27 ms·

We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

641 points by bangonkeyboard 7y ago

cstrat 7y ago
Firstly I want to say that as a user I hate using the Mac App Store - mainly for all the reasons posted there. There is one large benefit which is often forgotten. When I use the App Store I don't need to worry about your website/database getting hacked or leaking my personal data/credit card information. This is mostly avoided by indie developers using Stripe or some other popular payment gateway, but it is still a concern and annoyance that is removed by something like the App Store.
- citruspi 7y ago
  That's one of two reasons that I don't mind purchasing on the App Store - the other is licensing. On the App Store, each app I purchase is licensed for 5 macOS devices and I can unlicense a device/reset the count at any time with a few clicks. Licensing for other applications is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - sometimes it's a single machine, other times X devices, and other times unlimited devices for a single user/owner. And if the 3rd party licensing server is down, I can't activate my purchased applications - I've literally had this happen before. Purchase Paw from their website, licensing was down, I ended up re-purchasing it on the Mac App Store. And in the future, if they go out of business and the application needs to be activated with an online server, I'm fucked. If I purchase it from the App Store, I'm fairly confident I'm good to go for the foreseeable future.
- todd3834 7y ago
  So many apps still communicate with APIs over the Internet. You might not have to worry as much about specific kinds of attacks like cross site scripting but the attack surface is still present.
- ncr100 7y ago
  This could be fixed by your Bank or VISA with e.g. virtual credit cards.
  - cstrat 7y ago
    That is true, but nothing I have access to right now (with one of the big 4 aussie banks)
robomartin 7y ago
We left the App Store behind years ago after just getting sick of Apple’s bs and other issues. Could not be happier. Web apps are far easier to deal with, we have full control and for our purposes it ends up being a better multi-platform experience for our users. Not for everyone, of course.
- dijit 7y ago
  Quite ironic, given that Jobs' original intention was just that[0] [0]: https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...
  - robomartin 7y ago
    That's interesting.
croh 7y ago
Apple's popularity is over-hyped and manufactured by PR teams same like KPOP. Company ONLY cares for money, nothing else. Worst part of it is selling security as feature. As it is mentioned in last few weeks somewhere here, Chinese users data is being managed by Chinese firm from last year but apple announced it in last month SILENTELY. Sadly nobody wants to talk against apple. You get downvoted immediately. http://valleywag.gawker.com/how-apple-owns-the-media-1630628325 http://valleywag.gawker.com/how-apple-owns-the-media-1630628...
- etchalon 7y ago
  You only get downvoted if the comment is broadly negative, lacking nuance, and making obviously disprovable points such as Apple's popularity being "manufactured by marketing".
- Janeman544 7y ago
  Every company out there cares for money lot more than anything else. Heck why company even Presidents and Congress cares more about taking other people's money.
- millstone 7y ago
  That link is five years old and does not mention China.
  - croh 7y ago
    I didn't mention anywhere link is about china. You assumed it yourself.
deanclatworthy 7y ago
I feel your pain, but I do worry that the end goal of OSX is to lock down the system in the same way as iOS m, even if they say they’re developer (machine) friendly. This could all come full circle for OP requiring read mission to the App Store.
hlieberman 7y ago
You still need to pay the $99 a year though, since you need an Apple Developer account to submit binaries to Apple for notarization (which is required to run them on Catalina.)
- deleted 7y ago
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- danhon 7y ago
  A paid Apple Developer account is not required to have binaries notarized.
  - ttobias 7y ago
    Sadly it is required to have a paid account.
  - xhruso00 7y ago
    Sadly you have to accept PAID agreement to get notarization to work. https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/17/catalina-notarization/ https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/17/catalina-notarization/
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Can you quote the relevant paragraph that you have to pay to get an app notarized?
- comex 7y ago
  You already needed a paid account to get your apps Developer ID signed in the first place. If you're not using Developer ID and instead expecting your users to bypass Gatekeeper, that still works in Catalina.
- rswail 7y ago
  No, notarization is not required to run an app on Catalina. Gatekeeper is only invoked if the quarantine attribute is set on the file. Browsers are supposed to set that attribute. If they don't then Gatekeeper won't be triggered.
dijit 7y ago
Actually; now that I think about it, from a user perspective I also really dislike the App Store. I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things, maybe there was some new shiny (often beautiful) program to do something really well. The experience was on the 'better than passable' side, nobodies favourite interface maybe, but certainly not terrible. But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacOS and my iPhone. I never really noticed but I just slowly stopped installing new applications from there (unless sent there by a company website in the case of iOS); this was around the time that Apple Music was being foisted down my throat. I'm not sure if there's a correlation there. I always suspected there were dark patterns at play in the App Store though. Although every program is reviewed, probably only 2% or less of them become popular, and if you are popular, boy, are you popular. the design paradigm is self-fulfilling. ("most popular"/"highest grossing").
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Nature has dark patterns if 2% chance of popularity is the threshold to qualify. Many other markets I see converge on a few huge players too, retail, food, hotels, software, banks, etc.
  - dijit 7y ago
    Instead of getting hung up on the exact percentage; perhaps I meant more like 0.000002%? MacOS/iOS application stores are likely in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of applications, however I see the same 20 when I browse without using the search field.
  - willis936 7y ago
    The difference is the Apple app store is not nature. They make a point of curating the app store. When the results are bad and getting worse there is only one player to blame.
- jen729w 7y ago
  I’ve also stopped “check[ing] weekly for new things”, but that’s because I don’t need any new things! Do you? I don’t have Instagram but I imagine it’s a bit like the App Store. I’m waiting somewhere. I’m bored. I know, I’ll check for a shiny thing. Oh, no shiny thing. That was disappointing. To compare, do you go to the internet regularly and check for new things? I don’t think this is the App Store’s fault. It’s not on Apple to constantly put new shiny useful software in the App Store — it’s on developers. And I’m not blaming developers. Making new shiny software is hard. There’s already a whole bunch of software. If you have a problem, chances are it’s already been addressed. Constantly shiny + new ~== a good App Store. (~== Not necessarily equal to. Did I just invent that?)
mlang23 7y ago
As a user, I am pretty happy about most of the negative points listed in this article. Yes, manual reviews are my firewall against too much scamming. I dont want app providers to notify me about their upcoming company party. It is already fishy enough that some app providers use their own notification system to push ads. And dont get me started on paying for updates! What comes next, paying for firmware updates for devices I already own? I think the guys behind this article really have to rethink their attitude.
- viraptor 7y ago
  > And dont get me started on paying for updates! I think this really depends on implementation. Paying for bugfixes? No, thanks. Paying for a major version bump like new ms office where you don't really need to upgrade and will be supported anyway? Sure.
  - dchest 7y ago
    What about paying for compatibility with the latest macOS? Of course, no user would like to pay for that, but the reality of Apple universe is that developers have to spend a lot of time fixing compatibility issues caused by Apple.
    - millstone 7y ago
      What example do you have in mind? Compatibility updates ought to be free point releases.
      - dchest 7y ago
        Apple constantly deprecates and removes APIs and features. Some significant examples that require rewriting and retesting a lot of code: Objective-C garbage collection, QTKit, WebView. Dealing with all that in many cases takes more resources than introducing new features, but, just like you, people expect free compatibility updates.
        7y ago
mey 7y ago
A rebranded version of Steam would be interesting here. They support - automatic updates - build branches, included versions locked behind a code - DLC / Upgrades - coupons and bundling - cross platform publishing - selling of applications through third party channels Doesn't solve the 30% issue though. Also don't believe they support any recurring payment options.
- deleted 7y ago
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- perlpimp 7y ago
  Especially that they keep the 30% if someone refunds your app. If it would be 15% or less okay, but 30% and keep the proceeds? Seems to be sort of straddling the legality line.
  - sschueller 7y ago
