[HN Gopher] Apple announces 'upgrade' to App Store pricing, addi...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple announces 'upgrade' to App Store pricing, adding 700 new
price points
Author : zeraphy
Score : 129 points
Date : 2022-12-06 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (appleworld.today)
(TXT) w3m dump (appleworld.today)
| MBCook wrote:
| I wonder if more apps will go for, say 50C/, instead of free +
| $1.00 IAP.
|
| I miss the pre-IAP days.
| nine_k wrote:
| IAP is fine when I as a user am not sure.
|
| To install, try and pay is as easy as to pay, install, and try
|
| To install, try and uninstall is much easier then to pay,
| install, try, uninstall, and ask for the money back, if the
| latter us even supported.
|
| What's really bothersome is _no_ option to pay and remove ads.
| A subscription may be more costly but it 's at least honest,
| and UX is not annoying.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| One thing that can be problematic with App sales is that apps
| will usually have new purchases dry up after a while. But
| unlike old desktop software where you could release, fix bugs
| for a while, and then just call done, for mobile apps you need
| periodically update them, or risk getting unlisted from the
| stores. Some developers may be ok with that, but others would
| prefer their older apps to remain available. Those developers
| now have ongoing maintenance costs, so how can they recover
| that money?
|
| The old desktop approach of new major versions that people have
| to purchase periodically is not really feasible on IOS, since
| old versions would clog up the app store, and there is no way
| to offer the new versions at a discount to past purchasers,
| which desktop software likes to do to avoid annoying recent
| customers when a new version comes out.
|
| So to recover for costs from ongoing development, an app
| developer will either need to 1) somehow increase the number of
| people who will purchase the app, 2) add a recurring revenue
| source like ads to the app (possibly with IAP to disable), 3)
| make the app subscription based (but only some types of apps
| can pull this off), or 4) make the app IAP based, and when
| updating add new features that can be purchased.
|
| Now not every app does any of those. Some will just a single
| unlock IAP with limited functionality before that. But this is
| not all that different from the old demo or shareware approach,
| and the design of the app store makes it generally better to
| have the demo and full version be the same app, at which point
| IAP is the way to do that. Without a recurring revenue source
| though, such apps are likely to either change approach or get
| abandoned eventually once the costs of periodically upgrading
| the app exceed the remaining revenue coming in.
|
| ----
|
| Also there is the abusive IAP single use item to bypass
| artificial cooldowns MTX garbage that mobile games tend to be
| full of, but I really cannot bring myself to accept that as a
| legitimate business model. Even the Gacha model (terrible as it
| is) feels somewhat more legitimate, but I have plenty of
| significant concerns about those too. But I'm really looking at
| this from the perspective of non-games, or at least not "F2P"
| games.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Isn't this IAP model better for both users and makers?
| scarface74 wrote:
| Let's not pretend that the App Store is full of Indy
| "makers". It came out in the Epic trial that 85% of App Store
| revenue came from slimy pay to win games and loot boxes.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'd like to know what fraction today comes from Roblox
| alone.
| MBCook wrote:
| In theory.
|
| So I have no issue with subscribing to many apps I love to
| fund development, or maybe paying an extra "tip" through IAP.
| Or just IAP for more content.
|
| But IAP and subscriptions enabled a few models I hate.
|
| Free game (either with ads, IAP, or both) have flooded the
| App Store and destroyed the market for quality games. Even
| the better made ones (like Candy Crush) are still designed to
| wring money out of people.
|
| On the subscription front there are so many scam apps. Buy a
| calculator app, and pay $5/week for it because they trick
| people into it.
|
| I'd be happy with no consumable IAPs in games. Or just no
| IAPs in games at all. And Apple should probably review high
| subscription prices to find scams. Realistically is there any
| reason for weekly subscriptions? Maybe just monthly/yearly
| only.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It might be if they had better filters. IAP being used to
| effectively turn a demo into a full, paid version is one
| thing. Or IAP for some limited number of expansions in a
| game. IAP being used for "consumables" or to nickel-and-dime
| every feature is something else. But it's hard to distinguish
| between the two uses when browsing the store--and that's a
| big part of the reason I hardly game at all on iOS, browsing
| their games to sort wheat from chaff is too much of a chore
| and their games section _in particular_ is a horrible mess
| because IAP exists and their filtering options suck. Problem
| goes away if the apps are simply paid or free, no IAP. Or if
| they 'd create more categories for various uses of IAP, and
| let you filter by them.
| 4ad wrote:
| Which IAP model?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I think the free-to-play model has been destructive for many
| apps and games. The rush to the bottom with $1 price tier,
| introduced by Apple, was also destructive in itself.
|
| The App Store is a huge market, fortunes have been built, but
| I know many indie developers who have been reluctant to adopt
| the F2P model.
|
| As a user, I don't like it either.
| sgk284 wrote:
| Definitely not better for users. You used to buy an app and
| get everything it has to offer. You wouldn't have to worry
| about getting a useless app and having to pay another $1,000
| to get it functional. And you'd know that any reviews of the
| app are inclusive of functionality you'll have access to.
|
| With IAP, it's really difficult to know what you're getting
| and how much it will cost you in the end. And reviews may be
| discussing a completely different app experience. Plus the
| constant feeling that you're being nickel and dimed.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| IAPs don't share over Apple Family, purchased-apps do. So I'm
| going to say no.
| dangoor wrote:
| IAPs _can_ share for the family:
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/4/22154178/apple-family-
| sha...
|
| It's the developer's choice, just like family sharing for
| the original purchase. This was a good move, since so many
| apps went from paid to free demo +IAP to unlock. I think a
| lot of devs who previously allowed family sharing for paid
| apps have turned family sharing on for IAP.
| MBCook wrote:
| To be fair that wasn't the case until maybe 2 years ago.
| So it was a real problem.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Probably some. I think this change has more to do with emerging
| markets where users expect to make very small payments (and
| receive smaller benefits) than western users are accustomed
| too.
| danjc wrote:
| "The team has been hard at work this week and we're now happy to
| announce that the number line has even more numbers available in
| it."
| smoldesu wrote:
| You have to hand it to the bean-counters for finding a new way
| to butcher their cash cow.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| 015a wrote:
| I don't agree with most of what Musk does; but if this is the
| kind of innovation that requires a team of highly compensated
| tech employees and warrants a press release; something is
| actually, seriously wrong with efficiency in companies like
| Apple, and maybe he's actually right that Twitter, or many
| companies, could run better on far fewer employees.
| threeseed wrote:
| EU and US has already told Musk that his content moderation,
| trust/safety, compliance teams are woefully inadequate and
| would need to be significantly increased to comply with
| existing decrees and regulations.
|
| Also whilst some employees may find it fun and others on H1B
| have no choice but working 80+ hours is not sustainable.
|
| So before making conclusions about whether Twitter is some
| innovative new approach to headcount I would give it a little
| more time.
| ars wrote:
| Since when does the US have regulations about content
| moderation?
|
| > significantly increased to comply with existing decrees
| and regulations.
|
| What decrees and regulations? If the US wanted stuff to be
| illegal, make it illegal. You seem to be implying that
| Twitter should be a substitute government.
| threeseed wrote:
| Twitter has an agreement with the FTC around their data
| security practices. EU has GDPR now and DSA in 2024.
|
| And EU member states eg. Germany have their own rules for
| what content is allowed or not.
|
| You can argue whether the laws are appropriate or not but
| Twitter does have to comply with them or stop making
| their product available in those jurisdictions.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Not to mention, everything works smoothly (as per design)
| during a _code freeze_. Luckily Twitter has few
| competitors, and also the ones that remain also have code
| freeze during this time.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I don't see a problem with the press release.
