seanmonstar

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.

Choice vs Suck It Up

On Apple’s fourth quarter earnings call, Steve Jobs took 5 minutes to try to argue against Android’s claim of being open.

We think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, “What’s best for the customer – fragmented versus integrated?” […] We think this a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s: when selling the users who want their devices to just work, we believe that integrated will trump fragmented every time.

I agree that integration is a desirable thing to have in a product I buy. And certainly, Android is having fragmentation by some having various versions, different hardware, and the like. However, to a customer, that actually doesn’t mean much. What non-geek actually cares that their Android phone has a processor from a different hardware manufacturer than their friend? None. In fact, many of the hardware companies adopting Android are bothering with their own integrated solutions. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if an Incredible has Sense UI and the new Droid X has MotoBLUR. People don’t swap phones around.

What does matter, is that since Android is open¹, and these manufacturers are integrating with it, is that customers can have a choice. Apple doesn’t like choice. OK, maybe they do. They like choice that involves “Do I get the iPod Touch or the iPhone?” They absolutely hate competition. Anyone that doesn’t see that is busy oggling Jobs’ black sweater collection whenever Apple does anything to fight or remove competition.

The choice is important. Not because all customers want to sit and compare and fret over what is better. It’s important because if one of the choices starts making decisions that conflict with how the user wants to use his own gadget, he has the ability to pick another. The choice and competition, in turn, help keep companies in check with becoming too strict and overlording of their junk.