    Apple Does not refund the fee? That's insane! On top of that I need to pay apple $100 per year to keep my app in the store. Even PayPal has been refunding the transaction fees (at least until recently).
    - dijit 7y ago
      Not sure about the App Store, but I think the parent was talking about steam. Steam does not refund the 30%.
      - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
        This must be very damaging to companies, especially with the PC gamer culture of abusing things like refund systems as some forms of protest.
        deleted 7y ago
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etchalon 7y ago
I completely understand why developers would find the restrictions of the App Store ridiculous, time consuming, expensive, and frustrating. But as a user, whenever I need an application, I always check to see if it's available on the App Store first. Because I can trust the App Store.
- nxpnsv 7y ago
  I first check brew...
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Yeah, this. MacOS is unusable without home-brew, especially cask. There is no greater feeling than knowing you can blow away your system disk, come back and re-install it, then add a "brew cask install .." stage to get all your apps installed automatically. If I had brew on iOS, I'd be more than happy. Alas, I don't want to jailbreak though ..
    - jasonlfunk 7y ago
      Unusable for you, maybe. But I'm sure the majority of people use MacOS without homebrew and find it perfectly usable for their use cases.
      - fit2rule 7y ago
        Sure. There's still nothing quite as efficient as a one-liner brew command to get new stuff set up, though. My computer does the installing, not me ..
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Maybe unusable for those that think macOS is GNU/Linux with a pretty UI. I never installed any of those alternative UNIX toolchains. Apple SDK + native macOS tooling are more than enough.
      - 7y ago
tzury 7y ago
If you run your company smart, then publish your software in both places, your own website and AppStore. Users who trust direct relationship with you, will download directly, enjoy better prices (30% commission omitted) and rapid updates. At the same time you will not lose a whole marketshare of users for which AppStore is the "go-to" address for buying software. You can then skill up your SEO capabilities and optimize inbound traffic to your preferred platform whatsoever. If AppStore policy forbid having a parallel distribution platform, then publish the same app with two different names.
- someonehere 7y ago
  Some apps can’t do parallel features because of rules on the App Store. I remember several years ago a commercial AV software sold an App Store version that was nerfed for true AV scanning which it’s non App Store has the full feature set. Apple requires (or maybe they don’t have that limitation anymore) that an application not touch system services if it’s sold in the App Store. Which for AV that would fit the bill. Personally for a while the macOS App Store was riddled with sketchy Chinese apps that looked like knock offs of the real apps. Or there are apps that do the same thing as a more expensive commercial one. Personally I’ve found a few gems in both App Stores. Hands down I love Pixelmator on iOS and macOS. I’d gladly pay for more apps built with good quality.
- panpanna 7y ago
  I think this is explicitly forbidden by app store rules. It is definitely the case for the iOS app store anyway.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    You could create two versions, one crippled for the app store and another that you actively market. There is no point giving Apple 30% if you are finding the customers yourself.
    - parasubvert 7y ago
      You’re not allowed to create a crippled or discounted version per the App Store rules. You are allowed to make the same version available elsewhere and pocket the margins. This is what BBEdit has been doing for many years for example.
askafriend 7y ago
I'm sorry but as a user, I trust my relationship with Apple more than I trust random third party devs. As a user, I want Apple to lock down the system and make things hard for developers. As a developer, I empathize with my perspective as a user and build products that take this into account.
- m1sta_ 7y ago
  Yep. As an android user and ex apple fanboy, I very much miss the relative safety of the iOS app store.
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Well you can always go back. Just make sure you can afford it and all the dongles you'll need.
    - driverdan 7y ago
      Not if you actually want to own your device (have root).
    - m1sta_ 7y ago
      I'll go back when their hardware is beautiful again and when offline Spotify lands on Apple watch.
- pojntfx 7y ago
  As a user, I want my system to use containerization for me to not worry about where I get my apps from. You know, like Flatpak does it. This isn't really an argument for modern OSes such as desktop Linux anymore.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    Containers are not a magic shield that protects you from all attacks. You should still be wary of what you're running even with the additional protection they offer. For example - https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2019/q1/119 https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2019/q1/119
boromi 7y ago
macOS 10.15 Vista
tmikaeld 7y ago
Have you considered Setapp? They offer an App-store equivalent but all apps are included for a monthly fee.
- xhruso00 7y ago
  With a price tag of 79.99 or 99.99 I wouldn't change to Setapp. EDIT: The guy reverse engineered scanners and he is using this knowledge to support non compatible 32-bit scanners. Very unique on the business market.
deleted 7y ago
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pjmlp 7y ago
> Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries Yet plenty of other companies do business on this model. And where are they going to go? GNU/Linux? Good luck making a sustainable business selling desktop software there.
- telaelit 7y ago
  Leaving the AppStore doesn’t mean they can’t create MacOS applications. Most MacOS applications aren’t even installed via the AppStore.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    If they want to sell them on Catalina and newer devices they surely need to follow similar steps anyway, while paying for infrastructure themselves. https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a
    - scarface74 7y ago
      You don’t have to have a paid developer account for app signing, your app is never reviewed by a human, and Apple doesn’t get a cut of your app sales. So how is it “similar”?
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        > Please note that you must be the Account Holder of your development team in the Apple Developer Program. https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/ https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/ > You can only notarize apps that you sign with a Developer ID certificate. If you use any other certificate—like a Mac App Distribution certificate, or a self-signed certificate—notarization fails https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/resolving_common_notarization_issues https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin... That similar.
        7y ago
telaelit 7y ago
Besides some Apple applications, I don’t think I’ve ever used the AppStore to install an application.
Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
I agree with all these points. However, you can't leave behind the AppStore that matters most: for iPhone and iPad.
Illniyar 7y ago
They kind of bury the lead here. They can't have their app on the appstore because: " While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file. Now this may not sound like much, this is a serious issue for a document scan application which easily generates hundreds of files in an hour, and thousands of files a day, with file names automatically generated, either thru counters, or advanced auto-id features, such as barcodes." Even if Apple later took back the rejection I bet this was the last straw.
- xhruso00 7y ago
  I also have my own experience with rejection: You used/included word Contacts in name of the app; this is a trademark of Apple. My app used word Contacts before apple renamed their AddressBook to Contacts.app on macOS. I used appeal with link to their list of trademarks. I am pointing out that humans do many errors and sometimes your app is in review for 2 weeks (2019) for no reason (minor update). Happened to me and the Yoink.app owner as well
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    Not trying to blame you at all for what happened, but for my benefit as a developer and for anyone else reading, did you ever apply for a trademark or consider it? I'd love to know the details of how that worked out if you did.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Maybe they thought common sense applies and "Contacts" is not a trademarkable word.
- phinnaeus 7y ago
  FYI: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lede https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lede
Mathnerd314 7y ago
Article has some weird writing/typos, "updates, bu" and "we where actually". Some of it might be because the company is in Germany, but still... the company doesn't seem particularly professional or well-managed. It's hard to tell from the website but it looks like it's run by one person with occasional help from others. And the software is kind of weird, scanners always come Windows drivers/software so there's no issue using it there. Linux support is less guaranteed but you can check the compatibility lists (http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html). So it's exploiting a niche in driver support between Apple and the manufacturers. I'm not saying the author is a nutcase, but this seems like one rare data point and I'd prefer to see more companies pulling their stuff off the app store before drawing any real conclusions.
