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Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

Ultimately its more about the openness of the OS. If they built on iPadOS but they made a reasonable experience for freely sideloading apps, I'd be OK with it. Or even if they support WebXR really well, I might (just) find a way to be OK with that. But if they lock this down and position themselves as rentseekers to take a cut from every piece of software that runs there regardless of how much they contributed to it - I'm out.

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well i remember seeing you can bring your macbook or other devices into the space as a virtual window/screen/monitor (whatever they're calling it) so I already thought I can run vscode and any other apps at first at version 1 release. but I know what you mean.

You don't think they are contributing something by creating this platform?

not as such no.

Part of (my) definition of a platform is that when you buy it you are fully paying for the cost and contribution the platform provider made when you buy it. If there's a residual financial (or other) obligation after that then you don't have a platform, you have a partnership. I know there's other definitions of platform but that's the one that's important to me.

I don't see why that should be. Obviously you have a right to do whatever deals you like and not buy this product, but it seems to me that one reason Apple is investing so much in this is because they expect to recoup a huge reward over time, not just from device sales.

I guess you can always buy an android based headset that allows sideloading but presumably it won't have the same level of investment.

you don't have to guess - I bought a Quest Pro which allows side loading

As far as this goes ...

> it won't have the same level of investment.

Meta is constantly mocked for how much they have invested. You can argue about how much it paid off, but they certainly invested.

Right - and the Quest Pro isn’t well compared to what Apple is marketing here. I couldn’t accept a job working with a VR company because I couldn’t get past the nausea the Quest Pro induces in me.

I think the point is that Meta’s investment is weak compared to Apple’s full court press. It really is laughable.

> I couldn’t accept a job working with a VR company because I couldn’t get past the nausea the Quest Pro induces

Ouch. I'm sorry to hear that, I feel sorry for folks like you that are sensitive to nausea. There's so much potential in this tech but I can see a whole new class of disadvantaged people coming who aren't able to fully utilise it.

Yeah - I mean obviously I don’t know that Apple has solved this. If they have, it’s a clear winner as far as I’m concerned.

You're proving their point. That they expect revenue (huge reward) after the initial purchase is, by definition, rent-seeking.

It would be rent seeking if they didn’t continue to make investments in the platform, but nobody believes that is their plan.

From a developer POV it's about the difference with the other platforms. If Apple provides a platform that bring the dev 50% more profit than the status quo, sure taking a cut of that extra profit could make sense.

If that same dev would have made the same profits on other competing platforms, Apple is just fragmenting the market and it's take should be limited to basically management fees.

I hope this new platform brings newer applications and innovations, but also expect competition to adjust, making it a situation where Apple is just one of the many platforms.

In the iOS vs Android case, iOS does in fact typically bring at least 50% more profit to developers, often far more.

It's more complex than that...the whole limitation on promoting your existing membership services, the rules enforced on pricing and passing the 30% to the users etc. makes it a much muddier picture.

iOS sure brings some value to the table. How much actually ? who knows...

For comparison Youtube is also a platform regularily criticized by its participating creators, but you're not seeing high profile lawsuits or the EU slapping them fines at every turn.

No it’s not more complicated. iOS brings in twice as much app revenue than Android in total.

What you’ve said doesn’t change this at all.

I'm not sure where you're taking your figure of twice as much, but I assume it's the AppStore vs Google Play break down ?

That number is the total revenue for the whole store (there's a lot to say about it, since Google is also not the only Store for android, in particular in China and Korea), and it matters very few for any individual developper.

It's not because the total amount of in-App purchase for all games is twice as much on iOS that my new ssh shell app will make twice as much on iOS than on another Store, for instance.

Most US developers are not producing versions for Chinese app stores. That’s a red herring.

Of course individual products have their own idiosyncrasies, but is it in fact the case that on average, an app on iOS will make more than the same app on Android.

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