Rethinking the App Store

This is how you end up with Netflix or Spotify or Kindle having apps that open to a login screen with zero indication about how to sign up for an account; most users probably figure out to go to their websites, but it is hardly a good experience from anyone’s perspective, and lesser known apps are likely to simply lose potential customers. At the s... See more

To that end, I hope the company will at least consider the possibility that this isn’t the 1990s, they’re not about to go out of business, and that being perceived as an asset to developers and not a tax opens up the possibility of growing the pie, not simply taking their slice.

Here is what I believe the App Store has fundamentally wrong: its current organizing principle is digital versus analog; anything that is digital has to have in-app purchase, while anything that is analog — i.e. connected to the real world — can monetize however it pleases. That is why Amazon or Uber can ask for your credit card, and Airbnb can do ... See more

Fortnite, on the other hand, like most games, is selling purely virtual goods that have zero marginal cost; a costume or emote are bits in a database. Epic may be right that Apple’s 30% take is higher than it would be if the App Store had competition, but ultimately the cost of Fortnite’s V-Bucks is a completely arbitrary one (that is why, for exam... See more

In this case, Apple should both allow ClassPass to sell its classes via a webview (i.e. loading a webpage within its app), and also offer in-app purchases for, say, 10%; yes, that’s more expensive than credit card processing fees (which are ~$0.30+2.5%~2.9%, or around 6% of a $10 purchase), but the superiority of the user experience may convert eno... See more

The odds are that Apple isn’t going to change anything; the App Store is extremely profitable, and Apple is probably going to win its court case. Why give up a single dime? At the same time, the constant wave of controversies have to be wearing on the company, from a morale perspective if nothing else. Apple can be legitimately accused of profiteer... See more