If Apple wins appeal, they’ll happily and quickly reinstate the fees. It’ll be the app developers who then get stuck paying the fees because, as you mentioned, their users will be used to it and there’s no going back.
The extent to which "it's our platform so you don't have any rights" has been applied is ridiculous.
Might as well ask if unicorns are real. Apple only wins the appeal if they bribe the judges. The only reason they've gotten away with it for so long is the U.S. DOJ was unwilling to enforce antitrust laws after the Microsoft debacle.
4 years ago some people were still swallowing the security or privacy argument, and users didn't understand what they were missing. This time any of these facades will be broken to death.
I'm curious about what happened.
Your discoverability is massively impaired, we already knew that. You also give Apple 30% of your cash.
Free app + external web purchase = maximum discoverability at 0% tax.
When things get more advanced, that web purchase link will be an authenticated URL - meaning one click to open the web browser already logged in. Register a protocol handler, remember their card information (or, ironically, use Apple Pay), and one tap in the app, a flash of the web browser, and they’re back in the app with purchase complete.
Apple needs to address this at WWDC. In the US and EU, there are zero, heck, negative advantages of selling on the App Store. All pain, all fees, no benefit of any kind. That’s a big deal.
Higher conversion rate.
b) Buying a product through IAP is one click. Versus having to go to a signup page, provide details, enter credit card details, wait for credit card verification flows etc. The drop off in conversions during this can be often greater than 15%.
c) Apple's centralised subscription management has been extremely useful and consumer friendly. Versus having to now deal with NY Times style scam tactics for every subscription again.
By the effort developers putting into payment-flows I would say they aren't, but depending on the volume it could be purely for short-term gain.
They will blame the app developers for raising prices.
Bottom line: I wouldn’t expect many discounts here.
Plenty of them already do. Google's services (YouTube Premium and others), for example, are $5/mo more expensive if you purchase them via Apple IAP. Spotify memberships are 30% more expensive on Apple. There are countless other examples. They just weren't allowed to advertise the cheaper option on iOS until now.
Even if a particular list price doesn’t change, I’d expect more frequent and deeper sales.
In a less competitive market for a good or service (due to lack of antitrust enforcement) there should still be discounts, in proportion to the residual competitiveness. E.g. the mobile game market is very competitive, so I’d expect more discounts vs. the video entertainment market where there has been a lot of aggregation.
I've also heard Netflix has suspended all in app subscriptions and is only going to link to their website for sign ups. I'm unsure if that will translate into savings, but I suspect you're going to see more of this behavior as well.
The 30% / 15% tax is very real and companies that don't have to pay that will be better positioned in the long run, so I imagine even if the price is the same, they'll be able to pocket more revenue doing this as well
I suspect this won't affect games much, except for the exceedingly big ones like Fortnite, but I treat that as a whole separate sector at this point.
This means a lot! It reveals how long developers were waiting for this day to come.
What, why? They can complete the purchase flow in a browser instead of the app. What is lost?
I'm not convinced;
Planned obsolescence, repair issues, phone-home privacy issues, vendor lock-in, etc
Apple is certainly innovative which helps consumers, but that's about it. The rest is bare minimum for the price point.
It's literally a major difference in their fundamental business models.
OTOH, every Apple owner I know has an AppleCare plan. And has had to use it. Multiple times. For nearly every device they own. And this is a sample population of over a thousand over more than a decade.
Yes, Apple service is great. I couldn't tell you what Dell Service is like, or Lenovo, or HP, because I've never had to use them. PC laptops and Android phones...just work.
And given that Androids are more popular in the parts of the world where reliability is essential, it's pretty clear that most of the world agrees that Apples are the inferior device.
In general I think centralized stores are customer friendly but anti developer. As a less controversial example, see how many gamers will wait months or years for a game to leave the Epic game store and go on Steam.
Sure, they changed the rules on paper, but who's policing their algorithm? Nobody. They can tank my keywords overnight and call it "normal fluctuation."
FAANG will be fine, but indies? Gentle reminder that ASO funnels have no customer support. Might just suddenly "stop working."
