Apple's tenure is over. They are the definition of rent-seeking incumbency.
A good n-gate style description of their business model would be "uber for ubers."
Apple-Developer Relations
251–260 of 275 posts
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#252Yep. It is not surprising at all that the term “insulting” appears three times because that’s how it feels for so many reasons. Remember: - They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. - They pretend like the current “search” feature of the App Store is not a sad reduction of what it used to be (or what it could be if a…
I think all your points are pretty strange, but this one I don't even understand:
> - They pretend to have all these problems hosting apps that are somehow solved by fees, while completely ignoring all the free apps that clearly tax that same infrastructure.
Clearly they are not saying that each individual app has to bear its costs, obviously free apps are subsidised by paid apps. And they've never said they are "having problems". They are saying that they are providing a valuable service and want to get paid for that.
> - They conveniently ignore the absurd amount of money they must be making from scams that are constantly top-grossing to add insult to injury.
Do you seriously think that Apple wouldn't prefer a world without scam apps, and without revenues from scam apps. It's very obvious that the presence of scam apps hurts their brand, not to mention their main argument for the walled garden, much more than however many hundreds of million they earn from scam apps, if that.
Apple categorically does not want to make money from scams, even the most rabid Apple hater should acknowledge that.
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. I never heard them claim it but speaking as a developer it's obvious that Apple was a driving force here. Sellable desktop software became obsolete due to piracy. Everything is server-based now. Mobile apps, particularly on iOS, is the only place where the general public co…
> Sellable desktop software became obsolete due to piracy. This is almost certainly not true. If anything hurt selling desktop apps, it was Apples policies encouraging dirt cheap apps on the App Store that then led to customer expectations of the cost of apps dropping dramatically. There were recent stories about how software shops like Panic are going back to selling only desktop apps and ending their iOS apps. If a…
How did they encourage dirt cheap apps?
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. I've never heard them claim that. The claim is that for an appliance like a phone - rather than a general purpose computer - device reliability trumps all, including the ability for the consumer to run arbitrary code on the device.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/28/tech-ceo-antitrust-... > Opening statement from Apple CEO Tim Cook > When the App Store was created, the prevailing distribution options available to software developers at the time did not work well. Brick-and-mortar stores charged high fees and had limited reach. Physical media like CDs had to be shipped and were hard to update. > From the beginning, the App Store was a revo…
"Did not work well" is 100% true. It is not the same as "impossible".
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#255I recently finished porting an app to Windows. I decided to publish on the MS Store (UWP + Desktop Bridge). Don't mind sharing 12% in return for MS's seal of approval But if I could, I would terminate my iOS appstore presence in a heartbeat. This is how different Apple and MS make me feel as a developer. Google falls somewhere in between Everything these companies do is geared towards making us develop (often for fre…
It's great that you feel so good about Microsoft, but that isn't really an argument.
> And yes, Apple dropping the annual fee would be a nice start
They already dropped the fee to 15%. Well unless you make more than 1 m a year.
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#256This post should’ve been a tweet instead.
Marco likes to complain. This is why Apple needs to be cold to developers, they're already on its head, and even more so if they pay attention.
He spent 20 minutes of the latest podcast episode complaining too. I couldn't catch a single argument, he was just talking about how he "felt insulted".
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#257I care very little about the App store. In my world the iOS app is a small part of our ecosystem. What I care about is getting charged for a developer licence that was never delivered. Needing a licence to use hardware I paid money for. Without the licence I cannot put apps on the iPad I own connected to the Mac I own, apps I write on said Mac. Buggy developer tools that they will not fix. Xcode (and its Swift ecosys…
Optionals are of course 100% reliable.
What are you actually trying to do? "if let _ = nil" makes no sense and doesn't compile.
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. I never heard them claim it but speaking as a developer it's obvious that Apple was a driving force here. Sellable desktop software became obsolete due to piracy. Everything is server-based now. Mobile apps, particularly on iOS, is the only place where the general public co…
Phrased differently you'll find these kind of statements in the testimonies by Apple execs in the Epic case. On the other hand your claim that: >Sellable desktop software became obsolete due to piracy. Is unfounded. Games are sellable desktop software and they're doing just fine. What people want is fair prices and easy availability, which is the business model of every digital store since itunes.
> Games are sellable desktop software and they're doing just fine.
I don't know anyone who's bought a PC/Mac game from anywhere that isn't an App Store in the past 5 years. Steam is a juggernaut, and so is Microsoft for that matter.
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#259Yep. It is not surprising at all that the term “insulting” appears three times because that’s how it feels for so many reasons. Remember: - They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. - They pretend like the current “search” feature of the App Store is not a sad reduction of what it used to be (or what it could be if a…
> They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. I never heard them claim it but speaking as a developer it's obvious that Apple was a driving force here. Sellable desktop software became obsolete due to piracy. Everything is server-based now. Mobile apps, particularly on iOS, is the only place where the general public co…
> Most people don't want cracked apps on their devices, and they want secure, privacy-focused phones
I agree - but apple fails on this point.
You should be able to protect your own phone. You should be able to install a firewall or further sandboxing, functions that the app store prohibit.
This is really simple:
- You should be able to find out what an app is doing - you should know what sites an app contacts - you should be able to block this - you should be able to block apple itself
This is so common sense yet not possible using apple's app store.
Re: Apple-Developer Relations
#260Yep. It is not surprising at all that the term “insulting” appears three times because that’s how it feels for so many reasons. Remember: - They pretend with a straight face like it was somehow impossible to sell software or reach customers before their magical store made it happen. - They pretend like the current “search” feature of the App Store is not a sad reduction of what it used to be (or what it could be if a…
I think all your points are pretty strange, but this one I don't even understand: > - They pretend to have all these problems hosting apps that are somehow solved by fees, while completely ignoring all the free apps that clearly tax that same infrastructure. Clearly they are not saying that each individual app has to bear its costs, obviously free apps are subsidised by paid apps. And they've never said they are "hav…
> obviously free apps are subsidised by paid apps
Subsidised for what exactly?
I'm not suggesting that hosting is free, but even free apps make Apple $99/yr in developer license fees.