I suspect I'll be buying far fewer apps if there's a mass movement from a purchase model to a subscription model among app developers. I'm perfectly happy to pay $20-30 for an app (even a simple app) if it provides value and I'm happy to pay for major upgrades or additional content/features, but I won't pay $20-30 a year just to maintain the ability to launch an app on an ongoing basis.
In addition, after years of terrible search in the app store, coupling search improvements with search-based ads is just a kick in the shins.
Apps are a service.
I would actually prefer to pay developers of apps that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the app. If an app saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the app entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.
Yes, I have subscriptions for IntelliJ IDEA, for Dropbox, for FastMail and for a DigitalOcean VPS. All these are producing money for me. But the list ends here. Because here's the thing: $5/month here, $10/month there and pretty soon we're talking about serious money. Not only that, but as soon as you stop paying for whatever reason (eg temporary financial problems) you're out.
Of course, with our oversized salaries, we stop noticing that $5/month for a passwords app is actually expensive. And that's actually a good example because a passwords app at least has some utility.
More importantly, subscriptions are immoral because the end result is robbing users of any sense of ownership. And as a software developer, you no longer feel compelled to innovate, to improve, in order to convince users to upgrade. I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership.
No. Flat out no. If I spend $x0 or $x00 for an app to create something (music, code, mechanical drawing, whatever), I darn well better be able to access my music/code/drawing at any point in the future, even if the maker of the app has gone out of business.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is generally considered a bad business model, and the same easily applies to software. Free software does not need to just be ethical to be useful, it is also highly pragmatic.
At least if I purchase an app I can continue using it for a significant amount of time and look for an alternative. A subscription makes this much harder.
There are other games that I play all the time where I'd be happy to pay a bit every mo/yr to ensure content/fixes keep flowing.
Whereas I would prefer to pay for a useful app... and then if they develop in ways that I find attactive, pay some more for the improvements.
With the subscription model, they have absolutely no incentive to ' continue to update and improve the app'
So each month we are now going to pay for Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, Github, Amazon Prime and a bunch of apps...
Operating systems are a service.
I would actually prefer to pay developers of operating systems that are truly useful to me a monthly amount so I know they can continue to update and improve the OS. If an OS saves me $1000/yr in headache, I'd prefer to spend $30/yr on a subscription rather than lose the OS entirely because the developers can't keep the lights on.
Sounds like Apple is still too incompetent to care about backwards compatibility.
In a reasonable world, stuff running locally on your device would keep working, regardless of what happened to the original developers.
The reason I usually hate subscriptions is that they are a headache remember, changing credit cards requires me to remember and update subscriptions in many different places, and providers make it hard to cancel. My experience with subscriptions on iOS has been very positive. It's easy to pay for and easy to cancel.
Personally, I would rather pay a small amount per month while being able to cancel at any time than pay a larger amount up front for something I've never tried. If the app is compelling enough to keep using, I'm happy to keep paying.
Why do you need MORE apps? I'm a developer and heavy iPhone user and it rare for me to download apps these days. I browse the store regularly just to check out what's going on but most new apps provide little use. They let me make my face look phone. Share emojis created by reality stars. etc. I think this move will lead to higher quality apps. Developers will be able to invest more in updates and developing their product instead of abandoning it once sales drop.
1) Some apps have a limited life span - games, for example, or apps specific to an event (like the SIGGRAPH or GDC apps)
2) Some apps have bugs that you don't encounter until you use a particular function
3) Some apps stop being updated and you need more functionality than they offer.
4) You have a new need you didn't have before so you need a new app or apps to fulfill it
If you're talking about an app that's a major part of your workflow for something, maybe this makes sense. But most of the apps that I've paid $2-$5 on are things that I'm only likely to fire up occasionally when I need them. Monthly fee to mark up photos or scan papers with the camera? I'll pass.
I'll pay a subscription for an app that receives substantive updates. But most apps don't need that, and they don't provide them at a monthly rate (they may provide updates that frequently, but not pay-worthy updates).
The problem with subscriptions is that it's hard for me to justify paying a recurring $12/year subscription for an app that I'll use once in that time. These kinds of apps I'm most likely to just do without if they go to a subscription model.
That's where you diverge from the population. Apple needs a solution for the general problem of people not wanting to pay much for iOS apps. It may disappoint those of us who prefer spending more up front for quality, but Apple has surely determined that more people will buy more apps this way.
(By the way, you compared paying $X upfront to paying $X per year which of course is a worse deal. A more representative comparison would be $X * 0.33 per year.)
Yes! And thanks to missing app store features Apple has provided developers no way to set expectations for things like upgrade pricing. Not to mention in-app purchases which were another way to maintain the illusion of "free" apps among users.
