Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Businesses Programming Apple

Apple Has a Major Developer-Relations Problem (marco.org) 82

Marco Arment, a widely respected programmer, app developer and commentator on Apple, has analyzed Apple's arguments and its thinking as officially portrayed in its lawsuit against Epic. He writes: Apple's leaders continue to deny developers deny developers of two obvious truths: 1. That our apps provide substantial value to iOS beyond the purchase commissions collected by Apple.
2. That any portion of our customers came to our apps from our own marketing or reputation, rather than the App Store.

For Apple to continue to deny these is dishonest, factually wrong, and extremely insulting -- not only to our efforts, but to the intelligence of all Apple developers and customers. This isn't about the 30%, or the 15%, or the prohibition of other payment systems, or the rules against telling our customers about our websites, or Apple's many other restrictions. (Not today, at least.) It's about what Apple's leadership thinks of us and our work. It isn't the App Store's responsibility to the rest of Apple to "pay its way" by leveraging hefty fees on certain types of transactions. Modern society has come to rely so heavily on mobile apps that any phone manufacturer must ensure that such a healthy ecosystem exists as table stakes for anyone to buy their phones. Without our apps, the iPhone has little value to most of its customers today.

If Apple wishes to continue advancing bizarre corporate-accounting arguments, the massive profits from the hardware business are what therefore truly "pay the way" of the App Store, public APIs, developer tools, and other app-development resources, just as the hardware profits must fund the development of Apple's own hardware, software, and services that make the iPhone appeal to customers. The forced App Store commissions, annual developer fees, and App Store Search Ads income are all just gravy. The "way" is already paid by the hardware -- but Apple uses their position of power to double-dip. And that's just business. Apple's a lot of things, and "generous" isn't one. But to bully and gaslight developers into thinking that we need to be kissing Apple's feet for permitting us to add billions of dollars of value to their platform is not only greedy, stingy, and morally reprehensible, but deeply insulting.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Apple Has a Major Developer-Relations Problem

Comments Filter:
  • Every Year (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WankerWeasel ( 875277 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @03:01PM (#61455164)
    Every year before WWDC a couple of these guys cry about this stuff. It's mostly for website views and advertising dollars for their YouTube channels. You won't hear about it again until next year this time.
    • by erktrek ( 473476 )

      Ok but is the complaint a valid one? I went to Marco's blog site but did not notice any advertising but you never know I guess.

      I read the blog - one thing I'm not entirely convinced of is the notion that the majority of the users go right to the app they want - I think it's a little more nuanced then that especially with new iDevice users.

      • by erktrek ( 473476 )

        Apologies - by the complaint - I meant HIS complaint, not your assertion that this happens every year.

      • Clearly there's good reason to be on the App Store. Just look at the Mac App Store. There's zero requirement to be on there, as developers can distribute themselves and keep 100% of the profits. And yet, nearly everyone is on there. Why? Because it's where so many users go to get seen. Why would they give up 30% of their profit if it weren't worth it?
        • I can't say I am in favor of a 30% commission to app developers, and I certainly ache to think that some special developers (amazon?) get a 50% break that makes them less competitive, but let's all acknowledge one real thing: without the App Store review process, iOS apps would be dangerous. They would steal our data, murder our batteries, and spy on each other in a never-ending battle of whack-a-mole. I love the review process, and the restrictions that are in place that force apps to use documented APIs a
          • Re:Every Year (Score:4, Interesting)

            by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @06:13PM (#61455884)

            I love the review process, and the restrictions that are in place that force apps to use documented APIs and the way those APIs prompt me for permissions. It is brilliant. The problem is, out-of-app-store apps would allow most developers to simply negate the restrictions and have their users by-pass the App Store. Do you really think Epic would have an option to use the app-store version that prevents them from gathering user telematics, etc etc... if they could simply distribute an APK?

            If this is the concern the solution is to introduce trusted reviewers. You trust the reviewer which places their cryptographic stamp of approval on the apps using industry standard PKI.

            This decouples OS from the app store and the app from reviewers. You can have any number of distribution mechanisms and any number of reviewers who all get to specialize and compete and live and die by their reputations vs the current process in which there is no competition and no choice and no meaningful security.

