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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#281

Post by dzader »

wrkronmiller wrote: post #278
nemothekid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume their costs are just, Credit Card Fees, Infrastructure Fees (Bandwidth, Storage), Reviewers Salary. Not sure this adds up to 30%. I think the real reason is that when the Apple store was started, they looked around at the current prices for "software distribution". Retail was like 70%, and other app stores; for example the Danger Hiptop / T-mobile Sidekick charged 60% for their apps store, and the carriers w…

Maintaining XCode, running iCloud app-facing services, building/maintaining SDKs, etc... Apple has to pay for these somehow. They can either get the money by charging more for each iPhone or they can get the money from the real end-users of these products: Developers.

Or you know, they could get the money from the yearly fee they charge developers for exactly these reasons

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#282

Post by bluk »

zaksoup wrote: post #147
halter73 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why compare to Square's or Stripe's fee structure? It's ridiculous to claim "This means Apple's taking for themselves much closer to a 5% cut" as if Apple is paying a $0.29 processing fee per IAP. If developers had a choice in payment processors, they could choose one with smaller minimum per-transaction fees, aggregate multiple payments from the same customer, try out subscriptions instead of microtransactions so th…

Sorry, I am not arguing that developers shouldn't be allowed to pick their payment processor on iOS, just doing some back-of-the-envelope math that tracked with the quote from the original article that 30% is not much higher than the processing fees in the first place on a $0.99 transaction. This was a surprising revelation to me since I hadn't considered that there were often flat fees of ~30 cents from card process…

Having worked at a payment processor, if you are a medium to large business, you can cut deals with payment processors for a much lower fee. They are very competitive, and of course, Apple would be a special customer given very generous terms (assuming Apple are not processing the transactions themselves which is possible). This does not even take into account Apple store credit via gift cards and the like or purchasing different apps in one transaction which eliminates or lowers the fees.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#283

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sudosysgen wrote: post #254
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? No. > You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't. You can actually. They demand this kind of DRM because they know the customer would sooner say yes to it than not get the movie. But that's only because the…

Which makes me think, what prevents me from putting a lens in front to the projector and directly imaging the projection into a camera sensor? Modern cameras can record lossless 48bpp equiv. video in 4K, it would pretty much be a 1:1 copy given sufficiently sophisticated optics. Which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason why no one is ripping movies using Prima Cinema projectors and commodity grade hardwar…

I honestly think that DRM is very much like antivirus in the sense that the only reason anybody buys into it is that the companies who develop it pay sales reps to convince corporations that it's something they need when it's really just poisonous snake oil and paying money to someone to shoot you in the foot.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#284

Post by kartayyar »

fierarul wrote: post #126

Fundamentally, scale does matter. If you have a small pub in the middle of nowhere you can be a selective as you want. If your pub chain feeds 50% of the people in the country you damn right will have to be heavily restricted in what you can do. It doesn't matter if it's monopoly or not. After you cross a threshold the rules should be different and it's just amazing Apple has been allowed to grow so big with basicall…

Fully agree with this sentiment - if there is anything which becomes so common place like say a road, then I think there should be some kind of oversight.

Apple saying no to people being able to bring their own payment provider feels akin to saying the road provider only allows cars they vet, and then charge 30% car manufacturers 30% of the price of the car.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#285

Post by immigrantsheep »

ericmay wrote: post #280
danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

> Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, maybe we haven't been clear enough though. Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. You want another option of App Stores because you want don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and…

Instagram and TikTok have been found guilty on collecting an absurd amount of data against user's wishes. How did Apple's policy prevent that? Also I don't see Apple banning TikTok or Instagram.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#286

Post by martin8412 »

ericmay wrote: post #280
danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

> Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, maybe we haven't been clear enough though. Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. You want another option of App Stores because you want don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and…

I can only say I agree. I don't want more actors in the appstore market. I prefer quality over quantity.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#287

Post by enragedcacti »

ericmay wrote: post #280
danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

> Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, maybe we haven't been clear enough though. Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. You want another option of App Stores because you want don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and…

...just don't use other app stores?

Honest question, what do you lose by other people having the option?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#288

Post by josephcsible »

sudosysgen wrote: post #254
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? No. > You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't. You can actually. They demand this kind of DRM because they know the customer would sooner say yes to it than not get the movie. But that's only because the…

Which makes me think, what prevents me from putting a lens in front to the projector and directly imaging the projection into a camera sensor? Modern cameras can record lossless 48bpp equiv. video in 4K, it would pretty much be a 1:1 copy given sufficiently sophisticated optics. Which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason why no one is ripping movies using Prima Cinema projectors and commodity grade hardwar…

The movies are probably watermarked, so they'd know who leaked them, and then sue the leakers for all they're worth.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#289

Post by chipotle_coyote »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #250
bluedevil2k wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this argument before... Internet Explorer is as much the product as Windows. Without Internet Explorer Windows is literally just a piece of software. They have options - it's called a Mac

Ah hah! I'm glad you brought this up. What did Internet Explorer have? DOMINANT MARKETSHARE. That was the problem - not that a program came bundled with software. Such a basic fact conveniently ignored because Apple Bad. > Without Internet Explorer Windows is literally just a piece of software. A piece of software that can do many things - an iPhone without apps just doesn't work. Apps run everything - from making ph…

Internet Explorer didn't have dominant market share; Windows did. You say the problem wasn't that a program came bundled with software, but that was literally the heart of the antitrust action: the government contended that Microsoft was using their defacto operating system monopoly of Windows to give IE a leg up on non-bundled competitors.

> An iPhone without apps just doesn't work.

Sure, but an iPhone without an App Store works fine -- that was literally the way the first iPhone shipped, remember? -- so I'm not quite sure your analogy is a slam dunk here. :)

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#290

Post by weehoo »

sudosysgen wrote: post #254
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? No. > You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't. You can actually. They demand this kind of DRM because they know the customer would sooner say yes to it than not get the movie. But that's only because the…

Which makes me think, what prevents me from putting a lens in front to the projector and directly imaging the projection into a camera sensor? Modern cameras can record lossless 48bpp equiv. video in 4K, it would pretty much be a 1:1 copy given sufficiently sophisticated optics. Which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason why no one is ripping movies using Prima Cinema projectors and commodity grade hardwar…

I would be surprised if there wasn’t a theater projectionist in the warez scene that has a setup like the one you describe.

DRM is ridiculous because consuming the product is a side channel.

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