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Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax and other developers won’t

292 points by jedimind 7y ago

jasoneckert 7y ago
There is this widespread assumption that Apple is looking out for the interests of developers on its platform. However, like all large corporations, Apple is and always has looked out for its own interests only. If you keep this in mind, it's easy to understand why Apple does what they do.
- antonzabirko 7y ago
  To extend this, any financial entity is agnostic to your interests.
  - walddgrnd99 7y ago
    That was the point of the 1st Amendment But now in America the thought of not discussing and acting in alignment with money trade is absurd Ferenginar says hello
    - antonzabirko 7y ago
      What? no
    - ryanmarsh 7y ago
      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. You mean this one?
      - simonh 7y ago
        No it's the other 1st Amendment, the one about corporations and chat apps.
      - anoncake 7y ago
        Clearly the result of lobbying by printers and owners of assembly halls.
  - 6510 7y ago
    We cant blame people who don't understand how it works for supporting this scheme. Programmers burning themselves on the corporate altar deserve blame for helping with the promotion of such a platform. Until developers stop pushing this garbage on the rest of humanity Apple is completely right to make their things as Orwellian as they can. I'm not laughing.
- m_a_g 7y ago
  I don't think anyone in the industry assumes that. Apple has been known for these kinds of practices for some time now.
  - dev_tty01 7y ago
    I don't know what you mean by "these kinds of practices" but I agree with you to the extent that Apple is a for-profit company. Anything positive that Apple wants to achieve either for customers and/or society at large only happens if Apple is profitable. No profit, nothing else can or will happen. Profit is priority one as it should be for a business. Customers are next and Apple has succeeded only through driving profit by (most of the time) delighting customers. Developers are somewhere after that. This is how and why companies exist. I don't get why anyone expects anything different. Amazon has leverage so their negotiation is different. Apple would be a poorly run business and less successful if they didn't negotiate and work deals in a manner consistent with reality. It is not good or bad, it is just the real world.
- addicted 7y ago
  If anyone believes a for profit company is looking out for anything but their own interests they are sorely mistaken almost all the time. The thing with Apple though was there were good reasons to believe that their interests were strongly aligned with their users’ and by extension with indie developers. At a time when the Mac was definitely not the obvious choice, Apple had a very strong interest in promoting high quality indie apps because that was a differentiator for their platform (they were also not as financially strong, so this pushed some of the costs of building differentiators out to Indies). At a time when Apple made money solely off selling hardware directly to consumers, there was reason to believe their interests once again aligned with those consumers as opposed to MS who largely sold to OEMs and Google, who didn’t even sell their OS but made money off the user data. But as Apple’s hardware growth is beginning to stall, it appears they’ve decided they must continue to grow financially, and the only way they can do so is by wringing more money out of their existing base. As a result it’s become more about doing stuff that was earlier being done by 3rd parties themselves. And that means indies are screwed becUse Apple can crush them in a way it couldn’t an Amazon or a Netflix, not that it’s not trying.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Companies attempting to grow indefinitely always remind me of this tweet: https://twitter.com/computerfact/status/1214869643531341824?s=20 https://twitter.com/computerfact/status/1214869643531341824?...
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > The thing with Apple though was there were good reasons to believe that their interests were strongly aligned with their users’ and by extension with indie developers. There were good reasons at one time, yes, for the reasons you give. But there aren't good reasons now, because circumstances have changed. Something similar happened in the 1990s with Microsoft and Windows. In the early days of Windows, MS encouraged third-party developers to code to it, because it helped to speed up the expansion of the user base. All kinds of good third-party Windows apps sprung up and thrived for a while. But once the market was pretty much saturated with Windows, a lot of those third-party developers discovered that they were now basically doing market research for MS: whenever they hit on a killer app or feature, MS would simply duplicate it, ship it as part of Windows, and destroy the third party dev's market.
- scarface74 7y ago
  No one thinks that Apple looks out for developers. Apple’s order of priorities are. 1. Itself 2. Customers 3. Developers How it should be.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Incomplete. They may set their own interests first, but they reliably demonstrate the priority of users to the extreme annoyance of e.g. Netflix, Amazon, and so forth. For example, Apple is clearly looking out for the interests of users with higher precedence than the interests of developers. Developers chafe at this, but consider an example: iOS 13 now throws a dialog asking you to confirm that you want an app to be using your location data in the background. Mobile user data resellers noted a massive worldwide drop in sellable location data when this feature was released. Is this benefit for Apple actual, Apple's users, and/or Apple's developers? It's not for developers, because the developers either used the appropriate location permissions anyways, or are now discovering that their crappy ad frameworks are angering their userbase. It's unclear whether it's for Apple actual, because there's no financial revenue gain when they institute this, only a drowning of the swamp of data reselling (without any corresponding monetary uptick anywhere). There's probably some indirect possibilities, but I can't construct a significant and plausible case. Perhaps someone else can. It's absolutely clear that it's for Apple's users, because those are who is concerned about and harmed by data resale. It offers a free benefit at no cost to the user, requiring neither purchase nor subscription. So it's essential to consider each of these aspects when assessing who's interests Apple is looking out for. Yes, it's easier to argue that Apple is selfish, because it's less work than considering the three-pronged reality of apple/users/developer. It's still worth the effort to do so.
- mwfunk 7y ago
  I am not aware of this widespread assumption? Who the heck in the last 2 decades has gone through life thinking Apple is a company that prioritizes its developers over both its users and itself? Source: literally every word written about Apple and developer relations and developer strategies over the last 20 years. I'm not saying this to be critical of Apple, everyone has their own strategies and priorities. Rather, my mind is actually blown that you know anyone who thinks Apple is perceived as some sort of generous patron to developers, and even more that you know enough people like that to anecdotally think it's a widespread assumption.
saagarjha 7y ago
If Apple wasn’t on the chopping block for antitrust before, they certainly are now. As a developer, I knew that Apple would relax their policies for large companies, but this…wow.
dmitriid 7y ago
I can't imagine how pissed Netflix and Spotify are right now (and a whole host of smaller companies).
- saagarjha 7y ago
  If only they had agreed to letting their content be integrated into Apple’s platform…
