4 ms·

iOS 18 could 'sherlock' $400M in app revenue

28 points by signa11 2y ago

cgio 2y ago
How would Sherlocking make financial sense for Apple? Ostensibly it picks a share of these 400m that it wouldn’t when these are iOS features. Do I get this wrong?
- philosopher1234 2y ago
  It sells more iPhones, no? And iCloud subscriptions potentially
- jaggederest 2y ago
  Forest vs trees, Apple makes their money by making hardware, so making the software cheaper increases the total value they can harvest. After all, why else would iOS be free?
- naet 2y ago
  Maybe seen as an individual app being replaced it doesn't seem to make a positive return, but if it improves the overall iPhone experience enough to keep making iPhone sales that is a large source of revenue. As one random example, I have a pixel phone and I used to use the included Google podcast app, until they pulled the plug on it recently. Then I had to test a bunch of alternatives to see which was free or ad supported or paid, which had rough feature parity with my old one, which one I liked or disliked. After trying a few that I ended up not liking because they had intrusive ads or subpar interface I eventually found an open source one that was good enough (although it lacks some discovery features to find new things I might be interested in). And then I had to go down the rabbit hole of finding a random battery saver option and white listing the app so it wouldn't get randomly shut off when I was listening to something in the background. Contrast all that to the experience of an iPhone which has a podcast app out of the box that works great, free, no fuss or research and is supported by Apple. I'm still on my pixel but that type of friction can add up to a competitive advantage.
peppertree 2y ago
This is a sensational exaggeration. Apple maps new trail feature only covers selective few national parks. Knowing apple nothing will be crowd sourced so it's really can't compete with most trail apps out there.
- srcreigh 2y ago
  Apple Maps has crowdsourcing features
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    Only for points of interest, not for ways.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Anything Apple garners attention. If anything it may drive engagement… many people will find AllTrails or Strava after hitting whatever arbitrary limits Apple places on the feature, as well as the normal Apple pattern of neglect. Even marquee apps like fitness are very limited — Apple doesn’t provide great tools for runners, for example. Garmin does, and seems to be doing ok.
notatoad 2y ago
Nobody is paying for trail apps just to see the trails. That’s not a paid feature, and the data is just scraped from OSM anyways - it doesn’t have value. People are paying for access to the social data layer on top of that - the reviews, the ride logs, the recommended routes, the reports of trail conditions and closures. And apple can’t just take that, because that’s the data that takes years to build up.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  Yep. As I've mentioned when this came up previously [1] - if all it takes to "Sherlock" an app like AllTrails is importing topo layers from USGS and trails from OSM, they didn't have much of a product. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40721711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40721711 - literally the same link, too
- haswell 2y ago
  I don't really agree with the first paragraph based on my personal experience with AllTrails. I think people pay for these apps for a variety of reasons. If all you want to do is look at a trail, I'm sure you can do that for free. But if you want to: - Find trails by distance from current location - Save maps offline (the app is worthless without this unless you're hiking in areas with cell coverage) - Go hiking without being bothered by ads - Gain access to a variety of map types (e.g. topo maps) Then you're going to be paying for the app. I personally never used the features you're describing with the exception of the overall star rating for a trail, which is already free. I can easily imagine a scenario where I no longer need to consider AllTrails+ if Apple built up a decent enough library of routes. I'm not an avid/serious hiker, but hike enough that I need the features that are currently behind the paywall. While ride logs and reviews sound useful, I frankly have never used them. I aspire to hike more, and to be getting on trails where that kind of data would be worth paying for, presumably for safety reasons. But that's not where I'm at right now, and I'd forego that data if it means I can save on subscription costs and limit my realtime location sharing to Apple. I'm the type of user Apple will be attracting, and I don't think my experience/usage is that atypical.
- yftsui 2y ago
  I am one of the persons bought AllTrails for a year just to see a single trail(i am not a hiking person),the prompt to subscribe is everywhere and so attempting thus I fell for it. “Reviews, routes reports of trail conditions” is probably the biggest scam of AllTrails for me, there was literally nothing for the one I was looking at. Ironically, there are better information on Washington Trails Association website.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
toddmorey 2y ago
Interesting. I would have never thought that trail making apps would be the lion's share of revenue of this group. For password managers, however, I'm a big believer that those shouldn't be a required 3rd party purchase. Effective password management should be a built-in feature of every OS. (And for the love of God, every browser should use core OS password management so you can switch browsers and still easily log in to websites.)
- spudlyo 2y ago
  I totally agree. I initially had a fair amount of goodwill towards 1Password, but their application has become worse and worse as they have turned the monetization screws. Meanwhile a number of highly upvoted feature requests have simply languished for years. At this point I'm happy to see them thoroughly Sherklocked.
doctor_eval 2y ago
I’ve always felt that writing apps for Apple devices is more like creating phone accessories than building products. Apple cares about selling iPhones and other devices. If your idea can help them sell more, and they can do it better, they will. I think that’s perfectly natural and OK - and what’s more, I think it’s on the app developers to understand this and to plan for it. You might get a few years head start on Apple, but you gotta be able to read the tea leaves.
duxup 2y ago
I also think the premise here is a bit weird. There's lots of talk about downloads for some app categories, but the $ amounts all seem to be estimated ... not sure what it is based on. And as other's have noted Apple isn't going to 'sherlock' these apps and then charge for them.
alg0rith 2y ago
Thing is Apple barely supports these features after the first iOS release cycle.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bruce511 2y ago
I say this as the maker of 3rd party add-ons to an existing platform; Add-on makers should have no expectation that the value they have captured will not be captured by the platform at some point. Yes, platforms add features. Yes those features may be domething previously supplied by a 3rd party. There is no way, to stop this, and stopping this would be very bad. The platform might be an OS, a browser, some web site, a programming language, whatever. It doesn't matter. They are growing and their growth will overlap you at some point. Should we not have Developer Tools in the browser because Firebug? Or Search on a Mac because Watson? Or Windows on DOS because of earlier windowing systems? I get the angst of a developer when some revenue-generator becomes obsolete, but writing something doesn't mean you "own" a feature for ever - that's not how it works, nor should it. Building on another's platform has risks. This is one of them.
- mysterydip 2y ago
  Exactly. If you wanted to avoid that risk, you should've patented your software like everyone else ;)
  - bruce511 2y ago
    Personally I'm against software patents, and do I don't patent my work. Secondly most of what I make (and most apps that are in play here) are not patentable. You can patent some implementation detail, but not the overall idea. Lastly, even if you had a patent, you can't fight the platform. They are bigger than you and have more lawyers. You'll likely lose, and even if you win it'll be years of distraction. (Not to mention that the platform can simply break your program as an opening salvo.) So no, I don't think patents are a defense, nor should they be.
    - mysterydip 2y ago
      I agree, I think they shouldn't exist. That's why I used a ;) face. maybe I should've used /s?
- jojobas 2y ago
  There's incorporation of a feature in the OS, and there's banning of the previously existing apps from the only app store.
politelemon 2y ago
I don't really sit comfortably with the tone and phrasing. Giving it a cutesy name does not change what this would be referred to if done by other companies. That it is given a euphemism is tacit support of this behaviour: platform abuse.

