9 ms·

A Rare Disagreement

116 points by iamclovin 16y ago

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
"Developers are being shown that their apps — and their months or years of hard work, and in many cases, their entire businesses — can be yanked by Apple’s whim at any time for reasons that they couldn’t have anticipated or avoided." Exactly, it's the classic bait and switch. Now after spending the time, money, and effort involved in developing the apps developers are forced to either cut their losses and abandon ship, or continue giving into Apple's demands.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  Not just developers, but users as well. 90% of my ipad usage is with 2 apps - Netflix and Kindle, and now Apple is threatening to mess with them. I am not amused.
  - staunch 16y ago
    Netflix is the killer app for me. They go off the iPad and I'll probably buy something else when I buy a new tablet.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Apple won't mess with Netflix. No way. Any phone/tablet without Netflix is a non-starter. Apple knows this. Netflix gets an exemption. Kindle is a tougher call. I think Apple may try to pull them and see if they can do it or not.
    - tomkarlo 16y ago
      Don't forget there's a web-based Kindle reader as well. It's not as great as an app but with some offline storage it's a somewhat viable substitute.
    - jonknee 16y ago
      I don't disagree, but that's also how you get sued/investigated for anti-competitive behavior.
      - andyman1080 16y ago
        Seriously? Did I miss the part where iOS obtained 95% mobile OS market share?
        Natsu 16y ago
        > Did I miss the part where iOS obtained 95% mobile OS market share? That depends on whether or not you believe what Steve said in the keynote about having over 90% of the tablet market.
        mhw 16y ago
        Did I miss the part where first-mover advantage became anti-competitive behaviour?
        Natsu 16y ago
        I'm not making any claims about who is and isn't an illegal monopoly, that's a legal matter and IANAL. I was addressing the claim about market share and only that.
        mhw 16y ago
        Neither was I really. I was making a point about the speed with which people are jumping to claims of anti-competitive behaviour before the competition have really got out of the starting blocks, and in some cases before they've even got their running spikes on. I think it would be a very bad move to regulate a market that's only really existed for 3 years and hasn't yet reached a point where anyone can be said to have an established monopoly. Must remember not to try being pithy on HN in future.
  - kmfrk 16y ago
    It's funny to think of the app comparison Jobs did at his keynote presentation. Let's see the numbers for books on Kindle and compare notes.
- brianwillis 16y ago
  ...and it raises the question for every other iOS developer: am I next?
  - rimantas 16y ago
    as if every iOS developer sells subscriptions…
    - larrik 16y ago
      No, the point is who knows what types of apps will be deemed undesirable next? IE. What if Apple decides that they'd rather have only the top 1 or two apps for a category? That having only one throwing physics game, or one tower defense game, is what customers really want? Sure, that's ridiculous, but it's not THAT far from Apple's history. Or, maybe apps that let you play musical instruments compete too much with the new Garage Band. The point is, there is no limit to what Apple can change.
rimantas 16y ago
So, which apps were banned and business ruined because of the new rules? Or is this just some wild guessing?
- stonemetal 16y ago
  He is one of these guys http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245692 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245692
  - joebananas 16y ago
    Which was submitted after the rule change.
danilocampos 16y ago
I feel as though Marco is remiss in not disclosing that he has ties to a company that has a real dog in this hunt (Readability): http://www.marco.org/3044068415 http://www.marco.org/3044068415 Context: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/21/readability http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/21/readability It doesn't invalidate his points at all but as an advisor to a company deeply affected by this policy, the honest thing to do would be to make that agenda clear. If he wants the trust of his readers, it's worth letting them decide "Is he saying this because he believes it or because it benefits his associates to convince people this is true? Both?"
- kmfrk 16y ago
  First they came for the fart apps ... The problem with Apple's recent fumblings is that it leaves the iOS platform wide open to slippery slope scenarios. While Readability was flat-out denied upon app submission, others were yanked post-approval, which creates a Damoclean sword in the minds of every current and prospective app developer. You don't need to play the degrees of separation game; Marco's Instapaper subscriptions can be rendered null and void at the whims of Apple's incongruous and incomprehensible "policy". --- As a user, it's also unsettling, because I honestly don't know where this leaves current and future apps. I recently read that Apple allowed a tabloid's app that contains a daily photo of a nude woman. What happened to Apple's no-pornography policy? Remember Steve's e-mail that replied that people looking for such filth could try out Android? This is the App Store brouhaha all over again, except it now affects approved apps as well, meaning that we as users and developers will live in perpetual fear of a trap door opening beneath the most cherished apps. Not for sake of consistency or "policy", but the behest of whatever incomprehensible whims the guys at Infinite Loop have.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    That's a little fuzzier, though. Steve said he's not trying to get a chunk of SaaS. So is Instapaper a content subscription or SaaS? Seems closer to the latter to me, but definitely concede the point that this uncertainty is bad for the platform. At the same time: Paying out $2 billion to devs and having 200 million credit card accounts means never having to say you're sorry.
