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This is actually fairly significant. As a point of comparison, in 2019, Apple did about 50 billion in sales [1], which means they made about $15 billion In 20

This is actually fairly significant. As a point of comparison, in 2019, Apple did about 50 billion in sales [1], which means they made about $15 billion In 2018 (latest I could find numbers for) they reportedly had 20 million registered developers [2] so that's another $2 billion. That's 3.5% of their 2019 net income of $55 billion [3] (of course there are costs to running the app store, distribution, etc that aren't accounted for in here). It makes me think of Costco -- whose membership fees make up nearly all their net income [4]. Don't make money from the thing, make money from enabling access to the thing -- well or I guess in Apple's case, make money from both. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimated-gross-sales-of-50-billion-in-2019.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/app-store-hits-20m-registered-developers-at-100b-in-revenues-500m-visitors-per-week/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/app-store-hits-20m-registe... [3] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/net-inc... [4] https://money.com/costco-doesnt-make-much-money-selling-you-groceries-heres-how-it-really-earns-billions-a-year/ https://money.com/costco-doesnt-make-much-money-selling-you-...

kevindong 6y ago
> In 2018 (latest I could find numbers for) they reportedly had 20 million registered developers Keep in mind that the term "registered developer" is fairly ambiguous. Does it include non-paying developers? Does it include all developers under a single business account (e.g. at one of my jobs, I was a registered developer under a broader organizational account)?
- maguay 6y ago
  I would presume that includes paid and free developers; you have to have an Apple Developer account to sign Safari extensions, for instance, or to sign non-App Store Mac apps, neither of which require a paid Apple Developer account. The point would still stand though that the total revenue from Apple Developer subscriptions would not be insignificant (perhaps insignificant to Apple’s overall revenue, but still enough to be a sizable startup’s budget on its own), which I should have noted in the original article.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Also, to download Xcode, iirc
    - kohtatsu 6y ago
      No. Xcode is needed for a lot of things like CLI tools, it's free.
  - latexr 6y ago
    > you have to have an Apple Developer account to sign Safari extensions, for instance, or to sign non-App Store Mac apps, neither of which require a paid Apple Developer account. Their documentation suggests otherwise[1] (scroll down to “Benefits and Resources”). “Safari Extensions distribution” and “Software distribution outside the Mac App Store” are listed on the column of the 99 USD fee. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
    - maguay 6y ago
      Interesting, this may have changed. Just remembered that Safari now only lets you install extensions from the App Store, so that would actually make sense if a paid developer account is now required. There’s yet another reason why Safari has so few extensions.
ksec 6y ago
Yes that is the figure I point out whenever I look at Mac business. Which has 100M Active user [1]. i.e at least 20% of Mac users are Apple registered developers. They will all need to buy a Mac it also contribute to their Mac bottomline. And since there are also tons of Web Developers and Developers form other domain on the Mac, it would not be far fetch to say Developers is one of the largest user group on the platform. This is also the reason why I dont buy the argument about App Store 30% cut bringing you the development tools. Those are well covered by the $99 and more. Now thinking about it, I would be surprised if the reviewing of Apps were not covered by the $2B annual developer fees alone. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/there-are-now-100-million-macs-in-use/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/there-are-now-100-million-...

kevindong 6y ago

> In 2018 (latest I could find numbers for) they reportedly had 20 million registered developers Keep in mind that the term "registered developer" is fairly ambiguous. Does it include non-paying developers? Does it include all developers under a single business account (e.g. at one of my jobs, I was a registered developer under a broader organizational account)?

maguay 6y ago
I would presume that includes paid and free developers; you have to have an Apple Developer account to sign Safari extensions, for instance, or to sign non-App Store Mac apps, neither of which require a paid Apple Developer account. The point would still stand though that the total revenue from Apple Developer subscriptions would not be insignificant (perhaps insignificant to Apple’s overall revenue, but still enough to be a sizable startup’s budget on its own), which I should have noted in the original article.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Also, to download Xcode, iirc
  - kohtatsu 6y ago
    No. Xcode is needed for a lot of things like CLI tools, it's free.
- latexr 6y ago
  > you have to have an Apple Developer account to sign Safari extensions, for instance, or to sign non-App Store Mac apps, neither of which require a paid Apple Developer account. Their documentation suggests otherwise[1] (scroll down to “Benefits and Resources”). “Safari Extensions distribution” and “Software distribution outside the Mac App Store” are listed on the column of the 99 USD fee. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
  - maguay 6y ago
    Interesting, this may have changed. Just remembered that Safari now only lets you install extensions from the App Store, so that would actually make sense if a paid developer account is now required. There’s yet another reason why Safari has so few extensions.

ksec 6y ago

Yes that is the figure I point out whenever I look at Mac business. Which has 100M Active user [1]. i.e at least 20% of Mac users are Apple registered developers. They will all need to buy a Mac it also contribute to their Mac bottomline. And since there are also tons of Web Developers and Developers form other domain on the Mac, it would not be far fetch to say Developers is one of the largest user group on the platform. This is also the reason why I dont buy the argument about App Store 30% cut bringing you the development tools. Those are well covered by the $99 and more. Now thinking about it, I would be surprised if the reviewing of Apps were not covered by the $2B annual developer fees alone. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/there-are-now-100-million-macs-in-use/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/there-are-now-100-million-...