7 ms·

Developers of ios (and soon macOS) platform have no one to blame but themselves for situations like this. Alarm bells should have been raised among us develope

Developers of ios (and soon macOS) platform have no one to blame but themselves for situations like this. Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. And later, more so, when Apple demanded a percentage cut too on every sale you make from your app. It is like everyone chose to forget that it is we developers who bring additional value to any platform we support, and we readily allowed ourselves to be treated like fools by Apple (and others). (I guess this is what hapens when we forget our history in this industry - the Windows mobile platform died because it didn't find acceptance among developers. Mobile platforms like Sailfish OS / Tizen OS / webOS today all struggle because they can't attract developers to their platform. And yet, we now allow the dominating platforms to exploit and treat us with disdain - aren't we truly idiots?) We should never have condoned this totally unnecessary and greedy "Apple Tax" practice as it harms both us developers and consumers - our customers are forced to pay more, and we lose money too in the process! I urge all macOS / ios developers to see the warning signs. It is still not too late - please boycott and remove all your apps from the app store and stop paying Apple any money. No one should have to pay Apple even for signing apps - if they want it, we should have the freedom to get it signed by any CA. (Remember, open source software has essentially been already nearly killed on ios platforms because of this unnecessary annual fee bullshit. And Apple wants that because it knows free open source software is detrimental to making money from its App Store). We played a huge role in the success of Windows, Android and ios - and now, in their arrogance if they want to change the rules to screw us, all of us really need to organise and fight back. I fear we are at that defining moment now where if we do not do anything, this is going to become an accepted norm and standard practice. And this is going to be hugely detrimental to us, in the long run, as both developers and consumers.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Who do you think could organize a guild of the app developers?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  - To begin with existing open source foundations and activists. The Free Software Foundation easily comes to mind. - In a democracy, political parties - they already are behind most unions and merchant / business associations and even major non-profits. (Approaching a political party may be controversial for some, but remember that political parties are also an institution in a democracy. And we will need political will and legislative backing to assert some of our rights. And it doesn't matter if there are more than one such organisations - there is no one size fits all solution for everyone).
donmcronald 5y ago
> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store". And later, more so, when Apple demanded a percentage cut too on every sale you make from your app. I'm 100% against the way the app store works right now, but I don't have a problem with the idea of those two things if they were implemented in a better way. If you compare $99 to the cost of a code signing certificate it's a good deal. The problem is that BOTH are bad value for developers. The value in signing is identity verification and none of the systems we have are doing a good job of that right now. IMHO, Apple, Microsoft, and Google are purposely keeping code signing / trust systems awful because it benefits them. Imagine an ecosystem where apps were signed with domain validated certificates, which would be free (or very cheap), instant, and better than what we currently have, and it definitely feels like entrenched interests are working to keep things from improving. Apple taking a 30% cut would be perfectly fine if there were competing app stores. If they're providing services worth a 30% cut, developers will be willing to pay that. I thought the app store would fail. My exact sentiment at the time was "there's no way developers are going to be dumb enough to give up control of distribution." Wow, was I ever wrong :-(
- imNotTheProb 5y ago
  Apple markets to non developers, by advertising to the masses, it forces us to join to partake with the masses. I've been lucky enough to avoid the walled prison but a fortune 500 company cannot. We can only educate the masses that better products exist or the psychology tricks Apple uses in their marketing.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Yes, artificial monopoly is the major issue here. With respect to the "$99" annual fee, the issue is that it isn't a good deal at all when a developer wants to offer the software for free - most open source developers don't even collect any donation, and it is doubtful if many of them can even raise $99 every year. This is where regulation is definitely needed - big tech should not be able to force us to pay and use only their signing infrastructure, and government law should require any CA to stringently implement KYC (know your customer) norms, like banks do, before issuing certificates to any Tom, Dick or Harry. I would preferably like to see the end of such "App Store" nonsense, but would gladly compromise and accept it if there is no monopoly (with the caveat that side loading / direct installation of apps should not be restricted - nobody should be forced to use an "App Store" if they don't want to). (App Store is so successful on ios only because side loading / direct installation is restricted on it).
passivate 5y ago
The best solution here is to have a competing App Store on iOS with their own rules. The new store will have a more realistic fixed fee for hosting apps, and devs will be able to cut prices. That should incentivize consumers to install the new app store.
GeekyBear 5y ago
> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. Somebody has absolutely no idea how high developer fees on proprietary platforms used to be. >Double Fine's Tim Schaefer pegged the cost of submitting an Xbox 360 patch at $40,000 in an interview with Hookshot Inc. earlier this year https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-fire-for-five-figure-xbox-360-patch-fee/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under...
- webmobdev 5y ago
  True. I don't have an idea of how high developer fees have been on proprietary, and restricted use platforms before. I have generally avoided them and grew up on mostly open platforms (Unix / Linux / Windows) before becoming a web application developer and moving on to mobile apps. My main point is that the computing environment is very different today and we should a fight such regressive practices - just because they have been doing something in the past, and can do it now at a larger scale too, doesn't mean we have to accept it and normalise it. Right?
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  > Somebody has absolutely no idea how high developer fees on proprietary platforms used to be. Right. Even in the mass-market area, I remember when Microsoft used to charge seven or eight hundred bucks for Visual Studio.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    Weren't XBox development kits up around ten thousand dollars back in the days before the App Store changed the rules?
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    Sure, in the past the computing era was different and tech corporates could get away with charging a lot for their development tools. But even then, you did not have to depend solely on them and there was a healthy competition in this vertical - Borland easily comes to mind. During the Java boom, their JBuilder used to be a top selling product till Eclipse came out. Open source and internet changed the game. Today Visual Studio also has a free version and even Apple is forced to offer their development tools for free because otherwise developers will prefer the free opensource options, than pay the exorbitant price they used to demand.
codesternews 5y ago
Lots of people raised voices but you need to understand they are small and no one wants to fight app while making leaving
eyesee 5y ago
> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. And later, more so, when Apple demanded a percentage cut too on every sale you make from your app. I'm not sure where the "suddenly" comes from. It's not as if there was a time before the fee where developers could ship apps for iOS. There's been a developer program as long as there has been an App Store. For that matter, there was a much more expensive developer programs for the Mac before iOS was even a thing. I remember paying somewhere between $1500 and $3000 when we were writing Mac software in the early aughts.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  The "suddenly" is in the context of this new practice of charging all developers (big or small) annual fees and demanding a recurring cut of their profit. Before this unnatural practice became prevalent, any computer user and / or Linux / Windows / Mac / Android developer could create and distribute software on the respective platforms for free without any such financial consideration. My point is let's not normalise this practice in any manner - in the past too we used to pay huge fees for developer tools, but today the computing environment is totally different and that's why even the tech giants are adopting and pushing for free open source developer tools or providing their developer tools for free. Let's not regress to something worse.
  - tracer4201 5y ago
    I don’t think you answered the ops question. Was there ever a time that you could develop software for Mac or particularly iOS and distribute it without paying the developer license fee? To be fair - the Unix market is different than iOS apps. And on Windows, anyone could run whatever program… which caused a lot of problems and financial loss. And just because Windows or Unix used those models, why are they the one and only acceptable model?
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      Was there ever a time that you could develop software for Mac or particularly iOS and distribute it without paying the developer license fee? As I have said in my original post, that's the point it started going downhill for us developers on the macOS and ios platform; and as Apple continues to further abuse its position, it's time to say a clear no to their regressive and exploitive practices. And as I have said elsewhere too, just because a particular practice has gained ground because the exploitive business model earns somebody more profit, doesn't mean that the exploited have to continue accepting it. And just because Windows or Unix used those models, why are they the one and only acceptable model? They are more acceptable simply because they don't abuse and exploit the developers who provide a huge value to the platform. If you are fine with a corporate abusing their control over their platform to exploit money from you, both as a developer and a consumer, then we don't really have anything else to discuss because of our differing economic / political belief on this subject.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Who do you think could organize a guild of the app developers?