Tichy 16y ago
Can't you buy ebooks through some other service and then display them on your kindle?
- jonknee 16y ago
  Displaying books on your Kindle has nothing to do with Apple's iOS terms. Apple could disappear entirely and you'd be able to continue buying ebooks and reading them on your Kindle. The discussion is over iOS and under the latest statements from Apple it appears the iPad's Kindle app cannot exist in its current state.
- ptomato 16y ago
  Not really, as the Kindle doesn't support any other vendor's DRM. If you can buy a DRM-free ebook, then sure, though you may have to convert it to a different format.
- kemayo 16y ago
  Kindle supports a number of formats (though notably not ePub), so if you can buy a DRM-free ebook then you can get it onto your Kindle. There are plenty of stores out there[1] which are happy to sell you such ebooks, as well... though there's certainly some titles which are only available DRM-encumbered. [1] http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Publishers_without_DRM http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Pu...
asnyder 16y ago
Personally, I don't feel it's the freedom, or anything of that nature. A 30% cut of anything is just too much. 5%, 10%, ok, maybe even 15%, but 30% to be listed in an app directory, come on. The payment processing is at most 2-3%. Demanding 30% of your revenue is outrageous and borders on mafia-like. Terrible. Unfortunately, all the above applies to Android, and others. Apple gets the blame IMO because they set the precedent. There's no reason they couldn't have made their initial cut 10%. 10% is still high, but reasonable. Furthermore, it wouldn't be so outrageous if they provided some value or tangible services for it, but they don't. They don't give advice, or contribute in any tangible way, it's essentially an outrageous tax without any real services in return.
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  You mean aside from bandwidth, a marketplace of literally hundreds of millions of ready buyers for your chosen platform, all with credit cards conveniently stored for ease of purchasing your product? Sounds like Python's Life of Brian.
  - jonknee 16y ago
    > You mean aside from bandwidth, a marketplace of literally hundreds of millions of ready buyers for your chosen platform, all with credit cards conveniently stored for ease of purchasing your product? For subscriptions at least the bandwidth is funded by the publisher. Yes you get access to lots of customers, but you have to charge them the same as ones you sell yourself and if you want to have an app you are required to let your users purchase from within it. It adds up to 30% being ridiculously high. If it was opt-in and/or non price matching I don't think many would care, but as it stands it's a huge tax that if enforced will mean the end to many of the killer apps of iOS.
  - asnyder 16y ago
    We're talking 30% here. You think 30% is a just price for that service? Lets not forget that you still have to pay taxes on the remaining income. If there was a startup here on HN whose business model was 30% of your revenues for hosting of your app + credit card information storage (usually done via 3rd party PCI compliant service) it wouldn't be taken very seriously. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but 30% of your revenue for that service is absurd.
ROFISH 16y ago
I think part of the reason why there is such a "user revolt" (opposed to a tech or developer only revolt) is the prospect of functionality of current apps such as Amazon Kindle or Netflix or Hulu will go away, and that Apple hasn't provided any assurance that they'll stay. Right now I'm in "wait and see" mode where I don't want to invest in the iPad 2 unless I know for sure that Hulu will still be able to function.
- joebananas 16y ago
  Where is this "user revolt" you speak of?
- netcan 16y ago
  In a sense, policies that affect current apps are somewhat preferable. If new policies kill existing apps altogether Apple and consumers will know the consequences of the policy. This means the policy may change to avoid them or motivate competitors to differentiate with policies that allow these apps to exist. Killing unborn applications is more speculative. Who knows which apps didn't get built for what reason?
jonknee 16y ago
