Google should update the Chrome TOS so that they get 30% of all sales placed through Chrome, regardless of payment processor used. They're missing out on trillions of dollars and all they have to do is update their TOS!
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US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#872Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple argued from the very beginning that the 30% was its fee for running the App Store, marketing the apps, and storing and delivering the app bundles. The cost of operating an App Store and providing distribution is relatively negligible. Several Linux distros have app stores, and package management and distribution systems that are as good or superior than Apple’s. The annual fee that Apple charges developers al…
That's odd. I would have presumed that there are non-negligible costs involved with hosting and pushing binaries and updates of hundreds of apps per phone, times 1.5 billion active iPhones.
That cost is negligible relative to the tens of billions they rake in via fees charged to iOS app developers. You could do the math, but I'd guess it most likely wouldn't even exceed $10 million a year.
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#873Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you do IAP? Stripe or paypal is just slightly more inconvenient than Apple pay. Does not being in an app store hurt your marketability at all?
Oh in app purchasing. No my product is entirely dependent on the user purchasing a physical product. There's no IAP. Possibly in the future if users want something that is an upsell then I could see that happening. But I would have to hear it from users and by that point they would already be in my app-store-less ecosystem
Makes sense. One of the benefits of a mobile app is the ease of selling things in the app. Of course you can make it easy with a webapp too, but you need to handle the payment infra yourself and ask for credit card info
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#874Earlier quoted context omitted.
It'll probably need to be another lawsuit since it's in the developer agreement. Via user lolinder ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020745 ): > Apple is already pretty clear in its developer agreement [0] that the 30% commission is for "its services as Your agent and/or commissionaire" (Schedule 2 3.4), not for its services as a payment processor. They are contractually allowed to take the 30% fee out of paym…
Apple's justification seems counterintuitive, given that the commission only applies to app sales or in-app purchases. Since free apps don't pay anything, what is the commission for if not for "services as a payment provider"?
It's very normal for companies to charge some customers more than others based on their ability and/or willingness to pay. See: student, senior, and military discounts, SaaS with organization pricing vs individual pricing, etc.
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#875For everyone who thinks Google is some paragon of cooperation and openness as compared to Apple, they just got slammed in court effectively attempting to call their platform open while paying off companies to stay in the Play Store in a very similar case to Epic v. Apple. In fact, this was Epic v. Google. Why did Google lose and Apple largely win? Because Apple had always said their platform was closed and were up fr…
Apple specifically forbids developers from mentioning the 30% cut in their apps. That means either the users pay more, the developers lose money, or they do what Netflix did and just force the user to figure out how to sign up (because you can't direct people to the site either). Apple has completely draconian rules that very specifically leave users in the dark about how app store revenue works. They are in no way t…
What would happen if a few big boys like Netflix pulled their apps from Apple in protest? Like using Apple's policies to indirectly attack Apple through its users.
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#876The real problem with the Apple Tax — it ruins value-chain and makes it uneconomical For every value created a customer receives there is value captured by a company paid by this customer. Let's say a company creates a service valued as 1X by the customer and the customer pays 1X for that. This balance guarantees accessibility and interest among many customers. Apple tax demands for a customer to pay 1.43X for the sa…
I applaud you taking personal action and voting with your wallet / dev cycles.
> it ruins value-chain and makes it uneconomical
This is empirically not true. If the value-chain is so 'ruined' and 'uneconomical'. Why are there so many iOS devs? Lots of people are participating in the system and lots of people are getting rich.
Examples of truly uneconomical ecosystems are Windows Phone and Blackberry - which is why all the devs left and those platforms are dead.
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#877It'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.
"They are not your friend, they do not care about you" I beg to differ. As a blind user relying on accessibility, Apple was actually the first company that decided that accessibility should be an inherent part of the OS, not just an expensive add-on. Since the iPhone, blind users can just buy the product and turn speech output on, without having to install expensive extra software as was the case with Windows, for in…
"...in 1988, the company added the first accessibility support program for Windows by incorporating work developed at the TRACE Center, a research and development center on accessible technology at the University of Wisconsin.
Known then as Access Utility for Windows 2.0, the program improved the accessibility of Windows for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or who have limited dexterity"
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#878People seem to be very poorly informed and are up in arms over the 27%. This is directly part of the underlying court decisions. While the courts haven’t explicitly stated a percentage, and the initial judge questioned the percentage, it was made clear by both the district court as well as the appeals court that Apple can still charge a commission even when payment takes place outside of Apple’s IAP system. The court…
The only real recourse seems to be shaming Apple customers in to no longer wanting to be associated with the brand. My personal flavor of this memetic warfare is to equate such customers to high time preference, shallow beauty-seeking rubes with too much money. Probably doesn't work too well, but it's what I got until I think up something better!
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#879I designed and built my PWA. You just have to define a manifest and set an empty service worker. Boom now your mobile responsive app is a PWA. PWA can look exactly like native app if you are careful with the design. There are navigation patterns that users expect. Make sure to dial in the information hierarchy and design modals correctly. Use familiar iconography and use type that works at small point sizes. This is…
Curious to know what frameworks you are using?
Re: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
#880Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people think of the App Store as a bazaar that Apple runs on its property, and it’s a 15-30% charge to setup a tent and sell your wares. Others think of it as Apple’s general store where they carry your app as a product, and you pay 15-30% for a place on the shelf. The concept that Kroger (for instance) has a monopoly of customers in its own store is ridiculous. There are other stores, and other bazaars. What an…
Or that Apple APIs and SDKs are Apple writing at least half of everyone’s apps for them. They manufacture all the pieces, and people can arrange them differently. Playing Apple 30% is recognizing that a good chunk of the code running in any app is developed and maintained by Apple.
That's what the cost of the dev license is supposed to be paying for.