            Yet I think fundamentally the biggest problem is not so much trust as it is permissions systems of smartphones intentionally nerfed at the behest of app vendors. Operating systems are intentionally designed to fail to do what is required to adequately protect users. If app distribution interests were decoupled from operating system interests users would not be treated like shit and they would be significantly better protected.

            The natural consequence of an operating system actually designed to give a fuck about your privacy would include basic network access controls and apps fed convincing bullshit with no means of knowing the difference between what it is fed and your actual data. Allowing software to ever be in a position of asserting take it or leave it demands is the root cause of most ownage.

            Fundamentally it is a fools errand to shift responsibility for managing the consequences of running untrustworthy software from the operating system to software review processes. It's simply impossible with current technology and the perverse financial incentives will ensure that no effort is ever really made to design systems which put the interests of the user first.

        • > it's where so many users go to get seen

          There's a value in not being seen:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • by znrt ( 2424692 )

        Ok but is the complaint a valid one?

        first world problems or alice in the the land of marketing. you get discomforted by the ruthless and insensible company that provides you with most of your luxuries. i reckon it's not a comfortable truth and going all sjw about it is not unheard of as a reaction, a way of projecting like any other.

        solution is simple, don't use/buy/work-for crappy platforms/providers/employers but hey ...

    • Marco is fairly consistent in his complaints. He already has a podcast and app that are doing quite well, and he doesn't make YouTube videos. He's making this post now because Apple has recently been in the news and putting out their own press releases about how great they are to developers. There's nothing mysterious about why pieces like this would come out nowâ"WWDC starts on Monday.

  • by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @03:11PM (#61455210) Journal

    'Tis the nature of the psychopath corporation, reflects the entirety of the financial markets that rule the world

  • Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @03:12PM (#61455216)

    Apple's leaders continue to deny developers deny developers of two obvious truths: 1. That our apps provide substantial value to iOS beyond the purchase commissions collected by Apple.

    Slashdot editors have a major proofreading and grammar problem.

  • This post is quite the shocker. Not. Consider the source.
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @03:25PM (#61455264)

    I think his take is way too strong against Apple on this one, for each point he addresses... there is a core of truth to it but his take is really ignoring the value that Apple does provide. How can you have a reasonable discussion about this when you'll admit nothing good comes from one side of the coin?

    He claims Apple is "Double Dipping" with annual developer fees and App Store Search Ads, and commissions - but there is very real and substantial infrastructure that stuff is paying for, like all of the documentation and tooling around iOS development, the hosting and distribution to billions of devices...

    He then goes on to claim that Apple's argument claiming responsibility of the customer relationship between iOS users and each app makes little sense. Yet again, here Apple provides a ton of value that is not being acknowledged - a standardized way across all apps to handle not just payments, but also cancellations. That has massive value to iOS users, would you want to have to deal with a world of apps that each had it's own cancellation policy and mechanisms??

    He then goes on to trash search, saying it too provides no real value because for most popular apps people know what they are looking for.

    Yet here again, he is tremendously downplaying Apple's value. Even for well known apps, the fact that you can just search the phone for something you want in the general search field and have it point you to an app is a huge value, as is the instant acquisition even if it requires payment.

    For apps not as well known, discovery is not perfect but there is again a ton of value in being able to open the App Store and searching for photography apps for example, to see the selection. Maybe I'll still go with a popular app but at least Apple does a good job of showing me choices.

    In the end his fundamental argument is boiled down here:

    Apple has served no meaningful role in the customer acquisition and 'deserves' nothing more from the transaction than what a CDN and commodity credit-card processor would charge.

    Who out there REALLY thinks that Apple provides zero value beyond a CDN and a payment processor (and even then not acknowledging the value of essentially only contracting with a single entity for CDN and payment processing services!)? I know there is question about how much value to ascribe to Apple, but it is WAY beyond the combination of those two simple services.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Of course you do, you're Apple's number 1 fanboy on Slashdot. What would be surprising is if you didn't disagree with this.

      You literally argued Steve Jobs' case when he told people they were holding it wrong when Apple fucked up the iPhone design - a blatantly entirely indefensible position. You couldn't be more retarded when it comes to Apple (well, anything actually) if you actually tried.

    • He claims Apple is "Double Dipping" with annual developer fees and App Store Search Ads, and commissions - but there is very real and substantial infrastructure that stuff is paying for, like all of the documentation and tooling around iOS development, the hosting and distribution to billions of devices...

