10 ms·

Coming to Grips with Apple's Seemingly Unshakable Sense of Entitlement

128 points by chmaynard 3y ago

pointlessone 3y ago
I’m getting weird vibes from this. I know Gruber is all in on Apple. I myself have a lot of Apple stuff. But he is an outsider, a consumer. I can’t fathom what’s going on in his head to take a position like “we all should pay Apple, and we must find ways to pay even more”. He mentions owning a device to the fullest extent but quickly dismisses it because… users dumb? Install bad software? He himself wrote multiple times about App Store overflowing with crappy apps and rip-offs. Apple doesn’t demonstrate superior curation and quality control. They frustrate developers of good apps and let through tonnes of shit. Also banned any hint of mature content. In my eyes any sane customer take should look something like “yeah, they complied in the shittiest possible way because their legal team said it’s the only way. Let’s hope they’ll find a way to make it work the right way.” I register a prediction. Once EU DMA goes into effect and forces some way of side loading on iOS we’ll see absolutely no change in user exploitation. No amount of bad software on iOS will meaningfully change the situation to justify Apple’s involvement in the app distribution.
nashashmi 3y ago
Well explained. Apple is requiring developers to pay commission on purchases over a website that users were directed to via the app, OVER THE PERIOD OF SEVEN DAYS! Lol. That should be no more than seven hours. go to site.com/referral?via=apple with warning label on top "Wait seven days for the price to reduce (or Apple will charge us a commission and we will charge you this commission)."
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  7 days for things like games is peanuts. Also, Epic charges 5% in perpetuity...
rpmisms 3y ago
There is simply no way around the fact that Apple demanding a cut of sales on an external platform is ridiculous. Steam does not do this. Google does not do this. This would be absolutely absurd for anyone else in any market to do, and this will likely be exhibit C at Apple's inevitable antitrust trial. Edit: Re-reading, and I wish that the article was longer. Of course Apple doesn't want to allow side-loading, but they're going to have to eventually, so why not do it proactively and in a way that allows third-party apps to be extra-sandboxed or reviewed? Oh right, because they're Apple. I appreciate the methodology, but a touch of openness will not kill their profits or trust level.
- PeterStuer 3y ago
  Yep, it is exactly like Microsoft charging for every computer PC produced, regardless of wether it ran a MS operating system.
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  I'm in no way defending Apple's stance, but this is a misrepresentation. They're only demanding a cut if the lead resulting in an external sales comes from the App. If you market your app on a website and sell there, you don't have to pay Apple anything. If you market inside the appstore, attract leads there and sell, you have to pay Apple.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    That's not quite true, if the user clicked that link in the last 7 days, Apple wants a cut. That's still ridiculous, and it's still an external platform.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Sounds like an Amazon (or any other) affiliate program. However, I doubt anyone is/has been paying 27% for a lead.
  - LunaSea 3y ago
    If Apple forbids non-Apple Store app stores, how can this legitimately be considered to be lead generation by Apple? That's like saying that highschools are doing lead generation for universities. Sure, kids going to university do indeed come from highschool but on the other hand it's not like there was much of a choice or effort by the school involved. Can't say Apple is doing any effort really.
bnchrch 3y ago
[flagged]
- lolinder 3y ago
  Speaking both as one of the most vocal defenders of Apple on these threads and as someone who writes those defenses on a Linux machine and an Android phone, I'd respectfully ask that you not post baseless insinuation of astroturfing. We can respectfully disagree with each other without implying that one or the other of us is a paid off corporate shill. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    To be pedantic, that wasn't an insinuation, it was an accusation. I also believe it is a false accusation, since Apple has many happy customers and employees on HN, but he is within the letter of the law.
    - bnchrch 3y ago
      Fair enough rule, edited out the accusation. FWIW Im a happy Apple user as well. Just perplexed at how fast any (even well balanced) critique on Apple is so quickly down voted here at HN. Maybe more people prefer brand over reality than I thought.
      - rpmisms 3y ago
        Because Apple is a rare non-shittified company and people are apt to let them do whatever they want, in fear of upsetting the balance that keeps Apple products pleasant to use.
      - lolinder 3y ago
        Again, for me it has nothing to do with brand loyalty—the only Apple device I use is the Mac that I have to use for work, and I regularly miss my Linux environments. My reactions come mostly from perplexity at how many people so thoroughly misunderstood Apple's 30% fee as a ridiculously overpriced (10x) payment processor fee. That's never been how Apple or the law has thought about it, and the genuine surprise that Apple would insist on being paid is confusing to me. It's up for debate whether the 30% was justified, but it was never in question that they'd want something.
ksec 3y ago
When even John Gruber is somewhat softly against Apple, you know things are bad.
- crossroadsguy 3y ago
  Seriously! I still remember his early fanboy/apologist days and whenever I read him writing (actually "link quoting" because, well, that's what he does) anything even seemingly or notionally "against" Apple, my first suspicion is whether he has seen a drop in his readership and is just working to pull some page views from the other side? There was another one in those days - someone probably working at TechCrunch (I am forgetting his name) among many; Sig.. someone.
  - jwcroft 3y ago
    you are thinking of M.G Siegler.
- crimbles 3y ago
  His writing has never been objective. I’m not sure we should assume it is now.
- rchaud 3y ago
  It seems to me that he's fine with what Apple's doing, he just objects to "bad cop, bad cop" as a court strategy lest a judge interpret that as intentionally anti-competitive.
cubefox 3y ago
> There are a lot of Mac users whose Macs are overrun by adware and other scammy software. I’m not talking about viruses or malware, even — but apps that just abuse the largely free-for-all nature of the Mac platform. Excuse my French, but this sounds like a take you'd expect from a delusional fanboy. The Mac "abuse" the author talks about is fictional. It doesn't even exist to any relevant degree on modern Windows systems.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
