This is pretty ridiculous. There's very little comparison.
1. Apple didn't respond to a letter from Taylor swift in < 24 hours - this had been building for a week or two as large indie labels made their opinions public and let's not forget it's rumoured that Apple was having difficulty signing any indie labels. I would be shocked if Apple hadn't been considering this for weeks already.
2. App devs - of which I am one - get a decent deal. It's simple, clear cut, and quite high especially when compared with how things are in brick and mortar stores.
3. There is no comparison here anyway. When Apple TELLS developers that you can only have your apps on the store if you give up 3 months of revenue then there is one.
It's nonsensical to compare to brick-and-mortar stores. We didn't go from brick-and-mortar to the App Store. We went from direct internet sales, where we got to build whatever we wanted, ship updates instantaneously, and keep 98% of the revenue, to the App Store.
One nice advantage of the iOS ecosystem is that installing a new app is risk free. I have a relative that uses an iPad as their primary computing device. They install new apps all the time, as opposed to their laptop, which they are afraid that they will mess up.
Apple made a new market, and is charging for access to it.
I believe that you're still free to sell your apps on Android or jailbroken iOS devices, direct over the internet.
> I believe that you're still free to sell your apps on Android or jailbroken iOS devices, direct over the internet.
Trying to compare jailbroken iOS devices to the pre-iOS days is nonsensical. You're limiting your userbase to those with both the technical know-how and the motivation to continually re-jailbreak their devices as Apple fights tooth and nail to prevent said jailbreaking.
Your argument re: jailbroken devices would be more relevant if iOS followed the Android model of "here's an app store, but you can check this box here if you're fine with the risks of installing things from outside of our app store". Until that happens, it's pure nonsense, as I'm sure you're already fully aware of.
As I said earlier, apple made a new market, and is charging for access to it.
There is value in the marketplace they've created. They've collected a lot of users and given them an easy way to pay. Their market is expensive to maintain - their rules mean that applications are safe enough to install without thinking twice. There is essentially no iOS malware.
It's somewhat like complaining about the right of console manufacturers to limit and profit from the software that runs on their platform. If you want different rules, use a different platform.
Is it ridiculous to limit your potential userbase to android users, or users savvy enough to jailbreak devices? That is not apple's problem, that is your problem.
One might wish for iOS policies to be different, but there is no intrinsic right for them to be different.
It's really irritating to make a complaint about someone's behavior and get the inevitable response that "it's their right to do so."
Yes, it is. So what? It's still crappy behavior and I can still complain about it. To paraphrase xkcd, this is almost the ultimate concession, where the best thing you can say about what they're doing is that it's not literally illegal.
I object to it as a user as much as I do as a developer.
Historically, a third-party software ecosystem benefits everyone. Apple is trying to suppress that to the detriment of both their developers and their users, for their own gain.
The comparison with game consoles is ridiculous. I mean, it's accurate, but why would you bring that up? It's not like I approve of how they do it either.
> There is value in the marketplace they've created.
I'd argue said "value" is artificial or inflated (inclusively), but whatever.
> It's somewhat like complaining about the right of console manufacturers to limit and profit from the software that runs on their platform.
Something which I do actually object to in a lot of circumstances, since it presents a significant barrier to entry for "indie" developers. Thankfully, though, at least game consoles' arbitrary restrictions are typically easier to permanently circumvent (though perhaps this is starting to change).
> If you want different rules, use a different platform.
And I do; I've been an Android user exclusively for the last few years after I got sick and tired of continually jailbreaking my iPhone just to install apps that Apple didn't approve of.
> Is it ridiculous to limit your potential userbase to android users, or users savvy enough to jailbreak devices?
I have no problem at all with the former. It's the latter that's absurd. At least in the former, one doesn't have to jump through seemingly-endless hoops to maintain a semblance of user choice.
> One might wish for iOS policies to be different, but there is no intrinsic right for them to be different.
You're right. There's also no intrinsic requirement for me to, say, let houseguests bring their own food for a party at my house. That doesn't make me any less of a dick for painstakingly inspecting and rejecting each individual platter and charging each food-bringer a $100 "food preparer fee" in order to serve said food at my party.
The walled garden is pretty and all, but all walls eventually crumble, and forests are way more fun anyway.
The marketing picture hasn't changed for 99.999% of developers. Unless you're fortunate to get featured by Apple, you still have to do all the work yourself.
