Apple's position on this is really untenable as they market the iPhone as a device for work as well as personal communication. In the policy, they are saying that you can only buy ads without IAPs if it's some kind of multimedia campaign management app. Fine, that makes sense if you're running a corporate marketing campaign. How does it make sense if you're a small business running a small-time campaign? This is yet another overreach of the IAP model. It makes some kind of sense to have it for purchases that unlock app features or content, but IAP to buy an ad on Facebook makes no more sense than an IAP to buy a real-life piece of furniture: the terms of the transaction are completely outside the scope of "stuff the app does".
I agree about the over reach part. I am not an Apple apologist at all and agree with others that when device growth stalls (it will) and then services growth stalls (it will) Apple when then really start its ads push and a further push into getting it's 30% tribute on all app purchases.
But, This isn't yet a stretch into all ad spend - I do think Apple will go there too eventually.
In practice Apple is saying paying to boost an organic post is in effect an "in app purchase". They are correct. The purchase happens in the Facebook "blue" app. I actually haven't seen or done it with a boosted post but that is what Apple is saying. You post something via the Facebook "blue" app...get a notice that it's been seen by a few people, so pay a bit to get it seen by more and all of that is done via that one app....so an "in app purchse".
Regular ads are done with the Ads Manager app....a separate app from the Facebook "blue" app. So, ads themselves are not yet subject to this 30% bounty. Again I haven't done it on the app but in the web ads manager you can boost a post from there too so likely you can in the Ads Manager app...not sure though. If you can then you avoid the 30%. I suspect most if not all small businesses, etc have no idea what Ads Manager is or are not very familiar with it.
I have a particular disdain for the app store generally so I don't like this at all. But, you can see where Apple has been and will go...force everything to an app instead of mobile web browser (by nerfing webkit on iOS) than force 30% tribute on "purchases".
I have no idea how this escapes any anti trust scrutiny, especially compared to what M$FT did with IE back in the day and got dinged for it.
> You post something via the Facebook "blue" app...get a notice that it's been seen by a few people, so pay a bit to get it seen by more and all of that is done via that one app....so an "in app purchse".
I just don't see how this is something other than a simplified way of buying an ad, like in the Ads Manager. Sure, there are influencers and wannabe-influencers who pay to boost their posts for clout or something, that doesn't change the fact that this has a real business application. And for that use, it seems like Apple is modifying the status quo by taking something that used to not be an IAP (buying an ad) and deciding that you can't have a new way of buying one without using the IAP system. Maybe it was actually about whether it's all in one app or not rather than the nature of the purchase. But I don't think that describes the status quo of how these rules work, wouldn't the logical extreme be that you should be able to buy Kindle books in the Amazon Shopping app?
Yes, it is an ad. The only distinction is the boosted "ad" starts life as an organic post instead of a created ad.
Yes, Apple modified the status quo...they didn't enforce this for Meta until recently - Twitter, TikTok et al all pay via IAP and Apple is now enforcing this for Meta.
Yes again, it is related to the fact that boosted posts are done via the Facebook app and the economic value is created in that same app vs Ads Manager where the "purchase" is in the Ads Manager app and the economic value shows up in the Facebook app - or on the web.
And...yes, the rules are fluid from Apple. Yeah, I think it makes logical sense per the IAP rules to buy a Kindle book in the Amazon app and then consume it in the Kindle app but I bet Apple and Amazon had talks about that and Apple would not guarantee they would not try to get 30% of those sales so Amazon said...nope, not able to buy a Kindle book on the Amazon iOS app. Which, is exactly what Meta was doing till Apple "clarified" its rules and now wants them to pay for boosted...
Our firm is small and we avoid any possibility of Apple trying to grab 30% or our revenue...so, no app for us at all.
Ads are not affected. This is about "boosts", which is a Facebook word meaning "An additional tax you pay to artificially prioritize your ad over un-boosted ads".
> How does it make sense if you're a small business running a small-time campaign?
You should ask yourself why Facebook followers of a business don't see posts from that business unless they're "boosted".
This will set a precedent though. Once they start taxing boosts they are just a couple moves away from taxing any kind of Ad buying.
What’s worrisome about this is that Apple is using it’s dominant position to possibly tax every transaction that happens in their ecosystem.
In a couple of years they could demand Amazon, Uber, DoorDash, etc. to pay fees too. Perhaps not 30% but they could certainly add a 3% fee to all those transactions. Something that looks reasonable to the public opinion and yet something that’s fundamentally fucked.
This is Apple operating like the IRS for their profit.
How is a boosted post not a type of ad campaign? It's paying for placement of your advertising. Whether Facebook is being fair to businesses is irrelevant. If it was about the practice being too immoral to allow in the app store they could ban Facebook from showing boosted posts in the feed on their app, but instead Apple is just trying to enforce the use of IAPs to buy them.
They are really asking to have the App Store regulated, aren’t they.
It’s not like Facebook is a competitor of theirs, and they’re already making plenty of cash and market share. Why stir the pot and give regulators even more ammunition?
I’ve just finished “After Steve” by Tripp Mickle and it strikes me as a good interpretation of the last 10 years at Apple strategically.
