5 ms·

Is tomorrow Armageddon for Mac developers?

72 points by dholowiski 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago
Only a little. While prices will get driven down, the total amount of money getting spent on Mac apps will increase hugely. I've been using macs since the days of the Plus, but when was the last time I actually paid money for a boxed piece of software apart from MS Office? Probably about a decade ago. And I'm not talking about piracy -- I just haven't felt a sufficient desire for any third-party piece of software that would entice me to go down to one of the very few places where such things are available by retail (even the Apple Store has a rather embarrassing small corner of mac software). It's times like this I wish I had some time to actually write some Mac apps.
geoffpado 16y ago
No. http://bit.ly/a4Qb2Z http://bit.ly/a4Qb2Z EDIT: Bit.ly'd because apparently HN doesn't allow apostrophes in links.
- nfg 16y ago
  Link that works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines
  - geoffpado 16y ago
    Derp. Thanks, completely forgot about URL encoding.
amichail 16y ago
Doesn't the smaller Mac market mean that prices will be higher than those for iOS?
- xenophanes 16y ago
  Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. If iOS developers try to sell a ton of copies for a dollar, they'll soon discover there are less people buying. Prices may go down some but they won't hit iOS levels.
pwelch 16y ago
IMHO The author is blowing this out of proportion. He is comparing an iPhone photo editing app to PhotoShop or asimple iPhone game like chopper to games like Halo. These are two different levels of software. It is amazing what software can be written for mobile apps today but they are still not as fully functional as their desktop equivalents. The Mac App Store is going to be a big push for Desktop App developers to lower their costs slightly but you are still getting more functionality out of Pages for Mac OS X rather than Pages for iPad. Though Mobile Apps may continue to grow as an industry I think we are still a few years away from seeing a serious threat to high functionality desktop applications.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- wzdd 16y ago
  Also, iPad applications seem to be up to twice as expensive as iPhone applications -- even if they're essentially the same app. I expect the same mystical price expansion will happen for Mac apps.
  - bigfudge 16y ago
    I always thought this was a result of developers realising they started too low with the iphone and adjusting accordingly.
boredguy8 16y ago
These used to be shareware-level games that (at best) would get bundled for $5 with 99 other games and the author hoped for some payment (or would unlock a feature for a small price). So think of it as a massive pricing increase, not a price decrease. As fun as, say, Angry Birds is, it doesn't compare to, say, Worms 2. Seriously: I remember playing an Air Hockey line-drawn 3D game on my friend's Macintosh LC (I think it was). His dad had downloaded it free. I'm not denigrating the work of these devs: let's just not pretend we're creating epic worlds and employing hundreds of designers for these releases. And as always: if your product is worth more, people will pay more for it. If you've been able to keep your price high solely because of some platform insulation, be happy the ride lasted as long as it did.
- iuguy 16y ago
  > As fun as, say, Angry Birds is, it doesn't compare to, say, Worms 2. Except for me Worms is currently £1.79 for the iPhone. Worms 2 is £2.99. I get what you're trying to say, but this Christmas EA had their games on sale for 59p (about 99c I think) and they were mostly good games too. The Mac game market is nowhere near as mainstream as PC and Consoles, and there's a risk that mainstream developers may choose not to port games if they're competing with £2.99 games with equivalent quality to Worms 2 or Fifa 11 on the iPhone (in terms of use of native platform).
bad_user 16y ago
Prices are dictated by the market, since everybody wants to generate as much profit as possible. Not to mention covering development costs as soon as possible. iOS is more popular than OS X. Selling for iOS means more copies sold. It's not hard to do the math and nothing stopped the hordes of iOS developers from attacking the OS X market anyway. If anything this will provide a channel for crappy apps that you can develop in a weekend and still generate some revenue for it (instead of giving it away for free). And Windows has had a shareware culture for quite some time (tones of crappy games included, e.g. Zuma). It did nothing to stop the selling of quality apps for higher prices, as prices are only affected by other apps in the same category.
tednaleid 16y ago
Sure the price will drop by an order of magnitude, but the number of units sold will skyrocket. I bet by at least that same order of magnitude. The current number of units sold by a developer through their own store is microscopic. The incremental cost for selling another unit is almost zero. The ability to be part of a store that every mac computer has installed automatically, with super easy purchasing, credit card processing, and installation, will offset the drop in price. It also gets developers out of the business of maintaining their own storefront, payment processing, etc. A cost that is a burden on many of the existing developers.