> So why aren’t those who are criticizing Apple for taking a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue criticizing Amazon? My theory: everyone understands, intuitively, that the Kindle is a closed proprietary platform; but many people view iOS (incorrectly) as a platform like the Mac or Windows, where third parties are free to do what they want. This seems like laziness or intentional dishonesty on Gruber's part. There are huge differences between the two. The biggest being Amazon doesn't have a Kindle app ecosystem so there isn't the [huge] problem of requiring a subscription option (which is the real issue--charge 90% if you want, it just becomes unfair when you require me to use it). Amazon also funds the delivery of the content to the subscriber, which considering it's often over 3G can be considerable. In the current state of things if you are a publisher with an iOS app, Apple changed the rules to either require you to cough up 30% of your business or stop being a publisher. Also, you get the joy of delivering all content, that's not included in your 30% vig.
- technomancy 16y ago
  > This seems like laziness or intentional dishonesty on Gruber's part. What do you expect from the freelance Apple PR department?
  - jonknee 16y ago
    He's too consistent to still be freelance.
technomancy 16y ago
> So why aren’t those who are criticizing Apple for taking a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue criticizing Amazon? Who says people aren't criticizing Amazon? Their DRM-infested marketplace is very customer-hostile. The difference is that you can use the hardware without using their marketplace.
- ugh 16y ago
  Isn’t that equally true for iOS devices? What can you do with a Kindle except buying books from Amazon? As far as I know, you can read books without DRM and you can surf the web. That’s equally true for all iOS devices. What else does a Kindle allow you to do that you cannot do on an iOS device sans apps?
  - abuden 16y ago
    You'd be hard-pressed to call the Kindle a general-purpose computing device; its hardware limitations make it more or less useless for anything but reading. Apple's limitations on what you can do with your devices are artificial and arbitrary.
  - trotsky 16y ago
    It seems to me that the difference is what you purchased the device for. Based on advertisements, I'd say the usual goal of an iOS purchase is to run apps and the usual goal of a Kindle purchase is to read books. You can read books on the kindle that amazon doesn't approve of, but you can't (reasonably) run apps on an iOS device that Apple doesn't approve of.
- bane 16y ago
  And you can use their marketplaces without using their hardware.
tomkarlo 16y ago
There's an other point in this Apple/Amazon comparison that's not being raised: If you own a book, and you don't want to stick with Kindle's format, it's trivial to offer that same core product on other platforms like the Nook or Apple's store. Whereas if you've developed an iOS app, transitioning that to another platform is often going to be a large amount of work where you're basically starting over from the spec and not bringing over any code. Which means you're going to generally hear a lot more squawking from iOS software vendors than book vendors, because their migration costs are prohibitive relative to those of book publishers.
- jad 16y ago
  Whereas if you've developed an iOS app, transitioning that to another platform is often going to be a large amount of work where you're basically starting over from the spec and not bringing over any code. It's much harder to find a substitute for the App Store ecosystem than it is to replace the code. The proverbial rock and hard place.
njharman 16y ago
Amazon has pulled books, and for not good reasons IIRC.
- jonknee 16y ago
  They have deleted books, but I only remember for good reasons. The famous 1984 deletion was because the publisher didn't actually have copyright, which seems like as good as of a reason as a company can have.
  - rosser 16y ago
    They also said they'd never do something like that again. Bezos personally apologized for the way Kindle users were affected by the 1984 incident. AFAIK, Apple has never owned up to one of its policy decisions having been a mistake, let alone apologized for it. They've changed their policies -- witness the short-lived language choice terms -- but never issued anything even suggestive of a mea culpa.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    In my opinion, there cannot be a good reason for pulling books that you bought, ever. Imagine that happening to dead-tree books, someone shows up on your doorstep to reclaim the book 'because it violates copyright'. You'd tell them to bugger off, and it's no different in this case. Once you bought a book, digital or analog, it should stay in your possession for as long as you want.
    - allwein 16y ago
      Um, the police do this all the time with stolen property.
      - wladimir 16y ago
        Yes. But never with books that you buy in a respectable bookstore, and pay for. Which was my point. Also, Amazon is not the police. If they take something you rightfully bought, they are the thieves.
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S_A_P 16y ago
I have to say I side with marco on this one. I really think that apple needs to focus on the ecosystem and let the content creators create their own markets.
raganwald 16y ago
