12 ms·

Apple's strategy is simple. They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle

Apple's strategy is simple. They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy. That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.

threeseed 7y ago
You can release a free app and sell subscriptions through real world means e.g. advertising, PR. You control the customers and you pay Apple nothing. So this idea that Apple is forcing developers to do anything is nonsense.
- ubersync 7y ago
  This is totally incorrect. If you have an app on Apple store and sell subscripttions through your website, or other means, Apple forces you to sell the same subscriptions through their store.
  - rahoulb 7y ago
    I use Spotify, FreeAgent, Toggl, Zoom, Pipedrive, Asana and Trello (plus Basecamp previously) on my iOS devices - and pay for all of those through the respective websites without any option to pay in the App Store. (Edit: I know Spotify used to have an option for it but they dropped that and I never used it anyway)
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    It doesn’t force you, but if you don’t, you can’t even tell people how to subscribe. See Spotify, Kindle.
    - threeseed 7y ago
      You can tell people how to subscribe outside the app. But you just can't use Apple's own platform against them.
      - ClassyJacket 7y ago
        You can't link, at least, to an external website to buy https://www.pcworld.com/article/229880/Apple_Backs_Off_In_App_Subscription_Demands_Says_No_to_Buy_Links.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/229880/Apple_Backs_Off_In_Ap...
        Jagat 7y ago
        You can't even tell that such a thing exists. E.g., Audible only gives you an option to add to the wish list, and is mum about how to buy a book.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - hesarenu 7y ago
        So in a way apple is forcing them.
  - arien 7y ago
    Hm... The Amazon Prime app doesn't allow purchases in the app, you've got to purchase through Amazon and then you can watch them just fine.
- IMTDb 7y ago
  We are a B2B SAAS company offering analytics and marketing data. We wanted to offer our customer the ability to have a free app to interact with our service on their phone. We wanted our customers to subscribe on the web but not using in-app subscriptions. We are unable to release this app on the AppStore until we change our whole payment/subscription/billing stack to support Apple subscription system and agree to give them 30% / 15% of our revenues on those users (this is more than we pay for AWS, comparatively). Keep in mind that a good chunk of of revenues comes from custom plans, so I don't even know how that would work with Apple system. So much for not forcing developers to do anything.
  - johncolanduoni 7y ago
    Are you sure that you’re interpreting the guidelines correctly? Lots of apps serve content related to subscriptions/digital purchases that are signed up for on the web (Netflix, Prime Video, etc.). Or are you trying to use the app as an acquisition channel?
    - IMTDb 7y ago
      It does not matter how we interpret the guidelines. The fact is that our app has been developed and tested, but was rejected by the app store reviewer citing this reason. We believe we fall under the exception of "business databases" which are exempted from this restriction, but the reviewer does not believe so. Guess who won. We are not trying to use the app as an acquisition channel, we don't believe our customers would discover our service through an app store search. We want to make it more easy for our current customers to view their data on a mobile device, the app is pretty simple, coded in react native and also available on the play store.
      - neurostimulant 7y ago
        Can you release the app using enterprise distribution? While not ideal, this will at least allow your customers to use your app instead of getting nothing.
smartbit 7y ago
> That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning. I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law.
- geocar 7y ago
  > I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law. I think not. From the horses mouth[1]: Since the directive on unfair commercial practices (2005/29/EC) is in place, the misleading and comparative advertising directive has been applied only to business-to-business (B2B) relations concerning misleading advertising. [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/unfair-commercial-practices-law/misleading-and-comparative-advertising-directive_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/unfair-com...
  - smartbit 7y ago
    Your note seems not relevant to what misleading is. Please elaborate.
    - geocar 7y ago
      It's not relevant to my point, which is just about what the regulator is likely to do: That's been answered. For what "misleading is", see Article 2 (b) and especially Article 3 of Directive 2006/114/EC.
      - smartbit 7y ago
        In this verdict [0] of 18-02-2019 the Dutch Advertising Board came to the verdict Misleading "is de uiting misleidend en daardoor oneerlijk in de zin van artikel 7 NRC.". Are you stating that the Misleading verdict can not been given in EU countries in B2C advertisements? [0] https://www.reclamecode.nl/uitspraken/resultaten/huishouden-en-inrichting-2019-00055/242672/ https://www.reclamecode.nl/uitspraken/resultaten/huishouden-...
1-6 7y ago
Apple's strategy is simple because they had no strategy. They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online. In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.
- zepto 7y ago
  Exactly what software do you think they are behind on?
- mcaruso 7y ago
  > They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. Uh, what? iCloud is the umbrella term for all their cloud services. So they offer "no real cloud offering" besides all their cloud offerings?
- satyenr 7y ago
  > They're pretty far behind with software Examples? They are a platform vendor and have done no worse than other companies when it comes to their platform. Sure macOS has stagnated somewhat, but so have nearly all desktop platforms. Windows 10 started gaining momentum only when Microsoft realized that they had no scope in mobile space and had to save the last fort they had left. And to be honest, I do not consider Windows 10 to be massively superior to macOS. There is a reason they are building a Frankenstein's Monster by grafting a Linux kernel on top of Windows. And iOS, despite its problem, can't be considered as worse than Android -- the later has its own problems. At this point, OS platforms are as good as they are going to get. Barring a paradigm shift in computing, all we are going to see are incremental improvements. And IMO, that is not a bad thing. I, for one, do not want to see an interface redesign every other year. > no real cloud offering besides iCloud. That is like saying Google and Microsoft have no cloud offering besides Google Drive and OneDrive respectively. Or are you talking about GCP/Azure? If so, how is that relevant? Apple, unlike the other two, remains a consumer focused company with limited investment into enterprise. > In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion. What does that even mean? > They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online. Are you suggesting iCloud is not online?
irq-1 7y ago
> They want to retain control over their customers; Comcast also wants to retain control over their customers -- they want to sell customers internet access, while also selling ISPs and websites access to the customers. This strategy doesn't make the customer better off. If Apple treats their captive customers better than Comcast it's not due to any strategy of being a "middle man".
yalogin 7y ago
Arm-twisting? You are conflating two issues here. Every company wants to retain users and their business. That is how every company operates. You should judge a company on what they offer as an incentive to keep them. Privacy as a service on their platform is a great thing. Compare that to what other companies offer as incentives.
- smt88 7y ago
  > Every company wants to retain users and their business. I think GP's point is that Apple is doing this using lock-in, rather than having the best possible products. If there were multiple app stores for iOS users, you could argue that Apple is behaving just like every other business. But they're not. They're stifling competition to lock their customers in.
  - MBCook 7y ago
    Purely as a user, I don’t want to deal with 5 competing app stores. That sounds like a mess. I think there is a reason there is basically one App Store on each platform (outside desktops).
    - kgwxd 7y ago
      As a user, I don't want to deal with any app stores.
    - smt88 7y ago
      You don't have to deal with 5 stores. If you like Apple, use Apple's. The difference is in whether other people who dislike/distrust Apple have another option, and right now they don't.
  - manmal 7y ago
    Indeed, but which of the big tech companies does not use lock-in as a tool? Android Play Services, Google Photos, Amazon Prime, Facebook platform, any streaming service (library is „lost“ if you stop paying)..
bsder 7y ago
> They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. The cynical part of me sees this as an "Oh Shit!" reaction to businesses starting to circumvent the App Store. If Apple can make everybody on a iPhone dependent upon their single-sign-on, they can threaten businesses with access to it later.
thatoneuser 7y ago
Why do you say "privacy" as though it's not really that? It is privacy and privacy is immensely valuable these days. And what do you think Google and Microsoft and Facebook don't also try to control their customers? They do just as much but they also violate privacy.

