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Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

> Statistically, Apple users are far more likely to spend money on apps and in-app purchases than on any other application platform. Mainstream users may feel entitled to free apps but Apple users typically don't fit that mold.

Yes, Apple users are willing to pay for software... once. But then they want that one payment to apply to every Apple device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, Vision Pro, etc. They don't want to pay separately for each Apple platform.

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What's your source for that? Apple subscriptions also dwarf the next closest provider. I don't think Apple users care about paying once or more than once so long as they have access on all their devices.

> What's your source for that?

My source is myself! I am an App Store developer. Did you miss the part where I said, "Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases"? This was because customers were constantly confused and complaining about it.

I wonder if this could be changed some if Apple allowed some different pricing models. I've never pushed an app to the app store, but I imagine it isn't granular enough for this. But if you could offer 3 price points. One price point for the software on each platform then perhaps like a bundled price point. Say, $5 for the mac version and $5 for the phone version. But $8 for both platforms.

I can see some frustration with idea of paying for the app full cost separately. But I think I would be less annoyed if I can pay for both in a single transaction. Even if it wasn't at a discount for the bundle, $10 for both.

> One price point for the software on each platform then perhaps like a bundled price point. Say, $5 for the mac version and $5 for the phone version. But $8 for both platforms.

Apple doesn't support this: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2023/12/4.html

Apple sells the story that with their technologies it's easy to port apps between platforms. Sometimes they do the work themselves to make it seem like that's the case, too. So the reason that users expect it is that Apple has conditioned them to think that it is the case.

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