Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)(mobiledevmemo.com) |
Apple to Developers: Heads I win, tails you lose (part 2)(mobiledevmemo.com) |
- Apple's own fees would be reduced relatively quickly
- Technological savvy users will be able to discern which external sites are safe and get even lower prices when available
- Very few companies will be able to afford not being on the App Store (especially if Apple lowers their fees further)
- Apple will still make it hard _enough_ to use secondary stores that grandmas will not end up with iPads full of malware
Instead it's a boon, especially for folks like myself who use a fair amount of software from alternative stores/installers.
PSA, do not install Facebook on your iPhone. Use your browser.
Apple does deserve credit for forcing some privacy improvements on iOS for the Facebook app but it is in no way comparable to the privacy of a web browser. If you are using Facebook's app because you're on iOS and you're thinking, "oh it's fine, Facebook can't track me" -- please uninstall it, a native app on iOS still has far more tools at its disposal to track you than it should have.
As just one example, I would like to say that Facebook's in-app browser code on iOS is now blocked (https://www.engadget.com/meta-can-track-facebook-and-instagr...) but I'm not sure if that's actually the case. I hope it is, a quick cursory search couldn't tell me but it's very possible that Apple patched this by now. But what I do know is that Apple made a lot of noise about blocking tracking code before this article came out and while Facebook still had these capabilities.
Don't use known untrustworthy native apps. Don't use them on Android, and don't use them on iOS.
---
Also to be clear, the privacy improvements Apple has pushed for on iOS are in no small part to stop allowing access to an advertising ID that should not be on iOS at all. I don't want to act like there's no meaningful improvement here, Facebook's reaction is proof enough that Apple's changes did increase privacy. And I fully support Apple improving privacy. But some of that improvement is Apple putting controls in front of systems that shouldn't exist or covering for systems that are way more open and way less sandboxed than they should be.
So part of the difficulty of talking about Apple's security models and the role that the app store plays in that process is that some of Apple's policies are really only enforced on the app store, even though they should be enforced at an OS level that would apply to every app regardless of what app store it came from. Of course, not every permission can be expressed that way, but some permissions can. Web browsers are proof of that -- Safari doesn't have a quality control system in place to block abusive websites like Facebook, but despite that, it still manages to be better for your privacy for you to use Facebook from Safari instead of via a native app on iOS.
I worry that Apple's app store polices are sometimes used as an excuse to avoid building much more robust protections against tracking into the OS itself, and I worry that better privacy standards on the iOS app store get interpreted as proof that native apps on iOS are just generally safe and private. But Apple's standard of what counts as private "enough" to be on the app store is not always as strict as it could be. Generally speaking, until we get much better sandboxing controls on mobile devices than we have today, known malicious or known privacy-intrusive apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Threads should not be installed period from any app store 1st or 3rd-party, they should be used in a web browser.
Reasonable people can disagree whether a 3rd-party app store would make this problem worse, but please don't have the takeaway of "a 3rd party app store would make the Facebook app suddenly unsafe and my parents would get fooled into installing it." The Facebook app is already unsafe, and your parents already shouldn't be using it.
Apple is doing something incredibly stupid and absolutely killing their relationship with developers. Right when they need it most. They should fix that, but won’t. Wall Street would crucify them for daring to lose revenue. And regulators should probably limit how much they can charge.
But this lawsuit was not the way for that to happen. Don’t root for a bad lawsuit just ‘cause you hate the plaintiff. Fix it the right way.
A ToS a “shrinkwraped” contract. In Apple’s case, it’s enforceability was yet to be tested. We can agree to a lot of things in a contract, but in general, we cannot consent to letting a party break the law at your expense. A judge determined that Apples practices were unlawful and therefore the problematic stipulation of the ToS was struck.
This is an important tool to combat runaway shrinkwrap contracts that can say literally anything and attempt to enforce it.
There's value to be had in more competition the "middleman" market, too!
At the moment, on PC there's a healthy competition between the Microsoft Store, Steam, GOG, Epic Games, EA Origin and probably at least a dozen other smaller platforms, some of which are also available on macOS and Linux.
On Android, there's the Play Store, some of the device manufacturers have their own additional stores (Samsung), even carriers have app stores (Vodafone Germany), and enabling a completely independent store like F-Droid is three taps away. The only thing that's unhealthy is how much AOSP functionality got shifted over to the Play Store Services which means that competitors on the OS level (e.g. Amazon's Fire series) have to do a lot of work on reimplementing that to even get basic apps running.