      It's not reasonable to expect to sell computing hardware with an operating system you expect millions of unaffiliated third parties to develop software for without providing APIs and documentation necessary for those third parties to do so.

      The natural consequence of failure to provide these things would be assured product failure.

      the hosting and distribution to billions of devices...

      If only there was a choice of other competing channels of hosting and distribution there would be no issue. Instead what we are currently faced with is total monopoly control of t

      • It's not reasonable to expect to sell computing hardware with an operating system you expect millions of unaffiliated third parties to develop software for without providing APIs and documentation necessary for those third parties to do so.

        Apple provides API's and documentation, so what's your gripe here?

        If only there was a choice of other competing channels of hosting and distribution there would be no issue.

        Then iOS users would be exactly as fucked as Android users in regards to security. If you want a

        • Apple provides API's and documentation, so what's your gripe here?

          It speaks to double dipping. Anyone who creates a general purpose operating system they expect third parties to develop for have to provide these things no matter what or the OS fails. They are not optional.

          Selling the operating system and then selling access to those things is double dipping. You can make your own value judgments on whether this is good or bad but it is in fact double dipping.

          Then iOS users would be exactly as fucked as Android users in regards to security. If you want an insecure platform, Android exists, go do that instead of trying to bring a secure platform down.

          Just the opposite is true. Users concerned with security and privacy can elect to purchase software from channe

          • It speaks to double dipping. Anyone who creates a general purpose operating system they expect third parties to develop for have to provide these things no matter what or the OS fails.

            Since Apple does not charge for the OS, and a lot of developers do soft free... how is it double dipping since there is only one (sometimes none) dips....

            Boom.

      • Does Walmart allow other stores to reside, or market within their store?
    • For apps not as well known, discovery is not perfect but there is again a ton of value in being able to open the App Store and searching for photography apps for example, to see the selection. Maybe I'll still go with a popular app but at least Apple does a good job of showing me choices.

      They would have nothing to search without the apps provided by other developers. So his argument is valid. Further you're arguing a straw man; he never said Apple provides zero value, rather he's taking issue with Apple's position that they provide the opportunity for developers and not the other way around. The app store has grown in value because of content provided by 3rd party developers; that is a fact. Apple's position is the fact they get any revenue at all is the value they get. That's highly d

      • Further you're arguing a straw man; he never said Apple provides zero value

        Read again the quote I inserted. He said Apple provides no value that a CDN and payment processor provides. Those are his exact words; you can misunderstand and spin them all you like, but what he said is extremely clear.

        • I disagree. There are numerous other benefits that App Store provide, specifically because itâ(TM)s a policeman for app developers. I can understand why people donâ(TM)t like being policed, then charging a tax for that policing. I choose iOS because of security and privacy and the App Store is a gateway to filter malicious app out of easy end user distribution.
    • That still doesn't explain why there's no way for devs to forego the Apple App Store ecosystem. Apple doesn't allow the user to disable the vendor lock-in to allow installation of third-party apps. That is the real problem.

  • by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @03:30PM (#61455292)
    Apple has been incredibly successful financially. They make vast profits that they simply sit on - they have a cash horde of over 195 billion dollars. They don't give all the profits to the stockholders as dividends. What the hell???

    You would think that they would use their vast market power in a more benign way by:
    1) more flexible warranty and repair policies
    2) eliminating any planned obsolescence / vintage policy
    3) generous subsidies to developers
    4) control their own supply chain domestically

    They have a missed opportunity to create loyal customers by rewarding their loyalty instead of locking them in by draconian measures.
    They are killing the geese that lay golden eggs with developers.

    Why?
    • They don't give all the profits to the stockholders as dividends.

      A company needs to hold back some profits to do R&D, and just protect against down years. Apple has had a pretty remarkably long run without what could be considered a really "down year". Apple also wants to keep a lot of cash around for acquisitions or eventually, maybe even factory purchases ....

      Apple does give out dividends, and pretty decent ones at that.

      more flexible warranty and repair policies

      In my experience Apple is way more le

      • You seem far too prepared to defend Apple against a relatively mild argument.
        • You seem far too prepared

          What's the difference between "preparation" and "direct experience" in your mind?

          It's not that I am prepared, it's that I have been an Apple developer for quite a long time now, so I simply know personally where any given point is right or wrong.

