I reject Apple and its products.
Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
191–200 of 361 posts
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting, because the comments on other HN posts read like "There is no tablet market, there is only an iPad market", "Apple makes 80% of the money in the cell phone market, Apple is the only one making any money", "If you want to make money selling apps, the App Store is the best since it has the paying customers, Android is full of cheapskate freeloaders who want your app for free and install adblock". With the…
There is no contradiction, Apple 'owns' the high end market where people actually pay for apps. But, as a percentage of overall phone / tablet OS there well under 40% so it's hard to call them a monopoly.
That only means that if you're a developer, Apple's App Store is a monopoly since that's where the people are that pay for apps. "Just go elsewhere" doesn't work because they can't make money there, like Netscape did have Unix and Sun CDE versions but they were of no consequence compared to the Windows one.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I can't charge less for an Android app equivalent to one that I'm selling for iOS? That boggles the mind, and it seems pretty anticompetitive to me. It's almost a means of strongarming their way to prime network dominance. Surely in a world where the network effect rules and the stakes (the global marketplace) are so high, we shouldn't allow networks to entrench themselves too easily? Else we'd just have a behemot…
I believe the pricing restriction only applies to In App Purchases. The iOS edition of your app is unique to iOS so it stands to reason to price it independently. Sell a subscription to your service in the app? Then it needs to be the same price as on your website. It's protecting customers, not Apple.
>It's protecting customers, not Apple.
What? It's specifically set up to protect Apple's cut of 30% and to prevent other app stores from charging less.
Lets say you price a service at $14/mo. Apple takes 30% so you price it at $20/mo. Apple takes $6/mo. Windows 8 ap store takes zero if you roll your own in app mechanism, but you can't charge Windows 8 users only $14/mo. You have to charge them $20/mo if you want to stay in the iOS App store.
How is Windows 8 users being forced to pay $20/mo instead of receiving a benefit from their platform competing, protect Apple customers?
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
>so it would get more apps, and the platform would outsell Apple's iPad with its constraints. Apple has that covered. You cannot make your services cheaper on other platforms. You have to charge atleast what you charge iOS users for the same service. This is to prevent the success of alternative app stores that will take only 20% or 5% cut. The new ecosystem won't take off because the existing developers cannot affor…
It's nothing so sinister as that. It's actually more simple: they're protecting their own users from being ripped off, by being charged a premium because they're iOS users. It has some negative effects but as a user it makes you feel safer buying something through an app if you know you're not being charged more than you would if you did it through the same supplier's website.
>It's actually more simple: they're protecting their own users from being ripped off, by being charged a premium because they're iOS users
Apple is trying to protect their own users from being ripped off by Apple? That's some _really_ twisted logic there.
That rule is in place to safeguard their 30% cut. I don't see how the user benefits from having to pay 30% extra instead of getting a 30% discount on the same supplier's website instead of paying Apple the tax.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, Windows 8 App Store will not restrict in-app purchasing like the iOS App Store does.
And the Mac App Store doesn't restrict anything either. What is your point ?
There will be iPad-like Windows RT tablets running on ARM with Metro apps from the Windows 8 marketplace. In that sense, it is directly comparable to the iOS App Store, at least to the extend of iPad apps.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's awful, and it's painful for everyone -- not just those using the DropBox APIs. The origins of these clauses are with iBooks and the Kindle app for iOS. I wrote about it in a recent blog post: http://davepeck.org/2011/11/04/kindle-clauses/
In terms of UX and as a consumer, I'd rather the Dropbox API not open a browser or even another app. That is not the best UX, it doesn't provide a security advantage, and it's simply not being done to benefit the consumer. This may not be Apple's primary rational for rejecting these apps, but I'm glad they're doing it. As for the payment question, simply in terms of UX and as a consumer, I want only one payment provi…
I think we're actually in agreement about the positive effect of these clauses, at least for some users. I certainly want simplicity and unity in my experience too.
We perhaps disagree about the motivations behind the clauses, but without inside knowledge I suppose we'll never know for certain.
The piece that perhaps I didn't express clearly enough: there are cases where developers -- even the good ones, who care deeply about doing the right thing for their users -- are boxed in and, no matter how much they would like to play by Apple's rules, are unable to for one reason or another. The result is often worse for users.
It's the unintended consequences of the "Kindle Clauses" that I find so interesting; that was what motivated my original blog post.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#197This is nothing new, they have been doing this for the past year with news and magazine agencies offering subscriptions. Its not in retaliation to Dropbox being in competition with iCloud, its just part of their guidelines for selling subscriptions through the app store. Old news people.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's awful, and it's painful for everyone -- not just those using the DropBox APIs. The origins of these clauses are with iBooks and the Kindle app for iOS. I wrote about it in a recent blog post: http://davepeck.org/2011/11/04/kindle-clauses/
In terms of UX and as a consumer, I'd rather the Dropbox API not open a browser or even another app. That is not the best UX, it doesn't provide a security advantage, and it's simply not being done to benefit the consumer. This may not be Apple's primary rational for rejecting these apps, but I'm glad they're doing it. As for the payment question, simply in terms of UX and as a consumer, I want only one payment provi…
The problem is Dropbox isn't exclusively an iOS app. So you can sign up for Dropbox directly and they get 100% of the fee or you can sign up through Apple and they get 70%. That might be more than their entire profit. They can't even make iOS purchases more expensive even if perhaps someone like you might pay 30% more for the privilege of a single payment provider.
The fact is that Apple is the one that requires apps to open the browser in the first place. It's rule upon rules upon rules. I'm an iOS user and I'm not happy with this aspect of platform, if that means anything.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no contradiction, Apple 'owns' the high end market where people actually pay for apps. But, as a percentage of overall phone / tablet OS there well under 40% so it's hard to call them a monopoly.
So... they have a monopoly on the end of the market where there is money? Why is this a distinction?
You can't have a monopoly on a portion of a market. The clue is in the first two syllables.
Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox
#200Are you complaining about the height of the fence of the walled garden?
Not to be meant as flamebait or trollposting, but as a brief reminder that this is a symptom of a closed ecosystem.
I'd love to add "Remove the cause and not the symptoms", if I only knew a way that could seriously be suggested. But as long as every Joe and his dog simply love the iPhone, OpenSource mobile revolution is in the land of unicorns and golden glitter dreams.