The only platforms where app/game vendors are completely dependent on the mercy of the device vendor is Apple's iDevices and game consoles (Xbox, PS5, Nintendo Switch) - and it's high time for that to end. Users should be free to run whatever they want to run on their devices, and they should be free to decide upon another curator for trustworthyness if they so desire. If the price of that is marginally more expensive hardware, so be it - it should not be allowed to sell stuff as permanent loss leaders anyway, it's unfair business practice.
Apple's commission is for the App Store, SDKs, Developer Support etc. Not just a payment processing fee.
And so if there are other stores and payment options which there will be soon Apple is still within their right to collect that fee. As every court around the world has said. They could collect it as a percentage of sales like Epic or just lump developers with an up front large development kit fee like Sony or Microsoft does.
They seem hell bent on destroying whatever reputation and good will they have left on chasing those casino games for kids.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-regulator-disputes-...
We're actually not 100% certain whether or not Dutch regulators are OK with those fees. We know that they consider Apple to still not be in compliance with the regulation, and there have been hints that the fee structure may be a part of that. But as far as I know we haven't gotten specific confirmation from Dutch regulators in either direction.
We know that 30% was too high, so according to the Dutch there is an upper limit to what Apple can charge proportional to its normal fees for in-app payments: https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-antitrust-watchdog-...
27% might be OK?
We'll have to wait until after Apple's responses to the most recent fines to work their way through courts to know whether the concerns listed most recently by Dutch regulators are the full list or not. It seems a little premature to say that every court in the world is fine with Apple's system when it doesn't seem that Apple has built a compliant Dutch system for us to even point to as an example of what that system could look like.
As it stands, we know that Apple's 3rd-party payment system is not compliant, but we don't know exactly why it's not compliant, and we won't know what a fully compliant system looks like for the Dutch government until after Apple has managed to come up with a proposal that doesn't get them fined for noncompliance.
30% or 15% for one stop global distribution and multi-jurisdictional tax collecting is a deal all day long.
Could Spotify have bootstrapped itself without the App Store?
Trying to break apple’s control is pretty close to destroying exactly why their stuff is desirable.
I can’t speak for others, but I’m sick and tired of big corporate devs acting as if they speak for me, a small indie dev, resulting in outlets and everyday people echoing their talking points “in support” of me.
They have their own interests, some of which directly contradict mine, and they only use people like me as pawns to make their plight seem righteous in the hopes of drumming up support.
I was content with the 30% when I eagerly signed up. I’m downright happy with the 15% discount as a nice bonus to the point that I think the 15% is a steal for what I’m getting out of this arrangement with Apple.
Of course, this is my opinion, and I have no interest in speaking for others. There’s already enough of that going around.
I’d instead ask you to be open to the idea that what you’ve been seeing so far is corporate PR trickling down to you via outlets and other means and hear out the indie devs you come across here and elsewhere.
On a separate note:
As someone who has a legal background and practiced before pivoting to indie development, I’m surprised so many seem to think Apple’s latest move is a surprise or somehow utilizing a loophole.
Legal proceedings aren’t always easy to follow, I’ll be the first to admit, but this was spelled out crystal clear in both the district court’s judgment as well as the appellate court’s judgment.
What’s especially nonsense is that the likes of Spotify and Sweeny didn’t see this coming, like they now pretend. Either they all need to fire their entire legal team or stop being coy because the courts predicted this outcome black-on-white in their judgments.
Why does this feel exactly like the 2020 election, where one side lost but keeps complaining that everyone is acting like they lost.
> The Epic Games v. Apple trial took place throughout May 2021 and was decided by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who sided with Apple in nine of the ten counts brought against it by Epic Games. The count in which she sided with Epic related to Apple’s restriction against linking to web-based payments from within an app; she found that this violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and issued an injunction preventing Apple from enforcing this anti-steering provision;
It makes life so much easier and saves money because it’s very hard to forget about subscriptions I no longer use when they’re all listed in one place. Also if I want to refund a purchase for whatever reason I can deal directly with Apple instead of the developer.
