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Businesses Programming The Almighty Buck

Fed Up With Apple's Policies, App Developers Form a 'Union' (wired.com) 108

Posted by msmash from the is-anyone-listening? dept.
Even as Apple has addressed some of the concerns outlined by iOS developers in the recent years, many say it's not enough. As the iOS App Store approaches its tenth anniversary, some app developers are still arguing for better App Store policies, ones that they say will allow them to make a better living as independent app makers. On Friday, a small group of developers, including one who recently made a feature-length film about the App Store and app culture, are forming a union to lobby for just that. From a report: In an open letter to Apple that published this morning, a group identifying themselves as The Developers Union wrote that "it's been difficult for developers to earn a living by writing software" built on Apple's existing values. The group then asked Apple to allow free trials for apps, which would give customers "the chance to experience our work for themselves, before they have to commit to making a purchase."

The grassroots effort is being lead by Jake Schumacher, the director of App: The Human Story; software developer Roger Ogden and product designer Loren Morris, who both worked for a timesheet app that was acquired last year; and Brent Simmons, a veteran developer who has made apps like NetNewsWire, MarsEdit, and Vesper, which he co-created with respected Apple blogger John Gruber.
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Fed Up With Apple's Policies, App Developers Form a 'Union' More

Fed Up With Apple's Policies, App Developers Form a 'Union'

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  • What leverage? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:25PM (#56634376) Homepage

    These developers gain no leverage by forming a union. They remove their apps from the store forever, Apple doesn't care. There is no power to be gained except maybe in media coverage.

    • Apple definitely cares about sales through their store. The question is whether the apps in question represent enough $ to matter.

      • If they are "app developers" then their livelihood and entire career depends on app sales. It would hurt them way more than it would hurt Apple, because unlike an employee union - you can't just find another employer. Apple has all the leverage, even still.

        • Well, then I guess it's a good thing there's Android, eh? Tell me about Apple's leverage, again?

          • People have already bought the phones. Who owns what phone won't change very quickly.

            • Indeed, and with 15% of the mobile market, Apple's lever just ain't that big.

              • Indeed, and with 15% of the mobile market, Apple's lever just ain't that big.

                That's a good joke. Who do you think is more likely to pay for your app: Someone who bought a cheap $100 phone, or somoene who bought a $999 phone?

                • Very few people bought that $999 iPhone, many more have bought the $650 and $750 Galaxy phones, though. Many more than have bought iPhones at any price point, in fact. Care to try again?

          • Well, then I guess it's a good thing there's Android, eh? Tell me about Apple's leverage, again?

            Ahh, but they don't know how to write Malware.

        • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @04:47PM (#56635344)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mjwx ( 966435 )

            If they're not making enough money from app sales - which is their complaint then withdrawing from the app store isn't going to hurt them more than it hurts Apple.

            The thing is, it's not nearly enough money to make Apple care. Apple is barely going to feel it. Their only hope is to make enough noise in the media to embarrass Apple. So it's only going to hurt the Developers because the App Store is overcrowded anyway and there are still dozens of starry-eyed suckers who think that 99% of App developers don't lose money.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Supply and demand. The App makers and sellers are their own worst enemy, they are each competitors to each other, fighting over the same income. The more app developers the worse the returns, simple as that. Too many, similar apps will eat each others revenue, overly compete upon price and basically earn bugger all. Forming a union utterly pointless, you can not force you customers to be treated as employers, they choose to buy or ignore you product. Reality is, I installed apps and after a while found the

      • not just current amount of money in them... but if they are actually alone in their audience. Even if an app pulled in 2 million dollars a week, most of them would pretty quickly get replaced by a competitor the second they vanished from the app store.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )
      Developers: Apple, submit to our demands or we'll pull the trigger.
      Apple: But that shotgun is aimed squarely at your own foot.
      /Shotgun blast rings.
      Develoeprs: We've still got one more foot left Apple, your move.

  • Except it's the app store sharing it instead of a forum or BBS.

    Apple never liked demo/shareware software much because it could be buggy and make their hardware look bad.

    • Re:The return of shareware! (Score:5, Informative)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <`gro.daetsriek' `ta' `todhsals'> on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:39PM (#56634466)

      A free trial *is not* "the return of shareware".

