Apple doesn't let you disclose their 30% IAP fee to your customers | Hacker News Reader

Apple doesn't let you disclose their 30% IAP fee to your customers

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301 pointstomasreimers194 comments

If it was closer to 5%, or even a fixed fee (eg: $1 per app sold), I would accept the narrative that it's a fee.

30% of your business is not a fee, it's more like a partnership. Apple is, in practice, a business partner to each and every iOS developer. Except that they have total and absolute control of the business. If they shut you down on the App Store, you're done. Your iOS app is worthless on any other platform.

I shit you not, I've personally had apps rejected by the review board because they didn't like the screenshots. Those were screenshots of the app itself.

> I shit you not, I've personally had apps rejected by the review board because they didn't like the screenshots. Those were screenshots of the app itself.

That kind of editorial feedback seems like a good thing, no? Do you feel like that process improved how your app was presented to users?

I don't know how much time the average app get looked at for but is it long enough to be feedback? I don't know what this app looks like, but if a screenshot of the app is a screenshot of the app what more can you do?

Ideally, I would assume the creators of the app would know their customers well enough to choose.

Eh I mean we don't know what it was, but if it was something like the settings page or a screenshot with a lot of white-space I can see why it would be rejected, although it probably should be allowed at the developer's expense.

> Ideally, I would assume the creators of the app would know their customers well enough to choose.

Having worked with many creators in many mediums, that's often not the case. In the case of apps, independent developers who don't have a marketing person can often benefit from even the surface-level presentational help Apple was providing.

I mean most retail software gives what 40-70% to retailers and wholesalers, right?

If I sell something at Target for $50, I’m probably getting $25 tops. Don’t think I’m in partnership but definitely an important relationship.

True...

But the difference here is that you've prepared an asset that can only be sold in one place.

As for Target, it's a brick and mortar store. Apple do have some hefty expenditures, sure, but they're luxuries (e.g. Making your own CPUs is cool but ultimately not all that for a product that most users won't have even the slightest clue of the trade-offs that went into that decision) - 30% is quite a lot for software, especially in a market like apple's.

A lot compared to what? What other market is like Apple's?

As in Steam also charge 30%, but Steam don't exclusively control access to their customers. If you sell your game on the epic store it's 12%. Apple exclusively control the gates to their customers in a way not found in any other device of comparable stature (Microsoft and Sony are gatekeepers for their consoles, but they aren't a "utility" in the same way some would argue a phone is)

I would like to see some good arguments as to why a brick and mortar store deserves a significantly larger cut.

> Making your own CPUs is cool but ultimately not all that for a product that most users won't have even the slightest clue of the trade-offs that went into that decision

Is developing better hardware not a valid reason? It’s too much of a luxury to legitimize fees?

> I would like to see some good arguments as to why a brick and mortar store deserves a significantly larger cut.

They don't get a "cut" at all, they resell the product at a markup (and set their own prices, so they can even sell at a loss if they want to). Totally different dynamic vs. the App Store.

> Totally different dynamic vs. the App Store.

What's the difference?

BTW, Apple regularly sells app store "dollars" at a loss. I once bought a $200 app store gift card for $165 at Costco.

Come on, this is basic stuff. You can sell your product without selling at Target, you effectively can't sell your ios app outside the app store. It's not so much about the markup (which should come down since modern digital business capabilities should have efficiencies that reach the consumer as a benefit), but the practice of closing out alternatives.

Why would you build an iOS app with the intention of selling it somewhere other than the iOS App Store? It’s not like Apple is blindsiding any developers with the revelation that the App Store is the only way to distribute software on non-jailbroken iPhones.

That's the problem.

When you sell boxed software in a retail store, you're selling using the wholesale model: it has a retail price of $99 but you're selling it to them -- or more likely your distributor -- for about 40–50% of that price. The distributor takes another 10%, and the retail store gets the difference between that and the retail price they choose to sell it at. This is very distinct from the "agency" model that the App Store uses.

Well: actually, when you sell boxed software in a retail store in 2020, you sell nothing because nobody does that and this is a super stupid comparison for Apple to keep making. The Mac App Store isn't competing with Target and the ghost of CompUSA, it's competing with other online store systems like Paddle, which takes 50¢ + 5%. The iOS App Store is competing with... nothing, in practice, because it's literally the only way to get applications onto your iOS device. Which is kind of what's getting everyone to argue about this, right?

If Apple purchased 10,000 units of an app from the developer upfront, they can then resell each unit at whatever markup or loss they think people would buy it. This is a commission model where Apple is getting a cut of each sale.

- Nintendo charges 40-60% for the Switch.

- Microsoft charges 30% for the Xbox Store.

- Shopify charges 20% for their app marketplace.

- Valve charges 30% for the Steam store.

Can you provide evidence that Apple is charging a lot compared to its peers ?

Nintendo and Microsoft/Xbox have low margin on each device sold [1] [2]. For Valve, Steam is the only real source of income. Apple on the other hand has a lot of source of incomes. They have a margin of 60 percent just for the iPhone! [3]

[1] https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/5/15195638/nintendo-switch-co...

