iOS 18 Could 'Sherlock' $400 Million In App Revenue (techcrunch.com) 43
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Apple's practice of leveraging ideas from its third-party developer community to become new iOS and Mac features and apps has a hefty price tag, a new report indicates. Ahead of its fall release, you can download the public beta for iOS 18 right now to get a firsthand look at Apple's changes, which may affect apps that today have an estimated $393 million in revenue and have been downloaded roughly 58 million times over the past year, according to an analysis by app intelligence firm Appfigures. Every June at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, the iPhone maker teases the upcoming releases of its software and operating systems, which often include features previously only available through third-party apps. The practice is so common now it's even been given a name: "sherlocking" -- a reference to a 1990s search app for Mac that borrowed features from a third-party app known as Watson. Now when Apple launches a new feature that was before the domain of a third-party app, it's said to have "sherlocked" the app. [...]
In an analysis of third-party apps that generated more than 1,000 downloads per year, Appfigures discovered several genres that had found themselves in Apple's crosshairs in 2024. In terms of worldwide gross revenue, these categories have generated significant income over the past 12 months, with the trail app category making the most at $307 million per year, led by market leader and 2023 Apple "App of the Year" AllTrails. Grammar helper apps, like Grammarly and others, also generated $35.7 million, while math helpers and password managers earned $23.4 million and $20.3 million, respectively. Apps for making custom emoji generated $7 million, too. Of these, trail apps accounted for the vast majority of "potentially sherlocked" revenue, or 78%, noted Appfigures, as well as 40% of downloads of sherlocked apps. In May 2024, they accounted for an estimated $28.8 million in gross consumer spending and 2.5 million downloads, to give you an idea of scale.
Many of these app categories were growing quickly, with math solvers having seen revenue growth of 43% year-over-year followed by grammar helpers (+40%), password managers (+38%) and trail apps (+28%). Emoji-making apps, however, were seeing declines at -17% year-over-year. By downloads, grammar helpers had seen 9.4 million installs over the past 12 months, followed by emoji makers (10.6 million), math-solving apps (9.5 million) and password managers (457,000 installs). "Although these apps certainly have dedicated user bases that may not immediately choose to switch to a first-party offering, Apple's ability to offer similar functionality built-in could be detrimental to their potential growth," concludes TechCrunch's Sarah Perez. "Casual users may be satisfied by Apple's 'good enough' solutions and won't seek out alternatives."
In an analysis of third-party apps that generated more than 1,000 downloads per year, Appfigures discovered several genres that had found themselves in Apple's crosshairs in 2024. In terms of worldwide gross revenue, these categories have generated significant income over the past 12 months, with the trail app category making the most at $307 million per year, led by market leader and 2023 Apple "App of the Year" AllTrails. Grammar helper apps, like Grammarly and others, also generated $35.7 million, while math helpers and password managers earned $23.4 million and $20.3 million, respectively. Apps for making custom emoji generated $7 million, too. Of these, trail apps accounted for the vast majority of "potentially sherlocked" revenue, or 78%, noted Appfigures, as well as 40% of downloads of sherlocked apps. In May 2024, they accounted for an estimated $28.8 million in gross consumer spending and 2.5 million downloads, to give you an idea of scale.
Many of these app categories were growing quickly, with math solvers having seen revenue growth of 43% year-over-year followed by grammar helpers (+40%), password managers (+38%) and trail apps (+28%). Emoji-making apps, however, were seeing declines at -17% year-over-year. By downloads, grammar helpers had seen 9.4 million installs over the past 12 months, followed by emoji makers (10.6 million), math-solving apps (9.5 million) and password managers (457,000 installs). "Although these apps certainly have dedicated user bases that may not immediately choose to switch to a first-party offering, Apple's ability to offer similar functionality built-in could be detrimental to their potential growth," concludes TechCrunch's Sarah Perez. "Casual users may be satisfied by Apple's 'good enough' solutions and won't seek out alternatives."
