different Statista or BusinessOfApps or whatever site each
| quarter, all their data just linear extrapolations from
| active pings from trackers they pay apps to install which
| are increasingly getting blocked by OS security controls.
| Google and Apple almost never share explicit data (this
| Epic trial has been a nice departure from that, to be
| fair); if they share anything, its an overtly generalized
| market segment like "Services", which of course they're
| using to inflate the apparent revenue of bad business
| divisions they want to look good by combining them with the
| actually good divisions (same reason why Microsoft put
| Azure in the same shareholder-reported category as Office
| early on; of course, nowadays, its amazing on its own).
|
| And then, re-read that last paragraph and realize I said
| "Google & Apple" and you didn't even blink. Sure, Google &
| Apple, that's who we're talking about. No; we're talking
| about Android & iOS. Android; that operating system that
| has unlocked computing for the entire world, including vast
| swaths of people who can barely afford plumbing and
| electricity, that's side-loaded and hacked to the ends of
| the earth, that's startlingly popular and preloaded with
| hardware-specific storefronts in countries that,
| traditionally, don't like sharing data with the west.
|
| Sure, "your" app was more profitable per-install on iOS
| than Android. An excellent, informative experiment. The
| assertion is that iOS has "special sauce" that makes
| consumers money-drunk, and they spend more. Did we control
| for income disparity? Surprise; No. Did we aggregate a
| broad swath of consumer application categories, including
| (especially) gaming, as gaming is by-far the largest source
| of consumer application spending, globally? Surprise; No.
|
| How's this sound: People spend a shit-ton of money in apps.
| This fact, alone, is reason enough that letting a single
| company gatekeep the experience for any significant number
| of people is unacceptable. Justifying Apple's monopoly by
| saying they're better at making consumers money-drunk is
| psychotic.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Because Apple markets and sells a product to the middle class,
| who are willing to spend that kind of money. Furthermore, the
| Indian market is almost entirely ignored by Apple, so it's no
| wonder that they're able to get Android phones into so many
| hands. The optics of this check out, are you trying to suggest
| that Apple's App Store is magically more profitable than Google
| Play, therefore better?
| leokennis wrote:
| So Apple's argument stands...
|
| Basically, Apple is a wealthy neighborhood. If you sell nice
| bags or expensive cars, you want to be near the people who
| can afford them. So you need to rent store space in the
| wealthy neighborhood. Where rent is higher than in the
| outskirts.
|
| Sure you could try to sell your goods in the outskirts (the
| Play Store) but you won't sell as much.
|
| To bring it back to non-metaphors. Apple is the only maker of
| premium phones. Therefor people who are willing to spend on
| apps are very often iPhone users. So if you want to reach
| these people and their money you need to be on the App Store.
| Apple knows this, and charges developers accordingly for the
| privilege.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Apple is the only maker of premium phones
|
| So by your own admission, Apple has a monopoly on the
| premium market, and is using that power to broker their
| audience for a premium fee to developers who simply want to
| sell their code to someone who's willing to pay for it?
|
| That is one of the most dystopian arguments I've ever
| heard, bravo.
| mrkstu wrote:
| Is a segment a market?
|
| And it is also simply untrue that Apple is the only
| premium handset maker- plenty of Chinese competition in
| China and Samsung elsewhere.
|
| It is dominant in the segment but it is at best part of a
| duopoly.
| leokennis wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's a monopoly, but a stronghold for
| sure.
|
| I'm not seeing how Apple's behavior is any different than
| that of other players who have a stronghold in their
| markets though?
|
| It's exactly the same with $10.000 rents in San Francisco
| or super expensive country clubs where you can
| mingle/deal with fellow rich people: it's expensive to
| get access to a scarce resource.
|
| Apple has the scarce resource (people willing to pay for
| apps) so they charge you a lot of money to access it (30%
| of your revenue).
| shkkmo wrote:
| If Apple's AppStore is really so good, it should be able to
| withstand a little healthy competition from 3rd party stores.
| Who knows, a little competition might even inspire the AppStore
| to become even better?
| tshaddox wrote:
| One could argue that this is a bit like saying "if McDonald's
| burgers are so good, they should be able to withstand putting
| competing restaurants' burgers on their menu."
| smoldesu wrote:
| No, this is more like asking McDonald's not to blow up new
| restaurants within a week of them coming to town because
| they didn't "ask permission" from them first.
| tshaddox wrote:
| What does Apple do that is analogous to destroying
| competitors' property?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple isn't a competitor in this analogy, they're the
| government. They own every piece of land and decide how
| to use it, and also how many burgers they want to sell
| you.
| tshaddox wrote:
| That's a weird analogy, since you get to choose which
| "government" to be a part of, and they're only chosen by
| 45% of the United States and 17% of the world.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's your lopsided analogy, since Apple isn't analogous
| to a restaurant in the first place. My point is that
| Apple holds a lot more power than you give them credit
| for.
| koyote wrote:
| A restaurant only sells its own merchandise so this
| comparison does not make any sense.
|
| The App Store is a 'store' in this case (it's in the name)
| and is the only store where you can buy items for your
| Apple home.
|
| Imagine if Walmart sold homes and you could only put items
| in it that were bought at Walmart.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Then one would be making an argument using an analogy that
| is quite obviously not actually analagous at all.
|
| The more correct analogy is a McDonald's franchise that
| actively uses every method at their disposal to prevent
| other fast food restaurants from opening near where you
| live.
| tshaddox wrote:
| In what way does Apple do that?
| shkkmo wrote:
| I have a feeling this is a facetious question, but:
|
| Take a look at the history of Apple's efforts to block
| jailbreaking in combination with the AppStore rules that
| disallow 3rd party app stores. It is quite clear that
| Apple has use multiple methods to successfully fighr off
| the arisal of any alternative stores.
|
| Apple openly admits to doing this, it really isn't a
| controversial claim.
| tshaddox wrote:
| This is nothing like destroying competitors' property.
| Coca-Cola can be sold in McDonald's because the two
| parties have an explicit business arrangement. But
| they'll kick you out if you set up a lemonade stand in
| their store (they still probably won't destroy your
| property, they'll likely ask you to leave and call the
| police if you refuse).
|
| McDonald's will probably, however, make no effort to
| prevent you from selling lemonade from your driveway, or
| even prevent Coca-Cola (or Coca-Cola's direct
| competitors) from selling soda at McDonald's direct
| competitors. (If they did do this, I would agree that
| it's anti-competitive behavior that ought to be opposed.)
| akiselev wrote:
| McDonald's pays the rent for their storefronts and owns
| all the food it cooks for its customers - McDonald's
| carries all of the inventory risk. It doesn't try to
| exert any control on the food after the customer has
| bought it and left the premises and the deals it makes
| with Coca Cola are about payment terms, branding, and
| cost of inventory.
|
| If Apple wanted to take on development risk for all of
| the apps on the app store by paying for all that
| developer time, then we'd be talking about something that
| is _sorta kinda not really_ the same thing.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > This is nothing like destroying competitors' property.
|
| I certainly did not say it was. Your whole comment reads
| like you are replying to someone else.
|
| The best I can tell, you agree that Apple is engaged in
| anti-competive behavior by preventing developers from
| selling "lemonade" in other stores (because they prevent
| those stores from existing.) Not only that, but users
| aren't even allowed to buy "lemonade" in their own
| driveway, they are forced to go buy "lemonade" through
| Apple.