echelon 7y ago
The fact that we have to have humans look at our software before we can go to market in 2019 is absurd. I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent, IRC, Trillian/Pidgin, and an explosive WWW. Look at what a pinheaded mess everything has become. Greed destroyed the open and experimental Internet.
- lilyball 7y ago
  Painting this as "greed" is really quite ridiculous. Apple's 30% cut is completely orthogonal to their human review. The human review is to try and protect users and keep the app store a safe and trustworthy place to buy software. As with all human curation, there are problems, but on the whole it does keep the app store a remarkably safe place to acquire software. > I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent In light of the above, this is pretty funny, because Napster and Bittorrent were great way to get viruses.
  - nomercy400 7y ago
    So Apple is the modern Elsevier? Asking high prices for peer review.
    - fastball 7y ago
      "orthogonal"
  - ramraj07 7y ago
    If the human review is the reason for the 30% cut why not charge a flat fee per review? I doubt that's the reason for their cut.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      lilyball said it’s orthogonal, meaning there is no relation between the 30% fee and the cost of human review. The price a seller charges is what a buyer is willing to pay.
radiKal07 7y ago
> Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries Oh, guess what? Apple also has to run a company and pay salaries. Who would've thought?
- AllegedAlec 7y ago
  Yeah. That's why they ask prices north of 1K for a phone.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  30% is egregious. It's what I hate about Google/Apple/Amazon and why I've always refused to buy music from their services. Bandcamp charges 10~15%. Buy a CD directly from a band at a show and they pocket most of that money. Apple is one of the largest companies in the world. They've done so with bullshit like this and I wish people would stop supporting this broken business model. https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online-2015-remix/ https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-d...
  - deleted 7y ago
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- kkarakk 7y ago
  Hard to feel sympathetic about a company that literally has fights with local city councils about their humongous all glass company headquarters
nembal 7y ago
As a long Time multi platform user I have to say sometimes Apple’s approach on centralized provisioning im thankful for the effort never to have to deal with buggy/suspicious apps. On the other hand, no competition lead to a point where the Appstore became an authoritarian system where apple is free to play by the rules, or change them as it sees fit for it's bottom line. Only judging Tho, never helped. What would be the consequences of an app store where - # alternative stores would be allowed like android # Apple would lover prices # regional pricing options # free updates for paid content # subscription for updates, distributed among apps user paid for already Other ideas, comments are welcome.
xhruso00 7y ago
>disconnect from the users, which often simply post bad app reviews, or return the app instead of reaching out to developer for actually support and fixes This is so true. I am a dev and this is the most frustrating thing ever if you do freemium model. Yesterday I got reply from customer on the app store: "I DON'T have HOURS to look for free apps. You lie that you are FREE" PS: New Mac App Store has a label "Offers In-Apps" under button GET
gumby 7y ago
I like the App Store because it handles automatic updates pretty well. Then again these days with sparkle, the apps I use do update, so it's not a big advantage for Apple. And how do I know sparkle works so well? Well whenever a dev has an app both in the store and directly downloadable from their site I choose the latter. The price is the same, the functionality is the same (or sometimes more) but the dev gets 30% more. I've never heard one suggest that I download instead of using the store so I assume Apple somehow contractually bars that. I never use the store for discovery; duckduckgo works perfectly well. All in all I thought the App Store would be a good idea for me as a user but in the end it didn't add much. At least I think it got rid of some of those crufty download sites.
- moduspol 7y ago
  The sandboxing of apps is a nice benefit, though. I can be reasonably confident apps won't conflict with each other and that they're interfacing cleanly and minimally with the host OS. Perhaps not the best example, but I set up Wireguard recently. On Linux, this involves building and installing a kernel module, and directly modifying the host's networking configuration. On Mac, I can install it from the App Store, and I know any networking configuration is handled through Apple's high level APIs (I've built a VPN-based Mac App Store app before). Alternatively, you might install Tunnelblick, a Mac app that wraps OpenVPN and is distributed outside the App Store. It'll end up running scripts like these, as necessary to configure networking on the host: * https://github.com/Tunnelblick/Tunnelblick/blob/master/tunnelblick/client.4.up.tunnelblick.sh https://github.com/Tunnelblick/Tunnelblick/blob/master/tunne... Nothing in that script is crazy--it's all necessary stuff if you're not limiting yourself to the higher level APIs. But it doesn't take many apps doing things of that complexity for totally justifiable reasons before you start having issues.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Isn't the wireguard implementation on MacOS a userland implementation? Seems like a poor example to compare with the Linux version, which is technically superior specifically because it requires a kernel module.
xhruso00 7y ago
The guys latest video shows his frustration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwhb_ukmgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwhb_ukmgY
ThomPete 7y ago
We left the app store because it was making it hard for us to do anything innovative. The mac appstore is litterally hindering innovative apps from existing, and for no good reason that couldnt be solved other ways. I completely understand security concerns but the way apple solves theM is by limiting the free choice of the user. So now we are using the google “appstore”
anovikov 7y ago
With typos all over the page i am starting to doubt that the actual problem was with Apple.
joshsharp 7y ago
Now wouldn't it be great if it was viable to make the same decision about distributing your iOS app.
alunchbox 7y ago
Apple is just milking their over priced pile of garbage as long as they can. This kind of reminds me of the situation long ago with Windows and how they did not want to allow any other browsers expect IE on their OS. It took a long time to give developers freedom and access to API's to develop application on the OS. This feel like it's pivoted similarly to the App Stores now a days (even you Google).
buboard 7y ago
MacOS people problems
fraggle222 7y ago
If the appstore isn't providing the massive increase in revenue that it should, then you should definitely leave. It will be interesting to see in a year or 2 if they regret their decision or not.
Igelau 7y ago
> salleries Ooph. We're not off to a very good start here.
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ghego1 7y ago
In my experience the app store (Mac iOS) has been terrible also for another reason. Due to brexit we relocated from UK to another EU country. There was no way to easily change the country associated with our account, we had to request it and the first meaningful reply arrived 1 year later. This is incredibly problematic from any business perspective (accounting, legal, etc.).
meerita 7y ago
For me the optimal experience was Ubuntu software installer. It's like Homebrew or APM with visuals, search, everything. App Store is just a walled garden.
- ProZsolt 7y ago
  Try https://www.cakebrew.com/ https://www.cakebrew.com/
ProZsolt 7y ago
I gave up on App Store as a user. I only use it for system updates an Apple software (eg. Pages) I just use Homebrew. - It has all the software I use not just 50% - If not I can easy ad it. - With bundler, I can set up my new computer super easy - If somebody dislikes the CLI there is Cakebrew
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  homebrew trashes /usr/local/lib permissions if you have multiple users on the same machine. It's extremely annoying.
lightedman 7y ago
So after reading this, my question is why the heck have they not diversified their product line to make more money? From what I'm seeing, this company is a one-trick pony. I mean, I hate Apple practices as much as the next rational freedom-loving person, but I'm kinda having a hard time feeling sorry for companies that don't know to diversify to hedge against single-point failures (which they ironically complain about while self-building their own SPoF.)
blunderkid 7y ago
User friendliness aside, the 30% that Apple keeps is just plain & simple monopoly abuse, especially on the iOS App Store where Apple does control a majority of the market in US. That they haven't been held up for anti-trust shows that capitalism is not all well. Apple provides no value in exchange for that 30% except charging gatekeepers fee for the entry ticket to their platform. And as this article states, they in fact stand up more hurdles by shoving their limited payments system down the developer's throat. The companies worst affected by this are digital content providers like news/mags which are already struggling.
- deleted 7y ago
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stevespang 7y ago
Google and Apple app stores are polluted with trojans and backdoors, new discoveries everyday in the news.
