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Comment by jzl | Hacker News Reader

It’s a symbiotic relationship

Yes, exactly. It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place. Apple is already getting their cut of the symbiotic relationship by selling their massively profitable iPhone hardware, full stop. Any chance you remember the first year of the iPhone when there were no third party apps? Other than being a good phone, it was basically just a technological novelty, and that was about it. Third party apps are literally what give value to the iPhone (and other iOS devices).

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Cydia was live on iOS before Apple's App Store.

Which is to say, I agree.

It's symbiotic because Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place.

And developers need a solid platform with users willing to pay money. I feel like you have the wrong answer to the chicken and egg problem. The first iPhone was a marvel to pretty much everyone, and blew everything else at the time out of the water. I don't recall much sentiment of people being disappointed about the lack of apps, because there was no reason to expect that at that point. Just being able to use a lot of the web like you would on a computer was a massive leap from a RAZR or whatever.

This is not to defend the 30% tax or anything, but I don't think it does any good to downplay the value they've built. The elephant in the room with your argument is that, if it were true, app developers would simply flock to Android and Apple would be forced to course-correct.

People seem to think that the customer exists because of the iPhone app store, when it's often usually the other way around. Other than a small handful of apps being promoted for free in the app store, the majority of businesses have to spend very real, very expensive advertising dollars or offer a unique product to attract customers. If you have your own product your customers want but they just happen to have an iPhone, you're now forced to pay the maker of their device 30% off the top of your gross revenues like some kind of Mafia. This same Mafia does everything they can to make sure that web/Safari experience is as poor of an experience as possible so that users prefer native apps delivered through the app store.

Imagine if you sold expensive CAD software through your own sales team and advertising efforts completely offline but because some of those users were on Windows they have to get it through the Windows store and 30% of your topline revenue went to Microsoft?

Because of the way online marketing/advertising works with competitive bidding in a lot of cases I would bet that Apple is making more margin than the developers of the apps are. Your competitor who doesn't have to pay a 30% Mafia shakedown fee for their product will be able to outcompete you on clicks every time.

This same Mafia does everything they can to make sure that web/Safari experience is as poor of an experience as possible so that users prefer native apps delivered through the app store.

Can you expand on this? I prefer to use the web when I can, and every time I've begrudgingly downloaded an app, it's the service itself that was actively pushing me away from their poor/hamstrung web client. I'm still left with the impression that users are staying there and developers jump through the hoops because it's just that good. That doesn't mean it's right, but - that's Capitalism, baby!

Also, the MS of yore would have absolutely done that if they thought they could get away with it, and definitely engaged in more than their fair share of unsavory tactics.

> The first iPhone was a marvel to pretty much everyone

IIRC its sales figures weren’t that great though. Of course from Apple’s perspective it was more of a prototype than the actual final product.

> Just being able to use a lot of the web like you would on a computer was a massive leap from a RAZR

IMHO not having 3G basically turned it into a toy.. also comparing it to a consumer flip-phones isn’t that fair. You you had touschscreen/stylus “smartphones” from SonyEricsson, Nokia etc. which weren’t that awful at the time (of course the UX was inferior after it actually became possible to the internet on your iPhone when the 3G was released).

You seem to be doing some history revisionism, at least from the point of view of someone in France. At the time of iPhone release (that I imported in France) there were very few phones of what you could consider smartphones. I actually had one of those, on windows mobile 6.5, complete with the stylus and it just sucked. You could get one of the early 3G contracts, but it wasn't really worth it unless you really needed that for business use. Because outside of receiving mails there was not real application that would benefit a lot from the connectivity (that only existed inside the big city, and only at certain spots since it was just the start of 3G rollout).

The iPhone made it so there were at least 3 use cases that were worthwhile getting that : full internet browsing with decent experience and speedy enough ; real-time map download for navigation and emails. Of course the first iPhone was limited by its connectivity speed, but it didn't matter because at this point 3G was not even really there for the vas majority of peoples. Then the next year we got the 3G iPhone that actually made sense to buy with a 3G contract because it became viable in the big cities.

The other "smartphones" who had 3G before that were largely irrelevant because even if you had the connectivity, using them wasn't worth your time and that's just ignoring the fact that outise of city centers you were out of luck (I know, been there, done that...).

There is a reason before the iPhone, Blackberrys were so popular, that's because they were the only decent option for the only use case that made sense before iPhone : email/messaging.

I really don't like the recent developments at Apple, but pretending that they didn't completely changed the game at the time is bonkers...

I had the first iPhone. Sales were low in part because it was locked to Cingular (then ATT when they bought Cingular). It was very much a beta device, but you could see and feel the future as soon as you used it. It certainly was more than a toy. I remember walking into my office the day after I got it and told everyone 'this changes everything'. It's not often those types of moments happen with such clarity (the one I remember prior was when I got my first 3dfx Voodoo gaming card, but I digress).

The 3g version and when it went multi-carrier is when it started to really take off sales wise. Then the iPhone 4 (first retina phone) was the next big bump, followed by the first 'big' iPhone.

I have never fully agreed with this premise. On the face of it, yes apps help people stay on the store. But at the same time, Apple does come up with many good apps.

Comparing it to the first iPhone is probably valid. They saw the writing on the wall and opened the gates, but could have easily chosen the other way of doing it themselves. No one wins in this scenario - nor the devs, nor the users, nor Apple. But it's not as clear as "Apple needs apps to sell iPhones in the first place".

Idly wondering, say you don't download any third party app and neither does anyone. You can still surf the internet for the most part. You can still connect with others via FaceTime/iMessage. You can still check mails etc. Things you won't be able to do is play games, go on dates, browse tiktok, book a cab (though all that is possible through safari but not a great experience).

A caveat here: The original 30% was on infinitely reproducible digital goods only. Which is 80-90% gaming skins and artifacts and digital subscriptions. Don't know if that is still the case.

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