[2] https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-not-making-any-money-on...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone/apples-iphon...

You have a job and an apartment you lease out. You made a great deal on the apartment. Now, your tenant suggests he should pay less, since you have another income and you already make a profit. Do you? I don't understand your point - if Nintendo or Sony could achieve larger margins, they would.

Yeah but you're also free to sell your product at Walmart, smaller stores, or any other retailer which may have different rates. With the Apple store you have well....the Apple store.

And Google Play and Amazon’s App Store, and Steam, and Epic, etc etc.

Those don't fit in your comparison here. While Google Play might be seen as the only way, there is nothing to stop you from going to some other store (F-Droid e.g). Also you are not forced as a developer to go Steam or Epic. You could just offer a download from your website. Also, at least with Steam and Epic you can generate keys that you can sell outside of those stores in which you keep 100%. That's choice.

You don't have that choice in iOS.

> While Google Play might be seen as the only way, there is nothing to stop you from going to some other store (F-Droid e.g).

Over upcoming releases of AOSP, Google intends to disable sideloading in Android, except for that tiny tech audience who knows how to enable developer mode and install over the command line. So, both direct APK downloads and F-Droid will be accessible to fewer ordinary Android users than is already the case. Definitely not enough people to build an app business on.

> Over upcoming releases of AOSP, Google intends to disable sideloading in Android, except for that tiny tech audience who knows how to enable developer mode and install over the command line.

This is a gross and anti-competitive overstep.

Have you got any source for this claim?

It still allows sideload without developer mode, unlike iOS.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/08/24/android-11-install-...

You can sell iOS games on Google Play?

If you define “what your software is” so precisely that it must be running on iOS to count as your software, then sure, by definition your software can’t exist on Google Play. But that’s just as ludicrous as manufacturing shirts and defining “what your product is” as “shirts being sold at Walmart,” then complaining that you cannot by definition sell your shirts at Target because they would no longer be your shirts.

I mean, it's not unreasonable to say that "my software" = My binary that is running on a device.

With android, I can have an .apk that is distributed via the play store or I can have that exact same .apk distributed via any other store that exists for that device.

That's a very odd reply. Software are always targeting a platform. Tshirts aren't targeting a specific store.

Except it's not the "same" software. If I have to make native iOS and Android apps, I have to essentially create two separate pieces of code.

If I was selling my software at Walmart, I have to change nothing to sell it at Target.

There’s little difference between a software company staffing a small porting/parity team, and a retail product company staffing special AR and buyer management teams to deal with large distributors.

When there's the internet, why would you sell any software title at Target?

It seems like Apple still likes to give some antiquated metrics for how much cheaper iOS is compared to retail software, but it's never explained why that's the metric.

Interestingly (sort of), 5%-or-$1 wouldn't work out well for Apple. This is because credit card processing fees are generally structured as a flat fee plus a percentage of the transaction.

Something like 5 cents + 1.3% would be a great deal on payment processing, generally. Apple is a behemoth, so let's assume they're getting a good deal.

For a $1 purchase that'd be ~$0.07 to the transaction processor... which is more than the flat percentage already. Then Apple has some amount of costs involved (bandwidth, maintenance of systems, general overhead, etc) even if they started running the App Store at cost as they originally claimed they'd do.

There's definitely room to lower the cut Apple takes... it's just that somewhere in the 10-20% range is still a reasonable fee to cover their costs.

It's also worth considering how gift cards affect what Apple can charge. Apple sells gift cards through retailers, who are getting a cut of those sales. That cut comes directly out of Apple's portion of the sale, so they have to account for some percentage of transactions having that effective cost, which is probably higher than the aforementioned payment-processing cost. (There are some markets where gift cards are incredibly common. Kids get given them a lot. They're super common in Japan and other countries for everyone.)

(The flat $1 fee wouldn't fall apart on processing costs until you reached really expensive in-app purchases... but it'd massively change the economics of the App Store, where $1 apps / in-app purchases are pretty common. I have no idea if that's a good idea or not.)

Wait a moment, how do you get from 5 cents + 1.3% to the 10-20% range all of a sudden?!

Electricity and processing power aren't that expensive.

They'd probably do just fine if they'd lower the fee to 10%, and stop enforcing that you don't have third-party payments.

> They'd probably do just fine if they'd lower the fee to 10%, and stop enforcing that you don't have third-party payments.

Especially considering they're a) charging a yearly fee and b) selling ads on the AppStore (which as someone else here pointed out is their aim to grow ad sales by clamping down on the ad identifier to make ads outside of the AppStore less useful).

> Electricity and processing power aren't that expensive.

Surely you don't do "cost plus" pricing for your own services.

You do value based pricing for your services. I'd bet that you don't think at all about the electricity and processing costs that it takes to do what you do.

Apple is no different.

It's value that they created only by preventing business from servicing themselves. It's more like demanding payment for not torching your shop than by offering a unique value generating service.

If the app store were really so incredibly great for app developers then Apple should have no trouble allowing alternate app stores.

