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If I were Apple and Google, I would be seriously considering what new revenue stream could replace app store revenue entirely.

m3kw9 2y ago
Would be tough and long road for alt AppStores to eat into Apples ecosystem. Apple first have default AppStore, second they have features like the tried and true in app purchase and revenue distribution system in place. Countries may eventually require apple to provide these features but it will be a looong and painful while
- Dah00n 2y ago
  If the Facebook app became an app store tomorrow that would already be a huge step of the way. Add Amazon changing their app to be an app store and a few other big apps and boom, big hit for Apple. Which is a good thing IMO.
xyst 2y ago
The pivot is probably “Apple Intelligence”. Apple has a treasure trove of information that could be used to train their models. All it takes is a few updates to the EULA and slowly wipe away the “privacy” stances from their corp site. Anecdotally, have seen a few positions for their internal ad tech team; and have been pinged a couple of times by recruiters.
- noahtallen 2y ago
  Maybe it will be lucrative for them, but I disagree that it requires them to wipe away their privacy stance for a few reasons: 1. Privacy makes them a lot of money right now; it's a huge part of their brand, and one the CEO talks about frequently. 2. Media coverage of Apple Intelligence talks a lot about how privacy is a core differentiator for Apple's AI approach compared to Google, Microsoft, or OpenAI. Apple's approach is on-device-by-default approach, going as far as to have an explicit opt-in per interaction if you want to talk to chatGPT. 3. Apple clearly spent a lot of time and money on their "private cloud compute" approach to larger server models -- why would they immediately squander that by switching to ad-tech. 4. If they were going to use that treasure trove of information, why would they spend so much time not doing that in the lead-up to their big launch of Apple Intelligence? 5. Apple has spent a lot of effort making that personal local context local-only, and designing APIs and training models on schemas for apps to provide local context & local actions to local Siri. That's part of their killer feature set. Ad tech team doesn't really require any of this data. That's an entirely different business model, and Apple is a lucrative business because they didn't do what Google did. It all comes down to this: Apple spent the past decade plus building up a brand based on privacy, and spending a lot of extra time, money, and effort doing things more privately than their competitors. It's now a compelling differentiator for Apple, and I have a lot of trouble seeing why they would squander a reputation they clearly spent a lot of energy building.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > Privacy makes them a lot of money right now Why do I see this repeated over and over again on HN? Can you offer any concrete evidence on the matter. It looks impossible to prove. Most users do not care about privacy. They care about price and convenience.
    - mikestew 2y ago
      If they care about price, why are they buying iPhones? Just convenience? It’s a bit moot without surveying users, and I’m sure those surveys exist somewhere. But I don’t accept at face value that users don’t care about privacy.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        > why are they buying iPhones? Because their friends and family also own iPhones. Also, you get higher social status from owning an iPhone. For normies, being part of the same mobile phone ecosystem is more convenient.
rchaud 2y ago
Why would Google be affected? They don't restrict third party apps the way Apple does. Anybody can publish Android apps, you don't have to pay Google a cent to do it either.
- 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
  That's true, but any app not on Google Pay has very limited discoverability by most Android users.
  - silenced_trope 2y ago
    Right? As an Android dev I'm growing tiresome of this "Google doesn't restrict anything" argument. The number of Android users that even know what f-droid is is less than 1%. The Play Store is the only option.
    - Ajedi32 2y ago
      I'd argue Google doesn't owe you "discoverability". You're absolutely free to sell your app to users with no involvement from Google. If you want Google to help you advertise and distribute your app then I see nothing wrong with them imposing some conditions on that. This is unlike how Apple does things where they literally block your app from running on your customer's devices unless you get Apple's approval (and pay them), and there's no option whatsoever to cut them out of that process.
      - 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
        Some of us Android devs would argue that literally blocking an app from running is little different than building an ecosystem designed to minimize non-Google Play methods of distribution.
sircastor 2y ago
Apple's approach in the EU has been to add a distribution cost if you choose to sell in a 3rd party store. The core technology fee demands that you pay Apple a small fee per-new-install-per-year. I don't know that that equates to the same kind of revenue streams, but it is income.
newZWhoDis 2y ago
Apple needs to do the following: 1) Write an Android wrapper and integrate it to Xcode so swift/SwiftUI can run normally on Android 2) Release the App Store for Android, with full App Store purchase/subscription support They could collect a TON of revenue on the Android platform doing this, and most developers would opt to re-release their iOS apps on Android to save on dev costs.
kevincox 2y ago
Maybe they will have to work on the App Store to make it competitive, rather than just being a monopoly. It already has a very privileged position being installed by default and highly integrated. They should be able to keep it the most popular option. Of course that will still cut into their unfair monopoly profits. But they can likely maintain a huge chunk.