jokermatt999 16y ago
Nope. Look at Steam, for a good example. There are plenty of indie games priced at the ~$10 dollar level, and there are also AAA titles priced at ~$60. Neither one has doomed the other. The games market allows for simpler, low priced indie games, but there is still space for the blockbuster games that cost 5 times as much. They're different products, and different markets. I don't know enough about Mac software to speak for that though. I'm a Windows/Linux user, and virtually every piece of software I use is free or a corporate application.
- dmix 16y ago
  But most mac apps are created by indie shops. Are there ever any "Blockbuster" mac app releases? You rarely see marketing for mac apps. Most of the big names (ex photoshop, word) are so established that they don't need to bother worrying about price (or possibly even using the app store). But still thats a small percentage of the market.
  - alxp 16y ago
    Omni Group are the best example of a great Mac developer that isn't huge like Adobe or MS. They sell best-of-their-kind software for the iPad for quite high prices, and are doing very well. I don't see this changing in the Mac app store.
kemiller 16y ago
The app store means * nearly zero worry about piracy* * much much easier discovery process for average users * much higher purchaser confidence (due to b and c) * lower purchase activation energy All of these together mean that apps which traditionally scraped by as shareware, thrilled if they got 5% conversion, can now just sell at an impulse-purchase price of $1-5. Larger professionally-produced titles, like games, that have always had problems with piracy, no longer have to overcharge the people who do pay in order to compensate for those who would have paid, but didn't. *: Part of this analysis is based on the assumption that if the app store DRM gets cracked (likely), the procedure is sufficiently unpalatable that it cracking is not widespread. There are a large number of pirates of convenience out there, who if faced with an app store where what they want is noticeably less expensive than it was before, might decide it's not worth the risk/bother.
- orangecat 16y ago
  Part of this analysis is based on the assumption that if the app store DRM gets cracked (likely), the procedure is sufficiently unpalatable that it cracking is not widespread. There are no jailbreaking hassles with Macs, so probably all pirates will have to do is download a single app/kernel extension/whatever. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple uses that as an excuse to lock down Macs in the next few years.
  - kemiller 16y ago
    I don't think any of us know that until we see it in action.
- dholowiski 16y ago
  Isn't piracy of IOS apps from the app store rampant?
  - richbradshaw 16y ago
    I'm a teacher – around 70% of kids have their iPod's jailbroken purely to use pirated apps. The reason? They don't have a method to pay for apps (so can't even download free apps), and their parents don't trust them to link their cards. The point being that the sales in these cases aren't lost sales, they could never have been sales.
ghshephard 16y ago
Put another way - in the last Ten years as an owner of: o PowerBook - 2000 o PowerBook - 2003 o MBPro - 2007 o MBAir - 2010 I have purchased the following Applications: o VMware Fusion+Upgrade o Windows XP o Microsoft Office (Twice - 2011 rocks my world) Yet - I have 40 or 50 apps on my laptop (VLC, Colloquy, Acorn, ChickenofVNC, etc, etc..) Looking at my iPad + IPhone, I see that I have approximately 200 applications, purchased, on average, for about $3 each + a few premium apps (Omnigrafflle, OmniFocus - $50/each) Subscriptions to the Economist, Zinio, PressReader, WSJ, and copies of Time, Wired, The New Yorker, PosSCi. Reviewing my itunes Bills - I see I have spent approximately $40/month on applications - or about $1500 in the last three years, not even including content - which adds another $2k I don't even _think_ about purchasing $1.00 Apps, I just do it. I'm also comfortable buying, with a bit of research, the nicer $5- $10 Apps. None of which seemed to have hurt the price points of Applications like Omnifocus/Omnigraffle that much. I expect that my behavior on the iPhone/iPad will carry over to the Macintosh, once a nicely curated store is available for me. I _love_ rewarding developers - I just need the channel that I feel comfortable in doing so. The Apple Store is that channel for me.
- dmix 16y ago
  I've had the same experience with Steam. I don't think I purchased a single PC video game since I discovered torrents and usenet (unless I needed a multiplayer key). But recently I've been buying games on steam for the pure convenience of having a nice store with trailers, one click purchases and quick downloads. Compared to having to deal with shady torrent sites, torrent download speed shaping from my ISP and cracks.
  - alxp 16y ago
