seanmonstar

Feb 25 2011

Apple Wants 30% of Your Hosting Cost

Many people seem to feel like this:

I am tired of hearing non-developers whine about this move. The bottom line is that this is the best possible move consumers of iOS devices could have hoped for. […] Yes, this gives developers the shaft.

This coming from a non-developer. I think those people in favor of the new model only care that it’s easier for them to subscribe in-app. Considering that the reason people like the iOS platform is because of all the 3rd party apps, “giving the developers the shaft” is not exactly intelligent.

As Kyle Baxter puts it:

Gruber’s position is that Apple shouldn’t care, because they don’t “need” Readability. But they most assuredly do, in the aggregate; Apple needs Readability, and Pandora, and Netflix, and Instpaper, and Rdio, and all other businesses put in a precarious position by Apple’s new rules.

What many of those in favor of the policy aren’t keeping in mind is that the subscription is to pay for the entire service. For many software-as-a-service companies, the iPhone app is just a small part in their overall offering. I’m not talking about iOS-only apps. I mean applications that are merely a native client to viewing a larger web app. It costs a lot to offer all the programming, design, customer support, and hosting that they provide. Taking 30 percent for the lifetime of the customer is just greed. It’s not like it’s free to develop an iOS application, anyways. There’s already an Apple tax just to begin. You have to own an Apple computer, an iOS device to test on, and pay a yearly $100 just to be a developer.

What this policy ends up meaning to small independent developers, such as for my own project: Much of the cost is in my development time, and then the server hosting. And my application doesn’t even provide my own content, its a way to view others’ content. It’s biggest use case (in my mind) is the website. I would only consider offering an iPhone application as a nicety to iPhone owners. Since my pricing would be fair, I can’t imagine offering the services of my application for only 70% the price. In return, all Apple will have given me is a credit card processed.

With that kind of one-sided deal, I’m left with simply providing an optimized mobile site. As will many other developers. Then, iOS no longer has a bunch of exclusive content apps; they have a bunch of apps that are equally available on all modern mobile devices. What’s more, the experience will likely be better on Android and Windows Phone 7, since we can still provide native clients without being robbed.

No, I don’t need Apple. Apple needs all the developers like me.


Feb 15 2011

Apple’s Subscription Extortion →

Much evil has been done in the name of business. Here’s some more from Apple (surprise, surprise):

A lot of apps aimed at the web community will fall into this camp – not big enough to be featured by the App Store because the niche is too small. Therefore there is no extra marketing value from being in the App Store and forking over the extra 30% to Apple.

For instance, in a personal web app of mine, when I start to offer pro accounts, and I wanted to have an iPhone app, I would have to let Apple take 30% of my subscription. Even though the use of the iPhone app would be minor compared to that customer coming to the actual website. No, Apple, you don’t get 30% of my hardwork. Instead, Apple just gets less apps in its App Store.

Commenter farra puts it:

Apple only hosts the app code, they don’t host all your backend services, or pay the bandwidth for the delivery of in-app media. This is a 30% payment processing fee, which is hugely out of line in the larger market.

I wonder what happens to 3rd party apps that tie into subscription-based web apps, like Campfire.