> It's value that they created only by preventing business from servicing themselves.

Well, and building a product and ecosystem nearly from scratch that arguably started an industry that’s now around half a trillion dollars a year.

10% seems reasonable. I don't think people would scream about 20%, even. (Well, if Apple had made that change a few years ago, they wouldn't; now that they're in an ever-expanding PR disaster of their own making, people might be less amenable to that.) And they could probably have also staved off a fair amount of complaints about in-app purchases with just a different structure.

Off the top of my head:

- Non-free apps sold on the app store take a 20% cut, up to a max of a $5 fee. (This would be a bit of encouragement for developers to price productivity apps higher than $25; the "race to the bottom" in app pricing has been a deterrent for some classes of apps, in my understanding.)

- In-app purchases and subscriptions take a 15% cut, with a drop to 10% for subscriptions in their second year and beyond.

- Links to external web payment forms are allowed (with no Apple cut or penalty) in apps that are clients for cross-platform services, e.g., Netflix, Kindle, and so on.

There'd be a lot of details and nuance to work out with respect to those last two, but it doesn't seem like it'd be an impossible hurdle to figure out where to draw those lines.

10% is not reasonable, 1% is not reasonable. The problem is not how much Apple charges, that's up to them. The problem is Apple's heavy hand saying what a user can see, what they can install, and what the developer can say to their users. This is the problem. If they decide to charge zero, it won't fix anything.

And don't get me wrong, I think Apple is a great company. But they are sitting in a monopoly today. Maybe some folks here are too young to remember but companies like microsoft got punished in the past for having too much control over people' choices and, in my opinion, it was way softer comparing to what Apple is doing today.

Yep, the correct amount is the fee that the market dictates. That is, when other app stores and other payment processes are available and developers can be open about the fees on each purchase (eg, "Visa/Mastercard +3%, Apple payment +30%") then the market will soon determine what a fair fee is.

> The problem is Apple's heavy hand saying what a user can see, what they can install, and what the developer can say to their users.

I remember Steve Jobs saying (about not allowing adult-themed apps) that iOS was "freedom from porn!"[1], which to me sounded more like "freedom from choice!"

1 (yeah, ok, like Safari does't do pornsites?)

> Links to external web payment forms are allowed (with no Apple cut or penalty)

The whole selling point of the App Store payments was supposed to have been convenience, so, however much they charge, is supposed to be worth it on its own for the indie players.

What do we get instead? Instead, Apple doesn't allow their useds to buy books from Amazon.

---

My personal opinion is that it must be required that Apple payments are accepted within the app, and that the app makers aren't allowed to pump and dump promotions for tricking users into adding credit card details by providing temporary benefits (e.g., Apple price cannot be more than however much Apple charges in commissions), otherwise, there should not be any restrictions about two consenting parties from making a transaction however they feel like. (Cannot sell to the end users the idea that a 30% "convenience" fee is reasonable? Well, maybe it's not that reasonable, after all?!)

Likewise, there should be an advanced-user setting (similar to Android) for installing any app from any source. This setting isn't used very often in Android at all, but it's something very basic to ensure the competition on the platform, and that the manufacturer would never be able to preclude me from consenting to a transaction that I'd like to consent to.

That's a fair point, but Apple always has the option of changing their fee structure to a fixed amount plus a percentage, to reflect their actual costs plus some reasonable markup. If they charged a fee like $.50 + 5%, credit card fees should be less than half of that for any transaction size, so they'd have plenty left to cover any other costs like bandwidth.

I don't know what discount retailers expect on gift cards, but I would guess that in the range of a couple percentage points, otherwise networks like Visa would lose money on those sales.

Charging $.50 + 5% would mean that every $1 app would now give a 55% cut to apple and every $2 app would still give 30%. I believe the majority of the apps are $1. So I think this scheme simply increased the total Apple receives overall...

Exactly. There is an opportunity for a volume discount for larger players but the 30% fee is pretty much in the sweet spot. Epic games has reduced their fees to 12% but it also has resulted in scenarios where it is possible to pay transaction fees and thereby pay more for the same game than on competing stores.

No sane developer is going to reduce the pricing on their $0.99 app to $0.82 just because Apple has reduced their fees but the lower fees mean that you have to pay extra for low cost apps. $0.82 may become $1.12 after adding credit card fees but if the price stays the same you may even have to pay $1.29.

Apple batches credit card charges, so the per transaction fee will be much lower in practice. Also, nothing stops them from charging 10-15% for the first dollar and 5% after that.

> It's also worth considering how gift cards affect what Apple can charge. Apple sells gift cards through retailers, who are getting a cut of those sales.

That's a particularly interesting example, because Gift Cards regularly go on sale (at least here in Australia). I would often wait until my local stores sold the $100 App Store gift cards for $85, and stock up so everything I bought on the App Store was 15% cheaper.

So if Apple is able to sell retail gift cards at 15% discount, it suggests their 30% rate might be higher than it needs to be.

Bandcamp is able to keep their fees at 10% - 15% of the purchase price.