    There's also lots of $2 games on Steam and it hasn't killed the premier developers' ability to charge $30 or $40 or more for their AAA titles.
- vladk 16y ago
  I'm not following your point. Are you saying having a curated store is what causes you to buy more apps? So what specifically drives the increased purchases? Ability to easily discover more apps? Lack of free alternatives? Low pricepoints? The reason my purchases on the Mac/PC side are fairly low is the amount of free programs that fit my needs (and do it well). Whenever the best app was not free I bought it (Disco, Transmit, come to mind).
tewks 16y ago
This article is ridiculous because the author does not address the fact that volume will increase dramatically: a $3 app on the Mac app store will undoubtedly sell many times, perhaps 10+ x, more than the app distributed on a CD/DVD via Amazon for $30.
stretchwithme 16y ago
How many copies does a typical Mac application sell? What are the margins, marketing expenses for comparable apps in both worlds? Or are mobile apps almost always tinier and less capable or just too different to compare? And do you even have to sell your app in the new store? Or will you have to because you will now suddenly have competitors? Is your app that easy to duplicate or is it that selling will be so much cheaper or it will be easier to get attention? And if its not better in some way, why would you stop selling your app the old way?
wan23 16y ago
Commoditize Your Complements. Cheaper and more abundant Mac software improves the experience for users, which should increase the appeal of the platform. If it works then it should mean more money being spent on Mac software in the long run, even if it's less per unit. If it works out any way similar to iOS the most popular apps will make a ton. The traditional developers just need to make sure that their software is the best, and if they can't beat the new guys then can they really complain?
neovive 16y ago
I agree that there could be some price pressure due to increased competition and choices. However, given the inherent differences between iOS and OS X apps, I don't see many iOS developers being able to instantly compete with the established independent Mac developers and companies (e.g. Panic, Omni Group, etc.). The years of experience of the established Mac developers shows through in their quality. If anything, they may need to alter their marketing a bit to justify the premium pricing.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kevinburke 16y ago
This is a testable prediction. Rather than speculate, is anyone willing to bet money on the price movement of Mac apps over the next 6 months, and at what odds?
mkramlich 16y ago
I've been selling $5 apps for Mac and Windows for over 3 years now already, completely independently and homegrown, so this won't impact me much. :) There was a point in the past where I did a lot of research in the traditional PC/Mac shrinkwrapped boxed retail bricks-and-mortar software market, and the pricing model was rather shocking. Speaking in very general terms, and especially more about PC software, what I found was that for a say $50 priced unit of software, in a box there at a retail store, about 50% of that went to the retail store, about 25% or so went to the distributor, 20% to the publisher, and then only about $3-5 went to the actual developer. (Approximately, details varied.) Add-in traditional publishing industry shenanigans that try to turn developers effectively into sharecroppers, and almost require huge hype-driven sale numbers, and the situation is even worse. Now with things like Steam and the App Store and with PayPal, etc., developers can publish software directly, much more easily, and the distributor/online-retail middleman takes a smaller cut, so say the retail price can be $5 and the developer takes home 70%-97% of that, depending on if more like App Store or PayPal model, respectively. So the take home income per unit for the developer can be about the same, but at a much much lower retail price point, which is a net win for consumers. And since there are less publishing shenanigans with compensation structure, it's actually possible to sell a small number of units per month and achieve at least Ramen profitability. Which at least buys you runway to develop additional stuff or work on side ventures, so it's a virtuous cycle/snowball effect.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  Which begs the question, would you publish on the Mac app Store? I agree with what you are saying about the traditional bricks and mortar approach being an exercise in rogering the developer. Which was why when the iTunes App Store opened up I thought it was a huge deal that they were only taking a 30% cut, and yet were doing all this other stuff effectively for free: hosting, payments processing. But - if you already have all that set up and in place, is it still attractive to you? If only for 'marketing' purposes? E.g. to say that you're on there, to be searchable etc. NB: I realise that the walled garden is very restrictive, so your particular apps might not apply, ignoring that, is there any aspect of the deal that appeals to you?
  - 16y ago
JonnieCache 16y ago
One person's app store is another person's package manager.

