12 ms·

I just like Apple’s App Store the way that it is. I’ve been through so many technology stacks and it I find their platform a joy to work with. The SDKs are cohe

I just like Apple’s App Store the way that it is. I’ve been through so many technology stacks and it I find their platform a joy to work with. The SDKs are coherent, very well-architected, extremely easy to use, and I have access to a user base that has very high adoption rates of the latest software versions so that I don’t have to worry so much about fragmentation. It’s the happiest I’ve been as a coder, so I feel that the 30% cut is a fair price to pay. edit: So I answered the question and I’m getting downvoted to oblivion. Why do people even bother asking for other people’s perspectives.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
When your app has revenues of $100M a month, let's see if you think Apple is providing you $30M worth of value. Sure, if you have 2 sales a month, I guess Apple is providing you $0.60 of revenue. That's not what this thread is about.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  You’re saying this thread is about the big players and not the small ones? And that’s why this open question to HN developers isn’t really asking for their experiences, not unless they’re in the hundred million territory?
  - Supermancho 5y ago
    > You’re saying this thread is about the big players and not the small ones? It's not about relative revenue, but illustrating the extent of the exploitation.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- filoleg 5y ago
  You can have more than 2 sales. If you are making under $1mil in app revenue in a year, Apple takes a 15% cut instead of 30%.
  - moogly 5y ago
    You can thank Epic for that recent change.
    - martimarkov 5y ago
      Or someone else. There is not hard evidence that it was Epic. Apple might have had that in the works even without epic.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > When your app has revenues of $100M a month, let's see if you think Apple is providing you $30M worth of value. Lol they just told you they think it's reasonable! Why bother asking for someone’s opinion if we're just going to berate them for it? I think the Apple cut is justified because Apple provide the best platform. If someone can provide a better platform for a smaller cut people would move to it.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    No, they wouldn't. That's the point. Apple and Google control the market for mobile phone apps. You could invent the best possible app store and take nothing as a cut and get no users because Apple wouldn't permit your app store and so you'd lose. Apple uses their hardware market dominance to control the software market and extracts rent from people who want to sell software on their hardware. That's what people are complaining about. "Why don't they just invent their own hardware, phone OS, and app store?" Hmm, yes, why not?
    - threatofrain 5y ago
      It's notable that Google does allow their customers to side-load apps.
      - wernercd 5y ago
        and Google doesn't ban use of other payment processors or have restrictions on "you can sell elsewhere for less"
        heavyset_go 5y ago
        > and Google doesn't ban use of other payment processors They certainly do on the Play Store. Developers have until September of this year to comply with Google's rule to take 30% of sales and use its payment system[1] in their apps. It's clearly more price fixing on the part of the Apple and Google mobile app distribution and payments cartel. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/google-to-enforce-30percent-cut-on-in-app-purchases-next-year.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/google-to-enforce-30percent-...
- malka 5y ago
  why would i give a fuck about the big players ? their paying 30M allows other to have high quality of service for close to nothing. They can always go away from iOS it they think it is not a fair deal. No one is pointing a gun to their head.
smoldesu 5y ago
I came from this in the opposite direction. I grew up programming on an iMac, but ended up switching to Linux when Macports/Homebrew started stagnating a few years ago. I was blown away by how simple and well-distributed everything was. Package management wasn't a nightmare, the shell respected administrator authority, I had fully updated coreutils, 32-bit apps/libs... the list goes on. I understand why people use MacOS, but defending it from a development standpoint has started to look asinine in recent years.
- GreaterFool 5y ago
  Linux is developer friendly but user experience is abysmal. I’m a developer. I grew up with Linux. I can’t wait for Apple to turn MacOS into iOS with extras. Linus himself said that Chromebook (with a shell) looks appealing. I just want iOS with a shell and file system running on fanless M1 without catching fire!
  - treis 5y ago
    >Linux is developer friendly but user experience is abysmal. I am a new Mac user and I will mostly disagree with that. Perhaps some of it is just being used to a different model, but there are lots of things I find confusing and unintuitive about the Mac. Like why can't I tile windows? And maybe it's just me, but I am having difficulty getting the close buttons to show up in full screen and the same for my dock. I am also unclear why sometimes my dock gets covered and other times it doesn't. Also, I'm pretty disappointed with the performance. It takes 5-10s to open the context menu when right clicking a file in Finder and the thing sounds like a jet engine anytime it sees any sort of load.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > Linux is developer friendly but user experience is abysmal. I'm of the opinion that if Chrome OS would suit a person's needs, then so would desktop Linux these days.
manigandham 5y ago
The choice that people want is the ability to have other App Stores, or direct installation. This changes nothing for people like you while giving more opportunities for others.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > The choice that people want is the ability to have other App Stores, or direct installation. Who do you want to pay for building and supporting this functionality? Apple presumably?
  - flutas 5y ago
    Hmm, well Apple already has seemingly got their profit from the device when it was...purchased the first time? Or should phones just become a subscription service overall so that you can never actually own your own hardware?
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      The answer to both questions is... it's up to Apple. When you design and build a product it'd be up to you how you design for your revenue. If Apple allowed side-loading apps or custom app stores that'd cost them more to build and support that functionality, and it would damage their existing functionality through extra complexity and security surface, harming their existing happy customers. They don't want to do it. Why should they? Use Android if you have a problem with it.
      - VMtest 5y ago
        Epic sues Apple though
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > Who do you want to pay for building and supporting this functionality? No, I can assure you that other companies are perfectly willing to build and support other app stores. Instead, Apple is the one spending extra money and extra effort in order to prevent this stuff. Other companies would be more than happy to build these other app stores, if Apple would just get out of the way.
michaelmrose 5y ago
Nobody believes it's not ok for developers to opt in at 30% the point is that they are forcing them to do so by retaining control of devices after they have sold them.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

