We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems | Hacker News Reader

We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

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641 pointsbangonkeyboard430 comments

Actually; now that I think about it, from a user perspective I also really dislike the App Store.

I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things, maybe there was some new shiny (often beautiful) program to do something really well. The experience was on the 'better than passable' side, nobodies favourite interface maybe, but certainly not terrible.

But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacOS and my iPhone. I never really noticed but I just slowly stopped installing new applications from there (unless sent there by a company website in the case of iOS); this was around the time that Apple Music was being foisted down my throat. I'm not sure if there's a correlation there.

I always suspected there were dark patterns at play in the App Store though. Although every program is reviewed, probably only 2% or less of them become popular, and if you are popular, boy, are you popular. the design paradigm is self-fulfilling. ("most popular"/"highest grossing").

Nature has dark patterns if 2% chance of popularity is the threshold to qualify. Many other markets I see converge on a few huge players too, retail, food, hotels, software, banks, etc.

Instead of getting hung up on the exact percentage; perhaps I meant more like 0.000002%?

MacOS/iOS application stores are likely in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of applications, however I see the same 20 when I browse without using the search field.

The difference is the Apple app store is not nature. They make a point of curating the app store. When the results are bad and getting worse there is only one player to blame.

I’ve also stopped “check[ing] weekly for new things”, but that’s because I don’t need any new things! Do you?

I don’t have Instagram but I imagine it’s a bit like the App Store. I’m waiting somewhere. I’m bored. I know, I’ll check for a shiny thing. Oh, no shiny thing. That was disappointing.

To compare, do you go to the internet regularly and check for new things? I don’t think this is the App Store’s fault. It’s not on Apple to constantly put new shiny useful software in the App Store — it’s on developers. And I’m not blaming developers. Making new shiny software is hard. There’s already a whole bunch of software. If you have a problem, chances are it’s already been addressed.

Constantly shiny + new ~== a good App Store.

(~== Not necessarily equal to. Did I just invent that?)

I mean "need" is subjective, I was trying to insinuate that I didn't know I 'needed' what was on offer until it was displayed in front of me.

For (a good) instance of what I mean was Airmail. Standard mail on OSX was "good enough" but Airmail was just all around better (from a UX perspective) and the popularity of it made Apple turn their head.

Another was 1password; before 1password I was using the macOS keychain, but 1password is/was all around better.

Funnily enough, I started using Airmail a few months ago, and just today I've started moving back to Mail.app which is, indeed, good enough. In the end I found Airmail a little heavy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

~ means "approximately".

~= means not equal in MATLAB. Also it often means one's complement (C and others). Hence the gp used it to mean NOT.

Lua as well (uses ~= instead of !=).

> To compare, do you go to the internet regularly and check for new things?

Isn't that what this site is?

But this is shiny new knowledge. God help us if that ever dries up.

> (~== Not necessarily equal to. Did I just invent that?)

Instead of inventing new operators in your sentences, you can also just stick with plain English

On HN I occasionally see programming conventions used in otherwise normal writing. E.g. "at $big_corp we like to use $process".

I can't stand it. It's the linguistic equivalent to wearing a bowtie and pocket protector.

Almost as bad as people on HN who start each comment with "I mean" or end each question with "no?"

Hey man. Bow ties are cool.

> (~== Not necessarily equal to. Did I just invent that?)

Yeah... in most programming languages it would be

shiny + new <> a good App Store

shiny + new != a good App Store

The ~= (single equals) is used to for equal to with a regular expression on right side

Modal logic captures the concepts of "necessity" and "possibility" nicely[1].

You could express it as "~□(shiny + new -> good app store)" which translates into "it is not necessary that shiny and new implies a good app store".

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_logic

I have about 500 apps on my various iDevices. I stopped buying apps years ago - when Apple removed the ability to do so on MacOS.

Its just so cumbersome to manage apps on the iDevices themselves .. so I just stopped. I've got enough apps for everything I need (music-making, mostly). Sure, if someone recommends something amazing, I'll check it out - but for the most part I have reached the saturation point, and I really abhor going to the App Store, for any reason whatsoever.

I still have a much, much better user experience on my Ubuntu workstation, and now even on Windows with chocolatey. It feels so backwards and quaint to have to rely on Apple to review an app - much better to just have an open public repo and let the community deal with quality review. I'm yet to be bitten by a repo - I can't count the number of times I've had my life quality reduced to smithereens because I've had to pass multiple App Store reviews to get my apps out there, or found that an App I needed in order to do my work was no longer available because Apple changed something and broke it.

Repositories are simply a far superior technology.

In the past when I looked for a new app I went to the app store. But now since I'm on an older version of MacOS and very few app store apps run on any but the latest release of MacOS, I don't bother. I find the apps I need by googling.

Edit: This implies there are a lot of great apps that don't get my money because they only sell on the app store. Looking at you Pixelmator.

This is very hard. Supporting API + UI changes is not easy. Microsoft is not doing it (Skype etc) so why should small teams do it. We don't just program we run BUSINESS.

Can you explain the Microsoft bit? There's an ocean of difference between Microsoft and Apple. You can pretty much pick any MS API from the past 20 years and it'll still work on Windows 10.

Office 2019 for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.12 Sierra or later. Maybe it's a business reason but at the same time their skype requires 10.10. Update Skype for web 10.12 [0] https://blogs.skype.com/news/2019/03/07/the-new-skype-for-we...

Microsoft is moving away from that model. The cost of rapid release cycles for Windows is dropping the testing and compatibility work that was done in the past.

You see the impact on a few things like Office and SCCM today. As the legacy windows platforms fade, it will become a thing in other areas. My guess is you’ll see more “fixed in Azure only” scenarios to drive demand for those products, and act as a sales funnel for complementary services.

Sounds like a perfect place for Linux to jump in. I mean if you're looking for stability, there's always stability in the Linux space.

Microsoft uses (and since 7 has used) automated compatibility testing.

It takes less time to test compatibility than it does to compile.

I’ve only ever opened the App Store when there’s one particular tool I need to use. I’ve tried casually browsing maybe 3 times in 10 years (because it seems most people do this often) and it just seemed like endless fluff and garbage. I’ve never downloaded anything that I didn’t go in thinking “I need this.”

I never regularly looked in the app/play store for new apps, only used the search function to find what I need. However, since installing f-droid, I notice that I scroll through their new section every now and then to keep up with what people are doing and I like it and discover useful apps.

I'm not too familiar with the App Store, but a big issue with all of these stores is that they have limited screen estate for promoting apps from their catalog. So you get a ridiculously tiny subset of apps that is featured on the storefront itself and thus gets the attention and sales.

If you have a product for sale through such a store front, the best way is to not play the game of getting to the front pages or at least to not rely on it. Instead, you get attempts to drive sales through product web pages that link to the stores.

I don't think screen space is the problem because a store can easily randomize the offerings, so each visitor sees different apps.

Even so I think the real estate could be used much more effectively. The focus on app icons really annoys me because many app icons tell me almost nothing; a single screen shot visible by default in summary views would go a long way. They also have a lot of lists that are almost guaranteed to change rarely, like “top grossing”, which just means every time you come back you see a bunch of stuff you already know about.

> But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacOS and my iPhone. I never really noticed but I just slowly stopped installing new applications from there

That sounds less like avoiding and more like not using. I think this is natural. When the App Store first came out, apple planted the idea in our head that we needed new ways to use our machines. But unless you are a new user, it’s likely you’ve hit an equilibrium where you know how you want to use the device.

I’ve noticed something different. The apps on the app store used to be good. I’m not sure how or why but the apps on the iOS app store are _terrible_. For any given function, there appears to be no good option on the app store compared to, say, iOS app store 4 years ago (or android around the same time, the last time I used it). This is entirely on apple and not the developers, as Apple are the curators and the developers have already demonstrated they can make good apps.

Not to mention Apple's habit of taking good apps and then building them into iOS to cannibalize their own developers. I don't get why anyone would want to build smartphone apps for any platform these days. Between Google and Apple it's entirely a garbage ecosystem for devs.

APIs are locked down to the point that only Apple can add useful functionality, which is by design.

I always thought of the App store as a lottery. Better to make a few millionaires than to make everyone happy. The point is that this pattern plays out well for Apple because it shapes the image that you can become a millionaire too by developing for the App store.

> I also really dislike the App Store. [...] I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things

I used to do this too, and like you, I've now grown to really dislike it. My reason is different, though: the App Store app has _plummeted_ in quality. It's now so hard to use, I don't bother using it.

1. The UI is all over the place. Some UI controls cause pages to swipe up from the bottom. Some cause pages to swipe in from the right. Some cause modals. Whenever I click something, I have no idea what it's going to do. Here are some examples: https://grumpy.website/post/0RsaxCu3P

2. It's full of bugs. I have witnessed the App Store lose track of whether an app is bought or not, downloaded or not, or installing or not. Another example: https://grumpy.website/post/0SU9WNFXB

3. It makes the rest of my system worse. Every week or so, I get a message like "Fantastical cannot be updated because it is open". I didn't set it to update. I had no idea it was even updating. I just get an obnoxious dialog interrupting my work.

The App Store used to be like a shopping mall — I'd browse the shelves, see what was new, and maybe buy a small app I liked the look of once in a while. But now it's become so hard to browse, I don't bother paying. Everyone loses out.

I used the OSX App Store for the first time in years a few days ago. For the life of me I could not figure out how to download a simple free app. I had to ask my SO, who usually comes to me for tech questions, how to use it. Keep in mind I've been using computers for decades and have an above average understanding of UI design.

1. Upon clicking the App Store icon and entering my apple ID and password I get a 500 error. No amount of restarting can fix it. After a quick search, one of the top 5 search results led to a cryptic command I had to enter at the Terminal to fix it. This actually happened with a previous MBP and I just never used the app store (pretty much a factory install of OSX on both machines).

2. Clicking the icon to download the app ("GET" I believe) started a loading spinner with no progress indicator. Given it was only a 38MB app, I waited around for a while. Then I took a shower and came back. Still the same loading spinner. Decided to reboot the machine and try again.

3. I searched for the same application clicked GET again and then it turned into a cloud icon. Clicking the cloud icon seemed to do absolutely nothing. At this point I asked my wife who told me I had already downloaded the app to my account and now I need to download it to my machine. EDIT: I just remembered I was seriously confused at this point. I clicked the cloud icon several times and given there was zero feedback I opened both Launchpad and the Applications directory in case it magically already installed.

4. The above explanation made no sense to me. I'm familiar with the concept given I've used every version of Android and I understand I can download previously downloaded things from my account (that I installed on old devices). But that's not how the series of events unfolded. Anyway, I clicked the cloud icon a second (or third?) time and it turned into an install icon and all was good.

How it should work is that you search for an app, press GET, and it appears on your machine. I’m not sure what issue #1 and #2 are caused by (they’re certainly not common on a factory install with a normal iCloud account). I’m also not sure why the cloud icon appeared instead of downloading it straight to your machine. That’s also definitely a bug.

For #3, here’s how I’d explain it to someone who hasn’t used it before (you may know this already): your Apple ID is tied to the “purchases” you make across the App Store, iTunes Store, Books, etc., so that you can access what you’ve bought on a different machine. If you buy a paid app, it gets added to your Purchases list so that you can download it on another Mac without buying it again. This ties into Family Sharing so that up to five other people living in your household can use it too. Free apps also get added to the purchases for syncing purposes across all your devices. The cloud icon indicates that you’ve purchased an app and are eligible to download it for free.

TL;DR: you got a strange series of bugs that probably haven’t been seen by anyone else all together

I believe the cloud icon indicates something that is owned on your account but not downloaded.

At least on iOS the symbol is a cloud with an arrow pointing downward. Not on a Mac to check if the symbol is the same there.

Yes, that’s what it’s supposed to mean on both platforms. It does sometimes show up when you had already downloaded something and then flash the OPEN button.

I dunno. The App store for me on my iPhone regularly behaves like this. I sometimes see the cloud icon, sometimes not, sometimes it refuses to download, sometimes I tap the icon and it does nothing, sometimes it starts downloading, then every time the phone goes to sleep, it stops downloading... I guess I'm supposed to sit there and tap the screen to keep it from sleeping while it downloads. I dunno, haven't bought a new app for my phone in a couple of years now.

I've seen the exact behavior parent described many times. I doubt we're the only two.