72 points by dholowiski 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago

Only a little. While prices will get driven down, the total amount of money getting spent on Mac apps will increase hugely. I've been using macs since the days of the Plus, but when was the last time I actually paid money for a boxed piece of software apart from MS Office? Probably about a decade ago. And I'm not talking about piracy -- I just haven't felt a sufficient desire for any third-party piece of software that would entice me to go down to one of the very few places where such things are available by retail (even the Apple Store has a rather embarrassing small corner of mac software). It's times like this I wish I had some time to actually write some Mac apps.

geoffpado 16y ago

No. http://bit.ly/a4Qb2Z http://bit.ly/a4Qb2Z EDIT: Bit.ly'd because apparently HN doesn't allow apostrophes in links.

nfg 16y ago
Link that works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines
- geoffpado 16y ago
  Derp. Thanks, completely forgot about URL encoding.

amichail 16y ago

Doesn't the smaller Mac market mean that prices will be higher than those for iOS?

xenophanes 16y ago
Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. If iOS developers try to sell a ton of copies for a dollar, they'll soon discover there are less people buying. Prices may go down some but they won't hit iOS levels.

pwelch 16y ago

IMHO The author is blowing this out of proportion. He is comparing an iPhone photo editing app to PhotoShop or asimple iPhone game like chopper to games like Halo. These are two different levels of software. It is amazing what software can be written for mobile apps today but they are still not as fully functional as their desktop equivalents. The Mac App Store is going to be a big push for Desktop App developers to lower their costs slightly but you are still getting more functionality out of Pages for Mac OS X rather than Pages for iPad. Though Mobile Apps may continue to grow as an industry I think we are still a few years away from seeing a serious threat to high functionality desktop applications.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
wzdd 16y ago
Also, iPad applications seem to be up to twice as expensive as iPhone applications -- even if they're essentially the same app. I expect the same mystical price expansion will happen for Mac apps.
- bigfudge 16y ago
  I always thought this was a result of developers realising they started too low with the iphone and adjusting accordingly.

boredguy8 16y ago

These used to be shareware-level games that (at best) would get bundled for $5 with 99 other games and the author hoped for some payment (or would unlock a feature for a small price). So think of it as a massive pricing increase, not a price decrease. As fun as, say, Angry Birds is, it doesn't compare to, say, Worms 2. Seriously: I remember playing an Air Hockey line-drawn 3D game on my friend's Macintosh LC (I think it was). His dad had downloaded it free. I'm not denigrating the work of these devs: let's just not pretend we're creating epic worlds and employing hundreds of designers for these releases. And as always: if your product is worth more, people will pay more for it. If you've been able to keep your price high solely because of some platform insulation, be happy the ride lasted as long as it did.

iuguy 16y ago
> As fun as, say, Angry Birds is, it doesn't compare to, say, Worms 2. Except for me Worms is currently £1.79 for the iPhone. Worms 2 is £2.99. I get what you're trying to say, but this Christmas EA had their games on sale for 59p (about 99c I think) and they were mostly good games too. The Mac game market is nowhere near as mainstream as PC and Consoles, and there's a risk that mainstream developers may choose not to port games if they're competing with £2.99 games with equivalent quality to Worms 2 or Fifa 11 on the iPhone (in terms of use of native platform).

bad_user 16y ago

Prices are dictated by the market, since everybody wants to generate as much profit as possible. Not to mention covering development costs as soon as possible. iOS is more popular than OS X. Selling for iOS means more copies sold. It's not hard to do the math and nothing stopped the hordes of iOS developers from attacking the OS X market anyway. If anything this will provide a channel for crappy apps that you can develop in a weekend and still generate some revenue for it (instead of giving it away for free). And Windows has had a shareware culture for quite some time (tones of crappy games included, e.g. Zuma). It did nothing to stop the selling of quality apps for higher prices, as prices are only affected by other apps in the same category.

tednaleid 16y ago

Sure the price will drop by an order of magnitude, but the number of units sold will skyrocket. I bet by at least that same order of magnitude. The current number of units sold by a developer through their own store is microscopic. The incremental cost for selling another unit is almost zero. The ability to be part of a store that every mac computer has installed automatically, with super easy purchasing, credit card processing, and installation, will offset the drop in price. It also gets developers out of the business of maintaining their own storefront, payment processing, etc. A cost that is a burden on many of the existing developers.

