8 ms·

Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

124 points by eljaco 15y ago

jsherry 15y ago
Some discussion on this earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629114 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629114
silverlight 15y ago
A little OT, but I was actually thinking about the in-app subscriptions policy the other day as it applies to SaaS. I know that there was some email floating around that was supposedly from Steve Jobs saying it didn't apply, but I was curious if anyone out there has had an app rejected (or accepted, for that matter, since the policy took effect) for not accepting in-app purchases of subscriptions. We are thinking about beginning work on a companion app to a SaaS product. The app would be free, but step one is signing in to your account on the SaaS, which is not. There is also no free tier. We cannot afford to give Apple a 30% cut of our subscription price, so we are not planning on offering an in-app subscription purchase option. We would like to include a link that opens a page to the main site in a browser for those who don't already have accounts, although I know that is explicitly forbidden for apps that fall into the subscriptions category. Any thoughts? Just curious what our chances of rejection are for something like this in the current "climate".
- phlux 15y ago
  Get their email when they use the app, however you can do that, send them a thank you email and offer them a discounted upsell?
asdf333 15y ago
And so it begins. The migration from 'app stores' to the web.
dstein 15y ago
I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the same kind of game Microsoft played in the 1990's and by attrition have lost to the Linux/OSS movement. Apple currently holds one trump card with Safari on IOS devices though. By restricting HTML5 Audio controls, and rendering engine speed, it prevents games and music web apps from being viable inside the browser.
- zzleeper 15y ago
  [Meta] Funny to see that your post has been grayed out, even though it's logical and makes a point. I would expect people who disagree to reply instead of downvoting. And yes, even though your topic is controversial, it passes the guidelines criteria.
  - dstein 15y ago
    Yeah if anyone can point out why Apple will be able to continue it's dominance over mobile apps with a 30% tax I'd really like to hear why.
    - ThomPete 15y ago
      Because their platform is superior to everything else out there. Because mobile apps is not even close to providing proper user experience. People expect snappy as hell execution on the iOS, the actual flow of the app is often more important than the looks. And in my experience the web apps just aren't there yet. Apple make no money on the app store it more or less goes to operations. You can call it a tax or you can be honest and call it what it is. The price of keeping a well structured market place.
      - dstein 15y ago
        Valid points, but the subscription tax is on top of application delivery fees. That's going too far, and I think we're about to see a watershed event where nearly all publishers begin to flee the App Store. Watch it happen.
dageshi 15y ago
We all know how this will go, apple waits six months until it's pissed off the maximum number of people and then it'll reverse its decision or make the terms much more acceptable.
nicholas1987 15y ago
Glad this is happening, hopefully this forces Apple to lower their cut, it's not like they can't afford it.
kennystone 15y ago
People like to talk about black and white, native versus web, etc, but this is simply a matter of finding the right fit for the Financial Times. Many of the newsy apps can be done very well with the latest browsers (and other kinds of apps, too!). It makes sense for subscriptions as well as for maintenance and tech investment, and they won't lose much (if any) functionality. Some apps will always be better suited for native, but as the browser technology grows, we'll move back to web apps more. It wasn't so long ago that touch gestures were pretty hard to do right in a web app, so the only way to do a mobile app right was to go native.
poutine 15y ago
If this is the best you can do with an HTML5 'app' then native apps have a long future. It's buggy, laggy, animations are wrong, graphics are low resolution in places, and user interface widgets are odd and non standard.
- petercooper 15y ago
  That's why I'd rather just have the regular old "Web" for stuff like this. There seem to be a lot of experiments to 'appize' Web sites for tablets and the like, and while most of them look better than typical Web pages at first glance, they're usually laggy and less immediate than if you'd just seen a regular web page in the first place (a common issue is scrolling.. if I get the dreaded 8 frames per second effect, I'm outta there).
  - cageface 15y ago
    Yep. After using the NY Times Chrome "app" for a while I've gone back to using the web page. I can take in more information at a glance and spend less time paging. It's profoundly ironic that progress in user interfaces in the 21st century is construed as making things look more like their real-world counterparts.
  - fungi 15y ago
    http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/ http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/ is slow as a dog, sure flash blob isn't helping. but http://m.ft.com http://m.ft.com is clean, nice and fast. personally i often find the mobile version of sites nicer (in a similar way to the print view is often the best way to read a page) edit: ugh you need to spoof your browser to access http://m.ft.com http://m.ft.com on the desktop.
guelo 15y ago
Apple is playing with fire, they have built an incredible platform for others to build on top of, but a platform requires a level of trust from developers and businesses in order for them to invest in it. Apple seems to be doing their best to destroy that trust. What Apple's greed seems to blind them to is that while, yes, companies gain a lot by building on Apple's platform, Apple also accrues a lot of benefits just by those apps existing, without having to take a 30% cut.
cjboco 15y ago
I think a lot of people are missing the bigger picture here, which is Apple is unwilling to just hand over user details, which the Financial Times and the likes want. The 30% cut "gripe" is just what they are telling the public to try to get you on "their" side. If I recall, Amazon actually had (has) a larger piece of the pie for subscriptions, but they are will to give out User Information.
chernevik 15y ago
If you are't into first class economic writing, and I'm talking so good it almost explains the euro, pick up the FT Saturday edition. Tremendous coverage of books, arts, personalities, and occasionally some truly quirky stories. Also: A "How To Spend It" magazine that takes appalling up to the point of irony. I know, the HN audience doesn't care. But amid all the discussion of platform strategy, the FT staff deserve a salute. There is a reason this paper doesn't need Apple.
ChrisLTD 15y ago
For straight content delivery companies, making a web app should be the first priority. A native app isn't going to offer much in the way of enhanced functionality, and your effort will likely be diluted while you chase multiple platforms. It makes even more sense to focus on a web app when your company already has a web site. You likely already have the expertise on staff to create a good web app, and any new features or techniques you develop can be easily used in both places.
jmitcheson 15y ago
The "HTML5 apps don't cut it compared to native" argument is incredibly short sighted. The pace of development in this area is staggering. Things are moving very quickly and in a short time, the days where HTML applications didn't perform as well will be long forgotten - as forgotten as the days when the internet ran at 2400 baud or when you needed a huge tape to record television. Think of the future, not the present.