watersb 3y ago
> most consumers’ Windows PCs, and many Macs, are riddled with bad software (privacy invasive, resource hogging, and all sorts of anti-user shenanigans you’d never think of) that App Store policies forbid. I can't confirm "most", but it's possible. A retailer can sell thousands of Windows PCs for $200 because of pack-in, preloaded apps license deals. It's one aspect of Apple's self image as a high end boutique brand that they forbid such avenues of monetization. They fear the entropy of enshittification. And it's possible to appreciate their paranoia... For my past sins, (some months spent in the 1990s Netscape group that licensed product placement on the home page), as a side project I've been refurbishing a neighbor's recently acquired collection of four Windows laptops, a 16-year-old iMac, and an HP all-in-one (like iMac) desktop. Customer states HP desktop is unusable, became too slow. This HP Intel Atom Windows desktop was thrashing its hard disk, unresponsive for more than an hour after booting. Because security: There were four (4) antivirus programs scanning the disk, intercepting runtime calls to windows api, doing antivirus stuff: - Windows Defender - Intel NetSecure ® - HP service apps - MacAfee antivirus suite Also Windows Update was scanning and installing crucial licensed apps like Candy Crush Saga and had just installed new Microsoft Edge browser. Edge was eager to help out with full-screen "Onboarding" to introduce awesome new features, had another instance that was a pop up widget to tell me that Brad Pitt was having Elvis' baby and homeowners in your area are using this one weird trick to gain financial freedom and you may also like Machine had a single channel of 4GB SODIMM and 500 GB of mechanical hard drive: "rotating rust" driving rotating tiles in the Start Menu. Thing is: this is relatively CLEAN setup. There were no scamming web toolbars. This was the setup shipped with the computer. Customer had added Microsoft Office 2016, Google Chrome, and had them well set up. This was an improvement over many of the Windows machines I have cleaned up in the past. The Mac was OK... for 2010. But that's another story.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  > that App Store policies forbid Yeah... That's the inconsistency I always bring up. One could argue Apple's massive cut and anti-competitive practices make sense if the App Store was some kind of idyllic garden, or even had the mediocre signal/noise ratio of Steam, but it absolutely is not and does not.
- 3y ago
crimbles 3y ago
Amazing everyone loves free market capitalism when it comes to taking fees for their SAAS. But when someone else takes a cut after providing the platform which is optional to join or utilise in the first place, that’s not fair and everyone wants the regulators in. As an end user I really don’t want to buy from anywhere other than the App Store or pay a subscription through anything else. Why? Because prior to it existing it was more difficult to cancel subs than a hooky porn site. The tech industry are two faced hypocrites. And attention seekers. You don’t have to play in the market. It’s not like there aren’t other ones. Innovate. Create a new market. That’s what you keep telling us you do.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > As an end user I really don’t want to buy from anywhere other than the App Store "As an end user I really don't want to use any browser other than Internet Explorer" You are entitled to that opinion, but having alternatives does not stop you from enjoying that. The existence of sketchy porn sites and alternatives App Stores in no way prevents you from boycotting everything besides the single platform you support.
- rchaud 3y ago
  > Because prior to it existing it was more difficult to cancel subs than a hooky porn site. One click cancel on PayPal has been available for years. Also, doing something as menial as canceling a subscription shouldn't add a 30% tax to every single transaction. Apple charges that because it can, not because it's the cost of doing business.
Aerbil313 3y ago
[flagged]
- Tommstein 3y ago
  > This cannot be repeated enough. It’s harmful to almost everyone to allow sideloading on iPhone. Power without the knowledge to use it responsibly results in actual real world harm. This may sound paternalistic but it’s what it is. I’m all in for a developer mode with a knowledge/competency check, choke full of warnings, make the user wait x days before it is enabled, whatever. But don’t allow it, not in a way a scammer could tell my grandma “oh yes we need to use that feature behind the warning to refund the funds to your bank account, now please tap accept…” Most people don't want to live in a lowest common denominator world dumbed down to the point where even the stupidest/most gullible person one could ever imagine can't possibly screw up.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    > Most people don't want to live in a lowest common denominator world Most of the HN crowd may indeed be like that. Meanwhile the rest of the world wants devices easy to understand and use, devices that get out of their way as much as possible. I’d even argue Apple’s design decisions forcing everyone to use their devices The Right Way (tm) is beneficial to even devs, by preventing the technically possible but slightly non-optimal use cases devolving into increasingly unoptimal hacky and clunky use cases, creating tension between the design of the product and what it’s used for, leading to dissatisfaction. Apple devices proactively resist being used outside of their purpose, and this is a good thing. It provides a clear mental model to the user for what it is and what it does, resulting in peace of mind (low cognitive load). I know this is controversial but whatever, I don’t care.
015a 3y ago
The longer this case goes on, the scummier Apple looks. Firing back with a 27% cut isn't going to relieve pressure from this vessel; its going to piss off developers even more, its going to drag the case out even longer, and frankly its going to become evidence in an inevitable future, separate trial concerning broader anti-competitiveness. Apple could make stupid amounts of money by just lowering the cut to 7%. Just lower it! You'll make the IAP system more accessible to your mega-business peers, and one company like Netflix deciding that 7% is an acceptable cut is worth ten-thousand indie developers suffering through 30% (or, I suppose, 15% if under a million now). Anyone who believes their behavior is about security is being intentionally daft about their inaction in lowering these fees. If its about security: lower the fees. Make these problems go away. The judge insinuated it herself; there is more a case here that their fees are too high, but that's not what Epic pursued, so they lost. The alternative is dark for both Apple and Apple's users. There's no innovation in the iOS app ecosystem anymore, beyond thirty copycat ChatGPT apps. Why should there be? Software is expensive to build, and Apple is putting up a toll-booth larger than the US Tax System to enter. There exist alternate realities where the iPhone Pro and iPad Pro are actually professional devices, which cultivate the creation of bespoke, powerful software for the form-factor. Gates defined a platform as a piece of software itself could be created with. Apple, the company, could never be created within Apple's world. Apple doesn't create platforms. I'm not confident they create much of anything anymore. Their most profitable skill nowadays is extraction, not creation.