Account123481-x 7y ago
boo hoo
Humdeee 7y ago
To the owner of this website: for the love of god, please get someone to proofread your work.
- zelienople 7y ago
  And also... light grey text on a white background? Are they trying to get us to use their product just to read their website? I got the urge to scan it to improve the contrast.
bori5 7y ago
I install far more programs/apps using Homebrew than AppStore or direct links for most things, wish more paid apps where that way.
ttcbj 7y ago
I really wonder where Apple and specifically Tim Cook is in all this. I feel like I see posts on HN almost daily that would warrant one of Jeff Bezos's famous 'question mark emails'[1] from Tim Cook to someone within Apple. But I see no evidence of this. I see no evidence of panic within apple that they have lost the ability to delight customers and anticipate their needs effectively. How often do I see a similar level customer or developer pain (anguish really, from supportive customers) regarding Amazon? How often do I see it regarding Google? All these companies have so many resources, but Apple is the only one that doesn't seem to be able to convert those resources into customer focus. It's painful to watch. Where is Apple's board? It's really discouraging! [1] https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-just-confirmed-jeff-bezos-question-mark-method-that-scares-heck-out-of-everyone-at-amazon-heres-how-it-works.html https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-...
- ProAm 7y ago
  When you have billions in cash in the bank, and your future revenue is tied to subscriptions Tim Cook simply doesn't care about this, its minutiae to your bottom line. They can screw up for YEARS and still be a largely profitable company.
  - ttcbj 7y ago
    Agreed, but are Tim Cook and the board really satisfied with that? If so, it's a tragedy that so many resources are controlled by leaders who don't really care that much.
    - asdf21 7y ago
      Every dollar is a vote..
- dkonofalski 7y ago
  I think the reason you don't is because there's quite a bit of confirmation bias on Hacker News. The demographic of people using HN is far more tech savvy and technical than the majority of the population so things like this feel like they spark a huge amount of outrage when, in reality, it affects like 0.1% of the population.
yepthatsreality 7y ago
Biggest pet peeve: Why the hell hasn’t the iOS App Store password prompt been updated to allow me to use my password manager?
- snailmailman 7y ago
  This one drives me crazy! My fingerprint never scans properly, so for any app download I have to manually open my password manager to copy/paste the password in. It actually discourages me from downloading apps. If the fingerprint doesn’t scan on the first try I usually give up and just live without the app. It’s usually not worth the hassle of copy/pasting.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throwaway-hn123 7y ago
Bye!
tenryuu 7y ago
> not user or developer friendly Well, with text contrast like that, neither is your website to be brutally honest
john-radio 7y ago
This press release contains a lot of trivial errors. > Compatible Scanner (in the header menu) should be "Compatibility" > not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries "salaries" > it is not provide to provide not "viable"? > we think a paid upgrade is fair for continuously developing, improvements, and support "for continuous development, improvements, and support" > support a product indefinetly for free "indefinitely" > It creates an artificial frontier between users and developers. "frontier" - word choice. "barrier"? > Developer can not inform users "The developer" (or "A") I'm not going to keep doing this because I'm sure that this comment would grow too long. It doesn't hurt to run a spell checker over your public facing material, you know. I'm open to hearing this developer's criticism of Apple, but given the lack of effort in publishing this simple press release, I'm not exactly opposed to this additional "frontier" standing between their software and my less-tech-savvy friends' and colleagues' Mac computers.
- eloisant 7y ago
  The company is from Germany, possibly a single-person company. He/she's not a native speaker, might not have access to a native speaker for proofreading and a spell checker wouldn't pick up frontier vs barrier.
  - ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
    Ignore the misspellings like "salleries", "it is not provide to provide free updates forever" doesn't make sense in any language. The TL;DR is the first thing you see on the page. They author didn't proofread the first paragraph. * TL;DR each manual update review by Apple causes delay and drama AppStore does not support paid upgrades, only new App, in-App purchase or subscriptions Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries it is not provide to provide free updates forever if you purchased our application this year we provide a direct license, if you had it significantly longer, we think a paid upgrade is fair for continuously developing, improvements, and support
- thanatropism 7y ago
  Come off it. > I'm open to hearing this developer's criticism of Apple You're clearly not. And while it's common not being open to considering something because something ticks you off as not credible, the effort to which you seem to have gotten to point out some typos is -- in the best interpretation -- puzzling. Even a stickler for misspellings would just have commented "This is so badly written I can't take it seriously". There's something else going on.
jtx22 7y ago
They don't like the approval process and don't want to pay Apple 30%. Useless article.
pier25 7y ago
Another problem for the user of all Apple stores (iOS, macOS, books, iTunes) are refunds. In Android you get an automatic refund when you uninstall a recently purchased app. No questions asked. In Steam you can ask for a refund if you have played less than 2 hours and you bought the game less than 2 weeks ago. I've done this dozens of times and in fact being able to refund a game that I don't like gives me confidence in trying new games. Again, no questions asked. Epic also has a similar refund policy as Steam. I only used it once though. With Apple you might or not get a refund and much like App Store reviews there is nothing you can do about it.
- whatthesmack 7y ago
  I've experienced this several times, and it's very frustrating. I know you really can't do anything about it when you purchase with App Store credit, but I'm curious... does anybody have experience with doing a credit card chargeback in such a situation. It would be good to know if that can be a successful means to resolving an issue where Apple puts up unjustified roadblocks.
pier25 7y ago
I recently uploaded an update of a macOS app to the MAS. Apple rejected it saying that I needed to remove some entitlements that were not used. Of course I needed those entitlements but Apple didn't test the app properly. Anyway I answered their rejection with the reasons why I needed those entitlements. Silence for 2 days. I finally asked for an appeal to the review board and in 1 hour the update was accepted and available in the MAS. We lost 3 days because either Apple's automatic reviewing system failed, or their human reviewers failed.
jjtheblunt 7y ago
genuine question: How is a developer, complaining about "The Catalina Disaster", not an attempt to distract attention, along with other developers, from years-long procrastination?
Jonahgay 7y ago
Who is "We" clickbait man
song 7y ago
I always go out of my way to buy outside of the App Store. Sometimes the app store version is crippled due to constraints from the app store so it just makes sense. Other times, I still do that because I want more of my money to go to the developer. Oh, and for the few app I installed from the app store (usually because I had no choice), I loathe getting a message saying "Blahblah couldn't be updated because it was open"... It's the worst app updating scheme I've seen.
pchristensen 7y ago
Leaving aside the App Store issues, ExactScan Pro is a great app and an essential part of my paperless workflow. I purchased it from them in 2015, then purchased an update from the App Store this summer. It's worth a look whether you want to support an exodus from the MAS or if you just want an awesome scanner program.
vilius 7y ago
I’m curious what’s the eventual revenue balance will look like few years after they get off App Store. It can seem evil and 30% is a steep fee, but it is also a very good distribution channel. Hope they can find alternative ways to market and it beats those 30% and related hassle.
mrlala 7y ago
Side note to this; what's the best way to deploy a custom iphone app these days? We were using a PWA to avoid a fullblown app and all the bullshit with not being able to sideload an app easily like on android. Is there a simple way to get an app out to 5-10 people on ios?
thesquib 7y ago
I have never used the app store except to install macOS from time to time. Everything I need I can buy or download through the web. I also use Windows and Linux depending on my use case, and so I buy multi platform licences where it makes sense and is possible.
kd3 7y ago
Allowing any company to decide what you are allowed to use and run on your device is always a bad idea. It is unfortunate that these devs took so long to realize this.
leokennis 7y ago
The Mac App Store is now so crap infested and buggy that, if at all possible, I always buy directly from the vendors.
tempodox 7y ago
> Not user nor developer friendly Used to be that macOS had really decent experiences to offer for both users and developers. Not any more. Now both are being tortured, just as with Microsoft. I really don't see a big difference any more. When my computer destroys my data and pumps off my money, I really don't give a shit whether it's Apple or Microsoft doing the abuse.

