"Luckily for TinyGrab for Mac users we still have TinyGrab.com and Apple haven’t, yet, prevented anyone from downloading apps from the world wide web and installing them on their Macs without the Mac App Store."
Key word: "yet."
TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
41–50 of 76 posts
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#42I can't help but wonder if Apple would allow developers to follow the letter of the law, but attempt to circumvent the revenue drain via UI. Which is to say: Provide subscription options through both web and iOS APIs, but specifically advise users that signing up through iOS is damaging to the survival of the service, and strongly encouraging them to use a user-friendly UIWebView to sign up instead. Perhaps even non-…
From the Review Guidelines:
11.14 -- Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchasing content to be used in the app, such as a “buy" button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected
I'd say it's safe to assume they'd reject you for even asking users to sign up through Safari, instead.
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you allow people to subscribe outside the app, you also must add functionality to allow them to subscribe through the app, and subscriptions through the latter mechanism will cost you the 30% Apple Tithe. A lot of companies just can't afford to have a group of users who cost the same as everyone else but only bring in 70% as much revenue.
I haven't been able to find it -- does that requirement require that the price be the same for both methods? That is, can you charge in-app users $10 and non-app users $7 so the net is the same?
That's covered by guideline 11.13, which reads: "Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions."
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#44I can't help but wonder if Apple would allow developers to follow the letter of the law, but attempt to circumvent the revenue drain via UI. Which is to say: Provide subscription options through both web and iOS APIs, but specifically advise users that signing up through iOS is damaging to the survival of the service, and strongly encouraging them to use a user-friendly UIWebView to sign up instead. Perhaps even non-…
From the Review Guidelines: 11.14 -- Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchasing content to be used in the app, such as a “buy" button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected I'd say it's safe to assume they'd reject you for even asking users to sign up through Safari, instead.
I knew you could allow subscriptions that signed up on the web, but I had no idea you couldn't even link to it from inside your app. Jeebus.
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#45is this even legal? imagine Microsoft asking 30% of sales for Windows based apps ...
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
That depends on your marginal cost of supporting an incremental user. For most Internet services, that marginal cost approaches zero. 30% sounds like a lot of commission versus real world purchases but when gross margin is close to 100% on an incremental subscriber, it's not nearly as egregious an ask. To make what I'm saying more concrete: For a physical object, it's not uncommon for the cost of the item to be 90% o…
> ... relatively little "per user" cost. This makes a lot of assumptions about the business model of developers. For a BaseCamp-like product, it is mostly true, support costs notwithstanding. But a video- or music-streaming service that pays out to content providers on a per-item basis has much more in common with a brick-and-mortar retailer when it comes to profit margins.
I'm not saying it's great for every online business, just that it's also not right to see 30% and assume that's a wildly inappropriate rate.
It's also not entirely impossible that Apple realizes that the music/book/video streaming services are one of the few virtual products with material per-user costs, and adding this kind of surcharge will drive more users to their iTunes services.
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#47"Whatever you tax, you get less of." -- Alan Greenspan What Apple is doing could easily be compared to a tax. I don't see how anyone could expect to not see a significant number of apps and developers leaving the app store when presented with a 30% loss of revenue from the customers it generates.
That assumes they'd make 70% as much when re-using those resources to build for other platforms.
If you make 30% less per customer selling on the iPhone, but you sell more than 50% more copies versus whatever else you'd do with that effort (Android, W7, RIM), it doesn't make sense to leave from a revenue standpoint. Android is great but I don't get the sense that many paid apps are doing volume there comparable to the Apple store.
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#48is this even legal? imagine Microsoft asking 30% of sales for Windows based apps ...
Of course it's legal. It's greedy, petty, consumer and developer hostile, and generally sucks.
But they're allowed to set the rules for playing in their app store, just like schools are allowed to set rules about wearing your uniform correctly all the way home, parents can ground their children for complaining about their shitty parenting at another person's home, a company can make a contract which allows them to fire you if you get drunk and disorderly in public, and any other situation where an arrogant entity assumes it's own interests are FAR in advance of yours AND has the ability to take rights from you.
EDIT 201102221305 GMT+10 I should learn never to comment when anyone is discussing Apple. It's too tempting for people to downvote when their pet company is criticized, even if you're answering a question at the same time.
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#49I wonder how this works for apps connecting to APIs that they don't own. For example, if I'm not 37signals and I make a Basecamp app, would it get rejected because I don't have access to their billing API?
I was just wondering about that.
Company X comes out with a subscription service and provides an API.
Company Y develops an iPhone app using said API. Company Y doesn't charge anything after the price of the app.
Sounds like it's strictly following the rules, though if that app were to be accepted in the appstore, then companies could just publish an API and pay some developer to develop and release the app on their own. Looks like a loop hole doesn't it?
Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules
#50So, how long until Cydias app-store becomes the de facto app-store for subscription services?
Never. Recall how many millions iOS users are there, and how many of them have ability to jailbreak their devices. Then how many would want to. I do program for iOS and I am not a bit interested in Cydia.
Sure. Until you have to use Cydia to keep Pandora, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu and half a dozen others. Then you have a $600 brick that refuses to do half the things you bought it for.
This actually sounds very likely if Apple kicks those four companies out of the app store, as it seems likely they will.