US iPhone users spent, on average, $79 on apps last year, up 36% from 2017
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Not that the app isn't an important part of it, but a helpful and knowledgeable employee in a retail environment doesn't get the same headlines, even though s/he isn't a buggy, heavily gamed algorithm recommending baby gear to people who just had a miscarriage.
'Users are spending 36% more on eCommerce than 2017' doesn't have as nice a ring to it.
...also, what is the mean number? How much of that $79 is from there being no meaningful laws against Whaling?
[1] https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/
[2] https://musically.com/2018/08/22/netflix-joins-spotify-in-by...
Even though I have wanted to pay for a few games and 1 or 2 really good apps, I can't because Apple doesn't accept my indian cards nor other alternative indian payment systems.
Nor can we buy iTunes / App store credit online. Nor are we permitted to use iTunes / App Store gift certificates from US or elsewhere.
Personally, I wonder if this is because:
1. The central bank's (RBI) rule that financial data of indians should be stored in india.
2. Indian payment systems make it difficult to bill someone automatically (without the involvement of the payee).
3. Indian payment systems prevent "leakage" of your "credit worthiness" / credit rating, unlike credit cards.
> In India, Apple continues to screw itself with its short sightedness by insisting on credit / debit cards for all Apple Payments and refusing to integrate itself with India's many innovative digital payment systems.
It just sounds like they see it as a shortcoming of Apple's payment platform which affects the adoption of paid items in India, which seems like a fair evaluation.
Why - one of their strong brand values is that their products are "user-friendly" because they listen to customers. So I don't see anything strange in making it easy for their customers to spend money on their platform, as it would only earn them more goodwill, not to mention increase their profits.
I bet people who really need it top their accounts up (can you do this in the Apple store, or is it left on the card?) but you can imagine how much of sales are impulse purchases.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Apple to stop repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to anything at all to do with their e-commerce platform.
FYI, While Amazon is really serious about India and is doing some good work there, the Indian Postal Service is really good and reliable. In fact, even Amazon uses the indian post to deliver to remote areas where they don't have have amazon delivery offices.
Something I found interesting was the problem of many rural people not really having a formal address. It's so easy to take for granted that everyone has a house number and street with some kind of postal code, in in-fact that they even have a name with a given and family part. You can't always rely on these sorts of things because the world is big and wonderful and full of variety.
It really makes one notice how many startups never ever spend a singular thought on overseas markets, or if they did, only about the scary regulations, not the payment systems.
But I did try to pay with a card in the Netherlands at the biggest local supermarket: - Visa not accepted - Mastercard not accepted - Amex not accepted
They only accepted payment using a local card that I've never heard of.
Obviously had no problems with those cards anywhere else in the developed world. Except for Europe.
So yeah, Europe needs to get their shit together and start accepting and issuing the same card as the ROW.
And then all problems go away.
I don't think Europe needs to get their shit together, I'd rather if POS terminals would accept more payment systems. Credit Cards are not the world currency.
Regarding credit cards, very few Visa and Mastercard are credit, especially in Europe.
I am sure the same is true in India too - most are debit cards. The monopoly, the high fees they charged and the profit ending up in a foreign country was the reason that the indian government launched their own payment and card system. Visa and Mastercard were forced to lower their fees to remain competitive. (And now they are complaining and lobbying the US government to pressurise India to ease their new laws regarding data storage in India).
Still, the solution to this problem would be to charge the client whatever Visa or Mastercard is charging as an extra. A practice I've encountered before in small shops in London, banned across the EU due to clients facing unexpected charges at the end of the process.
That isn't supported in any PoS system I know of. Not in Europe atleast.
I don't know where you went to, but I've never seen a store that accepts cashless payments and doesn't accept Visa.
They might not accepts cards for low amount purchases, due to the fees, but that's another thing.
No they don't - there is no reason for a country to accept the payment system of another country. Priority should be to pay using local currency or using the local payment system.
Control over one's monetary system is essential to maintain the sovereignty of a nation. As is the right of a citizen to pay (or accept) cash or do transaction using other legal alternatives.
(That said, I understand your frustration as we are all complaining about the same thing).
Read this: https://www.isaumya.com/paypal-google-wallet-indian-debit-ca...
I use my SBI international debit card for apple music, and used HDFC international card before. Domestic card doesn't work and you need special activation. It wasn't possible to use SBI card two year before. Also, almost all credit cards are supported.
My issue is that I prefer to pay online using net banking. And I have opted for a RuPay debit card (not Visa or Mastercard). I don't see why I should get a specific card from a specific bank to do transactions with Apple - it's just plain ridiculous!
This could be interpreted as a happily growing ecosystem, or it could be interpreted as budget oriented users being squeezed off the platform leaving only people who are locked-in to subscription apps. Presumably it is the former, but we can't tell that from the article because there are no absolute numbers.
Not quite people, but the userbase appears to be growing.
Plus app store browsing and discovery sucks.
Talk to your app maker, not Apple. Apple started allowing free trials last year:
"Non-subscription apps may offer a free time-based trial period before presenting a full unlock option by setting up a Non-Consumable IAP item at Price Tier 0 that follows the naming convention: “XX-day Trial.” Prior to the start of the trial, your app must clearly identify its duration, the content or services that will no longer be accessible when the trial ends, and any downstream charges the user would need to pay for full functionality."
