You download the app and it doesn’t work
youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwork.com
youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwork.com
The majority of them are companion apps for physical products/memberships for which the rules around in-app purchases do not apply: Tesla, Soho House, Wells Fargo, Blue Cross / Blue Shield, WeWork.
Github has a free tier and doesn't require a paying membership to use.
Netflix is a digital content app for which there is a specific exemption under rule 3.1.3(a).
Bloomberg and Salesforce might also fall under the 3.1.3(a) exemption for "access to professional databases", I'm not sure.
App Store Connect is their own app. Apple's apps have always been able to use private APIs and do other things the rest of us can't.
The only other app in this list that is actually similar to Hey in terms of product type and monetization is Fastmail. (And it looks like Fastmail was recently asked to add IAP to their app as well.)
The rules around in-app purchases have been well known for a long time (by iOS devs at least, clearly not by the general public or even tech people).
Releasing an app that does not follow the rules and then publicly complaining when it is inevitably rejected is starting to seem more like a guerrilla marketing tactic more than anything else. (And a clever one too, I don't think yet-another-email-app would have gotten nearly the same amount of press coverage that this has.)
Yeah, the first few items on the list were relatively convincing, but the convincing-ness takes a nosedive further down the list. I mean, who in their right mind would compare hey to a companion app for a car?
Are the rules overly restrictive? Yes. Due they place an unfair burden on third party developers? Probably. But let's not pretend they are a mystery.
Part of the whole point is the relation to the quote at the start.
In every one of those apps signing up "doesn't work" which goes against the stated goal of ensuring that users can download the app and expect it work. How can it work if you can't even sign into it because you can't sign up for it and they can't even tell you how to.
This whole website is a strawman built against the false claim that you're not allowed to require a login to access your app, which has never actually been true.
It's about the policy creating the trend of apps that don't work in that you can't sign up on them.
You get the first, then sign up on the website or android app.
Try again.
Update: I just double checked. The Wells Fargo Android app and Wells Fargo iOS apps behave identically. You are immediately presented with a login screen upon launch. There is no signup flow inside either app but you can click a link that opens a web browser with a link to the registration page.
Your claim that the App Store policy is responsible for this trend does not hold up, considering the Android version is not subject to the same policy but behaves the exact same way anyway.
Update 2: Checked a few more apps. The Android versions of Github and Fastmail don't allow you to sign up in the app either. You are only presented with a login screen just like the iOS versions.
Don't remember if they had a link for signups before though, just pointing out that you can't deduce that point from given facts.
(Nor is there proof for the original thesis, it's all speculation at this point)
To circle back to the original point, blaming Apple for the "trend" of not being able to sign up inside of apps is clearly nonsensical.
Everything I look at on my smartphone is digital content.
And be sure to do it right before WWDC. We've seen this play before.
Sending email is distribution of “digital content”.
This old game of wobbly semantics to describe “organizing electrons in silicon” is pretty much done isn’t it?
Society has hit an information entropy. Where the masses get one message “austerity” while the elites tirelessly bike shed the rules, struggling to maintain their old epistemology as they die off from natural causes, which is extinguishing their norms instead.
Varoufakis is right: leadership of the old generation is out of net new ideas and has us nickle and diming old ones to keep up the ruse.
Their only endgame, which isn’t driven by more than an intuition, is keep the hierarchy story looking like it did decades ago.
This is just biological survival instinct. There’s absolutely no real reason to carve up “digital content” into more than electrons zipping through silicon, except for financial Machiavellianism.
For example: you weren't allowed to show device bezels in app store screenshots for a long time, even though all the major apps did exactly that. If you were a small time developer though you would get rejected, sometimes, with that cited as a reason. There's currently the same problems with asking for app reviews. Everyone wants to filter users through the "do you like the app? Yes/No" popups to try and make sure only good reviews get through. It's explicitly stated in the app store guidelines that you have to use the system provided prompt that doesn't allow for that, but it's only selectively enforced. So if your competition is filtering reviews but you aren't allowed to, you're at a huge disadvantage. And there's plenty of other ambiguous rules like that. In app purchases being a major one. You could have your app on the store for a year and then suddenly get a rejection notice on a bugfix update that they don't like your payment setup.
Point is: Apple will do absolutely whatever they want, and you have zero recourse. If you're a small developer it can kill you. Plenty of people will say "just follow the rules and you won't have a problem", but the rules are arbitrary and selectively enforced. For example, there was the Steam Link app debacle that Apple decided to reject after it's big release, and they literally just wrote new rules to exclude it[0]. And if they allowed alternative app stores I think you could excuse a lot of it. But they don't. And they never will unless they are forced to.
0: https://www.macworld.com/article/3276327/the-steam-link-app-...
I think the inverse to "Apple employed humans make a judgement call" is "Apple is no longer allowed to control their App Store". I don't like that option, because the curated App Store is a big reason why I bought an iPhone.
This is not my argument. It is not just inconsistent, it is selective. Major players are given far more leeway than small ones. There are obvious antitrust concerns, such as Spotify being required to give Apple 30% of it's revenue for it's service that competes with Apple Music[0]. There are concerns about freedom of speech and information, such as Apple removing an app that notified the user when there was a U.S. drone strike[1], or the Hong Kong protest app that China pressured them into removing. Or blocking all VPN apps in China.
And even if the argument at the end of the day is "I don't care; I like having a curated app store", why does that imply that Apple should be able to force users into only using theirs? How do you lose anything if users are allowed to install apps from other places, in some cases where there are serious human rights issues at stake?
0: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/16/apple-pay-and-ios-app-stor...
1: https://theintercept.com/2017/03/28/after-12-rejections-appl...
The 30% fee drops to 15% after one year, and Spotify hasn’t accepted IAP in several years, so everyone paying for Spotify through Apple is paying the 15% rate.
I do think larger clients should reasonably pay lower rates, as there’s a more equal/symbiotic value proposition between the two parties.
I think if the fees were split out people would lose their minds on more expensive apps because they'd recognize it isn't good value. Ex:
Hey: $70 / year
App Store Fee: $30 / year
Also, did Hey get the prices wrong or are they talking about keeping the prices the same and eating the 30%? If they want $99 in their pocket, they need to charge ~43% more. Assuming Apple takes 30% of the sale price:
- 99 * 1.43 = $141.57
- 141.57 * .3 = $42.47 for Apple
- 141.57 * .7 = $99.10 for Hey
So by taking 30% of revenue, it increases prices by 43% because if someone is taking 30% of your revenue, you need to increase your prices by 43% to break even.
I think the right alternative is "Users should have a choice of app stores"
You can have a curated app store but still...not gatekeep what software the user can install. Installs via web pages, app store listings that are deprioritized or hidden from the default search view. I'd go so far as they should be legally compelled to do that at a bare minimum.
There are myriad apps that users wanted, but Apple nixed them. Whether it's shady rentseeking like the Hey instance or content they find objectionable. How many times have social media sites like Tumblr or Reddit had to deal with their pearl-clutching over nudity? Screw them, they have no right. I can't even imagine how miserable desktop computing would be if that were the paradigm over the last 30 years.
Our now-shuttered startup Gliph brought in-app Bitcoin transfers to the App Store for the first time in 2013. Apple allowed the behavior for seven months before I got a call telling me it had to be removed.
Bitcoin was hot enough that our blog post generated a fair amount of press for our little startup. [1] and I also published the company's appeal publicly.
However, I did so with great trepidation about angering someone at Apple. [2]
Our approach did not seem to help things at all, though Apple did end up allowing the Bitcoin transfers to be brought back about 7 months later.[3]
--
One thing I find notable about this site and Hey!'s behavior on this is the scorched earth approach to the response. Basecamp seems ready, to go to "thermonuclear war" (as Jobs would say) on this one. People are hearing about Hey alright.
Hey's little mini site is convincing enough and it broadly escalates things. Particularly by using John Gruber's words against Apple, ouch!
This situation opens an unnecessary and distracting attack surface for Apple, in advance the most important developer event possibly in a decade.
Apple should have just let this app do its thing.
This whole situation reminds me of how Apple tried to make Apple Store employees pay for the time they were getting their bags searched. Bad PR that should never have happened. [4]
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/09/how-does-apple-really-feel...
[2] https://19de10c0037730b31d67-c6cb9846d861a1213b31648a6cce64e...
[3] https://blog.gli.ph/2014/07/21/bitcoin-transfers-back-into-t...
[4] https://9to5mac.com/2015/06/11/apple-store-security-checks/
everybody roots for david vs goliath, but the story would change if goliath was actually defending the little guy.
maybe make in-app purchases cheaper for smaller apps.
or do something to take small reasonable developers under their wing. like first year 10%.
Another thing they could do, sort of the opposite, is to take 30% for smaller apps, but have a published scale as volume increases. presumably with scale apples costs would amortize, and developers would be in for the long haul.
They could also maintain 30% if a particular app has lots of chargebacks, like you would have with abusive apps.
There's a github link at the bottom. Doesn't look to me like there is any affiliation with Basecamp.
Edit: Your point still stands, however. DHH made it pretty clear when we said they'd burn it all down. (Don't remember the exact quote)
No affiliation with Basecamp.
An app to manage your Tesla makes no sense unless you own a Tesla. You probably (definitely?) created an account when you ordered your car, so you don't need to sign-up in app. I suppose people that could buy a used Tesla without a Tesla account, but I'm pretty sure you need to link the used car to a new account before you can manage it through the app with the new account, so it still doesn't make sense to offer in-app signup. I see no issue with the Tesla app being approved.
Some of the other apps do seem to be legitimate complaints. Netflix being an obvious one- it's totally plausible for someone to expect to download Netflix on their iPad and then pay through Apple. Netflix could easily offer that but doesn't (probably because of the 30% cut). Apple would gladly reject a smaller app, but they approve Netflix because too many users would complain if they couldn't get Netflix on their iPad.