28 points by signa11 2y ago

cgio 2y ago

How would Sherlocking make financial sense for Apple? Ostensibly it picks a share of these 400m that it wouldn’t when these are iOS features. Do I get this wrong?

philosopher1234 2y ago
It sells more iPhones, no? And iCloud subscriptions potentially
jaggederest 2y ago
Forest vs trees, Apple makes their money by making hardware, so making the software cheaper increases the total value they can harvest. After all, why else would iOS be free?
naet 2y ago
Maybe seen as an individual app being replaced it doesn't seem to make a positive return, but if it improves the overall iPhone experience enough to keep making iPhone sales that is a large source of revenue. As one random example, I have a pixel phone and I used to use the included Google podcast app, until they pulled the plug on it recently. Then I had to test a bunch of alternatives to see which was free or ad supported or paid, which had rough feature parity with my old one, which one I liked or disliked. After trying a few that I ended up not liking because they had intrusive ads or subpar interface I eventually found an open source one that was good enough (although it lacks some discovery features to find new things I might be interested in). And then I had to go down the rabbit hole of finding a random battery saver option and white listing the app so it wouldn't get randomly shut off when I was listening to something in the background. Contrast all that to the experience of an iPhone which has a podcast app out of the box that works great, free, no fuss or research and is supported by Apple. I'm still on my pixel but that type of friction can add up to a competitive advantage.

peppertree 2y ago

This is a sensational exaggeration. Apple maps new trail feature only covers selective few national parks. Knowing apple nothing will be crowd sourced so it's really can't compete with most trail apps out there.

srcreigh 2y ago
Apple Maps has crowdsourcing features
- duskwuff 2y ago
  Only for points of interest, not for ways.
Spooky23 2y ago
Anything Apple garners attention. If anything it may drive engagement… many people will find AllTrails or Strava after hitting whatever arbitrary limits Apple places on the feature, as well as the normal Apple pattern of neglect. Even marquee apps like fitness are very limited — Apple doesn’t provide great tools for runners, for example. Garmin does, and seems to be doing ok.

notatoad 2y ago

Nobody is paying for trail apps just to see the trails. That’s not a paid feature, and the data is just scraped from OSM anyways - it doesn’t have value. People are paying for access to the social data layer on top of that - the reviews, the ride logs, the recommended routes, the reports of trail conditions and closures. And apple can’t just take that, because that’s the data that takes years to build up.

