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WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

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Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#261

Post by hirako2000 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #88
hirako2000 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price should be zero. Then platform can offer a service e.g payment gateway at a price but not prevent other payment gateways. Google search and other search engin do allow. They are platforms, not purely marketplace, so what. The problem is not whether it is legitimate for a platform to enforce terms and conditions, the problem is what are those terms and conditions. A physical market place can and probably shou…

> The price should be zero. I don’t know if this is what you meant, but this reads as if you’re implying that Apple should host free apps absolutely free. Which makes no economical sense.

No, I'm saying they should build a business model that doesn't abuse participants. They can certainly make money by offering a great payment gateway and other services that developers and/or buyers would prefer to opt for than any alternative. Instead they simply charge for the privilege to be on their platform.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#262

Post by graeme »

dwaite wrote: post #187
graeme wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah this is it right here. I had been very confused as to why Apple made this move. This is at least consistent with their past actions. But yeah the lack of ability to link to web based payment for subscription plans or even mention it will probably be something that has to go from the app store’s terms. It’s bad for both users and developers. The situation is confusing for users. Not all apps have margins that can s…

> I think if Apple had a flat 15% for subscriptions they’d still get a fair bit of usage, as there are big conversion advantages to using the IAP system. They might even get more revenue by attracting dev’s with reasonable terms, growing the amount of subscription apps using. As a personal aside, the 15% rate is a bit odd in the App Store, as someone loses money on my subscriptions there. My personal App Store accoun…

Oh right I forgot about that. People ignore this with the 15%-30%: Apple has done a lot of work to get money into the app store ecosystem. The larger margin allowed them to spread this sort of currency.

They can make a different solution, but it may not be better for the app ecosystem. Those gift cards got a lot of people into buying apps. I personally started when I got a $100 itunes gift card while buying a laptop as a student.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#263

Post by vinay_ys »

raverbashing wrote: post #218
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any discount is enticing, but I wonder how many really go through the effort of - 1. Searching, Opening the web page in Safari. 2. Signing-in. 3. Updating personal details. 4. Updating credit card details. 5. Making the payment. Instead of clicking a button to save $1? P.S. I would.

To be fair I would pay more on the Apple/Google store if I knew that a) I wouldn't need to give my CC details to a random company b) cancelling would be hassle-free

I had a very bad experience trying to cancel nytimes subscription. That's when I realized the usefulness of App Store being the intermediary/guardian.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#264

Post by hirako2000 »

nicky0 wrote: post #168
hirako2000 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price should be zero. Then platform can offer a service e.g payment gateway at a price but not prevent other payment gateways. Google search and other search engin do allow. They are platforms, not purely marketplace, so what. The problem is not whether it is legitimate for a platform to enforce terms and conditions, the problem is what are those terms and conditions. A physical market place can and probably shou…

Google Search absolutely charges its customers, who are advertisers. It charges them a lot of money to show their ads to the billions of users.

Yes and we are free to also let other search engines index the sites. I can use any device including Google devices and access Google search or any other search engines and pay producers of content or software. Google doesn't force anyone to use its search, it doesn't make an exclusive deal to be indexed either, despite their dominance.

Not saying Google act like saints with its ad system these days, but I simply cited an example of a Platform that built a business model where nobody is being excluded from the platform because they somehow circumvent payments going to Google (via ads).

We can block the ads, we can ignore the ads, we can use another search engine to access the same content. Power and freedom to the participants.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#265

Post by dielll »

kuzimoto wrote: post #12
turblety wrote: post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

> I am very privacy, open-source, freedom orientated I like to think I am as well. How do you balance this when moving from Apple to Android, where Apple (seems) to be much more privacy-focused and basically at zero for open-source/freedom, where Android is basically the reverse? I think there are ways to make it better (custom ROM, alternative app stores), but you give up a lot of functionality (Play Store, Google P…

Apple is only beholden to Wallstreet. Not privacy, not developers, not customers.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#266

Post by vinay_ys »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #157
gsich wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines 3.1.3b >your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase It's vague (probably intentionally) but having a higher price in the app is certainly discouraging compared to the "normal" way.