Edit: one other thing I haven't seen whether Basecamp could just charge $141.43 per year if someone pays through Apple, so Basecamp would get $99 per year after Apple takes their 30% cut. They are allowed to offer outside subscriptions for multiplatform products, as long as those subscriptions are also available in-app. That seems like it would follow Apple's rules. People that don't care about money could sign up in-app, but most people will sign up outside the app.
Can anyone explain why some apps are mobile only, like the Shop app? I have not tried it yet as a result. Also, does Apple take a cut of those sales?
But even with Tesla it's not 100% crystal clear. There might be some buyers who pick Tesla specifically because of the fancy tech features like Summon mode. It's impossible to use Summon mode without the app. So for one of those buyers, the app is an essential part of the purchase, just like HEY subscribers who expect to read emails on their phone.
I can still drive a Tesla without the app. It's clear that the core product is car, not the app. Some people may have bought it because of a defining feature, but you are not paying $80k for Summon mode. You are paying $80k for a car that has Summon mode.
Wells Fargo offers almost all of their functionality through physical branches and ATMs. Having an app is just a feature, a bank account is clearly not an app.
I cannot use Netflix without an app or browser on my TV, phone, tablet, or computer. There are movies stored on servers, but I'm not paying $15/month unless I can watch movies. That means Netflix's core product is an app and per Apple's rules they should offer in-app purchases.
WeWork is a little harder for me. They are a real estate company but I'm not sure you could call WeWork and get a workspace over the phone nor could you do it in person (you can call a landlord directly, but that is not WeWork's product). I think their core product is that you can book a space online or with an app. I think they need to have in-app signup and purchases.
Github is the most gray one for me- once setup, I use it mostly through the command line. I could claim that the core product is not an app, but I don't honestly believe that. I use a significant part of GitHub's feature set through the browser (discovering repositories, clicking through links to read about a package before cloning it).
Or imagine a cloud-based e-book service that you can just SSH into. Should Apple allow apps marketed simply as SSH clients, but not allow an SSH client branded with that e-book service?
Most of these products are not clients. A client is something like an RSS reader, where one company makes app but interact with services/products from other companies. Netflix does not sell you a subscription to watch movies and then allow you to watch it with third-party apps. They do not expose .mp4 files, so saying "if they did this" isn't relevant. They try their hardest to force you to watch with their app.
Overall, your arguments are silly. People have common sense and can use it. Using misdirection in your words doesn't change what the functionality of the product is. Coming up with strange corner cases that don't exist and aren't viable products aren't good examples. Until an actual commercial e-book service that functions through SSH exists then Apple doesn't need to waste their time addressing it.
But I think that's pretty clearly not the case, and moreover, I think people might be just as upset if Apple's policies said "we just use our common sense to classify apps and determine which features they can use on our platform" and then appeared to apply those determinations inconsistently.
To use the service, you have to use a mobile app (or web app), the service won't let you access via POP/IMAP.
My Model X does summon using only the keyfob.
For Model 3 owners without a keyfob (it's an optional extra) - yeah, I'll give you that.
> Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, etc.
> In limited circumstances, such as when features are dependent upon specific hardware to function, the app may unlock that functionality without using in-app purchase[...] You may not, however, require users to purchase unrelated products or engage in advertising or marketing activities to unlock app functionality.
They could.
>People that don't care about money could sign up in-app, but most people will sign up outside the app.
The problem is that the iOS app cannot in any way or form mention that a) you can pay for the subscription outside the application b) the price of the subscription outside of the application is different than inside the application.
Thanks. Having to hide the difference from customers is worth the fight IMHO.
There's been couple of times when I've eaten the markup that comes with paying through Apple simply because that means that I can go into my iTunes subscriptions page, hit the "stop" button on it, and it's done. No buried unsubscribe links, no "tell us why you're leaving" quiz, no disputing charges on my card. It's done and over and I don't ever have to think about it again.
If third-party payment services become the norm on the App Store, I expect a steep decline in quality of unsubscribe experiences across the board.
This is far from ideal for two reasons:
1) Some users will be paying 30% more just because they signed up in the app. How is this a good experience that protects the user?
2) most importantly, Basecamp loses the ability to manage the financial aspects of the customer relationship. They’re unable to give discounts, credit, refunds, add time to the subscription etc. It’s a hassle for all the back office management as now some customers come through a completely different billing + subscription platform.
I want to start by saying I think Apple is overstepping their bounds here and has been for years. But one reason I like the app store is because companies are generally terrible stewards. For example, I took my car to the dealer and the next week I get post cards for XM Radio (I will continue to get them for months because this has happened before). A few years ago I had a reoccurring donation to a popular Public Radio show. I was changing credit cards and was trying to update the subscription. There was no way to update it on their website or contact them to update (which included canceling). I sent email with no response. I ended up cancelling the card and with it my subscription. I'm now very skeptical about services that manage reoccurring payments.
I just had a vision of Apple demanding 30% of the cost of each Tesla sold.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate...
How should Apple go about making money from the App Store? Paid apps are dwindling off. They do charge a flat fee per developer, but it can’t be too large or they’ll lose all the indie developers, and there just aren’t enough developers overall to make that a viable business on its own. They could charge a flat fee to the developer per app download -- something really small, a few cents per download -- but then what about free apps?
What they want is to take a share of the profits from developers who are making money on their platform, while also supporting free apps free of charge. The 30% fee is their attempt to do that. The problem is that it’s easy to game the system and just run your payments outside their store. Hence all the silly rules to try to prevent that.
Maybe 30% is just too much. Would people complain as much if it were 10%, or 5%?
Or maybe they should just give up on App Store revenue and focus on hardware sales. But it would be a little weird for them not to have a direct incentive to improve the store experience for users.
Or Apple could drop the charade and charge users for access to apps based on whatever pricing scheme they want.
The promotions one is interesting; I think it has the same pitfall as AdWords: if my app / web page is the best result for the user for a given search, why should I have to pay money to promote it? If Apple or Google is doing their job right, taking money for promotions is actively detrimental to users. Not that that stops AdWords, of course.
Charging the users would make sense. It’s a shame that we’ve all been trained to expect this stuff to be free.
I guess subscription-based stores are a decent approach? Like Apple Arcade. But that has downsides for users too -- you potentially end up paying multiple subscriptions (like most people do now for streaming TV) so it adds barriers to entry for new (possibly better) stores. Who wants to pay for yet another subscription service?
It's less risky to develop some skinner box slot machine because you aren't out much investment if it gets rejected. Plus, the digital goods are pulled from thin air, so anything you sell is pure profit.
Contrast that with a real app that provides a valuable service with backend costs and a subscription fee. There's a lot more investment to build an app like that, so getting rejected is a huge risk and, even at 15%, Apple's cut might be a big chunk of your margin.
Since Apple incentivizes low effort slot machines and detriments high quality apps, I feel like there's been an increasing portion of the app store is turning into what I consider garbage apps.
The subscription cut also creates the opposite scenario of what everyone is always parroting about iOS customers being profitable. They might spend more money, but they're definitely not more profitable (per customer) if you're paying 15% to a middleman.
I'm confused why they don't rip the bandaid off and just charge everyone at the same time though. Charging Tesla 30% probably isn't feasible but this seems like an ideal time to introduce fees for all companies that are currently allowed exemptions (Netflix, Lyft, Airbnb, Uber, Audible, Airlines etc). Yes they could put up a fight but at least some of them would cave.
Until the government gets involved, they are totally allowed to selectively and arbitrarily enforce the rules. Banning Hey but not Netflix just makes them look like hypocrites and makes them less money. Seems like the worst of both worlds.
Since cars are physical goods, Tesla COULD freely sell the car in the app using Apple Pay, Credit Card, etc in the app if they wanted, just like Amazon, Walmart and other e-commerce apps do. They wouldn't pay the 30%, just the credit card fee.
Similarly, Lyft, Airbnb, Uber and some Airlines accept ApplePay, Credit Card, etc, all without the 30%, because it's a physical service, not software or a digital product.
Netflix and Audible just don't sell their stuff on the app. It's not an exemption, it's something predicted in the App Store terms: don't link to the signup/sales page. The problem here is that Hey is claiming that they should be allowed to use that rule that Netflix and Audible use.
I tried to limit the list to apps where you couldn't get to _any_ functionality without logging in. AirBnB lets you browse around etc. Airlines let you look at dates / availability.
I included Wells Fargo, however, because I thought it was wild that they're able to provide straight web links to Safari to sign up for banking services, whereas Hey has to pretend like accounts are bestowed via divine intervention.
Why, then, did Apple decide to gerrymander its rules to extract rent from one industry and not the other?
Perhaps there's an ethical or philosophical argument why Apple feels entitled to one industry's revenue and not the other, but I haven't heard that argument.
It is as if a lot of people just don’t see or don’t care about monopoly or monopolistic behavior. The product is great, Apple is has the highest market cap of any company in the world, it’s founder has god-like status. What’s the problem?
It may sound unrelated but they're both the result of the American zeitgeist's blind commitment to free markets and unfettered capitalism. To be fair, it's worked well for the US economy (e.g. Silicon Valley) albeit at the cost of increasing the wealth gap and general "late-stage capitalism"-y behaviour.
They're also not saying that Hey can't be in their store, or even needs to pay them anything. Hey could offer a free tier and wouldn't owe Apple a dime. Basecamp already does this so they know it very well.
Which again, Basecamp already does. They know this is how it is and how to work around it, but they're pitching a fit because they don't want to do it.
I'm a bit ornery about this because Basecamp is using the plight of other developers now only because it suits their bottom line. Where have they been for the past decade? They've been raking in money off the App store for years.
If I claim that a gas station has a monopoly within a three block radius, that might be technically true, but only because of the constraints I applied. It's not actually a meaningful distinction if the consumer can drive down a bit further and find another gas station.