|
| This is an effective way to communicate to their developer
| audience while also keeping their shareholders informed.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| When software and systems become sufficiently large, change
| becomes extremely difficult. Even strong architectures have
| their limit. I have to imagine that Apple has hit that limit
| serving payments worldwide.
|
| The real lie isn't that this was a difficult and costly
| change for their top-notch team. The real lie is that this
| works at all - some dev out there is waiting with no
| fingernails left for the bugs to start pouring in.
| fckgw wrote:
| Companies can do more than one thing at a time.
| 015a wrote:
| That's my point; that clearly they have so many people and
| so few actual problems to solve that they're worried about
| adding more discrete numbers rather than solving this
| problem significantly more efficiently.
| archildress wrote:
| Can't wait for the courageous design decision to then remove
| numbers from the follow-up release for more simplicity.
| qzw wrote:
| "Our metrics show that less than 0.02% of all apps are using
| the $26.65 and $57.30 price points. They are therefore no
| longer available to new apps. Existing apps using these price
| points will be required to change to one of the other
| supported price points by March 1, 2024."
| hackernewds wrote:
| The hallmarks of a true monopoly here
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| They say they support up to $10,000 in one part but then in the
| chart the $100 increment only goes up to $9,999.99, so which is
| it? $9,999.99 or $10,000?
| aliqot wrote:
| God damn I'm so tired of the global market.
| modeless wrote:
| So you can sell an app for $0.29 now? That's cool actually if
| true. The rest seems silly.
| raydiatian wrote:
| Now this has me wondering: who has the most expensive product on
| the App Store, what is it and how much does it cost?
|
| -- edit --
|
| Looks like the award goes to an app for Piano Tuners. Find a
| niche and corner it. $1,000.
| dang wrote:
| We changed the URL from
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge...
| to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better
| third-party article, we can change it again.
|
| Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a
| post reports on something found on another site, submit the
| latter" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but
| corporate press releases are so awful to read that I increasingly
| think we need to make them an exception.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
|
| All the more so because they have a strong incentive to bury the
| lede (I mean in general--not saying that about this
| announcement), and while third-party sites have other crap
| incentives, like sensationalism and clickbait, they at least
| don't do that.
| concordDance wrote:
| I think that in general the third party articles you find soon
| after the press release will just be copy-pastes of the press
| release (no time for real analysis) with bits removed. So it
| depends on whether you're optimizing for more information (the
| PR) or less misreading skimreading/headline reading.
|
| Do you want to cater to the most thorough commentators or the
| masses?
| JamesSwift wrote:
| What could a third party add to a primary-source's press
| release other than speculation? Sure in some cases there could
| be some "sources say..." or "when reached for comment Apple
| clarified that..." but in general I think its going to be a
| rehashing and speculation in general.
| greesil wrote:
| Context.
| pb7 wrote:
| I think this was the wrong move. The original source is better
| in this case and you are letting your anti-corporate bias and
| personal opinion affect your decision making as a moderator.
| What makes this so awful to read to you?
| devwastaken wrote:
| 3rd party sourcing isn't anti-corp. The purpose is to seek a
| more neutral position. Apple is clearly motivated to say
| positive things about Apple.
| geraneum wrote:
| The posts here don't have to be neutral! There are a lot of
| blog posts, opinion pieces and opinionated comments. That's
| actually good.
| pb7 wrote:
| It has never been about seeking a neutral position. What is
| neutral about Vitalik shilling the Ethereum ecosystem?[0]
| He's clearly motivated to say positive things about it.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33878216
| thewataccount wrote:
| Respectfully I disagree with this.
|
| The article you linked is mostly just a copy+paste of the apple
| page, with a few paragraphs removed.
|
| I personally don't think going from the direct news source ->
| random news source you just googled that copy+pasted most of it
| anyway is worth doing.
|
| > but corporate press releases are so awful to read that I
| increasingly think we need to make them an exception.
|
| Is it really that much better if they just removed 2~3
| paragraphs? They added nothing of value other then trackers and
| ads.
|
| I do ask seriously - does removing 2~3 paragraphs really make
| it that much better?
|
| Are we really going to move to having one person (no offense)
| to arbitrarily change the URLs from the official news source to
| a random one from your google search results?
|
| tl;dr - doing this removes the benefits of first hand
| reporting, has effectively no different content, and you
| appeared to have randomly selected one that offers no clear
| benefit in it's content.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I see your reasoning but I disagree. HN articles don't need to
| be unbiased. The reason being, if you want a more neutral take,
| just take a look at the HN comments.
|
| HN submissions are usually primary sources, and the HN comments
| are where you have the discussion. Sometimes even the top voted
| comment is just a summary of the actual submission, but
| rephrased to be less biased or more clear. If HN can't point
| out the buried lede or explanation and get it upvoted then
| there's a larger problem, but in practice I don't find this to
| be the case (though maybe I'm wrong).
|
| Does the article provide anything which the HN comment section
| wouldn't?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| This is my feeling. The article is the reference material for
| what we discuss in the comments; the comments provide
| interpretation.
| jil wrote:
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/06/app-store-pricing-changes-dev...
| might be a better URL, perhaps?
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I would always prefer ad-free information directly from the
| source, and to follow HN guidelines without leaving them open
| to interpretation (call me an HN fundamentalist I guess).
| screamingninja wrote:
| > https://appleworld.today/archives/101157
|
| > The server is temporarily unable to service your request due
| to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again
| later.
| lilyball wrote:
| Looking at the original press release, I much prefer it to this
| third-party site. All the third-party site really did was
| remove a tiny bit of fluff, but it's having intermittent
| loading issues and is absolutely _covered_ in ads if you aren
| 't using an ad blocker. It also removes some of the actual
| content!
| taftster wrote:
| I mean, basically the web sucks right now. Classic rant
| incoming: There's definitely a need that sits between boring
| PR release and ad-filled regurgitation. You can't tell me
| that heaps of ads are actually helping the monetization of
| content, we're on the other side of the slippery slope. Thank
| goodness for adblock, I guess.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| I don't know the mechanics of this or if it would just be
| manual, but when there is aggregation of submitted links (which
| I would assume is the case for a story like this), it does seem
| like the main PR link should be the title URL, but could other
| links all just be collected in a single comment?
|
| I really prefer the actual PR links myself, corporate BS or
| not, because that gives me the language I need to then search
| out the other stories that are based on that PR. If you start
| with a blog, now I have to do the process in reverse to find
| the source. I think the HN policies are just fine in this
| regard. And even if other links can't be collated into a
| comment, I generally trust HN readers to provide additional
| information or helpful links when appropriate.
| dagmx wrote:
| The site you picked ironically is failing to load for me on
| Safari in iOS, likely because I have an ad blocker enabled. It
| just keeps going into a reload loop.
|
| I would second everyone else's sentiment that going with the
| official PR statement is better , especially because Apple are
| really good about fast loading pages without ads, and none of
| these other sites provide new information that's not in the
| press release.
|
| Additionally many of the third party sites are really bad for
| accessibility, whereas the official Apple one is excellent for
| those who need readers.
| dcdc123 wrote:
| I had no idea price points were so restrictive on the app store.
| crystaln wrote:
| So much Apple cynicism here.
|
| Apple loves design and beauty. Crisp numbers and stability are
| more user friendly and aesthetic. Also some numbers have
| implications in certain markets. Seeing numbers like or $69.42 or
| $444 or $7.23 is just bad all around.
|
| International price conversion while maintaining those is also
| challenging.
|
| Before attacking Apple policies, it's worth considering why their
| extremely deep design process might have led to that choice.
| binarymax wrote:
| I'm not an App Store seller so I have no idea what this means.
