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> The iTunes Music Store does still exist, although its revenue contribution to the labels has long been eclipsed by streaming. It’s more important contribution

by lapcat 3y ago

> The iTunes Music Store does still exist, although its revenue contribution to the labels has long been eclipsed by streaming. It’s more important contribution to modern computing is that it provided the foundation for the App Store. I'm glad that Ben mentioned this. I discussed it at length in my own blog post "App Store is neither console nor retail but jukebox": https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/jukebox.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/jukebox.html The App Store was a carbon copy of the iTunes Music Store, thrown together very quickly, as shown in evidence and testimony from the Epic trial, but a store for selling 99 cent songs is an extremely bad fit for selling computer software. A lot of the problems with the App Store today stem from its origins in the iTunes Music Store, and unfortunately Apple has done very little to reshape the App Store to be more suitable for software. As a software developer myself, I have very little interest in Vision Pro right now. One major problem, especially for indie developers of paid apps, is that customers have come to expect free support for new platforms. Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases, but to me it's ridiculous to give away a new version for free on Vision Pro when consumers are giving $3500+ to Apple for a new device. Consumers are resentful if they have to give third-party developers any extra money. The level of consumer entitlement for free software is over the top. Apple gets to make all the money from expensive hardware, and we're supposed to be indentured servants supporting any and all new Apple hardware for no profit.

pm 3y ago
Consumers find it easy to justify a hardware purchase: it's tangible, and save for requiring an electrical outlet (which is ubiquitous in our society), runs anywhere. Software is, in some regards, intangible, and is constrained to certain platforms. It makes it easier to dismiss, even though it's no less work to make great software.
- skydhash 3y ago
  And that has not been helped by freemium and ads supported platforms. When I first got into computing (around windows XP SP2) if something was free and not open source, it was viewed with suspicions. Piracy was rampant, but they’re already not your market. It’s easy to buy software when it’s fulfilling a real need.
- dwaite 3y ago
  IMHO this has been one of the reasons the push for subscription-based pricing has been successful - it helps you pitch services that provide value, rather than software the user can leverage to create their own value.
rickdeckard 3y ago
> One major problem, especially for indie developers of paid apps, is that customers have come to expect free support for new platforms This is an interesting aspect indeed. Not just the increased customer expectation but also the resulting increased dev-cost. It looks alot like Apple aims to repeat what they did on the iPhone: Deliver a solid barebone experience, watch and observe what the dev-community does, build your app/service feature-backlog / adjust your revenue-share model based on the 3rd party apps that succeed. But now the ramp-up complexity to make a good app is much higher than it was back then for the $1 Flashlight App, the $2.99 iBeer App or Fruit Ninja. The question is whether there are again enough devs who are eager to do all the upfront invest to "throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks" on behalf of Apple...
- TheJoeMan 3y ago
  It’s very funny you mention Fruit Ninja, because I got a email that seems like Apple specifically ensured Fruit Ninja is ported to VP. BeatSaber alternative?
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    I can imagine Apple wanted to have it as show-off and the developer didn't see a reason to do all this investment in VR-development by himself...
- pests 3y ago
  I think you're being unfair to Fruit Ninja. It's a real game with it's own community and the creator recently did a YouTube video about it. Same creators as Jetpack Joyride.
dpkonofa 3y ago
I don't know that this is entirely true. Statistically, Apple users are far more likely to spend money on apps and in-app purchases than on any other application platform. Mainstream users may feel entitled to free apps but Apple users typically don't fit that mold. Also, you just kinda made the same case as the author in that shareware and other trial apps are probably what's needed here.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Statistically, Apple users are far more likely to spend money on apps and in-app purchases than on any other application platform. Mainstream users may feel entitled to free apps but Apple users typically don't fit that mold. Yes, Apple users are willing to pay for software... once. But then they want that one payment to apply to every Apple device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, Vision Pro, etc. They don't want to pay separately for each Apple platform.
  - saagarjha 3y ago
    Apple sells the story that with their technologies it's easy to port apps between platforms. Sometimes they do the work themselves to make it seem like that's the case, too. So the reason that users expect it is that Apple has conditioned them to think that it is the case.
  - dpkonofa 3y ago
    What's your source for that? Apple subscriptions also dwarf the next closest provider. I don't think Apple users care about paying once or more than once so long as they have access on all their devices.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > What's your source for that? My source is myself! I am an App Store developer. Did you miss the part where I said, "Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases"? This was because customers were constantly confused and complaining about it.
dclowd9901 3y ago
It was my understanding that Apple bridged this gap with Apple Arcade. But maybe you aren’t in the gaming space?
- mayoff 3y ago
  He's not in the gaming space. You can find his apps here: https://underpassapp.com https://underpassapp.com
dwaite 3y ago
> Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases, but to me it's ridiculous to give away a new version for free on Vision Pro when consumers are giving $3500+ to Apple for a new device Depends on your model. If you are charging individually for new features, it wouldn't make sense to have an entirely new platform as a free thing. If you are rolling features into incremental paid version upgrades, it could make sense to have AVP support be one of the features of a new version. Product v1 has an iOS app, v2 is a universal app with iOS and Mac support, v3 includes iOS, Mac and AVP. If you are charging for ongoing maintenance which includes new features, it makes sense to give your entire user base an ever-increasing value. AVP support may just gets rolled in as a feature their subscription gives them. To do it the other way and require two product purchases or split subscriptions for AVP is a tiered model. Tiered models IMHO are more something that comes from necessity, when the price to support development with a single tier increases the base price to the point where you are pricing out too much of your market. You justify customers paying more by giving them more features, which in turn gives you more revenue to support development for all users. Tiering is often more of a large development team problem than an indie problem, but for workplace-oriented apps (where you may have personal or corporate buyers who are willing to pay different amounts) it still winds up being a pricing consideration for indies. I suspect tiered pricing to be a thing for AVP for a while for this reason - developers deciding an AVP owner will have extra spending capacity. I'd recommend pricing though to recognize that the platform success will be defined by it managing to cannibalize some iPad sales, and that on a five-year timeline you may again be pricing out sales by requiring a "Pro" AVP purchase. Plan the pivot.