Imo it's more like saying, "Foocorp in the US doesn't have a monopoly, since you can always move to Canada and buy from BarCo or one of its competitors there!" Well, Foocorp is still the only seller in the US, so they have a monopoly in that market.
Sure. I also have a monopoly in the market of "selling lemonade on my front lawn". Is that a meaningful distinction?
> Imo it's more like saying, "Foocorp in the US doesn't have a monopoly, since you can always move to Canada and buy from BarCo or one of its competitors there!" Well, Foocorp is still the only seller in the US, so they have a monopoly in that market.
No one would consider moving to another country a realistic alternative. So in that situation, yes, there is a monopoly because the consumer does not have a realistic alternative. If a gas station is the only gas station in the city, then it too would have a monopoly in that city, because driving to the next city every time you needed gas is not realistic.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-court-apple-monop...
No, if you find a "trick" to get around Apple's rules[0], what happens is that you get blocked when they catch you. They might update the rules to explicitly ban what you did, but they'll gladly ban you first and change the rules later.
That's if you're little. If you're big (Google, Facebook, Uber), you might get a call from Tim Cook warning you that you need to stop what you're doing or you'll have trouble soon. Or perhaps they'll ban your cafeteria app, while leaving your consumer apps in the marketplace. Maybe you'll even get to negotiate, if you have enough leverage. But what won't happen is that Tim Cook will say "Looks like the rules don't cover this situation. Awwww, shucks!"
[0] There are some rules they don't care about (like marketing using push notifications), and enforcement of rules can be mixed. This is for the rules they care about.
Hey are trying to market an app on the app store as a 'free' app. Not offering sign up also means they don't have to add the 'offers in app purchases'.
So they're advertising the app as free. Even though its $99 a year.
Apples 30% cut is obscene and should be less. But Hey are using a 'free' label to market their app.
It is actually against Apple’s rules for Basecamp to make it any clearer.
2. Hey can be accessed via HTTP, so it's not app only.
Apple could solve this by allowing a "Free, account required" descriptor/category for Netflix/Dropbox/etc/etc.
So "Free" is a lie, but one many other apps have used beforehand.
They could add a "requires account" tag like they have "in-app purchases" but I don't think that would satisfy what Apple is looking for here (money).
"But on January 7, 1980, in response to the Hunts' accumulation, the exchange rules regarding leverage were changed, when COMEX adopted "Silver Rule 7" placing heavy restrictions on the purchase of commodities on margin. The Hunt brothers had borrowed heavily to finance their purchases, and, as the price began to fall again, dropping over 50% in just four days, they were unable to meet their obligations, causing panic in the markets."
What if I own an iPhone and HEY is what I want on my phone? How can I override Apple's decision? If I can't, who really owns this device?
I know you're not, but - anyone earnestly asking this question hasn't been paying attention to Apple since, well, ever.
Also nowadays it would be useful to have some sort of debug port, for example a serial port to connect and have a CLI to do diagnostic, upload a new firmware, etc. They have these interfaces in the TVs but most of the time are either disabled or protected so the end user cannot use them.
See dishwashers, microwaves, Apple iPhones, and washing machines. Car manufacturers still publish schematics for their circuitry (for a fee)
Nowadays a brand new high end +2000€ Samsung TV comes with ads (!) in the menu and the apps feel like they'd be running on a potato. With that kind of Smart TVs, the hardware won't be the issue since it'll be the software that will be obsole way before the hardware. Smart TV is not a promise, its a thread.
It is a pretty well established model. I don't like it sometimes either, but you know what you are getting when you buy an iPhone. It isn't like they changed policy after you bought the device.
It technically fulfills the requirements specified in the review guidelines but I suspect it would be frowned upon.
Hint, if it is expected, that doesn't mean it's still ok..
I suppose a large share of the potential Hey customers work in tech and might have a better understanding of what the app store tax actually means. And the EU anti trust investigations probably play role too?
Remember Hey isn't free. People on waiting list already knew this from day one. With 70K invite, that is $7M annual revenue already.
DHH also went on about making sure no mention of Sign up in Webpages as well as many other commonly known App Stores rules before the App was submitted. And many thought it would pass, and it did for 1.0. It is the bug fix 1.01 update that was blocked Due to IAP reason. For most if not all iOS developers. This is new. So new that Fastmail didn't get their treatment until now. [1]
This new IAP rule force 30% on new sign up, as you could not even allow the App to be on App Store without IAP ( hence this website ). Along with the threat from Apple about pulling Hey from App Store, and finally their tone, which was like adding even more fuel to outrage, and I quote
Thank you for being an iOS app developer. We understand that Basecamp has developed a number of apps and many subsequent versions for the App Store for many years, and that the App Store has distributed millions of these apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years.
Is not exactly helping and got even more outrage from developers who dont even use Hey. To me that is about the most polite way from Apple saying fuck you. ( If the webpage author is reading this I suggest you include this quote on the webpage, or make a new site with all the popular useful free Apps that helped users but contributed noting to Apple. )
I know there are many who hate DHH and Ruby Rails, but seriously I cant see how he could have orchestra the whole thing as marketing. As if he knew about the IAP rule changes before hand.
There are regularly stories about iOS apps getting removed for odd reasons on the HN tops, but the Hey story blew up pretty quickly.
> I know there are many who hate DHH and Ruby Rails
I also I also heard that a lot of people hate DHH and his Twitter comment bubble doesn't seem to like HN. Either way, he is certainly not wrong about the issue. I also don't see how Hey would profit from marketing around that. First of all, Hey is pretty expensive and has a pretty narrow target audience as of now. Most people are perfectly happy with their free mail, people who aren't are probably already aware that those alternatives exist. Even more importantly, I don't see how they are going to profit by putting their App Store listing at risk. I doubt an E-Mail service is able so succeed if it doesn't offer native applications or at least a integration with third party clients. Since they chose to not support IMAP etc, Hey's iOS app is integral to the buisness. No app in the store, no profit.
I tend to think Spotify is too big for the media and other pundits to consider to be the little guy.
They've done a great job organizing their protest campaign. I would be extremely surprised if it wasn't planned from the beginning. They are ultimately depending on Apple caving under pressure.
If not, please refrain from disingenuously advancing obviously problematic ideas. It adds nothing to the conversation.
What's wrong with this being put forward? I would go so far to say that this is one of the four main things that happen when an app is rejected from an app store.
1. Change the app.
2. Don't support the platform.
3. Sideload.
4. Direct users from that platform to the web version.
The web browsers that meets the PWA requirements are Chrome, Edge, Firefox (to a large extent), Brave, Vivaldi, all available on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android.
Not Safari. And all browsers including Chrome and Firefox are just Safari under the hood (on iOS) so no completion for Apple. Apple does not even allow a competing browser engine.
I wouldn't call this "PWA support".
When I talk to friends at Google that work at Chrome, and tell them to convince Apple to support many of the features, they tell me that they have given up on them, and I can go talk to Apple if I want. They told me they're gonna keep progressing the web even if Apple wants to stay behind, they won't stop.
I've talked to people at Apple about this, they don't care. They always have a far fetched excuse. I know it's not the engineers fault, they are ordered by the upper management.
Instead of giving the money to Apple, we could easily reinvest it to grow.
It was a serious question. I'm sorry if it caught you in a situation that didn't allow you to perceive it in that way.
That said, they were clearly ready to loudly react to whatever trouble did emerge.
Who knows? All I know is if the end result is that Apple is held accountable by regulators and is forced to stop engaging in capricious anticompetitive behavior, then whether DHH is a master astroturfer or not doesn't matter much to me. The end result will have been good for us all.
Also, I'm not sure how Hey orchestrated this - do they have someone on the inside who they had reject their app?
It’s child’s play to orchestrate this. It amounts to getting thrown out of a bar for not wearing pants, and then putting up ishouldbeabletovisitbarswithoutpants.com. Not something that requires a man on the inside.
“Well, let’s ask Apple for some workaround for the 30%, skirt the rules a bit”
“They’ll never go for that”
“Of course not, but while it lasts we’ll get 30% more. Then once we get rejected, sooner or later, we’ll write some blog posts and suddenly a bunch of nerds will see us as the brave underdog“
> I wish I was that smart. Imagine if I was that good at 4D chess. Imagine just the mechanics of this: first, you have to plant someone within Apple that approves the application, which, and then, what, I plant someone on Monday that then disapproves it? How does any of this work? How powerful do I have to be to orchestrate this?
- https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21295778/apple-app-store-...
They'll eventually probably capitulate. Maybe with a higher price on the IAP? They're very much making sure that Apple are earning their 30% through this campaign, though!
It makes zero sense.
According to Apple they need this revenue cut because of the cost of keeping the platform running.
If I offer a subscription in my app for 1$/month vs 10$/month what marginal expense is being incurred that apple deserves an extra $2.70 for the higher price?
On the other hand the argument is that all the $0 apps are being subsidized by the paid apps, so they went percentage based so that the cheap apps didn't have a huge fee. It would mean the cheapest paid apps in the app store would be a lot more to absorb the fixed cost, or if they shared it evenly, then there would be no free apps.
If there were competing app stores available on iOS, then we could say they are really entitled to that profit. But we don't know how much of this profit reflects the value they brought versus the rent they were able to get due to gatekeeping the only bridge into iOS-land. So no, we can't for sure say they are entitled to the entirety of that profit.
How do you allow free apps but still collect money? Maybe you could make a distinction between free and paid apps, and charge a flat fee to the paid apps, but then people would just make their apps free and process their payments separately anyway; essentially the same problem you hit with the 30% fee.
McDonalds, Nike and Gillette do this too. Hey, maybe you’re doing it yourself: is your salary really the cheapest way for you to produce the work you get paid for?
As I get older, I can't help but wonder if these people are simply shareholders of Apple (or any company in a discussion like this). Is this good for society overall, to have such a strong financial incentive for so many people to willfully ignore the other side of important arguments?
