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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Smart that developers are quickly updating their apps while Apple is still appealing the decision. Once users get used to the added purchase options and cheaper pricing there's no going back, regardless of what the final ruling is.

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You’re right there won’t be any going back. You’re wrong about who is being smart about it.

If Apple wins appeal, they’ll happily and quickly reinstate the fees. It’ll be the app developers who then get stuck paying the fees because, as you mentioned, their users will be used to it and there’s no going back.

The incredible thing is that under the anti-steering rules, removing the button and providing any explanation would result in the app being banned from the store.

The extent to which "it's our platform so you don't have any rights" has been applied is ridiculous.

"If Apple wins the appeal"

Might as well ask if unicorns are real. Apple only wins the appeal if they bribe the judges. The only reason they've gotten away with it for so long is the U.S. DOJ was unwilling to enforce antitrust laws after the Microsoft debacle.

Apple will change the rules back in seconds if the court decision is stayed. Literally billions are at stake here.

They might, but they'll have lost the "it's for consumer's good" battle through and through.

4 years ago some people were still swallowing the security or privacy argument, and users didn't understand what they were missing. This time any of these facades will be broken to death.

I buy the security and privacy argument. I don’t want to deal with anyone other than Apple for refunds, cancellations, etc. I don’t trust anyone else to make these things easy.

Then you can happily tell Apple to fix it. Apple already has a system for this called Apple Pay, and it’s royalty free on top of regular credit card networks.

If it’s about security and privacy only, demand the ability to check out in an app using Apple’s own payment platform. Watch Apple squirm.

As for the subscription convenience, I know how to make this even better. Let’s give Visa and Stripe a monopoly on all transactions, and then have them build a unified subscription portal. Awesomeness!

I don’t understand your points. If I buy things through the App store on iOS I know if there is a problem I can get relief very easily. I can easily cancel subscriptions without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. I prefer to keep things this way. You apparently don’t. As such we disagree.

I feel you to a large disagree. That said Apple’s IAP has multiple issues

https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com/post/...

I don’t know anything about the issue from a developer perspective. I just know that as a consumer I like how Apple handles things.

Really? Most of those sound like positives to me (the consumer)

I am not shedding any tears over developers not being able to nag me about why I’m cancelling, for example.

Same goes for all the shenanigans mentioned about variable pricing for different users.

I think a lot of devs are out of touch with what customers want: transparent pricing, easy cancellation, not worrying about the store running off with my credit card. How the costs are split up between Apple and the devs is jury not something anyone cares about.

It would be great if the market could figure out this.

They have, on the Mac.

The market figures it wrong in lots of instances. Like cancelling cable subscriptions or gym membership. The market, in your parlance, did decide this by Apple being the most profitable phone maker. People could buy other phones and didn’t. I guess that version of the market figuring it out you don’t like.

> The market, in your parlance, did decide this by Apple being the most profitable phone maker.

I don't recall that defense saving Microsoft back in the day.

My point is, saying “let the market decide” is a stupid response. One can always pick a starting point and say, “but the market did decide”.

No one is forcing you to move away from IAP and subscriptions. Just ignore the link that takes you to the web. And be ready to pay a 30% premium for your convenience, because that is what Apple has priced it at.

Obviously. I was merely demonstrating that some people like buying through the App store.

You’re making the assumption the developer continues to support IAP

But you already didn't have the security of Apple's payment processing when you were buying Kindle books.

(Admittedly, I'm now waiting for the stories of users being surprised when they paid their FartTorchPRO app subscription via paypal.ru and finding their credit card details all over the darkweb.)

That Apple ecosystem only isolation is something you had to wish for in the first place, so for you, technically nothing changes.

For instance up until now you probably refused to register to Netflix or any other system that manages payments and subscription outside of Apple, and you can keep doing so.

Same way you probably didn't register PayPal integration that would have shifted part of the cancellation/refunds to PayPal. You of course didn't integrate PayPay either.

Basically you can keep being Apple only, as you always did. From the discovery documents, Apple didn't seem to give a damn about these and only discussed revenue regarding their policies, but you're free to see what you want in Apple's behavior.