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    I would be pretty surprised if Apple let Spotify do this, even if the latter were willing. They're direct competitors to Apple's hopeful cash cow Music service.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    The problem isn't integration. The problem is paying 30% Apple tax.
brenden2 7y ago
If you think it's unfair, don't use it. As long as people keep using Apple's products and platforms, they will do what they do.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > If you think it's unfair, don't use it. This is tired “advice” and does nothing to help developers, who have little control over what their users use.
  - brenden2 7y ago
    Everyone has complete control over what they do with their own lives. People should focus more on that, and spend less time writing long winded articles about what other people do. Worrying about what other people do is the path to insanity. Just my 2 cents.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > Everyone has complete control over what they do with their own lives. No, as I just mentioned.
      - cycloptic 7y ago
        You are not being forced to use those platforms. There are other ways to be a developer. They may not be convenient for you but that's a different problem. I know pivoting your skillset can be hard but it's an option that is always available to you.
        SolaceQuantum 7y ago
        It’s more than just inconvenience. If Apple can be protectionist about its Apple store than the developers can be protectionist of their skills and careers as developers on the Apple platform.
umvi 7y ago
I released a small game to iOS once, but never again. It was a massive headache that wasn't worth the users. First of all, you can only build on a Mac, even if you are using a cross platform framework like Unity. So that's like $300 for a used mac mini. Second of all you have to pony up $100 per year. Third of all, Apple will reject your app at their whim and leisure. Like all the games currently being rejected having to do with toilet paper.
- intopieces 7y ago
  I’m glad Apple rejects lots apps and I’m glad it costs money to get into the App Store. Every time I look the Google Play store I decide it’s not worth engaging with, as a user. Too much garbage and malware.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    You don't have to use Google Play Store. You can sideload .apk's or use alternative platforms. There's nothing like that on iOS.
    - TwoBit 7y ago
      There's even worse malware in side-loaded apps.
      - brachi 7y ago
        You mean in platforms like F-droid, or in random apks downloaded from random websites?
      - vorpalhex 7y ago
        Users are people, not cattle. Yes there's value in sensible defaults but once you've paid (dearly) for hardware, you should be able to use it as you see fit.
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
walddgrnd99 7y ago
Walled gardens are what we’ve been telling each they are all along. Film @ 11
- oneVoiceOnHN 7y ago
  I don't provide apps to Apple users and I'm loud about it. They have to use web. Irresponsible customers who are uninformed of Apple's evils.
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    Someone who thinks they know what’s best for their users and is willing to force it on them... sounds like many peoples’ complaints about Apple.
    - oneVoiceOnHN 7y ago
      My product is free. Apple's is not. And, Who cast the first stone?
  - pdonis 7y ago
    Do you provide apps to non-Apple users? Or do they also have to use the web?
    - oneVoiceOnHN 7y ago
      I have a native Android app.
VonGuard 7y ago
Apple's been like this forever, it's only gotten much worse since the late 2000's and the launch of the iTunes App store. Even in the old days, when Mac Classic existed, Apple would change its mind about stuff for developers all the time. Anyone remember OpenDoc and how that was gonna change the world? Apple's favorite thing to do is tell developers it's got the next big thing (Newton), next big language (remember Swift?), or the next big tool (AR). They hand this out to devs, devs eat it up, and like 1 or 2 years later, they either spring said thing like a trap no one can escape from, or they just give up on it and act like it never happened and move on, leaving developers with useless new skills.
- xenospn 7y ago
  Where did Swift go? it's still front and center.
  - VonGuard 7y ago
    It's still here, but people were so excited about it when it came out, and some folks actually thought it'd be usable on other platforms. Here were are years later and it's just a niche language for iPhones. Everyone who was excited about it seems to have stopped being excited because it's 100% Apple only. Like all their stuff. I mean, is there anything better than a completely closed source programming language?
    - Avi0n 7y ago
      Swift is not closed source, it’s open source on GitHub. In addition, Swift currently runs on both macOS and Linux. There is a pull request open that introduces Windows support which I believe will be released with the next point version of Swift.
    - Grustaf 7y ago
      Are you serious? There is an entire industry around swift, countless blogs, podcasts, books and websites. Interest is growing steadily and people are more excited than ever. It’s open source and has a very engaged community around it’s development, anyone can propose changes to it. And of course it’s not 100% apple only, apple themselves have invested a lot in swift on linux, and others are working on swift for windows and webassembly. You couldn’t be more wrong actually.
appstorelottery 7y ago
Two years after the developer program began, I wrote a coin-tossing app that did really well. I quit my job and wrote an AR like app that allowed you to simulate shooting through your camera FPS style. It was very simple, displaying camera output, a cross hair - and when you pressed the button a blood splash appeared along with a gunshot sound. Tasteless, yes, but this was in the era of "More Cowbell" and other low-effort-leads-to-instant-retirement-apps. Apple rejected the app. It upset me, but I figured - ok fair enough. I knew the risks. However I didn't feel the same when the next week one of the top 10 apps was EXACTLY THE SAME except they called it Paintball. I had more than one conspiracy theory surrounding this ;-)
- shinryuu 7y ago
  Framing matters.
  - appstorelottery 7y ago
    Yes indeed. In retrospect I shouldn't have folded so quickly, a quick rename and resubmit was probably in order.
yourkin 7y ago
Amazon (likely after many years of negotiations) got itself a better deal than individual developers? This looks to me like complaining that corporations can aquire goods and services in bulk cheaper than would be for a single person to get in a generic supermarket. I'm all for equality, but this looks like a good precedent that might open more options eventually. What is the backlash here against?
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  Apple isn't bulk buying oranges. They're forcing developers to pay a non-optional tax if they want to target iOS which in turn hurts the consumer.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    It’s not a tax, it’s like a rent. They built and run the ecosystem, you don’t have to be part of it if you don’t like it, it’s completely voluntary, unlike a tax.
    - jw14 7y ago
      Rent is normally flat. I've never heard of a landlord taking a percentage
      - sosborn 7y ago
        It happens all the time with commercial leases. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent....
        amelius 7y ago
        Absurd, and: > The percent that’s applied is usually an industry standard (7% on every dollar) and isn’t subject to much negotiation. Which is still much less than the 30% of Apple.
pentae 7y ago