(I'm not one of them, by the way: I'm 100% on the side of Hey.)
Ironically, you're wilfully ignoring the other side of the important argument, and telling yourself the lie that anyone who disagrees with you must be being paid to do so, rather than listening to them and thinking about why they may think that way through their own reasoning.
I specifically said "can't help but wonder". It just crosses my mind, no assumptions are made.
* Netflix: Reader app (reader is a special Apple exception for movies/tv, books, news... mass-market media)
* Github: Offers a free tier
* App store connect: I mean come on, it's an Apple dev tool
* Tesla: exception for physical goods
Basecamp/Hey knew this was going to happen. It's a wonderful marketing campaign for them.
Apple has zero incentive to change this. The buzz around it is niche and they'd lose countless dollars if they opened the door for exceptions. Basecamp knows this.
Also, where has Basecamp been for the decade prior? Funny how they're propping this as some rightgeous issue when it suddenly impacts their bottom line.
I think they testified in the US Congress about Apple’s practices recently
I don't care about Hey and I'm not an iOS user, but I would love to see this situation, which represents something increasingly accepted as normal but that none of us quite understand, forced into a proper accommodation with reality.
I can just use Apple Pay instead of handing over my credit card. Don't want a subscription? No complicated process. No need to call a number. No need to email anyone. I just click to cancel and I am done.
As lousy as this is, the consumer experience is dramatically improved.
Nobody would be complaining if you Apple's user-base wasn't so juicy that your best option is forking over 30%. If it was easy to acquire customers outside the store it wouldn't even be an issue.
If Apple had unlisted apps that didn't show up in the store listings and required a click through from your website to get to the app's store page, I bet some developers would opt for that if it meant they didn't have to pay the 30% tax.
You could not release an app in their store and ignore their existence entirely. But that's ridiculous and you can't afford to do that because their user-base is so valuable. And so Apple charges a premium because they know that.
For developers I think a possible strategy would be to sell two products; standard edition and iOS optimized. Charge +30% for the iOS version since Apple users are (supposedly) willing to pay more.
Personally, I'm very skeptical of subscription options since many companies are bad actors; making it difficult to cancel or throwing adds and promotions at you.
Is that worth paying $43 extra per year on a HEY subscription?
If the app says that "One year HEY subscription" is $142 and the app is from HEY itself, what reason is there to believe that it's not just the plain old price of HEY?
They're not filling some massive need; it's yet another email service. If they can't justify it at $142 a year how do they justify it at $99 a year? You reap what you sow.
Some prefer IaP, like you, so won't sign up to Hey, others don't and may actually have already paid for the service on desktop.
Apple knows that customer acquisition is extremely expensive outside the store and is charging accordingly.
The biggest issue is how big apples cut is. 30% is a lot for a company that is so impossibly wealthy.
You also act as if money on the store is coming from small Indy developers and not big corporations and mostly play to win games. Especially since the former big money makers have stopped allowing in app subscriptions.
I also am a (generally) happy iPhone user. That being said, I don't think this is a strong argument in support of Apple's monopoly on the App Store.
Make it the default so that non-techy users have no difficulties, but other methods for loading/installing apps should be allowed. If Apple's experience truly is that much better for the consumer, then let it win on its merits.
At this point this is no private dark pool, but a public market place, the transactions on which affect an unfathomable number of consumers, and Apple should and must be subject to the level of government regulation and oversight that governs other public market places like the NYSE and the CME. I suspect that this will come sooner or later, or otherwise these markets will be broken up entirely, but behavior like this from Apple only hastens this outcome.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/236550/percentage-of-us-...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206400/apple-tax-amazon-...
> Apple should and must be subject to the level of government regulation and oversight that governs other public market places like the NYSE and the CME.
First it's Facebook should be treated as a Public-as-in-Government Square, and now the App Store should be governed like the stock market?
I think Apple's morally in the wrong here. But the solution isn't just going to be just pulling some lofty regulation out of thin air and trying to re-apply it.
That's exactly what the solution will be. Apple will eventually be responsible for ushering in regulation that kills software distribution monopolies like the App Store. It'll be an interesting new landscape to be in for a lot of markets.
Somewhere along the way they forgot that apps are why people use their devices/platforms.
I was excited about hey before, and even though I don’t agree and don’t like the way the App Store works, I find Hey and the superstars behind it so hypocritical and annoying now. It’s funny how we hate here AMP and other technologies that are killing the open web, but we’re fine with a closed email system that locks you in Basecamp’s walled garden.
It has never felt so close to actually breaking up apple tight grip on its developer community, and it’s all thanks to him.
either - app value is content driven (netflix) OR - data-driven (bloomberg) OR - or physical (airbnb, amazon)
in cases where you could say, the client is the "main driver of value" they are pretty consistent.
take a game, for example -- or hey's proprietary filtering system.
that said, I don't agree with 30%, jsut my understanding
I don't understand this sentiment. You don't like the way the App Store works and a company comes along and is willing to fight against Apple for it, and then you start disliking them? Why are they hypocritical? They are pointing out flaws and being loud about them. Yes, I am aware that it's because it aligns with their financial/strategical interests, but ultimately it's a good thing that they are pressuring Apple, no?
> It’s not like they were perfectly fine with the system as long as it didn’t affect them, being one of the “famous” companies out there, while independent developers and small start-ups had to deal with this for years and years.
What about Netflix, GitHub and all of other companies who are able to get away. They are apparently big enough that Apple cares about them to bend the rules; why aren't we annoyed that they're not willing to stand up for other developers as well? They certainly should have some way of pressuring Apple.
> It’s funny how we hate here AMP and other technologies that are killing the open web, but we’re fine with a closed email system that locks you in Basecamp’s walled garden.
How is Hey "a closed email system"? It sends and receives emails using SMTP. Closed source email clients is far from a new invention and
It intentionally doesn't support IMAP, so exporting email is tricky/impossible. Whether or not you care is another thing entirely.
(With that being said, there's no reason they couldn't publish an API so someone else could write a client...)
https://exponentsmag.org/2020/02/11/antitrust-for-thee-profi...
The "oh my this is shocking and unfair" act is all a ruse. They've been well aware of this since the onset, they even copied Netflix's app text so they can feign "see we're just like them!" despite knowing they're not.
Relevant quote from investigation announcement: "The investigations concern in particular the mandatory use of Apple's own proprietary in-app purchase system and restrictions on the ability of developers to inform iPhone and iPad users of alternative cheaper purchasing possibilities outside of apps."
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...
They also doesn't support free VP9 video coded because they are part of competitive FFMPEG.
I didn't like Apple due to this gatekeeper/walled garden but I started to hate it more after watching "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine" documentary. Such a big company and still they did illegal option backdating, avoiding tax in Ireland, etc.
It needs more time for people to realize their mistake of supporting this company.
Google scrapes info and displays it in widgets above links to the actual content. Google charges trademark holders AdWords ransom to protect searches for their own brands.
Amazon kills OSS business models by offering managed OSS services on AWS at an unbeatable cost. Amazon picks off the best performing market place categories with Amazon Basics ‘recommended’ competitors.
The list goes on and on.
Tech is an industry defined on building scale and then collecting rents. Apple IAP is just the current outrage but the entire industry is working towards building the next ‘platform’ for others to sharecrop on.
That said, the comment is a simple terse statement of "facts".
Doesn't Apple have its own version of this in the App Store?
I don't get the objection to this one. Isn't the point of open source to let the best vendor win?
Too many companies fail to realize that you must relentlessly wage war on cost to survive.
If authors want credit and money, the license needs to state as much. You can't publish something saying "do whatever you want" and then complain that people aren't being fair to you.
Well… you can complain. You just can't sue them. But the complaint would still be valid.
You can act like a jerk and follow all the laws at the same time, it's just that the consequences for you won't be identical.
I am sure some people don't steal/murder because of laws, but I optimistically think the majority don't because they don't wish to hurt others.
The licenses weren't conceived of with the thought of something like AWS. Now that we're in the midst of things that's changing but what is an officially supported open source license [0] is too slow so you can't use the OSS label if you've you're not using the approved licenses. Both Mongo and Elasticsearch have changed their licenses to prevent cloud players from taking advantage of their work and companies like Gitlab make a clear distinction between their FOSS parts and what they make money on by using two different licenses. The issues are only a little over a half decade old now the OSS players are starting to figure it out.
Open source just doesn't mean anyone can use it, there's a definition to adhere to and and org managing that definition. [1]
It was never intended as a free for all.
[0] https://opensource.org/licenses [1] https://opensource.org/about
You mean...a hosting company? I find it hard to believe that the open source movement was blindsided by the realization that there are companies that sell hosting services and that somehow this destroys the viability of their movement.
There is an expectation of contribution back.
The issues are only a little over a half decade old now the OSS players are starting to figure it out.
Open source just doesn't mean anyone can use it, there's a definition to adhere to and and org managing that definition. [1]
It was never intended as a free for all.
[0] https://opensource.org/licenses [1] https://opensource.org/about
* You have people that are ideologically driven (FSF)
* You have companies that Open Source as a weapon [0] (Chromium)
* You have projects that are very pragmatic. They believe it is the path to technical excellence.
* You have individuals do it for their resume
* You have individuals that do it just for fun :)
[0] https://www.gwern.net/Complement#open-source-as-a-strategic-...
This is already happening. A lot of projects that are nominally open source are more and more influenced by the decisions of particular companies which erodes its purpose.
I might be ignorant here, but isn’t it the “open source companies” that are actively doing this, rather than Amazon? It seems to me that these companies that represent an open source project are realizing that you don’t get it both ways: it turns out that releasing open source software means that the source code is open, which means that you don’t get automatic business just because the name of your company is the same as the name of the open source project.
