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"The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is an element of the business terms in the EU that reflects the value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in th

"The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is an element of the business terms in the EU that reflects the value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world." I feel sick. Yet, I am intrigued by what kind of drugs the PR team at Apple is taking... ;) In my opinion, Apple's proprietary APIs provide a negative value to developers. Shuffling APIs around for no obvious reason is why none of my old iOS / Mac apps still work. I've been forced to issue refunds to people who upgraded their macOS and then afterwards noticed that my apps don't work anymore. And since Apple owns the customer relationship, we couldn't even send an email to warn them that upgrading will break their setup. (Pro Tools had to do that on basically every OS X upgrade.) On Windows, things JUST WORK! :) and they've continued working with almost no maintenance for almost 9 years. The Windows version is, thus, highly profitable. But the Mac version was a financial disaster. And discontinued. EDIT: Just to clarify, I was super happy with Apple from about 2008 to about 2014 and shipped multiple iOS and Mac apps. But needless to say, my impression of them has soured when they started treating us developers badly. I'm now using Pop! OS as daily driver and it kinda feels as nice as OS X was before the stupidification efforts started.

klaustopher 3y ago
> provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world. That's what the 99$ fee for the developer program is for. The 50ct Core Technology Fee is just Apple showing the middle finger to successful developers. I hope the EU goes after this fee first. The whole reason for the DMA is that developers do not use Apple's platforms to bring apps to the user's devices. The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law.
- jijijijij 3y ago
  Maybe Apple's goal is to become irrelevant enough to not be subjected to the DMA. I mean, making developers despise you is a brilliant first step towards such an end!
  - judge2020 3y ago
    Why is size a question here? If apple is subject now, but then dropped to 1/10th the number of users, could they suddenly no longer be required to adhere to the DMA? Why is the size of the provider suddenly a test to determine if consumer protections are in order?
    - jijijijij 3y ago
      The DMA, digital markets act, is about fair competition, not consumer protection. If you got 5 users, you do not have the necessary leverage to matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act
- dbbk 3y ago
  Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay. ...but the program fee already does that??
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    They have to be "compensated" in the intellectual property[0] sense of "we reserve the right to invent new reasons why we need to be compensated". Nothing is ever truly "paid for" or "owned" here. [0] "Federal contempt of business model"
  - judge2020 3y ago
    I think you'd be hard pressed to take the $99/yr they make from the dev program fee and use it to cover the salaries for the engineers implementing and maintaining all of iOS' developer-facing APIs.
    - tonfa 3y ago
      Isn't having good apps/api a selling point for apple hardware (where they already make massive amount of money), why can't that be a motivation by itself?
    - CogitoCogito 3y ago
      Why would that fee pay for all that? Why wouldn’t revenue from sales of iPhones pay for that?
    - CivBase 3y ago
      Who decided that developers should be the ones paying for the development of those APIs in the first place? Are we just going to ignore Apple's own products and services that their platform allows them to profit off of? And the market share afforded to them by supporting popular third-party apps and services? There's plenty of precedence for platforms being profitable even with free APIs - including Android, Windows, and even Apple's own MacOS. iOS is not special. Apple would pay for those APIs whether or not the dev program fees alone were enough to cover the expenses. But they'll also take as much from the devs as they are legally allowed to. And if the fees are enough to keep devs from distributing outside the app store, even better for Apple.
- paulmd 3y ago
