> 84% of apps are free, and developers pay nothing to Apple.
That's just false, every developer has to pay 99 USD per year to be able to publish apps. Even if you only publish free apps.
That's just false, every developer has to pay 99 USD per year to be able to publish apps. Even if you only publish free apps.
The EU generally prefers to use regulation to artificially create markets though.
Maybe they jumped the gun a little bit and will announce it on Monday at WWDC?
At least the $99 fee keeps hordes of amateurs from uploading their 'hello world' app and clogging up the review process even more.
But yes I see your point about overloading the review process.
Developers aren't "paying nothing" to develop on IOS. Apple has factored in that the average free app costs them $99 per year in hosting costs.
I am certain 98% of that $99 goes to compensate for the top 10 free paid app's costs to Apple.
Related: Quite some time ago [Edit: OMG it was 10 years ago!] I had a game on the App Store that I stopped updating and pulled because the $99 fee wasn't covered by the low number of downloads. Many people were still playing the game at the time, but I just couldn't justify the cost.
And WHY should Apple even review and approve apps that run on hardware YOU own!! When you buy a fridge, does the manufacturer review and approve your groceries?
No, the FDA does that. Apple needs to approve apps because there is no FDA equivalent for apps.
Apple is a self-serving private company, not beholden to user's interests (but shareholders), with an extremely fluid, arbitrary set of "laws" (if you can even call them that).
I'd love to get into iOS again, but I have no interest in owning an Apple computer right now. Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, Eclipse, and countless other IDE's run just fine on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
And we know damn well Apple could produce a version of XCode (or a derivative) that could run cross platform. They choose not to, so devs are forced to buy Macs.
Apple prices out the lower class and third world countries from developing. They are actively contributing to income disparity.
Edit, anyone want to argue the opposite? The upfront cost to develop for Apple is terrible for the lowest income developers.
EDIT: further, porting Xcode to another platform would be non-trivial. With the addition of Marzipan, you can forget about Xcode being on any third-party platform.
A better analogy is developing Apple Apps is like trying to farm where BigCo forces you to buy their expensive tractors with no option to use anything else.
Or to use your mechanic example, imagine BMWs can only be worked if you use their proprietary tools that nobody can make.
No one is forcing developers to make apps for Apple. There are plenty of other platforms anyone can develop for without paying a fee or buying a Mac. Developing for Apple products is a business decision, just like choosing to work on import cars vs domestic cars. Plenty of repair shops only work on domestic cars because they're easier to repair and cost less. That's a business decision. Are you losing out on a particular market? Sure. But that's a business decision. If developing for iPhone will get you more than $XXX, then it's worth it to buy a cheap Mac and pay the developer fee because it will increase your profits more than you will spend. If that's not the case, then just develop for Android which only costs $25.
I don't like paying the $99 fee or having to develop on a Mac just to make iPhone apps, but if it bothered me that much I would just stop making iPhone apps. Tim Cook did not come to my house and force me to make an app for him, I made the decision by myself knowing that the platform had restrictions and everyone on the platform had to abide by them.
As long as everyone is subject to the same rules, everyone has the same decision to make. No one is forcing anyone to make that decision.
Microsoft wasnt forcing anyone to buy PCs. It is for people who choose to do that ("the market") that the company is unfairly wielding the power.
Microsoft forced Windows into being basically the only OS on the market in the 90s, and dropped their prices to 'free' in order to destroy competition. They didn't force you to buy a PC, but if you wanted a computer, because of Microsoft's practices, Windows was basically your only option. Conversely, if you don't like Apple products, you're in luck because smartphones are an incredibly competitive market and Apple only reaches the very highest end of that market.
In what way is Apple pushing the market into buying more iPhones and locking out Android from the market? It doesn't matter how monopoly rules work unless the company actually has a monopoly.
Apple prevents everyone from using a competing app store. No, the Play Store does not compete with Apple's store. You cannot substitute either for the other so they're in different markets.
Walmart prevents everyone from buying products from competing stores. No, Target does not compete with Walmart, you can't buy Great Value products at Target so they're in different markets.
Hacker News prevents everyone from using a competing site. No, reddit does not compete with Hacker News. If I click the "reply" button it only posts to Hacker News and not reddit so they're in different markets.
I guess by that definition everything is a monopoly. I'm going to sue to get my Coca Cola bottles filled with Pepsi under federal anti-trust laws.
Indeed. You cannot substitute an Xbox game for a Playstation game or vice versa. Xbox games and Playstation games are different markets.
> I'm going to sue to get my Coca Cola bottles filled with Pepsi under federal anti-trust laws.
Having a trademark technically constitutes a monopoly. But there are good reasons to have trademark law anyway.
> Walmart prevents everyone from buying products from competing stores. No, Target does not compete with Walmart, you can't buy Great Value products at Target so they're in different markets.
> Hacker News prevents everyone from using a competing site. No, reddit does not compete with Hacker News. If I click the "reply" button it only posts to Hacker News and not reddit so they're in different markets.
I'll pretend you kept these ridiculous strawmen to yourself. If you have any actual arguments, I'd love to read them.
Literally 100% of the other languages I've used did not have a yearly fee to use.
I know plenty of coders that are professionals that don't program for Apple.
This is an Apple specific problem.
Or buy a Linux computer to use Linux dev tools.
Fact is you need a computer to write apps.
Apple chains their OS to their computers. There's no reason MacOS can't run on regular PC hardware, aside from the fact they don't want you to. The cheapest, i3 based (which is shit, obviously), 128GB hard drive Mac computer is $799.
Finally, to compare apples to apples: Android Studio runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. XCode could do the same. Even if it was for iOS only. Which, most people would be targeting anyways.
Lowest-income developers might also rely on school computers, or library computers, or Apple store computers, or shared computers, or...
The $99 barrier is real, and currently cannot be escaped. This "barrier" is largely imaginary.
“84% of apps are free, and developers pay nothing to Apple.
Like any fair marketplace, developers decide what they want to charge from a set of price tiers. We only collect a commission from developers when a digital good or service is delivered through an app. Here are some of the ways developers commonly make money on the App Store.”
They’re talking about apps, and the second part of that header is referring the subject of that which is apps. They pay nothing because it’s a free app which generates no revenue to Apple (commission-wise).
In that case, they shouldn't have used that (easily disproven) claim as a standalone headline.
I seriously hope they have something to show for in the coming WWDC.
So $99 pales in comparison to the cost of both.