All the problems from app store racket still applies such as the tax. And I am not saying android doesn't need a lot of those changes, it's just they break things without helping. There are many examples if you look around.
1. Disguised ads in search results (they have been making ads less obvious) - https://i.postimg.cc/h4V8TbqF/Screenshot-20200620-041823-Goo...
Even if you search the exact name, it will bombard you with whoever is paying the most.
2. Google closed source their play billing library recently. Apps which use the library can't be put on fdroid.
3. At Google I/O 2018, Google introduced an alternative app distribution format called the Android App Bundle with the file extension .aab. This format requires giving a copy of your app’s signing key to Google. AABs are harder for users to manually sideload as they aren’t natively supported by Android’s package installer and must be unpacked and devs have to do more work to distribute on other platforms.
4. Google killing Termux with Android 10 and many others relying on the functionality by removing the perms to execute binaries.
5. Fdroid can't auto update because of restrictions by google.
6. Broke custom recoveries such as TWRP.
7. Irresponsible automated ban of anything covid. Surprisingly this doesn't or never affect popular apps. Must be because they whitelist them.
2] https://www.xda-developers.com/f-droid-android-apps-google-p...
3] https://www.xda-developers.com/google-play-billing-v3-app-bu...
4] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...
6] https://www.xda-developers.com/twrp-lead-explains-android-10...
Microsoft hardware with Android, a decent update lifecycle, MS365, alternate store, MS billing APIs, etc. would make a compelling offering IMO. The only thing I think MS would screw up would be sideloading. They seem to be all in on the current code signing / trust system and it's absolute trash.
There are so many industries that have been turned into complete garbage by rent seekers that I feel like anything that doesn't absolutely screw developers and customers would be super successful. The problem is that we only have about 5 tech companies on the planet that are big enough to compete.
App bundle is a way to reduce hassle of uploading multiple apks for cutting down apk size on different targets. Developers can and always have to build regular apks for other distribution platforms or for users to sideload. I don't see how AAB makes devs do more work.
Yes, all the major tech companies are engaged in rent seeking. But Apple is the only one that says users must either must pay rent or throw away their hardware.
The App Store and its policies are not the problem. The App Store is Apple's store, just like Amazon.com is Amazon's store. But the App Store shouldn't be the only way to get software on my phone. And no, reinstalling apps from a computer every seven days doesn't count.
(The semi-exceptions are game consoles. I don't like that either, but since they're single-purpose devices I find it much less bad.)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicgames....
https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/21/21229930/fortnite-availabl...
The only value added by Apple is some kind of vetting (they don’t do code review, they just check that the app meets their recommendations... and they are called RECOMMENDATIONS not REQUIEMENTS).
My app was recently rejected because i refused to sell in-app purchases and want to keep purchases only on my website.
Why should Apple care what software makers want?
I get that it's a pain to develop software for the iPhone and then have to pay rent to Apple to get it to users; but that's not Apple's problem unless enough users either complain or switch hardware to cut into Apple's revenue. That doesn't seem to be happening. Sure, there are plenty of users (I'm one of them) who refuse to buy an Apple device precisely because of limitations like this, but there are plenty more users who don't seem to care; whatever they are getting through Apple's curated app store appears to satisfy their needs. As long as that remains true, Apple has no incentive to change its policies, and that's just a business reality that any software developer contemplating making an app for the iPhone is going to have to deal with.
And you’re defending that?
Personally I think devs should just pass the 30% to consumers or withdraw their apps. That is how you get leverage.
The Mafia didn't build things. It just came in and took over things others had built.
Apple built its app store. It built the iPhone. It got its users fair and square, by providing a product that users want. If you think that's the same as the Mafia, you have a very skewed view of business.
They do no such thing. They just prevent other stores from providing apps for their own product. Which they are within their rights to do, since it's their product.
I'll bring it up again: game consoles. Steam. And no, they don't deserve a pass.
Why Steam? No one ever has to use Steam--you can install whatever you want on your PC. Steam isn't even installed by default in 99% of cases.
As for the why: I'm thinking from the point of view of a developer. For me it's all the same. Paying 30% to Apple is the same as paying 30% to Steam or x% to console makers. In practice it doesn't matter if the appliance the user runs my software is essential or not, or if the store is exclusive, or comes preinstalled or not. I'm still paying a percentage to someone.
Sucks in all cases.
I personally have platforms I simply will not use (or refuse to spend money on directly, like EA's Origin, where I only own/care about C&C) regardless how good of a deal it is.
Valve has the ability to set whatever rules they want within their store. A world where we didn't allow this would get very complicated very quickly. Do we also make Walmart and Target carry every brand? How much are they allowed to markup the price? Who decides?
If Steam provides such a valuable service that consumers aren't willing to shop anywhere else even when they can, then that's what it is.
And, I think that's what would largely happen on the iPhone anyway if side-loading was allowed, outside of extraordinary circumstances like when protesters can't access a critical safety app. But, in order to keep apps on their store, Apple would have to make a (slightly) greater effort to keep developers happy.
(I also think Steam zealots are ridiculous, but that is a separate discussion.)
The parameters have been clear for over a decade, and it’s really time to stop whining that the iPhone is not an open platform. Apple is the only iPhone app distribution channel and they make the rules. If you don’t want that, don’t buy an iPhone/don’t make iPhone apps. If you make iPhone apps, own it.
Instead of, you know, just accepting bad things because they've been bad for a decade. Slavery was around in the US for more than 100 years. Did that make it right? Maybe slave owners said similar things to Abolitionists, "but it's been this way for ages!!"
According to Apple, if your app is not a "reader" app it must allow subscribing in-app.
Can you imagine if Best Buy required Apple to add "Best Buy Payments" to MacOS so that Best Buy could collect a 30% fee on top of any services subscription that Apple sells to that MacBook user? All for the privilege of selling their products through the BB stores.
Apple isn't marking up a product for resale in it's retail environments. It is, in many cases, forcing its developers (who provide their valuable products to Apple for free, after paying Apple an annual fee) to completely rearrange their business models in order for Apple to collect a huge portion of their revenues, entirely on their terms.
As for your Best Buy example, Best Buy can make that demand, but Best Buy would lose more from not having Apple’s products than Apple would from not being placed on Best Buy’s shelves.
The second part there is what a lot of people seem to have difficulty accepting.
I’d be so impressed if one of you would just head over to Android and make a non-iPhone app that took the world by storm. Prove to us all that the 30% is a bad bargain, that Apple needs to change, that your software is valuable even without their store.
I guess it’s disheartening to see instead just another set of entitled complaints and dubious concern over end users, most of whom have no idea your $10 app exists and never thought about it when buying their $1000 phone.
But, it's also becoming more and more critical as phones take an increasingly central roll in our lives.
(Apple is in a frustratingly unique position compared to Walmart, Target, Best Buy, et. al., of course, in that the App Store is the way to get applications onto iPhones.)
Your Apple hardware is your Costco Membership Card. You aren’t able to buy Sam’s Club products using your Costco membership, and Costco’s under no expectation to make them available to you.
Your iPhone is not compatible with any software.
Some things are compatible and some things are not.
Edit: “Compatible” is not about the tech in this case (the binary would theoretically run) but about the terms of your agreement with the manufacturer.
If you buy a Costco fridge and with it a contract to only store Costco-sold food in it, then you have a better analogy. 80% of the world seems to prefer the AnyFood Fridge, and for some reason 20% buy the Costco with the agreement.
--
Edit response: How many people do you think read the agreement they signed with Apple? How many realize Apple is increasing the price of software by ~30%?
You don't need to muddy the waters by making a ridiculous analogy that somehow equates a computer to a membership card (of all things!).
The computer is a computer. Full stop. There is a store on the computer. There should be other stores on the computer but they're not allowed because the people that make the computer are partaking in anti-competitive, anti-consumer shenanigans.
It's interesting you'd say that because it's actually not true (I am not accusing you of lying at all - I take your statement at face value!)
What I mean is the following:
When I buy a phone - no matter the maker - I have deep within me a default assumption that if I want some app, some provider, some service, some feature, on my phone - that it will be, that it can be, and if someone thinks it up it'll be there shortly. I DO NOT assume that because Apple wants to steal people's work, some apps will never appear there.
Do you remember the early days of the app store and the saying "There's an app for that" (usually referring to things like fart generators and TV quotes).
Nowadays you'd NEVER think to say such a thing because Apple is ensuring it cannot be true - and more and more developers and platforms are choosing not to use it.
It's pretty plainly clear to me that Apple ONLY wants large, rich, well-known companies publishing apps; they grudgingly publish apps for small or individual developers, but really deep down wish they didn't have to.
Stuff like what we are seeing now with Hey is their endgame to finally get everyone except their exclusive club off the list.
I bought an iPhone and had no idea bit torrent clients were banned
If Apple had promised customers that Age of Empires runs on Macs, then they would have a hard time getting Microsoft to give them 30%. But Apple has made not such promise to consumers.
Besides, there’s an email client for the iPhone. If there wasn’t, consumers might complain. If Hey was the only game in town, I’m sure they’d be given a sweeter deal.
Given that Age of Empires has actually had Mac versions, I'm not sure this is the comparison you're looking for here. :)
The POINT that I'm making is that people their phone is theirs and they can install what they want on it. Even if that thing comes from the app store. EVEN NOW when I want to do something I go looking for an app. I don't assume my phone can't do it. And I certainly don't assume it can't do it thanks to shenanigans on Apple's part.
The reality however is far different and there are LOTS of things Apple doesn't allow and they are not above using their platform to stifle competition.
When the case in point is an email client this argument seems especially facetious. Is any customer really being defrauded because “there’s not an app for email”?
