Mikecane's Next Greedy Move: Predicting what other people will do in the future, then writing blog posts criticizing them for it.
Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
21–30 of 39 posts
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#22The reason film and music operate like this is because consumers have loyalty to individual actors and musicians. It is also very hard to imitate having a specific actor in your movie. It isn't hard to imitate another developers application style, and I don't think consumers have too much loyalty towards their app developers. I don't see it happening.
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#23Steve Jobs: "The developer agreement has been altered. Pray I do not alter it further."
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#24This move would simply wake up too many sleeping dogs one the whole "Apple has a monopoly" front.
in a world where Comcast can buy NBC? Monopoly statutes might as well not exist.
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#25Outright removing and/or rejecting non-exclusive apps is a recipe for a huge backlash, but I could see maybe giving better terms for exclusive apps - maybe only taking 20% instead of 30% of the sale. I'm sure there are a fair number of app developers that would jump at the chance to sign an exclusivity agreement if it led to higher profits.
I don't know if that is necessarily ideal for Apple or any of the other platforms for that matter. What is to stop the next platform from offering 19%, 20% or even 25% non exclusive cut and 15% Exclusive? Competing over the percent of profits taken per app could start a chain reaction race to the bottom that ultimately reduces profits for all platform makers and moves it into the hands of the developers. Which is a good result for developers but not so ideal for the platform makers. So they may all choose to not steer things in that direction for as long as possible.
Also I may be missing something but I don't think reducing margins is typical Apple. They have no problem charging you more with the backing that the experience you get will be top quality and polish compared to the competition. No matter that you are user, developer or publisher.That is their leverage. Their brand is associated with quality, heck given their image of vigorously (note use of vigour v rigour) curated excellence, exclusivity might even be a positive signal to consumers and some developers.
These two points make it so I would actually be more surprised by a reduced percentage trade for exclusivity than outright requirement of exclusivity.
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#26Apple doesn't need to do this to keep competitors at bay. I don't think they will do it, but that's a different story. Right now Apple's biggest strength is their ecosystem. Developers creating high quality applications and users willing to put up actual cash to get them in large enough numbers to create a vibrant platform. The systems map with reinforcing and dampening actions is much larger than this, but those are…
Microsoft didn't change the rules every 3 months, sure they drive netscape out of the market but they never said that netscape couldn't run on windows. If you develop for windows you could be absolutely sure your app would install and work on it in 12 months time, can anyone say that about iPhone?
But developers make money you say? Well there are people out there tonight who were making money with subscription based apps who presumably aren't going to now apple is taking their 30%.
So apple has a big userbase, but for how long? Android comes in cheaper, it iterates faster, from personal experience I know people who are avid apple users who have droid phones because their cell providers offered them a great deal and their droid phone gives them what they need in terms of apps, (facebook, twitter e.t.c.)
All it takes is one killer app on android but not iphone and suddenly apple are on the back foot.
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#27"Greedy" is such a misused word. Businesses are supposed to be, for lack of a better word, avaricious. That is neither good nor bad; it's basic capitalism. That greedy system spawned the very computer which the author used to type his rant and the electricity that powered it.
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#28Well, isn't it what they already did by deprecating Java on MacOS? Make sure you develop for iOS/MacOS and not for all available platforms? The exclusivity will come naturally,
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#29Outright removing and/or rejecting non-exclusive apps is a recipe for a huge backlash, but I could see maybe giving better terms for exclusive apps - maybe only taking 20% instead of 30% of the sale. I'm sure there are a fair number of app developers that would jump at the chance to sign an exclusivity agreement if it led to higher profits.
I don't know if that is necessarily ideal for Apple or any of the other platforms for that matter. What is to stop the next platform from offering 19%, 20% or even 25% non exclusive cut and 15% Exclusive? Competing over the percent of profits taken per app could start a chain reaction race to the bottom that ultimately reduces profits for all platform makers and moves it into the hands of the developers. Which is a g…
I don't think it's as simple as comparing the percentages - the App Store generates much more revenue than the Android market and other, similar stores on other platforms. As it stands now, the decision of whether or not to port a successful iOS app to other platforms is based on whether or not the revenue generated is worth the time and money to do the port. However, if there's an exclusivity deal in place, you also have to factor in lost earnings from the iOS version as well.
However, you're right that it's not a typical Apple move to reduce the margins, but nevertheless I think it would be a very effective strategy for keeping high-quality, high-revenue apps exclusive to the iOS platform.
Re: Apple’s Next Greedy Move: Exclusivity
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> in a virtuous circle That's an interesting definition of virtuous you've got there.
I don't mean to imply a moral judgement; I rather simply mean mutually reinforcing. It's a common idiom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_circle_and_vicious_cir... - and it would be virtuous from Apple's perspective.
Attempted joke; sorry.