141–150 of 227 posts
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OK - so its $800 - that makes the services provided by Apple even more value for money
Sure, it might be decent value to a company. It's still not zero revenue as Apple likes to frame it.
Apple’s position is clear and legal, and it’s how the economy works including the proposed hey.com business model . There’s no antitrust violation here, so pay your fees or go somewhere else. Apple don’t owe hey.com a place in the App store, just like hey.com doesn’t owe me a free email address @hey.com.
I wish I could downvote you. What apple is doing is much worse than microsoft ever did, and they deserve to get a big antitrust lawsuit against them. Just because their own rules say 'everybody owes us money' doesn't mean that it's legal.
Honestly, Apple's response is actually pretty reasonable, all things considered. Read the full letter — it was clear, fair, and professional — despite coming off the back of a lot of bad press. I see plenty of comments are focussing on this quote, re their Basecamp apps: > These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years Apple hav…
Why does Apple need revenue from Basecamp (or any content provider)? They don't have any cost whatsoever associated with this content deliver. You already paid for the phone, $$$. The network isn't theirs; Apple takes zero part in the content delivery. Apple provides no content; that's all Basecamp. This is just Apple noticing money being changed hands, and inserting themselves into the process so they can extract a…
Specifically in the case of Hey:
* Bandwidth to deliver the app to each user that downloads it
* App Store Review requires human beings, so there's paying those people
* There's also generally maintenance of the App Store servers, backend software, etc.
In the past, I'm sure Basecamp (the app) was featured somewhere on the App Store and thus got featured and brought more eyeballs to the app. These features are done by actual people and there's a cost there.
Any store has a cost. Lets say Basecamp were to be able to side load. Now they'd have:
* Bandwidth for delivery of the app for each download
* Cost to maintain their servers
* They'd have to maintain whatever delivery system they had to write in order to provide the same features of the App Store
* They'd have more support costs as well because can the average person understand side loading? What happens when that goes wonky? Now it's on their support team to handle that business too.
Apple provides a lot of value there.
Edit: Jesus... I hate the formatting options on this site..
Honestly, Apple's response is actually pretty reasonable, all things considered. Read the full letter — it was clear, fair, and professional — despite coming off the back of a lot of bad press. I see plenty of comments are focussing on this quote, re their Basecamp apps: > These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years Apple hav…
Why does Apple need revenue from Basecamp (or any content provider)? They don't have any cost whatsoever associated with this content deliver. You already paid for the phone, $$$. The network isn't theirs; Apple takes zero part in the content delivery. Apple provides no content; that's all Basecamp. This is just Apple noticing money being changed hands, and inserting themselves into the process so they can extract a…
I see it partly as a response to the fact that the industry is moving from one-time purchases to subscription-billing. Apple were always able to make their cut from the one-off sale of a $34.99 premium application. Now that the app is available for a $2.99/month subscription from the developer, Apple have to recover the lost caused by the shift to subscription models somehow.
And they certainly do have costs associated with content delivery. There's the trivial costs (bandwidth, hosting, etc.), and the larger overheads associated with R&D, developer review, continually fighting security risks, and so on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish I could downvote you. What apple is doing is much worse than microsoft ever did, and they deserve to get a big antitrust lawsuit against them. Just because their own rules say 'everybody owes us money' doesn't mean that it's legal.
These aren’t Apple’s rules–they’re ours. It’s the parameters of a free marketplace and flows from the idea of legal ownership of property. Apple has a minority share of the smartphone market, so antitrust does not apply. Antitrust a specific remedy to prevent monopolistic abuses. If I build a high end hotel and the fee is $10,000 a night to stay there, you can’t apply to the Supreme Court to have your bill reduced. I…
That's literally an Apple to Oranges comparison. Market share is not a requirement for illegality under the Sherman Act, as an example.
Hey should still be able to link its users directly to the App Store entry and otherwise make it unlisted in the App Store.
Apple can find a creative way to tax this if they wanted, but what is the yearly developer fee for if not a fee for distribution and security/compliance certifications?
Apple needs to stop conflating distribution on their platform with promotion on their platform. Not every app needs both. 30% cut only makes sense in a publishing deal where Apple promotes the product in the storefront.
Basecamp obviously knew this would go down like this. The cynic in me thinks this controversy was planned from the beginning as a PR / marketing exercise.
I've seen this comment all over the place and I genuinely can't believe people think this. Apple accepted v1.0 of the app. They're rejecting v1.0.1 which just contains some bug fixes. How could anybody predict this? It's also going to damage their long term relationship with Apple (an important partner) and if they lose this fight their entire product is in danger as being unable to access an email service on one of…
They were probably surprised they got 1.0 approved, I certainly would have been. Apple says they made a mistake approving it, which is not unheard of, and them clearly identified the guidelines they're breaking.
Basecamp is full of smart and prominent people who know what they're doing. I can't believe they didn't predict or plan for this scenario when it's one of the most obvious to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does Apple need revenue from Basecamp (or any content provider)? They don't have any cost whatsoever associated with this content deliver. You already paid for the phone, $$$. The network isn't theirs; Apple takes zero part in the content delivery. Apple provides no content; that's all Basecamp. This is just Apple noticing money being changed hands, and inserting themselves into the process so they can extract a…
Apple does have cost. Specifically in the case of Hey: * Bandwidth to deliver the app to each user that downloads it * App Store Review requires human beings, so there's paying those people * There's also generally maintenance of the App Store servers, backend software, etc. In the past, I'm sure Basecamp (the app) was featured somewhere on the App Store and thus got featured and brought more eyeballs to the app. The…
So, the 'enforcers' have to be paid? ( the reviewers that keep any money from slipping thru Apples' fingers )? That's the whole story? They are already paid for by the store cut as well (like every other app).
"These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years." This is pretty grotesque coming from a trillion-dollar company that anyway already charges developers a yearly fee.
If I were basecamp I’d be tempted to pull my apps over that passive aggressive bullshit.
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Access to a market that they solely own, the definition of antitrust.
Except that you have artificially defined the market to be "applications on an iOS device" instead of "mobile applications". By that definition Microsoft has a monopoly over XBox games, Tesla has a monopoly over their car apps, Sony has a monopoly over their DSLR apps etc, Salesforce has a monopoly over their marketplace apps etc. Any antitrust action based on your definition would actually set a precedent that would…
Literally this exact issue - MS was locking Windows to IE as a browser.