124 points by eljaco 15y ago

Some discussion on this earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629114 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629114

silverlight 15y ago

A little OT, but I was actually thinking about the in-app subscriptions policy the other day as it applies to SaaS. I know that there was some email floating around that was supposedly from Steve Jobs saying it didn't apply, but I was curious if anyone out there has had an app rejected (or accepted, for that matter, since the policy took effect) for not accepting in-app purchases of subscriptions. We are thinking about beginning work on a companion app to a SaaS product. The app would be free, but step one is signing in to your account on the SaaS, which is not. There is also no free tier. We cannot afford to give Apple a 30% cut of our subscription price, so we are not planning on offering an in-app subscription purchase option. We would like to include a link that opens a page to the main site in a browser for those who don't already have accounts, although I know that is explicitly forbidden for apps that fall into the subscriptions category. Any thoughts? Just curious what our chances of rejection are for something like this in the current "climate".

phlux 15y ago
Get their email when they use the app, however you can do that, send them a thank you email and offer them a discounted upsell?

asdf333 15y ago

And so it begins. The migration from 'app stores' to the web.

dstein 15y ago

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the same kind of game Microsoft played in the 1990's and by attrition have lost to the Linux/OSS movement. Apple currently holds one trump card with Safari on IOS devices though. By restricting HTML5 Audio controls, and rendering engine speed, it prevents games and music web apps from being viable inside the browser.

zzleeper 15y ago
[Meta] Funny to see that your post has been grayed out, even though it's logical and makes a point. I would expect people who disagree to reply instead of downvoting. And yes, even though your topic is controversial, it passes the guidelines criteria.
- dstein 15y ago
  Yeah if anyone can point out why Apple will be able to continue it's dominance over mobile apps with a 30% tax I'd really like to hear why.
  - ThomPete 15y ago
    Because their platform is superior to everything else out there. Because mobile apps is not even close to providing proper user experience. People expect snappy as hell execution on the iOS, the actual flow of the app is often more important than the looks. And in my experience the web apps just aren't there yet. Apple make no money on the app store it more or less goes to operations. You can call it a tax or you can be honest and call it what it is. The price of keeping a well structured market place.
    - dstein 15y ago
      Valid points, but the subscription tax is on top of application delivery fees. That's going too far, and I think we're about to see a watershed event where nearly all publishers begin to flee the App Store. Watch it happen.

