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Apple-Developer Relations

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Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#71

Post by 015a »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #63

It's a two-way street. Despite selling less than 20% [1] of smartphones across the world, its App Store accounts for over 64% [2] of app revenue. Apple and its developers somehow built an App Store that people are willing to spend more money on. If it's purely thanks to developers, why isn't there more revenue on Google's Play Store? [1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share... [2] https://sens…

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I've suspected that this often-quoted disparity has something to do with China, and how Apple still controls iOS app distribution in China but the Play Store has much lower usage. So, you get weird aggregates because the total revenue numbers don't include the Chinese specific Android app stores (which, by the way, are insane; Huawei takes a 50% commission on game sales in their's, and its the biggest by far).

All given the size of the Chinese market, their love of mobile games, and the massive portion of App Store revenue games represent.

That's not to say the App Store isn't more profitable than the Play Store, per user, just in the US, but its a closer margin here, and I think the massive disparity on a global scale has to signal that something else is going on

(in addition to the obvious: Apple doesn't make good cheap phones, just not in their DNA, but Android manufacturers do, so lower income individuals will bias toward Android phones, and these people would spend less in the associated application stores)

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#72

Post by Despegar »

>If Apple wishes to continue advancing bizarre corporate-accounting arguments, the massive profits from the hardware business are what therefore truly “pay the way” of the App Store, public APIs, developer tools, and other app-development resources, just as the hardware profits must fund the development of Apple’s own hardware, software, and services that make the iPhone appeal to customers.

You can ignore everything else from this post. The developer gripes with the App Store have always been a contractual dispute between businesses over terms. Marco would like Apple to have the Mac business model apply to the iPhone. He wants to be able to use the SDK and tools for free (or for the nominal developer program annual fee).

This is understandable from a business perspective; everyone wants lower costs and higher profits. But it's certainly not in Apple's customers' interests for their business model to change to accommodate developers.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#73

Post by handrous »

actuator wrote: post #66
handrous wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful what you wish for. Safari's forced presence on the most lucrative mobile platform is the reason we don't, for all practical purposes, have only one browser engine, period , now. Which is something only nerds like us care about on a technical level, so I don't think the typical user is harmed or bothered by all browsers on iOS sharing an engine, but the social harm of Google 100% owning the Web would reach…

While your concern is genuine, Apple almost has 60% of the active mobile device market share(according to Statcounter). I think my concern is two fold. - Apple holds the gateway to both App Store and Web(through standard support). Having worked on web apps in the past, I truly admire the amazing distribution capability the web provides. I can spin up an obscure Linux distro and my web app works on it as long as a bro…

> This gives platforms parity at some level and doesn't concentrate the power in the hands of a single platform.

Chrome would be that platform, is what I'm saying. That would be your new OS, on every "platform". Devs & companies already skip testing on FF fairly often. Chrome good? Mobile Safari good? Ship it. You'll notice that IE/Edge used to be on that short list of must-test browsers, but it's just Chrome now. That's not going to get better for FF or WebKit-derived alternative browsers if mobile Safari gets banner-ad'd ("Google Docs is so much better in Chrome! Click here to download it now!" just like they did on desktop) into irrelevance. Google would get to dictate features, and the Web would just have them, and that's it, no step of trying to get anyone else on board (right now, "anyone else" is, for practical purposes, just Apple)

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#74

Post by yingbo »

post_break wrote: post #13

I used to love browsing the app store looking for cool apps. Now I can't even trust searching for the app by name because sometimes a completely different app shows up, and then there is the case of appstore ads. It's a joke.

Totally agree. I'm using your phone, your app store and download APP which leads me paying 30% to you, and you show me Ads for more money?!

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#75

Post by smoldesu »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #63

It's a two-way street. Despite selling less than 20% [1] of smartphones across the world, its App Store accounts for over 64% [2] of app revenue. Apple and its developers somehow built an App Store that people are willing to spend more money on. If it's purely thanks to developers, why isn't there more revenue on Google's Play Store? [1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share... [2] https://sens…

Because Apple markets and sells a product to the middle class, who are willing to spend that kind of money. Furthermore, the Indian market is almost entirely ignored by Apple, so it's no wonder that they're able to get Android phones into so many hands. The optics of this check out, are you trying to suggest that Apple's App Store is magically more profitable than Google Play, therefore better?

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#76

Post by mcphage »

actuator wrote: post #38
atonse wrote: post #2

I am deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem and yet, can’t wait for the DoJ to throw the gauntlet on the App Store. I really hope they get broken up, with the App Store being extracted into a separate business.

App Store should be just the start. Mobile web for more than 50% of the US users is also restricted to Apple's whims. They should be forced to allow competing browser engines(not just skins on Safari engine) on the platform. If Microsoft couldn't even bundle IE on Windows, it should be possible to make an alternative browser(along with engines) for iOS.

> They should be forced to allow competing browser engines(not just skins on Safari engine) on the platform

I really don't want to have multiple browsers installed on my phone & swap between them because some web app works in one browser, but not another. Mobile browsing is already pretty shitty, I don't think fragmentation will make it any better.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#77

Post by shkkmo »

enos_feedler wrote: post #30

"The “way” is already paid by the hardware — but Apple uses their position of power to double-dip." I understand the optics of this don't look good, but is it wrong to have multiple sources of revenue derived from the "way"? 1. what happens if supply chain dynamics and smartphone market competition negatively impact the hardware margins? What happens when consumer appetite for innovation in the phone stagnates and ma…

IMHO, Apple can keep their 30% fee on their store if they open the platform to 3rd party stores.

If Apple has to raise prices on their hardware to stay is business, that seems much fairer that using addicted mobile gamers to subsidize hardware for everyone else.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#78

Post by smoldesu »

post_break wrote: post #13

I used to love browsing the app store looking for cool apps. Now I can't even trust searching for the app by name because sometimes a completely different app shows up, and then there is the case of appstore ads. It's a joke.

That's because Apple introduced their own targeted ads, which you don't need to opt-in to (since there is no opt-out). See more below:

https://searchads.apple.com/advanced/

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#79

Post by enos_feedler »

smoldesu wrote: post #70
enos_feedler wrote: post #30

"The “way” is already paid by the hardware — but Apple uses their position of power to double-dip." I understand the optics of this don't look good, but is it wrong to have multiple sources of revenue derived from the "way"? 1. what happens if supply chain dynamics and smartphone market competition negatively impact the hardware margins? What happens when consumer appetite for innovation in the phone stagnates and ma…

If the optics of it don't look good, there's a very good chance that it isn't good.

If you read my argument I'm saying the optics don't look good because the margins on phones are high AND they are taking platform fees on top of that. As the margins on phones decrease in the future, the optics won't look as bad.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#80

Post by valine »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

No choice in graphics API and no general purpose compute on the GPU. WebGL is a start but it's missing major features.

If you want to build a competitive game engine or do any sort of machine learning on device then it has to be native.

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