| ksec wrote:
| At D5 [1], What did Steve & Bill Gate admire in the other?
|
| Bill: Steve's taste,
|
| Steve: Microsoft's _ability to partner_.
|
| Apple is basically repeating a lot of their early mistakes. Some
| of those lessons Steve took it to heart when he returns to Apple
| from NeXT.
|
| >This isn't about the 30%, or the 15%,.......It's about what
| Apple's leadership thinks of us and our work.
|
| There is also another point Marco didn't mention. It is not
| _your_ customers either. Apple has been very clear in _all_ of
| their communications. The user of iPhone, are Apple 's customers.
| Even the third party Apps, they are accessing _Apple 's
| customers_. And hence the relationship is very much not a
| partnership. Since Apple claims _ownership_ on both the Apps and
| the customers. In the name of privacy and user experience.
|
| >but Apple uses their position of power to double-dip.
|
| Finally! Someone in the Apple community use the term double-dip!
| A term Apple has used against Qualcomm and sent a whole PR team
| to damage their reputation.
|
| >But the leaders have already shown us who they really are, what
| they really think of us, and how little they value our work.
|
| Unfortunately Tim Cook isn't the type of person who understand
| this. You should probably listen to his testimony to make your
| own judgement. But after the Epic Vs Apple trial it became very
| clear why Steve said Tim Cook isn't a product person. There are
| quite possibly _zero_ product sensibility within Tim Cook. And I
| am not sure who is in-charge of the PR now either. Their message
| are delusional, hypocritical and reminds me a lot of Google in
| the 00s. I missed Katie Cotton 's era.
|
| [1] (76:30 ) https://on.wsj.com/2zWWqPU
| [deleted]
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It seems like a year ago there was a big dust-up over the 30% cut
| and Apple's management of the App Store- does anyone remember
| that? I believe it might've related to the Hey controversy. Or
| the House antitrust hearings. I just remember a storm of
| unhappiness, followed by WWDC 2020 and everyone just forgetting
| about it until the Epic lawsuit picked up again.
|
| Blast from a year's past:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23504251
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23571320
| atonse wrote:
| I am deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem and yet, can't wait
| for the DoJ to throw the gauntlet on the App Store.
|
| I really hope they get broken up, with the App Store being
| extracted into a separate business.
| actuator wrote:
| App Store should be just the start.
|
| Mobile web for more than 50% of the US users is also restricted
| to Apple's whims. They should be forced to allow competing
| browser engines(not just skins on Safari engine) on the
| platform. If Microsoft couldn't even bundle IE on Windows, it
| should be possible to make an alternative browser(along with
| engines) for iOS.
| causality0 wrote:
| Looking back on Microsoft in the 90s they seem almost
| childish. If the Apple/Google duopoly had existed forty years
| ago the government would have smashed both companies into
| dozens of pieces.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I don't dispute that the regulatory climate has become far
| less responsive over the decades, but why forty years ago-
| during the Reagan administration?
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _They should be forced to allow competing browser engines
| (not just skins on Safari engine) on the platform._
|
| While this sounds good in theory, what would likely happen is
| Safari would be replaced with Chrome.
| handrous wrote:
| Be careful what you wish for. Safari's forced presence on the
| most lucrative mobile platform is the reason we don't, for
| all practical purposes, have only _one_ browser engine,
| _period_ , now. Which is something only nerds like us care
| about on a technical level, so I don't think the typical user
| is harmed or bothered by all browsers on iOS sharing an
| engine, but the _social_ harm of Google 100% owning the Web
| would reach beyond us.
|
| [EDIT] Incidentally, I see the fact that there's an angle for
| this being _beneficial_ as a comment on the beyond-terrible
| state of privacy legislation and anti-trust enforcement in
| the US, same as the reasons that the App Store is a good
| thing (by which I mean, the worst things it forbids should
| just be illegal, and those restrictions enforced _everywhere_
| )
| actuator wrote:
| While your concern is genuine, Apple almost has 60% of the
| active mobile device market share(according to
| Statcounter). I think my concern is two fold.
|
| - Apple holds the gateway to both App Store and Web(through
| standard support). Having worked on web apps in the past, I
| truly admire the amazing distribution capability the web
| provides. I can spin up an obscure Linux distro and my web
| app works on it as long as a browser with good standard
| support is available. This gives platforms parity at some
| level and doesn't concentrate the power in the hands of a
| single platform. I would want most apps to be just web
| apps.
|
| - If Apple's marketshare keeps on increasing like it has
| been, we might run into a situation where just one company
| controls your hardware, OS, services and even web. This is
| way more scary.
| criddell wrote:
| I get what you are saying about web apps, but I hope
| Apple doesn't open up to more browsers.
|
| It seems like every additional sensor or OS feature that
| is exposed through the browser is used as an additional
| way to erode privacy and security.
|
| Plus I like that there are incentives for developers to
| make native apps for anything non-trivial. In my
| experience well written web apps use too much bandwidth,
| battery, and memory compared to well written native apps.
| indymike wrote:
| Android is showing 72.72% of market share on statcounter.
| handrous wrote:
| > This gives platforms parity at some level and doesn't
| concentrate the power in the hands of a single platform.
|
| Chrome would _be_ that platform, is what I 'm saying.
| That would be your new OS, on every "platform". Devs &
| companies already skip testing on FF fairly often. Chrome
| good? Mobile Safari good? Ship it. You'll notice that
| IE/Edge used to be on that short list of must-test
| browsers, but it's just Chrome now. That's not going to
| get better for FF or WebKit-derived alternative browsers
| if mobile Safari gets banner-ad'd ("Google Docs is so
| much better in Chrome! Click here to download it now!"
| just like they did on desktop) into irrelevance. Google
| would get to dictate features, and the Web would just
| _have them_ , and that's it, no step of trying to get
| anyone else on board (right now, "anyone else" is, for
| practical purposes, just Apple)
| cageface wrote:
| I don't understand this argument. End users don't care
| about browser engines and they can install "Chrome" right
| now. But most iOS users don't.
| username90 wrote:
| End users certainly cares about browser engines, so many
| things doesn't work in Safary since it doesn't support
| any new features. So they would see "please upgrade your
| browser to play this game" etc everywhere, and they would
| upgrade to real chrome. Instead since ios doesn't support
| other browser engines those games simply wont run on ios
| period.
| handrous wrote:
| Google's not pushing it hard on iOS, and it can't offer
| enhanced features or tailor (ahem) its sites to run
| better on the Chrome engine on iOS. That makes it a
| harder sell, and the "Google sites all works better on
| Chrome (because we made sure they do...) download it
| here!" ads they had success with on desktop would simply
| be lies, if they tried that. They also can't get other
| apps to embed their engine so they get those sweet, sweet
| analytics from those, too. FB would likely do the same
| (probably with a fork of Chrome, for obvious reasons).
| cageface wrote:
| Google can do all the data harvesting they want with the
| wrapped version and that's mostly what they care about.
| There are already a lot of benefits to iOS users that are
| heavily involved in Google's ecosystem to use Chrome but
| mostly they don't.
| mcphage wrote:
| > They should be forced to allow competing browser
| engines(not just skins on Safari engine) on the platform
|
| I really don't want to have multiple browsers installed on my
| phone & swap between them because some web app works in one
| browser, but not another. Mobile browsing is already pretty
| shitty, I don't think fragmentation will make it any better.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I'm not sure the solution to that is "so app developers are
| forced to make sure their app works better in 'your'
| browser (Safari) because that's the only choice for a large
| number of users".
