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Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

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Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#191

Post by igorstellar »

emdowling wrote: post #18

The bigger story here is for game streaming apps (section 4.9). Previously Xbox game streaming and Stadia had been rejected as they were a single app that provided access to multiple apps. tl;dr the new rules allow For games to be streamed, but each title must be a separate app and run all in-game purchases through in-app purchase. They’ve also explicitly allowed for game streaming services to have catalogue apps tha…

I think it's great idea. This way we won't get any "bloatware" in game launcher, promoted apps, ads or anything that is not needed to play the game.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#192

Post by atombender »

_jal wrote: post #122
ciarannolan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm really surprised. Did Apple shake up their PR or legal flacks? The language they've used recently (I'm thinking of the Epic stuff, too) feels different than their famously cool, considered tone; looser, more assertive, and much easier to argue with.

It's always been written in an oddly informal way. When I first read it, I did a double take and had to check if I was on the right domain, because I didn't expect it from Apple, of all companies. Over the years, it has been tightened a bit (the famous "If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps" line is gone), but it's still quite relaxed and personal, which is a tone that is somewhat at odds with the strictness of the rules.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#193

Post by [deleted] »

dmitriid wrote: post #36
rvz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again Netflix is crowned as the biggest of the Les Incorruptibles on the App Store by Apple since they can get away from not only the 30% charge as it is a reader app but is able to roll their own payments on the web and still scale to many users without in app purchases. There are probably more apps / companies who belong to this group due to secret deals by Apple, but now Apple says: No 30% charge for apps who…

There's nothing "secret". Everybody can roll their own payment in the web. They cannot advertise alternative payment methods in the app . See Spotify as an example.

[deleted]

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#194

Post by electriclove »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #172
Bud wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of this thing called "Android". From what I've heard, and I know that this sounds crazy, but it reportedly has a larger market share than Apple does in the mobile space. So any arguments or comments here mentioning "monopolistic power" are, well, I want to be nice about this, but they are a complete fucking joke.

It appears you didn't hear the biggest shocker of them all; one does not need to have an outright monopoly to be in a dominant position, able to abuse its power in a market. I know, shocker.

Is Apple abusing its power by keeping its fee the same as it has been forever?

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#195

Post by _qulr »

hn_check wrote: post #169
_qulr wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Independent software development was an absolute wasteland. I had a 10 year career in that "wasteland". > we should note that iOS was the single most profitable platform for Epic, across all platforms Citation? From what I've seen, that's not actually true. > Okay, go and make money from Windows users and see how great it is. For a time, the Windows version of our product was my company's biggest money-maker. It se…

"I had a 10 year career in that "wasteland"." From your CV, apparently developing for the Mac. Actually at a well known developer that probably had just a handful of employees. It isn't really a counterpoint. "Citation? From what I've seen, that's not actually true." Epic doesn't release these numbers, yet from third party analysis in the 30 days before being kicked from the respective stores, Fortnite made $43M on i…

> Epic doesn't release these numbers, yet from third party analysis in the 30 days before being kicked from the respective stores, Fortnite made $43M on iOS, and a paltry $3.3M on Android, worldwide.

"Sensor Tower puts iOS spending in Fortnite at $1.2 billion since it was launched on the App Store in early 2018." That was from a month ago. https://www.usgamer.net/articles/fortnite-ios-removal-hurt-e...

Fortnite total revenue was $2.4 billion in 2018, $1.8 billion in 2019. Not sure we have figures to date for 2020, but assuming it's approximately $1 billion, then iOS would be ~23% of total Fortnite revenue. Is that the largest platform? Maybe, maybe not.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#197

Post by baybal2 »

shaftway wrote: post #140
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #44

> 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…

I completely agree. When rules aren't codified it invites biased interpretation of them. However.... I've worked on an internal communications platform. For some reason people would forget that they were on a corporate site with their corporate email linked to it and spew garbage that any decent person would be embarrassed to say out loud. So we deliberately didn't codify our rules. We chose not to because we were aw…

To begin with, I think they made it to accommodate Tencent, who once threatened to pull Wechat from App Store if they don't let them use their own payments.

First, they used them for transfers only, but later came games, and etc.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#198

Post by electriclove »

konschubert wrote: post #54
Razengan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a whole economy hostage. iOS is not even near to the "whole economy" of mobile software. Companies should just stop being based in the US. With what’s happening to TikTok and this ridiculous push for a Communist-style reappropriation of Apple’s platform, it seems that the US may no longer be a safe place for businesses to become too big in (except of course, the ancient titans of oil, guns, pharmaceuticals etc. tha…

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.

Their 30% has been their rule since the beginning. I could see your point if they increased that but that isn't the case.

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#199

Post by electriclove »

grumple wrote: post #145
Razengan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This isn’t about the iPhone, it’s about iOS, which is one os out of two. And they have an absolute monopoly within iOS and on iPhones, while creating a market which can and will be regulated and being a publicly traded company and therefore subject to even more scrutiny and laws. And people care a lot less about the consoles because they are a lot less important to the economy. This is like McDonalds complaining abou…

Epic is a mom and pop? Get outta here..

Re: Apple: Person-to-person experiences do not have to use in-app purchase

#200

Post by _qulr »

hn_check wrote: post #175
_qulr wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is rare to find someone who has paid a penny for anything else. Citation needed. Who are all those people attending the Microsoft developers conference every year? Who were all the people in the audience for Ballmer's infamous "Developers, developers, developers" chant? You're claiming the nonexistence of something that clearly exists.

"You're claiming the nonexistence of something that clearly exists." You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion. There are ARMIES of corporate developers making internal apps for corporations around the globe. I, like probably 80% of HN, spent much of our career doing this. That isn't commercial software. It has zero relevance to any App Store, Window…

> You have become incredibly insincere in your arguments, or you are seriously misunderstanding this discussion.

Please refrain from personal attacks.

As you noted in another comment, I'm primarily a Mac developer, and in my experience, the extent of the third-party Mac software market has often been vastly underestimated. Maybe it's just because people aren't familiar with it.

There are of course large numbers of users who never buy third-party software, but with any large platform, such as Mac or Windows, all it takes is a significant % of users to buy software for the market to really add up. Doesn't even have to be a majority of users.

I haven't been a regular Windows users for many years, but back when I was, there was a thriving consumer software market on Windows. Again, it doesn't even have to include the majority of users, because those who do buy software are willing to pay good money for it.

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