Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#421

Post by calcifer » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #357

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple didn't fear either Epic's lawsuit or Congressional action, or both, they'd never reduce their app store cut, for anyone, ever. This announcement means Apple knows that neither public opinion nor the law is on their side and they're about to lose really, really big. And they're hoping if they can flip this around a bit and get control of the narrative, they can convince regulators they will self-regulate... w…

> If Apple didn't fear either Epic's lawsuit or Congressional action, or both, they'd never reduce their app store cut, for anyone, ever. Except they have done exactly that in the past. In June 2016 Apple introduced a subscription billing model which reduces the fee to 15% after the first year a customer is subscribed.

I'm sure the developers of all 15 apps that sell multi-year subscriptions were very happy about that.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#422

Post by friedman23 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

enos_feedler wrote: post #418

danShumway wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This news doesn't mean people shouldn't continue to put pressure on Apple and legislators to address the core issue (app store competition), but it's still really good news for small developers. It should also solidly put down all of the arguments we were seeing about whether indie devs and lawsuits putting pressure on Apple and legislators are at all worthwhile. A drop in app fees by 15% is a substantial win, and th…

Solidly? Not really. Still believe the Epic and Apple fight is all about Tim Sweeney being a greedy business man. Zero proof this 15% reduction has anything to do with pressure from that legal battle. Apple has made rev share changes in the past unprovoked (like 15% for sustained subs). How long do you think this change was in the works for? If this change was a response that’s great. But I would bet in that case App…

Maybe Tim Sweeney is greedy but 30% cut on revenue is exorbitant.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#423

Post by ROARosen » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

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 is an understatement, this is pure evil.

Locking in developers to only use their AppStore and not anything else, taking %15 of small businesses revenue for payment processing, and all this in the middle of a pandemic and still taking credit for being "generous" and "industry leading". All this while the average payment processor take around %3.

And don't forget the reason they're doing it is to diffuse criticism of their monopolistic restrictions, to help them in their fight against Epic, which is actually fighting for the same rights that these small time developers really need.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#424

Post by wait_a_minute » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #382

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…

I think it’s neither cynical nor doing the right thing. It’s small positive move, but I don’t expect it to change anything for most developers. The 30% is really not the elephant in the room. What makes it so hard to make money on the App Store is the speed at which knock offs can appear. The App Store supports deep work that is hard to copy and work where there is a backend with network effects. For everything else…

If someone is submitting something that can be knocked off really quickly, maybe the problem is that they're submitting something that there isn't a good market for.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#425

Post by kmeisthax » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #315

kmeisthax wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide an officially-sanctioned way to install alternative software sources. macOS has that; Apple will even certify third party developers so that the system can still validate software outside of the Mac App Store. That kind of security model would be perfect for iOS and would moot pretty much all the substantive parts of Epic's complaint.

They have an officially sanctioned way. Reinstall every 7 days without cost, or pay $100/year and you don’t need to reinstall. It’s not as convenient as the main store, of course, but there are convenience tools (altstore.io) that make it close.

I have and use AltStore. It's amazing what they did, but it's certainly not Apple-sanctioned; they have to jump through a large amount of hoops in order to get your code signing certificate and then get iTunes to install the app for you. This also requires giving AltStore your iCloud password, among other things, and it resigns the app as yours. It technically works, but it doesn't work well.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#426

Post by ROARosen » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

enos_feedler wrote: post #418

danShumway wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This news doesn't mean people shouldn't continue to put pressure on Apple and legislators to address the core issue (app store competition), but it's still really good news for small developers. It should also solidly put down all of the arguments we were seeing about whether indie devs and lawsuits putting pressure on Apple and legislators are at all worthwhile. A drop in app fees by 15% is a substantial win, and th…

Solidly? Not really. Still believe the Epic and Apple fight is all about Tim Sweeney being a greedy business man. Zero proof this 15% reduction has anything to do with pressure from that legal battle. Apple has made rev share changes in the past unprovoked (like 15% for sustained subs). How long do you think this change was in the works for? If this change was a response that’s great. But I would bet in that case App…

> Apple just showed they cared about them in a single change.

Apple just showed they care about their image. If they really cared about small devs, they can allow third-party app stores or platforms like Epic's, which would really help developers by bringing down processing costs.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#427

Post by sercand » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #386

mrtksn wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's human touch is underrated and I feel like those who complain about Apple's review process have no real world experience and talking from ideological standpoint. I was more than glad to receive a f..g phone call from the reviewer telling me why he will reject my update, why is it this way and what I can do to make it pass and give me his phone number to call if I need further assistance. I become die hard Appl…

I've never heard feedback that good about Apple's app store approval process, thanks for sharing a new perspective! Can you give an idea of the size of the developer account you were submitting for/how established your apps were?

For us, we had first phone conversation on phone with Apple when we had around 20K users. We did talk on our privacy policy and TrueDepth camera usage. We explained why we need to access TrueDepth camera, they understood and asked us to include the reasons in our privacy policy. We changed our privacy policy and the app update approved.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#428

Post by coder543 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

user-the-name wrote: post #396

coder543 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many APIs can be used for sketchy things. Supposedly, that’s one thing the App Store review process is meant to catch.

You can't detect everything in review. iOS has always been designed as not to offer APIs that can be used for particularly harmful purposes.

I agree completely.

I'm still not a fan of Apple sherlocking popular apps and then proceeding to ban those apps that carved out the market for them... that's a very anticompetitive move.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#429

Post by phnofive » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

mediochrea wrote: post #419

ryanschneider wrote: post #407

I really wish they had just said that the tax is 15% on your first $1m in sales and 30% on all sales after each year. Correct me if I’m wrong, but with the current plan I can actually _lose_ money year over year around the $1m mark. For example if I make $1.01m in year one and then my sales tick up to $1.1m in year two my Apple tax is ~150k in year 1 but balloons to 330k in year 2, leading to a net loss in profits de…

>Existing developers who made up to $1 million in 2020 for all of their apps, as well as developers new to the App Store, can qualify for the program and the reduced commission. >If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year. I think it's exactly like you wish it was.

Yes, but only for the year in which you cross the threshold - subsequent years are commissioned at 30% from dollar one.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#430

Post by tchalla » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #393

sneak wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for users who wish to use the macOS without engaging in Apple's services business. It's already impossible on iOS, due to the fact that you cannot install any software except via the App Store, which requires an Apple ID. At the moment it is possible to continue to use a mac and download and run software without an Apple ID, but if the trend of only releasing software via the App Store continues, that will become…

Apple leadership has repeatedly said they aren't going to further restrict app installs on MacOS. Craig Fredaspaghetti just spoke about this in interviews on the Apple Silicon/Big Sur release. They use MacOS every day themselves, and deeply care about what it's different use case requires.

> Craig Fredaspaghetti just spoke about this in interviews on the Apple Silicon/Big Sur release.

Fredaspaghetti!