And yet I can buy entire contents of the amazon using the Amazon shopping app. Or Walmart app. Or Target app. Or Best Buy app.
Opening amazon.com via Safari on an iphone is a throwback and a very odd experience - I haven’t needed to use a mobile version of amazon.com in ages - i use the app for all my Amazon shopping.
And one other thing - I can’t stand Musk, but given my experience with Amazon in a world where WeChat exists - perhaps Musk has a chance with his X super app plan after all.
The reason is that Apple specifically requires all digital only purchases to only use in-app payment and must give Apple 30%. You are not allowed to process digital purchases through an app with your own payment system. You also can’t tell people that or link them to the website.
This does not apply to physical goods. Which is why all the apps you mentioned are fine.
This is the same issue that has been talked about for years, the cause of Epic (Fortnite) vs Apple, etc.
> The reason is that Apple specifically requires all digital only purchases to only use in-app payment and must give Apple 30%. You are not allowed to process digital purchases through an app with your own payment system. You also can’t tell people that or link them to the website.
> This does not apply to physical goods.
I don't really get this division other than "it's what Apple could get away with". As far as the payment processing is concerned, it seems like a distinction without a difference.
I have always thought the division is to basically protect Apple's cut of the revenue for "App Sales". Not, strictly speaking, because they want to take 30% of every possible purchase or service -- though I am sure they would be happy with that and do desire that to some extent. However more and more every year sales of an "app" become smaller and smaller and everything is a subscription - so it seems this thought is rapidly if not already outdated.
The world we now live in is that all "apps and programs" can be either a one-off purchase like a physical good or a subscription. That subscription might be for the "app" or it may be packaged as a subscription to a "service" that the app is facilitating (the line between the two is very blurry). Additionally, all digital goods like books, music and movies may also be a one-off purchase or a "subscription" like audible, apple music, etc.
The line between all of those is blurry such that, any set of rules you write leaves it open to convert "app sales" to "services/subscriptions" or even to bundle access to your app or it's content as "digital goods" to avoid that 30% cut. People would (and do) switch their sales model to then avoid that cut.
I don't have a solution and I don't think Apple or the open webs way is specifically better in every aspect, but I do think it's interesting to think about the problem space.
It would be a shame if your digital goods were accidentally destroyed by my associates, a fee, of perhaps 30%, would ensure this terrible tragedy would be avoided.
They provide no service, hopefully soon it will be illegal.
Illegal to do what? Charge people fees for what they do using your platform? On what possible basis can you make it illegal? It's Apple's app store for software that runs on Apple's phones. Nobody is forced to use an iPhone. They're expensive luxury products.
They don't extort anything and they aren't dominant. They're a minority player in the market. If anyone is dominant, it is Google. Despite Apple being more expensive, people still choose them. This isn't lock in, it is because they're the luxury, cool choice.
The Apple App Store led with an estimated revenue of $85.1 billion (roughly £70.5 billion) in 2021, responsible for 63% of total app revenue. In the same year, Google Play Store generated revenues of nearly $47.9 billion (roughly £39.7 billion) through Android apps
Right, because the Apple app store is used by people that own iPhones, which are expensive luxury goods for people with lots of disposable income. The Android app store is used by everyone else. The Apple app store is still a minority player in terms of market share.
I genuinely don't understand how you can simultaneously post these stats and claim that Apple's business model is bad for people that develop apps for Apple's devices. As a collective they make BILLIONS of dollars per year more.
Far more egregious is that Google charge a similar fee and do basically nothing to moderate the platform at all. If anything is rent-seeking, it is that. Apple does a huge amount to moderate and review apps when they go out. It was a hassle, as an app developer, to have to go through that process. But the result is an ecosystem where people trust apps enough that they'll spend significant amounts of money on them. Who would spend anything on an Android app when you have no idea if it's actually good or if it just has a completely astroturfed review score?
No, this isn't a negotiation or about what you think it ought to be, or what you think is fair. You don't get to dictate Apple's pricing to Apple any more than they get to dictate your pricing to you on your platform. It's their platform. You can take it, or you can leave it.
Right, and they do. But if I buy an eBook from Amazon, or I buy a physical book from Amazon, what is the difference in the services that Apple is providing, that explains why Apple wants their cut of the eBook but don't want their cut of the physical book?
Heh, ok. But re-read the above adventure in digital commerce that I have described. Can none of this be made easier if a company gave even a fractional amount of care? Like, for instance - allow searching and requesting a purchase from a child’s Kindle pending an approval action by a parent? That’s just one example I thought of instantaneously - because I used the damn thing. Can none of the, probably thousands, product- and user-experience experts adept in Amazon Principles and commanding six-digit compensations solve this so that I don’t need to post about it on HN?
I agree the Kindle part was silly, and could be much improved. I just wanted to specifically clarify why you started out on the wrong foot with iOS and why the iOS app couldn't even tell you about the option existing elsewhere.
However once you started on a browser, the rest of your story I would agree with.
> And yet I can buy entire contents of the amazon using the Amazon shopping app. Or Walmart app. Or Target app. Or Best Buy app.
...
> i use the app for all my Amazon shopping.
Because Apple allows it. It's their prerogative, after all, not Amazon's.
I mean, really, if your employer told you that the only way they can pay you is if you used their in-house payment system that took 75% of your pre-tax earnings as a commission, you'd go elsewhere too.
Presumably that's because if you're buying groceries or whatever it doesn't compete with Apple. You can actual buy physical books in the app, it's just ebooks that it freaks out about.
I'm curious if giving books for free (eg Libby) is allowed, or if they've gotten a special exemption
