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An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

blog.readability.com

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Re: An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

#201

Post by diamondsea »

Bossman wrote: post #150
rimantas wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer to the first one is no, because you don't get their service in the app.

As far as I can tell, Apple's new guidelines wouldn't let them put that app in the App Store anymore. Apple's guidelines say you have to sell through the app using their API and can't sell anywhere else. And you can't link to a place where customers can buy your service outside of Apple's control.

They can sell other places, but not promote those other places within the app.

They could offer their subscription on their web site and collect 100%. Their app would then be required to offer the same subscription deal as an in-app purchase for the same-or-lower price, and then they would collect 70%. The app could not refer users to their web site for purchases.

Re: An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

#202

Post by writetoalok »

spullara wrote: post #187
writetoalok wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does Readability feel they deserve $0.30 but Apple doesn't? If Apple doesn't deserve $0.30, shouldn't the publisher/writer get the full $1? Without the articles, Readability is worthless. Without Apple, Readability for iOS is worthless. This is an interesting question that deserves thought. Readability provides publishers/writers with an application and a new medium to distribute their efforts. And for their eff…

"All developers use only iStore for any end user transaction" This isn't the case. The only state that you must offer the ability to buy in the app and they get 30% of that charge. You can still collect payment outside of the app on your website as well.

>You can still collect payment outside of the app on your website as well.

You're right, but you know what? They wouldn't allow a link to the App publishers website, where the end user could pay for services etc.

Re: An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

#203

Post by writetoalok »

OpieCunningham wrote: post #136
writetoalok wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does Readability feel they deserve $0.30 but Apple doesn't? If Apple doesn't deserve $0.30, shouldn't the publisher/writer get the full $1? Without the articles, Readability is worthless. Without Apple, Readability for iOS is worthless. This is an interesting question that deserves thought. Readability provides publishers/writers with an application and a new medium to distribute their efforts. And for their eff…

> All developers use only iStore for any end user transaction. This may be enforced by Apple on the grounds of providing a consistent and safe end user experience. But its is mostly to do with keeping a tight control over the market (end user) and their revenue stream. - Use only iOS for developing any Applications. Ditto said and actual reasons. - And now Apple also wants not only a 30% cut of the App sales (which i…

>iOS would be effectively identical to Android and no one would complain about this 30% because they'd just hop over to Android without a second thought.

Your point is not very clear here. Are you claiming that Android cannot be run on the iPhone (technology wise), or that iOS provides an API whereas Android does not? Both don't seem to be the case.

>In return, Apple believes they can charge fees for various methods in which a developer may choose to use the wide range of features Apple has created in their iOS eco-system.

My contention is that if Apple charges for the application usage revenue share for using iOS, then its fine. Also if Apple dictates that if an App is free to install for a customer (in which case it gets zero revenue from end user for iOS services), then it can charge a share of the subscription revenue. However, Apple dictates that it be paid 30% of the end user subscription revenue regardless of any distinction of whether the revenue is from the application, or for its content. (Yes there is a fine distinction between the two. To Apples credit some of these application are distributed for very low cost (near free), in which case Apples revenue share is disproportionate. But then Apple also charges an annual developer license fee!

>If Readability is "allowed" to charge the content owner 30% to give me that special Readability access, why can Apple "not" charge the developer 30% to give them access to that special Apple eco-system?

Of course Apple can, and it does charge developer 30% of Application revenue. It also charges $100/year per developer for its API. But what is not fair is that it also demands an additional 30% of subscription revenue. What has Apple done additional to providing an iOS environment and API (the first 30% cut) to warrant a subsequent subscription revenue share (blood sucking second 30% cut)?

>My entire point would be moot if Apple required 30% of all revenue from Readability regardless of whether the subscription originated from within the iOS app or from Readability's website - but Apple has not done that

- No link allowed to App publishers website to subscribe from there.

- Not allowed to use items which were subscribed outside iStore, unless it is also available in iStore.

These points reek of blood sucking greed. May Apples developers leave in droves to Android, and beat some sense into shitty Managers unfairly monopolizing Application development on its iOS platform.

Re: An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

#204

Post by foljs »

marshray wrote: post #183
kenjackson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how everyone used to say that Apple was benevolent due to their actions in the PC space. My argument was always they've never been in a position to really be aggressive. Now that they are in a borderline position they are quickly being a lot less benevolent. Does anyone honestly think if they had 90% PC/browser share they'd be "nicer" than Microsoft?

Apple is the company that has their police raid journalist's homes and confiscate all his computers because their dumbass engineer left his special phone in a bar. Say what you want about Microsoft, they never stooped to the level of _actual_ fascist Nazi crap like that.

Apple is the company that has their police raid journalist's homes and confiscate all his computers because their dumbass engineer left his special phone in a bar.

So,

a) if you were working on a prototype product,

b) and a dumb ass engineer of your company left it at a bar, where

c) a guy illegally took it (and even more possibly outright STOLE IT) and illegally sold the stolen prototype to a journalist

d) the journalist published an article revealing all the details of the new product (and making boat loads of cache in the process)

you would NOT have reported this to the police?!!!

(Oh, and the police takes orders from Apple now, not the D.A.? You are sure that the police wouldn't have raided the home of any journalist buying stolen prototypes worth millions of dollars if it was for any random company?)

Re: An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

#205

Post by isleyaardvark »

pak wrote: post #198
marchdown wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For somebody new to the whole iTunes Store ecosystem it is neither faster nor less mentally challenging to set up a new ITS account than it is to jailbreak their new device. It may strike you as obviously false, and it may well have been so two years ago, but when I got my new iPad after moving to another country I've spent about twice as much time getting iTunes to let me pay for apps in foreign App Store than I've…

Jailbreaking comes with all sorts of downsides. You may have gotten lucky, but also observe that every jailbreaking tutorial on the web has hundreds of comments from people who didn't get everything to work right and pleading for advice from others that will never come. From my experience, it turns older iPhones into a stuttering laggy mess and breaks visual voicemail, and makes you paranoid about every iTunes update…

Whether it's easy or not is irrelevant. There are other ways to do it, and Apple is under no obligation to support those methods or make it easy for them.

Re: An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection

#206

Post by redrobot5050 »

johnbender wrote: post #99
redrobot5050 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be more Android phones out there, but you also can't get to them through the Android Market. Not every country that has Android has an App Store that will accept commercial apps. It's getting bigger and growing faster, but Apple is still ahead of Android. Also, Apple's tools for developing are just superior. The Android SDK is an Eclipse/Netbeans Plug-in. Apple's is an 800MB-1GB version of XCode.

The metric you've used to measure "betterness" here appears to be sdk file size.

No, the metric here is Interface builder vs. the eclipse plugin for Android UI design. It's a lot harder to create an of equal or superior polish for Android.
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