| You can't just pick any number that you want to sell your app
| for? You have predetermined prices set by Apple?
| threeseed wrote:
| As I mentioned above pretty sure this was a limitation of their
| SAP based system and the way it was integrated with the iTunes
| Store (what App Store used) that required you to pre-define
| price points.
| mknapper1 wrote:
| Correct, only pre-approved price points are allowed.
| RetpolineDrama wrote:
| Correct, Apple requires you to use one of it's _artisanal_
| price points, hand-selected from a only the most
| psychologically supple increments.
| spiffytech wrote:
| Yep. And previously you couldn't choose a non-zero price lower
| than $0.99, so the new price choices will probably go to use.
| a_c wrote:
| Actually what the motivation in having price point ending in .99?
| Why can't I simply price my app at, for instance, 10? I
| understand there is a pricing psychology in play and I faintly
| remember it has something to do with accounting but I can't
| recall the specifics. Can anyone shed some insight?
| travem wrote:
| In addition to the other replies (which I agree with) about the
| psychological aspects, another aspect historically is that
| avoiding round numbers meant that change had to be given when
| making a purchase.
|
| I.e. if you bought something that cost $5 you could just hand
| the $5 to the cashier and they could just avoid ringing you up
| and pocket the money. In contrast if the object cost $4.99 or
| $4.95 say they would have to ring it up in the till so they
| could open it to provide change to the customer.
| blowski wrote:
| Another story: a newspaper seller - whose newspaper cost 1
| penny - encouraged .99 price points to increase the number of
| pennies in pockets.
|
| I heard this on Tom Scott's Podcast "Lateral" recently.
| coder543 wrote:
| > Why can't I simply price my app at, for instance, 10?
|
| The article says you can. It's one of the "supported
| conventions".
| a_c wrote:
| My bad, completely missed the second table. Thanks for
| pointing it out!
| nine_k wrote:
| The psychology is (allegedly) simple. When you see a price like
| $4.99, unless you're pre-conditioned, you are expected to read
| it as FOUR-99, essentially $4, even though it's $5 for all
| practical purposes. Often it is styled as $4.99 to double down
| on this effect.
|
| This looks silly, and many people, including me, have taught
| themselves to recognize this pattern and round the price
| correctly without a mental effort.
|
| Some people, of course, fall for it; I suppose younger kids are
| heavily affected.
| ryandrake wrote:
| How can it be that anyone in the world falls for this
| anymore? My daughter recognized this obvious pattern when she
| was 7 years old: "It's $5, dad, why don't they just say $5?"
| I wonder if pricing something at $4.99 have anything more
| than a vague subliminal effect these days?
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Part of it is that people want to be tricked. If I want to
| buy something but I'm on the fence about whether it's worth
| $5 then I think the $4.99 price works as like a semi-
| subconscious plausible deniability mechanism to let me
| allow myself to buy it.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| Imagine two apps you're scrolling by in the App Store. One
| is $5, the other is $4.99. Barely going attention
| (essentially picking subconsciously rather than
| consciously), you choose one to click first. What are the
| odds you clicked the $4.99 one?
| hackernewds wrote:
| Zero
| stephencanon wrote:
| Everyone is absolutely consciously aware of it, and this
| has always been true. It still works just fine via your
| subconscious.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| And then there are gas stations, infamous for taking it
| another step and including another tenth of a penny.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Only American gas stations. They go so far as to have the
| 9/10 of a cent fraction as a permanent part of the sign.
| eastbound wrote:
| French stations too, they've introduced the 1.779EUR a
| liter pricing a dozen years ago, so, 4 significant
| numbers. On a 100EUR refill, it's 10 cents, ie a drop.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Is it always 9/10 of a cent though, or does it vary?
| jamesvnz wrote:
| The majority of New Zealand petrol stations display the
| fractional cent too. Same in Australia from memory.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Oh I didn't know that. They don't do this is Canada. Fuel
| here is priced to the tenth of a cent (192.5 cents per
| litre), but it's not fixed to 9/10.
| jameshart wrote:
| I am old enough that when I was a kid in the UK there was
| still such a thing as a halfpenny (pronounced: ha'penny).
| Although please note: I am not _that_ old; this was 1/2p -
| half a 'new penny', i.e. 1/200 of a pound sterling, and
| not to be confused with the old 1/2d, half of an old penny,
| which was 1/480 of a pound (or two farthings). Predecimal
| currency was well before my time. By over half a decade, in
| fact. But anyway, point is: of course this meant that some
| things were priced to end with PS0.991/2p. The rules are
| universal.
| richrichardsson wrote:
| Just to add a data point about the pronunciation; the way
| you've written it leads me to read it as "har-penny",
| which I imagine is valid, however we pronounced it in my
| family as "hay-penny".
| jameshart wrote:
| Sorry, that is indeed the intended pronunciation. In fact
| even briefer than that: more hayp'ny.
|
| Just wanted to really get across that most importantly,
| the l and f are definitely both silent.
| ralmidani wrote:
| Genuine question: is there a market for a $10,000 app?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Well, if you're gonna ask for 30% on NFT purchases, you better
| have no ceiling
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm sure somebody could market some kind of "exclusive club"
| app. Virtual Fyre Festival or whatever.
| arriu wrote:
| Maybe something like a Bloomberg terminal on the phone?
|
| It does seem like quite a reach but I think there are a few
| legitimate niche markets for that price point.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Maybe not the app itself, but I could see for example, a
| business wants to purchase $10K worth of advertising on a
| platform through the their ad channel app.
| hbn wrote:
| It would seem crazy for an ad agency to implement that
| through an IAP where Apple takes $3k off the top (I assume
| that 30% rate still applies here?) when you're dealing with
| high-paying clients that could be told "go to our website to
| purchase"
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I agree, but I guess we could say the same thing for all
| app and in app purchases.
| hbn wrote:
| Eh, not really. The benefit of in-app purchases is you
| can make a button that users can press that's probably
| already hooked up to their credit card so they can make
| purchases without the ask of getting them to type in
| their credit card number, which is a more conscious
| action that gives them plenty of time to think about
| whether or not they /really/ want to make that purchase.
| Amazon's one-click checkout, ShopPay, etc are not just
| for user convenience!
|
| Comparatively, a high-profile client spending tens of
| thousands of dollars in ads isn't doing so on impulse,
| they're doing it cause it's their job. They'll open up a
| browser and punch in some banking details if it's the
| only way to get those ads out.
| cauthon wrote:
| Are you too young to remember "I Am Rich"?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich
| staringback wrote:
| Seeing prices list from 2008 having "today's dollars" is
| really scaring me.
| redtriumph wrote:
| "The application was removed from the App Store without
| explanation by Apple the day after its release, August 6,
| 2008"
|
| Would be interesting to know the thought process for doing
| this.
| fckgw wrote:
| It generated support complaints and provided no value to
| the user.
| BudaDude wrote:
| The value is there. People buy useless shit all of time
| to show off their wealth. Is there any difference between
| having a $10,000 app or having a $100+ cosmetic skin in a
| game?
| martythemaniak wrote:
| It embarrassed Apple.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| Isn't the Tesla FSD available as an in-app purchase?
| moffatman wrote:
| At that point it would make sense for the vendor to mail you a
| top-of-the-line non-iOS device to avoid the 30% commission if
| at all feasible.
| le_vision wrote:
| Highly niche and specialised apps could set such price points.
| Medical apps come to mind.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I'm not aware of many apps like those that aren't done via a
| B2B licensing agreement outside of the App Store.
| blowski wrote:
| Early on, I remember there being a tactic for apps where the
| owner wants them to be findable in the App Store, but doesn't
| want any new buyers, they set the price to $10K. But these
| days, I think the most expensive apps are $1K - app.cash,
| vueCAD Pro and Cyber Tuner.