Maybe you are happy with one of the 2 shitty choices, but there might be people that would prefer to not be forced to chose what shit taste better, it is live you live in place and you have only 2 drinking water choices, both contain different poisons but you have a choice, why should people complain and try to fix a bad situation when you could chose your poison? I seen lots complaining that there is not enough competiotion in X or Y market (like mobile or ISPs ) but Apple fans don't want more competition on the iOS, you wouild thinkt he average Apple user would have been already scammed 100 times on their Macbooks because of the missing walls , this is how hard the security excuse is mentioned.
There are also three major consoles, PC, Steam, and a ton of other ways to distribute games. It's a highly competitive landscape. If you want a phone, you've got only two options.
DOJ, burn the Apple and Google monopolies to the ground.
This is a contrived point of view, and I'm sure the product managers at Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, and Google would all strongly disagree.
Remember when the PS3 used to be used for super computing? Sony quietly ended that program when they realized that wasn't the business they wanted to be in.
That's not true at all. There's 2 primary OS choices, but on the Android side there's dozens of manufacturers, all with their take on things. Android is not a single option, it's hundreds. You even have choice of app stores. There's even options that have zero Google at all - like the Huawei P40 Pro. Or for an older take, silent cirlce's Blackphone or Amazon's Fire Phone. And even if you are in the very small minority that actually buys a Google phone, they even provide instructions on how to unlock the bootloader & flash a different OS: https://source.android.com/setup/build/running#unlocking-rec...
The certification process for consoles is also a lot tougher and more expensive.
1) Never need to learn what a "sideload" is
2) Never be exposed to Apps that havn't been vetted by a trustworthy party (in this case Apple)
Apple is taking the opportunity to milk app developers, but they've done an effective job of positioning the milking process so that it is done in the user's interests. It is quite possible that things like this 30% App Store tax are one of the reasons why iPhones remain so prominent.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program
But Apple customers can be sure of that anyway--just don't sideload apps. Anything essential is going to want to be in the App Store, in order to reach customers.
The logical extension of that argument is that the Hey app would still be in the App Store and still be facing this exact problem.
If Hey became a cultural phenomenon, I'd bet that Apple would magically reinterpret their rules. This is exactly the purpose of having competition.
Please trust me on this but, even if your app is far and away the #1 grossing app on the app store and hundreds of media outlets have literally used the term "cultural phenomenon" to describe it, Apple is still a huge stickler on the rules and it still takes forever (and a lot of stress) to get approved, every single update.
This applies even if your CEO has Tim Cook's personal cellphone number and talked to him about the issues with app store approval a week before, in person.
Even now, major apps do have power. Unlike Hey, Netflix and Amazon are at least still in the App Store, and Amazon is even allowed to sell video rentals through their app without going through Apple's payment system: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203294/amazon-prime-vide...
Edit: My posts probably read like contradictions. I see it like this: (1) The safe and vetted App Store is a part of the iPhone's appeal, which (2) Apple is currently enforcing through anti-competitive tactics. If Apple wants to maintain the App Store as a product differentiator (which of course they do), they should have to do the work to keep developers happy. Where "keep happy" means very basic things like not taking a full 30% of their revenue.
I thought John Gruber laid this out pretty well: https://daringfireball.net/2020/06/hey_app_store_rejection_f...
Well, no. At some point they'd need to know what it is to decide if they wanted it or not. At some point they'd encounter an App that isn't in the App store and have to figure out sideloading. We've got a whole heap of people commenting here today who give off a distinct "I want to bypass the App Store" vibe. User hat on, I'd rather they were forced to use it.
I don't think there is enough reflecting here on just how critical a phone is. At the extremes, the US government sometimes targets predator drones based on phone GPS. I suspect an enormous number of phones contain compromising pictures. Phones contain detailed logs of where I am, who I'm talking to, and potentially access to actual records of what was said.
I really don't want to be in a situation where 'Wowfunhappy' is executing arbitrary unknown code on a phone owned by me or my family. I don't want Google and Facebook browsing through and indexing this stuff either. Apple isn't even a good gatekeeper, but they are much better than nothing.
But see, I'm think that's exactly what I'm doing--the app store gives China an easy way to take safety apps from protestors. A phone is too important for it to be out of the user's control.
I understand the security implications, but when I weigh the societal issues, Apple's model seems much more dangerous.
Imagine a world, where your Telco or anyone else for that matter can't remotely tell your phone to turn on. A world where you and only you have ultimate control over your phone, and where instead of millions of engineer hours going into making your phone convenient for developers to utilize, it is instead made easier for the user to actually understand.
That is the world I want to see. Hell I want to be part of making. I'll be damned if I can figure out how to make it work with our Market's current optimization function.
Incidentally, to the last paragraph, you can help make it work—go work on Linux mobile UX/UI. Things like the PinePhone and the Purism Librem 5 exist, and there's a market for them, they're just missing a polished user experience.
No one "eats up" that loss.
My understanding is that neither major mobile app store has done a great job of vetting.
And yet, even after being vetted malware still gets in
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/apple-battles-app-store-mal...
I see this a lot, and to be honest, this 'Apple products are free from malware' meme has been carried on as long as I can remember in one form or another since the early Mac days. The amount of people that used to say they used Macs because 'they didn't have viruses' is about the same as the people who say 'I use iphones because Apple makes sure I'm safe'.
It's been Apple's marketing strategy for a long time, despite being slightly exaggerated, early Macs did have viruses and yes, malware makes its way onto the app store.
But Apple's marketing strategy sure has been working a long time.
I don't remember ever seeing Apple promise that 100% of apps will be 100% safe 100% of the time. Can you provide a link?
Apple's review process is done by people. People make mistakes. Things get through when bad people are trying to hide that they're doing bad things. But I'll take Apple's 1-in-a-million mistake environment over the anything goes Android environment.
You're describing the value of an app store, not the App Store. So the problem is not the value proposition, the problem is Apple's monopoly on this value proposition. It is why we can't have a Google iOS App Store, Microsoft iOS App store etc. list from which the user can pick, which would completely satisfy the convenience and peace of mind criterion, would increase competition regarding the cuts, vetting quality, curation quality etc.
No, I don't want to install your lousy app that's only a front-end to your web service anyway. Of course it gives you more control and opportunity for certain features. This only means that web browsers still have a long way to go. If apps were reasonably small, maybe I could install more of them, but as it is, it's just impossible.
Either way the back-end providers profit.
Pointing out that apple is not alone in a thread trying to raise awareness about apple's practices both distracts from apple's unethical behavior and contributes to normalizing the behavior in public perception.
So my question to you is: do you want to see these unethical behaviors end? or continue?
I get that it's unpleasant for developers who don't like the policy, and at some point it might have business consequences for Apple if they don't change the policy, but why is it unethical?
Now lets say that they also own the city bank, and they are the only one allowed to take their bank's debit card as payment. Most people don't use the other, newer bank because everybody they know is using the flee markets bank as it was first. So if you want to take credit card payments you have to sale at the flee market.
Is it still fair and good for them to continue to set all terms relating to how sales are conducted in a selfish way when they have a monopoly gained in part from first mover advantage? eh, maybe, maybe not.
Now they say that if you sale any spare parts or consumables for a product that was originally sold at the flee market, you must only do so at the flee market.
Is it still fair and good for them to use the fact that the transaction is happening on their property to set higher fees on these follow up transactions when they require these follow up transactions to happen on their property? While exploiting a first mover advantage that causes more of the initial transactions to happen on their property?
Never forget that you can't just look at each piece, the whole matters too.
Each individual piece of the macro is ethically an "eh" at most, but the whole is a bit more then "eh"
Is nothing like the situation with respect to Apple, so I don't see how your extended analogy here is relevant.
If that were the case, there would be nothing unethical about a 30% tax nor a 90% tax.
Therefore, it’s not the size that’s the problem, but the fact that the tax isn’t communicated to the consumer, and also that Apple wants you to charge the same price in-app as elsewhere (though I’m not sure if that part is enforced)
Make it a web site. Make it an Android exclusive. Do any of the dozen other things you need to do to be a success. You don't have to be on the App Store to survive. Hundreds of thousands of developers and their programs aren't.
The "problem" being your convenience. Sorry, that's not anyone's problem but yours.
This is only part of the complaint, right? The other parts is that:
* Apple has the only keys to the hardware platform.
* This is in contrast to Google or Steam, who also charge 30%, but do not completely own access to their respective hardware platforms.
* This is also in contrast to physical stores, because if a store does not sell a product (i.e. a grocery store chain does not carry some brand of beer), the product owner can usually still put it somewhere else that the consumer can freely access (excluding transportation costs).
* The policy regarding whether Apple should be entitled to the subscription fee is inconsistent and full of exceptions, which this website illustrates. My cynical take is that these exceptions have no real philosophy behind them, other than the fact that Apple needed certain major apps to be on iOS (i.e. Netflix, Tesla, Bloomberg, etc.).
* Slightly separate point, but still relevant: if Apple is entitled to subscription fees, Apple can make competitors that undercut other subscription services like Spotify, because they don't have to pay themselves the 30% fee. This is what Spotify complained about last year, and what I believe the EU is looking at. [1]
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292651/apple-eu-antitru...
(edit log: added newlines for easier reading)
It's the part I'm interested in. I get that Apple's policy is a pain in the ass to a lot of developers, that Apple is inconsistent and arbitrary about how it applies that policy, and that all this greatly restricts developer access to users of Apple's hardware. What I don't get is how any of this is unethical. Bothersome and irritating, yes, but why unethical?
Developer don't necessarily want to distribute their software through that app store, they are forced to do that if they want to sell their software to people who happen to use that operating system. Operating system and app store are distinct products, but app store exclusively gatekeeps the functionality the user can achieve through the operating system they bought.
If app store was a standalone offering that aimed to benefit the user, there shouldn't be any problem allowing multiple competing app stores people paid for the convenience of vetted and curated apps and letting the market forces decide the winner. That is obviously not happening.
