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Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

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101–110 of 387 posts

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#101

What ultimately made me pull out of the Mac App Store was the fact that publishing with Apple meant “app with customizations to accommodate stupid rules”, and $EVERYWHERE_ELSE meant “upload and be done with it”. If you haven’t checked lately, the Mac App Store is a pathetic ghost town for the most part. On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, a…

I have an allergy to tech analogies in general, but Apple's brick-and-mortar retail analogy is one of the worst. In any locality other than rural towns served by a single Dollar General, consumers have a choice between multiple retail outlets. If they don't like the choices at one store, they're free to shop at another. "But Android!" one might say, and once again, the analogy falls completely flat. The switching cos…

Name one app that is of any importance on iOS that there isn’t available on Android or that would cause you to have to buy again?

I have exactly one - Overcast. Even with that I can export to OPML (?).

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#102

As an app developer myself, with apps on both the Google Play Store and the App Store with over 250K monthly active users, I have become so frustrated with Apple's arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its App Store regulations, its bullying and coercion of developers, its extortionate fees, and its monopolistic anti-competitive practices, that I have stopped updating my apps on the App Store. I wonder how many oth…

Another shout out for WSL2. Feels good to have real Linux not Apple's kind of close but not quite, plus wide range of hardware to choose from and compatibility with commercial GUI apps.

Yes it's fantastic. Even the small things make a difference - for example, it's really nice to be able to use the same package manager on my local machine as I use on my Google Cloud servers, on which I'm running Ubuntu, instead of having to use brew. I can use GNU variants of CLI utilities like ps, head etc. rather than the quirky BSD variants found on Mac OS X. iTerm2 was binding me to Mac OS for a while, but Windows Terminal Preview is getting quite good, and IntelliJ itself has a very good built-in terminal that works well with WSL2.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in the brick & mortar scenario, the negotiation happens on more of a level playing field. Both parties have a reasonable alternative if an agreement isn't reached -- the manufacturer can find another retailer, and the retailer can find another supplier. In this case there's no such competitive market. Granted, 30% would be low for retail, but surely digital marketplaces would charge less if competition was allowe…

Ever tried to negotiate to get your product sold on a shelf? It is very much not a level playing field. WalMart is infamous for beating sellers down to such a low per unit price with the promise of making it up on quantity. Target, BestBuy, and any other big box retailer only follow WalMart's lead. Then there's the fact that if your product doesn't sell well according to their metrics, you are forced to buy it back f…

No one said retail was easy! Thin margins are just the natural result of competition. Retailers have thin margins too. Walmart's net profit margin was 4.7% in Q2, and that was a major outlier. The playing field might not be completely level, but at least competition exists on both sides.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#104
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have is that you make it sound like you have a right to release software for their platform. They opened their platform for devs to make apps. You accepted that offer, read their terms, agreed to those terms, and are now complaining about those terms? I get it that you want to make 100% of the price made from each sell, but that's not realistic. If you sell your product at a brick&mortar store, you don'…

You call it their platform, I call it my computer.

It is your computer; you have a right to that hardware. But they only licensed you the OS and the hardware only supports that OS (which you acknowledged and agreed to when you bought it) so you can call it what you want, but you can’t force another entity to do what pleases you. The courts will decide that and it will set a pretty significant precedent.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#105
post #85
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn’t monetize physical goods sold in apps. It’s how an Amazon or Costco app is possible

Lots of people don't think "digital" things are real, which lets Apple get away with putting 30% tax on an increasingly large part of the economy. You can sell a paper book, but an e-book gets 30% Apple tax. You can sell a CD, but an MP3 gets Apple tax. You can sell Carcasone game on cardboard pieces, but an app version must give Apple a cut.

And ebooks are free without a markup through which store exactly?

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#106
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure that will have massive opposition, because they are deathly scared of opening their devices back to the general-purpose computers they actually are. Who's the opposition coming from? Apple? They can fart around and waste time and money on appeals, but if they get hit with an antitrust ruling there isn't much they'll be able to do about it.

So tell me again when an “antitrust” ruling has ever been applied to a company with less than 50%?

Is that how the law works?Apple is not a monopoly because you can choose Android. This is an awesome loophole. Visa is not a monopoly because there is also MasterCard. At&t is not a monopoly because you can choose Comcast.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#107

Apple is being too ridiculous at this point. Devs need App Store but Apple also need devs. Being so hostile is going to hurt them pretty bad, both for Apple and for Google.

Google already allows apps outside the Play Store, and third party app stores as well

How did that work out for a Fortnite?

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can use google then. The vast majority of people around the world use android

So people don't need to be freed from Google then, they need to be freed from Apple.

They can be, they can buy an Android.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#109
post #72

As an app developer myself, with apps on both the Google Play Store and the App Store with over 250K monthly active users, I have become so frustrated with Apple's arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its App Store regulations, its bullying and coercion of developers, its extortionate fees, and its monopolistic anti-competitive practices, that I have stopped updating my apps on the App Store. I wonder how many oth…

Do people really buy android apps?

Yes.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#110
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me again when an “antitrust” ruling has ever been applied to a company with less than 50%?

Is that how the law works?Apple is not a monopoly because you can choose Android. This is an awesome loophole. Visa is not a monopoly because there is also MasterCard. At&t is not a monopoly because you can choose Comcast.

It’s a “loophole” that it isn’t a monopoly because you have a choice? That’s kind of a the definition of a monopoly. It’s even in the first two syllables of the word....

I love my choice of AT&T over Comcast. $70 all fees included gigabit up and down.

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