All things considered Apples tight grip on the App Store works for me.
you can find all your subscriptions there in one place until you start a new subscription on the web (maybe because it's cheaper), or you have one on a console. now suddenly you have multiple places to look again
there's no reason subscription management couldn't be managed at a higher level, outside of any tech platform. if 99% of banks weren't so technologically incapable it would seem obvious that it would be there, with the rest of your transactions. review/cancel/challenge/refund everything in one place, subscription or not.
The fact that not all subscriptions can be found there doesn’t take away from the ones that are. Perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch the security aspect of it. Apple isn’t perfect but I trust them a heck of a lot more than the median no-name app developer out there.
That's what you get in a world with sideloading. The apps you've bought will remain on the App Store for as long as the developer extends agreements with Apple. If you don't sideload, your App Store purchases will be consolidated and organized however Apple chooses for you. You lose nothing.
The worst-case scenario for you is that your favorite developer stops using the App Store; but that's also a possibility regardless of sideloading. If a compelling alternative makes Apple's offerings seem weak, then it's up to Apple to respond.
The judge ruled that Apple is entitled to take a cut of transactions, regardless of who acts as your payment processor.
> as discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.
https://stratechery.com/2021/the-apple-v-epic-decision/
The judge did hint that Epic screwed up by arguing that Apple should not get a cut of transactions at all, instead of arguing that 30% was too high.
It should be clear that this is not a developer issue. These companies have complete contempt for their customers. It is not the developer who pays Apple, it is you.
At some point, customers will find a way to return that contempt.
Companies have a right to charge a fee for using their platform.
Apple can not be forced to give you their SDKs, Services etc for free and help you sell that product on their marketplace for free. They have a right to charge something. You can rightfully argue that the 27% is way too high and courts have agreed. But those like Epic hypocritically arguing for 0% no one agrees with.
The argument is we wouldn't need their marketplace and services if they allowed users to easily download and install software downloaded from regular websites.
you know... the way it always worked and still works in Linux/BSD.
There are obviously security implications to this, but I believe if I own the device I should be able to take the risk.
As far as their SDKs they actually do need to provide those for free, otherwise nobody will develop software for iOS and they won't be able to sell devices.
It is strongly more consumer friendly than alternatives. I pay my money, I receive a software or service. I use apps that are largely free of intrusive ads, scams or tracking.
As a consumer I will (and do) take this deal every day of the week.
I logged in to Windows for the first time in a while, the other day, and felt violated by the amount of ads, marketing and promotional content the OS itself was throwing in my face.
I see similar things when I watch friends use their Android phones.
No thank you.
Yes, the App Store is valuable. No, generic payment processing rails aren’t. Even the 1-3% charged by CC companies is bullshit. Apple, of course, charges 10x this.
The only reason they get away with it is because they have leveraged cryptography to stifle competition. If other app stores were possible on iOS, Facebook and Epic and Netflix would collaborate to create one in a heartbeat and billions of people would stop having to pay higher prices to inflate Apple’s stock value.
Looks like 3% to 6% fees would absolutely run an app store.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-01/apple-s-a...
I don’t think what they’re doing is right, don’t take this as defense.
On the one hand “services revenue” (their cut from casino/exploitive games) is basically the only thing growing. people who want iPhones have them. People who want iPads have them. The Vision Pro is never going to sell 1 billion units. Wall Street demand growth so they “have to“ keep finding ways to juice services revenue a bunch. Or the stock will get hammered.
On the other hand, doing this is absolutely alienating every developer. And that will hurt the brand and their growth and their revenue too. You think there are as many developers who want to develop for the Vision Pro as there would have been if Apple was still as popular with devs as they were 10 years ago?
But of course even if developers weren’t getting really mad they’ve gone so far as to get governments to start taking a deep look at them. And you know that’s not gonna go well.
Juicing revenue makes developers and the governments more bad. Actions by the government or to be better for developers will make Wall Street mad.
They mismanaged it and now they’re screwed. They could’ve been slowly cutting down and opening up this whole time. In small controlled ways they were willing to give up. In ways to let them keep the revenue growth but just slow it down a little.
Instead they’ve got lawsuits. And governments forcing their hand.l to do things they hate and (in some cases) may be bad. And they’re being petulant about it all and going to get in even more trouble for defying courts/legislatures. All while hurting the brand.
Good job Apple.
Apple now charges 15% for smaller developers which didn't exist before. And the rules are far more clear about what is and isn't allowed.
As someone who built apps now and 10 years ago the situation is much better now.
