Note, my primary source of income is from a company who makes money supplying products to Apple so I’m speaking for myself, a technologist and Mac User since 1997 and as a lover of Apple and its products. I hope whoever reads this at my employer or Apple understands this is one person’s opinion and not that of my employer.
First thought, everything I’m seeing from Apple in court in retaliation of Epic’s V-Bucks fiasco continues to bring me to Steve’s comments about Google’s Android in Walter Isaacson’s biography:
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
Thermonuclear is exactly how I see this. Apple isn’t just doing what they believe is right from a fairness perspective but they are going after Epic in the most glorious of ways. Counter-suing, banning them from developing for iOS/MacOS for 1 year, seeking damages and finally claiming Epic isn’t giving enough back to Apple (essentially claiming a free ride).
This part of the thermonuclear retaliation against Epic is what irks me the most and it irked me in Apple’s response to HEY back in June:
“We understand that Basecamp has developed a number of apps and many subsequent versions for the App Store for many years, and that the App Store has distributed millions of these apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchase — and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years.”
That letter sent to Hey in combination with the document I’m reading via this link would scare me away from developing an app distributed on iOS or the Mac App Store. Apple’s point is if you are not making us money directly via application/subscription sales, you are a leech on our ecosystem. This mindset could easily be applied to Adobe Creative Suite for Mac for which I pay an annual subscription for directly to Adobe. Because Adobe isn’t using In-App Purchase for CS, they have “not contributed”. Imagine Apple writing that letter to Adobe.
The way I see it as a non-developer:
- Developer buys a Mac for $1000+
- Developer buys an iPhone for $400+
- Developer buys a $99 a year developer subscription to Apple
- Developer installs Xcode and learns Objective-C/Swift/etc
- Developer spends 100-10,000 hours building an application for distribution on the App Store
- Developer deals with multiple rejections or flat rejections with no recourse only after they realize Apple doesn’t like the app’s concept or approach or you should be using in-app purchase when there’s no reason to (see WordPress)
- Developer contests this and Apple says “You haven’t contributed enough to our ecosystem”
Epic who by some estimates has paid Apple 257 million in in-app purchase commissions and brought millions of consumers into the Apple ecosystem netting apple many thousands of dollars in sales per person over the next 25-30 years in addition to services revenue is being branded in court as a freeloader. What chances does an indie developer have? When Epic is a freeloader?
—
For what it’s worth, Epic is wrong. They agreed to the rules when they joined Apple’s developer program. They broke the rules in the most childish way and the way they’re doing business tells me that I have no intention of ever using any of their products ever and they should absolutely conform to the rules they agreed to or get off the App Store but Apple’s stance toward Epic and Hey has really rubbed me the wrong way. Do I think Apple should charge less than 30%? No. Should they respect, nurture and care for the developers like they appear to do on stage at WWDC? Absolutely.