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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

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Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#321

Post by TillE »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #222
mewse wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't need to distribute on Steam. [...] alternatives exist. Sure, if you want your business to go bankrupt. Itch? I love the place but good luck supporting your business with the number of sales you’ll make if you’re only available there. Epic? GoG? Humble? Those are curated stores; you have to be invited in; you can’t just choose to sell there. And even if you could, they still don’t have anything even remote…

Minecraft didn’t distribute on Steam, they managed just fine. Neither does Fortnite come to think of it.

You're talking about a once-in-a-generation indie hit (which arguably started before Steam was omnipresent), and a game which was made and published by a big company. This is not the norm.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#322

Post by grishka »

kmeisthax wrote: post #302
grishka wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even the 30% cut itself. It's the inevitable necessity to go through Apple if you want any presence on iOS. The only solution I see here is to allow proper sideloading. Apple keeps trying to spin the app store as a way for users to discover apps, when in reality, the reason developers publish their apps there is that it's the only way onto the millions of iOS devices worldwide.

Personally, I think the iOS App Store would still maintain it's market positioning even without iOS's technical lockout. Most people stay on the first app store they see and hate having to switch to new ones. First mover advantage is everything; look at the relative uptake rates of Steam vs. Origin or Epic Games Store.

I'm not even talking about alternative app stores. Just let me distribute my app to my users from my server, without Apple inserting itself where it doesn't belong.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#323

Post by coder543 »

user-the-name wrote: post #278
coder543 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, instead of providing APIs to help make those apps less sketchy... Apple decided it would be easier to just ban them. Apple clearly thought they were valuable enough to customers to keep around before the release of Screen Time, even with the sketchy method they had to use.

Because those APIs can be used for extremely sketchy activity.

Many APIs can be used for sketchy things. Supposedly, that’s one thing the App Store review process is meant to catch.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#324

Post by ginko »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #194
pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

> to it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. Oh please. Has it ever occurred in the history of the world that the selfish motives of two different parties aligned? i.e. Apple gets good press for helping smaller developers and the smaller developers get increased revenues. It happens all the times, and it's called "good business". You can keep waiting for Apple's App Store executives to cover them…

I'm not waiting for Apple to repent. I'm waiting for the company to be broken up.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#325

Post by ilamont »

Developers are not the only small businesses subject to Apple's 30% commission. Ebook publishers also have to pay the 30% commission to Apple for inclusion in Apple Books.

Then there are the indie musicians in Apple Music and indie video publishers in Apple TV. I don't know how much their rates are, but if it's anything like Spotify or Amazon Prime it's not much.

Will these other indie producers get a break too, or is it just developers?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#326

Post by jonplackett »

fnayr wrote: post #73
jonplackett wrote: post #65

You can always bash Apple but this seems like moving in a good direction. It would have put about $75,000 in my pocket had it been this way when my only successful app was in the App Store. That would have been nice!

~$340k for my apps. This is why I thought they would never make a change, because people would be upset without retroactivity (which they would never do).

Ouch. But also, well done on $2 mill+ in sales! What app was/is it?

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#327

Post by [deleted] »

todd3834 wrote: post #317

Anyone who thinks this is just a PR move doesn’t know what it is like inside the walls of Apple. They truly care about developers and they love indie developers. To me this sounds like they took the feedback they were getting from big players pretending to be standing up for the little guy and realized they had a point. Even though the feedback was delivered in the most hostile way they still saw that small businesse…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#328

Post by macinjosh »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #101
breakfastduck wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but many of the larger players who are willing to go to war use the 'its not fair on smaller developers' argument against them. This really slaps down the ability to use that.

A lot of small devs are going to be over this threshold.

Good for them! That's a lot of money.

Re: Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

#329

Post by danShumway »

pja wrote: post #173

I’m seeing a lot of positive comments on HN about this: to me it seems to be purely a cynical piece of PR on Apple’s part. They hope to significantly reduce the pressure on politicians to take a close look at their App store practices by significantly reducing the absolute number of developers suffering the full impact whilst taking the minimum possible hit to their revenue. This has nothing to do with “doing the rig…

This news doesn't mean people shouldn't continue to put pressure on Apple and legislators to address the core issue (app store competition), but it's still really good news for small developers.

It should also solidly put down all of the arguments we were seeing about whether indie devs and lawsuits putting pressure on Apple and legislators are at all worthwhile. A drop in app fees by 15% is a substantial win, and the reason that drop happened is because Apple is now scared of critics, bad PR, and how that might impact future legislation against them.

The number of hot takes I was seeing about how the Apple/Epic fight benefited literally no one and it was just two companies arguing about who got to take all the money... it's very clear from this program that the overall pressure on Apple has been making a difference.

It's not so large a difference that devs should now stop fighting for better terms, but it's positive to see Apple at least partially show signs of cracking, or at least acknowledge on some level that they're frightened about the potential outcome of this fight. And there are a lot of small devs who are going to be making a lot more money just because of this minor victory.

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