Firstly I want to say that as a user I hate using the Mac App Store - mainly for all the reasons posted there. There is one large benefit which is often forgotten. When I use the App Store I don't need to worry about your website/database getting hacked or leaking my personal data/credit card information. This is mostly avoided by indie developers using Stripe or some other popular payment gateway, but it is still a concern and annoyance that is removed by something like the App Store.

citruspi 7y ago
That's one of two reasons that I don't mind purchasing on the App Store - the other is licensing. On the App Store, each app I purchase is licensed for 5 macOS devices and I can unlicense a device/reset the count at any time with a few clicks. Licensing for other applications is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - sometimes it's a single machine, other times X devices, and other times unlimited devices for a single user/owner. And if the 3rd party licensing server is down, I can't activate my purchased applications - I've literally had this happen before. Purchase Paw from their website, licensing was down, I ended up re-purchasing it on the Mac App Store. And in the future, if they go out of business and the application needs to be activated with an online server, I'm fucked. If I purchase it from the App Store, I'm fairly confident I'm good to go for the foreseeable future.
todd3834 7y ago
So many apps still communicate with APIs over the Internet. You might not have to worry as much about specific kinds of attacks like cross site scripting but the attack surface is still present.
ncr100 7y ago
This could be fixed by your Bank or VISA with e.g. virtual credit cards.
- cstrat 7y ago
  That is true, but nothing I have access to right now (with one of the big 4 aussie banks)

robomartin 7y ago

We left the App Store behind years ago after just getting sick of Apple’s bs and other issues. Could not be happier. Web apps are far easier to deal with, we have full control and for our purposes it ends up being a better multi-platform experience for our users. Not for everyone, of course.

dijit 7y ago
Quite ironic, given that Jobs' original intention was just that[0] [0]: https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...
- robomartin 7y ago
  That's interesting.

croh 7y ago

Apple's popularity is over-hyped and manufactured by PR teams same like KPOP. Company ONLY cares for money, nothing else. Worst part of it is selling security as feature. As it is mentioned in last few weeks somewhere here, Chinese users data is being managed by Chinese firm from last year but apple announced it in last month SILENTELY. Sadly nobody wants to talk against apple. You get downvoted immediately. http://valleywag.gawker.com/how-apple-owns-the-media-1630628325 http://valleywag.gawker.com/how-apple-owns-the-media-1630628...

etchalon 7y ago
You only get downvoted if the comment is broadly negative, lacking nuance, and making obviously disprovable points such as Apple's popularity being "manufactured by marketing".
Janeman544 7y ago
Every company out there cares for money lot more than anything else. Heck why company even Presidents and Congress cares more about taking other people's money.
millstone 7y ago
That link is five years old and does not mention China.
- croh 7y ago
  I didn't mention anywhere link is about china. You assumed it yourself.

deanclatworthy 7y ago

I feel your pain, but I do worry that the end goal of OSX is to lock down the system in the same way as iOS m, even if they say they’re developer (machine) friendly. This could all come full circle for OP requiring read mission to the App Store.

hlieberman 7y ago

You still need to pay the $99 a year though, since you need an Apple Developer account to submit binaries to Apple for notarization (which is required to run them on Catalina.)

deleted 7y ago
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danhon 7y ago
A paid Apple Developer account is not required to have binaries notarized.
- ttobias 7y ago
  Sadly it is required to have a paid account.
- xhruso00 7y ago
  Sadly you have to accept PAID agreement to get notarization to work. https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/17/catalina-notarization/ https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/17/catalina-notarization/
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Can you quote the relevant paragraph that you have to pay to get an app notarized?
comex 7y ago
You already needed a paid account to get your apps Developer ID signed in the first place. If you're not using Developer ID and instead expecting your users to bypass Gatekeeper, that still works in Catalina.
rswail 7y ago
No, notarization is not required to run an app on Catalina. Gatekeeper is only invoked if the quarantine attribute is set on the file. Browsers are supposed to set that attribute. If they don't then Gatekeeper won't be triggered.

dijit 7y ago

Actually; now that I think about it, from a user perspective I also really dislike the App Store. I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things, maybe there was some new shiny (often beautiful) program to do something really well. The experience was on the 'better than passable' side, nobodies favourite interface maybe, but certainly not terrible. But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacOS and my iPhone. I never really noticed but I just slowly stopped installing new applications from there (unless sent there by a company website in the case of iOS); this was around the time that Apple Music was being foisted down my throat. I'm not sure if there's a correlation there. I always suspected there were dark patterns at play in the App Store though. Although every program is reviewed, probably only 2% or less of them become popular, and if you are popular, boy, are you popular. the design paradigm is self-fulfilling. ("most popular"/"highest grossing").

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Nature has dark patterns if 2% chance of popularity is the threshold to qualify. Many other markets I see converge on a few huge players too, retail, food, hotels, software, banks, etc.
- dijit 7y ago
  Instead of getting hung up on the exact percentage; perhaps I meant more like 0.000002%? MacOS/iOS application stores are likely in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of applications, however I see the same 20 when I browse without using the search field.
- willis936 7y ago
  The difference is the Apple app store is not nature. They make a point of curating the app store. When the results are bad and getting worse there is only one player to blame.
jen729w 7y ago
I’ve also stopped “check[ing] weekly for new things”, but that’s because I don’t need any new things! Do you? I don’t have Instagram but I imagine it’s a bit like the App Store. I’m waiting somewhere. I’m bored. I know, I’ll check for a shiny thing. Oh, no shiny thing. That was disappointing. To compare, do you go to the internet regularly and check for new things? I don’t think this is the App Store’s fault. It’s not on Apple to constantly put new shiny useful software in the App Store — it’s on developers. And I’m not blaming developers. Making new shiny software is hard. There’s already a whole bunch of software. If you have a problem, chances are it’s already been addressed. Constantly shiny + new ~== a good App Store. (~== Not necessarily equal to. Did I just invent that?)

mlang23 7y ago

As a user, I am pretty happy about most of the negative points listed in this article. Yes, manual reviews are my firewall against too much scamming. I dont want app providers to notify me about their upcoming company party. It is already fishy enough that some app providers use their own notification system to push ads. And dont get me started on paying for updates! What comes next, paying for firmware updates for devices I already own? I think the guys behind this article really have to rethink their attitude.

viraptor 7y ago
> And dont get me started on paying for updates! I think this really depends on implementation. Paying for bugfixes? No, thanks. Paying for a major version bump like new ms office where you don't really need to upgrade and will be supported anyway? Sure.
- dchest 7y ago
  What about paying for compatibility with the latest macOS? Of course, no user would like to pay for that, but the reality of Apple universe is that developers have to spend a lot of time fixing compatibility issues caused by Apple.
  - millstone 7y ago
    What example do you have in mind? Compatibility updates ought to be free point releases.
    - dchest 7y ago
      Apple constantly deprecates and removes APIs and features. Some significant examples that require rewriting and retesting a lot of code: Objective-C garbage collection, QTKit, WebView. Dealing with all that in many cases takes more resources than introducing new features, but, just like you, people expect free compatibility updates.
      - 7y ago

mey 7y ago

A rebranded version of Steam would be interesting here. They support - automatic updates - build branches, included versions locked behind a code - DLC / Upgrades - coupons and bundling - cross platform publishing - selling of applications through third party channels Doesn't solve the 30% issue though. Also don't believe they support any recurring payment options.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
perlpimp 7y ago
Especially that they keep the 30% if someone refunds your app. If it would be 15% or less okay, but 30% and keep the proceeds? Seems to be sort of straddling the legality line.
- sschueller 7y ago
  Apple Does not refund the fee? That's insane! On top of that I need to pay apple $100 per year to keep my app in the store. Even PayPal has been refunding the transaction fees (at least until recently).
  - dijit 7y ago
    Not sure about the App Store, but I think the parent was talking about steam. Steam does not refund the 30%.
    - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
      This must be very damaging to companies, especially with the PC gamer culture of abusing things like refund systems as some forms of protest.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

etchalon 7y ago

I completely understand why developers would find the restrictions of the App Store ridiculous, time consuming, expensive, and frustrating. But as a user, whenever I need an application, I always check to see if it's available on the App Store first. Because I can trust the App Store.