| bmarquez wrote:
| Yeah apps for pilots also came to mind, though I took a look
| and ForeFlight was $400/year on the iOS store, not a one-time
| fee.
| sneak wrote:
| Why charge $1000 once when you can charge $400 six times?
|
| I refuse to use apps like this. None of my Apple IDs have
| payment information associated with them.
| ralmidani wrote:
| I would imagine any medical app/ERP/etc. would have creative
| ways to get users to not make a one-time purchase via the App
| Store. Although certain interpretations of the rules might
| mean they have to offer App Store signup as an option.
| hoherd wrote:
| It looks like this isn't just iOS and iPadOS, but also macOS.
| In that case, there is plenty of software that fits that bill,
| such as Maya and Avid. I'm sure there's mass media, banking,
| video game development, and lots of other software that costs
| near that, or will some time in the future.
|
| Even if it were just for iOS and iPadOS though, they do want
| iPad Pro to compete with desktops in places where expensive
| software runs. For instance, Grass Valley Livetouch could be
| done on an iPad.
| smcleod wrote:
| Apple needs to make it easier for people pricing their apps
| fairly for international markets.
|
| So many applications and subscriptions are incredibly expensive
| when they're priced for the USA which has been over valued for so
| many years now.
| hackernewds wrote:
| That would open up a whole can of worms of users locations
| being necessary/easy to fake for discounts.
| smcleod wrote:
| As that may be - it should be the incredibly wealthy
| companies problem to solve, not the users.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| Drop the 30% tax some, there's a story
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's 15% for businesses doing under $1M/year on the App Store.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I can't wait until I can cantor diagonalize App Store price
| points.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| How many apps have you purchased from the App Store? I have only
| purchased five apps since 2008. Are people just spending lots of
| money on apps or am I out of the norm?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I'm the same, except I also pay for two subscription-based apps
| that frequently update content, mostly for my kids. Simply
| Piano (amazing, can't praise it enough) and Tappity (mostly
| science-related content for younger kids, think Bill Nye or
| Beakman's World but semi-interactive and on an iPad instead of
| the TV--it's not _amazing_ but my youngest really took to it
| and is getting enough out of it to justify the subscription,
| IMO)
|
| I think it's $300-400 a year for the pair of them? Easy to
| justify especially in Simply Piano's case, when you consider
| what even a few weeks of in-person piano lessons would cost
| (not that it makes such lessons obsolete, but still).
|
| But yeah, outright buying apps or using IAP... ProCreate, Angry
| Birds (yay! they re-released the original, which is one of the
| only two of those I care about, finally! Now if I could just
| get Seasons again...), several tables in Pinball Arcade bought
| when they were on steep discount just before they lost the
| licenses to most of the tables I was interested in. I think
| that's all my App Store purchases, ever, otherwise.
|
| I think most of the money's from "whales" in shitty F2P games.
| howinteresting wrote:
| According to the Epic v. Apple decision:
|
| * The vast majority of app store revenue is from games.
|
| * A small number of "whales" spend almost all of the money --
| presumably rich kids and adults, and people with an unfortunate
| gambling addiction.
| intrasight wrote:
| This is why I find it so baffling that there are so many
| devs/companies chasing the golden ring of app revenue with
| sincerity when clearly is a very warped marketplace. What
| types of useful, non-scam apps do people look for and buy
| that lead devs to believe there's some opportunity? Why
| create it as an app and deal with all that BS when you could
| just make a nice web site/PWA?
| earthnail wrote:
| Some products are designed to make use of the iPhone as a
| form factor. Then you can't make a PWA.
|
| But yes, the market is warped and Apple has a lot of work
| to do to make it a better marketplace.
|
| This is a step in the right direction though. Maybe more
| steps will follow.
| super256 wrote:
| I spent ~150EUR since 2018, mostly for productive apps.
|
| Canarymail (A mail client which supports SMTP streaming + PGP)
| - I think was about 30EUR lifetime.
|
| StrongBox Pro (A Keepass 2 client) - 80EUR Lifetime
|
| ProCreate - 10EUR Lifetime
|
| Affinity Designer 1 - 12EUR lifetime
|
| FEZ - 5EUR Lifetime (Game)
|
| TweetBot - 5EUR Lifetime but now abandoned for Subscription
| Software. Doesn't work anymore, I'm using the normal Twitter
| App now (became usable over the last few years). The only app
| where I was disappointed in doing a lifetime purchase. It was
| abandoned really quickly after my purchgase.
|
| Blitzer Pro - 10EUR Lifetime
|
| Threema - 4EUR Lifetime
|
| DWD WarnWetter - 2EUR Lifetime. Most accurate weather app for
| Germany
|
| Facetune 1 - 4EUR (Didn't fix my face! Surpise!)
|
| Reeder - 5EUR RSS Feed App, I use this together with Miniflux
| Server
|
| My last purchase was in 2021, Reeder. I made most purchases
| when I got the devices, and all lifetime over SaaS purchases
| have paid for themselves by now. :)
|
| But honestly, this was more than I expected.
| Eumenes wrote:
| The only app I've ever bought is Swiftkey. Now its Microsoft
| spyware. I don't even have a credit card on my apple ID (is
| that what its called now?)
| rootpk wrote:
| black_puppydog wrote:
| So, never having bothered with Apple hard-/software I am a bit
| confused... A developer can't just set a price for something? But
| then out of the first 10000 natural numbers, Apple semi-
| arbitrarily select a set of 900 "known-good" numbers that work
| well for prices? Like, as if the other numbers are somehow bad
| prices? If you charge someone $7,43 for something, the ghost of
| Steve Jobs will start haunting you?
|
| That's, like... I don't even know. Feels infantilizing to me. Or
| what am I missing?
| varispeed wrote:
| When selling a product, we were doing A/B tests with price
| points and so we had results that the same product was selling
| better if it was priced at PS7.49 per month rather than PS6.99.
| For some reason people subconsciously think that 7.49 is
| smaller than 6.99 or things like PS5 wouldn't sell much but
| PS5.99 would be going off the virtual shelves in an instant.
|
| Crazy.
| hackernewds wrote:
| How broadly generalizable is that result though?
| vanshg wrote:
| That should be for the merchant to decide, though, not Apple
| kergonath wrote:
| Apple _is_ the merchant.
| TillE wrote:
| Yes that's one of the key services you get in exchange
| for 30%. Small companies _really_ don 't want to be
| handling sales tax requirements for every jurisdiction on
| the entire globe, it's a nightmare. Not to mention fraud,
| etc.
| threeseed wrote:
| It's 15% for developers making less then $1m/year.
|
| And as Apple demonstrated in Netherlands with the dating
| apps it is actually cheaper to use them that try to run
| your own payment system. Especially if you're trying to
| target a global audience.
| seydor wrote:
| Their excuse for their antics are that their users are stupi,
| er, sorry, they need the apple treatment. In reality it seems
| they do it because they can. I doubt there is research outside
| apple about their customer base
|
| Apple also sees itself as a lifestyle, almost fashion brand so
| they must enjoy people talking about them in any way
| hackernewds wrote:
| > they do it because they can
|
| against the desires of the entire global community of
| developers. the hallmarks of a true monopoly
| seydor wrote:
| Not a monopoly, at least not outside US. But a very
| capricious high end electronics brand
| guelo wrote:
| Depends how you define the market. They are 100% a
| monopoly for the iOS apps market.
| sokoloff wrote:
| And Ferrari is a 100% monopoly supplier of Ferrari
| engines.