jokermatt999 16y ago

Nope. Look at Steam, for a good example. There are plenty of indie games priced at the ~$10 dollar level, and there are also AAA titles priced at ~$60. Neither one has doomed the other. The games market allows for simpler, low priced indie games, but there is still space for the blockbuster games that cost 5 times as much. They're different products, and different markets. I don't know enough about Mac software to speak for that though. I'm a Windows/Linux user, and virtually every piece of software I use is free or a corporate application.

dmix 16y ago
But most mac apps are created by indie shops. Are there ever any "Blockbuster" mac app releases? You rarely see marketing for mac apps. Most of the big names (ex photoshop, word) are so established that they don't need to bother worrying about price (or possibly even using the app store). But still thats a small percentage of the market.
- alxp 16y ago
  Omni Group are the best example of a great Mac developer that isn't huge like Adobe or MS. They sell best-of-their-kind software for the iPad for quite high prices, and are doing very well. I don't see this changing in the Mac app store.

kemiller 16y ago

The app store means * nearly zero worry about piracy* * much much easier discovery process for average users * much higher purchaser confidence (due to b and c) * lower purchase activation energy All of these together mean that apps which traditionally scraped by as shareware, thrilled if they got 5% conversion, can now just sell at an impulse-purchase price of $1-5. Larger professionally-produced titles, like games, that have always had problems with piracy, no longer have to overcharge the people who do pay in order to compensate for those who would have paid, but didn't. *: Part of this analysis is based on the assumption that if the app store DRM gets cracked (likely), the procedure is sufficiently unpalatable that it cracking is not widespread. There are a large number of pirates of convenience out there, who if faced with an app store where what they want is noticeably less expensive than it was before, might decide it's not worth the risk/bother.

orangecat 16y ago
Part of this analysis is based on the assumption that if the app store DRM gets cracked (likely), the procedure is sufficiently unpalatable that it cracking is not widespread. There are no jailbreaking hassles with Macs, so probably all pirates will have to do is download a single app/kernel extension/whatever. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple uses that as an excuse to lock down Macs in the next few years.
- kemiller 16y ago
  I don't think any of us know that until we see it in action.
dholowiski 16y ago
Isn't piracy of IOS apps from the app store rampant?
- richbradshaw 16y ago
  I'm a teacher – around 70% of kids have their iPod's jailbroken purely to use pirated apps. The reason? They don't have a method to pay for apps (so can't even download free apps), and their parents don't trust them to link their cards. The point being that the sales in these cases aren't lost sales, they could never have been sales.

ghshephard 16y ago

Put another way - in the last Ten years as an owner of: o PowerBook - 2000 o PowerBook - 2003 o MBPro - 2007 o MBAir - 2010 I have purchased the following Applications: o VMware Fusion+Upgrade o Windows XP o Microsoft Office (Twice - 2011 rocks my world) Yet - I have 40 or 50 apps on my laptop (VLC, Colloquy, Acorn, ChickenofVNC, etc, etc..) Looking at my iPad + IPhone, I see that I have approximately 200 applications, purchased, on average, for about $3 each + a few premium apps (Omnigrafflle, OmniFocus - $50/each) Subscriptions to the Economist, Zinio, PressReader, WSJ, and copies of Time, Wired, The New Yorker, PosSCi. Reviewing my itunes Bills - I see I have spent approximately $40/month on applications - or about $1500 in the last three years, not even including content - which adds another $2k I don't even _think_ about purchasing $1.00 Apps, I just do it. I'm also comfortable buying, with a bit of research, the nicer $5- $10 Apps. None of which seemed to have hurt the price points of Applications like Omnifocus/Omnigraffle that much. I expect that my behavior on the iPhone/iPad will carry over to the Macintosh, once a nicely curated store is available for me. I _love_ rewarding developers - I just need the channel that I feel comfortable in doing so. The Apple Store is that channel for me.