As long as there are still plenty of people making apps for iOS, I don't see how Apple has much incentive at all to change their behavior.

If this stuff is that big of a problem for the average iOS developer, then shouldn't this at least be an opportunity for Google (to attract more developers to its platform, possibly exclusively)? Or no because G has pretty much the same incentives that Apple does? Or is this already happening and I'm just not aware of it?

From what I understand, Google, Microsoft, and Sony all also charge 30% for the app marketplaces on their devices. There may be some game-theory pressure here not to lower the cut for risk that the others will do the same and a race to the bottom will ensue.

Epic basically started that race to the bottom in the PC gaming space. Time will tell if it will actually drive Steam's cut down.

Steam already lowered their cut directed mostly at AAA games with sales over $10 million dropping to 25% and sales over $50 million dropping to 20%.

AAA devs were already trying to leave steam as much as possible, so they tried to bring them back while doing nothing for smaller studios and indies who can't afford to exist off steam.

Doesn't Steam allow indie developers to generate as many keys as they want for free? The Humble Bundle gave me a lot of Steam keys the last time I bought something from them and Steam didn't get a 30% cut from it.

They can’t exist solely off Steam, but selling on Steam + GOG + maybe even directly is better than exclusively Steam.

I know I’m in the minority, but especially indie titles I try to buy somewhere else and look for a direct sale, GOG, and itch.io first

Indies don't earn enough for it to matter. The cut only matters for successful companies so nobody is complaining in the end.

If your game sucks then it doesn't matter because 30% of nothing is still just nothing. If your game is good enough then you get a discount.

Developers will only have to pay a 5% Microsoft Store fee if a user installs their app through a campaign ID link. The same applies if the user finds their app through a web search. However, if a user discovers the app through the Microsoft Store search or other “Microsoft-owned” properties, developers will have to pay a 15% fee, getting 85% revenue in return.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/202038/microsoft...

Still, 30% is a huge improvement on what it was before the App Store. Publishers would take 60-80% in the old days.

No it's not, because you could previously self publish apps for any major os and not be locked out by default from virtually all devices. I understand the benefits of an app store and walled garden (not that I want one for myself, but I understand), it's always been way too much nonetheless.

That's still the case for computers.

But before the iOS app store, there was none.

Before the App Store I sold software on my web page and the only fees were the 5% PayPal takes and $9/mo for dreamhost

You can still do that.

You can't side load on iOS.

Yeah but you access the same exact markets as the old days, just maybe not the new ones.

What changed though? Before iOS and iPhones existed, you also couldn’t sideload on iOS, but no one was complaining. Apple created a new product essentially from scratch, and it has some limitations to how software can be distributed to it. Your car infotainment center and your fancy air purifier probably also don’t provide an easy way to install arbitrary software on them. But creating a new device that can’t do every conceivable task doesn’t change how you can sell other software online.

Mobile is now the main computing platform for many people around the world[0]. It’s no longer a toy for yuppies or a console device. It’s time the platform grew up from being as limited as a car infotainment system.

[0] Today roughly one-in-five American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

Nearly three quarters of the world will use just their smartphones to access the internet by 2025 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/smartphones-72percent-of-peo...

For a mobile platform?

If you mean for desktop, nothing has changed.

> If they shut you down on the App Store, you're done. Your iOS app is worthless on any other platform.

> I shit you not, I've personally had apps rejected by the review board because they didn't like the screenshots. Those were screenshots of the app itself.

My experience sending applications to the app store was certainly frustrating as a first-comer as the App Store has numerous rules about the screenshots, descriptions, naming etc. that you have to follow.

However, every time the app got rejected, the reviewer sent clear feedback on which rules the submissions were violating and how to fix those issues. After that, you could send your app for another review. Calling that "shutting you down" is slightly harsh in my ear. We fixed the problems they had with our submission and then we got approved.

I agree with this partially. I have had very good feedback from the reviewers when my app was rejected. I could find and fix their issues, I may not agree with it, but the terms were clear.

Also... I've submitted a minor bug fix and got flagged on something I did not change that was previously approved and their terms did not change. That gets frustrating. I feel like every update is a gamble. Some parts of it seem pretty vague. Sometimes I just resubmit and get a new reviewer and he approves on the iffy ones. But with people in the loop interpretation is always a thing and I can't get too mad over it.

> Also... I've submitted a minor bug fix and got flagged on something I did not change that was previously approved and their terms did not change

Luckily, this is something they recently said they won’t do anymore

Since when? This happened to me a week ago.

June. The App Store review being as inconsistent as it is I’m not exactly surprised that it doesn’t always work

Even if it happens less frequently now, the fact that this is still a possibility at all makes submitting anything to the app store a really frustrating experience. Particularly for bugfixes I just really want to fix the bug ASAP, not have to invest a bunch of time changing some unrelated feature (or even wasting another review cycle). Consequently I do try to minimize my total number of submissions.

