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Coming changes to Apple's App Store

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Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#171

Post by khedoros »

theli0nheart wrote: post #104
bad_user wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't many apps that can save you 1000/year. I keep hearing this, but that's nonsense. If a "service" is not producing money and isn't saving you time allowing you to produce money, then it's not worth paying for. Yes, I have subscriptions for IntelliJ IDEA, for Dropbox, for FastMail and for a DigitalOcean VPS. All these are producing money for me. But the list ends here. Because here's the thing: $5/month her…

> I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership. I applaud your idealism, but with this attitude, you might as well not buy any apps at all. When you buy an app, or TV show, or pretty much anything digital in 2016, you're purchasing a license, not the thing itself. You don't "own" anything. Even if you can download the app you buy in 2016 in 5 years from now, what are the odds that it still works on whatever oper…

I expect everything on my phone to be throw-away, beyond the life of that specific device (with the possible exception of the things that I've got as apk's and can sideload). I expect a thing on my PC to be available as some form of install medium that I'll have free access to while the service it came from is still running, and that I'll be able to install from that medium when the service goes defunct. The exception to this is most games...but I only pay prices similar to what I would've to rent it from Blockbuster for a couple days, so I don't feel to bad about the long term rental.

I pay subscriptions for a few TV-related things (Netflix+Amazon for me, DirecTv for the wife). If I really expect to want to watch the shows at some point in the future, I'll buy a copy. If I buy them, it's on a medium that I can format-shift at my convenience and get to run on arbitrary devices (which usually means DVD and the subset of Blurays with released keys).

> What good is ownership when you can't even use what you own?

I've never run into this in a practical sense, but it's an excellent point in the theoretical one. I keep around enough old hardware and software to make it a non-issue.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#172

Post by paavokoya »

chasing wrote: post #103
bad_user wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't many apps that can save you 1000/year. I keep hearing this, but that's nonsense. If a "service" is not producing money and isn't saving you time allowing you to produce money, then it's not worth paying for. Yes, I have subscriptions for IntelliJ IDEA, for Dropbox, for FastMail and for a DigitalOcean VPS. All these are producing money for me. But the list ends here. Because here's the thing: $5/month her…

I want to address two things, here: 1) You're absolutely right: Pricing matters. If I charge you $10/mo for my app that sends you a text message every time there's a full moon, that would be way too expensive and you'd be well within your rights as a consumer to spend your money on something else. As far as I'm aware, Apple will not force you to subscribe to any apps. 2) "... subscriptions are immoral..." Bullshit. A…

Regardless of whatever semantic "morality" you're going on about, this guy is an example of a lost customer. His money won't be going to your "favor" and it does no one a service if no one is buying it.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#173

Post by addicted »

chasing wrote: post #35
AlexandrB wrote: post #20

As someone who buys a lot of apps this is very disappointing. Things that would make me buy MORE apps (demos, upgrade pricing, better support) are still not in the app store, meanwhile the one pricing model I detest (subscriptions) is being added. I suspect I'll be buying far fewer apps if there's a mass movement from a purchase model to a subscription model among app developers. I'm perfectly happy to pay $20-30 for…

I think the mindset change that needs to happen is this: Apps are a service. I would actually prefer to pay developers of apps that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the app. If an app saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the app entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.

What happens if a developer bumps the price of their service that you rely on from $10/mo to $100/mo?

At least if I purchase an app I can continue using it for a significant amount of time and look for an alternative. A subscription makes this much harder.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#174

Post by rconti »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #113
chasing wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mindset change that needs to happen is this: Apps are a service. I would actually prefer to pay developers of apps that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the app. If an app saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the app entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.

> Apps are a service. So each month we are now going to pay for Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, Github, Amazon Prime and a bunch of apps...

I live by the motto that MRCs (Monthly Recurring Costs) are the devil.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#175

Post by addicted »

abalone wrote: post #138
AlexandrB wrote: post #20

As someone who buys a lot of apps this is very disappointing. Things that would make me buy MORE apps (demos, upgrade pricing, better support) are still not in the app store, meanwhile the one pricing model I detest (subscriptions) is being added. I suspect I'll be buying far fewer apps if there's a mass movement from a purchase model to a subscription model among app developers. I'm perfectly happy to pay $20-30 for…

> I'm perfectly happy to pay $20-30 for an app That's where you diverge from the population. Apple needs a solution for the general problem of people not wanting to pay much for iOS apps. It may disappoint those of us who prefer spending more up front for quality, but Apple has surely determined that more people will buy more apps this way. (By the way, you compared paying $X upfront to paying $X per year which of co…

But Apple already had a solution for this. The Mac App ecosystem.

