[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?

[kj99]

It’s absolutely misleading to the point of bordering on a lie.

There are an arbitrary number of ways to reach $10M in sales and only one of them gives Apple a cut of $6.2M.

Every other possible way gives Apple a lot less.

Not qualifying it makes it seem like this is the rule not the exception.

[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.

[kj99]

Perhaps expecting Apple to subsidize their apps was always unreasonable.

[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%.