They literally have paid 8 years of Developer Program fees for supporting the AppStore.
An Apple device is better thanks to the apps on it, so they sell more devices. They are double dipping when they benefit from App Store revenues + Developer program fees.
Yeah, let's not forget Apple's famous "there's an app for that" ad campaign.
You can’t install an alternative to Siri. You can’t use a different push notification system. You can’t use an alternative store and send updates yourself.
> Please learn about the Apple Developer Program first. The Apple Developer Program is the right option for most organizations that want to distribute proprietary, internal-use apps. It allows you to use Apple Business Manager, Ad Hoc distribution, or redemption codes to privately distribute custom apps to employees, and TestFlight to test beta versions of your apps.
> The Apple Developer Enterprise Program is only for specific use cases that cannot be addressed using these methods. Before applying for the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, learn more about the Apple Developer Program to see if it addresses your use case. If not, you can start your application.
so it's only 99 USD
And if Apple is really that concerned about free distribution, I'm sure they could set up an AWS-like pricing model where there's a set price for data transfer, updates, maybe even push notifications.
What if I bought an iphone, I am ONLY allowed to install apple apps on it, and I want the basecamp app?
Not exactly, as Comcast don’t provide the infrastructure to Basecamp to host and deliver the binary of its app. Basecamp can’t be said to be ‘freeloading’ on Comcast.
Basecamp would come back and say ‘well, we pay our developer fees’ but developer fees don’t differentiate whether Apple has to maintain app updates for hundreds of downloads or millions.
Edit: Was clearly referring to the app binary.
This is pretty grotesque coming from a trillion-dollar company that anyway already charges developers a yearly fee.
Without that top 10% layer of professional, honest apps from trustworthy companies, the app store is just a sea of scams, shams, and clones. Like barcode readers and tutorialware games with a $7.99/week subscription that only exists in the hopes that someone gets confused and clicks it.
What value does the App Store provide Hey?
Otherwise you would realise that having an effective and profitable channel to market is one of the most difficult things to achieve.
Apple gives you one on a silver platter and for a pretty fair cost per acquisition compared to other channels.
The number is never the issue. The issue is that apple has artificially blocked any competing channels from distributing to iOS.
I don't believe they should be allowed to have a legal monopoly on app distribution. In fact, I'd go as far as the ruling for IE with Microsoft around basically the same issue but for web apps -
Not only are you not allowed a legal monopoly on app distribution, you MUST ask the user which app distribution methods they'd like to enable.
Smart and Apple on the same phrase has becoming less common lately. The anti-trust action seems to not be dissuading them from their actions.
Hey should still be able to link its users directly to the App Store entry and otherwise make it unlisted in the App Store.
Apple can find a creative way to tax this if they wanted, but what is the yearly developer fee for if not a fee for distribution and security/compliance certifications?
Apple needs to stop conflating distribution on their platform with promotion on their platform. Not every app needs both. 30% cut only makes sense in a publishing deal where Apple promotes the product in the storefront.
The Fastmail email app works exactly the same way and is available on the app store without issue. Seems like a pretty arbitrary decision here.
I actually feel misled by Hey’s comments pointing out that Netflix, etc. require a subscription to make the app useful. It wasn’t until I little additional digging revealed that the main difference you can order it straight away, and Apple still charges them the 30% fee. To get around this, Netflix charges for in-app or you can order cheaper directly from their site. I don’t believe Apple’s store T&C’s indicate Netflix is violating anything through this model.
Really this is about how much is too much for Apple’s fee structure. I suspect regulators may try to force Apple to allow other App Stores (like Android) but then the usual problems will surface re: security, etc.
As of a few months ago, Netflix abandoned in-app purchases entirely on Apple platforms. Try it yourself: sign out of your Netflix account on iOS and try and create a new account. There is no option to pay for a Netflix subscription within the app on iOS. It just isn't there.
Fastmail is another app already on the App store that requires an account (but has no option to sign up within the app itself). Salesforce Inbox and GMail are two other email apps currently on the App store that do not allow the user to sign up within the app itself.
(An aside about Gmail: I'm now receiving almost-daily emails from Google
> Your Gmail is full. Get more storage now with a Google One membership. Plans start at $1.99 a month.
How much of that money do you think Apple would like to get? How much of that money goes to Apple? None. That is not implemented as an in-app purchase. )
Gmail is still functional without paying anything. You don’t hit a paywall immediately after downloading. The app provides immediate functionality to users. If Google decided to force subscription-only, that’s when Apple would be saying you need to either open it up, or use our in-app subscription service. Google’s upsell is not a requirement to use Gmail’s basic functionality.
The app must provide immediately functionality after downloading. Guess how much functionality the Hey app I downloaded is providing to me right now? Zero. Because I need an “invite-only” code.
