[ezfe]

Things to note:

1) The new terms are opt-in

2) The new terms have not been approved by the EU

3) The reason for the disparity is 10 million installs, which exceeds the 1 million threshold to pay €0.50/install. If you charge €1/install then you're paying 50% to Apple for that fee. If you charge €2/install then you'd be paying 25% to Apple because the fee is flat.

[Keyframe]

4) This atrocity was written and mandated by Apple

Of course people will still not boycott them. They're no better than Microsoft was in the 90's. Not sure if it comes at that high level of a company or they're not all that different to begin with.

[EA-3167]

They won't boycott them because 99.999% of people aren't mobile devs, and none of this impacts them in the slightest. It didn't impact them when the price was 30% of anything over $1 mil, it doesn't impact them now. The average consumer of Apple products doesn't even care about side-loading, although I'm sure a significant minority is very pleased that it's an option going forward.

I really like this site, but people do sometimes lose sight of the world they live in vs the world most people inhabit.

[layer8]

The pricing model very much impacts users, because it incentivizes higher app prices, as well as subscriptions over one-time purchases. Users certainly don’t like subscriptions (but Apple loves those).

[foogazi]

As a user I don’t like subscriptions but I love Apple Pay - then only other payment provider I’d consider is PayPal

I don’t think I’d click on an external link to go to the app website to pay for anything

[layer8]

Whether third parties support Apple Pay or not is completely orthogonal to that pricing model. I use Apple Pay on web sites that have nothing to do with apps or app stores.

[aaomidi]

And this is why government exists, so it can battle these things without everything being a direct action from the consumer.

[Keyframe]

since it wasn't obvious - for developers to boycott them. Not Joe Montana.

[EA-3167]

Developers have been showing for a LONG time that they're long on talk of boycotts, and short on action. I really doubt that's going to change, the industry is mostly crabs in a bucket.

[Keyframe]

ah well, unfortunately I can't say you're wrong there.

[lxgr]

> The new terms are opt-in

It's unclear whether the old terms will be around forever or will be available to new developers.

They're also all-or-nothing for a given organization, as far as I understand; not sure if there's a way to form an "old terms subsidiary" entity.

[layer8]

Re 3: This means that Apple incentivizes developers against low app prices, in order for them to not lose more than half of the revenue to Apple once the million is reached. In addition, since the fee is yearly recurring, this incentivizes subscriptions over one-time purchases. The pricing model is not in consumers’ interests.

[tivert]

> 1) The new terms are opt-in

> 2) The new terms have not been approved by the EU

I can't imagine how these terms won't eventually swatted down as malicious compliance. I'd really like to see Apple fined something like 20% of global revenue, or something like that. Teach them a lesson, seems like they need one.

[ncallaway]

Does this apply to free apps too?

[layer8]

Yes, unless you are a registered nonprofit, an educational institution, or similar.

[kj99]

Yup - this example is deliberately cooked to create a misleading impression.

[thrtythreeforty]

It's a valid criticism of the new terms. A developer-friendly (and dare I say, user-friendly) fee structure would not have any cases where Apple takes 62% of revenue. Any fee structure so maliciously structured that this edge case exists, deserves such criticism.

[kj99]

If it's an edge case then we can agree that it's misleading not to point that out.

The statement in the tweet is actually false in every case of making $10M in sales except this precise edge case.

[leereeves]

It's not an edge case. Roughly 99% of paid App Store apps cost $1 or less.

The expensive apps that would pay less than 50% to Apple are the edge case.

[kj99]

99% of paid iPhone apps don’t have a million installs.

[leereeves]

> If it's an edge case then we can agree that it's misleading not to point that out.

If the "edge case" you're talking about is the number of sales, then the tweet very clearly pointed that out. "If you make $10M in sales..."

So can we agree that nothing here is misleading?

[DannyBee]

Uh, given the number of $1 apps on the app store, how is it cooked in any way? It represents a good bit of current reality.

[kj99]

$1 apps that make more than $10,000,000 in annual revenue?

[ezfe]

The annual revenue does not affect the €0.50/install fee. 10 million installs would cost €500,000 for a free app under the new terms.

[kj99]

That's true but it doesn't contradict my point about a $1 app with 10 million installs.

In any case, a free app can always be released under the current terms.

I think the obvious point is that free to consumer apps still cost something in terms of the platform. It has been a common complaint in the past that apps like Uber or Facebook have a huge number of installs but don't pay anything. This simply brings transparency to that.

[jsnell]

Except it can't "always" be released under the current terms. If the developer has ever released an app under the new terms, they're forced into them for all their future apps, forever. Likewise if they ever intend to release a different app under the new terms, all their old apps would be retroactively moved to the new terms.

The irrevocable and all-or-nothing aspect will make it pretty much impossible for any serious developer to ever choose the new terms. Just as Apple intended.

[layer8]

1 million installs already, not 10 million. And updates count as installs, so it is practically a yearly per-user fee.

[DannyBee]

I mean, the top paid games on the store right now are:

6.99, 1.99, 4.99, 0.99, 0.99, 0.99

That 1.99 (geometry dash) grosses 250k a month in the US alone.

[kj99]

And that 1.99 app would pay 25% to Apple, which is lower than the current 30%.