      Almost every piece of software in the enterprise and consumer world has free 30 day trials now, most of them delivered via cloud. Consumers don't want to invest a ton of money into something that won't work for their use case. If you're talking about a $0.99 game that is one thing, but some productivity apps can cost $8 and up. Paying $8 for something that turns out to not be useful at all, that stings.

      Google figured this out forever ago - the play store has had free trials since inception. They used to be 24 hours, now just 4 hours - however 4 hours is plenty long enough to install an app, set it up, and try it out before deciding if it is worth actually paying for.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "A free trial *is not* "the return of shareware""

        What the fuck do you think shareware was in the first place? A free trial of a program with limited functionality made with the hopes of getting you to pay for the full un-limited product.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No, a free trial has full functionality with limited time. Shareware has limited functionality but unlimited time.

          • Re:The return of shareware! (Score:4, Informative)

            by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @04:00PM (#56634938) Journal

            No, a free trial has full functionality with limited time. Shareware has limited functionality but unlimited time.

            There were many kinds of shareware: limited time, limited functionality, nagware, and guiltware, just to name a few. The early BBS says lacked the monetization sophistication of modern apps, but they did try quite a few approaches.

            • There were many kinds of shareware: limited time, limited functionality, nagware, and guiltware, just to name a few. The early BBS says lacked the monetization sophistication of modern apps, but they did try quite a few approaches.

              When you say shareware, the assumption is that you get a limited version for free, and you pay more to get the rest. Time-limited trial software is specifically known as trialware.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          What the fuck do you think shareware was in the first place? A free trial of a program with limited functionality made with the hopes of getting you to pay for the full un-limited product.

          A free trial is a specific form of limitation. It is a way of limiting use of software in and of itself, but would be a subset of shareware.

          A free trial is by its definition fully functional software that is time limited.
          If the software is limited by features, it isn't a trial as you can't test and verify those locked out features.

          This is certainly one way shareware can be restricted, but by far not the only way.

          Restricting what features are available is another way shareware can be restricted, but this is

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm in game development. In our industry, free trials have been shown to reduce sales so we don't have "demo versions" anymore. PC games are typically more expensive than mobile apps so the purchase price doesn't seem all that important - it's more about allowing the transaction to occur at the peak of the user's interest in the product. Steam does this very well by making the purchase/download quick and easy. Free trials get downloaded at the peak interest, played through, and the customer then goes to bed

    • Apple never liked demo/shareware software much because it could be buggy and make their hardware look bad.

      Apple's current app review process would still keep out the buggy and otherwise seriously flawed.

      That said, the Apple and Google app stores are already much like shareware with respect to quality. Mostly amateurish software that is not well written nor well designed. Now I don't want to seem too harsh with that statement, many of these apps are from beginners so the fact they started a project and got it working and published it deserves much praise - these beginners are demonstrating much potential tale

  • idiots (Score:3, Interesting)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:36PM (#56634446)
    Around 85% of smartphones worldwide are Android. THAT is why you're not making any more. Maybe follow the lead of most PC software manufacterer's and ignore Apple and their tiny market share. They're not worth the time and hassle.

    • There's this concept that Android users won't pay for software; that's too bad because I hate, hate, HATE advertisements and will gladly pay a few bucks for the app. But the vast majority of software that is in the Android store is ad supported/free. They should bring their software over to Android where it's easy to release two versions of any app; a free to try/ad supported version and a paid version without ads.

      • The android developer here spent a fair amount of time making an ad-free upgrade option for some (fairly well selling) android game. He sold 6 copies.

        • I've a friend who wrote an android game in his spare time. https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

          For the amount of time he put into it I doubt it'll ever earn enough to be worth his time, but he didn't do it for that. It was a game written with passion for the type of game it is. There is no free version but it seems to be doing alright. I think he could have been getting $5 per copy but he said, and I'm not joking, that he would rather have more people enjoy the game then to make the extra money.

          I know I'm bias

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        But the vast majority of software that is in the Android store is ad supported/free. They should bring their software over to Android where it's easy to release two versions of any app; a free to try/ad supported version and a paid version without ads.

        There are 2 main outcomes with having a free ad-supported version and a paid ad-free version. Outcome 1: the ads are tolerable and don't affect affect software performance, so no real need to upgrade to the paid version. Outcome 2: the ads are a pain in the ass or limit/reduce functionality of the software, so the user says "forget it" and moves on to something else.

