Dirty Percent
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Dirty Percent
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Re: Dirty Percent
#2> APPLE SHOULD NOT REQUIRE APPS TO OFFER IN-APP SUBSCRIPTIONS
I really don't buy the relation to the initial offering of apps, but I admittedly think this is one of two big problems with this whole scheme. For one, Apple is not providing an end-to-end solution by hosting the content and cannot really keep track of all the SKUs with their current system. Never mind and SaaS providers not getting hosting out of that 30%. The economics and mechanism of app delivery are different than content delivery.
I think Apple should say that if you provide no link to your purchase / subscribing site, then you don't have to use IAP. In other words, if your app downloads content for your account, but doesn't allow in-app sales or link to out-of-app sales, then all is well.
Re: Dirty Percent
#3tl;dr
On businesses that can't afford 30%: Too bad, Apple wants to be the middleman
On price matching: Apple won't budge because their competitors (e.g. Amazon) insist on price matching
On the 30% slice itself: Apple is proposing that publishers (et al) will make more money at 70% than they'd make at 95% with someone else's business model
On (anti-)competitiveness: Apple is the only one which allows its competitors to have apps on its devices
Summary: iOS is a closed, controlled console system - more akin to Playstation or Xbox than to Mac OS X or Windows
Re: Dirty Percent
#4I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality.
When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?"
And he then punts on the biggest question of all:
What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple to pay them 30 percent for every purchase made through iTunes on Windows? To that, I say: good luck with that.
Not "well I'd certainly write a slam piece about it", not "well, that would definitely require competition regulators", not "that would be a dick move." Just "they couldn't do it anyway, so your hypotheticals mean nothing."
The way I put it (crassly) is "When you're Top Dog, you don't need to play like a bitch." Which is what Apple is doing, and honestly, they're turning me off from their products. And that's not about "Oh well, Apple likes to make money, and why shouldn't they be allowed to?" It's about looking like you're above it. Brands like Costco and Amazon make a huge chunk of change, but you don't see them getting into petty stuff like this.
Re: Dirty Percent
#5Rhapsody, Sony and Instapaper were all geared up for the old subscription rules. That loud noise you hear from them is from the grinding of gears. They'll get back up to speed, but they sure had to downshift when they weren't ready to. They may not be able to take the same road they were expecting to, though.
I think one outcome you're going to see from publishers is that there will be separate plans for iOS users. Before, there was naturally only one option and the App Store app was just a client to the same subscription. Now, I can see where it makes a lot more sense to have an a la carte iOS subscription for these publishers.
Re: Dirty Percent
#6Some Gruber's articles feature a lot of insight, and are highly enjoyable. And some of his articles may be easily dismissed as blatant fanboyism. Unfortunately, this is an example one of the latter and not the former. I stopped reading after the second blatant "pull-it-out-his-ass" assumption he makes about the "complainers".
Re: Dirty Percent
#7I'm pretty much in agreement with everything Gruber said (first time for everything).
The one thing that really annoys me though is that Apple have decided is that if you offer a subscription-model outside of the app store, you now have to offer it at the same cost inside the app store.
Instead of paying 1-4% credit-card transaction fees with 24 hour payment terms, you now have to potentially pay a 30% app-store transaction fee with payments taking a month or more if your users decide to take up the option of paying via the app store.
Now I can see why Apple can't discount their 30% as this is the margin they seem to give to stores selling iTunes cards (yes, Apple makes nothing on apps bought with iTunes cards). But to require all apps to be forced to use the in-app subscription model is just ridiculous. What next? A native SAP client forced to sell their $100k product through the app store?
Re: Dirty Percent
#8I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality. When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?" And he then punts on the biggest question of all: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple…
I don't believe Costco publishes their vendor agreements so you really have no idea how Costco treats their suppliers.
Also, no one complains that Google takes 32% of AdWords.
Re: Dirty Percent
#9I just know one thing: the moment Kindle is removed from the app store, I'm selling my iPad.
Re: Dirty Percent
#10I used to be a big fan of Gruber, but I'm getting increasingly tired of his "defend Apple at all costs" mentality. When Apple was the underdog, it all seemed to be about not what was possible, but what was fair, and what was right. Now it's a "Well, of course Apple would do that, wouldn't you?" And he then punts on the biggest question of all: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple…
I don't believe Costco publishes their vendor agreements so you really have no idea how Costco treats their suppliers. Also, no one complains that Google takes 32% of AdWords.
They don't take 32% of the purchase price for purchases that were made by someone who clicked on an AdWords link, though.