The fact that subscription pricing is now seen as the solution is really sad because subscribing to an App is fundamentally different than buying one. In particular, transactions that used to be atomic - like buying an app or gifting an App to a friend - are now transient and come with all kinds of strings and commitments attached.
Today I could go home, fire up my 5 year old iPod touch, and still access all of its apps - and the data therein. In a subscription-based app economy I wouldn't be able to do the same after the first month!
The Mac app eco system was thriving despite a ridiculously small market. The indie devs focused on delivering quality applications and a lot of people paid good money. Enough to sustain many indie companies and developers.
I don't get why Apple has chosen to ignore the factors that helped make that eco system such high quality.
Edit: I want to add I am not against improving the subscription model. My problem is that Apple doesn't seem to want to add the stuff indie mac devs have been asking for years (trial periods, upgrade pricing). It would have been great if Apple did both subscription, and better purchase models (it's still possible they might once WWDC comes around).
It's been pretty much proven that demos actually sell fewer apps than no demos, at least at the price levels seen in the App Store (once you get up to several hundred dollars or higher, then presumably things change). Even at the $60 price point of AAA console games, demos have been proven to hurt sales (which is why you never seen demos of AAA console games anymore).
Google Play purchases have a 2 hour window to refund any app you buy, Valve give refunds no questions asked in some circumstances, after the EU and AU asked a lot of questions. AU recently ruled it illegal to refuse refunds with requirements like trying to fix crashing games or not refunding functioning titles.
Anyway, why would a $30 purchased app become $30/year? Nobody prices like this. Photoshop used to cost $585. Now it's $10/month. I think a $30 app would probably become $1/month.
Indeed I find subscriptions annoying too, hope the new AppStore comes with a friendly subscription management section along.
Also, I would quibble with your description of it as 'resetting of visible app reviews' as the old reviews are still visible, they're just one tap away...
They need an option when releasing a build: reset reviews (major release) or leave reviews intact (minor release).
Exactly this situation happens and it's fine because people mention it. "In the latest update, X happens"
Plus developers can respond to reviews and mention that the issue was fixed
But in a low volume market like the Mac App Store it takes anywhere from a few weeks to months to get 5 reviews after an update. (Or even years in non US stores).
I made the experience that updating a well reviewed Mac app leads to a drop in sales until you get back to at least 5 ratings. (You need at least 5 ratings to display the average rating in search results and category lists in the Mac App Store).
This is a big incentive to keep updates back until it is really necessary to release them.
- show the version the user reviewing was on - allow the developer to reply to the review to say the bug was fixed in version x.x
Clearly a subscription model isn't for many apps - probably most apps. But it was right for us, as we've been maintaining and improving Zombies, Run! for over four years now, and every week we add new content. With a subscription model, we only get paid if people decide we're good enough to commit to over a long period of time. Since we're about helping people exercise, I think that's fair enough.
I do think that Zombies, Run! is an example of an app that justifiably fits the subscription model. The continued added content makes that make sense. (I am a fan!)
I just hope subscription doesn't become the norm - I'd hate to see a calculator on a subscription model.
In light of this news, I wrote up a short post about how we made Zombies, Run! a subscriptions success:
https://medium.com/@adrianhon/how-we-made-an-app-store-subsc...
I don't see a reason to subscribe for apps that are one-time pay and periodic long term use. There is a fine line here that developers will have to be cautious not to cross. A lot of apps have no reason to be subscription model, but the prospect of recurring revenue is too tempting.
Edit: On the other hand, this is totally awesome for services and products that already offer subscriptions on other platforms or on the web, like online streaming, education, and as someone mentioned here, tools like Sketch.
This is the main issue I think. The only way to charge users for an update is to create a new version of the app and then try to inform users about it. A subscription will enable ongoing development for apps which is unsustainable at 99¢ per download.
For most people and most apps, paying once up front is a huge gamble. Most app consumers have no idea how to get a refund. Many aren't even aware that it's an option. So, they don't buy. It's not worth risking even 99c up front. Especially because the vast majority of consumers are not interested in doing thorough research on apps ahead of time. They just want to try a bunch and see what they like.
Do users still expect the upgrade for free?
So currently your only option is to release app2, app3 etc. without the possibility to address your customer base (offering upgrades etc.)
Subscriptions are basically renting apps for regular time periods. If forced, this would kill all indies for sure as most people would spend budget to the few main apps they need. I can also barely envision how the platform would attract creative people as it would feel like oligopoly. Frankly, with computers we have a chance to break natural constraints on availability but companies seem to be hell bent on reintroducing the same stinky approaches from the past. Why?