I've already commented on this subject: https://raganwald.posterous.com/the-freedom-to-eat-pizza https://raganwald.posterous.com/the-freedom-to-eat-pizza The tl;dr is where I say "Cry me a fucking river." When will people learn? A closed, proprietary system is a closed, proprietary system. Marco is arguing that the Massah is being too rough on the sharecroppers, he's beating them inconsistently and in ways they couldn't reasonably predict. Let me see if I understand: These poor indentured servants built a business around what they perceived as a loophole in Apple's iOS terms. Their plan was to make millions of dollars off their "free" iOS apps while Apple got nothing. Then Apple shook them down for 30%. Well I couldn't have predicted exactly how Apple would react, but I don't imagine anyone ought to be surprised that they did something. They're the landlord. That's what landlords do: They extract rents from the sharecroppers, and if rents aren't enough they kick the sharecroppers out and take over the land for themselves. You can bitch and whine, you can figure out how to make money while Apple tolerates your presence, or you can stop building on proprietary platforms. Arguing that Apple is illogical or ought to be smarter or is shooting itself in the foot... A waste of electrons. Does Apple look like the kind of company that takes our advice on how to run a business? If it listened to people like us, it would be selling Windows PCs right now. iOS and Kindles and Java and everything else controlled by a profit-seeking corporation are all the same things to developers. Of course Apple markets your work to end users and pretends you're happy with your cut of the two billion dollars in app store revenue. That's like a dating site marketing you to other users. The bottom line is this: If you are developing for a proprietary system, you aren't in the business, you are the business. Trying to argue that Apple's proprietary system ought to be less closed or more free or have more pixie dust than Amazon's is wishful thinking. If you develop for any of these proprietary platforms, you are a sharecropper. You work at the landlord's pleasure to improve the land he owns. Period.
- mrkurt 16y ago
  Might as well shut the fuck up and not bother expressing unhappiness with a company you're giving money to, right? The sharecropper analogy is so absolute it's useless. It makes for a lovely soundbite, though, I'm sure it's fun to repeat ad nauseam.
  - 16y ago
netcan 16y ago
Building a business on iOS similar to building a business on a single client. It's an issue, but it is done.
fpgeek 16y ago
I have zero sympathy for developers in all of this. Apple has made it clear from day 1 that you are only permitted on iOS at their pleasure and that they can change the rules at any time. For those of you who were slow, the way Apple banned Adobe Flash CS5 apps right before CS5 was going to be released should have been a wake up call. Maybe you bet that your corner of the world wouldn't be interesting to Apple or maybe you didn't realize you could get caught in the crossfire of an unrelated Apple objective. Tough. This is what you signed up for. If you don't like it maybe you shouldn't have been developing iOS apps in the first place. The people I do have sympathy for are users. They are not going to understand why some of their favorite applications and services on iOS stop being updated / eventually disappear altogether. Among other things, Apple sold devices using the availability of apps. I didn't see any fine print saying "your favorite apps might get rejected in the future" in those ads. And I can't think of a similar platform that might have given users those expectations. So users have a genuine beef. Developers are just not being honest with themselves about the consequences of their own choices.
- A1kmm 16y ago
  People (users and developers) have a right not to be adversely affected by unfair competition. Apple has a monopoly on selling iOS devices because of Copyright law - and that is how Copyright law is supposed to work. Apple develops iOS, and so aren't breaking any laws by making their App Store the default. Apple operates their App Store; selling access to the App Store under reasonable terms is also perfectly legitimate. However, a particular sequence of actions can be illegal even though each of the individual actions that makes it up are legal. It is legal to ask someone nicely to stand in front of you (obviously they don't have to), and it is legal to move a knife and twist it in front of you; that doesn't mean it is legal to do the first then the second! IANAL, but Apple's conduct around the 30% charge, while made up of individually legal actions, appears to be a straightforward breach of US anti-trust law. 15USCs14 (part of the Clayton Act) says that it is illegal to sell something on an agreement that someone won't purchase something else. So making developers agree that they can buy App Store services unless they don't buy payment processing for use within their app from anyone except Apple is not allowed in the United States, if the effect "may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce". Even if it wasn't illegal, it would still be wrong to try to lessen competition for their advantage, and it would be entirely appropriate for developers to criticise Apple heavily for it.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- netcan 16y ago
  I don't understand the Android alternative argument. Android is an alternative for users, not developers. Users can go and buy an android phone (or tablet, sort of) if they want and use most of the same apps. Developers need to go to where the buyers are. This probably means both platforms. It certainly means iOS. They are in the business of selling (or distributing) apps not developing them.
Ataraxy 16y ago
Well, that's the down side to relying on an app store rather then helping shape the mobile web. While I understand the appeal for wanting in on the app store for a variety of reasons, this is going to keep happening over and over again. For content distributors, app stores are a short sighted vision.