| echelon wrote:
| 1000%.
|
| Apple created the most anti-developer, anti-computing
| protection racket our industry has ever seen. They captured 50%
| of all American consumer computing and won't let you have a
| relationship with your customer, won't let you bill your
| customer without extracting obscene margin, make you jump
| through weird hoops, won't let you deploy at your cadence, and
| won't let you write software the way you want.
|
| This shouldn't have been allowed to happen. The closed nature
| of the platform is abnormal and has been anticompetitive from
| the start, and the DOJ fell asleep at the wheel.
|
| iPhone computing is general purpose computing and commerce.
| It's not video game toys.
|
| All platforms like this should be open like Microsoft Windows.
|
| Make no question. Apple's stance is about capturing every
| ingress to American consumers they possibly can so that they
| can tax it.
|
| They're fleecing American companies.
|
| DOJ has one action to take: Force Apple and Google to allow
| web-based installs of any software (including non-Safari web
| browsers!) and prevent both companies from running any form of
| required payment gateway.
| orbz wrote:
| On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does
| make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found
| that I'd rather not trust developers to write software
| however they want. I want them to have restrictions on how
| much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their
| software and how much of a blast radius there would be from
| messing something up.
| Steltek wrote:
| You don't need control of the app store to do that.
| jclardy wrote:
| > how they can update their software I agree on all your
| points except this one. The App Store update process has
| grown long in the tooth. It was fine for the first 5 years
| or so, then they added auto-update, great.
|
| But now 10 years in it is still all or nothing. Either the
| OS allows all apps to auto-upgrade, or you do it yourself.
| There is no way to "remove" an app from the update list if
| you want to keep an old version. There is no way to ever go
| back to an old version if you accidentally upgrade. Backing
| up an old version of an app requires a Mac to extract the
| binary. Each app already has it's own settings screen, why
| not add an "auto-update" toggle to each (And by default it
| gets your system-wide setting.)
|
| And from the developer side - no way to have paid upgrades,
| unless you release the "new" version as a separate app with
| a bundle discount alongside the old version.
|
| So instead you get either more apps moving to
| subscriptions, or more abandoned apps because the developer
| can't support free updates.
| echelon wrote:
| Life is hairy and complicated. Every day millions of
| Americans jump into death chariots and we expect them to
| mostly be fine.
|
| We should not err on the side of creating a locked down
| Fisher Price playpen for consumers. Not at the expense of
| our freedoms and the rest of our industry. Think about how
| much damage this has done to innovation because costs are
| redirected to Apple's coffers rather than putting more
| engineers behind novel ideas.
|
| Apple is sitting on mountains -- a continental shelf -- of
| opportunity cost. What a waste.
| Drew_ wrote:
| > I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff
| they can access, how they can update their software and how
| much of a blast radius there would be from messing
| something up.
|
| The OS already does this for you, no software distribution
| monopoly (App Store) needed.
|
| This idea that an App Store is the only path to security is
| FUD. If allowing 3rd party app distribution on iOS actually
| did allow some sort of destruction of iOS user's privacy
| and security, then iOS is clearly garbage.
| izacus wrote:
| Those two things are not fully related. Apple could (and to
| some extend does) design a system that keeps YOU in control
| without being an anti-competitive platform that prevents
| competition in non-OS / non-platform markets.
|
| Preinstalling and pushing Apple Music / iCloud (not to
| mention giving it private entitlements the competitors
| can't use) is not related to the iOS security model by
| itself.
|
| There's also no reason that the curator of your app store
| has to be the same entity that sold you your hardware -
| there are plenty of even more trustworthy organizations and
| people that could create curated stores which might be even
| more relevant than AppStore haphazard and inconsistent
| curation.
|
| Imagine if AppStore could just be a framework where you can
| choose curators you trust more than a Californian megacorp.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I don't think that's possible if your goal is zero
| (system-altering) malware - pretty much all (with the
| exception of checkra1n) recent iOS releases have had a
| jailbreak that works by chaining exploits to break out of
| the app sandbox and can be installed via just signing an
| IPA, gain root and install Cydia/other dpkg frontends.
| Without the app store you would see these making their
| way to things people can download, just in the form of
| 'free vbucks' or other illegitimate apps that silently
| alter the system to install system-wide adware that
| replaces ads in other apps with their own.
| izacus wrote:
| You're again mistaking security and software safety for
| anticompetitive business practices.
|
| Apple loves to mix this too - after all, their marketing
| is spending a lot of money persuading it that those two
| are related. They're not. Even currently, AppStore is not
| without malware, so they have failed at that goal and us
| users have paid too great of a price by distortion of
| no.1 tenement that makes capitalism a functioning and
| decent system to live in: competition.
|
| It's like an abused wife being afraid to run away from
| her husband because she thinks he's the only one that can
| protect her.
| [deleted]
| awillen wrote:
| Don't trivialize domestic abuse with this kind of
| comparison.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I'm not mistaking those - surely the human aspect helps
| avoid most (if not all) system-altering malware, while
| 'malware' in general (which includes apps that trick
| users into subscriptions and such) is severely cut down
| with some apps avoiding it by hiding from Cupertino and
| such[0].
|
| 0: https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=799
| Terretta wrote:
| CC processing and CDN is disingenuously reductive of the
| experience users have been subjected to buying digital software
| other ways.
|
| Users don't choose an app store based on how good the processor
| or download is, or even on discovery, but on trust. Some portion
| of this fee, arguably much of it, is a friction and trust gap
| between one experience and the experiences they have elsewhere.
|
| Just as someone doesn't choose their hospital based on patient
| outcomes but patient experience, normals buy from the app store
| because they believe it's easy and pro user, while their
| experience buying software directly elsewhere has felt cumbersome
| or even user hostile.
|
| All that said, I 100% agree that if people buy your app because
| of who you are, instead of what the app is, Apple's app store
| model is not set up for you.
| josteink wrote:
| > Users don't choose an app store based on how good the
| processor or download is, or even on discovery, but on trust.
|
| Yes. For instance if people could install the Steam store on
| their phones, gamers would do so _in droves_ and Apple don't
| want people to be given that choice.
|
| That would cut into their ability to tax and control all
| commerce happening on the user's device, which to be clear, is
| _not_ Apple's property.
|
| The monopolistic AppStore we're forced to use is a BS
| arrangement and Apple is just afraid of what real competition
| would bring.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > Users don't choose an app store based on how good the
| processor or download is
|
| > normals buy from the app store because they believe it's easy
| and pro user
|
| This is iOS, people don't choose an app store at all. People
| buy from the Apple App Store because there's literally no
| alternative that isn't _incredibly_ convoluted and well beyond
| all but technical users.
| Popegaf wrote:
| OK, if developers hate Apple so much for taking 15-30% of their
| revenue, why aren't they:
|
| - banding together and suing Apple together
|
| - still writing apps for Apple and giving them money?
|
| Aren't iPhones about 20% of the smartphone market? Wouldn't you
| make more money from the Google Store or are they extorting the
| same rates?
| cageface wrote:
| Outside of games people aren't building directly for app stores
| anymore. They're building apps that are part of some other
| profitable business that need to have a presence on the phone.
| And lately Apple is insisting they get a cut off those kinds of
| apps too.
