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8 In 10 App Developers Back Measure To Rein In Google and Apple, Poll Finds (thehill.com) 69

Posted by BeauHD from the share-the-wealth dept.
Eighty-four percent of app developers support an antitrust bill aimed at curtailing the market power of Apple's and Google's app stores, according to a poll (PDF) from the Coalition for App Fairness released Monday. The Hill reports: The industry group for app developers is pushing Congress to pass the Open App Markets Act, a bipartisan Senate bill that would block app stores from favoring their own in-house apps in searches, requiring developers to use their payment systems and preventing users from downloading apps from third-party stores. Developers surveyed by the group complained about exorbitant fees charged by the largest app stores -- Apple charges a 30 percent commission on app store sales for large developers -- and expressed how they'd experienced difficulty getting their apps featured or accepted by app stores. Just 13 percent of app developers surveyed oppose the bill. [...] The poll, conducted by ClearPath Strategies, surveyed 190 app developers in 11 states between December 2021 and January 2022. The margin of error is plus or minus 7.11 percentage points.

"The evidence is clear -- app developers want the Open App Markets Act to pass so that they can have the opportunity to compete in a fair digital marketplace," Meghan DiMuzio, executive director of the Coalition for App Fairness, said in a statement. "For too long, developers have been harmed by gatekeepers' monopolistic practices, and consumers have suffered from less choice and innovation."
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8 In 10 App Developers Back Measure To Rein In Google and Apple, Poll Finds More

8 In 10 App Developers Back Measure To Rein In Google and Apple, Poll Finds

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  • Cut it Open (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @06:00PM (#62225057)

    Screw that Golden Goose, let's cut it open and see if wee can have all the Golden Eggs at once!

  • Hah! like Developers ever had a say! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @06:03PM (#62225071)

    The real group that we are concerned with are the Customers, who would be willing or able to go to a different place to download their Apps and not be a haven for spyware and other issues that had been a problem with PC's, but on something you can't just turn off.

    Or with the Bosses who see how much it would cost to build your own store, and deal with all the details with it. Vs just pricing your product to factor in the high Commission.

    Sure Developers would want more control, not less. However other people much prefer unity over the developers sense of freedom.

    • I wonder how this would affect Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft, or any electronics that doesn't let you install the software of your choice on it. I doubt they would write a law that specifies it only applies to Apple and Google.

    • Developer freedom is one of the main reasons users have so little freedom on the internet. We structured the internet to maximize developer freedom to surreptitiously install software on user machines and track them and scrape personal information.

      I agree that customers should be the primary focus when antitrust concerns are raised. What is most convenient or profitable for developers is a secondary concern. I like the design decisions Apple made with my iPhone and I do not want to see that compromised to a

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @06:10PM (#62225099)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • On the other hand, if it wasn't for Apple and Google throwing their weight around and abusing their monopoly status, these same developers could be in a much better situation in a more open, competitive market.

      It's like saying you should be grateful for Comcast, under the belief that you wouldn't have access to high speed internet without them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jma05 ( 897351 )

      How that any different than any labor exploitation and consequent labor laws?
      It's like arguing, those sweatshop workers would not have a job if it wasn't for the sweatshop.

  • Sure developers want more/better options, but their customers are unlikely to share the opinion. I am guessing that nearly 90% of applications are at commodity status, and there is no brand loyalty. The remainder benefit from the status quo and likely so do their customers.

    In the end, all that will really change is that the fees are broken out into different components like payment processing (5%), app review (10%), search listing (5%) and promotion (10%). Developers are unlikely to be able to do it themsel

  • Apple charges a 30 percent commission on app store sales for large developers

    And that's after they've charged you the yearly developer fee. I'd like to get the reasoning from Apple as to why the developer fee alone isn't enough (or why there aren't different tiers).

    • How about saving the developers all of the capital needed to develop and maintain global infrastructure for delivering software and collecting payments from billions of devices worldwide?

      • Re:Charges 30% on top of dev fees (Score:4, Informative)

        by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @07:39PM (#62225423)

        How about saving the developers all of the capital needed to develop and maintain global infrastructure for delivering software and collecting payments from billions of devices worldwide?

        How about giving developers the option of doing it themselves if they want?

      • Exactly! So exactly why doesn't Apple offer tiers then?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        How about saving the developers all of the capital needed to develop and maintain global infrastructure for delivering software and collecting payments from billions of devices worldwide?

        Infrastructure for delivering software? It's called a web server. For the level of download traffic that your average app developer gets, a basic $5/month hosting plan ($60 per year) along with the free tier of Cloudflare service would probably be more than good enough. That's less than you pay for the Apple Developer Program membership ($99 per year) that lets you distribute through Apple's store.

        Infrastructure for collecting payment? From a developer's perspective, that's just a dynamic library provid

        • You're a genius. Clearly Apple is doing it all wrong and should hire you to manage their global infrastructure because you can replace everything they've built for less than $100 a month! You need to email Tim Cook immediately.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            You're a genius. Clearly Apple is doing it all wrong and should hire you to manage their global infrastructure because you can replace everything they've built for less than $100 a month! You need to email Tim Cook immediately.

            First, it's a hundred dollars a year, not a month.

            Second, it's not replacing everything they built. The Installer/package management functionality built into the OS need not be replaced, nor the operating system, nor the code signing system, nor any of the other functionality that powers the app store on the client side. But that functionality is part of the OS, so consumers already paid for that when they bought the hardware.