(I mean via some API that Hey offered - I think they don't actually offer one, but it's a hypothetical.)
You would obviously still need a paid Hey account to use such an app, but there would be no way for the app's providers to enable you to sign up for one using Apple IAP. What then?
Is the same as gmail, I can pay for a Google Suite, but the app is freely distributed in stores.
Basecamp should have great products (I've never used them), but it seems they are using this as a marketing strategy.
That is exactly what they are doing at the moment. Apple has decided to invent a new requirement that this approach is only valid for business applications, and consumer client apps must offer in-app signup and purchase.
I'm generally pro-Apple on these issues. It's their store running on their products on their infrastructure. However in this case I don't believe Hey is violating the current stated and published app store rules. Apple's decision in this case seems capricious and arbitrary, and more than a little hypocritical.
Edit: Confirmed.
>Spotify’s complaint against Apple is a good example(1)(2)(3). Apple charges Spotify a 30% fee to use the App Store(4) and limits how it can communicate with its users. Apple is the owner of the iOS platform and the App Store and is a direct competitor of Spotify(5).
source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2019-00299...
Apple saying "it's giving the users more options" is total BS.. it's all about getting their 30%, because if you play by their rules, and give the customer more knowledge that you're being forced to charge extra because of this payment option.. then Oh noes.
A great example outside the app store is some credit cards charge much more than the others, so some stores charge you that on top. "You want to use X card, sorry but there's a surcharge for that card.. you could use something else.
So that might just work, you consume a coupon on the app ? Or not even that, purchase just associated with account
> That, Apple said, is not what Hey is. Hey is a consumer app, paid for by users. And Apple takes issue with the idea that when one of those prospective users downloads the app, there's nothing they can do with it — they can't sign up, they can't pay, they have to go somewhere else before they can use the app. Apple doesn't like apps like that, at least when it feels they should be more accessible to their intended audience.
In a larger sense, Apple seems to be saying that, at least for consumer apps, they have an expected user flow from launch/beta through purchase. That flow makes Apple the primary channel and pipeline. If you have a multi-channel app (web + app, in this case), they want the main experience through the app regardless of business model or context. This makes the customer experience argument seem like misdirection.
Yes, it sucks - but it seems like a relatively easy way out.
Imagine that Hey found the ideal price point on the supply-demand curve. When you factor in Apple's fee - the new optimal price point on the curve may shift higher, but your net revenues will still be lower.
The CEOs should get a medal and all the honours for providing society this good platforms then promptly forced to allow separate AppStores on equal footing.
Uh...
Also, monopoly has a very specific definition. It does not mean "company with large marketshare".
What Apple is doing might be almost legal but it is not right and laws can be written to spell this out for them and others.
Computing should be declared a human right and selling mass produced general purpose computers without allowing anybody to deploy any desired software on that computer should be illegal.
duopoly not monopoly
Also they aren't taking 30% forcibly of every single program that runs on Windows.
- developers paid a hosting subscription for their app
- pay for bandwidth used by the app downloads
- pay for each update review
- optional pay for promotion
- Apple would not block legal content, just put it under a new category of stuff Apple disaproves but is legal.
This would fix a part for the issues with stores, Apple can't say that they are hosting your app for free anymore or that they provide you bandwidth.
The disadvantage I see is that small apps will have to pay a the yearly subscriptions but if the price is fair I see it similar as you pay for a domain and webhosting.
Apple will have to find a new way to make money though, like maybe have better services instead of crippling competition, have better dev tools and hardware.
Imagine there are only 2 companies that offer web hosting , and they will take 30% of your money (not profit but total) and on top of that they can reject your content if they don't like it.
I'll just put an .apk or .ipa file on my website and be done with these ridiculous stores. That's what's fair.
That's typically what a store is. Product manufacturers accept that they will sell more of their product in stores, enough to make up for the margin added by the retailer, vs direct sales. Consumers accept to pay more the convenience.
Supporting iOS is super hard for us. The Apple market is heavily controlled and supervised. We have had apps rejected because we included links to the Android equivalent in the description (same price, so no big reason to switch platforms when you are already on our iTunes page, and no way anyone can install an Android app on an iPhone anyway). Apple used to offer a more or less standard set of phones, resolutions, and architecture. But that has diversified more in the last years. For Android and Linux, we have it much easier to build tools, to handle dependencies, and generally to deploy. Actually, all development happens on Linux, simply because it's a much better and more comfortable platform. When we need to deploy for iOS, we boot the mac computer (which we had to pay for), re-compile the game, try it on the iPhone (which we also had to pay for), upload, and turn it off. Additionally, and I don't have all the details on this myself, Google apparently has also made it much easier for us than Apple to operate when it comes to taxes and banking.