Turns out the announcement was in june, and the process change is starting today [0] I agree with you though, the review process, especially because it's super inconsistent and even Apple themselves sem to be care about some rules more than others, is quite a pain

[0]: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=84w3e5bm

I saw this too. Great news if true (thank you, court of public opinion). Still a little bit unclear how Apple will know that my changes are just bugfixes; are they going to read my minified javascript?

I only added the rejection as an illustrative anecdote.

My main point is not about rejecting an update, but about pulling you out of the store entirely or never accepting your app. Even deleting your Apple dev account as we just saw with Epic.

I do appreciate those rules because they lead to a higher quality listing.

I had a bugfix update rejected a little while ago for a business app.

Apple wanted a video walkthrough of every screen in the app, explaining what each screen is for and with a breakdown of device permissions needed on each of those screens. That day was a complete write-off. If the app required excessive permissions I could understand there might be some concern, but it doesn't. Any permissions we do need are justified in the info.plist as required, and are very descriptive.

They then rejected it again the next day, as I had apparently failed to mention what we use ARKit for in the video. We don't use ARKit and it is not in the codebase.

Another day goes by and they finally approve, with a friendly disclaimer that they will now require an updated video with every future update.

It just seems like busywork to me.

Your experiences are not necessarily representative of that of all iOS developers.

Even if they are representative of 99% of experiences - imagine the damage and anger caused by the remaining 1%.

Some of these businesses wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the appstore. 30% is comfortably fair for many.

And the AppStore wouldn’t exist without apps. Just ask Microsoft.

Usually this is because your app is low quality of looks bad. I've published lots of apps and followed changes of Apple policy for years, and in 99% those increased the quality of apps published and user experience.

If someone doesn't deserve 30% it is Google. With Apple at least I speak to a human (or if this in an AI - cudos to the developers, it is super real). While with Google all you get is a bot reply "Sorry, we can't tell you shit. Go figure out a problem and unless you do we will block your account and all RELATED accounts". Well that is some wild shit.

I have no idea how Apple could claim to make a decision about quality for me with a straight face. Just look at the gaming section: it's full of abusive software with repeatable in-app purchases. Apple is fully responsible for the use of addictive psychology to con people out of their money. They don't even allow you to filter this crap out in their app store. If there were any justice in the world this would be criminal.

Considering the business partner angle, i wonder how expensive it was, 20 years ago, to market, securely deliver to consumers, and process payments from customers for small developers selling in CompUSA or BestBuy, while providing analytics on sales.

I wonder if it gave rise or "justification" to the 30% thing, but don't know.

Compared with other publishers of software 30% was probably pretty reasonable.

Now it's just simply not.

The margins on retailers are razor slim, and publishers did handle a lot of marketing and front money. Apple has a muppet play with the app for a bit then they add a row to a database. They are absolutely bleeding developers to capitalize on their silly mindshare.

Apple considers the iPhone a single product. It has many features: some of them require extra payment. For example, you can purchase a feature that allows you to play a game about Pokemon. Apple outsources the development of some of iPhone features to 3rd parties. Some of those 3rd party iPhone feature developers mistakenly think of themselves as independent application developers. Apple mercifully allows such miscategorization because it does not really matter for them or their customers.

Funny how most replies in that thread don’t actually address the initial question: why is there a policy of prohibiting disclosure of how the money the user pays gets distributed?

Most “answers” immediately diverge into monopoly discussions, or questions-as-answers of why 30% ‘seems so high’ (even though neither was initially brought up).

It seems pretty obvious to me. Apple wants a user experience that makes the user happy with Apple products, not one where the app is complaining to the user about Apple policies. Apple is happy to prohibit zillions of random different things; they perceive the openness or fairness of their platform as much less important than user experience.

But how does prohibiting disclosure of money distribution facilitate this?

It's keeping the users who have chosen Apple's products from being weaponized-via-guilt-trip against them.

So, the same reason that China doesn't have a free press, then?

Not a lot of people immigrating to China willingly for that analogy to hold up.

Then perhaps a better example would be the UAE:

https://www.news.com.au/travel/destinations/middle-east/duba...

That's people getting scammed into migrant labor. Hardly a choice they'd make if they knew the facts.

I don't see a parallel to someone buying a premium device, at a premium price, expecting—and getting—a premium experience. Apple respects the trust their customers have afforded them, and rightfully keeps potentially-hostile third parties from detracting from that experience.

What if all apps did this? Isn't it just transparency?

Sure, it would be transparency.

Why don't they just break down how every percent is allocated?

How much is food? How much is electricity? How much is grey-market nootropics?

> It seems pretty obvious to me.

Me too. Absolutely no retailer, digital or physical, would allow anything like this.

And besides this, most people seem content to compare it with the physical world with (IMO invalid) comparisons of malls, etc.

There's another thing: Apple already charges developers a fee every year. And they also sell ads on the App Store (which you basically have to buy otherwise you're a 'needle in a haystack'). AND they sell ads to your competitors, which use your (sometimes trademarked) keywords in their ads, which means you need to buy even more ads to counteract those.

Apple wins, and wins.

And they make every developer buy a Mac because they prohibit running macOS in VMs and in general don't allow building iOS apps without the use of Mac hardware. That's probably a bigger expense than the app store fees for most, and artificially inflates macOS market share in the important developer market.