threeseed 7y ago

You can release a free app and sell subscriptions through real world means e.g. advertising, PR. You control the customers and you pay Apple nothing. So this idea that Apple is forcing developers to do anything is nonsense.

ubersync 7y ago
This is totally incorrect. If you have an app on Apple store and sell subscripttions through your website, or other means, Apple forces you to sell the same subscriptions through their store.
- rahoulb 7y ago
  I use Spotify, FreeAgent, Toggl, Zoom, Pipedrive, Asana and Trello (plus Basecamp previously) on my iOS devices - and pay for all of those through the respective websites without any option to pay in the App Store. (Edit: I know Spotify used to have an option for it but they dropped that and I never used it anyway)
- dmitriid 7y ago
  It doesn’t force you, but if you don’t, you can’t even tell people how to subscribe. See Spotify, Kindle.
  - threeseed 7y ago
    You can tell people how to subscribe outside the app. But you just can't use Apple's own platform against them.
    - ClassyJacket 7y ago
      You can't link, at least, to an external website to buy https://www.pcworld.com/article/229880/Apple_Backs_Off_In_App_Subscription_Demands_Says_No_to_Buy_Links.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/229880/Apple_Backs_Off_In_Ap...
      - Jagat 7y ago
        You can't even tell that such a thing exists. E.g., Audible only gives you an option to add to the wish list, and is mum about how to buy a book.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - hesarenu 7y ago
      So in a way apple is forcing them.
- arien 7y ago
  Hm... The Amazon Prime app doesn't allow purchases in the app, you've got to purchase through Amazon and then you can watch them just fine.
IMTDb 7y ago
We are a B2B SAAS company offering analytics and marketing data. We wanted to offer our customer the ability to have a free app to interact with our service on their phone. We wanted our customers to subscribe on the web but not using in-app subscriptions. We are unable to release this app on the AppStore until we change our whole payment/subscription/billing stack to support Apple subscription system and agree to give them 30% / 15% of our revenues on those users (this is more than we pay for AWS, comparatively). Keep in mind that a good chunk of of revenues comes from custom plans, so I don't even know how that would work with Apple system. So much for not forcing developers to do anything.
- johncolanduoni 7y ago
  Are you sure that you’re interpreting the guidelines correctly? Lots of apps serve content related to subscriptions/digital purchases that are signed up for on the web (Netflix, Prime Video, etc.). Or are you trying to use the app as an acquisition channel?
  - IMTDb 7y ago
    It does not matter how we interpret the guidelines. The fact is that our app has been developed and tested, but was rejected by the app store reviewer citing this reason. We believe we fall under the exception of "business databases" which are exempted from this restriction, but the reviewer does not believe so. Guess who won. We are not trying to use the app as an acquisition channel, we don't believe our customers would discover our service through an app store search. We want to make it more easy for our current customers to view their data on a mobile device, the app is pretty simple, coded in react native and also available on the play store.
    - neurostimulant 7y ago
      Can you release the app using enterprise distribution? While not ideal, this will at least allow your customers to use your app instead of getting nothing.