- rchaud 3y ago
  > The alternative is dark for both Apple and Apple's users. There's no innovation in the iOS app ecosystem anymore, beyond thirty copycat ChatGPT apps There's a multi-billion dollar revenue line item for App Store ads that Apple can't lose. Nobody on the Apple software side gives a rat's ass about innovation.
  - jes5199 3y ago
    this can't be stable forever. Eventually people will move to some new form factor of computing and it's unlikely it will be Apple
kevinsync 3y ago
Is Apple demanding 30% on all external purchases, or is it still the 15%/30% split based on total revenue like normal? I've seen questions on HN before about who to use for payment processing for SaaS and/or software sales, and usually Paddle or Lemon Squeezy get suggested since they're Agents of Record that provide international sales tax compliance, chargeback protection, etc. Both are 5% + $0.50 per transaction and you're good to sell worldwide without worrying about time-wasting nonsense when it's time to cook the books for the year. I'm assuming Apple acts in the same capacity for App Store in-app purchases and subscriptions? (unsure, this is why I'm asking) If it's 15% for the vast majority of app developers, the point where it would be more economical to use one of those two external payment processors instead of direct through Apple would be $4.99 per transaction -- how many apps are selling in-app purchases / subscriptions for more than $4.99 that aren't aggressive impulse purchases? I've definitely seen $9.99/week, $19.99/month, $99.99/year grift subscriptions for video editing apps, that kind of thing, but the people who are psychotic enough to pay that aren't the kind of person that would actually follow through with leaving an app and completing a purchase through a website.. so I guess I'm curious, how many apps are doing huge numbers with in-app purchases greater than $4.99? I know that's a lot of dumb questions -- just trying to understand at what point does this tip over from minor annoyance to significant loss of revenue, and how large of a population of app developers / publishers does this affect materially? Also, is this iOS-specific, or for Mac App Store apps as well? I can definitely see it being a problem with Mac software that costs $80 a license, but it feels like maybe it's not as big of a deal for the average iOS app?
- kevinsync 3y ago
  Merchant of Record*
jiggawatts 3y ago
As a largely outside observer, the arguments feel extremely disingenuous to me, the equivalent to cheating taxes by moving corporations "off-shore" while its real activities remain on-shore. In other words, companies like to take advantage of all of the benefits purchased with taxes such as enforcement of copyright, the court systems, police, an educated workforce, etc... but not actually pay any taxes themselves. To translate the headline: "Coming to grips with the government's unshakable sense of entitlement to taxation." As an iPhone user, I'm happy to pay a 30% tax to avoid the relentless scamming, outright malware, and impossible-to-cancel subscriptions in every other software market out there that isn't similarly controlled. I'm happy to pay this in the same way I'm happy to pay my taxes so that I can live in a civilized society. No matter how innocent everyone demanding this change claims to be, the inevitable outcome will be this loophole being abused mercilessly by everyone to avoid the rules and restrictions of the Apple Store. No more easy cancellations. Unclear terms. Personal data collection and onselling of that data in bulk to anyone with a checkbook. Etc...
- fnimick 3y ago
  > As an iPhone user, I'm happy to pay a 30% tax to avoid the relentless scamming, outright malware, and impossible-to-cancel subscriptions in every other software market out there that isn't similarly controlled. I'm happy to pay this in the same way I'm happy to pay my taxes so that I can live in a civilized society. In that case, Apple should allow in-app purchases to be priced 30% higher, rather than mandating equivalent pricing to other platforms across the board.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    In Australia, stores must show the final price including taxes. Vendors are not allowed to advertise one price and then charge another, higher one, at the checkout. If Apple allowed this, then the inevitable result will be for every subscription purchase in-app to have the following blurb: “Go to our web store for 30% off!” What they most definitely, for sure, absolutely will not include is the rest of what that should say, which is: “Outside of the oversight of Apple, where we will be free to trick you, scam you, sell your info, and make it nigh impossible to unsubscribe.” Speaking of which, that reminds me: I have to call my bank to reverse charges on what I thought of was a one time payment to a website that magically auto renews itself quarterly (not monthly, that I would notice more easily!). Oh, and that quarterly cadence means that Mastercard disputes won’t go through either because it’s too far in the past. Awesome. I can’t wait for this to be the new normal for iPhone apps.
w10-1 3y ago
The idea that "Apple" has "a sense of entitlement" is click-baiting anthropomorphizing from someone monetizing eyeballs. It's not even supported in his text. So much on this topic lacks real grounding. 1. Apple's take is legal. Even Sweeney admits his objection is only on bad faith grounds; there's no failure to comply. 2. Gruber and others want Apple to be nicer. But doing more than the law requires just invites more lawsuits. 3. People objecting to 30% fail to mention the small-business program, where if you have revenues below $1M, Apple's take is 15%. So these businesses are significant, and many, many years of expectations are baked into their business models. Discounts for nothing would just be a giveaway. Regular people are entitled to have their devices from Apple just work: no viruses, no adversarial software, no snooping by Apple or others, no creeping data overages, effective and automated (security) updates, and no premature end-of-life. The cost of even a little bit of that would be the biggest tax on productivity and enjoyment.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Discounts for nothing would just be a giveaway. Then charge people for it. Apple has an annual developer registration fee, they should cover their platform costs using that instead of an arbitrary surcharge. If you want us counting our blessings, Apple also generously "gives away" access to a browser and phone app that don't see the need for all-encompassing payment processing. Those aren't giveaways though, those are basic features that have existed since before the App Store was an app. Apple's insistence on conflating their value is a textbook case of bundling. Apple can be justified in charging whatever they want for their App Store if comparable services have a chance to compete. Nobody is prevented from sticking with OEM defaults if they choose.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    The developer's fee is for the SDK and other software. It has nothing to do with the store. Why this is confused feels very disingenuous to me. No vendor selling product through a 3rd party store EVER receives 100% of the retail price. They always sell at wholesale which is a much steeper rate than 30%