Therefore, strongarming the ecosystem and stifling market dynamics is the unethical move here. Less competition, less innovation, less user benefit, less developer income (which translates into even less innovation) etc is the price everyone pays in aggregate in order for Apple to exact its rent, which goes to their idle pile of cash or comes back to humanity as a 0.002 grams lighter iPhone++ next year.
If a business' property taxes go up, that cost is passed on to its customers. Why do people think that because something is on a phone that it should be any different?
Just like Hey doesn't tell its customers what percentage of its fee goes to the water company, or the electric company, or to company travel.
This is how business works.
I think that you and I are broadly in agreement. If Hey were allowed to charge $142 in their iPhone app, and $99 on their website, I'd think that was much less ridiculous than the situation as it stands today.
And we call those situations market failures. Besides, in this case the market failure is due to a monopolistic mechanism, which doesn't happen "all the time in every industry". If we are going to do markets, let's do it properly.
Increasing price %30 causes a corresponding decrease in the demand, and in aggregate this can cause a decrease in the total profit. The fact that the developer is forced to set a new price point this way is a source of inefficiency for the entire app economy.
Besides forced price increase is not the only harm done by the monopoly of the App Store. As this website exemplifies, it has monopoly over ontological decisions (whether a certain type of app can exist or not), over design decisions (signups, in app purchases etc) and whatnot. These are further points of inefficiency or outright failure. Apple might or might not be doing a good enough job making the best out of these decisions, but the bottom line is we don't have a choice of another player emerging with potentially better choice-making and therefore a better app store.
To the extent that this situation is a "market failure", it's not one that's fixable except by users changing their preferences.
> in this case the market failure is due to a monopolistic mechanism
Apple only has a "monopoly" on their own app store because they built it. Users are not being forced to use iPhones; they choose to because they believe iPhones give them better value overall than the alternatives. That's called free market competition, not monopoly.
By definition market failures can't be fixed by market dynamics. That is why state does tons of interventions/regulations to make it work.
> That's called free market competition, not monopoly.
No. Vertical integration means there is no free market at the integration point to begin with, which integration of a software application store with a physical phone is. We are talking about a $50bil/year market that is not free.
That's why I put "market failure" in quotes. If you think anything fixable by users changing their preferences isn't a "market failure" by your definition, fine, then the Apple situation is not a market failure by your definition.
> That is why state does tons of interventions/regulations to make it work.
No, the government does tons of interventions/regulations to favor particular market players, under the guise of "fixing market failures". In almost all cases, these interventions/regulations actually make things worse overall, but of course they make things better for the particular market players that were favored.
> Vertical integration means there is no free market at the integration point to begin with
Throwing around buzzwords proves nothing. Apple created the iPhone and its app store. It can do whatever it wants with them because it owns them. It has the market share it has because users have freely chosen to use its products instead of those of its competitors. That's the essence of a free market. The fact that you don't like doesn't make it not a free market.
These are technical terms, not buzzwords and calling them so doesn't make much of a counter-argument.
> That's the essence of a free market
No it is not. You seem to equate free market with unregulated market which is not always true. Markets fail to self-regulate in the absence of open competition, which is what precisely the App Store on iPhone is. Nearly half of the mobile phone apps in the US comes from a closed market. Imagine instead Apple owned half of the roads in the US and stipulated what businesses could use those roads, e.g. only certain grocery store's trucks can deliver goods over them. That would be far from a free market too.
The technical definitions of these terms don't support the claims you are making using them, so you're not using them as technical terms, you're using them as buzzwords.
> You seem to equate free market with unregulated market
Not at all. A free market is regulated by the voluntary choices of market participants.
> Markets fail to self-regulate in the absence of open competition
So your definition of "open competition" is "Apple can't choose the terms on which it is going to provide products and services that it built itself". By that definition, "open competition" has nothing whatever to do with "free market", since in a free market every market participant gets to choose the terms on which it is going to provide goods and services that it built itself. Forcing market participants to provide goods and services on terms they would not choose for themselves is not a free market.
> Imagine instead Apple owned half of the roads in the US and stipulated what businesses could use those roads
Roads are not the same as smartphones or apps; roads are exclusive in a way that smartphones and apps are not.
And if all that would benefit users more, users would be demanding it, or switching from iPhone to something else. But they're not. Users seem overall to be quite satisfied with what they are getting from their iPhones. So your claim here appears to be empirically false.
> strongarming the ecosystem and stifling market dynamics is the unethical move here
All this depends on your factual claim above being true, which, as I have noted, it appears not to be, based on actual user behavior.
But let's put that aside and assume that your factual claim is true. If that makes what Apple is doing unethical, then probably every single large corporation on the planet is unethical. Certainly every large corporation in the tech industry is. They all do these things; they just don't all do them with an app store.
A lack of reduction in observable demand doesn't imply an absence of cost.
Let's say the cost of having a singular app store for the user can be expressed as 99$, but the average utility they derive from using their iPhone is valued at 100$. It would be rational for that user to still prefer iPhone despite incurring great cost and we wouldn't see any drop in demand.
> Certainly every large corporation in the tech industry is. They all do these things; they just don't all do them with an app store.
That is appeal to tradition. Indeed, monopolistic nature of tech combined with vertical integration is a large unsolved problem of our era and it haven't completely played out yet.
Waving your hands and throwing random numbers around doesn't imply a presence of cost.
> That is appeal to tradition.
It is no such thing. I'm just trying to figure out what your actual position is.
> monopolistic nature of tech combined with vertical integration is a large unsolved problem
Which makes it clearer what your position is: you think the problem with tech is "monopolistic nature combined with vertical integration".
I disagree. I think the problem with tech is that it is giving away valuable things for free, or selling them at or below cost, in order to capture users and sell their data and their eyeballs or corner markets. Apple is actually the least guilty of this of the major tech players; I'm far more worried about Google and Facebook and Amazon than I am about Apple. But at any rate, that problem is not a problem of monopoly and vertical integration. It's a problem of shortsightedness in general--putting short term gain and convenience over long term stability and trust.
Come on, let's not go in circles. I posited there is a cost to user in being locked into a single app store. You claimed if there was such cost, we necessarily would have seen decrease in user demand. My handwaving numbers were to demonstrate that it doesn't have to be true, there can be substantial user costs without any decrease in user demand.
> giving away valuable things for free, or selling them at or below cost, in order to capture users and sell their data and their eyeballs or corner markets
You're close but not there. Being able to give away things for free come from the giant profits accumulated through monopolistic vertical integration. Google has a compute platform that runs a search engine/youtube that sells adds that is viewed through their browser that runs on their mobile phone. Those are multiple integration points (though not all are monopolistic). If for example Google were to pay for an external compute platform that is not theirs, they would have to pay for the profit margin of the service provider, but without is all of that money stays within the company, and that is one of the factors that enable them "giving away valuable things for free".
Data integration is a completely different game. Selling data to outside is the least powerful way to make money out of it, especially if you have other data and products. It is akin to a 3rd world country selling their raw resources. What makes the most money is the integration of multiple data sources through multiple products and even 3rd party vendors. The magic of an SQL join is that joining table-a and table-b can yield more information that neither a and b had alone. When you join the data of a browser and a search engine and 3rd party information you bought to sell more clickable ads, that is when the most money is made out of the data. The more money you make, the more you can run loss leaders, buy competitors, create barriers of entry (a la app stores), and meanwhile damage the entire ICT ecosystem in the name of even more money. That is why ensuring market health is important.
And the person to judge that question is the user, not two people having an argument on an Internet site. And not app developers either.
> You claimed if there was such cost, we necessarily would have seen decrease in user demand.
I said that if there is no discernible change in user demand, that means the users, who are the ones in a position to judge, evidently don't see a significant enough cost to change their behavior. Any change in the cost-benefit relationship will change the behavior of some users. Sure, they won't all switch from iPhones to something else, but some percentage of them will.
> Being able to give away things for free come from the giant profits accumulated through monopolistic vertical integration.
No, it comes from having some other source of revenue besides the users of the thing that is being given away for free. "Monopolistic vertical integration" might help in getting other sources of revenue, but it's not the root problem. The root problem is that the actual users of the service are not the paying customers, someone else is, so the incentives of the provider are skewed.
OSS authors could distribute on a non-commercial CC license.
Distributing under a NC-license would also go against that idea. (Apart from tipping the perception of "Open Source" towards something more restrictive which is always a bit bitter.)
Corporations buy up all the viable land, then rent rooms, or sell stock. They “bank” all your money and use it to profit for themselves.
Wax cylinders and vinyl records are like human society: round and round they go, skipping on all the same old knicks.
The financial ownership model is your real problem. Money is speech now in America.
Good luck.
Apple needs to be transparent that it's not selling devices, it's licensing devices. Users do not control the devices they own.
All search engines do this. It doesn't depend on building scale and then exploiting it. The experience is better for the user.
> Amazon kills OSS business models by offering managed OSS services on AWS at an unbeatable cost.
All cloud providers do this. It also doesn't depend on building and exploiting scale. The experience is better for the user.
>The reforms of Diocletian and Constantine made all productive activity impossible. The reason is not that there were no more large fortunes, but the foundation of their build-up was now no longer creative energy, or the discovery and bring into use new sources of wealth, or the improvement and development of husbandry, industry and commerce. It was, on the contrary, the cunning exploitation of a privileged position used to despoil people.
https://medium.com/@guisebule/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-th...
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/18/phil-schiller-apple-hey...
[2] https://daringfireball.net/2020/06/hey_app_store_rejection_f...
It's not "Hey you can use our store for 30% revenue cut and other benefits or you can market/host/whatever else it yourself".
This is what they are comparing it with Google, idc what else shady stuff Google is doing but if I want my app on an android without paying Google a dime I can do so with the obvious disadvantage of not being in the store.
