141–150 of 492 posts
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I can't believe they were dumb enough to put that SCOTUS line in this. It just plays into their current "meh, here's some rules but we'll do whatever we want anyway" image.
It's their treehouse; they can do what they want. None of these platforms are your friend. Half the Apple devs I know have some kind of stockholm syndrome, though.
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Using the Microsoft Store is totally optional. Selling software for Windows has rarely required any coordination with Microsoft other than maybe code signing with a cert from an approved CA. Exceptions include drivers, and Windows Phone/Windows Mobile 10
Using Steam is even MORE optional. They're PC games! Yet people still want to be on Steam even if you have to play by their rules, because being on there creates value.
Relevant section: 3.1.3(d) Person-to-Person Experiences: If your app enables the purchase of realtime person-to-person experiences between two individuals (for example tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training), you may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments. One-to-few and one-to-many realtime experiences must use in-app purchase. This is huge…
Do dating apps fall into this at all?
> We will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. This line makes my blood boil. Futhermore, later they define disallowed sexual content as: > 1.1.4 Overtly sexual or pornographic material, defined by Webster’s Dictionary as "explici…
well at least he upheld the First Amendment when uttering that statement but the rest of his text basically shows he knew that First Amendment rights were more important than his moral code and asked if he could define what would cross the line he could not do so satisfactory. Now as to Apple, I don't have to buy their products and if I do I know what to expect. If it really mattered or should I say bothered me enoug…
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If a single company was putting up toll booths on every intersection AFTER selling those roads to the public, then yea, call me a communist but I don’t think that’s good for the economy. And I don’t care if that company single-handedly invented roads - there should a limit to how far you can milk the society you operate in.
> If a single company was putting up toll booths on every intersection Again, Apple is not the only company in this space and iOS is not the only intersection/road/whatever analogy you want. There are alternatives and companies like Epic are absolutely free to start their own platform. Honestly, all of this becomes much less complicated if you think of the iPhone as an Xbox, PlayStation or Switch. iPhone is not the e…
And people care a lot less about the consoles because they are a lot less important to the economy. This is like McDonalds complaining about paying fair wages and pointing to a two-location mom and pop shop and saying “but they do it too!”. Classic whataboutism.
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If this is absurd, then Google taking 30% and Sony taking 30% for Playstation and Microsoft taking 30% for Xbox is also absurd, right? So why aren't you complaining about that?
Google provides side loading so I can avoid their fee. Playstation and Xbox are not general computing devices.
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> People quickly forget that software was distributed on the web long before the App Store existed. I did that. Kagi.com was my payment… handler? https://web.archive.org/web/20100303221537/http://www.kagi.c... $0.75 + (5…8)% So any transaction less than or equal to the $2.99 tier would be just as bad (as in, it costs you at least 30% of the list price), even if hosting was free. I’m also old enough to remember Apple…
> So any transaction less than or equal to the $2.99 tier would be just as bad (as in, it costs you at least 30% of the list price), even if hosting was free. It's true that App Store has the best deal for payment processing for very low-priced apps. But that's not truly a win for developers when the App Store itself caused the "race to the bottom". Who was selling 99 cent apps before the crap store?
You can argue lower prices lead to more crap, but it also encourages people to spend more. Most people would debate a $4.99 purchase, but think nothing of 5 99¢ purchases if done separately.
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> Apple devices OTOH are severely limited regarding sideloading Yes, but for many users this is a premium feature, not a flaw.
Hah, are you claiming people are that dumb and think "please protect me from my own stupidity"? The enabling of sideloading on Android phones already comes with warnings written in plain language, and even if you want to install an app from e.g. the browser it asks you to give the browser permission to install apps, so it's pretty idiot-proof...
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"People quickly forget that software was distributed on the web long before the App Store existed." Independent software development was an absolute wasteland. It was extremely hard to get a user to give you money outside of a few extremely fortified ghettos (Steam, for instance, which takes a 30% cut as well). Begware was the most common tactic. Even now with multiple options, while everyone piles on Apple, we shoul…
> Independent software development was an absolute wasteland. It was extremely hard to get a user to give you money outside of a few extremely fortified ghettos Utter nonsense. Shrink-wrapped and downloadable software in the Windows world was all over the place using activation/serial codes either thru email or on a CD. Two examples: VueScan https://www.hamrick.com/ SnagIt screen capture (which is now cloud based, I…
There have been over a billion Windows devices in play for 3+ decades. The average Window user has paid for at most anti-virus, Word/Office, and sometimes Adobe. It is rare to find someone who has paid a penny for anything else.
Even critical software that people used day after day like WinZip and WinRAR became a meme for being something that went unpaid for.
Yes, some guy bought an activation code, but that guy was a serious exception. The pool of developers working on commercial Windows software was absolutely minuscule.
And today, with 1.5 billion Windows devices, how many people are making commercial software for Windows, outside of Adobe and Microsoft? That numbers is a rounding error. Despite it being, conceptually, the most amazing, incredible, liberating platform.
This sort of arbitrary judgments-from-heaven is a sign of monopolistic power. You only have a Hobson's choice when it comes to the app store.