  > The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law. pretty much the same way nintendo or sony or microsoft justify it, I'd think. it's pretty much exactly the same thing as windows S edition, or a console - you paid for the laptop, the developer paid to get notarization to release it. As Android shows, it is also probably legal to refuse to unlock the bootloader... now you own an "appliance". https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/windows-10-s-microsoft-faster-pc-comparison https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/windows-1... And again, consoles have been doing this for two full decades now. PS5 isn't sold at a loss (and I don't think it matters if it is - your business model is not my problem) but I can't go mine crypto or emulate games on a PS5 or Xbox even if that's what I want to do with it as a user. And I know that consoles got a specific carveout in the DMA "for some reason" (more evidence this is really just a bill of attainder in generic dress) but really there is not a moral difference here, and people have (including here, including the apple haters) have generally convinced themselves that it's OK. It's simple, just do the same thing with apple: "my phone is an appliance and I don't need to emulate games to be happy with it". It's a console in my pocket that makes calls.
  - fxtentacle 3y ago
    In the EU, the spirit of the laws is what counts in court, not the letter of the law. That means it's a lot easier to understand things if you start with the intended consequences: Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this
    - paulmd 3y ago
      > Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here > Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this this is a silly false dilemma/double standard you've set up. if you want to apply the "do I need this exact device" standard - then no, you do not need a PS5, and you do not need an iphone. Therefore there is no need for regulation. if you want to apply the "can I live my life without this whole category of Thing" - you probably can't live your life without some form of entertainment, and some form of generalized computing device, right? So no, you can't "do without" something like a PS5 or a phone or a laptop, no. And the Xbox and PS5 are general purpose computing devices - there is no technical reason you shouldn't be able to check emails or run a word processor on your Xbox, other than that's not the market segmentation MS wants. Again, this is an example of a device so successfully convincing people that it's really an appliance that literally the EU wrote it into a law that there's no need for this appliance to comply. Again: what's the problem? Just do the same thing with the iphone. regardless, you are choosing to ignore the whole point about Windows S - you certainly can't life your life without Windows or MacOS, right? And if you want to point to niche solutions... nobody is stopping you from buying a Sailphone, but you would probably agree that's not a sufficient solution for the market as a whole. Again, the whole thing is very narrowly a bill of attainder, both in its written form and application. If the purpose is "protecting consumers" there is no logical reason to exclude Windows S or PS5 or Xbox or other general-purpose computing devices from being utilized as such by consumers. The EU has no business to be declaring these classes of devices as having no need to comply with market act requirements, especially when the boundaries are so fuzzy. Apple TV is pushing into mobile gaming. Series S is pushing downwards into mobile gaming. What is the difference between these 2 classes of devices, why should one get a pass? Why should Motorola be allowed to refuse to unlock their bootloaders without voiding a warranty? Etc etc. Literally narrowly targeted at ios and nothing else - even when it would benefit the consumer. And more generally people are deliberately (and knowingly) missing the point that these types of appliances are common and are widely accepted - literally so widely accepted that the EU wrote special permission for many of them. Phrasing it as if Apple is somehow uniquely denying users access to the capabilities of their hardware is incredibly misleading - literally the EU wrote into the DMA special permission for many vendors to continue denying their users access to the capabilities of their hardware. But, it's apple, I get it, everyone hates apple. But at a technological level they're not special or different.
McDyver 3y ago
Reminds me of this: "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay. We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets. Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can."
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Are we supposed to know who you're quoting and what it's even about?
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    "pride and accomplishment" was a bit of a gamedev meme for a while, related to EA completely fumbling their response to a PR mishap: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/star-wars-battlefront-ii-unlockable-heroes-controversy https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/star-wars-battlefront-... It tends to get brought up whenever dainty corporate language is used to justify a casino for children, or something similarly nefarious.