We had a paid chat app for social media celebrities/models to earn money chatting with their fans years back. Apple argued that despite a human being doing the work it 'took place in the app' so that makes it a 'digital service'. That means we had to accept IAP and of course pay them 30%. Made it impossible to to pay our influencers fairly. One of the many silly rejections we had was due to the images on our influencers profiles being too sexy despite being linked through the Instagram API. After explaining they were the same as you can find in the Instagram app we were told we had to actively censor them anyway. Shame on us for not being as big as Instagram, right? After a year of making less margin from our own business than Apple they concluded paid chat was no longer appropriate for the app store and decided to just put us out of business one morning. Meanwhile, tons of other apps with the same functionality and far more sexualized are alive and doing well. It can't be easy making every developer happy while curating the tidal wave of apps coming in each day, but it was a really soul crushing experience for us.
- LeoTinnitus 7y ago
  Your comments about you not being as big as Instagram are the reason I really hate apple. I've noticed their push for only the top of the line apps or their own stuff for years and it has completely soured me of them. They only cater to people with money. Apple crushes innovation worse than government regulation right now. All the apps I see on the app store are major corporations. There is hardly anything by indie or single devs anymore. Android it kinda exists but Google takes the "promote the moneymakers more" approach. I just wish apple would stop being a SAAS model company and return to making great hardware again. The simple fact alone that it took them 5 years to remove butterfly keyboards from the market along with 3 years to even acknowledge they were broken and offer free repairs shows they don't care about their users at all.
  - clairity 7y ago
    > "All the apps I see on the app store are major corporations. There is hardly anything by indie or single devs anymore." not discounting apple's hand in all this, but that's mostly an instance of the caveat emptor problem (and paradox of choice too)--how do you know who to trust in a market? not that it's always right, but apple and many consumers use size as a proxy for quality, a good enough, but probably not optimal, result in most cases. conversely, it's hard to evaluate small developers with no reputation. then you bring in reviews and review sites, and the additional trust issues around that. any curation is bound to be imperfect (because humans and our systems are imperfect) but no curation at all is often even worse (paradox of choice and all). the path to a better system is not trying to get it exactly right the first time but having swift and visible procedures when it's wrong.
znpy 7y ago
Apple continues exploiting its own users. Nothing new under the sun. An I supposed to be surprised? When you start dealing with Apple you should be expecting to be exploited, both as a user and as a developer.
t0ughcritic 7y ago
Generally aside from games , them taking a 30% cut is generally the profit margin for most software companies. So unless of you can survive year 1 with funding of some kind, or are making side hustle apps, you have to wait till next year to get that 15% increase in subscription revenue. So you pay 30% + cost of user acquisition + all other costs and hope that you can profit. Definitely not developer friendly. Then there’s the issue of rejecting apps, pulling it when they want, building out the functionality themselves or buying a competitor and pushing their own version. Forgot to include Apples return policy for digital products is very hurtful for developers too, there’s been hundreds of articles on it, you literally can get anything digital for free if you contact Apple support and say you want a refund... LinkedIn subscriptions, game products, anything.
- enos_feedler 7y ago
  If Apple didn't spend billions per year over the last 15 years on research & development, marketing, retail, etc to put those devices in hands of your target market, with readily available payment methods and the trust to buy things online, how would most companies even begin to build a business? If you ship bits and bytes, then I think this is fairly owed. Whenever I hear these gripes it makes me wonder why developers feel so entitled. Is it because we all came from a previous world where the PC was a more open platform for distribution? Apple is just a business. Do business with them or don't.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    People were building and distributing software for decades without giving apple 30%. It's just a phone. Smartphones existed before the App Store, too. It provides useful services but it's not the virgin mary and it's not some profoundly new invention: They just did a bunch of things previous apps had done, did them well, and slotted them all together. Things that existed before the app store: * Store performing payment processing (steam, for example) * Same storefront for purchase and install * Automated updates * User reviews * Content submission and distribution (steam again, along with basically every other app store) * Code signing Things that appeared other places around when the app store got them, if not earlier: * IAP * Subscriptions It's totally reasonable for Apple to put all this stuff together and decide it's a good enough package to charge you for it. It's also totally reasonable to think 30% is too much, and to think it's absurd that everyone is required to put up with their arbitrary rule enforcement. If you're paying Apple for a service it's not "entitlement" to expect it to actually be good.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Can the submitted title please be changed to match the original title? It should be "Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax, and why other developers won’t"
- dang 7y ago
  Yes, we'll do that now. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781515
baron816 7y ago
Developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs
Tade0 7y ago
Occasionally I blow the mind of yet another non-technical person who learns from me that not only does Apple require iStore apps to be developed using their hardware, but also there's an annual fee for the privilege of being able to publish to the app store. And on top of that a 30% fee from in app purchases during the first year.
- uk_programmer 7y ago
  People complain about 30%. That is kinda standard in most affiliate style relationships. The subscription is also negligible amount IMO.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Have you ever developed for consoles?
amelius 7y ago
This is why I run whenever I hear the word "platform".
scarface74 7y ago
In other news, if you are a founder who looks like Mark Zuckerburg, you are more likely to get VC funding.
applenerdfan 7y ago
I just posted this in Ask HN but I'll post it again here. How is it that browsers are not banned by the current App Store Guidelines? I know that sounds ridiculous but ... The guidelines say > ### 4.7 HTML5 Games, Bots, etc. > Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary (e.g. HTML5-based games, bots, etc.), as long as code distribution isn’t the main purpose of the app, the code is not offered in a store or store-like interface, and provided that the software (1) is free or purchased using in-app purchase; (2) only uses capabilities available in a standard WebKit view (e.g. it must open and run natively in Safari without modifications or additional software); your app must use WebKit and JavaScript Core to run third-party software and should not attempt to extend or expose native platform APIs to third-party software; (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement; (4) does not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations; (5) adheres to the terms of these App Review Guidelines (e.g. does not include objectionable content); and (6) does not offer digital goods or services for sale. Upon request, you must provide an index of software and metadata available in your app. It must include Apple Developer Program Team IDs for the providers of the software along with a URL which App Review can use to confirm that the software complies with the requirements above. That sounds like all 3rd party browsers are banned. Breaking it down > Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary > ... provided that the software ... > (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement Which means downloading random webpages that run software from users and sites that are not in Apple's Developer Programs is against that rules. That would mean all 3rd party browsers are banned. What am I missing? https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#third-party-software https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#thi...