> 3. I searched for the same application clicked GET again and then it turned into a cloud icon. Clicking the cloud icon seemed to do absolutely nothing. At this point I asked my wife who told me I had already downloaded the app to my account and now I need to download it to my machine. EDIT: I just remembered I was seriously confused at this point. I clicked the cloud icon several times and given there was zero feedback I opened both Launchpad and the Applications directory in case it magically already installed.

I did this exact same thing last week after upgrading to Catalina and getting the 1-2 app store apps I needed. I kept getting the cloud, I have no idea what the cloud means but it wasn't the down facing arrow I usually saw. So I kept clicking it. Turns out it HAD installed the app but never gave me an Open button. I stay far away from the app store if I can.

> 1. Upon clicking the App Store icon and entering my apple ID and password I get a 500 error. No amount of restarting can fix it. After a quick search, one of the top 5 search results led to a cryptic command I had to enter at the Terminal to fix it. This actually happened with a previous MBP and I just never used the app store (pretty much a factory install of OSX on both machines).

Further evidence of the theory that Mac usability in 2019 is approaching where Linux was in 2000.

The new Mac App Store’s design process is a complete mystery to me: it seems really weird how Apple managed to take a web view-based app, convert it into Cocoa, and somehow make it significantly worse at fitting into the platform.

From a user's perspective I feel sorry for all the people who bought, full price, App Store versions of games like Civilization VI which are not compatible with PC, and Steam versions.

The App Store used to have a Free App of the Day (or was it of the week?) that got me to go and check it out. I've often look around at other apps at the same time. Ever since they dropped that and revamped the store I only visit on the very rare occasions when I read about a particular app somewhere else and go search for it. I'd guess I visit the app store maybe twice a year now.

"dark patterns" alright...

BTW, all developers still have to submit their apps to Apple for "notarization" in Catalina, even if they don't distribute through macOS AppStore --it is partially enforced now and will be fully enforced in the next few weeks.

You just described why Apple has dragged their feet as slowly as possible developing Safari. "Add to Home Screen" is now completely hidden away and unlike on Android, progressive web app functionality is delayed as long as they possibly can.

I imagine there would be so much innovation and interesting content if these companies didn't have such a tight grip on their walled gardens. Politically sensitive, erotic content or just innovative apps that operate outside of the Apple curators is just never going to be available for users of this expensive hardware. I believe it should at the very least be optional like sideloading is on Android.

> I always suspected there were dark patterns at play in the App Store though.

Here's one I found: you can't install a lot of applications unless you're on the latest-and-greatest OS version. This punishes people who are more conservative with upgrades, and don't want to jump to an OS before it's fully cooked. You'd think they could just offer to let you install the latest compatible version.

I can't install XCode from the App Store because I'm stuck on High Sierra, because my Macbook as a highly disruptive freeze-on-wake bug that manifests on every version of Mojave I've tried. I've never been able to figure it out, and Apple apparently only supports its laptops if they have no software installed on them.

What I found crazy, was Xcode disappears from the App Store altogether when searching from High Sierra. It took me several searches to realize that they hid it.

I completely stopped installing apps when I realized how screwed up the whole app market is.

Nice apps I liked were bought and monetized in EXTREMELY UNETHICAL ways.

For one example, I had an app called gas cubby, which let me locally - on the phone - keep track of all my vehicles. I could enter detailed information about each car such as year, make, model, vin, insurance policy, gas purchases, oil changes and the like. It would tell you gas mileage and remind you of upcoming maintenance.

One day, the app was updated and all my local data was uploaded to the cloud.

Another app, camscanner plus purchased by tencent basically did the same thing.

Apple gives you no control over what the apps do. You can argue the finer points, but:

- you cannot determine what apps are doing. are they intercepting URLs browsed in safari, mail or imessage? (deep linking)

- you cannot determine when they are active. are they waking up using some "backdoor" method such as notifications

- you can not prevent them from accessing the network. this is the big one. You can't find out who they are talking to or prevent it.

Really it's a shame because one rule of economics is: with trust trade becomes unrestricted.

They kind of bury the lead here. They can't have their app on the appstore because:

" While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file. Now this may not sound like much, this is a serious issue for a document scan application which easily generates hundreds of files in an hour, and thousands of files a day, with file names automatically generated, either thru counters, or advanced auto-id features, such as barcodes."

Even if Apple later took back the rejection I bet this was the last straw.

I also have my own experience with rejection: You used/included word Contacts in name of the app; this is a trademark of Apple. My app used word Contacts before apple renamed their AddressBook to Contacts.app on macOS. I used appeal with link to their list of trademarks. I am pointing out that humans do many errors and sometimes your app is in review for 2 weeks (2019) for no reason (minor update). Happened to me and the Yoink.app owner as well

Not trying to blame you at all for what happened, but for my benefit as a developer and for anyone else reading, did you ever apply for a trademark or consider it? I'd love to know the details of how that worked out if you did.

Maybe they thought common sense applies and "Contacts" is not a trademarkable word.

FYI: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lede

FYI: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-...

I'll keep using the actual word , thank you.

If you insist on using journalism jargon, why not use it in its intended, original form? I for one am not a language purist, you can change expressions any way you see fit but... I mean... The expression is still bury the lede.

The article they posted says that "lead" was the original form, and "lede" was introduced in 2008.

As a standalone word, yes. The expression is, nevertheless, "bury the lede", and always* has been.

* since the 1970s when it first surfaced.

Do you have a reference for this? The linked article seems pretty clear that it is used both ways and "lead" is the original

"Lead" is correct, and "lede" is journalism jargon.

It was adopted in broadcasting circles to keep news readers from saying "lead" (as in the element) instead of "lead" (as in to follow).

Source: Journalism degree, communications degree, 20 years in broadcast news.

Both are considered correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paragraph#Spelling

In fact your own link indicates that too.

Not everyone on the internet is American. "Lead" is perfectly decent British English for the beginning of an article and always has been. (Source: I'm a former UK magazine editor.)

> instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!)

As a user, I'm glad Apple did that.

As a developer, the one thing that I do dislike about Apple, is the dismal state of their documentation on how to actually take advantage of all their platforms' features. I have to begrudgingly admit that their nemesis Microsoft has always been way ahead in that department.

I think their point was that the crash was because of the fact that: 1. Catalina had a lot of breaking changes, bugs and crashes that caused the apps to crash - which required special attention just for Catalina 2. They were given only 4 days to fix the mess that Catalina resulted in.

At least in this case.

In context though it is still Apple's issue:

> After releasing the Catalina Golden Master build to developers on October the 3rd, we immediately finished fixing any new crash and issue we could find over the weekend. In our opinion, leaving developer just four (4!) days over a weekend with a public release on October the 7th is not very professional. While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), [...]

Catalina had been available to the public for testing since like WWDC; unless these were late breaks only found in GM, it's a tough pill to swallow that these urgent bugs couldn't have been addressed before GM shipped.

Maybe, but prior to the "Golden Master" release are you really testing your stuff, or Apple's?

Leaving such a small window between Apple getting its act together with the GM, and a hard deadline for third parties to get their act together, is rough.

Yes it would be the responsible thing to do as a developer to test your stuff on the OS before it comes out.

I'm not with theis company - my company also had major issues with Catalina. There were major bugs released in each beta. Several were fixed without any release notes mentioning so. We wasted several days of an engineers time tracking down an issue that was fixed in a new beta with no mention. Incredibly frustrating.

> unless these were late breaks only found in GM

That's exactly what the article and the quote above says there was:

> we immediately finished fixing any new crash or issue we could find over the weekend

NEW crashes or issues. In the GM. In four days.

Okay, but you left out the rest of that sentence.

> and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file.

So, Apple found a crash, and instead of completing the review (this assumes they could have, and benefit of the doubt here, they could have), they didn't. They found and issue, flagged it, and sent it back. This means the developer had to do work, resubmit, and then have another issue found. Rather than work through everything, the reviewer found one thing, dinged the app, and moved on.

As a user, that means Apple is delaying apps longer than need be. Sure, fixing the crash is good, but I can't imagine they couldn't have reviewed the other parts of the app and said, "Fix the crash and this other two areas and you are good to go." That would mean a shorter turn around time, and as a user, I get a better product sooner.

> So, Apple found a crash, and instead of completing the review (this assumes they could have, and benefit of the doubt here, they could have), they didn't.

Yeah, the crash could have prevented them from completing the review.

> As a user, that means Apple is delaying apps longer than need be.

Meanwhile, according to another outrage, Apple is •not delaying releases enough* and rushing out buggy apps and operating systems.

Apple is delaying other people's apps and rushing out their own. Either way it saves them work.

Apple's documentation is some of the worst most incomplete garbage I've ever had the displeasure of trying to read. When you literally need to go to third party people who just figured it out through sheer luck because features are fully undocumented and don't give tool tips, you've broken the user experience.

The last straw for me was that they rejected a minor app update because they claimed my app crashed on a not-yet-released OS update. I literally could not install the OS that had the issue, they would provide me with zero additional information (not even a log), and they would not allow my minor update to get into the store. I deleted it from the store that same afternoon.

Asking for the "Save As" panel just shows how amateurish the reviewers are. It sounds like the app already worked like that before: batch generation of files through scanning, but now maybe the assigned reviewer noticed this requirement in the guideline (or it's a new guideline) and thought "Oh no, one item missed, and since I'm a simple automaton I'll have to reject this app!'.

> They kind of bury the lead here.

Not calling you out or trying to be rude but it's:

"bury the lede"

I always thought it was "lead" too until someone corrected me a decade or so ago...

As a user, I am pretty happy about most of the negative points listed in this article. Yes, manual reviews are my firewall against too much scamming. I dont want app providers to notify me about their upcoming company party. It is already fishy enough that some app providers use their own notification system to push ads. And dont get me started on paying for updates! What comes next, paying for firmware updates for devices I already own? I think the guys behind this article really have to rethink their attitude.

> And dont get me started on paying for updates!

I think this really depends on implementation. Paying for bugfixes? No, thanks. Paying for a major version bump like new ms office where you don't really need to upgrade and will be supported anyway? Sure.

What about paying for compatibility with the latest macOS? Of course, no user would like to pay for that, but the reality of Apple universe is that developers have to spend a lot of time fixing compatibility issues caused by Apple.

What example do you have in mind? Compatibility updates ought to be free point releases.

Apple constantly deprecates and removes APIs and features. Some significant examples that require rewriting and retesting a lot of code: Objective-C garbage collection, QTKit, WebView.

Dealing with all that in many cases takes more resources than introducing new features, but, just like you, people expect free compatibility updates.

No, the churn rate is super-low. GC was introduced ten years ago and finally killed this year. QTKit was introduced sixteen years ago and also killed this year. WebView I believe still works!

The deprecation cycle is a decade or more, and in every case there's a paved migration path (GC->ARC, QTKit->AV Foundation, WebView is trickier but for good technical reasons). This strategy and timeframe seems eminently responsible.

WebView → WKWebView?

Forever?

For as long as the product is actively maintained. It's reasonable to have a free 2.x.1 release for (say) Catalina compatibility, offered simultaneously with a 3.0 release that includes new features.

1Password 6. After an upgrade of Safari the browser plugin was no longer compatible. Users had to upgrade to 1Password 7 for a single payment of €55 or a monthly subscription of €3,99 per month.

Honestly... I don't mind new versions to cost extra for compatibility with new MacOS. It's a stupid environment. If you choose it, you've got money to spend on app refresh every other year. You can always stay on previous major version of the OS for a long time as well.

Windows 10 will likely support your apps for at least a decade. There's choice.

(I'm using Mac for work. I'm likely migrating to another system instead of Catalina)

However, that developer investment is required if they plan to keep selling their application - hardly anyone will buy an app outright without modern platform support.

If you are growing your market, you can make your app a flat charge. If you are maintaining and and expanding an app for an existing user base, subscription is a better way to go (and something Apple does support well).

What about upgrades due to the environment and not the app. Like OS changes etc. That’s not bug fixes but those are very real issues with very costs.

I'd argue that bugfixes belong to feature updates hand in hand, and should be accounted for in the pricing

Paying for updates has been the standard software model for ages, and with good reason. It still takes money to update and add new features. It still takes time. To some extent new users can pay for this, but then developers have to severely limit the time spent on updates in order to nod spend too much, or they risk not even making a profit on the first version.

That is why most "big" software packages these days are either subscription based, or pay-per-update. We've all come to expect apps to get free updates, but it's not a sustainable business model.

And Apple taking 30% of that... for what? Payment processing is a 4% thing. It’s in the app developers interest to make it not have errors. It’s just for access to the market. That is the only value Apple truly brings, outside of the brand and a privacy commitment

Considering no one else seems to be able to sell access to a similar market, it seems to be a valuable thing to sell.

