> though it is a lot easier and cheaper to switch mobile platforms
Try telling that to your customers. "Yeah sure just sell your phone and buy an Android device to use our app". And having them use Safari? Yeah right. Apple doesn't even provide push notifications for web apps. Have you ever wondered why that is?
The fact is, if your customer has an iOS device, you must include Apple in the transaction and pay them 30%. And if you're a smaller developer there's no way they will let you get away with what Netflix and Epic have done. Oh you thought the review process was completely fair and impartial? Well, i've got some bad news about that too.
Seeing how websites have abused push notifications I don’t blame them. A happy medium would be only to allow push notifications for websites that the user has saved to their home screen.
That could work. Though i'd argue by now users know what they know what they are getting themselves into when accepting a push notification - and the notifications pane in settings for disabling them has been working just fine.
It would keep expectations more consistent. A website that was saved to the home screen would be a signal that the user wanted to treat it as an app. When they delete the website from their home screen, they would stop getting notifications. Apple could even manage website notifications in that case in the same settings screen as apps.
> The fact is, if your customer has an iOS device, you must include Apple in the transaction and pay them 30%
This is false.
What Netflix and Epic are doing is completely within the terms Apple has laid out. The only thing they can't do is direct their iOS app customers elsewhere for the purpose of a monetary transaction.
And it's not limited to big corps. There are countless examples of small developers doing the exact same thing. For example, I subscribe to 1Password for use on my iOS device, and Apple doesn't get a single cent of that subscription fee.
Except 1Password is a huge and very well known product, and it could be argued that the software takes places outside the app and therefore is exempt from IAP.
AgileBits are a very small private company with just one noteworthy product and fewer than 100 employees. Calling them "huge and very well known" is objectively absurd.
You're complaining about the experience from a developer, which is not what this analogy is about. No, Wal-Mart isn't allowed to run their own business in a company town.
As for push notifications—it's not surprising that Apple doesn't allow the HTTP version because it would be chaos for battery life. Besides, any website can offer a totally free native app that simply performs push notifications for your site. You don't need to give up 30% of anything to Apple for that.
As someone thats submitted over 50 apps to the app store over the last 8 yrs through my agency I disagree. Try submitting a "totally free native app that only performs push notifications for your site" and watch them immediately reject your app for not being "App-like enough". How do I know this? Because I've actually done it. Sorry but your idealistic opinions just don't reflect reality.
I've submitted a multitude of apps to the App Store as well. Of course Apple will reject it if you try to make it simply perform notifications—but exceeding that hilariously low bar is honestly not difficult for anyone with an ounce of creativity.
> As for push notifications—it's not surprising that Apple doesn't allow the HTTP version because it would be chaos for battery life.
Web push notifications use a browser-vendor-provided server to trigger notifications, the exact same architecture as APNS.
> Besides, any website can offer a totally free native app that simply performs push notifications for your site. You don't need to give up 30% of anything to Apple for that.
Iff you buy a Mac, pay their dev fees, rewrite your site as a native app, and put up with their review bullshit. That's not really an alternative to them supporting the standard.
Not only is it chaos for battery life, web push notifications are almost entirely spam. The web should have never added them in the first place. I’m glad that Apple stands against that crap.
Notifications are opt in. I actually find them useful for the news sites and blogs I care about. Forcing someone to make native app just to send notifications is wrong.
Exactly, I am sick of websites asking me to enable notifications. Apps asking me to allow notifications. At the end of the day, rarely is the app worthy of that sort of interruption. I've absolutely never seen a website that can justify. But they will still somehow notify you about enabling notifications. Companies have a delusional vision that their particular product is that important to their users. It isn't.
For many social media, dating, discussion forum apps where users want to be notified of DM's or replies to their threads push notifications is essential. Just because you don't think its valuable for you doesn't mean users shouldn't have the choice.
Social media has little value and hilariously enough dating apps are actually incredibly terrible with notifications. The average website or app though will annoy the fuck out you. Those have absolutely no need for implementing it. A notification to rate the app, a notification reminder to use the site, a notification to...
You listed the very limited set of notifications that are useful. and while there could be a couple more, everyone else should stop asking and doing it
Straight forward use case example: any web based messenger. But browser UI for the notification enable request has to be good. The one I know (Firefox) is terrible.
Try telling that to your customers. "Yeah sure just sell your phone and buy an Android device to use our app". And having them use Safari? Yeah right. Apple doesn't even provide push notifications for web apps. Have you ever wondered why that is?
The fact is, if your customer has an iOS device, you must include Apple in the transaction and pay them 30%. And if you're a smaller developer there's no way they will let you get away with what Netflix and Epic have done. Oh you thought the review process was completely fair and impartial? Well, i've got some bad news about that too.