Anyone else afraid to pull the trigger on this?
Now if Amazon could also fix the incredibly frustrating, long-standing bug of their iOS app where tapping the screen anywhere does not turn pages, but instead toggles through "page numbers" -> "time left in chapter" -> "time left in book" etc., I'd be happy with it.
I've never seen that bug. Now, if you tap it near the bottom on the left-hand side, it toggles through that, by design (just as it does on the Kindle tablets)...
Drives me crazy, and I only swipe to turn pages at this point, which prevents it, but is somewhat uncomfortable.
They could also implement that independent of the injunction, which applies to steering rules.
They actually can't, not with the latest ruling that unlocked this Kindle change. Apple annoyed the judge enough with their shenanigans that she shut this down, too. The ruling reads (emphasis mine): "Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users *nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases*."
You still need that to get on the platform. They could charge based on the relative size of the business. Why not charge Netflix 50K? They won't give up the platform and the consumer - even for Netflix - likely wouldn't enjoy going to the web browser exclusively.
Perhaps that pushes more PWA's but really, I doubt the big corps would balk at this.
Their scale would need to be exceedingly reasonable to keep the smaller shops from rioting though.
Apple wants to mandate a review? That's fine. Charge developers for the reviewers' time with a reasonable profit margin, and Apple _already_ charges $100 a year for access to the AppStore.
Unfortunately the article does not answer what the button does, which is quite relevant.
Does it send the user to the amazon website (which would be allowed under the new rule)? Or does it complete the purchase inside the app using the credit card Amazon has on file for the user without paying Apple anything (which would be quite the affront towards Apple)?
I'd have expected it to actually make the purchase using my card on file with my Amazon account, just like the physical Kindle does.
> By selecting ‘Get Book’ within the Kindle for iOS app, customers can now complete their purchase through their mobile web browser.
Perhaps it’s because I have a membership that they’re allowed to bypass the Apple store somehow? I never thought about it until just now.
The fact that it took LEGAL ACTION to get basic functionality that existed on Kindle e-readers from day one speaks volumes about how these tech giants operate. They'll happily degrade user experience to avoid paying each other's extortionate fees while pretending it's about "ecosystem integrity" or some other corporate doublespeak.
And let's not forget Apple's brilliant solution to the court ruling - a slightly smaller 27% tax instead of 30%! How generous! This whole situation perfectly illustrates the duopoly stranglehold that's been choking app developers for years.
The most telling part? Amazon "probably isn't going to change its mind about avoiding Apple's 30 percent cut." So even with the court ruling, we're still stuck with a half-measure solution because two trillion-dollar companies can't figure out how to play nice without extracting maximum profit at users' expense.
Wake me up when either of these companies actually puts user experience ahead of their bottom line.
Everyone screaming about how happy they are about this seem to be ignoring the fact that Apple is not a charity
Also this is an article about Kindle adding an option which wasn't there before. Apple wasn't getting the money either way.
This comes off as incredibly bought-in to Apple PR, and if you’re not on their payroll, I don’t understand why you’re carrying water for them so aggressively.
First of all, the incredibly high margin hardware more than “pays for” the development of all the parts that make that hardware useful including iOS. We all know this.
Apple makes a tremendous amount of profit, both gross and net. This will dent their top line and their bottom line a bit. It will not make the iPhone a money-losing platform. “Not making as much pure profit as your near-monopoly status might theoretically allow you to if there were no antitrust laws” does not imply “that money will have to be made up somewhere.” They may end up being only “wildly, amazingly profitable” instead of “wildly, absurdly, amazingly profitable.” They don’t “have to” make up any particular amount of money.
Whether that upsets their shareholders including their mega billionaire CEO, is just the breaks. It is quite fitting for a group of people who enjoyed all those amazing profits from Apple’s monopolistic behavior so far — money that I might point out, isn’t even being required to be paid back.
they're lucky they're not being made to pay it all back, plus interest
iOS has gotten progressively worse every year since 2012. It may not be the worst idea to turn off the tap.