jariel 7y ago
Imagine if you owned the electricity lines that ran around the city, and anyone who integrated an electrical appliance with 'your electricity' had to give you a 30% cut of their business? Make a toaster? Apple gets 30% of that. This is not new stuff. What Apple is doing is essentially anticompetitive. Similarly, Google uses it's dominance in search to take over other categories. I don't see a single politician who seems to understand the issue well enough, and 90% of them seem to have no clue. But I think that possibly Elizabeth Warren would actually be useful if she didn't overreach. (FYI this is absolutely not a political point, I'm not supporting left/right/Dem/Rep or any view and not even supporting someone's candidacy - I'm saying she's one of the few candidates that seems to be interested in this, and maybe has a grasp of it). We have to be really careful with regulation, but I think there are a handful of anticompetitive, labour, and privacy regulations that would make America an even better and more competitive landscape. By the way - the unspoken elephant is China dumping on tech landscape as well. There is a reason that trade agreements have an issue with government subsidies of businesses. Dumping is more obvious with commodities, but it's the same thing with other companies, i.e. Huawei, and it will creep into others (Zoom?). It needs to be at least looked at.
blunderkid 7y ago
Apple charges 30% from newspapers and magazines - an industry that is struggling to make any money. But not Facebook which makes way more money than all the newspapers in the world taken together. Yes Apple built the platform but by charging a 30% margin it is fleecing it’s customers who already paid through their noses for the devices and/or skimming the entire profit of some developers. It doesn’t even seem like a good business practice from a corporation that makes most of its money through other seemingly legit means. Bottom line, all the virtue signaling aside, Apple is very much a capitalist concern with the morality of a cute crocodile. What’s a monopoly without a little price gouging, eh??
ojr 7y ago
The Apple Tax is the cost of distribution, Amazon has widespread distribution so they are off the hook, not saying it’s fair but that is my reasoning behind it
makecheck 7y ago
I think large-company actions should be measured by “would this behavior practically bankrupt a small company?”, and Apple has quite a few things in this category. They do things that are only tolerated, frankly, because developers have no choice. 90% of App Review seems damned arbitrary, and since I can regularly find examples of clear scams their “review” isn’t even effective.
sys_64738 7y ago
Apple is a monopolist for the iOS App Store. The eco-system is controlled by them using their rules and they compete with others in the same app space. The whole thing is rigged to the extent that an anti-competitive investigation should be done into the market place by the Justice dept.
amelius 7y ago
I think developers should be more principled and stop supporting the platform.
dang 7y ago
Please don't editorialize titles. Submitters that do that eventually lose submission rights on HN. "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Plenty of explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20titles%20editorializ&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... (Submitted title was "Apple's treatment of developers is neither fair nor consistent")
LatteLazy 7y ago
People whine about amazon, but it's apple that are the real monopolists, determined to control the whole market and then abuse that power.
FPGAhacker 7y ago
Doesn’t seem any different than peering agreements between network providers.
femto113 7y ago
I've not read anything yet that actually matches the headline of Amazon "not paying the tax". All I've seen is that users can now purchase content without going through Apple's in-app payment pipeline and instead use Amazons. The agreement with Amazon could still demand that Amazon pay to Apple 30% of the value of anything sold through the in-app channel.
smilekzs 7y ago
There was this idea of breaking "Big Tech" apart floating around a few months ago. It was probably over-zealous as it was proposed, but I now honestly believe that it's a good idea to REQUIRE (by regulations) the major (again defined in such regulations) appstores be operated by a separate entity dedicated to such a role, and subject to extra scrutiny to prevent this kind of anti-competition behavior. Putting it simply, you can't run an appstore and publish apps in it too.
brentis 7y ago
Having had an app on App Store for 5 years, finally moving off. React, Flutter, and PWA make it unnecessary. Personally, I rarely use apps as typing a couple characters in URL bar is easier than scrolling through apps. Lastly, users are much more prone to drop 1 star reviews for little reason other than getting dev attention. Most of my stars are 5 star or 1 star, seems off.
ksec 7y ago
Now this makes me wonder, if Microsoft products on the App Store also gets special treatment with lower cuts than others. Aside from this issues, I wish Apple maintain the 30% cut on Games, ( Since Games even has its whole own section in App Store anyway ) and lowered the cuts to 20% for everything else. I think that would be a fairer approach to every body. 30% Cuts for all other Apps is just insanely expensive.
kerkeslager 7y ago
For those who are against regulating Amazon because "in a free market someone could overthrow Amazon as the leader at any time so the fact they are on top means they must be providing the best service for consumers", this is a great example of why that's not true.
DeathArrow 7y ago
It would be nice to have app stores that are not run by Apple or Google. It feels like they have a monopoly to publish apps for their os-es. I kind of like the PC model where you can get the app straight from developer.
- Jyaif 7y ago
  You can get the app straight from devs on Android, and you can install alternative appstores.
- noisem4ker 7y ago
  Plenty of app stores on the Android side. Amazon's Appstore https://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 https://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 Huawei's App Gallery https://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobileservices/appgallery/ https://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobileservices/appgallery/ Samsung's Galaxy Store https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/galaxy-store/ https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/galaxy-store/ F-Droid https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org If you prefer getting your apps straight from the developer's website, you can have that too. E.g.: http://www.lonelycatgames.com http://www.lonelycatgames.com
DeathArrow 7y ago
If your app doesn't break the law, nobody should tell you if you can publish it or not.
newbalance 7y ago
The "App Store" is empty of everyone, but large companies because mobile apps don't pay the bills. Further, consumer expectations ruined the "App Store" when users began to expect high-quality, continuously updated apps for a one-time spend of $1.

