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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#201

Post by swebs »

the_other wrote: post #83
gtsteve wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're competing with something Apple is planning to bring out (parental control apps before screen time stats, etc). I don't think I'm competing with Apple at all today, but who knows what they're planning for their next features?

Surely this is true for all developers, at any size? And also just about any product, or service, in any industry? As counterexamples: Apple sell Logic, yet it has numerous competitors, also all fairly successful: ProTools, Live, Cubase, Reaper, Ardour, FruityLoops. Apple give their customers Notes, Reminders and Mail for free , on all their devices (i.e. you don't even need to get hold of apps for these functions),…

>Surely this is true for all developers, at any size? And also just about any product, or service, in any industry?

No, this is very unique to Apple, and only on iOS. Its the reason why iPhone web browsers have to use Safari under the hood.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#202

Post by csharptwdec19 »

pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

> This has nothing to do with “doing the right thing” or “accelerating innovation”

Correct. True Character is what you do when nobody is watching. :)

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#203

Post by xuki »

andybak wrote: post #171
cwhiz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trivial for you, a reader on HN. Not trivial, and potentially unsafe, for my grandmother.

Considering we're talking about Fortnite I would suggest that it's trivial for anyone who can figure out how to play Fortnite.

If it was trivial they would not bring Fortnite to Play Store at all, but they did.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#204

Post by viktorcode »

varispeed wrote: post #84
HatchedLake721 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you calculated that how?

It's a level that state would take to take care for roads, healthcare, civil service, army and so on. There is no justification for such high % to maintain an app. They could charge per app review and maybe the data transfer fee no more than Amazon S3. Anything else is Apple abusing their monopoly. Developer can't submit their app to an alternative app store because Apple doesn't allow that and it must change.

Unlike a commercial company a state is not for-profit enterprise. Maybe you think that app stores shouldn't be for-profit marketplaces either?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#205

Post by toyg »

cwhiz wrote: post #162
andybak wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortnite was also banned by Google. I think the main reason this wasn't as newsworthy is that sideloading it was trivial for Android users. Untick a warning and install it yourself.

Trivial for you, a reader on HN. Not trivial, and potentially unsafe, for my grandmother.

If there is a niche for “appstore for grannies”, a free market will eventually get it.

Security is a non-issue. If Apple were really worried about that, they would allow appstores in a regulated form with certain security rules.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#206

Post by Shivetya »

pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

Cynical or not, putting pressure on companies works and negative attention is a valid tactic when the issue is subject to reasonable debate.

Considering their volume fifteen percent should still allow them to rake in ridiculous amounts of money. However one area I still support Apple is selling of additional product within the store should still be subject to a charge; as in the Epic store selling additional games should be subject to the same rules as selling any content on the store yet you should be able to purchase outside the store and redeem codes within apps to use them; similar to how Steam allows developers to sell keys outside of Steam

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#207

Post by mkl »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #178
karolkozub wrote: post #47

Wow. 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…

it's exactly like the freelancer tax brackets in Italy. Everybody jumping through hoops (and or not declaring stuff) to remain under the threshold of 60k/year (was 30k/year). Otherwise tax rate doubles.

Really? It's not progressive [1]? This page suggests it is: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/italy/individual/taxes-on-perso... (Yes, this is a foreign third party so may be wrong; I can't read Italian.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax (See the Computation section for how the higher rates only apply to the higher portions of a person's income, with their lower portions taxed less.)

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#208

Post by viktorcode »

pg_bot wrote: post #145
simonh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For app store listing and promotion, application delivery all over the world to hundreds of millions of devices, access to back end services like notifications and iCloud storage, and sales transaction processing? Really? Imagine if you had to develop or pay for all of those services individually. Your own download site, product promotion, services, a third party transaction processor, a content delivery network, bes…

30% is honestly a terrible deal as Apple does not provide the value for the money they are charging. The difference is you are forced into that arrangement you don't have the option of doing it all yourself. If you had to develop all of those services yourself, it would look a lot like the internet. None of the things you mention are particularly challenging for the modern web.

I don't get "you are forced" part. If a deal is bad for you, don't take it.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#209

Post by _alex_ »

m463 wrote: post #183
pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

Apple/Google's 30% take is a tiny baby elephant in the room. Apple and Google have a model where they make lots MORE money outside the system and if the price of software is ZERO they would be happy. In Apple's case, even free software sells their phone. In Google's case, even free software funnels users to their ad platform. [1] "Smart companies try to commoditize their products’ complements." 1: https://www.joelons…

Apple has no growth left in selling phones. They are now a “services” business. Their most lucrative service so far is the app store.

That 30% matters to them a lot.

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