When your app has revenues of $100M a month, let's see if you think Apple is providing you $30M worth of value. Sure, if you have 2 sales a month, I guess Apple is providing you $0.60 of revenue. That's not what this thread is about.

threatofrain 5y ago
You’re saying this thread is about the big players and not the small ones? And that’s why this open question to HN developers isn’t really asking for their experiences, not unless they’re in the hundred million territory?
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > You’re saying this thread is about the big players and not the small ones? It's not about relative revenue, but illustrating the extent of the exploitation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
filoleg 5y ago
You can have more than 2 sales. If you are making under $1mil in app revenue in a year, Apple takes a 15% cut instead of 30%.
- moogly 5y ago
  You can thank Epic for that recent change.
  - martimarkov 5y ago
    Or someone else. There is not hard evidence that it was Epic. Apple might have had that in the works even without epic.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> When your app has revenues of $100M a month, let's see if you think Apple is providing you $30M worth of value. Lol they just told you they think it's reasonable! Why bother asking for someone’s opinion if we're just going to berate them for it? I think the Apple cut is justified because Apple provide the best platform. If someone can provide a better platform for a smaller cut people would move to it.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  No, they wouldn't. That's the point. Apple and Google control the market for mobile phone apps. You could invent the best possible app store and take nothing as a cut and get no users because Apple wouldn't permit your app store and so you'd lose. Apple uses their hardware market dominance to control the software market and extracts rent from people who want to sell software on their hardware. That's what people are complaining about. "Why don't they just invent their own hardware, phone OS, and app store?" Hmm, yes, why not?
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    It's notable that Google does allow their customers to side-load apps.
    - wernercd 5y ago
      and Google doesn't ban use of other payment processors or have restrictions on "you can sell elsewhere for less"
      - heavyset_go 5y ago
        > and Google doesn't ban use of other payment processors They certainly do on the Play Store. Developers have until September of this year to comply with Google's rule to take 30% of sales and use its payment system[1] in their apps. It's clearly more price fixing on the part of the Apple and Google mobile app distribution and payments cartel. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/google-to-enforce-30percent-cut-on-in-app-purchases-next-year.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/google-to-enforce-30percent-...
malka 5y ago
why would i give a fuck about the big players ? their paying 30M allows other to have high quality of service for close to nothing. They can always go away from iOS it they think it is not a fair deal. No one is pointing a gun to their head.

smoldesu 5y ago

I came from this in the opposite direction. I grew up programming on an iMac, but ended up switching to Linux when Macports/Homebrew started stagnating a few years ago. I was blown away by how simple and well-distributed everything was. Package management wasn't a nightmare, the shell respected administrator authority, I had fully updated coreutils, 32-bit apps/libs... the list goes on. I understand why people use MacOS, but defending it from a development standpoint has started to look asinine in recent years.

GreaterFool 5y ago
Linux is developer friendly but user experience is abysmal. I’m a developer. I grew up with Linux. I can’t wait for Apple to turn MacOS into iOS with extras. Linus himself said that Chromebook (with a shell) looks appealing. I just want iOS with a shell and file system running on fanless M1 without catching fire!
- treis 5y ago
  >Linux is developer friendly but user experience is abysmal. I am a new Mac user and I will mostly disagree with that. Perhaps some of it is just being used to a different model, but there are lots of things I find confusing and unintuitive about the Mac. Like why can't I tile windows? And maybe it's just me, but I am having difficulty getting the close buttons to show up in full screen and the same for my dock. I am also unclear why sometimes my dock gets covered and other times it doesn't. Also, I'm pretty disappointed with the performance. It takes 5-10s to open the context menu when right clicking a file in Finder and the thing sounds like a jet engine anytime it sees any sort of load.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > Linux is developer friendly but user experience is abysmal. I'm of the opinion that if Chrome OS would suit a person's needs, then so would desktop Linux these days.

manigandham 5y ago

The choice that people want is the ability to have other App Stores, or direct installation. This changes nothing for people like you while giving more opportunities for others.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> The choice that people want is the ability to have other App Stores, or direct installation. Who do you want to pay for building and supporting this functionality? Apple presumably?
- flutas 5y ago
  Hmm, well Apple already has seemingly got their profit from the device when it was...purchased the first time? Or should phones just become a subscription service overall so that you can never actually own your own hardware?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    The answer to both questions is... it's up to Apple. When you design and build a product it'd be up to you how you design for your revenue. If Apple allowed side-loading apps or custom app stores that'd cost them more to build and support that functionality, and it would damage their existing functionality through extra complexity and security surface, harming their existing happy customers. They don't want to do it. Why should they? Use Android if you have a problem with it.
    - VMtest 5y ago
      Epic sues Apple though
- stale2002 5y ago
  > Who do you want to pay for building and supporting this functionality? No, I can assure you that other companies are perfectly willing to build and support other app stores. Instead, Apple is the one spending extra money and extra effort in order to prevent this stuff. Other companies would be more than happy to build these other app stores, if Apple would just get out of the way.

michaelmrose 5y ago

Nobody believes it's not ok for developers to opt in at 30% the point is that they are forcing them to do so by retaining control of devices after they have sold them.