116 points by iamclovin 16y ago

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

"Developers are being shown that their apps — and their months or years of hard work, and in many cases, their entire businesses — can be yanked by Apple’s whim at any time for reasons that they couldn’t have anticipated or avoided." Exactly, it's the classic bait and switch. Now after spending the time, money, and effort involved in developing the apps developers are forced to either cut their losses and abandon ship, or continue giving into Apple's demands.

ojbyrne 16y ago
Not just developers, but users as well. 90% of my ipad usage is with 2 apps - Netflix and Kindle, and now Apple is threatening to mess with them. I am not amused.
- staunch 16y ago
  Netflix is the killer app for me. They go off the iPad and I'll probably buy something else when I buy a new tablet.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Apple won't mess with Netflix. No way. Any phone/tablet without Netflix is a non-starter. Apple knows this. Netflix gets an exemption. Kindle is a tougher call. I think Apple may try to pull them and see if they can do it or not.
  - tomkarlo 16y ago
    Don't forget there's a web-based Kindle reader as well. It's not as great as an app but with some offline storage it's a somewhat viable substitute.
  - jonknee 16y ago
    I don't disagree, but that's also how you get sued/investigated for anti-competitive behavior.
    - andyman1080 16y ago
      Seriously? Did I miss the part where iOS obtained 95% mobile OS market share?
      - Natsu 16y ago
        > Did I miss the part where iOS obtained 95% mobile OS market share? That depends on whether or not you believe what Steve said in the keynote about having over 90% of the tablet market.
        mhw 16y ago
        Did I miss the part where first-mover advantage became anti-competitive behaviour?
        Natsu 16y ago
        I'm not making any claims about who is and isn't an illegal monopoly, that's a legal matter and IANAL. I was addressing the claim about market share and only that.
        mhw 16y ago
        Neither was I really. I was making a point about the speed with which people are jumping to claims of anti-competitive behaviour before the competition have really got out of the starting blocks, and in some cases before they've even got their running spikes on. I think it would be a very bad move to regulate a market that's only really existed for 3 years and hasn't yet reached a point where anyone can be said to have an established monopoly. Must remember not to try being pithy on HN in future.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  It's funny to think of the app comparison Jobs did at his keynote presentation. Let's see the numbers for books on Kindle and compare notes.
brianwillis 16y ago
...and it raises the question for every other iOS developer: am I next?
- rimantas 16y ago
  as if every iOS developer sells subscriptions…
  - larrik 16y ago
    No, the point is who knows what types of apps will be deemed undesirable next? IE. What if Apple decides that they'd rather have only the top 1 or two apps for a category? That having only one throwing physics game, or one tower defense game, is what customers really want? Sure, that's ridiculous, but it's not THAT far from Apple's history. Or, maybe apps that let you play musical instruments compete too much with the new Garage Band. The point is, there is no limit to what Apple can change.

rimantas 16y ago

So, which apps were banned and business ruined because of the new rules? Or is this just some wild guessing?

stonemetal 16y ago
He is one of these guys http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245692 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245692
- joebananas 16y ago
  Which was submitted after the rule change.

danilocampos 16y ago

I feel as though Marco is remiss in not disclosing that he has ties to a company that has a real dog in this hunt (Readability): http://www.marco.org/3044068415 http://www.marco.org/3044068415 Context: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/21/readability http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/21/readability It doesn't invalidate his points at all but as an advisor to a company deeply affected by this policy, the honest thing to do would be to make that agenda clear. If he wants the trust of his readers, it's worth letting them decide "Is he saying this because he believes it or because it benefits his associates to convince people this is true? Both?"

kmfrk 16y ago
First they came for the fart apps ... The problem with Apple's recent fumblings is that it leaves the iOS platform wide open to slippery slope scenarios. While Readability was flat-out denied upon app submission, others were yanked post-approval, which creates a Damoclean sword in the minds of every current and prospective app developer. You don't need to play the degrees of separation game; Marco's Instapaper subscriptions can be rendered null and void at the whims of Apple's incongruous and incomprehensible "policy". --- As a user, it's also unsettling, because I honestly don't know where this leaves current and future apps. I recently read that Apple allowed a tabloid's app that contains a daily photo of a nude woman. What happened to Apple's no-pornography policy? Remember Steve's e-mail that replied that people looking for such filth could try out Android? This is the App Store brouhaha all over again, except it now affects approved apps as well, meaning that we as users and developers will live in perpetual fear of a trap door opening beneath the most cherished apps. Not for sake of consistency or "policy", but the behest of whatever incomprehensible whims the guys at Infinite Loop have.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  That's a little fuzzier, though. Steve said he's not trying to get a chunk of SaaS. So is Instapaper a content subscription or SaaS? Seems closer to the latter to me, but definitely concede the point that this uncertainty is bad for the platform. At the same time: Paying out $2 billion to devs and having 200 million credit card accounts means never having to say you're sorry.