    • Re:idiots (Score:4, Insightful)

      by llZENll ( 545605 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @03:14PM (#56634654)

      You are correct that most smartphones are Android, however you are gravely mistaken about mobile economies. Apple accounts for over 65% of all mobile revenue in the world, the reason is simple, Android users are poorer, and more likely to root their device and steal everything. I'm not saying this is good or bad, they are simply facts.

      https://techcrunch.com/2018/01... [techcrunch.com]

    • It is genuinely hard to believe this level of ignorance still exists. Android may well have (many) more phones out there, but that's completely irrelevant. Marketshare does not equal profit or revenue, either for the hardware vendor or for the app software vendor. There is more money to be made in Apple's ecosystem because something like $2 is spent in iOS software for every $1 on Android software (Android downloads are higher than iOS). It's also a royal pain to support Android because of the 2 zillion han

    • Around 85% of smartphones worldwide are Android. THAT is why you're not making any more. Maybe follow the lead of most PC software manufacterer's and ignore Apple and their tiny market share. They're not worth the time and hassle.

      Research from a few years ago showed that iOS apps had over 5x the revenue per download as Android apps. I believe the methodology was to compare Apple's and Google's published data for number of apps downloads over the year and the amount paid to 3rd party app developers over that same year.

      Now consider the nature of many of those phones. According to Apple's and Google's current statistics to reach 90% of the current visitors to their respective app stores an Android app has to target the last 4 major

      • has to target the last 4 major version of Android

        Google's adding requirements that apps need to be targeted to the last major release (e.g., as of October (?) this year they need to target Oreo). It's just for updates and new apps for now but they know this problem and are working on it.

        • Re:iOS apps made over 5x Android apps (Score:4, Informative)

          by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @04:39PM (#56635272)

          has to target the last 4 major version of Android

          Google's adding requirements that apps need to be targeted to the last major release (e.g., as of October (?) this year they need to target Oreo). It's just for updates and new apps for now but they know this problem and are working on it.

          If I understand things correctly that change does not really address this problem. Many of those phones cannot upgrade, this includes phones currently sold. Last I checked a few months ago an inexpensive pay-as-you-go phone at Walmart could be stuck at Android 4.4 KitKat. Plus this change is only addressing the lazy developers that just targeted 4.4 KitKat and use an ancient SDK and libraries and rely on that running everywhere. While google may require that apps target the current major release and use a current SDK and libraries they will still allow compatibility with the old versions. The developer will have to target Android 8 Oreo and add conditionals as necessary to support deprecated and other 4.4 targeting code. Google is not making anyone drop support for old versions. If they did that many phones would become unreachable to developers. I believe google is just requiring that developers use current SDKs and libraries, and at least indirectly have better "native" support for the current Android version. Yes "native" is a somewhat overloaded term here but I hope you get my meaning, current SDK/libs better support for current Android. And I'm sure that google also hopes developers will be a little less lazy and perhaps support some feature only offered in the current OS. There are probably also newer things that developers will be forced to support, for example newer security models.

          • Yes you are right. This is only target SDK, not min SDK. It just forces devs to test (certify) for newer devices.

        • And Apple is sort of doing the same thing by requiring developers to user the current SDKs/libs and have native support for the iPhone X, rather than letting the X run in compatibility mode and use an iPhone 8 screen layout.

  • 30% IS FUCKING ROBBERY (Score:3, Interesting)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:36PM (#56634448) Homepage Journal
    I'm all for Apple making money off the Apps people put into the App Store. It's their Phone, it's their Platform. They deserve to make money off that. But THIRTY FUCKING PERCENT OF ALL In-App Purchases?? That was never a fair shake and was a definite cash grab meant to exploit the work of the Developers creating those Apps. There is simply no way to justify taking 30% of the revenue from the Developers who toil to make those Apps. I think it's time Apple slashes it's cut and substantially. And by substantial I mean just that -- at least half, down to 15% or even 10%. Perhaps these Developers can attain some critical mass and have enough weight that they could yank all their apps and make a considerable dent in the App Store. That sort of move would get attention and provide some leverage. It's high time Apple stopped fucking over it's developer base, who has been a large part of the reason for the iPhone's success.
    • agree. but the sentiment that it's still Apple's (or Google's, or MS's) phone after its sold to an end user needs to go away.
      • Sorry, when I stated "It's their phone" I did not mean that it's their phone after purchase, just that it's their product that they invest significant resources into designing and building. I'm definitely all for the "Right to Repair" and the age old concept that when you buy something, you own it outright. The fact that in this day and age we have to fight to preserve these concepts shows just how fucked up and anti-consumer Apple and other tech companies are

        • I did not mean that it's their phone after purchase, just that it's their product that they invest significant resources into designing and building.