Yes. I don’t think Apple is a saint. I think it understands that forcing consumer friendly practices for its customers makes sense especially if they get paid to do so.

Making people pay more on Apple devices for the same service is customer friendly?

Apparently I believe so since it provides me with an experience I’m willing to pay a premium for.

Have you tried cancelling your audible subscription? Compare that with the experience cancelling a subscription with Apple and you quickly realize the experience is more consumer friendly. You look at it from a price perspective while others look at it from a value perspective.

I go to Settings, I go to my Apple account, I go to subscriptions, and I press 1 button to cancel the subscription and 1 button to confirm that's what I want to do and the end date. Unless I know I want the subscription effectively forever, I subscribe through apple so I can do this.

Try canceling prime. Then try canceling any Apple platform subscription.

That's also something that's the fault of US lawmakers. In the EU cancelling a service must be as easy and through the same channels as signing up. Hence it's illegal to require that customers mail a hand-posted registered letter only on the second Tuesday of the month. Unless that's also the only way to sign up.

Transferring you to a "customer loyalty specialist" when cancelling is also illegal if you refuse.

Don't worship Apple because they're a bit more "consumer friendly" (while cashing in 30% for the privilege!!) when you could have everything be customer friendly for free just by electing honest politicians.

Fair point, and I don’t worship them. Reality is US governance philosophy is that the market will mostly self-regulate. Apple’s behavior is best aligned with my interest.

If i were an app developer, maker of Skinner box games, or selling virtual products, i would feel differently. But I’m not, and allowing Amazon to extract more margin in exchange for cheapening my experience does nothing to benefit me.

So Apple is bad because US lawmakers aren’t forcing other companies to follow their practices.

No they're bad because of the 30%. But almost all American companies are bad, really. It's just a inevitability in unrestricted capitalism. That's why we need the EU to put legal constraints on them. Apple isn't the bad Apple in the bunch but they're not great either.

Cancelling Amazon Prime took about 15 seconds. Do Apple users have the attention span of a toddler?

They may have changed but it used to be quite confusing how to cancel Prime. Once you cancel and try to buy something on Amazon they present a variety of dark patterns to get you to sign up again.

> I don’t want to deal with anyone other than Apple for refunds, cancellations, etc. I don’t trust anyone else to make these things easy.

Amazon has an incredibly generous return policy. This is a strange argument to make for the Kindle app.

Try cancelling Prime. Then try buying something from Amazon without them trying to trick you into a Prime membership. Amazon sucks. Also its return policies over the years have gotten quite obtuse for physical goods in my experience.

I have canceled Prime. It was a straightforward process. Orders go the way they usually do. There is a call to get Prime, but it's not like it's occupying a place where something else would normally be if you had Prime.

You can’t in good faith try to convince anyone that cancelling Prime is as easy as canceling a subscription on iOS. After cancelling prime whenever you order something dark patterns are used to try to get you to sign up. One such patten is that orders default to charging for shipping with a message stating that if you sign up for Prime shipping is free. This is even if your order qualifies for free shipping. Another is that when you checkout you get taken to a page that offers you Prime at a reduced rate for a week or two. You have to decline before checking out.

You are not engaged in a good faith discussion. Peddle this nonsense to someone else.

They didn't say it was easier. But I would say my experience _cancelling_ isn't worth a 30% price increase for all my services.

I think you mean a 43% price increase?

I thought the standard fee was 30% for in-app purchases?

If 30% of the price paid is taken by Apple, that means their commission is 43% of the revenue received by the vendor, the hypothetical price you would otherwise pay. A 30% decrease and a 43% increase are the same size; a 30% decrease is much larger than a 30% increase.

Observe: 0.7 * 1.3 = 0.91.

https://i.imgur.com/MBWOc6W.png

Oh of course. Well the "ease of cancelling" REALLY isn't worth the cost.

And haha to the Dilbert.

> I have canceled Prime. It was a straightforward process.

If you had cancelled Prime any time before mid-2023, you would not say this. Because if you had, you'd know Amazon Prime requires four successive cancellation screens where they change the position of the correct button to press each time. (And then a button which if you press immediately resubscribes you.)