It's ridiculous people talking about developer demand for Vision Pro when there hasn't even been hardware for developers to test on.
Simulators are useful but you can't ship apps until there is real hardware to test on.
How did so many devs show up if the platform fees are alienating them ?
If a regulator comes up with an overreaching plan to open up the app markets and that law or ruling gets struck down by a court, it could cement the status quo even further.
(all this seen in comments in other threads on hn)
I’m just saying that Epic is not the underdog little guy some seem to act like they are. This wasn’t a small indie developer sticking up for their rights.
It currently doesn’t work like that. To develop and distribute apps, even free apps, a developer membership costing US $99 a year is necessary. Yet there are plenty of free apps without in app purchases or external subscriptions or payments.
But many ignore the iPad. Apple TV apps (outside of streaming video) ain’t doing great. How’s the Watch App Store these days? The Mac App Store is a runaway success right?
In 2010, Apple launched its own ad system called iAds[0]. Around that time, they started to crack down on other ad networks using UDID/mac addresses to target users with ads[1]. I imagine that Apple only made the IDFA in a compromise with advertisers[2].
While I understand the sentiment that any tracking identifier shouldn't exist, Apple needed iOS to continue to succeed in the iOS 6 days and probably didn't want to deal with any anticompetitive lawsuits that early in the lineup's lifetime.
0: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2010/06/07Apple-to-Debut-iAds...
1: http://www.cultofmac.com/160248/what-the-hell-is-a-udid-and-...
2: https://www.businessinsider.com/ifa-apples-iphone-tracking-i...
Don't install native apps from hostile networks like Facebook; they hook into systems that shouldn't exist that were added as a privacy-compromising concession in order to avoid regulatory scrutiny into other systems that also shouldn't exist.
The history of IDFA ultimately boils down to one fact: that for whatever reason it was added, the protections in place now are still protecting you from a tracking system that Apple added. And Apple's standards on what is and isn't an acceptable line to cross regarding privacy demonstrably are not always as going to be as strict as they ought to be. Sometimes Apple compromises.
These apps are not safe just because they have Apple's seal of approval, there is a certain threshold of abusive behavior from apps like Facebook that Apple will tolerate. It is better to use a web browser so that (however imperfect it may be) you can get at least some small amount of real sandboxing.
Look, I'm not even saying you need to support third-party app stores. I obviously have opinions on that, but if you disagree and think 3rd party stores will make things worse, then fine. That's not my point. My point is: don't get the impression that Facebook's native app is safe just because Apple hasn't removed it. iOS doesn't have enough tracking protection to make it a good idea to use these apps natively on your phone or to make it OK to advise others to install them; they should be avoided and used only within a browser if you care about your privacy.
This wasn’t some clickwrap thing you have to click through to play Angry Birds, it was the agreement for signing up for the developer program.
Both of these operate under precisely the same principle. The same principle is applied when you sign up for a gym membership, a credit card, or install software on your computer. The validity of the shrinkwrap contract is not something I’m challenging here even if I happen to believe they go against the spirit of contracts.
My point is that there are limits as to what you are able to consent to, legally speaking. You can’t typically sue a company for including something in the ToS that you haven’t yet signed which you believe is unenforceable because you suffered no damage and have no standing in the matter. The way to go about this is to agree to the ToS and challenge its enforceability when, specifically, the target stipulations(s) were enforced by the company you made the agreement with. If this stipulation was not legal for them enforce, then it’s perfectly within the rights of the signer to challenge it.
The other dynamic is that the signer is taking on risk by challenging the validity of the contract either as a whole or in part, therefore it’s not necessary asymmetrical.
There are other situations where a “legal contract” can be thrown out, such as being forced to sign one under duress/threat, or even if someone who cannot consent legally signs it.
So the concept of monopolies and anti-competitive behaviour don't apply.
It's why the courts treated Google differently in their Epic case to Apple.
Why the courts ruled differently for Google was that they had different deals for different participants in it, while Apple has a uniformly expensive deal for everybody.
In addition, exploitation might be transparent to the user, i.e. a botnet that runs in the background[0] or replacing ads in other apps to steal their revenue[1]. People use iOS and recommend it to their friends/family because of its simplicity and the built-in safeguards the App Store provides, since installing a sideloaded app is a much more involved process.
0: https://cyble.com/blog/daam-android-botnet-being-distributed...
1: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20688885/agent-smith-andr...