nxpnsv 7y ago
I first check brew...
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Yeah, this. MacOS is unusable without home-brew, especially cask. There is no greater feeling than knowing you can blow away your system disk, come back and re-install it, then add a "brew cask install .." stage to get all your apps installed automatically. If I had brew on iOS, I'd be more than happy. Alas, I don't want to jailbreak though ..
  - jasonlfunk 7y ago
    Unusable for you, maybe. But I'm sure the majority of people use MacOS without homebrew and find it perfectly usable for their use cases.
    - fit2rule 7y ago
      Sure. There's still nothing quite as efficient as a one-liner brew command to get new stuff set up, though. My computer does the installing, not me ..
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Maybe unusable for those that think macOS is GNU/Linux with a pretty UI. I never installed any of those alternative UNIX toolchains. Apple SDK + native macOS tooling are more than enough.
    - 7y ago

tzury 7y ago

If you run your company smart, then publish your software in both places, your own website and AppStore. Users who trust direct relationship with you, will download directly, enjoy better prices (30% commission omitted) and rapid updates. At the same time you will not lose a whole marketshare of users for which AppStore is the "go-to" address for buying software. You can then skill up your SEO capabilities and optimize inbound traffic to your preferred platform whatsoever. If AppStore policy forbid having a parallel distribution platform, then publish the same app with two different names.

someonehere 7y ago
Some apps can’t do parallel features because of rules on the App Store. I remember several years ago a commercial AV software sold an App Store version that was nerfed for true AV scanning which it’s non App Store has the full feature set. Apple requires (or maybe they don’t have that limitation anymore) that an application not touch system services if it’s sold in the App Store. Which for AV that would fit the bill. Personally for a while the macOS App Store was riddled with sketchy Chinese apps that looked like knock offs of the real apps. Or there are apps that do the same thing as a more expensive commercial one. Personally I’ve found a few gems in both App Stores. Hands down I love Pixelmator on iOS and macOS. I’d gladly pay for more apps built with good quality.
panpanna 7y ago
I think this is explicitly forbidden by app store rules. It is definitely the case for the iOS app store anyway.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  You could create two versions, one crippled for the app store and another that you actively market. There is no point giving Apple 30% if you are finding the customers yourself.
  - parasubvert 7y ago
    You’re not allowed to create a crippled or discounted version per the App Store rules. You are allowed to make the same version available elsewhere and pocket the margins. This is what BBEdit has been doing for many years for example.

askafriend 7y ago

I'm sorry but as a user, I trust my relationship with Apple more than I trust random third party devs. As a user, I want Apple to lock down the system and make things hard for developers. As a developer, I empathize with my perspective as a user and build products that take this into account.

m1sta_ 7y ago
Yep. As an android user and ex apple fanboy, I very much miss the relative safety of the iOS app store.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Well you can always go back. Just make sure you can afford it and all the dongles you'll need.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    Not if you actually want to own your device (have root).
  - m1sta_ 7y ago
    I'll go back when their hardware is beautiful again and when offline Spotify lands on Apple watch.
pojntfx 7y ago
As a user, I want my system to use containerization for me to not worry about where I get my apps from. You know, like Flatpak does it. This isn't really an argument for modern OSes such as desktop Linux anymore.
- onion2k 7y ago
  Containers are not a magic shield that protects you from all attacks. You should still be wary of what you're running even with the additional protection they offer. For example - https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2019/q1/119 https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2019/q1/119

boromi 7y ago

macOS 10.15 Vista

tmikaeld 7y ago

Have you considered Setapp? They offer an App-store equivalent but all apps are included for a monthly fee.

xhruso00 7y ago
With a price tag of 79.99 or 99.99 I wouldn't change to Setapp. EDIT: The guy reverse engineered scanners and he is using this knowledge to support non compatible 32-bit scanners. Very unique on the business market.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pjmlp 7y ago

> Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries Yet plenty of other companies do business on this model. And where are they going to go? GNU/Linux? Good luck making a sustainable business selling desktop software there.

telaelit 7y ago
Leaving the AppStore doesn’t mean they can’t create MacOS applications. Most MacOS applications aren’t even installed via the AppStore.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  If they want to sell them on Catalina and newer devices they surely need to follow similar steps anyway, while paying for infrastructure themselves. https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a
  - scarface74 7y ago
    You don’t have to have a paid developer account for app signing, your app is never reviewed by a human, and Apple doesn’t get a cut of your app sales. So how is it “similar”?
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      > Please note that you must be the Account Holder of your development team in the Apple Developer Program. https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/ https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/ > You can only notarize apps that you sign with a Developer ID certificate. If you use any other certificate—like a Mac App Distribution certificate, or a self-signed certificate—notarization fails https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/resolving_common_notarization_issues https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin... That similar.
      - 7y ago

telaelit 7y ago

Besides some Apple applications, I don’t think I’ve ever used the AppStore to install an application.

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago

I agree with all these points. However, you can't leave behind the AppStore that matters most: for iPhone and iPad.

Illniyar 7y ago

They kind of bury the lead here. They can't have their app on the appstore because: " While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file. Now this may not sound like much, this is a serious issue for a document scan application which easily generates hundreds of files in an hour, and thousands of files a day, with file names automatically generated, either thru counters, or advanced auto-id features, such as barcodes." Even if Apple later took back the rejection I bet this was the last straw.

xhruso00 7y ago
I also have my own experience with rejection: You used/included word Contacts in name of the app; this is a trademark of Apple. My app used word Contacts before apple renamed their AddressBook to Contacts.app on macOS. I used appeal with link to their list of trademarks. I am pointing out that humans do many errors and sometimes your app is in review for 2 weeks (2019) for no reason (minor update). Happened to me and the Yoink.app owner as well
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  Not trying to blame you at all for what happened, but for my benefit as a developer and for anyone else reading, did you ever apply for a trademark or consider it? I'd love to know the details of how that worked out if you did.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Maybe they thought common sense applies and "Contacts" is not a trademarkable word.
phinnaeus 7y ago
FYI: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lede https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lede

Mathnerd314 7y ago

Article has some weird writing/typos, "updates, bu" and "we where actually". Some of it might be because the company is in Germany, but still... the company doesn't seem particularly professional or well-managed. It's hard to tell from the website but it looks like it's run by one person with occasional help from others. And the software is kind of weird, scanners always come Windows drivers/software so there's no issue using it there. Linux support is less guaranteed but you can check the compatibility lists (http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html). So it's exploiting a niche in driver support between Apple and the manufacturers. I'm not saying the author is a nutcase, but this seems like one rare data point and I'd prefer to see more companies pulling their stuff off the app store before drawing any real conclusions.

echelon 7y ago

The fact that we have to have humans look at our software before we can go to market in 2019 is absurd. I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent, IRC, Trillian/Pidgin, and an explosive WWW. Look at what a pinheaded mess everything has become. Greed destroyed the open and experimental Internet.

lilyball 7y ago
Painting this as "greed" is really quite ridiculous. Apple's 30% cut is completely orthogonal to their human review. The human review is to try and protect users and keep the app store a safe and trustworthy place to buy software. As with all human curation, there are problems, but on the whole it does keep the app store a remarkably safe place to acquire software. > I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent In light of the above, this is pretty funny, because Napster and Bittorrent were great way to get viruses.
- nomercy400 7y ago
  So Apple is the modern Elsevier? Asking high prices for peer review.
  - fastball 7y ago
    "orthogonal"
- ramraj07 7y ago
  If the human review is the reason for the 30% cut why not charge a flat fee per review? I doubt that's the reason for their cut.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    lilyball said it’s orthogonal, meaning there is no relation between the 30% fee and the cost of human review. The price a seller charges is what a buyer is willing to pay.

radiKal07 7y ago

> Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries Oh, guess what? Apple also has to run a company and pay salaries. Who would've thought?