How would you sell access to the iOS market? If you're just saying 'they have full control so they can set the price', well yeah, but that doesn't automatically make it reasonable to give up most of your control and hand out 30% of your revenue in order to pick up additional customers. It seems like today in 2019 more people are deciding the customers aren't as profitable as they look.

I’m saying they have full control of something buyers want, so they can charge 30%. If their revenue starts going down due to their customers deciding 30% isn’t worth it, then the seller (Apple) will have to consider dropping their price if they want to continue selling.

People get hung up on apple having a 30% entrance fee, but that didn't come out of nowhere.

I work in the video games industry and access to steam or other first parties (Sony/Microsoft) is 30%, no negotiations.

You could argue that first parties such as sony/microsoft have subtle costs involved such as printing of disks, but that's paid for before market by the publisher.

The thing you pay for is: content distribution (in the case of digital downloads such as steam), 'signing' and access to market.

The amount of value steam provides on top of payment processing and distribution is immense. Valve basically single handedly created Linux gaming. Their client is so many years ahead of everything else with the forums, workshop, broadcast streaming, streaming to your tv, gamepad support and gamepad virtualisation as well as a mountain of developer side APIs for things like inviting friends to games.

Apples 30% would seem a lot more fair if it was possible to side load and install alternative app stores

In comparison apples offering is little more than "we have a huge captive audience on a proprietary system. Pay us or miss out on half of the market"

Linux gaming? Seriously?

Apple created THE smartphone. Every phone is an iPhone - Apple proved it and everyone else copied it. And Apple springboarded off their first-mover advantage into a platform that users really like, and keep coming back to.

Nah, maybe for US citzens.

We were already using Symbian, Psion and PocketPC based phones.

The first phone with hardware support for OpenGL ES was the Nokia N95 released in September 2006, one year before iPhone, with Asphalt as their show game.

Yeah, but those phones were not very good

From whose point of view?

I had an N70. It was slow, slow, slow. I had a 5800. It was as slow as the N70 and the resistive screen made me want to cry. I never had the original iPhone but I guess it wasn't as bad.

Other than it just lacked a couple of features every other phone had as standard feature by then.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphones-missing-features/

hardware from that era would be slow. If you used an iphone 3 right now it'll be slow guaranteed. Also the first iphones were shiny toys, underpowered and featureless compared to Nseries and Win mobile. If they were that good, Microsoft would have responded immediately.

That is not true at all. The iPhone had “amazing” features for the time- a real browser, visual voicemail, photo management, music integration, three way calling, contact integration. Almost all were incremental but really made the functions more useful.

And no apps apart from the built-ins. No copy and paste. Just like a feature phone. Apart from the browser and music courtesy ipod, other smart phones had the remaining features and far more robust. They may not have had fancy UI, but they were more powerful at the time.

Even the camera megapixel craze was being led by nokia. You're conflating the current dominance of the iphone for the past. At the time, the best thing about it was the finger only touch screen operation. To the best of my memory, others still needed to fall back to a stylus. Finger usage was a whackamole operation with Nseries and blackerry I used then

The first iPhone lacked many features, but it was the best phone at the time for usability. It had massive hype in the press that was probably overblown. But its features were head and shoulders above others at the time.

The simple act of making a call was so much easier and efficient, even though it lacked cut and paste.

Comparing it to feature phones is really curious because they were completely different markets. I don’t think it’s very useful in describing the iPhone’s success to point out individuals features that were also available in various existing phones.

They were very slow. The important thing is they didn't feel sluggish, at all.

It took Android phones many many years to even approach feeling as responsive and smooth and indicative of whether input has actually registered as the original iPhone, just scrolling through stuff and navigating around the OS. Tech at the time didn't even try on that front.

Featureless yes, but it could do enough to almost right away replace my iPod, Palm, and Nokia. One device instead of three was just too good to pass up.

You couldn't make a call and browse the Internet at the same time on an iPhone.

You couldn't copy and paste text on an iPhone.

The camera was worse than any contemporary mid range camera phone.

I could make a phone call and browse the interest on my gen1 iPhone. I used ATT as my network. Verizon had the limitation you described, but not all carriers.

Copy and paste didn’t work, but it didn’t work on any phone at the time. A few attempted it (eg, win mobile, blackberry) but it really sucked.

The camera was quite good and the ability to finally save and share photos and video was revolutionary at the time. I always thought it was funny how much it sucked at the time to try to store and send photos from my BlackJack or Blackberry.

Multitasking was added iOS 4, the very first iPhone (Gen1) only supported up to "iPhone OS" 3; and even then, with limited functionality.

In fact, the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch (2nd Gen) did not support multi-tasking either, even with iOS4. Apple noted performance issues.

Yeah but phone calls and music always did work in the background.

Multitasking was in the OS, just not available to web sites and app developers.

Jail broken apps had multitasking like screen sharing, WiFi hot spotting and lots of other stuff.

It’s a big deal for an OS that doesn’t have multitasking vs doesn’t allow app developers to use.

Copy and paste on Android worked well before iOS, both in ability and timing. I remember being confused my wife couldn't copy and paste with her iPhone when I had a password manager. Copy and paste on iOS took way, way too long. It's interesting how you're claiming you were doing things that didn't exist for the device.

Have you used a Nokia N9 ? Way ahead of its time.

+ Linux on phone

+ True multi-tasking with live tiles.

+ Full web browser.

+ Turn by turn on device voice navigation. Cannot stress how significant this was.

+ uncluttered swipe gestures to control the apps/windows.

+ amazing build.

- non replaceable battery.

In 2011.

Sure, you could go back to 1996 and say the Nokia Communicator was the first smartphone.

I think what he meant by "Apple created THE smartphone" is that Apple created the first mass-market smartphone which was desired by regular consumers (rather than niche buyers).

So Europeans and Asians using Symbian, J2ME and Docomo handsets weren't regular consumers?

Why are you pretending you don’t understand what he’s trying to say. Those aren’t phones most people have heard of, and when they did exist, living without them was easy.

Because everyone outside US have heard of them.

US was the only market where Nokia had troubles selling their Symbian/J2ME phones for example.

Should I start digging market shares figures of feature phones before iPhone came to be?

> Because everyone outside US have heard of them.

They really haven't.

> Should I start digging market shares figures of feature phones before iPhone came to be?

At this juncture, yes.

By all means, is 64 million shippments in 2006, the year before iPhone came to the market enough?

https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/64-million-smart-phones-shi...

Incredible how iOS fanbase tries to rewrite history.

You're moving the goalposts massively. No one is claiming that the first gen iPhone outsold anything or anyone. More importantly, that data is for 2006, the N95, of which you claim everyone and their dog knew about, didn't become available until march 2007. Your claim that the N95 was massively popular is also wide of the mark. Nokia had around 30 SKU's available to buy at the time, with the N95 being one of the very top end devices. All your link shows is that Nokia had the lions share of revenue and market share. Well, yeah. No one with half a brain would argue that.

TL;DR: Look at how Nokia's revenue collaspsed post September 2007. Look at how Android and Nokia's decision to go all in on Windows Mobile accelerated it. Then tell me that the iOS fanbase is trying to rewrite history...

You are the one making those claims as otherwise it weakens the iOS über all assertion.

N95 was just one example of the millions of Symbian, J2ME and PocketPC/WindowsCE smartphones being shipped before iOS became reality.

Nokia's revenue only collapsed due to the way Elop drove the company to the ground as means to get the bonus on his contract. As the Finn press later discovered.

> You are the one making those claims as otherwise it weakens the iOS über all assertion.

Nonsense.

> N95 was just one example of the millions of Symbian, J2ME and PocketPC/WindowsCE smartphones being shipped before iOS became reality.

And none of them are around now. More to the point, all but a handful could be considered 'smart'. We could debate what smart is, but ultimately it's moot. Pre 2007, 'smart' devices were by and large business oriented, post September 2007, they started to become the norm; first with iOS, closely followed by Android. These facts are incontrovertible.

The point you are trying to make is utterly wrong. The original assertion was that Apple 'invented' the smartphone is equally wrong. However, Apple did play a significant role in defining what a smartphone is, Nokia and Symbian not so much. The proof? Where are they now?

> Nokia's revenue only collapsed due to the way Elop drove the company to the ground as means to get the bonus on his contract. As the Finn press later discovered.

Elop merely dealt the final blow. Nokia's sales declined post 2008 when they peaked with a global share of ~40%. Elop Joined late 2010...

Nokia is happily selling Android devices, after surviving Elop's management and guess how much market share Android has worldwide.

Apparently everyone on Europe was a business person when using Nokia and Sony phones, go figure.

Growing up everyone had a Nokia phone. The Nokia 6600 specifically (which had a multitasking, internet enabled OS with IMO the best J2ME implementation and also allowed you to install arbitrary native programs either from a PC or download them from the Internet) was a very popular device.

To anyone who used this phone, smartphones were already a thing long before iPhone was introduced. Of course iPhone changed things a lot, though IMO many were for the worse (for example i really liked using the tiny joystick on my 6600 for playing games).

All those things were cool about it, but those phones were going to remain business-y devices for a loooong time if someone hadn't come along and replaced resistive touch and add a decent UI.

When iPhone arrived in Europe it was disappointment for people who used smartphones. It had few things going for it (better web browser than default IE Mobile on PDAs, better screen than many), and long list of "works worse".

Starting with the basic things that everyone who invested in smartphones at the time wanted, i.e. email, going through hilariously high cost (the reason behind it known only to insiders - Apple was in full rent-seeking mode, and required a portion of your phone bill as payment for being able to use iPhone. Not joking, that's why there were special iPhone-only tarriffs), it lacked physical keyboard, copy&paste, and a bunch of other things. iPhone 2G was also slower at running iOS 1.0 "applications" than higher end Nokia symbian phones (that used the same webkit core in browser).

Symbian devices were well known, and were more commonly considered "smartphones", as "palmphones" generally only got interest from people who really needed the power (a bit of chicken&egg issue).

What is this weird narrative that pre-iPhone smartphones didn't exist in the US, and somehow only Europe and Asia had these "advanced" devices? We had smartphones too. All the negatives you mentioned (no physical keyboard, copy & paste, etc.) were brought up by lots of people when the iPhone was first released. Ultimately it didn't matter, and the iPhone was a breakout hit and every single smartphone on sale today is based on its core design.

Nokia and Sony failure to make an impact on US while the rest of the world was enjoying their Symbian and J2ME handsets.

Man, everybody had blackberrys in the US. It was a huge success. Apple took a risk decision of having a purely touch-based smartphone, and the bet paid awesomely. But by any other aspects, the blackberry was a more useful and powerful device for professionals than the IPhone.

> But by any other aspects, the blackberry was a more useful and powerful device for professionals than the IPhone.

The first iPhone, sure, no arguments there. The whole point of the iPhone was to make smartphones more useable for non-professionals.

"...hilariously high cost..."

In 2007, the Nokia N95 cost $795 while the iPhone cost $600.

Sauce: https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/practical-gadgetry/two-wee...

That's the one time cost for purchase outside of contract... For N95. Not for iPhone, at least not for normal people.

The reality in 2008 is that Apple forbid selling iPhone without contract, with contract requiring special extra Apple tax (we already had "unlimited data" for years by then). So you were paying whatever the telco asked you for the phone, then paid extra to Apple as long as you used the "iPhone tariff" (and you couldn't get it otherwise other than ebay).

Since at least in Poland majority bought the phone as part of the contract, the prices were wildly different. I can't find N95, but business oriented E51 cost me under $70. Without significant impact on monthly fees on the contract. And without paying Apple tax on my phone bill.

BTW, regarding visual voicemail... Little known thing about iOS 1-2 is that the network stack was broken and it wasn't capable of redirecting to voicemail like every other phone. Required special buggy software to get any voicemail for people running iPhones, and at least at Era GSM (present day T-Mobile Poland) it took 3 months from providing iPhone on sales and any voicemail working?

The cost of a phone bundled with a contract bears no relation to the real-world cost. Depending on your monthly payment and length of contract, you could pay $100 or $500 for the same phone.

In some markets, iPhones were bundled with a contract because networks had bidding wars for exclusivity.

From the PoV of someone buying a phone, in that specific time and location, cost of phone without contract was rarely ever known. And the iPhone wasn't sold outside of network with attached plan anyway.

