4 ms·

They need more than gaming studios. The top 100 apps on iOS need to do a 'blackout' and pull their apps from iOS for a week. That will make front page internat

by jariel 6y ago

They need more than gaming studios. The top 100 apps on iOS need to do a 'blackout' and pull their apps from iOS for a week. That will make front page international headlines globally and involve the entire planet. That's the kind of scale necessary. Legislators from around the world will take notice whereas right now, probably very few know or care. Don't discount how little the public knows or cares about these kinds of things, most people are busy with their lives they are not paying attention. Few even know or understand the terms of the iOS store let alone what it means. So a focused PR campaign and 'major action' by a lot of players is what is needed. FB, Wikipedia, Netflix, CNN etc. etc..

cafed00d 6y ago
Do the top 100 apps on iOS feel the same way though? Does every developer out there think 30% commission on paid apps is tyranny? I feel like it's a reasonable trade-off. Free apps don't cost you much (yes, $99 for dev tools is not much honestly. It keeps away spurious bots and spammy accounts). Paid apps cost 30% -- if the dev decides to charge outrageous prices then well, Apple will take an outrageous cut). Most apps cost $1-$5 which is cheap. Of course, at a billion users it's hefty. But if you're grumpy about that then it just means you're grumpy about a shrewd for-profit company.
- jariel 6y ago
  "Does every developer out there think 30% commission on paid apps is tyranny?" Combined with the ambiguity, lack of choice, threats to business - absolutely yes, iOS is basically universally reviled by developers. Nobody on this planet accepts that the 30% is necessary for anything ergo, it's a massive chunk out of profits. Most companies are not hugely profitable. In many cases, Apple is making considerable more profit off of apps than developers themselves. For a $1 spent, about 25 cents to Apple mostly profit, then 70 cents to the dev which will mostly be dev., ad. and op. costs. It wouldn't surprise met that Apple makes more surplus from Fornite than Fortnite makes off the platform.
  - throwawaynothx 6y ago
    Not to mention you require an apple machine to compile code for IOS (or rent a service that will compile it for you) - Also you need to PAY for a developer ID. Their business model is munted. All because people are sheep. They advertised to moronic uni students who like shiny things, Their parents wanted to seem hip so they got on board. I mean hell, you cant even use a cable they don't own.
    - lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
      Yeah, much easier to dismiss iOS users as fashion-conscious shiny-obsessed sheep rather than maybe talk to some iOS users and understand what exactly they prefer about the platform they use. Because I rather like the fact the iOS devices get OS updates for about twice as long as Android devices. Android security was also a pretty bad joke for a very long time—it has started to change, but there's only so much they can fix. Google would release an OS (or even a security) update, then you'd have to wait for both the OEM and the network provider to pass the update on to end users. Google are changing this with security patches, but there's still a lot of Android devices running old versions with no prospect of any new features coming any time soon. In iOS land, there's no OEM or network intermediaries (something Apple insisted on in all deals with networks from the first iPhone), so generally takeup of a new iOS version happens really promptly - as of June 2020, 81% of iOS users are on iOS 13.* That's good for the health of the platform as app developers can build on top of new OS features knowing a reasonable number of actual users can use those new features. Also, there are a whole variety of suppliers of Lightning cables. Go to Amazon and search "MFi certified lightning cable". * https://www.statista.com/statistics/565270/apple-devices-ios-version-share-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/565270/apple-devices-ios...
      - jariel 6y ago
        This is fine, but besides the point. 30% is outrageous and basically no developers want to pay it. Were it 10%, all those things you mention would remain the same.
- ouid 6y ago
  >grumpy about a shrewd for profit company. Like Enron or something.

by jariel 6y ago

cafed00d 6y ago

Do the top 100 apps on iOS feel the same way though? Does every developer out there think 30% commission on paid apps is tyranny? I feel like it's a reasonable trade-off. Free apps don't cost you much (yes, $99 for dev tools is not much honestly. It keeps away spurious bots and spammy accounts). Paid apps cost 30% -- if the dev decides to charge outrageous prices then well, Apple will take an outrageous cut). Most apps cost $1-$5 which is cheap. Of course, at a billion users it's hefty. But if you're grumpy about that then it just means you're grumpy about a shrewd for-profit company.

jariel 6y ago
"Does every developer out there think 30% commission on paid apps is tyranny?" Combined with the ambiguity, lack of choice, threats to business - absolutely yes, iOS is basically universally reviled by developers. Nobody on this planet accepts that the 30% is necessary for anything ergo, it's a massive chunk out of profits. Most companies are not hugely profitable. In many cases, Apple is making considerable more profit off of apps than developers themselves. For a $1 spent, about 25 cents to Apple mostly profit, then 70 cents to the dev which will mostly be dev., ad. and op. costs. It wouldn't surprise met that Apple makes more surplus from Fornite than Fortnite makes off the platform.
- throwawaynothx 6y ago
  Not to mention you require an apple machine to compile code for IOS (or rent a service that will compile it for you) - Also you need to PAY for a developer ID. Their business model is munted. All because people are sheep. They advertised to moronic uni students who like shiny things, Their parents wanted to seem hip so they got on board. I mean hell, you cant even use a cable they don't own.
  - lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
    Yeah, much easier to dismiss iOS users as fashion-conscious shiny-obsessed sheep rather than maybe talk to some iOS users and understand what exactly they prefer about the platform they use. Because I rather like the fact the iOS devices get OS updates for about twice as long as Android devices. Android security was also a pretty bad joke for a very long time—it has started to change, but there's only so much they can fix. Google would release an OS (or even a security) update, then you'd have to wait for both the OEM and the network provider to pass the update on to end users. Google are changing this with security patches, but there's still a lot of Android devices running old versions with no prospect of any new features coming any time soon. In iOS land, there's no OEM or network intermediaries (something Apple insisted on in all deals with networks from the first iPhone), so generally takeup of a new iOS version happens really promptly - as of June 2020, 81% of iOS users are on iOS 13.* That's good for the health of the platform as app developers can build on top of new OS features knowing a reasonable number of actual users can use those new features. Also, there are a whole variety of suppliers of Lightning cables. Go to Amazon and search "MFi certified lightning cable". * https://www.statista.com/statistics/565270/apple-devices-ios-version-share-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/565270/apple-devices-ios...
    - jariel 6y ago
      This is fine, but besides the point. 30% is outrageous and basically no developers want to pay it. Were it 10%, all those things you mention would remain the same.
ouid 6y ago
>grumpy about a shrewd for profit company. Like Enron or something.