dmix 16y ago
I've had the same experience with Steam. I don't think I purchased a single PC video game since I discovered torrents and usenet (unless I needed a multiplayer key). But recently I've been buying games on steam for the pure convenience of having a nice store with trailers, one click purchases and quick downloads. Compared to having to deal with shady torrent sites, torrent download speed shaping from my ISP and cracks.
- alxp 16y ago
  There's also lots of $2 games on Steam and it hasn't killed the premier developers' ability to charge $30 or $40 or more for their AAA titles.
vladk 16y ago
I'm not following your point. Are you saying having a curated store is what causes you to buy more apps? So what specifically drives the increased purchases? Ability to easily discover more apps? Lack of free alternatives? Low pricepoints? The reason my purchases on the Mac/PC side are fairly low is the amount of free programs that fit my needs (and do it well). Whenever the best app was not free I bought it (Disco, Transmit, come to mind).

tewks 16y ago

This article is ridiculous because the author does not address the fact that volume will increase dramatically: a $3 app on the Mac app store will undoubtedly sell many times, perhaps 10+ x, more than the app distributed on a CD/DVD via Amazon for $30.

stretchwithme 16y ago

How many copies does a typical Mac application sell? What are the margins, marketing expenses for comparable apps in both worlds? Or are mobile apps almost always tinier and less capable or just too different to compare? And do you even have to sell your app in the new store? Or will you have to because you will now suddenly have competitors? Is your app that easy to duplicate or is it that selling will be so much cheaper or it will be easier to get attention? And if its not better in some way, why would you stop selling your app the old way?

wan23 16y ago

Commoditize Your Complements. Cheaper and more abundant Mac software improves the experience for users, which should increase the appeal of the platform. If it works then it should mean more money being spent on Mac software in the long run, even if it's less per unit. If it works out any way similar to iOS the most popular apps will make a ton. The traditional developers just need to make sure that their software is the best, and if they can't beat the new guys then can they really complain?

neovive 16y ago

I agree that there could be some price pressure due to increased competition and choices. However, given the inherent differences between iOS and OS X apps, I don't see many iOS developers being able to instantly compete with the established independent Mac developers and companies (e.g. Panic, Omni Group, etc.). The years of experience of the established Mac developers shows through in their quality. If anything, they may need to alter their marketing a bit to justify the premium pricing.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

kevinburke 16y ago

This is a testable prediction. Rather than speculate, is anyone willing to bet money on the price movement of Mac apps over the next 6 months, and at what odds?

mkramlich 16y ago

I've been selling $5 apps for Mac and Windows for over 3 years now already, completely independently and homegrown, so this won't impact me much. :) There was a point in the past where I did a lot of research in the traditional PC/Mac shrinkwrapped boxed retail bricks-and-mortar software market, and the pricing model was rather shocking. Speaking in very general terms, and especially more about PC software, what I found was that for a say $50 priced unit of software, in a box there at a retail store, about 50% of that went to the retail store, about 25% or so went to the distributor, 20% to the publisher, and then only about $3-5 went to the actual developer. (Approximately, details varied.) Add-in traditional publishing industry shenanigans that try to turn developers effectively into sharecroppers, and almost require huge hype-driven sale numbers, and the situation is even worse. Now with things like Steam and the App Store and with PayPal, etc., developers can publish software directly, much more easily, and the distributor/online-retail middleman takes a smaller cut, so say the retail price can be $5 and the developer takes home 70%-97% of that, depending on if more like App Store or PayPal model, respectively. So the take home income per unit for the developer can be about the same, but at a much much lower retail price point, which is a net win for consumers. And since there are less publishing shenanigans with compensation structure, it's actually possible to sell a small number of units per month and achieve at least Ramen profitability. Which at least buys you runway to develop additional stuff or work on side ventures, so it's a virtuous cycle/snowball effect.

Stormbringer 16y ago
Which begs the question, would you publish on the Mac app Store? I agree with what you are saying about the traditional bricks and mortar approach being an exercise in rogering the developer. Which was why when the iTunes App Store opened up I thought it was a huge deal that they were only taking a 30% cut, and yet were doing all this other stuff effectively for free: hosting, payments processing. But - if you already have all that set up and in place, is it still attractive to you? If only for 'marketing' purposes? E.g. to say that you're on there, to be searchable etc. NB: I realise that the walled garden is very restrictive, so your particular apps might not apply, ignoring that, is there any aspect of the deal that appeals to you?
- 16y ago

JonnieCache 16y ago

One person's app store is another person's package manager.