Tichy 16y ago

Can't you buy ebooks through some other service and then display them on your kindle?

jonknee 16y ago
Displaying books on your Kindle has nothing to do with Apple's iOS terms. Apple could disappear entirely and you'd be able to continue buying ebooks and reading them on your Kindle. The discussion is over iOS and under the latest statements from Apple it appears the iPad's Kindle app cannot exist in its current state.
ptomato 16y ago
Not really, as the Kindle doesn't support any other vendor's DRM. If you can buy a DRM-free ebook, then sure, though you may have to convert it to a different format.
kemayo 16y ago
Kindle supports a number of formats (though notably not ePub), so if you can buy a DRM-free ebook then you can get it onto your Kindle. There are plenty of stores out there[1] which are happy to sell you such ebooks, as well... though there's certainly some titles which are only available DRM-encumbered. [1] http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Publishers_without_DRM http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Pu...

asnyder 16y ago

Personally, I don't feel it's the freedom, or anything of that nature. A 30% cut of anything is just too much. 5%, 10%, ok, maybe even 15%, but 30% to be listed in an app directory, come on. The payment processing is at most 2-3%. Demanding 30% of your revenue is outrageous and borders on mafia-like. Terrible. Unfortunately, all the above applies to Android, and others. Apple gets the blame IMO because they set the precedent. There's no reason they couldn't have made their initial cut 10%. 10% is still high, but reasonable. Furthermore, it wouldn't be so outrageous if they provided some value or tangible services for it, but they don't. They don't give advice, or contribute in any tangible way, it's essentially an outrageous tax without any real services in return.

muhfuhkuh 16y ago
You mean aside from bandwidth, a marketplace of literally hundreds of millions of ready buyers for your chosen platform, all with credit cards conveniently stored for ease of purchasing your product? Sounds like Python's Life of Brian.
- jonknee 16y ago
  > You mean aside from bandwidth, a marketplace of literally hundreds of millions of ready buyers for your chosen platform, all with credit cards conveniently stored for ease of purchasing your product? For subscriptions at least the bandwidth is funded by the publisher. Yes you get access to lots of customers, but you have to charge them the same as ones you sell yourself and if you want to have an app you are required to let your users purchase from within it. It adds up to 30% being ridiculously high. If it was opt-in and/or non price matching I don't think many would care, but as it stands it's a huge tax that if enforced will mean the end to many of the killer apps of iOS.
- asnyder 16y ago
  We're talking 30% here. You think 30% is a just price for that service? Lets not forget that you still have to pay taxes on the remaining income. If there was a startup here on HN whose business model was 30% of your revenues for hosting of your app + credit card information storage (usually done via 3rd party PCI compliant service) it wouldn't be taken very seriously. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but 30% of your revenue for that service is absurd.

ROFISH 16y ago

I think part of the reason why there is such a "user revolt" (opposed to a tech or developer only revolt) is the prospect of functionality of current apps such as Amazon Kindle or Netflix or Hulu will go away, and that Apple hasn't provided any assurance that they'll stay. Right now I'm in "wait and see" mode where I don't want to invest in the iPad 2 unless I know for sure that Hulu will still be able to function.

joebananas 16y ago
Where is this "user revolt" you speak of?
netcan 16y ago
In a sense, policies that affect current apps are somewhat preferable. If new policies kill existing apps altogether Apple and consumers will know the consequences of the policy. This means the policy may change to avoid them or motivate competitors to differentiate with policies that allow these apps to exist. Killing unborn applications is more speculative. Who knows which apps didn't get built for what reason?