We normally have to sell thousands of units per month to "make it" (and we don't). For Android, the fees are low enough to justify keeping things open even if we don't sell much one month.
In a wider perspective, we operate in a market with lots of apps and games being offered for free, really high fees and standards set by the major stores, and continuous pressure from the community, our competitors (of course!) and ourselves to release more of our work as open source. Essentially, the combination is crushing, and Apple's move does not help :(
For what is worth, we recently launched "safe2play" (https://keera.co.uk/2020/06/17/safe2play-caring-for-privacy-...), which is an idea meant to make both people safer and the pricing model more transparent. It would probably align with Apple's desires better too, although that's an unintended side-effect.
When it comes to e-commerce or e-subscriptions that should have meant the end of the middlemen, the products or contents/whatever are delivered directly from the author/producer/supplier to the end user, cutting costs.
I see plenty of comments are focussing on this quote, re their Basecamp apps:
> These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years
Apple have (freely) provided Basecamp a platform to grow their business via the App Store, whilst giving Apple (effectively) nothing in return.
Now that Basecamp want to grow their revenue further (at Apple's expense), AND they are breaching the rules (whether you agree with them or not) — I don't blame Apple for pressing the brakes. Especially not after all the negative press this whole debacle has brought them.
Apple is welcome to provide a platform for developers to distribute apps on, on that platform I believe they should be able to charge whatever they determine is reasonable.
Apple SHOULD NOT be allowed to have a legal monopoly on making that platform.
It's not really a fair price (doesn't matter what it is) if there's no alternatives because you've literally blocked them from competing.
This is the problem.
Yeah, I thought I'd phrased it clearly enough saying "effectively" nothing was given in return, but obviously not!
I see a new perspective in the rest of your comment. Thanks for sharing.
It's not free though, is it? You have to pay $99 a year, and purchase Apple hardware to develop and test software for their platforms. Basecamp, who hire 50+ people most likely all run Apple hardware, so that's tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars to Apple over the years.
Cost of servers, cost of bandwidth, cost of maintenance of the App Store backend services and development of future features, technical support for developers, Xcode development, App Store review time, etc
I would hazard a guess they make nothing on that $99 at the end of the day. The cost is merely to be a gate to prevent anyone from submitting terrible apps for review. Having some monetary requirement there is just a deterrent for the lower quality stuff (obviously not all of it, but probably a rather significant amount).
This is just Apple noticing money being changed hands, and inserting themselves into the process so they can extract a cut. Get their beak wet, as it were. Not for value received, because there is clearly no value add here.
And the hoops they jump thru to make sure they get their cut! Locking down the phone; a walled-garden marketplace (you can't go anyplace else); the threat of revoking the app from a customer phone(!) if you don't toe the line.
Specifically in the case of Hey:
* Bandwidth to deliver the app to each user that downloads it
* App Store Review requires human beings, so there's paying those people
* There's also generally maintenance of the App Store servers, backend software, etc.
In the past, I'm sure Basecamp (the app) was featured somewhere on the App Store and thus got featured and brought more eyeballs to the app. These features are done by actual people and there's a cost there.
Any store has a cost. Lets say Basecamp were to be able to side load. Now they'd have:
* Bandwidth for delivery of the app for each download
* Cost to maintain their servers
* They'd have to maintain whatever delivery system they had to write in order to provide the same features of the App Store
* They'd have more support costs as well because can the average person understand side loading? What happens when that goes wonky? Now it's on their support team to handle that business too.
Apple provides a lot of value there.
Edit: Jesus... I hate the formatting options on this site..
I see it partly as a response to the fact that the industry is moving from one-time purchases to subscription-billing. Apple were always able to make their cut from the one-off sale of a $34.99 premium application. Now that the app is available for a $2.99/month subscription from the developer, Apple have to recover the lost caused by the shift to subscription models somehow.
And they certainly do have costs associated with content delivery. There's the trivial costs (bandwidth, hosting, etc.), and the larger overheads associated with R&D, developer review, continually fighting security risks, and so on.
I've purchased an expensive phone mainly so that I can have access to a high quality ecosystem of apps. Apps like Basecamp and Hey are part of that for me. Apple gains so much from the breadth of high quality apps on the app store, including free apps. If they begin to see free apps as giving them effectively nothing, I see that as an indication that they no longer value the reasons I go to them as an iOS user.
So the apps on the App Store don't provide any value to Apple? If all business apps were only on Android, would they have the same market share?
App Store has never been free for developers.
Not sure about Netflix's Android app though, but Google has sort of done this to Epic Games but only allowing logins and no registrations + card checks might bypass the Apple 30% tax.
Hey is implemented exactly like Netflix. This is exactly why it’s making such a ruckus. Because big streaming giants get Better treatment than the little guy trying to reinvent email.