From the PoV of someone working at the network and having the luck to talk with some pretty high up there people... the exclusivity was only for order in which networks got the phone. As in, present-day T-Mobile Poland made a bid to be the first network to have it - but it didn't have any kind of long exclusivity and was soon followed by Orange and Plus (the other two "main" networks). All networks had special iPhone "plans" and the phone wasn't available outside of them, and the only technical difference was that said plans ultimately got the very buggy Visual Voicemail server attached and probably triggered workarounds for call handling bugs.

The Apple tax on the phone bill itself, and making it unavailable outside of contract, were all on Apple. (I think for some time using one outside of approved contract even required jailbreaking, but I can't be sure).

Docomo phones were(are?) a Japan-only irrelevance.

Granted - Symbian was a thing back then, but can you buy a Symbian phone today? Consumers voted with their money, and they wanted iPhones, not Nokias.

Fast forward to 2019, Nokia is nothing more than a trademark - making generic Android phones on one hand, and cashing in on nostalgia with their feature phones on the other hand.

That doesn't change the fact that Apple did NOT create the smartphone.

But they wrote "Apple created THE smartphone.", not "Apple CREATED the smartphone." To me those mean entirely different things.

A better marketed PDA with phone capabilities?

I didn't say they created the smartphone.

They created THE smartphone - the definitive item.

You mean the were more successful marketing a PDA with phone capabilities? I guess they got something out of Newton.

Yes.

Apple successfully marketed a product which was tested by Nokia engineers and deemed to be inferior.

What part of 'consumers voted with their money' don't you understand?

The N95 sold more units than the original iPhone.

And the iPhone is still around, whereas Symbian isn't.

Possibly proving that iOS (and the hardware it runs on) was what consumers wanted in the mid-2000's and onward?

Had Elop not destroyed Symbian business, history would have taken a different path, nothing to do with iOS.

https://insights.dice.com/2013/09/25/a-timely-revision-of-el...

Symbian with Qt was already on the right path to win the hearts of many developers.

Symbian was in trouble in 2008 - two years before Elop became CEO of Nokia. It wasn't user-friendly. Ditto for Blackberry.

iOS and Android wiped the floor with Symbian and BB in terms of ease-of-use.

"..the inscrutable difficulty of navigating menus on Nokia's Symbian phones": https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/10/how-apples-iphone...

This is an infuriating topic to read about because everybody seems to be varying levels of uninformed.

I worked at Nokia's R&D facility in Ruoholahti briefly in 2011, so I got inducted into the inner sanctum of history regarding the phones.

Symbian was designed for very anemic hardware, there were very tight constraints it's a marvel that the thing ran on what it did. The iPhones first CPU was at least an order of magnitude (and then double it again) more powerful than what Symbian was designed on.

the iPhone, famously did not meet any of the internal tests at Nokia, no drop test, battery life tests nor usability tests for blind people passed at all.

Basically from all avenues it looked dead on arrival.

However, it was obviously _not_ dead on arrival, and so Nokia started looking at things from a "UX first" perspective, the engineering culture was still around though, so, not a major "product" team or graphics design team to be found on the floors of the R&D facility.

But they started this effort _after_ the iPhone had launched, and these projects take a long time.

That's what Maemo was. And it was later merged with Intels efforts and named MeeGo. And everyone who used that system seemed to really enjoy it.

It was, indeed, killed in its crib by Elop. Although to be truly fair, the iPhone and Android were very incumbent at that point.

Symbian was considered obsolete or deprecated internally, not for lack of very intelligent design, but because people seemed to care for things other than that Nokia had believed people cared for.

"the iPhone, famously did not meet any of the internal tests at Nokia..."

So, Nokia saw it as an inferior product?

Perhaps this is a problem in engineer-led companies - thinking that the phone with the most megapixels in its camera, or most wifi bands is the best?

Technical brilliance counts for nothing if consumers don't want the product. See also Windows Phone, Betamax, etc

Yeah, I had Nokia N9. Best phone I ever used. Only wish it had a replaceable battery. Elop killed it before it arrived by announcing the move to windows. That was one of the key event for Nokia in particular and the smartphone industry in general.

Imagine if Nokia had continued investing in a linux phone, android wouldn't be what it is today.

So if Android would take over in 20 years, that would mean Google created the smartphone? No.

Yes, the iPhone is the better smartphone than Symbian-based phones. But it wasn't the first, despite the market share today.

In which cave you were living before the iphone launch that you never heard about the blackberry?

Apple meanwhile created the entire OS and all of the developer APIs that your apps rely on, including things like Metal that games rely on. And Apple gives this all away for free.

That should be included in device cost. It is unacceptable that they prevent users who paid for the device from installing programs outside of apples walled garden

Console developers would like to have a word with you.

If we find Apple extracting rent from apps unacceptable, we look no further than a mirror for the cause. We the public don’t want to pay full freight for hardware.

Microsoft used to boast that they made more money from Apple systems than Apple did. Google does that to Android device makers today.

If platform makers don’t extract rent, or compete with the developers they court, they will look for other sources of revenue to stay profitable. I would be aghast if Apple hardware came loaded with the kind of Junkware I recall from the years I bought Windows hardware.

Are you arguing Apple needs to juice their hardware profit margins? Because my understanding is they're very healthy and the envy of the computing and mobile phone industries.

The neglect of the mac app store feels of a piece with their utter neglect of the mac platform. They seem to be treating it as a runout.

It's free, is it? How do I install it in a vmware image for automated testing, or on this PC with compatible hardware I built?

What you're looking for is something like "free for owners of Apple hardware", which is true, but very different. You paid for it.

I realize it’s not what you’re really talking about, I’ve been doing those things for years, first with Chameleon and now with Clover.

They don't give it away for free, they supply a license to use it on Apple hardware.

> And Apple gives this all away for free.

$99 a year actually, plus 30% of all sales.

$99/year is for developer support and publishing. You can use Xcode for free and even install your app on your personal device without paying a cent. What's more, I was actually talking about the OS and frameworks which are given away for free to all Apple users.

Metal? What a monumental waste.

If Apple had done the right thing, they would have opted for Vulkan.

People don’t sell their labor to employers at a “fair” price, they sell at whatever the can get. Same concept for any other transaction, sellers will sell for the highest price buyers will pay.

> Valve basically single handedly created Linux gaming.

Valve's influence has been immensely positive for Linux gaming but saying they created it is ridiculous. I was playing on Linux just fine before Steam was ported. Valve's contributions very much stand on top of the efforts of those that came before them.

> I was playing [games] on Linux just fine before Steam was ported.

Yeah, all 4 of them!

Sure there were 4 if you ignore those published by id, those ported by Loki and LGP and forget that Humble Bundle was a thing before S4L.

The number of available games has increased greatly but before S4L was released I already had a backlog of games to play.

Their forums are pretty bad though, very barebones.

You have to remember what these store are replacing.

In case of Sony/Nintendo you pay togt access to their closed hw and ecosystem (for much less than 30% by the way). In case of apple you pay to be included in a catalogue but you can also sell directly to customers.

Steam's cut is now 20%/25% depending on how much you sell. Pretty much applies only to big AAA/AA games. [1]

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18120577/valve-steam-gam...

Your claim that steam/sony/microsoft all charge 30% no negotiations is dated if not completely inaccurate. It might have been that way the last time you were involved in negotiations (if ever) but it's questionable whether that's still true - we know for a fact Valve offers a lower cut to big studios now. There's basically no guarantee that it's not possible to negotiate anymore, and I would be shocked if the Playstation or XBox business wings were unwilling to negotiate a cut down in order to land a big, million-selling title.

Is your claim that the iOS store cut is 30% because Steam was 30%? Kind of an odd argument given that the iOS store was heavily focused on "apps" initially, and still sort of is, even if games ended up being a big moneymaker.

The 30% is now coming out of a different sort of product than it did at store launch, too. Lots and lots of F2P stuff with in-app purchases, subscriptions, etc. Even if 30% was justified for single-purchase apps, does it make sense to continue giving them an ongoing 30% of all revenue when IAPs and subscriptions are literally not using any Apple infrastructure if they're things like 'unlocking premium features in the app you already have' or 'getting premium support'?

> IAPs and subscriptions are literally not using any Apple infrastructure if they're things like 'unlocking premium features in the app you already have' or 'getting premium support’?

They’re using Apple’s account, pricing, payment, and licensing infrastructure

Apple and Google Play store cut for subscriptions drops to 15% for the period after a year doesn’t it?

I won’t lose sleep over f2p apps that profit by getting whales to spend money on in app consumables. I hope Apple Arcade cuts even more into those types of apps.

As far as subscriptions, the answer is simple - don’t allow subscriptions through the App Store. Netflix, Spotify, Linux Academy, AT&T Now, Sling, etc force you to pay for subscriptions outside of the App Store. You can subscribe to Hulu in the App Store but not Hulu Live.

As far as the 30%, all of the rumors are that none of the big players like Netflix (before they stopped allowing in app subscriptions), Hulu, or HBO ever paid more than 15%.

Hi,

> Your claim that steam/sony/microsoft all charge 30% no negotiations is dated if not completely inaccurate

I get the general impression that you're either in a much better bargaining position than I am, or you're not in the industry.

I still make AAA games, the latest of which came out this year[0] I can tell you concretely that we pay 30% of every purchase to the first party.

(except on PC, because we sell on uPlay and the Epic store, which has lower fees -- one of steams conditions is that you cant offer the game cheaper elsewhere, so we could never apply discounts on uplay)

> we know for a fact Valve offers a lower cut to big studios now

Valve has been openly hostile to my publisher for many years, perhaps this is the problem? Frequently unlisting our games.[1] We as a publisher do not officially respond to these things because they have better customer relations and a higher sentiment than we do, we would lose a PR battle, so we accept it and move on. This happens in negotiations too.

> I would be shocked if the Playstation or XBox business wings were unwilling to negotiate a cut down in order to land a big, million-selling title

They have almost all the power in those negotiations. The only bargaining power we have is if we have a very strongly rated title that we threaten to make exclusive. But in those cases we would lose more from _not_ selling on the platform than we would make back in the first-party cut. So it's lose-lose.

30% applies to in-game consumables too, anything processed by them as a payment provider.

What games company do you work for? :)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy%27s_The_Division_2

[1]: https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-pulls-big-games-from-steam-165567...

Perhaps your games on Steam would be better received if they didn't force the buyer to also install a crapware like Uplay on top of Steam and forcing to create another user account to play a game the buyer has just paid for (perhaps it has changed, I haven't bought an Ubi game in years).

Regarding a second account; I'm afraid there's very little that can be done on that front, there was account linking added some time ago that meant you didn't need to maintain or continually log-in to uplay, you just create a linked account and forget about it- no second password needed I believe.

So at least for usability it should not be any different than normal.

If you have other specific complaints about uPlay then I'd be happy to hear them and feed them back to the team, since we're actually located in the same studio.

Unfortunately uPlay does drive a significant amount of business value, handling things like entitlements so that each game doesn't have to re-implement them and allowing us to handle things like distribution of "other" types of clients, like development versions of the games for review, or debug enabled versions of games for debugging. It also allows for A/B testing of various features.

As recently as 2017 there was consensus among ubisoft upper management that the perception of uPlay was bad, so more focus has been put on the user aspects, so in theory it should be much better now than it was, because before it was very business focused.

But, as everything, people are happy to help if they can, nobody wants to make an awful system.

Unless the problem is that you have to have a second launcher? that's usually peoples primary complaint. (and in those cases uPlay tries to hide itself and stay out of the way)

Well, I can assure you that seeing a game requires uPlay means I'm probably not going to buy it, and I'm not alone in that. Of course, I haven't even wanted to play an Ubisoft game since... I honestly can't remember, so I guess I'm not the target audience anyway.

> Unless the problem is that you have to have a second launcher?

That's a big part of it. I have enough crapware that insists on constantly running on my PC (a lot of it direct from MS these days, sigh).

PS: Oh yeah, and it wants me to sign up for an account too. Hooray! I don't have enough of accounts spread all over the goddamned place already.

So, again, the largest complaint is that we have our own launcher.

Given what I mentioned from the parent (Valve arbitrarily pulling down all our games), how do you think I can convince the business to make ourselves more vulnerable to such behaviour?

> Valve arbitrarily pulling down all our games

I don't have enough information to know what "arbitrarily" means here. From what I can tell, Valve is pretty damned reluctant to remove things from the store, which makes me really curious why they would "arbitrarily" remove such popular AAA titles.