Do new users have to pay all tiers of upgrade or do they get a reduced cost?
If it's the former, then the app's price keeps on rising and comes down to IAPs being better to unlock extra features you actually need without the whole package.
If it's the latter, then old users feel betrayed for having to pay the full upgrade price even though they bought the app earlier than new users.
There are pros and cons for both sides, unless I didn't think of one solution that could work perfectly.
This. I'm a developer of such a "sporadic use" app and I don't see how a subscription model would benefit my users. And I honestly wouldn't feel too good about introducing subscription pricing to a tool someone might need once in a few weeks.
On the other hand this might be a solution to the upgrade pricing problem if one could set the subscription interval to 1 year.
One such annual subscription offer that I was totally in favor of was WhatsApp. Given the volume of use I had from the service, I would have gladly paid more. I would prefer subscription to a clean chat service instead of a free service shoving news, themes, icon-packs etc. in my face to make money.
Additionally, they allow designers to submit their own watch faces and share the revenue which I thought was cool. It helps combat the glut of "brand" knockoffs that fill many of the free/user-generated sites.
Originally, they offered a "pro" version that gave you access to all current and future watch faces for a subscription fee. I was not very keen on this because, like so many, I tend to forget to cancel these things when I stop using them. I mentioned this in an app review and so did many others. We requested a one-time IAP for the "Pro" version and soon after, the developer did just this.
So I paid $10 and every week or so I check out the new watch faces available for download. I like that some of the money goes to the platform and some to the designers. I like that the designs are high quality and don't include any knockoffs or blatant copyright infringement. And I like that I could just buy the full app after trying out the free options.
I've done the same with similar light-verion/paid-upgrade apps but this was the first one I'd run across that offered both a subscription or a one-time purchase.
For the first year of a subscription Apple will maintain its 70 / 30 revenue share; after one year, the new 85 percent / 15 percent revenue share will kick in (applied per subscriber). The new app subscription model will roll out to developers this fall, though if app makers have subscribers they’ve already retained for a year, the new revenue split starts June 13th."
That's a big change.
Unfortunately, from a user standpoint, this seems to be a disincentive to improve their horribly lacking search functionality.
Also for Search Ads (Coming this fall): https://developer.apple.com/app-store/search-ads/
I wonder if they added capacity or dropped review quality - so far we haven't seen a drop in quality and they are able to catch problems at about the same rate.
PS: I've come to a conclusion that whatever Cue runs, it is shit or turns to shit quickly. He's in charge of all the Apple services and they're a complete mess. I hope Cue retires or just transfers his responsibilities to someone who cares about them.
However, I think iTunes, Apple Music and Siri all have weaknesses. But we can only guess who's fault that is - certainly not Cue's alone.
Also, he is employed by Apple since 1989. He must be doing something right.
What's the source of this information?
> And if you're just issuing fixes or simple changes, they don't spend any time "human testing" at all.
How do they differentiate between simple fixes and more substantial changes?
Now if we could see a similar factor improvement in TestFlight beta review times...
One could argue that those should be included in the purchase price, but today's app store economy often doesn't allow that.
A text expander is not a "service", nor is a password manager, nor is an audio looper or a to-do lister. To suggest otherwise would be disingenuous. Of course, we don't know what's going to happen in response to this change yet, but statements like Gruber's "win-win-win"[1] and Brent Simmons' request for clarification[2] indicate to me that indie developers will be more than happy to adopt this model with their decidedly non-service software.
[1]: http://daringfireball.net/2016/06/the_new_app_store
[2]: http://inessential.com/2016/06/08/seeking_clarification
I seldom accept any upgrades and keep old versions of apps backed-up in case I rashly do click 'yes'. I know I'm not unique; if an app works, why tempt fate by upgrading it?
Unfortunately with this subscription model everyone will have to pay regardless of whether they want those new features.
1. Fix app discovery
2. Fix app search before putting search ads. e.g. if your app name has a symbol in it searching by app name will NOT return your app in the search results.
3. App review times can be further reduced by automating the review process
4. Try it before you buy it option
5. Better UX
Credit card fees come out of their share and those could very well account for the bulk of the 15%. Even if Apple pays nothing in payment processor markup, there is a fixed minimum "interchange" cost that everyone has to pay (even Walmart). For "ecommerce" it's:[1]
Credit: $0.10 + 1.8-2.4%
Debit: $0.21 + 0.05%
Those 10-21 cent minimums make a big dent in smaller transactions. For a monthly recurring charge of $1.99, already 6% of that goes to credit card interchange. That leaves a 9% gross margin for Apple (4% if debit).
