Most “answers” immediately diverge into monopoly discussions, or questions-as-answers of why 30% ‘seems so high’ (even though neither was initially brought up).
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.
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.
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)
I prefer the F-Droid model myself.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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").
Me too. Absolutely no retailer, digital or physical, would allow anything like this.
https://www.news.com.au/travel/destinations/middle-east/duba...
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.
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?
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.
Arizona Iced Tea does this and they're very successful.
Also, I've never paid above 99 cents for Arizona. So it seems that worked as well.
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.
>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?
Source: https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/18/tim-cook-free-expression-awar...
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
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/excessive-payment-surc...