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How Apple Kills Indie Developers

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Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#121

Post by msephton »

This is so disheartening! It is guilty until proven innocent.

I've had similar experiences as a seller on eBay: when a buyer reports you they react in favour of the buyer because buyers make their business model work.

I suspect it's the same here, that Apple have received some sort of complaint about the iOS app (given that the macOS app is unaffected) and the automatic "guilty until proven innocent" system has been activated. And sadly the only thing to do is wait for it to finish. It could be something like waiting 60 or 90 days without any further complaints of the same nature. You could hope for intervention by a sympathetic App Store employee or rep, but I don't know how likely that will be.

To add insult to injury there is also the fact that this is an open source app and dishonest people are cloning it and selling it, and Apple are slow to take them down if they do at all.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#122

Post by sergiosgc »

scarface74 wrote: post #116
sergiosgc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that you give the store operator a monopoly, with the downsides this implies(1), in exchange for security. If security is absent, there's no justification for accepting a monopoly. (1) For example, the store keeping an absurd share of app revenues. About 30%, isn't it?

Absurd compared to retail stores of old that kept 50-60%? Absurd compared to carriers who kept 70% in the pre smart phone area when distributing J2ME apps?

Absurd compared to any open online ecosystem, where you pay 2% for payment processing.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#123

Post by scarface74 »

sergiosgc wrote: post #122
scarface74 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absurd compared to retail stores of old that kept 50-60%? Absurd compared to carriers who kept 70% in the pre smart phone area when distributing J2ME apps?

Absurd compared to any open online ecosystem, where you pay 2% for payment processing.

Do you think that it costs nothing for app review, hosting servers, legal, accounting (sending it out 1099s), refund handling, etc? Can you name one retailer that pays only 2% between retail and wholesale?

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#124

Post by sergiosgc »

scarface74 wrote: post #123
sergiosgc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absurd compared to any open online ecosystem, where you pay 2% for payment processing.

Do you think that it costs nothing for app review, hosting servers, legal, accounting (sending it out 1099s), refund handling, etc? Can you name one retailer that pays only 2% between retail and wholesale?

All of that so the app store is clean. If it isn't clean, then you're throwing money away. That's the gist of what I originally said.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#125

Post by scarface74 »

sergiosgc wrote: post #124
scarface74 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that it costs nothing for app review, hosting servers, legal, accounting (sending it out 1099s), refund handling, etc? Can you name one retailer that pays only 2% between retail and wholesale?

All of that so the app store is clean. If it isn't clean, then you're throwing money away. That's the gist of what I originally said.

Compared to Macs and Windows, it’s a lot better for almost all consumers. I can install things willy nilly on iOS devices with some type of assurance that there are some things that an app can’t do and some things it can’t do without my explicit permission.

Any program that you install on your computer has the same permissions that you have. Time and time again it’s been proving that even so called reputable companies like Facebook, Google, and more recently Zoom (popular video conferencing software that installed a web server on your computer that would automatically reinstall the app after you installed it) can’t be trusted.

And let’s be honest, most of the money on mobile is being made by free to play games where the whales buy loot boxes and gems, or subscription services where you can buy subscriptions outside of the App Store or more recently you must buy subscriptions outside of the App Store or services

I’m not going to go on some strange website and enter my card to download every piece of software and neither are most people. The App Store brings you customers that you would never have.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#126

Post by hesburg »

Huh, I was waiting Apple to approve my app about 7 weeks.. I really started to wonder whole app development in IOS platform.

Why in earth we need to pay 100 dollars to keep our Dev license and keep apps in store ?

Anyway, android app development has less sandbox feeling at the moment..

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#127

Post by mikepurvis »

calcifer wrote: post #113
mikepurvis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the other way to look at this is the baseline cost for a supported enterprise developer account is $500 (or $5000, or whatever), and it's a discount to $99 if you happen not to need the extra hand-holding.

> extra hand-holding If "we are going to kick you out and tell you why" is extra hand-holding in whatever bizarre world you live in, sure.

I'm not saying it's acceptable, I'm just saying— the alternative is probably something more like the five-figure game console SDK license fees of the PS2 era. That kind of money pays for you to have a phone number to someone who is accountable for your success deploying product on the platform and helps you work through any issues you come up against. But obviously, it also locks out most smaller devs from participating. So it's arguable whether the current state of affairs is sustainable or a net improvement.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#128

Post by calcifer »

mikepurvis wrote: post #127
calcifer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extra hand-holding If "we are going to kick you out and tell you why" is extra hand-holding in whatever bizarre world you live in, sure.

I'm not saying it's acceptable, I'm just saying— the alternative is probably something more like the five-figure game console SDK license fees of the PS2 era. That kind of money pays for you to have a phone number to someone who is accountable for your success deploying product on the platform and helps you work through any issues you come up against. But obviously, it also locks out most smaller devs from participat…

> the alternative is probably something more like [...]

No it's not. If they can send you an email saying your account is suspended they could simply include the reason in there. There is no justification whatsoever for making that information cost further money.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#129

Post by sergiosgc »

scarface74 wrote: post #125
sergiosgc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that so the app store is clean. If it isn't clean, then you're throwing money away. That's the gist of what I originally said.

Compared to Macs and Windows, it’s a lot better for almost all consumers. I can install things willy nilly on iOS devices with some type of assurance that there are some things that an app can’t do and some things it can’t do without my explicit permission. Any program that you install on your computer has the same permissions that you have. Time and time again it’s been proving that even so called reputable companie…

You're mixing the permissions system of the OS with the app store. They are independent from one another.

> I’m not going to go on some strange website and enter my card to download every piece of software and neither are most people. The App Store brings you customers that you would never have.

The fact that open application ecosystems exist and thrive proves your assertion wrong.

Re: How Apple Kills Indie Developers

#130

Post by tylerl »

privateSFacct wrote: post #26

For some perspective on apple "killing" developers. Apple is FLOODED with copycat crap apps - 10 different names etc etc. Seriously, the play store used to have lots more of these - maybe now cleaned up. But saying that apple needs to encourage this crap is silly. This is what was killing the play store. The guy complaining here has his "privacy policy" as follows: https://github.com/glushchenko/fsnotes When someone…

The problem it lookes like is that apple locked the account because they were reviewing something, but didn't say what, and didn't say why, and didn't provide any more information other than "just sit tight, we'll eventually tell you why your account is locked, and maybe unlock it." They even acknowledge this screws over the end users, but that's life and quit complaining.

And then that's it, for months.

That is DEFINITELY Apple's fault.

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