- Apple was pretty much dead when Steve Jobs came back but he rescued it through a string of great products (iMac, iPod, OSX Macs, iPhone and iPad)
- When Tim Cook succeeded Steve he knew he wasn’t a product person so Jony Ive took on that role
- Thanks to (mainly) the iPhone Apple stock started climbing and more and more investors started taking an interest in the company
- The iPhone 6 and 6S were the turning point - the 6 sending the stock through the roof and the 6S crashing it. As far as investors are concerned, the trouble with product companies are that you’re only one quarter away from disaster
- Ive struggled with his grief over losing Jobs, plus the weight of being the company figurehead without Jobs to shield him and gradually withdrew from Apple
- Acquiring Beats and launching Apple Music, plus the revenue from the ever growing App Store offered Tim Cook a way out, in the eyes of investors.
- Apple changed their strategy to become a services company that values recurring revenue rather than one reliant on continuing product innovation. Cook was quite explicit about this but it’s taken a few years for the shift from products company to services to become apparent.
> Apple changed their strategy to become a services company that values recurring revenue rather than one reliant on continuing product innovation.
Apple's hardware revenue, both in general and in specific categories such as iPhone, Mac, and iPad, is higher now than ever before. Plus now they have Watch, AirPods, etc.
Apple is pursuing "services" revenue simply because it can. It's a supplement for hardware revenue, not a replacement. It's easy money, because customers are locked in. The margins on "services" revenue are practically obscene.
IMO the jury is probably still out on whether or not this strategic change has been made and cemented into the culture.
At this scale these types of strategic changes play out on a large time horizon (decades) so from an external perspective it is difficult to know.
If Jobs were still CEO I'd expect him to be continually looking for the next breakthrough in consumer technology. Are the leaders at apple currently doing that? I don't know. I have heard that they may be investing into a self driving car play.
Also if Jobs were still CEO I wouldn't be surprised to have seen Apple behave as they have in the past 15 years (slurping up easy revenue like headphones, recurring revenue services) but as a visionary Jobs would concurrently be intensely focused on the future.
> Apple's hardware revenue, both in general and in specific categories such as iPhone, Mac, and iPad, is higher now than ever before. Plus now they have Watch, AirPods, etc.
If you look at the trajectory of iPhone sales (others devices barely matter), its reaching a peak. As are smartphone sales in general.
Last quarter, iPhone was 49% of Apple's total revenue, other devices 28%. Obviously iPhone is the biggest, but I wouldn't say 28% barely matters. That 28% is by itself bigger than most companies in the world.
> its reaching a peak
You could have said the same thing in, say, 2018. There are peaks and valleys. I'm not sure anyone can predict the future. In any case, hardware accounts for 77% of Apple's revenue currently.
>- When Tim Cook succeeded Steve he knew he wasn’t a product person so Jony Ive took on that role
I would argue in Steve's calculation, Tim Cook was suppose to settle any dispute between Ive and Scot Forstall. And Ive would stick to Industrial Product Design. While the Software would be from another Team of UI expert.
Instead Tim Cook gave every design decision to Ive. And Tim Cook "merged" those group together in the name of "collaboration". A few from HIG Group retired due to conflict with Ive. And we end up with iOS7.
>- Acquiring Beats and launching Apple Music, plus the revenue from the ever growing App Store offered Tim Cook a way out, in the eyes of investors.
I am pretty sure that is Eddy Cue's idea. Arguably the current Apple seems to be Eddy Cue's Apple. Apple Music, Apple TV+.
I think that at this point they know that in future, app store will be regulated. Thats why they have these offensive policies targeted towards specific companies. Earn now as much as possible from this, while its still possible.
Depending on which products get flagged as a core platform service by the European Commission, the digital markets act (DMA) may already be hitting them.
> It’s not like Facebook is a competitor of theirs
Apple's about to launch a new virtual reality headset in just over 2 months, that'll directly compete with Facebook.[0] Facebook's product, unlike pre-iPhone smartphones, is very decent, and Apple seems to target a high price, so the competition will likely be fierce.
2 months is hardly far into the future, and no Apple analyst would agree that it's irrelevant. People expect it to be bigger than Apple Watch, and to eventually supplant both computers and phones.
I do so love the wild ideas of tech market theorists. People really believe that they're going to put smart glasses on everyone's faces? That they can fit in all-day batteries? How exactly do we type into this head-mounted beast? Will the contrast be remotely acceptable for movies? I don't think these problems can be completely solved for the majority of users.
You'd do much better comparing them to smart watches and second screens. That's where they can actually work.
> "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," Ed Colligan apparently laughed about with John Markoff last Thursday morning. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." [0]
You ask good questions! But you make the same mistake as you accuse the tech market theorists of: You seem to think you know what is (or isn't) going to happen, and what dimensions an unreleased product should be measured on.
Apple like Nintendo doesn't primarily market their products based on specs, or on expected use cases. Novel interfaces and uses are far more important to creating demand for a new product than meeting the spec and feature expectations of the market (or market watchers) before the product is announced.
They said 10 years, hence why I picked 1997 as the year specifically. The average person in 1997 could not comprehend the iPhone a mere ten years later, just as we today cannot comprehend 2032 in terms of VR/AR/XR glasses.