smartbit 7y ago

> That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning. I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law.

geocar 7y ago
> I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law. I think not. From the horses mouth[1]: Since the directive on unfair commercial practices (2005/29/EC) is in place, the misleading and comparative advertising directive has been applied only to business-to-business (B2B) relations concerning misleading advertising. [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/unfair-commercial-practices-law/misleading-and-comparative-advertising-directive_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/consumers/unfair-com...
- smartbit 7y ago
  Your note seems not relevant to what misleading is. Please elaborate.
  - geocar 7y ago
    It's not relevant to my point, which is just about what the regulator is likely to do: That's been answered. For what "misleading is", see Article 2 (b) and especially Article 3 of Directive 2006/114/EC.
    - smartbit 7y ago
      In this verdict [0] of 18-02-2019 the Dutch Advertising Board came to the verdict Misleading "is de uiting misleidend en daardoor oneerlijk in de zin van artikel 7 NRC.". Are you stating that the Misleading verdict can not been given in EU countries in B2C advertisements? [0] https://www.reclamecode.nl/uitspraken/resultaten/huishouden-en-inrichting-2019-00055/242672/ https://www.reclamecode.nl/uitspraken/resultaten/huishouden-...

1-6 7y ago

Apple's strategy is simple because they had no strategy. They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online. In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.

zepto 7y ago
Exactly what software do you think they are behind on?
mcaruso 7y ago
> They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. Uh, what? iCloud is the umbrella term for all their cloud services. So they offer "no real cloud offering" besides all their cloud offerings?
satyenr 7y ago
> They're pretty far behind with software Examples? They are a platform vendor and have done no worse than other companies when it comes to their platform. Sure macOS has stagnated somewhat, but so have nearly all desktop platforms. Windows 10 started gaining momentum only when Microsoft realized that they had no scope in mobile space and had to save the last fort they had left. And to be honest, I do not consider Windows 10 to be massively superior to macOS. There is a reason they are building a Frankenstein's Monster by grafting a Linux kernel on top of Windows. And iOS, despite its problem, can't be considered as worse than Android -- the later has its own problems. At this point, OS platforms are as good as they are going to get. Barring a paradigm shift in computing, all we are going to see are incremental improvements. And IMO, that is not a bad thing. I, for one, do not want to see an interface redesign every other year. > no real cloud offering besides iCloud. That is like saying Google and Microsoft have no cloud offering besides Google Drive and OneDrive respectively. Or are you talking about GCP/Azure? If so, how is that relevant? Apple, unlike the other two, remains a consumer focused company with limited investment into enterprise. > In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion. What does that even mean? > They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online. Are you suggesting iCloud is not online?

irq-1 7y ago

> They want to retain control over their customers; Comcast also wants to retain control over their customers -- they want to sell customers internet access, while also selling ISPs and websites access to the customers. This strategy doesn't make the customer better off. If Apple treats their captive customers better than Comcast it's not due to any strategy of being a "middle man".

yalogin 7y ago

Arm-twisting? You are conflating two issues here. Every company wants to retain users and their business. That is how every company operates. You should judge a company on what they offer as an incentive to keep them. Privacy as a service on their platform is a great thing. Compare that to what other companies offer as incentives.

smt88 7y ago
> Every company wants to retain users and their business. I think GP's point is that Apple is doing this using lock-in, rather than having the best possible products. If there were multiple app stores for iOS users, you could argue that Apple is behaving just like every other business. But they're not. They're stifling competition to lock their customers in.
- MBCook 7y ago
  Purely as a user, I don’t want to deal with 5 competing app stores. That sounds like a mess. I think there is a reason there is basically one App Store on each platform (outside desktops).
  - kgwxd 7y ago
    As a user, I don't want to deal with any app stores.
  - smt88 7y ago
    You don't have to deal with 5 stores. If you like Apple, use Apple's. The difference is in whether other people who dislike/distrust Apple have another option, and right now they don't.
- manmal 7y ago
  Indeed, but which of the big tech companies does not use lock-in as a tool? Android Play Services, Google Photos, Amazon Prime, Facebook platform, any streaming service (library is „lost“ if you stop paying)..

bsder 7y ago

> They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. The cynical part of me sees this as an "Oh Shit!" reaction to businesses starting to circumvent the App Store. If Apple can make everybody on a iPhone dependent upon their single-sign-on, they can threaten businesses with access to it later.

thatoneuser 7y ago

Why do you say "privacy" as though it's not really that? It is privacy and privacy is immensely valuable these days. And what do you think Google and Microsoft and Facebook don't also try to control their customers? They do just as much but they also violate privacy.