| kaba0 wrote:
| The only difference is that you can choose two kinds of
| evil for something _required_ for everyday life, while
| you can live without a car or choose from several
| different ones. Owning the former platform is great power
| that shouldn't be unilaterally controlled by a private
| company.
| sokoloff wrote:
| My parents get by entirely fine without a mobile device
| (smart or feature). It's convenient, but not required.
| JonathonW wrote:
| Apple uses price points rather than having developers
| explicitly specify prices because they're currency-independent:
| you specify a price point and Apple chooses appropriate prices
| for each of the ~175 different storefronts where your app could
| be available. Apple then periodically adjusts the international
| prices as exchange rates fluctuate, to keep them in parity with
| the US prices at the same tiers.
|
| The alternative would be to have developers manually specify
| prices for each region, which wouldn't really scale for a lot
| of developers (keeping track of exchange rates for 175
| different regions is work). Or to do automatic currency
| conversion from {developer's native country here}, which would
| eliminate some of the manual work but lead to "ugly" prices in
| other regions (no x.00 or x.99 pricing), unless they had some
| rounding scheme to make them look nicer, and then you're almost
| back at the current price point scheme.
| hackernewds wrote:
| I find it hard to agree with
|
| > developers manually specify prices for each region, which
| wouldn't really scale for a lot of developers
|
| while this also is more aligned to Apple's goals, unless
| there's also a proven and generalized (geographically and at
| all price points, app types) observation where the price
| looking beautiful as 0.99 massively offsets the actual
| revenue gains of being 1.23.
|
| > "ugly" prices in other regions (no x.00 or x.99 pricing),
| unless they had some rounding scheme to make them look nicer,
| pavon wrote:
| Thanks for that explanation. Is that why the price point
| ranges overlap - does the increment you select tell Apple how
| much they should round by when converting currency?
|
| For example, on the surface it seems redundant to have
| overlapping prices bands $0.29-$9.99 in
| $0.10 increments $0.49-$49.99 in $0.50 increments
|
| Since 10 cent increments include 50 cent increments, so why
| not say: $0.29-$9.99 in $0.10 increments
| $9.99-$49.99 in $0.50 increments
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| You would think a company like Apple could easily build a
| system that updated exchange rates daily and could do the
| simple math on any price. Having "price points" seems
| arbitrarily and stupid.
| simonw wrote:
| They could do that, but then users in some countries would
| have to pay 0.693 of their local currency or whatever. Why
| should the US be the only country that gets friendly
| looking prices?
| jw1224 wrote:
| The point is that prices _are friendly-looking_ in every
| country. Price points are adjusted in each country,
| they're not a 1:1 match with $USD.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I'm an American. I routinely buy things in GBP, EUR, and
| JPY and the amounts convert to an arbitrary number in
| USD. So what? It is displayed to me as 9.99 EUR. I
| understand I'm not going to have a nice, pretty .99 at
| the end of my credit card transaction.
| simonw wrote:
| I would expect that the vast majority of human beings
| very rarely buy anything in a currency other than that of
| their own country.
| gumby wrote:
| Yes, but you don't know that in the App store: you're
| buying from your "local" store regardless of where the
| developer is.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Or just let the dev specify if they want to round prices
| to some precision?
| cush wrote:
| The fact that is seems stupid from the point of view of the
| creator is irrelevant. It's not about the creators, it's
| about the users. Apple simplifies incredibly complex
| systems into good user experiences.
| kaba0 wrote:
| But it is not just math. It is about what constitutes a
| cheap app for an East-European or to a Chinese person vs
| that of an American, and how that changes with time in
| relation to the currencies. I really don't get this
| dismissive mindset, do you honestly believe that a trillion
| dollar company didn't think of this one little trick that
| you figured out in a minute?
| gumby wrote:
| Price points smooth the exchange rate fluctuation (how
| often should the prices be updated? Every second? More
| often?) and selects for prices that have certain
| cultural"gravity" as well.
|
| I think buyers are more accustomed to and comfortable with
| "round" or "standard" prices like x.99, x.88, x.95, x.00
| etc rather than x.47 or x.31.
| toast0 wrote:
| Otoh, there's value in prices holding still for at least a
| while. And 'pretty' prices are appealing in general. You
| obviously can't hold prices still forever, but daily prices
| is probably not paletable.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Not to be that guy, but isn't that like, what computers are
| for?
| crystaln wrote:
| Knowing that Apple is pretty smart, I'm sure they use
| computers, but only update occasionally so prices aren't
| constantly fluctuating.
|
| Apple loves design and beauty. Crisp numbers and stability
| are more user friendly and aesthetic.
| slg wrote:
| >but lead to "ugly" prices in other regions
|
| Isn't this change an introduction of those ugly prices? If
| I'm reading the new rules correctly, Apple now supports
| prices like 7.39 or 37.40. I guess they don't end in a 1-4 or
| 6-8, but they aren't the cleanest numbers either. And if that
| last digit is really the problem, rounding to the nearest 5
| is always a possibility.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| 7.39 should be possible as part of the 10c price step, but
| how would you get 37.40 out of the system? You could do
| 37.00, 37.90, 37.95, or 37.99 via the "X." ones, and the
| first category would all end in X9.
| slg wrote:
| They say .50 price steps are possible in the 10-50 range
| so X.90 + .50.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| So the way I read it is as two separate systems:
|
| Developers can go in 10c price steps from $0.29 to $9.99
| (0.39, 0.49, 0.59, etc), or in 50c price steps from $0.49
| to $49.99 (0.49, 0.99, 1.49, 1.99, etc), etc OR
| developers can use the 4 supported conventions for any
| price in those ranges, as long as you fit within the
| convention.
|
| But you cannot start at a supported convention and then
| use the price steps.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| Thank you for clarifying this. This is such an Apple thing to
| do.
|
| Frankly it doesn't matter what the exact price is. All
| economics are approximate.
| decadancer wrote:
| I don't think that's a bad practice. I'm Russian and Steam
| games are (were) 1.5x-2x times cheaper for Russia compared
| to Europe and Americas, even before regional passes. I
| don't know whether that was responsiblity of devs or
| storefront, but it seemed quite a fair and profitable
| practice, because the price point you are willing to pay
| for a game (or an app) is different for people from
| different economical and cultural backgrounds. You aren't
| getting a game for 80$ if your monthly salary is 300
| lzaaz wrote:
| This is fair. OTOH, you have the single European market
| (the EU forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at
| the same price everywhere in the EU in practical terms),
| which has shafted poor countries-it's disgraceful that a
| Swedish costumer pays the same price for an iPhone than a
| Portuguese costumer while making several times as much
| money every month.
| sofixa wrote:
| > OTOH, you have the single European market (the EU
| forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at the same
| price everywhere in the EU in practical terms),
|
| That's not true, where are you imagining this from?
| Hardware certainly doesn't cost the same, at the very
| least there are different VAT levels, but also pricing is
| adapted to the local market (literally just checked, i
| can get an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 for 300EUR less in
| Bulgaria compared to France). Software I'm unsure how to
| check, but Netflix costs varies by county.
| lzaaz wrote:
| You can buy it directly from Bulgaria to save 300EUR
| then. It would be illegal for the shop to tell you you
| have to pay more for buying from another country.
|
| >Software I'm unsure how to check, but Netflix costs
| varies by county.
|
| If it does (I don't think so, the minimal differences are
| because of VAT) you can subscribe from another European
| country (using a VPN or whatever) and Netflix can't ban
| you or block you from using it (like they would if you
| bought the subscription from a third world country for
| example)
|
| Is it fair that both Finland and Italy pay 7.99EUR/month
| for the basic plan?
|
| (This is why I said "in practical terms")
| decadancer wrote:
| That's kinda messed up. ALL hardware?
| sofixa wrote:
| No, they're mistaken, there is no such thing.
| argsnd wrote:
| It's not true. That guy doesn't really know what he's
| talking about.
| alexandre_m wrote:
| The economics of all of that seem sketchy to me.
|
| It sounds like the main North American market is
| subsidizing the apps being produced and sold worldwide.
|
| Does the same logic apply for other virtual good such as
| digital music elsewhere?