If you write an app that you can sell on the app store to 860 people for $5 you already got the money to buy a Macbook Pro 16”.

I don’t think the Macbook restriction is such a big problem. However, if you sell it to 1 million people and Apple takes the 30% cut, that’s a loss of $1.5M for you...

(Maybe I miss something, I never wrote iOS apps, I’m just doing the math)

You need to buy the Mac before writing the app. You might make enough to repay that investment, but it's out of pocket to start with. For many people that is a big problem.

This also makes it difficult to write FOSS apps for iOS, because the developer would have to front the cost of a macOS workstation + the $99 yearly fee with no expectation of a return at all.

Technically you can make it GNU compatible and charge for it with the source online. A user needs the build system but can modify your app and rerelease it at their convenience.

I prefer the F-Droid model myself.

This really is a ridiculous point to make.

You need a Mac because important components like the XCode Simulator require OSX libraries in order to function. It's no different to me needed a Windows machine in order to build Office plugins.

I regularly cross compile for Windows from Linux, and I don't need to buy any hardware from Microsoft.

Microsoft has little to do with the hardware you run their software on

If those software components were all that was needed, we could just run macOS in a VM, as we can easily do with Windows or Linux. Apple forbids that specifically to make all prospective Mac/iOS developers buy Mac hardware.

I would bet that the median developer in the developer program doesn't sell enough on the App Store to recoup the cost of a mid-range MacBook Pro every 3-5 years and an iPhone every other year and the developer program annual fee.

> If you write an app that you can sell on the app store to 860 people for $5

fwiw, that's an incredibly hard feat that most people don't ever accomplish. Even "it's just 16 work-weeks at minimum wage" would have been a better demo.

> And they make every developer buy a Mac

No. You just need to be able to run OSX.

For the last 6 months I've been running OSX on my X299/10980xe desktop using OpenCore. And it is far along enough now that you can run it on a range of PC equipment including AMD.

And Apple has said on a number of occasions that provided you don't sell these Hackintosh desktops they fully support you playing around with OSX this way.

This is illegal and I am skeptical that Apple has officially endorsed breaking their EULA.

It's a breach of the EULA which is very different from being illegal.

And Craig Federighi has talked on quite a few occasions about supporting the hacking culture within OSX. Which is why Apple never went after Hackintosh like they could have e.g. by enforcing SIP.

There are hundreds of Github projects and websites right now detailing how to setup a Hackintosh Mac and not once has anyone ever received a cease and desist.

It's breach of contract and copyright infringement among other things, so it is illegal. Not taking every opportunity to enforce the EULA is not the same thing as condoning breaking it. If Apple actually wanted to support hackintoshes they could change the EULA, but they never will.

If the VP of Engineering publicly states it's okay I will take his word for it. And it's definitely not clear depending on your country whether an EULA is enforceable or not.

And the reason it's not permitted in the EULA is because it would allow commercial competitors to build Hackintosh Macs which nearly destroyed the company during the Power Computing era.

It is never a good idea under any circumstances to believe someone when they tell you it's ok to violate the terms of a contract they are requiring you to sign.

They could modify the EULA without enabling commercial sale of hackintoshes. They just won't. It's actually better for them when you are in breach of contract, because then they can use selective enforcement to create any unwritten rule they like.

This upfront payment from the developer might have the side effect of weeding out all but those who are heavily invested in their iOS app. Ensuring the apps there are not hobby or side projects and are maintained and supported by full-time devs.

That said, I wouldn't lock myself into that ecosystem with all those upfront costs and restrictive terms where Apple benefits much more from the devs than the other way round.

Don’t forget their initiative to capture an even bigger percentage of app advertising spend. Nerfing the IDFA is designed to make advertising anywhere other than the App Store less effective. Apple is betting that this change will force developers to shift more advertising dollars to Apple, and away from places like Facebook.

> And besides this, most people seem content to compare it with the physical world with (IMO invalid) comparisons of malls, etc.

Are there any major digital stores that disclose the costs of doing business (royalties, fees, etc...) to the customer as purchase? For example, the PlayStation/Xbox Online Store or Amazon Music

Dunno, probably not. But "everybody else does it too" isn't a good excuse to prohibit it.

I recall in the UK in 2006, in retail supermarkets, it's been disclosed that the tag price is a cash-only price. That if you pay by a credit card, then the price is 2 or 3% less, but there's an extra 2% or 3% fee for credit card processing.

In the US, sales tax is almost never included in the price tag, so, when you checkout, you get the sales tax itemised separately, including when different jurisdictions charge separate taxes (e.g., county + city sales tax). Hotels in states with a gross-receipts tax often pass this tax back to the consumer as well.

In Eventbrite and many other similar apps, including for donations, the processing fees are nearly always shown separately from the cash price itself; I believe some platforms let the seller decide how it's shown (e.g., "who pays it").

Tax break downs are also posted at the pump when buying gas in the US, because they are so high. Which is kind of the point in the case of the app store as well. They would have more sympathy from me if they charged a more reasonable fee.