Amazon itself referred to its cancellation process as Project Illiad: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-sues-amazon-...

but what if i dont want to give apple that control?

i could buy different hardware, but apple is abusing their monopolist markets on order to buyout the good chips and prevent other hardware manufacturers from having access to equivalent tech.

if theyre gonna buy up all of a TSMC process, i should be able to run android on an iPhone

Is there a benefit to running Android on an iPhone that would make it preferable to running it on an Android phone you buy at the same price point? Not suggesting you shouldn’t have the right to do it if you want to do it, but what would be the advantage?

> if theyre gonna buy up all of a TSMC process

Presumably a high end SoC.

Is that really worth paying ~25% more for everything, though?

Sure, but customers aren't going to be defending their decision after that like they always do.

Apple is a status brand, customers will still defend their decisions even if they found out that Tim Cook is a real life Sith lord or something of that magnitude.

No brand lasts forever. Even on HN, a couple years ago every comment even vaguely anti-Apple tax would be immediately downvoted. When the Epic lawsuit was first filed Tim Sweeney was public enemy #1 over here. Now people are warming up to the idea that Apple might be harming consumers and developers with their app store rules.

This is a misconception. For most Apple users it isn’t about status, it’s just the brand they use because they like the products and the way they work together. That doesn’t mean they don’t wish they were better in many ways (including this one).

It can be both. Like the whole green bubble vs blue bubble thing in iMessage. More people than you might think look at Apple as the status brand but that doesn't mean they don't also enjoy how well everything works together.

An iPhone isn't a status symbol anymore, if it ever was. I see 12 year olds with them because they still work long after the phone's previous owner grabbed the shiny new one.

Maybe having the newest model the week it comes out confers some status amongst those who can tell the difference. Everyone else just slaps a case on it and no one knows what generation you have.

I hear that argument often (although less than in the past) and always shake my head. In phones, Apple, Samsung, Google are analogous to Coke and Pepsi. Premium product, but achievable luxury. Apple is not Chanel.

Price sensitive folks go to MVNOs with off brand or lower spec devices - the equivalent to Dr Thunder at WalMart.

Apple is dominant in the US because they got their ass kicked in the services space by Google and learned their lesson. iCloud is an incredible platform today.

There’s really two androids. “Fancy Android” with Samsung Galaxy and Nexus - nice phones whose users seek them out. “Dumb Android” with customers steered by price or phone guys getting spiffed. The users don’t know or care about the device and have low value. The reality is, as with soda, the cheap product is marginally cheaper, but less pleasant and usually a poor value.

People in this thread are defending their right to be made to be paid 30% more and forbidden from being told how they can avoid this. It's bananas. Or astroturf.

> It's bananas. Or astroturf.

Hi, it's me, a Banana. I promise I'm a real life human being though and not being paid by anyone relevant to this.

The way Apple has set this up is generally preferentially friendly to consumers over developers. Since I'm a consumer in this situation, not a developer, that benefits me.

The developers put up with it because that's the only way to access Apple's customer base. Presumably if we remove that requirement and allow them to do less consumer-friendly things that are more profitable they will choose to do so. Since I'm a consumer in this situation, not a developer, that does not benefit me.

So yes, even if I had to pay Apple's fee, I see an extra $2-4/mo as a rounding error on some service for a $1500 device and don't mind paying it to have the 800 pound gorilla going to bat for me. I have never have to deal with confusing or misleading subscriptions, length unsubscribe processes full of dark patterns, "oops we forgot", terrible customer support, or anything else.

I'm happy for this to be a choice, but I'm worried it _won't_ be a choice--developers will switch off on to other payment providers and abandon Apple's subscriptions/payments. I'd be fully behind this if it were a requirement that you had to _also_ offer subscription through Apple, even at some sort of premium.

There was a period where the Android Kindle app stopped allowing you to make purchases. (You'd have to visit Amazon instead.) But they've resumed.

I'm curious about what happened.

Google and Amazon had some kind of cold war about them both wanting to control the living room or something. A few years ago they both decided to play nice.

Strangely I still can't buy kindle books from the Amazon app on Android, it still says I have to visit the Website.