nuker 3y ago
> Personally, I am on the record wishing that Apple would allow some sort of “expert” or “developer” mode — chock full of warnings Next morning Facebook removes its app from Apple Store and directs users to sideload the app, because it needs those sweet permissions that were denied before.
- sensanaty 3y ago
  Why is the OS not blocking those perms regardless of where the install comes from? I mean knowing Apple they'd probably make it so sideloaded apps break the phone more readily on purpose cause they're assholes and petty like that, but permissions should be handled at the OS level and not the app store level.
  - nuker 3y ago
    Apps outside official app store may force you to enable permissions it does not really need, refusing to work without it. Apps in official store should work with the permissions approved by the store. The “should” is enforced by the store.
jes5199 3y ago
I'm not going to say that Apple doesn't have the "right" to make these rules, but on an intuitive level they gross me out _more_ than the old version, and it makes me, personally, less likely to invest in writing native apps at all.
- Vegenoid 3y ago
  Is the reason they “gross you out” more than the old rules simply not simply because you’re thinking about it now? It seems like the rules are only more permissive than they were previously.
  - jes5199 3y ago
    no, having to implement the rule where a click from the app lingers and changes the pricing logic for the website, I am relating to that as a form of contamination. The old rules may have been less permissive, but at least they were walled-off.
hakdbha 3y ago
[dead]
whatisthis9 3y ago
Apple could easily corner the US smartphone market and a big part of the LLM hardware market in a few years. US smartphone market? It's growing every year even with huge margins, lowering the price would accelerate this pace. LLM hardware market? Like really, what is the incremental cost for 8gb to 16gb to 32gb to 64gb to 128gb for their macbooks? The could probably shave a few grand off the 128gb and still make a decent profit. Now you have 128gb unified memory macbook going for almost the same price as a rtx 4090 with a computer (and with only 24gb vram). That means a huge shift in hobbyist developers who will turn all their focus to ML with macbooks (e.g. MXL vs Nvidia/cuda). and if they do this with new macbooks, suddenly the market for older slower macbooks collapses, leading to much higher demand and even more hobbyists albeit with slower Cpus/less ram. It sucks but apple laptop cpus and mobile cpus dominate anything else out there. I wish there were more competition. And their margins are massive.
- Alpha3031 3y ago
  > It sucks but apple laptop cpus and mobile cpus dominate anything else out there. I wish there were more competition. And their margins are massive. Ryzen 7940HS and 7945HX are fairly close to the M3 16 core, if they had actually been able to build them on the same node, and if AMD were willing to shell out for the same die size, it's likely that they could have achieved or exceeded the uplift.
  - whatisthis9 3y ago
    > if they had actually been able to build them on the same node, and if AMD were willing to shell out for the same die size, it's likely that they could have achieved or exceeded the uplift. I mean yeah, probably, but they haven't been able to despite apple coming out of nowhere to dominate the laptop cpu market in performance only a few years ago with their first release m1. If AMD were to shell out more, and be able to build them on the same node, that would probably entail significant R&D costs and costs for die size and possibly raise the price to the m3 max or m3 ultra (whenever that's released). >Ryzen 7940HS and 7945HX are fairly close to the M3 16 core, https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m3-vs-amd-ryzen-9-7945hx https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m3-vs-amd-ryzen-... fair, i didn't know about these cpus, and it seems they absolutely destroy the base m3 in multicore performance. However, it looks like even the base m3 still far exceeds the 7945HX in igpu performance, power efficiency (probably because 3nm vs 5nm) and slightly beats the 7945HX in single core performance. And the Ryzen 9 is the best AMD has to offer right now, the M3 is the base model (apple still has the pro, the max and the soon to be released ultra). The price of 7945HX laptops also already seems a lot higher than base m3 macbooks (and again I think any ram upcharge is basically pure profit for Apple). Now i haven't even mentioned AI cores. Even M1 series from years ago still seem far ahead of most laptop cpus today it seems for hobbyists running LLMS. I'm not sure if that's something the 7945HX competes vs Apple with?
wkat4242 3y ago
> Basically, there’s an argument that iOS devices should be more like traditional PCs (including the Mac), on ethical or moral grounds. The “it’s my device, I should decide and control what software runs on it” argument. I get it. But I also get that most consumers’ Windows PCs, and many Macs,2 are riddled with bad software (privacy invasive, resource hogging, and all sorts of anti-user shenanigans you’d never think of) that App Store policies forbid. App Store review is far from perfect — I mean come on, that should go without saying — but it is undeniable that adversarial software is not a problem for any typical users on iOS. This totally ignores that it's not a problem on Android either, a mobile platform that has enabled sideloading from the start and has a much larger marketshare than Apple. There's some malware yes and some users are tricked into installing it but it's not widespread. And Android has a really great and safe FOSS ecosystem in F-Droid.
fulladder 3y ago
Apple has become the 1970s IBM.
- jasonm23 3y ago
  If you didn't notice before, that was the case for around 10 years already. They laid the groundwork since the app stores began.

