This is bizarre. If you are a developer, what right does Apple have to seeing your finances for all purchases made in the app that they sold on their store?.
This sounds like a lose-lose for developers. Either you submit to Apple's walled garden padded cell of an ecosystem and give them money, or you have to find a different payment system and give Apple a cut anyway, which might end up costing you even more in the long run.
This seems even more anti-competitive than before!
If you are a developer, what right does Apple have to seeing your finances for all purchases made in the app that they sold on their store?
It's a commission for sales that came from the app, meaning from Apple's platform, where they have roughly one billion above-average income users with a reputation for buying apps and subscriptions.
It's also worth keeping in mind that there are different ways of monetizing platforms, none of which are necessarily morally better or worse than the other. Microsoft's IDE, Visual Studio, is $45 or $250 per user per month (so $4500 annually for a team of ten). Xcode, Apple's IDE, is free. A business can offer its apps on the App Store, which also serves the files, for a grand total of $99/year.
XCode is also a steaming pile of shit. For example, it took them literal years to get syntax highlighting stable for Swift. You’d just be typing and poof, all the text would turn black.
I've definitely noticed that basic tools on iOS and Mac OS tend to cost money compared to their Android / Windows / Linux counterparts. But still, just because they can, doesn't mean they should... Or at least, that they should be legally allowed to.
I won't shed any tears for Amazon etc having to give Apple a huge chunk of cash, but this sounds like a way to frustrate small developers who don't have a whole team to devote to their finances.
Businesses don't make themselves cheaper for consumers even if they get a chance to cut their overhead. I just don't see businesses ever do that. Profits "rise" and they circle-jerk about how great they're doing.
I'm more interested in getting access to FOSS, indie apps, and apps that Apple is too afraid to be associated with, such as emulators and apps that feature adult content.
This article seems like Apple had to sign off on it before it was published. Having multiple stores from which to choose will certainly lead to lower prices. The best example of this is gaming. Closed systems of digital purchases like Xbox or Nintendo Switch stores almost always have higher prices than the exact same game on PC. Of course on PC I can buy from the ubiquitous Steam, the Microsoft store, Epic, GOG, UBI, EA, itch.io and others. If PC were like an iPhone I would only be able to buy from Microsoft and MS could demand a cut of every game sold outside of their walled garden.
The fact this writer claims developers would be nothing without Apple is laughable. If Apple closed up shop tomorrow we'd still want and use apps. Apple is not the reason we use apps, they are only a platform that can run the apps we already use.
They mean the handset price will go up, since Apple will no longer be able to suck as much app store money from you
Though I don't expect many people to take advantage of their new freedom - look at the number of Android users who have ever side loaded apps, or used a store which didn't come with their phone
The literal creation of the problem and making of a solution. I bought my PC, I install applications on my PC, I do not pay MSI, AMD, intel, nvidia, corsair, Linux, ms windows money after the fact. Same goes for android when side loading, its all a silly excuse to cover they're greed
Yeah, I don't understand "they must take 27%, after all, the app store is proprietary!"
Apple is being forced by Europe to let people use something other than the App Store. This is proof that the App Store is not needed for purchases. Apple is selling the overpriced solution to a problem they refuse to let you subvert.
There is no free lunch. Even if you aren’t paying for apps, you are still paying for them. Even FOSS apps, your share is just being paid for by the kindness of the developers or other community members who donate to fund development.
Okay but the article is talking about actual purchases of individual apps in the app store and the effect of that pricing, which surprised me as I dont know a single person that has purchased an individual app.