jonknee 16y ago

> So why aren’t those who are criticizing Apple for taking a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue criticizing Amazon? My theory: everyone understands, intuitively, that the Kindle is a closed proprietary platform; but many people view iOS (incorrectly) as a platform like the Mac or Windows, where third parties are free to do what they want. This seems like laziness or intentional dishonesty on Gruber's part. There are huge differences between the two. The biggest being Amazon doesn't have a Kindle app ecosystem so there isn't the [huge] problem of requiring a subscription option (which is the real issue--charge 90% if you want, it just becomes unfair when you require me to use it). Amazon also funds the delivery of the content to the subscriber, which considering it's often over 3G can be considerable. In the current state of things if you are a publisher with an iOS app, Apple changed the rules to either require you to cough up 30% of your business or stop being a publisher. Also, you get the joy of delivering all content, that's not included in your 30% vig.

technomancy 16y ago
> This seems like laziness or intentional dishonesty on Gruber's part. What do you expect from the freelance Apple PR department?
- jonknee 16y ago
  He's too consistent to still be freelance.

technomancy 16y ago

> So why aren’t those who are criticizing Apple for taking a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue criticizing Amazon? Who says people aren't criticizing Amazon? Their DRM-infested marketplace is very customer-hostile. The difference is that you can use the hardware without using their marketplace.

ugh 16y ago
Isn’t that equally true for iOS devices? What can you do with a Kindle except buying books from Amazon? As far as I know, you can read books without DRM and you can surf the web. That’s equally true for all iOS devices. What else does a Kindle allow you to do that you cannot do on an iOS device sans apps?
- abuden 16y ago
  You'd be hard-pressed to call the Kindle a general-purpose computing device; its hardware limitations make it more or less useless for anything but reading. Apple's limitations on what you can do with your devices are artificial and arbitrary.
- trotsky 16y ago
  It seems to me that the difference is what you purchased the device for. Based on advertisements, I'd say the usual goal of an iOS purchase is to run apps and the usual goal of a Kindle purchase is to read books. You can read books on the kindle that amazon doesn't approve of, but you can't (reasonably) run apps on an iOS device that Apple doesn't approve of.
bane 16y ago
And you can use their marketplaces without using their hardware.

tomkarlo 16y ago

There's an other point in this Apple/Amazon comparison that's not being raised: If you own a book, and you don't want to stick with Kindle's format, it's trivial to offer that same core product on other platforms like the Nook or Apple's store. Whereas if you've developed an iOS app, transitioning that to another platform is often going to be a large amount of work where you're basically starting over from the spec and not bringing over any code. Which means you're going to generally hear a lot more squawking from iOS software vendors than book vendors, because their migration costs are prohibitive relative to those of book publishers.

jad 16y ago
Whereas if you've developed an iOS app, transitioning that to another platform is often going to be a large amount of work where you're basically starting over from the spec and not bringing over any code. It's much harder to find a substitute for the App Store ecosystem than it is to replace the code. The proverbial rock and hard place.

njharman 16y ago

Amazon has pulled books, and for not good reasons IIRC.

jonknee 16y ago
They have deleted books, but I only remember for good reasons. The famous 1984 deletion was because the publisher didn't actually have copyright, which seems like as good as of a reason as a company can have.
- rosser 16y ago
  They also said they'd never do something like that again. Bezos personally apologized for the way Kindle users were affected by the 1984 incident. AFAIK, Apple has never owned up to one of its policy decisions having been a mistake, let alone apologized for it. They've changed their policies -- witness the short-lived language choice terms -- but never issued anything even suggestive of a mea culpa.
- wladimir 16y ago
  In my opinion, there cannot be a good reason for pulling books that you bought, ever. Imagine that happening to dead-tree books, someone shows up on your doorstep to reclaim the book 'because it violates copyright'. You'd tell them to bugger off, and it's no different in this case. Once you bought a book, digital or analog, it should stay in your possession for as long as you want.
  - allwein 16y ago
    Um, the police do this all the time with stolen property.
    - wladimir 16y ago
      Yes. But never with books that you buy in a respectable bookstore, and pay for. Which was my point. Also, Amazon is not the police. If they take something you rightfully bought, they are the thieves.