webmobdev 5y ago
- To begin with existing open source foundations and activists. The Free Software Foundation easily comes to mind. - In a democracy, political parties - they already are behind most unions and merchant / business associations and even major non-profits. (Approaching a political party may be controversial for some, but remember that political parties are also an institution in a democracy. And we will need political will and legislative backing to assert some of our rights. And it doesn't matter if there are more than one such organisations - there is no one size fits all solution for everyone).

donmcronald 5y ago

> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store". And later, more so, when Apple demanded a percentage cut too on every sale you make from your app. I'm 100% against the way the app store works right now, but I don't have a problem with the idea of those two things if they were implemented in a better way. If you compare $99 to the cost of a code signing certificate it's a good deal. The problem is that BOTH are bad value for developers. The value in signing is identity verification and none of the systems we have are doing a good job of that right now. IMHO, Apple, Microsoft, and Google are purposely keeping code signing / trust systems awful because it benefits them. Imagine an ecosystem where apps were signed with domain validated certificates, which would be free (or very cheap), instant, and better than what we currently have, and it definitely feels like entrenched interests are working to keep things from improving. Apple taking a 30% cut would be perfectly fine if there were competing app stores. If they're providing services worth a 30% cut, developers will be willing to pay that. I thought the app store would fail. My exact sentiment at the time was "there's no way developers are going to be dumb enough to give up control of distribution." Wow, was I ever wrong :-(

