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Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

dancounsell.com

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Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#21

Post by niels_olson »

tomkinstinch wrote: post #3

Another point to add is that applications sold outside the App Store can avoid the sandboxing restrictions of the Store, and consequently contain functionality that would be not permitted by Apple on the Store (file access, deeper system access, etc.). That said, for my side project ( http://artfulmac.com ) it is absolutely worth it to me as a solo developer to pay Apple their 30% to have them handle fulfillment (inc…

Can artfulmac work with the screensaver too? Then I could quickly and passively get a sense of what I want on my wallpaper for an extended period of time.

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#22

Post by burntcaramel »

sosborn wrote: post #4
nathanbarry wrote: post #2

Really solid article. I love that it includes actual numbers. "Apple has taken $600,000 (USD) of that in fees. Ouch!" is much more concrete than just "30% of revenue."

> taken Well, there are providing a service in return for those fees as well as high-visibility amongst potential customers. Striking out on your own means a lot of work in getting people to your website.

Dan and other indie developers talk a lot about the importance of doing your own marketing, even if you are in the App Store. And they also underline how being listed in the App Store isn’t close to the results of proper marketing. http://dancounsell.com/articles/thoughts-on-increasing-app-r... http://www.joecieplinski.com/blog/2014/12/22/building-a-show...

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#23

Post by slm_HN »

pavlov wrote: post #5

The Mac App Store is a ghetto. It's completely neglected by Apple. I'm not sure who they imagine to be the target audience -- maybe it works for mobile-style game experiences, I wouldn't know, but it's certainly no good for professional apps. Important issues with sandboxing were never resolved. Meanwhile existing APIs keep being moved to the restricted list, so as a developer you can't even count on your product bei…

>The Mac App Store is a ghetto.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

From Wikipedia: "A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." I don't see how that applies to the app store.

Maybe you're trying to use the slang definition of ghetto, in which case you want an adjective and not a noun. Try "The Mac App Store is ghetto, yo." But "The Mac App Store is a ghetto." I don't know what you're trying to say with that phrase.

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#24

Post by chillacy »

milen wrote: post #8
pavlov wrote: post #5

The Mac App Store is a ghetto. It's completely neglected by Apple. I'm not sure who they imagine to be the target audience -- maybe it works for mobile-style game experiences, I wouldn't know, but it's certainly no good for professional apps. Important issues with sandboxing were never resolved. Meanwhile existing APIs keep being moved to the restricted list, so as a developer you can't even count on your product bei…

Speaking of sandboxing, Reeder 2 for Mac (one of the best RSS readers) was forced to remove the option to be set as the default RSS reader from within the app. This is because a function on Yosemite is longer allowed in sandboxed apps but still works fine on 10.9 [1] While it's not the end of the world, it's just plain annoying having to remove such a common sense feature. The consequence of this means that if you we…

I had to remove this for my app as well. Pain in the ass, but RCDefaultApp still works: http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/ even though it's pretty old

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#25

Post by jhack »

For developers who sell the same app on both the Mac App Store and outside of it, do you keep the same price for both or do you encourage users to buy directly from you with variable pricing? Thirty percent is a significant chunk and I'm wondering if anyone's tried to pass some of the savings (so to speak) when selling directly.

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#26

Post by cdcarter »

slm_HN wrote: post #23
pavlov wrote: post #5

The Mac App Store is a ghetto. It's completely neglected by Apple. I'm not sure who they imagine to be the target audience -- maybe it works for mobile-style game experiences, I wouldn't know, but it's certainly no good for professional apps. Important issues with sandboxing were never resolved. Meanwhile existing APIs keep being moved to the restricted list, so as a developer you can't even count on your product bei…

>The Mac App Store is a ghetto. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. From Wikipedia: "A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." I don't see how that applies to the app store. Maybe you're trying to use the slang definition of ghetto, in which case you want an adjective and not a noun. Try "T…

"X is a ghetto" is a running phrase in the tech community dating back to at least 2007 [0].

[0]:http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#27

Post by rtpg »

tomkinstinch wrote: post #3

Another point to add is that applications sold outside the App Store can avoid the sandboxing restrictions of the Store, and consequently contain functionality that would be not permitted by Apple on the Store (file access, deeper system access, etc.). That said, for my side project ( http://artfulmac.com ) it is absolutely worth it to me as a solo developer to pay Apple their 30% to have them handle fulfillment (inc…

>That said, for my side project ( http://artfulmac.com ) it is absolutely worth it to me as a solo developer to pay Apple their 30% to have them handle fulfillment (including system-integrated update notifications), payment processing (with currency conversion), tax form creation, and refunds. It's a trade of financial overhead for time. The App Store also conveys a sense of trust to consumers.

There's also the fact being on the App Store is a form of advertising. I think this is more obvious in Steam, which basically creates markets for games that had none before (usually because indie game developers are not necessarily good marketers). I know I've "browsed" the App store to look at things.

In these sales, it's not getting only 70% of revenue you would have otherwise, it's getting money you would not have gotten at all if you weren't present on the store.

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#29

Post by rbritton »

jhack wrote: post #25

For developers who sell the same app on both the Mac App Store and outside of it, do you keep the same price for both or do you encourage users to buy directly from you with variable pricing? Thirty percent is a significant chunk and I'm wondering if anyone's tried to pass some of the savings (so to speak) when selling directly.

I'm not familiar with the rule number offhand, but I'm reasonably certain they require you to have the same list price in both places.

Re: Benefits of Selling Outside the Mac App Store

#30

Post by cageface »

milen wrote: post #11
tomkinstinch wrote: post #3

Another point to add is that applications sold outside the App Store can avoid the sandboxing restrictions of the Store, and consequently contain functionality that would be not permitted by Apple on the Store (file access, deeper system access, etc.). That said, for my side project ( http://artfulmac.com ) it is absolutely worth it to me as a solo developer to pay Apple their 30% to have them handle fulfillment (inc…

it is absolutely worth it to me as a solo developer to pay Apple their 30% to have them handle fulfillment I think one aspect that gets easily lost in the debate is the long-term impact of having your app on the MAS (exclusively or not). You need to consider the value of being able to provide trials (i.e., do not force potential customers to spend money upfront on software that might not fulfil their requirements), d…

This is a critical flaw in Apple's handling of both app stores, IMO. The rules of the app store incentivize simple, one-off apps with minimal functionality. As a distribution mechanism it offers a lot of benefits for users but unless they take some relatively easy steps to make it a better place for serious developers those benefits will be moot.

Their handling of iOS and Mac apps seems indifferent at best and downright incompetent at best. In any case I've left their proprietary ghetto and gone back to coding for the web.

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