What I said was that VR gear won't replace smart phones in the next 10 years.
So it isn't about presence (after all, we have and have had VR/AR/XR equipment for quite some time now), but rather about relative ubiquity and obsolescence of what came before (in this case, replacing smart phones).
I might have a blind spot here (or lack imagination), but I think some of the reasons why I don't see these glasses making mobile phones obsolete in a 10 year time frame as a confluence of:
- people in the US by and large prefer not to wear things on their faces (is it seen as weak, esthetically unpleasing, sign of old age?)
- mobile phones (and smart watches, etc.) provide a good balance between mobility and utility
- if VR/AR/XR moves to contact lenses, the first point goes away but you will still need input mechanisms etc. and I doubt that contact lens formats will be able to supplant photographing/video and music playback which has become such a big use case for mobile phones.
Arguing against myself (somewhat): I think for VR/AR/XR to be truly successful, you need to feed the experience directly into the brain because that gives you high fidelity, high mobility, and removes the physical barriers that a contraption on your head brings. But that is even further out than 20 years, assuming humans don't retaliate against the idea of interpersonal communications that is so heavily mediated (read: manipulated) by a company (this happens in social media already).
People have said the exact same things about phones ("who'd want to carry around a device in their pocket everywhere? It'd be too heavy and annoying"). Really, it's simply a lack of imagination. People wear glasses and contacts all the time and no one bats an eye (metaphorically speaking at least).
It is going to be an interesting technical challenge to build contact lenses (or glasses) that, within the next 10 years:
- have enough compute to render the virtual artifacts
- are self-powered (maybe from electrical impulses from your body?)_
- have some way to get input
- can power your headphones
- have storage (or networking capability)
WITHOUT you having to carry another device on you (likely a smart watch or smart ring or smart phone).
Anyway, I think we're getting bogged down in boring device debate. The more interesting thing (which you allude to somewhat) is how weird / different the future virtual world will be. My money is on it being more Borg-like and less Matrix-like.
I think Apple's perspective is that they do what they want and tell and pay people (i.e., lobbyists, regulators, and politicians) to say that they don't want it regulated. They have unbelievable market power.
> It’s not like Facebook is a competitor of theirs
In a way, yes: both are competing for ad dollars in the iOS space.
If Facebook is forced to slow down or increase ad prices, those are dollars that may end up in Apple ad network, if the customer is targeting iOS users.
> Why stir the pot and give regulators even more ammunition?
Probably if they make more profit then X then the bosses on top get a GIANT bonus. If profits don't grow but are still profitable the bonus will be smaller, and we all know this guys want a bigger yacht or sport car each year. If in 5-10 years Apple will not be good for bonuses they management retire or move to the next place.
> It’s not like Facebook is a competitor of theirs
If Facebook is not a competitor then there's no issue is there? The regulator would step in if there were unfair competition. If they're not competing then there can't be any unfair competition.
They closed a loophole that Facebook was exploiting, this is clearly a grave injustice (also Facebook already has another loophole they can exploit that mostly covers it).
I'm convinced Zuck wakes up every morning screaming because he didn't start making a phone when Google/Apple did and just trusted that being a platform on top of every phone was more important, never realizing the foundations would eventually shift this much.
I think that one major difference is that the iPhone supported an "easy" way to do software updates, which was never a thing prior to smartphones.
Remember that the iPhone wasn't really that good at launch, either. No copy/paste, no App Store, etc. There is a scene in the movie Sex and the City, which was filmed pre-launch (right?). One character hands an iPhone to the other, who looks at it for a few seconds and says something along the lines of "I don't know how to use this" and hands it back.
Apple’s strategy to handicap Safari/Web is paying off big time, but it is hitting consumers.
If local businesses are going to be charged an extra 30% tax to notify people of events, then they are just going to slow down. If we get rid of targeted advertisements, then all the ads will be mega-corps and erection pills. Already seeing niche tech companies close shop because no one knows they exist.
In an interesting way, Apple’s system is providing consolidation of sellers towards amazon.
I also think that Apple’s approach to killing the web is what killed stadia, as google knew they were not going to be allowed to get an html version working, and customers wouldn’t pay an additional apple tax to play games over apps.
> Apple’s strategy to handicap Safari/Web is paying off big time, but it is hitting consumers.
This has nothing to do with Safari. This is about Apple taking a cut of in-app purchases for a niche case where it formerly did not. As TFA notes, Apple had been politely asking Facebook (not users, as you suggest) to do this for years.
Or, this has everything to do with safari because surely Apple wishes that every experience with the web was through apps so they would make 30% of all e-commerce revenue.
Is the situation that different on android? AFAIK anyone can ship a full fledged browser there. But I got the impression that native apps are just a heavily favoured as on iOS.
Can someone explain how they “handicap” safari? If they are handicapping it, somehow every website I frequent has gotten around the issue at least well enough that I am not forced to go for an app experience.
I don't get it everyone and their VCs is forcing you to build native apps because they can extract more data than from an PWA or website. They could allow every rendering engine and they would still force you to install the app. The only exception might be telegram their mobile pwa is quite nice.
> If we get rid of targeted advertisements, then all the ads will be mega-corps and erection pills. Already seeing niche tech companies close shop because no one knows they exist.