So nobody who has an app in an app store has to advertise anymore? I see advertisements for Wix all day long on Bloomberg TV, perhaps someone should tell them that they should have just put an app in Apple's store.
Apple is processing those purchases and providing access to its vast collection of payment information. That has a lot of value. The amount purchased through Apps if each one had to ask for and process credit cards would be _far_ lower. I would never provide my card to some random app dev, but I'll happily drop $1 or $2 in a decent app/game that I'm enjoying.
Regardless of how much value it provides, we have no choice if we want to sell on the platform. In a hypothetical world where we could either sell ourselves or go through Apple, if it really provided that much value, everyone would still go through Apple. I kind of doubt that would be the case.
Well it would be nice if you could buy IAP from some other well-known merchants (for example, if you could pay MLB.tv directly to subscribe from the app rather than buying a subscription by paying Apple), but imagine the UX if every single app used their own store and you had to enter your card number for every different app, and all of the people demanding refunds from Apple when Apple had nothing to do with the purchase. Imagine how many people would give their credit card to an app thinking it was Apple they were trusting, then their card gets stolen.
It might be distasteful, but it makes sense from a risk avoidance standpoint
I agree there are some costs, but I think that the amount Apple feels entitled to take is still distasteful. As there is no competition, the pricing is quite high.
That "no competition" stance requires defining that Apple has a monopoly on selling their own products, which is true, but fairly useless. In the larger market in which iOS is a participant, they have quite a competitor in Google, with a number of also-rans clawing for attention.
Agreed. One other thing to note—Apple doesn't prohibit timed trials of content. In fact, Apple supports it and builds in free subscriptions. What they prohibit is apps that completely stop working after a trial period. But they allow apps to have some functionality cease after an introductory period.
This is completely true. Apple's absolute control over their ecosystem is not just a drawback -- it's also a significant benefit of them. There are far fewer apps in the Apple store than the Play store that are DOA, and the general quality of apps is far higher. Although it's somewhat contrary to the modern spirit of development, Apple's policies have proven to be a very good method of quality control.
I hear this constantly, and if you base your judgements on top-tier apps that are recommended via various techie sources, it's absolutely true. But if you start searching blind, you're quite likely to end up trying out or purchasing some truly craptacular iOS apps. I've been a split iOS/Android for 5 years or so, and am always flummoxed at this claim.
I can see how my claim comes off that way, but I really just meant "better quality" as "adhering to the basic best practice principles for mobile," not as a claim on design quality or usefulness. A ton of apps on the Play store really don't even function correctly.
#2 is true, but what the article points out that it's mainly an app store reform that the indie devs have been asking for for seven years now - to no avail, app discovery is still pretty much non-existent in the app store outside of the top listings and the 'featured apps'.
Sure. If you're an indie dev you get 70% of all purchases. No complicated contracts, no middle-men, no varying deals in different countries and distribution is as simple as uploading a file to Apple. With musicians they get almost the same % but it also has to go through a ton of middle men and the deals vary around the world. They're also locked in at a single price point (the streaming rate). Finally with brick and mortar stores the deals were much, much worse and if you couldn't get a deal you couldn't sell your software. With pure online distribution you had to build a website, payment system, update mechanism, manage DRM/serials and if you didn't market heavily you wouldn't make a penny because no one would know you exist.
I've read this a few times, and I'm still failing to understand what, specifically, indie app developers have been demanding "for over six years." Apple isn't going to publicly respond to every support ticket filed in less than one day - this really are apples and oranges
(Not to mention, the answer from Apple could be 'no' in both scenarios.)
3. App Store search results that are actually relevant
4. Ability to respond to negative reviews
5. Mac App Store sand boxing that doesn't suck
Of course, there are many more issues but the primary problem is that Apple has addressed exactly zero of these issues and the App Store itself is virtually unchanged after 5+ years.
Right, Swift had one very specific and timely request for a new product. That's not comparable to, "There's a bunch of stuff that's needed fixing for years."
1. Apple didn't respond to a letter from Taylor swift in < 24 hours - this had been building for a week or two as large indie labels made their opinions public and let's not forget it's rumoured that Apple was having difficulty signing any indie labels. I would be shocked if Apple hadn't been considering this for weeks already.
2. App devs - of which I am one - get a decent deal. It's simple, clear cut, and quite high especially when compared with how things are in brick and mortar stores.
3. There is no comparison here anyway. When Apple TELLS developers that you can only have your apps on the store if you give up 3 months of revenue then there is one.