          Why does it mater if something is a little wrong, or a lot wrong? There is still value to others in correcting mistakes before they spread further. In fact I would argue correcting "mild" mistakes is even more important than correcting the

          • I didn't know you were a dev in the Apple ecosystem. I suspect either Epic will prevail or next year you're going to hear a lot more of these kinds of complaints. You can continue to disagree with them but the needle will move and I don't think it's going to move in the direction of increased control on Apple's part.
      • by leptons ( 891340 )
        >Apple has had a pretty remarkably long run without what could be considered a really "down year".

        You really huff a lot of Apple's farts. Apple was circling the drain before the iMac, and they really should have died then. Too bad they will never be anything but a niche with only ~10% market share. They better keep those billions in the bank and wait for the next steve jobs to come along, because they haven't really innovated since the iMac. They rely on fanboys with money to keep profits going, becau
      • In my experience Apple is way more lenient with repair and warranty policies than any other technology company I've ever dealt with.

        My GOD what is wrong in your brain?

    • Apple has been incredibly successful financially. They make vast profits that they simply sit on - they have a cash horde of over 195 billion dollars. They don't give all the profits to the stockholders as dividends. What the hell??? [...]

      Why?

      Simple: most of those funds aren't in the US, and thus aren't available to pay out as dividends to US-based stockholders. That cash is almost entirely overseas. Apple does pay dividends these days, though not as generous as many other companies. They've also been engaged for several years now in what I believe is the largest stock buyback in history, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars, but it's been funded via loans because they don't have the cash. It's a really weird situation, which is only p

    • There is a very simple answer - because they can.

      Apple effectively has a monopoly over a certain segment of the cellphone market, or at least a duopoly. They are competing against a set of hardware vendors who run non-integrated OSes and who do not control the revenue from the OS platform. You rarely see them compete directly against any Android phone vendor - they don't price match, or feature match or do big discounts in response to other phones.

      The distributor of products and services frequently has a

    • No, they have a cash hoard of over 195 billion dollars. Hordes are what people jump over.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I totally agree that they should have plenty of cash, but 195 Billion?

        I think I have my answer though. The money is stuck off shore in tax havens.
  • Objective-C, Swift. Forcing developers to use their proprietary or defacto proprietary languages like they're some sort of Saleforce or something. Apple fanboys will say, 'they are open standard', but near nobody who isn't working directly with Apple OS's uses those two languages. People talk about vendor lock-in, but there is also career lock-in that needs to be avoided if possible. But companies have trained tech people to lock themselves in on their own, these day, which helps the company that can amass
    • Swift. Best language ever. By far. Do I give a damn if you are not using it? Your problem.
      • Apple fanboy heard from.
      • No, I that's easily Rust. Swift falls somewhere below Go and Kotlin as well. The only reason to use it is if you want to build an application that only runs on apple hardware and is otherwise totally useless anywhere else. The only reason to learn it is if you want to dedicate some or all of your career exclusively to benefit apple, even if they never pay you.

        The idea that it's multi platform is a total joke; the only other platform that it can run on in theory is Linux, and even then much of the API is mis

    • by shmlco ( 594907 )

      I've programmed in dozens upon dozens of computer programming languages over the years, and Swift is one of the best modern languages I've ever used. Kotlin seems to be getting there, but still tends to suffer from its forced compatibility with Java.

      And yeah, Swift is primarily used on Apple devices. Then again, at last count there are about 1.5 billion devices out there capable of running Swift code, so I don't think I'm going to be out of work anytime soon. Besides, pick any platform and you'll have to le

  • It's Apple's store, they can charge whatever commission they want.

    Don't like it, start your own smartphone company and make up your own terms.

    Oh, wait... that's not so easy now, is it?

    In fact, every developer who makes a product for iOS is, at least in part, sponging off of the success of Apple, not the other other way around.

    Any perception by a third party that their application might add some value for end users is irrelevant. Even if true, that does not obligate Apple one iota to change its com

    • In fact, every developer who makes a product for iOS is, at least in part, sponging off of the success of Apple, not the other other way around.

      No, it’s a symbiotic relationship and one can’t exist without the other. See Windows Phone.

      The problem is the same that workers have with large corporations. All the power lies with one side. The answer there is unions. Imagine if every developer was part of the iUnion and could negotiate with Apple with the threat of all leaving the platform. I don’t think 30% would last very long.

