Live data from Hacker News

Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

macrumors.com

1–10 of 90 posts

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#3
A little OT, but I was actually thinking about the in-app subscriptions policy the other day as it applies to SaaS. I know that there was some email floating around that was supposedly from Steve Jobs saying it didn't apply, but I was curious if anyone out there has had an app rejected (or accepted, for that matter, since the policy took effect) for not accepting in-app purchases of subscriptions. We are thinking about beginning work on a companion app to a SaaS product. The app would be free, but step one is signing in to your account on the SaaS, which is not. There is also no free tier. We cannot afford to give Apple a 30% cut of our subscription price, so we are not planning on offering an in-app subscription purchase option. We would like to include a link that opens a page to the main site in a browser for those who don't already have accounts, although I know that is explicitly forbidden for apps that fall into the subscriptions category.

Any thoughts? Just curious what our chances of rejection are for something like this in the current "climate".

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#5
I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the same kind of game Microsoft played in the 1990's and by attrition have lost to the Linux/OSS movement.

Apple currently holds one trump card with Safari on IOS devices though. By restricting HTML5 Audio controls, and rendering engine speed, it prevents games and music web apps from being viable inside the browser.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#7
post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

[Meta]

Funny to see that your post has been grayed out, even though it's logical and makes a point. I would expect people who disagree to reply instead of downvoting. And yes, even though your topic is controversial, it passes the guidelines criteria.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#8
post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

It's the same kind of game Microsoft played in the 1990's and by attrition have lost to the Linux/OSS movement.

It doesn't seem to me like it's attrition-due-to-Microsoft's-practices that have led to their downfall ... it's because of the advantages of free / open-source on the back end and because of other-platform (web/mobile) disruption on the front end.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#9
post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

>I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps

Isn't this pretty much what Apple wanted in the first place?

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#10
post #7
post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

[Meta] Funny to see that your post has been grayed out, even though it's logical and makes a point. I would expect people who disagree to reply instead of downvoting. And yes, even though your topic is controversial, it passes the guidelines criteria.

Yeah if anyone can point out why Apple will be able to continue it's dominance over mobile apps with a 30% tax I'd really like to hear why.
Post reply on HN