It still puzzles me to this day why developers are happy to develop for Apple products. If the red tape alone doesn't make it a deal breaker the % cut certainly should.
Apple users also seem to appreciate (and pay for) boutique indie apps. As a Mac user, I paid $25 for Byword just because it was a really nice Markdown editor. That appetite for quality apps gives indies a great market opportunity.
Edit: oh yeah, and a lot of devs use macOS so why wouldn’t they want great apps on the platform they use?
[1]: https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/mobile-hit-...
In general, I find the idea strange that developers can simply avoid being dependent on Apple. Look at two of the largest corporations in the world: Google and Facebook. They are themselves platforms. Google has its own mobile OS, Android. And yet... these companies still have big problems with Apple. They still need iOS apps, they still have to go through App Store review, etc.
The world is such that it's extremely difficult for anyone to avoid being dependent in some way on the BigCos. If you think the web is independent, just consider Flash-based web sites. Not so independent anymore, eh? Turns out Google and Apple also control the web browsers. Consider physical product producers and Amazon. And look at how Parler was simultaneously deplatformed by everyone. These BigCos are the elephants in the room, you can't ignore them.
I would also argue that even despite restrictions, spotty docs, and bugs, macOS is still one of the strongest platforms for creating polished boutique apps. The toolkits available elsewhere have technical advantages (like being cross platform), but getting the little details right is so much more difficult with them that meeting the same bar of quality is a much taller order. I think a dev wanting to accomplish something similar in a cross-platform manner is going to have to do something similar to what the Sublime guys have done with developing their own in-house toolkit.
The ecosystem as well is pretty aggressively updated - even old devices (by most company standards) remain supported AND updated - so your development target is not terrible.
So in short - you can make good to great money on the apple ecosystem as revenue per install is higher and ecosystem support costs lower.
On the one hand, having NE entitlements restricted to MAS and the associated pain of MAS distribution is real.
On the other hand, a few years ago, I once installed some garbage corporate VPN software on a Windows machine of mine so that a family member could connect to their office to resolve an urgent matter. I later realized it was impossible to uninstall. It seemed to have somehow managed to embed itself deep into the network stack initiation process, and since you can’t delete an open file on Windows, it was impossible to remove. I booted into the Windows equivalent of recovery mode and forcefully removed the files from a DOS prompt, but then the whole network stack was borked. Not knowing which registry keys to edit I had to reinstall the damn OS.
With that experience in mind, I’d really appreciate the peace of mind of knowing deeply system-altering software can be cleanly removed.
Reality - if they can scam you they will.
1) An annual subscription with no renewal notice AND that you couldn't cancel out of the 7 day period before renewal. So because I subscribed outside the app store I was screwed. After paying another $150 for a year I didn't want the service for, spending time arguing, I had to set a calendar invite for a year away to myself, then find out you can only cancel by CALLING them at a UK number! Of course it was acres of time being on hold.
I ended up just switching off that credit card and sending them an email saying I was canceling. They still send me past due bills saying my card was declined yadda yadda.
Contrast that with apple. You get an alert IN ADVANCE that you have subscriptions coming up. If you uninstall an app with a related subscription it asks if you want to cancel subscription PROACTIVELY etc. And you seem to get benefits via family sharing on subscriptions that automatically flow to family members without having to share passwords which is nice.
So yeah, subscriptions (as just one example) I go through app store if at all possible.
And of course, this extends to everything. On my windows machine we also have that corp VPN stuff -> which they then somehow use as a marketing channel to popup notifications around security etc that I need to buy or get anti-virus etc. I'm sure there are settings to turn this stuff off, but what a pain.
My parents it is even worse. On windows all the ads and toolbars that are "helpfully" installed I am convinced are 99% adware / malware. For some reason my parents (elderly) have no problems with their ipad by contrast.
Your app is signed and that's it. Not App Store review, just signed by a bot. The rest is all just discussing things like copy protection, where to host, etc.
It's a little bit of extra work, which is in your build scripts anyway. And it protects against some attacks.
To me it just sounds like bitching against Apple.. some old, same old
but it doesn't cost a cent
The article is not even about distributing free applications. It's about paid applications.
There are thousands of OSS apps available on the Mac. None of them are signed. This includes many GUI apps like iTerm.
Most people who use OSS apps are already going to have HomeBrew regardless.
I simply fail to understand why people are so privileged to think $100 is no-go. Its not one time fee. Its yearly fee. and $100 is probably half of 1 month salary in many Asian countries.
> "Distributing an OSS app requires neither a domain name nor an SSL certificate"
One can just release app on homebrew or even github release and guess what they don't need domain name or certs. Yes github/homebrew paid that cost but OSS dev doesn't have to pay that much cost to release the opensource app.
Signing your app and distributing it outside of the Mac app store does not require a paid developer ID.
What’s the point of Gatekeeper if getting a new certificate is free? Once your malware is blacklisted you could just use the next one at no cost.
Note that I will concede that it is extremely stupid and greedy of Apple to require a paid account for notarizing apps, particularly free apps, because it is in their best interest if more applications would be notarized, and they are not particularly hurt for cash either. It's inexplicable TBO. But that doesn't mean you cannot install signed but non-notarized apps without a paid developer account.
Even with the boutique money there we usually see someone's sob story about Apple pulling their app on a whim on HN quite often.
Managing all of that yourself would leave less time for development, would cost a lot more than the app store fees & cut and would be in itself an insurmountable barrier to many who might not even bother (particularly small freeware apps).
On the whole I'd say the app store benefits the majority of developers, particularly smaller ones.
The companies that do chafe at the bit though are the larger ones for whom all of that infrastructure is already taken care of, and it's no barrier for them. They seem to resent Apple's cut which would probably explain the Fortnite fracas.