Again?! So soon? (Score:5, Informative)
Dupe: https://apple.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
Re:Again?! So soon? (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, it looks like TechCrunch reposted it.
They are only fallowing an old tradition... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
It's far more true for Apple than it is for Microsoft, which started out with software for other people's platforms, unlike Apple. It's especially more true for Apple in the land of search, because Microsoft's search is still crap and you still need to use Everything if you want a decent one.
I do remember when Lotus was the hot spreadsheet, though...
Stacker and Netscape (Score:1)
These two companies immediately came to mind when I saw this article.
Re: (Score:2)
Mastered by Microsoft and Windows decades ago.
For some of them, they are just improving existing functionality. E.g. the password app is most of all a pretty frontend for the existing functionality of generating and remembering passwords, it's just not hidden in the depths of the settings anymore.
Spellchecking is also built in, improving it to also handle some grammar isn't a massive leap. Same with emojis, memojis etc.
One thing I wish they sherlocked is bartender - not only is the menu bar horrible on the new MBPs, but the app was bought by a com [tidbits.com]
trails? (Score:2)
Trail apps? Are people hiking that much? Good for them. Hiking on trails is great.
I'm sure somewhere in the app store agreement it says Apple owns everything you put there, plus your dreams.
Re: trails? (Score:2)
Technically Apple and Google Maps both have âoetrailâ functionality yet having a dedicated (paid) app often gives more details and functionality.
The question is what value these apps bring above the generic stuff that is built-in or recycles the Google API which works for the occasional tourist hiker. Offline maps, geocaches, terrain, social and weather info are places the more serious apps improve tremendously. Like so many things, if you have a serious hobby, you are often willing to invest in m
Economic ramifications? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't get here how this makes financial sense.
As long as an app sells, both the developer and Apple gets money. Apple steals the idea and implements it as a default `feature in iOS, sales for the original app decline.
This leads to three things:
1. Apple devalued their app-store in a sense
2. The developer feel cheated by Apple
3. The impetus to develop new apps and sell them on the app-store decreases
Am I missing something obvious here? Like, do the perceived value of an iPhone with the latest version of iOS increase to offset Apple's cut of decreased app sales? Which seems like a stretch.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Economic ramifications? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not really true. Apple doesn't make more money directly by integrating the functionality into their operating system. No one has been holding out on buying a Mac until they add some random little feature to the OS.
Apple isn't making anything on this for the most part, other than a more attractive OS. You already had to have a Mac or iPhone in order to buy the apps they're making obsolete. Both iOS and macOS are free. They don't charge for the upgrades. So they aren't making anything from these updates in that sense. For example, I used to use the utility Magnet on my Mac. I paid $4.99 for it and then each upgrade. Now that Apple offers that functionality, I'm not paying anyone for it. Apple didn't charge me for it. They don't make anything from addition that feature and they lose out on that developer selling it and getting a cut.
So Apple is losing out on the revenue generated by those previous apps by integrating that functionality into their OS, plus spending the development cost of doing so, in addition to not making the cut from the App Store.
Re: Economic ramifications? (Score:1, Troll)
Every time I use iOS, which has been often lately since I have been working at home and actually using my work phone, I am shocked by how much worse the experience is than Android. Even Android a couple versions old is much better than current iOS. Apple can't just blow off the iOS experience forever, they eventually have to improve it, even if it is always behind Android. If it gets TOO far behind even the hardest core of their fan base will give up.
Re: (Score:1)
OK bot.
If you can't see how my comment is a response to "Apple doesn't make more money directly by integrating the functionality into their operating system [...] So Apple is losing out on the revenue generated by those previous apps by integrating that functionality into their OS, plus spending the development cost of doing so" then you are dumber than a LLM.
Re: (Score:1)
It's pretty cute that the best response you can come up with is to accuse someone else of being a bot. That's the same comeback kids on TikTok use.