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| Entire reseller websites (e.g. g2a) of games and software
| alike have popped up trying to profit from this arbitrage
| opportunity. You buy games in Russia and an American
| scoops up the license key for a little more, it's all
| automated too nowadays.
|
| On the same note, why are Levi's jeans $100 bucks in
| Europe, but $40 in the USA? They're probably coming out
| of the same Asian factory. Not an economist but different
| value propositions I guess.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| It applies to video games and software for sure. I think
| this is why it is almost always cheaper to buy a code
| online for something like a Microsoft product.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Something else to consider is motivating piracy. If they
| sell a piece of software for a flat price in all geos,
| the ones who can't afford it will invest more time in
| pirating the software. As a side effect, piracy is
| normalized in those communities as a necessary way of
| life in the digital world. Naturally, their tools and
| methods will leak out to other communities and make
| piracy easier in places that CAN afford them. Devs would
| rather sell to those communities at a "loss" than
| ostracize them and deal with the fallout.
|
| Check out this brief description of how software
| proliferated in Poland during the early years of
| computers (3:09-8:27): https://youtu.be/ffngZOB1U2A
| kaba0 wrote:
| Well, the economy of that is sketchy in that
| multinational corporations pay sometimes an order of
| magnitude less for the exact same job simply due to you
| living in a different country.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| I think it applied to DVDs in the past and was impetus
| behind region locking media. Also another way to look at
| it is less subsidizing and more maximizing profit by not
| leaving money on the table in foreign countries.
| foota wrote:
| It's really the opposite, it's a form of price
| discrimination.
|
| There's a theory of surplus in economics, which is the
| extra benefit that someone gets from a transaction above
| what they would have been willing to pay.
|
| If I buy a game that I would have paid $100 for for $50,
| then I have a "$50" consumer surplus. One the other end,
| if the producer was willing to let that game sell as low
| as $40, then they have a producer surplus.
|
| Profit seeking producers want to capture as much as the
| surplus as they can, and they do this through price
| discrimination. You see this in product as two things
| that are essentially the same but with different
| marketing etc.,
|
| Price discrimination based on geography is quite
| effective though as well. People with lower incomes
| aren't as willing to pay high prices for games. Countries
| can be effectively segmented based on geography (whether
| virtually or not), and through this producers can charge
| a higher price to countries with high incomes (taking
| away the consumer surplus they would have had vs a lower
| global optimal price), and still get some value out of
| consumers in lower income countries.
|
| So it's not that NA is subsidizing the market, so much as
| it is the company trying to squeeze the most of everyone.
| Now, you could call it subsidizing in that there are
| probably products that wouldn't be brought to market
| without the NA market to pay for them, but that's not
| really "subsidizing".
| not_a_shill wrote:
| >Now, you could call it subsidizing in that there are
| probably products that wouldn't be brought to market
| without the NA market to pay for them, but that's not
| really "subsidizing".
|
| That's every product ever made _for profit_ by a
| developer in a 1st world country. It 's still essentially
| subsidizing even if you don't like the optics of the
| word.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Subsidising would imply that they're selling in other
| markets for a loss. They're not, there's no subsidy.
| greiskul wrote:
| From popular internet knowledge, games are more expensive
| in Australia then NA (Including digital distribution).
| Would you say that Australia is subsidizing games for
| Americans?
| slg wrote:
| It isn't really subsidizing because the goods are virtual
| which means the marginal costs are minimal. There of
| course could be infrastructure costs to get up and
| running in a new country. However once that is done,
| almost all the marginal revenue developers get out of
| these additional markets is profit because there is
| practically no cost to selling an extra copy even if it
| is at an extremely steep discount.
| pvarangot wrote:
| It could also be said that the cost of compliance and the
| cost coming from the litigiousness of American consumers
| shouldn't be subsidized by countries where selling an app
| is monumentally easiest and cheaper.
| [deleted]
| parker_mountain wrote:
| > the main North American market is subsidizing the apps
| being produced and sold worldwide
|
| I think you'll find that this has been the practice for
| many decades. A stark example is medicine pricing.
| zinekeller wrote:
| It's not really. The US medical system has this tendency
| to inflate pricing in a cat-and-mouse system where drug
| companies and insurance companies try to duke out what is
| the "correct" price of a drug. Setting it too high and
| the insurers won't cover it, too low and the
| pharmaceutical companies are "losing" profits to
| insurers. It's a terrible feedback loop that hampers
| those who can't afford insurance because the premiums are
| too high because pharmaceutical companies know that in
| most cases insurers will pay.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > A developer can't just set a price for something?
|
| Are you crazy? And miss out on yet another opportunity for
| Apple to rub their stank on something?
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Idk, doesn't this happen everywhere? Like at any physical store
| most things are $X.99 or $X.00 or $X.49, but not usually
| something like $X.31. Maybe this is just a US quirk.
|
| Apple sees themselves as a storefront not a payment processor,
| so maybe the idea is to make things look more consistent as
| you're scrolling through or comparing multiple apps.
| crgt wrote:
| Support for pricing tiers above 1k for one big thing.
| barumrho wrote:
| One reason I'm aware of is for foreign customers who are buying
| in foreign currencies. As a developer, I don't want to set
| prices in every currency, so they translate the price grid for
| me which I found useful.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| But they don't fairly translate the price. They just make up
| numbers for different currencies. $49.99 translates by
| Apple's standards to 59.99 EUR - which is roughly 10 Euros
| too much.
| Idiot211 wrote:
| Does that 59.99 include VAT at 20%?
| oakesm9 wrote:
| It does, yes
| miskin wrote:
| Interesting thing is that there is no way (that I could
| find) to buy apps in AppStore for my VAT registered
| company in a way that I could receive invoice with
| company details and all necessities to be able to get VAT
| refund. They seem to pretend they are always selling to
| private persons and this is not necessary, yet there are
| many business apps and I am quite sure for business app
| VAT on 10,000 Eur app would hurt.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Apparently invoices can be obtained by contacting
| customer support.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Shouldn't that work for _any_ price you give them? It 's
| literally a multiplication with a number they pull per-day as
| the conversion rate. That wouldn't change if the price wasn't
| one of "their" numbers...
| barumrho wrote:
| This means that for foreign customers of yours, your
| product will have constantly fluctuating price. I
| personally don't find that desirable. Also, there is some
| considerations to be made for purchasing power especially
| for items like apps. $1 might be trivial in the US, but it
| may not be so in a third world country.
| seydor wrote:
| that's quite desireable, i mean it's what everything else
| in the world does.
| delaaxe wrote:
| No, not every good in the world is priced in US dollars
| and presented as a random number that changes every day
| seydor wrote:
| pretty much every good is sold on ebay
| kergonath wrote:
| I never buy anything in dollars on eBay. Sterling,
| sometimes, but it's euros 99% of the time.
|
| Prices on eBay actually look like something a human would
| choose. On AliExpress on the other hand the prices are
| all over the place, with really odd numbers of cents,
| which I assume comes from automatic conversion from
| whatever currency they initially priced it in (not
| necessarily dollars at that point).
| nicoburns wrote:
| Not everything sold on ebay is priced in dollars either.
| xxpor wrote:
| They could offer stickiness settings, like only change
| the price once the FX rate has moved 10%.