            Third, the main reason Apple's infrastructure is so large and expensive is becau

    • Apple charges a 30 percent commission on app store sales for large developers

      And that's after they've charged you the yearly developer fee. I'd like to get the reasoning from Apple as to why the developer fee alone isn't enough (or why there aren't different tiers).

      It's $100 a year, because of the code signing. For $0 a year, you get no code signing, and can't put anything in the App Store.
      Why would there be tiers... I mean there is a higher one for an organization, $250? This is like the price of one text book. $100 is home pc software level, way lower than what small business software usually costs. TurboTax premier is $100.

      Why are you all so cheap and talking about commissions, it's like complaining about all the taxes you could have to pay on all the money you

  • The first app from a third party app store... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bookwyrm ( 3535 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @06:46PM (#62225257)

    The very first app from a third party app store will be an application that turns the phone itself into an app store, so the user can 'share' everything to other phones over WiFi/BlueTooth.

    The second app will be a combination app store and onion routing network so that groups of phones can join together in ad hoc onion routing networks -- every high school, college, etc. will end up with a floating ad hoc onion cloud that is over WiFi or other local networks so the students can share apps/movies/music with each other without being easily traced.

  • Most Developers Don't Care About OPP (Score:3)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @06:58PM (#62225305) Homepage

    OPP = Other Peoples Problems

    If you're a developer looking to make money off smartphone apps, the things that matters most to you is that you get a good profit for your development, advertising, and upkeep expense. Google and Apple take a nice healthy chunk of each of your sales, so of course you want both iOS and Android to allow third-party app store platforms. You KNOW those alternative platforms would take a smaller slice of the pie, but those third-party app platforms will be MUCH LESS LIKELY to have such stringent security controls as either Google or Apple.

    I hate monolithic control structures as much as the next nerd, but it might be worth having Goliath on your side when you're talking about your smartphone security.

    I say that we should limit amount Apple and Google can take, but they need to retain control of what can be installed on their phones simply because the importance of keeping smartphones secure is paramount in modern society.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      I hate monolithic control structures as much as the next nerd, but it might be worth having Goliath on your side when you're talking about your smartphone security.

      I say that we should limit amount Apple and Google can take, but they need to retain control of what can be installed on their phones simply because the importance of keeping smartphones secure is paramount in modern society.

      That's a false dichotomy. Consider the following design for an app store (off the top of my head):

      • User visits a web page and chooses to install a third-party App Store.
      • Phone switches entirely out of the web browser visibly (to prevent any possibility of faking the UI in a web page) and asks the user to enter the device passcode to install the store.
      • Upon confirmation, a new user is added to the device.
      • The device has a shared area that is accessible across users, so that apps in one account can transfer con

    • To be fair, Google does allow alternative App stores. Here's a list [theappsolutions.com] of some alternatives. I've used F-Droid in the past,I forget what for. I'm willing to bet most Android users dont even know they're an option.

    • Exactly.
  • The FTC can put up a page of links to places like F-Droid, and the manufacturer can make an Install-Guard program that prompts a warning when it detects the attempt to install an app that's known to be malicious.

  • The developers want to exploit (Score:3)

    by LostMyBeaver ( 1226054 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @12:26AM (#62226027)
    The App Store is a shield that
      - limits APIs that permit unrestricted snooping
      - tosses out applications that crash
      - eliminates crapware app store alternatives (epic store on PC is horrible)
      - restricts excessive power consumption
      - blocks A LOT of viruses

    I don't like Apple's domineering control as a developer. But as a user.... I would have it no other way. In fact, I gladly pay the 30% extra for the protections the store gives me.
    • The part that puzzles me is the reference to" less choice and innovation". App stores are basically shovelware. There is way too much there that is plagiarised and that offers nothing useful. I would prefer app stores that are better curated so you can find something useful by searching intelligently instead of doom scrolling through thousands of mislabelled copies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      The App Store is a shield that - limits APIs that permit unrestricted snooping

      Not really. It takes all of a few minutes to write code that calls arbitrary APIs in a way that won't be caught in app review. Just look up the symbols dynamically at runtime and obfuscate the names of the symbols. Thus, to the extent that the App Store provides any security by limiting the use of any particular API, that would be little more than security through obscurity.

      For the most part, the design of iOS involves security through API design, where public APIs themselves don't allow abuse, sandboxin

  • And I want this to happen, I want the big guys to do bullying the little guys. I want cash to stop flowing away from the local devs and into the hands of greedy corperatized that make the world worse off with thier greed

  • This is not about little guys v the big guys but rather big data v privacy. Facebook wants to push react native framework down our throats and expose all of the privacy protections Apple has rolled out in the last several years. The next successful App Store competitor will not be a small guy but rather another big guy like Facebook or WeChat which will not charge developers but mine every last bit of data on unknowing consumers. In the ecosystem of big data, you only need 1 background app that binds all

  • Apple and Google are effectively a reseller or dealer and they usually get around 30% of the sale price if an item. Make a physical product and try getting a brick-and-mortar store to sell it for you without having to pay them a percentage that large. Sure, you could try to sell it yourself but you wouldn't get the same exposure. A significant difference is that a physical product doesn't have any way of generating additional revenue whereas an app with ads and in-app purchases does.

  • Because it's a matter of time before sideloading apps is removed from new Android releases. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.

      And people have been pwned from apps gotten from these "official" sources time and time again so walled prisons are'nt as secure as people were made to think.

  • I hope that any proposed legislation doesn't ignore the Kindle app store, as well. Amazon only allows users to install apps on Kindle fire tablets that come from their store. Kindle fire tablets are running a customized version of Android and should technically be able to run apps from the Google Play store, but this use case is loked out as well.

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