The headline is more sensational than you're describing. This is the act of buying a specific kind of ad "boosting your content" which is more akin to a digital service consumed in-app than AdWords spend. They aren't taxing putting ads in your app.
You are correct, but it won't be the last change we see with regards to ads, if this one sticks you'll see another grab 6-18 months from now. Right now they are bumping the temp up just one degree to get that frog to a nice simmer.
All billboards are by definition untargeted ads, and they are not at all only for "megaa-corps and erection pills". You can still use context to target an ad at a particular audience e.g. a hosting provider advertising on StackOverflow.
By that definition every ad is targeted, unless it's on the front page of reddit or something. Every website has at least some kind of theme to target to
how far will apple take their in-app purchases? It's really getting ridiculous. Will they also request their share if I transfer some money from my bank account via app? Buy a new sofa? A share from airbnb if I rent a spare room? I bet airbnb lets me manage set up the whole experience in their app.
We slowly turn into a world where everything can be managed via an app and apple getting their share on everything is quite ridiculous.
EDIT: I completely forgot that the apple tax is 30%. Unbelievably high.
Apple's been consistent: digital goods and services.
The debate with Facebook reported in WSJ back in August (https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-apple-vs-facebook-pr...) Apple was saying "boosts" are a service to raise the profile of your dating profile or media posts, while FB was saying they were ads to avoid paying for them. All other apps (TikTok and the dating apps) consider it a service, only FB/Insta were playing this game.
This clarification shouldn't have been necessary, FB was playing a game, and Apple closed the loophole.
> unbelievably high
It's not unbelievably high, go have a look at what any platform charges. Also, remember the rate drops in year two, and for those making less than a threshold, etc. etc., so it's not 30%, it's considerably less overall.
They'll take it as far as necessary to to make the same off providing app store services any platform makes for distribution, such as Steam makes off providing Steam.
The problem with IAP is that at 0% for the app itself, Apple cannot offset the costs of the platform they are providing for distribution. So if they take their cut off app sales, then apps give themselves away for free, and charge the price as an IAP, Apple's stuck. They have no choice but to take it off IAP.
> This clarification shouldn't have been necessary, FB was playing a game, and Apple closed the loophole.
That's objectively untrue. This is a new rule, and as The Verge correctly says, "it’s the first time Apple has directly taxed advertising in iOS apps".
Facebook's app was charging advertisers directly for years, without IAP, and Apple approved it. They simply never had an issue with it. Now, they're forcing FB to comply with a brand new rule.
The notion that Facebook was exploiting a loophole is outright Apple PR-speak. Apple was forced to frame is as a brand new policy, otherwise they'd face scrutiny for letting Facebook supposedly "evade" the previous rules.
And that WSJ article documents a disturbing trend of Apple trying to use their leverage to destroy Facebook. Hurting Facebook ads, and then actively pressuring Facebook to switch to a subscription model that Apple would take 30% from, is very dodgy.
> at's objectively untrue. This is a new rule, and as The Verge correctly says, "it’s the first time Apple has directly taxed advertising in iOS apps".
Whole point is that is not objective, it's subjective, and FB is in the minority for considering it true. It's bad reporting by Verge to report it so, but good for their clicks and controversy. There's no story otherwise.
The Verge sentence is the untrue statement, if the position is that a user boosting the user's reach is a service, not an ad. It never occurred to me that tapping to give my post more visibility was an ad, but rather distribution or shelf space.
Goods in a grocery store, brands can pay for shelf space. If you see one mayo placed at eye level, vs. one by the floor, is that an ad? I'd argue it is not. The thing in the TV or magazine or back of your receipt is an ad.
Similarly the "pay for play" radio payola scandal was not considered ads, it was considered unfair/deceptive/monopolistic, but not ads.
Apple is doing none of the things Verge tossed out as clickbait, or you allege as bad faith. After pressing FB to behave, for a while, they eventually closed a loophole. This happens in business contracts routinely.
This is why almost all legalese is a Chesterton's Fence:
I've bought "digital gold" quite a few times from apps (in India). So they could demand 30% out of that as well? Apple's greed is now getting to ridiculous levels.
Again, 30% is market rate across the board. You can find analysis on what a quality marketplace trusted by users costs, it's much more than people think. And the benefit to an app of being in a trusted market is high.
In the US, public companies have a fiduciary obligation to shareholders to earn.
It's unclear to me why Apple should keep money out of the pockets of teachers and firemen invested in them through pension funds, just to charge below market rates for the most trusted marketplace where devs make (by far) the most money.
As noted in the reporting, Apple does not take a % for services that happen entirely outside of the app.
Instructing your bank to wire money to another bank, you use the app to communicate to your bank for free, then the service is entirely between non digital entities entirely outside of the app and outside of the app's backend.
This distribution fee, the writer of the post and the reader of the post it got distributed to are both in the app.
. . .
> Transferring money between banks accounts via an app seems like a digital service. How is it not?
My prior job, I spent a billion dollars working to make that digital. If you look around, you'll see that across the entire banking system it's still almost entirely not. Even when it is end-to-end electronic, it doesn't at all happen "in the app".