Regardless, I can tell you that things like uPlay are hugely annoying and whatever excuses your company has for why it exists don't really change that.

Frankly I don't even like having to use the Steam launcher, but seeing as they pretty much single handedly built the market they are now the defacto standard in I've reluctantly accepted it. Ubisoft's wares simply do not appeal to me enough to overcome my distaste in the same way.

Well I think not many people have a problem with Ubisoft having their own store, but why require a launcher? (e.g. that the launcher runs in the background or that I have to start it at all when I start a game)

The functionality should be optional and the parts you need could be a library which integrate within the game.

> the largest complaint is that we have our own launcher.

That sits above Steam's launcher, so I launch the game via Steam, then Uplays pop up (slowly, then updates), I dig up my contact details from an old post-it, then the game launch! I think it makes sense for Ubisoft to have their launcher, but in the case of games sold through Steam, its mandatory use detract from the game. And on Steam, games that have been pulled from the store are still in the game library of buyers, so it's not an argument.

I think the argument is that without the launcher, if the game is pulled then the customer gets no more updates, has no access to DLC, etc.

Well, in that case the user would have to use the launcher. But there's not reason to force it on the user, in addition to Steam.

Just another data point: I also will not buy any game which uses uPlay, I spent too many hours trying to make the damn thing even work which I intended to spend playing games. (Not compatible with Steam Link either, in my experience.)

I don't have any recent criticism of Uplay, I'm pretty sure I haven't launched an Ubisoft game with Uplay since maybe 2017 (more or less) (played all the 3d PoP though).

I commend you for offering to receive feedback.

I also understand that Uplay is a good business idea.

The issue was being _forced_ to use it in addition to Steam and having to create an account, since apparently at the time (2015?) the account linking didn't exist. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to have to launch two launcher just to play a game (perhaps it has changed since last time though).

>Sony/Microsoft is 30%, no negotiations.

How about Nintendo?

The games I work on do not publish on Nintendo, so I don't have first-hand experience here. :(

One added value of steam I like is that games that uses Steam Network to find servers are still working long after for other games master servers are gone

Sony and Microsoft sell the consoles at a loss in order to create a huge installed base to sell games for. They make money selling games, but definitely they are bringing way more to the table than apple, that not only don't sell their devices at a loss, but has the highest margins on the hardware business.

Considering Microsoft cut their percentage take to 5% on the Microsoft Store [1], it shows that Apple is really charging 30% just because developers keep letting them get away with it.

[1] https://download.cnet.com/news/microsoft-store-slashes-reven...

That's because nobody uses the Microsoft Store.

You can claim the MS Store is an outlier because "nobody uses it" (maybe? got numbers? it's obviously not #1, though) but other stores offer lower cuts as well. Epic made a big deal out of their lower cut (~12%) compared to the other stores and developers seem to be paying attention.

Mostly because they're throwing buckets of money at the developers for exclusive deals, not because it's a better product offering in any way, or has a better audience.

The Epic store doesn't need to make money, they have Fortnite for that. A barebones store missing features that even the worst online marketplaces have, is just their attempt to become the new "monopoly" if they can get enough of steam's customer base. Once the platform matures and they stop throwing money at devs and giving away free games, we'll see what changes they make, if any.

I don't think negative economy of scale applies here.

If the software I want is on it then I use it, while Mac App Store is an inferior experience to a downloaded app + update framework like Sparkle I've found Microsoft Store far superior to software updaters and installers that usually ship on Windows and it works much faster and smoother than the Mac App Store which is very janky.

first time i ever heard of "Microsoft Store".

> And Apple taking 30% of that... for what? Payment processing

uhhh.. hosting and bandwidth for potentially millions of downloads and updates and your videos and screenshots?

Covering user refunds?

A reviews and feedback system?

Crash logs?

Showing you in user searches?

The Editor's Choice and Featured Apps lottery?

Invitations to develop for yet-to-be announced platforms?

Giving your users peace of mind that your app is sandboxed and cannot indulge in hanky panky?

None of which you can opt out of.

I'd happily host my own apps and pay the hosting/bandwidth than pay the $99 a year for Apple Developer Account + 30% of all sales.

But Apple won't let me, if I want my app to run on iOS I have no choice BUT to use their bandwidth.

Ah, 30% of the ~3 billion Tinder or any successful business is worth it for "band width"? Yeah, no. Not sure how this even became a norm for people to look so blindly. It's absolutely insane to even think about.. we're almost talking about 1 3rd of the entire business value for hosting!?

30% is high but it’s not just payment processing, it’s payment fraud insulation, download bandwidth, and marketplace amplification (people finding your app without knowing they’re looking for your app).

Apple also drops subscription costs from the second year on to 15% which is coming back to reality. I personally find the subscription model way more sustainable & less user hostile than the paid versioning upgrade model, the grand majority of the industry is also in agreement there. So there’s a lot of bad smells from this developer that they just want to run a shoddy business and not that there’s a big problem with Apple.

>marketplace amplification

this never happens, if you JUST upload your app to the store and think it will take off coz it has good features then good luck. In reality you have to upload and then pay some app advertisement agency to feed your app to the multiple tech blogs to inorganically promote it. App store is full of inorganically promoted trash nowadays

I'm not saying apple takes you from 0 to millions of downloads, I'm saying that the marketplace does find you new customers. I buy/subscribe to lots of stuff that I find through the editor callouts or through organic search and Apple has a probably wildly inflated number for how much they drive downloads, but its definitely higher than 0%.

What would be "organic promotion" in your mind? You're right that you can't just throw something out there and expect it to get popular. Either you've gotta pimp it out to tech blogs and forums in the hopes that people notice it or you pay someone else to handle it.

> it’s payment fraud insulation

Stripe charging 3-4% or less per transaction _doesn't_ include fraud insulation??

> download bandwidth

So does a free / $20 CloudFlare account.

That is a good point, is creating a new app feasible within the app store? It seems if there are enough new features added, then it would become a new app which would be chargeable as a new purchase (with a discount code for users of the existing app). Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", etc) or very occasionally launch a new product.

Lots of developers do this.

> Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", etc) or very occasionally launch a new product.

How about numbers?

Worked well enough before every app became a security hole waiting to happen. I'd be happy with paid updates if the trade-off was you stay off the network. No cloud sync, no analytics, just standard local APIs. I mean, software companies used to turn a profit without data mining our souls to Satan.

I don't quite understand how SaaS-everything is fine nowadays but if you call it "paying for updates" people will be outraged

I’m not sure you and I are looking at the same stores. The Mac App Store alone is chock full of scams, and many of them are quite obvious (just search for the name of any popular package but there are many more). Apple does an absolutely terrible job of finding these. Meanwhile, Apple is really good at finding the most annoying reasons to reject updates from legitimate developers.

You're taking the worse behavior of independent software developers and using those as an excuse to accept the atrocious behavior of Apple and their app store monopoly.

Apple's recent kowtow to China and blocking apps China doesn't like is a great example.

If an app spams you just uninstall it...

If Apple kills an app you love there's nothing you can do...

You're also using the best behavior of the developers who have made it through app store as evidence that the app store process is not beneficial to users. We don't really know how many bad apps and malware have been prevented by these practices, but I would bet it's a substantial amount. Just look at all the horrible crap in Google's play store.

I'm sorry but as a user, I trust my relationship with Apple more than I trust random third party devs.

As a user, I want Apple to lock down the system and make things hard for developers.

As a developer, I empathize with my perspective as a user and build products that take this into account.

Yep. As an android user and ex apple fanboy, I very much miss the relative safety of the iOS app store.

Well you can always go back. Just make sure you can afford it and all the dongles you'll need.

Not if you actually want to own your device (have root).

I'll go back when their hardware is beautiful again and when offline Spotify lands on Apple watch.

As a user, I want my system to use containerization for me to not worry about where I get my apps from. You know, like Flatpak does it. This isn't really an argument for modern OSes such as desktop Linux anymore.

apt-get and yum and pacman and the rest do not enforce containerization.

No, but they get their software from a trusted central authority (unless you choose to trust a third party repo and add it manually).

Just like Apple Store ? (except the part where you can add 3rd party stores)

The apps there can't be vetted by others who want to (like they can for apt etc.). The incentives are totally different: Apple Store is commercial, and Apple takes 30%, hence the part about taking your choices away.

Apple takes 30%, so it’s in their best interest to push as many apps through as possible, yet the process is notoriously difficult. This shows you their motivation is in the right place. A third party can be bought (see Amazon paid reviews) to push something through. We’ve also seen cases in these public, but “vetted”, repos where bad code was pushed without being caught until after the fact (see NPM leftpad)

The article is about the Mac App Store. You can have third party app stores on the Mac.

snap and flatpak certainly enforce sandboxing.

Which is why some distros like Ubuntu are moving to replace them.

Not entirely, Flatpak is not intended for the base system, only for applications. Snap is AFAIK but probably not because Canonical wants to sandbox the OS from itself.

Containers are not a magic shield that protects you from all attacks. You should still be wary of what you're running even with the additional protection they offer.

For example - https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2019/q1/119

> Containers are not a magic shield that protects you from all attacks.

Nor are manual reviews by Apple staff...

Sure, but I’m not going to let perfect be the enemy of good. Could the review process be improved? Absolutely! But I’ll take some review over no review any day of the week.

I'd rather take my review from someone other than Apple then.

They could be (and are on Illumos and FreeBSD) if only they were designed with that from the start. Linux has always made the mistake of not designing things to be safe and secure from the outset (cgroups/namespaces, btrfs, etc.).

BSD is also an application desert compared to GNU/linux. It's always going to be a scale between user desires and security needs. BSD is rock solid but moves glacially slow. Most devs need more speed than that. Most users demand it. There's a reason despite the elitist attitude the Arch Illuminati take that people want Arch. It's a really stable bleeding edge release.

I assume you're talking about desktop applications? If so, I don't think the advantages of containerization really apply like they do on the server side.

well that took all of 1 minute:

https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-1087

As a user, I avoid Apple products as much as I can.

I never liked MacOS; Macintosh's charm, which was its UI, went away when I got my Amiga.

I also never liked the iPhone, because a) it's terribly overpriced, b) I don't want a walled garden.

I survived all these years in the raw PC market with no one holding my hand. I don't need a walled garden.

Of course, that's my strictly personal preference.

I want things sandboxed for sure but I definitely don't want to be forced to use App Store. In reality App Stores are bad, too much enforced centralization. Takes the power out of the user's hands.

> In reality App Stores are bad, too much enforced centralization.

This holds for any kind of store, from supermarkets to Amazon.

What's the alternative?

Competition.

The alternative to businesses that sell things is competition?

As I understand AppStore is mutual platform. It should be beneficial to both user and devs.

I'm guessing this isn't what you meant, but the endgame of "Apple, please make things hard for developers" is there's no apps left for you to use that aren't made by Apple, because they made it too hard for developers.

A balance has to be struck somewhere. Developers increasingly do not like where Apple is placing the balance (generally on the side of 'go screw yourself, time to rework your app for our latest guideline and API changes, also buy some new hardware to run the latest xcode')

Large majority of Apple users do not need anything else than what Apple already made.

Which is why the store makes so little of their money right? Your opinion is directly against their profit data.

Xcode has generally supported the two newest macOS releases, with its current minimum OS being Mojave, which supports Macs from 2012 and if you pick up a $50 GPU upgrade, even 2010 Mac Pro’s. Almost all of those same Macs will be supported when Catalina becomes the new minimum.

This doesn’t seem all that onerous. If you’re stuck on a Mac that’s a decade old for some reason all it’ll take to be able to develop again is picking up a $150-$200 Mac mini or iMac on eBay/Craigslist.

> I'm sorry but as a user, I trust my relationship with Apple more than I trust random third party devs.

I don't see any reason why one would trust Apple more than a random third party dev. To me they are one and the same.

16 years of managing personal information and credit card details of 100’s of millions of people. Without any known data breach.

And no marketing spam from third parties since Apple doesn't sell your information.

That's basically like saying you prefer to live under a totalitarian regime than a democracy because: security. Humans gladly trade their freedom for security as your comment implies, you are comfortable with that.

The web is, or at least was in part, a democracy. Apple is clearly a dictatorship.

Trust doesn't really come into it. You trust your user data to 3rd parties every single day using apps that very publicly compromise you like FB, Google etc. So to say that you trust your relationship with Apple doesn't mean squat. Sure Apple is good at preventing people from breaking into your iPhones, but it's not good at stopping Facebook from selling your data to 3rd parties which you talk about. Your security is already compromised.

