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You download the app and it doesn’t work

youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwork.com

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Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#381

Post by acituan »

roenxi wrote: post #213
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can use Google Chrome, and still use a non-Google search engine. I can use a Kindle, and still read DRM-Free epubs. Yes, all the major tech companies are engaged in rent seeking. But Apple is the only one that says users must either must pay rent or throw away their hardware. The App Store and its policies are not the problem. The App Store is Apple's store, just like Amazon.com is Amazon's store. But the App Store…

These things are true; and also a significant component of Apple's value proposition. An Apple customer can be sure they will: 1) Never need to learn what a "sideload" is 2) Never be exposed to Apps that havn't been vetted by a trustworthy party (in this case Apple) Apple is taking the opportunity to milk app developers, but they've done an effective job of positioning the milking process so that it is done in the us…

> These things are true; and also a significant component of Apple's value proposition

You're describing the value of an app store, not the App Store. So the problem is not the value proposition, the problem is Apple's monopoly on this value proposition. It is why we can't have a Google iOS App Store, Microsoft iOS App store etc. list from which the user can pick, which would completely satisfy the convenience and peace of mind criterion, would increase competition regarding the cuts, vetting quality, curation quality etc.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#382

Post by salawat »

roenxi wrote: post #272
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An Apple customer can be sure they will: (1) Never need to learn what a "sideload" is, and (2) never be exposed to Apps that haven't been vetted by a trustworthy party. But Apple customers can be sure of that anyway--just don't sideload apps. Anything essential is going to want to be in the App Store, in order to reach customers.

> But Apple customers can be sure of that anyway--just don't sideload apps. Well, no. At some point they'd need to know what it is to decide if they wanted it or not. At some point they'd encounter an App that isn't in the App store and have to figure out sideloading. We've got a whole heap of people commenting here today who give off a distinct "I want to bypass the App Store" vibe. User hat on, I'd rather they were…

Maybe... Just putting this out there. Just maybe... Instead of having your phone double as an ad delivery platform, and actually fully embracing Open hardware/software standards, and making sure the innards of your phone's operating principles are absolutely visible to you, you wouldn't have to trust your safety to people that look at you like cattle.

Imagine a world, where your Telco or anyone else for that matter can't remotely tell your phone to turn on. A world where you and only you have ultimate control over your phone, and where instead of millions of engineer hours going into making your phone convenient for developers to utilize, it is instead made easier for the user to actually understand.

That is the world I want to see. Hell I want to be part of making. I'll be damned if I can figure out how to make it work with our Market's current optimization function.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#383

Post by ogre_codes »

manfredo wrote: post #344
hendzen wrote: post #37

Apple takes a 30% cut of all IAP. Google scrapes info and displays it in widgets above links to the actual content. Google charges trademark holders AdWords ransom to protect searches for their own brands. Amazon kills OSS business models by offering managed OSS services on AWS at an unbeatable cost. Amazon picks off the best performing market place categories with Amazon Basics ‘recommended’ competitors. The list go…

The key difference is that the App store is the only way of running apps on an iDevice outside of rooting it (which for >99% of users means it's the only way of running apps). Apple needs to be transparent that it's not selling devices, it's licensing devices. Users do not control the devices they own.

There are PWAs. I know PWAs have massive limitations, but there are some work-arounds. They just aren't great.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#384

Post by dexterdog »

monadic2 wrote: post #334
roenxi wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things are true; and also a significant component of Apple's value proposition. An Apple customer can be sure they will: 1) Never need to learn what a "sideload" is 2) Never be exposed to Apps that havn't been vetted by a trustworthy party (in this case Apple) Apple is taking the opportunity to milk app developers, but they've done an effective job of positioning the milking process so that it is done in the us…

I wonder what people think Apple vets apps for.

I assume they vet the apps to make sure there is no other revenue inside the app that Apple is not getting its tax on.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#385

Post by maest »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #315

I am amazed how many people on HN are defending Apple. I had the naive assumption that my fellow tech savvy would denounce this. The comments here are eye-opening. It is as if a lot of people just don’t see or don’t care about monopoly or monopolistic behavior. The product is great, Apple is has the highest market cap of any company in the world, it’s founder has god-like status. What’s the problem?

A lot of people on HN also defend anti-unionistic behaviour.

It may sound unrelated but they're both the result of the American zeitgeist's blind commitment to free markets and unfettered capitalism. To be fair, it's worked well for the US economy (e.g. Silicon Valley) albeit at the cost of increasing the wealth gap and general "late-stage capitalism"-y behaviour.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#386

Post by reaperducer »

acituan wrote: post #368
pdonis wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unethical to charge a fee to developers who want to distribute their software through an app store that Apple owns? I get that it's unpleasant for developers who don't like the policy, and at some point it might have business consequences for Apple if they don't change the policy, but why is it unethical?

> Why is it unethical to charge a fee to developers who want to distribute their software through an app store that Apple owns? Developer don't necessarily want to distribute their software through that app store, they are forced to do that if they want to sell their software to people who happen to use that operating system. Operating system and app store are distinct products, but app store exclusively gatekeeps th…

So you increase the price of your app by 30 to make up for Apple's cut%. It's called business. It happens all the time in every single industry.

If a business' property taxes go up, that cost is passed on to its customers. Why do people think that because something is on a phone that it should be any different?

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#389

Post by zaroth »

robbrown451 wrote: post #199
Spivak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not paying for the payment processing. You never have been paying for the payment processing. You're paying for the fact that iOS devices are an extremely valuable retail space and being able to sell there is worth a lot of money to your sales funnel.

Yes but I think what tomlagier is saying is that the "right" thing to charge for is the payment processing (he also mentions app screening), as opposed to charging for the privilege of being allowed to run on Apple devices. Otherwise you get into all these issues that are potentially "wrong," at least from the perspective of people who agree with the general concept of antitrust law. It's not just whether something i…

Apple isn’t just providing payment processing. The entire development environment and SDK, app hosting, install and update, services like Data Sync (whatever they call it), Push notifications, etc.

If Apple let apps side-load from a website, and not access any of the iCloud or push services... you’re basically back to a PWA.

Re: You download the app and it doesn’t work

#390

Post by reaperducer »

dan-robertson wrote: post #304
pdonis wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unethical to charge a fee to developers who want to distribute their software through an app store that Apple owns? I get that it's unpleasant for developers who don't like the policy, and at some point it might have business consequences for Apple if they don't change the policy, but why is it unethical?

I think it would be ethical to charge a fee to distribute software. You can imagine a world where each upload to the App Store would cast say $100. But the issue people complain about is that they are forced to use Apple as a middleman for all their payments and that Apple charges exorbitant fees for this

So don't be on the App Store. Problem solved.

Make it a web site. Make it an Android exclusive. Do any of the dozen other things you need to do to be a success. You don't have to be on the App Store to survive. Hundreds of thousands of developers and their programs aren't.

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