I wonder if Apple did start requiring the IAP price to be the same as the price everyone else pays - would that definitely be illegal? I have a B2B app in the app-store which only has a login-screen on the app - so hopefully that won't attract Apple's attention, but if they do I was thinking about making our service-fee an Apple Pay ("real-life") purchase with lower fees where we'd mail the customer a brick with an a…

Cost of doing business and price you would want to charge and what customers are willing to pay - all these would be different for different sales channels, different geographies, different feature bundles etc. And it is perfectly logical and reasonable to charge different rates on that basis. It would be very surprising and most likely run afoul of anti-competitive laws in most countries if any particular channel/marketplace operator demanded its participants to keep price parity with all other channels in general. They could do that or even demand exclusivity for a limited period in exchange for other special considerations (like special promotions etc). But in general, quite unlikely.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#267

Post by Youden »

d3nj4l wrote: post #209
JeremyNT wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use stock Android without a Google account. You can avoid the Google Play Store, disable most google default provided apps, and sideload apps of your choosing. You can use a browser (such as Firefox) that the phone vendor has no control over. You can even install an alternate app store. This sounds like what the parent is doing, and it's the best mainstream experience for anybody looking for a privacy and sec…

Doesn't GPS on android use Google Play Services for location? In many apps, I'm asked to turn on Google's location services if I have them off. Would that not automatically send data to Google, even if you aren't logged in?

Yes.

But depending on how far you're willing to go to get around it, there's a solution: MicroG [0].

It's basically an open-source Google Play Services implementation and it supports a number of different location providers like Apple and Mozilla.

There are a bunch of ways to install it but the easiest is probably their LineageOS ROM [1].

[0]: https://microg.org/

[1]: https://lineage.microg.org/

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#268

Post by amelius »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #3
mmastrac wrote: post #2

Tweet thread - it looks like Apple is requiring in-app purchases to sign-up for wordpress.com accounts, despite it being an open-source app for any WordPress site: > Heads up on why @WordPressiOS updates have been absent... we were locked by App Store. To be able to ship updates and bug fixes again we had to commit to support in-app purchases for .com plans. I know why this is problematic, open to suggestions. Allow…

This is really sad. On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store, on the other hand, they shouldn't be allowed to force apps to do this sort of thing. This will only drive domain prices higher on iOS in order to compensate (in the case of Automattic). If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top…

> On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store

Absolutely, but imho it shouldn't be a percentage, but a flat fee. It's not like Apple does more work for more expensive apps.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#269

Post by rubber_duck »

matchbok wrote: post #189
rubber_duck wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It bugs me how this is an argument in "app store is not a monopoly". App stores (both Google and Apple) have a huge profit margin which is based on abusing it's position and they are milking the fact that creating competition would cost billions of dollars - this is exactly the situation where a pure market situation ends up being sub-optimal and hurting the consumers. Consider what would happen if Mastercard and Vis…

Credit card companies.... already have those rules. No store can just offer a cheaper cash price. It’s in the agreements.

Yes they can, it was ruled anti competitive a long time ago - this is why you can often find cash only discount. The only place CC won is that you usually can't surcharge the price, instead you must call it a discount for cash, etc.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#270

Post by Youden »

turblety wrote: post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

If you're concerned with privacy but still want a phone that mostly works, I recommend installing MicroG [0]. It's an open-source implementation of Google Play Services that gives you support for things like location and push notifications without installing proprietary Google stuff on your device.

The easiest way to install it is their LineageOS build. If one isn't available, NanoDroid [2] provides flashable ZIPs that work with Magisk. If you're not okay with either of those but you can spend a bit of time, you can add it to your own AOSP builds.

If you really really care about security and don't care too much about all the apps in the world working, there's also GrapheneOS for Pixel devices [3]. The cool thing about Pixel devices is that they allow you to add your own verified boot key and re-lock your device with a third-party ROM installed. GrapeheneOS supports this and a variety of other security-focused features like reproducible builds [4].

And final honorable mention goes to RattlesnakeOS [5] which allows you to set up your very own AOSP build system complete with OTAs and ROM signing. It also allows you to add MicroG [6].

[0]: https://microg.org/

[1]: https://lineage.microg.org/

[2]: https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/NanoDroid

[3]: https://grapheneos.org/

[4]: https://grapheneos.org/build#reproducible-builds

[5]: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack

[6]: https://github.com/RattlesnakeOS/microg

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