The app is a glorified front-office teller and tellers don't charge you a fee. The money movement service happens in the back office, and may have a fee.
> Even when it is end-to-end electronic, it doesn't at all happen "in the app".
This delineation still seems unclear. I might write something in an app, and someone else read it in the same app, but it doesn't all happen in the app either. There's a backend, and the app is a glorified typist.
No, it is a 30% price for using their service. The digital economy is not completely owned by Apple.
I get that the article called it a tax, but Apple isn't a state, they respond to market pressures, if people don't like it they can do business elsewhere.
That's what Apple's lawyers argue. The 30% is to pay for Xcode and the APIs. It's BS; Apple's providing an iPhone SDK willingly in order to make the iPhone a viable product.
The argument completely falls apart when you consider that Windows devs don't need to pay Microsoft a per-unit sale tax, beyond paying for Visual Studio Enterprise licenses (which are completely optional; there's many other IDEs). Microsoft charging devs for Windows APIs would be nonsensical.
Running the App Store is just a cost of doing business. Again, nobody forced Apple to. It benefits them tremendously, and benefits users as well. Why gouge devs?
I don't buy the argument really that it is "to pay for" Xcode. It is just another revenue stream and they charge what they can get. Microsoft would charge for their product if people were willing to pay for it.
No different than the iPhone itself. Apple has already paid for the iPhone out of their coffers before you buy it. Your purchase is nothing more than another source of revenue that replenishes those coffers. It is just a colloquialism to say that the money you spent was to pay for the iPhone, as it is for Xcode in this case.
The OS that comes with their hardware basically ensures the digital economy is owned by Apple if you want to use an Apple product. I challenge anyone to distribute any moderately UI-heavy software to iPhone users without using the app store.
I think it’s high, but it’s also industry standard.
Steam is pretty beloved in PC gaming, and they take 30%. Microsoft and Sony take an equivalent percent for any game to run on their respective consoles. Google takes 30% from the Play Store for anything over $1M.
There is some nuance and discounts for all these platforms depending on volume but the economics are mostly the same. 30% goes to the platform.
We should all be scratching our heads and wondering how the entire industry seems to have coalesced around 30% or how competition isn’t driving it down at all. Hmmm.
> Steam is pretty beloved in PC gaming, and they take 30%.
> 30% goes to the platform.
The platform is Windows, not Steam. (Or arguably the platform is Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc., but in any case not Steam.) You don't need to be on Steam to be on PC.
The issue isn't the App Store cut per se, the issue is having to be in the App Store to be on the iPhone. You never had to do that on Windows or Mac.
When it's the only distribution channel, I disagree. It's a pedantic point, either way.
>The issue isn't the App Store cut per se, the issue is having to be in the App Store to be on the iPhone. You never had to do that on Windows or Mac.
...but you do have to do it with Xbox, Playstation, and Switch. You technically don't have to do it on Android, but only technically. In reality you have to be in the Play Store for market reasons. Truly the only exception here is desktop operating systems.
> Truly the only exception here is desktop operating systems.
Why are desktop operating systems the exception rather than the rule? Desktop preceded mobile by decades. They are the precedent.
I don't think game consoles are a good comparison, because they're an entirely different beast for several reasons. For one, a game console has only a few thousand games total, which is completely unlike general purpose computing platforms.
From a developer perspective, being in a store with only 2 thousand games and being in a store with more than 2 million apps is like day and night. You might as well be invisible in the crApp Store.
>Will they also request their share if I transfer some money from my bank account via app? Buy a new sofa? A share from airbnb if I rent a spare room?
Honestly, why not? I mean if the justification for app store apps handing over a cut currently is "Apple provides the infrastructure and frameworks your app relies on" well that same infrastructure is used when I order a pizza in Uber Eats, when I book an AirBnb, when I do a bank transfer. Why does Apple only get a cut of someone those and not others.
Not defending it more pointing out the argument doesn't hold up when it applies to some but not all transactions.
Well, I was serious in my argument. It is a somewhat realistic next step in my point of view but I consider it absurd, hence the next sentence that we move slowly to a world entirely managed by smartphones and apple honestly just can't get 30% slice of everything just because it's a transaction on an app.
Where is the point where monopolies extract too much value? We have broken up companies before because they treated other unfair and it can be done again if they escalate beyond reason.
Think we're in agreement might have worded my post poorly, on a long enough timeline having to pay Apple a 30% cut of your holiday rental of pizza as absurd as it sounds to some people today just sounds like the logical conclusion when we already pay them 30% of say an videogame item or app subscription.
"The App Store is now called Apple Stores, a touchphone that sells everything (provided by our third party resellers). If you dont like our stores go shop elsewhere.
I wonder if there is a legal case here, by apple forcefully escalating the business relationship from neutral/orthogonal transactions to one where facebook is forced to be a partner of apple. (And monopoly issues arising from the fact that Apple now has a business interest in increasing facebook's ad sales)
> And monopoly issues arising from the fact that Apple now has a business interest in increasing facebook's ad sales
This is the real downside here. Apple is incentivized to want people to use Facebook boosts and only takes 30% of there revenue away -- so 70% goes toward reinforcing this awful surveillance system.