Re: (Score:1)
It's pretty cute that the best response you can come up with is to accuse someone else of being a bot. That's the same comeback kids on TikTok use.
Wow, you got it in one. You're a pretty good bot.
Re: (Score:2)
Care to get specific? I have almost the opposite experience. I use an iPhone almost exclusively and have found Android to be painful to use the few times I've borrowed a friend's device.
My suspicion is that the root of both of our impressions come from using a device that we haven't personalized to our tastes. I'd rate experience using my iPhone at an 8 out of 10 - I'm quite happy with it. If you gave me a bone-stock iPhone, with none of my apps and tweaks to get it to just the way I'm used to it, it'd
Re: Economic ramifications? (Score:2)
My android phone is really not customized, except for installing some apps, but I'm talking about the OS UI itself.
Immediately off the top of my head, the iOS keyboard is crap (takes more taps to e.g. enter a password) and the back button appearing in the upper left far from where my finger is... That's idiotic. Especially since it's app-dependent.
The settings app is also much more terrible.
Re: (Score:3)
An App is a stand-alone service that must ask the OS for permissions, which can be seen. This allows it to offer a core function, UI and on-device storage only. When it is integrated into the OS, the permissions-required are hidden: Worse, the OS owner will force the integrated app to use microphone (speech recognition), bluetooth (HID or audio-output controlled by app), network (OS-owned backup service and OS-owned advert service). It is instant bloat and any security flaws in those services are now pa
Re: (Score:2)
An App is a stand-alone service that must ask the OS for permissions, which can be seen. This allows it to offer a core function, UI and on-device storage only. When it is integrated into the OS, the permissions-required are hidden[...]
(etc etc.)
Which is extra funny because none of that is necessarily true on Android. For example, you can't tamper with permissions for the system webview, but you can mess with the perms for android auto, or the "google" app that is driven by the search widget. In fact, you can take microphone permissions away from that app and it prevents all voice recognition from working at all, if you choose.
Re: (Score:2)
This got me curious enough to actually check how camera and mic permissions were handled in iOS right now, and it seems like this thread is mostly right but incomplete.
For 3rd party apps on an iPhone, Settings -> Privacy & Security : Can look at any feature and get a list of apps with toggles to allow/deny that feature (ex. Microphone access).
As noted in this thread, the integrated apps (ex. Safari) aren't listed here.
However, Settings -> ... just scroll down to the app you want to look at : These
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't been on an Android phone in years... is "system webview" the same as the default browser
No. The system webview is what's embedded in other apps. The default browser is which ever browser app you choose as default, which is NOT used by other apps (although they CAN open a link in the default browser instead of inside of themselves using the system webview.)
It seems like they're pretty much on par with each other, though I would prefer it if the iOS integrated apps had their access permissions listed in the same list as third party apps.
Apple allows you to configure the settings for fewer of the integrated bits than Android, but yes they are similar. And yes, it would be nice if they gave you access to the permissions from the normal permissions setting area, and there's lit
Re: (Score:3)
To me all of these are just that.
But remember these PROBABLY won't actually cause $400+mil in losses as many of the apps offer tons of features over the Apple built-ins. Many Apple built-ins have replacements that still sell plenty.
Math apps other than Wolfram Alpha exist despite there severe inferiority to it. If 100s of maths apps exist, does a built-in help THAT much?
Apple makes mon
Re: (Score:2)
You're forgetting about the fact a lot of these ideas were only available if you jailbreak your phone. In these instances Apple made zero money from the ideas.
Take for instance recording your own phone calls. The only way to do this on a stock phone is a special app which charges you an amount based on how many are recorded. If you have a phone which has been jailbroken you pay a one time fee of $4. Yes, only $4!!!! And this app has been around since at least iOS 8.
Re: (Score:2)
Take for instance recording your own phone calls.