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S_A_P 16y ago

I have to say I side with marco on this one. I really think that apple needs to focus on the ecosystem and let the content creators create their own markets.

raganwald 16y ago

I've already commented on this subject: https://raganwald.posterous.com/the-freedom-to-eat-pizza https://raganwald.posterous.com/the-freedom-to-eat-pizza The tl;dr is where I say "Cry me a fucking river." When will people learn? A closed, proprietary system is a closed, proprietary system. Marco is arguing that the Massah is being too rough on the sharecroppers, he's beating them inconsistently and in ways they couldn't reasonably predict. Let me see if I understand: These poor indentured servants built a business around what they perceived as a loophole in Apple's iOS terms. Their plan was to make millions of dollars off their "free" iOS apps while Apple got nothing. Then Apple shook them down for 30%. Well I couldn't have predicted exactly how Apple would react, but I don't imagine anyone ought to be surprised that they did something. They're the landlord. That's what landlords do: They extract rents from the sharecroppers, and if rents aren't enough they kick the sharecroppers out and take over the land for themselves. You can bitch and whine, you can figure out how to make money while Apple tolerates your presence, or you can stop building on proprietary platforms. Arguing that Apple is illogical or ought to be smarter or is shooting itself in the foot... A waste of electrons. Does Apple look like the kind of company that takes our advice on how to run a business? If it listened to people like us, it would be selling Windows PCs right now. iOS and Kindles and Java and everything else controlled by a profit-seeking corporation are all the same things to developers. Of course Apple markets your work to end users and pretends you're happy with your cut of the two billion dollars in app store revenue. That's like a dating site marketing you to other users. The bottom line is this: If you are developing for a proprietary system, you aren't in the business, you are the business. Trying to argue that Apple's proprietary system ought to be less closed or more free or have more pixie dust than Amazon's is wishful thinking. If you develop for any of these proprietary platforms, you are a sharecropper. You work at the landlord's pleasure to improve the land he owns. Period.

mrkurt 16y ago
Might as well shut the fuck up and not bother expressing unhappiness with a company you're giving money to, right? The sharecropper analogy is so absolute it's useless. It makes for a lovely soundbite, though, I'm sure it's fun to repeat ad nauseam.
- 16y ago

netcan 16y ago

Building a business on iOS similar to building a business on a single client. It's an issue, but it is done.

fpgeek 16y ago

I have zero sympathy for developers in all of this. Apple has made it clear from day 1 that you are only permitted on iOS at their pleasure and that they can change the rules at any time. For those of you who were slow, the way Apple banned Adobe Flash CS5 apps right before CS5 was going to be released should have been a wake up call. Maybe you bet that your corner of the world wouldn't be interesting to Apple or maybe you didn't realize you could get caught in the crossfire of an unrelated Apple objective. Tough. This is what you signed up for. If you don't like it maybe you shouldn't have been developing iOS apps in the first place. The people I do have sympathy for are users. They are not going to understand why some of their favorite applications and services on iOS stop being updated / eventually disappear altogether. Among other things, Apple sold devices using the availability of apps. I didn't see any fine print saying "your favorite apps might get rejected in the future" in those ads. And I can't think of a similar platform that might have given users those expectations. So users have a genuine beef. Developers are just not being honest with themselves about the consequences of their own choices.

A1kmm 16y ago
People (users and developers) have a right not to be adversely affected by unfair competition. Apple has a monopoly on selling iOS devices because of Copyright law - and that is how Copyright law is supposed to work. Apple develops iOS, and so aren't breaking any laws by making their App Store the default. Apple operates their App Store; selling access to the App Store under reasonable terms is also perfectly legitimate. However, a particular sequence of actions can be illegal even though each of the individual actions that makes it up are legal. It is legal to ask someone nicely to stand in front of you (obviously they don't have to), and it is legal to move a knife and twist it in front of you; that doesn't mean it is legal to do the first then the second! IANAL, but Apple's conduct around the 30% charge, while made up of individually legal actions, appears to be a straightforward breach of US anti-trust law. 15USCs14 (part of the Clayton Act) says that it is illegal to sell something on an agreement that someone won't purchase something else. So making developers agree that they can buy App Store services unless they don't buy payment processing for use within their app from anyone except Apple is not allowed in the United States, if the effect "may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce". Even if it wasn't illegal, it would still be wrong to try to lessen competition for their advantage, and it would be entirely appropriate for developers to criticise Apple heavily for it.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

netcan 16y ago
I don't understand the Android alternative argument. Android is an alternative for users, not developers. Users can go and buy an android phone (or tablet, sort of) if they want and use most of the same apps. Developers need to go to where the buyers are. This probably means both platforms. It certainly means iOS. They are in the business of selling (or distributing) apps not developing them.

Ataraxy 16y ago

Well, that's the down side to relying on an app store rather then helping shape the mobile web. While I understand the appeal for wanting in on the app store for a variety of reasons, this is going to keep happening over and over again. For content distributors, app stores are a short sighted vision.