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Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#631

Post by joking »

dbbk wrote: post #263
klaustopher wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world. That's what the 99$ fee for the developer program is for. The 50ct Core Technology Fee is just Apple showing the middle finger to successful developers. I hope the EU goes after this fee first. The whole reason for the DMA is that developers do not…

Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay. ...but the program fee already does that??

and what about the devices itself? doesn't apple get money from selling iphones and ipads?

The only downside I see on the DMA is that it has come very late, and that it's only an european law. Mobile devices are computers, and once sold you should be able to install whatever you want like on any other computer. The shame on apple is that it is increasingly difficult to install software even on the computers.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#632

Post by gcanyon »

dsissitka wrote: post #598
gcanyon wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little bit playing devil's advocate here, but: concerning how? > you have to have at least one million first installs annually on iOS to even qualify That's not what the site says at all? "Membership in the Apple Developer Program includes one million first annual installs per year for free for apps distributed from the App Store, alternative marketplaces, and/or Web Distribution." That seems to indicate that t…

Search for the first occurrence of million: > To be eligible for Web Distribution, you must: ... have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.

Ah, sorry, I missed that part. It's a weird distinction -- you could have one app with a million installs, and a million apps with one install each, and all could be installed from your web page?

So this points to the other thing I said, which is that there are very few developers that will meet this requirement.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#633

Post by ClassyJacket »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #600
gigatexal wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. Do you really fault Apple for wanting to hold onto their vice grip of the AppStore that gives them license to print money at ridiculous margins? I mean, their better angels would have them be so confident in the value of their own store that they'd allow other stores to compete on the merits but honestly ... if we were Tim Cook or in charge of Apple I think we'd all fight tooth-and-nail to keep this cash cow…

The benefit of the app store isn’t money. It’s the security of the ecosystem. 3rd party apps will begin a race to the bottom of fly-by-night iOS developers in it for a fast buck with no qualms about advertising and data trafficking. Before long we end up with what is seen in the Android system.

What is seen in the Android system? What's wrong with it? Been using Android phones for about 8 years with no problems.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#634

Post by CogitoCogito »

judge2020 wrote: post #620
dbbk wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay. ...but the program fee already does that??

I think you'd be hard pressed to take the $99/yr they make from the dev program fee and use it to cover the salaries for the engineers implementing and maintaining all of iOS' developer-facing APIs.

Why would that fee pay for all that? Why wouldn’t revenue from sales of iPhones pay for that?

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#635

Post by adrr »

verticalscaler wrote: post #340
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~20% of Apple's total earnings (not revenue) could come from the App Store: https://deepwatermgmt.com/apples-app-store-is-an-important-p... When you look at the multiple on services - the App Store could easily be >40% of Apple's total market cap. They're going to stick their fingers in their ears as long as they can to defend that. You don't give up the golden goose. You defend it.

That's a bit of an exaggeration financially. I think Apple is afraid 100% of their market cap depends on the App Store, just not so directly. Phones are "done". Geese don't live forever. Switching away is hard. In the not too distant future a $99 no brand phone will be equivalent to the iPhone experience for 80% of use cases, modulo the camera. If apps are just web apps and run on whatever hardware, Apple will need t…

IPhone is a status symbol. Why people buy designer purses or designer clothes. Someone people will look down on you if you text messages show up green on their phone.

Also IPhone still has more revenue opportunity. AI assistant is the next one. Chat GPT has proven people are willing to spend $20 a month on AI that doesn't even hook up to your email, calendar, or files.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#636

Post by CivBase »

judge2020 wrote: post #620
dbbk wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay. ...but the program fee already does that??

I think you'd be hard pressed to take the $99/yr they make from the dev program fee and use it to cover the salaries for the engineers implementing and maintaining all of iOS' developer-facing APIs.

Who decided that developers should be the ones paying for the development of those APIs in the first place? Are we just going to ignore Apple's own products and services that their platform allows them to profit off of? And the market share afforded to them by supporting popular third-party apps and services?

There's plenty of precedence for platforms being profitable even with free APIs - including Android, Windows, and even Apple's own MacOS. iOS is not special.

Apple would pay for those APIs whether or not the dev program fees alone were enough to cover the expenses. But they'll also take as much from the devs as they are legally allowed to. And if the fees are enough to keep devs from distributing outside the app store, even better for Apple.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#637

Post by bee_rider »

dbbk wrote: post #263
klaustopher wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world. That's what the 99$ fee for the developer program is for. The 50ct Core Technology Fee is just Apple showing the middle finger to successful developers. I hope the EU goes after this fee first. The whole reason for the DMA is that developers do not…

Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay. ...but the program fee already does that??

I’m not sure what % of their R&D budget comes from the $99 fee vs various other AppStore percentage based fees. But… should it be a flat fee? It seems sort of reasonable to charge more successful apps more, they are apparently benefiting more from the ecosystem, right? Like progressive taxation. (If anything, why not institute increasing developer “apple tax” brackets?)

It looks like, just from some random googling, Apple makes somewhere in the range of $85B per year from their App Store, and there are around 34 Million iOS app developers. Do people really want to pay north of $2000 for their developer licenses?

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#638

Post by ianlevesque »

badwolf wrote: post #557
ianlevesque wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to infantilize your relatives because they cannot be trusted with their devices, then MDM them, or even have that be the default. But we do not need to surrender in the war on general purpose computing for it.

Folks on this site vastly overestimate how much people who actually buy and use these devices care about literally any of the stuff being talked about in this thread. Apple's schtick was "It just works." that's what people like and want. They don't want to have to go thru and make choices, dig thru settings, install other app stores, explain to meemaw that the nice man cold-calling her telling her to install this spe…

Oh I agree that they don't care, but that doesn't mean that Apple isn't distorting the market in a way that some of us, the very technologists building the next round of innovation, find abhorrent. This is a case where the public can have it all. The defaults can be "it just works" without also ceding all control over who wins and loses and a significant chunk of revenue to Apple.

Re: Apple announces ability to download apps directly from websites in EU

#640

Post by jmholla »

jwells89 wrote: post #588
kmeisthax wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows on ARM will never materialize because Qualcomm can't make compelling hardware for it to run on. Keep in mind that the M1 at launch was as fast as a lot of Intel's lineup running emulated x86 apps . That's what Qualcomm needs to be able to pull off. If the performance is there then people will buy the laptops. That changes the developer story from "please recompile and retest your apps so they'll run on laptop…

Proficiency in emulating x86 is just one piece of the puzzle, though. It helped drive M1 adoption to be sure, but users also had a lot of confidence that developers would pull through and provide native binaries in a timely manner, catapulting the capabilities and battery life of their shiny new laptops even further. Apple and third party Mac devs had pulled it off twice already, so there was good reason to believe t…

> but users also had a lot of confidence that developers would pull through and provide native binaries in a timely manner, catapulting the capabilities and battery life of their shiny new laptops even further.

Yea. There was a real concerted effort by not Apple employees to get all these *modern* tools working on M1s. I remember at the company I was at, a small handful of engineers working diligently to get our internal dev software and processes working on M1s.

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