Hacker News Reader

Comment by crowcroft | Hacker News Reader

I’m paying how much to buy a phone from Apple, and then they also want to get paid every time I install something whether they’re involved or not? It’s none of their business what I want to do.

View on HN

It's such brazen, inexcusable rent-seeking. Apple wants to insert themselves into everyone's personal business and demand a cut, like some mob boss. "That's a nice app you got there. Be a shame if something were to...happen to it."

Charge developers at-cost for hosting/distribution. Want more compensation for producing the hardware/platform? Here's my $1,000 receipt. Now go away.

I have some subscriptions that are managed through the subscription portal which is a convenient place to keep track of them. I can cancel renewals and the plan keeps working for the agreed upon period, except subscriptions from Apple. There it explicitly says that if I cancel renewal for a trial period, my access is immediately cut.

Seems a bit dishonest from our protector and guardian.

Hmm, I haven't seen this. But I am curious, how is that dishonest? It sounds like it is explicitly stated, so you know what will happen.

What Apple subscriptions? Logic Pro? Are you talking about a free trial or a paid trial? Also, if it is paid and you cancel and they terminate usage, do you end up seeing a refund for the balance of the time? With third-party devs, they have already sent the money along to the dev so they would have to pull back money to terminate immediately and refund the prorated balance of the subscription cost to the user. That would be hard on devs.

It was an apple arcade trial. A free trial, otherwise it would be more than dishonest.

But the dishonesty comes from allowing users to take risk-free advantage of free trials from third parties (which is good for consumers and business in general), but subjecting the same users to potentially unwanted renewals when it comes to an Apple product.

Rules for thee, not for me, says Apple to devs and users.

(Edit: never mind, I thought I remembered my Apple TV+ trial continuing after cancelling, but I must have misremembered.)

Here’s [1] an article claiming Apple revokes Apple TV+ trial access as soon as the auto-renewal is canceled.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/1/20943286/apple-tv-plus-fr...

For me it was an apple arcade trial

Setting aside whether it is justified or not, Apple is involved. Your app is heavily dependent on Apple built APIs (and hardware). Up till now, developers paid $100/year plus a value based per user royalty that was(is) part of Apple's cut of App Store purchases. Now developers will pay $100/year plus a per user royalty when the user count exceeds 1 million. If the developer stays on the App Store with a free app, there will still not be a per user charge.

Edit: I should have been specific that I was referring to the Core Tech Fee that will apply even to free apps with more than a million users. Developers will still pay a value based royalty of 10% (small devs) or 17% (large devs) for paid apps.

You aren’t the only party in the transaction. There’s also the entity providing the application in the first place. Don’t use loaded phrases like “none of their business” which make the privacy wonks start salivating when that’s is not what this is about.

> You aren’t the only party in the transaction.

I am. And even if I’m not, I don’t give a rats ass.

If entity providing the application wants money, it can talk to me.

As I understand it, the application is using Apple's APIs which could include things Apple needs to pay license fees to other parties for.

Sure. And you'd think that is built in when an IOS dev pays their $100/year licensing fee.

If not, I wouldn't be opposed to the paying to review apps outside of the App Store (where their 30% cut assumedly takes into account for App store apps), as long as the review is purely for security and not to comply with App Store rules (since I am not hosting it on the app store). But charging everytime someone download a semi-popular app, or worse, updates that app (since the install fee is per year) starts to go beyond "what value am I bringing to this feature?"

Somehow we figured this out for desktop OSes.

The point is that if I'm buying an app from, say, some Facebook store to install on my iPhone, Apple is not involved in this transaction, so they shouldn't get a cut.

I bet somewhere along the flow a Mac will be used to build your app, so they’re definitely involved — not that I justify it.

the mac (and the developer program subscription) has already been paid, too

Reply on news.ycombinator.com