128 points by chmaynard 3y ago

I’m getting weird vibes from this. I know Gruber is all in on Apple. I myself have a lot of Apple stuff. But he is an outsider, a consumer. I can’t fathom what’s going on in his head to take a position like “we all should pay Apple, and we must find ways to pay even more”. He mentions owning a device to the fullest extent but quickly dismisses it because… users dumb? Install bad software? He himself wrote multiple times about App Store overflowing with crappy apps and rip-offs. Apple doesn’t demonstrate superior curation and quality control. They frustrate developers of good apps and let through tonnes of shit. Also banned any hint of mature content. In my eyes any sane customer take should look something like “yeah, they complied in the shittiest possible way because their legal team said it’s the only way. Let’s hope they’ll find a way to make it work the right way.” I register a prediction. Once EU DMA goes into effect and forces some way of side loading on iOS we’ll see absolutely no change in user exploitation. No amount of bad software on iOS will meaningfully change the situation to justify Apple’s involvement in the app distribution.

nashashmi 3y ago

Well explained. Apple is requiring developers to pay commission on purchases over a website that users were directed to via the app, OVER THE PERIOD OF SEVEN DAYS! Lol. That should be no more than seven hours. go to site.com/referral?via=apple with warning label on top "Wait seven days for the price to reduce (or Apple will charge us a commission and we will charge you this commission)."

jbverschoor 3y ago
7 days for things like games is peanuts. Also, Epic charges 5% in perpetuity...

rpmisms 3y ago

There is simply no way around the fact that Apple demanding a cut of sales on an external platform is ridiculous. Steam does not do this. Google does not do this. This would be absolutely absurd for anyone else in any market to do, and this will likely be exhibit C at Apple's inevitable antitrust trial. Edit: Re-reading, and I wish that the article was longer. Of course Apple doesn't want to allow side-loading, but they're going to have to eventually, so why not do it proactively and in a way that allows third-party apps to be extra-sandboxed or reviewed? Oh right, because they're Apple. I appreciate the methodology, but a touch of openness will not kill their profits or trust level.

PeterStuer 3y ago
Yep, it is exactly like Microsoft charging for every computer PC produced, regardless of wether it ran a MS operating system.
rmbyrro 3y ago
I'm in no way defending Apple's stance, but this is a misrepresentation. They're only demanding a cut if the lead resulting in an external sales comes from the App. If you market your app on a website and sell there, you don't have to pay Apple anything. If you market inside the appstore, attract leads there and sell, you have to pay Apple.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  That's not quite true, if the user clicked that link in the last 7 days, Apple wants a cut. That's still ridiculous, and it's still an external platform.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Sounds like an Amazon (or any other) affiliate program. However, I doubt anyone is/has been paying 27% for a lead.
- LunaSea 3y ago
  If Apple forbids non-Apple Store app stores, how can this legitimately be considered to be lead generation by Apple? That's like saying that highschools are doing lead generation for universities. Sure, kids going to university do indeed come from highschool but on the other hand it's not like there was much of a choice or effort by the school involved. Can't say Apple is doing any effort really.

bnchrch 3y ago

[flagged]

lolinder 3y ago
Speaking both as one of the most vocal defenders of Apple on these threads and as someone who writes those defenses on a Linux machine and an Android phone, I'd respectfully ask that you not post baseless insinuation of astroturfing. We can respectfully disagree with each other without implying that one or the other of us is a paid off corporate shill. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rpmisms 3y ago
  To be pedantic, that wasn't an insinuation, it was an accusation. I also believe it is a false accusation, since Apple has many happy customers and employees on HN, but he is within the letter of the law.
  - bnchrch 3y ago
    Fair enough rule, edited out the accusation. FWIW Im a happy Apple user as well. Just perplexed at how fast any (even well balanced) critique on Apple is so quickly down voted here at HN. Maybe more people prefer brand over reality than I thought.
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      Because Apple is a rare non-shittified company and people are apt to let them do whatever they want, in fear of upsetting the balance that keeps Apple products pleasant to use.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Again, for me it has nothing to do with brand loyalty—the only Apple device I use is the Mac that I have to use for work, and I regularly miss my Linux environments. My reactions come mostly from perplexity at how many people so thoroughly misunderstood Apple's 30% fee as a ridiculously overpriced (10x) payment processor fee. That's never been how Apple or the law has thought about it, and the genuine surprise that Apple would insist on being paid is confusing to me. It's up for debate whether the 30% was justified, but it was never in question that they'd want something.

ksec 3y ago

When even John Gruber is somewhat softly against Apple, you know things are bad.

crossroadsguy 3y ago
Seriously! I still remember his early fanboy/apologist days and whenever I read him writing (actually "link quoting" because, well, that's what he does) anything even seemingly or notionally "against" Apple, my first suspicion is whether he has seen a drop in his readership and is just working to pull some page views from the other side? There was another one in those days - someone probably working at TechCrunch (I am forgetting his name) among many; Sig.. someone.
- jwcroft 3y ago
  you are thinking of M.G Siegler.
crimbles 3y ago
His writing has never been objective. I’m not sure we should assume it is now.
rchaud 3y ago
It seems to me that he's fine with what Apple's doing, he just objects to "bad cop, bad cop" as a court strategy lest a judge interpret that as intentionally anti-competitive.

