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US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

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Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#401

Post by charcircuit »

andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

>All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes

This is how all businesses work. If there was no way to make profit then businesses would not exist. Apple spent billions of dollars creating an app platform with a clear monetization model that did not get in the way of them accumulating a lot of valuable apps and users. Developers are not forced to make apps for the platform nor are users forced to use the app platform. Other app platforms can impose lower fees and developers are free to release exclusively on those platforms if they wish. Apple hopes that the developers willing to tolerate the 15/30% fee for what the developer gets in return will be good enough to make their app platform competitive to users compared to others.

It's not just defending a trillion dollar company, it is defending the right to set your own prices.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#403

Post by ISO-morphism »

talldatethrow wrote: post #344

Can someone give me the TLDR of this questions answer.. If I have a web based saas currently where I charge customers $300 a month.. if I were to make an iOS app for them to use, would apple want a % of that?

As I couldn't find the nice page about the IAP policy that I read and found quite clear ~4 years ago (you should verify, don't trust people on the Internet): the old rules prior to the Epic and other court cases would say "Only for those users that set up payment while using the app." From what I gather, the current rules would be more lax, but the old can then serve as an upper bound.

The main rules were:

1) A user making a payment that has any effect on app functionality (this is very broad) from inside your app must go through Apple IAP (paying 30% commission). There were some exceptions, but mainly think buying physical goods - Apple isn't forcing the use of IAP for EBay or Amazon retail.

2) You may not link to, or even mention other payment methods.

Really it comes down to: if there is any difference in what the app will do for a user before and after they pay money then that money paying must go through Apple and then Apple will give it to you (minus 30%). So what a lot of apps did is just open to a login screen. No sign up button, no link to your homepage, heck, no links anywhere. The downside is that users have to know about your app from at least one more channel than searching on the App Store, but that's not a very high bar. Probably less common if you're B2B, but for B2C a lot of them would pay their subscription through Apple if possible, the experience is great: one central place in system settings showing all your subscriptions with easy cancellation buttons and enforced standard refund/proration semantics.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#404

Post by Hamuko »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #387
pompino wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have. Its not based on how much money they have. Its how they've managed to accumulate the money - by gouging devs.

[flagged]

>They’re also operating all the servers. Your $100 does not cover it.

You can get about 1.1 terabytes of data transfer out from Amazon S3 to Internet for $100.

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#406

Post by EMIRELADERO »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #317
choppaface wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But use of said IP is required because Apple forbids side-loading. Therefore Apple App store is a monopoly. So hopefully the court result will in the end help get the Apple App store shut down / opened up.

Even if you're side-loading, you're still using Apple IP. Every single framework and the OS itself up to the Mach OSS Kernel is Apple IP. It would be entirely unfeasible to run anything on an iPhone without some Apple IP. You'd be looking at an Asahi Linux for iPhone.

Somehow it's not unreasonable for third parties to "use" another company's IP when designing aftermarket accessories for physical products, even when those base products themselves are patented.

What makes the iOS situation different? Aren't apps essentially "digital accessories"?

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#407

Post by eviks »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #384

Caveat: I am not a mobile dev, I don't really have skin in the game here. I stay away because App & Play store sound like nightmare environments to do business with faceless entities and automated bans without appeal. It really seems to me the best way around this is: - Don't sell on the Apple store at all with no alternative (likely same for Google if your particular gripe is the 30%). Stick with web. - Push more PW…

You have skin in the game as a consumer

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#408

Post by fenomas »

charcircuit wrote: post #366
fenomas wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam. ... they require apps on the platform to use their payment processing That's not true at all. Steam literally lets you sell steam keys for your game from other stores, and takes no cut from those sales. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

It is true. Other stores are not your app.

You might have meant something else, but what you wrote is:

> they require apps on the platform to use their payment processing so that they can take that cut.

Which is not true. Both steam apps and in-game content for steam apps can be sold in other stores with steam's blessing, and steam expressly supports developers to bypass their payment processing (by offering steam keys and account integration).

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#409

Post by droopyEyelids »

microtonal wrote: post #380
andersa wrote: post #373

It's incredible that there are actually people in this thread arguing in favor of Apple. You don't need to defend the trillion dollar company. They are not your friend, they do not care about you, your work or your life. All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.

[flagged]

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking

Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission

#410

Post by thayne »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #387
pompino wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should discuss the points on their merits, not based on who's making them and how much money they have. Its not based on how much money they have. Its how they've managed to accumulate the money - by gouging devs.

[flagged]

And if no one wrote apps for iOS how many people would buy iPhones and iPads? Yes, it is a symbiotic relationship. But Apple has better position to negotiate, because it is as single entity, and have a lot more resources than the the other side. If all the app developers were able to organize and boycott apple, they might be able to force Apple to negotiate better terms. But that would probably result in many of the smaller companies going out of business, unless the boycott was very short lived.

> Your $100 does not cover it.

There are almost 2 million apps on the app store. Assuming there is roughly 1 developer license per app, (some developers will create multiple apps with a single license, but others will have multiple licenses to develop a single app), that is at least in the ballpark of "hundreds of millions on SWE". And that doesn't include revenue from selling the devices themselves.

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