m3kw9 2y ago

Would be tough and long road for alt AppStores to eat into Apples ecosystem. Apple first have default AppStore, second they have features like the tried and true in app purchase and revenue distribution system in place. Countries may eventually require apple to provide these features but it will be a looong and painful while

Dah00n 2y ago
If the Facebook app became an app store tomorrow that would already be a huge step of the way. Add Amazon changing their app to be an app store and a few other big apps and boom, big hit for Apple. Which is a good thing IMO.

xyst 2y ago

The pivot is probably “Apple Intelligence”. Apple has a treasure trove of information that could be used to train their models. All it takes is a few updates to the EULA and slowly wipe away the “privacy” stances from their corp site. Anecdotally, have seen a few positions for their internal ad tech team; and have been pinged a couple of times by recruiters.

noahtallen 2y ago
Maybe it will be lucrative for them, but I disagree that it requires them to wipe away their privacy stance for a few reasons: 1. Privacy makes them a lot of money right now; it's a huge part of their brand, and one the CEO talks about frequently. 2. Media coverage of Apple Intelligence talks a lot about how privacy is a core differentiator for Apple's AI approach compared to Google, Microsoft, or OpenAI. Apple's approach is on-device-by-default approach, going as far as to have an explicit opt-in per interaction if you want to talk to chatGPT. 3. Apple clearly spent a lot of time and money on their "private cloud compute" approach to larger server models -- why would they immediately squander that by switching to ad-tech. 4. If they were going to use that treasure trove of information, why would they spend so much time not doing that in the lead-up to their big launch of Apple Intelligence? 5. Apple has spent a lot of effort making that personal local context local-only, and designing APIs and training models on schemas for apps to provide local context & local actions to local Siri. That's part of their killer feature set. Ad tech team doesn't really require any of this data. That's an entirely different business model, and Apple is a lucrative business because they didn't do what Google did. It all comes down to this: Apple spent the past decade plus building up a brand based on privacy, and spending a lot of extra time, money, and effort doing things more privately than their competitors. It's now a compelling differentiator for Apple, and I have a lot of trouble seeing why they would squander a reputation they clearly spent a lot of energy building.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > Privacy makes them a lot of money right now Why do I see this repeated over and over again on HN? Can you offer any concrete evidence on the matter. It looks impossible to prove. Most users do not care about privacy. They care about price and convenience.
  - mikestew 2y ago
    If they care about price, why are they buying iPhones? Just convenience? It’s a bit moot without surveying users, and I’m sure those surveys exist somewhere. But I don’t accept at face value that users don’t care about privacy.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      > why are they buying iPhones? Because their friends and family also own iPhones. Also, you get higher social status from owning an iPhone. For normies, being part of the same mobile phone ecosystem is more convenient.

rchaud 2y ago

Why would Google be affected? They don't restrict third party apps the way Apple does. Anybody can publish Android apps, you don't have to pay Google a cent to do it either.

9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
That's true, but any app not on Google Pay has very limited discoverability by most Android users.
- silenced_trope 2y ago
  Right? As an Android dev I'm growing tiresome of this "Google doesn't restrict anything" argument. The number of Android users that even know what f-droid is is less than 1%. The Play Store is the only option.
  - Ajedi32 2y ago
    I'd argue Google doesn't owe you "discoverability". You're absolutely free to sell your app to users with no involvement from Google. If you want Google to help you advertise and distribute your app then I see nothing wrong with them imposing some conditions on that. This is unlike how Apple does things where they literally block your app from running on your customer's devices unless you get Apple's approval (and pay them), and there's no option whatsoever to cut them out of that process.
    - 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
      Some of us Android devs would argue that literally blocking an app from running is little different than building an ecosystem designed to minimize non-Google Play methods of distribution.

sircastor 2y ago

Apple's approach in the EU has been to add a distribution cost if you choose to sell in a 3rd party store. The core technology fee demands that you pay Apple a small fee per-new-install-per-year. I don't know that that equates to the same kind of revenue streams, but it is income.

newZWhoDis 2y ago

Apple needs to do the following: 1) Write an Android wrapper and integrate it to Xcode so swift/SwiftUI can run normally on Android 2) Release the App Store for Android, with full App Store purchase/subscription support They could collect a TON of revenue on the Android platform doing this, and most developers would opt to re-release their iOS apps on Android to save on dev costs.

kevincox 2y ago

Maybe they will have to work on the App Store to make it competitive, rather than just being a monopoly. It already has a very privileged position being installed by default and highly integrated. They should be able to keep it the most popular option. Of course that will still cut into their unfair monopoly profits. But they can likely maintain a huge chunk.