It'd be interesting to see how Apple decided $1M as the threshold of this change. My expectation is that this change probably contributes to less than 1~2% of the total App store revenue, given that a large fraction of the app store revenue are driven by a bunch of $100M games with loot box IAP. But I don't really have data to support this estimation.
Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
71–80 of 671 posts
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#72The correct amount is still 0%, from anyone.
They should actually be paying small developers based on app usage. This will also be in their interest
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#73You can always bash Apple but this seems like moving in a good direction. It would have put about $75,000 in my pocket had it been this way when my only successful app was in the App Store. That would have been nice!
~$340k for my apps. This is why I thought they would never make a change, because people would be upset without retroactivity (which they would never do).
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#74Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it 3. I ship a new update 4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively. I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can…
This really isn't a problem in practice, unless you are going out of your way to try to bend the rules set in place, especially about sales.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#75So if I read this right, they're changing the account fee structure once revenue surpasses $1m, not that they charge 30% on all new revenue over $1m. It doesn't reset back to 15% in year two.
So a developer making $1,000,001 in year 1 will pay ~$150,000 in fees because they would just pass the threshold, but then makes $1,000,001 in year 2 will pay ~$300,000.
As a developer and growing business, I think I'd prefer a higher rate over on revenue above the threshold and reset it every year. A bit like how the tax system work in the UK.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#76Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it 3. I ship a new update 4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively. I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can…
This is not aimed at solving your problem, this is aimed at helping us small developers build a more sustainable business on the App Store. We will ultimately build more apps and invest more time in supporting and improving our current apps.
> this is aimed at helping us small developers
I doubt this was the aim. It suspect its aim was to fend off all this scrutiny on their App Store business.
Who knows whether it'll work in avoiding attention from law makers and regulators, but this will do nothing to address the developer's concerns and problem with the App Store.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#77This is obviously a cheap PR (albeit a good one) move to help in Apple's battle with Epic.
I hope this does not deter the courts in their decisions regarding the App Store monopoly. Apple should just be careful with moves like these, some see it as a sign of good will, some see it as a sign of weakness (and smell blood). Give an inch, they'll take a mile.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#78Wow. That's amazing. That's a 20% increase in revenue for those eligible. I'm guessing they decided the increased value of their products from more smaller developers creating apps for the platform is greater than the lost revenue. If I understand correctly though, since it's a hard cutoff it creates this gap between 1m and ~1.2m where you're actually worse off by making more money pre-tax. 999k --[-15%]--> 849k 1000…
Even better: .85/.7 = 21.4%
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can be a problem in practise since the rules aren't fairly or consistently enforced. Look to recent issues with iSH being approved and rejected. Edit: as others have pointed out iSH isn't the best example of this.
While I agree the rules are often inconsistently enforced, and I'm a fan of iSH, I think the real surprise is it was ever approved in the first place, as it seems to clearly be violating the "spirit of the law" regarding Apple being pretty clear they don't want apps that allow arbitrary binary execution. iSH tried to circumvent this with a technicality, and it seems to have initially "worked", but I think it's a poor…
OK fair enough perhaps it wasn't the most cut and dry example. But it was the most recent I could think of.
Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program
#80So if I read this right, they're changing the account fee structure once revenue surpasses $1m, not that they charge 30% on all new revenue over $1m. It doesn't reset back to 15% in year two. So a developer making $1,000,001 in year 1 will pay ~$150,000 in fees because they would just pass the threshold, but then makes $1,000,001 in year 2 will pay ~$300,000. As a developer and growing business, I think I'd prefer a…
Yeah, economically a marginal rate would make more sense and avoid hard step changes.
But I guess it might be harder to implement, not only for Apple, but also for developers to keep track of etc.