I assume Google copied Apple's policy about taking a cut of every IAP.

I can definitely buy kindle books through the Android Kindle app. My best guesses are:

- you haven't updated the app in a long time - you're somewhere outside the United States

Is either of those true?

This also, long term, could kill the 30% commission. Why, as a developer, would you be stupid enough to launch your app as a paid product on the App Store?

Your discoverability is massively impaired, we already knew that. You also give Apple 30% of your cash.

Free app + external web purchase = maximum discoverability at 0% tax.

When things get more advanced, that web purchase link will be an authenticated URL - meaning one click to open the web browser already logged in. Register a protocol handler, remember their card information (or, ironically, use Apple Pay), and one tap in the app, a flash of the web browser, and they’re back in the app with purchase complete.

Apple needs to address this at WWDC. In the US and EU, there are zero, heck, negative advantages of selling on the App Store. All pain, all fees, no benefit of any kind. That’s a big deal.

The likely outcome is that Apple will reduce the 30% to something at least marginally competitive with alternative payment systems.

The entire “store” model needs to go away. Phones are computers now, just let people download and install whatever they want or need.

Apple will never do this voluntarily.

> Phones are computers now

No one but irrelevant nerds think this. And the market has demonstrated this time and time again.

Most people think of phones as being console-like entertainment devices. And aren't interested in scams, malware, virus checkers etc that are needed in a free for all model.

Malware and virus protection apps are already among the most installed across both Android and iOS.

At least here in Australia. Neither are in the top 50 for either Android or iOS.

And on iOS there are no virus protection apps, period.

Here in Australia, Samsung Device Care is in the top 50. [0] In fact, its more often installed than Netflix.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samsung.an...

> And on iOS there are no virus protection apps, period.

iOS has Avast, Avira, Lookout, etc. There are many, many virus protection apps on iOS.

.. are any of those for iOS non-fradulent?

I don't believe this can be done whilst maintaining a strong sandbox.

What's in these apps that a decent web browser can't do?

In a lot of cases nothing but native experience still reigns supreme.

Many companies would never use Apple's IAP regardless of the cost because companies want a direct relationship with their user for things like refunds and trials and other stuff.

My immediate interpretation of "direct relationship" is one part "we want your email to send you marketing spam" and one part "we want to add as much friction as possible to cancellations".

If Apple and their payments system offers as much value as they think then the market will make the determination, now that that's possible.

a) It's 15% for most developers.

b) Buying a product through IAP is one click. Versus having to go to a signup page, provide details, enter credit card details, wait for credit card verification flows etc. The drop off in conversions during this can be often greater than 15%.

c) Apple's centralised subscription management has been extremely useful and consumer friendly. Versus having to now deal with NY Times style scam tactics for every subscription again.

Now calculate the drop off every time someone saw the prompt: “Please confirm your Apple ID password.”

I’m sure it’s substantial over the years. As for point C, I really don’t care, every monopoly has had at least some advantages. We could make this even better by giving Visa a monopoly and having them build a web portal.

You can turn that prompt off if it bothers you.

C is my biggest reason I'm not looking forward to these changes.

I love having a single dashboard for all my subscriptions and having an easy way to cancel them.

b) Apple Pay on Stripe seems a pretty low friction experience for web purchases. My app has a "buy" button that pops up a Safari window with an Apple Pay button the user clicks. Sure, it's an extra click but I doubt it's a slam dunk that the extra click is going to consistently cut conversions by 15% (or 30% for big outfits.)

B is also one click, considering Stripe and others already offer Apple Pay as a payment option.

For C, customers can choose to continue using Apple's subscription management if they think it's worth the 30% premium that Apple charges. Or Apple could reduce the price to something more reasonable (Stripe Billing offers a similar feature set and costs 0.7%).

That sounds like an awful user experience. There's no way I'm ever buying a mobile app that requires me to go enter my credit card into a website to pay for it. Cross-platform services can justify this sort of thing (because you're buying a subscription to the service across all platforms), but doing it for what otherwise would be a paid app purchase is incredibly user-hostile.

I think you’re in the minority there - users enter their information constantly for physical items. Nobody raises an eyebrow, let alone calls it hostile.