dageshi 15y ago

We all know how this will go, apple waits six months until it's pissed off the maximum number of people and then it'll reverse its decision or make the terms much more acceptable.

nicholas1987 15y ago

Glad this is happening, hopefully this forces Apple to lower their cut, it's not like they can't afford it.

kennystone 15y ago

People like to talk about black and white, native versus web, etc, but this is simply a matter of finding the right fit for the Financial Times. Many of the newsy apps can be done very well with the latest browsers (and other kinds of apps, too!). It makes sense for subscriptions as well as for maintenance and tech investment, and they won't lose much (if any) functionality. Some apps will always be better suited for native, but as the browser technology grows, we'll move back to web apps more. It wasn't so long ago that touch gestures were pretty hard to do right in a web app, so the only way to do a mobile app right was to go native.

poutine 15y ago

If this is the best you can do with an HTML5 'app' then native apps have a long future. It's buggy, laggy, animations are wrong, graphics are low resolution in places, and user interface widgets are odd and non standard.

petercooper 15y ago
That's why I'd rather just have the regular old "Web" for stuff like this. There seem to be a lot of experiments to 'appize' Web sites for tablets and the like, and while most of them look better than typical Web pages at first glance, they're usually laggy and less immediate than if you'd just seen a regular web page in the first place (a common issue is scrolling.. if I get the dreaded 8 frames per second effect, I'm outta there).
- cageface 15y ago
  Yep. After using the NY Times Chrome "app" for a while I've gone back to using the web page. I can take in more information at a glance and spend less time paging. It's profoundly ironic that progress in user interfaces in the 21st century is construed as making things look more like their real-world counterparts.
- fungi 15y ago
  http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/ http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/ is slow as a dog, sure flash blob isn't helping. but http://m.ft.com http://m.ft.com is clean, nice and fast. personally i often find the mobile version of sites nicer (in a similar way to the print view is often the best way to read a page) edit: ugh you need to spoof your browser to access http://m.ft.com http://m.ft.com on the desktop.

guelo 15y ago

Apple is playing with fire, they have built an incredible platform for others to build on top of, but a platform requires a level of trust from developers and businesses in order for them to invest in it. Apple seems to be doing their best to destroy that trust. What Apple's greed seems to blind them to is that while, yes, companies gain a lot by building on Apple's platform, Apple also accrues a lot of benefits just by those apps existing, without having to take a 30% cut.

cjboco 15y ago

I think a lot of people are missing the bigger picture here, which is Apple is unwilling to just hand over user details, which the Financial Times and the likes want. The 30% cut "gripe" is just what they are telling the public to try to get you on "their" side. If I recall, Amazon actually had (has) a larger piece of the pie for subscriptions, but they are will to give out User Information.

chernevik 15y ago

If you are't into first class economic writing, and I'm talking so good it almost explains the euro, pick up the FT Saturday edition. Tremendous coverage of books, arts, personalities, and occasionally some truly quirky stories. Also: A "How To Spend It" magazine that takes appalling up to the point of irony. I know, the HN audience doesn't care. But amid all the discussion of platform strategy, the FT staff deserve a salute. There is a reason this paper doesn't need Apple.

ChrisLTD 15y ago

For straight content delivery companies, making a web app should be the first priority. A native app isn't going to offer much in the way of enhanced functionality, and your effort will likely be diluted while you chase multiple platforms. It makes even more sense to focus on a web app when your company already has a web site. You likely already have the expertise on staff to create a good web app, and any new features or techniques you develop can be easily used in both places.

jmitcheson 15y ago

The "HTML5 apps don't cut it compared to native" argument is incredibly short sighted. The pace of development in this area is staggering. Things are moving very quickly and in a short time, the days where HTML applications didn't perform as well will be long forgotten - as forgotten as the days when the internet ran at 2400 baud or when you needed a huge tape to record television. Think of the future, not the present.