| kergonath wrote:
| Yes, they can have a set of rules to set the prices. But
| then it's not that different from the current system,
| which really is not problematic in the first place. I
| know this is the place for pedantic nit picking, but the
| fact that prices have some granularity is very much a
| non-issue.
|
| In any case, actually probably have such rules, just not
| public. I am sure they have sales people being paid full
| time to agonise over such issues.
| kaba0 wrote:
| How much do you think about spending 5 dollars? How much do
| someone who earn 10 times less than you think about that
| exact 5 dollars? Price categories absolutely make sense.
| __ryan__ wrote:
| Not even close. They semi-arbitrarily came up with prices they
| allow in the App Store, probably "justifying" it using some
| metrics, or your app will be rejected.
| threeseed wrote:
| Long time ago I used to work at Apple so not sure if it's
| still accurate.
|
| But originally the App Store was leveraging their existing
| payment infrastructure e.g. the one they use for iPhone
| sales. Purchases and invoices were done through SAP which was
| manually configured to support those price points. It's why
| you saw weird behaviour e.g. invoices for free app
| "purchases" and largely the limitations of that system drove
| what they could and could not do.
|
| Perhaps they've done an overhaul for this system or migrated
| to a custom built one which is what has enabled all of this
| new functionality.
| kneebonian wrote:
| > But originally the App Store was leveraging their
| existing payment infrastructure e.g. the one they use for
| iPhone sales. Purchases and invoices were done through SAP
| which was manually configured to support those price
| points.
|
| Can I just say finding out that Apple uses SAP on the
| backend is just one of those things that shakes my world
| view.
| rgovostes wrote:
| The guy who originally set up Apple's SAP integration in
| the 80s(?) used to run Caffe Frascati, a popular
| cafe/music venue in downtown San Jose.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| Amazon used Oracle until a few years ago, Google
| accounting teams used Excel, etc.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Excel? Small and medium companies probably can run on
| Excel but I'm sure no large company can run their finance
| entirely with Excel. Google switched from Oracle to SAP.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/05/google-will-stop-using-
| oracl...
| mwest217 wrote:
| I don't think that's been true for over a decade. Google
| has a pretty sophisticated internal payments system that
| handles terms customers, invoicing, payment initiation,
| and lots more.
|
| I understand that Cloud specifically is switching to
| manage accounting using SAP, but most of Google runs via
| our own in-house systems.
|
| Source: work at Google in payments. This is only my
| personal opinion.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| Do Google accountants use Sheets?
| r00fus wrote:
| From one of my internal contacts who worked there & had
| to actually interface with the SAP implementation:
|
| 1) It's one of the largest SAP deployments in the US if
| not the world
|
| 2) SAP (at the time) was the only one who could offer an
| ERP that scaled to do what Apple wanted.
|
| Homegrown enterprise software is one of those things that
| sounds great until you realize you're re-inventing a lot
| of code dealing with regulations (tax/hr legal) that is
| other companies bread & butter so it's worth "paying
| their price" rather than getting it wrong and being on
| the wrong side of litigation/legislation.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The only thing I'd rather work on less than SAP is
| rolling my own ERP system.
| fatnoah wrote:
| The press release implies that the chosen price points are
| "approachable" for app store customers.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| Yep, in the old days you would provide the ability to set a
| price. now we need teams of marketers to introduce pointless
| complexity...
| fmajid wrote:
| Still no easy way for app developers to handle upgrades. Apple
| really wants to push apps towards profitable but exploitative
| subscription pricing models.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| And selling to business customers who don't have the huge IT
| dept. to setup a full Apple Business Account is a nightmare!
| Most employees use their own iPhones, and Apple specifically
| closed the Volume Purchase Program.
|
| The VPP was a way for a small company to basically purchase
| download codes and distribute as needed.
| timeimp wrote:
| 10x the number of price points is nuts.
|
| Then again, at this point, Apple is a treasury operation that
| also sells phones and computers.
| r00fus wrote:
| Braeburn Capital indeed.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _10x the number of price points is nuts._
|
| When you RTFA, you'll learn that Apple is also making it far
| simpler to manage their app pricing in 45 currencies/175
| storefronts. For example:
|
| _" Starting today, developers of subscription apps will also
| be able to manage currency and taxes across storefronts more
| effortlessly by choosing a local storefront they know best as
| the basis for automatically generating prices across the other
| 174 storefronts and 44 currencies. Developers will still be
| able to define prices per storefront if they wish. The pricing
| capability by storefront will expand to all other apps in
| spring 2023."_
|
| Additional capabilities are noted in the announcement.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| This is the real new feature.
|
| App developers don't want to go choose a competitive price in
| every one of 174 locales.
|
| But they also don't want to be pricing too high or low for
| what the local population can afford/is willing to pay.
|
| Let apple do the fancy machine learning to figure out optimal
| translation tables for each locale to maximize revenue.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Why isn't that presented as an option then, rather than
| mandated? I could want to do my own testing
| pifm_guy wrote:
| It is an option.
| chollida1 wrote:
| > Then again, at this point, Apple is a treasury operation that
| also sells phones and computers.
|
| I'm guessing you are joking but incase you were not, Apple
| still makes far far more from selling new products than they do
| from investments. So that statement is false or misleading.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| By investments do you mean App Store commissions? They do
| make quite a lot from that. Not more than they make on
| hardware sales, but it's a pretty substantial fraction of
| their revenue.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braeburn_Capital
| jarrenae wrote:
| This seems like a smart move from Apple to continue expanding
| into international markets and increasing revenue potential from
| their subscription models.
|
| Offering a wider range of price points will allow developers to
| better tailor their pricing to different markets, and it will
| also give consumers more flexibility when choosing which apps to
| pay for.
|
| It'll be interesting to see how this change affects the App Store
| ecosystem in the coming months, and whether it leads to more
| satisfied users or possibly more predatory subscriptions. The
| increased flexibility in pricing could be a great benefit for
| developers and consumers, but I'm going to keep an eye on how it
| impacts the meta of the pricing models.
|
| EDIT: Not sure why this was flagged/replied to as GPT - I wrote
| this.
|
| In retrospect I could have _not_ summarized parts of the post,
| since ideally we 've all read from the source information. Live
| and learn.
| nine_k wrote:
| Thank you, ChatGPT! </ha-ha:only-serious>
| robocat wrote:
| Good bot. It was 99.98% detected as fake by
| https://huggingface.co/openai-detector
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| partiallypro wrote:
| They are still taking 30%. When are regulators going to step in
| on this?
| sebrind wrote:
| My internal reading voice sounds like Tim Cook whenever I read
| Apple's announcements
| arriu wrote:
| So no changes to the 30% yet?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Not since the change in 2020 (where developers earnings less
| than $1 million pay 15%).
| CharlesW wrote:
| Not beyond their most recent change of commission being 15% for
| new developers, and developers who made less than $1M in the
| previous calendar year.
| grezql wrote:
| jayrhynas wrote:
| They introduced 15% for apps < $1M/year two years ago.
| throwaway4837 wrote:
| This shouldn't have to exist if it was designed properly from the
| start. This seems like backwards technology, something that is
| built on top of a legacy system and constrained by the design
| choices of that system. Perhaps that is why "upgrade" is in
| quotes.
| timbre1234 wrote:
| Give me an option to search for "no ads" in an app, or give me
| nothing. I've simply stopped buying iOS apps because I'm done
| with the ad loads.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| Likewise, I want to search for "no IAP" apps.
| [deleted]
| TrueGeek wrote:
| I don't mind IAP necessarily, but it's frustrating when you
| download an app and then it immediately says you have to pay
| $10 a month to even open it. Those shouldn't be listed as
| "free" in the App Store and should be separate from an app
| that might be "free" but have a minor feature disabled by an
| IAP.