  - toyg 3y ago
    EA games commenting on the backlash to some charges they introduced for a game in 2017: https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-the-most-hated-1820391000 https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-...
jwells89 3y ago
Having tracked API changes fairly closely on macOS and iOS for many years now, I can’t think of too many that were just pointless furniture shuffling. Nearly all of them were to enable addition of new features or to improve developer QoL in some way — dropping 32-bit support for example allowed them to make long desired improvements in AppKit that were impractical prior due to quirks in the way Objective-C works. That said I also don’t think it’s a reasonable expectation for old binaries to continue to work indefinitely. Maintenance is a reality of life of a software developer, and personally speaking if I found myself unable or unwilling to do quick spot checks on each platform my apps run at least once a year, I’d just drop support for those platforms or discontinue the app. That’s not to say that Apple is blameless here, but I think Microsoft has set an unrealistic standard (while also making some things much more difficult for themselves… Windows on ARM for example will never materialize so long as developers expect to be able to toss a binary over the wall and abandon it for a decade, because no matter how good an x86 compat layer is, it’s still significantly worse than native).
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  Windows on ARM will never materialize because Qualcomm can't make compelling hardware for it to run on. Keep in mind that the M1 at launch was as fast as a lot of Intel's lineup running emulated x86 apps. That's what Qualcomm needs to be able to pull off. If the performance is there then people will buy the laptops. That changes the developer story from "please recompile and retest your apps so they'll run on laptops nobody's buying" to "if you recompile your app it'll run 20% faster on this already screaming fast laptop chip".
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Proficiency in emulating x86 is just one piece of the puzzle, though. It helped drive M1 adoption to be sure, but users also had a lot of confidence that developers would pull through and provide native binaries in a timely manner, catapulting the capabilities and battery life of their shiny new laptops even further. Apple and third party Mac devs had pulled it off twice already, so there was good reason to believe that they’d do it again. If the new Qualcomm chips have good performance, it’ll drive sales initially, but enthusiasm will fizzle if 2-3 years down the road developers aren’t making meaningful efforts to port their Windows versions to ARM, because a Windows on ARM device running mostly emulated processes is almost certainly going to fall behind M-series Macs running mostly native in performance and battery life. If Qualcomm can’t keep up substantial performance improvements on a yearly cadence, they also risk getting lapped by traditional x86 machines.
pathartl 3y ago
The amount of backwards compatibility that Windows has built in is frankly insane. I've been going through a catalog of games and making sure they can run on modern Windows. Other than games that were written strictly for 16-bit, I haven't run into a game that can't be made to run. Sure, some require patches in the form of DLL shims, but it's rare that I even have to break out compatibility mode.
pmontra 3y ago
> I am intrigued by what kind of drugs the PR team at Apple is taking No drugs. PR teams write what helps their company to succeed. They don't have to believe into what they write.
- jijijijij 3y ago
  > They don't have to believe into what they write. Imagine the level of sociopathy required for the job. Truly soulless, despicable work, but I almost feel sorry for them. Like, could they even form an authentic human connection anymore, when they have sold out, given up so much humanity to an indifferent market creature? How would you feel about an "I love you" coming from someone payed to lie and manipulate?
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    Personally, I’d write it if it was my job. And then bitch about it to my friends and we can roll our eyes. Just like any stupid thing I’m asked to do. Actually I’d be much happier writing that than dealing with ticket YJ-2934 hanging out in Jira. I don’t need to be a sick, deprived sociopath. Then again, I still happily buy and use Apple products. They’ll get over their pointless tempter tantrum at some point. I hope.
    - jijijijij 3y ago
      *swipes left*