cubefox 3y ago

> There are a lot of Mac users whose Macs are overrun by adware and other scammy software. I’m not talking about viruses or malware, even — but apps that just abuse the largely free-for-all nature of the Mac platform. Excuse my French, but this sounds like a take you'd expect from a delusional fanboy. The Mac "abuse" the author talks about is fictional. It doesn't even exist to any relevant degree on modern Windows systems.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

watersb 3y ago

> most consumers’ Windows PCs, and many Macs, are riddled with bad software (privacy invasive, resource hogging, and all sorts of anti-user shenanigans you’d never think of) that App Store policies forbid. I can't confirm "most", but it's possible. A retailer can sell thousands of Windows PCs for $200 because of pack-in, preloaded apps license deals. It's one aspect of Apple's self image as a high end boutique brand that they forbid such avenues of monetization. They fear the entropy of enshittification. And it's possible to appreciate their paranoia... For my past sins, (some months spent in the 1990s Netscape group that licensed product placement on the home page), as a side project I've been refurbishing a neighbor's recently acquired collection of four Windows laptops, a 16-year-old iMac, and an HP all-in-one (like iMac) desktop. Customer states HP desktop is unusable, became too slow. This HP Intel Atom Windows desktop was thrashing its hard disk, unresponsive for more than an hour after booting. Because security: There were four (4) antivirus programs scanning the disk, intercepting runtime calls to windows api, doing antivirus stuff: - Windows Defender - Intel NetSecure ® - HP service apps - MacAfee antivirus suite Also Windows Update was scanning and installing crucial licensed apps like Candy Crush Saga and had just installed new Microsoft Edge browser. Edge was eager to help out with full-screen "Onboarding" to introduce awesome new features, had another instance that was a pop up widget to tell me that Brad Pitt was having Elvis' baby and homeowners in your area are using this one weird trick to gain financial freedom and you may also like Machine had a single channel of 4GB SODIMM and 500 GB of mechanical hard drive: "rotating rust" driving rotating tiles in the Start Menu. Thing is: this is relatively CLEAN setup. There were no scamming web toolbars. This was the setup shipped with the computer. Customer had added Microsoft Office 2016, Google Chrome, and had them well set up. This was an improvement over many of the Windows machines I have cleaned up in the past. The Mac was OK... for 2010. But that's another story.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
> that App Store policies forbid Yeah... That's the inconsistency I always bring up. One could argue Apple's massive cut and anti-competitive practices make sense if the App Store was some kind of idyllic garden, or even had the mediocre signal/noise ratio of Steam, but it absolutely is not and does not.
3y ago

crimbles 3y ago

Amazing everyone loves free market capitalism when it comes to taking fees for their SAAS. But when someone else takes a cut after providing the platform which is optional to join or utilise in the first place, that’s not fair and everyone wants the regulators in. As an end user I really don’t want to buy from anywhere other than the App Store or pay a subscription through anything else. Why? Because prior to it existing it was more difficult to cancel subs than a hooky porn site. The tech industry are two faced hypocrites. And attention seekers. You don’t have to play in the market. It’s not like there aren’t other ones. Innovate. Create a new market. That’s what you keep telling us you do.

smoldesu 3y ago
> As an end user I really don’t want to buy from anywhere other than the App Store "As an end user I really don't want to use any browser other than Internet Explorer" You are entitled to that opinion, but having alternatives does not stop you from enjoying that. The existence of sketchy porn sites and alternatives App Stores in no way prevents you from boycotting everything besides the single platform you support.
rchaud 3y ago
> Because prior to it existing it was more difficult to cancel subs than a hooky porn site. One click cancel on PayPal has been available for years. Also, doing something as menial as canceling a subscription shouldn't add a 30% tax to every single transaction. Apple charges that because it can, not because it's the cost of doing business.

Aerbil313 3y ago

[flagged]

Tommstein 3y ago
> This cannot be repeated enough. It’s harmful to almost everyone to allow sideloading on iPhone. Power without the knowledge to use it responsibly results in actual real world harm. This may sound paternalistic but it’s what it is. I’m all in for a developer mode with a knowledge/competency check, choke full of warnings, make the user wait x days before it is enabled, whatever. But don’t allow it, not in a way a scammer could tell my grandma “oh yes we need to use that feature behind the warning to refund the funds to your bank account, now please tap accept…” Most people don't want to live in a lowest common denominator world dumbed down to the point where even the stupidest/most gullible person one could ever imagine can't possibly screw up.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  > Most people don't want to live in a lowest common denominator world Most of the HN crowd may indeed be like that. Meanwhile the rest of the world wants devices easy to understand and use, devices that get out of their way as much as possible. I’d even argue Apple’s design decisions forcing everyone to use their devices The Right Way (tm) is beneficial to even devs, by preventing the technically possible but slightly non-optimal use cases devolving into increasingly unoptimal hacky and clunky use cases, creating tension between the design of the product and what it’s used for, leading to dissatisfaction. Apple devices proactively resist being used outside of their purpose, and this is a good thing. It provides a clear mental model to the user for what it is and what it does, resulting in peace of mind (low cognitive load). I know this is controversial but whatever, I don’t care.

015a 3y ago

The longer this case goes on, the scummier Apple looks. Firing back with a 27% cut isn't going to relieve pressure from this vessel; its going to piss off developers even more, its going to drag the case out even longer, and frankly its going to become evidence in an inevitable future, separate trial concerning broader anti-competitiveness. Apple could make stupid amounts of money by just lowering the cut to 7%. Just lower it! You'll make the IAP system more accessible to your mega-business peers, and one company like Netflix deciding that 7% is an acceptable cut is worth ten-thousand indie developers suffering through 30% (or, I suppose, 15% if under a million now). Anyone who believes their behavior is about security is being intentionally daft about their inaction in lowering these fees. If its about security: lower the fees. Make these problems go away. The judge insinuated it herself; there is more a case here that their fees are too high, but that's not what Epic pursued, so they lost. The alternative is dark for both Apple and Apple's users. There's no innovation in the iOS app ecosystem anymore, beyond thirty copycat ChatGPT apps. Why should there be? Software is expensive to build, and Apple is putting up a toll-booth larger than the US Tax System to enter. There exist alternate realities where the iPhone Pro and iPad Pro are actually professional devices, which cultivate the creation of bespoke, powerful software for the form-factor. Gates defined a platform as a piece of software itself could be created with. Apple, the company, could never be created within Apple's world. Apple doesn't create platforms. I'm not confident they create much of anything anymore. Their most profitable skill nowadays is extraction, not creation.

