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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

What I find interesting is that this puts Apple in a role that I don't think it wants - going to bat in the courtroom for all those independent developers. It's not that they don't have the resources to do so, it's just that it is somewhat contrary to the way in which Apple has structured these relationships through the AppStore Guidelines, i.e. Apple doesn't owe developers much of anything except a portion of the revenue if and when Apple decides to allow sales of their app. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to the attack on its vassals.

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I think the only thing we'll find out, is how highly Apple values in-app purchases as an App Store feature.

I, for one, couldn't care less if they go away. I think the patent is bad, the troll is deplorable and Apple will be setting a terrible precedent that will have non-trivial fallout in their dev community.

But on this topic, I just don't care how it shakes out. 90% of the in-app purchasing I see is predatory (smurfberries, virtual poker chips) or tantamount to it.

There are a lot of legitimate uses for IAP, for example games that sell additional levels. There are essentially 3 types of IAP: non-consumable, consumable, and subscription. The type you are referring to (consumable) lends itself well to predatory practices, but I dare say 90% is hyperbole. Apple has taken steps to mitigate the issue, and a lot of times it's pretty obvious when the developer is just trying to nickel-and-dime their customers to death.

A lot of developers rely on using IAP to make money off their existing (and often small) customer base, and if IAP went away so would a lot of indie game developers.

> "There are a lot of legitimate uses for IAP"

I agree that good apps and good uses exists, that's just the minority in what I've personally seen. The only app I have personally used that had reasonable IAP was Camera+.

And to be fair, I hand-waved 90% not considering subscriptions. [1] If we roll those in, I agree there's a much lower rate of 'smurfberry' use.

> "Apple has taken steps to mitigate the issue"

Sorry if I've missed that. But last I checked they had just changed the top-revenue rankings to include IAP, and smurfberry-bearing titles shot to the top. To change that algorithm the way they did looks more like celebrating that nonsense. [2]

[1] I've been thinking of subscriptions as their own beast for a while and just didn't think of them. But I do agree, they're IAP.

[2] Surely Apple tested the proposed ranking change and rolled it out knowing full well what titles would dominate under that scheme.

>Sorry if I've missed that. But last I checked they had just changed the top-revenue rankings to include IAP, and smurfberry-bearing titles shot to the top. To change that algorithm the way they did looks more like celebrating that nonsense. [2]

I just looked at the top free game list, and most of the top 25 don't appear to be smurfberry titles. About 7 or 8 of them appear to be like that. Most of the ones with IAP are for removing advertising, upgrades to the full version, or additional content, all of which are pretty legitimate uses for it.

Regardless, if Apple were to just to remove IAP and let the devs rot on this the message would be terrible - that the devs, who likely have minimal resources to fight back, are now fair game for using Apple's platform in the way Apple prescribes. What other features can be trolled?

Apple does not indemnify its developers against patent claims so unless a suit is brought against Apple directly it doesn't technically need to do anything.

This is a taste of Apple's own medicine from when it brought suit against weaker device manufacturers instead of Google directly for Android related patent infringement.

Agreed.

Wouldn't surprise me if Google were behind it.

Apple may have lots of money, but something tells me these particular patent trolls could get the money they need if it came down to it.

It would surprise me.

Quite a lot.

You think that Google, creators of an opposing app store & in-app purchases, wants to establish legal precedent that some patent on in-app purchases is enforceable?

"Apple does not indemnify its developers against patent claims so unless a suit is brought against Apple directly it doesn't technically need to do anything."

I agree. However, the choice not to protect the developers creates problems for Apple which may be as bad as those created by protecting them. And the dilemma of a PR disaster and the precedent of establishing a B2B relationship with developers is what makes the situation so interesting.

"This is a taste of Apple's own medicine"

This analogy seems pretty thin since Android's ecosystem is equally at risk here. This isn't going to scare these devs to another platform, it's going to scare them into not using the API.

Do you mean to say that they're just going to eschew in-app purchases? The Apple developer agreement, unless I'm mistaken, requires you use their API for in-app purchases or not have in-app purchases at all.

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