The Mac app eco system was thriving despite a ridiculously small market. The indie devs focused on delivering quality applications and a lot of people paid good money. Enough to sustain many indie companies and developers.

I don't get why Apple has chosen to ignore the factors that helped make that eco system such high quality.

Edit: I want to add I am not against improving the subscription model. My problem is that Apple doesn't seem to want to add the stuff indie mac devs have been asking for years (trial periods, upgrade pricing). It would have been great if Apple did both subscription, and better purchase models (it's still possible they might once WWDC comes around).

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#176

Post by kybernetyk »

jaxondu wrote: post #4

Interestingly Sketch app announced today they're changing to a subscription model soon. Sketch app abandoned Apple store last December. Looks like Sketch will be back to Mac App Store this fall. It is sad that Apple only took action now, after years of requests and complains by indie developers. Now that app boom is over, I doubt this App Store changes will have any impact.

> Looks like Sketch will be back to Mac App Store this fall.

If Apple adds subscriptions to the Mac App Store that is. We're still waiting for "App Analytics" on the Mac. (The stats where you can see how many people viewed your app's page in the app store and how many downloaded the app. Even though it's the same backend those stats are only available for the iOS store).

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#178

Post by adamlett »

post_break wrote: post #127
adamlett wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you evaluate the equivalent of say Photoshop or IntelliJ IDEA in 2 hours? Especially if you're new to that category of software?

You give it the full 48 hours android allows you. The 2 hours is only automatic refund. After that you have 48 hours to send in a refund request.

Firstly, that's a hack. Secondly, even 48 hours is not nearly enough to evaluate complex productivity software. You might argue that the App Store doesn't have any software of that caliber, to which I would say that this could be part of what Apple is trying to address with this change.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#179

Post by adrianhon »

coroutines wrote: post #142
adrianhon wrote: post #84

Almost exactly one year ago, we switched Zombies, Run! - a fitness game - from being a paid app ($4-8) to a free-to-play app with subscriptions ($4/month, $20/year). Unsurprisingly, I'm delighted by this announcement, because it rewards apps like ours that provide long-term value and entertainment for our users. Clearly a subscription model isn't for many apps - probably most apps. But it was right for us, as we've b…

People fear that the subscription model is an easy grab for continued revenue. I do think that Zombies, Run! is an example of an app that justifiably fits the subscription model. The continued added content makes that make sense. (I am a fan!) I just hope subscription doesn't become the norm - I'd hate to see a calculator on a subscription model.

Yep, it works a lot better for some apps than others. To be fair, a calculator app doesn't need (as much) long term development or maintenance so I think a single payment is fine for both dev and customer there.

In light of this news, I wrote up a short post about how we made Zombies, Run! a subscriptions success:

https://medium.com/@adrianhon/how-we-made-an-app-store-subsc...

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#180

Post by surds »

kybernetyk wrote: post #170
surds wrote: post #12

Subscription model for all apps... I don't see a reason to subscribe for apps that are one-time pay and periodic long term use. There is a fine line here that developers will have to be cautious not to cross. A lot of apps have no reason to be subscription model, but the prospect of recurring revenue is too tempting. Edit: On the other hand, this is totally awesome for services and products that already offer subscri…

>I don't see a reason to subscribe for apps that are one-time pay and periodic long term use. This. I'm a developer of such a "sporadic use" app and I don't see how a subscription model would benefit my users. And I honestly wouldn't feel too good about introducing subscription pricing to a tool someone might need once in a few weeks. On the other hand this might be a solution to the upgrade pricing problem if one co…

Optimally priced annual subscription may work well. Again, this depends on the app's context justifying the subscription model.

One such annual subscription offer that I was totally in favor of was WhatsApp. Given the volume of use I had from the service, I would have gladly paid more. I would prefer subscription to a clean chat service instead of a free service shoving news, themes, icon-packs etc. in my face to make money.

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