292 points by jedimind 7y ago

There is this widespread assumption that Apple is looking out for the interests of developers on its platform. However, like all large corporations, Apple is and always has looked out for its own interests only. If you keep this in mind, it's easy to understand why Apple does what they do.

antonzabirko 7y ago
To extend this, any financial entity is agnostic to your interests.
- walddgrnd99 7y ago
  That was the point of the 1st Amendment But now in America the thought of not discussing and acting in alignment with money trade is absurd Ferenginar says hello
  - antonzabirko 7y ago
    What? no
  - ryanmarsh 7y ago
    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. You mean this one?
    - simonh 7y ago
      No it's the other 1st Amendment, the one about corporations and chat apps.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Clearly the result of lobbying by printers and owners of assembly halls.
- 6510 7y ago
  We cant blame people who don't understand how it works for supporting this scheme. Programmers burning themselves on the corporate altar deserve blame for helping with the promotion of such a platform. Until developers stop pushing this garbage on the rest of humanity Apple is completely right to make their things as Orwellian as they can. I'm not laughing.
m_a_g 7y ago
I don't think anyone in the industry assumes that. Apple has been known for these kinds of practices for some time now.
- dev_tty01 7y ago
  I don't know what you mean by "these kinds of practices" but I agree with you to the extent that Apple is a for-profit company. Anything positive that Apple wants to achieve either for customers and/or society at large only happens if Apple is profitable. No profit, nothing else can or will happen. Profit is priority one as it should be for a business. Customers are next and Apple has succeeded only through driving profit by (most of the time) delighting customers. Developers are somewhere after that. This is how and why companies exist. I don't get why anyone expects anything different. Amazon has leverage so their negotiation is different. Apple would be a poorly run business and less successful if they didn't negotiate and work deals in a manner consistent with reality. It is not good or bad, it is just the real world.
addicted 7y ago
If anyone believes a for profit company is looking out for anything but their own interests they are sorely mistaken almost all the time. The thing with Apple though was there were good reasons to believe that their interests were strongly aligned with their users’ and by extension with indie developers. At a time when the Mac was definitely not the obvious choice, Apple had a very strong interest in promoting high quality indie apps because that was a differentiator for their platform (they were also not as financially strong, so this pushed some of the costs of building differentiators out to Indies). At a time when Apple made money solely off selling hardware directly to consumers, there was reason to believe their interests once again aligned with those consumers as opposed to MS who largely sold to OEMs and Google, who didn’t even sell their OS but made money off the user data. But as Apple’s hardware growth is beginning to stall, it appears they’ve decided they must continue to grow financially, and the only way they can do so is by wringing more money out of their existing base. As a result it’s become more about doing stuff that was earlier being done by 3rd parties themselves. And that means indies are screwed becUse Apple can crush them in a way it couldn’t an Amazon or a Netflix, not that it’s not trying.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Companies attempting to grow indefinitely always remind me of this tweet: https://twitter.com/computerfact/status/1214869643531341824?s=20 https://twitter.com/computerfact/status/1214869643531341824?...
- pdonis 7y ago
  > The thing with Apple though was there were good reasons to believe that their interests were strongly aligned with their users’ and by extension with indie developers. There were good reasons at one time, yes, for the reasons you give. But there aren't good reasons now, because circumstances have changed. Something similar happened in the 1990s with Microsoft and Windows. In the early days of Windows, MS encouraged third-party developers to code to it, because it helped to speed up the expansion of the user base. All kinds of good third-party Windows apps sprung up and thrived for a while. But once the market was pretty much saturated with Windows, a lot of those third-party developers discovered that they were now basically doing market research for MS: whenever they hit on a killer app or feature, MS would simply duplicate it, ship it as part of Windows, and destroy the third party dev's market.
scarface74 7y ago
No one thinks that Apple looks out for developers. Apple’s order of priorities are. 1. Itself 2. Customers 3. Developers How it should be.
floatingatoll 7y ago
Incomplete. They may set their own interests first, but they reliably demonstrate the priority of users to the extreme annoyance of e.g. Netflix, Amazon, and so forth. For example, Apple is clearly looking out for the interests of users with higher precedence than the interests of developers. Developers chafe at this, but consider an example: iOS 13 now throws a dialog asking you to confirm that you want an app to be using your location data in the background. Mobile user data resellers noted a massive worldwide drop in sellable location data when this feature was released. Is this benefit for Apple actual, Apple's users, and/or Apple's developers? It's not for developers, because the developers either used the appropriate location permissions anyways, or are now discovering that their crappy ad frameworks are angering their userbase. It's unclear whether it's for Apple actual, because there's no financial revenue gain when they institute this, only a drowning of the swamp of data reselling (without any corresponding monetary uptick anywhere). There's probably some indirect possibilities, but I can't construct a significant and plausible case. Perhaps someone else can. It's absolutely clear that it's for Apple's users, because those are who is concerned about and harmed by data resale. It offers a free benefit at no cost to the user, requiring neither purchase nor subscription. So it's essential to consider each of these aspects when assessing who's interests Apple is looking out for. Yes, it's easier to argue that Apple is selfish, because it's less work than considering the three-pronged reality of apple/users/developer. It's still worth the effort to do so.
mwfunk 7y ago
I am not aware of this widespread assumption? Who the heck in the last 2 decades has gone through life thinking Apple is a company that prioritizes its developers over both its users and itself? Source: literally every word written about Apple and developer relations and developer strategies over the last 20 years. I'm not saying this to be critical of Apple, everyone has their own strategies and priorities. Rather, my mind is actually blown that you know anyone who thinks Apple is perceived as some sort of generous patron to developers, and even more that you know enough people like that to anecdotally think it's a widespread assumption.

saagarjha 7y ago

If Apple wasn’t on the chopping block for antitrust before, they certainly are now. As a developer, I knew that Apple would relax their policies for large companies, but this…wow.

dmitriid 7y ago

I can't imagine how pissed Netflix and Spotify are right now (and a whole host of smaller companies).