          For sure, and they sell each one of those phones for a hefty profit. The services that the App Store provides do have value, but yeah, 30%? Apple, please.

    • I don't think 30% is high at all for what you get in return.

      Apple has hundreds of millions of customers around the globe with payment information on file, so all they have to do is click on you app and confirm they want to pay.

      You don't have to worry about hackers messing with your payment system to grab customer payment info. You don't have to worry about complying with privacy laws across scars of countries.

      You also don't have to worry about standing up servers that can take any amount of traffic from an

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        The 30% is certainly high for companies that already have everything you described, like Amazon and Microsoft. There's a lot of tension there, to be sure. Even for the little guys though, I can see people pushing to negotiate that 30% down somewhat, especially if they have a variety of toolkits that each take a fixed %, leaving the dev with less than 30% of each sale.

        • The 30% is certainly high for companies that already have everything you described, like Amazon and Microsoft.

          That's probably true. However neither of those companies are paying anything to Apple, who is distributing apps for them for free.

          You can download any MS Office app today; you can't run it without an Office365 login.

          You can download a Kindle or Prime Video app today, which costs nothing and lets you make use of Amazon resources.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            Weren't there endless wars about e.g. Apple taking 30% of anything sold through the Kindle app? I didn't realize a peace accord had been reached.

            • The Kindle app does not let you buy books, there is no war at all. You buy them on Amazon and read them on the Kindle...

              For Microsoft a similar deal, you subscribe to Office 365 outside the apps and they use a login.

              This further reenforces my point; if you are a large enough company you can get around the 30% figure - because you have the resources to set up your own payment and user gateways. The 30% is reasonable for smaller companies that don't want to take the time and effort it takes to stand up reli

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by lgw ( 121541 )

                Ah, I see - I can buy books through my Kindle app. Originally, I remember Apple wanted 30% on anything used in-app even if it wasn't sold in app. I guess that was the point of compromise.

      • Wow I agreed with you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by llZENll ( 545605 )

      I'm surprised a liberal entity such as apple doesn't have a reverse tiered payout ratio. So the top 10% of revenue earners get say 60% of their app revenue, then its a sliding scale down to where you are in the store, so then the bottom earners get 95% of their revenue. This would seem to make a whole lot of sense as it there is a huge incentive to make a new app and start out.

      • I'm surprised a liberal entity

        Sorry. What?

        Apple is a corporation. It's not a person. It's run by board with the only goal being to make money.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by epine ( 68316 )

          Apple is a corporation. It's not a person. It's run by board with the only goal being to make money.

          90% of corporations behave less unethically than they could get away with, bottom line, total-cost-of-assholeness (TCA).

          The psychopathic shock absorber in modern corporate culture is perhaps not terribly large, but neglecting it entirely is ideological, idiotic, inflammatory and smells bad, too.

          • 90% of corporations behave less unethically than they could get away with, bottom line, total-cost-of-assholeness (TCA).

            You can point to say Apple donating to homeless shelters in Cupertino. I could say they did that to butter up the Cupertino city council so they'd be allowed to expand their parking lot. I could say Apple has an interest in maintaining an image that's it's socially responsible, because that's what turns on its hipster millennial fan base, and what ultimately will sell more product. So donating to that homeless shelter gets paid back in sales ten fold.

            Not provable either way. Just an observation that money a

    • Well, part of the argument is that if you were selling your software via retail stores, they would often demand 50%.

      Of course, here in the 21st Century, who buys software from retail stores?

      • Well, part of the argument is that if you were selling your software via retail stores, they would often demand 50%.

        Of course, here in the 21st Century, who buys software from retail stores?

        Yeah, today people buy from Amazon. Who takes 30% for software on their Android store. Who also takes 30% from books on their Kindle Direct Publishing platform - unless they take more.

    • But THIRTY FUCKING PERCENT OF ALL In-App Purchases??