In the US, credit card companies don't allow sellers to disclose credit card fees or charge separately for them. You do sometimes see a discount for cash, which is probably due to lax contract enforcement, and, of course, many sellers only accept the subset of credit cards with the lowest fees.

Are you sure the sellers aren't allowed to disclose the fees? I believe the sellers aren't allowed to charge more on CC than the cash price. Note that the example above may be a little convoluted if you aren't too observant a reader, but the whole idea is that the total price that the user pays is still the same regardless of the method of payment, it's just that the money are allocated differently, with the user being informed of the allocation.

An analogy I heard:

What would Target do if their canned beans vendor started putting labels on the cans like "we sold this item for $0.23. Anything else is profit that your store is charging you."? Those cans would never see the shelves.

If, in effect, Apple buys a product from its vendor for $3.50 and then resells it for $5.00, keeping the difference as profit, I can understand their statement that the wholesale price is irrelevant and shouldn't be shown.

> What would Target do if their canned beans vendor started putting labels on the cans like "we sold this item for $0.23. Anything else is profit that your store is charging you."? Those cans would never see the shelves.

Arizona Iced Tea does this and they're very successful.

Arizona Iced Tea puts the suggested retail price on their cans. They do not disclose what price they charge to the retailer on the cans.

Yeah but the implication is you should never pay more than 99 cents or whatever. Coke did the same thing, running advertisements about 5 cent Coke even though they couldn't control the actual price of a bottle of Coke. Worked really well apparently.

Also, I've never paid above 99 cents for Arizona. So it seems that worked as well.

Books have printed the recommended price on the cover for decades. So have many snack foods.

It's very different than disclosing your revenue split on the packaging. Apple lets you set the price on your app store page. And no one will have to pay more. They would object if you mentioned your revenue split there.

Well every product I buy has a website address on the packaging, and often I can go there and buy it direct from manufacturer but I don’t see Publix banning beans anytime soon.

>An analogy I heard:

>What would Target do if...

Again with the real-world mall/stores comparisons!

Does the beans vendor need to buy a machine from Target to manufacture the cans? Do they need to also pay a separate yearly fee to Target?

> “We know that these freedoms require protection,” [Tim] Cook said of First Amendment rights. “Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most.”

Source: https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/18/tim-cook-free-expression-awar...

>why is there a policy of prohibiting disclosure of how the money the user pays gets distributed

The same reason Visa doesn't let you let disclose to your customers that using your credit imposes a 3% fee to the merchant. People would use alternatives if they knew

They would? Why? I don't care what my merchant is paying in fees. I care about what I'm paying in fees.

Yeah I don't know what he's talking about. A lot of places I've been to will give cash discounts. Or have minimum credit card orders

Visa and Mastercard fees are absolutely disclosed to customers, as a matter of course. In fact Australia implemented a law a couple of years ago that retailers who pass the processing fee to customers must only charge the actual fee itself and not an arbitrary "CC fee" (some retailers had been charging ridiculous fees like $5 or 15% previously). So by law these fees must be available to the public.

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/excessive-payment-surc...

Including your “answer”.

I think there are all kinds of weird clauses added by apple, #1 being you can't disparage apple.

Then those kinds of rules should apply both ways: Apple's can't disparage others either.

Sure they do. They just prohibit you from putting that in your app's UI. If you were selling your software in a box at Walmart, they may well refuse to display it on the shelf if you included a message stating that Walmart had just gotten 30% of the software's and that the publisher had just gotten 20% of the software's price. Similarly, many publishers would likely refuse to publish such a message.

I don't think the question of why Apple doesn't allow such messaging is all that interesting.

I do think it's interesting that:

1. Apple is more likely to notice such a message buried within app UI, because they review apps. Walmart would probably only catch it if it appeared on the packaging.

2. We're more likely to hear about it , since we're more likely to know someone who has published an app on the Apple store than we are to know someone who has published an app through a traditional channel then marketed it on retail shelves.

I am gradually coming to the conclusion that active censorship of information should be illegal, on any platform, public or private.

These companies control most of the modern society's information intake, you can't keep justifying everything they do with 'it's private, they do what they want'. The potential for abuse is just too great.

Certainly you don't believe that. What about child porn? Well you could say that's illegal so then it would be ok to censor it. But what about anti-vaxxers, QAnon or other blatant misinformation or lies? What if it's proven that the misinformation, is posted by foreign agents trying to stir controversy and hate in the country?

You clearly need to draw the line somewhere. But it's impossible to draw it to comply with the expectations of everyone. It's just an impossible task.

The focus is on 'information', as in factual information. 'Apple takes 30% of your transaction' is clearly factual information that is different from general political speech.

Clearly misinformation does not qualify. I am trying to outline it as distinct from general freedom of speech, but I am not sure how to draw the line. However, the edge-cases are quite clear.

I strongly feel that it should be up to the consumer of information to decide whether to treat it as true or false. Otherwise, what's stopping you from banning all religious texts? Spiritual texts? Ads for homeopathic pills? And so on, and so forth.