<RANT>
FWIW, this is one of my biggest beefs with all modern cell phones. Technically, it would be trivial to implement and offer call recording - just dump the audio received and the mic input into a file. Merge the audio streams or put them on separate stereo channels, but it's very straight forward. No one offers it because of the legal concerns, and that, IMO, is the stupidest reason not to implement the feature - there are still plenty of legal uses for it, and it's not illegal in all jurisdiction
Instead of calling it sherlocking (Score:2, Troll)
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Adding similar features to their OS is not an antitrust violation.
Additionally, these developers on Apple's own platform aren't competitors. They're building ON Apple's own platform.
Re: (Score:2)
The last sentence is true. There's nothing saying you can't go develop your app on Android and skip IOS. Developers probably sign away their rights forever when they agree to the app store's policies.
Corporations are more powerful than the US legal system or government agencies in most cases. This is what we get for "corporations are people too" and having a legal system owned by the billionaires.
Innovate Or Die (Score:3)
Reality is, it benefits far more when it comes free and built-in to the OS. As someone who has had their product offerings integrated by Apple in the past, stop crying. As a smaller developer you can easily out maneuver someone big like Apple or Microsoft. Offer new features and advantages they don't. Make your product unique. It's fairly easily done. Those that complain are generally folks who have done almost nothing for years and expect to own the market forever.
If it was another company, no one would care or bat an eye. They'd talk about how competition is good and makes these companies up their game. But when it's a big company like Apple or Microsoft doing it, people get upset and go on about the little guy.
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Considering how bad the weather software on the iPhone is, I wouldn't get my hopes up about this. About the only two things the software is good for are the temperature and humidity. I can't tell you how many times it either says rain will begin in 'Y' minutes and nothing happens, or the skies open up and only then does it say to expect rain.
Re: (Score:3)
That's the fault of the source of that data, which comes from:
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
BreezoMeter
CMA Public Meteorological Service Centre
Deutscher Wetterdienst
Environment and Climate Change Canada
EUMETNET - MeteoAlarm
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
India Meteorological Department
Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia
Japan Meteorological Agency
National Weather Service/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
QWeather
Servicio Meteorológico Nacional
Tha
Re: (Score:1)
Sherlock isn't a thing (Score:1)
Do we get pissed when a game incorporates features that you had to use a Mod to get, No. Of course any product looks at features of interest in the market, normally from 3P or plugins to decide what to add to a 1P product.
We should stop trying to make this a thing.
Suggestions for Sherlock (Score:2)
1. Give the ability to block an app's wifi access to the rest of the world, not just China.
2. Give the ability to disable the mic on bluetooth devices
3. If you are going to steal/take over an app/function, you had better be willing to devote the dev time to maintain and improve the function. Example: weather features that Apple acquired from 'Dark Sky.'
That was a dumb theory (Score:2)
The flip side... (Score:4, Interesting)
that you must buy an upgrade to run on the next version of the OS
that move into the monthly rental scheme aka SAAS
that once popular slowly ratchet up the rental price
that software gets bought out and killed off by someone bigger to reduce competition for their (inferior) pay for product
I have used and then dumped software that does that.
It also seems so much development is done for the sole purpose of getting them into a position to be bought out for stupid sums, that cost then gets passed onto the consumers.
App or Function (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Inevitable (Score:2)
There are 3.8 million apps in the app store. Pretty much any functionality Apple includes in the OS will overlap some third party app in some way. It's inevitable.
Conversely, there are functions that Apple have removed that did not have a 3rd party replacement app (at least not for a while). An example is that Apple included their own YouTube app in the early releases of iPhone. The icon looked like an old tube TV. [reddit.com] That was removed, which annoyed a great many people (myself included). It took a while but ev
The point was naming and training us on the word (Score:2)
Seems like the point of these articles is simply to introduce a new vocabulary term.
The first step is naming something so it seems this is just that.
German for "win by becoming the enemy, but better" (Score:2)