It's tricky. Some of them are provided by the OS, some of them are not, my (possibly incomplete) understanding is that some are enforced by analyzing the submitted apps to know what they will request and not by blocking anything at runtime? I could be describing that incorrectly.
I would argue that permissions should be part of the OS itself and should work on every app regardless of where it came from, but there are people who know a lot more than I do about what specifically Apple is doing who have told me that's more complicated, and... :shrug: maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, I don't know enough to argue with them about it.
Web browsers seem to be able to do this sandboxing at runtime just fine, so I don't really know why iOS is so heckin special, but it's not my area of expertise, I just know that there are apparently (?) some permissions that wouldn't work outside of the store.
> Jobs said, “[i]t’s time for Amazon to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out [of the App Store],”
> Jobs said: “I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.”
Tell me how this clearly protects the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams.
I barely ever see consumers complain about the ecosystem, mostly companies and developers. And I just don’t feel like they are going to use a more an open system to the benefit of the consumer. I trust them _a lot_ less than Apple.
Smaller developers aren't being ripped off, not anymore. There's a philosophical argument that Apple shouldn't control your device, but that really has nothing to do with the 30% they charge larger companies.
I'm making the opposite of a philosophical argument, I'm making a practical one. Apple is not going to take away the App Store, or make it too difficult for developers to upload apps, since that would be a real threat to their iPhone business.
Developers need Apple, but Apple needs developers too. Currently their market domination makes it an extremely hard collective action problem for developers. Not being on the App Store means losing out on the majority of your revenue, which makes it tough for enough developers to band together against Apple.
Can we stop pretending the app store fee is just for payment processing?
No, thank you.
I’ve seen what that looks like on the video console side of things. Thousands of dollars for the right of publishing on the manufacturer’s platform (i.e., using their IP) and again thousands for each build that needs to be certified.
Hundreds for smaller indie game devs.
I’m happy with my 15% commission and the $99/year fee. Nice and cheap and I get my money’s worth out of it and then some. Best part, they do well (i.e., I only owe them) when I do well. No upfront cost that’s essentially a gamble. No fee per build.
The more is bundled into a commission tied to my revenue, the better.
The $99/year wouldn’t even cover the cost of App Review reviewing my builds in any given month, even at minimum wage.
Not to mention the frameworks I use on a daily basis to create my apps.
Aside from that, in general you can feel more “seams” between components and rough edges all throughout Android’s UX. It reminds me of how the Linux desktop experience used to be several years ago actually, except Android seems to have gotten stuck for unknown reasons where Linux DEs have continually improved.
That's it. I've been struggling to figure out what I can't stand about iOS and it just clicked. It's the lack of seams. When something breaks I can never figure out what specifically broke, so I can't reason about my mistake (or know who to contact if it's not my mistake).
I like seams so much that I'm running google play services in a sandbox (Graphene OS) so google has to grovel for my permission like everybody else whenever they want to do something. It's a little annoying, but it's teaching me where the seams are.
For example I use my pinkie finger to support the weight of my device when I type. The weight of the iPhone 14 combined with a case is enough to leave a permanent impression in my pinkie from heavy use. A contoured case that considers how people actually hold their device would be nice.
If we were to rethink all of it from the ground up I’m sure there is a better way. Maybe even a silicone soft phone would be a good start.
The ideal technology for me is quietly doing is job somewhere I can't currently see and rarely have to look. Perhaps that counts as aesthetics?
Where have you looked? I see them complain all the time on Reddit, for example. And Apple actually denies a lot of refunds.
This is all real life. I'm real. What you appear to be saying is that you're judging entirely by the ancedotal experience of the small number of people who you happen to know personally. How many of them have actually requested an App Store refund?
What I can say, as an App Store developer, is that a lot of consumers are totally ignorant of how the App Store works. They email me about problems with transactions, despite the fact that I have no access to customer transactions. I can't even grant refunds. They email me about problems with App Store downloads, despite the fact that I no control whatsoever over downloads. They even email me to "cancel my subscription", despite the fact that my app doesn't even have a subscription.
If alternative stores equated to better software, then Android would have easily outpaced Apple by now.
The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them.
This is just literally wrong, by-definition.
You can claim that Apple's monopoly isn't illegal or harmful, but the monopoly itself is self-evident. You cannot distribute software without Apple; their system is designed with monopolistic capability.
