To avoid the app store tax, companies can look to Audible as an example. On iOS, I can only add books to my wishlist and have to make the purchase on my computer.
Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
81–90 of 474 posts
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#82Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…
Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…
Apple does not sell to us, we buy from Apple :)
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valve takes 30% of direct sales through steam but allows developers to generate and sell separately steam keys where they get a 0% cut, as I understand it. For instance when you buy a game on humble bundle and get a steam key for it, valve makes nothing off that transaction. Unless Apple and google start allowing sales outside their stores I don’t think steam is comparable.
Google Play and the Apple App Store are completely different beasts. Unless you jailbreak your iOS device, there is no way to install apps outside the App Store. On Android, you can install entirely separate stores, like the Amazon one, and several OSS-focused stores.
That’s not completely true, as I understand it. You can (or could a couple of years ago) get an ‘enterprise’ developer account that allows you to sign and provision apps to be sideloaded via a web link. Though iirc it’s more hassle for the end user as they have to explicitly allow it on their device.
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…
As I understand it, if you already have a subscription for Amazon Video through the web, then download the Amazon Video app and login to your existing account, Apple doesn't get anything. Which is why the article emphasized Netflix trying to get customers to sign up through their web site, and not the app.
Correct. Apple gets a cut if a customer subscribes through the in-app one-click subscription, which is extremely convenient for any iPhone user (and thus app publishers) because it’s a single click rather than having to insert credit cards, 3D secure and whatnot. In this case the cut is 30% on the first year and 10% afterwards. If the user subscribes through the website, Apple gets nothing. I find this fair.
What is more unfair is that Apple forbids apps to open/link websites where subscriptions can be done to “workaround” the iTunes subscription. If you take Spotify for instance and login as free user, there are absolutely zero mentions that you can upgrade to premium, because they decided to lose those potential customers and rather let them know through other channels of their purchasing options (eg: emails).
On the other hand, this creates a very safe and simple environment for iPhone users. Absolutely NO app asks for a credit card, ever. You either pay one-click safely through iTunes, or nothing. There is no phishing, no mismanaged credit card handling, no credit cards “stolen by hackers from the app I installed into my iPhone”. I’m not saying this fully justifies the above unfair rule, but it’s at least a partial positive side effect.
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…
> Apple adds no value there Other than inventing the modern phone, writing the operating system and developer tools, running the store, manufacturing the phones people are consuming Amazon's product on and convincing people to buy them...you can argue about what's "fair," but Apple's certainly adding value.
All of those except 'running the store' are value paid for in the purchase of the phone, not the software on it.
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it, if you already have a subscription for Amazon Video through the web, then download the Amazon Video app and login to your existing account, Apple doesn't get anything. Which is why the article emphasized Netflix trying to get customers to sign up through their web site, and not the app.
IIRC this is how the Kindle app works for iOS. You can't buy books, but if you own books on your account you can read them.
One can even download free samples of the books which makes it very convenient to pay on kindle or the website later. But it is sad that Apple decided that apps cannot even mention that purchase has to be done at the website.
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valve has several big competitors in the PC market. Several hugely successful games are not available on Steam. I'm not sure it's possible to create a hugely successful iPhone app that isn't on the App Store. Apple has a monopoly and is using it to squeeze excessive fees from developers.
Apple has a “monopoly” on their own products, not smartphones or apps, or anything else. It’s like complaining that Ford has a monopoly on cars made by Ford. There are other phones, other ecosystems, other cars. A monopoly isn’t “I want an Apple product on my own terms, and if I can’t get that, it’s a monopoly.” This trend of claiming Apple is a monopoly or Facebook is because you don’t like the alternatives is pueri…
The monopoly they have isn't phones, it's iOS app distribution. It's a different market -- and the market isn't combined with apps for other systems because they have disjoint sets of customers. You can't use Android apps when you don't have an Android device.
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#88Despite having literally hundreds of thousands of apps, I can't think of a single app that is really "good" in mobile platforms, either ios and android.
Betterment maybe, polished.
Brave Browser looks like chrome so that's good.
But other than that, it's a race to first to market and they are all mediocre to me. Should the barrier of entry be higher?
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#89In my modest opinion, progressive app store fee would make much more sense: https://svedic.org/philosophy/why-app-stores-need-progressiv...
That's an interesting idea. It might even encourage developers to work on higher quality apps, or to not devalue their own software.
Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’
#90To avoid the app store tax, companies can look to Audible as an example. On iOS, I can only add books to my wishlist and have to make the purchase on my computer.
Or in Mobile Safari.