OK, if developers hate Apple so much for taking 15-30% of their revenue, why aren't they: - banding together and suing Apple together - still writing apps for Apple and giving them money? Aren't iPhones about 20% of the smartphone market? Wouldn't you make more money from the Google Store or are they extorting the same rates?
Outside of games people aren't building directly for app stores anymore. They're building apps that are part of some other profitable business that need to have a presence on the phone. And lately Apple is insisting they get a cut off those kinds of apps too.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I've suspected that this often-quoted disparity has something to do with China, and how Apple still controls iOS app distribution in China but the Play Store has much lower usage. So, you get weird aggregates because the total revenue numbers don't include the Chinese specific Android app stores (which, by the way, are insane; Huawei takes a 50% commission on game sales in their's, and…
iOS apps are more profitable on a per install basis. So the discrepancy cannot be explained by there being multiple Android stores. Your hypothesis in brackets is the more likely explanation. Source: I worked on an app with millions of paid subscribers.
iPhone had first mover advantage and comes from an American company.
As a result iPhones have 50% of the smartphone market in the US, and Americans have the highest disposable income per capita of any large country (>20 million people).
iPhones tend to have much smaller market shares outside of the US. In some places they're maybe around 30% but generally they're much, much lower.
I don't understand this argument. End users don't care about browser engines and they can install "Chrome" right now. But most iOS users don't.
Google's not pushing it hard on iOS, and it can't offer enhanced features or tailor (ahem) its sites to run better on the Chrome engine on iOS. That makes it a harder sell, and the "Google sites all works better on Chrome (because we made sure they do...) download it here!" ads they had success with on desktop would simply be lies, if they tried that. They also can't get other apps to embed their engine so they get t…
Google can do all the data harvesting they want with the wrapped version and that's mostly what they care about. There are already a lot of benefits to iOS users that are heavily involved in Google's ecosystem to use Chrome but mostly they don't.
That's not an excuse for them to be driving such insane margins then. Plus, who's to say that the iPhone doesn't receive another overhaul in the next few years, driving the margins back down? Apple will continue to play this game of cat-and-mouse for as long as you let them, and that's ultimately how they accumulate wealth. It's a campaign almost entirely ran on deception.
It's a campaign ran on Apple making products that a lot of people like enough to buy them at the price Apple is selling them.
Yes, and at some point it's possible consumers simply won't pay for some new technology down the road. Say for example, a very expensive health/bio sensor. However, Apple might feel that 1) it's good for the world to be able to monitor/improve health, 2) will give safe access to this sensor to 3rd party developers, so it's good Apple can draw on this revenue source from platform fees to make it happen, by killing margins to ship this sensor. I am not saying this is happening today at all. I just think it's good for the platform to have diverse revenue sources. It's good for Apple, but it might also be good for developers too
It’s not clear how this is relevant to the parent’s point. Android phones are also available in rich countries.
Sure, but we aren't talking about Android phones. We're talking about platforms, since that's what Apple wants to sell. The barrier to entry for this platform is money, and many people cannot afford to use their platform, therefore it stands to reason that only people with a modest expendable income will buy an iPhone. It then also makes sense that those same users will also spend more money on the App Store, since t…
> It then also makes sense that those same users will also spend more money on the App Store, since they also had the expendable income to buy a "premium" product.
Those users will also be more likely to spend on apps and accessories in order to justify or supplement the much bigger phone purchase. Someone who's got the same amount of expendable income but chooses a cheap android for frugality is also more likely to be frugal in extraneous purchases like apps, especially when free but slightly inconvenient alternatives are available. At the end of the day, focus on the customers not the app platforms.
It’s not clear how this is relevant to the parent’s point. Android phones are also available in rich countries.
Sure, but we aren't talking about Android phones. We're talking about platforms, since that's what Apple wants to sell. The barrier to entry for this platform is money, and many people cannot afford to use their platform, therefore it stands to reason that only people with a modest expendable income will buy an iPhone. It then also makes sense that those same users will also spend more money on the App Store, since t…
on top of that it's a chicken and egg problem too. Because purchasing power is higher, developers also charge more compared to similar apps on Android
That's not an excuse for them to be driving such insane margins then. Plus, who's to say that the iPhone doesn't receive another overhaul in the next few years, driving the margins back down? Apple will continue to play this game of cat-and-mouse for as long as you let them, and that's ultimately how they accumulate wealth. It's a campaign almost entirely ran on deception.
It's a campaign ran on Apple making products that a lot of people like enough to buy them at the price Apple is selling them.
Customers aren't the only factor here, though. Developers are coming out en-masse to denounce Apple's business practices right now, and the government has been starting to intervene lately too. It's obvious that there is contention in Apple's ecosystem, so they'd be much better suited to addressing it outright instead of dragging it into the world's longest media fiasco. This is (and has been) one of Tim Cook's massive pitfalls, and he repeatedly falls into these asinine grudge matches that only further destroy what little digital cogency there is in this world.
Yep. 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 consistently buys client software. Most people don't want cracked apps on their devices, and they want secure, privacy-focused phones. Apple has had that focus for years.
If you read my argument I'm saying the optics don't look good because the margins on phones are high AND they are taking platform fees on top of that. As the margins on phones decrease in the future, the optics won't look as bad.
So basically in your opinion businesses making a lot of money makes for bad optics.
No the optics around charging developers large platform fees when they also highly profitable on the phone itself. This whole thread is about double dipping. I am specifically talking about "double dipping" and the optics of that.
Why is it a big leap? Consumers also choose to buy Apple and the assumption is we're too stupid to know we can buy something else and do more with it. It's just as big an insult. If I can't get your app on iOS then I just won't use your app. I don't care if it's on Android because I didn't buy an iPhone to use your specific app. If you want to legislate for consumer choice do so but can we stop pretending this is som…
We agree that, properly empowered, consumers will make the best choice for themselves. We disagree about what constitutes "properly empowered".
Yes that's a fair break down of the situation. We're mostly not aligned on how to properly empower individuals.