I think Apple already does get your share, because almost everything in the Apple Store is more expensive than it is otherwise, because companies pass the tax down onto consumers.
I think the first few lines are fear mongering. Apple is obviously not going to ask for a cut when you transfer money in a banking app, pretty sure that will borderline be illegal. Same goes for E-commerce.
> We slowly turn into a world where everything can be managed via an app
Is it not fair then, for a company creating a platform for the app, making your app available to billions of users, while also keeping the platform safe and providing new features and capabilities consistently to ask for a cut of transactions made on their platform?
As an App Store developer, I eagerly await those billions of users.
Marketing is hard, and expensive. I don't expect Apple to do my marketing for me — and they don't — but let's not pretend that Apple is providing customers. Potential != Actual. Moreover, the existence of 3rd party apps is a selling point for Apple devices. Do we developers get a cut of Apple's hardware sales?
> while also keeping the platform safe
The crap store is full of scams. And now it's advertising gambling all over the place, even in the listings of non-gambling apps.
Is it fair to consumers that they pay a lot of money for a new shiny Apple device, but after they take the device home, Apple continues to demand a cut of things that consumers do on those devices, forever?
I would say no, because of the lock-in. Your argument would make more sense if I could go off and browse any one of a hypothetical 20 competing platforms, but that's not the case.
I'm old enough to remember when Facebook started extracting an IAP tax on their own app platform where none previously existed. So forgive me for enjoying this particular turn of the wheel.
I wonder what the ultimate fate of apps will be. If browsers get great sandbox features and hardware acceleration with access to all sensors will there be a future for apps?
Apple is pretty incentivized to not allow that future to be realized so we’ll see.
Though I do see the value of curation, reviews and exposure, it’s not really clear from me technically why you can’t side load apps onto iPhones easily.
What really is the relevant difference between an app and an installed website using browser APIs? When apps were introduced it seemed like a big difference, but now I'm not sure it is.
>If you install the app then they can proactively annoy ... sorry ... engage you.
I remember how I had all notifications and jingle bells on when I got my first smartphone back in 2015/2016. Nowadays turning off notifications is the first thing I do, and then turning them on for selected apps (e.g., phone, Telegram, etc). It helps I don't have social media apps in my phone, and whatever I use I access it in the browser (e.g., Twitter and Reddit).
Not on iOS they can’t - iOS _requires_ developers to go through all the hassle, fees, and taxes of creating an App-Store App if they want to use what every other platform considers a “standard web browser feature"
I think website notifications in Safari will be fine for techies and others who use HN. But it will make many "normal" people's phones look like notification hell.
3D APIs, the best you can get is a PlayStation 3 like hardware, while on native you will get whatever the last version of Metal/Vulkan/DX 12 will give you.
Don't expect ray tracing or mesh shaders coming to 3D Web during the next decade.
I’d settle for PS3 quality experiences on mobile web. Most of my side projects are 2D games. It just want to deploy them to web and allow users on phones to easily play them full screen.
You're saying it a future tense, but browsers already have these capabilities. Apple just doesn't allow any browser engines that would embarrass Safari.
There isn't even a performance gap any more. A lot of CSS rendering is GPU-accelerated these days. There's WASM and WebGPU for heavy computation, and it works, e.g. web-based Figma has become a $20 billion threat to Adobe's native applications.
OTOH SwiftUI is still immature and a big step backwards in performance.
In the case of mobile web games, most of the perceived performance gap is due to game engines not optimizing for web experience. If you use a low level Webgl rendering library, or build you own renderer, it becomes apparent that WebGl 2 is capable to deliver a range of products far exceeding what currently exists in that space.
If Safari just allowed users to hide the address/tab bar to play games it would suddenly make web games, of App Store quality, instantly viable.
You can already do this by adding the page to your Home Screen. The real issue is the lack of notifications and access to sensors and device internals.
Interesting. Apple won't give up its golden goose without a fight. Nor Google by that matter. Remember that Google is basically the one investing lots of cash with chrome.
They won't decimate their android devs nor their huge investment in the android ecosystem. Heck , by a business perspective alone, they have +80% of the mobile landscape. Are they going to give up this edge just because?
Also, the app/play stores sold convenience, easiness, and confidence of app installs. Gen Z basically knows how to use app/play stores to find what they want and there's an article stating they're even using TikTok to search for things. That part over there tells you where do you need to put your $$$. Bet money google is trying to come up with ways to attract that segment.
We as devs have to be prepared for everything society throws at us. From improving our web dev skills to learn a mobile framework should the occasion arise (RN, Flutter, Maui? tauri probably?).
I personally, as with Meta and metaverse as of this moment, don't see myself using web installs to mobile apps any time soon. Web apps have their purposes and mobile apps have theirs too. More diversification (platforms) is better.
They're doing it because it's in theirs best interest to keep the duopoly intact. Heck, even Bill Gates regrets not join to that party early on. You can rest assured neither google nor apple will let this massive advantage go to waste. It's really difficult to have a monopoly/duopoly in today's world. They are threading carefully not to make much noise and keep the status quo intact. Web is good but they'll be another fish in the sea.