      Sure, why not. Apple has gone to the trouble of taking existing technology, painting it white and adding a FUNCTIONAL APPLICATION STORE. Sorry, Microsoft, Creative, Palm, etc. You all failed at this.

      You also failed by letting your engineers add features they thought were cool vs dumbing the platform down to the least common denominator and then marking it up by 200% thereby corralling all of the rich idiots (*) into one ecosystem.

      (*) No I don't th

  • The definition of insanity (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AlanBDee ( 2261976 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:38PM (#56634462)

    If they find it difficult to make a living as an independent app developer then stop being an independent app developer. Not only is it easy to earn a living from being a software engineer, most of us make a really good living from it. How many apps aren't created by independent developers but are instead created by companies with teams of developers? They're not going to join a union. A union would only works if enough app developers join it. The fact that you can't make a living from it tells me that the app store is over saturated with apps.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If they find it difficult to make a living as an independent app developer then stop being an independent app developer.

      Or try to exercise negotiating power (like they try to do here). Not everyone wants to work for a boss. And not everyone wants to go down without a fight.

  • Though their sentiment and goals are worthy - retain a higher percentage of your work - forming a "Union" does nothing if scabs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) are allowed to post apps for less return. This is no different than Lyft/Uber lowering pay for cab drivers, there's no way to form a virtual "union line" to keep scab apps out, so this movement is predestine to fail.

  • A good idea regardless (Score:4, Informative)

    by laughingcoyote ( 762272 ) <barghesthowl.excite@com> on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:51PM (#56634530) Journal

    The Google store used to do this. They'd allow you to uninstall an application within, I think it was an hour or two, and you'd be refunded for it.

    When I think about it, I was more willing to try paid applications at that time. I don't mind paying a buck or two for something that's going to serve me well, but I do mind paying a buck or two for a steaming pile, or even for something that works okay but isn't really to my taste.

    I don't know why they quit doing that. I'm a lot more willing to try something out if I can kick the tires a bit before I'm committed to paying for it. I hardly think I'm the only one.

  • I have several apps on my Android phone that I first installed for free and then upgraded to the paid version.

    It boggles my mind that Apple wouldn't have this.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Altus ( 1034 )

      You can do this with in app purchases on iOS, and plenty of developers do but there are some types of apps that don't work well with this model (try my GPS app that gets you 80% of the way to your destination... pay $5 to get the full version) and are much better with a time boxed full featured demo, but you would have to make it so that the user cannot just delete the app and download it again.

  • Marketing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @02:57PM (#56634556) Journal
    Don't call it a union. The republican political machine will try to destroy it. Call it a trade group, and fund political candidates that will fight for protections for app developers. It's a much easier path that can get support from both sides of the aisle.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Don't call it a union. The republican political machine will try to destroy it. Call it a trade group, and fund political candidates that will fight for protections for app developers. It's a much easier path that can get support from both sides of the aisle.

      Also, don't call yourselves a union when you're just a fraction of the labor force. The entire point of a union is to band together to form a group big enough that if you stop cooperating with the employer/host, their business will suffer. If you don't hit that size threshold there isn't much benefit to forming the group.

    • their facemen (Trump, Alex Jones, Bill O'Rielly) are, but the ones pulling the strings are not. They'll see right through calling it a 'Trade Union' and if it gets any traction come down on it. They might as well use the Union moniker. When things turn to shit people turn to Unions because organizing is the only real solution. If app devs are using that word it tells you how dire their situation is.

      • They'll see right through calling it a 'Trade Union' and if it gets any traction come down on it.

        Seems to work great for, American Medical Association, American Bar Association, National Cattleman's Beef Association ("Beef! It's what's for dinner"), National Pork Producer's Council, and many many more!

        What's the difference between them and a union? Better marketing!

  • The basic problem I see with this is (Score:3)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @03:32PM (#56634752)
    whether it be a Guild, Trade Group or Union the only ones guaranteed to make a good living are those running the organization.
    Because if they don't, the organization shuts down. But while the ride lasts they get paid first, regardless of their performance.

    As a self employed contract computer programmer with 30+ years in, I do hope I am wrong and wish them success in their efforts.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday May 18, 2018 @04:20PM (#56635098)
    I always wondered why techies don't organize. In America We've been getting screwed since 2000 when the outsourcing started. And offshore I see guys working 16 hours a day 6 days a week (7 during crunch time). It's not like we don't all have the internet.

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