| dzonga wrote:
| anyone remember Steve's job's remark that Apple was a software
| company. Better software on integrated hardware. and likewise,
| developers need to start acting like they're software companies
| not just "developers". End of day "developers" are what makes a
| platform valuable. I was once like that, enamoured by Apple while
| throwing business sense out of the window. in street terms, it's
| like the difference between a street prostitute and a mistress.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| "The "way" is already paid by the hardware -- but Apple uses
| their position of power to double-dip."
|
| I understand the optics of this don't look good, but is it wrong
| to have multiple sources of revenue derived from the "way"?
|
| 1. what happens if supply chain dynamics and smartphone market
| competition negatively impact the hardware margins? What happens
| when consumer appetite for innovation in the phone stagnates and
| margins collapse? This would happen because Apple couldn't
| leverage new hw+sw features to differentiate itself.
|
| 2. How do we know the price of the hardware today isn't offset by
| services revenue? service revenue disappearing might increase the
| upfront cost of the phone for everyone.
|
| In either of these scenarios, if Apple got to the point of
| _needing_ the app store fees to make the iPhone an attractive
| product to build and support, they couldn't start charging in the
| future. It needs to be set in advance and continue. They can
| always decrease the fees, but cannot make them go up. It would
| not be fair for developers to decide on making an app as a
| business venture only to find out in the future there is a 30%
| platform. This is something that has been known and transparent
| since day, yet developers continue to see the value of the
| platform.
|
| Just looking at it from their position
| smoldesu wrote:
| If the optics of it don't look good, there's a very good chance
| that it isn't good.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Optics is just another word for propaganda in this case. The
| optics just come down to who is able to "control the
| narrative".
| enos_feedler wrote:
| If you read my argument I'm saying the optics don't look good
| because the margins on phones are high AND they are taking
| platform fees on top of that. As the margins on phones
| decrease in the future, the optics won't look as bad.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's not an excuse for them to be driving such insane
| margins then. Plus, who's to say that the iPhone doesn't
| receive another overhaul in the next few years, driving the
| margins back down? Apple will continue to play this game of
| cat-and-mouse for as long as you let them, and that's
| ultimately how they accumulate wealth. It's a campaign
| almost entirely ran on deception.
| jimbokun wrote:
| It's a campaign ran on Apple making products that a lot
| of people like enough to buy them at the price Apple is
| selling them.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Yes, and at some point it's possible consumers simply
| won't pay for some new technology down the road. Say for
| example, a very expensive health/bio sensor. However,
| Apple might feel that 1) it's good for the world to be
| able to monitor/improve health, 2) will give safe access
| to this sensor to 3rd party developers, so it's good
| Apple can draw on this revenue source from platform fees
| to make it happen, by killing margins to ship this
| sensor. I am not saying this is happening today at all. I
| just think it's good for the platform to have diverse
| revenue sources. It's good for Apple, but it might also
| be good for developers too
| smoldesu wrote:
| This is an idyllic situation which has sadly never panned
| out. Apple has had plenty of times to integrate their
| hardware and software with open standards, but time and
| time again they reject it in favor of overcomplicated and
| inherently insecure solutions. Imagine how simple
| messaging would be if iMessage was an open protocol, or
| Airdrop was a standardized and unlicensed. The solution
| isn't to crush your competitors, it's to coexist with
| them. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook have all
| accepted their postmodern places in the industry, and
| Apple will continue to stick out like a sore thumb until
| they return to their core competencies and quit repeating
| the mistakes Microsoft made in the late 90s.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Customers aren't the only factor here, though. Developers
| are coming out en-masse to denounce Apple's business
| practices right now, and the government has been starting
| to intervene lately too. It's obvious that there is
| contention in Apple's ecosystem, so they'd be much better
| suited to addressing it outright instead of dragging it
| into the world's longest media fiasco. This is (and has
| been) one of Tim Cook's massive pitfalls, and he
| repeatedly falls into these asinine grudge matches that
| only further destroy what little digital cogency there is
| in this world.
| jimbokun wrote:
| So basically in your opinion businesses making a lot of
| money makes for bad optics.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I would have to agree with that. Excessive greed is bad
| optics.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple is literally the world's largest company. I would
| argue that increasing their market share of anything,
| anywhere is harmful to the future of humanity, full stop.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| No the optics around charging developers large platform
| fees when they also highly profitable on the phone
| itself. This whole thread is about double dipping. I am
| specifically talking about "double dipping" and the
| optics of that.
| addicted wrote:
| Marco literally states that it's not wrong pointing out that
| it's their business prerogative and further they aren't known
| for being very generous anyways.
|
| So you're arguing a straw man.
|
| And if the service revenue was supporting hardware revenue
| Apple's services wouldn't largely be limited to Apple devices.
|
| Besides, Apple is a public company and we can see how those
| revenues break out. Further, we can guess that even the
| relatively minuscule service income would largely disappear,
| if, for example, I could download apps at a 15% discount using
| a non Apple App Store to an iPhone and not have to jailbreak
| the iPhone.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I was just arguing the quote "Apple uses their position of
| power to double-dip"
|
| Double dip has connotations that they are taking twice when
| they should only be taking once. I am simply saying that
| diverse revenue streams to capture value from a product is
| not wrong. Therefore, calling out "double dipping" behavior
| is unfair.
| shkkmo wrote:
| IMHO, Apple can keep their 30% fee on their store if they open
| the platform to 3rd party stores.
|
| If Apple has to raise prices on their hardware to stay is
| business, that seems much fairer that using addicted mobile
| gamers to subsidize hardware for everyone else.
| newsclues wrote:
| I've never paid for an app, and don't want to pay more for an
| AppStore that I don't use. Only app I use other than Apple
| stock apps is a bank app which I can use safari and
| Instagram. Which should work on web browsers but I don't care
| about it enough to pay money for it
| shkkmo wrote:
| I don't get it, how would you be paying more for an
| AppStore?
| enos_feedler wrote:
| First law of Hacker News: taking the "pro app store fee"
| argument in any thread comment results in "k" karma points,
| where "k" <= 0.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| As frustrating as it may be to receive downvotes for
| seemingly no reason, getting salty about it simply invites
| further downvotes.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Yes i was going to write that was the second law as a
| follow up, but didn't want to go there ;) I couldn't resist
| the observation though. At least it was specific to
| something I noticed.
| bayindirh wrote:
| What's wrong with having unpopular opinions? Like not being
| against Apple's App Store policies in any strong manner?
|
| We're humans after all, and having opposable thumbs is one of
| the driving pillars of our progress and civilization, if not
| _the one_ pillar.
| ksec wrote:
| >How do we know the price of the hardware today isn't offset by
| services revenue?
|
| Unless you want to some doggy NRE number into accounting.
| Apple's hardware are extremely profitable doesn't matter how
| you spin or slice it.
|
| But, yes. Today's price are subsidise by their services
| revenue. The keyword here is price. Apple still gets to keep
| their _same_ margin. Basically Apple shifted the cost of macOS,
| cloud and other software expenses from Hardware / Product cost
| to Services revenue. This was stated in their 2018 investor
| notes.
|
| Again, Macro's point isn't just about 30%. There is an Anti-
| Competitive, Anti Trust play here. Of course those two words
| have difference definition to quite literally everyone, and
| especially different from a US and EU stand point.
| clusterfish wrote:
| I don't think they shifted anything, they just added the new
| revenue on top and became more profitable.