klaustopher 3y ago

> provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world. That's what the 99$ fee for the developer program is for. The 50ct Core Technology Fee is just Apple showing the middle finger to successful developers. I hope the EU goes after this fee first. The whole reason for the DMA is that developers do not use Apple's platforms to bring apps to the user's devices. The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law.

jijijijij 3y ago
Maybe Apple's goal is to become irrelevant enough to not be subjected to the DMA. I mean, making developers despise you is a brilliant first step towards such an end!
- judge2020 3y ago
  Why is size a question here? If apple is subject now, but then dropped to 1/10th the number of users, could they suddenly no longer be required to adhere to the DMA? Why is the size of the provider suddenly a test to determine if consumer protections are in order?
  - jijijijij 3y ago
    The DMA, digital markets act, is about fair competition, not consumer protection. If you got 5 users, you do not have the necessary leverage to matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act
dbbk 3y ago
Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay. ...but the program fee already does that??
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  They have to be "compensated" in the intellectual property[0] sense of "we reserve the right to invent new reasons why we need to be compensated". Nothing is ever truly "paid for" or "owned" here. [0] "Federal contempt of business model"
- judge2020 3y ago
  I think you'd be hard pressed to take the $99/yr they make from the dev program fee and use it to cover the salaries for the engineers implementing and maintaining all of iOS' developer-facing APIs.
  - tonfa 3y ago
    Isn't having good apps/api a selling point for apple hardware (where they already make massive amount of money), why can't that be a motivation by itself?
  - CogitoCogito 3y ago
    Why would that fee pay for all that? Why wouldn’t revenue from sales of iPhones pay for that?
  - CivBase 3y ago
    Who decided that developers should be the ones paying for the development of those APIs in the first place? Are we just going to ignore Apple's own products and services that their platform allows them to profit off of? And the market share afforded to them by supporting popular third-party apps and services? There's plenty of precedence for platforms being profitable even with free APIs - including Android, Windows, and even Apple's own MacOS. iOS is not special. Apple would pay for those APIs whether or not the dev program fees alone were enough to cover the expenses. But they'll also take as much from the devs as they are legally allowed to. And if the fees are enough to keep devs from distributing outside the app store, even better for Apple.
paulmd 3y ago
> The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law. pretty much the same way nintendo or sony or microsoft justify it, I'd think. it's pretty much exactly the same thing as windows S edition, or a console - you paid for the laptop, the developer paid to get notarization to release it. As Android shows, it is also probably legal to refuse to unlock the bootloader... now you own an "appliance". https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/windows-10-s-microsoft-faster-pc-comparison https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/windows-1... And again, consoles have been doing this for two full decades now. PS5 isn't sold at a loss (and I don't think it matters if it is - your business model is not my problem) but I can't go mine crypto or emulate games on a PS5 or Xbox even if that's what I want to do with it as a user. And I know that consoles got a specific carveout in the DMA "for some reason" (more evidence this is really just a bill of attainder in generic dress) but really there is not a moral difference here, and people have (including here, including the apple haters) have generally convinced themselves that it's OK. It's simple, just do the same thing with apple: "my phone is an appliance and I don't need to emulate games to be happy with it". It's a console in my pocket that makes calls.
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  In the EU, the spirit of the laws is what counts in court, not the letter of the law. That means it's a lot easier to understand things if you start with the intended consequences: Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this
  - paulmd 3y ago
    > Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here > Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this this is a silly false dilemma/double standard you've set up. if you want to apply the "do I need this exact device" standard - then no, you do not need a PS5, and you do not need an iphone. Therefore there is no need for regulation. if you want to apply the "can I live my life without this whole category of Thing" - you probably can't live your life without some form of entertainment, and some form of generalized computing device, right? So no, you can't "do without" something like a PS5 or a phone or a laptop, no. And the Xbox and PS5 are general purpose computing devices - there is no technical reason you shouldn't be able to check emails or run a word processor on your Xbox, other than that's not the market segmentation MS wants. Again, this is an example of a device so successfully convincing people that it's really an appliance that literally the EU wrote it into a law that there's no need for this appliance to comply. Again: what's the problem? Just do the same thing with the iphone. regardless, you are choosing to ignore the whole point about Windows S - you certainly can't life your life without Windows or MacOS, right? And if you want to point to niche solutions... nobody is stopping you from buying a Sailphone, but you would probably agree that's not a sufficient solution for the market as a whole. Again, the whole thing is very narrowly a bill of attainder, both in its written form and application. If the purpose is "protecting consumers" there is no logical reason to exclude Windows S or PS5 or Xbox or other general-purpose computing devices from being utilized as such by consumers. The EU has no business to be declaring these classes of devices as having no need to comply with market act requirements, especially when the boundaries are so fuzzy. Apple TV is pushing into mobile gaming. Series S is pushing downwards into mobile gaming. What is the difference between these 2 classes of devices, why should one get a pass? Why should Motorola be allowed to refuse to unlock their bootloaders without voiding a warranty? Etc etc. Literally narrowly targeted at ios and nothing else - even when it would benefit the consumer. And more generally people are deliberately (and knowingly) missing the point that these types of appliances are common and are widely accepted - literally so widely accepted that the EU wrote special permission for many of them. Phrasing it as if Apple is somehow uniquely denying users access to the capabilities of their hardware is incredibly misleading - literally the EU wrote into the DMA special permission for many vendors to continue denying their users access to the capabilities of their hardware. But, it's apple, I get it, everyone hates apple. But at a technological level they're not special or different.