> If browsers get great sandbox features and hardware acceleration with access to all sensors
Seems like you already realize this, but at least on iPhone, they won't. Apple will continue to sandbag safari while banning other browser engines in order to nudge users toward apps.
> If browsers get great sandbox features and hardware acceleration with access to all sensors will there be a future for apps?
Sounds like surveillance hell. Websites already abuse "location" permissions to scoop up data on their users. There's no way this pattern of behaviour won't extend to every other input on a phone. And you can't firewall an SPA from "phoning home" because phoning home is often essential to its basic function. Not that apps are much better in this regard thanks to the lack of user freedom on iOS.
It’s already slimy that social networks, Meta’s most prominently, cut users off from the people who choose to follow them unless they pay for these sorts of things, so this is just slime on top of slime. All our most valuable companies, rolling around in nasty slop.
Indeed, nobody outside FB cares that Apple makes their life harder, per se. The issue is that Apple changes their "rules" all the time, and wields enormous power not only over the other giants, but everyone, especially those that have or aspire to run honest digital businesses of different sorts. Not only do they take a massive cut of it, but they're directly competing with those they "moderate" (aka rule over), in many instances.
The result of these companies growing like cancer into every related field, is that it gridlocks and stifles innovation. We've seen this with AT&T and Microsoft. It's always bad for consumers.
Once the iPhone is essentially the natural monopoly/common carrier, how well do you think society will be able to regulate it from becoming ultra dominant?
Don't fall into the fallacy that "things popular with young people" means that they will stay popular as they age. The social pressures that are driving people to use iOS (iMessage being the preferred messaging app) falls off over time.
Also, i consider that the US is strategically interested to maintain the semi-monopolies of Google / MS / Facebook because of their worldwide influence. But apple being a predominantly american monopoly, is more likely to draw antitrust litigation.
I'm not a friend or fan of Meta, but I'm astonished at the chutzpah of this move. Reaching into an app and taxing transactions between the developer and the user that have nothing to do with the App Store.
We are once again in the days of robber barons. Apple must be brought to heel.
> I'm astonished at the chutzpah of this move. Reaching into an app and taxing transactions between the developer and the user that have nothing to do with the App Store.
This isn’t really new, Apple have been doing this with nearly all transactions since forever; now they’re simply updating “nearly all transactions” to “all transactions”, closing a loophole which previously allowed Meta and their users to transact in private.
As an app developer on Facebook a lifetime ago I remember when they forced me to give up 30% of my in-app revenue to them even though I was already buying Facebook ads to promote the game…that’s pretty much when I gave up on trying to build a business on top of someone else’s, I have no sympathy here for Facebook
If you think Apple wont spend the next 5 years trying to bring this reality to applications running on their (currently) MacOS devices you're an idealist who's in for a rude awakening.
The Mac App Store doesn't even have Search Ads. Not out of any difference in principle but just because the Mac App Store doesn't have enough traffic to justify it.
A lot of things that are apps on iOS are simply web sites on macOS.
> just because the Mac App Store doesn't have enough traffic to justify it.
Yeah ok now you're an executive at Apple and you're tasked with fixing that issue, what do you do? Assuming your bonus is at stake here and you're not a HN reader who has a fundamental affinity to the concept of a "Computer" not a "Device"
Not really, because many Mac apps can't even work with mandatory App Store sandboxing, so the apps would simply cease to exist rather than moving to the App Store.
I wonder if there is a point at which facebook pulls their apps from the app store
But more seriously i m concerned that tech now openly considers that end users are junkies to be taxed (via a Value Added Tax no less) for their junkiness
I feel sorry for every developer who is trapped in the App stores, but not for facebook
> I don't see why Apple would do this other than to specifically harm Meta.
The policy applies to every social media platform with an app on iOS. Sure it costs the big players more, but if Meta were Apple I have no doubt they'd do the same, if not worse.
Also the article specifically states "the new policy shouldn’t have a material impact on the company’s revenue" as this only applies applies to the social media app itself, and not the ads manager app where advertises spend the big bucks.
facebook tried their FB credits thing for a while and then ditched it, and generally developers can still use their platform with few restrictions , no $100 / year and 30% tax. The biggest annoyance was the trump era where they enacted a bunch of puritan measures in response to criticism from the press. FB gives their platform for free to devs, very unlike apple
They apply in-app purchase rules to other, non-ad, digital goods, right? In that light, applying IAP to this type of digital good seems like what I'd expect Apple to want to do.
It seems such a non-brainer to me that facebook should have ditched the app versions and go web-only. The app experience will barely be different, apart from notifications. But given the users' addiction to fb&IG, doesn't seem like a huge loss ... at least from a distance
Apple has become the parent/older brother who makes up entirely arbitrary rules whenever they feel like it (ie is beneficial to them).
They had a long standing exception for ads not requiring in-app purchases (for some weird reason), but now they're drawing a line in the sand randomly.
We've had app stores now, and the world isn't better off. In perfect irony, apps are the new Flash, and as long as there is 0 standardization, openness or even a sliver of interop, we're just treading water. I wish regulators in some significant jurisdiction hit them all with a hammer, setting ground rules for side loading and a meaningful opt out for end users (that didn't simultaneously cripple their devices).