| simonh wrote:
| Hmm, I generally take the pro-Apple stance on this. I don't
| want side loading or third party stores. It's Apples product
| and they get to decide what features it has, IMHO. I don't want
| government committees dictating the security model and software
| architecture of my phone, thanks.
|
| However Marco's argument is spot on. Apple is saying in Senate
| hearings that App developers are picking up crumbs from the App
| Store's floor and should be grateful for what they get, while
| reassuring devs that they are what makes iPhone so great. Too
| many of Apples moves against devs on the store recently have
| bordered on the abusive. Yes they're greatly trimmed charges
| for small dev shops, but the rules on that are awkward and are
| clearly about optics not substance.
|
| To your questions.
|
| 1. Then Apple would have failed to offer a compelling product.
| There are other phones and app stores out there. If Apple can't
| compete with Samsung on the quality of their phones, then
| they're not the Apple I know and love anymore. It's up to them
| to add value, not leech it off others. They do deserve fair
| recompense for their services, but that's all.
|
| 2. We know very well what their hardware margins are. From
| their own filings, their phone hardware margins are over 35%.
| procombo wrote:
| I also "don't want government committees dictating the
| security model", but IMHO it's a big leap from that to
| advocating against consumer choice within a general purpose
| product.
| simonh wrote:
| I don't think it's a big leap at all. On summers have a
| choice if they buy a product. They don't get to dictate
| what products a company is allowed to make. Safety and
| consumer protection, fine, but I don't see this as about
| consumer protection. It's about some people wishing Apple
| would change their phones to suit their preferences, but
| there's no obligation on Apple to do so.
|
| People have always wished Apple would sell computers with
| this or that feature, this or that peripheral or option.
| That's not how it works though. If they don't sell a device
| that suits your needs, you have the same recourse the rest
| of us have.
|
| But do you really think they would stop with specifications
| for side loading and App Store APIs, security profiles and
| associated OS services? How about specs for police and
| security services back doors, tracking and surveillance.
| They won't be able to help themselves. And if the US can
| pass laws demanding these things, that creates a precedent
| for Russia, China, Saudi Arabia etc to follow suit.
| cmorgan31 wrote:
| Why is it a big leap? Consumers also choose to buy Apple
| and the assumption is we're too stupid to know we can buy
| something else and do more with it. It's just as big an
| insult. If I can't get your app on iOS then I just won't
| use your app. I don't care if it's on Android because I
| didn't buy an iPhone to use your specific app.
|
| If you want to legislate for consumer choice do so but can
| we stop pretending this is some battle for choice when it's
| literally about two behemoth corporations arguing over how
| they split our money.
| procombo wrote:
| We agree that, properly empowered, consumers will make
| the best choice for themselves.
|
| We disagree about what constitutes "properly empowered".
| cmorgan31 wrote:
| Yes that's a fair break down of the situation. We're
| mostly not aligned on how to properly empower
| individuals.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| So you get Apple dictating both the security model and the
| commercial model, to developer detriment.
|
| It's clearly monopolistic - exploitative, monolithic,
| controlling.
|
| _The app store is the biggest source of friction standing
| between app developers and their customers._
|
| Now - this wouldn't be a problem if Apple did the job they
| claim they do, improved search so it worked well, provided
| easy visibility for relevant apps, and threw out the scams
| and the trash.
|
| That isn't what's happening. And that is a problem.
|
| The security angle is a non-issue. Returning the app
| ecosystem to some semblance of functionality and fairness
| would is an orthogonal issue.
|
| Apple can keep its walled garden. But it needs to start
| treating it like a valuable garden, not like a pile of
| burning trash that happens to generate huge amounts of free
| money.
| smoldesu wrote:
| This is definitely a case where our Senate is out of it's
| depths. Software licensing and the world of software
| distribution is still a remarkably new field in the political
| world, so it makes sense that our government is totally lost
| here. There is no precedent for what Apple is doing. This is
| the licensing nightmare scenario all of the BSD developers
| warned about when Sony sold the Playstation Linux Kit: we no
| longer own the hardware we buy, we simply lease it from
| someone who provisions us authority to it as they see fit.
| It's a harrowing paradigm.
| gigatexal wrote:
| I too don't see any issue with this. They built the phone and
| created a platform to build upon. They exact a 30% tax. So be
| it. I will not use, install, or tell my friends or family to
| use, install, or get software from any third party app on their
| phones as it would break one of the biggest selling points of
| the iPhone: it's appliance nature and how difficult it is to
| brick or screw up.
|
| I also don't want the podcasts I subscribe to to have my email.
| Podcasters claim to want to own the customer and the flow. They
| only want this for upselling or cross-selling. No. I will pay
| you through apple-pay without revealing my email, and you can
| talk about promotions and things in the podcast but otherwise
| let's leave it at that.
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| To me, it's very evident that many app developers provide
| substantial value to iOS. But it's also very evident that many
| app developers (and I would argue it's the overwhelming majority)
| have a hostile relationship with iOS customers.
|
| It sucks that Apple's App Store restrictions cause so many
| problems for the legit app developers, but I actually wish Apple
| was significantly more restrictive with what makes it into the
| App Store. Maybe this is a crazy opinion since I'm a programmer
| myself, but I would honestly prefer to use an iOS ecosystem with
| _no_ App Store that allows self-serve third-party app
| distribution than to use an iOS ecosystem that allows
| unrestricted third-party software.
| Despegar wrote:
| >If Apple wishes to continue advancing bizarre corporate-
| accounting arguments, the massive profits from the hardware
| business are what therefore truly "pay the way" of the App Store,
| public APIs, developer tools, and other app-development
| resources, just as the hardware profits must fund the development
| of Apple's own hardware, software, and services that make the
| iPhone appeal to customers.
|
| You can ignore everything else from this post. The developer
| gripes with the App Store have always been a contractual dispute
| between businesses over terms. Marco would like Apple to have the
| Mac business model apply to the iPhone. He wants to be able to
| use the SDK and tools for free (or for the nominal developer
| program annual fee).
|
| This is understandable from a business perspective; everyone
| wants lower costs and higher profits. But it's certainly not in
| Apple's customers' interests for their business model to change
| to accommodate developers.
| josteink wrote:
| > This is understandable from a business perspective; everyone
| wants lower costs and higher profits. But it's certainly not in
| Apple's customers' interests for their business model to change
| to accommodate developers.
|
| I'll bite. Why not?
| Despegar wrote:
| Their current business model incentivizes Apple to make high
| quality products that last a long time. The larger Apple's
| installed base is, the more money they make from the App
| Store. You can tell from the used market prices for iPhones
| that they've been doing a great job of this.
|
| This also happens to be more environmentally sustainable, so
| it's not in society's broader interest for Apple to change
| their business model.
|
| A world in which Apple only earns profits from hardware sales
| removes those incentives. Not only would they try to get you
| to upgrade more often, they'd also invest less R&D in the
| hardware as well. Instead of doing the iPhone X redesign,
| with its higher component costs, they'd try to milk the
| iPhone 6 design for as long as possible.
| handrous wrote:
| The reasons are discussed (well, flame-war'd, and there's a
| lot of talking past one another) in practically _every_ HN
| thread in which Apple is mentioned, even when it 's not about
| the store. I haven't looked but can almost guarantee there's
| a thread here already covering it. Allow me to summarize the
| last 100 times I've engaged in or witnessed this:
|
| Party 1: Apple's store hurts consumers and contributes to
| making their devices not even real computers, just
| consumption devices, not for creation! It's a shame and they
| should be broken up or made to allow other app stores. It's
| plainly anti-competitive, and anti-choice.