> The only people who would benefit from forcing Apple to allow alternative stores are the unscrupulous middlemen who would run them.
Source? You're inventing hypothetical claims to support your rhetoric.
No it's not. There are plenty of ways to distribute software without Apple being involved at all.
Perhaps you meant to argue that Apple has a monopoly on iOS software distribution, but that's not actually what was originally written. It's also highly questionable given that the courts have rejected "iOS software distribution" as a valid antitrust market for the purpose of monopolization claims.
It has a monopoly on iPhone software distribution... which is why they can set the fee at 27% without competition...
Not among Mac developers who distributed their software over the web directly to customers, bypassing the middlemen.
Also, little did we know at the time that the App Store would inaugurate a race to the bottom, devaluing software. What does the cut even matter if you have to sell software at the same price as a music single?
It is your choice on how to contemplate how full a glass is.
What? No, my point is developers would get a better deal when there isn't a monopoly on the distribution. Is it not obvious that the 27% fee is only possible due to lack of competition? That if there were other stores selling iPhone apps then competition would drive down the 27% fee?
So, what is that something? What is Apple charging for on iOS that isn't necessary on Mac?
Presumably, nothing. iOS is a less-complex operating system with fewer features and capabilities than MacOS. It has less legacy frameworks and compatibility modes to support, lower threat surface and less software competition.
Again, why can the $99/year fee cover frameworks on Mac but not on iOS? Your original claim seems to be based on pure assumption and not evidence that proves iOS is more costly to maintain.
Then you might want to take a look at some basic business courses on how pricing works. You seem to be operating in the paradigm of commodities being sold by weight.
Take a look at things like service bundles and differential pricing, and you'll start to understand that these kinds of arguments aren't the 'gotcha' you think they are.
I'm well familiar. Both of them come up rather often in antitrust suits.
Let’s first address the actual GP, because we’ve drifted quite a bit away from it. That’s partially my fault because I mentioned frameworks.
> The $99/year paid by every developer is more than sufficient to cover the expenses involved in distributing their apps.
They posit that $99/year is sufficient to cover expenses involved with distributing apps.
I challenge that purely on the fundamental premise that App Review, which is part of the distribution, will eat up $99/year in a heartbeat.
Based on my observations with my builds, App Review spends, on average, about an hour in my app for new apps I submit, and for big updates I submit.
With more minor updates, I see them spend, on average, between 15-20 minutes in my app.
I don’t know how much time they spend on “paperwork” outside my app, like going through checklists and checking my App Store listing.
All I know is that they do spend time on that and that they use a tool that highlights changes. Of course, I know when my app changes the status to “In Review” and “Ready for sale,” but I also understand that those statuses can’t be used as an accurate measure of how much time they spend on my app because they select multiple apps at a time for “In Review.”
So, I’ll limit it to the least favorable variables:
- 1 hour for new apps and significant updates - 15 minutes for garden variety updates
I also know that they get paid around $30/hour based on my personal interactions with them in our free time, but since I can’t find a reputable source on that beyond “trust me, bro,” we’ll knock that down to California’s minimum wage of $16/hour.
$99 buys you a little over 6 hours of labor in California at minimum wage.
Six hours corresponds to 24x 15-minute reviews for minor update builds or 6x 1-hour reviews for new apps and significant updates with these conservative numbers.
How much of that $99 is used up on App Reviews will, of course, depend on the developer in question. But taking into account that you can submit (near) unlimited builds for as many apps as you have in your portfolio and the hourly pay being more than minimum, it’s not implausible that the $99 is used up within a year.
Especially when you consider all the other stuff that comes into play with distribution.
Expanding it beyond just distribution, you’ll also have to look at the two admittedly underutilized, code-level Developer Support Tickets you get each year and, as I brought up, the development of new and the improvement of already existing frameworks you get access to.
Considering all of this, I’m very comfortable in saying that the $99/year is not “more than sufficient” to cover the expenses.
Now, the matter you brought up. Which essentially boils down to a criticism of differential pricing.
Apple posited in court and structured in the developer agreement, that the commission + the annual fee is primarily a payment for using Apple’s IP.
Both the district court as well as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals accepted this as factual and completely legal.
You now argue that, because Apple utilizes differential pricing (i.e., by not requiring all Mac app developers to pay a commission in all cases), it says something about the $99/year fee and how much it covers the expenses on Apple’s end.