imNotTheProb 5y ago
Apple markets to non developers, by advertising to the masses, it forces us to join to partake with the masses. I've been lucky enough to avoid the walled prison but a fortune 500 company cannot. We can only educate the masses that better products exist or the psychology tricks Apple uses in their marketing.
webmobdev 5y ago
Yes, artificial monopoly is the major issue here. With respect to the "$99" annual fee, the issue is that it isn't a good deal at all when a developer wants to offer the software for free - most open source developers don't even collect any donation, and it is doubtful if many of them can even raise $99 every year. This is where regulation is definitely needed - big tech should not be able to force us to pay and use only their signing infrastructure, and government law should require any CA to stringently implement KYC (know your customer) norms, like banks do, before issuing certificates to any Tom, Dick or Harry. I would preferably like to see the end of such "App Store" nonsense, but would gladly compromise and accept it if there is no monopoly (with the caveat that side loading / direct installation of apps should not be restricted - nobody should be forced to use an "App Store" if they don't want to). (App Store is so successful on ios only because side loading / direct installation is restricted on it).

passivate 5y ago

The best solution here is to have a competing App Store on iOS with their own rules. The new store will have a more realistic fixed fee for hosting apps, and devs will be able to cut prices. That should incentivize consumers to install the new app store.

GeekyBear 5y ago

> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. Somebody has absolutely no idea how high developer fees on proprietary platforms used to be. >Double Fine's Tim Schaefer pegged the cost of submitting an Xbox 360 patch at $40,000 in an interview with Hookshot Inc. earlier this year https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-fire-for-five-figure-xbox-360-patch-fee/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under...

webmobdev 5y ago
True. I don't have an idea of how high developer fees have been on proprietary, and restricted use platforms before. I have generally avoided them and grew up on mostly open platforms (Unix / Linux / Windows) before becoming a web application developer and moving on to mobile apps. My main point is that the computing environment is very different today and we should a fight such regressive practices - just because they have been doing something in the past, and can do it now at a larger scale too, doesn't mean we have to accept it and normalise it. Right?
Turing_Machine 5y ago
> Somebody has absolutely no idea how high developer fees on proprietary platforms used to be. Right. Even in the mass-market area, I remember when Microsoft used to charge seven or eight hundred bucks for Visual Studio.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  Weren't XBox development kits up around ten thousand dollars back in the days before the App Store changed the rules?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Sure, in the past the computing era was different and tech corporates could get away with charging a lot for their development tools. But even then, you did not have to depend solely on them and there was a healthy competition in this vertical - Borland easily comes to mind. During the Java boom, their JBuilder used to be a top selling product till Eclipse came out. Open source and internet changed the game. Today Visual Studio also has a free version and even Apple is forced to offer their development tools for free because otherwise developers will prefer the free opensource options, than pay the exorbitant price they used to demand.

codesternews 5y ago

Lots of people raised voices but you need to understand they are small and no one wants to fight app while making leaving

eyesee 5y ago

> Alarm bells should have been raised among us developers when Apple suddenly asked everyone to shell out $99 for the "privilege" of making an app available on the "App Store", and treated it as something normal. And later, more so, when Apple demanded a percentage cut too on every sale you make from your app. I'm not sure where the "suddenly" comes from. It's not as if there was a time before the fee where developers could ship apps for iOS. There's been a developer program as long as there has been an App Store. For that matter, there was a much more expensive developer programs for the Mac before iOS was even a thing. I remember paying somewhere between $1500 and $3000 when we were writing Mac software in the early aughts.

webmobdev 5y ago
The "suddenly" is in the context of this new practice of charging all developers (big or small) annual fees and demanding a recurring cut of their profit. Before this unnatural practice became prevalent, any computer user and / or Linux / Windows / Mac / Android developer could create and distribute software on the respective platforms for free without any such financial consideration. My point is let's not normalise this practice in any manner - in the past too we used to pay huge fees for developer tools, but today the computing environment is totally different and that's why even the tech giants are adopting and pushing for free open source developer tools or providing their developer tools for free. Let's not regress to something worse.
- tracer4201 5y ago
  I don’t think you answered the ops question. Was there ever a time that you could develop software for Mac or particularly iOS and distribute it without paying the developer license fee? To be fair - the Unix market is different than iOS apps. And on Windows, anyone could run whatever program… which caused a lot of problems and financial loss. And just because Windows or Unix used those models, why are they the one and only acceptable model?
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    Was there ever a time that you could develop software for Mac or particularly iOS and distribute it without paying the developer license fee? As I have said in my original post, that's the point it started going downhill for us developers on the macOS and ios platform; and as Apple continues to further abuse its position, it's time to say a clear no to their regressive and exploitive practices. And as I have said elsewhere too, just because a particular practice has gained ground because the exploitive business model earns somebody more profit, doesn't mean that the exploited have to continue accepting it. And just because Windows or Unix used those models, why are they the one and only acceptable model? They are more acceptable simply because they don't abuse and exploit the developers who provide a huge value to the platform. If you are fine with a corporate abusing their control over their platform to exploit money from you, both as a developer and a consumer, then we don't really have anything else to discuss because of our differing economic / political belief on this subject.