saagarjha 7y ago
If only they had agreed to letting their content be integrated into Apple’s platform…
- wool_gather 7y ago
  I would be pretty surprised if Apple let Spotify do this, even if the latter were willing. They're direct competitors to Apple's hopeful cash cow Music service.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  The problem isn't integration. The problem is paying 30% Apple tax.

brenden2 7y ago

If you think it's unfair, don't use it. As long as people keep using Apple's products and platforms, they will do what they do.

saagarjha 7y ago
> If you think it's unfair, don't use it. This is tired “advice” and does nothing to help developers, who have little control over what their users use.
- brenden2 7y ago
  Everyone has complete control over what they do with their own lives. People should focus more on that, and spend less time writing long winded articles about what other people do. Worrying about what other people do is the path to insanity. Just my 2 cents.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > Everyone has complete control over what they do with their own lives. No, as I just mentioned.
    - cycloptic 7y ago
      You are not being forced to use those platforms. There are other ways to be a developer. They may not be convenient for you but that's a different problem. I know pivoting your skillset can be hard but it's an option that is always available to you.
      - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
        It’s more than just inconvenience. If Apple can be protectionist about its Apple store than the developers can be protectionist of their skills and careers as developers on the Apple platform.

umvi 7y ago

I released a small game to iOS once, but never again. It was a massive headache that wasn't worth the users. First of all, you can only build on a Mac, even if you are using a cross platform framework like Unity. So that's like $300 for a used mac mini. Second of all you have to pony up $100 per year. Third of all, Apple will reject your app at their whim and leisure. Like all the games currently being rejected having to do with toilet paper.

intopieces 7y ago
I’m glad Apple rejects lots apps and I’m glad it costs money to get into the App Store. Every time I look the Google Play store I decide it’s not worth engaging with, as a user. Too much garbage and malware.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  You don't have to use Google Play Store. You can sideload .apk's or use alternative platforms. There's nothing like that on iOS.
  - TwoBit 7y ago
    There's even worse malware in side-loaded apps.
    - brachi 7y ago
      You mean in platforms like F-droid, or in random apks downloaded from random websites?
    - vorpalhex 7y ago
      Users are people, not cattle. Yes there's value in sensible defaults but once you've paid (dearly) for hardware, you should be able to use it as you see fit.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

walddgrnd99 7y ago

Walled gardens are what we’ve been telling each they are all along. Film @ 11

oneVoiceOnHN 7y ago
I don't provide apps to Apple users and I'm loud about it. They have to use web. Irresponsible customers who are uninformed of Apple's evils.
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  Someone who thinks they know what’s best for their users and is willing to force it on them... sounds like many peoples’ complaints about Apple.
  - oneVoiceOnHN 7y ago
    My product is free. Apple's is not. And, Who cast the first stone?
- pdonis 7y ago
  Do you provide apps to non-Apple users? Or do they also have to use the web?
  - oneVoiceOnHN 7y ago
    I have a native Android app.

VonGuard 7y ago

Apple's been like this forever, it's only gotten much worse since the late 2000's and the launch of the iTunes App store. Even in the old days, when Mac Classic existed, Apple would change its mind about stuff for developers all the time. Anyone remember OpenDoc and how that was gonna change the world? Apple's favorite thing to do is tell developers it's got the next big thing (Newton), next big language (remember Swift?), or the next big tool (AR). They hand this out to devs, devs eat it up, and like 1 or 2 years later, they either spring said thing like a trap no one can escape from, or they just give up on it and act like it never happened and move on, leaving developers with useless new skills.

xenospn 7y ago
Where did Swift go? it's still front and center.
- VonGuard 7y ago
  It's still here, but people were so excited about it when it came out, and some folks actually thought it'd be usable on other platforms. Here were are years later and it's just a niche language for iPhones. Everyone who was excited about it seems to have stopped being excited because it's 100% Apple only. Like all their stuff. I mean, is there anything better than a completely closed source programming language?
  - Avi0n 7y ago
    Swift is not closed source, it’s open source on GitHub. In addition, Swift currently runs on both macOS and Linux. There is a pull request open that introduces Windows support which I believe will be released with the next point version of Swift.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    Are you serious? There is an entire industry around swift, countless blogs, podcasts, books and websites. Interest is growing steadily and people are more excited than ever. It’s open source and has a very engaged community around it’s development, anyone can propose changes to it. And of course it’s not 100% apple only, apple themselves have invested a lot in swift on linux, and others are working on swift for windows and webassembly. You couldn’t be more wrong actually.

appstorelottery 7y ago

Two years after the developer program began, I wrote a coin-tossing app that did really well. I quit my job and wrote an AR like app that allowed you to simulate shooting through your camera FPS style. It was very simple, displaying camera output, a cross hair - and when you pressed the button a blood splash appeared along with a gunshot sound. Tasteless, yes, but this was in the era of "More Cowbell" and other low-effort-leads-to-instant-retirement-apps. Apple rejected the app. It upset me, but I figured - ok fair enough. I knew the risks. However I didn't feel the same when the next week one of the top 10 apps was EXACTLY THE SAME except they called it Paintball. I had more than one conspiracy theory surrounding this ;-)

shinryuu 7y ago
Framing matters.
- appstorelottery 7y ago
  Yes indeed. In retrospect I shouldn't have folded so quickly, a quick rename and resubmit was probably in order.

yourkin 7y ago

Amazon (likely after many years of negotiations) got itself a better deal than individual developers? This looks to me like complaining that corporations can aquire goods and services in bulk cheaper than would be for a single person to get in a generic supermarket. I'm all for equality, but this looks like a good precedent that might open more options eventually. What is the backlash here against?

vorpalhex 7y ago
Apple isn't bulk buying oranges. They're forcing developers to pay a non-optional tax if they want to target iOS which in turn hurts the consumer.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  It’s not a tax, it’s like a rent. They built and run the ecosystem, you don’t have to be part of it if you don’t like it, it’s completely voluntary, unlike a tax.
  - jw14 7y ago
    Rent is normally flat. I've never heard of a landlord taking a percentage
    - sosborn 7y ago
      It happens all the time with commercial leases. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/clb-percentage-rent....
      - amelius 7y ago
        Absurd, and: > The percent that’s applied is usually an industry standard (7% on every dollar) and isn’t subject to much negotiation. Which is still much less than the 30% of Apple.