I think, first and foremost, your premise is faulty. Not all developers that create apps or software in general to be run on macOS pay $99/year.
There’s plenty of stuff you can find on GitHub written in Python or something else that runs on your Mac without the developer having paid the $99/year. Same for apps that aren’t notarized.
This muddied the waters on what fee is covering what if anything.
There are also a lot of developers that pay $99/year to get their Mac app notarized, which changes the value proposition and what expenses the fee covers.
And then there are, of course, the developers who pay $99/year + commission when they publish through the MAS.
Apple has chosen to utilize differential pricing to charge some Mac app developers a commission and not others. Similarly, that means that some developers pay a commission based on what device they publish on.
We cannot surmise what expenses are covered based on the differential pricing.
This is similar to how I can’t surmise which expenses a GitHub Pro subscription fee covers based on the fact that GitHub lets students make use of GitHub Pro for free.
The differential pricing can be the result of a business decision (e.g., it’s harder to reach Mac developers as a customer base, so we’ll give them a lower price, or they cost us less, so we’ll charge them less or, we don’t spend that much R&D on macOS), it can also be the result of a moral or philosophical stance (e.g., the Mac was always more open so we shouldn’t close it up (also a legal motivation in terms of antitrust by the way) or, on the Mac, you can make apps that make little use of our IP so it doesn’t make sense to charge them for IP usage), or it can be the result of other processes or a combination of them.
Whatever the reasoning, it’s a non sequitur to go from “They don’t require it on the Mac” to “Therefore, $99/year covers all expenses”.
Some other tidbits based on your comment:
> Apple charges the same developer fee to both iOS and Mac developers. Mac developers are free to distribute apps how they please, and use whatever payment APIs fit their use case.
This muddies the waters even more. That one annual fee covers development and publishing for all of Apple’s platforms, from macOS to Safari extensions and everything in between. To Apple, it doesn’t matter if you only use it to develop for macOS or if you create multi-platform apps.
> Presumably, nothing. iOS is a less-complex operating system with fewer features and capabilities than MacOS. It has less legacy frameworks and compatibility modes to support, lower threat surface and less software competition.
This is a faulty assumption, in my opinion. iOS’ complexity is significantly increased with the need to create and maintain a higher security level than macOS.
It’s also no secret that iOS and the iPhone are Apple’s crown jewel, and most of the software R&D goes towards improving it, creating and improving frameworks for it.
To the point that almost all new frameworks get iOS support by default, whereas Apple’s other platforms may or may not get the framework at all, much less simultaneously.
Whatever else one wants to argue, iOS gets the most focus. That’s simply undeniable.
> Again, why can the $99/year fee cover frameworks on Mac but not on iOS?
Like I said, it’s a non-sequitur.
Just because Apple gives Mac app developers a discount in certain circumstances doesn’t mean the $99/year covers the entire kit and caboodle on macOS.
> Your original claim seems to be based on pure assumption and not evidence that proves iOS is more costly to maintain.
My original claim does nothing of the sort. All it aims to do, with basic calculus, is that the $99/year is unlikely to cover just the App Review part of the distribution pipeline, much less the entire distribution pipeline.
I add that it most definitely doesn’t cover anything else that Apple and the courts agree the commission pays for.
My claim is that Apple's arbitrary bundling of dozens of features is nonsense, and from a technical perspective entirely pointless. Apple's App Store review is part of their App Store, it should be covered in costs related to distribution instead of their developer fee. Similarly, nobody should be excusing Apple's 30% payment processing tax with "framework" discussion because that's included in the price of the device. Apple is shamelessly milking distribution revenue, dead-set on a collision course with regulators.
Right now you as a developer pay $X for access to their eco system, and on top of that you pay 15/30% of whatever payments they process for you.
You can say "well actually, that 30% isn't all for the payment processing" but I don't why it matters what Apple's intention behind the payment is.
Businesses rarely map charges directly into what is being paid for, because that doesn’t work in practice. Charges are made at a convenient point and then used to pay for the service as a whole. This is common practice across all kinds of business.
This matters because people are claiming they it is just for payment processing and then arguing that 30% is too much, which is clearly a dishonest position.
This tells us nothing about the charge being only for payment processing.
> It's also highly questionable given that the courts have rejected "iOS software distribution" as a valid antitrust market for the purpose of monopolization claims.
Pray tell, in which jurisdictions?