61–70 of 369 posts
Something odd about this argument is the fact that 30% is pretty much an industry standard. Apple isn't jacking up the price.
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The market is too small? Let's try comparing it to a more "conventional" market, like cable TV. Total iOS app store revenue is somewhere within the neighborhood of $50-100 billion per year. That puts it roughly on par with the US's cable television industry. There are about 100 million people using iPhones in the US alone. That's about twice the number of cable TV households in the US. So, it seems like the market fo…
But you had other smartphone options, and you chose to buy Apple's solution. In making that choice, you were not just buying a piece of general-purpose hand-held computing hardware, you were buying into to a specific, explicitly-curated ecosystem of software and services. Apple's gatekeeping role here was a significant part of the iPhone's value proposition. If that's not what you want, or if you think it is overpric…
In the EU we had a ruling that forced Microsoft to offer choices for web browsers when installing Windows for the first time. I.e. IE wasn't set as the default browser by default. They were forced to do this for 5 years, I think so people become aware that there are other choices out there besides IE. They should do the same for the AppStore. When you set up your iPhone, it should give you an option of AppStores, not…
It would be just enough to allow people to install third party apps without having to use app store.
I know part of the value proposition of Apple is actually not letting user download apps from sites, but then something like Udemy model where the cut varies if you bring the user or they bring the user, could make sense.
Then Apple taking the cut as referral wouldn't feel that bad.
So, since Apple is the only company "buying" apps from developers, they could raise their cut as high as they want and developers can do nothing about it. Could Apple then argue that they aren't the only game in town because of things like subscriptions and web apps? (e.g. I don't pay for Netflix or Spotify through Apple, but the apps work fine)
Also, please omit webapps on iOS Safari as an alternative. Apple gives no explanations on why it cripples Safari's W3C compatibility, especially features around PWA, but everyone knows it's to drive developers, users and hence revenue/profits to the app store. Someone needs to sue Apple for this, and the truth will be revealed when the case enters discovery mode, when Apple internal communications on this are laid ba…
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I don't think we need to divide the market into specialized segments (iOS devices, luxury smartphone, etc) to make the case against Apple. They have somewhere around 50% of the global market in terms of smartphone revenue (not devices shipped). For the App Store, which is what matters to developers, revenue was around $25 billion in the first half of 2019, vs $14 billion for Google Play Store. It's not literally mono…
"Reasonable" would be to charge a fixed transaction fee plus a percentage that doesn't scream "dysfunctional market!". Microsoft takes 5% for selling apps in the Windows store. That may be a bit desperate given that these stores aren't just payment services but act as merchants of record, taking care of international taxes, billing and running an actual store. I wouldn't complain for a second if store fees were in th…
1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it.
2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c.
Which one is is?
Apple is like Tesla. They don’t sell more cars than anyone else. They don’t have a stranglehold over vendors. They sell more luxury cars than a bunch of other people. And while you see lots of Teslas on the road, you still see more F-150s.
Their market is insanely profitable, and for many developers, their little market is highly profitable. But how is it their fault that app developers don’t shun them for Android-only, or Windows (do they still make a phone OS?)
Apple make their own devices. They don’t license an OS and then use shenanigans to force vendors not to offer consumers a choice, like Microsoft did.
They make a desirable product, and offer developers a desirable market. But they don't have enough of the market to do whatever they like.
They can’t charge $5,000 for a phone and succeed because of network effects. Android phones can call and text Apple phones.
They don’t tell developers that apps must be iOS-exclusive to be in the app store.
Apple’s current success is exactly what the free market is for. People may grumble about the price of a phone or the keyboards, or the app store cut, but those who pay it do so because the value is there, not because of arbitrary constraints.
They aren’t Facebook. Nobody has to buy an iPhone to keep in touch with all their friends who have iPhones.
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I thought Apple was the originator of the 30% cut for app stores, and everybody else followed suit?
Yes, this is true. People forget that there were phones before the iPhone decided all phones would be rectangles with touchscreens. Those phones ran apps and games, and you downloaded them from app stores... there was in fact a cambrian explosion of app stores, when you made software you had to publish it to hundreds of them. I can't remember the %, but it seems unlikely, in the fact of all that competition that it w…
Many of the J2ME etc app stores prior to Apple were run by network carriers, and their cuts were considerably higher than 30% - upwards of 50%, even more for things like direct carrier billing (the app would be charged to your phone bill).
Something odd about this argument is the fact that 30% is pretty much an industry standard. Apple isn't jacking up the price.
There is more going on besides price. The review process is also completely arbitrary. I don't like the whole thing that the only place to get apps is the app store. I will never buy any apple device as long as that is in place.