Apple wins this in a walk-over.
And as an iOS developer, I get a lot of benefits from the App Store that makes their 30% more than reasonable.
And as an iOS developer, I get a lot of benefits from the App Store that makes their 30% more than reasonable.
Giving customers choice and encouraging competition is a good thing.
Opening up to other app stores would be a disaster for developers. Less secure, more scam are and malware, more confusing, lower consumer confidence, Balkanized app search, higher dev costs to support more stores, and for what? 20% fees at best?
Apples margins are publicly documented, no one could run a profitable app store for less than 20%.
How can you say that if apple didn't allow the competition to exist? We cannot see if someone can innovate enough to cut that margin maybe even far more than what apple made you think is the "minimum to be profitable" because apple does not allow that
Isn't this exactly the startup playing field? When there is a market standard of which some pseudo monopolist says "well no one can do better than this" and then a innovative competitor joins in and distrupts?
How come Google Play doesn’t cut their fees?
Maybe they will even just "compete orthogonally" instead of just trying to work around the parameters you talk about. I don't know... maybe a store without IAPs will be born where games cost more but you get the full game and you know the author is not gonna try to gamify-casino you. Maybe someone will make a store which allows me to buy an app both for android and iOS in a single purchase at a lower price than buying both separately.
Maybe whatever, I don't know, but I for sure want to know what I could get.
Google Play is proof that lower fees isn’t going to benefit devs. No third party store has been able to use lower fees to take any significant market share.
If that was entirely off the 30% App store cut, they clearly would not need anywhere near the 30% to cover their costs (net sales are >3x cost of sales). But, lumped together with other services its hard to say anything specific about App store.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20-Q3_Consolidated_Fin...
I don't want to prematurely insinuate that you or other's solutions would all have such characteristics but as a consumer I don't care how developers get paid and I enjoy the benefits of Apple's integrated UX around iOS payments and subscriptions.
But I am also a developer and enjoy benefits of open-ness and choice in my work as well so I struggle with my opinions on this issue.
But ok, you might want to cancel before you get the reminder email. Settings -> Your Name/Avatar -> Subscriptions -> Pick the app -> Big red "Cancel Subscription" button.
But ok, ok, you might not know that they're under your avatar which is fair, it's not entirely intuitive. Settings -> Search -> "sub" -> Subscriptions is the first result -> Pick the app -> Big red "Cancel Subscription" button.
But ok, ok, ok, you don't have your iOS device to hand. macOS Settings -> Apple ID -> Subscriptions: Manage... -> Edit the subscription (this is broken on the Big Sur beta, mind.)
If you don't have your iOS device(s) to hand, nor do you have a Mac handy, then I concede it's going to be a bit faff - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211011
You mean like Apple's solution?
If Apple wants to compete on offering a better, more seamless experience, there's nothing stopping them from doing so. I don't think anyone is arguing that Apple shouldn't offer payment processing altogether. A 30% cut and anti-competitive stance towards other payment methods don't feel like competing to provide the best experience to me though.
Perhaps you don’t have free versions of your apps, but Apple also pays to distribute unlimited free apps for no charge. And Apple spends roughly 50% of what you pay it on providing all these services, you can’t do them cheaper and you can’t do the most important on your own.
If I didn’t have to pay rent I could hire more developers, but my landlord isn’t holding me back, they are enabling me to close more business. You want lose sales on a worse App Store, I pray we don’t get waist you want.
You don't know what you're getting from Apple for 30%. Which is fine. This is Apple's gross mistake that you and others are not aware of the benefits they get.
You are completely clueless if you think payment processing is even a tiny fraction of what the App Store provides.
I cannot assume that a single person is not proficient in tax regulations in 155 countries around the world?
> Again, Stripe and others offer all of this for a much smaller fee.
I don't know who "others" are, but Stripe definitely doesn't offer that. https://support.stripe.com/questions/charging-sales-tax-gst-...
If you're using Stripe, you need to make sure you charge the correct tax, and it's your own responsibility to report it correctly in the countries that require it.
There are services on top of Stripe that can do that for additional fee (e.g. quaderno.io), but then again, it is worrying that you're not aware of your tax obligations taking worldwide payments via Stripe and also that you're not aware of what Apple provides you for 30%.
Not knowing either is fine, but I'd say both are Stripe's and Apple's faults that you are not aware of this.
Epic themselves charge 12% IIRC for their store.
You might say, if Fortnite were given away, Walmart wouldn't stock it, because it would just take shelf space. Perhaps that's true, but who says that Apple needs to give (virtual) shelf space to free apps?
They could hide away apps that don't bring them money. In fact, that's effectively what they're doing anyway: Unless you have tons of downloads or you get featured, you are invisible on the App Store.
Apple owns the building that allows apps to set up shop and sell their services. As part of that deal they get a cut of every sale.
They are hiding away Fortnight, because it’s demanding a free ride on a pay product.
I think they charge whatever they can get away with and meaningful competition will drive it down dramatically.
"We simply can't give you a raise, we don't have the budget."
I think if there was competition, their prices would drop dramatically, and that would show you how much it actually costs them.
Just having a healthy app ecosystem is probably worth more than the actual money you're pulling in from the apps themselves.
Sure, many other app stores provide extra value in their systems for in-app purchases and a developer might see fit to use that system since it reduces friction, but usually it is voluntary. Obviously, not every app even does in-app purchases.
This argument that Apple's rules around in-app purchases are necessary to pay for the ongoing maintenance of their platform is completely bizarre to me. That money is completely separate. What if Fortnite didn't have in-app purchases? It would cost Apple exactly the same amount of money to distribute it and to provide development tools (which, by the way, every developer pays $100 a year for up front anyway). Yet Apple wouldn't be making those juicy margins from in-app purchases. Would Apple be in the right to demand Epic add in-app purchases? Would you be making the same argument?
Anyway, if that's the argument Apple is going to use, they're fucked.
Interesting.
% charge for payments through apple pay
$ per million downloads/updates for hosting
or provide the ability to sideload or use third party app stores
That way app developers can choose whether Apples store is worth their overhead.
Are you telling me that millions of apps are just not using the store "correctly", that Apple would feature them if only they had "looked it up?"
I'm supposed to explain to you why your apps, of which I know nothing, keep selling?
For one, it might have something to do with the fact that you have been on the App Store for a decade and that your apps do actually show up in recommendations. Not every App gets that.
Secondly, whatever your Apps do, they might be referenced on aggregators. When I look for an App to solve a problem, I google it. Inevitably, I'll end up on some site comparing apps for that purpose. The App Store doesn't do anything for me here.
You need to understand that you're the exception and that your experience doesn't generalize.