In the days even before the web we had many programs from independent 3rd parties that have now turned into household names today.

I refuse to believe that Apple's incredibly convoluted App store is the way forward. I ultimately believe Apple will fail here and have to make major changes, indeed I hope it does.

This is an absurd comparison that makes zero sense on the face of it.

People don’t give up any freedom when they choose Apple products.

It’s a feature of a democracy that you can decide to contract any third parties you like to carry out professional services - such as verifying software quality, or protecting the privacy of your data.

Anyone who doesn’t like Apple’s services can simply buy Android, which explicitly offers openness as a differentiator.

The comparison between a managed software store and an authoritarian regime makes no sense at all precisely because you can leave.

The software company behind the original posting has chosen to leave.

Presumably you have chosen to leave or never enter.

The only authoritarians in this scenario are the people who wish to use government power to deny others the right to choose the service Apple provides.

It’s more like saying they want to live in a society with rules and regulations which are enforced rather than a Wild West ultra liberal free market economy.

> That's basically like saying you prefer to live under a totalitarian regime than a democracy

Horrible analogy - the App Store is not "life" it's business. We deal with demanding, undemocratic platforms in business all the time.

The way forward is the open web. I support that and there's room for both.

Doesn't the freedom and Android allow for you to trust a secure app store? I know that Playstore has its issues but it still has their barrier to entry and is patrolled by Google's app security team. Alternatively, there could even be a more secure app store established with even higher vetting. This is in contrast to Apple's store where you're either comfortable with their balance of security/hassle or you're not.

That's a simplistic view. Apple can impose their political views upon you that you didn't agree with when you bought the device (see the current HK Map debacle). Their leadership could change. They can and will ban Apps that are not a threat at all.

You stance also implies that there's no way Apple could allow sideloading in a safe way (real sideloading not their 7 day and/or paid cert crap). I already need to contact Apples servers to unlock my phone, I would be fine if I had to unlock my device with Apple to allow sideloading. And since this is becoming more of a free market and free speech issue, I hope lawmakers will fix this problem.

If you run your company smart, then publish your software in both places, your own website and AppStore.

Users who trust direct relationship with you, will download directly, enjoy better prices (30% commission omitted) and rapid updates.

At the same time you will not lose a whole marketshare of users for which AppStore is the "go-to" address for buying software.

You can then skill up your SEO capabilities and optimize inbound traffic to your preferred platform whatsoever.

If AppStore policy forbid having a parallel distribution platform, then publish the same app with two different names.

Some apps can’t do parallel features because of rules on the App Store. I remember several years ago a commercial AV software sold an App Store version that was nerfed for true AV scanning which it’s non App Store has the full feature set. Apple requires (or maybe they don’t have that limitation anymore) that an application not touch system services if it’s sold in the App Store. Which for AV that would fit the bill.

Personally for a while the macOS App Store was riddled with sketchy Chinese apps that looked like knock offs of the real apps. Or there are apps that do the same thing as a more expensive commercial one.

Personally I’ve found a few gems in both App Stores. Hands down I love Pixelmator on iOS and macOS. I’d gladly pay for more apps built with good quality.

I think this is explicitly forbidden by app store rules.

It is definitely the case for the iOS app store anyway.

You could create two versions, one crippled for the app store and another that you actively market. There is no point giving Apple 30% if you are finding the customers yourself.

You’re not allowed to create a crippled or discounted version per the App Store rules.

You are allowed to make the same version available elsewhere and pocket the margins.

This is what BBEdit has been doing for many years for example.

Even if the products had different names? Or are you saying once you put one product in app store they all have to go in.

You're not dealing with an excel spreadsheet here. Apple has rules that are enforced by humans. If you try to cheat them out of the 30% they believe you owe them, they will punish you for it by removing you from the store. So far, very few (if any) companies have gotten away with it. You can't just point to a tiny asterisk or typo in the terms and get them to go 'oh well I guess you got us then'. They have the power.

This is why you can't purchase kindle books from the iOS app and have to use a web browser to do it. Even that is kind of an exception (people already have existing Kindle libraries, so it's not really reasonable for Apple to tell them to go screw themselves - but you bet they're gonna demand 30% of on-device purchases!)

One pattern I've seen however in modern mobile games is that instead they use an loyalty program, where if you buy direct from them (at the same price) they give you free bonuses that you don't get on the iOS store. That satisfies the "equivalent price" and "no crippling" semi-rules but I suspect eventually Apple will decide to punish it too.

I know a number of apps that sell both on and off the App Store and cripple the latter. Where does it say this is against the rules?

What apps do this? How do they distribute on iOS without the App Store?

I think they're referring to MacOS app store here. Certain applications might need access outside of the sandbox for certain features to work so a non-app store version would have more functionality than the app store version.

Firstly I want to say that as a user I hate using the Mac App Store - mainly for all the reasons posted there.

There is one large benefit which is often forgotten. When I use the App Store I don't need to worry about your website/database getting hacked or leaking my personal data/credit card information. This is mostly avoided by indie developers using Stripe or some other popular payment gateway, but it is still a concern and annoyance that is removed by something like the App Store.

That's one of two reasons that I don't mind purchasing on the App Store - the other is licensing.

On the App Store, each app I purchase is licensed for 5 macOS devices and I can unlicense a device/reset the count at any time with a few clicks.

Licensing for other applications is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - sometimes it's a single machine, other times X devices, and other times unlimited devices for a single user/owner. And if the 3rd party licensing server is down, I can't activate my purchased applications - I've literally had this happen before. Purchase Paw from their website, licensing was down, I ended up re-purchasing it on the Mac App Store.

And in the future, if they go out of business and the application needs to be activated with an online server, I'm fucked. If I purchase it from the App Store, I'm fairly confident I'm good to go for the foreseeable future.

So many apps still communicate with APIs over the Internet. You might not have to worry as much about specific kinds of attacks like cross site scripting but the attack surface is still present.

This could be fixed by your Bank or VISA with e.g. virtual credit cards.

That is true, but nothing I have access to right now (with one of the big 4 aussie banks)

I completely understand why developers would find the restrictions of the App Store ridiculous, time consuming, expensive, and frustrating.

But as a user, whenever I need an application, I always check to see if it's available on the App Store first.

Because I can trust the App Store.

I first check brew...

Yeah, this. MacOS is unusable without home-brew, especially cask. There is no greater feeling than knowing you can blow away your system disk, come back and re-install it, then add a "brew cask install .." stage to get all your apps installed automatically.

If I had brew on iOS, I'd be more than happy. Alas, I don't want to jailbreak though ..

Unusable for you, maybe. But I'm sure the majority of people use MacOS without homebrew and find it perfectly usable for their use cases.

Sure. There's still nothing quite as efficient as a one-liner brew command to get new stuff set up, though. My computer does the installing, not me ..

Maybe unusable for those that think macOS is GNU/Linux with a pretty UI.

I never installed any of those alternative UNIX toolchains. Apple SDK + native macOS tooling are more than enough.

>Maybe unusable for those that think macOS is GNU/Linux with a pretty UI.

This was the target of the WSL that Microsoft added to Windows. They won me. GNU/Linux with good UI, good software support and that doesn't break every month. It's like we're living in the future.

Yep, that is the main reason why WSL exists.

And as gateway drug into Azure as well, most likely.

I never had any use for SUA during all these years doing Windows development.

On the contrary, I use automated package management on MacOS to get my system ready for use, mostly installing .app's. MacOS has its plus points - user-centric power control over application installations and upgrade maintenance just isn't one of them.

Serious question to get you thinking about your toolset dependencies. Is MacOS useless without it, or are you?

Serious answer: neither are useless.

I just find MacOS 100x more useful because of homebrew, and frustrating without it.

The reason is, I can blow away the OS, restore a fresh install, and then re-install everything I need with a single command. This is highly empowering: I don't have to be a mouse-monkey to get everything set up, and can do other things meanwhile.

Doesn't mean MacOS is 'bad' - sure, others can get their systems set up however they want. App Store installs are fine, if you have the time to sit there, driving your system through everything ..

I mean of course you do, they give you app review for free. The question is if it's sustainable for the market.

Really?

What about ALL the bugs that came with Catalina? You get that off the App Store and it's shit.

I don't think you can trust the app store.

I like the App Store because it handles automatic updates pretty well. Then again these days with sparkle, the apps I use do update, so it's not a big advantage for Apple.

And how do I know sparkle works so well? Well whenever a dev has an app both in the store and directly downloadable from their site I choose the latter. The price is the same, the functionality is the same (or sometimes more) but the dev gets 30% more. I've never heard one suggest that I download instead of using the store so I assume Apple somehow contractually bars that.

I never use the store for discovery; duckduckgo works perfectly well.

All in all I thought the App Store would be a good idea for me as a user but in the end it didn't add much. At least I think it got rid of some of those crufty download sites.

The sandboxing of apps is a nice benefit, though. I can be reasonably confident apps won't conflict with each other and that they're interfacing cleanly and minimally with the host OS.

Perhaps not the best example, but I set up Wireguard recently. On Linux, this involves building and installing a kernel module, and directly modifying the host's networking configuration. On Mac, I can install it from the App Store, and I know any networking configuration is handled through Apple's high level APIs (I've built a VPN-based Mac App Store app before).

Alternatively, you might install Tunnelblick, a Mac app that wraps OpenVPN and is distributed outside the App Store. It'll end up running scripts like these, as necessary to configure networking on the host: * https://github.com/Tunnelblick/Tunnelblick/blob/master/tunne...

Nothing in that script is crazy--it's all necessary stuff if you're not limiting yourself to the higher level APIs. But it doesn't take many apps doing things of that complexity for totally justifiable reasons before you start having issues.

Isn't the wireguard implementation on MacOS a userland implementation? Seems like a poor example to compare with the Linux version, which is technically superior specifically because it requires a kernel module.

The MacOS one must be a userland implementation because if it required kernel modules, it wouldn't be able to be in the App Store. The only way to implement a VPN on the App Store is to use the higher level APIs, as far as I know.

The Linux one may be "superior" in that it's able to process packets faster, but the resulting user experience is quite different. If you have multiple VPN apps, even including userspace ones like OpenVPN, the likelihood of all of them reliably handling host OS interactions cleanly with regular usage over time drops. They have to do the same kinds of things in that Tunnelblick script I linked.

> "The Linux one may be "superior" in that it's able to process packets faster, but the resulting user experience is quite different."

"Process packets faster" is one way of looking at it. Better battery life is another way of framing it less dismissively.

(OpenVPN sucks and I don't really see how it's relevant to the discussion.)

It doesn't in India. Something is borked about their servers internationally, updates fail on me around 30 percent of the time

I assume you're talking about Apple's Mac App Store and not the individual vendors' download sites?

A rebranded version of Steam would be interesting here.

They support

  - automatic updates
  - build branches, included versions locked behind a code
  - DLC / Upgrades
  - coupons and bundling
  - cross platform publishing
  - selling of applications through third party channels

Doesn't solve the 30% issue though. Also don't believe they support any recurring payment options.

Especially that they keep the 30% if someone refunds your app. If it would be 15% or less okay, but 30% and keep the proceeds? Seems to be sort of straddling the legality line.

Apple Does not refund the fee? That's insane! On top of that I need to pay apple $100 per year to keep my app in the store. Even PayPal has been refunding the transaction fees (at least until recently).

Not sure about the App Store, but I think the parent was talking about steam.

Steam does not refund the 30%.

This must be very damaging to companies, especially with the PC gamer culture of abusing things like refund systems as some forms of protest.

On the contary, gamers are relentlessly abused by shitty marketplaces who proactively defraud their users.

Steam's history = sued by consumer watchdogs in Australia for denying ~20,000 lawful refunds. This went on worldwide for 10+ years of blatent theft and shutting down user accounts for chargebacks, and they got away with it everywhere except Australia - maybe 5% of their users and victims. This is the only reason they offer refunds today, using dark patterns like "refunds are outside of the steam client" to keep the fraudy little flame alive.

https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/valve-australia-fine-12...

GOG's refund policy is you must install additional software on your computer so they can prove the game will open so they can deny a refund. This is an illegitimate reason to deny refunds to consumers in many countries. It's a fake refund policy that is "designed to not give refunds" which is exactly the fraud that got Valve in trouble but continuing for years later.

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000487189-GOG-C...

Yes full refund price comes out of your pocket. So 10$ app you get 7$ - then if refunded you are refunding 10$ which makes your account -3$ (owing 3$). which I suspect why developers don't publish apps to less advantaged markets - because of refund rates.