pentae 7y ago

We had a paid chat app for social media celebrities/models to earn money chatting with their fans years back. Apple argued that despite a human being doing the work it 'took place in the app' so that makes it a 'digital service'. That means we had to accept IAP and of course pay them 30%. Made it impossible to to pay our influencers fairly. One of the many silly rejections we had was due to the images on our influencers profiles being too sexy despite being linked through the Instagram API. After explaining they were the same as you can find in the Instagram app we were told we had to actively censor them anyway. Shame on us for not being as big as Instagram, right? After a year of making less margin from our own business than Apple they concluded paid chat was no longer appropriate for the app store and decided to just put us out of business one morning. Meanwhile, tons of other apps with the same functionality and far more sexualized are alive and doing well. It can't be easy making every developer happy while curating the tidal wave of apps coming in each day, but it was a really soul crushing experience for us.

LeoTinnitus 7y ago
Your comments about you not being as big as Instagram are the reason I really hate apple. I've noticed their push for only the top of the line apps or their own stuff for years and it has completely soured me of them. They only cater to people with money. Apple crushes innovation worse than government regulation right now. All the apps I see on the app store are major corporations. There is hardly anything by indie or single devs anymore. Android it kinda exists but Google takes the "promote the moneymakers more" approach. I just wish apple would stop being a SAAS model company and return to making great hardware again. The simple fact alone that it took them 5 years to remove butterfly keyboards from the market along with 3 years to even acknowledge they were broken and offer free repairs shows they don't care about their users at all.
- clairity 7y ago
  > "All the apps I see on the app store are major corporations. There is hardly anything by indie or single devs anymore." not discounting apple's hand in all this, but that's mostly an instance of the caveat emptor problem (and paradox of choice too)--how do you know who to trust in a market? not that it's always right, but apple and many consumers use size as a proxy for quality, a good enough, but probably not optimal, result in most cases. conversely, it's hard to evaluate small developers with no reputation. then you bring in reviews and review sites, and the additional trust issues around that. any curation is bound to be imperfect (because humans and our systems are imperfect) but no curation at all is often even worse (paradox of choice and all). the path to a better system is not trying to get it exactly right the first time but having swift and visible procedures when it's wrong.

znpy 7y ago

Apple continues exploiting its own users. Nothing new under the sun. An I supposed to be surprised? When you start dealing with Apple you should be expecting to be exploited, both as a user and as a developer.

t0ughcritic 7y ago

Generally aside from games , them taking a 30% cut is generally the profit margin for most software companies. So unless of you can survive year 1 with funding of some kind, or are making side hustle apps, you have to wait till next year to get that 15% increase in subscription revenue. So you pay 30% + cost of user acquisition + all other costs and hope that you can profit. Definitely not developer friendly. Then there’s the issue of rejecting apps, pulling it when they want, building out the functionality themselves or buying a competitor and pushing their own version. Forgot to include Apples return policy for digital products is very hurtful for developers too, there’s been hundreds of articles on it, you literally can get anything digital for free if you contact Apple support and say you want a refund... LinkedIn subscriptions, game products, anything.

enos_feedler 7y ago
If Apple didn't spend billions per year over the last 15 years on research & development, marketing, retail, etc to put those devices in hands of your target market, with readily available payment methods and the trust to buy things online, how would most companies even begin to build a business? If you ship bits and bytes, then I think this is fairly owed. Whenever I hear these gripes it makes me wonder why developers feel so entitled. Is it because we all came from a previous world where the PC was a more open platform for distribution? Apple is just a business. Do business with them or don't.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  People were building and distributing software for decades without giving apple 30%. It's just a phone. Smartphones existed before the App Store, too. It provides useful services but it's not the virgin mary and it's not some profoundly new invention: They just did a bunch of things previous apps had done, did them well, and slotted them all together. Things that existed before the app store: * Store performing payment processing (steam, for example) * Same storefront for purchase and install * Automated updates * User reviews * Content submission and distribution (steam again, along with basically every other app store) * Code signing Things that appeared other places around when the app store got them, if not earlier: * IAP * Subscriptions It's totally reasonable for Apple to put all this stuff together and decide it's a good enough package to charge you for it. It's also totally reasonable to think 30% is too much, and to think it's absurd that everyone is required to put up with their arbitrary rule enforcement. If you're paying Apple for a service it's not "entitlement" to expect it to actually be good.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

Can the submitted title please be changed to match the original title? It should be "Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax, and why other developers won’t"

dang 7y ago
Yes, we'll do that now. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781515

baron816 7y ago

Developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs

Tade0 7y ago

Occasionally I blow the mind of yet another non-technical person who learns from me that not only does Apple require iStore apps to be developed using their hardware, but also there's an annual fee for the privilege of being able to publish to the app store. And on top of that a 30% fee from in app purchases during the first year.

uk_programmer 7y ago
People complain about 30%. That is kinda standard in most affiliate style relationships. The subscription is also negligible amount IMO.
scarface74 7y ago
Have you ever developed for consoles?

amelius 7y ago

This is why I run whenever I hear the word "platform".

scarface74 7y ago

In other news, if you are a founder who looks like Mark Zuckerburg, you are more likely to get VC funding.

applenerdfan 7y ago

I just posted this in Ask HN but I'll post it again here. How is it that browsers are not banned by the current App Store Guidelines? I know that sounds ridiculous but ... The guidelines say > ### 4.7 HTML5 Games, Bots, etc. > Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary (e.g. HTML5-based games, bots, etc.), as long as code distribution isn’t the main purpose of the app, the code is not offered in a store or store-like interface, and provided that the software (1) is free or purchased using in-app purchase; (2) only uses capabilities available in a standard WebKit view (e.g. it must open and run natively in Safari without modifications or additional software); your app must use WebKit and JavaScript Core to run third-party software and should not attempt to extend or expose native platform APIs to third-party software; (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement; (4) does not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations; (5) adheres to the terms of these App Review Guidelines (e.g. does not include objectionable content); and (6) does not offer digital goods or services for sale. Upon request, you must provide an index of software and metadata available in your app. It must include Apple Developer Program Team IDs for the providers of the software along with a URL which App Review can use to confirm that the software complies with the requirements above. That sounds like all 3rd party browsers are banned. Breaking it down > Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary > ... provided that the software ... > (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement Which means downloading random webpages that run software from users and sites that are not in Apple's Developer Programs is against that rules. That would mean all 3rd party browsers are banned. What am I missing? https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#third-party-software https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#thi...