by lapcat 3y ago

pm 3y ago

Consumers find it easy to justify a hardware purchase: it's tangible, and save for requiring an electrical outlet (which is ubiquitous in our society), runs anywhere. Software is, in some regards, intangible, and is constrained to certain platforms. It makes it easier to dismiss, even though it's no less work to make great software.

skydhash 3y ago
And that has not been helped by freemium and ads supported platforms. When I first got into computing (around windows XP SP2) if something was free and not open source, it was viewed with suspicions. Piracy was rampant, but they’re already not your market. It’s easy to buy software when it’s fulfilling a real need.
dwaite 3y ago
IMHO this has been one of the reasons the push for subscription-based pricing has been successful - it helps you pitch services that provide value, rather than software the user can leverage to create their own value.

rickdeckard 3y ago

> One major problem, especially for indie developers of paid apps, is that customers have come to expect free support for new platforms This is an interesting aspect indeed. Not just the increased customer expectation but also the resulting increased dev-cost. It looks alot like Apple aims to repeat what they did on the iPhone: Deliver a solid barebone experience, watch and observe what the dev-community does, build your app/service feature-backlog / adjust your revenue-share model based on the 3rd party apps that succeed. But now the ramp-up complexity to make a good app is much higher than it was back then for the $1 Flashlight App, the $2.99 iBeer App or Fruit Ninja. The question is whether there are again enough devs who are eager to do all the upfront invest to "throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks" on behalf of Apple...

TheJoeMan 3y ago
It’s very funny you mention Fruit Ninja, because I got a email that seems like Apple specifically ensured Fruit Ninja is ported to VP. BeatSaber alternative?
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  I can imagine Apple wanted to have it as show-off and the developer didn't see a reason to do all this investment in VR-development by himself...
pests 3y ago
I think you're being unfair to Fruit Ninja. It's a real game with it's own community and the creator recently did a YouTube video about it. Same creators as Jetpack Joyride.

dpkonofa 3y ago

I don't know that this is entirely true. Statistically, Apple users are far more likely to spend money on apps and in-app purchases than on any other application platform. Mainstream users may feel entitled to free apps but Apple users typically don't fit that mold. Also, you just kinda made the same case as the author in that shareware and other trial apps are probably what's needed here.

lapcat 3y ago
> Statistically, Apple users are far more likely to spend money on apps and in-app purchases than on any other application platform. Mainstream users may feel entitled to free apps but Apple users typically don't fit that mold. Yes, Apple users are willing to pay for software... once. But then they want that one payment to apply to every Apple device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, Vision Pro, etc. They don't want to pay separately for each Apple platform.
- saagarjha 3y ago
  Apple sells the story that with their technologies it's easy to port apps between platforms. Sometimes they do the work themselves to make it seem like that's the case, too. So the reason that users expect it is that Apple has conditioned them to think that it is the case.
- dpkonofa 3y ago
  What's your source for that? Apple subscriptions also dwarf the next closest provider. I don't think Apple users care about paying once or more than once so long as they have access on all their devices.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > What's your source for that? My source is myself! I am an App Store developer. Did you miss the part where I said, "Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases"? This was because customers were constantly confused and complaining about it.

dclowd9901 3y ago

It was my understanding that Apple bridged this gap with Apple Arcade. But maybe you aren’t in the gaming space?

mayoff 3y ago
He's not in the gaming space. You can find his apps here: https://underpassapp.com https://underpassapp.com

dwaite 3y ago

> Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of separate purchases, but to me it's ridiculous to give away a new version for free on Vision Pro when consumers are giving $3500+ to Apple for a new device Depends on your model. If you are charging individually for new features, it wouldn't make sense to have an entirely new platform as a free thing. If you are rolling features into incremental paid version upgrades, it could make sense to have AVP support be one of the features of a new version. Product v1 has an iOS app, v2 is a universal app with iOS and Mac support, v3 includes iOS, Mac and AVP. If you are charging for ongoing maintenance which includes new features, it makes sense to give your entire user base an ever-increasing value. AVP support may just gets rolled in as a feature their subscription gives them. To do it the other way and require two product purchases or split subscriptions for AVP is a tiered model. Tiered models IMHO are more something that comes from necessity, when the price to support development with a single tier increases the base price to the point where you are pricing out too much of your market. You justify customers paying more by giving them more features, which in turn gives you more revenue to support development for all users. Tiering is often more of a large development team problem than an indie problem, but for workplace-oriented apps (where you may have personal or corporate buyers who are willing to pay different amounts) it still winds up being a pricing consideration for indies. I suspect tiered pricing to be a thing for AVP for a while for this reason - developers deciding an AVP owner will have extra spending capacity. I'd recommend pricing though to recognize that the platform success will be defined by it managing to cannibalize some iPad sales, and that on a five-year timeline you may again be pricing out sales by requiring a "Pro" AVP purchase. Plan the pivot.