If people are manipulable enough to fall for "foreign agents" stirring up controversy and hate — well, they'll just need to learn and get smarter.

What's stopping anyone from banning all of that right now?

Arguably "Ads for homeopathic pills" might fall under fraud, with enough fud, smoke and mirrors to escape charges.

Would you be willing to censor BLM just because Russians are using it for their disinformation campaigns? Afterall Muellers report revealed they have big hand in it, but it doesn't mean we have to censor it.

If I make a discussion website about video games, and someone wants to my site and discuss Axolotls, shouldn’t I have the ability to moderate and control the content that goes on my website?

That’s a fairly innocuous example, but now someone comes to my site and starts spreading some pretty racist and otherwise vile bigoted content. Are you saying I should be forced, by laws, to host and publish that hate for others?

The internet, primarily sites that host user generated content, exist due to them being able to moderate the content that goes on them.

If you don't control the whole society's information pipeline it's very different, just like we don't want our ISPs force on us what to visit or charge for.

That sounds more like an argument for breaking up Apple, Google, etc.

Welcome to hardcore porn on every website. Oh look, a Facebook competitor! Oh no! Facebook hired 100,000 people to post furry porn on their site to discredit them.

The fundamental question is of "rights". Do we apply 17th century morality and economic models for digital markets? Modern problems need modern solutions. We need to re-define where these "rights" of digital businesses come from.

Comcast invest millions and therefore has a "right" to control internet access, block websites, etc? Comcast "allows" a business to reach millions of customers.

Apple invested millions and therefore has a "right" to block third party payment processors? Apple "allows" a business to reach millions of customers.

Microsoft invested millions in their platform and there has a "right" to block Chrome/Firefox? Microsoft "allows" a business to reach millions of customers.

etc, etc.

Taking 30% of sales of a digital-only product is not morally acceptable to me.

And yet people would rather battle Apple than make a web app and push open technologies further.

Because Apple cripples their browser on iOS, so you cannot make a web app. Basic app features like push notification are not implemented on iOS Safari.

Its a trade off between new and exciting technologies like the Push Notification and privacy - the service worker needed to provide them.

You’re free to send emails or text messages from the backend of your web app. This is hardly a great example of “Apple crippling their web browser.” Personally I don’t want your advertisements pushed to me. Even the notifications permissions prompt on desktop Chrome is ridiculously spammy since it’s on basically every commercial website these days. Safari on iOS is a great web browser that provides a great web browsing experience in my opinion.

So if I make a chat or video conferencing webapp you want to get an e-mail every time someone replies to you or invites you to a call?

I would love to take this energy for fighting apple on the 30% fee and use it encourage them to adopt web notifications and other web apis.

Apple to Facebook: if users were informed about your tracking, they wouldn't like it.

Facebook to Apple: if users were informed about your fee structure, they wouldn't like it.

Both companies have a cash cow that works better when users are unaware of it.

How is this different from any other store that offers access to a wide audience? Connecting devs to hundreds of millions of people, taking care of warehousing, logistics and sale/payments handling? Do those retailers tell you who gets what further down the supply chain? No. You see the price of the product and nothing even remotely reminds you of how much the retailer payed the manufacturer, and how much the manufacturer payed their designer.

Imagine you make a toaster. You want that toaster on the shelves at a retailer. How much do you think the retailer gets? And the transporting company? I think 30% is low in comparison. But but but this is digital. Yeah, so where do you you have access to Apple’s client base? How much do you pay for the running and maintaining of the App Store infrastructure?

How many apps do you think are hosted that don’t make any money? For neither dev nor Apple? All those are costs. For Apple. Admitted they make a lot of money, but they do so because they’re successful. If you want to be successful on their platform, you play by their rules. And those are clear: you pay 30%.

Well, it's easy: just develop your own mobile phone and operating system, make it popular, and then you don't have to pay the 30%.

Anti-free speech advocates use this argument when they say it's okay that Facebook, Twitter and Visa ban you - they are private companies and you can just create your own social media and payment systems. It's that easy!

Atleast apple’s surplus is not only taken by its employees, and a reasonable chunk passes to shareholders. So people paying the fee can just buy apple shares and get back some of the fee.

Guess Apple could let developers disclose the 30% iap fee, but only if they disclose the margins they make off of each user/transaction/etc.

Which is smart of them.

I’d guarantee that every company with a financial interest in the App Store would start putting up banners about the fee in an effort to stoke the Epic x Apple tensions in their favor.

Let the court decide the case without the mob influence of millions of uninformed users.

You mean without the influence of millions of informed users.

As a counter argument, this does not fall outside of the business or legitimate concern of the people in a representative democracy. The court should judge according to the law, but if the people do not like the outcome of the law, they might want a different law, and in the end, we will have the proceedings in the public record. If the people have no business in this, we should also make sure the same millions of uninformed users can't get access to record of the court proceedings as well, lest they think to form opinions even afterwards, as it did not concern them while it went on.

> uninformed users

Are you arguing for or against letting users know the fee is 30%?

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