jariel 7y ago

Imagine if you owned the electricity lines that ran around the city, and anyone who integrated an electrical appliance with 'your electricity' had to give you a 30% cut of their business? Make a toaster? Apple gets 30% of that. This is not new stuff. What Apple is doing is essentially anticompetitive. Similarly, Google uses it's dominance in search to take over other categories. I don't see a single politician who seems to understand the issue well enough, and 90% of them seem to have no clue. But I think that possibly Elizabeth Warren would actually be useful if she didn't overreach. (FYI this is absolutely not a political point, I'm not supporting left/right/Dem/Rep or any view and not even supporting someone's candidacy - I'm saying she's one of the few candidates that seems to be interested in this, and maybe has a grasp of it). We have to be really careful with regulation, but I think there are a handful of anticompetitive, labour, and privacy regulations that would make America an even better and more competitive landscape. By the way - the unspoken elephant is China dumping on tech landscape as well. There is a reason that trade agreements have an issue with government subsidies of businesses. Dumping is more obvious with commodities, but it's the same thing with other companies, i.e. Huawei, and it will creep into others (Zoom?). It needs to be at least looked at.

blunderkid 7y ago

Apple charges 30% from newspapers and magazines - an industry that is struggling to make any money. But not Facebook which makes way more money than all the newspapers in the world taken together. Yes Apple built the platform but by charging a 30% margin it is fleecing it’s customers who already paid through their noses for the devices and/or skimming the entire profit of some developers. It doesn’t even seem like a good business practice from a corporation that makes most of its money through other seemingly legit means. Bottom line, all the virtue signaling aside, Apple is very much a capitalist concern with the morality of a cute crocodile. What’s a monopoly without a little price gouging, eh??

ojr 7y ago

The Apple Tax is the cost of distribution, Amazon has widespread distribution so they are off the hook, not saying it’s fair but that is my reasoning behind it

makecheck 7y ago

I think large-company actions should be measured by “would this behavior practically bankrupt a small company?”, and Apple has quite a few things in this category. They do things that are only tolerated, frankly, because developers have no choice. 90% of App Review seems damned arbitrary, and since I can regularly find examples of clear scams their “review” isn’t even effective.

sys_64738 7y ago

Apple is a monopolist for the iOS App Store. The eco-system is controlled by them using their rules and they compete with others in the same app space. The whole thing is rigged to the extent that an anti-competitive investigation should be done into the market place by the Justice dept.

amelius 7y ago

I think developers should be more principled and stop supporting the platform.

dang 7y ago

Please don't editorialize titles. Submitters that do that eventually lose submission rights on HN. "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Plenty of explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20titles%20editorializ&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... (Submitted title was "Apple's treatment of developers is neither fair nor consistent")

LatteLazy 7y ago

People whine about amazon, but it's apple that are the real monopolists, determined to control the whole market and then abuse that power.

FPGAhacker 7y ago

Doesn’t seem any different than peering agreements between network providers.

femto113 7y ago

I've not read anything yet that actually matches the headline of Amazon "not paying the tax". All I've seen is that users can now purchase content without going through Apple's in-app payment pipeline and instead use Amazons. The agreement with Amazon could still demand that Amazon pay to Apple 30% of the value of anything sold through the in-app channel.

smilekzs 7y ago

There was this idea of breaking "Big Tech" apart floating around a few months ago. It was probably over-zealous as it was proposed, but I now honestly believe that it's a good idea to REQUIRE (by regulations) the major (again defined in such regulations) appstores be operated by a separate entity dedicated to such a role, and subject to extra scrutiny to prevent this kind of anti-competition behavior. Putting it simply, you can't run an appstore and publish apps in it too.

brentis 7y ago

Having had an app on App Store for 5 years, finally moving off. React, Flutter, and PWA make it unnecessary. Personally, I rarely use apps as typing a couple characters in URL bar is easier than scrolling through apps. Lastly, users are much more prone to drop 1 star reviews for little reason other than getting dev attention. Most of my stars are 5 star or 1 star, seems off.

ksec 7y ago

Now this makes me wonder, if Microsoft products on the App Store also gets special treatment with lower cuts than others. Aside from this issues, I wish Apple maintain the 30% cut on Games, ( Since Games even has its whole own section in App Store anyway ) and lowered the cuts to 20% for everything else. I think that would be a fairer approach to every body. 30% Cuts for all other Apps is just insanely expensive.

kerkeslager 7y ago

For those who are against regulating Amazon because "in a free market someone could overthrow Amazon as the leader at any time so the fact they are on top means they must be providing the best service for consumers", this is a great example of why that's not true.

DeathArrow 7y ago

It would be nice to have app stores that are not run by Apple or Google. It feels like they have a monopoly to publish apps for their os-es. I kind of like the PC model where you can get the app straight from developer.

Jyaif 7y ago
You can get the app straight from devs on Android, and you can install alternative appstores.
noisem4ker 7y ago
Plenty of app stores on the Android side. Amazon's Appstore https://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 https://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 Huawei's App Gallery https://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobileservices/appgallery/ https://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobileservices/appgallery/ Samsung's Galaxy Store https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/galaxy-store/ https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/galaxy-store/ F-Droid https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org If you prefer getting your apps straight from the developer's website, you can have that too. E.g.: http://www.lonelycatgames.com http://www.lonelycatgames.com

DeathArrow 7y ago

If your app doesn't break the law, nobody should tell you if you can publish it or not.

newbalance 7y ago

The "App Store" is empty of everyone, but large companies because mobile apps don't pay the bills. Further, consumer expectations ruined the "App Store" when users began to expect high-quality, continuously updated apps for a one-time spend of $1.