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TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

blog.tinygrab.com

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Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#51

Post by dablya »

jordanroher wrote: post #11
e1ven wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a similar comment in the other thread about this. Regardless of whether or not it was noted earlier, it is behavior that many people consider unacceptable. Many App developers are being forced to change their practices, and find the new rules too burdensome to continue.

Many App developers are being forced to change their practices, and find the new rules too burdensome to continue. Which is the best solution to this problem. Please let this be the first use of the remote kill functionality. I have an iPad. While I would be a little sad to see big players like Netflix and Amazon pull their apps, I will be delighted with the uproar when the general public finds out about this. Unless…

Are you saying there is a chance that if somebody like Amazon pulls the kindle app from the store, Apple will remote delete already installed versions?

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#52

Post by rprasad »

zemanel wrote: post #45

is this even legal? imagine Microsoft asking 30% of sales for Windows based apps ...

It depends.

Apple is attempting to leverage its position in one market (hardware) to coerce another market (mobile applications). Under the historical antitrust analysis, this would have been a per se antitrust violation to even attempt this.

Now, however, antitrust laws are no longer enforce. During the Bush administration,the DOJ's antitrust department was effectively gutted, and antitrust was moved close to the bottom of the DOJ's list of priorities.

Obama hasn't changed the DOJ's antitrust priorities since he took office, so any enforcement of antitrust laws will have to come from the states. Basically, that means New York's Attorney General, since California's not going to kill one of its tax cash cows.

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#53

Post by kylec »

brownleej wrote: post #15
jarin wrote: post #12

I wonder how this works for apps connecting to APIs that they don't own. For example, if I'm not 37signals and I make a Basecamp app, would it get rejected because I don't have access to their billing API?

Along the same lines, how would this affect an email client that connects to a paid email service? Would be accessing content purchased outside the device?

Speaking of paid email services, there's no way to subscribe to Mobile Me with an in-app purchase. If Apple cared about fairly enforcing the rules, they'd yank iDisk and Find My iPhone until in-app subscription to Mobile Me was added.

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#54

Post by tjarratt »

kylec wrote: post #53
brownleej wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along the same lines, how would this affect an email client that connects to a paid email service? Would be accessing content purchased outside the device?

Speaking of paid email services, there's no way to subscribe to Mobile Me with an in-app purchase. If Apple cared about fairly enforcing the rules, they'd yank iDisk and Find My iPhone until in-app subscription to Mobile Me was added.

A small quibble: the Find My iPhone service is free for all iPhone4 (maybe all?) owners. That is a good point though, although the rule doesn't come into effect until June.

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#55

Post by tjarratt »

Andrex wrote: post #41

"Luckily for TinyGrab for Mac users we still have TinyGrab.com and Apple haven’t, yet, prevented anyone from downloading apps from the world wide web and installing them on their Macs without the Mac App Store." Key word: "yet."

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean it isn't true.

Honestly, I don't think blocking paying customers from installing applications and using root permissions effectively is a sound business strategy for the desktop / laptop / OS X market. A macbook pro is fundamentally different from an iphone.

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#56

Post by Sakes »

tomkarlo wrote: post #47
Sakes wrote: post #39

"Whatever you tax, you get less of." -- Alan Greenspan What Apple is doing could easily be compared to a tax. I don't see how anyone could expect to not see a significant number of apps and developers leaving the app store when presented with a 30% loss of revenue from the customers it generates.

That assumes they'd make 70% as much when re-using those resources to build for other platforms. If you make 30% less per customer selling on the iPhone, but you sell more than 50% more copies versus whatever else you'd do with that effort (Android, W7, RIM), it doesn't make sense to leave from a revenue standpoint. Android is great but I don't get the sense that many paid apps are doing volume there comparable to th…

I think what it really comes down to is profit margins. Over the years I've heard many times that a company with a 30% profit margin is a very profitable company. Apple is destroying any incentive for companies, operating at or below a 30% profit margin, to make their products available via the app store.

If a company is operating on a 30% profit margin, then apple is not taking away 30% of what that company is making off of that user, they are taking away 100% of what that company is making off of that user. At that point, the company is better off moving their developer resources towards creating additional functionality for other platforms to up sell current customers on.

You already have great services jumping ship like pandora and last.fm. I use pandora everyday, and if I can't get pandora on an iPhone, that is a purchase killer for me. These content providers are typically operating on a 10% profit margin, so I think they would actually lose money by servicing iphone users.

I do think development for the iPhone will continue for many of these companies for the time being, since as I understand it you can still install apps on the iPhone from outside the app store. But if this changes, I think many of them will cease to develop for it, since it would be economic suicide.

Please forgive me if I misused any eco terms above. After all Jim, I'm a programmer not an economist!

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#57

Post by netcan »

I may be missing something, but this seems like a mostly unnecessary move by Apple. At least it doesn't need to be so strong. What exactly are they trying to prevent here, developers getting around the 30% cut to Apple, crappy user experience?

For apps where it genuinely makes sense to have an in-app subscription option, developers will most likely add it in anyway. The increased conversion rate will make it worth it in many cases.

Not good enough? Start using app store exposure as a stick & carrot.

Don't want people to load an app and immediately be told to go sign up online? Ban apps that rely on subscriptions.

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#59

Post by kylec »

I understand the issue with Readability, Kindle, etc, but in this case, I'm having a hard time understanding why they simply can't charge for the app in the App Store. Their first reason is that using online accounts reduces piracy. However, while there is some iOS piracy, it's sufficiently difficult (jailbreaking, etc) that anyone that wants to pay for the app will do so. The second reason is that having an online account allows people to use the app on multiple devices, but the App Store explicitly allows multiple installations of a purchased app on multiple iOS devices, and I suspect that the number of people that want to use the app on multiple platforms (iOS, Android, etc) but wouldn't buy it more than once is quite small. Most people that can afford an iOS device and an Android device can afford to buy a $5 app for each device.

Re: TinyGrab abandons iOS because of new App Store rules

#60

Post by netcan »

msbarnett wrote: post #19
mryall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of companies just can't afford to have a group of users who cost the same as everyone else but only bring in 70% as much revenue. True, but it now seems like those who can are going to be the companies who succeed on iOS. It's sad to say it, but this is another situation where companies will need to adapt or die.

That's one possible outcome. Another possible outcome is the one in which iOS, now lacking access to Kindle, Netflix, Evernote, and anything else that made it the least bit useful and interesting, gets kicked to the curb in favor of something that actually supports a lot of consumers' interests. Frankly, the latter is a hell of a lot more likely looking from where I'm sitting.

You're assuming Apple is stationary here. At the moment, app availability is still much better for iOS.

If that changes, they can soften their policies.

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