I feel your pain, but I do worry that the end goal of OSX is to lock down the system in the same way as iOS m, even if they say they’re developer (machine) friendly. This could all come full circle for OP requiring read mission to the App Store.

>disconnect from the users, which often simply post bad app reviews, or return the app instead of reaching out to developer for actually support and fixes This is so true. I am a dev and this is the most frustrating thing ever if you do freemium model. Yesterday I got reply from customer on the app store: "I DON'T have HOURS to look for free apps. You lie that you are FREE" PS: New Mac App Store has a label "Offers In-Apps" under button GET

We left the App Store behind years ago after just getting sick of Apple’s bs and other issues. Could not be happier. Web apps are far easier to deal with, we have full control and for our purposes it ends up being a better multi-platform experience for our users.

Not for everyone, of course.

Quite ironic, given that Jobs' original intention was just that[0]

[0]: https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...

That's interesting.

The fact that we have to have humans look at our software before we can go to market in 2019 is absurd. I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent, IRC, Trillian/Pidgin, and an explosive WWW. Look at what a pinheaded mess everything has become.

Greed destroyed the open and experimental Internet.

Painting this as "greed" is really quite ridiculous. Apple's 30% cut is completely orthogonal to their human review. The human review is to try and protect users and keep the app store a safe and trustworthy place to buy software. As with all human curation, there are problems, but on the whole it does keep the app store a remarkably safe place to acquire software.

> I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent

In light of the above, this is pretty funny, because Napster and Bittorrent were great way to get viruses.

So Apple is the modern Elsevier? Asking high prices for peer review.

  "orthogonal"

If the human review is the reason for the 30% cut why not charge a flat fee per review? I doubt that's the reason for their cut.

lilyball said it’s orthogonal, meaning there is no relation between the 30% fee and the cost of human review.

The price a seller charges is what a buyer is willing to pay.

The reason Apple charges the 30% is probably partly because of the whole infrastructure and services needed for the app-store, and mostly Apple's desire to profit.

The reason developers pay the 30% is probably because there's no other channel that offers access to such a huge market for free, and mostly because they still profit.

Every app could be cheaper from the buyer's perspective. Maybe even yours. Should or will they be cheaper? Probably not. The best price is the one everyone complains about but are still willing to pay.

> The reason developers pay the 30% is probably because there's no other channel that offers access to such a huge market for free, and mostly because they still profit.

Because there's no choice you mean? When the developers have choice, on the Mac or on Windows, they generally avoid the store. The AppStore still works on mobile because they force it.

> on the Mac or on Windows

Let's look at something closer to this situation rather than general purpose computers. Mobiles work with different paradigms all around, especially when compared to Windows (or Linux).

There are free alternatives to Google's Play Store and yet developers still choose to pay Google's cut to have access to it. This tells me whatever benefits the "official" app store provides on each platform outweigh the disadvantages (costs) even when free alternatives are available.

> The AppStore still works on mobile because they force it.

Is there any solid reason to believe the AppStore only works because they force it, while seeing the Play Store work just fine even with free alternatives around? And users even go out of their way to get access to it.

> There are free alternatives to Google's Play Store and yet developers still choose to pay Google's cut to have access to it. This tells me whatever benefits the "official" app store provides on each platform outweigh the disadvantages (costs) even when free alternatives are available.

That's only because it's pretty hard for the casual user to install third-party apps on Android and even with those artificial barriers, some popular apps are available outside of it, I could mention Fortnite.

It's not that hard to install an app from outside of the Play Store. It's just that people are perfectly comfortable using the most easily accessible option. In the HN bubble it's easy to overestimate how much people care about using some other app store. Developers do because it impacts the bottom line but for users to care it would have to be a pretty massive cost saving or some other obvious drawback of the official store to care about alternatives.

How often did you wonder where your car parts come from? How easy is it to mod your ECU? If there are "open source" parts for your fridge? Etc. - insert any topic that's mostly transparent only for the people who actually care about it and dive deeper into the technicalities. Chances are you care less about that but a car tinkerer feels the same way you do about your app store and wonders why you aren't protesting more.

Why do you not see mobile the same as general purpose computer? What's the difference besides form factor?

Because that's how the industry built the mobile devices regardless of the app store model. The phone is a "disposable" black box and the use cases of most users support this: almost nobody cares about accessing the file system directly for example. There's no support for anything "legacy", the form factor makes difference because it keeps most people away from tinkering with the system, all (most?) of the HW components are custom and the SW that comes with them is just as obscure. Everything relies on the cloud to the point where cutting a smartphone's internet connection pretty much takes away all the smarts. And most users don't have a problem with this, they probably never even stopped to ponder these issues.

For better or worse your PC is a vastly different beast. I'm not saying it should be like this, I'm saying it is.

> As with all human curation, there are problems, but on the whole it does keep the app store a remarkably safe place to acquire software.

Yes, that touches the old but increasingly pressing question of how the internet should be governed.

So far the discussed answers seem to be "anarchy" or "corpocracy" which honestly sound both equally sucky. Maybe we could come up with some additional options to discuss at some point.

However, back to Apple's point, of course there are problems - as everywhere - however, Apple does not seem interested in fixing them, as described in the article. (Not that other app stores would be better here probably)

I remember when the App Stores first came online and everyone was fine to pay the 30% cut because before that, other retail channels were charging way more.

Now the 30% is too much.

What? where? no one was charging fees for using channels because there were no channels other than direct marketing. (Unless you talking about actually selling a physical box in retail, which is completely different)

A decade ago I was making shareware. The combination of payment-handler fees and website bandwidth worked out not to far from 30%, from what I remember.

Sprint had an “app store” where you could buy J2ME apps for feature phones.

Yes, I mean vs bricks and mortar.

It’s completely different, but the App Store severely lowered the barrier of entry to writing commercial software. Even I made a few grand from it.

It sucks that some types of apps will never pass review, but I’m not sure that 30% is too much.

If you're not fine with 30% what's your alternative? Apple never offered an alternative. 30% or nothing on iOS.

The changes with the Save as dialog, how are they protecting the customer? It almost seems like they want to have creative control of the application, dictating how it should work.

> often review rejected for text, images, random issues

> random censorship of whatever Apple does not like

That’s a pretty disingenuous way to put it. Another phrasing could be “Apple enforcing their human interface guidelines”.

To borrow a phrase: haters gonna hate.

Apple used to violate their HIG when they felt like it. Apparently they are Human interface regulations now, no longer guidelines.

Yes, I don't like closed platforms, I think the mac should be a platform for general computing and not turn into iOS.

> Apple's 30% cut is completely orthogonal to their human review.

Several billion in income allows them to hire more staff. It's up to them to view this as orthogonal.

> The fact that we have to have humans look at our software before we can go to market in 2019 is absurd.

Random internet friend trust me. I would rather have 5 humans to check my app on App Store than have a stupid AI automated checking that Play Store has where, even they get 30% cut, you can't get to contact to a real person unless you are a huge player. The reasons for app suspension on Play Store are sometimes ridiculous.

> Greed destroyed the open and experimental Internet.

Did it? Or did it expand the open and experimental internet to also include profit-making ventures?

This meme crops up a lot on HN, but I can't see what's stopping the same internet thriving - there's still self hosting, there's still an open public internet (apart from some newer restrictions around copyright which were inevitable), there's still P2P for those less concerned with the previous point.

The "open and experimental internet" catered to a minority, and the minority can still, largely, enjoy it as is. It's just that the whole internet is no longer just the open and experimental version.

> Or did it expand the open and experimental internet to also include profit-making ventures?

Why not both?

If it wasn't clear, that's kinda my point. We used to have one strand of the internet, now we have two. They can seemingly coexist, it's just the majority of people have a preference to the one that isn't the older one.

I don’t know if greed destroyed the open and experimental Internet. It has certainly helped shape it in both some good and some bad ways. I was in my 20s when the Internet became widely available. People published hard-copy yellow pages to help you find sites back then because there weren’t any good search engines. Animated GIFs would visually abuse your senses. 14.4k and later 28.8k modems were how most people watched the Internet slowly load in their browsers, Usenet clients, etc. I think things have gotten a lot better since then and entrepreneurship has driven most of those improvements.

Is it weird that I'm not comfortable installing apps on my phone that haven't been reviewed?

Phones seem much more personal to me than computers. They have our location and are able to interrupt many of us at any moment.

I'd love to see an easy to install and use open OS. I don't know who's incentivized to build that and maintain it.

Spam and malware destroyed the open experimental Internet.

Only partially. Spam can be filtered, as PG himself was early to point out, and malware can be countered with better security. This could have been fixed, given enough time.

The kill shot, instead, has been delivered by ad-sponsored media; clickbait, fake news, mass rage-storms, fake reviews, etc.

Advertising as a business model causes real damage to the open internet: advertisers censor perfectly good sites because they object to something in there. Slowly but surely, a wide spectrum of ideas and self-expression gets reduced to nothing but sanitized advertiser-friendly content. People can and do censor speech they don't like by targeting the advertisers backing the host.

I agree that advertising as a business model incentivizes bad things, but as for censorship the only things I'm aware of advertisers aggressively rejecting are things like Naziism and its relatives.

This is because advertisers don't want to alienate vast populations of people. They don't want stuff like "blacks and women are intellectually inferior, brought to you by Coca Cola!"

I see mainstream ads in "fringe" content of a variety of types, so they don't seem to care much about things being off-beat or strange. They don't seem to care about indirectly sponsoring UFO videos or fringe views of history that aren't transparent efforts to dehumanize people.

I really wonder where Apple and specifically Tim Cook is in all this. I feel like I see posts on HN almost daily that would warrant one of Jeff Bezos's famous 'question mark emails'[1] from Tim Cook to someone within Apple. But I see no evidence of this. I see no evidence of panic within apple that they have lost the ability to delight customers and anticipate their needs effectively.

How often do I see a similar level customer or developer pain (anguish really, from supportive customers) regarding Amazon? How often do I see it regarding Google? All these companies have so many resources, but Apple is the only one that doesn't seem to be able to convert those resources into customer focus. It's painful to watch. Where is Apple's board? It's really discouraging!

[1] https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/5-years-later-jeff-bezos-...

When you have billions in cash in the bank, and your future revenue is tied to subscriptions Tim Cook simply doesn't care about this, its minutiae to your bottom line. They can screw up for YEARS and still be a largely profitable company.

Agreed, but are Tim Cook and the board really satisfied with that? If so, it's a tragedy that so many resources are controlled by leaders who don't really care that much.

Every dollar is a vote..

I think the reason you don't is because there's quite a bit of confirmation bias on Hacker News. The demographic of people using HN is far more tech savvy and technical than the majority of the population so things like this feel like they spark a huge amount of outrage when, in reality, it affects like 0.1% of the population.

> Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries

Yet plenty of other companies do business on this model.

And where are they going to go? GNU/Linux? Good luck making a sustainable business selling desktop software there.

Leaving the AppStore doesn’t mean they can’t create MacOS applications. Most MacOS applications aren’t even installed via the AppStore.

If they want to sell them on Catalina and newer devices they surely need to follow similar steps anyway, while paying for infrastructure themselves.

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a

You don’t have to have a paid developer account for app signing, your app is never reviewed by a human, and Apple doesn’t get a cut of your app sales.

So how is it “similar”?

> Please note that you must be the Account Holder of your development team in the Apple Developer Program.

https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/

> You can only notarize apps that you sign with a Developer ID certificate. If you use any other certificate—like a Mac App Distribution certificate, or a self-signed certificate—notarization fails

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...

That similar.

You can have an Apple developer account without paying for it, there’s a free tier, and I think that is allowed for what your parent is referring to.

I have an Apple developer account...

So do I and I don't pay for it, and I can sign my apps. What's different in your case?

So now developer certificates are available on the free tier?

For at least a few years, they have been. You can set a team and a signing certificate in Xcode with a normal developer account, which does not require any payment. To publish on the App Store, however, requires a paid account.

Sounds like you don't use that dev account much :)

Windows?

Where the future is also sandboxed and they would need to rewrite the applications from scratch?

> Where the future is also sandboxed

Judging from Windows Store/UWP/etc acceptance, it doesn't really seem much of a future.

> they would need to rewrite the applications from scratch

Nah, this is never going to happen with Windows. The worst you can expect is to not get any new features, but even with base Win32 you have enough functionality to build on top of it anything you want (and/or use 3rd party libraries that bring that functionality).