|
| Party 2: Hi, I'm a consumer, and I like that they force 3rd
| parties not to be shitty. I don't really care how that hurts
| 3rd parties, as long as Apple's big enough that the 3rd
| parties can't afford to turn down that slice of the pie so
| they keep providing me the apps I want. Also I do work &
| creation on iOS devices, often. So. (here party 2 may or may
| not concede that it _is_ anti-competitive and they simply don
| 't care since it happens to be benefiting them, and may or
| may not argue that it's _not_ anti-choice, since without
| Apple 's model the kinds of app store ecosystem model the
| consumer can choose would be reduced by one)
|
| Party 1: 3rd party stores wouldn't hurt you, you could just
| not use the apps that move to those if you don't like what
| they're able to do on the other stores. (this is usually
| where insults to Party 2's intelligence are placed, and in
| fact this post is often _mostly_ that, and probably also
| push-back on allowing other stores representing a reduction
| of choice, if Party 2 chose to advance that line in the
| previous post)
|
| Party 2: But... right now I have all the apps I want, and
| none of them can do things I don't like because Apple doesn't
| let them. How's it better to replace this situation with
| multiple app stores, so I might have to choose between
| privacy and using the apps I want? That seems strictly worse
| for me. (if the which-kind-of-choice-matters argument is in
| play, an argument that the _ecosystem_ of Apple 's store will
| be harmed by adding more stores, so in fact Party 2's
| preferred choice of the current, non-so-harmed App Store
| ecosystem _will_ be removed by adding more, may be employed)
|
| From here things mostly just go in circles and hypotheticals
| and examples from Android's Play store, which probably won't
| be particularly relevant to the much-more-restricted Apple
| App Store and any hypothetical changes to its position given
| 3rd party app stores.
| gizmo wrote:
| That's so uncharitable. Somebody who makes their living off iOS
| apps obviously doesn't care about the $100 annual developer
| fee. This isn't just about the contractual dispute, this is
| also -- as the post clearly explains -- about respect,
| fairness, and acknowledgement.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| Apple cannot force developers to develop for the Apple ecosystem.
| If you don't like the terms, leave. And I say this as someone who
| did just that. I used to be all-Apple all the time, but even as
| far back as 20
| echelon wrote:
| > If you don't like the terms, leave.
|
| Apple captured 50% of the American economy. You have no choice.
| This is why the DOJ must act to bring an end to these
| anticompetitive behaviors.
| minimaxir wrote:
| 50% is not 100%, which matters if you're accusing a company
| of monopolistic practices. (and why the Epic lawsuit is
| fighting that gray area)
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Armchair lawyers again, not knowing how monopolies does not
| mean 100% of a market.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Don't need to have 100% market share to be anti-trusted in
| the US. You just need to use your market power in anti-
| competitive ways that harm consumers.
| echelon wrote:
| 50% of _consumers_ for any way you want to reach them.
|
| You can't get them anymore because Apple has them locked
| up.
|
| It doesn't matter if you're a video game or a dating app or
| a movie marketplace. You have to pay the Piper.
| Steltek wrote:
| False. Monopolies and monopoly practices are legal. Anti-
| competitive practices, however, are not. Microsoft was not
| convicted of being a monopoly, it was convicted of
| leveraging its monopoly to stifle competition in another
| market.
|
| In the US, this is further narrowed to include "harm to the
| consumer". For example: increased prices or deception.
| Under this guideline, Apple's on shaky ground.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Monopoly power is not illegal itself. Abusing monopoly power is.
|
| Apple can argue that their App Store should be the only way to
| sell apps in Apple phones because security and other stuff. But
| they can't take huge markup unless they are actually spending
| most of it into security and providing App Store (they are not).
|
| If they drop their cut into 5% or so, and they would 3% of that
| running App Store, it's still handsome 40% gross margin and
| regulators would leave them be.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > Without our apps, the iPhone has little value to most of its
| customers today.
|
| Looking at my iPhone I see no 3rd party apps. I use safari to
| access websites and eschew any service that wants me to "use our
| app" and doesn't have a web version.
| handrous wrote:
| I'm the same way on iPhone--I use several 3rd-party apps, but
| it'd be 90% as useful to me without any of them.
|
| iPad? Oh hell no. I'd not bother with one, at all, without
| third-party apps. With them it's amazing, probably my single
| favorite computer platform for anything that's not programming.
| Without them it's just a huge, worse (there's not even a
| calculator!) iPhone.
| lostgame wrote:
| So your use case effectively represents maybe 1% of iOS/iPadOS
| users? :P Realistically probably less?
|
| Because, as a musician - I should just use the Web App version
| of GarageBand, right?
|
| Because I'm sure the Web App version of GarageBand will run
| _circles_ around the native version, right? :P And it 'll have
| all the support for things like Audio Bus, USB Midi support,
| and USB Audio card I/O - of course. And that'll all be totally
| secure, too!
|
| ...
|
| (GarageBand adds _immense_ and completely irreplaceable value
| for iOS for me...it 's actually the reason I use iOS/iPadOS as
| I can import those creations into Logic Pro on my Mac and that
| ease of workflow is absolutely impossible to reproduce anywhere
| else. I'd pay $200 for GarageBand if it wasn't shockingly free,
| minus the requirement to stick with iOS/iPadOS.)
|
| Plus - who could forget about that fantastic Web-only version
| of ProCreate, for all the millions of hobbyist and professional
| designers who buy an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for - y'know -
| art.
|
| I love using the Apple Pencil to manipulate extremely high-
| resolution art in the browser - it never crashes and it's so
| much more responsive than a native app!
|
| ...
|
| (Obviously there is not - nor ever will there be - a Web
| version of ProCreate. Or GarageBand. And the replacements will
| certainly not perform better or support awesome things like
| AudioBus.)
|
| Gotta love how well Garageband, ProCreate; and all those native
| video games hundreds of millions of people like to play and use
| work in a browser on iOS - you're right - better scrap the App
| Store altogether!
|
| Clearly nobody installs apps and there are no potential use
| cases for tens of or hundreds of millions of users to do so.
|
| ...okay, I'm done. :P
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >USB Midi support
|
| Web apps certainly could have this if Apple wanted them to.
| Works perfectly find on computers and Android devices.
|
| >Obviously there is not - nor ever will there be - a Web
| version of ProCreate. Or GarageBand
|
| There absolutely could be, just needs a talented team. Figma
| is a web app and runs circles around any native app in the
| design space, nothing too magical going on in ProCreate or
| Garageband that couldn't be done on the web with a talented
| team and an OS that didn't intentionally limit it's power.
| phren0logy wrote:
| I believe you, but surely you realize that you are an outlier?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Apple has historically never considered their products as a
| platform, but rather as a final product, useable as-is.
|
| iOS was initially completely closed, for bullshit reasons.
|
| Helping developers is never a priority, and it is easy to feel
| when you try to build something running on their products.
|
| This is unfortunate and I think it is highly irrational.
| Terretta wrote:
| Arguably iOS was originally intended and designed to run HTML5
| web apps without intermediation. Web tech based applets
| downloadable and runnable from a home screen, similar to Palm
| Pre and WebOS.
| tobr wrote:
| The AppStore is not good for finding apps. You can't even filter
| or sort the search on any kind of metadata. So you try to type
| some keywords in and you get irrelevant adware (after the _ads_
| for other adware). While I occasionally try apps or games I
| discover through the AppStore, nearly every app that actually
| matters to me I've learned about through other channels.