This just doesn't exist with Apple. At all. It's as simple as that
But also your first sentence is merely partly true. It isn’t a simple fact because it is selectively enforced. It comes with the caveat that if you’re big then probably the rules don’t apply so much to you
They could be continuing to make the (justified and correct!) stink about Apple's terrible practices, while also having their app on the store (or forcing Apple to further highlight how arbitrarily-applied their standards are). Win-win.
The problem with a hypocritical stance is that its existence defies logic to begin with.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-app-...
That said, I think Apple forbids you trying to redirect people out of the app by explaining that they take a cut if you sign up in it.
> You must not directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase.
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#mul...
Lets say this flee market runs their own PoS system that tables can use, they require all sales happen via this PoS system "to protect customers from hacking", and they charge a percentage for providing this service, higher then normal under the guise that the transaction is being conducted on their property, they are "hosting" the "sale" under their roof, so they set the terms for it. Seems fair and good, ish
Now lets say that they also own the city bank, and they are the only one allowed to take their bank's debit card as payment. Most people don't use the other, newer bank because everybody they know is using the flee markets bank as it was first. So if you want to take credit card payments you have to sale at the flee market.
Is it still fair and good for them to continue to set all terms relating to how sales are conducted in a selfish way when they have a monopoly gained in part from first mover advantage? eh, maybe, maybe not.
Now they say that if you sale any spare parts or consumables for a product that was originally sold at the flee market, you must only do so at the flee market.
Is it still fair and good for them to use the fact that the transaction is happening on their property to set higher fees on these follow up transactions when they require these follow up transactions to happen on their property? While exploiting a first mover advantage that causes more of the initial transactions to happen on their property?
Never forget that you can't just look at each piece, the whole matters too.
Each individual piece of the macro is ethically an "eh" at most, but the whole is a bit more then "eh"
Did you know you can't ship a custom browser engine on iOS? Yup, another one of the rules. See why?
I tried to look it up, I saw 13 years but that sounded like too long.
There's a difference between an app which is an auxiliary offering to an existing service, and an app which is the product itself.
I totally understand Apple's "it should just work" policy. Its a big reason why the net spend in the App Store is as high as it is. App Store is a big reason why people are spending money on small dollar apps in the first place.
There are approximately 2 million apps in the App Store. How many of them would be trying to collect credit card information independently if Apple stepped back from their IAP policy? It was be a usability and privacy nightmare. For the average user, tap to purchase / IAP is what makes the App Store "just work".
Worth doing the same to Google IMO.
I think the "right" amount to charge would be something like a standard credit card processor - 30 cents + 3% or so. Maybe a flat 5 or 10% for apps under a certain price. I can't imagine Apple's payment processing and app screening being much more expensive than Visa's payment processing and fraud detection.
It's not just whether something is extremely valuable. App store as a "retail space" wouldn't be so valuable if you could easily buy iOS apps in other app stores. From the perspective of an iOS device owner, Apple has a monopoly on the retailing of apps.
If Apple let apps side-load from a website, and not access any of the iCloud or push services... you’re basically back to a PWA.
I didn't say they were. I said Apple's role is comparable, in that it is not deserving of automatic 30% of revenue. It may be a lot of services, but it still doesn't cost a lot per user and per app, especially when compared to what a brick and mortar retail store does.
And it certainly doesn't make sense for an app like Netflix, which is comparatively expensive per month because of how much use it gets, how much bandwidth it consumes, and all the licensing and production costs. Imagine if Netflix had to pay 30% to Apple.
Netflix gets away with not paying that 30% because they have leverage. But smaller apps can't. Sounds to me like exactly what antitrust is for.
"If Apple let apps side-load from a website, and not access any of the iCloud or push services... you’re basically back to a PWA."
If they wanted to (or were forced to by antitrust action), they could allow third party services to do all those things, and for them to interoperate. They choose not to because they make ungodly amounts of money the way they do things now.
With Walmart, if the store is charging a lot over their costs, the consumer can choose another store. If the credit card company is charging too much, people can pay cash (or stores can refuse that card, etc). It isn't perfect, but at least there is some degree of competition forcing the price toward the costs of providing the various services.
Ultimately the reason Apple can charge so much is because consumers have limited alternatives. Bundling, application barrier to entry, etc.
Consumers can price compare just like in retail.
Why would Apple allow an app maker advertise a cheaper price in its store? Would Walmart let a manufacture advertise that they can get a cheaper price at Amazon?
Even for free apps, Apple still has to maintain the store, pay for storage, compute and bandwidth for assets, CloudKit storage, developers, reviewers, writers for their daily stories, etc.
Of course all developers want an ecosystem where they can develop their own software for the devices that they and their customers use without restrictions. However, the developer community should be careful to not become too complacent and expect that Apple and other companies are just going to give them everything that they want for free. If the technology industry wants to get serious about building free and open platforms, then we should start focusing on supporting projects like the Librem[1] smartphone which are built with open-source ideals in mind.
This is the sort of crappy user experience that Steve Jobs would have railed against. No doubt that he would accept, say, Netflix getting a discount off the standard 30%, but there's no way he would have accepted the status quo where (a) Netflix has a deliberately poor user experience on iOS to workaround Apples rules; (b) Apple gets zero revenue from Netflix.
> $99/year email service, of which Apple is rent-seeking $30
I'm wholly on Hey's side here, but I think this is a misleading way of putting it. Apple only wants 30% of in-app purchases, not purchases made outside of the app. The contention is that Hey thinks they shouldn't be required to accept in-app purchases, which given that either Hey or the user pays Apple an expensive tax on those purchases, makes sense to me.
However, even if apps/companies have sign up in the app I still use the web browser to sign up. I like the security of the browser more for personal info and set up than an app full of unnecessary permissions.
I personally truly do not mind, and even prefer, opening up a browser to sign up. Overall for liability reasons it might even be better to just have one endpoint for signing up, the web.
Force everyone to do it or no-one, don't pick the WORST POSSIBLE APP to deny. @dhh isn't one of the people Apple really wants to get on the bad side of (See Apple Card debacle).
Why?
I had a similar app on my Volt but in the case of Tesla the app just works if you have the car whereas GM kept threatening to force you to buy into an Onstar subscription to continue using some features of the app; that would be something I could see Apple taking from.
If Basecamp wants to do publish an email app - it's not porn, it's not racism, it's not bad - and that iOS users also want it, Apple should not be in the way.
I publish on the App Store and frankly I'm happy to benefit from the hosting / payments / search and I'm ok to pay a price for that - even if 30% is huge - but if some don't want that let them do what they want, it's not Apple to decide that anymore.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/07/12/predatory-ios-app-subscri...
Just like in the latter, there is selective enforcement of the rules, leaving the most prominent corporations to carry on as they please while nailing the SME to the wall.
Pretty sure it will come to a point where the ingress of paid content into an app will be taxed, regardless of where the payment was made, and that this policy will be introduced by both Apple and Google.
“Buying” a game for $0.99 that has repeatable in-app purchases in the hundreds or thousands is not “working” if you ask me. I would love to return to the days where games are “complete” at the time you buy them, with essentially no option to buy gems to make it actually work reasonably.
Not to say that Apple applies their rules fairly (I wouldn’t really know, but I’m willing to trust there are issues). Just that each communication I see from Hey feels entitled and self-dramatizing. It doesn’t feel like they’re helping their own case...
Apps asking for signup first?
I feel out of the loop. Apologies.
If so, can I put a banner on my app that says "hey, you can buy this on my website for $7?" (without any links to the website). Just inform the user of that fact.
Ironic that they used to be the small guy fighting against IBM, and now they're the big guy pushing their "largest company in the world" status around.
I wonder what grounds Apple thinks they have to do this? It really seems like an above the law scenario.
I wonder if I can automate the download and rate process.
This is something similar to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo asking for $$ from developers if they want to sell their games for these platforms.
> No, but you can view slow tracking shots of change-agents and disruptors.
:)
But I'm sure folks who defended Amazon banning Kindle books they don't like will just say that Apple is not a monopolist, and DHH is free to build his own mobile platform. /s
Do you want a successful business? Ok, then follow the rules, cover your ass, and do what you need to do to get your business going, even if it’s not always the ideal situation for you.
But no, I guess lashing out explosively and torpedoing everything because you’re not treated like the big players when you’re still a little guy is more satisfying, if less profitable.
It'd help if there were consistent rules that were equally enforced.
It's precisely because everyone's so deeply cynical and feeling so powerless, that these rent seeking practices continue to flourish.
The way out is not to try and carve out a little niche for yourself and hope they don't come for you next. You can if you're a selfish coward but know that people don't respect selfish cowards and unless you want to live alone or with a few other cowards who agree to cling to each other for miserly comfort, it is a losing strategy.
The way out is also not to cause anarchy because 'everything is fucked anyway'.
This PR tsunami is actually one of the best weapons against monopolies, because they signal to policy makers that they can make a career out of working for a cause that the public deeply cares about. The big corps know this and try to avoid PR problems but it seems like Apple has gotten real bold as of late and I look forward to seeing what comes of this.
2) This site is not built by the people who built Hey.
3) The rules are being asymmetrically applied. Why should people be OK with Apple bullying all the companies they think they can get away with bullying?
Not to pick on your bio too much, but I'm wondering if you may be having difficulty understanding the situation as a self described "ethically challenged software engineer working for a major tech company". But, you'll never get a new business off the ground successfully if you "follow the rules, cover your ass, ..." because the incumbents you are competing with are already doing that.
As I've ranted about before, running a startup is about taking calculated risks. You need to fight these fights if you think they have a high positive expected value. As sibling commentators explained, you do not always do this for altruistic reasons -- picking fights with a Goliath when you're a David is easy free PR for you.
Now granted, this kind of easy, free PR might be a drop in the bucket if you're a BigCo. And on the other hand, the expected risk might be high enough that the tradeoff really doesn't work out in your favor in that situation! But that is because the strategy for handling this kind of a setback is really not fungible from running a startup to running a BigCo.