At $0.99, Apple's margin drops to 3% on credit, and they lose money on a debit card.
Now, there is a "small ticket" interchange category that one would hope these transactions would qualify for. That's just $0.04 + 1.65%. But it says it requires a swipe, so I'm not sure. From a fraud risk standpoint Apple Pay should be treated better than a swipe, but I'm not sure if the rules have caught up yet.
[1] https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/Visa-USA-In...
It is sad that Apple only took action now, after years of requests and complains by indie developers. Now that app boom is over, I doubt this App Store changes will have any impact.
The reason I quit Adobe and bought Sketch was to support software that I could actually buy. Not this "Good deal for professionals, even cheaper for students, fuck anybody who just wants to use a decent art program every couple of months" model.
I'll see what I can track down on details, but I'm preemptively very disappointed about this.
EDIT: Sketch is _NOT_ switching to a subscription model. Sketch is breaking from the "paid major, free minor" upgrade schedule, and going to "rolling releases, $99 buys the app and a year of upgrades."
Personally I think that's a fair system. It frees them from having to plan new features around the major/minor release schedule, but you can still buy the software and just keep using it.
My biggest concern is going to be OS compatibility. With OS X on a yearly upgrade treadmill, if there are any compatibility issues (and there almost always are), then the Sketch upgrade is effectively not optional. That's not so different from how it is now, except there have only been two major upgrades since the original release (September 2010), so you'll be buying OS compatibility fixes more than twice as often. So I still don't love it.
https://blog.sketchapp.com/versioning-licensing-and-sketch-4...
It looks quite a bit like a subscription model to the average person. $99/year is a pretty big jump in price, but I guess they've gotten a chunk of pro market people. The whole bit about being unfair to late adopters is a bit of bunk.
Autodesk Sketchbook did this around version 6 (not sure if they still do it), and it's a horrible experience.
They change major versions and charge you again. You only find out when the older version you paid for is no longer available on your updated OS X.
Awesome software that I stopped using because of this.
The easy money's already been made in the App Store; with a million+ apps it's a visibility issue. No amount of changes to the App Store will remove the problem of there being a dozen apps that already solve the problem that your app solves.
That said, a subscription model with a reduced cut could improve monetization prospects for a lot of developers, indie especially.
Only if users except the model. I for one, will be removing any of my apps that move to a subscription model. I have no interest in renting the software on my phone.
If Apple adds subscriptions to the Mac App Store that is. We're still waiting for "App Analytics" on the Mac. (The stats where you can see how many people viewed your app's page in the app store and how many downloaded the app. Even though it's the same backend those stats are only available for the iOS store).
I also strongly dislike that they know that x% of users after signing up will barely use the service and it's essentially free money. I know this is why they do it, and I won't support companies for trying to take advantage of users.
about subscriptions - i don't see any reason a developer would share the subscriptions revenue with apple while they sale it for free and make in-app subscriptions.
If the supposed cognitive load of people for using apps is around 26-27, then is there an economic load that says that people will max at say--- $60/month--- in total app subscriptions in the US? And this number could change drastically for users in other countries based on fluctuating dollar values.
1. Rolling deploys - right now releasing on iOS is scary and big bang, combined with the review process it keeps devs up at night worrying. 2. AB Testing on images and copy - you can only update this on each (scary) release, so you can't learn what works quickly.
Google cornered Web search. Reaction: As they own the walled garden, Apple completely control search within the App Store. Adwords owns Web Advertisitng. Reaction: Apple will launch paid search in the App Store. Companies like Netflix, Blizzard, and Salesforce have direct lines to their customer's wallets through subscriptions. Reaction: Apple will launch subscriptions in App Store and take a cut from their developers.
I don't see any of this as a surprise. In fact, I see it as Apple playing to their own strengths. The web is too open a platform for Apple, and history has shown they don't succeed when they don't have control.
Maybe not sustainable, but hopefully keep you in the black until the next project.
How are free trials not a "better experience for the user"? I just don't understand Apple's paranoia when it comes to free trial versions.
Have fun with your LG.
Just give me the TL;DR already please!
Brace for the shitstorm
My comment on reddit:https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/4n62ny/app_store_20/
This is the exact opposite of what Apple should do. App startups in their first year need all the revenue they can get. After the first year, most of those companies have either reached profitability or gone out of business.
This policy is going to mean more revenue for the large, established app companies, like Instagram or Snapchat, and less revenue for any potential usurpers. They're effectively suppressing innovation and locking in any monopolies they've helped to build.
In other words, I think Apple is intentionally discouraging companies that are so focused on the short game they may not be around in a year.