rchaud 3y ago
> The alternative is dark for both Apple and Apple's users. There's no innovation in the iOS app ecosystem anymore, beyond thirty copycat ChatGPT apps There's a multi-billion dollar revenue line item for App Store ads that Apple can't lose. Nobody on the Apple software side gives a rat's ass about innovation.
- jes5199 3y ago
  this can't be stable forever. Eventually people will move to some new form factor of computing and it's unlikely it will be Apple

kevinsync 3y ago

Is Apple demanding 30% on all external purchases, or is it still the 15%/30% split based on total revenue like normal? I've seen questions on HN before about who to use for payment processing for SaaS and/or software sales, and usually Paddle or Lemon Squeezy get suggested since they're Agents of Record that provide international sales tax compliance, chargeback protection, etc. Both are 5% + $0.50 per transaction and you're good to sell worldwide without worrying about time-wasting nonsense when it's time to cook the books for the year. I'm assuming Apple acts in the same capacity for App Store in-app purchases and subscriptions? (unsure, this is why I'm asking) If it's 15% for the vast majority of app developers, the point where it would be more economical to use one of those two external payment processors instead of direct through Apple would be $4.99 per transaction -- how many apps are selling in-app purchases / subscriptions for more than $4.99 that aren't aggressive impulse purchases? I've definitely seen $9.99/week, $19.99/month, $99.99/year grift subscriptions for video editing apps, that kind of thing, but the people who are psychotic enough to pay that aren't the kind of person that would actually follow through with leaving an app and completing a purchase through a website.. so I guess I'm curious, how many apps are doing huge numbers with in-app purchases greater than $4.99? I know that's a lot of dumb questions -- just trying to understand at what point does this tip over from minor annoyance to significant loss of revenue, and how large of a population of app developers / publishers does this affect materially? Also, is this iOS-specific, or for Mac App Store apps as well? I can definitely see it being a problem with Mac software that costs $80 a license, but it feels like maybe it's not as big of a deal for the average iOS app?

kevinsync 3y ago
Merchant of Record*

jiggawatts 3y ago

As a largely outside observer, the arguments feel extremely disingenuous to me, the equivalent to cheating taxes by moving corporations "off-shore" while its real activities remain on-shore. In other words, companies like to take advantage of all of the benefits purchased with taxes such as enforcement of copyright, the court systems, police, an educated workforce, etc... but not actually pay any taxes themselves. To translate the headline: "Coming to grips with the government's unshakable sense of entitlement to taxation." As an iPhone user, I'm happy to pay a 30% tax to avoid the relentless scamming, outright malware, and impossible-to-cancel subscriptions in every other software market out there that isn't similarly controlled. I'm happy to pay this in the same way I'm happy to pay my taxes so that I can live in a civilized society. No matter how innocent everyone demanding this change claims to be, the inevitable outcome will be this loophole being abused mercilessly by everyone to avoid the rules and restrictions of the Apple Store. No more easy cancellations. Unclear terms. Personal data collection and onselling of that data in bulk to anyone with a checkbook. Etc...

fnimick 3y ago
> As an iPhone user, I'm happy to pay a 30% tax to avoid the relentless scamming, outright malware, and impossible-to-cancel subscriptions in every other software market out there that isn't similarly controlled. I'm happy to pay this in the same way I'm happy to pay my taxes so that I can live in a civilized society. In that case, Apple should allow in-app purchases to be priced 30% higher, rather than mandating equivalent pricing to other platforms across the board.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  In Australia, stores must show the final price including taxes. Vendors are not allowed to advertise one price and then charge another, higher one, at the checkout. If Apple allowed this, then the inevitable result will be for every subscription purchase in-app to have the following blurb: “Go to our web store for 30% off!” What they most definitely, for sure, absolutely will not include is the rest of what that should say, which is: “Outside of the oversight of Apple, where we will be free to trick you, scam you, sell your info, and make it nigh impossible to unsubscribe.” Speaking of which, that reminds me: I have to call my bank to reverse charges on what I thought of was a one time payment to a website that magically auto renews itself quarterly (not monthly, that I would notice more easily!). Oh, and that quarterly cadence means that Mastercard disputes won’t go through either because it’s too far in the past. Awesome. I can’t wait for this to be the new normal for iPhone apps.

w10-1 3y ago

The idea that "Apple" has "a sense of entitlement" is click-baiting anthropomorphizing from someone monetizing eyeballs. It's not even supported in his text. So much on this topic lacks real grounding. 1. Apple's take is legal. Even Sweeney admits his objection is only on bad faith grounds; there's no failure to comply. 2. Gruber and others want Apple to be nicer. But doing more than the law requires just invites more lawsuits. 3. People objecting to 30% fail to mention the small-business program, where if you have revenues below $1M, Apple's take is 15%. So these businesses are significant, and many, many years of expectations are baked into their business models. Discounts for nothing would just be a giveaway. Regular people are entitled to have their devices from Apple just work: no viruses, no adversarial software, no snooping by Apple or others, no creeping data overages, effective and automated (security) updates, and no premature end-of-life. The cost of even a little bit of that would be the biggest tax on productivity and enjoyment.