I am just wondering what makes the most profitable and biggest company in the world to be so greedy. Why do they try to juice every last cent out of everything possible? Is it driven by MBAs like Tim Cook who value money above everything else?
It’s long past time to abandon Apple products. I’m as guilty as anyone, typing this out on an iPad. But I’m also using a system76 laptop in parallel to my MacBook Pro and slowly moving more of my computer time to it.
The truth about Apple, and probably any other company that managed to get in its amazing situation, is that they want the whole pie. They’ll always burn partners, customers, and rivals to slowly (or quickly) boil the frog and consume the whole pie. It’s been clear for a long time, but their devices are so great that we’re all in denial. They’re a bad actor, we have to move forward and figure out the next steps for ourselves.
90% of the time I have my laptop at a desk with two monitors connected to it and a 3rd party keyboard and mouse.
But for that 10% of the time I'm using it in a hotel, at a coffee shop, at my in-laws, or simply on the couch, nothing comes close to Apples hardware for me and it's worth it for that 10% of usage.
At the end of the day portability is very important for me.
In fact, I have an upstairs workstation (with two monitors, mouse and keyboard) and a downstairs workstation with the same setup. Upstairs is the stereotypical office, where I do my day job. Downstairs is the hobbyist environment/workstation where I have musical equipment, exercise equipment, paint equipment, etc. I simply swap my laptop between these two stations. I find it beneficial to have this workstation available here for aspects of learning related to these hobbies. If money weren't an issue I suppose I could have two dedicated desktops for this setup, but even then, there are space savings with my current setup.
I think the competition is Microsoft and Google (not so much Lenovo, Asus, Dell, Acer, Samsung...) and Apple does well against both if privacy is a major consideration. Microsoft's direction over 10 and 11 have been unsettling.
System76 seems terrific. But, overall, Apple is alone is having the market power and deep integration between software, hardware, and services to radiate abuse. So, pretty much every other company has the potential to be better.
Not sure if we can say it's the same hardware space but I'm happy with my framework laptop.
They designed it from ground up to be repairable and upgradable.
When corporations fight, are we, the little guys, the likely winner? I don’t know the answer, just asking out loud. I hope so (in which case, pass the popcorn).
> Based on my conversations with Meta employees, the new policy shouldn’t have a material impact on the company’s revenue. But there is concern about the precedent set and that Apple will eventually require the same rule for Meta’s standalone ads manager app. Thanks to Apple’s current logic, that app is currently exempt from having to use in-app purchases for boosts because the ads that are bought aren’t displayed in the app itself.
Article title got my hopes up, but this looks more like an indirect shot, or maybe setting up to do some damage later. Fingers crossed! We can do anti-trust at Apple after they've successfully done the world a favor and killed off Facebook.
You got to give it to Google, all these issues Facebook is having with Apple right now, google saw like a mile away and that's probably the main reason they created android.
It’s interesting how TikTok and Twitter don’t have the same complaint, apparently. They already use in-app purchases for this functionality.
So it really is just Meta complaining.
Zuck, I thought the Metaverse is the future? We won’t even need phones soon, why does this matter? Phones are in the legacy pancake reality, soon to be deprecated. We’ll all be on your Oculus – sorry, Meta App Store.
Bad jokes aside, I don’t trust either Meta or Apple to give us a straight story on this issue.
My gut feeling is that these “boosts” are pure profit with zero COGS and Facebook should do perfectly fine giving Apple their share of the spoils. The App Store should be regulated but we’ll never get that with our political system.
> The difference for Facebook and Instagram is that they currently don’t use Apple’s in-app purchase system for boosting posts while Twitter, TikTok, and others do. I’m told that, several years ago, Apple pressured Facebook to start routing these boosted post payments through the App Store and Facebook resisted.
“ It’s the first time Apple has directly taxed advertising in iOS apps.”
This might not be the first time they are taxing boosts, just being fair about it across apps. I am pretty sure Tinder uses in app purchases for buying it’s boost feature. And isn’t Tinder just an ad platform for the user themself?
EDIT;
Would appreciate feedback in thread rather than downvotes here. Genuinely thinking this isn’t a big deal and an enforcement of existing rules. Am I wrong? I am not sure what is stronger here, the love for apple or the love for hating on them.
You're correct, others like TikTok and Twitter and dating apps correctly consider a user asking to show their post or profile to more people a digital service, and use IAP per the contract with Apple. FB/Insta were claiming it's an ad so they could disregard. Since FB wouldn't resolve, Apple closed the loophole.
I'd hazard a guess it's because of people disagreeing with your analogy. Even though it's cute, tinder boosts and advertising are generally not considered to be the same product or use case
Precisely. I really don’t see the different between an ad which is just sponsored content and a boosted tinder profile where the additional reach it created is effectively sponsored content. I get that it is not really an ad. But my point is that its tricky to define IAP conditions.
> On Monday, Apple quietly updated its App Store rules to require that iOS developers use in-app purchases — and thereby give Apple 30 percent — on “sales of ‘boosts’ for posts in a social media app.
This was always the end game for any walled garden, a toll booth at every street and intersection. Just desserts for FB for choosing the walled garden over the open web.
BTW, Instagram's TT-aping new design is largely invisible on its mobile web version.