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#pay...
There needs to be people like you to balance the costs for someone like myself because knowing my age, marriage status size of company isn't worth the amount they pay me for it.
They'll show you 5 ads for a brand of car, and then a few weeks later ask which brand of car you have heard of for example. They also ask people who haven't seen the ads for comparison.
That data is used by Google to demonstrate how valuable their ads are.
They only need a small percentage of people to answer the survey to get results across the whole population.
When someone spends $5 on coffee, they know exactly what they are getting, it’s a regular purchase, produced by a formulaic method, with consistent quality, that energises them for the day ... that also hooks into their biochemistry and there’s a certain about of conditioning / addictive behaviour there too.
Compare that to the purchase of an app. There’s no biochemical enhancement, the quality of apps varies wildly and is unpredictable until after purchase, there’s little / no ability to refund. There’s no addictive hook to buy an app (I know some apps are addictive - that’s different)
How are those propositions even nearly close? The decision to purchase is not purely economic.
I've also paid for games apps (the most was around $20, I would pay more). I'd like to pay "premium" $ for a premium product on the app store, but I generally don't see that as an option. Periodically, I'll glance at the games available on the iOS store and the quality is night and day compared to PC/console.
Maybe people think apps are not worth buying because they're charging pennies? What happened to making a solid product and not being afraid to charge for it?
I don't buy 5$ apps and I also don't buy 5$ coffees.
Also I notice that I hardly ever use the apps I test (why do I even have this smartphone?) so the coffee would absolutely bring much more joy than the app, in 90% of the time - and that's from someone who doesn't regularly consume coffee outside of home and office (i.e. relatively cheap)
Is there any must have quality paid apps out there anybody suggests?
There are lots of things on iOS you can't do without some paid app. Even silly things like "make my voice sound like Micky mouse on phone calls" is a paid app on iOS.
Even looking at something like games though, deflation is reasonable. That game I bought in the 90s
A. Probably still works now, isn't reliant on external servers. So cost/year is still lower.
B. Was resalable if I didn't like it.
C. Faced a lot less competition.
It’s not a judgment or anything. Just the idea of this is so bewildering and alien to me.
Like Overcast for podcasts, Nlog Synthesizer for use with my Korg nanokey for on-the-go music composition, filimic pro forr video and others.
I recognise though that there are whole categories of app that need real money, for staff or servers (dating, online gaming).
Also, isn't it nice to help developers that make nice applications, especially when they offer their apps for a reasonable price?
I don’t understand how, on a forum full of people who build software for a living, there can be so much opposition to this idea.
So why would any sane developer do that? Getting people to spend a few dollars on an app is already no easy feat. Most users think a five dollar app is outrageously expensive.
There are plenty of really great, free software applications: VLC, Handbrake, Audacity, etc. But most of the free software world is not end user applications. It's the OS, HTTP server, and other infrastructure software. The software that is open source is the software that big companies need, but it's not their main product. So they can justify paying employees to contribute to it, and get the patches upstreamed.
I would definitely prefer my apps like Omnifocus or Overcast to open source. But even setting aside the financial viability, running an open source project opens you up to a million people flooding you with patch requests and flame wars. If you're developing a high quality app with opinionated UX and design, that's the last thing you want.
Polished, well made apps are absolutely worth the price.
I don't get what's so hard to comprehend. It's a store. There are lots of apps worth paying for.
Given how ubiquitous free, non-ad-based apps are, it’s surprising to me to hear that people prefer different paid apps more to such a degree that the average spend is about $80.
Looking in the data it’s heavily skewed by gaming apps, so I’m guessing that is what drives my surprise. The average dollar spend on other types of apps is much lower. I suppose gaming is an area where it’s harder to find free, no-ad apps.
But for music, video, photography, podcasts, writing, sports, productivity, security, banking, etc., there are such high quality free apps without ads that I don’t get it.
It's mainly different use cases. I do a lot of work on ipad and iphone, so I have paid apps for those. Others like games on them, so they spend there, etc
If you're on android, it's also just a very different app ecosystem, so it's harder to think about how the other side does it.
For FOSS stuff, I regularly donate either directly, or by buying books and merchandise from project.
And my guess is, similar to polling, that the company predicts from the data they do have.
(I posted this as a counter-example to all the "This is baffling. I wouldn't spend a single dollar on apps." comments here.)
Thanks for making me coming out of it.
So, now, you made me curious. How did that happen ?
In some it's the feeling of becoming powerful. In some it's out of frustration knowing it would take days doing something I can spend a few bucks on to skip. In others it's about collecting stuff. And in some it's solely about supporting the creators.
I also use it as a kind of reward. I treat myself with a big legendary chest.
With that said, I'm 100% guilty of falling for the artificial sensation they've manufactured with all the animations, sound effects and deals they put in front of me. These companies are experts on making IAPs "feel good".
Finally, I have a lot of money (made a big exit) so it's not really a big deal for me.
"How can we get more users like Kiro?" "How can we get Kiro to spend even more in 2019?"
People spend upwards of $1000 on a phone, but are unwilling to spend a couple bucks on good software for it. It's ridiculous.