smoldesu 3y ago
> Discounts for nothing would just be a giveaway. Then charge people for it. Apple has an annual developer registration fee, they should cover their platform costs using that instead of an arbitrary surcharge. If you want us counting our blessings, Apple also generously "gives away" access to a browser and phone app that don't see the need for all-encompassing payment processing. Those aren't giveaways though, those are basic features that have existed since before the App Store was an app. Apple's insistence on conflating their value is a textbook case of bundling. Apple can be justified in charging whatever they want for their App Store if comparable services have a chance to compete. Nobody is prevented from sticking with OEM defaults if they choose.
- dylan604 3y ago
  The developer's fee is for the SDK and other software. It has nothing to do with the store. Why this is confused feels very disingenuous to me. No vendor selling product through a 3rd party store EVER receives 100% of the retail price. They always sell at wholesale which is a much steeper rate than 30%

nuker 3y ago

> Personally, I am on the record wishing that Apple would allow some sort of “expert” or “developer” mode — chock full of warnings Next morning Facebook removes its app from Apple Store and directs users to sideload the app, because it needs those sweet permissions that were denied before.

sensanaty 3y ago
Why is the OS not blocking those perms regardless of where the install comes from? I mean knowing Apple they'd probably make it so sideloaded apps break the phone more readily on purpose cause they're assholes and petty like that, but permissions should be handled at the OS level and not the app store level.
- nuker 3y ago
  Apps outside official app store may force you to enable permissions it does not really need, refusing to work without it. Apps in official store should work with the permissions approved by the store. The “should” is enforced by the store.

jes5199 3y ago

I'm not going to say that Apple doesn't have the "right" to make these rules, but on an intuitive level they gross me out _more_ than the old version, and it makes me, personally, less likely to invest in writing native apps at all.

Vegenoid 3y ago
Is the reason they “gross you out” more than the old rules simply not simply because you’re thinking about it now? It seems like the rules are only more permissive than they were previously.
- jes5199 3y ago
  no, having to implement the rule where a click from the app lingers and changes the pricing logic for the website, I am relating to that as a form of contamination. The old rules may have been less permissive, but at least they were walled-off.

hakdbha 3y ago

[dead]

whatisthis9 3y ago

Apple could easily corner the US smartphone market and a big part of the LLM hardware market in a few years. US smartphone market? It's growing every year even with huge margins, lowering the price would accelerate this pace. LLM hardware market? Like really, what is the incremental cost for 8gb to 16gb to 32gb to 64gb to 128gb for their macbooks? The could probably shave a few grand off the 128gb and still make a decent profit. Now you have 128gb unified memory macbook going for almost the same price as a rtx 4090 with a computer (and with only 24gb vram). That means a huge shift in hobbyist developers who will turn all their focus to ML with macbooks (e.g. MXL vs Nvidia/cuda). and if they do this with new macbooks, suddenly the market for older slower macbooks collapses, leading to much higher demand and even more hobbyists albeit with slower Cpus/less ram. It sucks but apple laptop cpus and mobile cpus dominate anything else out there. I wish there were more competition. And their margins are massive.

Alpha3031 3y ago
> It sucks but apple laptop cpus and mobile cpus dominate anything else out there. I wish there were more competition. And their margins are massive. Ryzen 7940HS and 7945HX are fairly close to the M3 16 core, if they had actually been able to build them on the same node, and if AMD were willing to shell out for the same die size, it's likely that they could have achieved or exceeded the uplift.
- whatisthis9 3y ago
  > if they had actually been able to build them on the same node, and if AMD were willing to shell out for the same die size, it's likely that they could have achieved or exceeded the uplift. I mean yeah, probably, but they haven't been able to despite apple coming out of nowhere to dominate the laptop cpu market in performance only a few years ago with their first release m1. If AMD were to shell out more, and be able to build them on the same node, that would probably entail significant R&D costs and costs for die size and possibly raise the price to the m3 max or m3 ultra (whenever that's released). >Ryzen 7940HS and 7945HX are fairly close to the M3 16 core, https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m3-vs-amd-ryzen-9-7945hx https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m3-vs-amd-ryzen-... fair, i didn't know about these cpus, and it seems they absolutely destroy the base m3 in multicore performance. However, it looks like even the base m3 still far exceeds the 7945HX in igpu performance, power efficiency (probably because 3nm vs 5nm) and slightly beats the 7945HX in single core performance. And the Ryzen 9 is the best AMD has to offer right now, the M3 is the base model (apple still has the pro, the max and the soon to be released ultra). The price of 7945HX laptops also already seems a lot higher than base m3 macbooks (and again I think any ram upcharge is basically pure profit for Apple). Now i haven't even mentioned AI cores. Even M1 series from years ago still seem far ahead of most laptop cpus today it seems for hobbyists running LLMS. I'm not sure if that's something the 7945HX competes vs Apple with?

wkat4242 3y ago

> Basically, there’s an argument that iOS devices should be more like traditional PCs (including the Mac), on ethical or moral grounds. The “it’s my device, I should decide and control what software runs on it” argument. I get it. But I also get that most consumers’ Windows PCs, and many Macs,2 are riddled with bad software (privacy invasive, resource hogging, and all sorts of anti-user shenanigans you’d never think of) that App Store policies forbid. App Store review is far from perfect — I mean come on, that should go without saying — but it is undeniable that adversarial software is not a problem for any typical users on iOS. This totally ignores that it's not a problem on Android either, a mobile platform that has enabled sideloading from the start and has a much larger marketshare than Apple. There's some malware yes and some users are tricked into installing it but it's not widespread. And Android has a really great and safe FOSS ecosystem in F-Droid.

fulladder 3y ago

Apple has become the 1970s IBM.

jasonm23 3y ago
If you didn't notice before, that was the case for around 10 years already. They laid the groundwork since the app stores began.