| nailer wrote:
| Yep. "Ad Supported" is not "free"
| duxup wrote:
| This might not be what you want but Apple Arcade has slowly
| become the place I search for games. Quality of games is very
| high.
|
| No ads, no IAP. As a parent it is also handy for the same
| reasons as far as the kids devices go.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| It really is a great offering, especially when rolled into a
| family plan. Lots of high quality games on apple TV as well.
| Only problem is the OS limitation so I can't use a lot of
| older iPads I have lying around.
| MBCook wrote:
| Same.
|
| My only issue is as a long time iPhone user they have a lot
| of games labeled as "+" which means it was previously
| available but had cost money.
|
| There are many great games, but they're not with a lot to me
| as I've already played them.
|
| Great for people who hadn't though.
| lattalayta wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how do you feel about an app that is free to
| download but has ads, but has an In App Purchase to remove the
| ads?
|
| Reading some of the other comments, it sounds like some people
| really hate ads and in app purchases
| nreilly wrote:
| If the in-app purchase to remove ads is shareable across the
| family, then that's fine. If not, I'd prefer to just buy the
| app and have it share across my kids iPads instead.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I want to search for no subs. I dont want to see a result for a
| $5/week wallpaper app.
| intrasight wrote:
| What's a "sub"?
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| subscription (ongoing payment for app)
| metal_am wrote:
| Subscription
| aeternum wrote:
| No subs and no ads would be great.
| nomel wrote:
| I think that would be better covered by a "one time
| purchase" option. Otherwise, you're asking for either a
| "starve the dev" category, or something shadier like "show
| all apps that monetize my location".
| hackernewds wrote:
| There are models that work with barely any ads and subs.
| Google Maps is a great example.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Google Maps is full of ads. They're just not the kind
| you're used to. The POI it decides to show is partially a
| money game.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| No reason not to give the end use the flags for
| searching. You either get results or you don't. If
| someone wants to make a simple calculator and not charge
| for it, they should be allowed to do so and ideally apple
| will give the tools to the user to find such an app.
|
| Also, devs still do put ads in some purchasable apps So
| just having a "one time purchase" toggle doesnt solve the
| problem.
| devmor wrote:
| Same here. It's ridiculous that I should pay for an app and
| have to deal with banners and popups regardless.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Will this solve the issue that the $49.99 tier equals to a 59.99
| EUR price? I get a ton of messages every week by would-be Euro
| customers complaining why the fuck I am fleecing them with a
| 59.99 EUR price when the US price is $49.99 and the exchange rate
| is currently roughly 1:1.
| zimzam wrote:
| When it comes to differences in hardware prices between the US
| & EU, VAT taxes are often most of the difference: are there VAT
| taxes on app sales too?
| pasc1878 wrote:
| The EUR price includes VAT,
|
| Americans have this odd thing of quoting prices without tax
| which tends to be illegal elesewhere. OK the US does not have a
| sales type tax on digital goods,
| dhosek wrote:
| Depends on the location. Sales taxes are determined at the
| state, county and municipal level and apply to different
| things in different places (so, for example, Illinois does
| not charge sales tax on magazines, but California does, and
| the tax rate on a single donut may be higher than the tax
| rate on a dozen donuts (prepared food vs groceries).
| awinder wrote:
| Digital goods are taxed and my apple app receipts all have a
| tax line on them (US-based).
| chongli wrote:
| We have the same thing in Canada. Taxes are not included in
| the price so that people can be aware of how much tax they're
| paying and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Since sales
| taxes are charged on some products but not others, the price-
| conscious consumer can elect to choose the tax-free products
| over the tax-burdened ones.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| ???
|
| If taxes are included in price, the consumer can just look
| at the price and compare rather than jumping through the
| additional mental hoop to determine if one item is subject
| to sales tax, and what its price is in tgat case.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's one of those things that's advocated by tax-haters
| and _seems_ like it might do what they say it does, but
| in practice just makes life more annoying while doing
| nothing useful. See also: having to manually file taxes,
| no matter how simple.
| chongli wrote:
| If you have two items and sales taxes are included in the
| price of one but not the other, the only way you can know
| which one has the taxes on it is to go look at some
| government website that lists all of the categories the
| tax applies to and those it does not.
|
| On the other hand, if the taxes are not included in
| prices then you will see which one has taxes at checkout
| and elect not to purchase the item with taxes, preferring
| the item without taxes.
|
| Furthermore, with taxes included in prices you are more
| susceptible to unscrupulous vendors charging taxes that
| should not be applied and pocketing the extra margins.
| One example of that is with the manufacturer of Niche
| coffee grinders charging VAT to international customers
| and pocketing the extra margin.
| Strom wrote:
| > _the only way you can know which one has the taxes on
| it is to go look at some government website_
|
| In Europe the tax is listed separately on the bill by
| law, no need to visit any website.
| trophycase wrote:
| It's not about the consumer. The price is listed before
| tax to manipulate you into feeling like it's cheaper. If
| they add tax while you check out, you're basically
| already committed to purchasing the product.
| SllX wrote:
| There's a reason for that: we don't have VAT like you do.
|
| Here's an example: a base model iPhone 14 is $799. If I go to
| the Downtown San Francisco Apple Store, it is $868.12; if I
| go across a bridge to the Berkeley Apple Store it is $880.90;
| if I go from there across a different bridge to Corte Madera
| it is $870.91; if I go back through San Francisco down to the
| neighboring county to the Hillsdale Apple Store it is
| $875.90; and if I buy it in Cupertino, then it is $871.91. If
| I cross the State border with Oregon and go to an Apple Store
| in Tigard or Portland, then it is $799.
|
| Which is the price Apple should be showing on the Apple
| Store? They tell you at checkout because what you pay at the
| end is calculated according to your shipping address, and
| it's a line item: sales tax, but pricing is also marketing.
| Which price should Apple be quoting their American customers
| in national ad campaigns?
| Strom wrote:
| European states have different VAT rates too. A company
| advertises 999EUR and then depending on the state it can be
| either 832,5EUR + 166,5EUR VAT or 839,5EUR + 159,5EUR VAT
| or 799,2EUR + 199,8EUR VAT etc.
|
| In the case of Apple they sometimes do this and other times
| not. So for example the iPhone 14 is 999EUR in both Germany
| and Austria, even though they have 19% vs 20% VAT rates.
| However in Finland which has a 24% rate the iPhone 14 is
| 1039EUR.
| SllX wrote:
| And does Apple have one Apple Online Store and App Store
| for the Eurozone or do they have separate Online and App
| Stores for each EU member they operate in in the local
| languages and currencies (for the EU and Eurozone are not
| even perfectly aligned)?
|
| Almost every example I gave was within one State:
| California, except for the two I tacked on at the end
| from California's nearest northern neighbor in Oregon.
| All of the California examples were within the same metro
| area (the San Francisco Bay Area) but different counties.
| There is one US website, and one US App Store.
|
| It is not the same situation, only seemingly
| superficially similar until further inspection.
| Strom wrote:
| Local municipality taxes exist in Europe too. Some cities
| have an extra 1% tax for example and Apple isn't exempt
| from that. The price still remains what they advertise
| for the larger region.
| richrichardsson wrote:
| VAT, everyone forgets about it.
|
| I had a similar conversation with someone on Twitter
| complaining that the latest iPhone was much more expensive in
| EU, but once you factored in VAT and some import costs and the
| fact that apple.com shows the $ price without any sales tax
| there wasn't actually such a great disparity.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| As an American who deals in no VAT ever, is something like a
| 20% vat (10 on 50) normal?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://taxfoundation.org/vat-rates-europe-2019/
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