| collaborative wrote:
| I recently finished porting an app to Windows. I decided to
| publish on the MS Store (UWP + Desktop Bridge). Don't mind
| sharing 12% in return for MS's seal of approval
|
| But if I could, I would terminate my iOS appstore presence in a
| heartbeat.
|
| This is how different Apple and MS make me feel as a developer.
| Google falls somewhere in between
|
| Everything these companies do is geared towards making us develop
| (often for free) the features their users want on their devices
| in a way that their users increase their appreciation for them,
| not for us. Youtube "developers" at least get paid for their
| success. We just get made forced to comply. They also won't doubt
| to use you as a pawn in their war against other big tech (i.e.
| mandatory requirement to offer Apple Sign in if you want to offer
| Google/FB Sign in).
|
| And yes, Apple dropping the annual fee would be a nice start
| asow92 wrote:
| Agree to disagree.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps.
| My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer
| over if they really wanted to.
|
| Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between
| native and web app in 2021?
|
| The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be
| Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an
| arguably better notifications user flow through SMS and direct
| link to user content.
|
| For the rest of the differences, it feels like much of the
| benefit Apple brings to the table (view management, security,
| continuity between devices, distribution, ...), does appear to
| carry a premium when placed in comparison to building a monolith
| web app.
| emsy wrote:
| Not on iOS. The biggest issue are indeed native notifications
| which I don't believe will ever happen (unless Apple is forced
| to by legislation). Web Bluetooth is also unlikely to happen.
| Storage is another issue that is heavily restricted on iOS and
| in my experience offline use is completely unreliable.
| majormajor wrote:
| > The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be
| Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an
| arguably better notifications user flow through SMS and direct
| link to user content.
|
| Oh god please no.
|
| I can turn off app-level notifications. I don't want to have to
| deal with app-level texts instead.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| > I can turn off app-level notifications. I don't want to
| have to deal with app-level texts instead.
|
| Ha!! See, I think SMS notifications are still stellar!
| Because right when the offender steps in, in the height of
| righteous anger, you can yell (text) "STOP" and by law it
| must bug off!!
|
| Not to mention the cool new commands that could emerge like,
| "give me a week" or other conversational ways to interact
| with your notifications on a person level... which to me, is
| what it was all about in the first place!
| latexr wrote:
| > you can yell (text) "STOP" and by law it must bug off!!
|
| Is that the law everywhere in the world?
|
| > Not to mention the cool new (...) conversational ways to
| interact with your notifications
|
| Which you could achieve by allowing replies from within the
| notification itself, like Messages on macOS.
|
| And SMSs cost money. It doesn't matter how cool your
| conversational interactions are, no one would be happy
| being charged for international text messages to respond to
| a bot, especially when the norm today is automated
| assistants barely understand what you mean.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I've yet to encounter a webapp whose UX made me as happy as
| native apps do. The platform simply doesn't offer enough
| affordances for it.
|
| Write once, run everywhere has a cost, and one that is largely
| borne by users.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| In practice, the lion share of revenue on the App Store is made
| by games.
|
| Running games as web apps is technically possible, but
| performance tend to be an issue, even for simple 2D games.
|
| I don't think Apple is embracing Webassembly enough to
| facilitate this transition, this is not their best interest.
| soziawa wrote:
| > Does anyone have any insight into the major differences
| between native and web app in 2021?
|
| No general insight, but Telegram has two web apps that try to
| emulate the native app [1]. They do work fairly well but are
| definitely glitchier than the native app (or any native chat
| app).
|
| > For the rest of the differences, it feels like much of the
| benefit Apple brings to the table (view management, security,
| continuity between devices, distribution, ...), does appear to
| carry a premium when placed in comparison to building a
| monolith web app.
|
| That might be true, but the value free apps like WhatsApp bring
| to the iPhone is unmeasurable and WhatsApp pays exactly 100$ a
| year to Apple for access to all the tooling.
|
| [1]: https://telegram.org/blog/payments-2-0-scheduled-voice-
| chats...
| vbsteven wrote:
| For my personal use cases (visible or invisible) push messages
| are the major missing feature for replacing native with web
| apps. And I doubt it's possible to do without platform support.
|
| Twilio or other SMS based services aren't a solution as in lots
| of countries they still cost $0.10 per 160 characters, require
| an active SIM card and cannot be opened into an app.
|
| Maybe something can be done with websockets but that will also
| require platform support to improve battery life and allow web
| apps to run in the background.
| valine wrote:
| No choice in graphics API and no general purpose compute on the
| GPU. WebGL is a start but it's missing major features.
|
| If you want to build a competitive game engine or do any sort
| of machine learning on device then it has to be native.
| wayneftw wrote:
| I'd like to hear the thoughts on this of people who are arguing
| with me in another thread that "Apple planned for web apps to
| be the only apps for the iPhone until they just happened to
| come up with the idea for the store full of native apps".
|
| Honestly, if you believe that Apple ever planned for iPhone to
| be web only you've got to buy this bridge from me. No kidding.
|
| Apple used the "web only apps" angle as a stopgap until their
| SDK was ready. Then they did everything they could to ensure
| that web apps ran like crap without making it too obvious.
| vimy wrote:
| It really seems that was the original plan. An email from the
| Apple vs Epic trial where Steve Jobs gives the go ahead for
| the app store in October 2007. They had to rush to get the
| sdk done in three months.
|
| https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1400270458608664577
| Uehreka wrote:
| Sure thing.
|
| Apple told developers that webapps were the solution. They
| didn't give any public indication that this would change.
| Now, one could argue that this was just cover while they got
| the native SDK ready, but that Bertrand Serlet email from the
| other thread was the point at which they even officially
| decided to have a native SDK at all (months after telling
| devs to write webapps).
|
| I think the real issue is with the phrase "Apple planned",
| because Apple is not one person, and the people disagree on
| "the plan". We mythologize them sometimes as an all-planning
| "the Vatican thinks in centuries" kind of organization. But
| as emails like that one and others show, there are often
| legitimate arguments within Apple. In this case, some
| folks[0]were arguing that native apps would be too much of a
| security nightmare to be worth it, and that anything that
| needed to be native could just be built by Apple themselves.
|
| So in conclusion: "Apple" planned nothing, some people at
| Apple had clear plans to push through a native SDK from day
| zero, and some people at Apple spent months being deadset
| that that would never happen.
|
| [0] I'm too lazy to look up these sources right now, check
| out Melton and Ganatra's multi-part interview on the Debug
| podcast.
| cglong wrote:
| TikTok, Starbucks, and Lyft all have fully capable webapps. If
| you have an Android phone, you can "install" them directly from
| their websites to have a completely equivalent UX to a native
| app. This is super interesting when you consider the primary
| argument in the article (that most download funnels are driven
| by the app developer, not Apple).
| mathgladiator wrote:
| This is why I'm optimistic about WebAssembly, beyond time and
| investment, what prohibits it from achieve performance parity
| with native?
| criddell wrote:
| > what prohibits it from achieve performance parity with
| native?
|
| On what axes are you measuring performance? I care about how
| quickly and smoothly something runs, but also how much
| battery, memory, and bandwidth it consumes.
| handrous wrote:
| > This is why I'm optimistic about WebAssembly, beyond time
| and investment, what prohibits it from achieve performance
| parity with native?