      I as an iPhone owner have already paid their toll to get access to their developers. There shouldn’t be

    • It's Apple's store, they can charge whatever commission they want.

      One store should never have the right to physically prevent others stores from existing.

      Don't like it, start your own smartphone company and make up your own terms.

      I don't like it and I don't think Apple should be allowed to prevent other stores from existing.

      Oh, wait... that's not so easy now, is it?

      In fact, every developer who makes a product for iOS is, at least in part, sponging off of the success of Apple, not the other other way around.

      This isn't a good thing. App store monopolies enable vendors to easily extract value from a large audience without doing anything in return. Allowing leeches and associated everything must be free race to the bottom is the reason app stores are so full of predatory crap.

      Any perception by a third party that their application might add some value for end users is irrelevant. Even if true, that does not obligate Apple one iota to change its commission structure. If people do not like it, then here's a crazy idea: don't buy Apple products and don't make products for iOS. People who want to bitch about it but still want to participate in that infrastructure anyways are people that I'm inclined to call hypocrites.

      The whole problem is developers don't have a reasonable

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )
        Which they don't have until they make the product.

        Losing something that you never had is the argument that copyright holders like to use against copyright infringers for depriving them of sales.

    • Don't like it, start your own smartphone company and make up your own terms.

      Are people going to be forced to buy N smartphones for N different applications? Maybe there's time to regulate this industry as any other utility which it has obviously become.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )
        Nobody's forcing anyone to buy anything. Where'd you read that into what I said.

        Devs that are bitching about Apple's supposedly draconian policies in its app store should just stop developing for iOS. If, as they seem to believe, their applications genuinely add that much more value to iOS, then maybe Apple will alter those policies.. If not, then I guess we know who's the pot and who's the kettle, right?

        • Nobody's forcing anyone to buy anything. Where'd you read that into what I said.

          Oh really? Didn't you just suggest "start your own smartphone company" to software developers? How exactly would that work without anyone buying the new smartphones?

          • by mark-t ( 151149 )
            Ah... you evidently didn't pick up on the point I was trying to make, which was that developers generally create software for some already existing ecosystem, and any profits they obtain are a result of *THAT*.

            Apple could just as easily be charging 50% or even more commission. Developers would also have every reason to price their products higher when dealing with iOS if Apple's commission structures were too high.

  • That once repeated Apple's propaganda about "Courage"? [marco.org]

    • That once repeated Apple's propaganda about "Courage"? [marco.org]

      Yup, much like Gruber, doesn't have much credibility now after being yet another Apple fanboi in the past.

  • I feel honored to pay Apple, Inc so that users can download my software. I feel honored to have Apple, Inc's crack team of software reviewers tell me if my code, aesthetic, and UI interactions meet their standards. I for one appreciate that Apple, Inc. alone decides if my softwar-- my App is good enough for real people. The 1/3 of my profits that I give to Apple for every single dollar I will ever earn is hardly enough for all the dedication and hard work that Apple has put into building its handheld devi
  • This is a corporation that runs Chinese sweat-shops - which people kill themselves to leave - while leeching billions of dollars from the American taxpayer. Apple's tax avoidance scam means underfunding for essential infrastructure.

    Apple is a bad corporate citizen, period. And Tim Cook is a monumental fucking hypocrite.

  • > the rules against telling our customers about our website

    Is this really true?

  • "I have all the power, you must listen to what I say."

    If these developers are as mighty as they claim then they should demonstrate to Apple that people will dump Apple's platform and follow their app to wherever it lands. But people won't, because the developers are laughably wrong.

    Sorry kiddos, Apple doesn't owe you its customers. You don't build a wall around your garden for nothing.

  • There is this one trick all the opponents can pull off.

    Abandon the platform totally. Recommend the obvious alternatives.

    But it only works if a critical mass of companies do it at the same time.

    Claiming 30% of income, disallowing competing platforms and payment gateways, and all these other non-democratic restrictions which destroys the freedom for companies to thrive in many and their own ways, just calls for a big clear good bye

  • With all the progress that's been made in PWA's....Safari lags so far behind other mobile browsers in that space for such a popular platform - but because of the walled garden restrictions on browsers (basically other browsers end up skins for Safari) users have no choice but to use App Store apps.

    It's so obvious that this is deliberate, yet, they've never pulled up on that anti-competitive practice.

To the landlord belongs the doorknobs.

Working...