Sure it has a future, that is the whole point of the MSIX move, sandboxing for Win32 and UWP, regardless of the store.

I mean re-writing from Cocoa into Windows.

It might be some future for niche/specific uses, but i'm certain the current model of downloading an installer for applications and games or having a (non-sandboxed) downloader like Steam, Galaxy, Origin, EGS, etc will remain the most common by far.

Unless Microsoft tries to force that, but they'll certainly face a lot of resistance and with their apparent coupling of Windows Store with the sandboxing model they could face antitrust issues that would dwarf the IE vs Netscape case of the 90s as there are way more money and businesses involved nowadays (and of course Valve/Steam waving their Linux support all over MS' face :-P - that story has calmed down now but consider how many companies flared up just because of the idea that MS could potentially lock down Windows with Win8).

Sandboxing is orthogonal to the store.

Yes, but it isn't orthogonal to 3rd party stores in that you need to escape it for them to work. And really the same applies with a lot of other application types too.

Besides some Apple applications, I don’t think I’ve ever used the AppStore to install an application.

This press release contains a lot of trivial errors.

> Compatible Scanner (in the header menu)

should be "Compatibility"

> not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries

"salaries"

> it is not provide to provide

not "viable"?

> we think a paid upgrade is fair for continuously developing, improvements, and support

"for continuous development, improvements, and support"

> support a product indefinetly for free

"indefinitely"

> It creates an artificial frontier between users and developers.

"frontier" - word choice. "barrier"?

> Developer can not inform users

"The developer" (or "A")

I'm not going to keep doing this because I'm sure that this comment would grow too long.

It doesn't hurt to run a spell checker over your public facing material, you know. I'm open to hearing this developer's criticism of Apple, but given the lack of effort in publishing this simple press release, I'm not exactly opposed to this additional "frontier" standing between their software and my less-tech-savvy friends' and colleagues' Mac computers.

The company is from Germany, possibly a single-person company.

He/she's not a native speaker, might not have access to a native speaker for proofreading and a spell checker wouldn't pick up frontier vs barrier.

Ignore the misspellings like "salleries",

"it is not provide to provide free updates forever" doesn't make sense in any language.

The TL;DR is the first thing you see on the page. They author didn't proofread the first paragraph.

* TL;DR

each manual update review by Apple causes delay and drama

AppStore does not support paid upgrades, only new App, in-App purchase or subscriptions

Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries

it is not provide to provide free updates forever

if you purchased our application this year we provide a direct license, if you had it

significantly longer, we think a paid upgrade is fair for continuously developing, improvements, and support

Come off it.
> I'm open to hearing this developer's criticism of Apple
You're clearly not.
And while it's common not being open to considering something because something ticks you off as not credible, the effort to which you seem to have gotten to point out some typos is -- in the best interpretation -- puzzling.
Even a stickler for misspellings would just have commented "This is so badly written I can't take it seriously". There's something else going on.

I couldn’t agree more. And on top of that: How often you have to make an emergency bug fix? why do you need make constant fixes and patches? What do you mean by paid updates? Do you want users to pay for fixing a bug, that you introduced? Do you only test on your end-users?

It's a german dev using EU-english which at this point has developed into almost it's own dialect of english.

To the owner of this website: for the love of god, please get someone to proofread your work.

And also... light grey text on a white background? Are they trying to get us to use their product just to read their website? I got the urge to scan it to improve the contrast.

As a long Time multi platform user I have to say sometimes Apple’s approach on centralized provisioning im thankful for the effort never to have to deal with buggy/suspicious apps.
On the other hand, no competition lead to a point where the Appstore became an authoritarian system where apple is free to play by the rules, or change them as it sees fit for it's bottom line.
Only judging Tho, never helped. What would be the consequences of an app store where - # alternative stores would be allowed like android # Apple would lover prices # regional pricing options # free updates for paid content # subscription for updates, distributed among apps user paid for already
Other ideas, comments are welcome.

Another problem for the user of all Apple stores (iOS, macOS, books, iTunes) are refunds.
In Android you get an automatic refund when you uninstall a recently purchased app. No questions asked.
In Steam you can ask for a refund if you have played less than 2 hours and you bought the game less than 2 weeks ago. I've done this dozens of times and in fact being able to refund a game that I don't like gives me confidence in trying new games. Again, no questions asked.
Epic also has a similar refund policy as Steam. I only used it once though.
With Apple you might or not get a refund and much like App Store reviews there is nothing you can do about it.

I've experienced this several times, and it's very frustrating. I know you really can't do anything about it when you purchase with App Store credit, but I'm curious... does anybody have experience with doing a credit card chargeback in such a situation. It would be good to know if that can be a successful means to resolving an issue where Apple puts up unjustified roadblocks.

> not user or developer friendly
Well, with text contrast like that, neither is your website to be brutally honest

In my experience the app store (Mac iOS) has been terrible also for another reason. Due to brexit we relocated from UK to another EU country. There was no way to easily change the country associated with our account, we had to request it and the first meaningful reply arrived 1 year later. This is incredibly problematic from any business perspective (accounting, legal, etc.).

I’m curious what’s the eventual revenue balance will look like few years after they get off App Store. It can seem evil and 30% is a steep fee, but it is also a very good distribution channel.
Hope they can find alternative ways to market and it beats those 30% and related hassle.

I recently uploaded an update of a macOS app to the MAS. Apple rejected it saying that I needed to remove some entitlements that were not used. Of course I needed those entitlements but Apple didn't test the app properly.
Anyway I answered their rejection with the reasons why I needed those entitlements. Silence for 2 days. I finally asked for an appeal to the review board and in 1 hour the update was accepted and available in the MAS.
We lost 3 days because either Apple's automatic reviewing system failed, or their human reviewers failed.

I always go out of my way to buy outside of the App Store. Sometimes the app store version is crippled due to constraints from the app store so it just makes sense. Other times, I still do that because I want more of my money to go to the developer.
Oh, and for the few app I installed from the app store (usually because I had no choice), I loathe getting a message saying "Blahblah couldn't be updated because it was open"... It's the worst app updating scheme I've seen.

> Not user nor developer friendly
Used to be that macOS had really decent experiences to offer for both users and developers. Not any more. Now both are being tortured, just as with Microsoft. I really don't see a big difference any more. When my computer destroys my data and pumps off my money, I really don't give a shit whether it's Apple or Microsoft doing the abuse.

Apple is just milking their over priced pile of garbage as long as they can.
This kind of reminds me of the situation long ago with Windows and how they did not want to allow any other browsers expect IE on their OS. It took a long time to give developers freedom and access to API's to develop application on the OS. This feel like it's pivoted similarly to the App Stores now a days (even you Google).

We left the app store because it was making it hard for us to do anything innovative. The mac appstore is litterally hindering innovative apps from existing, and for no good reason that couldnt be solved other ways.
I completely understand security concerns but the way apple solves theM is by limiting the free choice of the user.
So now we are using the google “appstore”

Leaving aside the App Store issues, ExactScan Pro is a great app and an essential part of my paperless workflow. I purchased it from them in 2015, then purchased an update from the App Store this summer. It's worth a look whether you want to support an exodus from the MAS or if you just want an awesome scanner program.

Biggest pet peeve:
Why the hell hasn’t the iOS App Store password prompt been updated to allow me to use my password manager?

This one drives me crazy! My fingerprint never scans properly, so for any app download I have to manually open my password manager to copy/paste the password in.
It actually discourages me from downloading apps. If the fingerprint doesn’t scan on the first try I usually give up and just live without the app. It’s usually not worth the hassle of copy/pasting.

Now wouldn't it be great if it was viable to make the same decision about distributing your iOS app.

I have never used the app store except to install macOS from time to time. Everything I need I can buy or download through the web. I also use Windows and Linux depending on my use case, and so I buy multi platform licences where it makes sense and is possible.

Side note to this; what's the best way to deploy a custom iphone app these days? We were using a PWA to avoid a fullblown app and all the bullshit with not being able to sideload an app easily like on android.
Is there a simple way to get an app out to 5-10 people on ios?

Article has some weird writing/typos, "updates, bu" and "we where actually". Some of it might be because the company is in Germany, but still... the company doesn't seem particularly professional or well-managed. It's hard to tell from the website but it looks like it's run by one person with occasional help from others.
And the software is kind of weird, scanners always come Windows drivers/software so there's no issue using it there. Linux support is less guaranteed but you can check the compatibility lists (http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html). So it's exploiting a niche in driver support between Apple and the manufacturers.
I'm not saying the author is a nutcase, but this seems like one rare data point and I'd prefer to see more companies pulling their stuff off the app store before drawing any real conclusions.

I gave up on App Store as a user. I only use it for system updates an Apple software (eg. Pages)
I just use Homebrew.
- It has all the software I use not just 50%
- If not I can easy ad it.
- With bundler, I can set up my new computer super easy
- If somebody dislikes the CLI there is Cakebrew

homebrew trashes /usr/local/lib permissions if you have multiple users on the same machine. It's extremely annoying.

The guys latest video shows his frustration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwhb_ukmgY

If the appstore isn't providing the massive increase in revenue that it should, then you should definitely leave.
It will be interesting to see in a year or 2 if they regret their decision or not.

You still need to pay the $99 a year though, since you need an Apple Developer account to submit binaries to Apple for notarization (which is required to run them on Catalina.)

A paid Apple Developer account is not required to have binaries notarized.

Sadly it is required to have a paid account.

Sadly you have to accept PAID agreement to get notarization to work. https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/17/catalina-notarization/

Can you quote the relevant paragraph that you have to pay to get an app notarized?

You already needed a paid account to get your apps Developer ID signed in the first place.
If you're not using Developer ID and instead expecting your users to bypass Gatekeeper, that still works in Catalina.

No, notarization is not required to run an app on Catalina. Gatekeeper is only invoked if the quarantine attribute is set on the file.
Browsers are supposed to set that attribute. If they don't then Gatekeeper won't be triggered.

Allowing any company to decide what you are allowed to use and run on your device is always a bad idea. It is unfortunate that these devs took so long to realize this.

For me the optimal experience was Ubuntu software installer. It's like Homebrew or APM with visuals, search, everything. App Store is just a walled garden.

Try https://www.cakebrew.com/

I install far more programs/apps using Homebrew than AppStore or direct links for most things, wish more paid apps where that way.

So after reading this, my question is why the heck have they not diversified their product line to make more money? From what I'm seeing, this company is a one-trick pony.
I mean, I hate Apple practices as much as the next rational freedom-loving person, but I'm kinda having a hard time feeling sorry for companies that don't know to diversify to hedge against single-point failures (which they ironically complain about while self-building their own SPoF.)

The Mac App Store is now so crap infested and buggy that, if at all possible, I always buy directly from the vendors.

I agree with all these points. However, you can't leave behind the AppStore that matters most: for iPhone and iPad.

genuine question:
How is a developer, complaining about "The Catalina Disaster", not an attempt to distract attention, along with other developers, from years-long procrastination?

MacOS people problems

User friendliness aside, the 30% that Apple keeps is just plain & simple monopoly abuse, especially on the iOS App Store where Apple does control a majority of the market in US. That they haven't been held up for anti-trust shows that capitalism is not all well. Apple provides no value in exchange for that 30% except charging gatekeepers fee for the entry ticket to their platform. And as this article states, they in fact stand up more hurdles by shoving their limited payments system down the developer's throat. The companies worst affected by this are digital content providers like news/mags which are already struggling.

Have you considered Setapp? They offer an App-store equivalent but all apps are included for a monthly fee.

With a price tag of 79.99 or 99.99 I wouldn't change to Setapp. EDIT: The guy reverse engineered scanners and he is using this knowledge to support non compatible 32-bit scanners. Very unique on the business market.

With typos all over the page i am starting to doubt that the actual problem was with Apple.

> salleries
Ooph. We're not off to a very good start here.

boo hoo

macOS 10.15 Vista

> Apple takes 30% and that is not sustainable to run a company and pay salleries
Oh, guess what? Apple also has to run a company and pay salaries. Who would've thought?

Yeah. That's why they ask prices north of 1K for a phone.

30% is egregious. It's what I hate about Google/Apple/Amazon and why I've always refused to buy music from their services. Bandcamp charges 10~15%. Buy a CD directly from a band at a show and they pocket most of that money.
Apple is one of the largest companies in the world. They've done so with bullshit like this and I wish people would stop supporting this broken business model.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-much-d...

Hard to feel sympathetic about a company that literally has fights with local city councils about their humongous all glass company headquarters

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