Also, problem solved, just use Apple Pay on the checkout page. Ironic, but royalty free, and one-click to enable in Stripe.

I’d do it for 30% off

> Why, as a developer, would you be stupid enough to launch your app as a paid product on the App Store?

Higher conversion rate.

That's been highly questionable for a while.

Anecdotal I know but my app converts from free trials at 4x iOS vs Android. Has done so for years and years. Same app, same price, same audience (North American boaters). Similar free trial numbers too.

Niche app that sells at a higher price than your average app. Ie my users have disposable income but the Android users don’t like to pay for higher priced apps like iOS users will.

Oh, that's been true for quite a while. iOS is way more lucrative in the US versus Android.

I'm thinking more about web versus AppStore. AppStore discovery just sucks.

Is anyone confident that Apple will win on appeal?

By the effort developers putting into payment-flows I would say they aren't, but depending on the volume it could be purely for short-term gain.

Courts don't care about the amount of effort developers are spending to take advantage of the window before an appeal has been ruled on.

I think the implication that is being made here is that the other companies have examined their odds, and determined that the odds are good enough that they would dedicate the resources.

Which, presumably, means their legal teams examine the case and think that the appeal won't succeed.

Though there is always the possibility that it was relatively inexpensive to implement, and the increased sales in the meanwhile during the legal battle will outweigh the cost of changing it.

The consumers are...not sharp.

They will blame the app developers for raising prices.

Why would a developer lower their prices? Most people are not aware that Apple takes a cut of all sales. Further, the app developers have already set their prices to maximize revenue. Also, in instances like Amazon, they have already set a cross-platform price that I suspect they won’t want to touch.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t expect many discounts here.

It was mostly never about lower prices. Apps like Kindle and Fortnite just didn't allow in-app purchasing at all and now they will.

The market ultimately determines the discount, not the company. In a competitive market, some of the gains from Apple’s change will accrue to the consumer, and some will accrue to the developer. What % goes to whom depends on demand elasticity.

Even if a particular list price doesn’t change, I’d expect more frequent and deeper sales.

In a less competitive market for a good or service (due to lack of antitrust enforcement) there should still be discounts, in proportion to the residual competitiveness. E.g. the mobile game market is very competitive, so I’d expect more discounts vs. the video entertainment market where there has been a lot of aggregation.

What you're seeing is companies that can - and many actually do this - offer you different pricing between in app purchasing and their website are now offering you a link to their website where you can sign up for the cheaper price. One notable example of this in practice is Spotify, where its cheaper to sign up on the web than via the app.

I've also heard Netflix has suspended all in app subscriptions and is only going to link to their website for sign ups. I'm unsure if that will translate into savings, but I suspect you're going to see more of this behavior as well.

The 30% / 15% tax is very real and companies that don't have to pay that will be better positioned in the long run, so I imagine even if the price is the same, they'll be able to pocket more revenue doing this as well

I suspect this won't affect games much, except for the exceedingly big ones like Fortnite, but I treat that as a whole separate sector at this point.

> Why would a developer lower their prices

Plenty of them already do. Google's services (YouTube Premium and others), for example, are $5/mo more expensive if you purchase them via Apple IAP. Spotify memberships are 30% more expensive on Apple. There are countless other examples. They just weren't allowed to advertise the cheaper option on iOS until now.

Yeah, tariffs won't increase the price...

It would be way smarter if the prices were discounted of something like 20% when brought through the app… if apple wins the appeal they (aws and others) can now blame apple and shift the public perception of apple

Amazon have already removed the link once so why not again. Originally in the kindle app there was a link to get books, which opened safari, which they later removed.

> developers are quickly updating their apps

This means a lot! It reveals how long developers were waiting for this day to come.

those users will stick with their Apple products and lose the ability to "get the book" (so to speak). So yes, there is going back.

> lose the ability

What, why? They can complete the purchase flow in a browser instead of the app. What is lost?

They mean that if apple wins the appeal, the in-app new purchase flow will be removed but users will likely not leave the apple ecosystem

Bút now, they know the web offer cheaper. And likely search before give Apple 30% on other apps

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