“App Store Monopoly” Discussion

Jim Sterling’s take on the issue

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I’ve created a topic here to continue the discussions surrounding the ongoing issues with the App Store here:

Could we have all the comments related to this moved over to that thread please? @Feathers @Dan5 @danbeddows @AlanDoe @Peter_G

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You can tag everyone by saying @Coral-Crew

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As requested!

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Epic want their own App Store that is easy for people to install from.

I’ve never tried, but apparently if you use anything but the Play store, their complaint is it takes “12 clicks” and there’s various warnings to scare people away.

Both take 30% which does seem high now.

What I find interesting is how they are trying to frame this as helping the consumer. They might have reduced something now but not all devs will. Some/most will just be happy with the bigger cut!

And why aren’t they going after Sony/MS they both have locked down console stores and both take 30-% cut too.

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Probably very unpopular opinion: I wish Apple would chip in with Google and buy Epic Games, to fire the people who thought that this was going to be a good idea.

Doing something which was wrong (they knew what was going to happen next), showing a trailer mocking Apple, trying to get the community against Apple and suing them straight away when the game was taken down from the App Store, sounds like kindergarten.

While people can debate if what Apple does is really more in the interest of developers than themselves, actions like these are not going to bring the change that Epic wants. This is like shouting, when having an argument, thinking that this is how you win that conversation.

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My view is developers wouldn’t have a chance to earn money off iOS devices without Apple allowing them onto their store. Yes, out of £1, 30p goes to Apple, 20p(ish) goes to the taxman but that is still 50p they wouldn’t get from that user otherwise.

That 50p has a potential market of 193 million iOS users. If you only get 1% of these users to install your app, that’s just under a million pounds (£965,000). For an indi, thats a lot of money and for a big studio like Epic, the number of users would be larger that 1% so returns much bigger.

In the end it is greed from Apple and greed from Epic.

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Ah, I didn’t know! I’ll bear that in mind for the future, thanks!

Much obliged! :hugs:

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There’s a lot more than that! It’s over a billion iOS devices.

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Yeah not sure re framing at all.

But on a mobile Epic launcher (I believe Android has one?), I would be very down. The more competition the better in this respect as far as I’m concerned.

Thinking aloud, but feel like Apple could vet third party stores perhaps (as opposed to every single app on them)…so sure, only the bigger players would get their own launchers, but it would still allow smaller people multiple options which would presumably help.

Oh, the console thing actually pisses me off tons. I simply don’t understand why digital games on my Xbox cost more than physical ones.

Xbox could drop £10/20 from the RRP and still be charging me as much as Game would, or Steam would for the PC version, and surely they would make more money?? As it’s all going straight to them, no physical costs, no middle man, etc etc.

I was so excited for digital first gaming and never buying another disc because I very wrongly assumed that I would get savings from not having all that stuff in the middle. Alas.

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“The App Store is a monopoly and we don’t like it”

“The Play store isn’t a monopoly and we don’t like that either”

And I 100% agree with you about console games.

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Though, if Windows Phone from Microsoft proved anything, without developers choosing to target iOS we would be discussing iPhone in the past tense and wondering if Apple would survive

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I think @ndrw made a similar point to yours earlier. Upon reflecting on it, and the dangers imposed by any form of middle ground I’m mostly in agreement. This policy currently protects people, so I’m not sure where the solution is here besides just lowering the fees, or completely overhaul the fee structure so that the store remains properly funded to continue functioning in the same way, but via a more indirect method.

Apple could also probably extend their system level protections for stuff like parental controls, and disputes via an API, and make those consumer protections compulsory. How many companies would even pass those savings on to us anyway? I suspect most already inflate them to offset the 30% fee, and I don’t foresee many lowering prices if the fees were to just disappear. Disney and Netflix both charge the same via iTunes as they do directly. I wonder if they’re accepting a little less for the iTunes convenience, or if the overall price is just inflated slightly to offset the cost.

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I hope, and think, that game streaming is something Apple will inevitably budge on. It doesn’t make sense not to.

I believe at the time, this fee was extremely competitive and probably a large reason the App Store has been as successful as it has, and why Apple were able to usurp blackberry and windows phone with ease. Apple could probably afford to lower the fees now, but there’s no incentive to, because no notable competition has lower fees. That’s why iOS remains a popular platform for developers. The fees are the same as google play, but you have a customer base that statistically spend more on apps.

I also find it odd that Apple is the target being accused of being a monopoly in regards to the App Store though. If we look at other closed off systems like game consoles, or smart TVs and tv boxes, they’re exactly same as iOS.

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History suggests that the EU will decide they are acting as one, as they have for Microsoft in the past

There were always other operating systems and other browsers, so it was not about having 100% control of the market, but (supposedly) abusing their powerful position

I am no personal fan of Apple, they just stick in my craw for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on, so take that into account here, but it seems to me that they are acting for real much the way that Microsoft were accused of

I wonder if companies other than Apple would be excused similar tactics

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I think Microsoft were quite different though, given particularly at the time there were very few options for desktop computers available so there was much more of a true monopoly.

There is a much greater diversity of operating systems now, particularly around mobile devices. Enough to render this different to Microsoft and their case in the EU back then.

Don’t like Apple? Don’t buy them. Don’t like their App Store rules? Don’t use it.

Don’t like Google’s either? Use Amazon. Microsoft. Or create your own. Whatever you feel fits you better.

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Really? There are only two ones that the majority of the world use. Even a third proved too many on multiple occasions

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There are options though. With Microsoft people were almost prohibited from avoiding them through price of Mac. With phones there is a much greater ability to move between OS’s in a way that a true monopoly can’t exist.

MS had 98% market share.

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