AllegedAlec 7y ago
Yeah. That's why they ask prices north of 1K for a phone.
djsumdog 7y ago
30% is egregious. It's what I hate about Google/Apple/Amazon and why I've always refused to buy music from their services. Bandcamp charges 10~15%. Buy a CD directly from a band at a show and they pocket most of that money. Apple is one of the largest companies in the world. They've done so with bullshit like this and I wish people would stop supporting this broken business model. https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online-2015-remix/ https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-d...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kkarakk 7y ago
Hard to feel sympathetic about a company that literally has fights with local city councils about their humongous all glass company headquarters

nembal 7y ago

As a long Time multi platform user I have to say sometimes Apple’s approach on centralized provisioning im thankful for the effort never to have to deal with buggy/suspicious apps. On the other hand, no competition lead to a point where the Appstore became an authoritarian system where apple is free to play by the rules, or change them as it sees fit for it's bottom line. Only judging Tho, never helped. What would be the consequences of an app store where - # alternative stores would be allowed like android # Apple would lover prices # regional pricing options # free updates for paid content # subscription for updates, distributed among apps user paid for already Other ideas, comments are welcome.

xhruso00 7y ago

>disconnect from the users, which often simply post bad app reviews, or return the app instead of reaching out to developer for actually support and fixes This is so true. I am a dev and this is the most frustrating thing ever if you do freemium model. Yesterday I got reply from customer on the app store: "I DON'T have HOURS to look for free apps. You lie that you are FREE" PS: New Mac App Store has a label "Offers In-Apps" under button GET

gumby 7y ago

I like the App Store because it handles automatic updates pretty well. Then again these days with sparkle, the apps I use do update, so it's not a big advantage for Apple. And how do I know sparkle works so well? Well whenever a dev has an app both in the store and directly downloadable from their site I choose the latter. The price is the same, the functionality is the same (or sometimes more) but the dev gets 30% more. I've never heard one suggest that I download instead of using the store so I assume Apple somehow contractually bars that. I never use the store for discovery; duckduckgo works perfectly well. All in all I thought the App Store would be a good idea for me as a user but in the end it didn't add much. At least I think it got rid of some of those crufty download sites.

moduspol 7y ago
The sandboxing of apps is a nice benefit, though. I can be reasonably confident apps won't conflict with each other and that they're interfacing cleanly and minimally with the host OS. Perhaps not the best example, but I set up Wireguard recently. On Linux, this involves building and installing a kernel module, and directly modifying the host's networking configuration. On Mac, I can install it from the App Store, and I know any networking configuration is handled through Apple's high level APIs (I've built a VPN-based Mac App Store app before). Alternatively, you might install Tunnelblick, a Mac app that wraps OpenVPN and is distributed outside the App Store. It'll end up running scripts like these, as necessary to configure networking on the host: * https://github.com/Tunnelblick/Tunnelblick/blob/master/tunnelblick/client.4.up.tunnelblick.sh https://github.com/Tunnelblick/Tunnelblick/blob/master/tunne... Nothing in that script is crazy--it's all necessary stuff if you're not limiting yourself to the higher level APIs. But it doesn't take many apps doing things of that complexity for totally justifiable reasons before you start having issues.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Isn't the wireguard implementation on MacOS a userland implementation? Seems like a poor example to compare with the Linux version, which is technically superior specifically because it requires a kernel module.

xhruso00 7y ago

The guys latest video shows his frustration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwhb_ukmgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwhb_ukmgY

ThomPete 7y ago

We left the app store because it was making it hard for us to do anything innovative. The mac appstore is litterally hindering innovative apps from existing, and for no good reason that couldnt be solved other ways. I completely understand security concerns but the way apple solves theM is by limiting the free choice of the user. So now we are using the google “appstore”

anovikov 7y ago

With typos all over the page i am starting to doubt that the actual problem was with Apple.

joshsharp 7y ago

Now wouldn't it be great if it was viable to make the same decision about distributing your iOS app.

alunchbox 7y ago

Apple is just milking their over priced pile of garbage as long as they can. This kind of reminds me of the situation long ago with Windows and how they did not want to allow any other browsers expect IE on their OS. It took a long time to give developers freedom and access to API's to develop application on the OS. This feel like it's pivoted similarly to the App Stores now a days (even you Google).

buboard 7y ago

MacOS people problems

fraggle222 7y ago

If the appstore isn't providing the massive increase in revenue that it should, then you should definitely leave. It will be interesting to see in a year or 2 if they regret their decision or not.

Igelau 7y ago

> salleries Ooph. We're not off to a very good start here.

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ghego1 7y ago

In my experience the app store (Mac iOS) has been terrible also for another reason. Due to brexit we relocated from UK to another EU country. There was no way to easily change the country associated with our account, we had to request it and the first meaningful reply arrived 1 year later. This is incredibly problematic from any business perspective (accounting, legal, etc.).

meerita 7y ago

For me the optimal experience was Ubuntu software installer. It's like Homebrew or APM with visuals, search, everything. App Store is just a walled garden.

ProZsolt 7y ago
Try https://www.cakebrew.com/ https://www.cakebrew.com/

ProZsolt 7y ago

I gave up on App Store as a user. I only use it for system updates an Apple software (eg. Pages) I just use Homebrew. - It has all the software I use not just 50% - If not I can easy ad it. - With bundler, I can set up my new computer super easy - If somebody dislikes the CLI there is Cakebrew

unlinked_dll 7y ago
homebrew trashes /usr/local/lib permissions if you have multiple users on the same machine. It's extremely annoying.

lightedman 7y ago

So after reading this, my question is why the heck have they not diversified their product line to make more money? From what I'm seeing, this company is a one-trick pony. I mean, I hate Apple practices as much as the next rational freedom-loving person, but I'm kinda having a hard time feeling sorry for companies that don't know to diversify to hedge against single-point failures (which they ironically complain about while self-building their own SPoF.)

blunderkid 7y ago

User friendliness aside, the 30% that Apple keeps is just plain & simple monopoly abuse, especially on the iOS App Store where Apple does control a majority of the market in US. That they haven't been held up for anti-trust shows that capitalism is not all well. Apple provides no value in exchange for that 30% except charging gatekeepers fee for the entry ticket to their platform. And as this article states, they in fact stand up more hurdles by shoving their limited payments system down the developer's throat. The companies worst affected by this are digital content providers like news/mags which are already struggling.

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stevespang 7y ago

Google and Apple app stores are polluted with trojans and backdoors, new discoveries everyday in the news.