McDyver 3y ago

Reminds me of this: "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay. We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets. Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can."

mvdtnz 3y ago
Are we supposed to know who you're quoting and what it's even about?
- smoldesu 3y ago
  "pride and accomplishment" was a bit of a gamedev meme for a while, related to EA completely fumbling their response to a PR mishap: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/star-wars-battlefront-ii-unlockable-heroes-controversy https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/star-wars-battlefront-... It tends to get brought up whenever dainty corporate language is used to justify a casino for children, or something similarly nefarious.
- toyg 3y ago
  EA games commenting on the backlash to some charges they introduced for a game in 2017: https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-the-most-hated-1820391000 https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-...

jwells89 3y ago

Having tracked API changes fairly closely on macOS and iOS for many years now, I can’t think of too many that were just pointless furniture shuffling. Nearly all of them were to enable addition of new features or to improve developer QoL in some way — dropping 32-bit support for example allowed them to make long desired improvements in AppKit that were impractical prior due to quirks in the way Objective-C works. That said I also don’t think it’s a reasonable expectation for old binaries to continue to work indefinitely. Maintenance is a reality of life of a software developer, and personally speaking if I found myself unable or unwilling to do quick spot checks on each platform my apps run at least once a year, I’d just drop support for those platforms or discontinue the app. That’s not to say that Apple is blameless here, but I think Microsoft has set an unrealistic standard (while also making some things much more difficult for themselves… Windows on ARM for example will never materialize so long as developers expect to be able to toss a binary over the wall and abandon it for a decade, because no matter how good an x86 compat layer is, it’s still significantly worse than native).

kmeisthax 3y ago
Windows on ARM will never materialize because Qualcomm can't make compelling hardware for it to run on. Keep in mind that the M1 at launch was as fast as a lot of Intel's lineup running emulated x86 apps. That's what Qualcomm needs to be able to pull off. If the performance is there then people will buy the laptops. That changes the developer story from "please recompile and retest your apps so they'll run on laptops nobody's buying" to "if you recompile your app it'll run 20% faster on this already screaming fast laptop chip".
- jwells89 3y ago
  Proficiency in emulating x86 is just one piece of the puzzle, though. It helped drive M1 adoption to be sure, but users also had a lot of confidence that developers would pull through and provide native binaries in a timely manner, catapulting the capabilities and battery life of their shiny new laptops even further. Apple and third party Mac devs had pulled it off twice already, so there was good reason to believe that they’d do it again. If the new Qualcomm chips have good performance, it’ll drive sales initially, but enthusiasm will fizzle if 2-3 years down the road developers aren’t making meaningful efforts to port their Windows versions to ARM, because a Windows on ARM device running mostly emulated processes is almost certainly going to fall behind M-series Macs running mostly native in performance and battery life. If Qualcomm can’t keep up substantial performance improvements on a yearly cadence, they also risk getting lapped by traditional x86 machines.

pathartl 3y ago

The amount of backwards compatibility that Windows has built in is frankly insane. I've been going through a catalog of games and making sure they can run on modern Windows. Other than games that were written strictly for 16-bit, I haven't run into a game that can't be made to run. Sure, some require patches in the form of DLL shims, but it's rare that I even have to break out compatibility mode.

pmontra 3y ago

> I am intrigued by what kind of drugs the PR team at Apple is taking No drugs. PR teams write what helps their company to succeed. They don't have to believe into what they write.

jijijijij 3y ago
> They don't have to believe into what they write. Imagine the level of sociopathy required for the job. Truly soulless, despicable work, but I almost feel sorry for them. Like, could they even form an authentic human connection anymore, when they have sold out, given up so much humanity to an indifferent market creature? How would you feel about an "I love you" coming from someone payed to lie and manipulate?
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  Personally, I’d write it if it was my job. And then bitch about it to my friends and we can roll our eyes. Just like any stupid thing I’m asked to do. Actually I’d be much happier writing that than dealing with ticket YJ-2934 hanging out in Jira. I don’t need to be a sick, deprived sociopath. Then again, I still happily buy and use Apple products. They’ll get over their pointless tempter tantrum at some point. I hope.
  - jijijijij 3y ago
    *swipes left*