Since we'll be both breaking the 'rules', first of all be very very honest, have you read the HN guidelines recently?
>> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
> Because big streaming giants get Better treatment than the little guy trying to reinvent email.
Unless they are 'reader' apps under guideline 3.1.3(a) [0]. Thus it isn't quite like as you said: 'Hey is implemented exactly like Netflix.' as Hey isn't a reader app, therefore they are not exactly under the same category of apps like Netflix. Nice try though, thanks for playing. I still look forward to the anti-trust battle.
[0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#rea...
> if an app is a way to exclusively consume content purchased elsewhere, like songs or movies or podcasts, they don't have to have in-app purchases.
According to apple an exclusive email client is not classified as a reader app and so they are forced to offer in app purchases. The guidelines are super confusing and in my opinion pretty crap but it's not a case of favouritism or giving special exemptions to Netflix for example
> Apple allows these kinds of client apps — where you can't sign up, only sign in — for business services but not consumer products. That's why Basecamp, which companies typically pay for, is allowed on the App Store when Hey, which users pay for, isn't. Anyone who purchased Hey from elsewhere could access it on iOS as usual, the company said, but the app must have a way for users to sign up and pay through Apple's infrastructure.
> Users cannot use the app to access email or perform any useful function until after they go to the Basecamp website for Hey Email and purchase a license to use the HEY Email app. This violates the following App Store Review Guidelines
The problem is it's not classified as a reader app according to Apple's guidelines. If you are not a reader app and there is something to be purchased, you must also offer in app purchases.
> if an app is a way to exclusively consume content purchased elsewhere, like songs or movies or podcasts, they don't have to have in-app purchases.
The cynic in me thinks this controversy was planned from the beginning as a PR / marketing exercise.
They were probably surprised they got 1.0 approved, I certainly would have been. Apple says they made a mistake approving it, which is not unheard of, and them clearly identified the guidelines they're breaking.
Basecamp is full of smart and prominent people who know what they're doing. I can't believe they didn't predict or plan for this scenario when it's one of the most obvious to me.
- I don't like how everyone claims they want a 30% cut. That is factually not quite true. It is 30% for non subs, which I think is fair. If I want to sell a product on a specific distribution channel then the cut should represent the possible reach and sales opportunity. In the case of subs it's only 15%. This is quite different than 30%. 30% is only for the first 12 months and for a sub which is paid annually this is nothing. Given that the first 12 months are very crucial in gaining critical mass I think 30% is fair and later it is really only 15%.
- I have huge respect for DHH, but he criticises that Apple has published their response to journalists, which is a bit rich given that he started this "dog fight" in the public
- The apps to which DHH compares Hey with are very different in nature and all the mail apps he constantly mentions are also different in nature. They all implement the suggestions which Apple has suggested in their response, so it's really Hey who wants to be treated with different rules because DHH thinks his online status can bully Apple into giving in? Not sure if that is right
- Also I think it is possible to do both. You can disagree with the rules and fight them in a civil way in court, whilst also temporarily comply with the rules like everyone else to get your app public. This approach of not wanting to play by the rules, put them on fire and still publish an app whilst everything is burning seems like a weird strategy to me. Slightly unnecessarily aggressive in tone.
It’s a lot harder to gain critical mass when you are paying 30% directly to Apple, no?
== You can disagree with the rules and fight them in a civil way in court, whilst also temporarily comply with the rules like everyone else to get your app public.==
Make less money today while you fight the largest company in the history of earth in court. Meanwhile, Apple will just built a competing product and embed it in iOS (see: AppleTV). The rules seem to change while the game has already started.
I can only speak to the app I'm most familiar with that DHH has compared it to multiple times. Fastmail. Fastmail's app lets you access Fastmail's email accounts, but not POP/IMAP accounts more generally. It doesn't provide a way of subscribing, and just loads to a login page when the app starts. It doesn't follow the suggestions they included in the letter, and I've seen DHH reference it multiple times.
For what it's worth, I've enjoyed Fastmail a great deal, and having an email client directly tied to the service provider has been great for me. I'm mainly concerned about this whole issue because of it's implications for new updates to Fastmail's app.
Take a Gmail app. It is the same thing as Hey but Apple reviews it preferably on every submission.
Mind you, this is just a random coincidence and not a targeted discrimination.
Just because their own rules say 'everybody owes us money' doesn't mean that it's legal.
If I build a high end hotel and the fee is $10,000 a night to stay there, you can’t apply to the Supreme Court to have your bill reduced. It’s my hotel and I can set the price to whatever I damn well please because it’s a free market.
It might not be specifically anti-trust violation, but if Ford behaved the same as Apple there would be 1-2 cars to pick from world wide!