Account123481-x 7y ago

boo hoo

Humdeee 7y ago

To the owner of this website: for the love of god, please get someone to proofread your work.

zelienople 7y ago
And also... light grey text on a white background? Are they trying to get us to use their product just to read their website? I got the urge to scan it to improve the contrast.

bori5 7y ago

I install far more programs/apps using Homebrew than AppStore or direct links for most things, wish more paid apps where that way.

ttcbj 7y ago

I really wonder where Apple and specifically Tim Cook is in all this. I feel like I see posts on HN almost daily that would warrant one of Jeff Bezos's famous 'question mark emails'[1] from Tim Cook to someone within Apple. But I see no evidence of this. I see no evidence of panic within apple that they have lost the ability to delight customers and anticipate their needs effectively. How often do I see a similar level customer or developer pain (anguish really, from supportive customers) regarding Amazon? How often do I see it regarding Google? All these companies have so many resources, but Apple is the only one that doesn't seem to be able to convert those resources into customer focus. It's painful to watch. Where is Apple's board? It's really discouraging! [1] https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-just-confirmed-jeff-bezos-question-mark-method-that-scares-heck-out-of-everyone-at-amazon-heres-how-it-works.html https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-...

ProAm 7y ago
When you have billions in cash in the bank, and your future revenue is tied to subscriptions Tim Cook simply doesn't care about this, its minutiae to your bottom line. They can screw up for YEARS and still be a largely profitable company.
- ttcbj 7y ago
  Agreed, but are Tim Cook and the board really satisfied with that? If so, it's a tragedy that so many resources are controlled by leaders who don't really care that much.
  - asdf21 7y ago
    Every dollar is a vote..
dkonofalski 7y ago
I think the reason you don't is because there's quite a bit of confirmation bias on Hacker News. The demographic of people using HN is far more tech savvy and technical than the majority of the population so things like this feel like they spark a huge amount of outrage when, in reality, it affects like 0.1% of the population.

yepthatsreality 7y ago

Biggest pet peeve: Why the hell hasn’t the iOS App Store password prompt been updated to allow me to use my password manager?

snailmailman 7y ago
This one drives me crazy! My fingerprint never scans properly, so for any app download I have to manually open my password manager to copy/paste the password in. It actually discourages me from downloading apps. If the fingerprint doesn’t scan on the first try I usually give up and just live without the app. It’s usually not worth the hassle of copy/pasting.

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throwaway-hn123 7y ago

Bye!

tenryuu 7y ago

> not user or developer friendly Well, with text contrast like that, neither is your website to be brutally honest

john-radio 7y ago

This press release contains a lot of trivial errors. > Compatible Scanner (in the header menu) should be "Compatibility" > not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries "salaries" > it is not provide to provide not "viable"? > we think a paid upgrade is fair for continuously developing, improvements, and support "for continuous development, improvements, and support" > support a product indefinetly for free "indefinitely" > It creates an artificial frontier between users and developers. "frontier" - word choice. "barrier"? > Developer can not inform users "The developer" (or "A") I'm not going to keep doing this because I'm sure that this comment would grow too long. It doesn't hurt to run a spell checker over your public facing material, you know. I'm open to hearing this developer's criticism of Apple, but given the lack of effort in publishing this simple press release, I'm not exactly opposed to this additional "frontier" standing between their software and my less-tech-savvy friends' and colleagues' Mac computers.

eloisant 7y ago
The company is from Germany, possibly a single-person company. He/she's not a native speaker, might not have access to a native speaker for proofreading and a spell checker wouldn't pick up frontier vs barrier.
- ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  Ignore the misspellings like "salleries", "it is not provide to provide free updates forever" doesn't make sense in any language. The TL;DR is the first thing you see on the page. They author didn't proofread the first paragraph. * TL;DR each manual update review by Apple causes delay and drama AppStore does not support paid upgrades, only new App, in-App purchase or subscriptions Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries it is not provide to provide free updates forever if you purchased our application this year we provide a direct license, if you had it significantly longer, we think a paid upgrade is fair for continuously developing, improvements, and support
thanatropism 7y ago
Come off it. > I'm open to hearing this developer's criticism of Apple You're clearly not. And while it's common not being open to considering something because something ticks you off as not credible, the effort to which you seem to have gotten to point out some typos is -- in the best interpretation -- puzzling. Even a stickler for misspellings would just have commented "This is so badly written I can't take it seriously". There's something else going on.

jtx22 7y ago

They don't like the approval process and don't want to pay Apple 30%. Useless article.

pier25 7y ago

Another problem for the user of all Apple stores (iOS, macOS, books, iTunes) are refunds. In Android you get an automatic refund when you uninstall a recently purchased app. No questions asked. In Steam you can ask for a refund if you have played less than 2 hours and you bought the game less than 2 weeks ago. I've done this dozens of times and in fact being able to refund a game that I don't like gives me confidence in trying new games. Again, no questions asked. Epic also has a similar refund policy as Steam. I only used it once though. With Apple you might or not get a refund and much like App Store reviews there is nothing you can do about it.

whatthesmack 7y ago
I've experienced this several times, and it's very frustrating. I know you really can't do anything about it when you purchase with App Store credit, but I'm curious... does anybody have experience with doing a credit card chargeback in such a situation. It would be good to know if that can be a successful means to resolving an issue where Apple puts up unjustified roadblocks.

pier25 7y ago

I recently uploaded an update of a macOS app to the MAS. Apple rejected it saying that I needed to remove some entitlements that were not used. Of course I needed those entitlements but Apple didn't test the app properly. Anyway I answered their rejection with the reasons why I needed those entitlements. Silence for 2 days. I finally asked for an appeal to the review board and in 1 hour the update was accepted and available in the MAS. We lost 3 days because either Apple's automatic reviewing system failed, or their human reviewers failed.

jjtheblunt 7y ago

genuine question: How is a developer, complaining about "The Catalina Disaster", not an attempt to distract attention, along with other developers, from years-long procrastination?

Jonahgay 7y ago

Who is "We" clickbait man

song 7y ago

I always go out of my way to buy outside of the App Store. Sometimes the app store version is crippled due to constraints from the app store so it just makes sense. Other times, I still do that because I want more of my money to go to the developer. Oh, and for the few app I installed from the app store (usually because I had no choice), I loathe getting a message saying "Blahblah couldn't be updated because it was open"... It's the worst app updating scheme I've seen.

pchristensen 7y ago

Leaving aside the App Store issues, ExactScan Pro is a great app and an essential part of my paperless workflow. I purchased it from them in 2015, then purchased an update from the App Store this summer. It's worth a look whether you want to support an exodus from the MAS or if you just want an awesome scanner program.

vilius 7y ago

I’m curious what’s the eventual revenue balance will look like few years after they get off App Store. It can seem evil and 30% is a steep fee, but it is also a very good distribution channel. Hope they can find alternative ways to market and it beats those 30% and related hassle.

mrlala 7y ago

Side note to this; what's the best way to deploy a custom iphone app these days? We were using a PWA to avoid a fullblown app and all the bullshit with not being able to sideload an app easily like on android. Is there a simple way to get an app out to 5-10 people on ios?

thesquib 7y ago

I have never used the app store except to install macOS from time to time. Everything I need I can buy or download through the web. I also use Windows and Linux depending on my use case, and so I buy multi platform licences where it makes sense and is possible.

kd3 7y ago

Allowing any company to decide what you are allowed to use and run on your device is always a bad idea. It is unfortunate that these devs took so long to realize this.

leokennis 7y ago

The Mac App Store is now so crap infested and buggy that, if at all possible, I always buy directly from the vendors.

tempodox 7y ago

> Not user nor developer friendly Used to be that macOS had really decent experiences to offer for both users and developers. Not any more. Now both are being tortured, just as with Microsoft. I really don't see a big difference any more. When my computer destroys my data and pumps off my money, I really don't give a shit whether it's Apple or Microsoft doing the abuse.