Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
(sigh) I know I’m that guy that always rants about Alex, so I’ll leave it at this: His laugher and giggling (as it comes across on the audio) at 1-star rating any apps that dare to use 3rd party payments tell me everything I need to know about him. I hope that no one else follows his poor example.
EDIT: To add one request: I hope that Andy, Jason, and @Leo will make a point to recommend apps, when appropriate, that do include 3rd party payments, as I have a feeling Alex will not do so, regardless of any other utility or quality those apps may have.
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On one point I do agree with Alex, apps that take the payment out of the App Store and only offer it through a third party are, to me, nearly as bad as Apple forcing developers to use the App Store payment process.
They should offer both - and I’d be fine with them charging 12% / 27% more to cover Apple’s vig in the App Store. What neither Apple nor the developers seem to recognize is that it is the user’s choice where they want to pay for the app.
If they already have a payment relationship with the app developer, let them pay the app developer directly, if they don’t or don’t want a payment relationship with the developer, let them pay through the Store, with a surcharge. The user can decide if the surcharge outweighs the convenience or the perceived security of the App Store and they want to pay directly.
I do disagree with the 1-star rating bit, but I do understand the frustration, coming from the other direction.
I have a relationship with, for example, Amazon and I want to pay them directly, Apple does nothing to justify the 30% vig on sales of ebooks or audio books - I don’t need Apple to process the payment and the purchased book goes nowhere near any of Apple’s infrastructure.
On the other hand, if I am playing a game from some developer I’ve never heard of, I’d rather take the hit and pay Apple a bit extra to not have to bother with setting up yet another payment option.
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My understanding here is that app users still have the option to pay Apple as normal. It’s just that now there’s another option to pay. Is this correct?
No, many seem to be moving to external payments only and not offering either-or. It seems to be up to the developers, whether they use the App Store, their own site or both.
Hopefully sense will prevail and most will offer both.
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I need to laugh at the title of this show as Jason’s partner in crime at sixcolors, Dan Moren, just completed a 3 day run on Jeopardy.
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Regarding cameras, here in Germany and most of the EU, photographing people in public without their permission is illegal.
If you photograph a monument or a family member and somebody is in the background, that Is fine, but if they are the focus of the image, you need their permission.
We have security cameras at work and we need signs saying the area is monitored by CCTV (no recording, just live video to the logistics people and the shift manager, to monitor trucks being loaded and driving around the site, and the production areas, so that people can respond quickly in the case of an accident) and where the camera covers the street in front of the site, the cameras software has to block that part of the image from being seen.
The same goes for things like Ring doorbells. They can’t cover the street and parts of the property that would be considered public access (driveway to the letter box) and if you live in a block of flats, it cannot cover a communal hallway. That makes them pretty much useless.
Edit: In fact, if you go to a party of other gathering and explicitly say, “I do not want any photos of me on social media,” that is binding, nobody can upload photos with you in the image to social media. My wife does this all the time.
The status quo as of a couple weeks ago, was the large companies (Netflix, Amazon) who already had outside payment systems didn’t feel Apple’s value was 30% of those sales, and the customer experience was not as good because you couldn’t buy Kindle books in-app or subscribe to Netflix. Oh and by the way, Apple also has competing apps that don’t pay the extra fee. I’m not sure how Alex can explain how that is good for the consumer, because of the rules and the VIG, the issues he fears about is exactly how it was for many people.
Sure, it’s a pretty great system for small developers, but for the things people use the most, and that Apple competes directly with, it’s not.
I certainly get, it’s much easier to subscribe in-app. But I wonder what the universe looks like where Apple’s cut is so much smaller, the ease of customer onboarding is enticing for large devs, and that Apple wouldn’t take a cut from competing markets (music, tv, games, books, etc).
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I completely agree. While I always disagreed with his views on the App Store (and occasionally just turned off the podcast) they were always just a personal viewpoint and I often loved what he brings outside of that topic.
Giving 1-star reviews to developers simply trying an alternative way to make money is honestly childish and pathetic.
Don’t have to like it, but just don’t use it.
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If Apple has too many developers / businesses move to payments only outside the App Store, they’ll be forced to drop the 30% fee. 5% of something is better than 30% of nothing. For smaller developers, paying Apple a small fee might be preferable to having to setup their own credit card account and adding that option to their website.
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While I may not 100% agree on the 1-star review based on the 3rd party payment option only, I would see that as a serious negative. I 110% agree with Alex that this does not benefit the user. It makes the user experience more difficult and while Andy keeps contenting that it’s not that much more friction. To him it may not be but to someone less technically sophisticated it may very well be.
Why is the Apple Card loosing money? Because Apple makes it very very easy for the user and acrtively encourages them to not run up interest on it. Why do people hate Apple’s in-app payments? Because it’s exceedingly easy for the user to cancel, and doesn’t give the developer info about the user that they don’t want to give. I completely agree this is for the developers not for the users, and yes it should show in their reviews.
Andy gets to grandstand about his points of view, it seems fair Alex gets a chance to air his.
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