|
| It's cross-platform VM-enabled bytecode? Approaching native
| performance _very closely_ is the best plausible outcome.
| Measured on all metrics and not just pure number-crunching
| (start-up time generally, "cold" start-up, memory use,
| memory use over time, et c., all in real-world applications
| and not bespoke benchmarking programs) it's unlikely it'll
| even get _very_ close. Close enough? Maybe, but I 'm
| skeptical that there is such a (realistic) achievable state
| as "close enough" on a platform that runs on a small battery.
| Look at Android's _decades_ of playing catch-up on
| performance & power use, for instance.
|
| [EDIT] Down-voters, please comment: do first-year CS
| principles and direct observation of existing, long-lived,
| real-world cross-platform VM systems (the JVM, for example)
| somehow not apply to WebAssembly?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Apple support?
| ccgus wrote:
| There's no JIT for WebAssembly on iOS (at least last time I
| looked last year), so it's going to be much slower than it
| could otherwise be.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Are you sure about that? Why wouldn't WebAssembly in Safari
| support JIT?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Politics.
|
| This is what Flash was already capable of doing in 2011 with
| CrossBridge, their C++ compiler stack.
|
| https://adobe-flash.github.io/crossbridge/
|
| "Unreal Engine 3 Support for Adobe Flash Player - Unreal
| Tournament 3"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQiUP2Hd60Y
|
| Here we are 10 years later with WebAssembly still mostly
| stuck at MVP 1.0, browsers that bork WebGL experience thanks
| blacklisting, which no matter what will never go beyond
| OpenGL ES 3.0.
|
| Even if WebGPU gets released tomorrow, I would like to point
| out that WebGL 2.0 was released in 2017 and still isn't
| available across all browsers.
|
| Then there are all other native capabilities that I glanced
| over.
| mcphage wrote:
| > This is what Flash was already capable of doing in 2011
| with CrossBridge, their C++ compiler stack.
|
| Then why was the Android Flash experience so bad that it
| got quickly killed off?
|
| There was a time where Adobe could have shown a performant,
| stable version of mobile Flash, and Apple would have had to
| find a way to accept it. But it never got there, on any
| mobile OS.
| xchaotic wrote:
| ,, Without our apps, the iPhone has little value to most of its
| customers today." I call bs on that. I can't be the only person
| who uses stock apple email and very few 3rd party apps. Yes it's
| even better with those apps, but even on its own, a nicely
| working phone with email and good camera provides a lot of value
| and utility for me. The 3rd party apps only add like 5% for me.
| yoz-y wrote:
| You are probably in an extremely small minority. At the very
| least most people have their 2-3 messaging apps of choice,
| without which the phone might as well be a brick.
| airpoint wrote:
| This post should've been a tweet instead.
| slver wrote:
| Marco likes to complain. This is why Apple needs to be cold to
| developers, they're already on its head, and even more so if
| they pay attention.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| One profit maximizer vs another.
| makecheck wrote:
| Yep. It is not surprising at all that the term "insulting"
| appears three times because that's how it feels for so many
| reasons.
|
| Remember:
|
| - They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow
| impossible to sell software or reach customers before their
| magical store made it happen.
|
| - They pretend like the current "search" feature of the App Store
| is not a sad reduction of what it used to be (or what it could be
| if a trillion dollar company put any effort into it at all).
|
| - They pretend to have all these problems hosting apps that are
| somehow solved by fees, while completely ignoring all the free
| apps that clearly tax that same infrastructure.
|
| - They conveniently ignore the absurd amount of money they _must_
| be making from scams that are constantly top-grossing to add
| insult to injury.
|
| I could go on but there are entire blogs written about this by
| now.
| Angostura wrote:
| > - They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow
| impossible to sell software or reach customers before their
| magical store made it happen.
|
| I've never heard them claim that. The claim is that for an
| appliance like a phone - rather than a general purpose computer
| - device reliability trumps all, including the ability for the
| consumer to run arbitrary code on the device.
| yoz-y wrote:
| They have claimed multiple times that before the App Store
| you had to get your programs from a brick and mortar store at
| a large commission, which justifies their 30%. Conveniently
| omitting that internet has already existed.
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| > They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow
| impossible to sell software or reach customers before their
| magical store made it happen.
|
| I never heard them claim it but speaking as a developer it's
| obvious that Apple was a driving force here. Sellable desktop
| software became obsolete due to piracy. Everything is server-
| based now. Mobile apps, particularly on iOS, is the only place
| where the general public consistently buys client software.
| Most people don't want cracked apps on their devices, and they
| want secure, privacy-focused phones. Apple has had that focus
| for years.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Err, I think you'll find plenty of people still spending
| heaps of cash on games than run localy on PC, which is where
| all the money is in the App Store too.
| emsy wrote:
| Phrased differently you'll find these kind of statements in
| the testimonies by Apple execs in the Epic case. On the other
| hand your claim that:
|
| >Sellable desktop software became obsolete due to piracy.
|
| Is unfounded. Games are sellable desktop software and they're
| doing just fine. What people want is fair prices and easy
| availability, which is the business model of every digital
| store since itunes.
| ballenf wrote:
| I owned almost every iteration of Blackberry and Nokia's before
| that. I never once paid for an app on any phone prior to an
| iPhone. I remember people selling them, but it required me to
| visit their website on a desktop computer, trust them with my
| credit card info and then awkwardly get their app on my device
| through mobile websites or specialized cables plus software on
| my computer.
|
| In the mobile world I think Apple did indeed lay the groundwork
| for a viable mobile marketplace.
|
| And except for a few apps like Netflix, I'd happily pay 30% on
| top of what goes to the dev to avoid having to go through that
| again.
|
| 100% of the sticker price on apps could go to the app maker and
| then have the fees tacked on top. It would put stronger
| pressure on Apple to bring down the fees and consumers would
| actually know where their money is going. (I think the same
| should be required for credit card fees, fwiw.)
| mathgladiator wrote:
| > Modern society has come to rely so heavily on mobile apps that
| any phone manufacturer must ensure that such a healthy ecosystem
| exists as table stakes for anyone to buy their phones.
|
| I don't think this is true. It may be an unfortunate end. I'm
| actually intending to move to a flip phone since...
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| One statistical point versus billions of smartphone users.
|
| Clearly a strong argument...
| worik wrote:
| I care very little about the App store. In my world the iOS app
| is a small part of our ecosystem.
|
| What I care about is getting charged for a developer licence that
| was never delivered.
|
| Needing a licence to use hardware I paid money for. Without the
| licence I cannot put apps on the iPad I own connected to the Mac
| I own, apps I write on said Mac.
|
| Buggy developer tools that they will not fix. Xcode (and its
| Swift ecosystem) work well for a small project, really great.
| Until you realise that the debugger is lying about the state of
| your variables.
|
| Get to 100,000+ lines of code (or whatever measure of size you
| like, big) Xcode stops working, the tools to navigate your code
| start getting flaky, the editor with its slick features gets very
| slow....
|
| And the debugger: It tells lies - but the worst, the very worst,
| is that in Swift, on iOs comparing a optional to `nil` is
| unreliable. No shit, this is needed:
|
| if foo == nil { if let _ = nil { // foo is not really nil
|
| About 1% of nil comparisons fail...
|
| A trillion dollar company built off the work of developers and
| the tools are like this? They take money for access?
|
| Times like this I am glad I am on a salary...
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