duskwuff 2y ago
Yep. As I've mentioned when this came up previously [1] - if all it takes to "Sherlock" an app like AllTrails is importing topo layers from USGS and trails from OSM, they didn't have much of a product. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40721711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40721711 - literally the same link, too
haswell 2y ago
I don't really agree with the first paragraph based on my personal experience with AllTrails. I think people pay for these apps for a variety of reasons. If all you want to do is look at a trail, I'm sure you can do that for free. But if you want to: - Find trails by distance from current location - Save maps offline (the app is worthless without this unless you're hiking in areas with cell coverage) - Go hiking without being bothered by ads - Gain access to a variety of map types (e.g. topo maps) Then you're going to be paying for the app. I personally never used the features you're describing with the exception of the overall star rating for a trail, which is already free. I can easily imagine a scenario where I no longer need to consider AllTrails+ if Apple built up a decent enough library of routes. I'm not an avid/serious hiker, but hike enough that I need the features that are currently behind the paywall. While ride logs and reviews sound useful, I frankly have never used them. I aspire to hike more, and to be getting on trails where that kind of data would be worth paying for, presumably for safety reasons. But that's not where I'm at right now, and I'd forego that data if it means I can save on subscription costs and limit my realtime location sharing to Apple. I'm the type of user Apple will be attracting, and I don't think my experience/usage is that atypical.
yftsui 2y ago
I am one of the persons bought AllTrails for a year just to see a single trail(i am not a hiking person),the prompt to subscribe is everywhere and so attempting thus I fell for it. “Reviews, routes reports of trail conditions” is probably the biggest scam of AllTrails for me, there was literally nothing for the one I was looking at. Ironically, there are better information on Washington Trails Association website.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

toddmorey 2y ago

Interesting. I would have never thought that trail making apps would be the lion's share of revenue of this group. For password managers, however, I'm a big believer that those shouldn't be a required 3rd party purchase. Effective password management should be a built-in feature of every OS. (And for the love of God, every browser should use core OS password management so you can switch browsers and still easily log in to websites.)

spudlyo 2y ago
I totally agree. I initially had a fair amount of goodwill towards 1Password, but their application has become worse and worse as they have turned the monetization screws. Meanwhile a number of highly upvoted feature requests have simply languished for years. At this point I'm happy to see them thoroughly Sherklocked.

doctor_eval 2y ago

I’ve always felt that writing apps for Apple devices is more like creating phone accessories than building products. Apple cares about selling iPhones and other devices. If your idea can help them sell more, and they can do it better, they will. I think that’s perfectly natural and OK - and what’s more, I think it’s on the app developers to understand this and to plan for it. You might get a few years head start on Apple, but you gotta be able to read the tea leaves.

duxup 2y ago

I also think the premise here is a bit weird. There's lots of talk about downloads for some app categories, but the $ amounts all seem to be estimated ... not sure what it is based on. And as other's have noted Apple isn't going to 'sherlock' these apps and then charge for them.

alg0rith 2y ago

Thing is Apple barely supports these features after the first iOS release cycle.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bruce511 2y ago

I say this as the maker of 3rd party add-ons to an existing platform; Add-on makers should have no expectation that the value they have captured will not be captured by the platform at some point. Yes, platforms add features. Yes those features may be domething previously supplied by a 3rd party. There is no way, to stop this, and stopping this would be very bad. The platform might be an OS, a browser, some web site, a programming language, whatever. It doesn't matter. They are growing and their growth will overlap you at some point. Should we not have Developer Tools in the browser because Firebug? Or Search on a Mac because Watson? Or Windows on DOS because of earlier windowing systems? I get the angst of a developer when some revenue-generator becomes obsolete, but writing something doesn't mean you "own" a feature for ever - that's not how it works, nor should it. Building on another's platform has risks. This is one of them.

mysterydip 2y ago
Exactly. If you wanted to avoid that risk, you should've patented your software like everyone else ;)
- bruce511 2y ago
  Personally I'm against software patents, and do I don't patent my work. Secondly most of what I make (and most apps that are in play here) are not patentable. You can patent some implementation detail, but not the overall idea. Lastly, even if you had a patent, you can't fight the platform. They are bigger than you and have more lawyers. You'll likely lose, and even if you win it'll be years of distraction. (Not to mention that the platform can simply break your program as an opening salvo.) So no, I don't think patents are a defense, nor should they be.
  - mysterydip 2y ago
    I agree, I think they shouldn't exist. That's why I used a ;) face. maybe I should've used /s?
jojobas 2y ago
There's incorporation of a feature in the OS, and there's banning of the previously existing apps from the only app store.

politelemon 2y ago

I don't really sit comfortably with the tone and phrasing. Giving it a cutesy name does not change what this would be referred to if done by other companies. That it is given a euphemism is tacit support of this behaviour: platform abuse.