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Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

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Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#91

Post by kristianc »

kjakm wrote: post #38
corobo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to 20 billion unjailbroken iPhones

Take away those apps and those iPhone's become useless bricks. Apps + developers add huge value to the platform.

The parent complains that apps on phones are mostly useless Barcode Scanners and scam QR readers.

Apple could easily do away with third party apps and sign licensing deals with third parties, and they’d still be massively popular. Most people download the same apps, and then there is an enormous long tail with barely any downloads at all.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#92

Post by Hamuko »

jw1224 wrote: post #60

Honestly, Apple's response is actually pretty reasonable, all things considered. Read the full letter — it was clear, fair, and professional — despite coming off the back of a lot of bad press. I see plenty of comments are focussing on this quote, re their Basecamp apps: > These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years Apple hav…

>Apple have (freely) provided Basecamp a platform to grow their business via the App Store, whilst giving Apple (effectively) nothing in return.

App Store has never been free for developers.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#93

Post by kjakm »

threeseed wrote: post #66
kjakm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take away those apps and those iPhone's become useless bricks. Apps + developers add huge value to the platform.

I think you are vastly overstating the importance of apps. Apple could easily remove the App Store tomorrow, sign deals with a dozen or so companies e.g. Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, Snap, Google, Microsoft etc and they would still sell devices.

I think if you think back to 2007/8 and people had the choice of Android with millions of apps and a higher priced iOS ecosystem which only has some high profile apps so few people would choose iOS that it would quickly become a waste of money for FB/Twitter/MS to build their apps for it and it would die.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#94

Post by imtringued »

gecko wrote: post #53
rvz wrote: post #17

Maybe they should follow what Netflix is doing, since they don't have in-app purchases in iOS which is why they don't allow registrations at all and force you to sign up on the web. Not sure about Netflix's Android app though, but Google has sort of done this to Epic Games but only allowing logins and no registrations + card checks might bypass the Apple 30% tax.

They did—or at least, are trying to. The issue is Apple is saying, based on unwritten rules, that Netflix is allowed to do it, while Hey isn’t. And that’s the crux of the problem

Read the article and Guideline 3.1.3(a). The rules aren't unwritten. Stop making things up.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#95

Post by detaro »

Uhrheber wrote: post #71

Do they also ban apps that show public transport schedules, because you can't buy tickets through them?

That's really a nonsensical example. An app not having a feature to pay for something is very different from an app requiring to buy something elsewhere.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#96

Post by CJKinni »

jw1224 wrote: post #60

Honestly, Apple's response is actually pretty reasonable, all things considered. Read the full letter — it was clear, fair, and professional — despite coming off the back of a lot of bad press. I see plenty of comments are focussing on this quote, re their Basecamp apps: > These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years Apple hav…

> Apple have (freely) provided Basecamp a platform to grow their business via the App Store, whilst giving Apple (effectively) nothing in return.

I've purchased an expensive phone mainly so that I can have access to a high quality ecosystem of apps. Apps like Basecamp and Hey are part of that for me. Apple gains so much from the breadth of high quality apps on the app store, including free apps. If they begin to see free apps as giving them effectively nothing, I see that as an indication that they no longer value the reasons I go to them as an iOS user.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#97

Post by wlll »

villgax wrote: post #3

> We understand that Basecamp has developed a number of apps and many subsequent versions for the App Store for many years, and that the App Store has distributed millions of these apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years. They literally have paid 8 years of Developer Program fees for supporting the AppS…

There is also the missing other side to this argument, and that's without third part apps Apple couldn't sell it's phones that it surely makes a decent amount of money on. Without third-party app authors Apple couldn't sell it's phones. Perhaps Apple should be paying them?

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#98

Post by rydre »

snarf21 wrote: post #16

It seems like we soon see movement on this issue given the EU antitrust and other social unrest. People are tired of things being not only unfair but not even remotely reasonable. It is laughable that Apple Music on Android doesn't use the built in IAP but forces you to pay via Apple. This will come back to haunt them. It doesn't matter that the ToS don't forbid this but in civil suits, it doesn't give them a leg to…

The ego is going to kill future growth of the company. Investors, beware.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#99

Post by stephenr »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #57
stephenr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get $300 from? The developer program is $99/year regardless of how many apps you have.

Enterprise account is $300 https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/

An enterprise account is not required to ship public apps. It's specifically designed for those who want to ship private apps, which I'm pretty sure Basecamp don't do.

Re: Apple sends a letter to Hey: Change your app or get out of the App Store

#100

Post by threeseed »

libertine wrote: post #65
threeseed wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you have never run a startup. Otherwise you would realise that having an effective and profitable channel to market is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Apple gives you one on a silver platter and for a pretty fair cost per acquisition compared to other channels.

>Apple gives you one on a silver platter and for a pretty fair cost per acquisition compared to other channels. For the Apple system, isn't that the only available channel to sell and distribute apps? It's not like there are other alternatives, or am I missing something?

Facebook, Google, Twitter etc all offer advertising products targeted at app installs.

So if you imagine a fictitious world where anyone could just install apps off the web then you would need to buy ads through the main 3 players above to get any visibility. Just like how it works today for SaaS or eCommerce products.

And given that we know roughly how much CPC and volume is for certain keywords e.g email app then it's easy to get a picture of whether Apple is being unreasonable or not.

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